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.

school finished itself off with a gpa not entirely depleted but going mad from lusting an up. & winter break? xmas proved boring at my parents house, on the couch, five hour’s watching mtv’s next with my sister & her boyfriend. mom dad in the back bedroom wrapping/unwrapping gifts for the relatives.

(also: avoidance at friday's party. a girl name shannon tugging my hair come sit. i attempt to escape via alan; i grab his shoulder: im really not prepared. but still. on the sofa: shannon as a mouth, a girl it started at age four. & there liz sits, wondering why, please god, couldn't it have started at eighteen: the crux of her emotional distress. her emotional unrest resulting in overdose, AA meetings twice a week. i think: where the hell is her girlfriend? outside smoking, safe from shannon’s im so socially awkward. if this were highschool. i just have so many feelings.i am already gone. i climb the seven flights to the top of the parking deck where stephanie & shannon's girlfriend are sprawled out giggling on the concrete.