The Fear Record

Like a moon,

thinking, this night

leaves me able to

hobble along

the way.

Don’t step on

the crack, says

my mother’s

back, and I take that

as truth, like night now.

I don’t wanna

‘oh, god, it’s just

the furniture’

about it all, yet

I don’t wait for white.

The sun’s on the

surface and it is

warm and we all stand

together, unable to tell

the difference anymore.

And so I fear

the peace

of mind;

the accepting &

regretting

a world left letting.

THAT WHICH GOES UNNOTICED, ADVANCES LIFE AS A WHOLE

the slow-droll from winter’s cold

And Because there are indeed, Things like this, there Comes the Notion that my Desire for you is not a Measure in which I could possibly fit into this Speaking of you; for: the Mouth itself, is not a Sound collecting on the Surface; and ‘How Very Silly…’ that this is the Great Mystery that Delivers me to this Moment: an Odd Constraint in the Throat, that Reveals itself from the Eyes; or: Unyielding in Marchs’ Slow-Droll from Winter’s Cold; Or: that I Slept up to the Alarm and then some, Hesitant to Plunge into the Ready of Day, Shrunk to Fit in the Hand and the City’s Core; thus: Bunting, I’ll Relish to Prosper from Leaving the Question of how to Proceed; and the Answer, of course: to Will the Self, Endlessly and Pocketing each Bitched Rebuttal.

Thus Rising and Guising: it is so to Shelter from the Cold Astringency of Habitus and doxa and ‘Oh and Aye and Oh-Oh-My-My-My…’

And Ultimately, I Do My Dear Confess: I View everything in Hindsight; in other words:---------------------------------------------------------------àfrom My Peepers Pinned in your Ass

Who's Afraid Of. . .

My daughter died today. Or maybe yesterday. It is difficult to tell, since I found her in the morning. She could have died the night before today and her body’s reality only realized today. She could have died right before I walked into her room to try to wake her up, thinking she had slept in, missing her alarm, and in any case was late for our weekly breakfast routine.

I knew something was wrong when I finished two cups off coffee and the entire opinion page of the local newspaper without her coming down, slightly ragged and still sleepy, for waffles and the Arts and Entertainment section.

I never allowed her coffee. And now I wish her all the coffee in the house just to wake her up.

She was sixteen today, about to turn seventeen. She had told me the night before that she had plans to go to the movies and hang out with friends until our mutually agreed upon curfew. She had told me “I won’t do anything stupid, Dad…So don’t worry!” over dinner, but dying seems to be an incredibly stupid thing to do.

I didn’t know what to do upon finding her there, a body barely covered by the off-white sheets that would make her a ghost in the hallways of the house.

I called my ex-wife, thinking she should be the first to know, who subsequently cried, cursed, and hung up the phone.

Needless to say, she was of no help at all.

I called 911 next, knowing that, her being dead, it wasn’t technically an emergency. There were still other people out there in need who were still capable of life, if given the chance.

I felt a certain weight of the 1 while pressing it twice.

It felt entirely self-centered, as if my concern was the number one priority in the world.

My daughter hated me, and I always felt it.

She had let me know that the mutual custody her mother and I had of her was by no means her own choice – she would have preferred sole custody, but was far too young at the time of our divorce to voice such an opinion – that each and every interaction with her was fraught with hatred and withering glances throughout the house.

The older she got, the more I tried to interact with her as an adult. She relented, albeit with a certain degree of dismissal, and found that the best way to connect with her was over the morning breakfast-newspaper routine.

We would routinely disagree over the Opinion pages, but found that our aesthetic similarities were enough to tentatively bond over.

Surprisingly or not, we both adored Edward Albee.

I had tried to move her in the direction of similar aesthetics, the history of where his work came from, the philosophy and politics for which he was known. She hated that fact, thinking, I think, that I was being condescending to her own interests.

I quickly gave up, knowing that knowledge is entirely lost on teenagers.

The last time that she arrived, or will arrive, at my place she declared: 

“What a dump.”

I hate to think that is where she thought her body belonged.

One Last Thing

Self-Portrait, At Rest

after the buried ash

Everything seems pulsed without it –

A halo’d memory like a flash amongst the dust (a

Whatnot wherewithal), a splice of glitter glimmered –

Fucked and full of fuckable holes where love is not enough,

The calm that seeps worry into calm and wonders about your health,

A worry that has two fingers, crossed.

And still there are resting moments

That reach out and touch the tender parts,

Fingering it like a spasm. The day you came

Was all but enough because you came, and I did it

Solid with a hand and a mouth and an eager eye.

You on your back not looking back

To those moments when I took your screeds like scolds

And you never bothered to say anything

Since saying something would make it so

And so we left it there, on the sidewalk, like litter,

As if we were the ones who would pick it up later.

But there was nothing like a moon in your pocket,

And I forget the way you talk about your secrets,

The transient motel that knows you by name.

The flicker that shone on us then

Was just other men’s dicks in our faces of fact,

Everything was nothing but a single image or touch,

Then spat out in a review of negative results, until

The whole mess seemed greater than the sheets, and we saw

Enough onto each other to be each other.

The species like cellular dynamic of a whole where

We held the whole, if only for a few hours, hunting

For the hours we lost, the hours we hold dear.