there’s something new in the works my friends.
been trapped in this year like a bad dream. it’s been a year of utter disappointment in myself and surroundings. i found myself in the city of brotherly love again and it was all repeated. a sense of linear motion through a year on a straight line. that line does not go up, it just goes forward. the same rerun of desperation, desolation, and the feeling of being boxed in by the silver and brown buildings. scott once told me he hated it here because you can’t see the sky. i now know more then ever that he’s right. the sky grounds you. it lets you remember that we are hurdling around space like maniacs at the helm of a too big cruise ship crashing into an iceberg. the fucking titanic.
this is self reflection like i haven’t done in a while and so let’s be completely honest. i gave up on a life that was over before it even started. i left him out there with his cold selfishness. after that a peice of me felt like it had been taken out and that’s the cold truth of it. i have muted feelings if none at all. when i wrecked my mother’s car against that telephone pole most of it drained out of me and for a short time i was a happy fool. death stared me in the face and winked. my grandmother’s body laid a slab of chilled flesh and probably painted to look asleep. i decided then that’s not what we are. i decided that our bodies, if nothing else, contain an energy (if not a soul). we carry personal histories and i realized that as we cleaned her things out of her apartment. they were all just things anyway. and i hated the way we held onto them for sentimentality. even if i am the most sentimental loser you’ve ever met.
for a while i considered giving up writing. it seemed that poetry was a pointless expression of my own self absorption. that’s why i attempted the transmission series. it was a chance to write something that was only connected to me through observation. it had little to do with my own personal life. it was a way to observe and comment. i lost steam with it somewhere. i wasn’t sure what else to say with it. or what. if it even mattered. i still consider not writing. but this here, right here, it very important. there is no other way for me to get this out of my system which has been clogged and corroded as of late. i have been living in a past that doesn’t even exist. i have been clinging to memories that help no one. all of these things have prevented me from writing, friendships, lovers, family, and myself. this is only a part of me and it’s an ugly part.
i loved him so much and all i ever wanted was to give someone my love. to show them how big it was and let it belong to someone because sometimes it’s too big to hold even for myself. it’s not a fear of being alone. it’s a fear of not being able to let someone see who i really am. all of me. your family accepts you because they have to as do your good friends. but a stranger, now there’s a trick.
it’s not as if there haven’t been any other contenders. there’s someone right now, but i feel so wrung out that i can’t even tell what his intentions are. i feel like he should read this. then he would know how crazy i feel most of the time. how desperate and sad and pathetic i feel sometimes. i am not always funny and light hearted. i am not always so understanding of where YOU’RE coming from because i’m too wrapped up in myself. yet i acknowledge that. i know that everyone has a right to be selfish and we all are at times out of necessity. i feel fear to let anyone know who i am prevents me from doing so. it’s a rat eating its tail.
i let myself binge out on cocaine recently because i wanted to feel numb. it made me a sexless talker. it was a way to talk and not feel that fear. it made me lucid, but i hardly had control over my own hands enough to write. i decided that once it was gone i wouldn’t abuse substances so much anymore. i want to be clean from all of that. i want my mind to be clear and i want to start taking care of myself. i want to find the story that is important for me to tell even if it is comprised mostly of my own. sometimes i feel like i only have one good thing in me (artistically). i need to get it out but i don’t know what it is. i have all of the necessary components. i know how to make the letters dance into words and then into sentences. philadelphia doesn’t have to be what i’ve made it into and i’m fully aware of that.
that feels so. so much better.
item #1:
in a bad neighborhood
vandals hit up churches to
break keys and superglue in locks
so fuck jesus
but you are jesus
item #2:
i met a man that could easily take care of me
who is also married
because show me a man who is not a womanizer
and you show me someone either too strong or weak
item #3:
that cunt got bitter b/c she’s dried out
teen nymphs running the wet dream gammit
yer pin dick might even rip them open
and it makes me so sick to my stomach
item #4:
she said that boyfriends are like fish: after about three days they stink
item #5:
he told me that he wasn’t going to lie
and then i heard him take it back
but
if you have to say you’re not going to lie
then chances are you probably still will
item #6:
i feel doubled back by some anonymous blow
he told me that depressed people should just get
up off their asses and change it
he has no sympathy for them
some clothes i want:
In Dreams:
I always start in the house that I live in but it always looks different. Sometimes it’s white and clean and large down the stairs. Other times it’s dingy and the windows are covered with old sheets. In my dreams I’m told I’m gay. I meet black men with diseased daughters that have bumps on their fingers. I hunt down girls that call me in reality late at night and demand that I stop talking to my ex. I see people that I never see and feel repulsed when they touch me. I ride in a magic car with a maniac driving into other cars but we go right through them. I feel awake in my dreams. Men cut me with chainsaws and I can feel it. Marylin Manson stalks me outside of a strip mall but it turns out to be Brian Setzer and he’s quite pleasant. I meet a cat with glowing eyes. In dreams he tells me he loves me and then turns his back. In dreams I get to touch her hair. I’m not awkward and I’m not strange.
In Reality:
I always start in my house and it’s the same. My day starts before dawn and I’m not sure how much longer I can take it. My days don’t vary much. I see the same people. Today I did get to touch her hair. I feel strange and awkward. I am confused and numb. I always feel tired. A continuous loop. He’s never divulged such intimate information.
S. I don’t want to ever be in love again.
Q. You don’t want to feel the greatest pain you ever could?
A. No.
S. I don’t have sex any more
Q. Why is that?
A. Because it doesn’t mean anything.
S. Sex doesn’t ever mean anything
R. That’s not true
S. It’s not what you think, it’s purely physical.
Q. What do you want me to do?
A. Scratches, cuts, hits, strangulation
R. I would love to but i’m fucked up.
Q. So have you had that?
A. No.
R. Well you could if you wanted to.
A. I know.
R. Just as long as you know.
To Have and Have Not
“Somebody had to loose and only suckers worried.”
“Take us to Key West,” Harrison said.
“Yes, sir,” said Captain Willie. “later on. But listen, sailfish is just as good eating as kingfish. When we used to sell them to Rios for the Havana market we got ten cents a pound same as kings.”
“Oh, shut, up,” said Frederick Harrison.
“I thought you’d be interested in these things as a government man. Ain’t you mixed up in the prices of things that we eat or something? Ain’t that it? Making them more costly or something. Making the grits cost more and the grunts less?”
“Oh, shut up,” said Harrison.
—
To Have and Have Not
Ernest Hemingway



