(i dreamed)

i painted his eyes

and his insides

it was an abstract.

when i awoke

my hair was in a tangle

my tongue in knots

my spine stuck.

the sheets were wet

with sweat

and salted tears.

i misunderstand

(disassociate),

love way too deep

and run off.

i have to sit somewhere alone

and hold my own hands

to cup

the gravity of his face

and the tornado of mistakes

i will most likely

continue to make.

in a world full of beasts..

i love this beast most of all.

she brings me joy

when i can find none on my own.

she turns tears into laughter,

loss into gravity.

she is my truest heart..

my angel beast.

Open heart surgery

i am remembering the early 90's today. the streets of new york city. hand in hand with my future ex-husband. we have no idea do we? the beauty that awaits.. the devastation.. the miles of numbness.. the injuries.. the spells of joy. my legs fell fast asleep as the avenues stretched from harlem to the diamond district but he pulled me along. my heart like an engine that would not die.. i could have walked to maryland.

he was my boyfriend then. he was sleeping on his brother's floor uptown. i was sleeping in my childhood bedroom. i took the train into the city once a week to visit. nothing had happened yet. we were still going to be very famous. we were still going to travel and have adventures. we still held hands everywhere.. we had no life together.. we had no money yet.. no house.. no favorite television shows.. no private jokes.. no mutual friends.. no bed.. no christmas decorations.. no nightly candlelit dinners.. no little dog to love like the baby i couldn't have.. no change.. no disappointment in each other.. no what ifs.. no fence that he took two years to paint.. no relapse for me to disappear into.. no in-laws to resent.. no big bank accounts.. no bankruptcy.. no record deal.. no lust.. no anti-depressants.. no sad silence.. no sex life to sabotage.. no backyard for me to spend a summer staring out the window at.. no baseball card collections.. no clothes i did not need.. no separate vacations.. no history. we were just a boyfriend and a girlfriend walking thirteen miles straight down the middle of new york city like the first impatient and clean cut into a wedding cake. and i am remembering it like i'm tracing the long thin line of an open heart surgery scar.

France, 1999

i closed my eyes.

more than a thousand yesterdays ago.

i swallowed sleeping pills and cried

a few poems.

i prayed with the canadian christian girl

who i was sharing the room with.

she told me god had a plan for me.

so i slept like a child.

in the morning

i stood on my train legs and walked to the window.

then sat shaky

looking out over the rooftops of Paris.

the roofs of Paris like beautiful rotting birthday cake.