This morning I saw a blossomed bulb of flowers concurrently dying and blossoming. It was, I believed, a hydrangea. It was one of those beautiful blues that we associate with fresh baby boys and wide summer skies. And there it was. Each petal both in bloom & new, but also dried out and browned from a recent heat wave in Brooklyn. I wish there were a word in the English language that meant "fuck me/bye-bye," for that word would capture what I experienced in those flowers.
I saw a woman hit by a cab in the street in the dead of night some seven months ago, and seeing her shake—seeing the LIFE shake out of her is something that I can't pretend not to know. It was a sudden dance in the air which changed its stage onto the ground, and as her husband called out Anna I love you don't go just like one might say to one's partner as he or she leaves for work in the morning: quiet and urgent and even erotic, it implied a station, a place where we might stay, and yet also a place where we might travel to. It occurred slow and fast like when my friend Carter fell back in a plastic chair the other night on my roof deck. We laughed as Carter wound his arms as he fell like he was trying to fly. But as we laughed, he fell, and as he fell, we also wanted to save him from falling, and as we wanted to save him, we also feared for his safety due to the proximity to the roof's ledge. And through our fear and the lot of it, he still continued to attempt to tell a short aside that added immeasurably to a conversation we'd been having about my sex life. Many things at once may slow down time and add layers of meaning to our interactions. Perspective is our meek station. Anna I love you don't go.
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1. One way to give back to the previous generations is to allow
2. Elizabeth Barrett Browning to act as a wick, but yet hang liberally to her cake.
3. When learning how to drive the instructor said to me, "You're not
4. getting laid now, are you?" Well, he was right; I wasn't putting out.
5. "For my sake, stop holding the wheel too tight."
6. Though ungrateful at the time, I was indeed poverty stricken.
7. He saw how often I cried and held tight. He put the pillow under my head
8. and held the break pedal when necessary, and this is how to make
9. a three-point turn, and this is how to tell black from white and red from orange.
10. This is the method of falling asleep on a couch in a state of safety, and this is
11. falling asleep alone weeping in fear. Colors will make a better
12. blanket than the daily news. The colors will be steps to climb but better
13. than just falling asleep in front of the TV in cases of tiredness.
14. Proceed. Walk. Climb. Drive. This is called living.
Sometimes a slew of elephants die,
And you're dealing with what is called a massacre.
When three thousand die maybe you have to just
Watch a movie.
It reminds me of biology class in eleventh grade.
The combination of math
And chemistry were too much and, boy, I gave up.
Mourning a grandmother is one thing.
Mourning three thousand someone's child is too much,
But we do it anyway by
Watching some DVD until it's over
And then letting it sit on the coffee table for a week
Until you can get out of bed and look at it
Not recognizing that this cultural artifact will always be the thing I did
Instead of watch news that day in September.
This is the hind elephant foot tapping at the carcass. This is the lover rolling the body over to bring her back to life. This is the head lifted toward the sky trilling its trunk. This is looking at photographs of you and your grandparents trying to find a string between you. Here's a newspaper you can't read. This is what happens here on Earth and I don't need a bible. The sound I make dying is the sound I make when I was born. Shaking and pink, I last for ages.
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