The air is crisp.
Crisp, that is the word my dad used to describe Gwen's voice after the No Doubt concert. I was eight then.

Crisp, the word I thought of, when I was flicking that brown lighter I thought it would be funny to buy, sitting on the stoop. Striking the wheel, careful not to hit the little red button. The air swept against the sunglasses I paid too much for with the lenses that are mismatched and the sweater my mom bought me two christmases ago that originally I hated.

Falling leaves drift by those little windows to my soul but I am too distracted by the thought of him coming to pick me up to try to attach them back to the tree. Too bad too, because with every leaf detached, comes winter further on my face.

Thats when the crystals fall from my dreams, and cover the once adobe hills in spells of skyscrapers. Those are the guys who form tools out of my can of hairspray and chip at the ozone trying to scrape off the blue, and see what all that paint is covering. Icarus is horrified.

When I grew up my mom would cut coupons and scrounge for change in the sofa to buy me a chicken nugget happy meal McDonalds. She would cut coupons and would only buy nectarines if they were on sale. I grew up eating bologna sandwiches with kraft cheese slices and potato chips.

I think your mom had different priorities.

The man at Starbucks, told me that opposites attract and I think that is why were together. He told me a Intuitive Innovative Feeler. Does that mean that you are oblivious and emotionless ***? I don't think so?

Lately I have been whining a lot. Whining about where we live, what we do, what we don't do, how you act, how you don't act, about how your mom wants us to water the brussels sprouts that no one likes and clean the toilets no one uses.

Sometimes I say things to hurt your feelings. Sometimes I mean it. I word them so that they are as hurtful as can be and you never react. Is it bad to want to make you cry? You test my sanity everyday, you break me every day, and here I am still trying to chip away at the facade, the make up you cover up with.

I think living in the mountains has taught me about all the things that I don't want to be. I don't want to be cut off, I don't want to be nice, I don't want to be liberal, I don't want to be conservative, I don't want to see the same people everyday, and I definitely don't want to spend eleven dollars on heirloom tomatoes.

it’s like the fires that have ravaged this breathless land,
refusing to relent, and the parched clouds that fall
against the rolling adobe hills. it’s like the fire
of red and orange ombré spilling into the abiquiu,
a halo of lush greenery rushing toward the water.
like yesterday’s wind, my breathing is shallow and dry,
choking on the depth of your hazy breath that curls
from the corner of your lips. i drove on heat waves
for miles as i watched fires crawl into the mountains,
down into the skeletal rivers that are nothing but stony
memories. the earth is bony, long fingers of dead streams
crushed in the grasp of 115 degrees. this morning, i lay
gasping in your arms, remembering the temptation
of your breath as we sat in the moon’s silent ebb. the fires,
they will burn more until there is nothing left but the naked
and raw land, and then the rains will come again and wash
the ash and the mud away. but with you, i will never call
for a raindance, knowing the only way i will burn is when you
are filling me with fire.

he says:
I want to hear the sun..
on me


1.
cover the width of a personal compostela
the yellow-and-black bird
flitting
branch to branch
endless

square patterns of light
half-cut
into shades of green
and slant
oblique


2.
making headway now
companions on the path
passing by
auburn creature with lolling tongue
            looks with such kind eyes
            glittering diamonds
            sun sits on tip of wet nose
he seems to be saying something...
some evanescent message

thoughts are ventilated
tones of silence seep in
wild flowers in amaranthine bloom
sway in nature's perpetual dance
always moving


3.
what happens to arboreal ghosts
when we prove efficiency by cutting the arms of living trees
          and with it
extended family of foliage?

monk passes slow
nods in quiet greeting
a bare half-smile
   enough to reach
   yet just truncated enough

maybe
to prune
is needed /


4.
how many more steps to tread
before *the why becomes clear?

trod so far
sought so wide
read so much
travelled so intense

this journey alone
proves so arduous


5.
alone...

struggled with hidden pain he discovered beneath the layers of happiness....
suffered hunger and thirst along the way....
washed in ***** rivers with no soap....
had to clean his **** with dusty leaves in the eve....
and remembering to eat
what to eat...but berries in the dark

and he cried, oh how he cried
from a place no man should see
such a dark place
demented and wicked souls at the doorstep
of hell
would shrink at

but first
in order to do all that
he had to wrestle with himself
and die inside
he could no longer fail to consent

no wistful little prayers
or wide-eyed flower-eyes

nor awe born in luxury



yet
for all that...


6.
in a little while
you will get what you want
if you give enough people
what they want

pray in secret
in the sun



the boy with the Jesus sandals
walks on

his journey
has
begun....



S T, (thursday:) 4 July 2013

Nana thinks the magazine is the devil.

“THE PEOPLE WHO DREW THE BLESSED ****** MOTHER OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST IN A BIKINI ARE GOING TO HELL.”

Whatever you say, Nana.

When we left my Nana made us tacos and tamales. She gathered all the food in the house to send us off and took all the cash she had and stuffed it in my pocket. She purged the cupboard of all the bananas, plums, nectarines, and apricots and placed them in a bag with two bottled waters a coke, a diet coke and sprite.

She told me that she loved me and that she hated to see me go. That, “I had just gotten there” and that she would “miss me so much.”

Before we left she sent me with a card that was “very important”. It was a picture and a coin embossed with my guardian angel that she bought at the church gift shop.

My nana loves me more than anything else in the world.

My nana still calls you my friend.

I spent my last eleven dollars on a plastic bottle of ***** sitting on the refrigerator.

It is right next to the ibuprofen and the giant salad bowl.

Last night we drank our plastic bottle of ***** in glasses.

The garbage in my room
Smells like embarrassment
It’s the hot Cheetos bag that sits in my desk
It’s the q-tips with earwax
The ideas that float around in my head
And my roommates toenail clippings

The garbage in my room
Clutters the free space
Taking up room that it should not take
The shopping bags and boxes
That held beautiful things
Now empty and cumbersome

The garbage in my room
Takes up my memory
Forgotten blog posts and poems
Fill the hard drive in my brain
Silly thoughts and quips
Only attempt to clear it out

The garbage in my room
Sits in the can
Thinking of ways to grow
Out of proportion
Waiting to spill out onto the floor
And start crawling up the walls

The garbage in my room
Needs to be taken out.

this is inspiration, when you hold
the quiet of your lips against mine
until only the sound of nothingness
fills this space. the echoing of your heart
inside your cavernous body of beauty
filling this world with the sweet serenity
of continuum. along the glossy sides of your
pure skin, illuminated in the sanctuary of moonlight
and stars, i will run my fingers across the expanse
of your back until they come to rest upon your legs.
i will hold you in my soft embrace, reveling in the peace
that you bring me in this tender existing moment
when nothing matters but now.

don’t underestimate my sorrow,
for you do not understand the depths
of this broken body that lies here
in the confinements of not knowing.
i do not want your pity
or your condolences. let me weep in this orchard
where my life has begun to grow, and stagnate.
i feel like this is necessary to lie in the grass
until it wraps its lacy fingers around my neck
and breathes my breath for me. i am volatile
now; i will not bend to your weaknesses.
so please, don’t underestimate what i am
when i walk through those doors to greet you.