and there was no more.

 

the beautiful francesca lia block and i.

saturday, june 11th, 2011 at cambridge public library, cambridge, ma.

I am an open book in the hands of an illiterate world.

g.

green, grey, ghost, glad, gap, great gatsby, gloat, gamble, go, gone, got, grandeur, gross,
glass, gate, guard, grease, golden, glitter, gather, geometry, grab, groan, glee, gasp, glow,
grow, glide, grind, ground, gown, glisten, get, good, giggle, gash, grapes, gush, girl.

I locked myself in a conference room at work for an hour and kept a log of my thoughts.

how can i write here?
the walls are white
the table is dark wood - scratched
i may as well make every line the same length
my eyes are blurry from the lights
i am cold from the air conditioning - which would be funny
if you knew where i was, but you don't
the buttons on the telephone are yellow
they used to white
that's never occured to me before
it makes my stomach turn
i'd rather be watching gay porn
my hair is full of fly-aways today
the young veins are playing
i think i'm going cross-eyed
i ate too much before i began writing this
i'm broke - my spine and my bank account
29 minutes
i've got plans to cancel
i use the same excuse every time but it's always true
it's never that i'm getting laid
fingerprints you can't see
i really wonder what is on those telephone buttons
i don't have allergies so i am not sympathetic
stop sneezing so loudly
leave me alone
the carpet is one of those carpets that is designed to hide stains
i bet someone has had sex on this table before
it wasn't me
not this table
i just need someone to tell me the truth
or a lie
i don't mind which
just tell me something
i've lost weight so tell me that
or my tits look nice today
i avoid all of the rooms here
where we fucked
there's a few
there's too many
there's a few too many and i'm so glad
that you never knocked me up
you'd be an awful father
i always know when you're here
i can feel it like when an evil spirit is in the room
i've managed to avoid you for months
how did this turn into a poem about you?
let's talk some more about those yellow buttons
i really hate you

Driving.

it's the heavy drum beats with the windows down
that i'll miss the most
the one-hand-on-the-steering-wheel cigarette flicks
squinting in the sun
and the latino boys hanging out of windows
telling me i'm beautiful
the same way he used to
all lust - no heart
all garbage
picked up with the dust and sand when the wind picks up on the freeway
smeared spider legs on the windshield
lime or turquoise liquid spraying up like a fountain in times square
joan jett on the stereo, speakers rattling on the verge of bursting open
faster miles an hour
baby on board stickers and
flashing headlights like a beating heart just to warn you
of the radar gun up ahead
the rush of slowing down just in time
and smirking like you've beat the game
lipgloss in the ashtray
and you beside me with your hand on my thigh

Summertime Weather, Buffalo Soldier.

fighting for survival - bob marley

Dust.

dust is dead skin sitting on shelves and window ledges
dust is crystallized beams of ultraviolet light under beds
dust is dust from fairy wings
and dead moths
dust is sea salt carried from the Atlantic,
settling over unread novels
dust is soft and glitters in the sunlight, moonlight, starlight
dust is star dust from explosions we don't see
and explosions we wish on
dust is sugar from peppermint gumdrops
dust is threads of golden hair from pixies who watch us sleep
dust is kitten fur and petal pollen
tucked neatly into forgotten room corners
dust is cigarette ash
dust is coffee grounds and cinnamon
dust is fluffs of goose feathers from pillows
dust is wood shavings, flecks of dried paint,
pink, purple, midnight blue and white
dust is the eyelashes of lovers who left in the morning
dust is silk from black veils
and dust is dried blood from a little boy's scabbed knee
dust is on the lamps, inside the urns, in our minds
and our veins and our hair
and dust can be written in with fingertips
dust is sand from the beach carried back in fingernails
dust is falling like glitter-rain
dust never stops falling
and we catch it on our tongues like snowflakes
and it lands among our world and encases it all in memories
encases it all in dust

Ship in a Bottle.

i want to be naked
and alive
i want you there
constantly with stories about star-shine
lights in hot bars
why can't you hold me anymore?
i don't need you
inside me
darling, i want it but Mae says
to avoid temptation
unless you can't resist it
and Marilyn says
give a girl the right shoes and she can
conquer the world
you're so heavy
you're like the heartbeat of a baby and i can't sleep
through the pounding
it's inside of me
my belly
my twitching cheekbone
swollen lips from biting and bleeding
i remember you swollen
your fingernails digging blood-clot crescents
into my hips
making me yours
lifting my skirt while you shook
never avoiding the temptation
until now when you're leaving
turning your broad back
slinking off into the snowy sunset
taking your dark skin (i've memorized every mark of it)
and turning into dust
and you still laugh but i don't
you're happy and you're drinking
and i sank so low
far below to the bottom of the bottle
stuck in the cracks between the little wooden ship
and the pink sand i collected
at old orchard beach
the sails are torn but i'm grasping to planks
splinters make salty homes in my tongue
and i'm holding on through this
wash of whiskey and windy waters
will you hold my body if you find me
below the grain
in a grave where the fishes sleep?

I do not miss you.

Last night it was almost midnight when I realized I had never given myself the pleasure of missing you.
I had warned you months ago, about my superhuman ability to let my heart beat just to keep me alive, not to love.  I could let you go at any moment and pretend you had never been inside me, never fucked me, never loved me, never said my name in that way you said my name.  I slammed the car door and I cried and I never looked back to watch your tail lights fade off even though it was snowing and the scene would have been eerily beautiful, heartbreaking, the kind of thing a writer like me would give her life for.  It was just you leaving.  And it was just my radio and the snow outside and the blurred vision not from tears, but the dirty windshield.

We never spoke again, save for the two emails you sent.  The first one ignored, the second one answered with a simple 'thank you' for eternal fear of seeming rude.

I hid you on all of the prying social networks, took down your pictures from my walls.  I still participate in casual conversation as if my heart had never been shattered, even when they bring up your name, a name that could not ever be mistaken for another person's name.  You no longer exist.

And then, last night, at midnight as I said, I lay awake realizing that I had to miss you, if only for the length of a shampoo commercial.  I waited until the commercial began and I muted the volume on the TV set.  I breathed in sharp, needed a cigarette right then, and I closed my eyes and I tried to miss you.

I tried to feel your skin against my skin.  I tried to see your eyes, dark and looking at me, through me.  I tried to hear your voice, heavy and maybe a little drunk because that is how I remember you most.  I tried to miss you, plainly and simply but I could not do it.


I slept then, with the TV still muted, the colors and brightness pressing pictures into the back of my eyelids like dried flowers, and I dreamed of you instead.  I do not remember the dream, but I do remember waking up when the sun first began to rise and still, I did not miss you.

Glass Globe (Good Girl)

you called me your good girl
in heels
dresses
shaved legs and perfume like lilies
lavender hair
crystal tear drops, rain drops, lemon drops
hanging heavy from my ears
gum drops
sugary lips
cigarette breath with listerine
your good girl in black
in red
in glitter skin, twisted bows
wild hair, wild heart
heavy heavy wild breathing
your bad girl in blue
disco ball dancing
circles around you
shots of whiskey
lime from your lips
spinning on a string
from your fingertips
i'm a glass globe
wind me up and watch me twirl
down, down, down
on
you drop me and i shatter

Remember?

These are some of the lines I liked best from a writing exercise we did in our Writing Group last year.



I remember drinking chicken soup in my grandmother's kitchen  while they took him out the back door.

I remember the way you said my name the first time we met.

I remember my first drink and 7 years later I remember nothing.

I remember watching the fireworks explode over the pond while she cried at home.

I remember finding my drugstore reading glasses under her bed and sneaking out.

I remember dancing with her by the bathroom of the nightclub.  She doesn't remember, though.

I remember asking him to 'repeat that in spanish'.  I wish it sounded as beautiful when I said it back.

I remember waking up that morning and not remembering.

I remember the way the bear-skin rug felt under my feet and being too ashamed to admit wanting to sleep on it.

I remember sneaking to the bathroom after church on ash-wednesday and scrubbing my forehead.

I remember bleeding.

I remember giving birth to triplet girls in a dream.  They were his.

I remember meeting a boy named Ian at a hotel in Providence.  He told me I saved his life.

Poems.

imagine all of the lines
that just don't fit into poems
they die on computer screens
and in minds
blackberry messages
love letters that never make it to the lover
they sit quietly in facebook statuses
and in cookbooks
or fade off into the headboards in motel rooms
whispered into dark skin on top of sweat-jewels
there are poems in every breath
shhh, listen closely
the rhythm you hear
in the padded steps of the tabby cat
will radio-rock our babies to sleep
and the beating, banging, bumping pulse in your neck
the tick-tick tocking of the clock
the squeal of tires
hissing teapots,
carrots boiling for soup on top of the stove
will have us dancing under glittered ceilings
in underground dance halls
where the poems never die

Letters and Emails.

My tea is too hot and the letter I got in the mail, the one from the state, is peeking crawling scratching its way out of the draw I tucked it away into.  There was no rain today.  The ink didn't run.  I cannot pretend I didn't read the words I read.
I printed emails at the office today from boys who just want to fuck me saying 'you're doing a hell of a job' and 'i hope you'll stick around' and I responded in that professional tone I have, the one with the slight laugh, the batting eyes the straight spine, no frown, all teeth.  I tucked them into metal drawers and I left and the wind outside was biting through my skin, breaking my bones.

My tea may have cooled down by now.

How many calories are in Toothpaste?

I have to wash my face with three different chemicals before it feels clean and
I remember a poet-girl in college whose ribs you could count through her tee-shirt
and the poem she wrote asking
'how many calories are in toothpaste?'

I think about it every day.

So Long Self-Published Love

i burnt all of the poetry i had written about you
it was going to be a book
with photographs and pressed flowers
and a dedications page with your name
the title was a floral play
on your name, too
now there are ashes in my hair
and i hate wasting paper
and that is why i'm crying so don't think it's you
i wish i could smoke in the fumes
and breathe out all of the words i shouldn't have written
i shouldn't have written them
i shouldn't have written lines like
oh baby, your body is soft skin, soft lips, soft hair
and i feel silly like a girl in the rain
smoking her last cigarette
but they're gone now
and you're gone now
and we're both in separate worlds pretending
that we're the one who isn't speaking
to the other
oh baby, your body is hardened heart and flawed skin
and all of those times i said 'i love you'
i lied
or maybe i didn't
but now i guess you'll never know

Tired Fox

tired fox

I drew this for you.

Sex.

I try to pretend that I am the things hanging on my walls.
The postcards and the pictures and the drawings and the painting of birds without eyes.
Really though, I am the tequila bottles hidden under the bed, the perfume on my pulse points, too much caffeine in my  blood and hip-hop songs.  I laugh too loud.
My back hurts from the cold and I love pop music.  I don't dance naked as much as I should.
I am fluorescent lighting cat-eyes - daytime hustler looking at the boys in their button down shirts and trying to see through to their chest bones. 
It's all about the money and the after-hours beer spots.  Sports on TV, always something.
Fit in, fit in, fit in.  How well would he fit into me?

hungry.

i am surrounded by sheets of ice.

i am trying to write but it isn't often i can indulge in too much coffee and daytime tv.

i am worrying about court dates and falling icicles and losing the love of my life to a warmer state.  i am worrying about the growling in my belly.  i'm alone and there is pasta in the pantry and i could lace it through hot dog bits and call it art and i could brave the snow and rain and bitter wind and trade my slippers for sneakers and go find tacos in lowell.  i'm hungry but all things, when ignored, will eventually go away.  that's what i've heard.  is there truth to that?

ice.

my fingers are raw, red, cold, sore.
i stood outside smoking cigarettes.  it's still snowing just a bit.  there's another storm moving in tonight.  work has been called off for tomorrow.  i'll sleep.
but when i was standing outside and my skin was breaking, i was watching icicles hanging over the doorway.
i wanted to catch that exact moment when the droplets of water dripping from the ends would freeze over.  they have to freeze just like that, right there, in some moment, but does anyone ever see it?  does anyone capture that one second in time when the spears of ice become just a bit longer, more deadly?
i wanted to wait, but the tea on the stove top was boiling, whistling.
i wonder if i walked away just before it happened.  maybe if i had held out, i would have seen it.  the water could have used to be hotter, anyway.
i think i tend to walk away just before beautiful things take shape too often.
it's just that there's always something warmer waiting behind the door.

february.

lose 10 pounds
new tattoo
hold his hand
brighter hair

Remember paper?

too tired to write poems, take pictures, be creative at all.  i work and i sleep and i update facebook statuses.  i tweet.  i feel sorry for smoking so much, for swearing when there are children around.  too many carbs.  too much sugar.  i should buy pears and peaches and cut them into stars and squeeze lime juice over them.  i hope for tomorrow to be a snow day.  i need to write and edit and throw pieces away, and by throw them away i mean press delete and let them sit in my recycling bin for years and feel safe knowing they'll never really be gone.  remember paper?

Missing July.

1. iced tea with vodka, unsweetened in a mason jar.  make sure to take slow sips.
2. rummage sale typewriters with dried out ribbons.  when you change it you'll have black-ink fingertips.

Better.

he said 'things can't get any better'
but i mention fruit dipped in sugar
music through headphones
a kiss as the sun sets
a drop of vanilla in your coffee
things can always get better
love can always get better
pain, too

Free Wi-Fi

Saturday morning at 1 in the afternoon.  There are painted tabletops with Lady GaGa and animated eyes and poetry and I remember accidentally meeting the artist in his studio on a Sunday when I was wandering the Mill Studios without permission.  He was spray painting a tarp on the wall.
Kanye West is playing and I have a chai latte and a ham and cheese sandwich and a bag of chips and the book that Eric gave me called "Cowboys are My Weakness by Pam Houston.
The photographer I met at a party is here, or just leaving now.  He always drinks his coffee black and asks what I'm reading.  We chat about the things people chat about in the winter in New England.  My tires are awful and it's too cold.  "Did you know it's going to be 10 below 0 tomorrow night?"

Jealousy: An Image

 

A wonderfully talented blogger and film maker created this image using my poem Jealousy.

Check out Steve's Blog here.

Easy.

I am an easy person
to lie to
and I am a hard person
to stay around because I'm always drunk
on love and buying lillies and roses just because
it's Sunday.

I haven't been out of bed today.
He hasn't said a word.  Not even a lie.

Everyone is writing poems about blackbirds

The blackbirds are all dying and the fish too she said
I said yes but was thinking of how many people
must have used that in poems by now and
immediately began mapping my own
It's a sign that god is pissed off.  God isn't really a god,
it's just mother nature, and mother nature is pissed the fuck off she said
She said, I cry sometimes because there is nothing I can do.
Nothing.
Everything is all money and sex.  Money and sex are wonderful, I said.
She has grey hairs at the crown of her head and she's looking
right at me.
Too young.
I go home and put on my shortest shorts,
the black ones with the strings and
I think I finally like my legs because he likes my legs
He tells me all the time
and he grunts when he touches them
even when I haven't shaved them smooth and they only smell
like bar soap - nothing like purple-berry-blossom.
The blackbirds
with the tips of their wings painted
red and orange
laid out in rows in field in parts of the country
we have never visited (and now probably never will)
are beautiful, mosaic
crisp colored winged windows in churches
where god is God and
Mother Nature has to be
taken care of
controlled.  And money and sex and my black shorts with the strings
are controlled and boys can't touch themselves
for fear of being struck dumb
or blind
or down in the field with the
blackbirds