When we’re not sure we’re not alone

Why is there no breeze
No currency of leaves
No current through the water wire
No feelings I can see
I trust no emotion
I believe in locomotion
But I've turned to rust as we've discussed
Though I must have let you down
too many times
In the dirt and the dust

I have no idea how this happens
All of my maps have been overthrown
Happenstance has changed my plans
So many times my heart has been outgrown
Now everybody’s feeling all alone
Can’t tell you who I am
When everybody’s feeling all alone
Can’t tell you who I am

What I wouldn't give
For it all to go away.

Not happening
Not happening
Not happening
Not happening
Not happening


Happening.

Good, Bad, Better, Good

Still seeking equilibrium

Day after second thoughts after

Day after tomorrow, filing through

Misconceptions, sorry-I-met-ya's

Sorry's never through,

Sorry wasn't due.

Then on to page two,

And the invisible fondness,

And the language she speaks,

He speaks, they're weak uneven

Twenty years plus one, twenty-five years times

Two, no two alike, no two who knew.

So square, who dare

Wear smiles, watch while I

Met ya, I met ya, and

Good is bad, and better is good

The weak speak mountains out of words

And crumble, those squares, they tear.

THESE PAST FEW DAYS HAVE BEEN very straining. I don't have a care to speak of — my bills are paid, possessions plentiful and growing, heart is in the right place; and still, I hurt all over. My thinking's not been straight for nights, I feel directionless and drifting, unharmed yet hurt. And once the negativity sets in—when thoughts layer, and decay, and stick to one another until they are too much to scrape away—it is really hard to look ahead.

Believe me, I'm trying.

A Song to Sing

I don't care what anyone says:

These guys are, in my mind, some of the most dead talented musicians out there. Sure, they've had their moments of 'Mmmbop', pre-pubescent teeny-bopping, and gender confusion but REALLY. They're still going strong and sound/look better than ever — and I'd STILL date them.

The end.

Oatmeal.

He comes in every morning at a quarter to seven. Scrubs, smile, and something witty to say. He marches over to the display of warm breakfast food, and every morning he chooses the same thing: Oatmeal. A hearty glass dish full of the bland mush, topped generously with brown sugar and cinnamon.

And every morning at ten to seven I give him a terrible time for it, and tease him, and he looks at his feet, and back up at me, and smiles, and defends his breakfast.

"Here he comes with his thrilling breakfast," I'll say as he approaches. "What are you going to eat when you get older?"

"Oatmeal."

"When you lose your teeth?"

"Oatmeal!"

Oatmeal has no speculation that I do, actually, adore him in a great, mushy way. The food really isn't that bad, either.

20

A lovely 20 day to my lit'l sister! Stay fly, Tuneybell.

"The people in the back seat were speechless. In fact they were afraid to complain: God knew what Dean would do, they thought, if they should ever complain. He balled right across the desert in this manner, demonstrating various ways of how not to drive, how his father used to drive jalopies, how great drivers made curves, how bad drivers hove over too far in the beginning and had to scramble at the curve's end, and so on. It was a hot, sunny afternoon. Reno, Battle Mountain, Elko, all the towns along the Nevada road shot by one after another, and at dusk we were in the Salt Lake flats, twice showing, above and below the curve of the earth, one clear, one dim. I told Dean that the thing that bound us all together in this world was invisible, and to prove it pointed to long lines of telephone poles that curved off out of sight over the bend of a hundred miles of salt. His floppy bandage, all dirty now, shuddered in the air, his face was a light. 'Oh yes, man, dear God, yes, yes!'"

( J a c k K e r o u a c • O n t h e R o a d )

Slow.

I still feel like I did yesterday,

and the day before,

and years before that.

I've been searching for all these things,

all this time,

looking for tangibles and feelings that

I really, really am hoping exist.

But this place, it can make you so many things —

So happy, so tired, so low, and confined…

It's the balance we seek and the tedium we find

Defined as

"why not", where not, no;

We run to relieve, and relieve to

let go

Slow.

Slow.

Slow.

Like a book elegantly bound
But in a language that you can't read

Just yet.

Little Mermaids.

More nostalgia:

Amidst some of the best days of life thus far — babes in the making!

Growing up feels so unfair when I see this…

But such is life, and life was—and is—good.

xx

jc

If I Feel Tomorrow Like I Feel Today

I will follow you wherever you go

If your offered hand is still open to me
Strangers on this road we are on
We are not two, we are one

Tuneybell & Cruella

TUNEYBELL AND CRUELLA PLAYED FAIR with the occasional tangle. They lived side by side, bed to bed, one closet all the same. The same Barbies, emanated from the same genes, eating from the same cauldron of macaroni and cheese. Their drawings hung parallel on the fridge, their hairs clung to the same bathroom sink. They rolled together—to the pool, the tee ball games, the Sunday service, in the back of the Plymouth Voyager. They prayed the same rosary with Marcella, shared hand me up's and down's, rainbow coveralls and plaid jumpers, squished Daddy Long Legs in the yard, bolted through the same sprinkler spray in hot July, chalked up the same sidewalks. Together they played Peter Pan, made mud pies, built forts, climbed evergreens, sold lemonade. Their tenor was boyish, unwieldy, quiet, chummy bedlam. It was them, like twins, though never much of a muchness; each with a distinct nature but nevertheless, as Tuneybell, size 8, would lank with her twigs, a sturdy Cruella, size 10, sulked not far beside. Together they lived, capered, and snored behind the same door, the one that said, mutually, 'NO BOYS ALLOWED.' And they meant it.

When all was fair and resolved, crying concluded, words said, and trees climbed, it was the two of them, Tuneybell and Cruella, soaking in the same stinky bathwater at the end of a fruitful day, rinsing themselves of it all.

Ledge

I want to be here, dangling over Chicago, staring into everything.

I would like that very much…

Home Sweet No More

Number 19

The minivan outpours,

Mom, Dad, three, four, five, six, seven

A catholic cluster of curls and frowns

Big as the little house

Little as a house for two.

This house loves,

Your scents, your screams, your Legos

Watermelons and overflowing closets

Drying the grass, plugging the toilet

Squishing into the breakfast nook.

With rooms filled,

Boys with boys, girls and toys deluge

Makeshift space and attic dwelling

Where to grow? Where to play?

Nineteen is brimming.

The choice was none,

Boxes filled and packed bags escaped

Goodbye to the family 19 raised

A catholic cluster of curls and frowns

Outpouring elsewhere.

(Originally posted on 11 Nov 2008.)

19 Shirley Court, No. 9 Crabapple Tree

IT WAS ROOTED IN THE MOST COINCIDENTAL OF PLACES, the old crabapple tree that jutted from the ground just beyond the back porch. The tree’s burgeoning branches, thick with fruit, plunged to the patio with the breeze as the tiny apples created a land mine of prospective mess. The sappy, textured bark had segued to gray, skin that had seen decades pass preserving the tree’s entrails.

A horizontal plank fastened near the base suggested inhabitants, and several others above confirmed, the numerous punctures in the wood coinciding with frequent repositioning of each step. Branches — one on the left, the other on the right — served as buttresses, their disposition summoning climbers to curl an arm around each before pushing off from the loftiest step. With a quick thrust, one’s weight was unfurled upon the rickety floor of 19 Shirley Court, No. 9 Crabapple Tree.

Salvaged shreds of lumber from deconstructed fences formed an encasement barely big enough for two, with gaping holes that had the potential of doors or windows, though their intention was neither. Rusty nails and screws poked out of every plank, gesticulating a child’s inability to force them any further into the wood. Crooked coats of peeling lime green and periwinkle paint scoured the structure, colors chosen for their boisterous and welcoming nature that best suited the wood they concealed.

A discolored plastic roof suspended overhead, the leftovers of the old porch awning. It was a high rise, with a second, and third story, each consisting only of a petty board to sit on after a laboring afternoon among the branches. The leaves gave way to a cooling shade in gratitude for a job well done; scraps melded into a beautiful eyesore of decrepit wood and a child’s imagination, three stories high and growing…



…and life was well-constructed.

The Pump Don't Work 'Cause the Vandals Took the Handles

WORK KEPT US ALL AFTERNOON and it was necessary, hardly work but painful tasks that leaped from our minds.

"Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do." It's going to be a long day and quietly, we took the curves and signs of the streets in silent strides. Maybe we should digress or wonder less, maybe park the car and sit a while to dry our minds of the negative things it's inundated with day upon day and into next week. Let's forget, okay? Let's just forget.

The first step was under analyzing, the second honesty. I did them both—at once, in fact—and so well that I think—well, I know—I can do this. Keep on.