public libraries in america
like temples in india:
the homeless swarm outside smoking
eating from yellow paper
inside a baby howls
and all the books are quiet
i have forgotten words.
how to use them, how to love them.
if nothing else, this i will relearn.
deep breathe away other anxieties:
other people have other journeys,
books they will write, books they will read.
you have only your own journey. all you can do
is walk it, watch everybody with love, be honest.
more honest than you have been before.
mid-year resolutions: do the right thing
even
when nobody is watching, especially then.
it is important to have these times of total chaos,
all script concerning you as a person suddenly smashed
to nothing and you must begin again. many past scripts.
many other scripts and possible scripts. but you get to decide
this time around. who are you, who you want to be. there are
few walls here, you get to be new, you get to be you, nobody cares.
nobody cares. it is scary how free you can be here. your life only yours.
your legs lonely or tangled. your head bare again and nobody cares.
you can eat or not. you can sleep or not. your life a little package, compact,
fitting only in your hands. you can share but nobody will come knocking
if you fuck up, or if you don’t sleep, or if you don’t wake. it’s just you.
enjoy it, i suppose. what else can we do? outside, people are smoking
a hookah next to my precious bike. a woman in blue has a chain
around her hips, she is waltzing in the sun. her arms are full of meaning,
such emphatic gestures. inside, i try to work, and work. i must
deserve this life. i must live it. i must unlearn the anger towards myself
that has been building, building. i surprise myself by the vitriol
in my mind-voice these days. what the fuck what the fuck what the
fuck are you doing. such thin patience for my own mistakes.
for good reason. but still it hurts. tomorrow i must be honest.
must make the right choices this time around. i must be alone
if i must be alone. it is hard and ugly but i know it is right.
must be grateful for the love i munched on. it was deep love,
naval-full love, nourishing love, hard love. there will be time
in my life for a long love, but now is not the time. sometime
if not now you will have to relearn aloneness, its silences, its hurt.
learn it now, now is good. other people are marching on but you
owe nobody a thing. you can do your journey slow if you do it well.
step by step: ride your bike, climb a wall, paint a tree, read a book.
this is living, and you must step into it lusciously, your skin must
feel its water. enough numb living and unfeeling. you are new
and you don’t know who you are again: this is life. this is not
the first time. this is not the last time. there will be many moments
when you forget everything, when you must, in order to bake
apple pie, create the universe. it is taxing on your bones. but
the freedom of it! the wild limitless possibility, the undoneness
of you! what you can make of yourself. who you can love.
how. how you can live. everything is bare and blue and you
get to build. things will feel less bad. things will feel
less bad.