279: for a friend

i can't believe that i would miss you, boy with cold hands i've never held,
and i can't believe i would see you in that house of yours by the beach in a dream! it was all so close
and it was really really cold by the water, where i dipped my feet and watched your gentle body sway back and forth,
hands pressing piano keys,
black white, white white black, white.
and by the water there was sand in my shoes, crawling between all my toes, separating them from each other
like separation i felt when i finally packed and picked it up on my back
and carried it like a burden, away from you so that you would be free to be free
and i would be free to be me.
but in that house you were swaying to all those pretty notes under your fingers,
with a dog and a small child singing songs that i never got to learn,
nursery rhymes i'm embarrassed to admit i do not know.
i know if i told you that you would laugh at me with that warm morning voice like roses in the back garden,
ones i didn't plant,
and you would, with that voice, tell me i'll always be beautiful to you
and tell me i'll be alright and alright
and tell me that you don't mind at all if i don't know the sweats and rhymes and beats.

you know, i can't believe i would ever miss you,
i want you to show me who you really are, i want to see you bitter, nostalgic and inspired.

278

when i get there, i will ask no more questions,
because the rain will for sure answer me.
and when i am dead and dead, throw me overboard,
because this rocking of the boat will keep making me sick.

277

these hot summer days my palms are black from climbing trees and digging dirt,
burying the stuff i dug out of my pockets
like pocket change
a rusty paperclip or a safety pin,
some wet fireworks i never lit, but meant to ages ago.
today i forgot my multiplication table,
but i can read more words than i ever could,
biking down this narrow street,
downhill,
feet on peddle,
mouth open,
leaves getting caught in my hair and hair getting caught in this delicious breeze.

276

this feeling is so quiet in the pit of my stomach,
it lacks light and red and colours that only a dumb girl can taste.
when i cover my ears and pretend to be her,
i can only see more details (instead of taste, you know what i mean),
like the baby lines in the palm of your hands and those creases between your eyebrows when you frown at me and knit them, telling me my age is not what i act.
hum hum humming amplified from your open mouth,
i want to put mine over, to hold it there and hold your breath,
so that what you lack will not appear then suddenly disappear,
and that water will not wash away the tattoos i've carved in your eyelids when you cry that say "gloria misses you gloria misses you gloria misses you" three hundred times magnified by green glass.

this time i put my hands over my ears i cannot make it the same as before,
and i do not know what drips from between my limbs anymore...
i just know i am not going to fall back and land in the snow that has helped me get to sleep the last few days.

275

i wonder what made you this way,
shy and afraid, you look south instead of north, and east instead of west.
i have to follow you while carrying dirt,
hidden by flowers, growing through the cracks
of my back,
showing you things i like in our track.

and who told you to leave me unattended?
where's our bucket?
which way is to the gold?
who told you to tell me those funny funny things and make me laugh,
when my body is so obviously deformed from chasing you,
so obviously tired?

"i know we must belong outside," i say, i don't care (or think) if it's dangerous.
can you sing a song?
you were holding my hand all along,
and i had to follow you carrying dirt,
because, this here, outside is where we belong.

274

well, these feelings are oozing out of my knee,
i am tightly squeezed like a tangerine,
in a glass, waiting for a hand to grab me
and drink my blood clean, before i turn nineteen.

my life is a book, too long to read,
i think i am boring, i think i mislead,
and out of the jacket, a spring bird sings,
and she will stay there - i've clipped her wings.

there are these summer fruits i love to eat,
peel them open and reveal the sweet,
they sit in my throat and make me feel complete,
like love would under the summer heat.

273

fourth of july, feet swinging in the air on a bus to downtown seattle,
my shoes were a bit too tight,
i remember this perfectly.

and i remember that day i had three water bottles in my backpack,
and a notebook with mostly blank pages i meant to fill out,
twenty dollars in my pocket to fill my empty stomach with food i could already smell.
it was great, children screaming themselves free from their mothers,
and those without mothers were allowed to wander the streets too,
walking next to me,
i felt them watching, like murderous eyes of pigeons, tasting the flesh of their cousins on grills,
waiting for the bread that wraps itself around those bodies,
ten feet above everybody else.

and seattle at night was really beautiful,
a light breeze constantly beneath my body around my feet,
fireworks outside my window, i could hear the sound of a creek with water rushing through like highway,
sleepytired, hungrythirsty, watched magicians on the tv in my apartment, families laughing through the cracks reminded me that i was sitting alone in the dark, back against the kitchen counter, and that this was the best vacation, and that i didn't need anybody to be happy, and that my tears will always be warmer than my face, and i was (and never again will be) more breathless than when i screamed out the sun.

272

you've lived every dream i've ever dreamt of,
because you belong in every one, haunting me or tugging at my heart strings.
most recently was three nights ago, you asked me where my house was,
and i told you it was back home in china where i left my little girl memories and little girl clothes,
where i spent all my spending money on dolls i never even looked at,
i'd put them in the corner and study on the glass table,
the house covered in plants,
great breathing air,
beautiful boys in the sun.

and then there was a pause in our conversation where i heard you breathe in,
then touched my face with your wet, trembling hands.
everything stood completely still,
as if i had said something to upset the entire rotation of the earth.

271

is there such a disaster?
there is such a disaster.

270

cut out pollution with your face.

269

that's not my head.
where is my head?
buried beneath your house.

268

dear feathers, who let you into this cave?
maybe you were brought here years ago when i dug this earth with my bare hands,
from the other side of the world,
through a well i fell through,
with the lid closed shut.
why did i dig? i had to dig! to get out, to see that sun again, to hear those birds again,
to be able to eat anything that was not my foreign flesh
and drink from springs not made of my own bitter blood that secretly poisons me each time i sip it.
so feathers, you must have been brought here to this cave back then,
when my hair was still short and my eyes dull,
because after traveling for so long, i have found that i now understand more than i ever would have wanted to know.

267: a lesson

i met an old woman in my dream, who stroked my hand gently,
and brushed my hair like it was her own.
her face wrinkled, mouth into a smile more beautiful than i had ever seen.
i could not help but imagine how gorgeous she must have been in her earlier years,
perhaps decades ago,
in a rocking chair on a porch overlooking an ocean of clouds and future memories.
when i finally got up to thank her, she did the same too,
and i saw these feathers fall off her dress and fly into the sky like birds,
and suddenly trees were growing faster and faster and her nails grew longer,
long enough for her to dig them into my arm, twist it all the way around until we both heard a crack.
i wanted to wipe my eyes of tears but i just stood still,
eventually aware of my surroundings, my feet on this solid ground, my lungs filling and emptying of air,
and then she tip-toe-whispered in my ear like a gust of september breeze,
"pretty girl, if you don't bend, you will break."

266

yes, a mix of sun and blood
dripping from the sky into her eyes as she said her goodbyes
to her favourite song, her favourite dog and books.
she was that kind of daughter, the kind you'd love to see burning in a fire,
wearing nothing but a smile through her entire body,
veins popping open,
my hands around her neck.

and this sunday she saw the sky, a mix of sun and her own blood,
she thought to herself, "finally,
i can feel the weight of my own damned body.
and finally, my feet are higher than any single clump of beautiful cloud."

265

how do your eyes stay bright
and your hands stay clean
all these months passing by, the back of your head knowing.
an ambulance, the back of this car,
the smell of fire on tv,
i have seen a file on you and all of what you have done.

264

i don't have anything to be afraid of,
because i have time on my side while i watch the world spin,
asleep,
drowsy drowsy into the night.
and i could write so many songs about not being afraid,
and how i believe i'll never grow old,
not old like this city, not old with the city.
tomorrow i'll grow new skin on my arms and feet,
tomorrow i'll prettier and better than ever,
watching this world spinning, spinning along into the night sky.

263

i have such strange dreams in which my arms are boats and i am carried out to sea but above the trees and in the sky the clouds are so smooth and your eyes are so deep and i keep sailing and sailing on into the deepest part of your head and hope that one day i can stay there without sailing a thousand miles and getting lost at sea.

262

i'm so afraid of growing predictable.
tomorrow i will do something different, wear something different, say something different.
i'll trick everyone into thinking that maybe i am somebody else.

261

when the world ends, it will happen faster than a single second,
and i'll be sipping on lemonade in my room, watching tv,
and who knows where you'll be?
maybe you are sailing on the lake,
or in an ocean far away from me.

nothing will hurt anymore, and we won't be hungry anymore,
everything will cease to exist.

then somewhere far away as we are all dying, a new earth forms,
and we will be born again.

260

i took you inside of me, cut a line down my side,
and you can spend this many days at the bottom of my stomach,
like the bottom of the ocean,
with buried treasures like hidden emotions i've swallowed, or learned to swallow, or need to swallow.
yes, there has been so many, i can't and i have lost count.

i have nothing to fear now,
i can spread myself like wings, tie myself up with strings.
outside my window, a windmill cuts through the air, loud like music cuts through my ears,
and echoes through my lungs,
and you will be hidden there too, for me to hear your voice
even when i am sleeping,
even when i temporarily forget about you.

259

i don't know pain and i don't know joy,
but i know what i like and what i enjoy.
when i pull you apart like a pair of knees,
the sun will burn and the ice will freeze,
explorers will whine and drown in all the seas
in the world
twisted and curled,
cabin boy to college boy, education in illinois,
what can't my mind deploy?
what can't my two hands destroy?

this darkness, i know, must be in you too.

258

you are never enough, but i know i am more than enough.

257

the deadline arrived without me realizing,
so obviously while drifting down the gentle waters of the indian ocean, you looked at me as if you had forgotten my name,
puzzled look in your eyes,
asking me if it's too late to turn back now.

256

sin is the name of this game.

255

you've caught me again, thick rope in your left hand around my breath,
i've escaped once but you've caught me again and kept me close, kept me until it got so dark outside.
and even when i am sleeping you won't let go, and what strange dreams i have! they are identical to yours,
where i am glowing and growing and glowing on a hill, like a tree, no beating drums in my system.

suddenly, we were in a lake and swimming never seemed so hard,
and the water was too cold,
and fish nibbled at my toes,
and when i finally wiped the water from my eyes and hair from my eyes i looked at you and the rope has disappeared and dissolved into your arms around my waist and only then did i realize how desperately we need one another.

254

when i am healed i'll tear a cut in my stomach again
and let this cold old blood pour out into your open mouth.
i'll bleed without feeling a thing except the tugging of your arms around my neck
and you will say between breaths that you have been so thirsty for so long
and you have been waiting for me for so long,
and all i'll be able to do is smile when you thank me for my love.

253

how great would we have been?
the answer is not great at all.
i would not have brushed away your insecurities,
and you would not have comforted mine.
i know when tonight is over tomorrow is another day,
and that your hand was soft wrapped around mine, for six days and six nights until our hearts broke, and before that, it kept me warm like home.
when will you forget about me? find me in the air.
when will you remember me again? will it be as fast as the new sun arrives?

252

don't believe them when they tell you to marry a pretty girl,
and do not try to marry a handsome man,
do not fall in love because that's the last thing you should do,
i know, because money bought me love long ago.

251

when i finally see you i will wake up and live,
grow myself up inside of you, in your belly where you keep your secret shells that made you.
oh messy life! we meet again, don't we? even though this time everything is red through your skin.
i'll still write you that love song, i still owe you a good time,
when you come back, and i wake up and live,
i'll name it "untitled" and grow my hair out just to see you before i go again.

250

sometimes i want to touch your legs to check if they're warm,
will they disappear, set free by my fingers?
i wonder because it's happened before, months ago, when i let those words go between my lips,
when you let them slip inside of you through your ears,
and you screamed as if you loved me, ripped out the moon from the sky and threw it into the ocean,
in front of my eyes, a wound in the sky where you and me both were sucked inside, it was like a machine,
and where there was a hole in the sky there is now a billion eyes that watch me grow tired of you in the dark dark dark night.

249

tonight here i lie, i am so tired and undressed,
and there is sweat in my palms from gripping on to this feeling for too long,
waiting for it to settle in,
on my bed.
if you want me to run, unwind me and reset me and leave me undressed.
if you leave, please leave the window open too.

248: something i wrote in 2004

look at elise, sitting near
how i wish i could walk up to her and
express regret.

look at elise, standing now,
how i wish i'd said
nothing at all.

look at her, walking away,
oh! how i wish i weren't so
sensitive to her.

and now look at elise,
broken like a summer dandelion,
all her pieces blown away.

(2004)

247: bad dream

words sometimes leak through cracks on walls,
through the paint, peeled after years of water beneath the white.
men talking, talking, talking, until all i can hear are the sounds of my own footsteps
down the hall,
and maybe the wind through the open windows.

i look left then right while walking, peeking through windows
on those silver metallic doors with no handles,
the air is moist, i almost cannot breathe.

the last door on the left of the hallway was not empty when i looked inside,
two men standing naked, with ties and top hats, and in front of them an unclothed girl sits.
i let out a gasp and they all turn to look at me,
the men had no faces
and the girl's mouth was stapled shut.

246

kept awake by the sun,
kept away by the hungry men,
we left that rancid city behind.
this is how my heart beats,
how it pumps blood,
traveling from north to south on the back of an animal with the same kind of heart as me.

245

show me which constellations you know
and tell me the stories you'd rather forget.

244

tell me what this is all about
whisper it to me and let the words dance around my head.
like my memory, in which the young leaves kiss my footprints, in northern towns, living well,
a wife in a little summer dress, black,
a landlord.
this is where we used to live, sugared hospital beds,
carrying the strangest news of tiny newborns the size of how the moon looks in the sky, from the ground up.

it could be great this way,
it would have been great this way,
living quarantined, crossed out. the hills are violet,
and your words are too,
dancing around in my head, whispering,
waiting for sunset to follow the sunrise.

243

sometimes i sit completely still in bed, eyes searching for salvation.
i can't believe the things i have created with my own two hands.

242

before the winter came, there was a small snowfall
that met the autumn wind, of a billion snowflakes,
dancing until they saw the sun.

and from where i was standing on that chilly day,
i could see bits of the blue sky through the thick grey clouds,
heat trying to come through to my skin, under my clothes,
i breathed in and out deep,
but it was anything but calming.

and the next day the sky was opened up by a pair of old hands,
and on the road, it seemed like nothing had happened the night before,

cars honking,
people running away.

241

what great places we could conquer,
with our house by the sea, in the morning, a translucent film of fresh day.
among the grains of sand and those trees that refuse to die, even in salt water.
a certain morning will mark the return of the birds we chase,
incomplete,
it's far too early and without my glasses, the world is far too blurry.
i want to tell you all about my dreams,
but as usual, i've forgotten how to speak.

240

smiles are meant to be lent out.

239

i still like you more than the sun.

238

the sea is living,
the sea is rising!
why why why can't you see,
we'll all be swallowed by the sea?

237

if i tell you you are made of a pretty checkered pattern,
would you believe me?
such beautiful tapestry, soft against my back when i lay down my bones for you to wrap.
they're loose and fell apart into a mountain of arteries and pieces of my memories...
i've never been so far away from myself.
but thank god i have this thought of you, to keep me still in my days,
thank god i have you to help me through this maze,
because without you i wouldn't ever believe the weather forecast
when it tells me to wear a coat to wear myself out.

236

when there is no song to sing, i'll sing to myself,
from dawn to dawn, animals running out of my mouth.
little by little i will grow,
the grass will turn greener,
the fences will sink lower,
i will soon see myself in you.

235

the sound is so slow and the sound is so low,
drowning out the storm, a solo,
too gorgeous to share with anyone else,
i know i must have selfish ears.

234

my day is born when an old one dies,
over and over and over, for three hundred and sixty-five times into the next year,
and each new year seems shorter than the rest.

i came into this world alone,
crawling out of a wish, a city at night,
from the dark into the dark, splashed white by the artificial lights that break the cells in my eyes.
i wish i could remember what it felt to open them the first time,
to see all those colours, and right away understand, that this life is my life
and this life is a hard life and this life is a good life.
like a book is a movie.

if i could somehow do that again, i know i could be anything you want...

fitted.

233

so we sat at home.
instead of learning what we could have learned,
we gave up. this is way easier, windows open, feeling the breeze,
music turned up,
loud enough to mask the sound of the time we wasted.
but i am not like you, and i can sleep,
i am not like you, because your stomach is constantly empty with regret.

232: smitten again

i want to take a bus up north, or a train, if i can afford it,
hours and hours into your head,
and what a great journey it will be! i'll travel all alone - it's ok.
so many trees and open fields, the sun, then rain, then maybe even snow (if it takes that long),
but i'll get there eventually, song under my breath,
no water in my lungs.
so friend, i'll be seeing you soon. i don't mind the distance or the cost,
and you know, i won't have to tell you, you'll know when i arrive.

i know you're around
when my room smells like burning at night, or when the sun goes down an hour too early,
or when my feet burn from walking in my sleep.
you are the illegitimate claim,
i just cannot wait and i cannot justify the things you make me do.

230

today what woke me up was a familiar sound,
not of a roommate slamming her door shut,
and not of chatting or giggling from the kitchen.

no, today the air is warm and the clouds are heavy,
and there's a billion people outside, gathered, blowing smoke from their faces.

toronto rain is not soft enough for their fragile skin.
and in my head i'll tell them, "you can waste your youth away all you want,
because today i don't need any of you!"

229

melody, melody, you are the night!
i'll take my fingers and create a billion of you, i'll take my arms and wave them about,
because you sit silently, attached to strings that await my heavy weight to stroke them,
to wake you, interrupt your horrific dreams!
i just need so so so much of you all the time all the time.

228

i can hear you think to yourself now, about that quiet squeaking sound,
the street lights pouring in through dirty windows,
a small isolated shelter, rusty ceilings through the roof tops,
i saw stars that night i hadn't seen for years, and felt them tumbling down
onto our bare skin, bare backs, not a single broken bone,
and god! how good and great is the night? temperature closing in faster than the distance between you and i
and the floor
and the pavement
and the grass
and the same stars in the night sky.
so of course i can hear you think to yourself now,
about that quiet squeaking sound, and a voice
leaking out of my mouth like water through a cracked dam.

227

fake fake fake fake break fake.

226

what about the blood that flows around my wrists?
is all of that gone, all the gold that i've touched and all the lead that i've broken?

no, not at all.

225

i need to be in seattle's arms right now.

224

i felt my breath evaporate through the tips of my fingers, between my nails
they escaped up high towards the ceiling and the roof of this rusty room,
and i touched all the spots where i had been burned on my body from your fingers,
and it was so quiet outside but so loud in my head,
and i thought i saw shadows moving like animals in the forest at night, but it was just the sound of the wind brushing against trees that are newly planted,
like a seed in my heart,
and the bones in my chest.
i have only been alive for eighteen years, but it feels like an eternity.

223

my veins are calm words buried deep inside me,
a triumphant script,
and before today i had such trouble reading it.
to think! for years i've had such beautiful letters with me, everywhere i went,
no wonder i've always felt a push, telling me to move onward, onward, onward.

222

this morning i woke up and remembered being very young and very, very foolish.

221

raise my fists in the air,
tie them up, so you can take stabs at me,
and still i'll be fine, because i've got the most beautiful life.
yeah yeah, and you can steal my house, i've still got the most beautiful night sky to cover me with its breath.

are you sad that i moved on?
the stars are going to be bright all night. i'll hold my breath and not your hand.

220

i watched myself in the mirror, holding up the sun,
and all my friends went wide eyed and fell, dizzy, then climbed back up only to fall again.
i said to them, "this is how bright i can shine! this is how far i can walk!
this is my human gift,
a parallel lift
into the sky of a thousand black spots, waiting to be lit up."
and spiraling down some stairs, i fell into love and then into a ditch (in that order),
lightspeed, these red rumours can't bring me down,
not even if they explode into a billion square feet of roots of plants that climb through hunger to my sun.

hey blue jeans, i want things too soon and i want so much of it.
that familiar beat in my arms, and those notes in my stomach, i'd take it any day,
my feet will tap themselves against the floor
to the same tempo as your heart beat (or close enough).
and i'll say "turn it up!" as loud as the sun at noon
because i'm smitten like this song.

218

she can't feel what he left in her brain,
but it's there,
and so far it hasn't bothered her.

217

i'm tripping and falling through.
i can't see the bottom and i don't want to.

life sure goes on.

216

these violet dreams, so good to me.
perfect weather, green sky, just one huge sheet stretched over the world.
i didn't want to hold your hand but you insisted until the sun woke up and shone through the crack in the curtain,
so we watched it reflect off the orange buildings orange into our eyes.
i was reminded of closed eyes facing the bright light.
and we listened to this one song that i like and the rain drops hitting my roof top,
until that same calmness between our fingers belonged to us.

215

in a dream i was alone, bathing in the sun on a hot august night
my tiny room, staring at the ceiling.
there were such big holes in my walls and so many bugs, sound of girls laughing through them,
and there were vines downstairs that move like waves in the wind, billions and billions of leaves.
hours later i saw these hungry plants spiral and curl and climb up the walls of my apartment,
tied me down, creep into all the pores in my body,
sucking me dry of all my water and flesh until i was a piece of metallic skin draped over an unmade bed.
i did not struggle. inside my room, it became winter.
and i was so scared, couldn't scream, and there was so much snow falling to the earth and realized i had forgotten what it felt like to be alive.

suddenly there was a flash and my dreams, they melted into memories.

214

before we ever met, i was a cat.
and my body was dumped in the river.
now all of my friends lie in the water.

213

all his sentences rearranged themselves into words that i could sing,
he kept spitting his draggy bad news, tied me down with a string.
when his mouth finally closes after one last sigh,
i am going to take a swing
at the space between his eyes.

212

waterwings for rainy days,
i am choked by a cushion,
and poisoned by a feather.
it's so easy to hurt me today.

my shaking hands are completely immersed in something that looks like snow,
it cuts me and i bleed.

when i cut it, it bleeds.

211

reincarnation,
there is no other option.

210

clever fever,
don't take my hand.
there is no need to lead me;
i am already in tomorrow.

209

open your arms and show me my home,
because i had the saddest saddest dream last night,
and woke up to disappointing air.
your voice is honeyed and silver and frozen like a january sea,
and my fingertips burn like feathers on fire, attached to a small traveling bird,
flying north instead of south to catch a cold.
open your arms and show me the north,
i will sigh high into them
i will sigh whenever, wherever i want.

208

today i saw you scanning groceries at the check out,
and your arms were like trees i wanted to climb, barefoot, in the dark before the dawn.
i saw and thought you were probably scarred on your bones, or you scarred me to make my breathing so weak.
and then you turned around and looked at me, with a smile and voice that broke me to a billion pieces i would have liked you to pick up and try to reassemble into a shape, whatever you want, as long as you like it and i am it and you want me.

207

today is a young girl, shining,
wearing her virginity like a crown.

i am sad for her.

206

footsteps made of mud smear as you crawled away
and i watched you disappear, as if you were escaping from me.
today my hands are shaking from being so fatigued all the time,
let me leave myself alone for a while, catch a train, wind in my hair to somewhere far,
because if you threw me into the world now,
i would sink like an anchor, and drown like a child.

205

angels,
i have never seen one, but by the end of tonight i will,
and it will be in my bed, asleep like a corpse in its shell,
sunshine on its wings, lemon-coloured warm spilling over a hill.

when it dreams, its body does not rise and sink,
and when it stands, it stares and does not blink,
and outside they will shove and mock and laugh at it,
at its face that buries deep into the earth, body split.

the skin around my aging skin will only get darker,
searching the earth for its sweet mother.

203

how can i think of anything again?
i'm too in love with a city,
its warm air to wrap around me, so tight that i cannot sleep,
and then wander its streets under orange streetlamps early in the morning,
watching flowers open.

how can i hear anything again?
i'm too in love with a song,
its rhythm and melody stringing through my ears,
lifting my soul but dropping my body so that i may sleep
and then wake up to it whispering.

how can i dream of anyone again?
i'm too in love with someone who does not exist,
and he is as pretty as a the sun in the sky,
tells me stories of what it feels like to be alive and living, in the city i love,
humming that one song, strumming it in his fingers to make me shake and make me well.

202

the sky weeped and yelled out profanities in hard white rocks
that hit umbrellas, pedestrians on the sidewalk
and my window too. it was a drum beat and matched my anxious heart.

but the rain that came along with it was soft and gentle,
and i pushed my arm outside my window, so desperately trying to feel it.
and then it came, each drop was like a tiny gift in my palm, reminding me of that rainy evening in seattle,
across the street from that tiny cafe with empty chairs, near the harbour
i saw you for the first time then behind two deep blue eyes that sat so pretty,
and that's where i had left my fingerprints and blinks for you to find.

then today i missed you and woke up suddenly, this rain praying to death.
i want to say goodbye to lonesome, hello to the air, no sun, no moon,
sing a bird song for the tiny balloons that grab on my wrists and lift me up up up
into the sky and let go suddenly, so i can dive into the deep blue sea.

201

before the sun rose, i heard you count to ten in your head,
like retracing footsteps, or memory, digging it out from a grave.

this one time you traced my fingers on your body,
and it was so soft like ripples in water,
and i could have sworn i heard these girls laughing outside, at me, and at my scratchy skin.

yeah, i have terrible eyesight,
and i can't see between wrong and right,
but i know for a fact that yesterday was right and today was wrong.

200

you said lift your arms up and then your shirt,
so i did,
in japan, that wind shares its pretty with me so eagerly.
as eager as the first time your fingertips touched my burning skin,
and i drank you up through my pores, a bird, a drop of ocean.

now i can see (but who can't? i'm laughing)
you left me at the train station in osaka, buried in strange people who are now stranger strangers.
you left me at the train station long, long ago
folded in a brown paper bag, leftover lunch, little me in the summer, and summer was last year.

just tell me i am not so charming anymore, you beautiful tyrant, you eyebrighted knight.
the forecast on the news, isn't it going to be a cold winter this july?
you left me in osaka at a train station in the summer, which seems not so long ago but we both know it is,
because summer was last year.

and no, i don't mean to destroy everything.

199: a good poem.

"now leave me alone.
now learn to do without me.

i'm going to close my eyes.

and i want five things only,
five favourite roots.

one is endless love.

the second is to see autumn.
i cannot be if the leaves
don't fly and fall to earth.

the third is solemn winter,
the rain i loved, the caress
of fire on the wild coldness.

in fourth place, summer,
round as a watermelon.

the fifth thing is your eyes.
i don't want to sleep without your eyes.
i don't want to be if you're not looking at me:
i'd give up spring
for you to keep on looking at me." - p.n

198: a dream i had last night

the flood ran through three houses down my street,
and four on the next one, metres west from where i am standing now.
this was yesterday, and it has calmed already, the water,
what used to be angry oceans - they are now like skinny springtime streams.

what brought the water and what brought the storm?
it came so suddenly like it knew too many people were born on that day,
crashing these parties and these walls, and i remember yelling, begging you to tell us what you wished for.
you warned me to be patient, i know, and that must have been my fatal mistake.
i also know these words cannot mask what i feel now. i can no longer tell between remorse and regret.
but i can pretend anyway, neighbour,
because i would have loved to see you turn forty eight.

197

i know i now speak no real words; molten lava pours out between my jaws,
onto paper, burning these books you used to read to me to keep me interested
on those long nights, the same ones when i could not sleep,
and watched myself tug at my stretchy ruined skin like a diseased, starving infant.

and there were so many bugs around summer time, not sure if you remember this,
they were crawling in and out, one ear through the other on your pretty head.
it was you who knew me best, and knew that i hated the sound of those critters, hated the feeling of their legs digging into the pores of my flesh,
so you took a razor and cut me open so they could crawl all over my insides.

and then once or twice i told you i wished the sky was red,
to match these red hands i have from choking my sister.
weeks later, maybe months after her funeral it got cold very suddenly and we shook and shivered and shook under a blanket which turned out to be the softest snow i'd ever tasted,
even until today.

too many ghost live on this mountain, hey? - they constantly whisper something that is not my name.
when i told you that one of them was tugging at my leg one september, you laughed, very very sharply,
kissed it away like a wish, as you murmured those sentences from books (same ones i burned later), until the moon rose and sun fell into my eyes,
as deep as lakes,
as far from you as tunnels into the centre of the earth.

196

when i die, i want to be absorbed by plants and eaten by animals,
because that way, i'll still physically live
not in my current body but alive in many beautiful things at once.

195

can i kiss your nervous bones?
i know you both feel sea sick like death.
one summer to the next summer, you've always been safe, under swimming stars.
you can destory volcanoes,
but isn't it sad how you can love each other?

194

my name is gloria,
and i slurp on skulls of the dead,
because in people i see beauty and love: it makes me sick, the dead,
they have no melodies, they only go out when it's warm at night,
living evil,
i can't take it
i can't hold so so still like them.

193

i've done a good deal of missing lately.

i miss so many people,
people i would have never admitted i miss,
but where has the sound of their breaths gone?
underneath books that have become dusty and pages crusty? and?
i miss my tall boys and my busty girls, my twee girls and my free girls,
running on beaches, pouring cups of herbal tea on raw feet, puff stung by bees,

and i miss the summer time, accidental rainbows under sprinklers,
dogs running wild chasing cats never scared to bite their tongue.
i miss that sunshine and rainshine and that pretty design
underneath familiar eyelids like bloodveins and riverveins and grindgrind grinding that sweet candy between my teeth.
and do you know that smell? do you know what i'm talking about?
that smell of the calm sitting water next to home, drifting through open cracks on my walls and through the window,
helping bugs find their way to the light
in my stomach
because in the summer time i swallow suns.

192

bodies are like sand, aren't they?
they live to be drenched in all the oceans in the world,
head to toe, arctic and southern,
fingers and arms and fingers, pacific and atlantic, then back to pacific,
and legs in the coldest parts of the indian ocean.
our hearts beat like drums in the waves that come crashing onto us,
each and every one, glittering like rain drops under a street lamp, all linking arms on our big empty earth.

we're smiling, glowing, underneath stars that drift along shores,
where men on boats cry, staring at a pictures of their wives, standing bare feet in the sand.

191

i wish i were in seattle right now, sitting on a bench by the docks,
no home to go to.
listening to fleet foxes, watching the sunset,
smelling that fishy ocean breeze, i don't even care.
i'll sleep on the bench if i have to, rubbing my hands together occasionally for warmth, comfort, and human contact.
even if i were to freeze to death in my sleep, i would die happy,
because i miss that city more than i will ever miss anyone.

190

tonight boys become men,
and i will watch them grow, thirteen year olds getting hit in the face the first time,
tasting that satisfying scent of sweat on each others bodies.

yeah, i know exactly what that feels like.

and by the end of the night, they will walk away,
hands shoved deep into their pockets, heads hanging, staring at their shoes.
they won't say a word to each other but they'll murmuring to themselves,
"no pain, no gain"

189

lend me your hand, get me through these nasty days.
i didn't mean that, please let me rephrase:

i'm finally ready
to admit that
even i
get
sad
s o m e t i m e s.

188

give me something to live for.

187

we are now strangers,
but your voice is in my head and it scares me.
just let me breathe, please, let me rest,
you're like a rock in my stomach, waiting to digest.

186

how can you fall asleep
in this sea of noise, baby?
with your window open, cars passing by,
i heard them through my walls, through my blank computer screen.
your heart beating too fast too, like a buzzing hummingbird, and i also remember this from putting my head on your chest too many days ago.
this world is beautiful, and in dreams you can't feel anything except happy,
head wandering, you won't feel nauseous, but hold in your stomach anyway because you will wake up feeling cold like i do.
every night, when you are sleeping, i'll still be awake for many hours,
playing my guitar, a melody about an young boy, a war, a cliff, waves,
"oh you, oh you, oh you."

185: a dream

i dreamt that time passed by and within a normal hour, it had already been one thousand weeks.
we backed up, staring stupidly at the sky, backed up confused.
then i almost tripped on a small rock, missed it just in time,
lifting our feet high, heavily dripping with mud.

and from the sky it rained thousands of paper strips,
a ripped up list of our memories from those one thousand weeks, laughing as they fell.
so we hurriedly gathered them, holding hands, falling and slipping in the mud and crying dirt away from our faces and screamingscreamingscreaming,
louder than any ocean.

within minutes we had a bag full of paper,
and then the sky was still low as if it was falling towards us, but now a calm colour like concrete.
we leaned against opposite sides of a tree, panting, grabbing handfuls of paper and chewing it,
not because we were hungry,
and not because we longed for each other at that specific moment,
but out of desperation, doing all we can to fill up our empty human shells.

184

take a picture,
throw it over a polaroid frame,
and stick it on walls all over the city.

from the moment i open my eyes, i see in cross processed photographs.

183

trees move toward water,
like my lips drift toward your skin when you are telling your stories.
oh, the words slip so smoothly. they smile upon me and wash over me early in the morning,
and i imagine i am on a bumpy road with my bike, avoiding thunder, destroying wind.
it's true i miss the jingle of your jeans, change in your pockets,
my hands in your pockets.
i will make you sing in your dreams,
my violin fingers spreading your mouth, pulling your teeth,
serenading our good, good life.

182

a hundred clinched fists to the sky, up north
under a starry roof, to a rocking guitar riff, a messy bass solo
and a drunken drummer banging away while his head hangs low.
of course, the police are waiting outside, ready to come in through the front door,
and of course we all know that door around the back.
and while we kick our feet and swing our fists until 2am, the world is beautiful and it belongs to us,
and we are chanting,
"we are so young and we have no dreams,
we are so young and we have no dreams."

181

sixteen degrees,
paul baribeau scratching his voice in my ears, walking up an unfamiliar part of bay street
by myself, hands shoved into these pockets.
today the air smelled different, and i pretended it was cold.

i was in another city for a little while.

and my hands, they got sweaty quickly from making choking fists, like preparing for a fight, just like in seattle.
curving my back, chin to the air, singing anthems, these buildings were too tall,
as if my glasses were off, they became calmly photographic, these buildings,
gently gently gently lowering themselves on top of me.
and then i became blue and purple and red with the sun and clouds.

the street was strange, filled with strangers,
and as i paused at a street light. a bird flew next to me, i brushed my hair from my eyes.
i realized that i have no family, and i have no future, and i have been alone for a long time.
and so i imagined i was on the edge of a cliff, sitting on a thin tree branch, looking over a black wild sea,
singing a soft song, muted by the waves.

180

i say, isn't it sad when people pass away?
why do you hide it, when you are not well,
why do you hide the feeling of life creeping away from you?
your young, swollen bodies, falling like autumn leaves. i don't want to see it.
and i don't want to see death pressing against your bodies like keys of a piano,
a, b, c, d, e, f, g and all those in between.

in the end, we all die of course, but the difference is i get to see those beautiful haunting lines form in the corners of my eyes, and on my forehead,
and i get to watch my hair turn silver, grey, white
and you were not well.

but i say you are alive, even in the faintest memories of us,
and you are alive when the snow melts into rain into my hair, in a midnight whisper from my lover,

when the fireworks go off this year, i'll be smiling for the both of you.

179: about a girl i would never get to know

she was sitting two feet away from me,
her bleached hair and beach eyes,
pouring glances on me like sand from a river bank.
i remember her now, and back then it was july, i think,
on a bumpy ride, beat up bus, on my way home in seattle, two 14 year olds making out in the corner of my eye.

and that day was very hot and i was in a bad mood,
i remember wanting to cry so so so desperately but not being able to,
choking down spit and a cold paper cup, half empty with coffee i waited too long to finish.
on my headphones i was listening to a song i knew all the words to,
i'd move my lips and nod my head and pretend i was in a movie,
and she probably knew too, the lyrics i mean, because the song was turned up too loud,
and i was stubborn and hated the noise of the evening,
and she kept glancing at me with those eyes, beach eyes,
lids i wanted to kiss.

and today i remembered her because i thought i saw her on the street.
i wonder what would have happened if i talked to her, took my headphones off, smiled crooked and afraid.
she probably didn't think she was pretty (and probably still doesn't)
but i did.

and what would have happened if i cried that day?
too hot, on the bus, air conditioner turned off but windows stayed closed.
i would have pretended to yawn, or rub my eyes,
smear watery tears on my legs like a prick pierced my palm, and hope she was not watching me.