know a little mirror for viewing little hairs
to be pulled
know a ceiling, know a blue ceiling
unevenly painted, poorly kept
a strange burn on the wall
know a mat
torn and rock embedded
know the crank as it cranks
a forward growl
only the faraway thinking of us
i'm dreaming hotly
on stained pillows
mostly of the prince i wove out of memories
all of you tumbling out of my slightly open mouth
it's very dry from the valerian
know a pile of cigarette packs
squashed
know clothes that all feel odd
know money tucked away
and the girl that becomes as she stands behind the counter
breathe and the body becomes heavy

still aboard bad writing train (yesssss)

you know what they say - stop smoking and sell little bits of yourself, dried flakes of your liver, to get inside people and on their salads, hair for children with cancer and stem cells for babies and ears grown on mice, sell little bits of yourself that you don't need, but grow bigger, grow larger, your smallness will not be valued on the market, grow gigantic grow over and up and in with the rose bushes for ever never

keep a list of tips and tabs and pay back your overdue electric bill, tell the story of you again and again until it becomes bright and polished and leave out the bits about staging a fantastical and bloody seppuku at your desk cube

sell little bits of yourself
i repeat three times
america is the country i love because it is the only country where i am allowed to drive a car
this you might say
at a bar
or i don't want fuck people who talk about their feelings for six hours
blech blech blech
the skinny arm girls with delicate neck jewels
dangerous arrow and spear shapes
will just
die

---

would have woke

within or without the stench of struggle

no default redemption set in, pre-anything

in morning with you

wrestle the blessed pressure

of flesh and wind, linen upon skin

have gone out and got those leaves we need

and bulbs of fruit, perhaps the right piece of meat

cut it up to eat, posture in no clench, at ease

there is a way to arrive again from night

to not perform rising, as if it were a step in a process

with the yoke already running, blood being red though blue

resist the rusting hook upon bedsides

it wants to be put in

drag us across the stage

there is a way to be surrounded by light

yet unseen

to be found all at once and not ever at all

do you understand what i mean?

would have woke with you

closed eyes open again

i've really done it now (somehow this is really long, i think because i need to purge myself, which is pretty much always, so whatever please forgive me)

you get exactly what you ask for! i am in an unknown city! in invisible cities there is a city called tamara. did you know that? i was shocked. i was shocked for sure reading on the purple line the purple line which no longer cradles my ass that honor now goes to my little motor my little pikachu looking little vroom vroom. you know, in the city of tamara, according to italo calvino, ITALY'S PREMIERE FABULIST MIND YOU, in the city of tamara there is nothing but signs, you never see the thing but the image that means that thing. i thought, great googly moogly! what can i divine from here? i mean nothing because this is not how the world works. a thin volume of strange prose is not a prophecy and fleeing twelve hundred miles to ever-summer is not the entirety of the battle. or even really a battle. it's a long drive with someone who you like alright but not that much and not enough to spend five straight days with and who will tell you shit about a person you have loved and been trying to peel away from that will making said peeling easier. in other people's mouths you become feckless. yes, i am terrified all the time, but i do not think that i am only capable of fear and that is why i had to leave you know because we could have dragged each other down forever. (btw, if you find any good theories of fear let me know, i am sick of reading about abjection and failure and sex and just want to know about fear but all i've got is uptown problems which is a dangerous text that could lead me to crochety old man hood and my one goal or well one of my goals is to become kind or at least intentionally so.)

i am scared of my food and my clothing, my books, anything that can't be too easily thrown out. scared of needing to lie, scared that i won't be able to hide my terrible unhealthy habits for long enough that they can kill me before i have to do anything about them. i don't hate myself and i'm not having a crisis, i just died again and am now only waking up. THIS IS SO DRAMATIC and I did not intend for it to be. i'm sort of losing it? or like not? the losing-it-ivness is sort of immaterial. i mean to say i was in a grave, though not very grave and now i'm out of it, but i'm sort of dirty and feral, like in that one episode of buffy where she climbs out of her grave and she's all messed up and can't talk and doesn't want to eat and has to be gently reminded of the world. i mean that's me, but with more calling my mom and more calling you and forgetting to pay my bills.

by the way i dream of you. just so you know. in the dream, you show up to a party where i am talking to people and you shout my name and i, then i am high in your arms and blushing and my legs are around you and i'm crying because i'm happy and because i can show everyone how much i love you and just how well you can carry me. it's you every time. we don't kiss, but my tears get your hair wet.

today i said in the mirror, love god and mend. like the city of tamara, god is the sign of a thing and not the thing itself and the trouble is i still don't know what the itself is. there. that's it. there there. (remember what i said about prophecy?) i looked at my body in the mirror also. even less success was to be found in looking that in saying. my mother bcc'ed me on her shana tova email. william thinks i should go to synagogue, but i'm not sure if that's what i mean by god. remember when i was really into india arie as a pre-teen. all i want is a little lover who will fuck me while also respecting the spirit world. I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS. i will probably settle for a phd candidate in linguistics who brings up lacan in relationship talks or at least that's what the internet tells me i'm going to do because i have a degree and an apple mac and i read more than two books in the last year and i do in fact masturbate. that's what the internet tells me. i'm going to let phd candidates chew me up. HOROSCOPE PROPHECY.

However

the

city

may

really

be,

beneath

this

thick

coating

of

signs,

whatever

it

may

contain

or

conceal,

you

leave

Tamara

without

having

discovered

it.

austin looks like la and i barely know where to start. there are so many people moving here everyday. my fear is enormous! everything's bigger in texas. pity for the addled new car owner and suffering junkie. there are still beautiful people. i hate beautiful people.

did i tell you memphis is weird? memphis is so weird and graceland is horrible and i am sort o regretting that i ever went there because i actually don't like walking with the dead that much. and that much carpeting is a fucking crime. if i were rich i would buy some horrible glass monstrosity out of architectural digest and cover the place with white leather and i would wear white leather too and i would stop ever bleeding because that shit is way expensive and you can't ever get blood out of anything. did i tell you we picked an ice cream place at random and we ended up in a swarm of very dirty children who were half naked and covered in bug bites, wearing sagging underwear, and i thought, i don't know what to do about this damn country at all.  people stop wherever they please there, sides of highways whenever they want, but there are still farmer's markets and tight-panted bearded types (you know the dreaded word) and it falls away into texas which is wide and flat and has a STAR on every juncture on every bridge you could drive under. what is cool but lots of color and patchwork and you can find that anywhere, there are coffee shops everywhere, and there's always free wifi when you look like me in a flippy skirt and a small mouth. and these days i so badly want to be cool, but in a way that involves more leather and a lot more gray and shaving the back of my head. it's so expensive to look like i could be trouble.


by the way i am reaffirming my dedication to writing terribly today. I AM GOING TO WRITE VERY BADLY NOW FOR A TIME. everything i touch is going to be a dusty horrible rusty and tangy and gross. invisible cities a fabulation and my ass my ass MY ASS. ghenghis khan you can me out of this place.

i'm still thinking of you by the way. just want you to know.