Conversations Among the Ruins

Do you remember
that kind of love where
you put on that song

"Ice cream" and just
smile.

Where you kiss slow
in a bed of stuffed
animals on a floor

in the bedroom
of my adolescent
self.

I never knew
how to cry even
though none of them

ever loved me
back as much as I
thought I

loved them.

Love told me it was a
party
and a split

hit.

Love told me it was a
boy crying
against a wall

and telling me
that I could
be

so much
better.

Love told me it was a
walk
on a beach

and a bottle of
vodka under a
blurry

strobe light.

Love told me it was a
slow motorcycle
ride to breakfast

on an orange
fall morning and I

never knew how to
cry but
love told me it would

teach me that and
she did.

Love was a woman
sitting at my kitchen
table with me

for six hours
and taking me to
the airport because

she liked to
talk to me.

Love believed in
me and love

forced me to
walk away in order
to learn

the order.

Love taught me that
she is a little girl

in the middle of two
hundred barbies,

handing me a gem
from her treasure chest.

She is almost nine years old and
Love's eyes are very deep

brown.

Love is a ten hour drive
to as far as nowhere
in the desert

takes us.

Hand in hand with
my head

on that shoulder.

Love is in the
crystals. and if Love

didn't ever teach me
what it was to cry

with every dropped pin
of my being,

I would have never
learned

any contrasting
feeling.

Love is a little red
dog with a light pink
collar.

Love is trying and
all I have is

light
anyway. It's dim
on this planet

because I have to
worry about groceries
and

cell phone reception but
I promise you
that someday the way

that trees bend
into light

will talk to you and
tell you

the reason for all of
this pain.

I don't remember
a whole lot about
being a kid.

But I
remember how
I would get
obsessed.

Obsessed at
age eight that
I wasn't as skinny

as the girls on
90210. Obsessed
with a boy

named John.
Obsessed with
twirling my hair

on my fingers
in a freezer - the
feeling of my cold

hair in my fingers
gave me a rush
and took me

somewhere else.

I grew up, the
nineties happened
and I was obsessed

with the size of
my arms, happy meal
toys from thrift stores,

deflated foil ballons
and covering
the walls

of my bedroom.
I was obsessed with
daydreaming about

how someday I
would speak
to people.

I didn't know about
what I just pictured
myself

thin and
pretty and the
center of

the rooms focus.

I was obsessed
with shopping in
thrift stores and

when I turned
sixteen I met a boy.
His name was Alex

and I was obsessed
with him. I believed
in him.

I believed
the things
he said that I was

which was
not much but
nothing;

nobody
at all.

For a spell
he was the spell.

He is the reason
I didn't pick up
my first drug

until after my
eighteenth birthday.
I didn't

need them; the
insanity of each of
us in a room together

sufficed.

I was obsessed with
lemon pepsi and
big league chew.

I had over three
hundred flavors
of lip smacker.

I couldn't have one
of anything. I needed
to have them all,

and each was to have
a name, a personality
a story.

I was obsessed with
three inch thick glitter
on my eyelids and

white out bleaching
my hair
every Thursday - obsessed

with the hurt.
With the abuse.

With the
words.

I learned to
fucking write
because I was obsessed

with eloquently
making sure
you could fucking

hear me after you'd
fuck me and
beat me up and
dump me for the

seventh day that
week.

I was obsessed with
forgetting. Obsessed
with the raves.

Obsessed with Love.
Or whatever I thought
it was. Obsessed with

feeling like a train hit me
the night before
the current morning because

that was funny and
just so typical.

I was obsessed with being
ok with beating on a man
that loved me and never

hit me back in a trailer
park just as the sun
rose. Because if

I was fucking nuts
I was at least

something.

I was obsessed with
ecstasy - chewing
up double digited

numbers of pills -
of having a blotter
for breakfast and

watching the walls
melt. I was obsessed

with some shit head
primadonna LA based
bitch because the

fantasy of him
as an actual real person
that could save me

or gave a fuck
was another obsessive
fantasy.

I got obsessed with
cocaine and smoking
crystal meth and I

was obsessed with
a blonde med student
named Robb.

Who actually tricked me
into conscious life.

Into a waking life
to be

obsessed with.
I missed a lot
of a few years of my

life because I was
focused on how
obsessed with Robb's
death

so many people
told me I
was.

I was fixated on
blow torches,

melting glass and
wax together and
sticking thousands of

stickers onto
things. I was obsessed
with
melting

hundreds of
toothbrushed
together

after I
boiled them.

I was obsessed
with electronic
dance music and

pronouncing
the names of
the foreigners
that make

that shit.

I was obsessed
with trying
to belong

in a sub culture
of

snobs and
spiky boots.

Anything to just
hate
myself.

To not be
good enough.

I am obsessed with
self growth and
coffee and my

weight and what I
do or do not
eat, at what time

of the day.

I am obsessed
with my job and my
lover and my

dog.

I fix on yogartland
and in & out burger

and eloquently
written
insanity.

So it gets better
but I swear it

never goes away.

I am an addict.

In a few weeks I'll
take a two year
cake and next

week I'm actually
speaking.

I won't have any
flashy lights or
clothes - I will

likely probably not
even shower but

that's something.

I'm flattered and
privileged and

soundly
awake

tonight.

(Thank you Suzette)

This is a very
short
period
in time

where an
enviornment
is provided

to experience
dualities of love

with hurt and
loss with "have."

Fear was never a
part of the plan,

fear was primarily
introduced as
caution however

now we are coated
in fear
as a result of
the machine that owns

the media in the name
of sales.

The planet was sold
and the revolution
is sinking. Three

weeks ago our
right to the fourth
amendment

was surrendered,
signed off
in a bill dubbed

"indefinite detention."

Hey! Military officials
can come to your house
and arrest you

and you will not have
a right to due process
or a trial.

The environment on
this planet was provided
as a cosmic playground

for spiritual growth except
cosmic law,

that's the shit that
holds the universe
together,

has been all but
discarded.

Here I am, living
in a time where
the very best

(highest vibration)

of humans functions
along with the

very worst
(lowest vibration)

and make up one
single organism.

Gaia. Which is being
destroyed.

Are you one of
those two hundred
thousand or so

watching the
noises in the night
on youtube?

Harmon sits
behind me in
shock.

"It's coming."
I say.

"You should
really let

people into
who you are."

He says back.

Penelope
snores

in disapproval
of it

all.

"Oh my God it's so
funny." I find myself
saying.

"She comes home and
cleans the fridge,
without fail, every time.

Just throws tons of food away
to make room,
aghast

at all that's piled up
inside. Basically, I
go

shopping, and my sister,
she cleans the fridge."

I've told this to a few people
in my life. So I had quite a
familiar laugh to myself

when I woke up this morning,
walked down the stairs,
and there sits Lisa, indian style

in front of the fridge,
and a full garbage bag
to her left. Aghast and

flustered over my parent's
refridgerator
par normal.

What is different this time
is that Grace, my one and a half
year old Niece, is sitting

in her lap helping.

"I feel like I come here
and I can't control

anything." She says.
"So I just clean the fridge,

because it makes me feel
like I can control
at least one thing here.

Look at this! There are
seven packages of
sticks of margarine and

five containers of butter.
I'm going to take a goddamn
picture of this whole shelf

of versions of
butter. I can't sit still. I
feel like I have to clean the

cabinets too but that's just
rude, so I have to deal with
the cabinets, and mostly

that I can't do anything
about them. The fridge though,
I will."

"Yeah" Pipes up Grace.
I raise my eyebrows,
pouring coffee.

I am up too early and
too jet lagged to try and
make all of this funny.

For the day I take my mom's car
while she's at work, with the
agreement to pick her up

at three o'clock. I'm early
so I visit her and it's nice
that people that don't know me

know me
because she tells them about
my life.

When we get into the car
her phone is going off.
It's Lisa, sending her a text

making sure
that I didn't forget
to pick her up.

My mother.
Who let me borrow
her car.

Like I'm a person
that would just leave her
waiting for me

after a long day of work.

I didn't say anything
about this nor will I.

But I was just making a
bagel at 2a.m and I found
myself

in front of the now
spotless fridge.

The butter shelf is all
lined up and straight.

I just stood there a minute,
staring hard at the

shelves, before I quickly
took a container of butter

and put it on a different
shelf. And another one.

After that another one.
A second later I'm
moving everything

all over.

Out of order and
crooked - mis matching up
the shelves. Putting

condiments
reserved for the door
onto the shelves.

My sanity has days
where it isn't so
thick.

But at least
I'm creative.

Nothing keeps
leaving me
voicemails and

all it says is
"I'm here. Here
with you in your

giant orange
shawl and
three sizes too

big sweat
pants."

Nothing says
"Just stare out
at the gray

sky and eventually
you will see me.

Sometimes I
am all you feel
and I was just

calling to
remind you that
no matter what

it seems
I am always
here."

Nothing tells me
to do it tomorrow.

Nothing keeps
the canvas
on the floor

six hundred
of the wrong
layers because

it isn't done.
Nothing grips

to my job,
as that is a

massive something
to consume
my self growth

with. Nothing
stares at my
phone with me

and tells me
"You don't feel
like talking."

Nothing is a
straight jacket
I cuddle up in

like a toddler.
I cannot accept
nothing but it

shows up and we
sit quietly
together.

It is never ok
in my mind

to be
exhausted -
no matter how

many hours I
work in a week or

how many times I
take out the
trash, do the

dishes, water the
plants.

A long time ago
a girl had

nothing. So she
made
nothing

everything and
nothing loves

to keep sending out
it's manuscripts.

To this head.
On this chilly
gray afternoon.

Nothing is a nice
bath tub that when
sat in for too long

drowns you.

Slow comfort.

Absent of
life.