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.

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.