this is just to say: Official

21 July 2010

Official

I think today is my official 1 year anniversary. I was confused yesterday.

I feel so on edge right now. The tip of my skin (everywhere) feels aflame, as though I'm being humiliated somewhere and I'm unaware. Also at the edge of bursting with water. The glass, brim, but not with the fullness of something great.

If today was the anniversary of 1 year ago, then it's depressing for me to think I feel as though I'm in the same place, emotionally.

That being said, 1 hour ago, I was much happier--I was surprised by a staff appreciation lunch (someone forgot to send me the email notice so it was instead a day-of surprise). I was looking at my iCal, and realized that Genevieve will be here soon, Jorge will be here after Genevieve is gone, and I planned a Boston trip for myself August 7-8 (weekend only) to hang out with G, but also eat $1 oysters w/ Erica & Helena! Plus, Erica sent me this link for a Boston Food Truck festival on the day that I arrive. AMAZING!

And yet, so quickly do I come back to this place where I am shaken & guilt-soaked. All I want to do is go back to SF, find a job, an apartment, and work/live and do the things I love most in SF. I don't think I even want to do that in NY--JB is right; I can probably do that in NY (get a decent job and support myself/my lifestyle) if I wasn't in school, but here's the thing: I don't want to do it here. I don't love any part of NY, and that has nothing to do with my happiness/unhappiness.

I don't feel any swelling feeling for the many many tall buildings, the intense grid of this metropolis. I like the convenience NY offers, but it's not enough.

I just donated blood (mid-post), and it always marvels me every time how quickly (and quicker than others) I fill up the pint-sized bag.

I miss him so much, so much. It's like this very real, physical pain, every time I allow it to take over (for a little bit). I know it gets better, but I'm not wholly sure.

I started a poem last night. I didn't finish, because my eyes were burning, but it was the first time in a long time I did one, unsolicited. From my body, to my body.

from "Euphoria," by Sina Queyras

1

Dear Regret, my leaning this morning, my leather foot, want of stone, my age
Old, burnished and bruised, my hair lingering, my hand caked, spongy as
November my dear Relentless, my dear Aging, your voice tinny, dissonant
As Stein shot through decades of war and Fortrel, cocktails on the hour,
Zeppelins over Piccadilly, bombing blindly in the fog. Dear Skin, dear Tobacco
Mouth my refusal, my merely geographic, my fibrous strings for you: your
Abundant wit, your lack of shadow and still joy nosing the air. Each moment
Stretches toward you, your dry feet: I carried them, pumiced and peppery
Laid them where regret is a biscuit thing to lean upon and sweeten,
My hour of you, my cursive thoughts, a pulpit beating under these ribs.

2

Dear Time, you swallowed us whole, swallowed us lovely, sharp as bones
Crimping sadly under foot my benign, my flotsam and crabs thin as leaves
Your smoothing, your sinking in. Mornings or mooring, or wallowing
Jericho: tapioca air indolent. I am still there, supple and driftwood, you lovely,
You loved me, your memory dark and west, thoughts like tugboats stitching
The horizon, you pulling me, my pudding, my thin crustacean, sideways
In the late afternoon, your gaze, having so soon forgotten the sharpness
Of mornings, the bite of your look serrating the hour: my treasures, all
Of them, for the pleasure of that slice once more, of our dangling,
You and me, the lot of us in some car, driving some hour, mapless.

3

Under a spiderweb, a tire, slouched: flat, sad-lipped, I think of Newton
Of the original apple, all of these clones since, all of these scentless
Descents. I shake my glass, shake again, melted suffixes tinkling; observe
All things natural: foliage unfurling like old bills, wryly betraying
Your habits, like the dog who digs and rubs, the dog who whines, who
Paws and circles, you trace. Why is pain so much better than nothing? Or
The mark of it more understandable? Why is saying nothing so much better?
Your one-liner like blossoms, uplifting, your currents strap me to air, yes
I guess there is a little texture up here, and oxygen pure as baby’s toes
Which if I recall, are sweet as kernels of corn, if I recall so long ago.

4

To arrive is practice, conversation or conversion, a story over a field
My Sweet, of concrete or whispering, furrows of a path no longer, not
Sure, was there, and snow combed in curlicues and dog ears a zigzag
Through January. Sure you are witty, but are you any less romantic?
In my remembering, I have undone all my beliefs, it is a luxury to lay
Unencumbered here, or there, the bones flexed with tendons, the
Spine like a seahorse, the heart far from a cliche unless beating is
Innocent, though innocence is not as supple as you think, nor as flexible,
Nor as perfumed, nor convenient, or even clean: between things regret
Gathers force. I remember that day: it was cold and the coffee tepid.

5

The small red balloons like thumbprints, waves green as the brush of
Cedar, the wind lapping your hoodie, blind strings tap the air, camera
Bobbing like a dog’s tail. Such lightness, the dog heading off, all
The dogs of English Bay angling off-leash. I would follow backward,
Lay old maps on your white sheets, so sincere, I am in earnest for you:
We won’t regret having not yet knit our acrid puns and jaded barbs, nor
Having the wind slip in under our belt loops, though I gently refuse
Gor-Tex, and you bet I will not concede the game. Those small red
Balloons like tulips in your eyes specs of amber, an amulet, an avatar,
My thoughts of you fully indexed, ready to step into.

21 July 2010

Official

(underbed stor)age