Sprawl

You wake up slowly, as if trying to hang on to something slipping back into the darkness. You roll uncomfortably of bed (and out of that notion) and begin layering yourself with old spice and fabric and fabric and fabric and mint flavored toothpaste in that order. Time passes. Not a cloud in the sky because they're all in your head. Rivers of caffeine and epinephrine and indignation wind through the Grand Canyon of your cortex and you can't tell which ones you put there yourself and which ones have been there since your birth. But it doesn't matter because that girl in your biology lecture has worn flannel for a week and a half and you're starting to believe she's doing it to you personally.

Traffic moves along in tectonic rifts and you don't notice it. Half a world away, masses perish and you don't notice it. Day melts into night melts into day melts into night and you do not notice it. It's fine; life is a single, springy question mark and you live in a fucking city built for drunk teenagers.

But surely the number of time-zones that exist inside your eyes is the equal to the number of goosebumps I feel raise on my arms when I see you, because this feeling could only be derived from such perfect symmetry. A goddamn three piece band plays in my head as the elevator swallows you up. It reminds me of the first time I saw light back in early October of '94.

For a Good Time:

Call me.
Getting better, biting bigger,
Being bitter, fire starter,
Call me game changer.
Call me close shave, close call.
Leaps and bounds, call my bluff.
Put me on a shelf,
Put me in the zoo,
Put me to sleep,
Put me down,
Call the shots.
Call me.
I answer to sleepless nights and ringworm days,
Toothpaste kisses and  2 am power plays.
Lofty rivers of sweat.
Call me when I least expect it.
When I'll most regret it.
Call me.

On the Inflation of Fulfillment

My life got full so much quicker when I was small. It took a lot less. My day felt heavy when I was learning that a peninsula was a stretch of land with water on three sides of it and choosing to sit near my male classmates in hopes that one of them might bring up the rarely exhaustible topic of boobs.

It might be greed... or boredom, I don't know. Maybe it's just that my body is physically larger now, but it takes a lot longer to fill. Days melt together and are smeared with other distractions. It's a lot of pressure to have a good time before life fires stress-missiles up all of our defenseless assholes.

We all desire to be the sole survivor of a crippling shitstorm of commercialism. We all desire to be the martyr of this Applebees. But beyond the moral high-grounds of the mozzarella sticks is an exceedingly minimalist realization: that you have all you need simply because it's all that you have. While some may chalk this one up to confirmation bias, strive to experience the moment where what you have is enough. And focus on your work ethic and your attitude and your fucking daily water intake. I mean shit, in the grand scheme of things, $8.75 an hour is devoid of glamour but enshrined in importance. So what? So what. If you can no longer stand writing about depression or sobriety or... um, the seemingly cyclical nature of family secrets, than write about a dog you saw that day. Worldly significance is an illusion because the only mind through which you can interpret it is your own. So make it matter to yourself... that's it. You're all you have.

And then, when it's over, thirst again. For boobs. Or mozzarella sticks.

The End

I covet your intelligence; I am a glutton for it. I want to bottle every one of your words and position them on a shelf, like organs preserved in formaldehyde. How do I write a thank you note to the person who introduced me to myself? Who retrieved me like a discarded paper fucking bag on the side of the interstate? How do I explain that knowing you for a couple years is like driving a v8 for a couple miles? Or like going to the beach in November or only seeing the moon in the daylight? I don't own enough lifetimes to pay you back.

So please don't meet me in the middle. The middle offers only false contentment and laziness. Nobody has to try in the middle. Meet me in the end. Meet me immediately before my annual grudge against Mother Nature, where the earth brags the same temperature as my gaze. Meet me in the waiting room, where the slow melodic tones of the machines compete with your heartbeat. (Who knows which is actually keeping me alive?) Meet me in the end, so I can offer you all the lifetimes I've collected for you.

Slick

Your mouth tells me no but your eyes tell me nothing short of volumes, too high for my fingers to reach. Bend down a little and I'll  try again but the last time I stretched I tripped on my own arrogance.

Did it hurt? When you fell off your father's lap and snagged your eyelid on his father's funeral and you finally realized what the Circle of Life had in store for its tenants?

You know, you must be Jamaican. Because I reached back into your past lives, six generations previous to this conversation and your skin is six shades darker and your smile six inches wider than right now. As if I'm counting. But I'm counting.

Roses are red, and I've never seen a violet because my vision was always much too blurred by the bottle to write decent poetry. What a shame. I could have been something worth toasting.

You've got more curves than a racetrack and a better bust than a T.V cop but I was never one for entertainment anyway so put your sweater back on.

Whore.

Given

The city moves her as she moves through it. She peers out of her window and wonders if the symphony below strikes everyone the way it strikes her. On the outside we both know how much is destroyed in the city every night. We both know how many children sleep in between the cracks in the sidewalk and how many stray dogs will never see the sun again.  But as morning rears its face, the city sings nothing but life, life, life. The first bus horn is a rooster's crow, hurling the contents of the city into the sunrise. Her living, breathing presence sits comfortably inside the city's own living, breathing presence. The city saves her. It disables the clock-like barrage of poisonous thoughts which are so often wedging themselves into the lobes of her brain. The days can turn on a dime. Her emotional output is a like cat - perfectly content and relaxed right up until the moment it bolts from the room in a panic.

This is a stupid joke at best, a caricature, a satire, a condom unrolling over a banana in sex ed. This is the slow, dawning realization that this is not love, or even a cousin. Not infatuation, or lust, or even extended respect. This was something... else. Something I did not fully understand but would carry me in its arms just the same. What a beautiful loophole I'm living.