sand and ice

I open the plastic bottle, add Crystal Light mix to my water. lemonade. it's hard to swallow otherwise. just the water. just the water alone. closing the lid i shake the bottle like a snow-globe. tiny crystals dissolve and like magic I've changed it's chemistry.

I have this thing where i have to add noise to silence. nothing stays still to long. I sprinkle lust on boring situations, and longing, and panic and loathing. words.
dirty chaos, filthy regrets, radio chatter, clicking of keyboard, t.v sounds, a truck drives by, the squeal of brakes. a dog bark.

i haven't sit still for as long as i can remember. sand and ice and summer. what i can't remember i make up and what i make up become stories i tell to her in bed. lies are things we tell children, not each other. what we tell each other is what we believe is best not to hurt them. the truth is ugly and in most cases, I'm not much for it. some things remain true: how i miss it. how Ive never regretted us for one moment. how ill tell myself anything to make it through another evening, another summer, another winter, the silence.

in being still, i came close with her. but, only right after sex. most times after, id want to just leave whoever i was with. thank you, but i have to go now. let me exit without a fight. not make a big thing of it.

It was different with her. she's up to pee, sweaty and dizzy, then she is back holding an ice-tea. shit like that, instantly breaks my heart.

i'd not move, as close to still as id ever come. she'd place the tea on the night table. barely hearing the ice cubes clatter. she crawls over me and lays her head on my chest.
your heart, it's still beating fast.
it is now - this is what you do to me.
I close my eyes. she's ready to play again, her hand is there.
heart beat. faster. I'm up for it. for anything.
still.

and all her words, wishful thinking

I'm not sure how long i can keep this up with you.
before long i tend to grow tired of these games- of these words. not so much in
the meaning of them,
but to me, it is to burn burn burn bright with cause-
of concern,
to distract from our everyday without
invisible
force keeping your body
your heart
your mind
your love
from
me

is it not,
that same force, those chemicals and
words, pixels and syntax,
those careless fucking whispers
that make you mine.

isn't the life we have not
grand? not scary? not dangerous?
no matter how stable we think our footing.
and tell me why couldn't it be better
just to give me your extra time???
to be my muse
to sit for me,
to confuse
to destroy
to undress

spread before me on top of dirty sheets
in the dim light of a sea-side
motel room
or in your room
or in your mind

and so that we never grow tired,
let me sink my teeth!
give to me the sum of your extra parts.

if this is your wish, let me be not your only- for i do not ask this of you. only that i am your favorite.
and if i tell you how it pleases me, that it also pleases you.

as far as i know,
there is nothing
to keep this from happening.
or ever
having
to end.

art: Tara Mcpherson
Dino Alberto

i declare a cease fire

the temperature has dropped below eight-five, so my windows are open, and there's a breeze carrying in the smells of molasses, oranges, mesquite, papayas, rum, powdered sugar, arroz con pollo, newspapers, dogs, road tar, cigars, garbage, perfumed women, babies, lumber, paella, sex, car exhaust, chlorine, mint, horses, manure, coffee, lime, gardenias, seafood, Tabasco, stone crab, prostitutes, lemonade, barbecue, pianos, sweat, the ocean, bananas.

canoe, moon, ukelele

1. she's gone-

she'd been swimming, the smell of chlorine in her hair. our mouths sore from kissing to hard, to much and never long enough. bright skies, rose colored cheeks. spiky shadows cast from trees. we carved out our initials into a sideways heart not to far away from her back-yard. I bet it's still there. teen aged scrawl: CB + SL. it will take the devil to replace her.

we swam in her pool at night. her mother worked the late shift at a local nudie bar. serving, dancing- something. on her nights off she'd do things for us like: make drinks in the blender, offer to smoke us out, read our horoscopes under the night sky.

2. destiny -

it's safe under the water, no sound. no drama. the sudden urge to scream.


3. the mistake -

Fuck. I'm caught in jelly fish tentacles. I finally get my older sister and her friend to take me to the beach and now this. stinging fire sticking to my skin. the more i try to move, the more i attempt to free myself, the worse it is. I guess I'll just die here.
It's a pretty enough day outside. I can see it all-I've floated toward the sandy bottom looking up into the sparkling sun. I'm not far from shore but still; have you ever felt a million bee stings all at once, except under the water? that's me.

that's me until she pulled me out, my sisters best friend. colored finger nails grabbing me by the wrist. just when i was getting used to the idea of drowning. the pain like needles shooting through my back and arms. strands of jelly in a tangled mess.
I should have been thinking save me, but all i could see - two wonderful giant breasts. cleavage magnified by sea water and sunbeams. maybe i am dead.
I can see it now- life guards rushing to assist me;
" we need to treat these jelly-fish stings right away"
"but sir, what do we do about his boner?"

gasping for air and fully focused on her chest. A bright red string bikini, i am alive. she stands me up and we are in maybe 3' of shallow water. while she's brushing the "tentacles" off my shoulder.
im frantic "giantboobiessImeanstingggstungbyjjjjjjellyfisshh shsh"
"relax, doofus- it's seaweed."

we start with fuck and end with Kiss

let's start it like this. the fuck with kisses.
and do remember us?
our torturous history filled with goodbyes and returns. me missing the sex and her the love.
my friends think her to young for me although they all secretly covet her.


both hands on the wheel. her driving is slow and steady. mine is fast and all over the road. Still as if teaching me a lesson, we end up stopped at the same red light. side by side, her windows open. Rick Astley's, Never Gonna Give You Up is blasting from the speakers. she is either cool enough not to care or popular enough to have never had to spend the lonely hours i have on the internet. is it possible the unintentional viral plague inflicted by this artist has eluded her? before i could yell over to ask, the light changes. she adjusts the giant bug like sunglasses on her face, flicks her cigarette out the top of her sun roof and drives off.


there was a time when i thought, all i needed was a pretty girl and a bag of Fun-yuns and i'd be be happy. Add to that a 12 pack of PBR and a dog and it would lead you right up to my current happiness needs.

My girl can't stand the smell of Fun-yuns- she'd liked me to eat them out on the porch and if she held that kind of power i might do it. she doesn't, so i eat them right next to her on the couch while we watch the weekly episode of The Office. She'll kiss me if she eats them too, but she likes salt and vinegar chips and I must tell you, it's quite a mix. intoxicating.

I can't shake the fond memories of Elementry school Fun-yuns bring back. My mother packing them tight in a zip-lock sandwich bag, my metal Planet of the Apes lunch box busting at the rivets with items like: Two PB&J sammies, oreos, a jolly-rancher candy and the obligatory fruit, which i would promptly discard. I was given a quarter daily to purchase a 2% Homo milk, but I always got chocolate milk instead. One, it didn't have 2% Homo written across it in bright red lettering, and two, it was fucking delicious.
I was never entirely sure why but the black kids drank the 2% white milk. No one ever called them HOMO either, even though that's exactly what it read on the little carton box. God forbid you were white and they ran out of chocolate. (which often happen) The entire lunch room lit up with chants - homo!-homo!-homo!- the black kids even joined in as if they werent drinking the same stuff. In fact i think it was my friend Roger who started the chant.
Funyons had a hole, i like holes, you could play ring toss or peer through them and creep out the girls lunch table. they were just that fun. Bugels had a charm to them too, you could place them on all your fingers and wiggle them like pointed witch fingers.

Funyons remind me as much about Elementary school as the saw dust the janitor shook out on throw-up or the pee girl who sat next to me on the bus. bus fumes and Elmer's glue, eraser tops, the velcro rip of a Trapper Keeper notebook. single file. heads down. The hottest band in the world- Kiss.
when does summer start?

you got into mine

the last time, a blank stare into the sky.

we laid in bed with my door locked hoping no one would ever come home. I invited her over to listen to records, spinning side one of a Smiths album and when the music neared its end neither one of us got up to turn it over.

lights off and music turned up loud is how she wanted it. instead i saw everything, the scars on her arms, the bruise on her neck, sunlight across her wintery pale skin. naked. as if to make it better, i slipped inside her. easily. she struggled against my weight, i held her wrists down. a game we played or didn't but something we knew, something familiar. pretending not to want or feel or be anywhere safe for to long.

don't ask about the cuts or bruises. I never read the journal she asked me to read. afraid it would have only revealed her a thief, liar and poor speller. I wanted involved with her body. what she knew of me was simple. what i wanted her to know was this- presume everything with me is better. my music and promises, sex with the windows open during the day. say anything, i dare you, say my name with "fuck me" in front of it. panic.

days would go by when we wouldn't speak. love is a beautiful mystery that way, like the car that dropped her off in my driveway and the man who was driving?. school work was secondary to our teen angst and lyrically chaotic sexual encounters. in fact we hardly ever spoke inside school, never held hands, or passed each other notes, we were not friends. to others it would have appeared we didn't exist to each other at all. she would meet me, be with me and it was agreed upon as so. it was a random conversation she overheard, where i was apparently saying i didn't mind making a girl cry. from then on she'd be mine, she said. from then on she'd bother me to come over and listen to records or draw her or read to her. she'd call me asking me to tell her what dirty things i'd to do to her. Im coming over, im coming over so you can hurt me.

I would make her cry and i tell her to go home. she was happy being used and told to leave. this was our sick game. I minded the men who she took rides from, i minded the bruises and cuts that mysteriously would appear and disappear. i would guess i loved her and so I played my part and she played hers.

her bruises rubbed off on my skin, a clever mix of make-up and paint. i wore them smudged like dark tattoos. I'd look at myself in front of a mirror, believing they were mine. i wondered if i could ever be that broken. I was good at making up stories but not as much living them. she was as close as i would ever get. I looked out the window after her, a blank stare into the sky, she was gone.

things written while stopped at traffic lights

choking heat rolls over the road. i hear sirens. I pull to the shoulder, cars pass but there are no emergencies. the sirens were in my head. I have to be careful. I have to be careful what i wish for. last time left me wanting so much more.

====================================

the parting gift of knowing you would. and i would. and while saying nothing.
we do.

====================================

it's strange when you know so much about someone, that is now fucking someone else. I want to remember her for other things besides sex but those other things are obvious, not hidden. everyone can see she is cute, funny and shy, stubborn, bossy- a smart ass. maybe they don't. maybe it's just the part she played for me. not everyone knows she sweats a lot in bed. soaked sheets, hair sticking to face. body heat. she moves a lot, moves her hips. slow and then fast-faster. she said my name. she fucks it good when she is on top, but doesn't suck it with the passion that others have shown. she likes a hand around her neck, choked and her hair pulled, her face smacked. i know these things and i wonder if she is a whore for him too. or is she just my whore? does he do those things to her? does she still get that. does she miss it? miss me sometimes. letting me. being my whore - always my whore.

===================================================

that night. our hotel room with the big bathtub. the time we met there, when after we finish one of us leaves. you meet your boyfriend later smelling of me. i stay there in the hotel room, writing. there is nothing to say that isn't confusing. if we can do this and it feels so good, why can't it be us?
i loved those moments and glimpses. the shape of your body still pressed into the bed. filling the void. how our pieces just fit. i like you. if we could have lived with that, with what we are. what we need from one another. can you live without it? we don't have to, but we do.
i guess we'll see.

are we ever really sure of anything?

I'll do this.
no use for words
to big
or feelings to small.
for you
I'll do this.
lie
when you ask.
fall
when you speak my name
or
think it

(there.)

fly
like a sparrow
off a thin line
I'll do this.
scatter
as if you've
clapped your hands
or
kissed my mouth
and
told me
good-bye