you are the most selfish person i have ever met, but that's ok.  the understanding that you exist in a universe alone, floating out amongst stars and lines, is necessary to our survival.  comprehension likens itself to water.

wake up and wonder.  wake up and doubt. wake up and feel guilty for the way i thought of your mouth when i was writing in helvetica.  today is the same as the day before and will be the same as the day to come:  i light the green signal fire and hope that you can see it from across the causeway.  i light the signal fire and hope you do the same.

you are straight lines and perfect squares spread out across your bedroom floor cut with a pair of scissors sharp enough to draw blood.  these bits of paper lay like land mines on carpet and it is such an effort to tip-toe closer, quiet, unseen and unheard like the good fuck i am.  

she is, of course, the girl who knows her place.

you are the elements of typographic design.  with a penchant for san serif fonts, you pay attention to kerning.  you pay attention to the width of your counters.  you pay attention to the height of your ascenders.  everything is intentional and it's ok, because in the end, it's all about legibility.  you make yourself painfully clear and when everything you say is apparent and obvious as soon as i get close enough to read i have no excuses anymore.  i can never say i failed to comprehend.

you are far away and secret.  a page in a diary.  a typeface so perfect, you never even know it's there.  helvetica incarnate.

the truth of it

(a found poem)

the real man is a dirty revolutionary

too human for blood and tears

brainwashed, he makes everything

of milkweed poison

and wears a bullet proof vest

but never the cloak and dagger

for his heart

ˆ

the true man is part pf a network of species

is guided by the

experience of action

by a feeling of great love that occupies everything

his love is alive

his motivation precedes influence

there is none so sweet as the man without bones

to carry his children 

too alive to quit

the real man

is a revolutionary

is a dirty child of gaia

is part of a network

is coming home to you

i don't know what to say when i have to say something

about a universal experience

because i am small and don't know what the words universal experience mean

i am small and i only know about the immediate tragedy

of waking up soaked in sweat, discovering that i've run out of milk

and being baffled by an inability to recall my dreams

i want to be a painter, i want to be able to play music, i want to be able to say anything and have it mean anything, i want the world to be art relavent and moving

but instead i am small, i am only a girl, i only write poems on the backs of napkins when all the serious writers have those black leather books and those felt tipped pens

i am small, i am only a girl, i am still coloring with crayons and barely managing to stay inside the lines

there is this word potential and it is thrown around  like something cavalier, it is thrown around like he loves me not daisy petals, it is thrown around like a word worth throwing around and i don't understand

because i am small, there is me in one room and my potential in the other and it is like a lover who i've been arguing with over something trivial, like a lover who is now pouting with his lip stuck out and wounded, and me not knowing what to say to make things right again

there is me in one room and my potential in the other and the way that word is thrown around you'd think it was something important, but i am small, i am just a girl, and i only know about the immediate tragedy of not living to the fullest 

and there is that word again

and me not knowing what to say to convince the universe that i am.

rest-less, none for the wicked girl

with twitching legs

being called to sunshine and tulips

when there is only night-time

to be found

no sleep, the time set aside for

late night musings and

frantic pen scribbles

scratching the hours into cardboard

philosophy talks and

whiskey sips and promises

to save our livers tomorrow,

tomorrow

photographs are strung on fishing wire

criss-crossing over horizon lines

and in each picture the likeness of a ghost

two eyes, two hands

one open mouth frozen in timely utterances

of absolute fact

the windows are fogged

the sun is coming up

some things have been ruined beyond repair

fissures running

too deep, glass cracked and

reflection obscured

my responses are strictly

pavlovian

so when the clock hands wind

their lazy way around the face

the only natural response

is to weep

i have made a river

but i cannot build a boat

so i will float, i will float

spiral towards the great drain

big sucking hole in my belly

gaping mouth prepared to swallow

every part of me that is

broken glass and splinters

and spit back all the skin