.clean.nostrils.

So many birthdays in such a short span. It makes me think that no matter how much we're muddling up our lives right now, we can all think of at least two people that were having a good time x number of years ago.

Yeah, that's pretty gross, but I just went there. It's ok for me, because I've never witnessed my parents doing it. But I've never witnessed them really fighting either. The question, then, is whether or not they were being considerate, or if they are just the Asian robots that society wants to believe they are.

So ask yourselves: with the recent spottiness of our updates, what are Ruth and I doing? Are we being lazy? Are we casting doubts at our literary ring fingers?

It's tough to tell! But don't be surprised if a hiatus happens, and maybe you'll shuffle back and forth every other weekend. You'll probably be better off with her for most of the time.
But don't be surprised either, if we come back at this blog project with the full force of a spring-borne sneeze, expelling all the seeds and pollens of ideas inseminating into the air.
Eyes closed,
lungs emptied,
there's not much left to do but inhale

.untidy.mitosis.

Sometimes - actually, most of the time - I enter a certain illusion that my return home will be ushered in by receptive cleanliness. And below that tidy surface, enough undercurrent of discombobulation to prove that someone has lived here in my absence. I did not leave a tomb. I am not returning to one.

It's rarely the case, though, as you doubtlessly already know. Everyone leaves in a hurry, clothes strewn about: last minute exclusions waiting for the next suitcase out of town. And if not a comparable degree of disarray, entropy does as entropy will, and piles multiply and subdivide, never quite garbage, but never quite clean. We return to the messes we left.
Or how does the saying go?
You made your bed and now you must lie in it.
The inverse is also true. With every surface littered with forget-me-not-but-I-wish-I-coulds, there's hardly a place to be knocked down onto.

.dc.

If your car should get broken into, let it be a shoestring around a brick, holding a note: "drive safely. i miss you already. godspeed."

May

The fan, switched off on the window's ledge, still turned
when the wind ran through it.
I didn't feel so alone. Traffic
slicked by on wet streets. Everything
was motion, everything was stopped.
I sat around watching the spring rain like one does
when their lives become a slow unravel.
Except for those few moments of stupid joy
I took from you, I didn't have much.
But it was enough.

manifesto II

Dogs > people.

Samara Key

Sugar maple seeds spiraled groundward, pelting
the sidewalk, each landing haphazardly
across our path. It was spring and I was
feeling better, if only for the stupid
seeds, their dizzy descent
toward a dizzier world.
I wanted to shake loose from what I knew.
I wanted to learn how
to leave what I love most.

.philadelphia.2.

Like a hot shower, home-cooked dinner with new friends steams up the glass; you'll never see us not peering back out.

.philadelphia.

Another Chinatown (the same Vietnamese cafe across town) has me convinced that pieces of cities are now following in our wake, a toilet paper past tucked unknowingly into the back of my pants.

.new.london.

All the hispanic children on the pier, so ready to race you, cover their ears when the train arrives.

.cape.cod.

From the catwalks above, all our actors' skulls are crosshairs, waiting for the lightning.

.boston.

The roads here, like our crisscrossing emotions, have never been tamed.

i owe y'all some decent blog posts...when i get a chance.

.manhattan.

Inside concrete tunnels, you are oxygen, being carried into the heart of this city.

.butterfingers.

You like to throw your weight around, but I can't ever catch it.

jesus!

after this week, i'm never gonna want to tattoo again!

afternoon

felt like august only
it was april. you shed
your clothes like
a good tease, one layer
at a time. summer
sweat on your skin.
all we had was time
to give each other,
these few hours
in a room full of
the sun's glare,
and nothing else
mattered.

.these.bristly.legs.

These bristly mosquito legs, finally shaved free of your bloodsucking buzz, always around my ears.

.fans.aplenty.

All these fans, we're just pushing hot air around us. And you can hear the spinning coming from the ceilings, the windows, the whirlpool where your heart should be. You can hear the windmills making the wind, hoping to attract themselves a little chivalry.
All this hot air rushing around us, gushing out the windows, and hopefully taking with them the stale emotions, still lingering, like a flirtatious glance.

the pursuit of happiness

you are more work than worth.
fool's gold.

.dr.light.needs.right.to.win.again.

All you bitches come to my show on Sunday.

And afterwards, I'm taking a 10 day vacation, but I'll be trying to update everyday with a cheesy dark line, unless I think of something better.
You get a sampler today:

Who knew this picture was a jigsaw puzzle, so ready to fall to pieces?