Ask me, then. Ask me anything. I will tell you how you were distant. I will tell you how few centimeters it would have taken for me to fall, how easily I can step to the edge of a cliff. I wonder if my fear of asking might come to visit you sooner of later: 'do I really want to know the answer?' You can call me pure, but you don't know how far I've fallen. (And yet anything I say feels small, puritanical, in the face of your life and trials) ...and that's fine. You'd only say it was more theortical purity anyway, cause I've traced all the lines and, yes, sooner of later it all falls back to beginnings, as if it wasn't true of everyone.

much sighing

There were tons of people at the lake today. None wanted to follow the rules, they aren't even very complicated rules. sigh. Our megaphone is broken. My chest hurts and voice is soft and horse from yelling across the swimming area. There are a least a few people in the county now that would like to see me in great discomfort. One father bawled me out when I told him we'd have to put his kid out of the lake if the kid didn't start following the rules. It was really kinda scary, for a second I was just waiting for him to loose it and hit me, not because I was at all confrontational or harsh, but just because he just seemed so innately angry. He and his dudes kept an eye on me while I was picking up garbage at the end of my shift. That was scary too. The head guard tried to talk religion with me starting with, "If you think this weather is hot, whew, think about hell..." As a guard he's one of the best there are, but I'm glad we usually work different lakes. I'm glad I'm not guarding for a few days and then not at that lake. sigh. And so after that it was good to listen to voiceless music from a friend, and like wise to type, again voicelessly, such a sweet thought after such a day.

"...And what you thought you came for Is only a shell, a husk of meaning From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled If at all. Either you had no purpose Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured And is altered in fulfillment. ...You are here to kneel Where prayer has been valid." -T.S. Eliot "Do not now seek the answers, which cannot now be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now." -Rainer Maria Rilke

If I can keep reading enough books fast enough I can force the dark thoughts to at least gather where I don't have to entertain them loudly, and if I let Eliot and Rilke recite loudly enough against the chamber walls I will not have to hear the banging at the doors. I t may not be a solution but at this point I'm willing to settle for a long-winded fix if it will keep me from tossing away all semblence of confidence on a passing thought. Why does every good thing become a height I might be inclined to jump from? I'm not gonna jump cause this once there's nothing to escape from just the fear of what may come. I've said it myself (I admit it so you can't turn it on me) you cannot live your life in fear, by which I of course meant you should not and it isn't good for you. But I've always lived that way, except the few days I can fill enough to block the doors and drown out the freezied knocking.

thoughts writtten on my arm after lifeguarding

The tears you can no longer shed well up in my eyes, threatening to crawl down my cheeks. An overflow of unasked questions. Afraid of getting some answers, hard edge words waiting to cut me open. [You'll ask for meaning, but when I go to look for the questions I can only find the stupid ones that mean nothing at all.]

first slice of day

I leave the window open to let air move into my cave of color room. In the morning the breeze catches my skin, the sharp edge of morning. Climb the stairs for a cup of heat having forgotten the ache that left me fetally curled around the dark center of a pain I know to be minimal if taken to the scales. It meets me in the morning half way up the stairs, a punch in the gut on a deserted street. I rest on the top step resting my forehead and mind against the hardwood floor, there was a time when walking on it seemed like walking on corpses. But hardly anyone can maintain ideals like that for long, though that was the summer they cut down all the trees and left a wasteland hill. I can hear dad rising from his own bed and raise myself before an attack of questions I do not want to bear. I'm tired of the mundane questioning, I savor the questions stemmed from honest human contact, even more so when they truly hear my answers. thank you. Today is the day of innocence, of Alexander, at least the morning is, then on to a lake. Whee! [just kidding]

"Innocence can't be lost, it just need to be maintained." -Jewel

...this is what I see and how I see it, and I'm not sure why it's hard to understand or how things got to be this way, but is just who I am, it is what I am too.

Fluffy took me with her to the fragrancy shop. I think maybe it would smell good if it did not smell so very much. She smelled flowery stuff and I poked through the clerance bin. I found a bar of clear soap with a little plastic taxi inside. I sat on the floor and made vroom noises. I miss NYC, it makes her sad because she misses me. I think I will have to call and read poetry to her answering machine while she is in class next year. It always made me happy when she did it. "so you're her jollier, less stoic half?" sometimes she's more, sometiems less. we wax and wane.

to X

How? How? How after all this time? I didn't speak to you & for once you knew better than to speak to me. But you were there, you just were. More than enough. I want to vomit with disgust... fear or self-loathing or whatever the hell it is you inspire. You make me hate that I have to keep living. You make me hate. Hate everything. Nothing seems good when I have to look directly at the fact that you exist. And it isn't you even. I don't hate you. The only person I've ever really hated is myself, and something about you makes my self-loathing the hugest thing in mmy whole world besides maybe how much I love E. But you taint that too. You make me feel unworth of everything even of you and if I am unworthy of you how much more am I unworthy of him?

(falling off my feet)

I keep falling asleep with crystals in my eyes, off to dream of poetry I haven't read yet & other poetry I'm still looking for the words to write. ...and today like the day before I went out into the world to prove to it & to me that it cannot make me love it less by being itself, just as I wait up for you & you for me, on nights when the request may or may not be unspoken. yes, as late as we can.

Janus! Whee!

I just talked to Janus, and she's okay, and with a decent sounding guy, and coming home for a bit in August! Whee!!!

lake lifeguards

the sun was so bright today that our heads ached. she told me her sins and I wondered if she'd been raised something like Catholic. he explained the practicality of suicide and I got it but my thoughts are moving either too slowly or too quickly to make my interesting any more than purely intellectual, besides he's only reciting anyway, he's never wanted sharp things against his skin. likewise his interest in the story of a girl selling her body for food is purely the study of a curiousity, rather than a serious considereation of tragedy or justice. how can she keep smiling like that? I have a hard time believe the truth of it for so long, it maybe only a social habit picked up in some circles I suppose. the one who returned thinks she is mad for him, but I know she is mad at him. she made him half drown her before she'd allow herself the indignity of be rescued by his pompus ass. the veggie-eater is curiousity unheard of. they ask, "are you? are you really?" and the southerners look at me saddly as if I had just explained that I have a large whole in my heart.

...well, if nothing else at least I have a ticket back East now. I kinda miss school, but there's so much to do & get done between here & there, so I guess I need the time. I want to be a Buddha without guidelines, an Ani Difranco song without tears or a Dar Williams song without the honkey tonk. I want to be a blue and silver fish and a bat like a fearless, flying mouse. I want to be a very thin glass cup that is absolutely unshatterable.

a mouse makes a very small stand on her own behalf

X has moved back. Fluffy told me two days ago. I saw him on the street and kept walking. He followed me to the bookstore. He said my name. I turned and looked at him unsurprised, "Yes?" "Oh...I didn't think you had recognized me." "No, I did." I walked into the bookstore. I am not afraid or sorry or weirded out. Whew.

the good stuff

shine on a soap bubble. butterfly wings, angel wings, bat wings. very small wrists. shoulders like the skulls of very small animals. sun-warmed apples. coffee with cream & sugar. sharp mustard on egg salad sandwiches. bright cobalt blue sweater. Fluffy playing Alice's Resterant into my voicemail. the way Banjo used to stay awake until he knew I was in the house, and woke up with me when I had to work the dead-of-morning shift, and how you could always hear him coming because his tags chimed together, and his shit-eat grin when we were chasing him when he lit his ear on fire while investigating the bottle rockets, the texture of his tongue on salty cheeks. big cocoa-powder-&-curry hands. the smell of Smack's hair on my hands after I brush it. Gale's laughter. Dad's I-am-so-proud-of-you smile. Mom's stern I-am-not-going-to-tell-you-again-but-I-don't-approve look. hand-written letters that look like the voice sounds. very-deep-red or sunset-colored roses. fuzzy white dandelions (& their wishes). robed monks (of preferablely eartern denominations) in airports who smile like good-natured children. very soft sweaters & old teddy bears. shards of mirror, or blue glass, or any glass found smoothed by it's enviorment (whether the street or the sea). yummy books. paper cranes. stars. art museums. open-air farmer/craft markets. hugs that are too ardent to worry about being polite. Indian techno mixes with heavy beats. bare feet in warm sand.

you made me think of this last night,

before things got ugly... your kisses couldn't decide between miso & vanilla how could I ever get enough your fingertips were rose petals they could not ever be too rough I want to come to you with the force of a hurricane and the passion of a thunderstorm but I come to you like the lightest rain only whispering you take my breath away I want to write you a book of songs -(6-9-03)

the ginger-soy-cucumber flavor of my rice rolls is the clever comeback I never thought I'd be brave enoughto say, with eyes sparkling like ice melting in hard lemonade on a too-hot night. I want to lick your lips and leaving you tasting lemon & ginger sweetness on your lips.

Tex's Pick-Ups

*wince* Tex is a lecherous old man who swims at the pool. He has become infamous for shamelessly hitting on sweet old women & the lifeguards, should they be distinguishably female. Tex's pick up line today; 'Let's go fishing!' When the weary female would question further, or try to ignore him, he'd add... 'at Fred Myer. It'll be fun!' He has also been known to leave large boxes of raw steak ("home made") around the pool, out of 'generousity.' Quite nauseating. Uggh.

dream:

(since I am not relishing the idea of going back to sleep) I am walking in a city, kinda resembles the area around the UN in NYC, but as it is on Sunday afternoons--empty, or very nearly so; like 5th Ave at two in the morning on a week night, but without beauty. It feels like the first couple days in Brooklyn--lost. (I rememeber I couldn't even get breakfast the first morning, the cafeteria didn't open until that afternoon cause I'd arrived the night before offical check-in. I kept getting lost on campus, so I figured I'd best not leave by myself yet, gave that up in 24 hours...) ...Any way wandering around this empty city area... I'm lost and I know it, I'm looking for something, a street name, a building number, a sign, something. I find this basement resterant. No one is really paying attention to me so I slide in even though I'm not a customer and have no intention of being one; though I'm hungery I'm also dead broke. In the back of the resterant theres a door way, if their weren't two other doorways marked as bathrooms you'd probably guess it was that. I go through the door way. Through the doorway is a bedroom, like a dorm room, very utilitarial, metal bed frames that sag in the middle, dingy white sheets, florescent lights, gray cement walls and floors, but it also has random personal effeminate touches: a red paper lantern hanging from the corner of a flourescent light fixture, a pink and red throw blanket at the foot of one bed, on the other a green and blue one. Two desks, one messier than the other, more personal items. Tammy is casually sitting on the bed with the pink & red throw. On the other bed is a girl I don't recognize. When I come in Tammy acts as if she's been expecting me and intoduces me to her roommate. At some point I turn my back on the roommate for a moment and when I look back to her she is a different girl entirely. I don't comment because I have the distinct impression that to do so would seem rude. I find myself back on the street. Time has passed, could be hours or days, but I'm still hungery, but I have a crumpled dollar, maybe two. I buy an egg from a dimmly lit groccery shop, the proprieter is distinctly elderly Russian. I carry the egg back to Tammy's. I don't have anywhere else to go. I'm holding the egg very carefully, but as I walk the egg starts to crack and the yolk starts leaking out in my fingers. I started walking faster, nearly running, I know I need this food. Going through the resterant, there is a boy eating with his parents. I can't figure out why he stands out for a moment, but I realize it is because he notices me while everyone else seem to not see me. He wants to ask who I am an where I'm going and what I'm carrying, I know this. I duck into the door in the back before he can excuse himself from his table. Through the doorway the room has changed, still cement walls and floors, but it's a bathroom not a bedroom. Six toilets, three on each wall on either side of the door way, no stalls, just open, no privacy. It hasn't been cleaned in a long time and you can smell it. Two or three of the toilets are plugged and backed up. The smell and view of the room makes me need to vomit. I try to vomit into one of the toilets but it sticks in my mouth as if to suffocate me. I'm still trying desperately to keep the rest of the egg yolk from leaking out on to the floor. I'm really afraid of someone coming in, if they do I know there will be real trouble. I know they will hurt me, badly, really badly. At this point the phone rang and woke me, and I was glad.

AHHHHH!!!

Stupid fucking parents: -if you do not watch your child they will wander and try to drown themselves between the boat dock and the football players. YES, you should be worried if you can't see your child, but then if you hadn't been 50yrds from the water you would have seem him wander. Consider giving a damn about your flesh and blood, I'm paid to but I'm watching forty other people too. -if your child swallows a lot of water, it will make them sick and they will vomit. YES, vomiting is a a bad thing you stupid bitch. Consider moving your child to an area where falling over does not put his head below water, since because you're technically supervising him I'm no longer authorized to restrict him from going in too deep. ...It would be great if I could learn to care only as much as is nessesary to do my work... FFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was reading a book, almost finished. Now I can't find it. I think I last had it at the gas station. I think I may have put it on the the roof of the vehicle. I guess I don't get to finish it tonight. Damnedable. ...It was such a good plan too. ...And really Neruda is just not a reasonable substitute for decent existentialist/question-everything sci-fi. ...I lose. Damnedable.

My skin is warm with the echo of the sun. I wonder if breathing with the trees and tide is something I can teach, or if it happens when your born here or when you grow up here? And the thing is it isn't so different than moving and breathing with the heart beats of the city millions. My tan feels and looks like someone else's skin, but at least my soft fruit bruises are less obvious which is good for easing general commentary even if these slight grays on light brown are so unfamiliar after becoming familiar with my purplish-black bloom against white laced with pale blue. I reread old words I thought I understood to make sure I got it right; apparently maybe this time I may have just stumbled into doing something right. Perhaps there is a cache of words I could now address, October or two to be sure. Sleep wonders away as it has for hours. I wander after it, trying to court it nonchalantly instead of pleading. She would only laugh mockingly anyway.

note to self:

(because apparently I'm too stupid to remember on my own) 1) you hate this town 2) you hate most of the population of this town 3) there are a few random people & places which are acceptions, 4) but even they are surrounded or invaded by the rest on holidays 5) therefore avoid public holidays like the bloody plague, you silly, stupid, little girl. I'm going to bed, I'm taking all the nice & nasty words with me. At least they have the potential to make sense if nothing else.

dreams

I slept all day yesterday. two dreams: 1) I am sitting in a room with a guy I used to date, it isn't a specific one, but a composit of a couple. At first I am a silent and I watch but seem unable to do anything else. One of my male co-workers from the pool walks up to the table we are sitting at. All of my rings are on the table, the three silver ones that have been missing since e-burg, one with a lump of clearish quartz, the punk rock one I got in London. They are set as if on display. He picks up the three silver and quartz, debates with the ex about their worth, pays him and heads for the door. I've wanted to object through out the interaction, but could not until now. I run after him and barter for the quartz one back. He is unwilling to relinquish the three silver ones at all. He gives back the quartz one in exchange for an extravegant promise that I know I cannot fulfill. 2) I am a serving-wench in what appears to a meal house somewhere on the outreaches of society somewhere very cold, possibly northern Canada or Alaska. Three guys come in who have some sort of vendetta against the owner. They sit down as if they were just normal customers but I somehow know what's going on but say nothing. They end up holding the place up. I run away. I have the impression I'd been wanting to for a long time.

because you are not here there is too much space in my bed and it does not matter if there are too many pillows because you are not here my freckles can multiply a hundred fold without comment and it does not matter if I am too sunburnt to be embraced because you are not here there is more than enough silence for me to hide in and it does not matter if my eyes reply as my mouth never would dare because I am not there my eyes cannot entreat you to unlock heart and mind and for once it matters that there are things I can't find words to say because I am not there I cannot share half of a single breath and it matters so much that I cannot run my fingertips across your furrowed brow because I am not there I cannot catch your eye across a room just to be sure I didn't dream you and because there is it almost matters that there is a continent between us