could've spiraled into self-loathing & shame, but i didn't.

i had a bad night.
i was numbing my feels for a while & venting in overproductivity, which is great, in some ways.
i get beautiful work done. and then shit was done, and well, y'know, you can't avoid dealing with things forever. plus it was killing my music.

if i cried like a normal person, i would've cried, but i wasn't raw like that, and it's been coming out in all the other ways. people love swooping in and trying to play shoulder & hero when i'm down, but i keep my sadness safe from bored parasites. some people are dissatisfied with their own lives so they try to live in mine instead of working on theirs, but i've gotten pretty adept at keeping superficial people out.

it was too much gin, & the perfect amount of mac & cheese, & all the feelings i didn't want.
grief and despair and anger and goddamn honest vulnerability. and it was the admitting to myself that i was still holding on. and it was the letting go.
i don't think anybody meant to hurt anyone. nobody needed the bullshit.
we were building a scary nothing-castle on storm clouds, and when the rain came down, we were just wet kids, strangers on the playground at dusk, needing to go elsewhere. you didn't need to go home, but you couldn't stay.

i woke up in the morning and laughed. it was okay. i did music.

people fall in love all the time. we always think the last one or the next one is it. we want to stop looking but i think love just happens whenever it happens. it just works out better when people are also genuinely happy/satisfied with their lives.

---

i looked through the sin rostro two-year anniversary photos for the first time, and there was this adorable one where i was crouched on the stage during the intermission, watching everyone have a fantastic time at the show, and i was beaming & super happy. i did a thing, and it was beautiful and heartfelt and so many friggin sharp writers & artists & musicians & comedians & storytellers & crazy projects came out of the scene. and i am so proud of everyone. it was soulful expression & perfected aesthetics, and the things we really wanted to do. it was a venue for worthwhile work that didn't fit prescribed scenes. we're on hiatus at the moment, until i can do more hands-on work, but this is my baby. i started from nowhere on this, at 22, and i did right by sin rostro.

there was a choice there; it could become a regular consumer product, or it could keep being the vital loved thing. people don't always see the difference, but i know it. i don't half-ass anything.

-

one of my friends from college got all passive-aggressive moody at me because i've been busy, and she was all like, "some people think you're selfish and insincere." and i was like, "well. i've been busy, so i don't know who these people are." and she was like, "i'm not naming names, but i feel this might be true."

and then politely, i was like, "well. considering that i spend all my time running from work to project to work to project to work to project, kind of endlessly, 8 hour heavy shifts to 13-16 hour shifts and back and forth with no time for myself, where i work my heart out on multiple projects in pouring rain or the freezing cold or swampy heat, with like no sleep, while also staying emotionally level & singlehandedly taking care of my mother while i watched her almost die, awake, but quite slowly, like her heart stopped 8 times, in the e.r. in the last few months, while maintaining all the jobs & productions i love, & meeting all the deadlines-- i haven't really seen anyone except the people & kids i work with, & a stupid, incredible amount of doctors & e.r. staff. and i still was there for every friend who was legit going through a hard time too, whether it was death of a loved one or terrible illness or sudden unemployment. the few people i do see, are also working their asses off & are doing a million things. ...but, to cut it short, i probably don't know who these fantastic people are, who've got the luxury of all this excessive time & energy to deem me selfish & insincere. i mean, if i had that much time, god, all the cool things i'd do."

there was no finesse, but she had nothing to say after that.

how i knew

i. the sense of adventure, of sneaking away from a loud, boring, obligatory place with dressed up people and bad music, for quiet & idle evening cards, which became conversational intimacy under bright florescents, in an alcove of an adjacent building. 

i was disappointed that the boy i was interested in, wasn't interested in me, but was being graceful & pragmatic about it, at thirteen, in a size zero chiffon floral. it was summer, and night was vivid, stars out above the balcony, stars out above the highway. the girls wanted to dance & kiss & flirt, but the familiar crowd in the cool dark of the dance hall made me want to be alone. we lost our euphoria-hungry friends.

you babbled like a little boy about the girls you loved, and i felt so old, even though you were older than me. sober & sad, you cried about the failing relationship between your parents, & about mortality. and i said the comforting things that people say. you got your secret sadness out, and the world was okay. and then i had to go.

i fell in love with the humanity, and you fell for the way i made you feel.


sixteen, and it was raining early in april. there was no happiness. the tortured romantic drama kept things interesting for a while, but then we were bored of playing our caricatures. the sun came out in the pour, and there was a rainbow. drenched in all that rain, we kissed, and there was nothing but cold & rain.


---


ii. we were at the ocean. there was another couple with us, and they were playing. the sun was glittering in the water and in your sunflower-sea green eyes which only looked into me.

we ice-skated. i saw the way you looked at her, so later, at the bar which we loved, over casual beers, i asked you when you were going to go after the girl you've always loved. and you said never, because you had me & i was good. later, more drunk, you picked me up & spun me in the candlelight of your kitchen, & said you loved me, and asked but why i couldn't be more like her. i said i loved you. and the next day, i called to call it over, and you were a little angry, but said okay. i don't remember anything beyond that.


---


iii. it was everything about you. the world was ordinary & bleak, and then it wasn't. it was your hair, the smile, our mutual love for good wine & lit & music. it was the end of summer & it was the way you existed. it was when you slept, when you laughed, the way you sometimes woke in the morning. it was the way we made our bodies close, a little fearful, but wholeheartedly.

i turned away and you turned away. we didn't touch. it was just gone. and when it was time to leave, i got the fuck out, running on the inside with my numbness. i don't even remember the kiss goodbye, because there was nothing in it, even if we wanted there to be.
i wished so hard. i didn't even know what i was wishing for. i wanted you deep, and i wanted to give you myself, and nobody could do anything. maybe nobody knew how.

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.