Nobody Told Me

A young girl died today on an icy stretch of highway.
Fourteen.
Two Christmases ago she signed her name on my bedroom wall.
Today her body was hauled from the metal wreckage that used to drive her to school.
My little brother's classmate.
We'll be weeping over her beauty for years.

A young woman came to me again today, bloodied and bruised, and asked if I had any more peroxide.
Nineteen.
Over the past three months she's emptied two first aid kits from my bedroom.
The lawyer that beats and fucks her is rich and has a finance two time zones away.
Black eyes and the purple rings on her neck.
I'll be weeping over her ugliness for years.

Nobody told me there'd be days like these.

Montana

I think it's about time I did some time in Montana.
I've heard of the pipes stuffed with tobacco
And the tired cattle and their tired masters
And the mountains and skies that roll on forever.


I want to shovel cattle and horse shit.
I want to eat thickly and heartily 3 times a day.
I want to bruise my hands with rope
And cut my jeans on rusty nails poking from wooden fences.
I want to go where no one knows me,
Where I don't have breathe the smog and tension of a million.
I want to go where everyone speaks my native tongue, but there's no one I have to speak to.
I want to go where I can wash myself clean in the snowy mountain runoff. 


Maybe someday I'll take time to do time in Montana.

Wishing

The last time I saw you off at the airport
You said you loved me.
You said it like you'd never see me again.

I know how hard that must have been for you.
You're too like your father:
Stoic. Quiet. Suffering in silence.

I promised you everything would be alright.
Biting back
tears
sobs
wails
I told you I could manage the next few years alone.

When you graduate high school I promise
There'll be an apartment somewhere waiting for your luggage.
There'll be a room needing your ugly 70s-brown furniture choices.
There'll be a friend waiting to hold you close and not let go.
There'll be movies needing watching
Popcorn needing popping
Books needing sharing
Records needing cleaning
Guitars needing playing.

When you're ready, when you're old enough
I will help you start your own life.
If you want.

And I'll be clean.
And I'll have a job.
And I'll own a puppy
To show my responsibility.

For you, my comrade, my confidant, my friend.
For you my brother.
I'll be clean.

Sometimes

Sometimes I just want to take pictures.

Fuck this city.
Fuck this work.
Fuck this school.
Fuck this [lack of] money.
Fuck you never being here.
Fuck me for not really caring.
Fuck these addictions.
Fuck this loneliness.
Fuck me forgetting how to give head it's been so long.
Fuck it all.
Fuck earth and wind and water and sky.

But most of all,
Fuck.
Sometimes I just want to take pictures.

Mirrors

I've been looking in
At me
At my Addictions
At the stained bedsheets
At the grimy doorknobs

"At the skirts that trail along the floor"
So, so much more. . .

It really is impossible to say just what I mean.

I called my father in tears...

I can't afford to do my laundry anymore.
The semester is drawing to a frigid close
And I can't find 6$ to clean the basics.

So I improvised.

The bath in the apartment was filled
With water that would burn my skin
And the necessary items were chosen:
The denims with the working zippers
Six pairs of underwear (some lacy, most ragged)
The pink bra my mother gave to me when I was seventeen
The socks she sent in the mail two months ago
And the shirt for every occasion (from dad's woman of a few Christmases ago)

I poured the liquid soap
Frothed the bubbles
Heaved the articles into my sad situation

The water was too hot to turn by hand
So I hunted for the closest thing to a stick I could find.
All the room produced was a wine bottle. Cheap and red.

As I sat on the edge of my cracked white tub.
Pantsless, braless, penniless and tired,
I stirred and swigged at intervals.
The wine became heated and disgusting
And I don't think my clothes will ever be clean.

I've lost dignity, hope and the last of my wine.

Can you see me? Can you see me now?

Two years away from home this August.

My parents were so proud
To see me spread my wings,
To see me escape the horrid valley
And head toward the land of
Milk & Honey
Cement & Smog.
I was told the city held promises.
Higher learning.
Life.
Light.

Instead I got on my old habits again.
Picked them up off the soggy streets
Like cigarette butts in my dreams.
Thin, damp and twisted,
But still a tiny spark.

Smoke stains sinewy fingers, and
Capsules slosh in my angry stomach acid, and
Rocks chip my grinding teeth, and
Granules bleed my nose bone-dry.
I sometimes feel ashamed.
I always feel sore.

Can you see me now daddy?
Are you proud of me now?

I never should have left home.
The vices never leave.
And sometimes I just miss the comfortable fog.

now you are old

A.
i loved how your lips moistened
the thin train of hair
that snakes down my belly

i loved my fingers along your spine
a blindman's hands
feeling bumps, valleys, caves, curves
conquering
caressing
worshiping

doing a line off your back
fingers eagerly pinching mounds of flesh
i reach, ache, to cup you
and you turn away

i notice for the first time: bones
so many
jutting into the landscape of your figure
protruding cold and naked from your skin

when did you become so frail?
is it the cocaine?
my cocaine?
is it the jagged scar
along your left hip
that you refuse to speak of?
is it me?
is it you?
are we damaged?

the drug makes you wet but frigid.
again.
you turn away from me.
again.
and i'm left to makes passes only at myself.
again.

leaning away from my warmth
my love
you show me your hollow back
and take another hit off the oak nightstand

in the spring we were young
you confessed to me
you had never cultivated a habit.
now the snow weights the streets
and it is cold.
you are cold.
i am tired of being cold.
look at the aching habit you have now, my love.

you've come a long way, baby.
now you are old.

Looking for a Lead

I

Been looking to score
Amidst the halls of Academia
Amidst the leaning brick doorways
Amidst frost-sprinkled streets

A Friend
Of a Friend
Of a Friend
Eludes my moves toward
Connection

Another friend may procure some
Codeine.
(But what does that compare
to my aching soul?)

II

Kraft Dinner
For dinner
Again.
Stolen Ketchup
On the side.

Down to using my morning
Coffee Grinds
Two days over.
The ugly brown mess
More akin to water than coffee.

III

Father figure says he's moved on
To another tight, warm body.
The ex still calls me
Looking for her packed-away
Christmas decorations.

I should have never packed ours
In the same cardboard box last January.
It's a real shame
They had to collect dust together.

IV

Lay down.
Lay down
Your body
Your soul
Your legs
On the bed with mine.
Lay down with ME Nancy.
I'm too tired to be alone.

Signs, Signs, Signs...

My birth name is Amanda.
I choose to
conceal myself
behind other letters.

Because I can.

I hide beneath a blanket of names:
One of which
was my father's first choice
(before he was overruled by my mother.)
One of which
was my grandmother's name
(before she was overruled by marriage.)

But I digress.
What's in a name, anyhow?

Cocaine for Breakfast

Cocaine for breakfast.
It was so beautiful to wake up today
And discover that small blue package
In the left pocket of my Halloween Costume.

Maybe .2
That's all
But it's enough to get my day going
To keep me working
On my assignments
On my programming
On my writing
On my music collection
On my languages.

I feel so perfect
Wrapped in cocaine.
My mind and body surge
Poised
Ready to strike.
I am a jaguar
In this grey shell of a city.

Victory.
Sweet, numbing, mind-blowing
Victory.

This is my mind on drugs:

Filth and Itch

I'm cleaning up, moving on.

Armed with Scrubbrush, Dustbuster, Windex, Mr. Clean X3
I am going to attempt
Domesticity.

This is a foreign concept to me.
I haven't cleaned my apartment in two months.
The shower's starting to stick
The sheets as well
And I can detect foul smells emitting from both garbage bins
And a pile of dishes piled in the sink.
Mold would not surprise or terrify.
Bugs would not surprise, but WOULD terrify.

My Grandmother used to say to me that cleanliness is next to godliness.
Apparently neither trait was stamped on my soul
So here we are.
Dirty again.

The pile of garbage next to my desk has now surpassed my desk in height.
I am sober and disgusted.
Cleaning up, moving on.
Until I can find another excuse to dirty myself again.

Don't follow the light.

Cracking Under the Weight

I can't help but assume things when I glance to my left in German class and there sits a very white, eager, shaven-head man. Whose jeans are too tight.
I wish I didn't make these kinds of assumptions.
But I do.
Every day.
And it kills me a little.
Every day.

I've run out of cocaine. Fully and completely. The mirrored tin in which I hoard my razor, pen, bills, spoon, maxed-out credit cards, dreams and a picture of a former dealer and I is now so naked. So dirty and naked.
This kills me.
I don't even have a source in this blasted city anymore.
This also kills me.
And I if I had a connection I couldn't even afford another gram without pawning or hooking (the later of which I've never done. I think.)
This too kills me.

So I sit sober in my German classes and make horridly unjust assumptions.
Without coke, it kills me even more.

Out of The Womb, into The Dishwasher

Here we are again. My resolve and pride crumbling to the mechanical beasts.
It started last November, when in amongst a series of Ritalin-and-Grass fueled binges I was convinced to purchase a cell-phone.
Not only was that the most unpleasant experience of my existence, but I'm still paying through the nose for it.

Did you know the phone companies killed Kennedy?
That's the idea my father has maintained over the years. He's always failed to specify which company and which Kennedy, but I assume he's referring to all and the one with the better-sculpted ass.

If cell-phones pain me this much, I can't imagine why on earth I felt it was necessary to begin blogging (other than my professor's encouragement). I may have to once again attribute it to a binge. After all these years, still thinking through the nose.

Let's pretend for a moment someone gives a shit.