Listen:
I say today is a beautiful day to exist.
You're existing;
you're waiting for the bus in the heart of San Fransisco.
You're painting a landscape of Penn Valley.
You're selling hashish in Portland.

What a beautiful existence!

I'm washing my sheets,
I'm smoking a cigarette,
I'm reading The Return of the King,
and I'm about to go to work.

Listen:
The cars on the highway are going somewhere.
There are people in those cares who are existing just as gracefully as you and me.
Listen:
They are existing just as harmoniously as you and me.
Listen:
They have no idea what happens to them when they die.


I jumped off a forty foot cliff into the Yuba River a week ago and my last thought before hitting the water was:
'Either I'll live and that will be one hell of a jumping rock or I'll die and be free from ignorance.'

Listen:
I don't want to die, but I'm excited to.
I'm more excited to live and I get to see you tomorrow! I get to hold your tiny hands in mine, a barista and a norcal gardener (if you know what I mean)

Listen:
I love you and I love you and I love you and I didn't lie, I didn't, I told you I'd see you again and here we are two hundred and thirty seven miles away and tomorrow I will see you.

Listen:
Praise automobiles, praise gasoline,
praise hip hop music and praise hashish, I get to see you tomorrow!

Body

Two bodies,
in a bed,
on a quilt in a field,
in the backseat of an '88 Nissan Pathfinder.

Two bodies,
touching,
squeezing,
caressing,
biting.

Blood,
pooling under the skin,
rushing to the brain,
rushing to the genitals,
sticky/hot.

****** candy,
the curve of lips around a lollipop,
the drinking of whiskey from the bottle,
the burning sensation of MDMA insufflation.

Clothes strewn across your mother's kitchen,
ice cubes traced down spines, *******, *******.
Oral *** with ice cubes in the mouth.



Frequent ******* and a sense of unwellbeing, if you'll allow me this one usage of an unword (I can't help myself)

I have love for every living thing on earth,
and this includes you, I'm sure.

You are fickel and flickering,
like the drugs you use,
and I feel so much love from you regardless.

Regardless of how you're feeling,
regardless of what happened to you on this day,
you have me feeling so incredibly loved
and so incredibly loving

My sister is a fantastic writer.
She started writing as a way to cope.
She misses our grandmother's house,
for quite some time that was all she could write about.
She wrote about the looming, gentle, green pines that swayed over the small pond and the way you could gaze at the water and see not only the pines but also sky, just as blue and white and occasionally yellow and orange and you could could see it just as clearly whether you looked down or up.

Now, she writes about God,
or god, (although I don't think she believes in a 'the God')
she writes about the cold mist from the bay that warms up by midday but there are no pine trees.


My grandma became sick.
She became very sick of mind,
although her heart has never failed,
her memory failed her and anxiety overcame her.
She couldn't live out on the ridge anymore.
She couldn't take care of those twelve acres and the horse and the donkey and the dogs and the very small cat named Po that only came down from the attic very rarely and only to eat. She couldn't take care of these things and herself and my mother and she couldn't have laid a bigger hand into molding my sister and me. Through many an ear yank and many a promise of the wooden spatula (a never kept) she forced and graced upon us respect; for the land and living beings like, love, for the land and living beings alike, and a humbleness before the beauty of the land and living things alike.


My grandmother now lives in a gated community. Her condition has stabilized through trial and error using psychoactive drugs. Her understanding is lower and her anxiety is much higher than when she lived on the ridge but the doctors don't want to make things worse with experimentation and my grandmother doesn't want to either.


My sister's words always bleed of the page and I can see the pond and the trees and our tan bodies and the dry red dirt, and I'm thankful she has this affinity. I'm glad she can play scenes from our childhood out as if from a movie.

his heart poured out of his mouth,
oozing and beating it bounced off his guitar and into the crowd.

blood sprayed from every orifice,
it was in our eyes,
it was soaking our shirts,
it made its way into our hearts.

from one heart to another.

love songs fit for a queen and young jewish girl alike, music transcends.

hail slowed us,
and only two were fed before.
but we made it.
we made it through high school,
wet made it through hard times,
and we made it reno.

the love that was given to us from the mouths of trumpets,
love that was sliced open upon a saw,
heart beats that pounded from a drum,
we returned.
we returned to the stage that which was given to us ten fold.
we spewed it from our mouths, we spewed it from every pore on our legs and arms.

we drowned in love,
we drowned in red, gushing love

and we loved it.