Tag: NaPoWriMo24

[ w/ bright green large format dot grid & blue ink ]

having never been mistaken for anyone’s mother,
agreed to make the drive north to be echo or copy,
to undress cherries, all stain and no stationary, not
a word you said, it’s not that strong a resemblance.
voided the process for the sea. who sounds like ocean says
ocean twice. who starts the conversation never finishes
it. never finishes. the mirror is slightly inland, deep in
green’s unfinished project. drop dinner. rinse fiber.
ask your pain to alleviate you. among the beasts, two
big ones quietly. two ways of moving on the earth with
four legs. twice the height, half the self-awareness.
the ghosts of other lovers don’t stay but they do pass
through. they do pass through you. they do stick in
the tight spaces where your organs square. the ghost
of fear haunts you until you admit it does. crush the
soda can of your disappointment. the door slams you
and not the other way around. there is no other way
around. the ghost presses through. you press on. the
mirror you is also an approximation of the future. the
future walls are made of glass. the future animals
lick your ankles. the future ground is soft sand.
the past drags and you let it. the past doesn’t drag you.
among the beasts, too many to count. scent is a vehicle
and the road is unmarked. tuck your youth deep in the
hay. press your fingers with the grain of the hair.
they’re no coarser than you are. you’re not here
because their bodies are bigger than yours anymore.
you have permission to visit as much as survive. you
grant your own permissions. the horses lift their
heads unnaturally high but then who’s to say what’s
natural. the whine of a too-long song. the tide sending
itself elsewhere. i pressed my fingers there while
you fell asleep. we were both satisfied. two resting
bodies upstairs. two bodies downstairs, broken
from brief accounts. you didn’t ask. you didn’t
say whose house goes on without him, the unkind
man. witness the unkind man’s broken window, his
quiet way. his tearing roof and awkward ductwork.
his blood’s herd of animals. his blood but never his
face. it never occurs to them they’ll ever be quiet
and then quietness comes for them.

[ w/ bright green large format dot grid & blue ink ]

was once a circular act of dislocation. where and what
connected to. how many ways to loose a joint. no hurry
to re-socket. no point on a map. no map to speak of.
try reconnect fullness of feeling through practice. wish
nerve death. the path pain takes traces upper arm, goes
deep into shoulder blade. knife for a knife. ask the pain
to stay, tend this new devotion. destined to feel every
little thing. want destiny to be actual, or want the
nerve back.

[ w/ bright green large format dot grid & blue ink ]

how when you become fluctuations
the lines around you become an entire
system

how when you bend a new bend within
a ripple you disband edges

how when we don’t talk we don’t
anymore

how when we don’t remember actually
we do

how you stamp your fingers onto the glass
over & over, building by erasing

how some lines freeze and that’s good luck
for you

how someone arrives to pray for better
instagram filters & whiter sneakers

how love began to reconsider me

how pain is a traveler

how much time do we have

[ w/ bright green large format dot grid & blue ink ]

The Dalles was opening up
to consume me. i rolled
alongside the vehicle,
ready to be paved to sleep,
unable to take the required
pills, holding open the
romantic sky by setting
fires. this is full extension
of the leg. this is walking
and crying in sync. little
blue, never home, and
rarely a home after it,
some brief months in the
room without an address,
being gifted radishes by
a nearby swan. it helps
to define the animal.
the definition oozes. i walk
across The Dalles over & over.
i start a jar of what’s
discarded. i do not fit
in the jar. i do not stop
walking. i wiggle into my
body just to fall straight
through. we all become
sometimes interchangeable.
from the floor of the attic
cracks start to form but
the house stays steady.
its glass holds breath so
long even the foundation
dizzies, but nothing falls.
you know how to fit in small
spaces, this knowledge
never leaves you. you leave,
over & over. you walk
until your knees buckle
and surge. i wasn’t praying
i was begging. i wasn’t moving
i was watching myself be
moved. i misunderstood the
valley as opening its mouth,
it’s an easy mistake for someone
who craves structure, as someone
whose jaw goes tight
and rings there.

[ w/ bright green large format dot grid & blue ink ]

lingering spirit drives home, a succinct
ghost with human eyes exploding human
form, replaying human form, a dvd menu
of having been alive, shard of music, bright
light refusing to accommodate deep
sleep.

[ w/ bright green large format dot grid & black ink ]

sweet turned the phrase an uneven page, so
uneven it rots. plant matter isn’t afraid of all
the ways we selve and salvage, what we
choose without a stable surface. the questions
pile beyond their own letter, the page purpling.

purple, the reminder.

lavender converts to an uneasy feeling, a fruit
the sun refuses to bloom. could choose to burn
the feeling, ash it out, scribble it down. the
unanswered bubble never bursts, just fills
with liquid and shrivels and refills.

purple, the remainder.

some beast in me exactly in bloom, whirring,
swiveling in no direction, breaking eye contact
with any real information. mother circuit board.
motherwire. nothing else to speak of, no one
speaking. if all the blood is encrypted
then none of it is. prepare to bleed in the
backyard for an unspecified amount of
time. everything falls out of itself. we pretend
to apply a formula. we pretend to have
the formula. the clots are purple, a lesson on
capacity.

[ w/ bright green large format dot grid & black ink ]

we begin with environmental rests until the ground absorbs us, until we pigment and wing. a stain is what nature discontinues. we see so leaky our words fail. we’re kind of waking. we’re studying our leaks, no seed or directive, no matter. the individual gets their measure: even they strand. even they pulled a bell shape in the grass: a bell’s song never singular. the weather ready to flap. we don’t always evacuate but when we do we open pen-side, pigment continues us. we are product or root, no other options left. each root has a bulb and each bulb barely comes back each time. there’s the pressure we tend to ignore and then there’s how we tend what’s compacted.

dear individual,

we’ve begun to sing you this song

its tune is liquid, its art unsterile. it has no genetic basis, the tune that carries carries you, you heave into the air your bell & the air agrees, we all agree.

[ w/ bright green large format dot grid & black ink ]

some sounds more smoke of
cigarette and some more smoke
of cigar and some vapor
older
wrapped in the arms of kids
the cadence of the cough that
follows is a kind of surrounding
not what surrounds you
but who
not who surrounds them
but how
what interrupts or cuts short
fruit piled high for rotting
puff of smoke for forgetting
there are holes in words
the sounds they make leave
open cracks
where the words would be
sound hits the air
unaware how fast it travels
the kids interlocking
the smoke shot through with
haste

[ w/ bright green large format dot grid & black ink ]

when does information become form?

when do you take information into your body?

when does your body have a decision to make?

what escapes translation?

what escapes the body?

what translates code to flow?

what information comes only in a dream?

what information comes only in the mail?

how does information become form?

how rapid is your transcription?

for example:
here is the tiny organ that codes their own tunes

for example:
it may be the crack that accompanies lightning
it may be the deep slide of skin against something unslick

for example:
the plan blooms on the inside

all sounds have a plan

(you do not have to believe me to know)

(if you have screamed into both a closed space and an open one, you know)

(if you have wept in public and in private, you also know)