another friend engaged. ceremony late november. gold invitation. why waste the postage? i never show. & the one time i did, a mormon reception. i wore pants which shocked elders, caused some anglo-saxon cousin to whisper rebel! in my ear before ive got weed in the car! you have pretty hair!

dear stillness in birkensnake 1

last night i remembered laughing at l’s house while he smoked a cigarette through his fourth grade flute. a girl in all black scratched the top of her sock, a boy with lisp chewed the loose skin of his wrist. until last night, i had forgotten. how startled i was by my laugh. loud, translucent.

my sister moved the t.v. into the living room & now sits eight hours on end watching futurama. when i arrive home, i read the note she left tacked to the kitchen cabinet. put the dishes away, clean the litter box, forget to call yr friends back, sincerely—c.

never understood dropouts: fucking fail & grin. but now? lizzy sits dumb-struck in her desk; the chalkboard littered with statistics. my teacher stands back-straight, assward before the crowd. he speaks little to none, too busy scribbling shit noone but him understands. i struggle to pay attention. skull clamped. this “F” on every test isnt a choice, shoulder shrug eh okay who wants a c- anyway? rather, my body rejects this shit. i sit in the dean's office trying to explain its all chinese to me. the dean's busy eating a peach, picking pulp from his teeth. not listening to a word i've said, he says oh you'll just have retake it that's all. something, somewhere in me unhinges: even if i retake the class, i wont fucking pass! listen--i'm desperate as. can't even finish the sentence.

just got off the phone with boy from the party. four fucking hours!

is this a friend-thing? i mean, i dont want to go & get a crush on another bearded fuck just to have it turn handshake.

dirty hair & rum. apartment--shivered up. above, someone cooks with curry. below, the blitz of a t.v. screen. i like to imagine my neighbors sleepless. collective effort. team bloodshot eyes, sun as a ball of fisted light. midnight, i wait for their movement, any stifled breath, skin shift across fabric. silence. am left with my dull body, fat cat, window overlooking nothing but distance.

whiskey plus water. movie theater. dont watch the screen. or listen. i person place thing. the boy next to me's catholic. the girl next to him’s picking her skin. when the film's finished, we walk home. a cold wind, starfucked sky. clusters of empty light fighting with the moon for shine time. when we reach b's doorstep, he begscome on, elizabeth come on inside. shaking my head yes requires more effort than no.

back at the apartment: cat shit in the kitchen. a cold bed, cigarette. my sister saying fuck as she slams her door shut.

pizza with russia & others. talk about marriage, dropping acid. for hours afterward, we walk around the neighborhood or sit on the sofa. sometimes i find myself thinking so these are friends! & wondering why i have to remind myself.

more & more i cant tell the difference between sound & silence. numb in a desk, sprawled on a stranger’s sofa. so many strong opinions! facts stacked like a stairwell; i need a handrail. am losing my will. to be mostly mouth, to form thoughts worth. im turning towards stillness. scribbling its story. tossing cognition into the trench. fuck higher enlightenment. time to cull my body into existence.

sober at the bar. silent in the car. can’t be bothered to move or speak when the stars are inhaling. this room wants nothing to do with you. the sofa sinks beneath yr weight, door swings open/shut open/shut as an invitation—leave. but leave? home is a porch pace, kitchen where fleas fuck in half-eaten boxes of triscuits. conversations here are tried on, tossed off. if the boy sitting next to you turns the light off, it means yr going to be touched. in the morning, the sun will shun yr nakedness. you’ll befriend a tree. the neighbors wont wave back. repeat.

let the hours rot. beneath my bed there is only cat fur. on top i shift across sheets trying to sleep. headache, stomach cramp, books with split spines. sister bitches about the laundry, the smell of smoke folded into the creases of my body.

when the phone doesnt ring, i know its him.

HOW SMALL THEY ARE, HOW FAR AWAY

dread sunday’s swarm already. m’s welcome home party. her highschool friends all noise, boys rolling joints while their girls chant fuck! omg! so drunk! & little lizzy? loud & lonely, clumsy on a couch spilling beer on my striped sweater. ill set my stage & spin. will piss on all conversations, hike my skirt up only to shake it loose in a series of quick hip twists. i arrive only to leave. i leave only to come home to a cat with fleas, my sister smoking on the front stoop.

school slays. all this sleeplessness, stomach cramps. am already taking naps in the library, curled between stacks on nazi germany or the cold war. my classes are an intolerable bore. mainly, i slip in/out of consciousness. dream with eyes stretched wide. dream too many things. this semester’s already rendered me a smoke & mope. ive got ash in my belly. when i move, i make sifting sounds.

shoved in a backseat. head on a stranger’s knees. slit moon shining in troughs of empty light. i fight with the night. there are no stars to ask forgiveness from. no lone shade trees to curl beneath. am trapped between body & seat. the car weaves, heeds no stoplight/sign. i pray for saftey, from what, i am unsure. the car or the clumsy breaths of a stranger watching shadows in a room somewhere.

boring the bark from the trees. pet my cat till her fur shrieks. smoke a cigarette. drink rolling rock till hills, oh hills rolling within.

carey at work. steph tucked. i wait. keep house casually.

bored. drink a rolling rock. charm the moon closer to my stoop. squint from the shine. call strangers hoping they’ll answer.

pet the cat. scratch the top of my sock. complex is dead. cant even watch neighbor’s take showers, move soundlessly room to room. try reading poems; they’re swollen. lines fat with adjectives. how many ways to say lover lost, alone in a park?

the story of stillness has returned. quit my job, finished my finals which means spending days staring at the handless clock of my wall, nights sitting motionless on a stranger’s couch, gasping in a bar. at the bar, everyone’s mouth’s impossibly round, skin dirty, ashen really. when i touch them, bits of skin flake off. come midnight, i leave covered with flesh i can’t place.

sheets reek of self. tried washing them. again & again. the stench of my body remains. even when he sleeps over, days at a time. the sheets refuse to absorb any of his sweat, shampoo residue. when he falls asleep, i smoke a cigarette, sniff the edges of my mattress.

tonight: another party. every room full of the sort of darkness that stuns you into silence. the stillness of sitting on a carpeted surface, someone blahing about brian wilson. left early. drove home. the road lit, air before me thick. had to squint to see further than two feet, pull over repeatedly to just to breathe.

show up slurry. liver whip a few bitches then incest talk like baby its the best. gasp, gasp. some lesbian telling me im the best she's ever had not quiet yet. the boy in the sweater. the boy in the sweater. hashish. wine spilt on cashmere.

p.s. more on the "vodka spit" party later.

bored like insides lined with linoleum. like spit & watch the molecules split. carey says wine! but they dont have the right kind at the store so back to the apartment.

on the porch, the moon too close to bitch about a single thing,

party last night. show up as a darling dontcha wanna? am late, impossibly so. beer’s gone, bong already passed hand to mouth & hand to mouth. am forced to sip coke, listen to english majors wax brian wilson or the beatles? you must choose. ive got terrible posture, slump against any/all flat surfaces. stare out the open window, a string of steetlamps stretches, & i spend the remainder of the night trying to talk color back into the light.

breathless in a bar with my sister & her ex. light the wrong end of a cigarette. lonely like a hole is invariably a hole in something & something went missing. look for it. sniff corners, ask strangers. their voices peel at the edges.

new apartment. stretches of white interrupted only by bare windows, my sister’s polaroids of people i don’t know. the neighborhood’s full of silence, the sort where every sound’s heard separately. i spend nights shelving & reshelving my books, gathering scraps of paper, stacking them into tiny piles around my bed.

summer school started last week. full swing. teachers who run marathons, have cats, gulp tap water from blue or green nalgene bottles. assignments like read chapter three, then write a paper, etc. my skull fills with facts. body reeks of rush, & god, just let me romp in the sun! my concentration’s never been so shot. i skip class to take a nap in the yard, top off.

s: when i get a boyfriend im going to call him pussita
e: im calling mine the wild impossibility

am frustrated with the anti-climax of their sleep & wake & drink till drunk, stare up at the sun. i have to pray to make it out one door & into another. not a "party" but a "get together." ten thousand potted plants, a stranger's wine warm hands. leave to pray in my parked car, windows rolled up, shade trees flushing.

we climb to the top of the parking deck. seven flights, an intense wind. when an emergency helicopter lands at the hospital across the street, someone says i wish i were in an accident. something, anything.

later i can’t feel my teeth or feet & get confused as to whether im moving or standing still. i forget to care, think of my phone bill instead. five hundred dollars worth of calls to alaska. a mistake in the billing system where i have to spend three hours explaining to verizon that ive never used 786 minutes talking to anyone, though, alaska would be nice. voice like closed eyelids. but then again, i realize, its like movement—how there’s no difference between phoning alaska or the person sitting next to you on the couch, saying i miss you but.

the difference between light & dark becomes indistinguishable in a house where drinks pass hand to mouth. faces shaded, voice like bees wearing coats. a girl wants to know you read emma goldman? say i don’t read. was born blind & only gradually gained sight.

dear friends, sorry i left. took a walk, the moon dim. sorry i sat on a strangers stoop, 2 hrs thinking the leaves are sweating! its spring almost, but trees don’t sweat; i can’t wish them into being.

when i return, someone asks what was it like being blind? having already forgotten my lie, i think they’re referring to tonight.

the state confirms, patterns. to avoid as much as possible: deviants prey on routine. how the body doesn’t notice the unknown’s manic breathing inside their apartment due to the anticipated clink of keys against a tabletop. i figure i can walk alone at night so long as i vary the times. ten to midnight to four am.

lately i ride the school elevator. ride no matter the class' location. its the isolated occasion where people allow themselves to be touched, all at once, by four or five complete strangers.

Fucking Right
A.R. Ammons

Nobody fucks anybody
who fucks anybody,
and anybody's a

nobody who fucks
anybody, still anybody
who fucks nobody's

a nobody, worse
than a nobody
who'd just as

soon fuck a
nobody as anybody:
on occasion, somebody

will fuck anybody,
nobody or not,
because when you

fuck anybody you
could be fucking
somebody as well

as nobody, though
there are fewer
somebodies out there,

I guess, than
nobodies: to be
somebody, you have

to be a
nobody and fuck
anybody till you

find a somebody:
when somebody fucks
somebody, it's right,

but if, having
tried hard, you
find neither nobody

nor somebody, fuck
off, you may
be bothering people

woke disappointed this morning, mistook the wind as rain. for two weeks straight a man asking about emily has left twelve voicemails. sorry about michigan. i save the messages & listen to them while walking alone at night. i have memorized the area code.

the story has no point but stillness itself

on the front porch a roach sleeps supine. one could conclude dead, but i saw its left antenna move one afternoon & then the next. everyday i’m careful not to crush, to watch instead that lone antenna, even though i know the twitch might just be a trick the wind playing on movement.

sometimes i think my body believes in manifest destiny. that once unrest was just a tiny speck that grew cause it fancied itself the possessor of a god-given right to conquer. i see dissatisfaction as a disgruntled despot in my intestines who sprawls behind a desk of wadded gum i swallowed in fourth grade. he is napping, head resting on a map of my innards. he dreams of a destruction so disgusting no one will want to notice, so no one will. the dream’s vivid, so genuine in fact that, when he wakes, he cannot comprehend the stillness of his surroundings.

big wheels keep on turning/proud mary keep on burning

walking home last night, out past the tracks, i was amazed to see the train still running as if the night was holy. walked out & bought a forty from a station i know sells underage. sat in the grass & watched the fireworks that somewhere must be startling children into delight.