Just Keep Your Feet on the Ground

I was standing in my empty closet today. in the house alone. I stared down the odd shaped barrel of the empty hangers, and looked out at the world from the former perspective of my not-in-use clothes. the closet is a good place to sing. better than the shower even. almost everything is packed now and the closet is hugging me. i'm going to miss this palace. it's fortified, it absorbs the strains and places them carefully into a slot somewhere deep in the old wood and plaster, willingly offering the service, as if we were old friends. and so we are...and this a much older and wiser monolith of existence than i.

i leave now with no regret, with cautious hopefulness for the future. but i also leave knowing things will never be the same, a feeling described at best as oddly requiting. and in the sea of uncertainty i meet a school of seahorses and a small swimming dog, themselves the ultimate manifestation of peculiarity. what do i make of this? these things? there are many difficult decisions ahead.

but i think the palace is in me now.

Feel the Weight, Back Home We'll Sleep Better

i was sitting on the kitchen counter again. it always seems to be attached to historical events. and to wander.

the artillery at the veterans park. old heated paint. prevents the thing from moving the way it used to. the wires are clipped, and their leftovers stand as a witness to their former destructive tendencies. and the new texture ripples and the indents fill with dirt so the paint looks slightly purple instead of white. my legs are too short to reach the feet slots so i set them just above on the bar.

flash storms. makes the air fresher. but then the brakes can lock up, and suddenly your life is flashing before your eyes--> in an asymmetrical kind of way.

cars and trucks: in a hurry to reach their destinations. my mind floats above the traffic. i see things from the aerial. we move diagonally across traffic in beautiful patterns. it's all synchronized. a car goes straight through the green light, the exhaust is a big black plume. i catalog it to memory, and briefly run through the most recent times I've seen black smoke plumes.

at home. kitchen counter calls. and as i flee i count it as a victory==>and to wander. from the aerial i make odd patterns. not the kind you can make sense of. and reggie brings me back to better days, and as i silently thank him, i catalog the place where bike tires and roller blades have made indents in the pavement, and the patterns of the smoothed out surfaces of the sidewalks ahead, and those that have uneven surfaces. each is the mark of the skill or inexperience of its creator. and the old drive in, converted to a dry cleaners conveniently making life that much more efficient and sterile. at home something is waiting.

another plastic bag is stuck in the tree branches. the wind lifts it. some things are just so beautiful it hurts. and today is not the kind of day to acknowledge that.

thoughts are on that night. we drive. you pick that one song. the one by the june spirit. you played it because it has my name in it. know that night is unreplacable. i still smell your new car, and the discussion about how careful you were in picking it out, you wanted to be sure that nothing on the interior was leather. if you only knew how much of my self identity you singlehandedly constructed.

but i still believe in time travel. and the deflated balloon caught in the tree up the street, the one that has been there since valentines day-it believes too.

Under the Edge But Above the Pinecones, to the Left of the Yellow Grey Flag

the kitchen counter top sees my solitude.
and the silhouette on the glass above the sink is transparent enough to see the wire swinging from the back building attic window.
like some kind of cruel joke.

Nickee Coco and the Invisible Tree

once on cherry street i looked down an alleyway. the wind was picking up and it was about to rain. no not rain, pour. the kind of rain you could smell at least a half hour before the moisture hits. the kind of wind that makes the eaves rattle, and decorative pinwheels spin into a whistle. there were newspapers there. and old leaves that were left over even after the winter. they were spinning up towards thinnly paned windows on the 3rd story.

i looked down my throat in the mirror and saw that alleyway today. i feel unsettled, physically, emotionally. if i could throw up i would.

but I'm not looking for pity, just peace of mind. i walked past the turban house, and looked deeply up the poplars thinking nickee must be up there somewhere, and as i walked i fell off the sidewalk. its silly not to watch where you're going. as if finding nickee is really all that important. the owl found her, but only once he wasn't waiting for it.