playground therapy.

“You better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone.”


I remember the time, the one and only time you came home drunk. Your face was red. The rest of the family finally felt the wrath and anxiety that you made me feel every day.

You raised your hand to her, and pushed her up against the counter. And even though I disliked her I was the one to start screaming. Stop. Then they left you in the middle of the night. Not only did they leave you, they left me with you.

It was the only time I can remember that you showed me affection. You were so scared of being left. And I felt it. You told me I was beautiful. You held me close and kissed my hair. Your arms were like a vice. But for years and years without your love. I didn’t mind. I didn’t want them to come back. I wanted to move away with you and pretend to be a new family.

I wanted us to be a quirky family sitcom.
But they already had one of those.

It starred Tony Danza.

And I want to tell you that I think about you everyday. And I want to tell you that I’m a lot like you in so many ways.

I talk about you when I talk about music. And I wanted you to know that when I turned 22, my hair turned red.

I’ll be 28 next month, and I forget I forget how the story goes.

I’ve thought about how you loved to read and write. How you wanted to be an English professor. How When you figured something out like a child, you quickly took the project and became a genius. I’ve thought about the mechanics of my DNA. How you loved your road bike, and screamed at me when I rode it after it had been stationary for 5 years.

I’ve thought about the time I gave you that black and white photo of you and your uncle. It was the 60s and you had a fresh buzz cut. He gave it to me when I was 14 in the middle of the woods while I sat in a stone chair in the middle of Massachusetts. He was hugging you and lifting you up from behind. Your feet were off the ground and you were smiling so big. Your horned rim glasses were black and big for your face. And I thought you looked beautiful. I thought that picture of you, that was the father that I wanted to come from.

And when he died and I told you and I ran to my room. That picture was my secret for years. I had it taped on the underneath of a drawer in my night stand. You were pounding on my door. Asking me what I was doing and I was nervous. You made me so nervous. I didn’t know if anything I was ever doing was the wrong thing. I slipped it under the door. And you told me to come out. It was ok. I held you in my arms while you cried. And I thought. Yes, this is a father that I could come from. That I understood.

I think that maybe you’re a little more like me. You’re so afraid.

detox just to retox.

Day one of the Master Detox fast::
“Lemonade Cayenne Pepper and Maple Syrup the road to enlightenment?”

I’ve been trying to start a lot of things over here in my new location. At least I’m trying to. I want to feel healthy. Complete. Independent. Alone. Surrounded.
I’m sipping on a warm cup of lemon juice and maple syrup. It’s comforting, since I’ve been drinking it cold all day. I can feel how dehydrated I was. How unhealthy. And after reading all about detoxifying and the roles that all my organs take, I realize that with my diet since childhood, I’ve been putting poison in my body. Poison. And yeah people have realized this for a long time. But since I just came to the realization JUST now. I’m excited that I might be able to fix it.

The only thing that upsets me is that trying to eat healthy, naturally, organically. It’s so expensive. Only the rich can really afford it. Poor people are left with MacDonalds, because they have no choice. More than ever I want the apocalypse to happen. So societies structure comes tumbling down. Everything will be chaos reorganized. The leaders will be survivalists.

I want to read more and actually study survival techniques. I want to be able to grow my own food, in case of a natural disaster. Or the dead rising and attacking us in mass quantity. I think keeping yourself and the people that you care about alive is a very marketable skill. If only there was a place for it on resumes and job applications. I would totally hire a future employee, if I was a business owner and their resume said :Can make canoe out of tree bark or file down a machete sharp enough to decapitate a zombie.

Definitely a survivalist. But need to be 100 percent healthy to be able to survive in the places on this earth that I want to travel to. I want to go on this journey. I want to travel and explore all those places in all the lands that I dreamed about doing when I was a kid. I want to be strong enough to do it. And then I want to create something from inside myself in the form of art to express what I saw, and how it made me feel. I also want to be able to eat the food and drinks from all different cultures and not want to strangle myself or impale my self on a native’s musical instrument.

(pee break hold on)

We want to do so many things individually, and yet we keep destructing the thing that’s going to get us there. I have a lot of realizations in my life. But a couple of days ago I had a new one. I don’t want to self destruct. I want to keep on going. I want this weird pain in my side to go away. I want to be able to (PEE BREAK)
Sorry. Um. Oh yeah. Basically I want to do a crap ton of fun stuff and I want to be physically able to be able to reach my goal. Although at this point my goal is kind of anti goal. It’s like. I want to be able to enjoy the life that I have while I’m living it, no matter what I’m doing. I want to be constantly at one with being here. I want to be able to take on several different perspectives. I want to be humble enough to know that that seed inside me that knows I am just a nothing. In the grand scheme of things. If I can hang onto that I will feel very important to myself, and my role. I will be able to create something, that at least I thought was beautiful while I was here. I used my time and made something.

I blame all the survivalist feelings and my allusions to traveling on John Krakouer. I want to do the things that he writes about. I know Into the Wild unhinged me quite a bit, and now I’m reading another book of his which was given to me last year by my friend Daniel. Who I want to traipse across the earth with. Be understood, guided and safe with all at the same time.

So far on the first day of my fast, I’ve covered a spectrum of emotions. Different feelings and thoughts. I do know that today I actually picked up an art utensil completely sober and made something great. I do know that the smallest human conversations mattered today. I do know when one of your friends busts out in song about sparrows as you apologize for possibly smelling like cayenne pepper, you appreciate her for who she is, even if you haven’t known her for that long. (PEE BREAK). My mind is optimistic, slightly clearer.

I heated the lemonade tonight to make a broth. Because of the heat it was really comforting, and the cayenne pepper at a higher temperature made it seem more like a soup other than a cold energy drink. The taste doesn’t bother me. I miss bubble gum. And I keep predatorily eyeing the peanut butter, but so far I’ve managed to hold out. The liquid has everything you need, and the right concoction to sustain you for about a month. I don’t intend on doing it anywhere near that long. My goal is 10 days. And then to change my eating habits strictly. Katie is thinking about doing it too. My roommate. My friend Boyd and Lori started today the same time I did. So it’s motivation to hold out. I’m looking forward to talking with these people to see how they feel emotionally.

And if the peanut butter is trying to seduce them from across the house. Whispering … calling…


End 24 hours.
(Don’t worry I didn’t eat the peanut butter.)


24 hours after I wrote this I broke my fast because I started training at olive garden and they were forcing me to eat free Portobello stuffed ravioli.
So much for enlightenment in face of free pasta.

I'll try again next week.

you know i don't speak spanish.

I want the sound so far in my brain that I can’t think anymore but only dance. You’re so angry all of the time. And I’m trying to let my anger go. Peace is the only thing I want to fight for anymore and you make me want to raise my voice. It’s not the decibel level that makes people listen. You could have the softest voice and say something more powerful than screaming. Maybe I don’t want to answer to anyone. Maybe no one should ever have to answer to anyone.


It’s the middle of January and there are still Christmas lights up across the street. There are still flickering little light rays in eyes of a time that we are all happy. Babies in carriages and blankets and skin so soft and lovely. And remember when we all had that innocence.

Here we are apples and elusions. The only things that we will ever trust is the dire circumstance of temptation. Life. Questioning decisions. Wondering if we are doing the right thing. The wrong thing. The good thing. The bad thing. Or just a thing. Just for now. We are only a momentary lapse in sanity. We are a loving embrace in one moment in time. In one small time frame of our lives. We are one second. One thought. One being. We are nothing. To be humble is to be proud. I need to be a little more of both.

If I put my eyelashes together right now I could see you through the raindrops on the screen of the house. Long conversations about how we’re going to change the world one art piece one piece of paper at a time. Time to make peace. There’s never any time for humanity and the good will of it all. There’s plenty of time for violence and screaming. It’s disheartening.

I cannot teach you violence, as I do not myself believe in it. I can only teach you not to bow your heads before any one even at the cost of your life- ghandi.

Speak softly so only I can hear you. Speak so softly so your whispers are real. Flip you over. Show you’re lover. Strength is in the mind not the body. The soul has no musculature. I am a heartbreak. Sewed up shut tight. High as your kite kite. Five fingers inside you digging at something besides just fucking. Dancing wine glass broken bottles drink too much sleep too much and spent too many sunny days indoors. Feet are rough. You are rough.

Slightly preoccupied by these bright lines art and lies.

I don’t have my ring. But I have a back up plan. And her name is mexico.

moss and fornication.

Woman: “Is obsessed with creation and also destruction and can fluctuate between both at the drop of anything… not just a hat.”

She says baby. Like a pet like a name. My body is on a time scale that is larger than myself. We discuss over wine how we try to emulate television and media and the biology of our empathy and our hips our lips our sense of poetry. And all the while we use devices to keep connectivity.

I and Molly and her Green Eyeshadow switch off at the words: MOSS and FORNICATION:

My Moss:
Childhood fascination. Blanket party description Indian style on a safe embankment replacement of youth with darling darling you. Stretched out between trees. Looking up at the green. You are ever. Evergreen. The sunshine of your love. Soft Pliant. Womans skin. Like a home. Birds nest grin. Red wine teeth. Ever Evergreen. Omnipotent. Optimistic. China doll. One drop. One ounce takes all the color from my skin. Molly is a doll. And you named her that. My boys they crash. They crash into me. My daughters name is Sunki Luna. You never asked me that. Cherokee and Hindu. To catch up with the moon. Bow and arrow. True meat and archery.

Fornicate:
Forsee yourself in motherhood. Hips spread wide . Girth. Grin into you with fingers curled up. The institution of marriage. Synopsis. The back cover of a book. Good looks. Openness. Like I said Hips spread wide. Catch up with the moon love girl. Says it was her healer name back when she took up traveling. Catch up to you.

(She says) : Moon loves your face radiating. Brilliance. Fame. No, star who relates to the moon. Keeping to self. Loving others. Enjoying self with others. Live. Light. Love.


Molly’s Moss:
Moss, to me, represents a little girl of age six wandering around the western hills of South Dakota. The black hills rich with the native american tradition. Exuding natural rock energy and beauty. She seeks out moss of all types. Fluffy padded moss. Located on rocks and trees. She pulls it off in chunks walks it back to the cabin where her family stays. She lays the moss squares down in a row. She lays them next to the cabin creating the beginning of what appears to be a moss carpet. She repeats this process of harvesting and planting next to the carpet which is already laid. Now there is a moss bed next to the cabin and every time she returns she adds a little more.

For
Ni
Cate:

For every person with a right to be, told by a priest it is okay of coming in sin. I am Molly, professional fornicator…I receive a paycheck from the government to fornicate. (I say) : Is your paycheck tax deductible in the act of fornication and if it is at what emotional expense? These connections are easily severed. Like string caught on clothing that is easily removed during and within the act of fornication itself. And withholding smiles for the sake of collateral? Why.. Because it causes damage? The debts we pay. On tables, on floors. Mattresses, therapist couches. We are paying interest to our soul just to keep interest in each other.

Prayer.
We asked the bartender to turn the lights on a little more, just because we know that no one wants to be seen. But we want to see so we can see this later.

We pack up our belongings to see my roommates band ‘a post war drama’. On the Eve of inauguration. Also known as MLK day. Drunk on cabernet.


We’re all changing? Can you fucking feel it. Get your moths out of the cocoons, and get your tattoos really soon.

cold door.

She crosses her legs, and immediately uncrosses them just as quickly. Her legs are cold. Every time someone opens the door to the coffee shop cold air comes in. Every time she starts to get warm someone disturbs her reading with the cold weather. It’s cold enough to snow, but it won’t. It’s cold enough to feel lonely, and she does. Her body posture is tense. Elbows tucked tight into her sides. Too much coffee in her stomach. Too many thoughts in her head. She hears the bell above the door chime, just as she feels another tickle of cold on the back of her neck. But then she hears the voice. It’s a deep throaty laugh. She pushes her glasses up on her nose and peeks over her shoulder. The girl is younger than her, she’s not sure by how much, but she carries her self well. She sways with a knowledge of sex and hips that the girl at the table hasn’t been taught. She wouldn’t even know how to sign up for the class, let alone hope to be graded on a curve.

plum rooftops.

blackberry nights and winter windows open
i slept inside a shell
a shell
a skeleton of myself
a shell
a skeleton of a sleeping bag
my grandfather took to vietnam
he slept inside a shell
a shell

i reached out for his hand
in an elementary way
in an elementary way
i reached out for his hand
in an elementary way
in an elementary school parking lot

he said baby your hands are so cold so cold
your hands are so cold so cold
that must mean you have
that must mean you have
a warm ... heart
that must mean you have
a warm ... heart

if we are just shells
what do we sound like to ourselves
if we are just shells
can we hear the ocean

you're inside me.

you don't even know who you are
and that's ok that's ok you don't have to.
you don't even know what you're here for.
and that's ok that's ok you don't have to.

you don't have any time.
time's just an illusion of a thing we think we own.
my boss looks at me.
he says how can you live
how can you live with yourself if you don't have money.
i say how can you live
how can you live with out time.

we never have any time.
we're never starving.
we're never dying of thirst.
but we're dying.
and we weren't here
we weren't here first.
the people that were.
they had rituals.
they had faith.
they just found a way
they just found a way to tell a story
they found a way to tell time.
they had sunsets they had bellies
they had dirt they had blood in this land.

how can you look so beautiful now.
how can you look so angry.
i know that anger.
it's the same that's inside me.
it's the same that's inside me.
you're inside me now.