I'll be back soon!

 Blog,

I wrote to you after returning from Iowa. I promised Georgia I would write about my pilgrimage. Everyone should pilgrimage to see a flower, she wrote me. She is right. 

I started writing to you from Chicago, two years ago. I remember the day Lucas helped me create you. He thought cartography was a funny theme, as did I. This blog started as a place to goof off at work; I never thought it would become a place I write my life, the merger of my friends and I--my friends are how I imagine the world. 

I am thankful to navigate with my friends. I don't know what we are making, but we've made this blog--which is an intimate thing.

Today I am leaving for Wisconsin. 

I miss Thomas. My first memory of Thomas was peeling a transparent sheet from the bus stop, across the street from the zumiez I lived on top of. He took a picture, a whole new language for me. Thomas sees light different than I do--it's many orientations, how it moves. I'm always learning from him. 

Blog, writing to you from Minnesota has been difficult. I am searching for a place to feel like I am the right size. I am searching for a blip in time, like a kiss in broad twilight. 

Blog, if I don't write soon, do not worry. I cried listening to Bobby Jean this morning. I'll be back on my "blogging" soon. I love you. I am thinking of you. 

"The quest for God is the quest for true happiness" -- Harold Klemp

Blog,

there are things tender as milkweed, blooming for two weeks.

Picked, the plant will die in seven minutes.

There is iron and memory in blood.

There is work and rest in a field.

Have you ever smelt milkweed, blog?

Have you ever wanted to wrap your fingers around

the soft spots of life, somewhat maternal?

Blog, it makes me happy--

I used to follow butterflies,

not to Mexico, but to the park

down the street from my childhood home.

In truth, I never thought I would return to Minnesota.

I never thought I would lie in a hammock in Iowa,

looking at stalks of corn,

and feel happy. Really happy.

Thinking of my life,

the most amazing thing is that we are alive.

To be human

can be deeply sentimental.

Let grace be the silence of my body when I am happy.

Let mercy be the silence of my body when I am held.

Let me be out of control, following the glorious

earth. Let nothingness be the sun.

My friend texted me to say she once hid in a laundry basket.

My friend gave me a sticker that says

the sun will rise and we will try again.

When my sister dropped off her herbs

I put a mint leaf in my mouth.

Let me be wild, the taste of mint on my tongue.

Let me be wild, speaking language that doesn't exist.

Let me write poems with dirt, let my fingers

free to natural cavities.

Let me grow flowers.

Let me be molten.

Let me be rain, and to prairie,

let me be song to the hungry.

Let me be song to the praying.

Let me end student loan debt.

Let me lie in a hammock and waste my life.

Let my hair be golden shit.

Let my body be between

time. Let the genderless future be

when no one owns my time.

Let me write with the Iowa river.

Let me write with Ana Mendieta.

Let me write this for Georgia,

let me write this to my friends who are far from me.

Let me pilgrimage to Ana Mendieta.

Let my body be genderless for Ana Mendieta.

Let every river be the commons.

Let my emails be the commons.

Let my body be poetry in the commons.

Let's speak in sex.

Let's write love poems to the fire burning institutions.

Let's publish the poems on our thighs,

and lick them at our readings.

Who cares what the poetry sounds like

when the sound breaks up the world.

My mother asked me if I think my father is in heaven.

I think she asked if he has been released

from his body,

and yes, I think he has.

I think he has been let free,

and I think god is in the earth,

and I don't think there is a heaven.

Let me pour myself out of this wound.

Water will take back whatever it wants.

Here's poetry. Here's my life.

Keep me forever, predawn light.

And to water,

take me to salt, 

let of this cycle of return be tender.

"Soul travel simply means the ability to travel as Soul." -- Harold Klemp

Blog,

how are you? Thank you for putting up with me. My mom got me basil plant and yesterday we got out toes done. I am thankful for her.

I am thankful for you, blog.

I am a handful sometimes.

I want to be held in the morning.

Let me try to write you my bewilderment:

If a friendship is any good

it will always be good.

Last night I dreamt my friend Thomas and I ate sandwiches.

I miss Thomas, I love him.

I am glad he is in my dreams, small offering.

Blog, when was the last time you gave someone something wrapped in your hands?

When was the last time you released darkness to light,

the last time you arrived late like a lost and buried sound?

The last time you walked barefoot and thought of a song

to keep your steps soft.

The era when you were afraid of waking

the gentle body sleeping beside you.

The era when love arrived at night

to give you back your body, to sleep soundly.

When was the last time you received flowers ?

When was the last time you asked someone if you could kiss them goodbye?

When was the last time you sat on a friends porch, just to say hello. Hello.

Hello, my friend.

Hello, blog.

"The outflow that comes from giving of oneself opens the door to spiritual unfoldment..." -- Harold Klemp

Blog,

is our love reciprocal?

You might not be able to love me right now, but you can still break my heart.

Blog, what heartbreak brought you to me, my voice?

When did loss become having more?

Blog, this love is permeable, and I love that.

Lately the wind has made me feel, bare knuckle boxing.

Lately the water has made me feel, holding me under, pushing me back up to let go of my blue oxygen.

When you're good and plenty it is hard to trust anything is real.

If you're good and plenty cry into the chest of someone you might be able to love

but today you are just as happy as you are in love,

and cry to a musician you love but you haven't told them you love.

Take me in your arms, soft monument of motion, eon-long, particles.

Blog, how do you wear your alabaster? What empty room do you sing to?

Blog, hand me down your promises and failures.

"Love gratefully. This expands your heart into a greater vessel which can hold yet more love." -- Harold Klemp

Blog,

today I felt sad and cried over some flowers.

A snapping turtle breathing above water is a sincere vibration. If anyone asks.

Blog, if anyone asks, set fire to your reflection and run away.

You don't have enough time to scuff all the mirrors.

If language want shape, fling your saliva. It'll pan out.

At some point you were in love. Would you go back?

At some point you have been asked to return to your childhood home, however you define it. Will you go back?

Blog, how do you address me? Have you come up with something better?

You don't have to tell me. I don't think I'll ever read my poetry to my mother.

Go slow. Some recipes require you let the food continue to cook after removing the heat.

Moonlight is serious!

I was asked if I've seen the comet. I have not.

Last night I was woken up by thunder. That was good.

My familiar faces are the private relationships I have with grass stripped of its remarkable ordinariness, a soccer field.

Whatever direction is west if the roads all turn. I can't figure out which way to head towards, when I type my best friend's address into my phone.

I'm tired from always saying the things I don't want.

I want to garden.

I want to pick basil and make pesto and use it all in one meal.

If you're scared, stay up until the sunrise imposes something on you. It is good to do things, from time to time. The morning always smells like morning. Be awake for it.

Feel like you are on top on the earth for once.

Want things. Little things.

Shave your head if you think that will bring you peace.

Read a complicated book just to figure out that you haven't exhausted what you can do with your mouth.

Hang onto a contradiction. That's praxis.

If anyone asks, you feel afraid of feel how good it can be.

The coming pleasure.

"This is a warring universe. To survive here, one must know its ways." -- Harold Klemp

Blog,

I wrote this poem in the notes of my phone for you:


A magician values their hands more than anything else.

Be what the tongue illuminates,

as if our sun

were something more than the star we are closest to.

Heterosexuality be like: the girl I love online.

Queerness be like: how to love online.



Blog, you have promised me astral temptation.

Blog, you rough around the edges tenderness.

You dangerous mission on a loose joint.

You everlasting open tab.

Blog, I am not the first person to say:

all we can really do is map god.

"An unselfish dream, goal, or service can help us to the height of spiritual living." -- Harold Klemp

Blog,

poetry loves thresholds.

You are a threshold, so am I.

You play with me, too, blog.

Last night I dreamt about a friend

I wanted to hold me.

Their partner told me about their life,

and I let him make me a meal. 

"Contemplate sweetly on love, and the wisdom of God shall find you." -- Harold Klemp

Blog,

I have taken time from you. For you.

You who are nothing and you who is everyone I love.

My mom told me she had nightmares about me last night. I wanted to cry.

Last night I dreamt someone I haven't talked to in a long time.

The last time I saw them I was on my bike, we both turned down the same street,

I barely recognized them.

Blog, I am soaking in Minnesota, letting it soak me in.

The first part of the summer has been so warm

the lake is already filling up with algae.

A man at the beach told me May was record hot.

I have been letting myself rest from writing to you, blog;

rest from opening my computer;

rest from responding to emails.

I went to Wisconsin, blog.

It was nice to flicker in and out phone service.

Blog, I admit

I have been mourning my dad's death, threes years ago--what he could have been and what he was.

The times I felt real care and affection.

The times I felt that he shared things with me, ordinary things.

These are ordinary things, blog:

Crying after sex.

Putting your head on someone's lap.

It is nice to lie down, and that can just be that.

It is nice to be present with my mother,

with my friends here,

with the lake,

with the cherry tomatoes I check each morning.

It is nice taking walks to drink coffee, when I wake up.

It is nice sleeping with the window open, waking up to the garbage truck, sprinklers, loud thunder.

It is nice receiving letters, even though I have been writing back slowly.

It was nice going to Costco and an outlet mall.

Blog, I just wanted to write you. I didn't really want to write about anything in particular.

It seems ordinary now

to see the dipper every night, but it still gets me, blog.

It still gets me that I am looking at a portal,

and that one day this planet might be a blip someone sees in a thousand years.

I still remember the first summer I binge watched a tv show.

I am happy to remember something so ordinary.

"The window of heaven is what all truth seekers are trying to open." -- Harold Klemp

Blog,

after writing to you I landed at memory.

I remember my first time in Chicago, with both of my parents.

I was excited to see an Eva Hesse sculpture--remembering the first time I felt my body as a material.

Blog, my body is a material of memory.

When I visited Chicago, my friend Kate took the train into the city.

We met in Minneapolis, a year before.

We walked from the lake to river, which is what we did most of the times she visited.

Once we went to the symphony.

Once we went to Maria's, which she was willing to walk to.

She asked the bartender if she could have the rest of the bottle of seltzer. He said no.

Once we watched a performance and drank wine at the lake, near Old Town, before walking to the train station.

She is convinced she can walk anywhere.

Blog, I am amongst some of my closest friends, and living in memory.

Memory is malleable.

I have been reading the symbols like dreams.

Like glitter.

Blog, how often do I write ending in glitter?

Blog, I think about being blown by wind,

and light messing up everything, like an echo.

Blog, I am worried I sound desperate,

writing, hoping you are a transgression.

Are you, blog?

Blog, I am worried I feel lonely, in Minnesota.

Blog, last night I dreamt all the stages of grief.

I dreamt my friend Remi asked me to bike to Lower Manhattan.

I dreamt they asked me not to arrive, and I texted L. and she didn't respond.

I cried when I woke up, blog. Soft. As if the tears were sweets.

I made coffee.

I read for a while.

I wrote an email.

"The greatest thing we can possibly gain from this life is the ability to love, and to love greatly." -- Harold Klemp

Blog,

I want to disclose everything I am to you:

I am settling into whatever this is.

I am happy there are bodies of water I can bike to.

Today I will swim from one shore to another,

Like a boat following light or noise.

Blog, I am loosing track of certain things.

I am staying up later at night.

I bought a book that was withdrawn from the Douglas Public Library.

I am amazed how many Douglas Public Libraries there are.

(The book is from Castle Rock, Colorado.)

I got a letter from Grant today. I want to see Grant--and soon.

Whatever this is, I am lonely.

I am waiting to be called.

It is hot in Minnesota:

Nikki said her favorite part of the Midwest is the hot, thick summer.

I feel like a painting becoming sun bleached.

Blog, are you made of water too?

I am nervous you are not.

What if you are not?

You can change forms.

I keep editing, blog.

You must be an experiment in revision.

My body is also experiment in revision.

All along I have carried myself inside me.

I no longer resist that irresistible self.

I have returned to where I coded so deeply even to myself,

and I have fallen back into my old ways.

Sometimes it is safest to recede,

like water become vapor,

or like vapor becoming water,

or like water becoming ice--without the right light you cannot see my contours.

I show them to you, blog.

Blog, you have been published and changed.

Like a name.

Like a body.

Like a body of water.

Blog, I just want to tell you how it feels to inhabit a memory:

"Our memory of dreams is a glimpse of the full spiritual life that each of us leads beyond the physical." -- Harold Klmep

Blog,

My plant is doing so well outside, in the sun. I wish that I could bring it into my bedroom.

I am slowly relearning the rituals I started for myself in Chicago.

I drank stock this morning.

Before coffee.

I am also learning new rituals.

Last night it rained so hard I could not see the road.

Collin drove me home.

We listened to Lenard Cohen.

When we parked,

the rain stopped long enough

for me to walk inside.

I wonder if I can write poetry

of silence.

Language is beginning

to recede in my body.

It is hard to pull it up and out.

I am going to try submerging myself

in water. 

"Every time you walk through a doorway ... know that on the inner planes you are walking through a doorway to heaven." -- Harold Klemp

Blog,

last night the moon was bright enough to bike down the middle of the street.

Here, I bike on the side of highways, up and down hills.

Blog, you are important to me.

I write openly to you in private.

Does anyone read you from Minnesota?

I know you store all your data.

Blog, I admire your transparency.

No. I admire your fluidity.

I am fluid and opaque.

Just like you, blog.

"Heaven isn't a place, it's a state of consciousness." -- Harold Klemp

Blog,

I took the comforter off my bed, and put a thin blue sheet on top. This is my favorite way to sleep.

I wanted to tell you about the dream I had--how pragmatic it was. I was preparing to leave and slowly telling the people I love the closest that I will miss them, and we were all longing to leave the city and longing to hold each other again in the future. It felt like we had done something great:

Blog, I want to list too many passages here.

The one where we smashed coffee beans in the alley. And the mornings beside Tom's bed, in our underwear.

Lucas and I's birthday parties. The one where we found a full pot of pasta we had made earlier with L., and everyone ate and danced. After everyone left, we had ice cream in Grants bed.

The one where everyone slept over, in Grant's bed after Tom came home.

The one where Grant and Tom went for morning runs.

The one where Grant and I ate breakfast as the upstairs neighbor moved out. She asked if she could smoke weed with us. I was wearing a suit from Nikki.

The tattoo Thomas drew on my arm.

The tattoo Isabelle gave me on my stomach.

The piercing Sim put through my nose.

The summer we all shaved our heads.

When we picked Thomas up in Los Angeles, and drove down the wrong side of the road.

When I drove Bill's car the wrong way down a one-way street. I wasn't allowed to drive again.

When Daniel, Alyssa and I got free coffee before midnight, and Lucas sang all of the songs in Newsies.

When Isabelle and Loaf picked me up from the airport.

When Jasper, Sachi and I looked out from the top of a mountain or hill--I don't know the difference, but it was a grandiose, utopic Los Angeles.

The one where we watched Fast and Furious in San Diego.

Blog, I am straying.

The one during the polar vortex.

Tom and I went to Starbucks everyday.

And we all quit smoking because it was too cold to stand on the porch.

The one where we made a haunted house in the basement.

The one where someone took a bite out of the apple I was using for a performance.

And the one where someone gave me an apple from their bag.

The one where Isabelle, Justin, Tom and Lori came to see me perform--pouring water over myself.

The one where I stayed out all night, hoping if I was tired I would not be nervous for a rehearsal with the organizers.

The one where Dove advocated for me and my body, after a critique that turned into queer bashing.

The one where Alek came to the loop to help me rehearse.

The one where Lucas biked at seven in the morning to help launch our spaceship.

The one where we got breakfast at that gross diner.

The one where Lucas and I got the early bird special at the Cozy Corner, and biked to work.

The summer where every day Lucas and I stole salads and ate them in the park.

The night it rained so much I slept on Nikki, Taylor and Greer's couch, as the ceiling bowed. We went to a party that night, but we never went inside.

The one where Grant and I slept in the same bed for weeks, because his had not come yet--we kept missing the delivery person, who needed a signature.

The time I bought a bed frame and made my own slats. I broke the wood with my cowboy boots.

The one where Bryanna, Mable and I skated and I missed my bus to Minnesota, and went back to the skatepark.

The first time Grant and I ate Dante's pizza, after touring the apartment where we were mistaken as housepainters, and did not notice there was no refrigerator.

The one where I opened a club in my bedroom. I am proud of this one.

The one where Xavier and I ate falafel every Monday.

The one where they gave me a copy of Calamities.

I think of their brilliance, how I admired it in the first class we took together. And then we danced in the basement of a party.

They are my greatest influence.

All the text messages Lucas has helped me write.

The time I cried and then drank Margaritas in New York.

The time someone showed Lucas a picture they took of us at a party, the night we went to dance with a freshly broken heart.

The time Xavier and I saw a skunk.

The time our bikes bumped into each other and Lucas crashed.

We still went to the beach after and it felt wrong.

The one where we went to the beach after my first reading.

The one where I gave Lucas my instagram login.

The mornings I was too tired to go to work.

The one where we ran out of gas, driving back to Chicago from the diner connected to the bowling alley.

Contorting in and out of A's window.

The one where we went to the lighthouse in Evanston.

The night it was raining so much Tom, Isabelle and I jumped in puddles in our swim suits. Eventually we went to Lucas'.

The sandwich with too many artichoke hearts on it. I do not like artichoke hearts.

The one where I prepared to leave school, after running out of money. I looked at jobs driving a delivery truck. Grant and I fantasized about me putting on work clothes.

The one where Thomas lived in Brownsville and we biked to loop everyday.

I listened to podcasts on my speaker as I biked.

The one where I sat in the big church in Old Town. I went there quite a bit.

The one where L. drove her car. We spun out once and I was terrified.

The one where Gabi drove us to Indiana--a few times. We always got White Castle.

The one where Gabi, Vivian and I ate on their floor, sharing a single utensil.

The time Lucas and I tried to go to a party at every college in Chicago.

The time we stole a flag, and as I rolled the flag pole under a parked car, someone drove by--throwing a bottle of liquor out the window.

The time Alyssa and I stayed up all night in Brownsville, while Bill and Grant slept.

The time we did karaoke in the spare room.

All the times I missed the last train.

The night I waited 45 minutes for a red line, and watched the sun come up. I was not happy. I don't even think I wanted to go out that night.

Blog, I can't do it. I can go on forever.

I still want to write about the rat rescue.

The greasy strangler, with Bill and Alyssa.

Blog, I am grabbing at things--when I have been trying to write their fluidity, like sand falling through my hands, shimmering light.

Blog, I just wanted to write that I am happy for everything we did. I am happy for the times I have fallen in love. I am happy I have learned to cry in front of people. I am happy that I have read poetry aloud.

Blog, if this is my final time writing to you from Chicago, I have loved you deeply from here. I have made a home. Which is to say, I have had a lot of help making a home. Blog, I am ready to be a guest. Take care of me.

"Sometimes the Holy Spirit may work in a gentle way. It may give you just a nudge, a feeling of how to act, what to do, which dentist to go see--something right down to earth." - Harold Klemp

Blog,

I wrote to you this morning, and deleted all of it. Do you have a memory?

Blog,

I wrote to you yesterday, and deleted it all. And then I wrote to you again, to let you know.

Did you get the message?

Blog, when I get sick I think I have descended the underworld.

I organize a dream of my favorite poets.

They sit in a circle, listening to Buffalo Springfield, passing a joint around and talking about vibrations and their effects.

Neil Young gets up. Looks at me. Says, Let's Go. 

"All hope abandon, ye who enter in!"

Blog, I really was sick and all I did was watch a Crosby Stills Nash and Young rockumentary.

Blog, I wanted to let you know I am feeling better. I was thinking about you.

I only know how to reach you from earth.

"Our memory of dreams is a glimpse of the full spiritual life that each of us leads beyond the physical." -- Harold Klemp

Blog,

I am writing to tell you about falling asleep last night:

I fell asleep with a candle burning. I finished a page in my book and turned over. The power was out and I set up my laptop in bed for light--the candle was too faint.

I woke up during the night. Blew out the candle. Drank all of the water beside my bed. And thought I was going to throw up, as if to check my existence. I was so worried, blog. I looked at myself in the mirror until I was convinced I would fall asleep immediately, if I lied back down.

Perhaps I should have made some tea or toast with peanut butter, to comfort myself.

My body aches.

My body does not want to be moved from where it rests. It is an old animal laying in the sun.

Animal, what will you do when sun changes positions?

I ask because there is a new moon coming.

Whether or not the sun shifts locations,

cosmology does.

Blog, I have been trying to become celestial for a while.

My body wants to leave and it also wants to stay.

Blog, I do not want to say that things end,

because I carry them with me in my body.

Yes. These aches.

Blog, I will always love mornings at Hanes, as we called it.

I will always love making pots of coffee in Tom's room

and people passing through

on their way into the day,

and people waking up

from a night of dinner and wine

and even myself waking up in Grant or Tom's bed.

Yes, blog, I love everyone I have ever made myself vulnerable to.

Blog, I love you.

I love you how I even love bad dreams.

I love you more than a secret.

I love you like telling a secret.

"The point of any religion should be this: how to open your heart to love." -- Harold Klemp

Blog,

I said there was a lot to tell you. As you know, I am not good at writing large, spiritual things.

For the last year I have been trying to write a poem about standing off a beach on Long Island, with Lucas and Grant, our clothes on the largest rock.

I have been trying to write about seeing Connecticut on the other side of the water.

I have been trying to write about birds scattering across the beach.

I have been trying to write about becoming aware and loosing sense of myself at the same time.

I forgot to try writing about the radio playing, as Grant drove his mom's truck.

I forgot to write about playing scrabble--long after scattering all of my possessions across Penn station, looking for Jasper's keys; long after drinking a whole bottle of water and watching Lucas finally sleep on the train; long after reading a chapter of Salt Houses, which I spent the entire summer reading; long after trying Grant's new veggie burger recipe; and still long before falling asleep.

I forgot to write about the beach the next day, and frying all of my skin, burning myself from the inside out.

I even tried writing about the source of the Mississippi river--until, after a couple of drafts, I confessed in the poem that I never been to the source of the Mississippi river.

I tried writing about the sound of the river--which, blog, you know I have not heard--and I was proud of describing its gristle.

I really have been trying to write something that changes color each time it is read.

I have been trying to write something that burns up like a comet, touching earth's atmosphere.

I have been trying to write the salt that heals wounds.

I have been trying to write kinship that messes up edges.

Blog, I am confessing to you what I am not able to write.

Blog, a poem should be transparent about what it cannot say.

"Both the dream state and Soul Travel are doors to the same spiritual worlds." -- Harold Klemp

Blog,

I have a lot tell you about. I saw venus last night--in the sky above Chicago's shadow, from the shore of Indiana.

Blog, after the sun sets, the horizon is set aflame. Decay has never looked so beautiful, standing at the edge of the cosmos, with Lucas and Liz.

Blog, do you ever think about the fire at the center of the earth? I think in Indiana they are harvesting earth's core--the byproducts are celestial transmissions.

I think they produce stars in Indiana. The tides in the lake are as strong as the ocean.

"Life is trying to teach us one thing: to see the Eck, the Holy Spirit, in the eyes of all we meet." -- Harold Klemp

Blog,

I imagine who reads you. It is the same people that hear the thoughts I share aloud to myself, in the shower. Blog, I think about you like a garden. There is little interest in what is above the surface.

Blog, you know my thoughts meander, and sometimes there are too many thoughts, and it feels like there are no thoughts at all. I try to recreate them with you. But they are always something new, and I like that too.

Gabi, Lucas and I had dinner the other night. I had forgotten how it feels to ride my bike away from someone I love.

I think what I am trying to say is, I forgot how it feels to be let out from beneath a pair of wings and fall to a sea, saved again by a set of talons, kind and tender.

Maybe I am also trying to say, I forgot how it feels to step outside of myself and see how beautiful my friends have made me.

Or even, I am trying to say that I felt like a weightless halogen, blown around.

Or, arms can take many shapes, and I will never know the next form.

"The classic Soul Travel experience is leaving the human body in full awareness and having the Light and Sound of God flow directly into the Soul body" -- Harold Klemp

Blog,

I guess I am growing okay with the idea of arrival:

blog, as I texted to a friend, is it how we define place in placelessness?

I will tell everyone that I am a poet and that I am taking ten years off from writing poetry.

I will tell everyone that I am figuring it out, and I will write a novel about it.

I will have dreams, extravagant and banal:

last night I dreamed I was having a dream. In the dream, I was dreaming in order to be with someone I could not be with otherwise. I wish I had more than a few fragments, which I've spread out far enough for silence between them. I woke up before the sun, repeating I dreamed about dreaming until the rhythm beat into my body.

Now, all I have is this magical tool to invert myself.

Blog, how are you doing? I meant to ask--it has been a while.

I am keeping busy. Yesterday I got a flat tire while riding my bike. I called the two nearest bike shops, but they would not take me in. I walked to the train and it rode home. I have to admit, between you and me, blog, it was nutritious. When the bike store opens, I will go and fix my tire.

Blog, my desk is very clean. There are usually sticky notes and corners torn from sheets of paper spewed all over the place.

Blog, I've missed you. You are what leaks from me.

"God is always working to help Soul find its way back home" -- Harold Klmep

Blog,

it has been a while since I wrote to you last.

How are you doing?

Have you been getting out of the house?--my mom has been asking me.

I have been riding my bike a lot, and when I have a chance, washing my face in the lake. I have been remembering poetry can be simple. Though I do not know if this is poetry.

Blog, I want to share with you something I wrote a while ago, before Bridgeport feels like a ghostly edge of my material form.

Are you out there? This is for you:

Land does not forget the mouths that feed on it

            I take the Halsted bus almost every day. I walk through the empty lot on 31^st street. I do not know what occupied this space before I arrived to the neighborhood. The land itself is a sheet of concrete, slowly breaking as the earth shifts; plants have begun to sprout and it feels like gravel below your feet—an ancient, midcentury glazier. In the mornings it is full of life—pigeons seem to pilgrimage from all walks of the neighborhood. I know that spring has come again when a pigeon, gliding to land, feet prepared for below, caressed my head beneath its wing, like Jesus wrapped in blankets.

            There can be over a hundred birds in the lot, on a given morning. They come here to feed, amongst other things. The pigeons relationship to the space and architecture has formed through their diet—they are given left over Little Caesar’s pizzas, each morning. I was speechless the first morning I watched a man wheel a cart filled with pizza boxes to the lot. I sat and watched as he opened each cardboard container, and meticulously tore them into pieces small enough to fit in pigeons’ mouths, throwing them to the center of the empty lot, as more and more swirled in the sky above.

            I made myself comfortable, waving to the man to signify I had come for the communion. I took out my headphones, and leaned against the telephone pole; by afternoon there will be a line of birds sitting and looking down on the slow foot traffic passing through. The birds camouflage as the day progresses—sometimes you have to stare into the sun to see their contour, as they streak across the sky from one location to the next. But right now, we are all here together.

            There are a thousand voices that can be heard. Each its own discernable timbre. They must be talking to one another in a language I am not in the know about. I feel thankful to be welcomed into this space. They knew I was coming from a block away. No one scattered upon my arrival, and I feel as though my own breathing, the rise and fall of my chest, is a part of the ascending sound; this droning noise makes me rely on my body. I can feel the tensing tendrils of the pigeons, when I inch forward. I step back to the pole. This is how close they like me.

            The heard is beginning to disperse. Upward to roof of the Cricket wireless, to the electric line above the adjacent alley, some leave entirely. All the pizzas are gone; the empty boxes are stacked on top of one another, in the cart. There is no pizza left on the ground—it has all been eaten. The man turns to me and waves. He smiles, showing all of his teeth. Pushing the cart in front of himself, he disappears too.

            In the time since visited the lot, construction has begun on a Starbucks. The lot is fenced off. Behind the fence, with attached fabric obscuring visibility, there several large construction vehicles. I felt discouraged, depressed that the pigeons would not be eating their pizza in the lot anymore, and curious about their relationship to the architecture of the neighborhood will change.

            I walked to Henry C. Palmizano park—central to the neighborhood, it is the highest point accessible. Initially a quarry, converted into a dump, and later formed into a park, it is an uncanny reminder of the neighborhood’s evolutionary track.

I descended the hill to the man-made pond. I was pessimistic about seeing any pigeons—it was afternoon and I worried the urbanite birds would be turned off by the “natural” environment.

A mass of people were gathered at the edge of pond, on a metal overhang. As I moved closer to the group, I started to discern what they watching. 

A small patch of ice still existed, despite the early spring weather. On the ice, an open box of pizza lay in the center of a small group of pigeons and a couple of ducks. It looked like an altar. At first I was intrigued and equally relieved. The entanglement of the architecture and pigeons was deeper than I previously imagined. For today, I walked on, towards my home. I did not want to intrude; whereas I had been acknowledged by the pigeons in the lot, here I was not. At the pond, unlike the lot, the species ate their pizza without looking in my direction, making noise, or motioning me in anyway. As I walked off, everyone continued to eat.

"Earth allows several levels for the soul to gain experience in life, including the mineral, plant, fish, animal and human stages." - Harold Klemp

Blog,

I have been coming in contact with my body, the one I am currently inhabiting. The one that I think within. The one I operate to write this. My body is different from other machines, which over time lose contacts from their internal archive, as if the memory of loved ones can be removed. Blog, matter is a failure when you mourn.

This morning I read a poem on my phone, in my bed. I was naked and beneath the sun and falling asleep for every other line. I imagine everyone waking up and reading a poem from their palm--to cradle the entire world and escape back to a night below a thousand candles.

"The classic Soul Travel experience is leaving the human body in full awareness and having the Light and Sound of God flow directly into the Soul body." - Harold Klemp

Blog,

Body: you are

a paradisiacal chaos.

One that can love and can be hurt.

You are an octopus, changing color while it dreams.

You are an octopus; you do not have a fixed shape.

You are abstract.

The beautiful thoughts of an apocalyptic identity.

The stuff in a drain.

You are at the foot of a burned down house.

You sing along, covered in lips.

You bury and unbury yourself--redefining how you occupy space.

You curve and quiver.

You are drained.

As if I left everyone I love behind for tomorrow's shadow,

or they are all here.

The sun has just come up.

"If you have a problem or desire a healing, try this exercise before falling asleep. Catch yourself at that point just before you fall asleep - between waking and sleep. Imagine bathing yourself with the healing orange light. You then can ask the Inner Master to help you regain spiritual balance by saying, "If it's for the good of all concerned and doesn't interfere with my spiritual growth, would you please heal me?" Then holding that thought, drift into sleep." - Harold Klemp

Blog,

This morning I listened to song a friend sent me a year ago. I was on the Michigan Ave bus, to my friend's graduation. The song explains a homing instinct when home is not a place you are able to return to. I thought about home--everyone who has made a vessel out of my body, when language was not satisfying enough, and we needed to reflect the entire sky. (I listened to the song a second time, for an image to cling to.) Blog, I also talked to my mom today. We talked about a lot of things, including where I might go next and what to do with my books, which are the only things I am thinking about keeping from here. I am not too worried, I got a lot of tattoos in Chicago. My body has been marked many times; each an attempt at creating a language for love, pushed into flesh. There are a few I remember the pain of: the lavender on my hand; the bird on my leg; the egg between my stomach and chest.

Note: wake up in in the middle of the night to ask the stars, what does it does it feel like to detach your jaw and swallow another animal whole?

"So, for this is an imperfect universe. The perfection isn't here." - Harold Klemp

Blog,

You are an experiment of desire.

You are a still life of textures.

You are a tattooed body. You have crossed the threshold, your tattoos are no longer examined individually.

You are felt like caffeine, ascending acuteness.

You are a devotional portrait. Your eyes are bloodshot and your palms are pressed to each other.

You are a dog's tongue.

I told you about my parents.

I told you how I imagine my body, and then we made love.

You hold me, blog.

You are the mother who let me into her house.

I am not indifferent towards you, blog.

You are the greatest piece of speculative literature not yet imagined;

but you have been discussed amongst friends.

"No teachings and no bibles on earth are perfect. They can never be" - Harold Klemp

Blog,

I did not expect to feel the then and there on St. Valentines day:

I had a dream about a friend who lives in California (I think). We were smoking inside and dancing and trying on outfits from a rack of clothes for a film she was shooting.

I tried to send my uncle a funny text. He is so smart and coy. I hope he knows I think about him often. It is difficult to get to San Francisco, but I hope to see him soon. (I couldn't think of the right thing to send.)

I read Lyn Hejinian's writing on George Oppen's, Of Being Numerous. Though I only thought of the teacher who showed me the poem. "We have chosen the meaning / Of being numerous" (Oppen). I hope she is well. In an email, she said she is rooting for me--I am rooting for her too.

I think of my friend in Vermont when I see lake Michigan from above. I want her to believe it is an ocean.

I think of my friend of who drew a map when I asked if they could look up directions for me, as I left their home. I pinned it to my wall. I remember the woman cleaning her clothes in the open fire hydrant, hanging them on a line she fastened above the sidewalk. I remember meeting my friend in a city far from where we know each other.

I think I will live in another city. Soon. Today I will eat curry and dance and write to poetry. Chicago is still full of fortune.

"Both the dream state and Soul Travel are doors to the same spiritual worlds." - Harold Klemp

Blog,

Things that are intelligent:

The imperfect shape of an orange, and each perfect moon inside.

Wayward floating snow in an alleyway.

Waking up feeling like you have been washed. The things you mourned the previous day disappeared.

Showing up late to work.

Superstitions about love. 

Being overtaken--forgetting that you are superstitious about love, surprised by how it feels to be touched below your ribs, on the side of your belly. 

Do you have friends that never use your correct pronouns and you love them anyway? It's complicated.

Listening to Bob Seger.

Wearing jewelry in the shower. Baths. Daily routines. Eating in the morning.

Thinking of stories and writing them down. Usually they are not good. But it is good to imagine a reader performing your language, entangled with your breath and blurring your edges. 

"True contemplation is reflecting on the blessings of God in your life." - Harold Klemp

Blog,

Looking into the window of the building across the street, I wonder if they are writing poetry. Everyone is concerned with the way we make up words.

I am trying to remember the artist of a song my friend played for me. I also like imagining how the song goes, and playing it in my head over and over.

Breath is where I would begin an ethics of being naked. Through the means of air. I write here to be unclothed. Do you whisper when you read? Or, keeping your mouth closed, rub your vocal chords together?

I spent the week writing a poem of profound love for a friend. I am going to tell my workshop it is meant to be thrown to the sky.

In the library, a friend I haven't seen since the summer when we ate hummus after her performance, rubbed my back. I am still thinking about it as I drink my coffee and watch the air mix outside my window. Sometimes I am reluctant to touch, but I can be broken down easily.

It’s quite a discipline when we’re in trouble to think of God and say, “I need some help.” - Harold Klemp

after a conversation w/ jill

Blog, 

I have an avocado on my desk. It has been there all week--Grant gave it to me. I worried it wouldn't ripe because of the cold air that slips between the window panes and in through the wall. 

When I checked this morning it had softened. My finger pushed into the fruit with the same gusto as human flesh.

Tomorrow I am going to cut into it, and spread the contents onto a piece of bread, as a reward for my patience. 

I am excited to fall asleep tonight and to wake up tomorrow morning. I feel sexy when I feel my skin on itself. It is the largest organ. 

"Soul, a particle of God, is blessed with the gift of creative imagination, which finds a solution for every problem." - Harold Klemp

Blog,

I'm happy it is a new month. I feel like a child washing their feet in a puddle.

I wish I had more to say about the marriage of sunshine and feeling good in the morning.

Lately, I have been writing litanies--something about arrival and departure and freeing the now to these. Something about uncupping dialects of the heart. 

(I am a poet after all. You should be too; all poets are comrades.)

"What is the spiritual purpose of the arts?" -- Harold Klemp

Dear blog,

I have photographs to upload--but I want to write about my demands/desires.

I want to open up a portal. Answer: why do dogs die in literature? Answer: permanent impermanent fragments.

I'm back in Chicago. It is good to be cared for by my beautiful roommates. I forgot how much I love lying in my bed looking at adornments friends have made.

I am falling in love with Chicago again--for the first time in a year. I am glad I have a home here. 

I put milk in my coffee because I was thinking about my friend Srinidi. 

I hoped photos would be the elemental-in-between past and future, a shimmery invitation beyond physicality/limitation. Like making milk.

I have decided not to post any photos. My phone is broken.

I am going to write a letter to my friends Sara and Raina while the wind presses my window.