instead of waiting

i'm listening to Brahms and trying not to know what i'm going to do. i'm trying to pause. i'm trying to breathe. i'm trying to have faith that the solution will present itself. i'm trying to avoid the subtle seduction of certainty - or maybe i'm lying to myself.

maybe i already know what i will do. maybe the die is already cast. maybe these months meant nothing. maybe the months before meant even less. maybe i'm writing just to hear the clack clack click tap of the keys so i don't pay attention to the tocks.

maybe i'm trying to remember the smell of clocks.

Volver

Such sweet insanities:
watching ghosts and counting karmas.

I see Chinatown,
I hear the Dead Russian,
I smell the sour stench of a Sunday spent retching.

I know all these things as sure as I know myself.
They loom, mysterious and inconceivable.

What did I see last night?

As the fever passed so did the day;
the Madness did not take hold.

I sipped ginger ale and read Jack.

Big Sur recollections of delirium tremens;
I dream of Himalayan ascetics and Mardou.

I smell asparagus from the night before
and spend a lifetime in hypnagogia.

Well done, Almodóvar.

bed-ridden, not flea-bitten (yet)

it all started with a sip of apple juice. i knew something was wrong within minutes. one of my uncanny abilities is a hyper-sensitivity to things i ingest. gastrointestinal distress that should take 8-10 hours to manifest impact me within a fraction of that time. i have consulted medical professionals (in a general way) and yet my metabolism maintains its mystique. but all this is besides the point.

the point is that i have been in bed for hours, and there is a (lined) trash can full of vomit next to the bed. it all started with a sip of apple juice... but ended more like Beetle Juice.

uh... what's going on here?

something happened today.
i have no explanation, i have no theory.
and - even if i did - i cannot imagine a motive.

it wasn't so much the seeing that left me wobbly.
it was that when i mentioned it,
it was gone.

362 days ago

this time last year, in addition to standing in a puddle, i was preparing to go dancing in Miami with my sister. i hoped it would become a tradition, that each year the final weekend of September would be spent sweaty in the dark, using one another as surrogate lovers, never touching, telling lies to bachelorettes in Wynwood and waiting for the lights to come on.

but it didn't happen.

she left on Train 52 for Baltimore City on the last day of May.
we got to dance one last time before she was gone.

puddles

this time last year i was standing in a puddle. i didn't see it coming and the next thing i knew, i was in almost over my head. so i hung out for a while, checked it out, splashed around, took measurements, counted the pebbles...

it was deeper than i expected, and it took me longer to get out than i could have imagined. but this morning i got a picture from San Francisco and standing next to the Pacific Ocean that puddle seemed so small.

i saw another puddle coming a couple of weeks ago, and i think this time i'm just going to walk around it. i already learned how to swim.

i didn't sleep well and

i woke last night at 3:58am from a dream about Gertrude Stein. i am uncertain what she was doing there, probably making declarations about the nature of my generation or the like. there was a hard rain falling outside, and by the time i turned my light on the rest of the dream was gone. but this is besides the point.

the point is that she wasn't alone, and i would be better served if i didn't think about the other woman in bed with the lights off.