I will parcel it out in large quantities.

Tonight was not a good night for silence.

---

On the subway in Manhattan, headed south from Columbia towards the lower east side. Erin and I notice that a group of college kids have hopped on the car at the other end of where we are. It's obvious to me that they are theater students, or dancers. They are at ease with and have a command over their surroundings -a quality one finds with born performers who still haven't allowed the world to swallow them up. Type-A personalities (at least a few). Untouched jewels. They love the world and for this, it loves them right back. They are all attractive kids, all comprised of African Americans and Latinos. They laugh and carry on at the other end of the car. They play a game that I may have last played in a high school drama class, or in the "theater games" segment of some opera rehearsal in college. I certainly cannot think of its name. From what I can tell, the group begins totally frozen, one person takes initiative and makes a decisive movement. Another person follows, establishing a tempo. A third person then moves, adhering to the pace established by his or her predecessor. This seems to continue until every one in the group has gone, after which I they start over.  They They try to avoid moving at the same time. Eventually someone forgets to move promptly or moves out of turn. By establishing the order smoothly, they begin to formulate a group consciousness, a mental and physical sense of ensemble (that would serve them well in a stage production) in a noisy and crowded city subway car. Rounds of the game come and go, each one ending in a burst of laughter. No one seems to mind the raucous they make. The kids are funny. They have bright, smiling faces. They do not curse. Each of them is young, happy, beautiful, and surrounded by friends. They are living and creating on one of the most exciting islands in the world.


It was at that moment that I realized that I never really lived a day in my life.

No, it isn't imaginary.

It's not the boy with his finger in the levee's hole. 

I think it's much worse.

Each friend, each relation, each partner, each individual on this blue planet who needs or wants something from me wants my blood and then wants to kick my dry carcass.

It's personal. I don't believe that I'm in control of my life in the way that people seem to think I am. That somehow, if I wanted, I could do things the way I wanted to. That I could stop the noise and hear only the birds and the slow budding and eventual lilt of flowers.

It's personal.

Children in their moms' and dads' back seats can't wait to get home so they can black out the eyes on pictures of me. Dogs behind Koreatown dumpsters howl and and lick their lips when they see me on Wilshire Blvd. Police men sleep with my mugshot under their pillows. The sun reminds the moon that all will be better when I am gone.

Perhaps I'll occupy an unmarked grave, facedown, drug-war execution style (minus the drugs, the war, and the execution), in, say, the Mojave Desert (where all of California's despair comes to rest on the hottest days of the year).

All creatures, all conditions, all systems, will finally work out their 29 year old bugs when I close my eyes forever. They will perform nature's tasks more efficiently when I've been passed through our cosmic digestion. The universe will sing it's work songs and lullabies in tune once again.

It's personal. It should be plain to see. Nobody ever seems to think that the world is out to get them anymore. It's an unpopular attitude. It's seen as melodrama, as egocentrism, as if the one feeling it has some sort of paranoid persecution complex. Bullshit. The sooner we teach our children that there is a strong possibility that they will be one day be devoured by their surroundings, the more equipped they'll be in the event this occurs.

Just remember: Everyone and everything is out to get you. 

Y  O  U   A  R  E   F  U  C  K  E  D . 

UNLOVED UNLOVING nothing has changed in years

the good ones are taken

the wise ones are not

the wise ones will not be taken

the wise ones do not look good

i no longer care for wisdom

her little brother walks behind me everywhere I go

I prefer the chopping block

swiftly, boldly terminate me with one decisive thrust

but promise me i will feel one moment's bliss

steal me, sweet thief

I've spent my whole life waiting for the noise to stop. I guess It never will.

At some point you're forced to clean up your own mess. Twenty some odd years of repressed objections, apologies never made, spilt milk.



You always pay. Always.

There isn't any sort of "starting over."

You and I, we occupy the same same space. I cannot move without striking you, we cannot find a balance.

I am not in my right mind. They told me this would happen. The honeymoon is over.

I am afraid that there isn't a single square foot of earth that hasn't already been tread upon. Discovered. There isn't anywhere to run to. There has to be a different plain of some kind. A different dimension. We have to make a transition, you and I.

I have to use the same body and the same mind for everything that I do. I can't switch whenever I feel there might be a better tool for whatever the task might be.

You have to kill swiftly and mercilessly, otherwise they always come back to get you.

I'll be apologizing for one thing or another until the day I leave you with a corpse to look after. I am sorry that my time is finite.

Please be. Only be.

[big black bird]

Do you have any idea what you’re dealing with, baby? I have lumps in my throat bigger than you. Your less than a quarter century’s worth of double-dutch, magazine cut-outs, rides in an old car from your brother, stolen jewelry, and hard chewed-up bubble gum are no match for me. I have lived for a thousand years. There ain’t nothin’new you can show me. I have lived a hundred lives with your pearls in the palm of my hand but they haven’t done a thing to ease my mind. I got your senior photo in a rusty old frame. I got your notes in a shoebox. I’ve lived longer than the stones that hold your father underground. I have spit up too much blood to be moved by your crocodile tears.

Did you know that from a distance, vodka looks just like water? They don’t taste the same, tho’.

You deserve a diamond for your skinned knee.  

Please don’t cross me.

I never heard the man say "duck!"

A wrinkled, oversized navy blue suit. A big coffee made for me by a kid at least five years my junior. Finished but not enjoyed. In a suburban corporate coffee shop. Identical to the thousands just like it. Keep me alive so that I can continue to produce.

The first step is acceptance but I'll only accept so much. I won't be defeated by a series of circumstances. I won't be swallowed by time or by reason or by a sense of responsibility. I've gotten in the ring with even stronger opponents. I've yet to win, but I always go for it. The pain in my gut never lasts as long as the restlessness. If I don't stomp on the floor with bloody feet, I float away.

It is time for you to begin that descent down the steel mountain. The one we've been waiting for. Into my arms. I have waited for you all my life, and even longer. Oh but womanhood can be so dull sometimes.

Me + Me + Me = You (Me)

The space between the signifant objects.
The memorable events.
The minutes between those noises and flashes of light.
The statements that give you pause.
That paste, that sauce, that weard haze is where the day was spent.
I drove someone else's car.
I worked at someone else's job.
I combed my hair this morning in such a way that.. I didn't really recognize myself ...
My jacket was too big.
My pants fit too tight.
I slept for three hours while you ate dinner.
I'm living in a puddle of water.
The planet is getting older and so am I.
When I close my eyes I hear all of the words that everyone has said to me in the last few days.
They are all kind words. Positive. Reassuring.
The edges have all been sanded down.
There is a storm coming, but from which direction?