weekend notebook

kneaded

i roll your indifference
indifferently
between my thumb
and forefinger.

i'm watching
other things, my focus
elsewhere,
but my attention
holds and moves you,
back, forth
at the back of my mind.

like the distraction
of a kneaded eraser,
familiar, tangible,
when you can't draw
and can't think
of anything to draw,
but are trying to.

this is not to say
that your indifference
is comforting.
just distracting.

and i will hold it
while i try
to think of better
things for my hand
to do.



small stones

jared laughs,
makes fun of me,
sometimes

when i tell him things.
(or because i tell him things.)

you can build a friend
out of small confessions.

you can build walls
with small confessions,
you can build
regret, and bridges.

burn them all
with small confessions.

in the end, life
is small confessions.

pieces of self,

tiny stones.
tiny perfect, flammable
honest stones.



back page

i am writing this
on the back of a page
that has already
been written on.

and this is a new thing,
a start, not a
continuation of what
is on the other side.

(i never do this.)

i hate doing this.
i hate the haunt
of the backward
ghost-letters i can see
behind what i am
now writing.

like this page isn't
good enough because
part of it has been
used.

and i relate to that.
and i hate it.
and i never do this.

but today, just now, i did.



(untitled)

i can be the kind
of person who writes
on both sides of the page.

i can spend a day
with strangers
and survive.

i can give,
and not get
what i gave,
but i can get
an experience.

i can get
used to being used
to you, or
by you

or used to
letting it go.

letting you go.

i can unwind
and blow
away.



sinner

sinner, sinner,
chicken dinner.

in a few weeks,
it will be back to red.
no more blonde
for me.

it doesn't fit,
makes me angry.

it was this hair
that you grabbed,
and i need it
different.

and you, you stopped
talking to me
because i said no
too many times,

or because i said
too many things.

or because you're just
busy, but i am
better at coping
when i can blame myself.

i'm a woman,
i bit the apple
and blamed me
ever since.

and you,
you pulled down
pictures
and then your pants,

and it's a woman
who picks up
the pieces.

a daughter,
a wife,
a mother,
a sister.

i am eve.
i am even.
i am evening
the score,
since you need
settling.

shhh.
here, eat this.

i've had one bite,
and now i'll be
feeding you
forever.

i will meditate
on this,
translate it,
expand my suffering.

an nth degree
for my first degree
felony.

amplification
of suffering is
a son,
i will digest
this bite. he will
eat it vicariously,

sucked from my
very heart
and middle.

swallow my sin,
you'll grow.
experience is
a nutrition.

regret,
a necessity.

the shame
of no shame.

regret that
the bite of sin
is tied to my name,
every time.

and the son,
and you,
and you,
and you,
point and forget,
even while stuck
in a web.

for my name
is tied

to everything.



forced

necessity compels
the page be still
and submit
to the stab, slap
and scrawl
of this pen.

a black prick
of ink
erasing white
virginity as it
draws its desire
into being.

to begin
a picture, or
a poem,
is the most
violent thing.

it is a destruction,
a construction
with the inability
to rebuild.

and it can never
be unbegun;
it can never
be anything but
something

brutally past
the beginning.