So anyway, I'm drunk by myself again.
The title of this post is, COPS IS FUCKED UP.
Or, alternatively, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IS THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

I found a video of myself on youtube. I was singing along. But here is the serious analysis of what, exactly, happened here in the insula.
(Did I ever tell you: we MRI'd my brain in March and I lay there for an hour, maybe less or more, anyway I looked at disgusted faces and then I mimicked them, and then he analised what had happened there, in the insula, and he found decreased activity, I worry about this often.) (This means, simply put, that chemically I am depressed.) (Which is funny actually, because I actually feel pretty ok.)

I have been daydreaming. Of homes. Of places to live.
I have been coming home home from work to boxes of cereal.
I have been sleeping at least 18 hours a day.
I have been resisting calling my coke dealer.
I have been sending text messages to your phone number.

I will write something real here tomorrow. The real response to this image cannot be written at this time. Our apologies.

(incollaboration with wag scala)

Here are the things we lost in the process:

The right to each others' skin & knotted shoulder meat.
The ability to call out to our mothers.
REM cycles.
Certain combinations of words, including each others' full names.
Text messaging.
David Attenborough.
The sweat on our palms.
Solitude in which to sob.


This is one way in which I become absolved.
This is penitence.

Let me tell you a story. It is a story about organics and evolution. It is a story about loneliness and about cravings. About empty bellies and hot showers. It is a story about salt water and bruised vital organs. About shaking at the sight of you.

Once upon a time, about a week ago, we were walking. What's that, I asked. You took my hand. The sun had set. I was unclean. You said, You've never seen a firefly before?
The end.

(in collaboration with wag scala)

Dear Christopher,

It got hot. Up in the 90s today, and I'm sick as a dog. We all are. Everyone here gets off work at five, and until eight or nine the apartment is smoldering, sweaty and dreamless. We sleep a heavy, collective sleep, a cacophony of alarm clocks bleating at us every half hour from six on, painfully reset & hastily forgotten. And then, one by one, we climb out of our rumpled beds and into the kitchen, where the heat of the oven sets itself deep into our bones and we reheat take out and half-thawed pizzas. We sit in the living room on the couch, eyelids swollen, cutting more successfully through the bloated stale air than through our food, wielding clumsy forks up to our cotton mouths.

I've felt totally empty since you left. I eat thick, buttery things until my stomach feels uncomfortably full. Ground beef and eggplant over oily pasta; lo mein out of a carton at least four times a week; kidney beans straight out of the can. I smoke cigarettes until my mouth tastes like woodsmoke days after the fire's burned out. Chocolate chips by the handful. Am I compensating for my sexual unfulfillment? For how lonely I am? Yes.

Do you remember the first summer I brought you up to Montana? We drove up in your car. Damnit, that was a long, hard drive. When we pulled up to the red house, finally, and stepped out of the car, I started to cry. You hugged me under the porch light, which was swimming with moths, and we listened first to the receeding tide of my sobs and then to the Wrights' flock of sheep complaining out in their pasture. You kissed the top of my head and said, It's okay, baby. It's dry out here. Then we went inside, and I crept upstairs to my parent's bedroom, to wake them and tell them we'd made it. They came down into the kitchen, where you'd poured a tall glass of water for yourself. My mother in her glasses and blue nightgown, my dad pale and shirtless, shaking your hand. We brought our bags into the house, left them in the livingroom and undressed in the downstairs bathroom. We brushed our teeth. And then, exhausted, made the quietest of love in my uncle Kit's childhood bedroom, sideways in the blue rising light of early morning.

We woke a few stark hours later, to the breakfast sounds of my sister and her children. You introduced yourself to my family, and then you kissed first my neice and then my nephew on their temples. You looked Caroline in the eye and said, These are gorgeous children. I sat at the dining room table and sipped hot coffee, watching you. I wonder if you were thinking then about your plans to pack up and move out. At that time, no thought was farther from my mind.

Later, I called my uncle and asked if we could come over and swim. I laughed when you put on your swimming trunks and grabbed your waist, pulled you into me. My aunt and uncle met us on their verandah with two bottles of cold Big Sky IPA, on their way out to meet friends for lunch in town. They opened their doors to us, and I led you into their cool, dark kitchen, showed you pictures of my cousin, and of myself at a younger age: red-cheeked, watermelon-stained. And then we worked up a sweat, jumping on the trampoline on the back lawn. I led you through the willows at the creek's edge, showed you how to hang up your clothes on the pliable branches in the midst of the thicket. I put one arm over my chest and used the other to claw our way through the limbs of the trees (trees I remember, always, as being much smaller) to the cold rush of the water. I stepped right in, waded over towards the deepest part of the stream until the water reached my thigh. I beckoned you over with a laugh. You said, Fuck it's cold. You were right. That water is snow melt and it's got a mean edge to it. I said, Come here.

Hestiantly, making faces I'll never forget, you fought your way towards me. I pointed to the middle of the creek, where the water runs fastest out of the culvert under the road. I said, On three.
One.
Two.
Three.
And then I was under, skin puckered and pinched. You'd stayed up, remember? Cowardly and frozen. I broke the surface of the water from the bottom up as violently as I could and grabbed your shoulders, pulled you into me. Only our heads, mine wet and yours dry as a bone, above the water. You yelled, and to silence you I put my mouth on yours, wrapped my legs around yours. The sun was hot above us, drying out the earth and the freshly cut hay out in the feilds. In the creek, shaded by the willows from the prying eyes of passersby, everything was cool and still.

Our bodies slowly came to terms with the chill of the water. We wrestled and kissed and touched. And then we climbed back out, collected our clothes and wrapped each other up in stiff towels. I showed you the best spot to lay out on the lawn, and we delayed getting dressed until we heard my uncle's car pull up in the driveway on the other side of the house. We went out to them, and my aunt was cleaving a watermelon into chunks on the porch.

That night, just after dinner, my dad said our names solemnly. He motioned us out to the car. We got in, and, laughing and joking with us, drove us out to the lake. He parked on the hillside overlooking the canyon, where the lake runs to the dam. The sun had just set and a golden glow of afterlight coated the earth. You and my father shared a beer sitting on the hood of the car, and I stood a little ways away from you, listening to you talk.

We climbed into bed bone tired but soft and smooth against each other. I have often wondered if I will feel that kind of satisfied exhaustion again. And I have often wondered if you will ever be in those places with me again. And whether there are similar places from the history of your own life that I will one day be in with you.

Christopher, my heart is heavy in this humid place. I fell in love with you without meaning to, and I apologize for that. I am not trying to make you sad: I am trying to make myself happy. It is self-indulgent, this feeling of love like mollasses flowing through my veins, and the only way I know how to leech it is to spread it thick onto the pages of this stationery. Toast and honey. I find myself daydreaming, creating our own histories, spaces for us to inhabit. I can't help it. I will try not to weigh you down with it. I will try not to tie these lead weights to your boots. I cannot guarantee that I will not wait with a pain in my chest for you to reply or return, but I can promise you that I will continue to live my life fantastically, corageously, and with grace.

I am missing you with ferocity.

Until forever,
Yours,
Eleanore

(in collaboration with wag scala)

I brought my Nalgene but it was filled with limeade and gin. We drove up in your Grand Cherokee, listening to loud, vaugely sad music from San Diego. At first everyone was talking and singing. I sat in the front seat, which is where I always sat in your car, and I smoked cigarettes out the window. The wind of the highway against my face and turning back, laughing at what David and Nicky were saying as they sparked a blunt. You took your hand off the steering wheel and gripped my leg above the knee. Isabel, with Rose on her lap, was already beligerant.

When we pulled up to the gate, you turned off the music and we sat staring at the padlocked fence. Summer sounds crept over to us and suddenly the building looked sad, no longer the menacing and stubborn character we remembered it as being. Should we get out and climb it?, said David, leaning in so that his face was between yours and mine. His breath was hot and purply: a fake grape scent clung to his saliva. Nicky, without saying anything, got out of the car. We watched him in the yellow glow of the headlights, his back to us. He shook the chain-link and paused. And then, a resounding pop and clang of metal and the gate jerked open. We drove in and you stopped the car right next to him, and I could see blood on the white canvas of his shoes. He held his right hand in his left and said, Hand me that Jack. He took a long pull on the flask. His face was pale. You cut the lights.

We had thought we'd go in and do some damage. But as we piled out of the car, I realised that all I wanted to do was look. To watch the place as it was without us: deserted and sweaty.

The paint cans stayed in the car.

We walked out, a silently wobbly group, towards the baseball diamond. The floodlights were on. We sat on the bleechers. This wasn't the scene any of us had been expecting. I got tired and laid my head in your lap. I wanted to have sex with you in the outfeild. You put your hand on my shoulder. And then, David in his clear bell of a voice said, My children are going to go to this school. And we all nodded, like Yeah, mine, too.

(in collaboration with wag scala)

Dear Christopher,
I know it's only skin, but it means so much to me. It'll grow back, yes, but smoother this time. Shiny. Maybe we should quit smoking.
Or buy a car.

I lay on my stomach with one hand under my pelvis and the other up by my ear. The sheets got hot and sticky under me and the only thing in my mind was the face you made when I said, I'm close. I wish I could fall asleep but I'm hungry and my neck aches and these walls are paper thin. There's one scar on my right leg that I don't think you ever saw. I was angry and sitting dry in the bathtub, one night after Claire had come over for dinner, I was 16. After we ate she went into the upstairs bathroom and ran all three faucets but I could still hear her choking it out. This was when she lived in the apartment on Fulton by herself, right before South Africa, which I think is where she switched to vodka. Anyway then she went home and I put on my pajamas. Mom and Dad went to bed and I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and I couldn't help myself. It was about a quarter of an inch deep and probably needed to be stitched. Whales' blood is so thick with iron that it looks black. My knee jerked up and I hit my head on the tile by accident. Then I sat for a while. A few weeks later my mother said, What happened to these sheets? And I told her I'd gotten my period unexpectedly. I was 16. We are allowed to fuck up occasionally.

I forgive you.

I spoke to my mother on the phone this morning. She told me that she failed French in college. She sounded disappointed. I lied and said I'd won at beer pong. She laughed and said, This is a good thing. Then she said, The last thing he needs is to come home to someone who's just been pining away, sitting in bed all day missing him. I think she's impressed. I think she pined for my dad when he moved to Hong Kong. And then again when he moved to London, and then to Belgium, and then to Germany. And even more when he moved to San Francisco and she was at home with us, two sad and guilty daughters, each inducing endorphins in different but comparable ways. We thought we were keeping secrets. Our mother saw everything.

I forgive you.

What I am saying, Christopher, is that I think you should get a helmet. And that I'm so glad we didn't call Lighty last night. All that cocaine is just salt in the wound.

Okay, baby, I'm going to go buy lunch. Tell me when you get a phone number, or an address.

All my love
Eleanore

(in collaboration with wag scala)

We used to worry about the silliest things. You and I.

Do you remember our first morning upstate, you pulled the curtains open on me and I curled up and away from the mid-morning. How you laughed. How I put one hand over my chest and the other over my eyes and fought my way back into the dream I had been having. And you said, what is this! You said, I love this you! You lay on top of me and breathed on my face.

We made love seven times that weekend because seven is my lucky number. Your spine shook. We showered and you washed your hair, telling me that the most personal thing about a person is the way they dry off after bathing. You put soap on my shoulders and watched while I stood under the water, rinsing off. The night you left I got into the shower to be alone to cry and immediately regretted it. Soaping up I felt like I was washing you right off my skin and I hated myself for it. Me, I start with the towel against my arms, first right and then left; then my legs, first left and then right. And then my belly and my back, and very carefully the nape of my neck, and the space behind my ears. And then I fold the terrycloth around my whole body in a hug. It's lonely, drying off without you.

We stood in the rain in those ridiculous blue ponchos, and you were kidding, but I really did feel baptized that day. Like I'd unzipped the sleeping bag of myself finally and climbed into the sheets of a shared bed. Like finally I could calm down and be honest. Like it didn't matter that the sky was covered in a layer of clouds because I knew that up above the sun was shining. Like finally I could say everything- even though I didn't.

When you and Asher lit that bonfire in his backyard and smoked it, and afterwards when we were sitting on his couch, when you were fighting with my hand against your leg, that is when I fell in love with you. Not for the first time and not for the last. I looked at you in the blue wash of television and saw you at every age. Then in a lull you turned to me and asked me, What are you doing in a year? And I wanted to say, In a year I'll be in your bed and that is a promise I'm not strong enough to break.

(in collaboration with wag scala)

because all my life i've been crying about one thing or another, and this, this this this this this thisthisthisthisthisthis is one thing i refuse to be sad about
because i needed clear eyes to look at you with
to drink you in
and burn the image of your face onto my brain (that scares me the most, what if i forget what you look like, you you you you you you you youyouyouyouyouyouyouyou you bright illustrious cosmic force)
and then on the train even before i find a seat i am sobbing
and then the train is filled with salt water, my own secreted ocean
and then at home the first thing i do is put on your shirt and the hat you gave me
and my big headphones
and into my ears comes herstory of glory and then the room is flooded with salt water
and yechen is reading about the stock market and i fucking hate her so much, i want to say to her, why can't you just leave me alone? why can't you understand that the most beautiful thing just happened to me? why can't you just get the fuck out of here? why can't you leave and let me lie in these sheets and this shirt pretending i can still smell him?
i can't feel my face
and these little sounds are escaping my throat, sounds i've never made before
my hands already miss the feel of your face
i'm sorry, i don't know why i couldn't cry, none of this feels real, none of this feels like it happened, did it happen? did i have you and are you gone? in the car when you put on that song it felt like everything i've ever felt was welling up in my extremities, this burning adrenaline rush of sadness swelling my capilaries and the tears just spilled out onto my face as if i had no choice, i had no choice, and my jaw muscles hurt because i bit down so hard trying to stop myself, why couldn't i cry at the station?
and now you're shaving
and packing up, moving out
i love you so much

my sister is mentally ill. she has bipolar disorder (type II) and is an alcoholic.

i've only had the words for this since last week and i'm sorry but it makes me so incredibly sad. and i think about it all the time



(i wrote & posted this on july 15; then in the morning i took it down because it felt too raw; then i realised i need it up here because it's true and it's new and it's punctuating my life, so maybe it should punctuate my blog, too.)

Why can't I write to you? Why can't I speak to you? Why can't I translate these synaptic transmissions into words?This used to be the easiest part. This recording of emotions, the naming of feelings and thoughts. But I can't do it for you. is it because I was burned by that impulse in February? been told so often not to fall in love, been laughed at too many times for telling the truth
is it because I'm afraid of how much it's going to hurt when you go? (it'll hurt whether or not I write it down, I know)



I memorised it, as humiliating as that is, :

Because I found this the way I found you: raggedy-edged and glorious,
Darling. Tender. Terribly important.
I'll never forget you, bright illustrious cosmic force.

Boundless love,

all i can think is how easily that must've slipped out of her,
i know that feeling (how many love notes did i write to julian? how many to james and to jacob?)
but
it's that middle part that really gets me: darling. tender. terribly important.
and the part where she said, i'll never forget you.

why does it cleave me so?

because it implies for her something enduring and thickly felt. and because those words, darling, tender, are words i would never have thought of. because, try as i might, i can't produce anything similar: my attempt would be in imitation and i just can't make words coagulate like that for you. and that's something i'm actively struggling with. the incompetence of language is not something i am used to running up against. it makes me anxious that i can't put this on paper. why can't i? this worries me, this dumbness. i write you out and it's clunky, inaccurate, i use the delete key more than anything else. is it my closeness?
am i just saturated with you? in that case, i fear the inevitable flood when you go. i'll be drowning in salt & squared pages before you even land.

see even this post sounds like a fucking--
speech or someshit
i have some good combinations of words going (thickly felt; make words coagulate; being saturated with you) but the rest of the paragraph reads like some stupid bitch with a heavy heart wrote it. and yes, i know, i am just some stupid bitch with a heavy heart, but usually i can make it sound better than that.
and not being able to write it down means it's all just sitting in my body cavity, soaking and accruing and getting heavy. so heavy. hard to lift.
and the quality of this writing is just, embarassing. i want to write something beautiful and clear-eyed so that you will know how i feel. i can't even end this fucking post elegantly. shit.
its not done yet but go ahead.
WHY!?

my heart hurts

fuck these distances, long and rambling over this country that shouldn't even exist, fuckers. (misplaced anxiety). (misplaced frustration).

no i don't want to ride your horses

no i don't want to swim in your creek and no, i don't want to dream about you.

and i don't want to fight about this. (i sleep exclusively on my left side now; did you know that i dozed through the last half hour of that four-part masterpiece, my ear against your chest. no, you didn't know.)

hmm. we breathe. we comfort ourselves with the quick pace of time. we try to think in the parts of our heads that don't contain each other. we occupy our hands. and we try not to cry.

hahahahahahahahaha!

I WAS JUST THINKING about how I had no beautiful combinations of words for you. About how no poetry would ever contain this feeling. How what that girl wrote is, yes, it is true & beautiful & lyrical (though, maybe, meaningless). And how I would never be able to come up with anything so wistful and filled with awe; nothing quite so excellently grand. Instead I just miss you: a gentle achey pull at my sternum that has no words. A dizzying longing for your body and for your voice and also i want to sleep with you for days.

potatoes are grown from the eyes of other potatoes.