And here it is!
That big light coming towards me
Dont you see it?
I bet all the people out there on their fire escapes tonight can see it
[My words are starting to taste like caramel again]
Aye, sweet and heavy is the world out there for me right now
But then I start to think about how even magnificently terrifyingly tremendous things are usually built out of a whole lot of small stuff
[There’s your platitude for the evening]
And I guess we’ve all decided to follow the mouse in the room down whatever unimaginably small trap doors he takes us down because there’s really nothing else to do
But then maybe the world will be wide and grand again
Distance is such a curious beast
[No wonder ive always fawned for the sea]
And I can only wish we all find tiny little blessings in the words we each read tonight and every night after this to keep us safe
So I go back to making mountains out of rooftop antennas
I promise, I swear I do
But life doesnt feel the same
Everything feels different again, again
Acidic and foreign, biting tongues
Short showers and haunting hours
Now I’ll have to tuck myself up in bed here real soon
Maybe ill come back to this, too
Maybe ill just fall asleep dead asleep never to be seen again sleep
Maybe tomorrow’s the morning i get back to remembering what i think about in my dreams
You ever have that? Months at a time?
[Now that great light from the sky is shining in the corner of my eye, I need to move outta the way]
And you know they say that the mind and the brain are separate things, and you can use your brain to control your mind to start making your brain think differently for a change
[Maybe its all hocus pocus but even i dont like to joke about it]
And before i know it im right there
Back to wondering if there’s a word stronger than love or something
I dont really know, if im being honest
But look!
Its a miraculously large thing, impossibly made of so many wondrous small things
[Second one’s free]
But there’s got to be a magic to certain things we say
Because there is absolute magic in what never makes it to our teeth
And I used to think the story of my life would be told passing through but lately i just don’t want to think about this character in myself at all anymore and i couldn’t tell you what I’m going to do
[But all im doing is just digging through all my little scraps of words, old pretty delicate precious things, asking if I cannot be what I wish I would have been, am I still able to be what I wish to become? Even though they both sound like the same thing to me.]
I’m brushing my teeth now, the water heats up, I just want to melt
[Its only tepid, half-hearted, unenthused]
But before I go, I look down at myself and see my face staring up at the water and i think im starting to feel little flash-forwards of life again, little manifestations of a supernatural kind
And then I see myself sitting on the edge of my busted blowup mattress, back in Brooklyn, scared to scrap a page, honest to god thinking dreaming hoping begging he had something to say
But its a privilege to believe that sometimes i still do
And its magic to wonder who else out there might just be thinking what im thinking, too
Mar 21
Mar 21, 2026 at 12:31 PM UTC
Im just shaking around my room like im in my own little globe
Ive actually never seen this place with so much snow!
My face is held up high in the white
Its like im looking through a window of my life
And all I can see inside are a bunch of great big beautiful ghostlike magic trees catching all the snow in New York City
[But even they cant hold it all and shutter and shimmy every once in a while, dropping what they can to the ground and cars parked underneath, and I think that’s a nice little thing to keep in mind]
A snowblower coughs ptoof-ptoof-gungk-gungk-gungk and comes alive and Im just hanging my head out of my window try to look like a sunflower but I’m still way out of season
[My hands dont know what to do with themselves yet, its too late to reach out but too early to beg]
So Im just listening to sounds of shovels and sleds
Its the type of day to go outside and throw snowballs with your best friend or to get lost looking at old slide film in Brooklyn
Ones with the mountains and the trains and the never to be seen again
But i havent thought for myself yet this morning
[Now I think that ill buy a pizza for dinner]
Then I sit back and spend the day wondering what the world would look like without mirrors and how to see yourself in other eyes
And I believe again that the song of our days is played tight on the strings we thread out into our world, the strings we twist and wrap and choke around our heads and arms and eyes and breast and feet and waist, the chords of every decision we do or do not make, until we [yes, you] become spools of thread, and we unravel ourselves right back where we were going from where we’ve always been
[But I should really just relax, its a short day for a long night]
My eyes finally open to colorless light
I roll on my side again and my shoulders and collarbone bunks and thunks into place, I wring out my fingers
The church van down in the exhibit below is backing up now, trying to park or to get the hell the out
[My head swells like daylight]
And my alarm does me no favors so I throw that **** thing away and crumble around a mountain of pillows and bedding and scents and im all bent and spent in every way imaginable
All the sound in the world is in my room
[But my days are quiet now]
And the loudest thing is my own voice and I know ive got absolutely nothing good to say to I just start thinking about that heart-shaped shelf on the street, the same one my parents had when I was a kid
I should have taken it from the snow, see what it would hold
And someone’s whiteboard sticking from the garbage, to-do lists and “spiritual” affirmations [this column had yet to be filled-in]
But many, many birds are still chirping right here now
I have to come back to me
[Im in same place ive been]
Sorry im just stuck in my time machine then I declare that I need to see something new today
Just like those kids who ran passed me screaming about strawberry elephants and nothingspeak
[Maybe i’ll finally give into fantasy]
I see the woman spinning in place the entire time on the moving subway [she might be an alien or a time traveler, too]
And there's the woman drumming her fist up and down against her heart up, *** *** *** smiling like she just got the best news
And there's two men in the other car playing real drums, real big bongo-i-guess drums, going *** *** *** ooh!
But Im still inside that snow globe of my mind or my room [im really so cold now but I can’t bring myself to close my window] and Im getting shaken all around but this time all i can wonder about is what it must be like to brush up against another version of life
So I warm up, promising myself that ill say hi to a stranger today
And those strings start untangling and they start bouncing and BUZZZZZING and I have no clue what im listening to anymore and my ears are folded and creased and my eyes are stuck shut and Im even less sure of the song that im playing with the hands that still dont know what to do with themselves
Then I start smiling like I mean it
[And I remember not to forget just how strange it is to be here]
Feb 24
Feb 24, 2026 at 10:30 PM UTC
I stick my head out of my bedroom window
[Everybody should stick their head out the window from time to time]
The wet air kisses me awake, ive been sweating all night
Starting my day with cinnamon sounds nice
Ill make myself my silly little meal again, too
Ya know sometimes I swear I’ve just got to be an alien
Or some sort of time traveler who doesn’t know where he’s coming from or where he’s going
[Man my hands can get so cold]
This is what its like to be a *** but I am blessed with no dharma
[the earth rumbles]
[BUZZZZZZZ]
“After careful review…”
“We appreciate your time and effort…”
[Oh I appreciate you, too, **** you]
But its nothing personal
And all of this absolutely all of this has got to be coming from somewhere else because none of it feels too good to be true
Then I put my hand over my own heart and tell myself that everything is going to be ok and I don’t believe myself but I do
[Now I just roll around bed like a dog]
[And if you could turn up the volume just a bit more, i don’t want to hear the rest of this]
There are so many horns roaring
You can hear the sogginess of the pavement
And the behinds of my ears are tight and somewhere in the back left side of my brain I feel a pull or a tug like a tap on the shoulder
And I keep hearing ive been meaner lately, Ill chat with the Moon about that
But lost things have a clever way of finding their way back
And maybe we all get one great big change in life
And maybe this is mine
[But really, who am I to be giving any sort of advice?]
And why can’t our brains just be big antennas receiving something from some greater version of us?
I swear I’m connected to some higher collection of thoughts and learnings and universal truths right now, yet I know nothing that is to happen or that has come and gone, im just sitting watching trying to grab little bits of life rolling passed me, rolling along
[I told you, alien]
And a great voice laughs from the sidewalk below, "HA HA HA!"
[Someone really laughed, and it really sounded like that]
I finally feel my face unscrunch from yesterday
We’re always just somebody else in disguise
And would you look at that, a couple of seagulls are circling overhead!
[I smile and wave a proper good morning]
The sky is sunless, its blueish-purple-gray all-day
But i’m just thinking about roadside cherry pie and spending quarters on the freshest apples of your life
And did you see there are actually a handful of leaves still stuck on that tree, the one right below me, they’re agitated by the wind
[I start shaking like them]
But what if it all doesnt go to plan?
Well then it’s gotta be alright to lose your mind sometimes
This is learning how to be a person again
[There are so many birds singing right now, it doesn’t sound real]
And though I have yet to bloom
Maybe spring really is on its way
Feb 20
Feb 20, 2026 at 8:46 PM UTC
400 degrees for 12-15 minutes
New recipe, same chocolate chip, third times-a charm
It’s 9 a.m.
Ive showered and my eyes are half-closed
Coffee is cooling, tried a new roast, its just alright
I sink into my couch, the dark shimmery green one I picked out
I’m keeping myself warm, now the cookies cool
Im excited to wear something nice today
I get up to smell my favorite cologne, and then I sit back down
My mouth hasn’t opened yet, probably for the better
I scrunch my face and think of mountains and the ocean
Of the air that is the shade of my favorite sweatshirt
[I would wear that everyday, I swear, I want a second one]
It makes me sad to miss such beautiful things
But to love something means to be OK without it even when youre not
Now I vacuum and mop the floors just for me, I even get behind my desk and under the nightstand that isn’t used anymore
But the cookies are great, nothing special but pretty good
And Ive got breakfast warming now, chicken broth, with the pierogi that I taught myself how to make
Isnt it strange, taking care of ourselves?
I raise the volume on Fleabag:
“Don’t make me an optimist, you’ll ruin my life!”
I smirk and scribble it down
How can we love our people as much as we love our places?
Then the breeze knocks at my window
Its damp, savory, distinctly fresh and unclean, the beautiful ******* child of delis and exhaust pipes and garbage trucks and trucks that collect spent oil and the flower stalls and the chicharron sellers and the perfume of people who have done their grocery shopping already and the sharp blueness of detergent from the swinging doors of laundromats and the occasional dog walkers and the horns that make the sky scream at all hours and the people just wandering around who’ve been out all night and the muck of snow that's been on every corner for two weeks and the cars rolling up and down Broadway and the empty trees lining West 150th street and someone’s cigarette smoke, man I wish I smoked for mornings like these
I breathe deeply
I guess we make our own holidays
And I wonder if I’ll have to be OK without all this one day, too
Feb 17
Feb 17, 2026 at 6:15 PM UTC
I finally organized all my notebooks on my shelf so I might as well write something down
My head is tangled and I cant wait for spring
[“You have hair for two people!” - My barber, Tanya, she’ll be happy to see me]
[I grunt and grumble when I check the time]
I wish I could wrap my face around the end of the world
I want those 15 minutes each day that I get when I cant tell you who I am or was or is or where im going or where ive been
And I just want to take a great big eraser and wipe off my face so ive got nothing to look at until I want to sketch it all back
[My eyes melt down down until I stop them, I swear it feels like this really happens]
And I wish I could paint, this must have been what Picasso felt like when he made “The Blind Man’s Meal”
So I take out that jumbo-sized sketching pad and make a bad self-portrait, its all dark dark lines and circles and pointed things
Look at the faces I can make!
[the earth rumbles]
[BUZZZZZZ]
Its just another “after careful consideration…”
I feel like my body needs to be steamrolled in every direction
[I am stretched now, canvas, the longest ive ever been]
All of my apartment windows are open
Soon-to-be-snowing air kisses my toes and under my soles
And I think about the Market at 7 a.m., just being excited to see it all happening with my own eyes, even half asleep, from the corner window on Pike Street
[I’ve always been a fool for an early morning so maybe today is my body’s way of making it up to me, “here’s a little something…”]
We all know that memory has a sneaky way of flashing its teeth
I think about turning the TV on but I dont want to look up yet
Man, my nose is itchy, doesn’t that mean something to some people?
[I then have the thought that I’ll get myself new bedding for spring]
And I know I always say it but I mean it
Youve got to be crazy in life about at least a few things
I lean back now, what’s left of my face aimed to the sky
Where does the world go from here?
[The Sun doesn’t respond]
I am contorted in my towel, wrapped in front of the window
I am not who I was before but I am unchanged
Not yet who I am tomorrow
[I clear my throat twice to make sure my voice still rumbles the same]
I wonder if this will destroy me
I summon it, be gentle
Because Im still just a kid in that way I think
But I feel like Im just dancing at the hand of my own strings
Just please dont let me think about things too much today
It only feels good to stare at it with my eyes closed
And Im scared of forgetting things
But I finally found that little piece I wrote back in Big Sur:
“It’s 4 a.m. in Monterey, the only ones awake are me and the Seagulls. I wonder what special kind of good creature you had to be in a past life to end up here and now as a seagull on the Carmel Coast, tomorrow always so far away.”
Then I wonder what it must be like to feel the future
[Realize what we all are and remember what you can be!]
Feb 16
Feb 16, 2026 at 7:51 PM UTC
[I stop walking to take my earbuds out]
L: “You have great hair!”
D: “What’s that?”
[I heard her fine, I need to stop doing that]
L: “You have great hair!”
D: “Oh, thank you so much! I was going to stop and tell you that your entire outfit made my day!”
[The woman is a lifelong New Yorker, a living breathing rainbow on a bench and the *** of gold at the end of it — head to totebag, all I can remember is a wild fuzzy blue coat and maybe some even wilder yellow flame hair and thick-rimmed glasses that were colorful, too, and god there were so many sequins I almost couldn’t look at her directly, it was really sunny that day. I hope I look that happy when Im older. She holds a long expensive cigarette, its fresh, I suspect Dunhill Reds, man those were good, strong but good]
L: “Oh thank you, I’m quite famous, you know.”
D: “No, who are you?”
L: “Ive got a new show at The Beechman. From New York, You Don’t Get A Divorce.”
D: “Oh, I’ll have to check it out.”
[I actually googled it]
D: “I’m a street photographer and it’s a shame I dont have my camera, or I was actually going to ask to take your portrait.”
L: “The name’s Lou Craft.”
[She extends her non-smoking hand, its an elegant handshake]
D: “Nice to meet you, Lou Craft. I’m Daniel. I had part of a joint a few blocks back, would’ve loved to share it with you instead. Enjoy the rest’ your cigarette.”
L: “Next time!”
[For some reason I feel like there will and wont be a next time]
[The sun is leaving the west side and the soft bright-eyed sky shines with that special orangey-yellowy-pink maybe-something-good-is-just-around-the-corner sorta shade. I play the silly but lovely rat movie soundtrack for a few blocks. Do we all wish something big and wonderful would finally happen to us? When do we all get to be dogs running in the park? I don’t want to know how fast or slow I’m walking now]
[I squeeze through two women who have far too many balloons to be walking on the scaffolding side of the street together, but it makes me smile and giggle all goofy to myself before I even squeeze through. I step around a man crushing peanuts for the pigeons. I swear right now the breeze would push me to pieces]
[Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day and I hope I’ll have an idea]
[Now im thinking about the museum this afternoon, looking around at all those parents and their kids on the ground using their backpacks for pillows looking up at the all-mighty great big blue whale that’s the size of the moon to those kids, the size of the whole world; and their parents’ entire worlds are right there next to them. I wish I could sit and stare at something like that, too]
[And I am what I am once again]
Feb 15
Feb 15, 2026 at 9:11 PM UTC
Well, I just want to feel a little something good tonight, and tomorrow if its not too much trouble, and maybe the day after that, too. Sure there will be some misses, some light-less time, days with shadows too long for pantomime; days that live in heaven and whatever lies behind heaven, and days that live in hell and whatever comes after that, too. [My leftovers are cooling down out there for the millionth time so I cant stay for too long.] But I want the days when my keys don’t turn and the days when I get up and get ready like a normal person and walk to and from work. I expect days when I spray a little too much perfume but that’s OK, I like it, and days when I forget to wear any entirely and I scold myself all day in silence for being so thoughtless. Im sure there will be days when i'll be walking smack dab in the middle of the sun and the shade, days when I feel like I’m just playing a character on this great spinning stage [I think that might be most days, but Im trying to stop being the guy who answers his own questions.] And there will be days when all I can think about is that the only thing I know is that I don’t know much at all, it'll make sure of that, I know. Throw me days when I spend however many hours wondering when everything will stop feeling so far away. And my goodness, my goodness, I want days when I swear I could scrape the stars just to dance in the dust of whatever comes falling down over me. And I want days when Ive got the sun in my pocket, in my chest and on my lips and in my thighs and in my toes, spilling from my hair and my teeth and my eyes [and somewhere deep in the dark under my eyes] and tickling somewhere in my spine [need to work on that one in particular] and shocking me at my fingertips [even though Ive never really liked my hands for some reason].
I'll take the days when it makes me believe I can sing so I squawk and scream while hopping around my apartment on one leg just to entertain myself. And I know that there will be days when I dont dream. [I wonder if I'll sleep much, either.] Those will usually be the days when I'll question everything [please, let me still question ******* everything]. And one day it'll show me someone that is going to teach me that I can grow like sunflowers, that I am sunflowers, that I am moonflowers and starflowers and it will mean everything to me, so I will listen to her. [And I'll promise not to pick the wildflowers, she'll be kind enough to teach me that, too]. And the days will come when the moon takes longer to show its face, its sinister spotlight face, and you'll have me spending the night running off far away to someplace that isn’t quite tomorrow and isn’t quite yesterday [and somehow its not today, either, if that makes sense.] And I'll chase that moon and I will chase that sun with the same naked dogged ferocity necessary to make my own mistakes and to learn from them, too. And there will be days when I am delivered so close to magic that I nearly divinize but I wont; I wont touch it or feel it or taste it or hear it or see it or smell it or think it even exists at all. [But it does, even when it doesnt]. And it'll have me twisting my wrist just to turn on my bedroom light. But some nights [hopefully not as many nights] I'll still have wine and something sweet to fill my lungs with, something sweeter than air could ever be because there there will be days when I become airless, weightless, and days when ill be convinced that I am the ugliest most monstrous thing in the world. [Now ive got Sleepless in Seattle on in the background so ive got to wrap things up.] And there will be days when my world is destoryed and days when it lets me build one from scratch out of something that simply oughta has-to must-be magic [I promise not to say I told you so.]
But I dont have to know any of this yet [neither do you.] Sometimes I just want to remember cute little somethings and nothings from what I bet are previous trips passing through this or that or some other place. So give me days when I drown in streams and seas and peaks, days that have me tumbling in the dirt and soil and rubbing their feet. Give me days that I follow the wind but let me fall in love with what follows it. Give me the days when I'll sit in the light, just not too much, and I hope it wont let me steal the light from others, even if I dont mean to. And there will be days that let me sneak under purple-blue-gray storms just to climb a mountain and when I get down I'll have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the trunk of the rental just waiting, and maybe, just maybe, if I do all of this and more [and none of this at all] I may finally become that mountain so I can see all the world at once. [And please, just let me remember that the world around me is also the world that lives inside of me so if I ever get lost, I'm not.]
Feb 12
Feb 12, 2026 at 9:11 PM UTC
Isn’t it strange
We’re ALL
Howling
Wooh-Wooh-ing!
At bricks and screens and lighted things
Louder!
More, more!
Please!
**** these cookies are good, my teeth are sticky, you have food at home, thanks to the sweet elderly woman named Heidi]
God I wish I was less and more than I am
But I know I couldn’t be everyone else
Even though Id like to be
So I clap, clap along
[I havent scraped at stars in so long]
So I text my Pacific friends the good news
**** I want to howl again
[The bar-back steps into the trash to crush it, we’re all swirling our glasses to Benito, this is the most beautiful People in America]
And congratulations!
That made my heart happy just a little bit
So just keep looking! [For what?]
And the bartender keeps telling me how sad I look
Well that’s just my face these days, I spit
[Yes and no, but I should take myself home]
So I wink and in a blink I take myself home
Where the hell was I going?
And really, why am I here?
I didnt wish for any of this over candles
[I blew it, literally]
Then I step over a hole in the sidwealk that looks to be the size of me
Then there are all these strawberries smeared across the street
Then I don’t really know how to fit into my footsteps anymore
**** knows im sick of running from behind]
But they keep yanking me in the usual directions
I’m far away, but close as I’ve ever been
Even though all last year I havent seen what’s in front of me
But I think the night always wants it this way
And whatever is left inside of me is now beyond reach
And it exists nowhere and Im sending it off to be some weird ugly terrible no good what the hell were you thinking sorta thing
But Im back here just for a flash
Syllables and sounds belonging to you and belonging to me
[Id be rich if I could only buy the place on Commerce street]
Now I’m just clomping around, my toes kicking through and smooshing ***** snow around, digging up and burying down all the sounds i used to listen for
My little self-mythology, I used to dream of words like these
[Can’t you hear them, from ear to ear?]
Maybe we don’t get what we want
Maybe we don’t get what we need
Maybe we get what we get
Maybe that’s the end of it
Maybe this is who I am for a while
Maybe that’s alright with you but its not alright with me
Wanting what we don’t have is the most human thing!
[I can’t be the only one who always feels like this]
But it’s everything, everything
Again, again
So I keep taking myself home
And I shake myself down in the shower,
screaming and swaying to Geese
Washing that scent all over me
Keeping the last of it under my nails
And I thought I was pretty good at knowing
when things are going to end
But my mirror tells me that I only see that which I do not know
[But man, Ive got great hair]
And now its the morning and the first thought I think is that I hope I get those 15 good minutes today, please, please, please
[Yesterday didn’t feel real]
And how old do you have to be just to feel a little like a kid again?
Maybe odd years are better for it
But I havent been this scared since 27
And I know who I wont hear from today
But please, please
Let me come out of this looking stranger on some other side
Of nothing resembling something
[I am airless now, water doesnt even want me]
Let me howl and honk: “…and I will break my own heart from now on”
Turn me into a thousand million little crumbs to sprinkle into your eyes
[So thou mayest see the dark in the light]
But it just smears like candle ash
And Im just sitting on the couch, dark like the TV, dark as all things
I must be learning all the lessons of someone who has been here already
**** Im sick of myself]
But maybe in whatever mirror-life im in, I’ll be lucky enough to start listening to me again
[There are orangey-pink striped clouds in the sky]
But for now, today, I have nothing to do, just like everyday
Maybe I’ll get some sleep tonight, tomorrow
But I just want something to do
So how about I teach myself something I should know?
Like how guilt is a god
And how shame sings the song of memory
Like how lovely I am
And how lovely I ought to be
Feb 10
Feb 10, 2026 at 5:55 PM UTC
I want to tell the Moon the good news
But its nothing
So what should I whisper instead?
And what do i want to hear back?
Well I guess let me just hang my head out my window again
I light a little fire to my magic offering
That will bring me magic answers, and ask
Can you ever know if the people you think about
are thinking about you, too?
And the night swells with wonder
Dazzling, dreamy
And my neck is glowing, rays of gold
And I wonder if this is how my mother always wanted to feel
Now the night is the scariest of blues
I smell it I swear
I would sip its ink
If that only meant something good
Could finally come out to play from behind my teeth
But I dont know how to do this
Even the bags under my bags have eyes
So I’m just slumped across my bed staring at screens
Drooling out little nothings
Something uncomfortable and compulsive like prayer
And now im trying to start a fight with my bathroom mirror
I say that I just want things to be different
And I dont want to do this all again
But then a syndrome sound comes out of the furthest room
Telling me its all the same
And I say to that something that it can just send me the bill
Because I know what I’ll owe by the end of this
I am the charmer, the snake
I am dying leaves, the rake
Trying to see the world rest and rise
And to split myself in two or three or four or more
My mother told me to hope that way
So I go back to hanging out my window again
And I go back and make sure the Moon heard me now
So I ask again
I flash my black, syrupy eyes one more time
[They always drown by this time of night]
Can we ever know if the people we think about
Are thinking about us, too?
And the Moon, she’ll giggle with terror
Begging me to behave
And the Moon is dark now
And I hear thunder in my ears again
And I wonder where its coming from, where its been
And I look around just trying to remember where I was
And I start to think that all of this makes this all alright
And I start to think that
I dont think ive ever known what I wanted to be
And if I could ask just one more little thing
Pretty, pretty please!
Do we exist when we are alone?
Then the Moon screams, lighting up, shining down
[And im quite literally shaking in my seat, like im molting]
Does everyone always talk to you like this?
Then She winks at me, its some kind of love
And I stop trying to figure it out
Feb 7
Feb 7, 2026 at 10:03 AM UTC