Dust spirits dance in empty houses,
Parents fall ill,
     Families move,
Childhood lasts until words which soothed
no longer do,
Imagination introduces us to friends,
     in unexpected places,
          in necessary situations,
Remember: not all who ail shall pass away,
But sometimes sacrifice is made,
New friends seem scary,
But never be afraid
     to give up the umbrella that you carry
     for a leaf is scant protection from the rain,
In dreams giant trees grow from seeds
     watered by joy,
Believe that they persist,
For when comes the day to pack your toys,
     and move away,
When youthful years have passed to adult grey,
The distinction between memory and dream ceases to exist,
Dissolving into mist,
Through which you can still make out their silhouettes:
You, Totoro and the cat bus.

the only thing i can explain, is loving you.

the only thing is dreaming.
is feeling, that wheeled feeling of knowing what love was.

it started with an awkward hug.
it ended with an awkward hug.


i took you to the river. held your hand to the washed and out. breathed the smoke of your body into lungs of new days and danced to thoughts of escaping the empire with you forever. so forever. waited while you biked into far-fetched and distance places. american girl. beautiful creature. creature tessellating; growing; enhancing into a starry-stepped woman. i leaned on you, made you stumble to walk. now most days i stop myself from calling you. the space. the only thing that ever made me so dizzy, so good, was the space between us when truly together. close. utterly as one. wrote poems about you before i even met you, like a dream girl, like a premonition, which you were, a dream girl, a preconceived notion of one and only love. and there probably will be none other. none other. because i fell in love with you long before i even knew how to say it. never really knew how to say it. blurted it. bled it and yelled it and dreamt of it endlessly.


[still dream of it. endlessly.]


slow down, slow town, taking minutes. city of trees. city of good and bad and a little love that grew and bloomed and boomed before our eyes and died. and perhaps dead isn’t enough. reanimate. zombify. walk the dead. the dead and idaho life is american dreaming, drunk. us humans walking, texting, breathing, dancing. i would pinch your ***, smack your ***, so silly, so object, so mammalian and animal and bad on my part. sorry about that. but then again i loved your ***. still, sorry. you deserved more. deserve more. more to the picture. and i love your smile. your deep sweep of happiness. could devour me whole with just one laugh. and this is all so stupid, you probably hate me by now, somehow, seeing as you disappeared into thin air and here i am writing this bombast of love lost and still plan on sending it to you by mail or carrier-pigeon in hopes of simply expressing something. texas chainsaw massacre 2. totoro and the miniature crystal glands of rips or roars or sour patch sprinkles. burnt underwear. that stream of consciousness sweet beating block of love you ink-stamped to old paper with some kind of fierce spirit, just love, i love, and can’t help but love you so ******* much all over and over again, even if you broke my heart. the heart is strong that way. or i am simply doomed that way.


howling. howl. imbue. rimbaud. & urizen. kien. class, and when we skipped a day or two, once or twice, to make-out by the river. true beginnings. rock piles and bonobos.
my kind of woman.

you loved me before anybody loved me.
and i loved you, because there was no other way.
lost that somewhere. somehow.
life and days taken for granted.
and i’m the fool.
the stoner peeling off layers of clothing
as i prepare to be blood-sacrificed before the ancient ones.
while you are the girl.
the girl who made me forget what death is.
the girl with that last blunt.

                   new soul, spelled in crayola crème.
                   new summer, spoken then lived.

                   you were the love
                   of my life.
                   plucked my heart like
                   squishy fruit.

                   we once turned night
                   into paintings & poems,
                   particulates of
                   a golden time gone by.

Word - neighbour


Little droplet runs along the leaf umbrella
It's teeth are showing through a genuine grin
But the bus stops and it's time to go
I give my Neighbour Totoro a farewell wink

I’ve become  invisible
Maybe it’s a virus and I’ve just got a touch,
The automatic shop door didn’t open so I’m left in a lurch,
Even when  I stood on the spot once blessed by the church.
Then the shop attendant missed me in the queue,
A car nearly knocked me on the footpath too.
Clearly I’m unseen.

As this progresses will my eyelids become translucent?
With my eyes shut how will I sleep?
Maybe I should wear dark glasses and not take a peek.
If I wear clothes will it be funny?
I will definitely get a job as a shop window dummy.
Is that what happens in the invisible limbos,
We become manikins in shop windows,  
Watching the world looking at them,
What we the invisible will be able to tell.

From my shop window I imagine at half past eight,
The people hang out or just walk past straight.
Starting with the kids skipping school,
Uniform tucked in schoolbag to fool,
Shopping bag used for energy joule,
Inhaling glue this hallucinatory fuel.
Each step these children take,
One step closer to heartbreak.

Then the anxious wife meeting her lover.  
Leaving behind her domestic bliss,
Sealed this morning with a husband’s watery kiss.
Waiting awkwardly in her Totoro dress,
One button behind and a zip does the rest .
Trying hard to be invisible too
This could all end in her being blue.

The rushing shop manager dressed in a suit.
Cuffs worn thin, pens in a group,
Red, blue and black,
A tick for success or none for the lack.
Mumbling along the company mantra,
“Think outside the box” there’s as good fella.
The only box he has ever known,
Are the imaginary boundaries in which he has grown.


A dog and his master trundle along.
He has been dead for years as he moves on,
Wearing a shroud of a used up life,
The dog squats down beside the tree of life.
Observing this stool in the daylight,
He compares to the Hematochezia he did last night.

A husband contemplating murdering his wife,
As the news of her lover has just come to light.  
He looks at the manikin with some delight,
Seduced by its empty invisible soul,  
Only to discover he owns that hole.

Then evening descends the lights are all up,
When work is all over it’s off to the pub.
Not for the invisible manikin though,
Who stays in the window dressed in a bride’s trousseau.
An invisible exhibitionist this poor sod,
So when you walk past it's polite to nod.
Now I’ll take two Aspirin and a cup of coco
And hope to God this invisibility will go go.

she has bad tattoos
and wears converse
a totoro hat
over her over bleached hair
sounds familiar

does she watch anime?
does she go to the lego store with you?
does target trips feel the same?
does she comfort you?

do you get the same rush,
when you want to kiss her?

does she let you?

do you get the same nerves,
when you message her on facebook?

do you crave her body,
in the way that you did mine?

so much so that you kept going when I told you no?

do you wish she was prettier,
like you wanted me to be?

do you wish she was blonder,
like the anime character you ******* to?

do you also wish your ***** was bigger,
like I wished it was?

do you also wish that you were more caring to me,
like I wished you were?

do you wish I was still with you..?

do you?

I am from worn out measuring cups where the numbers no longer show,
From years of guessed quantities and over sugared cakes.
I am from cracked blue paint,
And the mantra “we’ll get a new coat next year.”
I am from the cow peas, crop circling, and honeysuckle vines ornamented with butterflies.
I am from Grandpa’s tobacco yellowed hands, Grandma Doll’s old wives tales,
From “eat your bread crusts and your hair will curl,”
And from “your face just might stick like that.”
I am from morning walks and the sylvan veil of moss,
From meandering trails and the drip of rain on leaves.
I am from Otter Pops, and bright blue tongues.
I am from cassette tapes, now left in the back of the closet to grow antique.
And VCRs,
From Monsters Inc. and Totoro.
And I am from the worn bindings of The Phantom Tollbooth and The Velveteen Rabbit.
I am from the meadow,
From searching for fairies, and sometimes even finding them.
And from the whispered promise “I’ll dream of you and you’ll dream of me…”
I am from the babbling gurgling creek, from the itch of nettles and the deep earthy scent of loam.
I am from the cat in Alice in Wonderland,
From Jacob and Leah’s wronged daughter.
I am from the Xanadu, the Akela, and the Dynamite,
From the crack of sails and the swing of the boom.
I am from placid seas and the rushing tumult of rain,
From heavy grey skies and flaming sunsets painted in watercolor across the Olympics.
I am from the pink syringe and the old blind dog’s last breath,
And I am from the hole where we laid her.
I am from the evergreen planted in the frozen ground to the sounds of my first cry,
That tree whose limbs witnessed my first breath, whose lofty trunk now stands as a testament, a marker, of where I am from.

Living where I am living
No matter the seasons
It feels like
I am living in
A studio ghibli
Movie
Where everything is green
Perfect
And dream like
I wonder if my next door neighbour
Is Totoro

Why do I look to the birds
for a message from you?

The quiet portrait I took of you
in a Wellington hotel room
was stolen for the
front page news

Don't cry.

My therapist asks
'What do you miss about your friend?'
So I write this for you
And pretend you can hear me

Here I say -
I can't and I won't
eat another Japanese pancake
Without you
Without your smile

I can't and I won't
Watch Totoro
Or drink gin with a round icecube
Without you
Without your kindness

I can't and I won't
Listen to Bon Iver
Without your hurt
Without your hurt on my mind

This writing and mourning
has nothing
on the day you died

All our laughter
Adventures
Secret conversations
And promises
Are now gathering dust
in the 5 years it took
To realise
You are gone.

His arms feel like home,
When home doesn't feel like home.
His firm grip secures this body, this house that  many weird things reside in.
His lips are too good to be of human flesh.
They talk and kiss sense to me.
The little things matter to him
And for the first time ever in my life,
I need not to worry.
Need not to cry.
Need not to hurry.
Need not to shy.
A rate tall skinny totoro,
One that I get to call mine

backwards progress
like the clock has lost
it's purpose &
decided to join the circus

**** it--

the effort has been perilous and i thought it would be alright just to hear your voice and feel your love and remember what we were working for but i'm stressed and nervous and what if i was wrong and we can't do this and it's just a solo road ahead until the landscape becomes smoother i just don't know--



i want to believe it's going to work out,
but i'm expending energy on it
that i don't have to expend worrying
when i dragged myself through
the grocery store after work and bought yarn,
the simplest of tasks
were the most soul-wrenchingly exhausting
& i want to go to bed--

is this what we need?
would you be better without me?
would i be better without you?
it hurts me to even ask
since i'd like to believe
i know what love feels like
but then maybe i'm not a good example--


there's this place
in my head far away,
my higher self lives there
in this magic forest,
Totoro and i could be kindred spirits
of thick, moist forest air
that rejuvenates the soul
just to smell the abundance,
the lust for everything & want for nothing--

i'd like to say things are getting easier


but i don't know much these days--

There were a few.

Let me say some key words.

Mall, Down Fall of rain. One umbrella shoes off.

Totoro, I already loved you.

Lockers, notes,

I asked you to prom.

Talks of *** and talks of love.

I finally made my move.

Hand on your knee, you saw right through me.

Kisses after dark getting no sleep.

Goodbye, goodbye.

You found a man.

Goodbye, goodbye
why are you still in my bed.

Goodbye, goodbye hannah.

I'll probably never not have you on my mind.

First love, you.

Blankets by the stream, lunches outside.

I took your side against my best friend when you threw a banana peel.

Anyways. My dear. My could be best friend.

I still see you in my dreams and I guess thats enough for me.