My whole life I have been looking West
from the apron of the Wasatch
into the countless spines and valleys
of The Great Basin.
The Big Nothing.
The living room floor of America.
And then on a whim I got in the truck
and I drove the ten hours
across the amber plains of Idaho
and the knolls of Oregon
to the east ***** of the Cascades.

From this side it looks pretty much the same.
The ponderosas suddenly end
and there is this massive, untamed
space.

And while I will grant that most everything here
is both the same
and completely different-
desert (but without cacti)
mountains (all volcanoes)
forests (but sparse and flat)
there is nothing foreign
about the carpet of sagebrush
in the lowlands of the west,
regardless of which edge you are standing on.

For the first time it does not scare me,
the immensity of it,
the emptiness of it,
the quiet of it,
and for the first time I feel I am not looking out
toward the opposite end of it.
For the first time,
it feels like home.

The condensation on cold exhalation
drifts, lifts
to the ceiling
where it collects
droplets drip
drop
plop
on slick soil floor.

I am a bat in a crack
watching the fluorescent reflection
of blue light from outside glint
on lavarock ice
selfsame as the light the cave swallows
dance and titter in.

There is simply too much heat
and light
and noise
out there.
Within the world is stable and cool and
safe. The ceiling is my
shelter.
Give me some crevice to crawl in.
I want to feel the embrace of the earth.
To live in a place that no one can see-

not even me.

The reflection of grey light from the sun above the clouds reveals a greasy film on my arm.
A mess I made.
I can smell my stink and it turns my stomach.
You probably still have grains of my dandruff under your fingernails
despite how much you’ve tried to wash them off by now.

I clenched my fists in the chocolate cake loam trying to cover the smell of me
in something forgiveable. But
it didn’t work, and now the soil reeks
of my wretched sweat.

I picture the rings of Saturn.
Concentric circles in the silent dark.
They are perfect and I am filthy.

I picture the umber canyons just before dawn. I picture
cacti living on cliffsides beneath the infinite stars.
They are perfect. And I
am filthy.
Just by living I am filthy.
Every breath I take carries the noxious odor of me.
Diluting the perfect blue sky.

Purifying fire unmake me. Break the lattice of my flesh. Swallow me up.
Make me clean.

The light is yellow without
  and blue within
as I putter back and forth
around the house trying to
remember the name of the substance
I am craving.
It’s not coming to me.
But it feels like a hole in me
with definite properties-
shape and volume
and weight.

The problem is none of the vices in this tiny apartment
quite match that space
or have the same volume
or weigh enough

so here I am
with the windows open
in my underwear
as the first real black of night falls-

trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

and one day I get tired of walking
so I climb to the top of a very tall ridge
no bigger than the contours on your fingertips
and I jump

The ground spins away from me
and it falls into the distance
I get lost in orbit
around the technicolor island of shiny garbage we’ve all left in space
pincushioned with guidons
it spins out of my field of view

I scream at the stars
tell me why, tell me why
but they’re silent
they’ve always been silent

But even silence is an answer
and I’ve grown to know the voice of the void
without, within
the shape and color of that silence
has hardly ever stopped me from shouting
and somehow it never fails to surprise me when it shouts back

The self-portrait you printed on a rectangular piece of cloth
waving in the wind of the atmosphere of aerosolized liquids we've all sprayed
hairsprays and bug repellents
at the end of a metal pole
I see it
and even though I am too far away to do anything
I call out
and the answer comes in silence

And then it spins out of view
so I close my eyes

The tether of gravity hauls me back down
and I splash in the plastic ocean
the flecks of confetti that used to be styrofoam containers and disposable straws we've all used and disposed
dance in the light amid the baby blue

I sink
faster and faster as the bubbles rush out of my pores
the baby blue turns navy
the red and orange flecks blink out
and then the green
and the rest

The sun drifting farther and farther
even as I watch it go
then the blue goes too
and the cold of space is holding me again
I’m spinning out

The prehistoric things down there giving off their lights
make streaks of ultraviolet beyond my comprehension
they float around me
so alive and so alien
I watch them through my unblinking windows
undulating back and forth from one food source to the next
pushing against the silence down there
swimming stars in the night
they rotate out of my view and away
into the vacuum

And then the void takes me in
why, why I ask in the loudest whisper I can muster
water rushing over my vocal cords
and the answer comes

And I cannot see it
but I can feel the eventual dirt of the bottom rise up
to catch me
it consumes me like an amoeba taking in nutrients
I close my eyes
and I understand.

It's 11:57 PM
on a thursday.
I just rolled out of bed
and took a few hits off a roach I had
lying around.
What city lights there are outside are centered in the one block
around my window.
It was supposed to snow
but it's just gray
and damp outside.
Nothing moves but a column of steam from a mill(?)
a few blocks south/southwest.
Rising inbetween blue and yellow streetlights.
Water billowing up from who knows what body of water
and freezing again on the frigid air.
As if it were feeding the oppressive mist
over everything.
As though the sky were drinking from the Bear River
and sitting, fat and content
on top of us all.
Not snowing,
just icy and motionless
and gray.

I opened the window just now
The metronome of the leaky bathtub
dip
dop
in the next room
Disembodied evidence
of a world outside.
I reset the margins on this old typer
The sputter of the leaky radiator
as familiar as the cars on the street
as the 6 am garbage trucks-
the cacophony of morning,
the wheel of time.
Keep your past lives.
I know nothing about
the world outside my skull
save the leaky bathtub.

But I know those trucks-
and they are older than me,
older than death,
older than the garbage they carry.

I hear them every morning
but they have never heard me.

Tell Shiva to stop dancing.
I'm trying to get some rest.