democracy monument

some photo credits go to my sister

I am supposed to get up in
twenty-five minutes but I
have not yet gone to bed.

Some people are sad.
Some people are walking.
I know of people who hate you
if you like them.
Some people are asleep.
Some people are in love.
I know of people who will stop
on the road in front of you
if you run.

There are two ways to do
this.
Try hard to capitalize on
your youth, so you can say,
when you’re old, that you
didn’t miss anything.

or

Try hard to forget your
youth so you can say,
when you’re old, that you
don’t miss it at all.

I have to wake up now.

photo credits include my sister

It’s worse, this seat, than the other
ones.
This spot, facing the door and the
tanks.
It must be 90° the angle between the chair
back and base.
My butt and spine 90°, or 91° even.

You are there in the next seat.
You are ripped and your stuffing is
torn out like a teddy bear–
one that cries.

Physically, two angry people can
sit next to each other.
They hold their menus and tongues.

A waiter puts the lobster back into
the tank next to the snakes,
glass walls touching.

I used to have a teddy bear, a pretty
one like you,
but I never saw it cry.

face

face

face

feet

feet

pillars

pillars

me

The things I want people
to know about me:
my hometown, because I was
only long enough there
to be born. My hometown is
my first ever breakup.

My two hobbies: bicycles,
and books, because my
bicycles are blades that
spin and destroy, and
my books splay and collect
dust and are forgotten.

My happiness, because I
base it on what others want
from me. Or I don’t actually,
but I fear that someone
else might.

And my love. My love because
it is your fair skin,
your porcelain skin,
your moonlight, cloudy night,
my love,
skin.

I tie a string around my ankle
for every year I am alive, on
my birthday, or new years,
depending on when I remember.

It takes about a year for it to
fall off; I wonder if this means
I am dead.
I only ever have zero or one or
two of them on at a time; I wonder
if that means I’ll never grow old.

With my door closed no light gets
into my hotel room. There is graffiti,
blue, on the wall. Over/under 45
people have fucked in these sheets.

With the door open the music and
people pour in and drown out the
music and people I have inside.
The mirror in the bathroom swivels
and the man reflected has his
hair to his collarbones. The way
he stares I can’t lose the feeling
that he thinks I am him.

It sounds like exploding flowerpots
on the street, or bursting sunsets,
or bass line thumpings, or car
crashes, or love love love.
Purple ceramic crossfire.

I follow the beat in my left
wrist, tracing lumps in the
bedsprings like cancer. Just
forget the neon signs, the blue
and purple, the animals picked
for the zoo you were born into.

Girls outside dye their hair blonde,
add you on facebook, post pictures,
lie about their age. The boys
do too.

I am one or two or zero years
old today. It is my birthday. I want
you to tie me to the mast that
I may listen to the Sirens sing
one last time.
I’ll bring the string.

all around me were dead people
when a man walked up with music;
from his eyes I saw myself
sitting on a wooden bench

like turtles in shells we reach into
or recede from the outside world.
through his eyes I walked up to me.
we did not greet each other.

as he sat down I watched
myself not look up, not awaken.
he didn’t know I was using his
eyes. and I didn’t tell him.

I watched myself leave without
saying hello, without making contact.
I saw something today that made me cry.
it was me.

later on she sat me down to a debate. to
tell me that she saw so much more
than she saw before. I used to know
everything.

surounding us are many things that
are red. I set off with my
camera and find nothing.
but I told her it is them I want
to photograph.

the fly in the car doesn’t
know how fast it’s going.
nor that it is going at all.