Here.

I feel like shit. I took a nap, woke up, and felt like everything was falling apart. Fairly normal for me, but still. It sucks to feel like shit. 

When you feel alone, truly alone, that feeling compounds. Feeling alone keeps you alone, which makes you feel like you are the only person on the planet who is hurting. 

I’ve decided to write to you, in the hopes that it will make me feel less alone. I know there’s like, one of you, but that doesn’t really matter. I’m talking to myself, too. 

I’ve been reading a lot of psych literature lately. It feels like I owe it to myself to get all the information I can in the hopes that I can use it, not only to feel better, but to write to you about it. Because whoever you are, singular stranger, we’re in this together. 

The thing about relational trauma is that your sense of self has eroded, your boundaries dissolve, you have no real solid ground to stand on–nothing to keep or defend. It feels like grief, because it is. The pain is less about the way you were treated, and more about the parts of yourself you lost while being treated that way. 

So, I’m talking to myself as well as to you, because it’s important. Because I matter. Because I’m worth talking to. I very often forget that. 

I may be wallowing in self pity right now, but I’ll allow it. I am hurting and I am tired and that’s okay. I’ll feel better eventually. As my city descends further into chaos and my internal state feels like I’m on fire, I’m writing to you instead of destroying myself. That’s cool. 

I figure I’ll include some poetry now. I’m really good at writing poetry, not that it matters very much. Have you seen the poetry section of book stores? It’s like one Bukowski anthology and some instagram poet. Anyway. Here: 

–

            Studio Space 

This is space in The City. 

A kitchen for brushing teeth 

A place to sit 

A drawer for socks 

How lucky I am 

Even without a window 

In the bedroom. 

I sleep with my eyes shut 

Anyway. 

–

–

I am not a lawyer, I’m an artist. 

Few things are as damaging  

As an insincere expression of faith. 

This we have in common.  

This and that distinct, Amtrak smell–that  

Same, sterile static. We  

hurry home–both of us–

wanting to be good for something. 

–

–

Hairbrush Rippings

myself the other, hates you.

winter — coal — the milk in my fridge 

hate you.

the hand reaching from the grave (plastic of course) used

for October decoration hates you.

the extension cord — my only constant — hates you.

the carpet speckled and curious. hate. 

my poor circulation hates me, but it hates you more, assuredly.

the rippings from my hairbrush are flushed down the toilet while hating you.

the last sip of beer–warm and flat–mostly flem

hates you as an equal.

the air outside even

Watch how it moves away while you walk–

clearly hate.

Kentucky derby hats–though ugly and obscene–are redeemed by whimsy and so rightfully 

hate you.

the last library book in existence will surely hate you.

the trees–even dead ones–even the patch of dirt that implies 

eventual tree

hates you.

the act of fucking exists in spite of you

and so naturally,

its hate is worst of all.

–

–

Elmira, NY 

Mark Twain  

was buried here but nobody really asks  

why. The hills, maybe–they seem close enough to pyramids. 

–

–

Nose Job

from start to finish, my nose is ugly 

I will do nothing to change this but laugh  

I prefer my art like my pizza 

worth exactly $1–available at 3 am–

I once wrote and tossed screenplay–a labored, worrisome thing 

which is, I think, the only way to become a New York Poet.

I will admit the poetic genius of building a city for angels. 

to then make it one, idling highway. 

I think of earthquakes–how eventually Hollywood

will buckle. will fall at an angle. 

Somehow still getting its good side. 

–

–

Coordinates  

Silly and sturdy  

Needed for flight paths  

And some kind of sweetness 

To which we point and say here

Look here 

This is the place where I came from 

–

–

It’s Friday. 

I’m crossing 

Out to-do lists whole.

Being a mother, falling in love, learning 

jazz guitar see–

I do not talk about the future 

In the same way I used to–my mouth

 is full of water

And it’s awfully rude to spit. 

I do not imagine the future

In the same way I used to–but see, 

I’ll write it down anyway.

So that in the moments before 

these words sink

Our future will have existed, 

somewhere. 

–

–

Memories Aren’t Real

I learned a long time ago to climb inside the bodies of statues. To speak from their mouths a kind of warning. I shout into the square, Do not stop to watch my body crumble. There is no use in animating memory. It is a sickness to trick life into static bodies– aging none. Moving none. Changing 

only by falling apart. 

I ask the greats–Michelangelo’s rotting head, and yours–carve me out of water. Let it be, and it will move all on its own, forget itself completely. The likeness, uncanny. Carve me out of water. Then, I will be happily remembered. 

–

–

Bright’s Disease, of which she died in 1886

And so I sit here, with Emily

As I always seem to do

When I’m scared to die 

Or bored of static minds 

That all snap shut 

On the curves of a woman

I fight through dusty words

The kind that haven’t seen a line

Since she chose them

To carry her

Like wooden shoes—noisey

Uncomfortable on purpose

I think about her often

Not always writing but

Dead too

And how remarkable, truly 

That she should die

Just as she lived

—With a terrible Brightness.

–

–

–

Instant Oatmeal, Dry

I had acrylic nails when the world stopped.It felt good to neglect something without recourse. 

I lived in one room, peed on the hour walked in concentric circles fell In love on the internet ate

boxes of cereal dry ate Instant oatmeal dry ate and wished I had a terminal illness. 

so it wouldn’t be my fault ate glue to patch the hole ate mycelium to expedite

decay ate novels I hadn’t had time to read ate my childhood stuffed dalmatian ate a phone call 

home ate my grandfather’s funeral ate skin not worth touching ate gummy vitamins by the handful.

I ate all of the liquor I ate 10 lbs then I ate the scale I ate 

styrofoam cups plastic cups compostable plastic cups I ate microplastic (fruit flavored)

I ate Boulder Creek I ate the skatepark I ate The fear I felt walking by the skatepark I ate time

I ate so much time. I think I even ate you.

–

–

If the soul has windows they aren’t in the eyes. 

They say in the Midwest, the night sky is your ocean. I am moving to Nashville in one month, where my body won’t be mine and I am waving goodbye to knowing that when my hand moves it was my decision. 

I like to read postcards–I like to see the pictures. I like that they are self-contained–that you only need a stamp. 

the body–my body–may be your ocean. But it isn’t mine. Hi from Memphis! We’re eating lots of barbecue. Love, Donna. I think that the soul leaves traces. 

The ocean is my ocean–the rest I turn over and write on. 

–

–

Sketching

I sit at my desk, looking at a small, wooden, figure-drawing model I’ve had since I moved into this house. I’m almost positive it is a woman–if she were not, she would not have stayed this long with me. 

A year ago I hung ornaments on her. They were festive at the time and now they belong to her.

Drawing her is nice–simple. She is not complex–all lines and hinges. I start with a blind contour–black and white. Then I go back in with water.  

It is difficult to know what she is thinking. 

–

–

Even The Cemeteries 

Based upon photography and Captions by Mark Neville

Alla Melnichuk watched from her home in Hirske. 

There was whistling overhead. 

Instead of ducking and covering, as the instructions say, 

She asked, “Huh?” 

Fear didn’t come until later.

I woke up too late to shower.

I put my hair up, brushed my teeth–

Ran down 16th street watching my breath. 

I was late to sell coffee. 

They had been shelling. Even the cemeteries. 

Losing everything cannot happen quickly. 

“Huh?” she said, naturally. 

She did not duck and cover. Fear, she said, came later.

And then? What will come then?

I scrubbed the kitchen drains with bleach.

They found the body of a 17 year old girl today.

Wiped tables, chairs, door handles. 

Bodies are not things we should have to find.

I had a cigarette. Smiled for tips.

I walked home slow, 

I let my hair down and it touched my waist. 

They were shelling, 

“Huh?”

Even the cemeteries. 

–

–

I Left Nothing, As Per The Lease Agreement

The carpet was decades old, so it would be impossible to tell that I had cleaned it at all, really. But I did. I vacuumed up every speck of me. I pulled out every one of my hairs from the shower drain–a juicy clump of me, discarded. 

I scrubbed the spot on the wall where I’d propped my feet up to read. I gave away the bamboo plants that I’d been watching sprout for 2 years. I gave away the desk I wrote to you from. I gave away the bed I slept in. I gave away pounds and pounds of clothing, and then I vacuumed up the lint. I swept the stairs–even the spot I always missed because it was in the corner of the landing and very inconvenient to reach.

I gave away the bathing suit I wore to the creek–the one I wore when we stopped everything in the middle of an August Tuesday to kiss each other under the water.

god, 

I met a girl today and god

I lost my sense. I know

I can’t love her but please

let me watch her breathe.

God I thought of Death today and god

how sickly sweet

to love without a body just some

matter in the dark. 

–

–

Angry Woman

To talk about her is to talk about anger. The Cool Girl 

doesn’t get angry. The Cool Girl is unbothered–not jaded–but she’s easy 

in the same way. She is smooth 

enough to take whatever she’s given without it feeling 

unjustified. She cannot get angry, because The Cool Girl 

has no boundaries that can be crossed. She will not feel the need to act 

out of protection for herself, because no part of her is vulnerable 

to attack. I don’t mean “that bitch” 

or “mean girl.” I don’t mean she’s withholding 

or cold or stuck up. All of which, by the way, are exactly the same 

kind of garbage identifiers as “cool girl.” 

What I mean is, she is 

unbothered. She doesn’t feel the need to respond with force 

when she is affected by force. She isn’t angry–this is what I mean. 

Right now, I am curious 

about her opposite–She is the logical conclusion 

of a world forcing itself inside her. She 

  is responding to an unjust situation with action. This 

is what I mean when I talk about an angry woman— 

Uncool because she cares what happens to her.

Her body. The way

She moves and is moved through spaces

she didn’t design.

–

–

I think hard about my body

I think of my fondness for quantum mechanics and the book that told me kindly that we create the world through our own perception of it. Even though I know it’s much more complicated than that, I appreciated the optimism.

I’m 24 in Nashville. We’re smoking 

on his back porch, and he’s telling me 

how getting from Seattle to Los Angeles takes 18 

hours if you go straight down. But on this night, he tells me, he took bends. His 

time. Smoked in the car. There was nothing he needed to hold on to.

I like to hear stories the way he tells them. Completely and without 

assumption. He leaves nothing out, as if testifying 

in a court where every juror’s mouth is 

watering. He 

goes on, telling me how dark the roads were, how long 

it had been since he’d seen another car. I can hear it, the 

music in the car. I can see the time on the dash. 

He bites his nails without noticing, and I watch him pull 

apart his fingertips. He’s relaxed, as he often is on his own–enjoying 

the thoughts in his head, the melodies there. He hums them and I hear

a choir.

He tells me that the trees had thinned that night, but he hadn’t noticed. 

The road, though, seemed brighter. Confused, 

he looked behind him for other cars. Finding 

none, he pulled over and turned off his headlights. He looked up. 

He wasn’t sentimental about it–light and alone and completely 

settled, he stood straight up when he saw our universe 

spread out up there. I imagine him 

ashing a cigarette. 

I’ve never experienced something like that 

while completely alone. I imagine myself 

standing beside him, pointing and saying something like, “There

–look there. See it?” 

I imagine I’d want someone there with me. Someone to confirm 

it’s all real–that I really am 

seeing millions of lightyears into the past. That I really am 

here, looking up at it.