tell me if there's a tackful way to say no you cant have any champagne cause i bought the bottle for myself & the porch & staring up at the sky till the stars sink into their own light. in the new house, there's never enough booze. wine sipped with enthuse, six packs extinguished in seconds. am lucky to get a sip. its just saying no sounds like saying never when what i mean is not right now im trying to stumble.

we sweat through our shirts on the front porch. night is pollen-thick, yellow silt slicking our skin. sitting on the second step, i fear my bare feet may stick to the cement. & when k. wipes his forehead, his finger glistens, in the moonlight, is the only thing shimmering. t. has a headache, remains silent save a single dry-mouthed so sleepy, man. they leave an hour after midnight, leave in the same state as they arrived. some time last week, i began missing them. they way, when together, nothing shifts. the air’s disturbed none my our movement through it. my mind remains dim-lit as before, though we may talk twenty million minutes. & its not a state of calm so much as an absence. of time passing the same as if i were alone with the key difference being not alone.

I don't write to you because I only know how to be intimate. In fact, all i can do, whatever the circumstance, is be intimate: that's why I'm even more silent.

--Clarice Lispector

Strange Roads Before Light
Frank Stanford

At midnight I am alone
And my love is with someone else.
The moon is like a woman in a red dress
Standing on the beach.

I listened all evening.

All I heard was a one-legged boy
Looking for his coon dog.
He was looking at the moon, too.
It was like a plate with no supper.

And a route salesman in a saloon
Was looking at the moon.
It was a clock with twelve numbers,
But he had no arms to hold her.

And the child who was supposed to be
Practicing the piano
Was looking at the moon.
He was already thinking of a woman.
He wanted to sleep beside her,
Not with her. Odd, but not bad,
He thought the moon spilt the key to her room.

The woman blowing smoke in the dark,
Her fingers looking for the ashtray,
She thought the moon
Was a piece of stationery
In a drawer she would not open.
She would have written there was no moon,
That I am screwing somebody else,
Trying to remember your telephone number.

why the hell am i majoring in a social science? enrolled in some bullshit fem class so fucking floorboards i skip to keep from getting pissed? yet the teach takes attendance, forces me to sit in a rickety desk biting my motherfucking lips. today's lecture: gender roles in media. & belligerent girls with braids raise hands god, i never realized! how terrible the t.v., magazines, oh my! their faces streaked red! they chomp bocca burgers with intent! & all the while im sitting, spitting stop watching that shit! to which the teacher scolds elizabeth its not simple as that. we've been programed to accept. & i guess i dont get it. the twenty-million slides she shows depicting scenes from tomb raider: the movie. by this point, ive already packed my knapsack, pulled out my camel pack. teach sees, turns to me how can you deny media influence when you smoke? personal attack, no? rise from my seat, mutter something about kate moss's marlboro addiction being my hero. leave.

p.s. will stop bitching about school when i stop having to attend a public university in the south.

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.