i am happy, so i'm writing. i love the way he has humor in a true way. i love the russian blue who i keep company with as i tend bar for the souls who like to communicate in music. i love covers of audioslave, also cheeseburgers, & reptiles. if this was a love letter, i'd say, hey babe, i'm only a phone call away. babe, i'm only a phone call away; so are you, yes, i should find you soon, but here, let me play my guitar for a while, and sing the things i love to sing, love to feel, love to love, which there is so much of, in the springtime-summer loveliness of new york.

the way i feel about you is with me, in a good way, in a good way, like a ska song, which fuels my jazz, which lets me coast on my soul in the rocky sweet love of things. oh life, ah life, oh sweet life. i think of you in feelings of ephemeral nights, and my love makes me love the human nuances & accents of souls, which is not really your business, but it could or might be. the thought of you is a really lovely haze that lights me up on the inside. people have beautiful souls sometimes, and you have one that's pretty nice.


all this happiness. i used to think i didn't like olives, didn't like pancakes, but i just didn't like where i was or who i was with, or who i was because i let myself accept unhappiness as the norm. my happiness, is like green olives in paella, & blueberry buttermilk pancakes; things i rather like making actually.

i got rid of all the parasitic people who brought me unhappiness with their semblances of love, and y'know, it was a barren world at first, in a painful way, but i grew into my life, & filled it with only good things, and it worked out. i write you songs in my heart, with my heart, with my fingers on my guitar, with my imperfect voice which i also love. this poet sings.

gonna transition from rhythmic to drumming. fuck that shit, i can drum.
if i can't find the amazing drummer, i'll be one. arrhythmic poets are where it's at. you've got to have a feel for rhythm to break it, & to smash it together. so many boys/girls are so a-to-b, start-to-finish; it works but lacks the complexity i get cravings for.

the key, is to live to your music. if you are the drum, the bodies beat.
are we gods, or are we the reptile in our hindbrains? both.
humanity is not the poles, but the between.

bedding & sheets. i could get tangled up in yours, i like them, but i have to know that you want it, right where it hurts.
it's a waste to have a love in your bed otherwise, to have the image of what's desired, but to not feel it. feeling is where it's at.

some people edit for technical performance & structure, which i appreciate. aesthetics are important. i get a kick out of sweeping in & doing my work on the soul/heart of the piece. it is the sun. everything else, is just flowers & dark space.

richter gives me chills.

---

boys are adorable.  i'm hard hitting on an edge in me & it's all my jazz standards in the shower, all lovely-resonant, & sudden midverse beatbox-rap thigh-slap-drums, wet rain grooves.

most words dissatisfy. most moods, too. burritos.
and this is where the guitar falls into my hands. sometimes song is just beautiful aggression.

i do think you're beautiful. do i have to tell you?

how to learn to read

I was waiting, and waiting.

It was the speed of Hemingway lunching late, while the protagonist was waiting for a thing that no longer required waiting.

Tables go unwaited when the cafe is empty and the evening nears close, closing whenever the owner deems it time to close shop, to retire upstairs for the quiet evening cup of tea.


When you're young, you think, one day, I will be.
I will grow into this ideal, where happiness arises, and everyday is satisfied. There might be a career. There might be art-on-the-side. There will be friends, and a more-or-less permanent-partner. It's this hazy, fictive suburbia-soul, even in our cities. Apartments. Cats. Fish in a bowl, or in tanks. Coffee mugs, & espresso machines. Vitamins, with food, because taken alone, it will give you nausea & that nagging headache.

My last fish died, three years ago, this silver moon of a fish, with its lovely billows, & thread of pink & blue, and I wept, because I could not keep it alive, despite the PH-perfect tank, & the filter, & the food. I did right by the fish, and it died anyway, new, young, & beautiful.


Moo-moo died when I was seven, so I learned to read, prolifically. She was the only person who knew my tongue.

My parents were never around most days; my mother was away, dealing with a family crisis, & took my little brother with her. My father worked 'til late.
There was school, where dark-haired Asiatic children who looked a little like me, didn't speak my language, & nor did the others, the jewish kids or the italians or the spanish.

When my mother called, I'd make up stories about playtime. I didn't want her to know that it was loneliest part of my day, where all the other kids had their groups. I said so-and-so was my friend, and so-and-so & I played house, and so-and-so & I raced cars. I did not say that I fiddled idly with the unloved toy-space of the day, and that I thought that playtime would never end.

Moo-moo would pick me up after school, which was the best part of the day. And then we'd go on adventures. She'd wander the neighborhood with me, and when I was tired, we'd sit on a bench, and I'd eat my snack. And then we'd go home, and she'd peel her snap-peas & make dinner, and I'd watch, and she would read me stories from her newest comic-collection.

all cycles:

i. meet someone, don't meet someone, meet someone almost special but not
ii. drinks, food, coffee, tea
iii. friends, more than friends, best friends, family
iv. sex, love, things in between, and things not at all
v. fantasy, wishes, hopes, dreams, dreaming about work, work, off-time from work
vi. adorable children, frustrated aged-children, bitter young people, bitter old people,
vii. kindness, the ease of finding happiness when not expecting it (happens all the time, babe)
viii. behind on work, behind on art, ahead on some other things, which makes life pretty okay
ix. break down, or actually, not, and not be surprised at all
x. play guitar, write, sing, sing in the shower, dance in the kitchen, bake cookies, bake brownies, bake cake, bake sometimes
xi. wine, poker, spend time with people you easily enjoy the company of
xii. minimalize on the bullshiters, the whiners, the negative, the ugly-at-core, the manipulative
xiii. depression is real, bitch, and so is anxiety, and stress, drink water, drink less, be objective, & be more importantly, in-gut kind to self & others in positive progress in emotional well-being
xiv. kindness is not fucking easy; it's an internal, conscious choice against other innate instincts; it's not morality that drives it, but the choice to decrease levels of various forms of suffering that exist
xv. life is suffering, life is a hand of cards in a game with shifting rules, and you can futz it a little if you have the energy for it; life is happiness in the agency in personal realms
xvi. people are not pawns and non-players in your life, but developing players in their own lives, so don't be a mean little bitch and fuck with someone else's saved game when they're working on something.
xvii. if they take time to help you, whatever, cool, thank you for the pokeball, keep moving if you want those badges, or quit if you're done; yellow, blue, crystal, ruby, pearl, you do not have to get a nintendo 3ds and play the new ones unless you want to
xviii. you can become a traveler in your own city, you can take a vacation in your city, just do it justice & not half-assed
xix. live. death is okay too, but you only get one real one of each.
xx. love is not something that happens like rain;
it is a act from within someone, and it's not always easy, and it's usually not. nobody deserves it or doesn't deserve it. sometimes it is beautiful, and sometimes, it is a hot disgusting mess in a bad way. love is not romance, nor is it a video game where you win at the end after playing well. it's just one of those things, where it is, or it isn't. it is inherent, & arbitrary, and sometimes it is there, and sometimes it is not there, because it is a feeling in your guts & brain, and there is no wrong or right about it-- the only thing fairness has got to do with, is your actions, & sometimes it is relevant in relationships & human interactions,--- but fairness has got jackshit to do with love,
& love, might just be the satiating feeling of happiness that occurs in a being because of concept/thing existing in the universe.

how to frost a cake

the crumpled letters i send, or the handfuls i don't.

in the last century, you could mail a letter, and it'd be gone. paper & ink, and it's out of your hands. everything exists in digital these days, so yeah, all the re-living, re-experiencing, & re-interpreting.

take the photo. if it's good, print it, & hang it.

wherever you go, your life exists in record. there is no escape.

i think about moving. i think about quitting everything i've started.
why is there this need for continuity? why can we not have one-shot beautiful projects?

there is such a need for career narrative, for journey & goals, in this long novel, but maybe my life is poems.

this was joy in lunch in my mother's kitchen, on a restless afternoon. that was croutons from a box, poured into slavic soup made by my best friend's mother. that was winter skies, all pale and grey and bright. that was a soft darkness on my hard floor in the room where light seeped in from the hall. that was the radiator, and the highway is a slow sweep. what is light, but orange streaks of evening on the walls, when you are awake & existentially alone?

one boy sees a sad girl he wants to save, another, a muse. one boy sees creative mania, another, a fierce drunken mess. one, a bullshitting hustler, another, a wide-eyed innocent. one, a crazy girl for pure hot fucking, another, a sweet lady for a doting wife. this one, a strict, mean-mouthed bitch, another, kindness, kindness, kindness. what is play, and what is heartfelt?

detached or a gush of emotion. it's lenses. they all see something different, and are either aggressive or intimidated, angry or sad, adoring or bitter, this or that. desire is a bitch, but they are the ones driving these emotional fantasies in their minds.

i'm just a girl, but girls are an easy medium for gratification, psychological or physical.
if i wasn't a girl, i'd be a bottle of pills. one pill gives you orgasms, and another makes you weep, and yet another does nothing at all, so maybe you change your prescription, which may or may not help you find happiness or satisfaction, or the different lens of experiencing the world, that your soul seeks.

love is hard because on the rare occasion i find someone i feel about on a deep-in-my-guts level, sometimes i know i am just a form of escapism for his soul. he doesn't know me. i mean, he knows bits of me, to be sure, and maybe has a sense of what i look like, but what he loves most, is this idea of me that he's got, and he doesn't want to ruin that idea. he's already in love with this idea. how do i compare with her?

well, i don't care how i compare with this ideal, but i can sense when a boy is falling in love with some idea who shares my face and body, but not my soul. i'm not mad about it. it's just not what i'm looking for.

it's not too hard for me to fall in love, because i fall in love pretty damn easily, but it feels pretty bad when i fall in love with someone who's already in love with an idea of me, so i stop myself. it's like a stop & go, which doesn't feel fantastic, but it's okay.

i'm complex, but not complicated.
i like cheese & bartending. i like poems and long wanders. i like the rain, & playing my guitar.

if i didn't love so many things in the city, & the city itself, and if i didn't have family (who don't need me, but sort of do), and friends who are family, - i'd leave. i'd move to some other city, somewhere warm, and i'd bartend, and spend my free time writing, & making music, & wandering beaches. i don't need a lot to be happy. i do a lot, & help people create & do what they love, because it is the next best thing, to doing what i love, which can wait. people are in your life, for loving.

if i could, i'd have even more awesome people in my life, and maybe the less awesome people already in the fringes of my life would become better people to themselves & others, but whatever. we're all doing our best.

i thought i was falling in love last year, but eh. our lives weren't falling together, and i didn't force it. there was so much uncertainty. if i could, i would have him in my life. it would make me pretty fucking happy, but it looks like he's moved on. i'm all on and off missing him, but i've been mature about it.

what is love? / i don't know, but i know when people are special to me.

some people just make you happy because they exist. for the last part of the year, when my mom was in the hospital, and we were in the ward thinking that she would die at any moment, we talked for a really long time, & honestly.

i've got an overachiever's streak, but in the face of the lives of others, i realize that i don't really care about the rat race. i have nothing to prove. i don't need money or fame. i do what makes me happy, and not at the expense of others.

if i died tomorrow, it'd be okay.
maybe i'll die without finding a romantic partner, or having created a child, but i did awesome stuff already. everything else in life, is just frosting. my life is a cake, crafted with all these shades of love.

i only wanted a small bite.