Keep it brief. Tuck tape Around the bad spots. Carve a knife into the person that you think you are. Let it sit there long enough To make a mess, then clean it up. Some lies let us live a little longer. Some kill us faster, too. Guess I'll keep chewing on this. You agree, I agree, there's nothing wrong with getting older, Except getting older. A phone rings every time someone dies Otherwise It stays quiet. I put sestinas on the radio to hear the words repeat. A form can make it feel complete When nothing else will. You can't just Hit a pause button. We have to find another way To be still. Stop moving. Stop moving. Stop moving. Stop moving. Stop moving. Stop moving. Stop moving. Stop moving. (Learn to say no. Don't Make the bed for someone you don't even want to share it with. It's just a pattern that you've been sewn into. Some quilts have guilt in every square. Shame is the way I wear myself out. It's like listening to how a book has put it and not yourself.)

Head blank. Head blank, then flowing over. Sometimes colours of another time present themselves as if they were the present, But how can I be in the moment when every moment is the death of another moment, and another day is another day I still don't have the words, just "grief," and what a word, what a river of a word, it overflows, it overflows, it overflows. If you let it in is it easier to swim While you look out at the city and think: I'm a failure. Is that what falling in love is? Failing. Letting the buildings come down on you. Pulling a tooth til it's loose. Sometimes we fail but Being a failure is just failing consistently. (Failing consistently. Failing consistently.) Place your hands on a window. Light a candle in a prayer. While you look out at the city and think: I’m a failure. (Failing consistently. Failing consistently.) Do you have enough wood to build your own house? Is that what you're supposed to do with your body? Put it in a building, live there, die there, set it on fire when you're ready. Why do I follow you, or anything. I guess I'd like to believe in something But I'm not sure what, or how. Keep swimming. Keep your head above water. Not every river is for drowning in Even if it feels like That's all a current is for. That can’t be all that a current is for. Some days I don’t know about the colours. Trying to see something In everything. It’s been weird on this road for a while. There’s some bricks I just don’t think I can carry anymore. Most of the time nothing feels real anyway. Thinking homeward. Putting a door on my head. Something to shut or open up. Another quiet night leaving scratches in all the ways I came to claim some sense of self – A map. A maze. A place I couldn’t locate. Seeing it sever. What was it ever before and how does it seem To change and stay the same, I look outside. I try to come Close enough to someone else. And you warn me: What happens to me because of anyone else is just Random. Will you help me carry these rocks? I’m trying to build something. I’m trying to build something. When it’s done, I think I’ll know. When it’s done, I think I’ll know. Will you still be here? Will you still be here? Will you still? Be. Here.

I'm not supposed to want For things to be better. That must be a selfish thing to want Because wanting things is selfish. I learned this a long time ago and so I became addicted to wanting things. Those things came in many forms and usually had less to do with the money that a thing could cost and more to do with the way that thing would fill a hole in me. “Why are there so many holes in you?” *** See when I was a kid I used to go over to a friend's house. She was older. She started cutting holes in me. This happened for several years. I did a seance with the girl whose mouth hurt my mouth. Her mom was upset about it so she got me fired from my job. Telling the story that way makes it sound like those things happened quickly. They did not. Some seances keep going because at a certain point you're always talking to a dead person. All you need to do is live a while. The more you do that, the more that death becomes this Ongoing singular event that both holds you to the floor and beats you while also becoming a kind of elevator music. It happens. We move forward. You're supposed to. Because you're going to die one day too and so why not live now? A present is presented: You're there now. I'm not there now. By writing this down it has become the past. It has become a way of containing the past. By pressing record I am saying this has already happened. In this way you kill the moment. In this way you make the moment into an offering to another moment. You stick it in its mouth and you feed it. An impact crater is not always easy to measure But you can sure bet that a hungry stomach can be heard from across a room. I close my eyes in the archive And try to imagine every piece of history leaving me Alone with a colour, maybe green And not even the feeling, Another dream that I've let go, But when I wake up its only that I'm in this body and this body is an archive and the archive is unraveling and there won't be anyone to sort it out for me. Every word is a sentence. Some are paragraphs and treatises and some don't even mean What you think they mean Because we say them easily like we know what other people will think of when they hear it Not realizing that every word inside each person is a story That they're telling to themselves. That's I guess why I gravitate towards this idea of words and sentences because It’s the gesture of wanting to connect with another To say “grief” or “love” And have a person understand and react accordingly But how can you react accordingly when words like this Can't have any real pins in them? Lots of people would argue that you could And some would like to say that I complicate these things But words like this cannot contain the very real way in which our lives infect them And we each walk with them in our own ways And say them in the moments that make sense to us But we will also run into many moments where they are being said to us and they do not fit Or we do not understand. I'm trying to understand. I want to meet you where the words are at. I’ve been thinking about the way that the sky seems to break when I look up. Is there a good word for a cloud that doesn’t look like anything Or is that what a cloud like that is for? To remind me that not everything can be made into something. Not everything can be described. What am I to do with this feeling? Cut some hair, put it in a cloth Draw a diagram of how to get to where I lost myself. Nobody needs me, that's not even why I'm here. When all that's left is some hair in a cloth And a diagram to where I lost myself Do I really think anyone will understand a single thing I lived my life for? *** “Why are there so many holes in you? Protecting myself looks like putting a bag on my head and breathing deep. Why does everything dark come out of me when I try to sing? Hi, how are you? Hi, how are you? I’ve been trying to reach you. I’ve been trying to reach you. I’ve been shouting your name to the stars. That’s where you are, I guess, I don’t know. I don’t know where we go. I shouldn’t need. I shouldn’t need and need and need needlessly. Oh god, I don’t know if this is worth unraveling But I’m speaking into the microphone again And the sky is threatening to rain. A sweater I find in a box – Soaking, threadbare, discarded. Worn out on me. And if I think about the colours too long, I’ll feel sick With a wanting that will never be satisfied. Leave the lights on. Leave the lights on. I need to see the way that I can move from this part of the room To be closer to you. I shouldn’t be closer to you. I shouldn’t be closer to you. Why are there so many holes in you? Why are there so many holes in you? I’m trying to talk to you. I’m trying to talk to you. I just want to explain it. I just want to explain it. Where does this need to explain it come from? Why are there so many holes in you? I want to meet you where the words are at. Why are there so many holes in you? I just don’t know. I just don’t know how I’m supposed to choose a word. How I’m supposed to choose a word If I’ve been running away from my life my whole life. What am I to do, what am I to do, what am I to do. I’ve been running away from my life my whole life. I’ve been running away from my life my whole life, it’s true. I need to stop running. I need to stop running. I need to look at it for what it really is.”

[NO WORDS]