170.
Only at Sacre Coeur and Le Corbu’s did I feel God/god/faith/peace. Not by the art in museums-- that’s a stranger’s faith on display. I was dead at the Louvre apart from the images of mothers milking: stoic, distant, ethereal, yet human. Motherhood, a direct channeling of The Creator and animalistic, morbid, mortal fact. Women cycle between godliness and beastliness.
I entered Sacre Coeur as a tourist. I leave as someone who has spilled my soul onto its hallowed ground. Clasped my hands real tight and told Jesus, Mary, and Joseph how scared I am of myself, my ego, my aspirations, that I am lost, that Spencer will die, that I have thought that and said that only hypothetically before but before god I cannot lie and say it isn’t very real to me. It’s so close I think that maybe maybe it’s happened while I’m here and nobody told me cause I’m not there. His death lies within the realm of reason and outside the boundaries of my faith. Faith if I have any, wish I did. If I had it I lost it but I think probably I never had it and this is the first time I noticed. God has no reason to bless me other than I am asking for help, which I’m not even sure I want. I want to honor the creator and channel it through my art. I will both be and seek the creator. We will find each other.
171.
The strength of myself as creator rather than nurturer is surfacing and it feels powerful and sturdy and Good. Myself as decider, not withstander, and beginning to know what it means to be an artist. To throw myself blind & deep and end up on a foreign shore. Not to sit at home and dream but Do, Make, See, Cycle through the possibilities and have something to show at each pause. Run from your mental home, build a new one, tear it down.
When it came to Spencer and me, toward the end, I didn’t do what scared me best, which was to let our love go. This is the first time in a year that we’ve not spoken everyday.
174.
Unfortunate when the last person you watched eat your pussy is the one who broke your heart.
We didn’t use condoms Before. I insist on them when he returns from Portland.
“I don’t know where you’ve been.”
“You know I didn’t sleep with anyone.”
“I’m more concerned about dirty needles.”
He takes in pride in never sharing, using fresh syringes. Good for him.
It’s hard to stay mad, he’s gotten so small. With his hard, dark, sunken features and big nose he resembles a raven. The lies start and he steals sideways glances at me as if to see if I have crumbs. After enough of these we become shy in the only way we can be around each other, which is barely.
The night of my going-away party he hands me an absurd pile of books stolen from Barnes & Noble.
“Jesus, Spencer. Thanks.”
Nin, Rimbaud, Rachoff, Roethke. Those I love who cannot leave.
Saturday afternoon, we part in a Target parking lot. Crying in public is normal to us now, we don’t bother to hide it.
“I’m not supposed to say this, but, I love you.”
“I want to be good like you. I’m going to be good like you.”
Got on a Greyhound outta town next thing. It’s me who gets to be the one to leave.
178.
The jerks must’ve made it look like we didn’t know what we were doing (true, I didn’t,
but I know what getting off feels like
and that was it.)
with our clothes still on, my scarf choking me, we
nudge and urge the topsides of our thighs into the crevice of the other’s pelvis.
Like a babe I lay my head on the round of her shoulder, pull aside her shirt, find the tit.
She’s impatient for me to find the pleasure.
I wouldn’t tell her, not even if she asked, but she was gentle as a peach
and I seek to be bruised up like one.
She knows the mechanics of the knobs and levers. My thrill is in smashing the machine.
When I put whole hand up inside her she musta been afraid, but didn’t say.
I couldn’t help it. I did to her what I wished had been done to me.
There’s some loopholes in the golden rule:
Have sex with someone of the same sex. Pretend she is you,
that you’re finally getting(giving) what you need.
180.
Noise, noise, noising the world fills it with hum,
drowns out the not-silence of static.
A noiseless brain is not at rest. It is sending satellite signals into space, saying
“Oh gawd. Halp.”
Help me dissolve this, this, into a murmurous growl low enough to rumble animals.
Kick in their instincts so refined they can almost smell with their joints.
Help me take flight, and for those without the gift of birdness, help them fight.
There was once a call I could not hear. Then the tides came and the rains fell and
touch was the sound. Water touched my toes. Wind clutched my hair.
I do not speak. I pet.
Calves nuzzle my ass looking for milk.
Ass, udders, tits, stomach, softnesses that might keep my feet tucked up against someone else’s at night.
Remember, how warm the womb was?
How fucking Emily was cozy as crawling back in it?
Pleading her clit with the tip of a nose for the feel of the hair,
not the scent of her snatch,
I was subdued. A mouthful of silence. A body rhythmic.
181.
Who will tell Mary’s story? Who will tell how much she suffered? She is shown at peace. This is untrue. She felt his stigmata in her wrists just as sure as she felt Jesus rip through her body at birth, as every mother is initiated. The pain of life and death together. Le sang et le lait coulerant. Mary, am I meant to be as strong as they make you seem? Or have these sculptors and painters disguised the depths of your humanity? To see your son die the death of Christ is surely harder than to die that death. If you could you would put his grown body back inside of yourself to heal. You’d go through his birth three times, and still you’ve never gotten fucked!
Mary, you are my mother but I am not your daughter. I tried to save Spencer I killed myself. I saw his holiness in brilliant contrast against the open grave awaiting him. I saw him and I pitied him. The pieta: held him and stroked his head, knowing there was nothing but to watch gravity work him into the hallowed ground. I threw off my robes that day, gave it up.
You watched to share the self-same pain of your loved one who was being maimed. Watched and touched the blood to your lip, felt the mortal wound within you.
186.
I still haven’t learned how to smile
without baring my teeth.
Did I burn my knuckles?
Did I masturbate?
Only at Sacre Coeur and Le Corbu’s did I feel God/god/faith/peace. Not by the art in museums-- that’s a stranger’s faith on display. I was dead at the Louvre apart from the images of mothers milking: stoic, distant, ethereal, yet human. Motherhood, a direct channeling of The Creator and animalistic, morbid, mortal fact. Women cycle between godliness and beastliness.
I entered Sacre Coeur as a tourist. I leave as someone who has spilled my soul onto its hallowed ground. Clasped my hands real tight and told Jesus, Mary, and Joseph how scared I am of myself, my ego, my aspirations, that I am lost, that Spencer will die, that I have thought that and said that only hypothetically before but before god I cannot lie and say it isn’t very real to me. It’s so close I think that maybe maybe it’s happened while I’m here and nobody told me cause I’m not there. His death lies within the realm of reason and outside the boundaries of my faith. Faith if I have any, wish I did. If I had it I lost it but I think probably I never had it and this is the first time I noticed. God has no reason to bless me other than I am asking for help, which I’m not even sure I want. I want to honor the creator and channel it through my art. I will both be and seek the creator. We will find each other.
171.
The strength of myself as creator rather than nurturer is surfacing and it feels powerful and sturdy and Good. Myself as decider, not withstander, and beginning to know what it means to be an artist. To throw myself blind & deep and end up on a foreign shore. Not to sit at home and dream but Do, Make, See, Cycle through the possibilities and have something to show at each pause. Run from your mental home, build a new one, tear it down.
When it came to Spencer and me, toward the end, I didn’t do what scared me best, which was to let our love go. This is the first time in a year that we’ve not spoken everyday.
174.
Unfortunate when the last person you watched eat your pussy is the one who broke your heart.
We didn’t use condoms Before. I insist on them when he returns from Portland.
“I don’t know where you’ve been.”
“You know I didn’t sleep with anyone.”
“I’m more concerned about dirty needles.”
He takes in pride in never sharing, using fresh syringes. Good for him.
It’s hard to stay mad, he’s gotten so small. With his hard, dark, sunken features and big nose he resembles a raven. The lies start and he steals sideways glances at me as if to see if I have crumbs. After enough of these we become shy in the only way we can be around each other, which is barely.
The night of my going-away party he hands me an absurd pile of books stolen from Barnes & Noble.
“Jesus, Spencer. Thanks.”
Nin, Rimbaud, Rachoff, Roethke. Those I love who cannot leave.
Saturday afternoon, we part in a Target parking lot. Crying in public is normal to us now, we don’t bother to hide it.
“I’m not supposed to say this, but, I love you.”
“I want to be good like you. I’m going to be good like you.”
Got on a Greyhound outta town next thing. It’s me who gets to be the one to leave.
178.
The jerks must’ve made it look like we didn’t know what we were doing (true, I didn’t,
but I know what getting off feels like
and that was it.)
with our clothes still on, my scarf choking me, we
nudge and urge the topsides of our thighs into the crevice of the other’s pelvis.
Like a babe I lay my head on the round of her shoulder, pull aside her shirt, find the tit.
She’s impatient for me to find the pleasure.
I wouldn’t tell her, not even if she asked, but she was gentle as a peach
and I seek to be bruised up like one.
She knows the mechanics of the knobs and levers. My thrill is in smashing the machine.
When I put whole hand up inside her she musta been afraid, but didn’t say.
I couldn’t help it. I did to her what I wished had been done to me.
There’s some loopholes in the golden rule:
Have sex with someone of the same sex. Pretend she is you,
that you’re finally getting(giving) what you need.
180.
Noise, noise, noising the world fills it with hum,
drowns out the not-silence of static.
A noiseless brain is not at rest. It is sending satellite signals into space, saying
“Oh gawd. Halp.”
Help me dissolve this, this, into a murmurous growl low enough to rumble animals.
Kick in their instincts so refined they can almost smell with their joints.
Help me take flight, and for those without the gift of birdness, help them fight.
There was once a call I could not hear. Then the tides came and the rains fell and
touch was the sound. Water touched my toes. Wind clutched my hair.
I do not speak. I pet.
Calves nuzzle my ass looking for milk.
Ass, udders, tits, stomach, softnesses that might keep my feet tucked up against someone else’s at night.
Remember, how warm the womb was?
How fucking Emily was cozy as crawling back in it?
Pleading her clit with the tip of a nose for the feel of the hair,
not the scent of her snatch,
I was subdued. A mouthful of silence. A body rhythmic.
181.
Who will tell Mary’s story? Who will tell how much she suffered? She is shown at peace. This is untrue. She felt his stigmata in her wrists just as sure as she felt Jesus rip through her body at birth, as every mother is initiated. The pain of life and death together. Le sang et le lait coulerant. Mary, am I meant to be as strong as they make you seem? Or have these sculptors and painters disguised the depths of your humanity? To see your son die the death of Christ is surely harder than to die that death. If you could you would put his grown body back inside of yourself to heal. You’d go through his birth three times, and still you’ve never gotten fucked!
Mary, you are my mother but I am not your daughter. I tried to save Spencer I killed myself. I saw his holiness in brilliant contrast against the open grave awaiting him. I saw him and I pitied him. The pieta: held him and stroked his head, knowing there was nothing but to watch gravity work him into the hallowed ground. I threw off my robes that day, gave it up.
You watched to share the self-same pain of your loved one who was being maimed. Watched and touched the blood to your lip, felt the mortal wound within you.
186.
I still haven’t learned how to smile
without baring my teeth.
Did I burn my knuckles?
Did I masturbate?