Conversations Among the Ruins

I would like to
walk like a delicately
pealing banana down

a tie dyed path of
quartered sunkist
jelly beans.

To spit up out of
my mouth into a
pin wheel patterned

polka dotted
pill bottle.

I will write
NOVEL onto

my palms and
pray really hard -
wearing a hat

that people
would stare at
in a Denny's

at two in the morning
after I threw a
cheeseburger

on it's plate
at somebody

I mis thought
importnat.

She cried I wore
glitter print blue
and orange

t shirts.
With a smirk and
a lot of bleach
in my hair - it made me

feel.

I believed in love
but only when it gave
me the excuse to

bring out a brownie
sundae at a pizza place
and laugh -

Because of
that - I got

to be.

He tells me sometimes
not to worry that they
won't hurt me and I

snort obnoxiously
and tell him

it isn't me
worrying about them
that I think of.

Down a candy apple
lane of ecstasy and
mixtapes on

tollroads at the bottom
of the gin ice I

grew up and
fell in love and

got married

again to the sticks
and stones and tubes
of lipstick that wore

me.

The letters tell me
lately that my
writing is powerful

and I (thank you) and wonder
about people that write
REST IN PEACE

over social networking
sights on the internet.

I'm sick of picking the chicken
out of my food and how right

lately
the price
sure is.

I watch her every day
and hope it's the day
she makes the decision

to put down the denial,
hit rock bottom and
crash but I

need her still to
stay alive.

I love her and she
hates herself she

loves how beautiful
they tell her she is.

They say it so much
that she says it too.

I met her
topless in the
dust.

We talked slowly of
death by heroin and
parties and sex

industry work.

She is young but I
hope every day that she
makes it out

alive without a
prison term.

The world is
too true

sometimes I just
quit playing along.

Thank God I'm
twenty eight and
out on those streets

dead and sick
is more acceptable than
"worn."

Young girls idolizing
Courtney Love
makes the world

a very sad and
small

place.

The dark fades
just the

same.

It only took three buttons.
Three buttons to delete
two years of

emails that changed
my entire being.

I said I would go to
the temple but I
never made it - I

couldn't stomach that.
I couldn't accept it.

I couldn't burn
all of those letters
yet. I could not

say goodbye - it
would have ripped
at me and I still

didn't understand.

I sat at Shelli's
today and explained
how a woman

taught me how
to live. She was one of
the most honorable

and incredible people
to ever come into
my life -

but something went
entirely wrong and

she did not agree
with my choices. So she
asked me to delete

everything I she ever
ever wrote to me and
so I did.

I find dozens of
cards that she would
always send me weekly
in boxes and I

either stop of
leave them there - I
can't believe this planet
spins without her

guiding me
however I no longer
accepted
her opinion

of my love and of
my life therefor I

had to leave. I went over
a step with Shelli this morning
and she

said to me that

"No matter what
happens I'll be with
you on

this side and I'll
be with you on the
other side

too" and I

almost choked
at the simplicity

of such a statement.

I am

far.

I walk calmly out of the house and into
the sun, out to the car where my father
is getting out of the front seat.

I give him a hug,
walk around and hug
my mother.

They step into
our living room -
sit down on the

couch.

And they don't
say anything
about the six foot
tall

portrait
I painted
and put up.

So.
Her name is Muriel
and Muriel is the name
of a Lemurian Quartz that I

chose to give to a
women that I had
a lot of resentments
towards -

However. I decided to
just put myself and my
bullshit aside and love her

through
what she was going through.
So I gave her Muriel because
I felt the pain that she

was given and after that
I stayed awake for two
straight days and
painted

that canvas.

I figured as much
but I had hoped

I guess.

"The lillies
are beautiful."

My mom says.
I don't tell her

I got them
at my two year
birthday.

It is in my art studio
that I start frantically
pulling out
every

completed canvas.
"This one I made
at the burn and this
one is for Dubz but I

don't have five hundred
dollars to send it. This one
is sexual assault and

this one I traded Jami
when I gave her Kalliope I
took this one back.

The ones I painted on
the patio were
my favorite - "

And my head
goes back for a
moment and it's a

person I can't remember
saying

"Why
do you pull
so much shit

out to show us
every time
we come

over?"

Sometimes I just
want to start my whole
life over and not

be the seven year old
that is ok with

need for twenty
extra

years.

My drive home from
work is a long one,

up into the hills
until Las Vegas
is a beam of

synthetic sonic
light in my
rearview mirror.

The speed limit is
seventy five. The roads
dark black.

There isn't cell
reception and I

often either turn on
jazz or drive in
silence.

I was deep in thought
of my friend Phil.

We were very close
for many years of

hanging out in bars
and giving a shit about
being cool and

knowing how to talk about
music. We watched
a lot of movies and

danced on dirty floors.
We didn't cry together or
ever really say

"Hey I love you and
we've had a lot of life
together."

We got wasted and
fought.

Fought because we
hated what ultimately
brought us together

in the first place.

Corrine and I have laughed
over this, over our friends

in the past. "I fucking hate
you. Lets go get a beer or
sit on the couch

watching The Mars Volta
on TV all night."

"Remember the time
you played that killers
song like

twenty times?"

I am so far from that
version of my twenty
two year old self.

"Everything changes
in five years." He would
always say.

"We won't even be friends
anyway so what's the point

now?" Was his line.
It hurt the same each time
but at some point

I became the
component detached.
I

changed and left and
got totally fucking
intolerant of being treated

like I was young and
just pretty and

the blank
canvas.

"You can ride on my
coat tails" he said
once. I believed it

and was grateful for that
wholeheartedly and I
resent who and why I

was at that age.

When I was in Chicago
last I went to see Phil.
It was purple outside, just
faded gray and

foggy - a slight ice
mist. We don't talk much
but I parked the car and as

I saw him I ran
as fast as I could up to him.
He spun me around three

times and it was the
first time I felt

like I was home.
He gave me Bokup Fish
and we went to
Rosleys.

It was a short
visit but as I
walked away I knew

that somewhere
in the world, for
the rest of my life,

no matter who or
what or where I
am,

that that person
will be somebody that
loves me.

We fail to know each other
on a day to day level.

He will not read this, just as I
rarely listen to his mixes.

But we are there, in
some place
together where none
of those realities

really matter.

I am grateful for my
friend Phil.

I don't
interrupt that
with the phone.