Why-I'm-Not-An-Artist

that night, at the zoo, drunk on cotton candy & helium while the polar bears splashed & the penguins applauded, she mistook the warmth of a panda for the truest of romantic love

Ow, she's a brick house
She's mighty-mighty, just lettin' it all hang out
She's a brick house
That lady's stacked and that's a fact
Ain't holding nothing back

I have taken scales off the cheeks of the moon/ I have made fins from clipped finger nails/ all of these I have made a fish to die on the bank of a stream/ is this beautiful to you?/ cold dry crisping ?/ I have handed off my earrings – turned a hook into a lure – and again I reel in  dune reed and bottom feeders/ I have taken out my tongue and picked it raw with holes – my inner ear infection is a permanent distraction – I barely heard the bureau smash, the framed photos break into shards of broken glass – it was 5 in the morning – you slouched on the couch and I squeezed micro size splinters from the palm of your foot – finding a bandage –  you mumbled “do I have to leave?” no – no – the temperature is dropping and I know of men more important who have died in the cold waiting for a bus – your hand reaches for mine and I feel the sickness of an ocean years of contamination the cold sweat lets me pull away easily as you pass out

dear so & so, please stop making me watch documentaries - not all of them are educational - like the way silence can be. like the way sticking a finger in an empty light socket can teach me about electricity - documentaries on fratricide, on the criminally insane, on rural america, incest, climate control, eating veggies, eating meat - prison overpopulation - a documentary about a family in the 20th century with no gas no heat - chewing tobacco - no teeth - an accent that disagrees with the county they grew up in - i hate documentaries like the way you like me after two drinks - or three - how funny i must be - and our bodies white and fat like wet deli cheese - i give up because you gave up - why did we even meet? in my other life i have a big bright forest a linden lined lane and peruvian llamas to greet me - my mother widens her reach to guide guinea hen into their cage - the grass smells freshly cut and i am not allergic to anything - i built up a tolerance to poison ivy and dust mites - where did you come from? who let you in? your bad habits aren't worth pointing out - the twitching the scratching the tweezing of eyebrows - another documentary - one about a guy who wasted toothpaste - or the one about the guy who choked on his vomit - or the one on the guy who never did the laundry - or that one i hated about the guy who went to the same 3 restaurants every evening - if you had any money- it'd be a bit like richard corey - but your broke and you hate poetry - i don't want to do everything - but i did want something - you pulled the dirty duvet over both our heads - i couldn't breathe - you thought my dying was cozy - cozy like quiet like empty like cold as the carmine street pool in february

the boy who believes he is a dinosaur- collects the potted plants in our classroom and pretends to eat from them - if i interrupt him he will roar - the wall by the exit door is dented from where he bangs his head - the grownup disagrees with the boy, tells him he is not a dinosaur - so he gets on all fours to crawl towards me and meows - i should not tell him about biological anomalies - like how some people grow horns - it's a mistake, not magical - it makes my stomach turn - but i am fascinated by lesions and cysts goiters and abnormal growths - the sicknesses i can see. i wanted to bring the boy national geographic - i have a box of back-dated issues under my bed - but the grown up tells me not to encourage him; don't show him other animals - but he is a boy - he is a child - animals are the closest any of us have to pulling lucid dreams from our backpacks - my sister used to put her hamster down her shirt to feel it's scrappy nails scratch her belly, my brother sat on the shore praising the lord for horseshoe crabs and i love lying on my back, staring up at the clouds to find a bunny a tiger a coyote a rat - i make mistakes all the time - i told the boy about unicorns - i showed him a book of narwhals - i took him to a tree and we shoved our hands down its hole, we rubbed our cheeks with moss - the grown-up was so frustrated by my deviance and his imagination she sat in the classroom and cried and i watched the grey chair turn red - wet and red - she could not stop crying - she covered her face with her winter cap - she called her husband who came to get her - and we had to get substitute for a week and a half. i don't believe people are punished - but i do think nature knows what it is doing - some boys might be prehistoric some children might have feathers in their hair

we have nothing if we don't have each other. no, no - we have less. we have a slanted mattress and dirty sheets we ordered online because our other sheets were filthy - and we don't do laundry - we open the window and toss out dinner plates - the 2 orange cups are stained - one with paint, one with toothpaste - you turn off music when you want to come. it's hard for you to focus - we can not make it through an hour long tv show - when you say you want to chat - i put in the earplugs i wear at the city pool. we lap up infected feet and undiagnosed diseases - they stream straight to my feed - we are on a see-saw trying hard to balance - but i was the kind of kid who jumped off & laughed at whoever landed ass flat on asphalt - i did not mind being yelled at by the recess monitor - something about the backs of breaking children - i told you a story about a hunter who was sexually assaulted by a deer - he felt like such a fool after he shot her he knelt down into the wet grass and wept as he pulled out a hunting knife and cut off her tail for a souvenir - i told you the deer smoked newports, crossed her long fuzzy legs and waited for him on a stump - she used her hooves to trip him - she used her tongue to turn him into her pawn - i tell you i don't think i am pretty enough for you - you are very pretty - but i am happy alone - and you can't truly smile - today i will put my own hoof down - i don't want to go out for ramen! please don't tell me about another obscure serial killer and try not to spill beer in the kitchen. i could clean the sheets right now - there are machines in the basement - but the window is right here.

Saint Anthony in the desert, asked how he could differentiate between angels who came to him humbled and devils who came rich in disguise. You can tell by how you feel after they have departed.

in an impressive apartment in gramercy park i sat on a couch next to a guy who i had known for quite awhile - but never knew at all. it was one of those apartments and one of those kinda couches that can make you feel ashamed of breathing. he liked football he liked the pizza place across the street he liked mango sorbet. he found goodness in awful blockbuster films - he had this thing-this wide bright open mind - it gave me a nervous stomach. i screened his calls i faked to be sick i made excuses and waited for our time together to rot away. once he told me he knew of a guy who was so depressed he sat in a dark room staring at the wall. i acted like that was some kind of situation, but in my mind that night and to this day i wonder why the guy bothered to keep his eyes open - why would anyone bother keeping their eyes open

in the 90s - when i believed i would never be enough - my co-worker at the dry cleaner told me she gave herself enemas to lose weight. her sister drank ipecac - their daddy beat them both. they hated their mother- for she would hunch over a broom and sweep tumbleweeds into a dustpan instead of interfering - once in awhile one of the sisters got away from the father - grabbed the phone and called 911. the cops came - cuffed both girls and took them to the station - at least jail would protect them for a few hours - the mother thought, lying to herself. one morning i walked into the dry cleaner to start my 12 hour shift and our manager was crying - she was young and catholic and didn't believe in men who did such terrible damage - for a terrible man had damaged her too deeply - why are you crying? - she told me the sisters would be late - their father was killed in a factory accident - he fell off a ladder. when the sisters arrived they wore bright red dresses, lipstick and sloppy eyeliner - they smiled and i smiled back - neither girl would have to endure another attack from his cracked drunken hands.

and when i get to where i am going i will begin to understand what i left behind

"there are no holes for your fingers in the masks of men"-

last night the bus boy killed a cockroach that was crawling slowly up the wall behind me - he swatted at it with a wet towel - you had seen it too - but rather than ask the waiter to seat us somewhere else you lazily said "don't turn around" - you didn't offer to trade seats you just watched - until the busboy became the most valiant man in the west village and killed it - later when i asked you about your timidity you said "it would have eventually crawled into a crack" - why bother putting a napkin in your lap - why bother taking off my sweatpants when we go out - why ? - eventually you and i but you first - definitely you first - will crawl into a crack -

it's going fast - all this time - and the information is compounding - i just began watching the blue planet - i didn't know about the mid pacific ridge - i didn't know there is a trench deep enough for mount everest to fit in - the deep sea loves to create situation where a fish must trade gills for feet - males become females without protests and bills, carcasses are a feast that can feed 9 sharks for a year - we live above complex moon - except

when i woke this morning you gave me a quiz on basic physics - heat compression and air conditioners - i checked your train - it was delayed and you were already late for work -

in the grocery store you walk so near to me i feel put upon - we have very different concepts of space which probably has something to do with physics - but i more interested in those deep sea divers - undergoing real pressure

i have eaten my children for various reasons - in my 20s it was because i didn't want to quit smoking, the father was a junkie who made barely any money. i had no education and couldn't handle the weight gain. i ate a child because i wanted to keep the child but could not risk withdrawing from a century of mood stabilizers - with their wild side effects & maternal disturbances like head trauma, like road rage, like lying down in gas ovens - symptomatic of a negligent mother. in my mid-30s i tripped up and got held down and was forced to eat a child - it was like lumpy soup before the Upton Sinclair story - the inseminator sat on me, straddled me in McCarren park - rubbed his thumbs across my throat to push the baby down - the way one would do to a poodle and a pill rolled in cream cheese - 

to comfort myself i looked it up - some mammals eat their young - i am not the only one - maybe i'm slightly feral - more animal, more insect than human. now i hardly leave the house - i don't go near the window - i have no gates on them and my belly is an elite preschool - acceptance is hard to come by

People with psychotic depression may get angry for no apparent reason. Or they may spend a lot of time by themselves or in bed, sleeping during the day and staying awake at night. A person with psychotic depression may neglect appearance by not bathing or changing clothes. Or that person may be hard to talk to. Perhaps he or she barely talks or else says things that make no sense.

People with other mental illnesses also experience psychosis. But those with psychotic depression usually have delusions or hallucinations that are consistent with themes about depression (such as worthlessness or failure). People with psychotic depression also may be humiliated or ashamed of the thoughts and try to hide them. Doing so makes this type of depression very difficult to diagnose.

investigating rusty file cabinets filled with spread sheets and diagrams family members have stored from professionals for plausible litigation - the patient has had the joy/horror of reading about herself in the 3rd person: patient believes strangers are staring at her genitals, patient is lost in the city again, rides bicycle to the dump. patient calls home crying believes her "face is falling off." patient thrown off Hampton Jitney due to passengers’ complaints - patient maniacally talks to herself - often quite loud - patient feels like she's choking-can't swallow, saved a pigeon from traffic on Astor Place, patient has managed to depress psycho-pharmacologist, patient thinks her teeth are loosening, patient steals, hates her neighbors, hides in the bushes outside her building - will take the stairs rather than get entangled in small talk, patient refuses to eat out, patient is convinced all chefs and cooks are tainting vegan food with beef broth- patient is thinking of converting to the church of doldrums - for now she stalks skunks, bites her nails and prays to the pigeons - often wanting to fly, fly away

most days i'd take the 6 train uptown from 23rd street. i signed in on a clipboard and quickly scan the names that were written above mine to see if anyone else had stopped by. it was near dinner and waiting for the elevator made me feel sick to my stomach - anxious and uncomfortable speaking with the staff. i got off on the third floor and would look for my father - he was a real tall guy - but the sickness made him unsteady so the staff stuck him in a wheelchair. they left him alone in a room - i recognized his red sweater and the now rounded hunch of his shoulders - i walked to him and pulled up a chair. he asked me if i went to school with him - the high school of music and art. i said sure - i sure did. he told me he was in a photography class with his girlfriend, annabelle - the prettiest girl in school. he asked me, how many kids were in the class and i guessed 30? he said yeah, about 30. he said oh no it's beginning to rain and took a blanket from his lap and wrapped it around his head - he asked me if i had a raincoat in my locker - i said i am certain i brought one. sometimes he would be in the middle of an interview - with george lois - "whose fault this all was." sometimes he would ask me if i saw the black and white kitten that ran across the room. once he asked me, “can you belief the size of this snake!” that laid across his lap. sometimes - quite often - he asked to go home -he asked please “give me money” for the bus - i can catch one on 3rd ave. during dinner i would bring him extra salt packets - and a straw that tickled his lips while he sipped orange juice - he would sleep and i would nap on the floor - he told me about his bakelite radio, the world's fair, Jack Benny, he told me if you don't know the rules you aren't really breaking them. i talk about him in the present tense - today i told someone his full name and that from his family's roof in the bronx he could watch half a yankee's game. the city is filled with ashes - the dirt on our faces can feel like a eulogium

there was a reading at the orpheum theater - downtown mpls - and i told you about it in advance - i wanted you to go and you wanted to go - but you didn't buy a ticket - and when i got in the car you too got in the car and when i parked the car you got out of the car and walked with me to the will-call window - as if your charm were a charge card - shocked - the look on your face - only one ticket passed under the plexiglass and like an awful out of tune instrument - the sound of your voice begging - "sure wish someone had gotten me a ticket..." yeah yeah yeah - you did that with the rent and you did that with airfare and you did that with groceries and cigarettes and books and shoes and mittens - i wish you had gotten a ticket to the reading - i was alone and worse than that i was lonely - all these kids - that looked like me - but laughing in a group - like a tribe - like a joke they were all in on - i didn't look at anyone - i knew "those kind of people" they drove saabs and used volvo's - listened to npr and radio lab - went to outdoor festivals - had internships - had "partners" paid mortgages - i dunno - maybe - i don't actually know what a mortgage is - maybe i will be a life long renter - that's not the point - i felt no unity - i wanted you next to me - but you had business - if i can call it business - and i will - because we were in a different kind of profession - you had business in loring park late night - and when we met back at my place i relished you with charcoaled cynicism of just how uncool the event was - we were right to be on the outskirts of life - you retired to the bathroom floor and i stared out the window into the dumpster below

L.S.M.F.T.

Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco

then the moon will rise like the word reconciliation

i have a friend who's childhood is so disturbing it could be considered biblical - there was a river - she was thrown into it - her mother didn't bother with a basket - there were men - too many men, all were evil - no loud noise made them disappear - now she lives on an island full of toothless fisherman with faulty machismo and crust in their eyes - i have a sister who was so afraid one winter in the 80s she hid inside a fountain - she brought a knapsack and tootsie rolls - when summer came she relocated to a bed of pine needles beneath the hammock and learned to share acorns with squirrels - she could scratch and infect anyone who bothered her with rabies - i was a sister who felt sick all the time - i went down to the cellar and found a drain - i sucked in my stomach and shimmied my way into it - i held my breath i held my breath i am holding my breath - there is a boy floating beside me - wearing an orange life vest - he gets nose bleeds and his lungs are strained with fluid - if we ever surface i will be the one to preform first aid - and he will be the one to say he was fine anyway - he will write a novel about swimming in a drain - twenty years of holding his breath - while i sit beside him - pruned fingers and pruned toes - searched for the compass i lost years ago - popping ibuprofen from carrying all the weight - doing jumping jacks to stay warm

New York, New York - it’s a helluva town

my daddy said "no one in this g-d family knows how to pick up the phone!" i guess he never noticed that 4 of his offspring inherited hooves rather than hands from mother's side of the family - our ears only heard the highest pitch of dog whistles and even then we scattered instead of coming together. daddy spun til he was dizzy in his all-business all-the-time-eames chair and we creatures would gather in the gazebo trotting from bench to bench higher and faster than the kid before us - mother had long painted fingernails and cruel stomping hooves but when dad put on sondheim - the 2 danced - clomping and twirling from kitchen to living room stumbling down the green rolling hills - the older we got the craftier our hooves became - s.o.s here and morse code there - chewing dune reeds and spitting them into the neighbor's boat- dad felt down due to our inability to pick up the phone - one night he was so angry he pulled one out of the basement wall - we cowered but continued playing hide and seek in the wine cellar - now - having no thumbs - but plenty of feelings - i sympathize with my father - and wish our herd had inherited something more malleable than hooves and multiple stomaches - though wading in the sweetest green grass in the 80s on the eastest end of long island will perhaps be my only fern hill

after the tsunami you sent me a floating lantern via fed ex - i called and thanked you kindly - not bothering to mention i was in a landlocked city - and, yes, i also appreciated the wind-up radio for emergencies. you - who called yourself- an eternal optimist - always predicting the next disaster - the rain fell and you could not find the boat - calling the marina calling scuba divers - it sank to the floor of the sea - but poppy you didn't tie it to the dock properly and it floated towards the bridge. and really it was the bathtub that would kill us - you had a friend who had a friend who slipped and fell - and we must wear helmets and life preservers on our banana seat bikes because one pothole - and splat - meteorites heading toward the lawn and dinosaur bones in our cereal - just getting through brunch was a miracle -and when we looked up at the clouds - poppy said "oh no! it's just too awful!" you took mom's mellon baller and held each of us down by our sweaty summer foreheads and dug out my blue eyes and my sister and brother's brown eyes. you created the images above us - as our sockets bled - soaking the green grass red - mom came outside and saw the mess - she pondered aloud the plausibility of irises being good fertilizer - i can still hear the acute mourning bark of that dog poppy said wandered the evening sky that night

i guess it was my junior year in the all-girls boarding school, passed the jai alai center in beautiful downtown bridgeport - an hour i suppose, outside of hartford - near the boys school known for ice hockey and a rival girl's school know for jackie o. i had been down - i had been drinking under the paddle tennis court i had taken up hard drugs and dark thoughts - so as any good mother would do - discerning my erupting depression - she sent a care-package from home. i went to the window where a woman named Lynette Arnold spent her days - in the basement of the freshman dorm sorting mail and selling the girls flavored certs - she handed me a thick manila envelope - i sat in the basement - which used to be a smoking lounge - that all stopped in 1988 - smoking lounges were big business for pspective girls back then - but it was gone by the year i arrived and i was forced to smoke in my shower - the package had my mom's whimsical handwriting on it - i ripped it open and inside was a bag that read "10,000 Freaky Flies to Scare Your Friends!" my mother knew me too well. i ran upstairs to the dining hall and took handful upon handful of freaky plastic flies and dropped them one by one in to every single entre and side dish the chef had put out that day. i put freaky flies in the ketchup bottle and in the coffee pots. i put them in the salt & pepper shakers and the sugar bowl. i put them in the half and half. and when i was finished distributing my mom's freaky flies i sat in the back of the dining hall and waited for that first squeal from a student or teacher - didn't matter to me. about 7 minutes later a girl called Nasika Pace screamed and shoved her chair away from the lunch table - "there's a bug in my salad!" Dave Shehee - the chef - came running out of the kitchen. he told the staff and students to stop eating - as he began frantically dumping all the food from the buffet - time to make my getaway the next day, during morning meeting, there was an announcement condemning what turned out to be a "thoughtless prank" and a lecture about the cost of food, what a waste, young girls should know better, bad judgment, not funny, no, not at all

in the parking lot of pizza luce on lyndale avenue in minneapolis minnesota this red headed woman was talk-yelling at me - getting all worked up about how sexy jesus was is - i don't know - i was trying hard to tune her out, but it was her car and she was holding me hostage having me listen to some acoustic music folk rock bob dylan wanna be bull shit - "don't you get it! don't YOU! I'm fucking Jesus!!!" but i was really hungry - i needed to get out of the car so yeah - i totally get it - shut up and let's go eat.

she was referred to as greedy gretchen - everyone i came into contact with in the twin cities had some insulting yet boastful nickname - greedy gretchen finally turned off her EP and we got a table inside - but greedy gretchen had god damned panic attack - i didn't have chance to order and i actually can't remember how i got home - i went to her place another time - she was sitting at a typewriter drinking baileys like a sad preview for a lifetime movie about single mothers who drink before breakfast - everything in her apartment was beige- she said "i have to get in the bath." which also seemed like an odd thing to do in the daylight before noon - i heard her run the water - i walked by the bathroom and it was barely a few inches full - she was drying off in a towel - it was beige

on cue - just like at the pizza place - she said she was having a fucking panic attack - and asked me to call 2 of her ex-boyfriends - she insisted on going to the emergency room. so i called both and both came - and because i was not a local - i did not grow up there - all 3 of them began yelling at me - i just stood there and thought about the stories i had heard about gretchen - that time that guy threw a plate at her head, that time she attacked that girl kate - that dream catcher in the front yard - that magician she was proud to be fucking. jesus jesus jesus - gretchen neither you nor he are any good for me.

anne sexton wrote, "the joy that isn't shared, dies alone" - and every other thing - but so what - i am not good at sharing anyway. remember that time we were at the foot of my mattress and i was clutching a pint of ice cream - you reached for it and i tightened my grip like some psychotic burglar with diabetes - at work yesterday my director had a debate with the staff about smartphones and photo taking vs. mindfulness and being in the moment - i didn't talk - i stared at the floor muttering: "we're all gonna die anyway" you can't save a thing - it's as if they don't know about the cost of storage units - or floods or moldy basements - my co-worker says to the director "Socrates never wrote anything down" - i call bullshit - someone scribbled somewhere - i tell my co-worker "writing in long hand enhances memory" - but he is 15 years younger then me and never got his grades mailed home on a paper slip including a letter grade for penmanship. franz wright compares being committed to vacuuming the desert floor - forever - but the desert doesn't have walls. i know what he means - the monotony and purposelessness -over and over the same spot and damn there is more sand - no one to talk to but the murmur of the vacuum which in dark at night sounds like a squealing vulture - but you wouldn't know that sound having never heard a vulture squeal - but there are no fact checkers in the forever desert - and as franz might agree - there are no fact checkers in an institution - just windows too high to reach- just women in white gowns- just weary doctor with floating eyes

i fall asleep to david attenborough reading shalamov to me - crimes against humanity sound a bit more comprehensive with an english accent in the dark beneath my heavy quilt - the end of the world will be green not black - wet not fiery - and everyone who reads will forget to turn a page - the poem will stop before it ends - a true literary shame - david attenborough reads from shalamov, "if i forget, the grass will forget. permafrost and stone remember." who will be left to translate - and who believes in talking rocks - mr. attenborough runs his fingers through my tangled hair and suggested i don't get worked up - not tonight - not while i am trying to fall asleep - but what about love canal, what about the animus river, what about chernobyl, plastic - i become breathless - attenborough says to me - remember when people were told to recycle batteries? while taking a swig of whiskey, attenborough tells me, sooner or later you let go, rescind and read the russians

there was a publication in the 90s called Answer Me! it was an adolescent pornographic free speech sewer. i had just moved to minneapolis - i was working at a dry cleaner across from liquor lyles - a bar on west franklin that had neon lit crimson lettering - this girl i knew - chris - was a waitress there. waitressing at liquor lyles seemed way cooler than washing the pit stained shirts of the drunken customers. next to the bar was a house on a diagonal corner - this guy dave lived there - he was from Nashville, Tennessee - he had an overbite and was going to the university and had awful taste in music - i remember the bo deans coming out of his bedroom window - his roommate, anthony, looked like a young tony curtis - always had a cigarette hanging out of his face - he worked at an all-night coffee shop on the corner of lyndale - in the 21st century future he would smoke crack in my bathroom, telling me he was taking a shower and burning toilet paper. i could see this menagerie from the dry cleaner's window - we were on a prominent corner of a busy intersection - the kind where businessmen left their cars running and driver side door open so they could toss their filthy clothing in my face and say "fold and box, need 'em by 6pm" - many - not that many but enough in 4 yrs - i watched bike riders fly over these open doors and face plant onto a hood or asphalt. sebastain joes - a coffee shop/ ice cream parlor was next door to the dry cleaner. patrick was dating mary - mary was "the worst kind of junkie" she got high alone. patrick was from brooklyn - he had a friend named mark who was tall and had dark hair- the last time i saw him he was wearing a purple shirt that seemed out of character, we were at the loring bar- i didn't say "hello" - and wayne, wayne was in a band- a band that toured in a volkswagen van - i saw them play once at a club in lincoln, nebraska - wayne had cauliflower ear - it was a souvenir of a parent who didn't care enough to tuck his ear back when she lay him down to nap. and tom - tom lived in the same apartment building as me - tom who called from a stranger's house in the suburbs asking me to come get him because he got in an accident on his bike and busted his collar bone - i told him to stop bothering me at work and hung up on him- the next day he was in a sling. anyway, those guys thought it was real cute that i was a feminist so 2 of them came to the dry cleaner with issue # 4 of Answer Me! i kept it and used it to make a bunch of collages with that one final issue - then the censors put it out to pasture. it was like a rebirth of the 10 cent plague. of course somethings gather more relevance when they are taken away - like "edgy" publications, like radio shack, like cassette tapes, like freedom of speech like trans fats twinkies garlic ice cream neon signs like privacy

when the ax came to the forest the tree said, “the handle is one of us.”

For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is a corner to another world

girls who decline dinner dates most likely had to sit too close to men with no boundaries - at weird round tables - with long white table cloths - and napkins that kept falling off their laps onto the floor - and if you were that girl with braces or weird wavy hair with two sisters to watch out for - and brother with a nervous cough - you were a girl who began making promises to herself to run away & leave all the so-called grownups - pack your stack of nancy drew mysteries, a flashlight, one of the 2 sisters and move into the bowling alley - kids can smoke in the bowling alley -

someone spilled orange juice, someone touched a hip - sondheim is blasting and glasses are clinking and girls are being told to slow dance "cheek to cheek" with old men who have yesterday's breakfast clowning around between their teeth - breath that smells like a shoe horn that has been shared by an entire squash team - one day these girls will look back on those dinners, those awful dancing partners - with two fingers down their throat, one day our boyfriends will ask us to slow dance and we might begin to cry - one day we dig our bare heels into the naked sick earth and tell our boss, or co-worker, or next door neighbor - life was perverse before social media - but we all made shadow puppet pacts to not talk about it - because being served other people's dinner isn't that great - being told about it after the fact is a colossal drag

lately, i only take baths. water beating down on me seems too violent a way to being another day.

if you, no - not you, me - if i were to apply for an "emerging artist" grant kind of thing and the powers that be requested a 500 word proposal of my intended project i would find myself in a bind - in the first place it would take me 10,000 words to explain what it is like to get out of bed in the morning - and naturally the emotional cement is hardening as i write the words that say "stay down and out all day" - should i bother mentioning brushing my teeth is a crap shoot - i tried to read an essay aimed at depressives -about "life hacks" - dry shampoo and sponge baths - but nodded off right before the bit about dental hygiene - i mean i feel the word "emerging" summarizes the point of any kind of creative endeavor - maybe i will have my pharmacist write them, maybe i will glue 500 pills to sheet of paper - but no - pills keep me whistling with dry crackers in my mouth - maybe i will write about how i like the outdoors but i can't seem to get outdoors - or that year i spent on a couch on the west coast watching reality tv and evangelical sermons - i wanted to get magnetic sheets and a magic bracelet called the q-ring that advertised it's ability to remove anxiety and depression - the year i would cry when i heard the theme song to Felicity - i forgot how to chew i forgot, how to swallow - my right hand turned purple and tried to gnaw it off - i want to type 5 million words about the many times i have emerged - and i still don't look in the mirror - still use excessive bubble bath because bathing water reveals too much - people never get clean - i could write 500 words on failure, 500 words on my interest in baby jessica 20 yrs later, 500 words on the nihilistic similarities between me and my mother - 500 about spitting up blood in the sink - 500 cancelled plans, 500 things i meant to do places i thought i would visit, 500 things that weren't worthwhile - 500 yrs i wish i had before me and 500 i would like to return to - but i can't seem to write a 500 word proposal on why i make artwork - i could type 500x over "i do it to keep from killing myself" - alas that is a bit dramatic

The Sarcastic Fringehead is a small but hardy saltwater fish that has a LARGE MOUTH and AGGRESSIVE territorial BEHAVIOR. When two Fringeheads go into battle, they wrestle by pressing their DISTENDED mouths AGAINST each other, “as if” they were kissing. This allows them to determine which is the mightier fish, therefore establishing dominance. Until one of the two Sarcastic Fringeheads close their eyes – allowing the pressing of distended mouths - heated and salty in this battle camflouaged as kissing when observed by scientists – scientist who do not have the sensory skills to interpret how Fringeheads communicate; for most scientists would blush after hearing – "take me, do me, dominate my rotten core – I’ll be your territory – whoa, wait – there’s crab leg between your teeth! Gross. Seriously, floss much?" Time and time again - turning one another on then off with their juvenile over use of snark and eye-rolling. of course it is the kissing mouths that become distended and words - quick and wicked rise provoking a battle rather then the half-life held by a bit of romance and Darwin claps his hands, hums a Cole Potter tune, turns a test tube into a wand, waves it in the air, and with delirium hollers to no-one "yes, yes, I should have been a composer!"

K’olamàsiándo labok’à tohoriəmàsí làmo siándo labok’à t’ahàndoria lamo siàndo k’oləmàsí làbosiándo

MEANWHILE GOD HAD BEGUN TO VISIT HER WITH INTELLECTUAL VISIONS AND LOCUTIONS,

siàndo k’oləmàsí làbosiándo lakat’ándori làmo siàmbəbə k’ət’ándo lamá fià lama fiàndoriək’o labok’an doriasàndó l

THAT IS MANIFESTATIONS IN WHICH THE EXTERIOR SENSES WERE IN NO WAY AFFECTED, THE WORDS HEARD BEING DIRECTLY

fiat’andorià lamok’áyəmasi labo siàndó. K’olamàsiándo labok’à tohoriəmàsí làmo siándo labok’à t’ahàndoria lamo

IMPRESSED UPON HER MIND, AND GIVING

HER WONDERFUL STRENGTH IN TRIALS, REPRIMANDING

HER FOR UNFAITHFULNESS, AND CONSOLING HER IN TROUBLE.

lakat’ándori làmo siàmbəbə k’ət’ándo lamá fià lama fiàndoriək’o labok’an doriasàndó làmo siándoriako làbo siá làmo siandó làbək’án dorià lamà fiá lama lamok’áyəmasi

the 17 yr old dutch girl who died on sunday in what is now being denied - but definitely was - assisted suicide, which is legal in belgium and a few other places - if you are depressed - (according to whatever translation of the DSM V you are reading - if "depression" has a universal definition) she had been sexually assaulted and raped and had an eating disorder - that is pretty much the american college-age demographic of women - except most of us get high, get loaded, hitchhike cross-country - the 17yr old dutch girl wrote a memoir - a memoir - it got published - and she still chose to die - because being assaulted and raped is a drag - but it is not the worst - it is not even close -it is an experience that you can heal from by sharing it with tons of other girls, taking medication, going to some kind of self-help program or treatment center - i would have liked to meet the 17 yr old dutch girl - when i was 18 i met a beautiful brunette named Bridgett and she told me she had been raped and worse the rapist gave her a disease and the disease had no cure so she would never forget - i stared at her in judgement and thought to myself "gross! that will never happen to me." it eventually did happen to me - and i told no one because of what i thought of Bridgett all those years ago. then one day i was walking from west 12th street to 19th street with a girlfriend - she was concerned about my excessive weight loss (anorexia!) - i described to her what had happened and she told me that was rape. she too had an experience - different but awful. anyway the point is - the guy, that night - this story in no way defines me. my life would be so vapid if that had been the darkest hour - let alone the most important - when you wake day after day because you are resilient - without a memoir or any book deal - or any material thing what-so-ever there are people are on their knees, catching their breath in paper bags - who are not 17, who's brains are more developed, who have seen loss, who have been evicted, who have watched giants tilt and twist, who have seen a malnourished king of kings swim in toxic rivers - i wish i could have told the 17 yr old dutch girl that i tried to die at 16 with the glass from a phone booth and lived to outlast my best teenage desire - even dirt can breathe a small breath

I worked at a bar in San Francisco - it doesn't matter why or when it only matters that nothing worked out - although I did like tending bar - I was lonely - the customers were drunk and friendly - I couldn't get a word out in my Stephen King-esque living situation – stuck in an apartment at the end of a cul-de-sac next to many other B-rated Lifetime movie productions constantly being filmed behind drawn curtains in the broad daylight 

the director instructs the actors in and out of mold ridden rooms - feeding them lines willfully forgotten - "talk louder - over the vacuum!" these kind of shows feature a leading man who pounds his hollow chest like a silver back howling "I never learned to love.” His “woman” is a sad unemployed real estate worker – she day drinks from the bottle in a terrycloth robe -sits on the back-stoop lighting matches one by one, flicking them onto the neighbor's yard – 

the "star" is always broke, he smokes, has stubble, and excessive sweat stains, but never goes to work during the entire length of the show, he eats eggs, scrambled and wet, he covers them with ketchup and swears when too much pours from the bottle- it’s a 24 hour diner that serves breakfast all day long - a diner where the employees know him by name - the "star" doesn’t make eye contact with waitresses, but mindlessly shit-talks with the busboys about trucks, about bikes, about Off Track Betting-he will brag about his winnings whether he wins or not - he's the "star" so he doesn't bother to tip – 

he doesn't trust the system - he doesn't understand the system he doesn't trust - the "star" is adored by the boys he shoots-hoops with in Dolores Park - so much so it makes you curious about the supporting cast, not to mention the screenwriter - sooooo as I was saying.....

- it wasn't actually an apartment it was more like a wooden cabin in the middle of the Sunset District spinning on a Lazy Susan so fast if there had been a window I would have risked drowning in the Pacific trying to jump out - cobwebs and dust bunnies - chewing tobacco on the TV - TV playing reality shows - a La-Z-Boy chair - King James bible as prop to prove I was the lesser of the 2. so I stayed at the bar long past closing and talked to the homeless - handing them the food my manager told me to get rid of - talked with the men from the Castro about my childhood love affair with stretch-arm-strong - talked to a guy with his arm in a sling - said he had busted it skiing – eventually, I would leave and lock up - walk through the mission. watch men pack their entire lives into abandoned grocery carts, walk to the park- watch waddling skunks - wait for their fuzzy butts to cross the highway - stare at the cabin door - the wooden useless door - walk in - lights out - a voice in the dark says "we're going for a ride" because he has a truck and likes to drive fast-fast through the night on the pacific coast highway - only slowing down to drool at the sight of dead possum raccoon and any other creature who didn't have time to make it to their intended destination

they came for the linzer-tortes and stayed for the sky

Sophomore year of high school the history teacher made an announcement at morning meeting. The entire student body sitting row after row - while the day to day minutia was told to us through a microphone as each dean or advisor or teacher attempted to make a 7 course scheduled day sound better than a cigarette in the woods. I don't remember the history teacher's name and if it came to me I wouldn't write it down. She took her turn at the podium and began crying - which makes kids really uncomfortable because that's our thing - we do the crying and complaining - she sniffled and mumble and looked afraid - furthering her entrance into the world of our adolescence - after wiping her nose and clearing her throat she leaned into the microphone and told the staff and administration and entire student body that she was going to have a hysterectomy and would not be at school for a while. My entire row - girl after girl - thought it was cancer or something you die of and you must be quarantined - no girl knew a hyster from a houseplant - and our parents watered those. We worried because a grown-up was sad and crying, so we looked up the word "hysterectomy" in the dictionary - still I don't think anyone of us understood we had something in common with the crying teacher - something besides a history class. As a kid I wanted nothing to do with adults - me and my flat chest and no hair anywhere and hitchhiking thumb. I wanted no womb, I was no woman - if I had known I guess I would have yanked my insides out and shoved them into a cooler for the next decade or so - I do remember when the teacher returned the Berlin Wall came down and that day, she cried once more.

sometimes you can't find your family - you get lost - let go of someone's hand - maybe it was that summer on Fire Island you turned to follow another mother pulling a wheel barrow, maybe it was while father went get wonder bread from the station wagon so we could continue feeding the ducks. it could have been penn station - i get distracted i don't pay attention. maybe we were going to the train tracks - each of us with a handful of pennies to put on the rails. maybe you all got on the train - when it was comfy with big couch seats - and the conductor would chat with the passengers or discipline them like naughty students in a floating classroom, "Do you sit that way at your house?" you shrug and he moves on. dad is counting the NINA'S in a Hirshfield, Mom is pacing in the lobby, the boys are up stairs, Nick and Em are playing in the revolving door - my older sister yawns as she flips through a fashion magazine - i see them i can see them - they are locked and no one is letting me in - the doorman shakes his head back and forth "no no no" not you - and inside i understand the "not me" of it all - one time while i was in europe my friend dan wouldn't go out to eat with me because i dressed like a character out of a Mark Twain story - not you - because i accidentally ate a pat of butter in front of my mother and her friends. and my mother explained my behavior away by saying i was doing a sociological study on bad manners. but now i want back in - when i get there - there is no there there- there is no home there, there are bird-feeder, no birches, no hammock - no kitchen window - not gravel - no turtles no vegetable garden, no mulberry bush - there is a fountain an empty fountain and kidney shaped pool filled with flatten change and i can hear the whistle of an off-peak train

so long ago i could afford to live in this silk spun city i went on a date with an "artist" in Chinatown - i met him at a restaurant with a name spelled in symbols and i had to ask him which dishes were meat free. while the waitress placed our tea pots beside our plates he looked up from his rimmed glasses and asked, "have you had your nervous breakdown yet?" he told me he was in analysis and suggested i start analysis too. when our orders came he reached across the table - without asking - and began eating off my plate. my gag reflex had to be held in place. i had not had a "nervous breakdown" i was in my 20s - i was on a date because i was unable to say "no" and i was still trimming the fat of self-doubt that hung across my shoulders since puberty. but those chopsticks, that arm, that refusal to ask if he could try some of whatever vegetarian entree i was eating - no no no - i despised the guy. but why couldn't i say something? i mean i left with him said "thanks" to him went to Chelsea with him - saw his "studio" got yelled at by him - "don't touch the canvases" "you should know better" by him - he took me to documentaries - we saw Winged Migration - he nodded his head up down with birds as if he had flown alongside them - oh my agreeable self - maybe i was having breakdown - maybe girls becoming women should absolutely have big fat gnarly breakdowns - the kind where when a guy reaches across a table in a restaurant that isn't even Cafe Mogodor she joyously grabs her fork or any nearby utensil and says "what's mine is mine - you keep what's yours - i am breaking and breaking and intend to break more" then gets up from the table pushes in her chair shakes her perfectly round ass and grand jetes to the door.

2 girls tied together learned a trick from cephalopods; sink deep into the sea and find two halves of an empty coconut. wrap tightly around one another, pull the coconut shells together and roll roll away from danger and text messages and phone calls and landlords and con ed and heat waves and exhaust fumes and broken elevators and headlines and deadlines and calendars and delayed subways and dental concerns and blank spots where a thought should have been and all the papers meant to shred - the piers the hudson the plastic bottles - the benches the bare assed homeless the 2 topless boys with back tattoos on christopher who get money for cans til midnight - the clerks who are too young - too hot - that corner - the kiosk where broke men play cards on milk crates - the kiosk for wifi so men can watch porn - who can blame them or anyone - and above their heads in L.E.D. useless advertisements spliced with trivia about this grand city - it's chipping into the air - just dust - you can watch it crumble when you cross west houston heading towards the sea

down at the pier on friday nights mallards dance cheek to cheek as cole porter plays from the horn blower's sound system - those ducks can really swing - seagulls gather round cawing - tossing breadcrumbs at their feet. the sun doesn't set - it hangs longer in honor of such romance and remembrance of a slower time a slow dance - how delovely how delightful how delicious it's drrrreammmmy quite delirious....

the donkey is wearing the same amulet as a child - making it difficult to kill the donkey. when the field is set on fire - i think of my childhood - on the road side - i offer a girl hard candy - she screams at me as if i am the bad dream - in the rearview mirror her left arm falls off

there was a hunter - there always is a hunter - as there always is and will continue to be - the hunted - and though i had been wounded by the hunter - his arrow grazed my thigh - i was not wearing orange - it isn't my color - i ran through the woods - thick as the pine barrens - he was being a good citizen - cutting down the deer population - but the hunter was an invader - my whole childhood wading through deer - some with antlers, some new born - i sprinted far ahead through the trails of tall grass and unmanicured lawn to give word- and the deer i found was calm - seated on a stump of freshly fallen tree - she held a book by nabokov in her hoof and was smoking a menthol cigarette - she said she knew i was coming to warn her - and i said well actually, yes, but, do know smoking is really bad for you? she nodded and crushed the butt with her elegant hoof. i sat at the base of the stump and asked why she was reading pale fire? she told me that all these men - these hunters with their guns and bows and arrows keep telling her they are kinbote - and she wanted to know why they all had the same pseudonym. they are trying to impress you - men are really insecure & apparently unoriginal - it's soooo embarrassing. and than the deer said to me - i'll let you in on a secret between the doe and myself - when the hunters get close they well up with tears in there eyes. they sit like you are sitting and talk about emptiness and lacking and sick feelings of lonesome lives - some will ask if they can hold us , dance with us, even lay down beside us - be the bigger spoon. and because we are lovely and because we don't exploit the vulnerable we let them - all throughout the forest - we let them sob and into our fur - and every now and then a hunter leaves a pack of cigarettes, last time i got Kools, and for another season we continue to live

on our planet everyone is invited to dinner - the guests aren't referred to as guests - they're considered "family" - there is no dress code - people go barefoot - and lobster put their claws in the air and jump into to the bubbling pot - we laugh like we are children on a merry-go-round nearly off its hinges - everyone is familiar and even that one drunk aunt who never spoke has become a delight. there are no elevators on this planet - we don't raise fools who try to outwit gravity - we do not support dragging bodies, crushing limbs - no one goes to galas because we don't want to wear confining clothing and we chose not to use such verbiage - we don't care for the upper crust - not the people, not on bread. no name dropping no social climbing - we have bonfires in the evening - roast marshmallows- tell horror stories about the planet we left - it was loud all night, all day, each morning every paper reported statistics on the killing of bicyclists, the weather report was wrong within 10 - 20 degrees and no one on the planet had the humility to admit their mistakes - past or present - so they shut down the citizens by handing them devices to keep them quiet lonely and afraid - our planet, our people shuddered in disbelieve -held one another's hands and licked warm melted marshmallow off their lips and teeth - and as i watched them wince at the parallel planet's problems i wondered if any of them had dental coverage? well, we almost had something going - but for our teeth. i guess we will be a rotting tooth, gruel slurping alternative planet gumming our way to an alternative destiny.

in a temple on 12th street the rabbi held sanctuary past midnight - kept the doors open for a certain kind of broken congregation. the vietnam veteran who's mouth hung open like he was still screaming from explosions -a woman who looked up how to get helium after reading suicide suggestions posted online by the hemlock society, insomniacs who paced down from union square and had to use the bathroom - there was a woman with short black hair who sat in a chair picking skin from her face til it bled -a man wearing headphones sipping coffee and rambling about the fights and filth in the shelters - one night a young woman in the front row spoke - she told the rabbi and whoever else happened to be listening - that she wanted to die. she got in her car in sweaty panic and drove but there was an accident in the holland tunnel and a truck full of loose boxes came flying towards her car - she jerked the wheel but it was too late the boxes were about to hit her windshield - she covered her face - when she opened her eyes she saw white fluffy feathers all over her windows like snow they fluttered everywhere - the boxes were flattened and birthed feathers plump as cumulous clouds and when the wreck cleared she no longer wanted to die -instead she came to the temple and shared her story in the sanctuary of disbelief - to the rows of skeptics for whom the night never seems to end

(unfinished collage) nicholas and i decorated your room in the residency - when we finished he turned to me and said "i guess this is our home now." not in a sad way - just matter-of-fact - we knew that was where the family would gather. you held the family together - nick would draw in his journal and i sat on the floor, stayed with you for dinner and snuck packets of salt at your request. we sat on a wooden bench and you wanted your phone - you wanted cash - you wanted mom - i tried to keep you calm - i said in treatment centers the patients are not allowed to use the phone - he responded - do they tell you when you will get out? - so many open ended conversations. the hell of not having a remote control - the sadness of a floor full of never-getting-better. if nicholas got upset he would go into the restroom to pull himself together - my heart would beat between my ears when i couldn't find him. every day i look for my father - he is at the beach with our dog, he is in his truck picking up hay for the llamas, he is at the apartment in love with my mother. he is waving he is hailing a cab he is interrupting a sibling at work he is introducing me to an old hollywood player - he is everywhere - he is with me having dinner and after getting to know the waiter by name he leaves a nice tip and insists we take a walk around a block or two or three and i love the sound of the sidewalk beneath his shoe-shined feet

in my next life i might do laundry, in my next life i might wear makeup, maybe i would have purchased that package of krispy kreme donuts i held in my hand while i waited in line at rite aid - in my next life i will let myself feel better - i will try to go to sleep without rereading shalamov - i will brush my teeth, go to a dentist - in the next life i'll have health insurance - in the next life i will pay a professional to trim my split ends-in that life i might make plans - i might keep those plans - i will not see my reflection in fun house mirrors - in that next life i will not bother reading 5 redundant "newspapers" - in my next life i will try not to give up - in my next life i will return as a cuckoo bird - resilient from birth - with an arch in my spine - built to heave eggs out of other birds' nests so i can take what isn't mine

the boss asked me into her office - told me to "have a seat" said she heard me talking about men as "creeps" friday during the staff mtg and due to new laws concerning anti-sexual harassment policies was obligated to check in on me. i said "creeps" - oh i didn't mean "creeps like CREEPS" not like NORMAN F-ing MAILER port authority piss on the wall making a living from being a creep CREEP - i meant my kinda creep. Ya know like the lazy slacker lovable split the bill at a sleazy diner creep. Never take a cab creep - has adopted the role of a chick creep - creep who is more submissive than me - just your generic polite rock domesticated creep. neutralized and tased - offers to remove their shoes upon entering your apartment before you ask- but never help with the bills creep - and besides that the man i was referring to was creepY and i proposed that he is probably a robot - i also think that little weather girl is most likely a robot - most days my boss doesn't notice i'm there which i prefer because i would rather be somewhere else- outside, in a library, at the strand - surrounded by creeps and creepettes - drinking electric coffee and any time i have to do bag of laundry i get to kick awake the corpse of N.Mailer and have him get it done -CREEP (and i will consider that a cultural experience #by_line)

always threats never requests - town bloody hall

in the laundry room - a place i rarely visit because i am filthy and have outlandish phobias - like i have this idea that people in the building take their dogs down there to shit in the recycling cans when it is cold out - or when they're tired or drunk though it's probably the people shit in the recycling - anyway it is wall to wall to floor cement and gated after 8pm it locks because it links tunnels together like some labyrinth from Borges story - with nothing but bad endings - and now the abraham added motion sensitive lighting - so you have to stomp and jump up and down if you want to make your way into the laundry room - some of the machine are unplugged and some are blinking cause they are broken - i used to sit down there and read - but now it's empty - the bike storage space has mysteriously vanished - there is no reception - so i shove my filthy clothing in and bolt for the elevator - every time i'm down there i see a ghost - just now i have returned from putting way way too much crap in the dryer - and a long white haired woman was wandering around trying to get the motion sensitive light to flicker - she was folding dirty laundry and putting it back in the dryer - i was so preoccupied by her insanity in silence -i ended up shoving 2 bags of wet clothing into a broken machine - which of course was her fault - i hate it down there - i just can't get along - my card needed to be refilled and the lights blinked like they were telling me to fuck off and that old crone elevator stuttered on each and every floor.

death is the fairest thing in the world / no one’s ever gotten out of it / the earth takes everyone.

if you are a person who goes to a psychiatrist you are a person who loves august - and well, i am that person, and i have pushed the appointment into october and now it is crawling up my spine - splat in the middle of the day while i am trying to finish a picture of a lovely girl who went down to the river and dropped her phone? wallet? metro card? so she leans over the metal rail like that idiot kid in Superman 2 - the scene at Niagra Falls - and just like that him- she slips and falls into the Hudson river - she is wet and splashing - gulping down rubber tire and run off and plastic and shit and bagel and bad tide and backwash from motors - finally an old swarmy pirate in a orange kayak with one good arm pulls her aboard - he takes off his b.o. saturated flannel shirt lets her dry off - they row to the piers - he hides her away at the jane hotel - close quarters - she would be uncomfortable if she had half a brain - but she no longer does - the corroded river has mutated her- taken her tongue and torn her legs from her hips - she's now 1/2 coral - ornamental actually and the pirate, well he really scored - he locks the door of the rocking room and she - whoever she was - is never heard from again.

We are the echo of the future/

On the door it says what to do to survive

But we were not born to survive

Only to live

(The River of Bees, by W.S. Merwin)

in undergrad our teacher brought in a guest speaker to class he had written a book about "culture" - we hadn't been assigned the book, we had never heard of the writer - i went to some bookstore near school and found it and read it in one sitting because i didn't want to buy it. i remember the introduction: "i grew up in a home that always had The New Yorker on the coffee table ..." it got more pretentious and exclusive from there. the writer was all up in arms because his $200 name brand t-shirts could easily be replicated and purchased for $15 on Canal Street - when i met him in class i think i suggested he take a sharpie and scrawl on his t-shirt MINE COST MORE - idiot - and anyway what kinda moron throws down 200 bucks for a t-shirt - does a blowjob come with it? - i'm only thinking about that writer's intro because i am cancelling my subscription to The New Yorker - my attempts to find free time have failed - and the one thing i loved about that magazine is the poetry - it can be an expensive challenge to get through an entire book of poems and love every one - last week's issue had a 2 page Pinsky - with beats and begats and cities and names to investigate - with thoughts about life after death and considerations - "I guess you are my life after death" / "it's the dead, the ones whose names I need to tell you...that is what motivates me." that is why we write things down - we write down the evolution of fish that grow feet in what is called the Twilight Zone of the ocean - and we write down the devolution of the pigeon who has grown too complacent - almost domesticated - so as to lose its fear instinct - caught off guard when swarmed by the vicious catfish as it wades wing high into the river. some messages are more meaningful - like a compass like hieroglyphics like sign language like signaling in traffic - like taking the exit

i wasn't even dating the guy - but he insisted on walking me to my door - and every step i took i thought "he's going to find out, he's going to find out what a colossal drag i am." what an exhausting show, such a demanding audience - like a bird building a nest to beat the competition. even today - heavy outside with rain - and the pharmacist has already called twice - i am made of salt - just like Lot's wife - i lived like a heathen and resisted leaving and now my cabinets are filled with tablets - my body has turned to salt - i don't believe in much - but my god i am thirsty

above her bed there was a crack that had a habit/ of looking somewhat like a rabbit (from Madeline - a line read to me so many times i have never stopped looking up up up)

everything was going just right - i had lured the boys from the beach club down to the dock - sister was with me - the laughter bounced off the bay at the most sonorous octave - and then i looked up and there he was 6'3" with a red leash in one hand - "hi gang!" one by one each kid walked off the boat down the dock towards my dad - he just had to have those llama by his side - feeding them maple leaves - telling me and my pals "they're like potato chips to them!" - the guinea hen will see you out

this is my "what do you mean i missed the bus" girl. like she's so GD special - in her pea sized mind - even at 7am she is thinking to herself "hrumph...THE BUS MISSED ME!" gawd - i created her and i hate her - you don't get to have eyes - if you take off your glasses you will expose the 2 holes in your head - like a cartoon in a small town - with tumbleweed blowing through. a girl like this girl has no gratitude for the miserable MTA - loud and delayed and idling until the driver sees one or two pedestrians picking up their pace to make it to the ticket stand and then BAM left blinker flickers - doors shut. so she is late for a meeting a job jury duty - no reason to be bothered with questioning a sunk system - this isn't a broadway show - no one's going to belt out a resolution- when she does finally catch a crosstown bus and the driver dumps her at her stop - it will be into a pile of garbage near a chainlink fence where she watches a homeless man put on his pants and try to roll up what must be an old mattress - so whether or not she has tumbleweed in her head and keeps her eyes covered with a View Master- flipping images of the grand canyon, a volcano, the sphinx - walking beneath scaffolding to work - years ago she used to be superstitious - refused to walk beneath ladders - thought it would bring bad luck - but now ladders line Irving Place and it's the quickest way to get to where she needs to go - and what's luck if not bad anyway

last weekend in washington square park another group of placard carrying contemptuous citizens interrupted tik/tok, and the piano player and the awful jazz band - and the tourists following the their gps compasses heads down -running into bike messengers - and squirrels - don't forget the squirrels - the placards were super specific - "no foie gras" - really? you can shove any other meat down your gullet - but not goose liver - i had my days when i wore i tiny little button that read "meat is dead" - but even when i didn't eat it i served - i worked at arby's when i had to make rent - so did rahm emmanuel - and he cut off one his fingers in the meat slicer - alas his life went on quite successfully. people with missing parts have instant conversation starters. i knew a guy with a hook for a hand - couldn't wait to hear the story - turned out he just got it stuck in a garbage disposal. i got my head stuck between the bars of stair banister - thought i would live on the 2nd floor pushing and pulling the rails for the rest of my life. mother ran to get butter. father grabbed a pair of pliers. ever since every word echoes like i'm under a bridge. when the protesters say goose liver i hear it ringing like a flat chapel bell - dead meat meat meat wears itself into the wind - hook hand hook hand hook hand haunts me until traffic drives the echolalia out for the common ache

are you wondering if the foot steps behind you are female?

my girls survived The Purge - turned down tunnels to catch light to catch a line of poetry - to remain "civilized" finally fleeing on their donkeys from a world ruled by tyranny -yet still underground - gnawed on the hard winter skin of raw potato that were meant to feed the pigs - my girls scream towards Siberia WE ARE THE PIGS!!!! their men are a sideshow - stump arms, crippled bodies - rolling like dumplings through an angry crowd- these girls - they abort their own offspring and have signed consent forms with the Hemlock Society - if a child lies starving they beat him and say "you know nothing of life - & so it shall remain." these women are animals - lethal as tetrodotoxin - 10,000x more deadly than cyanide - they've been raised on mad dog & rubber cement - each a of them a spawn of Echnida -mother of all monsters- not one of them speaks a word of Greek and not one of these girls has ever uttered an apology - not even that time a grenade was tossed towards Tudor City but landed 2 blocks north of Pete's Tavern demolishing Gramercy's key park - eh bien! C 'est ultra bourgeois - YOU, YOU ARE THE PIGS - the girls chanted - yes - you you are the pigs

my doctor told me years ago to stop trying to understand mental illness. to stop trying to find a solution - as he filled a plastic bag with sample prescriptions - that never worked and usually had ridiculous side effects - which lead the doctor to give me more pills to counteract the side effects - he also tried his darnedest to feed me - salads or cookies - never once did i accept - once or twice during the month he would ask if he could weigh me - i refused - sometimes he would check in on me at my job - because he had heard through the upper east side crisis-vine that i was manic - and such spikes in my mood had landed me in locked wards years before - he had a stroke a few years back and lost track of all the meds that did and did not work for me since i was a teen. so i got a new doctor - he is young and takes notes and i take notes too - i have been taking notes since i perfected my pincer grip. i know people don't really enjoy the company of depressed people - some of us can be quite caustic - we can be misanthropes who are chronically irritable and at odds with every angle of the world we seek to make smaller by cocooning inside an unwashed comforter (because the washing machine is in the basement and unwarranted fears keep us from getting in the way too old otis elevator) - as much as you ask them to read about your diagnosis, to believe it is a biological sickness - they know what they know and that is that. but they don't know you. they don't know why you won't behave the way the world would like you to - the way they would like you to (the way you would like you to) - so they come to your studio on their 50th birthday and you give them 2 books that they requested by name - and they tell you - because it's raining - or they were waiting for a special occasion - they can't help you - can't make you better - don't want a future with you - etc. etc. etc. - and they - whichever one - it's blur of no better no worse - dramatically storm out of your place and run down six flights of stairs - leaving his/ her/their cell phone behind - so i have to lace up my shoes and run in the cold rain towards the train - hand this compilation of put-upon-dudes their phone and walk home - alone - the way i prefer - knowing the truth: depressives get more depressed in relationships, well, at least i do (i read an article about that in the science times) unless the person you find yourself with accepts you for your humor and suicidal ideation - i had that once - and once is enough to be grateful - grateful for acceptance and grateful in knowing people like that exist.

once upon a not too long ago i lived in a world where i could say amazingly descriptive words without receiving a lecture - all my friends and all my enemies were awful - i was awful - and it was wonderful - we drove recklessly on sidewalks and ran over babies - we cold-cocked the elderly and taunted wild life for failing to adapt to our failing ability to adjust to a failing ecosystem - we waited for the eve of another looting - planning which drugstore to raid- which stocked the medication we needed but couldn't afford. we were indulgent - cans and plastic straws - we ate meat while the cow was still being fattened - swatting at flies with her tail. we gave one another facials with the premium foie gras - we swam in oil slicks - lit cigarettes by gas pumps - and masturbated in the aisles of magazine stores - paper cuts could make a girl climax - oh my - and today i play MadLibs with my dear friends and good old enemies - filling empty space with terrifically offensive lyrical words - immediately deleted before the new wave u.s.n.k.v.d. cretins come first for the clever, the deviant, and the eye-rolling resistant

the doctor is too far away. upper westside - near symphony space. i miss my appointments more often then not. i call and make excuses like I'm trying to get out of going to temple on sunday - he bills me for wasting his time -mumbling over the phone, "do you need any refills?" he says i am worse in the winter - i disagree - but he has the degree - tells me to get a sun lamp - i say "i heard they can give you skin cancer" he looks at me like i'm nuts. i tell him there is a man hole cover on my head and i can't lift it off - he scribbles in his legal pad furiously as i talk about the sounds circling the room and fly paper dosed tea i dream of drinking. the laundry i'd rather toss out the window then take to the cleaners - the breathing i can't pace - he is concerned about my paranoid ideation - i say "in the movies institutions have ping pong and art classes and pay phones - that isn't the way it is." "they are freezing the sheets are hard and no one talks or sleeps or gets well." you get out, get a day job and learn when to shut your mouth. we schedule another appointment - i leave and walk through the waiting room - a lamp - 5 chairs - a white noise machine - a coffee table piled high with magazines. i am alone and i want to steal national geographic, the new yorker, new york mag - everything - but i bet there are hidden cameras in the key holes. i bet getting out the door empty handed is some kind of test - there is a combination lock i can't seem to get right - roman numerals left then back then twist and pull - i could never leave with my arms full.

we don't get off the phone - pinky and thumb - please hold - me, my younger sister - we've been busy since the 80s only paying attention to crawling deep deeper into soft mounds of dirt - out on the east end of the island asking once and again "do you like butter?" blowing dandelions apart climbing trees the size of manhattans most important buildings hiding belly down on the dock while the grown- ups sipped wine & sondheim played in the background. the chandelier wiggled like waves made by my mother's gown- there was no darkness there were no dump trucks or sewage or circles beneath our eyes - we ran without reason around the gazebo - leaping from seat to seat - wrote our abc's with stone on slate - ate mulberries from the mulberry tree - we, my younger sister and me - on a day the rain walloped down - asked our mother - who would take off her ring and place it on the window sill to wash dishes - we asked "can we wash our hair in the rain?" she nodded yes - and watched us from the kitchen - two girls delighting in tangled hair - bubbles foaming between their fingers - soaking wet laughing -