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120109-172 (eat your own filthy past.odt)

words fall short, and convenience eventually too.
a door closes, and even though
she’s gone,
she isn’t gone.

she’s spread out all over the floor, in the carpet
you’ll be pulling her out of your pillow for weeks.
know, the sum of her physical being hangs
twisted inside pale creme flakes, or straw golden pili.

wherever she’s been, there are
dust mites leaping from her touch,
cleaning your furniture and dirty sheets,
erasing the past, the greatest cover up.
(mites may, what might have been)

as she walks outside, into
chaos and war, the rape of the world,
your mites have snagged to her,
tiny travelers swung loose by fate.

every
curl of the lip, each rake of the hair,
the cousins watch her, watching you
in a tear stained print, near the water.

120109-172 (tehcraigers.odt)

i found this on my old computer. it’s based on a series of dreams i had during the summer of 2007 being lonely as fux living on cherry st. in lansing. i didn’t bother to edit it, but i probably should. don’t know, don’t care. here:

“last night i dreamed that i was building a fire in the hallway by the cafeteria and the cashier’s window.  i saw you turn the corner down the hall. you were as tall and shadowed as i remembered you. you cracked and smiled. i ran as fast as i could to meet you. i jumped on you and kissed you on the cheek, just like i would if you had turned any corner with my eyes open. you held me and swished, still cracking into pieces, that dark smile.

we feel like the cold, damp war-children between winter and summer. we are falling like autumn. shivering like worms in the cold ground. the smells. irony like the acrid smell of sugar beats wafting from the north. the need to seek heated buildings, the open defiance of instinct in favor of art.

we took pictures of the pink elephant water fountain. i said it reminded me of the promise ring. you said i reminded you of maritime.

we were by the river, close to the bay. the street was lined river-front with storefronts. water street, the one with the coffee shop that sells pumpkin spice latte’s, splattered with fake autumn leaves. down a block, St. Lawrence candy store, where we bought ufo candies and pixie sticks. the restaurant across the street where we had to talk them into lending us a bottle of their worst red wine.

we sat under the bridge and threw stones at the carp feeding on the soggy remains of our sandwiches. you put the blanket around me. you were wearing the navy sweater i gave you in photography class. i leaned onto your right arm. you snapped a macro shot of my face with your left.

i leapt up and ran, tried to hide behind one of the new, green, catwalk benches. you caught the blanket and i ran off without it. i took a picture of you and the tent you made with the bench and the blanket under the orange street light.

we were riding around in your old car, a surprisingly clean 1986 chevy impala. i rested my head on the open window and watched bay city blur around us. you hugged the curves as we weaved on and off of the interstate.

when i woke up, you were sleeping too, but without the blanket, which was draped over my left arm and leg. you had positioned the car so the first thing i would see when i woke up was the old abandoned factory with its windows busted out.

earlier that day, i had taken pictures of you doing cartwheels in front of the factory as the sun was burying down for the night. that was also before dinner at the italian restaurant. eggplant sandwiches we didn’t have money for, so we drew the proprietors’ portraits instead.

you asked me how i liked matt, his red-haired skating and a final fantasy 6 behemoth tattoo. we were laying on the wet grass, and thought about what autumn was doing to the water, making it cold to think of on fingers and feet, but still warmer than the air that settled on our sweaters. i asked you why you came back. you looked at me as you forced open the bottle of wine with your swiss army knife. the last time we drank together, it was 8-star whiskey at my old band practice loft. that was our goodbye celebration, although neither of us knew it then. i couldn’t stop myself: “ so what you mean to say is that you’ve been dissolved in the water this whole time?” you told me every drop on my eyebrow and down my eyelid, every ocean i’ve dipped from and every lake, river, and pond i’ve swam across. any puddle that wetted my toes. i murmured an arrhythmia like a heart skips a beat –

thank you for all of your help.

it started to rain so slightly. you kept your distance but held the blanket over me while i breathed deep pulls of the dry mahogany with fruity and coffee undertones. the taste on my lips left something to want. they wouldn’t let us into the planetarium, so we watched the stars from the parking lot.

when you picked me up that morning, you told me in cracking, that you wanted to have fun with me today. you left a gap for daylight between us, to be a gentleman in a shaggy haircut. you held my hand only once before, when you pulled me onto the snow covered ice in the courtyard. i didn’t trust it, but i trusted you. you didn’t let me fall through the ice and we skated with our hands folded inward. that was after we agreed we were never going to leave the photography room, because nothing but heartache and evil women were outside the door. we stayed there, living off cookies and punch from the party until we struggled under the door, emaciated. we were right. i should have kissed you when i had the chance.

i made you drive me back to the college. back to the art gallery, where it all started. the photography rooms still smelled like stale sliver and development chemicals. remember when i cut my hand open in the dark trying to wind my film? i got blood all over the negatives. i developed them anyway. remember when i gave you your angel wings? someone stole those negatives while they were drying in the rack with the magnetic poetry on the outside case.

the gallery was lit by spot lights. breasts and vignettes of nightmares blurred across the walls. a large tin angel all shards and broken things spun in the dry heat, challenging the damp we welcomed in with us. i took you downstairs to where the writing started. upstairs where we used to talk about Oasis on break. then, to the alcove outside where i left you for a distant dream in flint. my heart was still fluttering in the air like a humming bird. we put our day up on the walls, matted in the room off the southern hall.

we walked back inside. i told you that each moment in our lives is perfect and eternal forever. i said that this was just a cross section of the time we had already spent. we were both hanging in perfect art and words suspended in time. like two colors blending together. i started to cry, and turned away. you grabbed my hand, i could feel you feeling the webs between my fingers, and every capillary begged for breaking. like a gyroscope, i  torqued back around and into one arm.

you kissed me.  then, we fell backward into a glass display.

a large clay heart fell to the floor with us and shattered into earth and stone. you were now the subject of the spotlight, and not so dark from the side i couldn’t see. still sopping wet with dew and falling leaves, you kissed my forehead, squeezed my hand, and you disappeared. i laid still waiting for time to intersect again. it didn’t. i walked back out to your car and the keys were still laying on the seat.

i drove back to bay city. back backwards. i drove until i couldn’t remember where i was going. when i woke up -
the tattoo on my arm was glowing in the dark. i want you to know that some day we will be famous.

that is, after we both curled up, knees touching indian style, under the blanket while we drank. that was after you handed me your blueprints for construction/deconstructions in the gallery, before my art had been taken down to make room for photoshop collages. that was before i called myself an amateur chemist.

that is to say, maybe our times will cross again.”