The concept is frames.

She asked where I hid it, and I said, "With my art supplies." People know to not touch my instruments.

--

If you gave me the alphabet & the colors, I could tell you how I felt, but without them, I am mute, trapped in the ocean of myself, where I am washed in waves and drifts, and there is only myself & the sky, in the dark colors of a storm, and the ocean, which is more than any storm.

I'm not lost.

I am in an endless ocean which I cannot control. Sometimes I go under, and sometimes I surface, tired & I am afloat, not purely of my own will. The next wave will knock the breath from me, and I will choke on strange water, and drown. I don't expect to come back up, but I don't think about coming back up. The wave hits me, and I am kicking and kicking, but it goes dark and I am drowning.  And then I wake, exhausted and worn. I am like a girl stumbling out of a fever, weak & dizzy, and still fighting, because if I stop, even when there is nothing in me that can, I will be dead.

--

There is a thin paper sheet between death and myself.

I lean against it, the way I'd rest my body on my bed, if it were a hard relief. Soft beds are pleasant, but I could do with smooth, dark stone.
I don't need it to offer me much, just a reliable resting place until I can keep moving. Sometimes I need to kneel, alone, and just take in the quiet. Sometimes I need to curl up, into a fetal ball that needs to hold onto myself for a moment. Sometimes I just need to lay my body down, and shut my eyes.

--

Bodies are okay.

I like them for sex or making love, whatever my mood is. Moods of a woman, people make humor, but we're lucky for the variation. There is a monotony of having only one experience during physical acts. People think they want the same thing over and over, but there is no constancy.

A body is a body, although I prefer healthy, expressive ones. I don't need a body by mine unless it's the right one. I don't need love.

So many strange souls are drawn to me. They want to hold me and carry me. They think, if they do, I will look from their thrown-upon-me safety and love them. There's the ugly flaw in this show. There is no love in force. They have their brash hero narrative, this romanticized evolution of caveman instincts, and I have my awareness. I have nothing for this self-made hero, this self-centered romanticizer. I am not the token object in somebody's amateur fantasy.

My love is pure; it cannot be bought with romance, nor material. It is not the prize, the digital achievement award dished out after trial & victory, in a game. I don't care if it's requited, although I wouldn't mind.

I don't want a bootlegged kind of love.

Love is truth and nakedness. People are stripped down of their aesthetics & identities, and it's not a play at anything. It's just two souls naked together, and both are wholeheartedly, earnestly saying yes.

hungarian sundays

hungarian sundays

i drink my coffee black from the paper cups
under dim barlights.
there's a strange comfort to being alone
with your fogged self where nobody really knows you.

the professional photographer has his beer over mortality,
and on one side we parry unfairly,
and the musician, he has his cheap red wine & himself, which is not bad,
but seat-side i am with me. i don't want to know.

as a child, you always ask,
as a child, you are always hungry and you need to ask for sustenance,
and if you are lucky, someone will have kindness enough to feed you.

but sometimes, you just have to feed yourself,
or not eat a thing.

gave my piece away; under.
ill & light. mouth &
things, child.

it was a choke and you are the sick toy that the girls grow bored of.
lights and orgasms, dimming and you are the wrong temperature.

i could, but i'm okay with the dirt on my skin. stones, below,
i am climbing along concrete, rusted metal frames
leave red on my palms and i am so close to the night sky.

i don't write for you, i don't sing for you, and i don't fuck for you.
the comics are eager to please, the laughter abates
a bitter toxin that runs in them; they could do with a breathmint.

i am laughing at the bar. the more it costs,
the slower i go. and they are so easy.

what makes it like this? what makes you think
that love had anything to do with this?

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.