Tastes like Anis

I cannot seem to keep my eyes open for anything some days
Malaise of life you pass me while I mumble (but never stutter)
And think maybe I should grasp onto the positive light
Expand it like a prism
Repeat the good thoughts circulating
Above this aching chasm
I flounder,
And want
For words which will transport me beyond the funk I’m in
I seek the capacity for bullshit, and I am stumped.
So I slump, mellow in my shoes,
Slower and softer than I would if I thought this were to have some consequence
Or taint my social graces
So I let my words linger, draw them lazy on the air
Sparing no one the painstaking creation of
My lethargy. It isn’t fair
I think, to let myself go like this
Wishing that I could pull myself up by the strands,
The wisps that fall slovenly and solemn around my tired cherub’s face
I embrace the wallowing
The walking slumber
The dusty charcoal sketched upon my tangerine skin
I notice that I’m looking a bit orange
Before I remark casually three or four times
That I might be hungover
But nothing will condone for the empty bowl that I have left there
Sitting on the counter surrounded by its neighbors
Who wish that I would really just suck it up and attend to responsibility
But instead I linger
In the warm cove that I call languor
Eat a pastry and remark that the next (unnecessary) one tastes of anis

I will do anything to avoid sitting down to write this tome
So much potential,
Yet by the dearth of information, I am overwhelmed
So instead, I seek to fill it with mind games
Fillers of sorts,
Cotton candy
And those literal sweets in which I have recently delighted
Which satiate something in me that I cannot define
I will sit,
And sleep,
And watch,
Breathing in the reverie
Of the English countryside
The stereotype depicted on the silver screen
Which lights my warm cocoon
Finally, I emerge
Not wanting to step on the cold tile, lest I catch a chill
Wanting this warmth to last forever
At least until May 17th (or I guess I should say the 28th of April)
I disguise my time racking up slightly bitter exploits
Like checking my email for the third (or countless) time today
And then answering a friend request on facebook
Answering a late message
And finding the answer to my lethargy in a poem by a new “friend”, Anis, who I know from poetry and fell for once before
Watching reams of videos on youtube while I felt the freedom rise inside me

What a perfect culmination to a day
Whose morning was spent gorging
On some shared and borrowed histories
Not realizing I might have been eating at D-----land
But no, no, really. It wasn’t that kitschy
It was good food with prepared plates and plastic cutlery
I found it all so restorative
The tired void's been rendered
Now only a lazy vice at my temples
After the first bite
My ability to shoot the shit was restored
No need for real bullshit here
Just a little tact and good timing.
I could navigate the social situation after eating
And then spend the rest of the day anxiously languoring
Waiting for a phone call that never came
Which was a pleasant surprise
And fulfilling a contract to father
That I might have had to break
Though I try as I might
I could never truly open my eyes

Light sleeper

If sleep is the moment of death
Then I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t immortal
I, lying dormant in my portal,
Hibernate but never find the time to make my subconscious happy
I neglect my circumstances
And make up nuanced stories
Flirt with moonlight dances
And resign myself to boredom
So much potential sleep
Like the moment after a run
Exalted from exhaustion
Ready for another one
I crave the steady rhythm
Crazy we are falling in love with ourselves we are spinning into oblivion
We never know
How we got there
I find solace in the moment of wakening
Rise not refreshed but submissive
A loner too
Keep private my deprivation
I wouldn’t call it wanting necessarily
But merely lacking what nourishes me
Nevertheless, the simplicity of nothingness eludes me
I paint sheep into gophers
And dig holes in the cerebral canvas, bury them by number
Counting 1, 2, 3…
I have
Crossed fences and county lines even
Dreamt of sleepwalking
And losing myself in the purgatory of a featureless night
Remembering things
Sometimes I find it hard to distinguish between dreams and reality
As if I had forgotten them since the night before
As if remembering could restore the light back to my psyche
But no, I am no such head case
Just a restless sleeper dabbling in psychoses
Wishing for a reason or a joke or a number to keep me going
Something that would explain my sleepless nights
Like the countless reasons to keep on living.

Day N Night

Block houses and dry heat

My mouth tastes of garlic

And my feet are swollen

Slipping into flats

My mind flashes to water

And my body aches for Santa Monica Boulevard

I would run through Beverly Hills

Barefoot, even,

If I had the chance

Cabin Fever

Is a bitch of a muse

She sits on my winged shoulders

And wheedles her way into the back of my mind

I am too impatient for the pen

Too bloated to run

So sensitive to changes in the weather

I loathe the stair

And relish the concrete

Preferring flat planes

To escalators that lead to nowhere

Twirling on my tight-skinned toes

I am finding that

I am incapable of moving

Beyond the reaches of this box

Or traversing these walls

Wishing I would end up in West Los Angeles

Sickened air and all

But clean-

er somehow.

I am skepticallllllllll.
(of myself).

The start of something

Seeing you come through
is a good reason
to think about the El
at Jackson
and that amalgam of stores I never went into

In A White Space On Sunday Morning

"_______ ! Where you running? _______ ? Why you running?"

And I lay still
Caught in a white space on Sunday morning
Submerged in my covers
Thinking about a Lolita dress
And a semi-impotent man on the underside of 40
Reminiscing and imagining
the time that we ate side-by-side
Smiling
under the disapproving glare
of a young woman with her family
Yes, I am too young
And to me too,
this seems dirty
But when he and I went to
make out in the parking lot,
I forgot about everything
Now it occurs to me
that there might have been
Something else
missing from our lovemaking
And I wonder,
Did I tell him not to
Or did he just not like to
Or am I simply blocking out
the memory?
When I look down,
between my imaginary legs
I see two eyes glinting
and his familiar sneer
But I wonder if I am just
imagining him there.
He says that I made him
happy
When I was with him,
I only remember his sinister voice
And when he told me
"Your legs are abnormally
large for your body."
I can thank him for nothing
except his sweet sweet dog
who would spoon with me
when he would go to get
coffee, early morning
or the symbol that he was
for me
Something I made up in my
memory about the proof I needed,
A reason to go on running

Is there such thing as too late
Such a day that I can no longer say to you
That I'm still ok
I'm still in love
with the idea of us
We are friends
And that for me never goes away
I would like to ask you about your parents
Tell you funny stories
Relate about our embarrassing moments
And push the envelope like we do
You are the embodiment of an era
and a memory
A time and a place
A voice and a laugh
I might know what your body looks like
I could have memorized it before
Or we weren't that close
But I know
what your eyes look like
And I know how you write your 'i's
So why don't you tell me about that tattoo
Or those few years when we thought
we were something else
I miss you