naked were we,
naked in the water, in the moonlight, in our minds.
stuck together, so far apart.
drifting, we are drifting, we are sailing,
human bodies, sails,
floating, reaching, preaching, screeching.
morning souls,
flailing, wailing, ailing.

i wish we were magnets, so id never be lost outside of you

i miss pretending to be older than i was, by carrying some of the groceries,
wearing red lipstick i wouldn't go near today, nail polish to match.

now i want to pretend it is three/fourths of this lifetime of mine ago.
i want to cry and sleep and play and whine and get piggy back rides, and get paint all over.
i want tattoos i can wash off, but never would. i want bedtime stories i never heard the end of, excuses to stay up late, not responsibilities that leave me no other choice.

nap time, snack time, play dates, mary-kate and ashley movies, on the big screen.

hugs everyday from my mom, my dad, from everyone i see!
kisses every night, from all of the above.

wagons with fans and cool headbands.
songs with kazoos and afternoons with "Blue"
a shoe a shoe, NO a clue a clue.

collecting rocks and getting married under monkey bars.
I want to wake up and have to Figure it Out.

i would like to dream , and be, and still have the anticipation of this.

chant chant chant,
at the speed of light.
un-understandable, dance on the table.
whisper across the room (as loud as you can)
fill my glass, fill his too.
smoke so thick, i haven't see you since we first walked in.
i haven't wanted to.

(it was the opposite of that time in your best friend's bed, when we were the only 2 people that existed, when every part of my body needed every ounce of yours. same for you. all of the windows up, we were sticking to eachother, regardless. inevitably, our skin cells were whispering to one another, 'parmel gantry, parmel gantry'
that **** wind, as you cruised through it,
knowing our destination, but not sure where we'd end up)

eating me alive, i know im on my way to my emotional demise.
your kind gesture of offering me a bed this night, is anything but kind.
single-handed exhaustion.

you get off on the face i make as my heart is breaking.
because you've seen it so often, so recently, and i notice you smiling as you head in your direction, me in mine.

i like the time before this when we loved each other, never in love.
when you weren't mean.

i am dripping wet, sitting on your lap after the keg party.

i bounce off of you as you bounce off of the seat.

"is your **** bleeding?"
we laugh.

we are soaked.
i am soaked; so now you are, after trying so hard to dry.
we were naked together, all of us, but especially 'us'.

we were drinking whisky, canadian.
and generic cola to match.

cigarettes we rolled ourselves.

and after i told you about my parents waking me up in the middle of the night when it was pouring, you said, "let's go smoke a cigarette on the back porch".

let's walk in the rain for the next hour, the next decade, the next century, the next forever, infinity.
"cheers, this is beautiful"

when i was 4,
i ate a black watermelon seed.

i remembered hearing that you were not supposed to do this.

so i told my teacher and she said,
"uh oh dear, dont drink too much water and stay out of the sunlight."

and for weeks, i drank only milk, and didn't tell a soul.

because if i opened my mouth,
the seed might become whole.

my aunt,
my beautiful aunt,
my hippie aunt.

the one who gave me a jar of sand and shells and whispered, "don't ever open it, or else the whole sea will spill out".

my aunt who smokes joints and offers it to the birds.
the one who sings on mountain tops, and tells me about her trips.
"i could hear my skin cells whisping past one another",
'parmel gantry they said, parmel gantry i echoed'.

the one who told me her whole existence is based on the fact that a furniture truck delivered a sofa to the wrong house.

my aunt who said when her daughter was young,
14 maybe, she would sneak off and see maryjane.

she said she was on her way to Woodstock,
but her brother, her brother was a cop in new york,
and he 'kidnapped' her,
told her "no, the closest you'll get to those ***** hippies is through this television in the attic."

"but he made me dinner every night, it was wonderful" she said,
"i hadn't seen him in years, we really bonded."

"i had a scholarship to upenn, he didn't want me to lose it"
but she dropped out one week in and moved to oregon.

she married on a commune, and her housemates threw rose petals on the only bed there.

and when that was over, she married another by the same name.

and i've never seen someone laugh so much.
i've never seen someone so happy, so genuinely happy.

our bodies entangled like the roots of a tree, hidden.
and as the tree grows, so does my ambivalence.
my neurosis of love, lust, hate, disgust.
and it keeps on raining, like the rain i would awaken to when i was 5 years old,
--------------------------
and my parents would tap me at 2 am, "wake up sweetie, it's pouring".
my mother, my father, together.
waiting on the porch, with a chocolate cigar.
just waiting, for me, for the rain, for time to stop.

these things are the same because they are both everlasting.