not a poem about a rose

the summer had not even begun to speak, and there i was, brimming with every intention to write a poem about the rose you should not have offered me. at once, i knew the notion was self-deprecating, which meant within the hour i was observing how walmart merlot slid through my hourglass throat. "how strange a metaphor for time!" i noted. crushed grapes are minutes. our bodies are the mechanism with which we calculate the hours. i supposed that meant that crushed grape flies and throat enthralls with the sensual curve of a woman. that wine must be fleeting. that there must never be enough merlot. alcohol is money! race the throat as it tick-tocks away to the end of liquid decadence!

clearly, i was not going to be writing a poem about a rose (the one that should not have seduced me).

i quickly thought about all of the not roses i could write about. a giraffe would suffice. or lust. or eternity. or a prayer. or a tastebud. or a lie. and as i wrote about an elegant long necked mammal who worshiped the salty fuck of dishonesty (a metaphor i could not unravel), i thought about what my poem would say if i had been writing a poem about a rose (the one i'm so grateful you painted for me)

i realized that i would have focused on its scent
and how i now noticed that aroma in the grocery aisle
at the movie show
on the bus
(in places where one does not think to stop and smell roses)
and i would have noted how the scent was not of a rose at all
but that of sweat. aftershave. cigarette. night.
and the rose perfumed with not a rose, which i smelled where one does not think to smell roses, was not from your garden at all but from a foreign (and most unexpected) bush that did not speak of roses but of not-a-ones instead.

"the fragrance of not a rose is delicious."- that i, suppose, would have sufficed, had i written a poem about a rose. but i didn't.

home for purim (well, more like hannukah)

With my current roommate studying abroad, I will have this big, charming apartment all to my lonesome in the Spring, and well, my wallet doesn't like the sound of that. So, for the Spring, I'm either looking for another person interested in moving in, or I'm trying to find someone else with an empty room that I can sublease.

While my apartment is anything but "swanky," it's got character and convenience for days (ignore earlier comments on this blog about it being the "dustbunny where dreams go to die"). It has a great location (just off the square, above the Manhattan, across from the Dukum), it's huge!, it has roof access, a washer and dryer, hardwood floors, a fresh coat of perty paint, lots of personality, very affordable (for 2 people, rent would be 200 per person), and it features me!

So if you or someone you know need(s) a place to live next semester, let me know. If you or someone you know has a place for me to live next semester, let me know! I'll live with boys, girls, goats, circus folk- it don't matter.

Thanks!

Adam

P.S. i'm smart and i'm cute and i do dishes; i'm totally worth it. also, pets are allowed. and pet names. i'm flexible.

elsewhere

Last year I took a mythology course. I hated it. The professor, while brilliant, accepted that he had chosen a subject and a class size well beyond his scope, and he allowed Gods to become equations. We analyzed Ragnarok the way you might observe moldy bread, noting it's shape and color, but not eager to put it in any universal context.

There was one day, however, where the discussion struck me as worth my time. We had just read some obtuse analysis of the paths myths seem to take, and we stopped and shared how college was, itself, a liminal experience. We are thrust into a transitional dimension where ideas are radical, experiences are delicious, and the rules of the world don't always apply; at the same time, we are expected to be preparing ourselves to serve reality once we return to it. Jesus want AWOL for 21 years; I'm expecting 4-5 for myself. Still, I can't help but bitch about how ready I am for my life to begin.

It's not Truman that dissatisfies me; it's not the shitstain of a town I grew up in, or the Midwest mindset that will never mesh with me. It's just me, ready to be making changes and terrified it will stay the same. I have an ambitious (albeit, disoriented) heart, and she's ready to start fixing things. But there's always the chance that I won't end up anywhere but here, treading water.

I love so many of the aspects of my life in this moment. I have encountered so many pure ideas and beautiful people and known so much love that to negate it would be as false as it would be cruel. But goodamnit, give me a paintbrush or a pistol or something so I can stop waiting to return to the world; I'm ready, honest, to be a part and be a change.

This is, of course, related to another anxiety- that I am somehow incompatible with what I want. There is a part of me that clings to films, literature, theater, ideas, and all things delicious. There is a part of me that dares to notice what has been written off as the dirt beneath the fingernails of society, and I long to know it, love it, work with it, help it... to make justice out of randomness. Can I be both people? If I fulfill one desire, do I destroy another? And if I don't answer that question, will I, just as a fear, stay this way forever?

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On a completely unrelated note, I love the rush of finding your power chord when your laptop battery is on the verge of death. Grey's Anatomy ain't got nothin' on this shit. Solid gold drama.

P.S. I have called/texted a few of you this afternoon/evening for perspective; thank you all for your help. It meant a lot!

lies your teacher told you

In 5th Century B.C. Athens, they hypothesized the atom, birthed democracy, got shwasted on Dionysus's birthday, had oracles who habitually downed hallucinogens, and accepted and expected homosexuality.

And here I was, thinking we'd come so far. Sounds to me like it's time to return to a little thing I like to call civilization.

Apparently Ancient Greece was the birth place of rock and roll; who knew?

undressed to impress

this week, i was naked for the first time.

sure, i've found myself unclad before, for, ya know, amusement. hygiene. voracity.

but i think i might have finally stripped off every last article. and it felt like october evenings and fresh socks and the truth.

in short, expect to see a lot more of me from now on, especially when he's around, the warm embrace of over-priced cotton that i'll never need to wear again.