No. 3.

I am sitting on my couch with an unfinished drawing of an antler wrapped in ribbon and words in my lap, and I say to my friend, "You know, I don't even believe in love anymore. As stupid as that probably sounds." And I think about how often I write about it, how often its themes trickle their way into whatever I draw/paint/make messes out of, and I wonder if I'm a liar. I think that I'm a liar. Either because of what I said to her, or because of what I make, or because I keep telling myself that love is a myth, blah blah biology, pheromones, etc. I love someone. He is about my height and temperament and my stomach hurts in a good-bad way when I think I love you but I don't say it because he doesn't say it and I don't think he loves me back so instead I tell myself that love is body science. How's that for a cop-out explanation? I mean it though, just like I mean it when I say that I want to be wrong.

(See also: Why I have not posted a poem here in over a month.)

Eighty-six.

You know how they say
all the lasting couples look
as though they're related?
I look for your eyes in every girl
I pass on the street,
trying to find your match.
I'll even smile at them
to try to catch one back
so I can inspect the shape
of their teeth.

I crave an adventure,
and I mean that
exactly how it sounds.
Other things.
I crave other things.

This is honesty.
But honesty
is not what you want.

I carry this
like the worst secret
I've ever had.

It was just so impossible,
kissing you, my back against
ocean rock.
The scrapes I took away
by the time the moon
was up. I wonder what your neighbors
thought of me; some mornings
the light had barely
been out.

006.

Art is only dangerous when it's obvious.

Eighty-five.

I do not want you
to remember me.
Even that much
is not deserved.

I want to love
Massachusetts,
and nothing else.

005.

004.

No. 2.

Every Sunday brings one of two things. A hollow crater in my gut that I imagine has remnants of moth wings clinging to the walls (and maybedefinitely even one or two still flying around very much alive), or, a wish-wash in-out breath-sigh in my heart (I hate using the word "heart" to describe anything, but in all honesty, the feeling seems to be situated in that particular area of my chest).

Today is Sunday, and I have both, and I don't know what this means. I say that a lot lately. I don't know what this means.

Also, lately, everything that I do has an attached emotion. I go to work and that means joy. I get on the train and that means anxious. I get off the train and that means missing. Actually, everything that I can feel or describe to you in the last weeks is somewhere between those three words.

I've been taking pictures, here and there. Talking to strangers. Getting pieces of poems caught in my head instead of pieces of songs. Like, "I try. I do. I try and try." Yes, it is that simple, and yes, that is both good and bad. "Hello, darling, welcome home." Same poem, different endings, at least if you apply it here. Where am I? And you? I want to call you home again. Simple.