Grip

Gripping onto the chair rail
Staring at the plaster nubs on the ceiling
blurry,
Unflattering, snot wiped on the inside of my t-shirt
How is this beautiful, except thin?

Any other thing

Someday I will get to the point where my first impulse, when hungry, will not be to think "how can I put this off? How can I distract myself?".

I delay gratification so poorly in every other way.

Oakland Park Boulevard, 6/12/12

While I often think about mortality, and will willingly talk about it, I balk at writing about it. Printed words on death seem either too glib, or too fraught, or too sentimental. (Discworld's DEATH being one notable exception).
Committing the words to paper feels like tempting fate.
Tonight I had (as I often do on the way home in traffic) a mortal moment. Not due to any near-collision or car malfunction -  but the proximity and the possibility put me in a reflective mood.

No thanatological revelation.
No poetry.
No resignation, and no real fear.
Just this one sentence: I will always want more life. I will always want more life. I will always want more life.

Saturday, bored. A quickie:

Two-cent persuasion
such a breath-sized snip,
A pinch -
I love this trinket; my finger flaunts it

There are less treacherous landscapes

There are less treacherous landscapes

to follow until

the place you finally stop has only a makeshift comfort, a lean-to of rock and plank
And a filthy cloth drape,  shedding mites into the sand

No fire tonight. Staring at the empty ring
Without crackle, or light.

Things that drift now scud -
Scud wood under scudding clouds;
Thoughts scud back and away
Catching the scud of a tide
Or a joke
Until scud is the ugliest word you can think of to use
Over,
and over again

At midnight near the wall

I'm listening to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY3VrpyZnhs

and thinking about a damp, misted night in Sligo over 20 years ago, walking back to my rented room with Kieran, too young by a rounding error, by the tiniest margin of appropriate.
We stop on a bridge - to kiss, to relent, above the rush of the dark river. We condense, wipe the drops from our eyes.

My cynical Valentine

The whole lurid, rose-tinted cellophane day grates on me; every last pink-lace inch makes me itch.

The ostentatious parade of those in love carrying banners of flowers, chocolates and distressingly sexualized teddy bears; the pasted-smile lament of those alone, who seethe inside, or violently retaliate in fits of self-righteous bitterness.
Over it all lies a (however frilled) patina of guilt, disappointment and amends: that we do not love, that we are not loved, we do not love right enough, or that we are too loved, on this one, particular card-infested day.

This is not meant to disparage those who enjoy the day on its merits (Flowers! Candy! Chocolates! Dinner! Sexy time!) - by all means love, and be loved, and find love.

But do so every day.