7. delayed

Yes, I delayed the flight;
I paused to watch the candle flicker in my living room and make a tangible list of things from the last year that had brought me a sense of joy, I put an end to all those plans you said you’d make
even if I wasn’t there to see them, it doesn’t matter now,
all your Diptyque tributes and boulders won’t bring you back;
all your woodsmoke and playlists mean nothing now.
Cobbling together a legacy is meaningless without connection;
Writing and writing and writing into the ether, the squeamishness of peeling back layers to expose bone.
The pithiest and prettiest of my affections winnowed down into
digestible chunks, chapbooks, candles melting onto glass that is later
scraped off, holed away, inert, or just
dead;
there are days when I put my most treasured pieces on the bottom rack of the dishwasher,
and turn away, knowing
that there are days when I don’t.
There are days I feel good,
and days that I don’t.
I tried to find moments that made it worth the risk of walking,
I tried to look for breaks in the sky that made it safe to fly.

-C.

6. an incantation

You aren’t worth the lies I tell you, and yet
here we are, back again,
and I’m putting you on the same pedestal I put all the other shitty people in my life;
the perpetual punchline, the inevitable belly-up investment,
the worst of you has seeped out and I still cannot help but stare in awe,
devastation comes naturally to you.
I await the moment when your life is
kicked in the back of the head and dragged, struggling,
to somewhere you’ve lost control of; I look
for the resilience, for the power, for the inner contentment;
but I wait,
because nothing says everything like understanding,
and the look in a person’s eyes when they resurface from the depths, chilled with horror
at the sheer blackness below.
Let me be the first to welcome you, let me be the one to awake you from that slumber,
Let me know when she brutally, cruelly fucks you over,
Let me know that you know how I feel,
Astrally project into my space, and find me somewhere else,
I am in a place bereft of cruelty,
I am stealing away your access; your cool fingerpads still dance across my forehead,
I hope she lies awake at night at fear, I hope
the insecurities become too deep to bear, ruinous
spoiled clotted cream, the suffocation of her indulgence
insufficient, I know
you are capable of hurting again;
I hope I am away,
I hope to see your armies vanquished,
or watch them catastrophize from somewhere beyond.

-C.

5. behind

Now you’re just a thorn in my paw,
now I’m just words on the screen–
remote control,
photos to flip past while taking better photos, or I guess,
photos to flip past while looking for the ones you wanted;
now you’re just a thorn in my paw,
now you’re just the pain of limping, now I’m just something you left behind in the desert;
a rose quartz with a rough edge aging endlessly, singing wordlessly with the plants,
a silver ring that will oxidize with the unabashed morning sun,
now you’re just a thorn, and I’m still loping along.
Now we can really test the tenuousness of a connection, the reality that emerges
when leases are broken and engagements are called off and possessions are split up,
Now we’re naked in the desert,
now we’re sitting, waiting for a response.
Now we’re nothing, now we’re aching, injuries, injurious,
Passing the same places but never quite looking by,
Cars on the highway,
Squinting at horizons,
Lonesome places where our feet will never intersect;
Now you’re going to places I wanted to go with you,
Now I’m sitting, solitary in worlds where my feet used to touch
yours in the night, my words were met with
words and laughter, and I guess
the night can swallow you whole just as easily as it can spit you back out again in the morning,
I guess
anyone can go,
I guess nothing is permanent after all, even when you swear it could be,
I guess the paw will still hurt, even after the thorn disappears.

-C.

4. manifestation

oh, you mournful creature, you’re too old for broad city and too young in the tooth for the real estate doldrums of shrill, too cynical for the latest and greatest success story, but at the perfect time and place to assess:
the reality of it stands,
never hold them at arm’s length, never underestimate anyone,
anyone’s love, anyone’s cruelty, anyone’s capacity to do and be.
today– small gifts; i awoke without anxiety, I resolved to finish, at least a verse, at least once manually, at least a dish and a half,
today i dove deep into the ether of subreddits and forums and awoke with a phrase from
better days? no, different days, when i was a child diving fearlessly into the bright blue,
“En boca cerrada, no entra mosca,” the beauty of listening and breathing and allowing movement to frenzy underneath your skin without daring to leap out of it.
in the dream, in the vision, i was crying but i was howling, and i was singing
hooked on a feeling,
exactly as i had sang it before, reckless abandon, whether on the way home to a loved one or all alone in the desert,
i tapped back into myself, i tapped back into myself, i rewrote the narrative,
i went back to the source.

-C.

3. i love you

I tried to anoint my belly with opuntia, I tried to hold my inner child close and bathe the body in water, I tried
I tried to focus in on small moments of affirmation; that I am loved, that I attract the kind of people, plant, and animal who love me back; that I find love everywhere,
I am trying to see the world as a neutral place but bare minimum inhostile; a place
where my cat comes running when my eyes open. But I find it hard to believe that things could change in a few months, I relish my skepticism because it proves that I am aware, yet mourn the reality of an ever-changing world, mourn the brain that screams to me at night, whether I am alone, in company, home, away, persistent, desperate to hone the message-you are not safe,
you are not safe,
run–
you are not safe,
and run to where? I challenge, if the inside of my brain on a quiet night is not safe, where can I go? But it is, I recognize, more of an advertisement than a beacon, more a billboard than a sign; it is here that is not safe, it is everywhere that is not safe, because the feelings remain. in the midst of this angst, I scrawl my own message back, one neuron in a sea of black firing synapses- where?
Anywhere, anywhere, saying–I love you even when you are cracked, I love you when you sob, I love you knowing that this will never end, I love you in the morning when your heart pounds, I love your darkest, most sad thoughts, all of the thoughts that end in death, I love your darkest corners, the corners that they said they could not love any more, those corners, I love them, I love how you hold your cat as tenderly as any baby, I love you amongst your problems, I love your problems, I love that all problems can abate; I love you because you try and try and try to help yourself push forward, no matter the obstacle, I love you when you fail, I love you when you cry,
screaming into the void, I love you.

-C.

2. palm springs, california

my old therapist used to call it the alcoholic’s solution, but it was the kind of concept contorted onto its head and repeated on bumper stickers everywhere; the cynicist’s zen worldview; “wherever you go, there you are,”
so to that effect, she would say,
moving won’t solve your problems, but maybe she had never been to palm springs and I haven’t, either; sometimes when I wake up cold in the middle of the night with all the windows open I imagine what it would be like in the desert on an autumn night with the sky flashing in on the roof of a tent,
sometimes I imagine how it would feel if it rained.
sometimes I dream about floating in the sky, weightless.
I can’t afford to move to palm springs, but I can rent an airbnb or something, I can’t
chase the homesickness that surfaces when I smell bread baking next door or the scent of smoke on the horizon, I can’t release the suffering, I can’t find the right place to make it all
click into gear. Continually having to stop and ask myself, with tears in my eyes,
“Are you okay right now, in this moment? Are you safe? Can you tap into that feeling of safety, just for a moment?”
It’s only April but it smells like October.
It’s only April but it feels like it was just last January.
It’s only April but I’m still heartbroken, I’m still stuck in a frozen VHS moment in 2019; it’s only April but I wish it was September. It’s only April but I wish it was over.
There are things I can’t prevent; back pain, commuting, the ebb and flow of the body over time, genetics.
There are things I can change: plans, locations, finances, strategies.
I don’t want to hurt anyone.
I don’t want to hurt myself.

-C.

1. an april fool

Yeah,
I thought I had a theme for this year too, something that made sense and wrapped things up neatly or harkened to the next project or the success ahead, but I’m
(once again)
a day late, and writing in retrospect. Yesterday’s gone and today is slipping through my fingers, type by type, bite by bite.
Did we speak today or yesterday?
Do I write today or plan to get it out Monday?
The jarring bullshit of the rest of my life knocks at the door, it’s asking about schedules and commuting and moving and writing and healing and how to knuckle ahead and recover from whatever you’ve been recovering from, from
the plans you made when you were feeling different, to
the places you don’t want to go anymore.

I’m still
worried about the immediate future, anxious about the pending moments to come, afraid for synonyms for things out of my control. I am trying to calm the nervous beating heart of the animal I am holding in my chest, trying to
breathe and stay alert and all that good shit,
I’m still.
I remain foolish; generous; optimistic; curious; loving; perhaps to my own fault, I remain.

-C.