Conversations Among the Ruins

The answers
to the questions
point the circle

outward - it's
a crooked
golden brick line.

I sleep too much
but there isn't sight
of this

anyway.
Did you ever make
it so far that you

forgot where you
started and what
you wanted? How

lost have you
gotten? What is
the circumference

of the circle measured
in meters? What kind

of shoes did you
buy for the journey
and what did you

replace the inside
of the box with?

Beatrice plays
the piano just the
same. Glass

box

doll. I remember
that young type
of love -

drunk on an
expressway when I
used that word/

the postal service
singing and I'm paying
an

astronomical toll.
It was winter and

there were zombie
flicks on TV. I

wish I
could remember
what I thought

when I was that age
where I
thought I was safe

but not good
enough for those
rooms with all of those

unusual shoes,
half off sangria pitchers,
shit pizza and

promoters.

Today the responsibility
of which I have chosen
for this life

looms over me.

"Coming into an
awareness" some might
say.

Because walking
with my eyes shut
tight

in the same circle
is starting to make
that path

too deep to get
out of. I found
my identity,

she shattered
like a piece of
glass show

fruit and I live
within that picture

as if nothing
ever

altered.

"My God this planet
is so over populated."

Under my breath
it's loud in my head
walking through a

packed events center.

I went to see Tool
last night. The reason being
that if I asked

the man that I love
to do something for me,

like basically,
anything imaginable,
no matter how much

he didn't want to,
he would, with a smile.

Working relationship is
a machine of compromise
and for
the past year we've

been together I've
refused on all shows.

Because I'd rather be
picking out what dress
I'll wear in my casket or

getting a needle removed
from my eye.

I used to get fucked up
every night of my life

at shows because I
didn't fit in, and I didn't
want to be there,

so I just started drinking,
and when wasted, it was
fun and it mattered,

until, everything that did
didn't exist because it
was replaced

with that.

"Lighten up." I've heard it
well since I was twenty five
but I
don't wear that. I don't own

that phrase, because I'd
rather be who I am
then a person enlightened

by the pretty LED wall
graphics, surrounded
by dancing bafoons

that throw beer
wearing faded black
denim and eyebrow rings

for fun.
Music.

Art within a constant
crisis of the ego but
isn't it all.

Lately I want to get
high as a kite and
that's the truth.

Listen to like
loud music and be
out of it enough
think it has something

to do
with existing
and wake up

four years later
like I'm twenty one
only I'm

twenty five and
lost because it wasn't
ever real.

I get really weird
about what "fun"
even means.

All I did at that
screaming metal show
was close my eyes

and watch
all of the suns
set.

Lightwaves
from

here.

Lately my sleep button is broken.

I sit up in bed at night, talking to ghosts and rocks.

I guess this is the part where I edit what I'm writing so whomever is reading can relate.

So I guess this is the next line where I don't do that.

The Ghost helps me sleep. I don't "see" ghosts, I feel their energy and have conversations based on that. They are all beautiful.

Wore this hoody to work last night that says LISTEN TO DETROIT TECHNO. Somebody fantastic gave that to me a long time ago at a music festivle. This guy I work with said to me "I have so much more respect for you because you have that shirt on." And I just smiled as I set up the patio. Smiled and thanked him politely. That's all I really have for that these days.

Wish I could measure what it took to just shut the fuck about it all. I'd bottle it up and sell it and save the world.

Once upon a time all I ever wanted was for everybody to know how much I knew about music. When at the end of the day, all I was was the DJ's girlfriend.. with delusions of self importance. It's a really fun and equally as painful part of my life to look back on, flashy lights and fancy friends that were probably really incredible people. I, however, didn't even know myself. Let alone anybody around me.

I think about six months ago a lot lately. Where I'd wake up and get into my car and listen to Lady Gaga's Marry the Night and drive to nowhere. I miss Jami and Jason tremendously. Just the intimacy of two of the most incredible people I know that I got to live with.

I should probably stop writing this. I have a meeting with a gallery owner today to hang up my art all the way in the district.

Delta Blues,
HL

Her body was full
of crooked
faded tattoos,
bullet holes and

pale.

She had this
cropped

inky black
dyed hair and

she wore a
nose ring; a
lip ring; an

eye brow ring
and
glasses

sometimes.

She stopped
talking to her

six year old
daughter and

slept in that
heroin house
over on

Ogden.

Her hair it
would be in

big purple
braids. Men

would beat her
and leave her
in gas station

parking lots
and
when I would

"rescue" her
she'd scoff at
my crooked

lip liner, taking
great care
in fixing it as I

would try not
to look
at the bruises

dotting her eyes -
the dried blood
on her mouth.

For her birthday
ten years ago
we split

a bottle of Jack
in a cub foods
parking lot.

It was November -
the cold

void of notice.

That chain of
stores shut down

and so did her
body.

She died
alone

in the projects
over on

Halsted.

"Where am I from."

That's a lot
of places you

wouldn't ever
imagine - as I

walk into a
bakery in the
sun to buy

a single
red velvet
dark chocolate

cupcake.

For my girl - and
all

our

heart.

I like it sometimes
the way I"m a time bomb
on a cusp of which

way is the witch
way. Running and
living and living

for the run. Stop alright
go ahead go back and
rewind to

fast forward wait
alright stop. You there?
Like dancing at
Pontiac cafe in

those dim outdoor
garden lights
to some shit live band
amongst people's
dogs. I imagined that it

never happened I
do not remember one
single summer in

Chicago like the
Tribune acts like it is.

I remember only the mouse
that lived under my
Christmas tree. We were both

freezing.
But I lived it, somewhere

I swear at balmy picnic tables
outside the Metro across
the street at some

hot dog stand joint. I
ran those streets tripping
on mushrooms to the
Lake to just

wish it was the ocean -
got this pair of pants
stuck in the escalator over at

Lake Street red line and
passed out on tequila on
couches in offices on my

lunch break.

Dozens of old styles at
Wrigley Field and shows
shows shows

bore me.

It makes my boyfriend
sad that I won't
do things like fly out to

Hollywood for the day to go
to see a band. There is
utterly

no glamour or art
in live music shows

to these
tired ears and I'll be

dead when you
find me faking
that truth.

That is my one
exception I will not
compromise.

But I was younger and
different once. I wore these
fucked up rocket dog boots

everywhere and cut up
jeans with black
dresses. I was a drunk

idiot and for fun I
used it as an excuse to
abandon my life because

well
doesn't
everybody do that?

Like
wake up feeling like a
truck hit you and it's

normal because you're
so bored within your
own mind that you have to

melt it a little to see
yourself self?

Self?

Holy shit have I
crashed and burned I
do it every day when I do

things like make the choice
to lay on my back smoking
cigarettes surrounded by

novels that I didn't write and
half empty bottle of
Orange crush and

chocolate milk pretending
I know what
summertime in
Chicago even is without being

totally spun, drunk,
hysterical or all

three.

There were times
that i got to walk
through Evanston,

to my therapists
office

carrying canvas
I had painted.

And trendy students
would look at me
curiously,

as if I were,
for an instant

one of them.

So I guess it's all
a cusp of balance,

reality and
acceptable

recognition and
my spine and two
dozen bottles of

orange crush that I
changed my mind about
halfway through

as well.