I assured myself again that I was completely alone. Gingerly, I sat on the corner of her popcorn-and-perfume-scented bed and allow my tingling fingers to reach out and open that sacred journal again to page one. I never really understood it but maybe if I read it one more time. “Things I Wish I Never Knew:

1. People are selfish almost always.

2. Shaking hands does matter. ******.

3. Wine hangovers are miserable.

4. Puppies **** behind things ‘cause they feel guilty; you wont find it until it smells.

5. Friends really do come and go.

6. Neti Pots absolutely **** and bring you nosebleeds NOT relief.

7. Attraction and love are different. REMEMBER THIS ABOVE ALL.

8. Joy is clicking add to dictionary in Microsoft word.

9. If you can make it through Taco Bell kisses, morning breath will be a breeze.

10. Be jovial, it’s a choice and a side effect of living in daily adventure.

11. Make sure that your family knows…” I pause because I think I hear footsteps padding up the fourteen red-carpeted steps to her bedroom. I know I can’t move, the old wood floor in this crumbling house will definitely creak and give me away, so I just sit on the edge of the bed at full attention.

        “…No, ma’am, everything’s basically back to normal again, we’re getting the locks changed on Saturday. I’ll tell her you send your love.” The footsteps and voice were at the top of the stairs and I saw a shadow fall across the dusty floor in front of the white wooden door. I know it’s my neighbor Annie because she lives here. We grew up together. “Yes, ma’am, I love you too. I’ll try to make her call you soon. Bye.” Her phone beeped to signal the end of the conversation followed by a loud sigh. I peered from the bed into the hall and saw her sitting on the floor. Annie is a pretty girl. All the girls who live here are. We used to go to school together until my grades got too bad and I started my special school. We used to play in her front yard with her sister, Kelly. One time I kissed Kelly, but we were only seven. She is my only kiss. They both leave for most of the year now to go to college but come home for Christmas break. I will never go to college, but that’s ok.

        I felt my pants vibrating and the theme song to the TV show Who Wants to be a Millionaire was somehow blaring from somewhere around my crotch. Before I could silence it, the shadow at the door became a tangible whirlwind of brown hair, sharp screams, and clawing grabbing fingers as she tried to wrench the ratty Moleskin journal from my fingers.

        “******, Cyril, I thought I heard someone in here. You give it back and get out of this house. You can’t, like, break into other people houses like this. This is just not what normal people do. Can’t your father control you?” At this point we’re both standing in the middle of the bedroom. I’m confused so I just dangle the journal in the air above her grasp. “It’s not yours and you know that. I know you at least understand that, right? Right, Cyril? What the hell would you do if Kelly had been showering or changing. Oh my god, ew, do NOT answer that.”

        “Ow,” I yelp as she scratches at my forearm to retrieve the precious journal. “Your claws are sharp, Annie, I have more scratches from you than I do Jimmy-cat and Jimmy-cat is mean, mean but fluffy… and he purrs but you don’t purr. Is that because you don’t like me?” I lower my arm and Annie snatches the Moleskine out of my fumbling fingers, avoiding eye contact at all costs. I hate it when people do that. I notice it, but they don’t think I do.

            “Cyril, get out.” Her right hand is now securely around the Moleskine and the other is shaking, pointed towards the doorway. “Now.”

            This is always the worst part. I walk out of Kelly’s forbidden bedroom: head hung as I creak down the fourteen red, carpeted stairs and make my way to the front door. It’s always quiet and I don’t like the quiet so whenever it’s quiet I count. I am good at counting. …Twelve, thirteen, fourteen…silence.

        I turn to her, “Annie, I’m sorry…”

            “Out.” She opens the front door and points me to my apartment, directly across the street. Its autumn now and the leaves and cold rustle down the street and I crouch deeper into my black coat as I step outside.

            “So maybe I’ll come over tomorrow?” I turn as I start down the steps, hopeful to have conjured up a smile from Annie, but all I see is the flash of brunette hair disappearing behind another thick, white wooden door.

            “Get off our property before I call the cops, you creep!”

            That’s what I’ve always been to these pretty girls: a creep. I don’t really understand what the word means, but I’m pretty sure from the way they say it that it’s not nice. Pops always tells me that I’m different because it’s better to be different. I don’t understand why Annie and Kelly don’t think it’s better that I’m different too.

            I decide to walk to Captain D’s and tell Earl hi because it’s Friday and that’s what I do on Fridays. Earl owns Captain D’s and has forever. Earl is my friend. Earl and Jimmy-cat at Captain D’s that I feed my left over fish are my friends. At least I think they are. I named the cat Jimmy-cat because Pops says mom used to listen to a man named Jimmy Buffett before she left us. I don’t remember those days.

            I turn the corner knowing Captain D’s is just 560 steps ahead and that to get back home I go 910 steps back and I’ll be at my front door. Counting is one thing I am good at; even the tests they used to make me take at the doctor’s office said so. I am good at numbers. Seven is my favorite number.

            I walk into Captain D’s and, like normal, its just Earl inside. He makes me two Fish-Filet sandwiches and we go stand outside. We usually don’t talk much, but I like that . I sit on the crunchy curb, put on my hood because the wind and leaves have made my ears sting. I unwrap the greasy paper on my first sandwich and Earl pulls out his red Marbolo’s and sits beside me lighting up his first cigarette.

            “Why do you smoke, Earl?” I ask him every Friday and he always responds the same way.

            “Eh. Why do the fish swim Cyril? Why do the Eagles and Crows fly? You know we don’t know why Women like shoes so much.”

I never really understand what he means but it makes me giggle and before we know it we’re both laughing. I’m pretty sure this is what friendship is. I lick the wrapper to get all the tarter sauce off and start on my second sandwich. Earl starts his second cigarette.

            “Where’s that alley cat you got trained up, boy? Go get ‘em and I’ll cook him his own fish patty.”

            He means Jimmy-cat. I wipe my fingers on my jeans, tear off a piece of the damp fish from my sandwich, and walk towards white picket fence that Earl built around the dumpster where Jimmy-cat lives. Jimmy-cat has a good life; he can eat anything in the green dumpster he wants and he is safe behind the big white fence. I don’t like the smell but maybe cats like eating and smelling the furry tarter sauce that clings on the sides of the dumpster. As I pull the lever to open Jimmy Cat’s home, I think it smells even worse than normal. After jiggling the latch a while, it clicks, and I swing the door open to Jimmy-cat’s house. It definitely smells worse. I step up one step and crunch on leaves and squish cold fries as I circle the dumpster. “Jimmy-Jimmy-Jimmy-cat, where-oh-where-oh-where ya at?” I stop as I enter the back right corner, I see Jimmy-cat but I don’t understand what is happening. I don’t understand what is wrong. He is covered in ketchup, maybe? But if that’s true what are the little white thingssss crawling around his stomach and why are they covered in ketchup and mayonnaise too? He is mewling and I’m scared. I smell fish. Fish and furry tarter sauce, one, two, three, four, my feet are crunching on the cold fries and leaves again, I know I’m at the door without even turning around.

            “Boy, what you doin’ in there?”

            “Earl?” …One…two… “Earl, can you help me? Earl, I, I don’t understand. I don’t like it.” …Three…four…five… “Jimmy-cat needs a bath, Earl, and something is eating his stomach.” …Six…seven…silence. Earl’s hand fells like a dead fish on my shoulder as he walks me back up to Jimmy-cats home.

            “Stay here, Cyril. Just gimme’a sec to see what’s happening.” Earl disappears into the leaves and fries and fur.

            eight…nine…ten

eleven…twelve…

            thi­rteen…

fourteen…

            silence.





            “Boy? Come back here now. C’mon.” Earl’s voice echoed around the green corners and I followed. One…two…three…four…five…six…seven I stand above Earl and I know the ketchup and mayonnaise and Jimmy-cat eating monsters are just on the other side of his crouched over body.

            “Well don’t be shy, come look.” Earl stands and I see his work apron covered in the ketchup and mayonnaise but beyond that in a bed of Fish-filet wrappers is Jimmy-cat and all the stomach eating monsters mewling at his stomach, as I get close I think they look kinda like little Jimmy-cats. I push my hood off my head as I lean over closer and that’s when it hit me, “Kittens! Jimmy-cat had kittens, Earl!”

            “I think Jimmy-cat may be more of a Jasmine-cat or Jennifer-cat.”

            I laid down the piece of fish I brought and Jimmy-Cat looks up into my eyes and I swear he was happy to see me.  I looked up at Earl and he was happy to see me too. I sat down in the mess of wrappers and fries and mold and laughed and laughed and laughed.

Back to the scrawling pad
a cheap red notebook
wide ruled, with the perforated pages in it
in case I wanna punch one out easily
Those moleskin daze were measly
Thinking I'm creative and potent
but spending two years
to fill those tiny pages
Please, help me
reinvent the feel and manifest it
to real, accomplishment
Songs, verse, or vice grip words
to change a nation with
- to start a new nation with
Bokonon Bhikkhu
hurling Pikachus down from Mt. Olympus
land on the concrete with lemming splat
Get the metaphor?
I don't. Make your own up
I just an absurdest
A poor boy humming Queen
and writing rap atrocities
Nah, the rap "apocalypse"
minus all the apostrophes
Write so much anything anyone says
from now until oblivion
was just quoting me!

from open skies to blooming flowers,
through my darkest hours,
through pain and persistence,
to my lack of vision,
tossing and turning,
something four walls couldn't confide,
till my veins collide,
from fingers through her hair,
to my "I just don't care"
if words could lie,
my failure to comply
my actions speak louder,
but through these pages I found her,
my stare into nothingness,
but I settled for nothing less,
than an ocean of words,
mend wings for these birds,
more than a speck in the sky,
the tears that never saw the cry,
fears that never saw the light,
but the light walked me through the night,
more than a pen that I am holding,
dear moleskin...

You're a beautiful mystery clad in gorgeous enigma.
You're poetry that looks good in a skirt.

There's an orchestra on your tongue, playing the sound of your voice like a melody I can't forget,
matching the tempo of the drums in my heart
and the broken strings of my violin compliments.

You are a notebook, a yearbook, a sketchbook, a burn book,
every facet of you written in swirling cursive,
rhymes and famous signatures snaking between cinnamon hair and cleverness.

You are a pen running out of ink,
bleeding dry in Barnes and  Noble Moleskin journals,
but that's okay because I have more ink,
and you can borrow whatever you want from me--
store it in the heart you stole if you're bored enough to hunt my words for the pieces.
You have the key already.

You're the first dream of the boy too scared of nightmares to sleep again.

You are the taste of honey and cigarettes on the lips of the first girl that boy ever kissed,
because she was a rebel and he needed a hero
who wore boots instead of Mary-Janes
and band t-shirts instead of blouses.

You are the rose he drew when he was bored,
an outline with potential,
mysterious, entrancing, incomplete,
not yet ablaze with the red of desire
because he was never good at finishing things.
You are a dictionary. Your picture isn't just under "beautiful."
It's under "dangerous" and "witty" and "myth"
because Medusa bowed at your feet next to James Bond and Edgar Allan Poe,
and you're too good to be true anyways.

You are a poem, a telltale heart beating inside a lesson in vengeance,
temporary only because nothing gold can stay.
You've walked past where the sidewalk ends (certainly the road less traveled by)
and come back far more darling than any buds of May.

(You are the paperback novel he read under the covers,
the flashlight only bright enough to show paragraphs,
and every new page unique in shape and form
while the text remains the same.

You are the raw words read aloud by the daring poet,
standing beneath midnight moon,
the power of the throne,
the breath of a whispered promise falling upon the ear,
the warmth of kisses on the cheek,
the passion of all hope there ever was in trust and truth.

You are the fire in lightning,
the sparkle in the snow and the glitter in the rain,
the fierceness of the wind and the gentle, soothing peace,
the blazing chill of winter and the roar of summer's heat.)

But you're still a mystery.
A beautiful,
beautiful
mystery.

heavy paper won't float in the wind
or drown in the water
or give me papercuts like
thin paper does

i have never put my trust in a thing as much as i did my moleskin. her heavy paper called me to come clean and divulge within.

heavy paper looks me in the eye and swears to listen
heavy paper's blankness glistens

and won't i hurt her less tonight? give her less truth? give her less feeling? more imagination too?

heaviness, she's more like sturdiness, she doesn't crumple under my weight
she doesn't mind at all
that i don't know how to start a blank slate

she keeps me in her. my stories, my fears, my secrets.
i owe her all my gratitude.

but sometimes
the more she knows the more i remember the more
i need to tear her up to forget

1) I am the half-pint of hope in a plastic cup, not the full litre of utopia in the bottle of sanguinity.

2) I am the cracks in the side-walk, not the perfectly paved path for positive people.

3) I am everything the fire left behind, not the half-salvaged items saved from the burning wreck that steals oxygen.

4) I am just a cigarette you put between your lips, not the romanticised fad people say it is.

5) I am the heaving through heavy lungs, not the clear inhaling and exhaling of oxygen through untainted lungs.

6) I am the awkward silence, not the deafening silence that people love.

7) I am the heart that still imagines the ghost of your fingertips on it , not the one that is covered with love bites and dark bruises constituted of unbridled lust.

8) I am the jagged path of unsteady thoughts, not the ebb and flow of consciousness.

9) I am scattered thoughts quickly scribbled in an old moleskin notebook, not sad love droning about his eyes.

10) I am mottled blood stains on bleached floors, not those oddly beautiful blood patterns you see in ****** scenes.

11) I am the static on the television which matches the thoughts in your mind, not the always-very-strong-signalled antenna on your rooftop.

12) I am a burning building screaming for help, not the beautiful luxury homes that are fireproof.

13) I am not flawless, I am the imperfections that are difficult to embrace.

Let my tombstone read:
"wish you were here"

'cause even when I'm down below,
I'll be thinking of you, dear.

s.mndi

to keep poems in
to get poems out

to keep my thoughts in
to get my thoughts out

to keep secrets in
to get secrets out

to keep myself in
to get myself out

i make these lists in my head
of my ideal partner
and i know that it's not fair or healthy
but i do it anyway

they have to wear jewelry and have their ears pierced
it would be good if they had a sense of anarchy
love of reading is a must, and they'd better read my suggestions
i want someone with a pretty voice
to read me poetry and sing duets with me in the car
speaking of, i'd like them to have a car
because i believe in the inherent romance of the passenger seat
i would steal the aux cord and blast the playlist that they made me

i want to love someone who loves things
who loves to love things
almost as much as i do

they have to love art, and it would be a plus if they made some
because i can't draw for sh*t, but i can look at paintings until i die
i want to go to art museums with them and symphonies and plays
we can sit in the cheapest seats and throw pennies instead of roses

god, i want someone with strong hands
that can hold me and i will just know that they want to
i want to love someone with dyed hair
so i can sit with them between my legs as i reapply the color
and have stains on my fingers for weeks
i want a poet, because i want to be immortalized
in raw phrases in a moleskin journal

but i just haven't met this person yet
i don't know if i ever will

When you're here at night
I feel alright
I fall right to sleep

But the nights you're gone
it all goes wrong
and in the bad dreams creep.

s.mndi

broken glass embedded in backs
causing blood stains on crisp Calvin Klein shirts
from wrestling limbs on kitchen floors

licking ears as sassy retribution
for passive agression
and acts of contrition

greasy hair
unshaved legs

fur
on fur

mouth
on mouth

on moleskin
on holographic jewelry owned by us

bougie bohemians
highbrow artists
     --with--
low-maintenance interests that include

blow, opiates, fringed scarves, "velvety",
all the pills you can fist into your mouth,
a wannabe lou reed, your friends' band,
and **** **** ****** **** gallery openings.

Take a picture, it won't last as long as this work day
but we have to have our money for the water--after the eight ball and taxi, of course.

From the Moon
came light

And god I've never seen
the Sky so bright

The Stars lit up
and beamed in white

The Sun hung in shame
losing to the Night.

s.mndi

I was recently told that writing makes the reader more empathetic. Not very often are first impressions based off the magical machinations of the inner mind; rather, these impressions are superficial and surface deep. So here I am placing pen to paper, gliding the still drying ink across the smooth college-ruled lines, hoping another portal is opened, hoping that maybe someone will look beyond the surface into my multi-faceted universe where my true self lies. But what if I'm not entirely sure what completely lies in that realm? The portal is dark, deep, and damp, and my pen lacks the source of light needed to peer through to the tunnel’s end. Every drip of ink to touch the moleskin deepens the portal further into the tunnel-like abyss, like the never-ending layers of an onion, or the timid, velvety petals of a rosebud that's anxious to open itself entirely, petal by petal, with each needle sharp thorn acting as its guardian. Writing to gain the reader’s empathy is a form of vulnerability, telling even your most uncomfortable truths. There’s more to me that I have yet to find, but with each drip of ink, I regret nothing. Pens don’t have erasers. Every stroke is permanent. Why should I desire the empathy of others? So take the odiferous onion, or the irresolute rosebud that I am, because although I’ve captured your attention in so few words, this writing won’t promise your empathy.

You can only dream of
places I have been
Mentally,
All the things
I did for my family,
All they did,
instead of helping me,
Is trying to
put sense in me,
When I come to a point
Where I am
about to plead insanity,
A room of variances,
Out of body experiences,
Mental *******,
Heart full of spasms,
The ones
my past couldn’t fathom,
This ain’t a struggler’s anthem,
But I can’t help but,
Generalize,
And I can’t undermine,
That I felt heaven,
At least on my fingertips,
I found hope,
At the brink of disbelief,
Don’t blame the postman,
If you put the wrong address,
Life is a *****,
depending on how you dress her,
Let the broken glass,
Mess up the dresser,
Rosewood, Redwood, any wood,
If I could I would,
The more I clench my fists,
the more sand I loose,
But I choose not to,
just my screws,
My life is like a travelogue,
No just ticket needed just travel along,
Like a broken pen and a moleskin,
A DSLR and an eye to watch closely,
No backpacker,
Just a bad actor,
Modern day rye catcher,
Self financer ,
A mere puppet on the string,
That life hangs by,
finding questions to some bad answers,
Putting up with bad promise makers,
When a promise may curse,
Life is just a makeshift,
Life is what you make it,
Or make of it

Who’s that man in the black coat?
He always gets off the 11 p.m bus
and whenever we’re two *****
brown and ripped seats away
I can distinguish the smell of smoke
in his hair and the rain on his eyeglasses
Every time he sits down two *****
brown ripped seats away from me
the yellow neon lights
stuck on the roof  that he has to avoid
by bending, catch the rings in his beat up
calloused hands
I can see his fingers holding an overflowing moleskin notebook
and I am yet to approach him
about his name
when all that fills my conscious is the question
concerning the stack of papers in his hand.
                                                                               *p.e.n

You had two pet rabbits, one named Mickey the other Maurice,
who lived on lettuce bits and behind thin metal bars.
A caged environment set up on the study's wood floors,
with books and a red couch to keep company

and your mom, because she would finish her graphs and stats
on the mahogany desk living in the corner of the room
and she liked the rabbits purr and delicate noses
and would hold them and pet them

when she put down her pen and moleskin and accounts
because, although caged and bought at Pet World
in the strip mall across from Adult World
on the other side of Interstate 67, these rodents gave her comfort,

reminding her of Maine and Jonathan
who abstained from going and killing for sport
with his brothers when they went, in pickups
with buckshot and murdered deer and rabbits,

because she still missed Jon and bought these fluffy
white creatures for 47.99, a good deal,
and they came with a little rock house
that they could sleep and burrow under

like Jon and herself, snuggled in Maine,
away from Palo Alto. So every time I come over,
to have *** and eat dinner and listen
to what you learned to play on piano,

I stop by the study to see Maurice
and Mickey and feel the presence of Jonathan
and the sticky suburban sadness of your mother,
while keeping a secret promise close to my heart,
that I'll never become an accountant.

Today,
I promise,
I will finally write.

I'll write about the first time I tasted plums,
(Cool and wet and biting)

Or the soft euphoria of house parties and hookah smoke,
(Like cashmere and night in the blood- already heavy with *** and promise- while grinding out hallelujahs to bass and rhythm and cheap liquor)

Or the feeling of my father’s calloused palms when he took my tiny hands in his, my feet atop his own, and sang to me- riotously off key- the chorus of ‘My Girl’ in a tiny kitchen in Camden; Me laughing, hyena howling, and shouting ‘AGAIN! AGAIN!’ echoing until dizzied by the happy noise.

Today,
I promise,
I'll get it out.

I'll take pen to page, and tell you why I sometimes feel oddly bereft at the sight of a trail of some long departed snail or slug, iridescent in moonlight.

Or try to explain why the scent of lilacs remind me of my mother, that the taste of honeysuckle blooms and the feel of summer warm dirt in my hands makes me feel closer to her, and sometimes a taste of **** cherry pie will ease the gnawing ache of nostalgia and wanting of her more than any simple phone call ever could.

Or tell you how I feel scared and angry so much of the time, (Poor thing that I am- all brown skinned, fat and too loud- in the thin white crushing silence that hangs like a humid fog in streets and office buildings.)  How I feel so hunted in a world of poachers determined to use my teeth for piano keys, pluck my plumes for gaudy decoration, and consume me, a nameless  milk soaked calf, only to complain that all the bleeding I’m doing has soaked the plate and my tears have over salted the meat.

Today,
I promise,
I’ll make it plain.

I’ll be inspired by verses written on the thin onion skinned pages of a Bible my grandmother gave me,
find beauty in crushed glass sprinkled over cracked asphalt and potholes, and taste love – young and sweet – when biting into the soft, ripe flesh of a mango.

I’ll tell all my secrets to you, re-name you lover and villain, and share my most intimate spaces; crack open my rib cage and let you nestle in the pumping chambers of my heart, sustain you with the air of my lungs and food from my own soft belly; invite you with open arms and closed eyes inside of myself to read all the words I’ve scrawled in miles of veins and on sturdy spine.  


I promise,
It will be today.
And yes,

The dishes must be scrubbed, my winter coat needs a new button, and the cat must be fed.
These things will happen, like all things of daily realities: new socks and defrosting chicken and late student loan payments.    

But,

Today
I am searching for divinity in between the pages of moleskin note books and falling in love that tastes like honey and lavender and sweet raisin challah bread.
I am mapping out dance steps in hookah smoke and tiny kitchens.
I am lifting **** cherries and warm summer dirt in shaking palms as a ward against poachers searching for all the ivory and meat in me.
I am tracing holy verses across my grandmothers soft, thin skin; the scent of mangoes about the words; keeping her safe in soft spaces of my marrow.

Today,
I promise,
I will write.

[on the verge of a cry]

Darling penguin,

you've brought me here yet again. whether we writers are on the page of paper, Moleskin, notebook, website, or smartphone, here again you have brought me. Having just lit another cigarette, drinks and drugs and smoke and music are in this place you've brought me with these ***** fingers pounding away into a bluetooth keyboard as the long lonely nights I've taken to find you melted away the keys of my computer ash and burnt plastic have taken to so many letters: H, command, I, R, and D too. I have a fixe and it won't be cured alone. I've been on so many lines and numbers, and I keep trying, and I'll tell you some people might consider these women absolutely marvelous, but to me, they too often prove to be nothing more than the hollow engravings of tales told too often, and where am I with you?

I'm cracking my knuckles again, and it's so ******* hot in here. Morphs, subs, percs, and oxys, pain and agonizing pain. And I'm growing a beard and mustache, very soft hair for you to nestle into when we move into the house in Evanston. I've been touching my lips with these ash stained fingertips drafting your lips upon mine, while the piceous nexus of this cold untouched skin shifts restlessly in the drear and yellow light of another sad and melancholy hour away from my arms around you, abreast and grinning with excitement, contentment, contagious glee. i bring my clean soft fingerds through the strands of aurulent glistening gold hair of yours and press my mouth into the crown of your head, the temples of your face, and your face presses into mine, and it's 1:41am and these eyes wander endlessly around this room ******* down carcinogens and poison, holes in these jeans, black denim tapered cut, your black leather studded cuff around my right wrist and the peace beads a wandering monk granted to me with a gold card and a bow while amassing friends in the herds of people gathered in line to go into Lollapalooza. I am brimming over with excitement, even for the taste of dog feces in the cigarettes(I will brush of course), you are my event horizon, my vessel of light beams, lasers, and the most immense love for which of course more than a dozen different writings attempt to share with others and imbue the world to even come close to the extraordinary magnanimous love and adoration unto the both of us, but between ourselves especially.

Earlier this evening I was speaking to Elizabeth on the propensity of how valuable having a soulmate really is, not to say the words but to know the person, to know you in the full grace and integrity of what that means. I was saying how with you, there is no one or many or anything about you that disturbs me or that I could find gross or that could keep me from wanting to be close to you. That no matter how sick you could get or **** it- what I was saying is that I love you so much I want you to spit in my mouth, smear every part of your body against every inch of my body. I want to smell, taste, touch, and see all of you that there is, to sit again and stand again and stand up and sit down just ******* staring forever in the most beautiful enchanting, ethereal, and beloved face I have ever seen. And if I must I would carry you over molten lava, burning steel, broken glass, but instead I think we ought to go to Half Moon Bay, and while the chill is in the air, and it's just you and me my love, we can dance in the surf and kick the water at each other. Because the continental plates will always be moving, the water will move to grow and surge and swell and turn to clouds and back to raindrops and precipitate life and govern this planet, but I will always be governed by our amatory interconnectedness and how perfervidly passionate and over the top I am and always will be about you. I will give the world to you, so long as I can love you for as long as I live.

insipid, her blue eyes her blue dresses. the only-ness of her. her laugh like oleander.
she was Strong and Independent and she Didn't Need Me, but she had me anyway, for a minute.
i am cross-legged on the ugly wool blanket we made love under first. the first of many but empty.
i am cross-legged and my fingers restless, invisible piano keys trilling to the wee hours. many but empty.
the skin of my index finger bitten raw, the skin of my lower lip bitten raw.
the pretension of her jabs at pretension. her manufactured offbeat passion. her cat, her moleskin notebook.
ordinary, but only. insipid but aquamarine and clear as bells. she Didn't Need Me.
the first of many. and empty.

It is a flat day.

Behind me, golden water continues to rise.

A step beyond and I will break my mother's back.

I feel the sum of jokes untold and lies misunderstood.

On the edge of this fear, do believe.

A new correction.

Centered and balanced on my forehead.

Unpack my mind.

In Leopard skin or Moleskin.

Anything but,
Something forgettable.

The tide has come.

I will say goodbye.

In my own way.


Will you rise and fall?

During my rest, will you continue life?

Or will you begin death again?

Baby, I am he.

Without curls and without the illusion of honesty.

An American flag.

If his country will do nothing as one child freezes,
it is only natural to swaddle with its flag.

Baby I am falling down real fast.

Baby I am moving and my eyes are closed.

Baby I am seeing a light.

And baby, did you know?
You were all I had.

„...my men in moleskin caps and generally envested in the kind of shabby paramilitary fashion in which one pictures the advance guard at Teruel. Upon proceeding inland, we encountered teams of what I declared native-cannibal-warriors, who, despite being outwardly quite docile, were clearly displeased with the unannounced invasion of their little isle. I began pointing my finger at the savages and emitting ‘pow’ noises, causing the natives to rather cooperatively collapse to the ground by heaps. Having cleared the beachhead, I then realised my love for our apparent guide to this strange paradise, an ermine-like species without any name that comes to memory. I held her close for perhaps five minutes, stroking her luscious, snow-white pelt and ignoring the jealous glances of my subordinates. An anxious look told me she had something to tell me. I bent my ear close, only to receive a sudden impact of her delicate, immaculately carven jaw. Shocked, I relinquished my hold, and she immediately bounded to a low-lying tree behind me, pawing the fruit dangling therefrom with a feline relish“

Sometimes I am more than convinced
The only thing keeping me tethered to the wet, dark, autumn dirt
Are the whorls and swirls on the pads of my toes.
Circuitous and tangled, curling up and in one another,
These are the only lines holding me firm to my world of moleskin notebooks, keyboards, plums and tea cups.

It seems such a tenuous connection.

Perhaps,
I will wake one morning to find myself subject to the laws of physics once more,
And feel the reassuring press of gravity on my shoulders,  
Secure in the knowledge that I will not loose my self to the cold, black, unknown-ness of space.    

Until then, I am here-
Proverbially barefoot, toes digging into the cold and sleeping soil,
Trying to get a grip.

I'm writing this out in my diary
Which could be better known as your
Personal biography
Since every ******* line
Is about you anyway
My dear
And I'm dipping my pen
Into my veins
Harvesting blood for ink
The same way you ****** the life
Out of my lungs
And called it your own

I'm splattered across these pages
Just like your name
So impermanent, so unnecessary
Well, it's just like I never said,
You always were the best
Waste
Of my time
Always were the worst ******* thing
I put myself through
And you never needed me
The way I needed you to

The binding on this book is unraveling
Even my moleskin
Has had enough of you
I'm trying to rewrite the memories
Ripping out the pages
Just more kindling for the fire
In your throat
Stuff it down and pray to the heavens
For just once
You shut the **** up
And choke

I unfold the dog-eared pages
Wondering why I marked
Them in the first place
A common theme - Hatred
For all those times you
Stuck a ******* needle in your arm
Without realizing
You were poisoning me too
And I'm still wondering
If you ever once
Thought of me
When you shoved the plunger down
Or if I was just another ghost
You didn't want to think about

I snap shut my diary
Not wanting to read any more
Not wanting to relive
What little amount of pain
I've managed to forget
Not wanting to reinfect myself
With the thought of you
I toss the scribbled out book
Into our backyard fire
Burning up everything I ever felt
For you
Vowing to never again fall
For another liar

I used to know you through more than our fiber optic nothings:
As wild hair and ****** knees, a moleskin and a fountain pen,
A teeming scowl and harrowing slur of a laugh, seeing every word spoken.
As children on the cusp of something in the stick of June, I knew you—
Strong and blinding, you reside in a dark and colorful maze.
Lost or found, I imagine that you are sending cigarette smoke signals
Wafting up, indistinguishable through the city smog,
Out the window of an apartment in which you do not reside
Or snaking through the metro, slouched over in a grey haze, unaware
That you can still stand taller than the rest of us.

I’m wearing your old jacket. Remember? The one you used to fish in. The one with the tear in the silk of the right-hand pocket. You used to tease me. You used to say that this jacket kept your loose change safe from my chocolate addiction. You being left-handed; me being right.

I bury my face in the nap of the moleskin collar. My nostrils fill with your scent - stale cologne, a hint of woodsmoke, and...fish. More disconcerting than unpleasant, it’s all I can do not to choke on my memories of you. Of me and you. Together.

'Tell me, how can I be, now that you alone are gone and I am left behind?'

I feel like I’ve been abandoned in a foreign capital with nothing more than the clothes I stand up in and a wallet full of the wrong kind of currency. The day is drawing to a close. My luggage has disappeared with the exhaust from the bus which took off before I could catch my breath and explain my dilemma - that I’m not sure where I’m going or even where I’ve been. Lately.

Maybe a kindness will point me in the right direction. An open-all-hours diner on an inner-city corner, snuggled in between the high-rise office blocks. Maybe I’ll have enough cash for a meal and a trail of hot, sweet tea to lead me into tomorrow. Maybe I’ll close my eyes and remember where I’m supposed to be and what I should be doing.

And just maybe, as the rhythm of the traffic slows and the night progresses, I’ll find some peace in the ever-changing cityscape. A time-lapse production of late revellers, harried shift workers, the dispossessed and restless; until finally the earliest commuters and exercise fanatics emerge from the riverside neighbourhoods to face the new dawn.

‘Hey, lady.’ A disgruntled voice shatters my reverie. 'I ain’t got all day, y’know.' Scrambling for cash, I reach deep into your left-hand pocket and find...***...a limp fifty-dollar bill...and a battered envelope. There’s a note scrawled on the outside in your familiar hand:

'How can you be, now that I alone have gone and you are left behind? The short answer is: you will be. For you are as singular and complete today as you were before 'mine' became 'yours' and 'I' became 'we'. My darling, I’m no tourist. You know how impatient I can get - always taking the most direct route. I’m just out of sight around the next corner. You take your time and meet me when you’re ready. Sometime...later. Whenever. I’ll be waiting.'

Stunned, I mutter an apology to the waitress and step out from the warm fug of the café into a bright, fresh New York morning. The doorbell tings shut behind me and I realise with new-found clarity that I know exactly where I am. I’m home. It’s not going to be a great day but it’ll be a better one, which is a start. Besides I have things to do - chocolate to buy, a jacket to launder, and a needle to thread.

“The Road to Hell”

I am surrounded by blank pages.
With scorn, they mock my inability
to fill their gluttonous gullets.
Notebooks, journals, and diaries jeer
with disgust and desire; even the
looseleaf paper stares longingly
at the collection of pens and pencils
I have amassed, a stinging tribute
to my stayed hand. Each time the
moleskin is opened, he gasps,
hopeful, only to be crushed as I
jot a quick note, perhaps a phone
number, or a few names. The foreign
beauty with the hand-pressed paper
has not once been opened, and lusts
to be used — as a post-it, a sketchbook,
or kindling, she does not discriminate.
Each celebration of a birthday — be it
mine or Jesus Christ’s — is merely an
excuse for more lonely pages to join
the ranks, collecting dust and growing
feeble. A mysterious hand pain is
merely a convenient excuse, for the
truth is that I have never been a
consistent writer — not on paper, at
least. My fingers are suited to typing,
and the keyboard assuredly gloats
daily to the lonely paper of her
usefulness; Microsoft Word of the
multitude of poems, short stories,
essays, papers, musings, and
assorted writings he has fabricated.
Indeed, if the road to Hell is paved
with good intentions, then I shall
descend in a carriage of blank paper.

We were both writers.
You with a fountain pen and moleskin notebook  
I with anything I could scrawl on -tears always just at the edges of me
and in this way we began to author our life together.
We put pen to paper that first night
drunk on gas station liquor and on not feeling so alone.
Our hungry bodies filled page after page
with what I would come to believe
would be my magnum opus.

In your wedding vows you said that we would
“work together to fill the pages with
conflict, desire, pain and all that makes life real
so that we can appreciate all that makes life good”
You were not much of a co-author though
preferring instead to write alone at night while I slept
How many times did I revisit a previous chapter
only to find that you had introduced a new character
or a dark and bizarre plot twist without my knowledge?
Eventually these discoveries would become as predictable
as the indignant denials
eventual apologies
and promises that would always follow them

lather, rinse, repeat

Over years these edits and additions
would knock the air from my lungs
completely shaking my confidence as a writer.
With cramping hands I would try to rewrite the bad parts
though my scribble marks did little to mask the words beneath.
Words that once had flowed as easily and copiously as I had for you
now came only in fits and starts
each new chapter torn from the bones of my bones.
How many times did the ten eyes we wrote in
watch as writers block turned to writers rage
producing furious missives that would tear holes in pages without warning?
Still even as my teeth-torn hands turned arthritic
I couldn’t seem to just put down the ******* pen
Because it was our story
and because I loved it
and because I loved us
and because I loved you.

I ended our story with a semicolon
Its already faded form staring up from my ring finger
a reminder that I could have chosen to end my story but didn’t.
You once told me that a good author always employs irony
and I have always been a better writer than you’ve given me credit

                                                   ;

you deserve a thousand poems
written about every crevice of your body
about your seamless existence
I wish I could write beautiful things for you
and
I wish you wrote positive things about me
your words are always lovely
but
the subject matter makes me want to
disappear into the folds of your
half used moleskin
I'm sorry
I can only cure your writers block
with
sorrow

In the conversation you had with your sisters and friends
over coffee and chitchat,
you described me as perfect, a gentleman
adorned with a cloak of eccentricity,
Tagged along by a shadow who has has never been
in the dark or seen anything but the light.
At this time, your accent lifts as you described me.
"Perfect gentlemen don't exist", everyone retorted.
So you go on and on about
this and about that
And this too and that.
Till even the least enthusiastic
Buys a ticket to watch me.

So I perform. I perform. Only this time
I wear no mask on the stage of enticement.
I laugh out loud and carry the bottles.
I sing out loud even when my voice is muffled.
I play along, like a skilled ocarinist.
I blab about life in the slums and the impending economic crunches,
i brag about my dreams and the few nights I don't snore.

In the same conversation I had with myself,
Sitting to a bottle, a moleskin and pen all by myself,

I tell myself how much of me hasn't changed,
How my thoughts never changed
Despite my unkempt beard and bad breath.

I tell myself how the-same I am,
Only this time, I'm wearing a different shirt
stained at the pocket with oil from yesterday's tofu fries.

it started with a moleskin sitting on my passenger seat.
i keep it there just in case i'm struck with inspiration. before
i would roll up windows, turn off car, open apartment door,
drop everything, find pen (pressing it down til it bleeds
all over) only to find i'd have nothing to say, it was gone, lost.

so i write, at midnight, in a car with the windows down even
though it's 90 degrees, because i love the sound of a train
whistling, ache with the wind scraping trees to create a voice
for himself, but all he can muster is a scream.

and now i'm reading my words aloud, trying to make them fit,
puzzle pieces when the picture is just ocean and sky.
but the sound of my voice clashes against the unquiet silence;
the result is harsh and unnatural.

in the end i can only think this one thing, with words that refuse to mesh:
i wish you'd get out of my head. i wish you'd leave me to... whatever.
i wish you'd let me pretend. leave me alone where i'm at my best. beautiful
alone. where there's no need to lie, truths are pointless to hide (here,
I'm the only one speaking, and God's the only one listening). let me lie.

i want to say this all perfectly. i want to scream it, my voice riding
wind through trees. but pen poised, i lose all my courage. coward:
a dreamer who grew up.

(**** dreams, the only thing that keeps
me from forgetting what i'm missing.)