painting again

an excerpt from a letter from a dear friend:

"i deleted everything new in my inbox
because i wanted to forget the now
i wanted to remember how to forget the yesterday
and then i saw [your old letters].

and i [quietly] opened them.

how have i forgotten questionmark.
rinse repeat.

how have i run so fast that i didnt let my
old love, new ideas, details, loud thumping thoughts
catch up with me?"

I can't do that anymore. Words used to just do it by themselves; now they won't and i can't force them.

but i still like these:

21 October 2005

maybe
somewhere
she learned how to live

and i am just the new student
a pupil of love
of loving people
because they exist.
and needing no better persuasion.

so i'm off-route, out of context
and blowing proportions to smithereens

i'm wasting time on stress
when we could be lovers
..but not the way we are
when i sleep

lovers of being alive

i think
the word
for that is
"friends"

17 November 2005

a quiet call to repentance, and then a storm blows in.

i'm silently digesting large archaic words so small, print in four columns with forgotten research below, i'm falling asleep in the back row with my head in my lap, as the speaker tells secrets i needed to hear. the storm brings a whole november's worth of frigid airs. i'm standing on rooftops and the wind and the sun are eating away at my face, i'm [re]defining two-faced. i wasn't sleeping, i'm not tired, i'm always this aware and that's the sad thing. the print must be getting bigger, or i'm skipping pages, somehow this thread is slipping away, maybe i'm just blessed. do you realize?? i'm so blessed, swaying in quarter-time to whole note chords and a pair of voices, the wall of sound has been stripped away only to become more of a barrier. snow soaks the windshield, oh how this belies our speed. i switch the lights off as i enter the room, at the bottom of the stairs i change my mind. water fills the concrete handprint in my driveway, the tiny words are telling a story again, and the whispers...

always the whispers.

the alarm clock is trying to kill me, these things aren't related but this way they make more sense. his consciousness assaults mine, i attempt to fake mirth, but it's becoming clearer every second that all of them are stuck in the mud and it's still raining. i want to play these chords on the organ in the church, but i have no keys and my fingers are so weak. maybe i can force my way into someone else's mind, after all, they asked for my help. all i need is kick drum quarter notes, that's all and i'll not bother you again. i tried to make my own but yours are real. i'm watching snowflakes become water droplets, and it looks so painful. the alarm reads three and it shouldnt be dark, so i roll over and i ignore what i committed to, counterintuitively this doesnt save me from inertia, i'm here, like you asked me and i'm positive you want me to leave. just tell me to leave, i'll go, happy to have something to be sad about. she's coming and i'm so afraid. i've almost made it to the part where i wish i'd never climbed the mountain, then i wouldnt feel so trapped in the valley. the water's so cold, but its blue like the tacky rugs in my bathroom. night after night the words tangle and i go back, read them again, somehow i'm moving, but i don't understand how. i never feel like one foot finds its way ahead of the other, but the scenery's still changing and i'm not sure where i am in short,

this week has been a blur.

also.

next time you have a rainy saturday morning to yourself, listen to these 2 albums back to back. they belong to each other.