(To Katy)

This,
the smallness of my life, I said,
can you see it?

But she said nothing,
she just wrote
a series of details
and small spaces.

My life used to spread, I said,
over pot-holed streets and easy laughter,
a time when youth was
just another smell in the air.

But she said nothing,
she just sniffed;
from where she stood,
she could smell it still.

But my life has stretched so thin, I said,
it has shrunk into this square mile
between where I sleep and where I yawn.

This corner of the world, I said,
that I call my own;
this bit of the earth
I staked as home.

This piece of life, I said,
that I squander at will;
this circle of friends
I ignore to call.

This head resting on my hip,
this hour of the day when the sky
looks like Mary in front of the cross.

This hollow in my heart
where they used to be;
this cat, this breath, this,
this smallness of my life…

But she said nothing,
she just blinked.
Her life wasn’t any bigger.

(Originally posted on January 30, 2006)

Here, where the silence is delicious,
the end is garbled in fragments of song
—repeated, stale, and resounding—
echoing in corners of rooms dimly lit
with bulbs on a string, stars
—dangling and scratched—
like lives spilled into kitchen sinks.

Here, where the drain chokes with leftovers,
a cat snatching a piece of half-chewed meat,
and a voice telling of what should have been,
I fall through the cracks of the silence,
a promise broken at the end of the night
when acquiescence is no more than lack of resistance,
and nods are all there is.

Here, not because it is,
but because the memory of it resides
nestled underneath my breath,
peering from behind my fevered eyes
at the moment as it lapses.
Here, where we persist,
you and I, stumbling eternally,
aimless drifters in a world half-lit.

(Originally posted on December 26, 2007)

It’s on nights like this
that the wall of smiles crumbles,
dimple by sparkling squint,
with a only a faint sigh to be heard
as it crashes.
How is it that things so labored
falter so quietly?

As the roads spread ahead of us,
vast and dim,
lit half-heartedly and glistening
with the sheen of a promised storm…
The night, worn out of shopping
late at resoundingly vacant stores,
hung lifeless and limp,
an expanse of exhaustion,
over our worn out being.

Nothing was left for us–
not the effort of pretense,
not the thrill of acquisition,
not even the recurrent name of a friend…
There we were, naked on the inside,
bereft of even the comfort of joy.
We had only for company,
on that unforgiving night,
the loneliness of each other.

(Originally posted on June 10, 2007)

Since I haven’t been writing much lately, I’ve been digging in my journals. Here’s some more stuff I found. I had completely forgotten about this one, but I think it is worth posting…

To Mama

That winter,
after I’d rejoined them,
they surprised me with an electric keyboard
on which I’d later write sorrowful songs…

In that picture,
where she held my head close to her heart,
my face was a congested shade of purple
that matched her dress…

I’d wake up at night
and follow the sad music to the kitchen
where she’d be hunched over a sinkful of boredom.
She’d turn around and smile
and I’d sit there, at the table beside her
swinging my feet and imagining
the distant harbors of the song…

Those nights
she’d drive us around the city
translating French songs
and sneaking cigarettes.
It was on one of those nights
that she wanted to send me away
to be great…

And now I’m away,
but great is another matter.
These nights
I swallow the air
and wait to get dizzy.
I stare at my feet
and plan for a life without…

These days
I try to be great
but end up small
and solitary and silent.
These days
I turn my face
to endless woods
wrapping me like a shroud…

I hover, I bob,
I ebb and flow…

(Originally posted on June 14, 2006)

And then I grew up,
And people no longer remembered my birthday.
I was not supposed to care anymore;
But I did…

Now I collect smells instead of people;
I gather words instead of songs.
I have lost the melody somewhere in between
The sea and the lip of the wavebreakers…

(Originally posted on August 26, 2004)