Ralph's Photographs

Joe and Ralph are brothers,
and they inspire me--
what's possible.
It's like for Ralph,
everything is just a lens to focus love through.

Ralph took this photo
of my friend nikki
and the sun was shining through her purple skirt and her hair had flowers in it.
and i would like Ralph to photograph my sadness,
to catch me in a moment when it is in me
and the sun is shining through it
and what color would its skirt be?
and what its hair look like?

Tonight I was talking on the phone, to alex, about my childhood
and i said that if i read my life in a book,
i would cry the whole way through.
and even now, writing that,
i feel i need to justify it,
explain myself
to tell you sad, sad stories,
to write you a whole book that would make you cry the whole way through.

and what's so sad is that as a child
you think you made your sadness up,
like the games you play alone in your room,
and so does everyone else.
and so i feel like i'm still living to prove my sadness is real,
and until i completely believe it exists
and and it has a story to tell
and photographs to take
like a real, live human being,
like a ralph or a joe,
it won't leave me.

today, in the kitchen,
i was cooking and eating mango with my hands
and listening to this american life,
and the story was about a retarded woman,
who watched children's videos over and over,
and when her mother was dying of cancer
she made her a video to remember her by
but after she died,
the woman never watched the video,
and she forgot her mother,
who had taken care of her every day.
i was crying
over the sink
because my hands were dirty
and i didn't want to cry over the floor.
i guess it's good to remember
even small, sad things.

ralph showed me a video, tonight,
about physics,
and an important man being interviewed said the reason nuclear power is so powerful
is because it splits not just an atom,
but the center of an atom,
and if we could get to the center of that,
and the center of that,
the energy would be infinite--
the power at the center of the smallest thing.
i would like to commit this alchemy,
split, into love,
the center of my smallest sadness,
my sadness that is so ashamed it lives in my wisdom tooth,
the one that is aching and buried under my cheek bone,
or the birthmark i noticed tonight,
in the bathtub,
might be beautiful,
just to the right of the center of my chest.
i imagined it in a photagraph,
a portrait of it at that moment--
just my breasts and thighs above the water,
my face half-submerged.

and i thought of water as a surface,
a plane, like in mathematics or physics--
its own universe,
or new ground to walk on.
and it's Easter and Passover all at once,
and i thought of how jesus walked on water
and moses parted water,
split it in the center,
and i wonder how much sadness he found at its center.
and i wonder
if he believed in it.

i am going to write this as if i am sadness, for a moment, ok?
i am ana's little girl sadness.

i am sorry, i am sorry, i am sorry
i didn't mean to
i don't know how this happened
it was an accident
i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry
i'm scared i'm scared i'm scared
forgive me forgive me
i didn't mean to
run away from you
i didn't mean to make such a mess
to have knotty hair
to be so dirty
to cry so much
i didn't mean to forget to wear underwear on the swingset in my blue dress in the sun
and spend hours in my room rearranging doll furniture and drawing circles on the floor
it's just that i didn't know what else to do
i didn't mean to be so clumsy
and kiss all my friends
and tell secrets behind the tree
i am afraid of you
and i don't mean to be afraid of you
i find you in colors
i dream sad things
i wish you wouldn't sit so close to me
and say the things you say to me
you come too close to me
you violate me
but i don't have the words to say that
get the fuck away from me
i'm sorry i don't mean to say that
but it's what i want to say
what i don't have the words to say
go away, go away, go away.
i am afraid of you.

Bluebird

I was rambling today to Mark,
my favorite professor,
about how I don't wear dresses anymore.
It's a perfect day outside his office window
the way it's been these past few days
the blue of archetypes and fairytales
the blue that launched a million metaphors
occuring all across eternity
like specks of blue dripped, by jackson pollock, across a timeline that stretches out forever in every direction
the blue of the eyeballs of Disney princesses
with eyelashes that flutter open and closed helplessly.
Snow White and Cinderella would frolick on the lawn today,
butterflies caught in their hands
before they release them,
benevolently,
their red lips bowing like clouds.
the bottoms of their ball gowns would collect grass stains today
befitting a Tide commercial
and the squirrels would crawl up their arms and whisper stories in their ears that would make them giggle and sing and spin in circles, silk sown into the wind.

I wear jeans and baggy sweatshirts
a decision I wish
weren't a decision at all.
I wish I really believed I were born androgynous
like my beautiful friend
who always walks like she's marching in an army of her own making
and doesn't understand the way clothes and colors fit together.
But, goddammit
I like those shoes that look like black lines painted onto cripplingly high-heeled feet
i like the garbage bag dresses
in the photospreads of vogue
with the model whose hair is tangled and spilling in her face
her arms jagged,
like she's not quite human anymore,
a bird
splayed out on a cutting bird
in a gourmet kitchen.
In a day like today she would lie down on the grass and eat the dirt like a malnourished rebellious teenager.
she would point her head down
into her perfect neck
the sinews bent
so thin
so thin.
And if I went up to talk to her, she would only squawk epithets at me,
I bet.
But who knows? because models don't talk
until their crossover careers as actresses
and game show hosts
and by then they've lost their sinewed edge.

it's hard to believe our culture gave birth to both them and cinderella.
i mean, seriously, what kind of mother is that?
maybe she's bipolar and crack-cocaine addicted
suffering from poverty
splintering
going to seed
or maybe she just disappeared
like the mothers in Disney fairytales
died in childbirth
and all her little babies inherited the sin and guilt of that
raised on bottles of soy formula
mixed with too much water.

I wish i didn't have to turn my back on the models dying in the fields
like forgotten crops
or princesses
who awaken from eternal sleep when men kiss their lips--
their last hopes.

"But you do wear dresses, sometimes," he says,
"You did the other day. And that's okay. You don't have to choose."
He means the gala we both went to, for the human rights department.
I was volunteering,
Greeting rich wrinkled faces at the door.
I wore a tight black skirt and tights to cover up my leg hair
and high heels of course.
They clammored for importance on the marble floor
and I felt strangely in-place, a good actress.
commanding authority as I helped squinting old women with crooked lipstick peel back their name tags

and I'm sure it was the shoes.

I was so jealous when Mark walked in sweating in a wrinkled linen shirt
the kind he always wears to class.
He joked he'd spent weeks planning his outfit.
I actually had.
He leaned in close and said he'd biked there,
his eyes glimmering like the sun through the big windows.
We mocked the crystal chandeliers together,
and behind them was all that big blue through the long windows.
and what do you do with all that blue?
do you swallow it?
do you make it into ball gowns?
Well, while I was busy he slipped out the great big front wooden doors
and rode his bike through the blue,
like the end of a movie,
ET or Easy Rider.

I walked outside to greet someone and watched him and thought about waving
but didn't want to ruin the moment
so I grinned and clamored back inside,
a jagged little bird.

procrastination

jess always said she wished she could stop time,
but i think,
if i could,
i'd speed it up
so fast
voices would sound like birds chirping into the wind
their own language
maybe someday i'd learn it too
and we'd all speak like sparrows,
and move our arms like ants
my professors assigning 20 page papers
due in 17 minutes
the cars would just be darts of color
like shooting stars on asphalt sky
shot into the barriers of sound.
and my garden seeds would grow like fountains
spouting out then dying down
digging back into the earth before i have a chance to touch them,
fold their leaves into food
after a while,
i'd just
give up
sigh and lie down in the bathtub of the universe
and let it all roll over me like rivers of jazz
bubble-bath minutes bop-poppin all over my thighs.
i'd dance under the water of time
scat myself to sleep
and then,
make best friends with my prinkly toes.

independent woman

i first see you
in the supemarket
the squeaky clean floors reflect your denim demeanor.
we both reach for the last pack of trident gum
original flavor
because we share an appreciation for the classics.
and your hat is my favorite color: puke green,
and we both have a plentitude of arm hair in the same shade of
eastern european jew
and i like the way you carry yourself,
lightly,
casually,
as if you are dusting the florescent linolium with the hems of your ill-fitting jeans,
and so,
i reason,
sighingly,
we will make love.
i know this because i can imagine it
as clearly as i imagined the guy with the dreads
there was something about them that seemed thoughtful,
like they were matted with insights about the cosmos.
anyway, i'm over him.
Dreads and i imaginary-fucked in a college classroom
but Trident, we'll make love
in a park
on a camping trip,
sleeping under the stars.
you'll point out all the constellations
and say their names in latin,
and i'll resent you for this superior knowledge,
and, trying not to show it,
bury my face in your chest
maybe some nipple-kissing will occur at that point because my mouth will be right there and why else would it be there? and it'd be kind of awkward otherwise
and one thing will lead to another
blah blah blah
and then a month or two later,
i'll discover, at the most inopportune of moments,
that you hate the way my nails are always just a little dirty,
like they can't decide if they want to be dirty or clean,
just like i can't decide if i want to be an activist or a high school teacher. it's all very telling.
we'll be in the car, of course,
and you'll be driving,
because i can't drive and also because the scene is sadder that way,
so maybe it will also be night time
and raining.

anyway,
i'll bite my lip
and then i'll say,
o yea, well i hate the way your pants don't fucking fit
and you'll say,
it's really the brand of milk i drink
with the stupid cow on it,
like, do i really think that cow was raised cruelty-free?
does that really make me feel better about my nice ikea furniture?
and i'll say, ok, that didn't really make sense,
and, more importantly,
you remind me of that science teacher i hated in sixth grade
the one who stared
and always wore gray.
and you always reminded me of him
i just couldn't place it until the exact moment you mentioned the cow
but actually, you're EXACTLY like him
with your fucking earth tones
and penetrating glances.
and that makes you realize i kind of remind you of your sister
the one with the buck teeth
and the weird giggle
god, you hate that giggle
but you don't mention that in this moment
because, ya know,
that's kinda weird.
so we fall into silence.

and when you drop me off at home
i can tell by the way you don't look at me
and leave your knuckle on the gear shift when i walk out into the rain
it's the last time i'll see you.
we've both struck nerves, have too much baggage, brought up too many bad memories
and as i walk into my house, i look back, and see you through the rain-stained window,
popping another piece of gum inti your mouth,
shoving the wrapper into your baggy denim pockets.

fucking bastard.
i don't need you anyway.