Crepes.

Tonight we ate apple filled crepes in the center of the mall food court.  I eat the slowest and push the whipped cream to the side because the sugar stings my teeth, but I lick the caramel from the knife before throwing my plate away.  I'm always choosing my sweetness carefully.
We got our ring fingers sized at the jewelry store because that's what girls are supposed to do, and I chatted with the woman behind the counter because she used to work with my father and thinks I've grown into a beautiful woman.  Her sister died in March and she wants me to remember to tell my father that.  She says it three times.  I have the largest size, the fattest fingers.  The fattest. 

There's an opened bottle of wine in my backseat when I'm driving home so I slow down around the curves.  I smoke three cigarettes and wish I had gone with the salad instead of the crepe.  I tell my father about the sister of the woman and he says "oh".

I have problems with tense in my writing.  I'm always in the moment, and then I'm not.

Carrots.

It has become routine to me to cry and then laugh, to eat and then purge, to sleep and then wake.
I take all things for granted, like the steamed carrots on the stove top, the honey in my tea, the warmness of his palms.
I mean it all in a good kind of way, and then I don't.

Omelet.

It's like when you come home and you want to cook an omelet
and you go to the fridge and take out the eggs.
But halfway through chopping peppers you realize you don't know how to make an omelet.
So you go online for a recipe but you get distracted by pictures of women in evening gowns with feathers in their hair.
And four hours later the eggs have gone bad from sitting on the counter for too long.
It's just like that.

Something About Something.

I want to be someone's something, or write a book and be someone's everything. 
You called me last night and hung up after one ring.  I need to learn to silence my phone when I'm writing.  The Sade song playing made me love you again when I was three verses into a poem about letting you go.  This happens all the time.

You sigh and I feel your breath and I love you.
You blink and your lashes spread and I love you.
You're drunk on the bathroom floor of the bar and I shouldn't be in the men's room and I love you.

I want to be something to someone, or everything to everyone.  Not famous, just not unknown. 
I write these words for you, but you're the only one who doesn't take the time to read them.  Maybe when they're printed and your name is on the dedications page you will stop and read and look at me with that look and pretend you understand.

Incomplete.

When I think about you, it is only in incomplete thoughts and when I write, incomplete sentences.
You are all I want, everything I cannot have.  You sing and I sang.  I think of you at all times and you think of me only when I am not thinking of you.

Things I know.

I don't know too much (mostly due to my adoration of fiction and hatred of the textbook) but I do know some things.


I know that Joan Didion did drugs and had a baby girl while she was writing in California and New York.
I know that we all wake up before we want to.
I know that blind people do not see blackness, they simply see nothingness, which has no color at all.
I know how it feels to burn my tongue on hot coffee.

I know that my legs are pale, but I wear dresses anyway.

I know that she was beautiful and I know that I loved her.  I know that I still do love her.  I know that she is gone now.

I know that I will miss Summer in the Winter and in the Winter I will miss the Summer.  I know I will never dress for the seasons.

I know how to fold paper stars.

I know I love him and he knows I do too because when I kiss him, I do it really slowly.

My Funeral

It's been raining and I've been at wakes and funerals and my friend had her baby and there are problems.
It's been rough and I'm tired and I use the word 'and' too much when I write, so throw out every draft and I start over and think about love and about art, but it doesn't help.

I drink coffee and I smoke and I eat soup without chicken in it.  I sleep all day and take off from work to sleep more.
Drowning.
I watch commercials and the colors are too bright.  I watch films in black and white and the noise is too much.

I don't cry and I ignore my emails. 

Comfort me.

Dollars and Sense.

Even when it is too hot to breathe steadily, I sleep with a heavy blanket over my head.
I spend money I don't have.  The rolled up red yoga mat by the door, the yellow dress hanging on the wall, empty journals, the black Victorian picture frame from the tea house (no picture in it, only the stock photo of an airbrushed blonde), three cans of tomato soup, make up, a box full of Indian tea.

$102.21.  Living "within my means" this week and next.  Two cups of coffee today. $10.

Coffee Dates

It was cold last night and raining and the sky was a mellow mix of yellow and magenta and his car windows kept fogging up.  All of the baristas inside know our names and know our orders and they greet us with smiles.  They're in on the joke and give us nicknames and extra shots of caramel in our lattes.  I eat the whipped cream with my finger and kiss his nose and they watch us.  We eat it up and snack on salty skin for dessert.  Lick lips, repeat. 

We leave and turn the heat on until our blood is boiling up.

I slept for four hours after our coffee date, after our sex.  My neck was sore when I finally woke and it was still raining.

The Sky Was Yellow Tonight