You drugged me with GHB but I still won

you don't know anything about me how to be decent how to touch me you think you know because you think you know women and you think I am a woman about whom it is possible to know things you coulda put your dick in my mouth fucked me from behind touched my deepest place but instead you betrayed me didn't believe me tried to take what wasn't yours And I have a place inside one you'll never see I'll never show you the way to the fire at the bottom of the deep turquoise pool quiet and deep burns so bright colors clear smooth round stones kelly green aquatic ferns golden koi at the heart of the fire is a spiral whirls and turns, it never stops and if you touch it you can live forever you can't touch it though I won't tell you how to get there your entrance is barred the pool stays hidden deep in a forest surrounded by a thick hedge of thorns and to get there you'd have to cross a desert no water for miles and three oceans before that you can't make me or stop me you HAVE NO POWER HERE I invoke the rage of Kali should you ever try bloodthirsty she'll consume your tiny soldier ways rip your head from your body guy you so your entrails spill forth dancing her mad chaotic dance spinning, whirling spiral the heart of the fire.

New Mexico (Maybe I'm Starting to Feel a Little Bit Old)

mashing your face
against my face
makes me feel
whole again

our affection
knows no bounds
except some bounds

like I’m an AmeriCorps volunteer
who’s come to your Carlsbad HS
health class to talk about
environmental issues

and you don’t give a shit
about me or
my environmental issues
I lecture you we

disregard each other
the wan November sun
illuminates our desire
lost in the lard aisle at La Tienda

I’m searching for Horchata
but really searching for your eyes

you know the secrets of the best
tortillas how
the laundromat works in this
godforsaken town

oh god Amy
I want you so much
and that girl from New Jersey who
was mortally afraid of deer

oh let’s steal a car
a ‘78 Buick preferably and
drive it to Guadelupe
National Park don’t
TEMPT ME
I’ll crack into these barrels of
saltines and water meant for
surviving the Nuclear Holoucaust

*****************************************

oh a beautiful oasis with
sun dappled cottonwood trees and
swift-running irrigation ditiches
I can’t not touch the algae

the quiet absolute darkness of caves
of being eighteen

The one cave I really want to get in
Lechiguillla Cave, i can’t.
it occurs to me this is like a eighteen
year old wanting
pussy. no different.

sunbathing topless on
the top of water towers NOT
getting drunk with
the gang. building
a stone wall picking
up trash getting coffee at
the Carlsbad Caverns Diner and
being hit on by 40-50 year old
men. him talking about how
i smell like a virgin?

*****************************************

Alonzo. Where are you?
you’re not of this time but
could be. you have a sweet
doppelganger in Rajasthan. he
can’t be removed from his
natural environment he
wouldn’t thrive.

we fucked four times a day
left our mark on
your aunt’s carpet
that whole time of my life’s marked
by FUCKING men too inappropriately
old for me.
Easter Dinner with your Grandpa
followed by episodes of
the Fresh Prince of Bel Air

Hiking at Tent Rocks
trips to Jemez Hot Springs but
we never actually went camping.
I made you blueberry pancakes for
your birthday breakfast with
homemade orange butter

You sang in the rocks
me wearing a pink antique silk slip
very stinky beer cheese in your BMW
drinking at the movies

did you actually have two kids?
did you have other girlfriends?
were you lying when you said
you’d only slept with five women?

*****************************************

That was a dark trip up I-25
between Santa Fe and Denver
having to stop so folks could
get out of the van and puke
on the side, the shoulder

The best camping trip
in the Sangre de Cristos
up by Pecos
mountain meadows filled with
wildflowers and elk shit

drinking and playing cards
telling ghost stories
singing Guns ‘n’ Roses
to live guitar accompaniment

We hiked to the top of Elk Mountain
I saw my past and my future
I was not afraid I
faced it all without fear.

wisconsin death trip

the sound of the wind rustling the cottonwood leaves. it's one o'clock in the morning and i'm the only one to hear this sound. it's like water, coins, falling. a secret message if only i can shut the fuck up long enough i will understand this code, the meaning of The Birthday.

The message is...."it's all good..." thank you hippie cottonwood leaves. tellin' me to chill the fuck out, be okay with who i am.....

contentment is a process and i'm happy to report i've been stuck in its feedback loop for a while now. something about watching the sun set every night. listening to the breeze blow by. chatting, not over-analyzing, taking things at face value, being real, authentic. getting up in peoples' shit and backing off. we're just all people making our ways thru the world, trying to work things out best we can

Oh! wisconsin death trip! you're real and surreal and i'm glad i know that people were always people.

the smell of cedar trees

is the most beautiful smell of all. I took my dog for a hike yesterday in the east sandias and was overwelmed by the smell of cedars. it was sunny and beautiful. there were these moths that kept flying around me and pup and trying to land on us. they had roll-out-tongues. Sandia is spanish for watermelon. When the sun is setting the light reflects off the sandias and makes them appear to be pink. even though i'm poor and kind of crazy and about to turn 27, there's still no other place i'd rather be.

A Great Unifying Metatheory: Trying Not to Die OR Rawk Show

Where do all the hipsters come from? There are never enough cars or bikes or scooters or buses or subways to account for them all.

I think they're like fungii. They travel as spores do through the air mating with other spores, taking root on the undersides of logs, in basements, and rockclubs. Each one a variation bearing some resemblance to the last.

Hipsters kind of look like mushrooms, too. All big-headed with small frames and skinny legs, moppish hair. Forests and fields and meadows filled with related species....

little white gloves

when i was young my mom had a pair of white kid gloves she kept wrapped in tissue paper in her dresser drawer. they were from her first communion so they were small and old and smelled like a tannery. they went up to the middle of my forearms and had a lace-like cut out pattern. i liked putting them on and putting my hands over my nose and inhaling deeply.

there were also things on top of her dresser that were fun to put on as well-- a string of venitian glass beads, her swan earrings (which she has since given to me), earplugs (ew) and a ring her grandma gave her for her high school graduation. my brother and i didn't often go into my parents' bedroom because though they slept in separate rooms they pretended to sleep together and i always felt a little weird about the whole thing.

later after they got divorced & we moved to Colorado with our mom, i was enrolled in a summer acting camp. my age group (10-11) would be performing 'My Heart Belongs to Daddy', the Marilyn Monroe standard from 'Some Like it Hot'. looking back, the song selection seems vaguely inappropriate... but nonetheless we were performing it and we needed to harvest props from our parents' houses such as parasols, feather boas, & little white gloves.

for the duration of this acting camp, i never felt like i fit in. the other kids who were participating in it all had lots of money, went to school together in Boulder, and several of them had been prepped from a young age to behave like starletts, both on stage & off. so i was insecure, to say the least. but then i remembered these really cool gloves that my mom had. so i brought them in and the teacher thought they were great.... and proceeded to give them to another girl to wear. the reason behind this is that there were people grouped in certain places in the choreography (oh yes, there was choreography) where all the girls had to be wearing the same thing. but i was still pissed.

now i work as a production assistant at a press where i scan photographs and i have to wear little white gloves to keep the photos clean. (probably a good thing since i habitually have peanut butter, grease, dog saliva or some such thing on my hands.) and since i'm not allowed to make personal phone calls while scanning i have plenty of time to stare at these gloves on my hands and space out....

Grocery Shopping in New Mexico vs. Grocery Shopping in California

I drove to Albuquerque straight from Berkeley. It took about 16 hours. At hour 13 I began to halluncinate. But really it was all worth it because now when I go grocery shopping it is an extremely pleasant experience. During the year & a half I lived in California I never got used to the demolition derby mentality of people at the grocery store. I literally would get into fights with people nearly every time I went. People would bang into my body with their shopping cart, blatantly cut ahead of me in line, PUSH me, shove ahead of me, & on & on & on. I found this to be quite unpleasant. And I've got a mouth on me. So fights would ensue......

The first day I was here I went to the grocery store. gloriously cracked out, of course. And people said, "Excuse me" & smiled & said "Hello" & were friendly & affable. It was incredible! I was so excited! I wanted to hug them all & dance around the aisles & make up a song about why New Mexico isn't half bad after all. I realized that I had developed all of these odd shopping behaviors that are no longer necessary--- like leaving my cart somewhere & racing around psychotically gathering items on my list and not making eye contact with anyone. The best part? I only waited in line about 30 seconds, rather than the California mean time of 20 minutes.

It's good to be back.