in coats

i was really busy and then i
got really sick and there
was even a time on monday
when i felt the darkness coming
in over my eyes like a sweep and
a presence and there were lanes
of cars on the road going faster
and faster until we were speeding
through subsequent tunnels, one
after the other, brighter and
brighter. no! i shouted pressing
my eyelids to my face, i can't
go yet. and i saw his face and he
was touching mine saying "sweetie,
you're gonna have to brave."
they gave me shots and i can't
remember the doctor's face
he had a mask on and no one
would really listen to me. i
couldn't pick up the phone all the
strength in my arm was gone. and i
remember thinking "fuck you, sylvia.
you cursed me with your hospitals and
your writer's block and your hysteria."
and now i've been in my bed for
the last three days, where i drool
at night because i can't swallow
and one tonsil is taking over
the rest of my throat and people
say things like "i don't want to
be near you." which i understand
but it still hurts. the vicodin
helps my pain and if it didn't
make my tummy feel woosy i would
enjoy it making my head feel
woosy but it gets ruined when you
feel you're gonna puke. i'll put
them in a drawer. i just wish
i'd been writing all this time,
when i was busy but i think
los angeles is changing me.
i'm certain of it. it's a love
and then it's a hate and most
days i'm ready for the bay and
the cold air and heady hills
and walking to class in coats
and being a regular at la trieste
and being close to my family.
i want the orange leaves in
october and the lights of market
street at christmas and long
evening walks one arm hooked
in the others cold red noses
and happy quick paces talking about
scripts and music and countries
and philosophy. i'm ready i'm ready
oh, i'm ready.

210 west

*busyness
*hiatus
*sore throat
*studio lots
*key club
*base
*samara
*backache
*miss

applesauce blues

i've been letting my hair get
tangled and fall down my
back. i've been writing on
my new olivetti MS 25.
the W sticks.

oct 16th list

@ tphilips
@ curly hair
@ book pages
@ coffee
@ harmonicas
@ world's greatest dad
@ anniversary
@ los angeles
@ johanna
@ salvation mountain
@ shawn morones

so i hum

"young people, lord. do they still call it infatuation? that magic ax that chops away the world in one blow, leaving only the couple standing there trembling? whatever they call it, it leaps over anything, takes the biggest chair, the largest slice, rules the ground wherever it walks, from a mansion to a swamp, and its selfishness is its beauty. before i was reduced to singsong, i saw all kinds of mating. most are two-night stands trying to last a season. some, the riptide ones, claim exclusive right to the real name, even though everybody drowns in its wake. people with no imagination feed it with sex - the clown of love. they don't know the real kinds, the better kinds where losses are cut and everybody benefits. it takes a certain intelligence to love like that - softly, without props. but the world is such a showpiece, maybe that's why folks try to outdo it, put everything they feel onstage just to prove they can think up things too: handsome scary things like fights to the death, adultery, setting sheet afire. they fail, of course."

-toni morrison, love

the magic if

what if i could
open up my mouth so wide
that i could gulp up the
world like in some children's
book? like some shel silverstein
impracticality?

i could take in trees and
buildings - skyscrapers. i
could take in parks, slides
sliding down my throat. i'd
swallow birds and giraffes and
bridges and little grandma
houses. i'd eat up schools and
books, culture and ideas. fiestas
and rosh hashanas, new york cities
and banana cream pies. i'd chew up
knowledge and adventure, sadness and
true love. planes and clouds and
fathers and kids and flowers and
shakespeare and i'd gulp it all in,
tasting every flavor.

then i'd spit it all out.
but it will come in books and plays.

the pages would be filled with
endless poetry of casbah's and
festivals. of heartache and loss.
of sailing around the world.
of the joys of motherhood.

and the plays to be performed!
of backstabbing friends, of
quarrels, swordfights and one
man shows. plays with props
and plays with none. with
moonshine and songs and dogs
and clowns. plays of wistfulness,
poignancy and hilarity.

when i spit my books out,
if i ate the whole world.
what if i could?
really,
what if i could?

monday list

-toni morrison
-satchel
-bluegrass
-daydreaming together
-tall victorians
-composing
-piggy bank
-unbuttoned

just an address

people like sylvia plath are
always talking to me all the
time.

and e.e. cummings.
it's so annoying.

he told her she was beautiful
so i felt ugly afterwards and
wondered why had i always been
so soft?

then lydia came up to me and
said something about painting
a picture in your head and i
said thanks then she walked
away sweeping her bangs back.

there were all these people in
our house and there were all these
people at the cemetary too, the fog,
we lied on wet blankets and listened
to bon iver. who is also talking to
me all the time.

i am so small and fragile and
homely and i keep writing the
same poem over and over again.

they say i lack confidence and
it shows. it's always showing up
all the time. and i'm always
apologizing all the time.
i'm sorry.

i'm apologizing for something
misunderstood inside of me
because i only make sense to me.

what people nowadays don't know
is my adventurous side.

right now there are mason jars
with half an inch of cheap wine
making rings around the bottom.
hollyn is eating potatoes.
and jason is sketching imaginary portraits.
brittany, sticky paper mache fingers.
i'm looking up from my book thinking
about how safe and literary
everyone thinks i am.
sylvia plath talking to me all the time.

but it was j.m. barrie when i was lying
in the round, soft stones of the beach,
my feet in the mediterranean.

and it was kerouac all talking to me when
i showed up in oxford in the night, in the
rain, alone, with just an address on a bit
of paper.

and someone else entirely, maybe myself,
when i caught malaria in west africa,

or when i hitchhiked in switzerland,

or in boston when i got drunk at an irish
pub with my best friend coming home at 4am.

or when i slept in the brussels train station.

and i wonder why people think i'm not adventurous.

it's like painting a picture and sipping from
mason jars and writing things down and being open.
it's being dangerous and risky and happy and letting
things happen and somewhere i put on the dress and
crown of maternal things and locked doors and going
to bed early which are things that matter but not all
that matters to me.

because being hopeful and brave and happy are sometimes
the hardest parts of my days and sometimes the hardest
part is having sylvia plath always talking to me all
the time.