curriculum

we need to learn how to live in our bodies
that no science can make more time
how not to love beyond our limits
how not to write beyond our words


but
(a shame)
no one has ever taught me
how to be,
how to stay

Ignorance is wanting something else.

contractions

i'm too sleepy for the full treatment my anxieties deserve, so here's an obnoxiously abridged version:

For the first time in my life, I feel academically powerless. I've never believed I just couldn't handle a semester the way I do right now. Challenges keep piling up, and I keep postponing them because I'm afraid that they are impossible. Success isn't happening.

Summer is the cruelest motivation. Especially since my summer nights will be as stressful as they will be unforgettable.

I'm afraid that I am loving too many people out of convenience.

and that's all i'm up for voicing at the moment. good night, all.

Sometimes I wonder how much of my being in love is just my being stubborn.

Love Song: I and Thou

Nothing is plumb, level or square,

the studs are bowed, the joists

are shaky by nature, no piece fits

any other without a gap

or pinch, and bent nails

dance all over he surfacing

like maggots. By Christ

I am no carpenter. I built

the roof for myself, the walls

for myself, the floors,

for myself, and got

hung up in it myself. I

danced with a purple thumb

at this house-warming, drunk

with my prime whiskey: rage.

Oh I spat rage's nails

into the frame-up of my work:

It held. It settled plumb.

Level, solid, square, and true

for that one great moment. Then

it screamed and went on through,

skewing as wrong the other way.

God damned it. This is hell,

but I planned it I sawed it

I nailed it and I

will live in it until it kills me


-Alan Dugan

a reason to lose eloquence

there's something wrong with the vernacular here.

this is not "growing apart"
this is not "out of sight, out of mind"
this is not even "hoping you'll take the hint."

you see
to get a bullet out a chamber
you must pull a trigger.

it is not an act of God; it is not a side effect of time.
it is you
it is your neurons
it is your finger

an order
deliberate and willful.

or
it is you.
it is your hand.
it is our ledge.
and i'm over it.

i wish all my friends could be my friends with the fervent intent
with which you are not.

never underestimate what one man can awaken.

Asparagus

This afternoon a man leans over
the hard rolls and the curled
butter, and tells me everything: two
women love him, he loves them, what
should he do?

The sun
sifts down through the imperceptibly
brownish urban air. I'm going to
suffer for this: turn red, get
blisters or else cancer. I eat
asparagus with my fingers, he
plunges into description.
He's as his wit's end, sewed
up in his own frenzy. He has
breadcrumbs in his beard.
I wonder
if I should let my hair go grey
so my advice would be better.
I could wrinkle up my eyelids,
look wise. I could get a pet lizard.
You're not crazy, I tell him.
Others have done this. Me too.
Messy love is better than none,
I guess. I'm no authority
on sane living.

Which is all true
and no help at all, because
this form of love is like the pain
of childbirth: so intense
it's hard to remember afterwards,
or what kind of screams and grimaces
it pushed you into.

The shrimp arrive on their skewers,
the courtyard trees unroll
their yellowy caterpillars,
pollen powders our shoulders.
He wants them both, he relates
tortures, the coffee
arrives, and altogether I am amazed
at his stupidities.

I sit looking at him
with a sort of wonder
or is it envy?

Listen, I say to him,
you're very lucky.

Margaret Atwood

her vital mistake

she says a word after a word after a word is power.


not poison
not corrosive
not hopeless


just power.


what a vague and innocent lie!
what a fool's dream!
what vanity!


is she not aware of the finiteness of our lexicon?
does she now know about predestination-
that we were given a set amount of keystrokes
before our fingers dissolve,
so every wasted word
is a step towards death?


every hypothetical you pour your brainjuice into
makes you less yourself, less alive,
erodes your essence.


you see,
a word after a word after a word is excessive
a word is cowardly
a word is arrogant
a word is time that could have been spent in love
with purpose
together.