i could not explain to you how i am
listening to a song that isn't
being played, really.  i am
listening to the Incidental ---
a sudden museum of noise.  the shadow
cast inside the footprint of a song
that passed by not long ago...

a song remembering itself
as a song

minus time signature and genre. 
minus language and meaning. 
minus everything but the sound itself. 

and i am
liking it more than i likely would like
the song you are listening to

the same song,
but not. 

Time has always seemed to me like a writer tormented at the hands of his own trillions of transient ideas for the stories we'll all tell one another over cocktails or gravestones.

Time gives up halfway on some tales, sweeping them in effortless, echo-less motions from the table to the floor, already forgotten.
_________________________

you promised me bluebells
and jazz
but there was never time, was there, Love.

there was never Time
for us.

i am rifling through
alien drawers, pulling up
strange objects from history
with a squelch like something heavy
sucked up
from the wet silt of time, baffled
at their existence as "mine".

there is the easy love of
sixteen
pink chalk hearts on
the sidewalk, lazy
like the spring afternoon
they were drawn

and then

there is this love;
uneasy, unwieldy--
heavy like grocery bags
stuffed with necessities
that smears

the easy love of sixteen
pink chalk hearts underfoot,
too busy to care anymore.

are you living

your life like
i am living mine, moving
slowly like blood from a pinprick
squeezed

in sick delight,

plodding revolutions
along the periphery of everything
you ever believed
about How Things Really Are.

never daring the radius inward
to touch any of it.

it's a loneliness that penetrates.  dissolves flesh, pits bone.

i was so lonely that i forgot i was walking and fell off the edge of the earth.

1. Do you like cheese?
- i like *good* cheese.  which i feel is a distinction that needs to be made.

2. Have you ever smoked heroin?
- heroin?  no.  opium, yes.  and guess what?  it's amazing.

3. Do you own a gun?
- i don't trust myself anymore.

5. Do you get nervous before doctor appointments?
- no, i get angry. 

6. What do you think of hot dogs?
- kosher only.

7. What's your favorite Christmas song?
- "carol of The Bells"

8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning?
- water with ice chips.

9. Can you do push ups?
- can, yes.  will?  fuck no.

10. Is your bathroom clean?
- i just cleaned it.

11. What's your favorite piece of jewelry?
- my blue-moonstone ring.

13. What is your secret weapon to lure in the opposite sex?
- i willfully repel the opposite sex. 

14. Do you have A.D.D.?
- i have the opposite of A.D.D.---i get obsessive and freakishly focused on things.

16. Middle Name?
- Dael

17. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment?
1) fuck you
2) i'm really frighteningly good with my virtual bow and arrows---they'll never see me coming!
3) why the hell can't i finish a can of soda...ever?

18. Name the last 3 things you have bought?
1) Harbingers Wrath bow with six arrow varieties including "explosion arrows" which blow you to bits.
2) bottled water
3) a latex catsuit

19. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink:
1) Coke Zero
2) Black tea
3) Water

20. Current worry?
- actually...i'm not worried about anything right now, really.  what luxury!

21. Current hate?
- people with minds so small they could get stuck in your eye and scratch your cornea up something frightful.

22. Favorite place to be?
- unconscious.

23. How did you bring in the New Year?
- with friends i sorely miss.

24. Where would you like to go?
- back in time.

27. Do you own slippers?
- yeah.  they're bear feet with leather claws.

28. What are you wearing?
- black slacks, black shirt, black bra...you get the idea.

29. Do you burn or tan?
- i avoid the sun at all costs.

30. Favorite color?
- black.  i have a deep, serious love affair with black.  particularly that gasping, soft black that looks darker than the darkest darkness...the kind of darkness that doesn't need light to define itself.  yeah.  THAT black.

31. Would you be a pirate?
- hell fucking NO.  ninja.

32. What songs do you sing in the shower?
- "I Don't Like Mondays" by The Boomtown Rats and "Dead Puppies" by Ogden Edsl.  you should sing them too.  go to my MySpace and learn them!  Dead puppies aren't much fun...they don't come when you call...they don't chase squirrels at all...

35. What's in your pocket right now?
- my detachable penis.

36. Last thing that made you laugh?
- Man-boobs.

37. Best bed sheets as a child?
- these super soft ones that had been washed so many times that the fabric was thin and rubbed smooth.  those were awesome.

38. Worst injury you've ever had?
- i still have flashbacks.  my knee.  it was horrifying.  i can't even tell you.

40. How many TVs do you have in your house?
- oh jesus...three?  i don't know..i don't watch any of them.

41. Who is your loudest friend?
- Sunshine.

42. Who is your most silent friend?
- Hello, Darkness, my old friend.

43. Does someone have a crush on you?
- i doubt it.

45. What is your favorite book?
- "The God Delusion"...i don't know.  i only have about a hundred favorite books.

46. What is your favorite candy?
- Godiva chocolate and hazelnut truffles

47. What song do/did you want played at your wedding?
- 'Wicked Game'- Chris Isaak

48. What song do you want played at your funeral?
- "Joyful Girl"- ani difranco

49. What were you doing 12 AM last night?
- blowing things up

50. What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up?
- blowing things up

nude bodies remind me of death.  maggots, liquefaction.  bloat.  seepage.  i know too much about the mechanics of decay.  couple vivid knowledge with an obsessive, whirlpool consciousness like mine and you get the weirdest, most difficult sex life this side of the law. 

at least, if you're in my head. 

if you're naked on top of me, you're probably having a great time and, decidedly, not being attacked by thoughts of the actual noise maggots make when feeding on decaying flesh. 

meanwhile, the rest of normal human women writers are busy with seduction, romance, adventure. 

my throat is a piano, but my fingertips are all stringed instruments.  my inner thighs are tribal drums and my eyes are my voice. 

when i cry, my forearms ache along the inside all the way to the ends of my thumbs and forefingers.  have you ever wanted someone so bad your teeth itched?  i have. 

red is male, but not a man like green is.  seven is a woman in heels.  blue is a woman, too, a deaf-mute with thin hands.  eight is male, and nine too.  but two is female.  october tastes like cinammon, december like juniper berries.  summer tastes like salt.  spring tastes like dirt, except for the last part of may, which doesn't taste like anything but feels like the stuffing inside teddy bears and makes me feel sick.

circles hum and triangles shriek.  squares giggle.

so there you have it.  a starter list of why i can't talk to anyone.

my Babyrat has a tumor.  matter of time and all.  it's funny---intellectually, i can accept the fact of a rat's short life.  i've been a rat mommy since i was a little girl.  lots of Babyrats over the years.  but it's still hard.  she's my Babyrat.  she's furry and sweet.  and her lifetime is almost spent.

from now on she gets all the damned cookies she wants.