Alone in a giant house
sweeping after making a turnip
carrot soup. If community is the
opposite of addiction—maybe
my loneliness is self inflicted.

“Thanksgiving “

It confuses them I speak so fondly
of my childhood memories, but have
all these
problems.

Every few years,
a little girl pinches me
says get your life
together.

“Christmas Party”

Turn the sun lamp on.
Take your zinc.
Shake your tinctures.
Remain mostly sober a whole two days.
Save the stimulants.

But after Christmas, thats when things get
worse.

“January”

Every few years I enter
death. And this metamorphosis
almost kills me every time.
I repeat, though, I’d miss the
end of the world for
NOTHING. So as much as the
edge of the icy bridge pulls
my crooked feet; Im replete
with satisfaction: yearning,
and overcoming.
it is the process of the poem
emerging, not the final
form, that keeps me.

“Winter”

So i put on a heated vest
and go for a walk.
hypnotize men
while I still have some
influence.

“February”

Stop at the bar
and get a mulled cider
before going home.
When men do these things
they are rewarded.
When I do it,
I am dangerous.

Pick up every habit
you dropped.
Put it down again.

I write at the bar.
Confused about this newfound
pleasure. Keep it hidden.
Keep it only mine.

“

Nothing is ever as good as the moment
i realize a moment is good
right before it changes

I was normally under
the influence;
large
and in loom.

Im hot from the bath. Sit outside in a tee shirt in 42 degrees with the same plea on my lips:
adjust

adjust,
or kill me

When I finally embrace death, it is not the magnificent butterfly I hoped for.
It is a stare at a clock.
A wait.
A transition from one angry beast to another.

What a fruitful day: investigation, matcha with spirulina, (I rarely drink coffee)
limited social obligation
& only little lies.
Not that I’m tied to any one chain
of thought but in winter hordes
of daydreams seize me. And I feel the valliant need to protect them. The sheer voracity of each vine.
A hesitant lick to the ankles and I quickly wear them like my coat; every year more corporeal than before. And shedding upwards leaving a trail of rough diamond skin that I finger.

begin the process:
what I deem to be a casual stroll,
set hours that can shrink or stretch with every face I see in my head or reality, any
stimulant really— whichever one is having me, unremitting confession and
truly worse for the wear.

Having produced a chain letter that now ignites a nightmare, I am forced back into myself.

“form”

I grew up with a marble chess board in my living room and if you asked where it was today I couldnt tell you. If im accustomed to a particular feeling, its losing everything and things that matter most; holding value or life, and exhibit A is my mother telling me that my father often beat her in chess. And me,

there cant be tv but there can be select music always like aphex twin or a similar low. And im usually focused on 1-2 pieces and always my knight; plotting how he will move because he’s kinda confusing to outsiders. You really have to have good spatial reasoning to predict him which I didnt until I started playing chess.
and honesly I’m losing 80 percent of the time. But not agitated really,
just spurred by it. Excited.
Because I lose the same way everytime, I think there’s some gain with this reflection.
I break my intense concentration with daydream. Every time. And exhausted, I decide on some very grand move.

Ill have five of his pawns, his bishop and one of his knights. Maybe even two. And remember its been an hour. And ill be set up defensively so any move he makes, I will take. Literally, if I stick to some forethought, I have made it impossible for him to move with defense.

Of mine, he’ll have one rook and maybe two pawns and that’s it. And upper handed, I decide im invisible in this moment.
He cant see or hear me and in my mind,
I carve a giant Z in our own marble.
The one we own.
The one WE bought.
Make a tiny move.
Leave my queen.

He’s always using his queen.

And now my king is wide open and still not accepting defeat, I make him dance for the end. Checkmate is just a suggestion to me.
Convincing him not with pieces but with words that I still have a chance. With furrowed brow and tone. Smile.
So he is impressed by my tenacity and confused by my assurance, he cant see Ive been dead for five moves. Im keeping him interested.
Wondering if he will simply fold.

“Chess”

Perhaps prudent to catalog actual worries:
I once again have gut problems and no health insurance; have picked up
Aderall, nicotine.
Im drinking wine.
Im drinking london fog.
Im cold and turning on the great
machine that lives inside: her razor
eyes befalling every slight, and im
lined with all her favorite drugs:
confusion,
apathy,
NDE,
whatever “pick your poison” poison
sat on the glass at dawn.

a diary of cayenne pepper, cacophony,
Hellebore and I chant her name

  Circe

Im getting what I gave.

“Poison”

Like most cursed people,
i wake up with complete abandon.
There is not a single thought of how much sun or night ill see.
I dont know what madness the day will hold.

Sometimes i am so strict with myself: eat only green, be absolutely perfect and punctual with everyone. I mean keep plans or make them. Cross off items on a list, grocery shop with a new leaf in my jeans;
a recipe. Squash, parsley.
Ill make two just to fuck the next three days away. Comatose or belittling myself.
Stare at the screen. Cover the mirrors, bathe for two or three hours.
every day erases itself as the seconds pass. Theres no “progress.” Im inclined to embrace true form—a moving, beating thing.

As she turns, she becomes a sandstorm so when people ask me in earnest, with complete affection, platonic curiosity, what I do all day. when i finally make or keep a commitment, i sort of shrug, debate saying my favorite: let the wind take me.

But really I smile, just happy I made it.
dont say anything.

“What we are looking for is what we are looking with.”—dr Jeffrey Schwartz, from The Hungry Ghost by Gabor Mate.

Once I turned 40 I proved to them all—
I have no future plans.

And that old line rewinds in my mind,
my personal knocking knell:
there is no time.

“Earth”