He watched her die.

I would rather be a tree!

He took her to the road.
She wanted more than cement, she wanted more than headaches.

I am become like a tree
because noone knows how to keep me.
I am become like a tree
My legs have been whittled, my knees and elbows
look like knobs

Count the lines on my face,
watch my hair grow wild in the summer like leaves.
Hear our words turn into leaves, clapping together.
Harder when we argue, softer when we do not say a word.

Sometimes it is softening to yell. It sounds like storms.
Sometimes when it storms the leaves clap together and it reminds
me of you after we have made angry.
It reminds me of toes tapping against tiles.
It reminds me of being cold.
It reminds me of seeing you in public.

I saw you the other day, I found a twenty on the street, thought I would come in.
You do not get angry now. Now you just get tired. The cement is making it difficult to breathe.

Every day for the last year we have seen each other. You get tired, and I come home with leaves. I wear them on my breasts, on my upper legs.

The woman gets lost in the trees often because it is easier than witnessing his legs, too weak to move. Once you planted a small tree in the backyard, supported by a hockey stick. The tree grows large and full now but there is not as much hope for you.

Broke the Rules

I had a date with your brother,
you told me to stay far away
but I couldn't contain myself.

Every so often thoughts of your brother
and then he is on the street. What will you
have me do?
He smiles like you do
and dances like you do
and he is short like you are.
Your brother is not as old
as he claims,
his heart is broken but it still moves.

Will you then mind if I break the rules and try to keep you?

if your knees break,
if you can't walk,
if you can't bear the thought to run,
if you can't talk without slurring,
if you can't write,
if you can't read,
if your skin leaves your bones
will you then mind if i contain you?

what will you become then?
scratches in the air,
scratches in the back of the mind,
something as mere as memory,
or a reflection of how you survived,
squeeze you into the vile,
put you on my skin.

if on the bone up my left wrist
be who you are,
if on the heel inside of my left foot,
be where you are,
if on the back of my neck,
breathe,
if on the palm of my right hand,
concentrate.

I'd heal you up

you are so young boy -
much smaller, whiter, softer than I.
my skin would burn you.
you are such a young boy,
far too young for me

yet look at those wounds,
so large, so red, so open,
I could dig my hands in if you
want me to?

I'd heal you up but you're so young.

I am so much bigger, darker, harder
than you but you get scary sometimes,
talking about sex, talking about
sleeping with girls, talking negatively
about everything

because if you're pessimistic
it seems much easier -
yet

your skin does not show signs
of being too old, you still seem young.
I'd heal you up, I don't mind blood,
but you are still so young.

Tangled Carpet (Tangled Brain)

all these secrets in the carpet
in the rips in the carpet
in this lofty apartment where it gets hot
and then it gets cold
without anyone telling us how to control it -
when it gets to twenty eight degrees
let the man know and he will turn it down.
so it gets cold but then i wake up hot, so hot,
and it gets cold but then i walk around and i get hot.

but there are secrets in the carpet,
there are secrets in the walls.
if you trace your fingers between the stones you find
secrets in the walls.
you stick tacks in the wood and find more secrets.
don't think anything too loud because someone
you weren't expecting will answer.
there are secrets in the carpet -
where it is ripped into squares and other shapes.

i don't know the secrets and i don't know the answers
to the secrets i have found but i know when you get
up in the morning after too many drinks i hear
you from all ends of my room when you occupy
the front end of the apartment.
i know your lock doesn't work anymore
but that's another kind of secret.
the carpet it curls up in such interesting places
but stays flat in most places

but then it curls up and i think about the grains,
the strands of colour and i think of someone with
their hand - i think about someone with their hand
taking the strands one by one - the colours don't matter -
and i think about them running their hands over each piece of thread
and then weaving it one strand at a time, filling it
with their lies and their secrets or their lies or
their secrets and touching each strand really hard
until they weave one entire little section.

and then i guess they continue until the
entire loft is filled with enough carpet or secrets
or lies.

Ain't Talkin

little girl i heard about you
and i heard you're not ok.
don't go away.
*
he didn't mean it,
i know when he means it
and he didn't mean it.

it gets hard as we get older
to know why his brain gets so hard,
why it presses so much on his shoulders
on his fist.

he didn't mean it,
i remember sitting on the sidewalk,
refusing to go inside
until he stopped meaning it
and started to think.

he didn't mean it
not with you
*
wish i knew what to tell you
wish i knew what to say
but i mean it,
don't go away, stay.

a product of your generation.

...dying is the most fantastic experience in life. It's a hip, chic, vogue thing to do. It's the most elegant thing you can do. Even if you've lived your life like a complete slob, you can die with terrific style. I can't wait for this moment.

- Timothy Leary

Starting to Work

finally things are starting to work. the air conditioning works.
i work. the lights work.
we don't pay for utilities but i turn off all the lights whenever i leave
the room. people are starting to work.
with the heat gone i can get out of bed at 6 am and not sleep
uncharacteristically until 12:40 pm.
the internet works.
the air works. these buildings are no longer just tall and filled with pressure that makes it hard to breathe but they are filled with air that works.
the books are starting to work.
the looks
are starting also, to work.
i am never good at beginnings (they are always the same) and i am never good
with endings (maybe i said something wrong, wrote something wrong, maybe you think
i meant something else when i didn't. maybe you think i like sex, do drugs, drink too much when i don't).
those are also starting to work.
a lot of people i can see will cease to work.
but not jesus. not the little boy.
not anna,
not robert,
not the four. maybe there will be one or two more.
the thought of dying is starting to work.
the interviews make sense.
the references work.
my limbs are starting to work.
my breasts are starting to work.
my posture works.
you stay in bed and don't go to your job
and that works.

* Nothing wrong with illusions as long as they work...
and continue to work...
(C.B.)

the lights work. sometimes i turn them off and sit in the dark.
sometimes someone else turns them off.