house, m.d.

Swaying.

Feet aren't steady, but your walk sharp.
Your laugh bright, shirt off.

Collar tight, voice soft.
Strings balanced and head cocked.

I'm out of breath just looking at you.
My hair curled, yours too.

Fingers clasped, arms stiff.
Music high, lights dim.

Mind wanders, hands touch.
Time moves, we don't.

I'm out of breath just looking at you.
Your eyes grinned, mine too.

Rhythm gone, pulse fast.
I'm out of breath just looking at you.









Can't write tonight. Can't think tonight. Can't move tonight for fear of forgetting.

Esperanto.

Sitting at Esperanto, on the back bar, where I go when I actually want to work and not mill around talking to Emmanuel or Alejandro, or any of the other regulars or baristas.

Had my working face on, brow furrowed, ankles wrapped around the stool legs. Gritting my teeth like the best of them, braced for words that wouldn't come. Lilith, Milton, Shelley, Blake. Following one trail to another, chasing Lilith's tail, wanting her to follow me home instead. Le Femme Fatale. From Gilgamesh to the Sistine Chapel we ran. I wonder if she and Eve got along in that cordial sort of way, inside wishing the other would fall. I suppose they both fell. Maybe they were more like sisters. Such stories. Is it wrong I like to believe in them?

I guess I forgot to erase the arrows that point at me, and the signs that inform all folk to speak to me. I guess I didn't look mean enough tonight, or smell enough, or look tired or mutter enough.

Beard sits down next to me. Youngish, twentyish, but those beards always make it tricky. I look down, we're wearing the same shoes, faded blue van classics. Two full sleeves, a whale, an 18, is that a dinosaur? Half inch baby blue guages. Patch on the pants, yes, he's a Brooklyn. He probably rode his fixed gear here, probably lives in Bushwick.

Oh here it comes. His mouth is fidgeting. He's going to say something. Here comes a voice dripping with a smart ass snarl. A one liner quip. Geezus I'm full of ice tonight.

But the voice is soft. And I balk. This is not expected. He's human, by God. And the softness unravelled into a croon, and a story, and very few words. Humorless, sincere, quiet, and weary. Drifter, writer, a wanderer on the scent of something, feigning to be content with only the search. The search, the damn search. Thanks Walker Percy.

We wander about the simple questions and land in the murky waters between stranger and, and. I need a word for those people that are no longer strangers, the interactions that swim under the radar so quickly but are not friend. Acquaintance sounds like someone your boss introduced you to. This is different. This is when stories are woven together and told at the same time, when the mask of a stranger's lie could impress, but there's no need for it. çôwdh. The secret intimate friendship. That will have to do.

Maybe we weren't wandering. Maybe we knew where we were going and took long steps to get there. Long steps and deep drags of turkish gold and cherry blossomed air toward streets without numbers. Steps until I stood at the foot of the Empire, and he kept on walking.

under water train

Somethings do not change.

More things do.

More often than not, I'm fairly certain I don't live in reality. The jackhammers are raging outside on 34th st. My bank account is overdrawn and I'm broke as a beggar. It's a glorious existence. Friends feed me and work shows up every time I'm sure I won't have a meal. Ideas thread through me and talks of purpose and meaning are at every turn. We're all growing up here.

I'm finally old enough to understand I'm not old. Thrust into decisions and responsibilities and cutting answers from double edged questions.

The rum has been poured one too many times, but usually it's friendship over wine. So many steps from who I thought I should be, but I'm not complaining.

At the cross roads time after time. Identity. It was easy to do the right thing when it was thrust upon me. Easy to say no and step kindly into my pretty role of innocence. But hearts don't exist that way. No identity waited for me at the foot of the Empire. Only what's in my heart. So I've pulled out a lot of ugliness to name it. Not so pretty anymore, no. Not so good at never have I ever anymore.

But more full of grace and life, fury for life. Knowing this everlasting earth can't hold me. Auburn, I'm not coming back. That's terrifying. Oh sure, I'll see you now and again, but you probably won't remember me. Home is some strange far away word that I know is really in the making. I'm ready for my heart to have a home, to crawl into the palms of a forever who has a strong voice and a light laugh.

I remember what love felt like, and I'm not afraid of it anymore. I'm not empty anymore. I'm not broken or halfway anymore. There's a whole heart beating and bleeding for the groans of the people. But it's a whole heart ready to make a home in the deep croon of your promises.

Winter has passed. I smell like cigarettes and for once that's no literary allusion. I don't have pretty edges anymore, but it makes me easier to hold onto. I don't remember one or two or three nights, when I made a brown bag full of hot gold my friend to keep the morning away, walking down the city skyline, Brooklyn Bridge stumbling before my feet.

And I don't remember my first kiss anymore, but I do remember the first time I rode a tandem bicycle. And I remember the morning I woke up, breathed out the shit and decided to live.

Yeshua has been with me, and his deep heart is steady. And the fuzzy truths and the gray lines and the sultry partial lies are being carried out with the tide in the Hudson. All that's remaining is salt that tastes of the Father's glory. All that remains is a burning longing for more. No more questions of if I'm in the right place at the right time. I'm with the writer of my story, and there's no going wrong at His feet. We're writing a novel more shattering than Steinbeck, more lucid than Tolkien, more truthful than Salinger, more alive than Percy.

We're writing this story, and one day He'll name it.

Givers and takers.
Opposites attract? But the givers give, and the takers take. Then the givers need taking, but the takers won't give. Then there is hurt hurt hurt. And ambiguity, and fuzzy edges, and quiet fury, and aching, and a longing to be held.

Death is conquered and so are the lies.
And so here breaths freedom.

Here comes life.

There are cold shoulders and the sound of doors being closed too hard.

I miss the blood that ran between us, because we were family. But now the blood in my veins must be poison. It's burning through me and bringing pain to places I did not know it could. I just want it out out out out of me. But without you, I won't survive.

Such cold hard places I must lay my head.

Today I am alive. And free.

Rollin and I met up at Central Park, he with a helmet for me and an adventure. The maiden voyage of the beauty, the great and rusty tandem queen. We looked at her, and each other and the traffic, and the air so clear and the sun so bright.

I read a guide on how to properly ride a tandem bicycle. Rollin was the captain. I was the stoker. We were supposed to find a certain balance and chemistry in order to have a smooth ride. Fortunately, we did. It was perfect. Around the Central Park loop twice. Smooth and full and fast, and ah. The air smelled good.

I forgot about yesterday. And about last week. And about tomorrow. And about three years ago. I just breathed out the shit, and decided to live.

And you more than whispered in my ear, remember how I promise life? Remember Reid, Remember? I do. How could I forget it.

And then I danced and forgot that I care about other people's eyes and how they look. And then the night turned to something strange and good. A farewell passionate kiss after holding and holding and holding, and why Chicago? And why now, and who are you, and why me, and why not. I had forgotten that kind of being alive. Forgotten the white hot, Forgotten the deep embraces that hold things together. Forgotten that people can call you beautiful and mean it, kiss you and mean it, hold you and mean it, say good bye and mean it.

I'm not even sad. It just was.
And friendship over wine.
And being called by name.
And moving til I drop.
And sweet bed full of warm sleep.
And no dreams, no dreams, just sweet oblivion please Just peace. Please. Just soft quiet closed lids, and the promise that someday someone will hold me through it.

Job

Job:
My father. Betrayed by his brothers, his friends, his lifelong heart and soul men. Who spat on his name, tore the clothes from his back. Sued him, accused him. Yet he sits in grace and says, I will comply.

Fight for it Dad. FIGHT FOR IT. God-Damnit, you have not deserved this. You have compared your life to Job's and I see that, so remember that Job fought the injustice. He cried out to YHWH, won't you?

I'm fighting for you. I'm screaming and kicking. It took everything not to spit in Herald's face when he spoke cunning smooth words to me. "How's your pop holding up, Honey?" "He's seen better days, eh?" And yet you greeted him with a clasp of hands, looked into his eyes, and asked, "How are you, Herald?"

I honor your humility and grace, but it pains me to watch your dear face wrinkle with sorrow, with grief, with the weight of injustice on your shoulders. When will your justice come? When will your mercy flow, your grace be sufficient? Give him Manna for today. Give him grace enough, strength enough, courage enough to stand tall. I love him so.

I am my daddy's daughter. Delight in his heart, grant him the desires you have planted in him. For earth and seed, for mountain air and sweet smelling corn. For clover full of cloven hoofed white tails, for Big Sky Montana. For freedom. I long to see his face smile in all your glory. My father is a handsome man, but he has aged twenty years in three.

Bring these men to truth. Let there tongues burn with every lie they speak. I want truth, I want justice for him. Curse them with truth laden hearts that will not rest until the truth has been thrust forth, heaved from their bellies.

HASHEM, you are good. I believe this. YHWH, you are sovereign I believe this. HAKKADOSH, you are HOLY. I know this. Cradle his heart, dear Abba. Rain him peace, JEHOVAH SHALOM. Hold him tight, do not let him go. Do not let him go. DO not let him go.

I don't think I'm ever going to remember how to sleep.
Today I feel like Molly Ringwald. With green hat and red hair flaming, I walked the streets in clownish glee today. And I really liked the rain, even though it was cold and the wet gave me blisters on my feet. Photoshoot today, for a Microsoft ad campaign. It was a call back and maybe they'll call back again. And maybe someone will see my face and decide they want it for themselves, for money that is. And maybe I'll be plastered on the streets, and the signs, and the minds of silly walking people in New York. They'd give me money and I'd laugh and take it gladly.

Thomas Wolfe has my heart. By that I do not mean he contains it, I mean we must share the same one. I have read sentence after sentence and page after page and thought, my God, I've written that before. The man loved alliteration. It's bloody brilliant.

Ahhh. An old love wrote a beautiful song. I listened to it and I wept today. It was perfect, because it was him through and through. The barely off key strong and solid croon of a young man who has the world before him. He was singing of a lady and her whisperings, and her sitting on the porch, and him coming home. And what a lovely home they have. With pretty green walls and a warm hearth. I wept because it was him. I wept because it moved me as a song should. I wept because it was not about me. I'll remember him. I'll remember you love.

Today, I feel like Cal Trask. Hat pulled low and coat pulled high around my ears, with eyes looking down down down to my feet to my toes to the ground. Never up.

I'm twenty.

tompkins

I want that familiar smell, the one that will drown me.
It brings terror up my spine and a sick twist in the very bottoms of me, but it's been so long since I remembered it.

Your sickly sweet musk, that hides and tangles itself in your room, in your car, in your clothes, in your hair, on your body, in strangers who have walked by too close.

It's been too long since I fell far into longing and love. Now I'm stuck with dreams and fixations that I have created. There is no real musk to smell and no real body to hold. Only a word I wonder what it means, and only a smile I wonder if it was for me.


How can I even think of love when my heart is only healing from death's stench and Satan's rotting breath. Because love aids that healing, wraps it up in its arms and cradles my heart. Fans away and airs out the dead blood and decaying breath of lies that was stagnant in my heart. Because now I wake up hungry, stomach stumbling curling and grumbling and yawning and waking for new blood, for new life. To devour. Musty earth and earthworms, the dirt that holds the wheat grass and the hands that smell of living. The sea salty air, bitter taste still upon my lips that I lick. The sun I poured down my throat and sweated out my pores.

Alive, alive, alive, alive.
I still miss that old smell.
But this hour smells well, it smells of something coming to eat.

Daria.

We sat down for a birthday dinner tonight. I'll be twenty Wednesday but I'm headed back to the city tomorrow morning. We broke every single rule of proper family time I think. I drank wine, scandalous. We talked politics. We talked religion. We talked about the bailouts and real estate. We even aired some old dirty laundry of the family. It all ended in silence and clanking forks and forcefully shoved in chairs.

Until Mom tried to gather us around the chocolate cake she had made me, with m&m's on top. We lit twenty candles, dripped wax everywhere and burned our fingers. They tried to sing Happy Birthday but my sister refused and two people singing was more awkward than the previous silence.

This is family. Thirty minutes later Mel shoved a wrapped parcel in my lap and said Happy Birthday. A journal, with a note that says, "Write your heart out and don't be afraid of truth."

This is family.
Headed to the airport at six am to try to catch the 10:20 flight standby. If all goes accordingly, I'll be back in NYC around 5. Something feels uneasy.

And the History channel thinks my YHWH is an alien.

The sun has seeped into me and somehow healing is taking place.
I've been lying in the sun for two days now. Soaking and seeking the warmth and the life it brings. I'm a beaming blush of sunburn, and my skin hurts when I move, but it's okay because I'm alive.

I sat in a boat for hours today with my Dad. My father that I haven't spoken to in months. My sister I haven't spoken to in more. And we got the old boat out and set her out into the bay. Fishing poles and a bucket of live shrimp and a few coronas between the three of us. I guess you never forget how to cast a steady line or set the hook. Dad's gruffness wore off and so did the weary look in his face. Mel softened into the sister and daughter I know she is. Red fish, sea trout, pinfish.

Chris drove over to the house here. Picked me up and we drove and drove and drove. And it's never been less cliche, to drive with the windows down and the music playing. And laying out on the sand with the blood moon rising. Him playing the eukelele and me singing The Mariners Revenge and listening to water lap. And Come thou Fount of Every Blessing, and our wandering hearts were bound to Him and I think I even grasped what fetters are.

I'm warm and weary and I saw stars and felt sand and wetted feet and smelled the sun and all the time it held. And dawn broke twenty centuries ago when death ripped in two. The curtain torn and nothing but life and victory was smelled. Despair no more. The grave has given up its dead.

sand and water
and salt sea spray.
here i come to you.

Beaches are cold during the winter.
It should be winter more often,
it's more, original.

People don't like it, but I do.
Only people who love it, go there.

Cold sand stings.. it's not a pleasant place to stay.
Winds chase and there's always the fact, that I don't have a jacket.

Dragging your feet, makes it harder to leave.
Maybe you drag your feet, because it is hard to leave.

I like sunsets. They still look the same when the sand is cold.
Sunrises have attitude.

Beginnings always have more life than ends.
Cold sand wouldn't seem like a very appealing thing, except that you can't feel your feet or where you're going.

There's always biting water that will nip at my ankles. Or snap. And seagulls squawk because I'm the intruder.
Maybe the sea gulls squawk because they're saying Hello. Maybe they're just as lonely as I am.

I found some pretty shells.
They were all broken.

Unusual things happen when the sand is cold.
The sea spray caught my face, and I know it was completely intentional.

And the remnant of a child's curiosity,
urged me to lick my lips.

I savored its taste in the same moment that I spat it out.
Sharp and Bitter and.. Salty
Salt tastes good, it's almost sweet.

Oceans feel cold, but only when the sand is.
The sand isn't cold enough to clear my mind,
maybe the water is.

It would take my breath away..
There's no lifeguards when the sand is cold.

I don't like sunsets, I like stars.
Stars only shine after the sunset has gone.



The beach is only pretty
when the sand is cold
before the day begins.


I hate the beach, but cold sand and sea spray makes me.. mmm

The reality is that all of this hurts.
And I very selfishly want people to drop everything and hold me.

And faith is something I don't really understand, because it is all of me and all I have. I can't define it and I can't walk away from it.

I brushed my teeth this morning in the shower, because my roommate dropped her necklace down the sink drain. And so I turned the heat down in the shower a bit, until the water was luke warm. And once it touched my teeth I squirmed in discomfort. And I spit it out of my mouth.

song of solomon

He didn't let me go.
When every human hand can no longer hold me, catch my fingers.
He did not let me go.

Here comes the morning Thomas Wolfe.
Here comes the sun on the street that never emptied out my window.

There's my heart beating, it wouldn't stop feeling, it wouldn't give up.
There go the lies I vomited up. They are no longer of me, in me. Damned are you death, God-Damned are you lies.

YHWH, he has held me. Hakkadosh, my name comes from his lips.
I could not run from you.
You fought back. You fought for me.
You conquer death, and I'm holding you to your covenant. Justice.

My breath is of smoke and bitter words thrown.

I am no friend of death, yet he follows me. Haunts my steps, whispers in my ear.. I will never leave you. And so many sweet words are whispered by him. It's all in the good Lord's plan. It's for a greater purpose. It'll make you stronger. His family will learn the good Lord's love from it. God's in control of everything, so this, let's make the best of this. It's ok to hurt, just let it out. Don't keep it bottled up.

Fuck that.

Doesn't anyone remember that Christ died to conquer death? That death is everything opposing God? Doesn't anyone remember that death is only here because we fell? Because WE fell? Doesn't anyone remember that the death of a soul is eternally lost, will never know his love, will never see his face? Doesn't anyone else think that death is not ok? I don't know what to feel or to think. I don't know what to say or to do.

Doesn't anyone understand that when I run away I want to be followed? You can't say anything dumb as long as you are holding on tight to me. Don't let me go. Don't walk away. Don't give me space. Don't turn me lose.

Smother me until I beat you off me and come back at me ready for the punches. I want to fight against you, tear, scream, kick, rip, and conquer nothing. To lose the strength of my body beating you back, and I want you to keep holding me strong.

I will not settle with death. I will never say it is ok. It hurts, I am angry. Can I say that? Angry, wheezing, coughing up blood from taking in so much shit. I have no angry words for you God, I clench my jaw and my fists. I have nothing to say to you. Satan is father of lies and I hate him. Death is his closest brother. Hate them both with me, won't you? You hate it, too, don't you? If you don't I don't know how to love you. If this isn't tearing you apart, if this doesn't make your gut sink, and skin crawl, and your breath hot, and your brow ache, then maybe I'm loving the wrong God. I have to believe you are hurting in this. Please tell me you are not sitting up there so smug and patting my head, saying, it's all ok.

It's not ok.
It's not all right.
It is not good.

Please tell me that, because if I can't believe that I will crumble. If I do not know that you are fighting this with me, then I am truly alone.

Where is your justice? Why do you feel so far from me?
I hate the lies. I hate the lies. I hate the lies. They deserve death. Not a man who breathed deep and reached high. Not the man who laughed, loved, wondered, and searched you out. Did he find you? Did you not run seeking after him? Did you not trap him and grab him toward you? How could you let him from your arms? Please tell me you didn't let him go.

If you let him go, how can I forgive you? If you let him go, then will you let me go as well?
I'm clinging to you, clawing your coat and pulling your great beard towards me. Do not let me go. Do not let me fall.
You snatched my life back from me before, two cold and cruel Aprils ago I had my life. And you would not let me end it. And death came at my door three times and you turned him away. So why me and not him? I did not deserve this life? Why didn't you conquer death for him? I do not deserve it.

Where is the redemption in this? Where is your love? Where is your mercy? Where do I come out breathing in this? Where do you come in, fighting back?

These are fighting words, YHWH. Fight back.

The window seal in my apartment became very tempting today.
So tempting that I opened the window, crawled to the outside,
and stood shyly on the ledge. Four stories up and a thousand to the sky.

I yelled and no one noticed, and I walked and no one saw.
The wind gusted and my knees wobbled,
and the bricks crumbled, and my arms jousted
with the strong air and the loud noises.

Jump, fall, fall, fall, fall, LIFT.
My stomach which had been begging to jump out my throat,
sunk swiftly to the bottom of my toes as direction changed
and falling faltered.

And sleep faded, and the dreams swaggered back to
the bottom of my soul.

Oh, to have a waking life.

captain, oh my captain

Weak and warm and fumbling for keys.
You spoke to me first, you asked me my name.

And I forgot to be coy and I forgot to play games,
I only saw you there and wanted to know your name.

So we can call each other like we've been friends for years,
and maybe one day I'll even remember your middle name, or at least initial.

Eyes are raw from rubbing and running them over you,
lips are chapped from wind and cold and running from you.

The rhymes have grown dull
and names keep groping to find their way
into a story.

Briley, you caught my heart too strongly and I fought from your hold,
and Richard, I never imagined I'd be fighting for your hand.

This is incoherent and broken and foolish, unpolished and probably juvenile.
I never imagined my nights would end with aching and wishing and rum running down.

oh chesire.

There was a weed, in his path,
and he stumbled on a stone.
A mushroom by the olive tree,
and he fell on his own.

He took a drink by the stream,
and there he wasted his time.
Under a tree in a dream
sleep failed, but he smirked at the sun.

He tasted an olive,
and laid down in the dust.
Woke feeling weighted,
with Wonderland winds a gust.

As the poppies bloomed brazenly,
he sat on a rock,
at the footsteps of a crack
which ran to down to a flock,
of goats.

He wasted his years that day.
as he stumbled on a stone.
Poor lad tripped on a cat that day,
and grinned as he stumbled home.

the seductive stranger is our clergyman

2007

Oh little girl, the water feels so good.
It's merry here, the sirens hum so softly.
The water's rising; the sirens still sing,
but I hear nothing in the lull.

The preacher is coming by
with some things he'd like to sell.
Like Salvation for a nickel, temptation for a dime,
but there are other things he'd rather buy.

Oh little girl, come play in the street.
The city is merry in its fervor.
The sirens wail, and the city sways in liquor,
but it's so quiet in the lull.

Something shiny for the offering plate,
walk your hand along the rails.
Ask the preacher to explain,
and he'll lean down to whisper in your ear.

Oh little girl, come meet me by the sand dunes.
What a quiet day for secrets.
Only the sea gulls notice the sirens,
because the little girl lies quiet in the sea.