staring into the mouths of fish

(I've been thinking. Of course I have writers' block. To be a writer, you have to experience things. And I haven't been experiencing anything lately.

I've been waiting for life to find me, but isn't that the opposite of what we're supposed to do? Aren't we supposed to make life recognize that we exist, and not the other way around? Life shouldn't be written on our faces in frowns and smiles. We should make our marks on life, scribbling captions under the snapshots of all the things we've been doing.

Music's been good to me lately. So has sweet baby Jesus, as we affectionately call Him. I think we call Him that because it makes Him less daunting and makes our mistakes feel less like mistakes and more like human)

***

grass grows over dead things

grass grows over my insides

it tickles so i laugh but then it

isn't so funny anymore

and i feel the seed of a watermelon

sprouting in my stomach

the roots of a gum tree

technicolored (they told me

just to spit it out but boy was i

am i

stubborn)

staring into the mouths of fish

their milk eyes like moonlight

their hands waving like our faces

plunged into the depths

are planning on going up for air

but joke's on them

(on us)

because this is a staring contest

grass grows over dead things

dead hands waving like our faces

do underwater

like the ocean is tipsy

crashing into the shore and falling back

warping our smiles and frowns

our milk eyes like the moonlight

but joke's on us

because we're blind

lists and crumpled lists

It's funny.

While everyone else is applying for colleges, I'm asking God for some sort of direction. And while everyone else is getting answers back, I'm still waiting and wading in a shallow pool of self-doubt. Maybe everybody else has the right idea: pursue an education and get sweet jobs and benefits and houses on hills. But then this other part of me flares up in defiance, like some sweaty boxing trainer wiping the blood from my cheeks, and spits in my face that I can do this. This, that, the other, the smallest, the biggest. I think that trainer is God in disguise, mostly because the me that I'm in a rut of being isn't nearly strong enough to stand up to my own doubts and proclaim with wild abandon that I am, in fact, not a screw-up.

The larger, meeker part of me sees everyone heading off down their perfectly straight, decided paths and I look at all the gravel poking through my worn shoes and the sky like lead in front of me. I have no idea where I'm going next. The small, poetic part searches for the beauty in this situation with a flashlight, but the beam just ricochets off that quasi-Commie iron curtain and blinds the meek me like the flash of a camera when I'm not ready to be photographed.

Then again, maybe that's the point. Maybe I was wired to walk through walls and face whatever demon or angel is on the other side. Lately, though, it feels like my circuits are shorting and I'm still going to be spouting all my pipe dreams when I'm wrought with frown wrinkles and surrounded by all the lists I've been making recently, both they and I strewn about in crumpled heaps.

Still a smaller part of me is banging against my ribs and begging for me to quit worrying about the future when I can't change it. And to trust my gut. Sometimes I can see myself wandering the planet alone for the rest of my life, knocking on closed doors and breaking in sealed windows and hoping some opportunity searchlight will graze over me and freeze for at least an instant.

I say I want all these things, yet that's all I'm doing. Saying things. Listing the books I want to read and the places I want to go and the things I want to do before I expire like milk on the shelf. I feel limited and like the tightrope I've been balancing on for a while now is tangling itself around my ankles and like I can't walk a straight line anymore. I'd probably just walk into that lead horizon anyway

but there's always a chance I am able to walk through it.

I've been reading about how to read poetry and I think maybe I'm not good enough

I still don't like coffee

My admiration for Coldplay, however seventh-grade it sounds, will never wane. Something about it is like sipping on some hot generic beverage, the way it permeates and calms everything down to a dull roar instead of those incessant, blaring sirens that ring through me and draw me to the rocks.

I've been making too many lists lately. I wonder if I'm on someone's list. List of things to learn to love, list of things to get rid of, New Years Resolutions (however breakable). Perhaps somebody is carving a list on that ominous skyline and it has great things in store for me. Perhaps I just have to keep walking blindly and trusting whatever hand is on the back of my neck, guiding me through the crowd I can't see.

Lord, I don't know which way I am going
Which way the river gonna flow
It's just seems that upstream, I keep rowing
Still got such a long way to go
Still got such a long way to go

Then that light hits your eye
I know, I swear,
We'll find somewhere the streets are paved with gold
Bullets fly, split the sky
But that's all right, sometimes,

sunlight comes streaming through the holes
-Coldplay, U.F.O

pinky promises don't mean much to alcoholics

but you did come tonight

you crouched beneath your hat and beard

i saw you there, between the bodies

and a smile stretched my face

i thought i tasted blood between my teeth

my mouth clamped shut for so long

you walked, that familiar clack echoing

and something swelled inside me

my kidney or appendix

my eyes flashed uncontrollably

scrambling to inscribe you on my brain

my liver flipped and remembered you

thanked you for that alcohol

we stood between the shadows

our shadows touching in ways we didn't want them to

the rain squelching beneath our feet

hooded girl and hatted boy

you told me you'd painted these walls

the lines so straight i expected blood to bead

as i touched them

i tried to remember everything you'd ever said

the neon sky above us humming

like uncertain laughter during a eulogy

told my brain i could never forget

because to forget your words was to forget

you

you touched my hand

i said i was so sad

and the air felt colder

your heart was muffled beneath your jacket

but it pulsed in your thumb

beating in stereo through my fingers and ears

the fog snaked in and out of light behind you

you stuttered a goodbye but i didn't tease

your eyes were the bluest i've seen them

the instant before you turned away

your hands jammed into your pockets

elbows out like broken wings

the raindrops fell from rooftops

and plucked the reflections of neon strings

floating slack in puddles

i swallowed the urge to call your name

but it went down the wrong pipe

and i sputtered inside

i watched your body grow small and blurry

careful not to blink