i.
i was born small
isn't that something
isn't that always the way?

ii.
there's ice cream on the sheets
lay my bare mottled skin down
and i'm in candyland
candyland and my rubber band all possible
my wink zings minty
bedazzled right down to my innards

iii.
sure just tell other people you think i'm beautiful
that'll do us just fine

iv.
our stomachs match
hanging sort of low and sort of heavy
bare down hard on me
bare and fat like me
swinging low and heavy over me
you loom silent
kept your hand skittering across my belly all night

what if you had grabbed it and pinched it and smacked it and pushed your face there and made me cry and said horrible things

v.
i want people to be beautiful
yes
but

Cathected Catharsis: A Fantasy

is love that
i don't know who has made who better
me or you?
or is it safety
and laying our throats open to each other's knives

tell me i've been bad
kneel behind me and tug my arm in a direction it's not meant to go
put your other hand on my windpipe
and while i choke
i'll tell you that you're desperate and pathetic and disgusting
and if you say
"you're one to talk"
i'll cry and your hand will move from my neck to cover my eyes
and if i grab for you
and you don't let me go
i'll keep crying
for mommy and daddy and my broken roommate and dead classmates and Trayvon Williams and my hung ambitions and girls boiling in their own rage and the little indecent things you have to hear everyone say and cluttered aesthetics and careless art
and you will get to take credit for cracking open my frozen heart
and you will get to sink your teeth into my shoulders so you don't have to bite anyone else
so no one will call you pyscho anymore
we'll all feel better
we'll tell each other we've been so good
we'll forget the language of crushing and spitting
forget "stupid, self-indulgent, ridiculous, childish, infuriating"
you were so good
you did so well
you did so well for me
the salt off our fingers still in each other's mouths
our stinky toes entwined

"something somewhere!" he cried out in his sleep

oh gee it's rainy in oakland

wet feet wet hems of pant legs dirty underwear gold candles

going through a matchbook to try and light a cigarette,

walking through a puddle to remember that my rainboots have opened their soles to rain

looking for a warm hole (bucket? pot of soup?) to dive into and curl up till

the rain stops,

thought i'd evaded winter but oh hello.

but when i think of it that way it's not so bad,

this time, this quiet, once i'm curled up to read-zine-reflect-ponder-talk to friends old and new-play bananagrams by candlelight

not what oakland's been so far

(does a home, a nest in some woods or a tree, ever promise to be warm and dry and stable all the time? are all and any things cold and wet "miserable?")

the cold air through the last few boarded-up windows and the dripping in the front hall

are boring

though

and other souls wandering through attracted like moths to our candles and

recent-found patched-up walls and stability,

quiet dreams of the wood-burning stove (not just a game we're playing, though that too)

bernard maybe leaving with their pile of zines and shame about their teeth and beautiful face in the morning, katrina maybe too to go be present in the northeast with some mending hearts and sighs of dying,

and more kids coming in

a reminder for me about how things change, slow and fast and always,

to see this house grow up in weeks like the bao did over years

like trees over decades

like rye grass roots in minutes (3 miles of root hairs a day! i read).

i am trying to keep myself happy for me and also for others

i find recently that being around loud people makes me quiet, stressful people very chill, perhaps being around sad people makes me rejoice in the small pleasures of oatmeal all the more:

raisins vila almonds cinnamon nutmeg real maple syrup flaxseed out the wazoo

i will sigh and return to pat califia, who has at this moment to say:

"at times like these, i remember the spanner case because it renews my faith in being out of the closet and fighting back. the american gay press ignored spanner, scared off by the thunderclap of spanking and the rattling of chains. but it should serve as a powerful inspiration and model for any group of people who would like to live in a sexually sane society.

it all started in 1987..."

(didn't we all)

& just gets better and better

it's always sunny in the east bay

yuppie coffeedrinkers laugh
and down the street "the cutest kids in the bay" go to the church of religious science to walk the labyrinth and munch raw vegan maple cookies
and three blocks away is the hot mess haus--a hot mess of punk-hippy-homesteader-crafty-zinester-plantloving-injeramaking-radical-searching souls...
seems like everything here is either a few blocks or a few minutes away (nonprofit bike co-ops free paint free produce free people infoshops bookstores fancy haus sugarplum mansion pink purple blue haus the jam factory strong roots garden healthy hearts garden sliding scale farmstands phat beets farmers market in a school parking lot grove schafter park's basketball court)
and rosalyn stopped by with her shopping cart this morning and gave kevin a plant and some bagels. ron came by last night and asked for another veggie dog cause it blew his mind. and ahmed gave us a free beer for a plateful of bbq food!
not much more exactly except an abundance of small beautiful details--what a world (! / ?! / ???) i have fallen into here, of possibilities for living creatively, loudly, quietly. and maybe life is easier in the sun, and maybe that's okay? and still this morning it was hard to get out of bed, hard to get out of the haus--not for any good reasons except black mold on the back of my neck and the toilet's exploding and all those other small pleasures.
ah well...it's always sunny in the east bay.