the story of us

where were u when i was young

being
even

younger    i suppose

they met in a mental hospital

He might have been the only man to ever truly love you. And he didn't know how to love you but he loved you.

And he loved you. He didn't know how to love you but he loved you.

I know it and I don't know what it means to you. Cuz I feel it now. I feel it now all over again and new. And I've been meaning to explain it to you and now it's on my mind and it would only be a cause for dispute so I won't.

But he loved you. He never understood what it took to love you but with his overachieving heart in confused heaven he loved you.

And she kisses me on the face with her heavy lips. And I can't stop on hers. And time is a cloud that hovers over love. And what we spill is alchemy and brave and sizzling and leaves imprints on the planets before the rains.

And I want to keep it to myself. I want to keep it quiet and contain it like a bird then let the inevitability set it free and not wait for it to come flying back to me but rather fly after it and share the same sky with her.

And the sky is a big place and her and I can share a big place.

And I'm not afraid. I have proven myself to pain. And I let the hurt point me in the right direction.

And he loved you. I remember the way he'd ask about you so many years later. How he'd try to play it cool, like a curious ironic observer but the way his doctor's voice changed it was like a wave swept through him and it didn't diminish him it was expansive and he was a version of love in those moments and it was imperfect like all love. But he did, he loved you. And you don't need me to say it because it recognizes you.

And thank you for your imperfect love. Thank you for your imperfect love. Thank you for imperfect love. Thank love for imperfect you. Thank you love for bringing me her. Thank you love for bringing me love. Thank you love for hurting me and giving me a profound reason to live in every form.

And love is common I believe but sometimes it takes uncommon people to remind us of this fact in our nature

morning rituals

i walked around the beautiful artificial lake and fantasized about having to survive on the geese and their offspring in a world where that kind of thing would be necessary and i knew i could do it

heck...

a part of me wanted to live that way

my dad and barbara

cuz he thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world but all we kept seeing every sunday morning was an average latina in her 30's shuffling out of the doors to his townhouse and saying goodbye.

cuz he said sex after the second divorce was a ten. after the third, it was her. he was much older

he said a couple of us children were love babies, made in love. we never asked what he'd call the others

i remember one afternoon in long beach he kept talking. he was winning back his eldest kids and talking to em over carne asada and corn tortillas and employing his artful storytelling and personal revelations and he could turn it on like that

and when he'd turn it on it was like a spigot into endless earth

i got video of him that i've privately uploaded to youtube, i'd take the video without him noticing cuz once he got going he was in a zone all his own

never told him about the film festivals. never told him about the financiers. never told him about the lovely girl i took to big sur for the night.

i guess you and your dad have something in common my mom told me last weekend, an admission that only scratches the surface.

driving up the 101

in clouds of smoke we remade the images of now fading '00's pop stars into imaginative disturbances and glorious wonders

esalen night waters

two nights ago i watched the sky slowly devour the orange rock moon above the blue black waters of the pacific ocean.

yesterday morning in big sur even the lizards were fucking under the trees in and out of the sun.

what i wanted to tell you: i was wrong about saying you didn't like sincere music. you do. what i meant was earnest music.

and after we made love you slept like a rock for an insomniac

anecdotal evidence

i wish i could've bought weed from you. at that calArts party where you found out your drug dealer boyfriend had been cheating. and he wanted 100 an oz. you could keep the rest. perhaps i could've been the rest.

a hot july day i remember

where i was. i was in the ocean.

where you were. you were on the sand.

how i looked. i looked back at the shore.

how you were. you were no longer looking at me.

and i felt. i felt so out to sea

los angeles

I woke up wanting to invite her to Big Sur. Like, want to drive there today on our day off together. But I didn't. I sat in my car and stared at my phone.

Last night we walked up to a cave in that kind of dark that's too thin to be dark. Like daylight on the moon. I told her about the girl I'd been with earlier in the night, how we couldn't find the moon.

But it was night. Sprinklers hit the road into the park. Heavy water bath.

She used my phone flashlight inside an Andy Gump. I watched the glow pour through ventilation holes and gaps in the plastic doorway.

She said what if a coyote came while I was sitting perched on that rock and it ate me in one big gulp and all that remained was my red Bard sweatshirt.

I said I'd assume her online identity.

We were talking about a couple she knew, guy and girl who made themselves into twins in New York City. I told her about the characters in Garden of Eden.

Her shoes were not walking shoes but we walked miles.

We had just walked through the bat cave. It was while she was perched on the rock imagining coyotes. Cloud covered the entire sky. I said, what if there never was a moon. What if I only dreamed it. Without missing a beat she said what's a moon?