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.
Saturday, June 13, 2020
Monday, June 8, 2020
"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I bought a book that was withdrawn from the Douglas Public Library.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:
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:
Sunday, June 7, 2020
"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.
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.
Saturday, June 6, 2020
"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.
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.
Friday, June 5, 2020
"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.
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.
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