The top of the building is blanketed in peach flurries; the sky gives birth to soft pieces of ice. I am seeing life for the first time here and in the bounce of the rubber roof to my shoes sole, heavy with protection from snow. The lights of windows and the bricks, built high up on each other, this city is breathing! And I can see it exhale better, from all the way up here. What does it mean to live so close to the living and the dead, and in complete disarray without the benefit of a well cushioned fall? I thought it would be colder but this doorway shields me from the harshness of our weather. What if I lived there? I light a match just to see the wind knock it out and suddenly I’m conscious of who can see me and who I can see. Bodies are moving, appearing and reappearing into hidden spaces my eyes angle can’t see. They flash in and out of lighted spaces and I think some can see me but just aren’t looking out. I mostly wonder how smell travels from up here. If I lit a spliff and sat comfortably, would the mother down there catch a whiff? And would she say something? It’s still not cold and wind hasn’t even begun to chap my cheeks but it’s getting lonely up here now and I’m ready to go down again. It’s up there though and I can go there anytime to wonder how far smells travel and if details can be seen in chaos. This is snow season, when the sky gets ready to explode with powder and peach flurries fall purposefully, on course, by secured direction next to the homes and the faces and the open mouths and wet tongues of this cities faces.

I think I may not be a fiction writer.
I'm too selfish and literal perhaps. I want things to be directly put onto my page in almost exact words and thoughts and I seem to have trouble creating things from nothing. This is why I need to go back to school.

And I cannot wait!

"The walls were painted bright blue and were of wood and the lamps threw their shadows against them."
-Hemingway

And after that scary dream the toilet started to overflow! I heard a blub blub sound and I went to check it out only to see water spilling out of the bowl without any sign of it stopping soon.

We fixed it and then, went to bed.

What the fuck??? I just had the most ridiculous dream. It was terrifying and not only because of how realistic it seemed but also because I could not seem to get out of it. At one point, I woke up and looked around me and had a small moment of relaxation and comfort with the fact that I was in fact in the right bed with the right person who was sleeping soundly next to me. That small moment was the only relief I had though. I was pulled back into the nightmare within seconds. I was in Drew's house but it was huge and had many floors and beds to sleep in as well as a large backyard where people were strewn about. I "woke up" there, on his satin sheets with A. sleeping next to me but he never woke throughout the entire dream. I was completely fucked up on something but I don't know what it was. I guess I may have just been really drunk or something but everything was blurry and distorted. Everything was out of place including my own body. I couldn't find any of my things and I was searching frantically trying to retrieve at least something that belonged to me. I found a few bags of weed in the bed along with other miscellaneous items and I grabbed the whole stash of things and put them in my pocket. I didn't have real mobility though so that's why I couldn't just get the weed. My hand only worked in fist fulls and couldn't distinguish between the one object I needed and the ones I didn't. There were at least 3 distinct, reoccurring images throughout the dream. One was when I was outside of Drew's, crouched behind a stone wall when a man at the top of the hill let his dogs loose to get me. They were 3 Beethoven dogs and they came charging at me but once they got near me I was immediately transported to another scene. The other image was of 3 terrorists who were in the basement of Drew's building. They were plotting a scheme and were practicing on some sort of metal object. Somehow, I would go on and off of having the ability to see others but to not be seen myself. At one point, I sneaked down to where the terrorists were and saw the main terrorist shoot the other 2 and I tried to intervene but couldn't. The last strong image I have is of Calla and I in Drew's kitchen. We were talking, or at least she was and I was just standing there playing zombie, when I walked right into a long glass cabinet. At first things seemed fine until seconds later when the glass shattered loudly. Calla screamed in fright and picked up a bloody piece of glass saying, "Oh my god! Jilly! There is head blood on the glass!". I went to feel the left side of my face and felt the pieces of glass stuck deep within my skin. I begin to walk outside, away from the people in the party, all people I did not know and I pulled the glass out piece by piece.

It was terrifying. When I really did wake up, I tried to wake A. up but he has another personality all together while sleeping and he began speaking in this other character. It terrified me even more. I was looking for some reality to bring me back but he was too, in his own mind.

Oh shit! I forgot. The cops came to the office today while I was at the jail. Of course the only interesting thing that has ever happened here happens while I am away. They came and arrested the man who fixes our phones. At first I was sort of laughing cuz it's so ridiculous. He was stealing wires from us or something of no importance to us. Then, T. explained how the cop came up here and he questioned the guy in front of everyone. That is just rude. Even if he did steal a couple of wires....

Maybe I heard that wrong. Stealing wires sounds strange but the only other thing I heard was that he stole copper. Stealing copper seems pretty weird too.

Oh man. Walking today I noticed an old man across the street. He had on a tweed jacket and big, thick, brown glasses. The next time I looked over at him he was lying flat on the floor. He'd fallen and I ran towards him and grabbed his hand to help him up. I thought, "He is my grandfather. He is someones grandfather. He is an old man who has been embarrassed. He is an old man who has gotten back up.".


I can do nice things for strangers but nothing nice for my family, huh? I don't know. I don't think I was so wrong and I think my mother overreacted incredibly. The hard thing about interacting with people is that everything is a reaction to something said or something done. It makes it hard to know who started what first. It makes it hard to know if I've always been a bitch or if my mother's neurosis made me hate being around her and thus, hate speaking with her.

Shit words out.

Sweet, crispy history. We rub heads together, yours bristles against the heat of my cheeks.

We've been buzzing round searching for complete defeat.
I've been writing poems for no one for entire months now.

In bed, together again, I'm concious of how my body looks to you. Sitting behind me, does my back look strange? Do the shadows fall where they should? Do you remember how my hair knots before the day ends?

Tongue to tongue, intertwined like best friends, your taste still slips off and sticks to mine, distinct.

The TV's on, I play wife.
But this time I wont talk about things like that. I'll focus on the rough patches of skin and the hardness your voice can have while practiced.

We hold hand and touch feet,
our lips a second thought.

Play.

They crushed old beer cans with their shoes and walked over sweatshirts instead of what could've been earth. She thinks how she's never seen so much crap before. The hidden places carry the most and this place is full of graffiti and squaters beds. They just use it as inspiration. EAch step feels heavy and their eyes strain to stay open, one in copetition with the other. She sits on a fallen tree, her friend crouches low to the ground, looking up at the open tunnel around him. The colors run into the dirt and rocks placed in between the crap on the ground. When he looks down, the colors have bled to the tips of his tennis shoes, which are white. A third amigo, slender as the path taken on the way here, stretches quickly, the moon light escapes through the space of her upper abdomen and her breasts. The others are captivated, in not for more than a few seconds. Breasts arn't unusual to them but these are particulary large.

Look up, look up!

Ah! Things are looking up, I said! It's true though and I am basking in that shit for as long as it feels good. Road trip '09 is looking like it will be prime and an adventure and full of nature and camping and weed! My mother was almost supportive even which is really what made me happy. She actually said, "I think you are thinking about all this in the right way.". That is such a my mother comment and it doesn't really make sense but to her it does and to me it just means, "I generally approve and will not threaten to never give you another 50 cents again.". I also found a place to sublet for the next 4 months until the trip happens. It's gonna be me and like 5 Indian kids who go to hopkins. Right in the village and I have my own room and share the bathroom and kitchen. They had this weird shit about me possibly cooking meat in the kitchen and since I offered to not cook meat in the house (since it seemed like a ridiculously huge issue for some reason??) he gave me a discount on the rent. 400 bucks a month! Incredible, no?

Brillliance. Today was a lookin' on up day.

Old Love Notes Found in a Corner

"He had Bukowski on his beside table, along with an ivory dragon and a small Buddhist book, locked with beads. He shows me his work, comics first, shaded skulls and shapely older women after. I think of running my hand through those curls. I think of telling him how nervous I had been to grab his hand and how I wonder if we have done it since. I could watch him do nothing forever. In sleep, I hate him, dream up his demise but when I wake I can't remember what I might have really said. The few small moments still, rub off in light, not words. I cannot pronounce them anyways. And when he said that he doesn't know what love is, I should have moved! I lay there, paralyzed with his words, were they really making any sense or just stagnant phrases linked by misunderstandings? I should have kissed him then and shut us both up. Oh well, no regrets, I guess I'll see him soon. That priceless face, when he first saw me! I can focus on those moments and let his demons live separately beneath."

I'm about to re-evaluate shit. After I tripped, it sort of threw my head for a real spin. I gotta get my priorities straight. I think all I've been doing for the past month has been eating and smoking pot and reading or watching movies. And that's fine but Ima bout to make some changes. I cut up my credit card cuz that shit is pissing me off and it's like fake money but its not so that's not cool at all. Next, I am going to severely cut back on my bud intake. I mean, lets not be ridiculous...I'm not going to stop! I just need to make sure that I have done all the other shit I want to get done before I start with the ganja. I am moving out of my mother's home too. I need to get out of there. I'm just gonna sublet a place until May. And besides rent, I need to be more frugal man! If I want to travel this summer I better stop spending crazy amounts of money on shit that I had no reason to buy. And I want to go to Naropa. I will go to UB and be happy about it if I have to...but I think I should go to Naropa. I have been here for so long. It's been a 2 year process and I'm starting to feel like shit needs to begin to work a bit differently in my life.

Last life change: no more 9-5 jobs until absolutely necessary. FUCK THAT. FUCK IT! My next job will be one with shifts.

3 more months to work and chill in Bmore and then I want to be gone for at least a month before the fall starts.

Exciting shit, huh?