Asphalt + Distance

“how strange it is to be anything at all”

my kitchen chairs have seen more action than any kitchen chair I’d ever sat in previously in my life, this is remote working, laptops, plural, set up humming, message pings ringing from my jobs, plural. Autumn shows boldly outside the window. Suddenly I’m hit with the distance of my grade school parking lot, watching the short day pass as I stare from math class. The trees on the opposite end of the asphalt dripping leaves.

As I stare from my math class window I can feel the distance of the asphalt parking lot. The trees on the opposite end showing boldly. In the the face of the clock I know I’ll go home in twilight. Never knowing what the rest of the world took on for the day. The white track lines only loop in a quarter mile. There’s no path through the treelines. Only the looping white quarter mile. In a few weeks with only a few remaining leaves dripping glimpses of the road creep through. Cars I’ll never know going places I can’t imagine.

Saturn + Searching

moongaze

I am not looking at you
I stare past you
Your face blotting out everything to the right
I am looking for Saturn
You wouldn’t understand
I look everywhere else
I search out Sirius, who is easier to find
You grab at my shoulders
I pivot pivot pivot
You know Saturn, your face looks in all directions
Spinning the dark of your hair flying around
quick clipped snapshots that cut
your white face in crescents
—
how far a star must travel
to escape the light of the moon
our view boxed into the glow
so consuming that it’s difficult
finding Saturn’s outside rings
unblinking I stare past you
as you box in the view
glow consuming the sky
we trick ourselves to being invited
but you are uncast and stonefaced
staring entirely past us
—
I cannot see Saturn
and next year the rings vanish
everything in the sky is old
and somehow nostalgic for something
I’ve never experienced and already lost

Fun + Los Angeles

Prompt: “Write something fun” - Kat

I have a memory of LA, sitting on a sidewalk in tears, laughing. Telling someone I do not well that of all of us they look the most like a serial killer. Most of us are strangers, together outside this burger joint because of a shared hobby. I can’t tell you anyone’s last names because I don’t know them. There is enough bond though through this hobby, this card game, to share dinner, split Ubers, even share a bed if that means we get to play. In my memory from LA I couldn’t tell you the neighborhood, I couldn’t find the locale on a map, or even tell you what burger I ordered from the restaurant, I can’t remember. I can share the tightness in my sides, my arms wrapped around myself, trying to hold my torso still. The rough way the concrete scraped on my jeans as if the ground was trying to hold onto me. The packed sidewalk of shuffling bodies, side-eyeing my open mouth as I project into the soft blue LA twilight. In a city set on consuming my voice carries contagiously.

Boarding + Yard

Whiz zip of the luggage wheels over the auto scrolling walkway trails the medium paced travelers late to departing flights headed infinitely onward and into the night. Outside the glass paneled walls only speckled gold spots shimmer from the city skyline, interrupting the full reflections. We are mice caught in a fun house and the speakers announce Detroit alpha thirty four then the pack shuffles up from their seats to the walkway, entering the rails. With almost sling shot momentum they are whizzing down the walkway, cicada’s in migration.

Names called repeatedly “we are looking for ______ at gate A37”. People lost in transition. From where they are to a set destination, somewhere along the way deviating from a plan of where they would end up. A boldness in decision to take a new unknown unfound idea of a journey without a plan. To act without assurance, to leave without a sign, you will not be arriving at what was your intended destination. You will be, outside these walls, an unknown on an unknown path, with no one calling your name to board.

□ □ □ □ □

Turn the lot into a yard
set foot on the grass
get the same result
fill the acre with trash
throw the bag to the back
watch the lump dissolve
little block of air to stand
what a privilege this yard

Denver + Dial tone

Traveling again this week for work. Denver this time, which is actually pretty amazing. Not sure that I’m vibing with the people but I’m also in the middle of downtown.The air smells good, reminds me of the first time I came to Portland. Sleep has been easy for some reason. Maybe the stress of work or just a new environment. Could be daylight savings paired with bouncing around time zones is putting my mind outside itself. I do feel like I made a good breakthrough on the Dial Tone poem which is reassuring that I actually know what I’m doing. Often I ache for travel, when traveling I ache for home, perhaps I just ache to ache.

△ △ △ △ △

We gather here today
away from our online lives
with friends, family, and neighbors
to remember the dial tone
a note served in equity
prefacing moments of such significance
trailing some of the most mundane
with the unholster of the receiver
sound dragged suspense for us
interrupted beeps of a dialed digit
We heard music when we made a call
now we only look at mismeasured battery life
with incomprehensible signal bars
while we try to connect

Ask now that we close our eyes
In remembrance, observe a ringing
in your ears, live in that resonance
for a single moment longer
and let us honor the dial tone.

Espresso + Cafe

the murmur of the espresso machine grumbling like an old parent in the dark, hissing with the notes unrecognizable, a cold steam wand sputters spfft spfft spittle, neither acknowledging the dawn greeting the cap in the window curtains.

○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Your soft gliding stride traces lines in the cafe floor, floating back and forth between an ice chest and the espresso machine, calling orders into the steam wands kiss, flipping mugs and milk pitchers onto the asteric shaped cleaner, everything in a rhythm sploosh - hiss - crunch - cup - pour - coffee starts draining, your voice again carries between each gap in the sound to call a name, call a drink, twirling, your feet hardly ever gracing the floor

Paper + Stars

Wrapping wallpaper builds border
and order to the edges of a room unbound
by doors only archways to divide
the dining room and kitchen should
you ever be unsure of your location
in the home the fault will not be
with the wall paper

Pattern repeating pattern set to
alternate on the half bouncing
broaches of victorian elegance
across each room

Broken lines hide inside the elaborate
design repeating pattern leaf on leaf
details so specific identifying the
redundancy is difficult

Thick trim of the knife slits the
paper surface leaving only glue back
clinging the sheets together

What is the sky shown a corner
of paper peeling back off the surface
of the stars causing the clouds
folding in on one another

The sky rips off as a calendar page
clouds crumpling on clouds
behind the paper is a starfilled forever
they blink on waiting
to harden in the light
for the white heat of the sun
recoloring the shadows
blot them out against the sky
curing the colors of the stars solid
until their time is up and again the corner shows
a page is ripped off the sky
again we see the stars blinking

Glass + Breaking

Glass Breaks Somewhere

You can’t hear your own name
in the kitchen where you fell
a dozen eggs against
the crystal glasses cause
teeth grit as if
on a gumball

Monster + Moonlight

When the tears were first spotted they were small, maybe someone’s keys caught a divett in the wall as they walked past. Then the tears, when you took a step back, could clearly be grouped in a pattern.

From the pillow I can hear the heat kick on
heff hoosh hummm
safe zones of white shine through the skylights
heff hoosh hummm humm
as if algae grouping in a pond, whips of clouds hug the Moon
humm humm — wripptch
the sides of my eyes go wider attempting to see the sound
hoooshuhuh uh uh and the heat kicks off
did you hear the tear as well Moon?
tzch tzch tzchzz
the ripping sounds of paper split the night
my heels curl into the protective shell of the comforter
something shows on the wall in the Moon’s glow
Briny and pointed long, two feet of shadow
then retreats back into my wall, my eyes wider
realizing from the holes in wallpaper comes a growl
ggrrraaaawww

*moonlight is always unwavering, isn’t it?

Headlights + Lightyears

Leaves like silver dollars but dull on one side. Flickering like the wind chime teasing a tune. Leaves like a coins their shaded undersides not quite ready to welcome the season’s change. The tree across the street takes the breeze with an inhale, shaking all the leaves like flipping coins allowing glimpses of their shaded side. Shadows or more light.

△ △ △ △ △

Laying on the living room couch awake too late, all night the headlights trace zebra stripes across the walls. Constant sense of going. No one stopped here. Very aware that there are other places. Dynamic of my mom afraid to go anywhere and house being on this transient road next to a freeway. The light always traced the same pattern so you could tell when my dad came home because the pattern of someone pulling into the driveway was slightly different, a brighter stripe would fill the living room. The exit ramp from the freeway has changed since I’ve laid in the living room. Those lights are less common. Just cars bolting down the road. Their headlights still trace through the living room, over the pictures in the dinning room.

When I lay in my living room now, on a quiet street, those patterns rarely visit me. When they appear across the ceiling the light is startling. Unexpected in this place I’ve found is home. From a place I worked hard to get away from, traveling 3000 miles to run along the walls of a place I very much never want to leave. The first thought I have is who is coming home? my instincts on high alert. Then they pass down the road and I wonder who could leave or did they just not know.

□ □ □ □ □

We can measure everything in lightyears if we wished. Time would be very small, decimals so comparatively small we would not equate seconds to minutes to years to lifetimes. Time would be so minuscule that what we know now could fit into a pill capsule, into a packet that gets thrown into the bottom of the wash misremembered, lost to wherever what doesn’t come out of the spin cycle ends up.

Prodigal + Nosebleed

Define: Prodigal - adj., 1. wastefully extravagant 2. having or giving on a lavish scale

I think I really misunderstood the story. How I remember the story:
Two brothers, they grow up, one stays on the farm and everything sucks. The other is like see ya! I’m going to spend the wealth of our family. Then the cool brother returns and is like hey it’s been years and I’m back! The dad is elated, tells the at home brother to slay the fattest calf, they’re eating good tonight. At home brother is like what the hell I’m so under appreciated and I’m upset. Pop-pop is like no, no at home brother, we must rejoice because your really cool brother is back.

Seems like the cool brother got the waaay sweeter end of the deal here. Living lavish and in wealth and not on a farm with his parents and then also getting a party thrown for him. I’m honestly confused on what the take away here is.

○ ○ ○ ○ ○

I’m still very sick, every thought is too big for my stuffy head. The house is so dry if I blow my nose the tissue is mostly blood. I’ve always had a senstive nose though. Once in high school I told Johnny Wilson if he just flicked my nose it would bleed. He did not believe me. He did flick my nose, hard. My nose bled. Perhaps a wastefully extravagant display, perhaps lavishly giving a display of nasal talent, prodigal.

Sickness + Digging

Been down with a cold for the last few days. The effort to do anything feels like a grunting throw needs to be behind it. The house continues to need more and more attention. Even sitting up to write this my body feels not fully aware of the effort, disconnected. It’s soup season, the season calls for soup, Kat answers that call. Her large cauldron constantly on the stove brewing. Louise Gluck died, naturally her work is everywhere I look. Her book Theories and Proofs really helped me restart my writing journey and add fuel to the tank for me to keep writing.

□ □ □ □ □

When I try to tell you a story to put you to sleep but you only ask questions. The story begins, you are digging in the dirt and then you want to know if you have a shovel. You do not. As you dig the clumps of dirt get wet and cold and you want to know the last time the rain came. Three days ago. The leaf cover keeps the ground moist.

Tunnel + Smash

Beneath us lay a tunnel
unwalked cobweb laden passage
bricks thick with a coat of dust
bricks smattered and inconsistent in color
laid to match an unfollowable pattern
Chalk brown and white green rectangles
the mortar lines uneven pale gray
there’s no direction suggested
all sides the arched ceilings
tarnishes to absence
bricks on bricks on one another
anyone a keystone to steal the tunnel
the air is silent but for a soft rip
of a thick piece of paper
from an undiscernable direction

○ ○ ○ ○ ○

10,000 feet above a miniature diorama

What trust to trust me with such a display, details layered, in details down to the uneven front yard. Even the front stair discolored from where the stain wouldn’t take. Details, inside the table cloth is strewn slightly uneven, on the tiny stove the front right burner has been left on while noodles strain in the sink, from the bathroom a drip is plipping into the tiny call foot tub. All of this constructed in a size half the width of a poster board. Able to be carried, as the display is now, by my own two hands. What magnificence given in whole care to myself. Details, the edge of the base housing the japanese maple tree digs into my palm, the dirt glued to the underside of the board sifts through my fingers. What was the expectation of the outcome? Where can this miniature world be kept safe? The foundation bends in my grip rippling a creased line on the underside that is almost unnoticeable. The inevitable should be apparent by now. Details, between the bits the blue carpet pad used under the stairs folds over, pink insulation that rested for a decade behind the uneven drywall fluffs up, the mismatched gutter once the length of the house is twisted. Just bits left after the board bent, as it went I pushed the fold in half, instinct clicked on and smashed to bits the little world. Just bits in a pile, waiting for the moss once on one side of the roof to regrow and recover.

Juncos + Diorama

The Juncos make an incredible amount of noise. Small dark heads accented with the sharp paint mark of yellow for a beak. Their bodies, little dryer balls of off white topped with the brown streak of a cape that trails all the way to their tail end. A tail long and flat like the paint can stir stick sitting in the basement. Even there, between the unfinished concrete walls the Juncos sound, though quieter, still filled the corners of the ceiling. Ascending the stairs, between the hollow echo of each step landing, the chorus grows. The sound gains definition at the top step. Waves of tweets pointed and quick, piling on one another faster than could be counted. Each note the sharp strike of a bow against a violin string. Through the kitchen to the back door, the build continues. The panes in the door window seem to vibrate. Even loosening the deadbolt, cracking the door’s seal increases the volume. The door peels away and the full force of the wave is felt. A symphony of tones constructed naturally to always be ascending. The origin from every brach of a massive pine in a yard two doors down. Little ball bodies perched in the shade while a handful make orbit. The song so light carries, pulling the notes into the air. Light tones, giving weightlessness to objects that never dreamt of flying. For hours, everything is in this simple state, drifting suspended. The sun then consumes the shade, the pine on full display and the Juncos have had enough of the heat. With a finger snap, the last measure is reached. Hundred of round bodies erupt from the pine, projectile like bubbles all evacuating northwest. The backyard is grounded again. A faint reprisal is heard but possibly only the echo memory of the song. Perhaps the notes are the sonata to another performance the Juncos are about to begin.

○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Could I be trusted with a mini diorama of my world? If it contained all the stores I love, the tables where I’d have coffee, the pot holes I weave between on my bike but all in miniature, could I be held responsible? What if the diorama was only of my own house? A snapshot in 3D modeled from Google Earth but with the base the size of an atlas. If I could just hold that model of my house, what would happen? What if it was just the living room I’m sitting in right now? A tiny “L” shaped sofa an coffee table. Tiny blankets strewn about, books layered in the TV stand causing the small board shelves to bow. What would I do? Crumble the tiny walls? Run the whole room under a hot faucet until it was unrecognizable? What if it was only a miniature version of this notebook? Tiny, smaller than a thumb nail, the scrawl inside unreadable, the yellow bound rubberband stretched but keeping the tiny pages together. What then? Would I swallow the words back down? Replant them inside regular size me? Wait to see what grows back, what resurfaces that I thought was part of the garden. Or would I set my tiny notebook to rest on a tiny glass coffee table glowing in the sunlight from two tall windows in the miniature house’s walls that are planted squarely on the block, in a tiny neighborhood, in a tiny city. Would I take that diorama and set it somewhere to collect dust an wait for younger hands to find it. To take the tiny versions of my diorama, without any understanding of the intricacies, and playfully destroy it.

Blob + Farm

*write from the perspective of a monster
- try to use a color and the words overtake, dim, rub, split

In a present, unsuspecting of the future,
Embraced star crossed lover cast a wish
to a suspected shooting star
Not knowing, the earthbound object is a meteor

A crater is made in the haze of a cornfield
raising no alarms or suspect
Only the sun finds the recess
heating the space cold rock in the field

From the cracks made by the impact
emerges a pinky jellied ooze
inching itself into an unknown world
the Blob, ready to consume food

First, the corn (much like us)
corn corn corn and growing
the kickball sized trail clearly trackable
from the meteor straight to the new John Deere

As the gak climbs the first tire pops
alerting the farmer and family
feed buckets clutched in hand
what commotion could have startled the hen hut

Sprinting + Rain

As the crow flies

Among birds, sprinting in the street, air whipping the soft edges of my ears. Keeping the best pace I can as they dart around me the muscles in my thighs tightening with each step that slaps the asphalt, my calves heavy and grounded. From the corner of my eye a steady shape stays alongside me admist the whirlwind. A blackbird so large I would pause at extending my hand were we standing still. As birds whip past me in all directions as my knees pumping each step hoping to ascend in the cloud of caws. In the square of my back I feel the sharp flat shape of a triangle pushing. My shoulder blades pinch, arching, behind me the crow. My next step doesn’t land on the pavement, nor the next one. My legs keep chugging on unstopping but I am tumbling upwards, falling backwards over myself. The crow’s sharp head continues to push against my spine. First floating the length of the intersection, then higher above the houses, over trees. I wait for my legs to give out, to feel the muscle say enough is enough is enough. While I am pumping, there is no resistance. The air is cooler now, whipping still at the sweat on my face. I’m upright, in the flock, my arms, runners arms, pump forward in a sprint and I continue ascending.

△ △ △ △ △

As this so does that

As the rain rests in the early morning
So do I sit waiting for you to awake
To take on the day, I wait in patience
For you to rise and notice me

As the rain rests among the morning dew
Still in wait for the work to move to initiate
Quietness but in such necessity
An innate purpose know and appreciated

Birds + Blankets

Trust the love of it all

I’m tired in a way that I can feel in my hands, in the corners of my eyes, a soreness in the backs of my knees and up my legs. What’s reassuring is I feel balanced. Everything is exhausted, my mental state is spent. I work I write I work out I game. I’m not sure what is left of me to give to my life and that is a great state of being. Rhythm finally.

□ □ □ □ □

Soft click of dog nails goes deeper from the kitchen to the composite deck boards. Beneath the drizzled clouds the sun hasn’t risen yet. From the tree someone new speaks to me, an unfamiliar voice in an unfamiliar language. Scanning the branches for an Autumn body full of plumage, ruffling with the muffled caw. The dog nails return, a click cadence so rhythmic the click leads us back to the warmth of our dry bed. Burrowing into the heavy blankets the sun cracks the gray cloudline, onto the branches, zigzagged in dew dropped shadows. We rest again, until our alarm.

○ ○ ○ ○ ○

When the rain comes so does the piles. Piles of blankets and more blankets. Everywhere is chilly. Socks are of sudden priority. In every room in every corner blankets are accumulating.

-When Fall Hits-

In every room in every corner
blankets begin to accumulate
piles on piles unrecognizable
stitch patterns I’ve never seen
a welcome problem in the fall air
but from where do these blankets appear
As if every room left unattended
upon returning has a new blanket waiting
While only October third this problem
seems to be never ending
Soon the walls will have gone soft
quilted hills climbing past the window sills
The sectional already simply a pit
wool woven fabric to sleep in
The lines of what defines the rooms
the kitchen nook all blurred by lumps
the down padding borders unfollowable
I can only throw myself in
burrowed blanket sanctuary a mystery
fold over me quiet unquestioned hibernation

Bugs + Barriers

We talk about the city lights at Christmas twirling in the square until the feeling of being teleported takes hold and we cannot see where we are going. Piano notes of let it snow are a lost melody what was a white static of drifting down snow is a washed wall of white. When can we stop spinning? Will arrive where we are meant to be? What if we stop and are left right where we started standing. Then will we spin again or wait until next year? Is there magic in the first snowfall or in the wish of us spinning?

○ ○ ○ ○ ○

I eat bug and I am fine
not any bug, I am selective
Candy little bugs is what I look for
Typically tucked beneath the fold of a petal
It is not about sustenance by any means
Three square meals a day keep me lean
The reasons are even, to me, a little unclear
But ultimately the outcome, what matters,
is I am fine.

△ △ △ △ △

Down drops the low temperatures
Giant air pockets of degrees
that we step into as if stepping
into a water droplet
the barrier quickly sealing
around us as we pop into
the low pressure system

barrier breaking small pressure
sealing membrane, in we go in we go

entering into something that safely seals
enclosed and home
build me a box no matter what
any amount of walls as long as
they connect and inside I
will sit calmly waiting for the end

Light + Fall

The lights outside are on always
through the frosted window
saying hello, still here
even in the middle of the night
quiet and preoccupied with whatever
occupies lights. The bathroom coated
in their dull orange. Consistently constant
aiming not to distract or draw the eye
they are after all preoccupied.

—

The life of candlelight
fear in the flicker inconsistent in comfort
wick reaches for you
a night that light cannot be trusted
walkers cautious of the shadows
misjudge the light, creating those very fears
tonight as you stay away from dark corners
on lit sidewalks only an arms reach
from the alleyways
know the light may misguide you
send you to places where you’re left
asking why
confusion in the known
unlinkable pieces we can see
is worse than wandering
aimlessly in the dark
what fills the absence
of a shadow? What was there
that was taken?
Spot lights cast glimpses
objects darting into and out of views
can we trust what the light shows us?
can we know the bright spot is salvation?
are we condemned to face the unknown dark?

□ □ □ □ □

Fall hides in cupboards, behind the pull handles
whose cheap brass has worn into different shades
of amberesent brown. When the doors open
emerges bowls and placemats and warmer jackets than
wind breakers. Candles that will be kept lit in
the evening. The dark encroaching earlier and earlier

Fall wait patiently in the gap in the backdoor where sometimes when the wind hits just right you hear a faint whistle.

Fall sits in the callouses at the base of your fingers from the summer weeding. Between the crops waiting one more day everyday until harvest.

Fall appears beneath the leaf pile suddenly, caught on the lip of the dripping gutter.

Fall is in the drawers behind the thicker socks in the folded lip of the knit hats dug out of bins.

Fall is found in the cold sunlight air so still the world feels as if the whole world is balancing, teetering on the brink like a flower debating on closing its petals against the air.

Fall is in the mugs, the hugs, the bugs, the shrugs, the glug glug glug of soup.

Fall is in the turmeric, richly yellow along the edges of everything it touches.

Knowing + Pantheon

I do not want to know your job
I do not want to know your age
I do not want to know how you came here
- The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

I do not care for your career
I do not care for plans last year
I do not wonder oh lonely night
of your journeys wrong or right
I do not miss your living wage
and I do not miss your meals paid
What I see when I close my eyes
what I’ll see the day I die
is not the parts you claim as whole
but the beautifully broken pieces only I know

○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Who carved lies into the pantheon?
stories too old to uphold except in stone
so we know says the tour guide, we know
no names no ages only faces
the stone sculptor could not capture
their desires, fears or loves
what does come through so true
in the absent eyes and hollow pupils
is the longing
Would they have sat for the scultpor
if they’d known their longing would be
all that survives time, namelessness
is what is awaiting them, an eternity
of hard rocks unfulfilled and unnamed