the points of their noses
the sparkles of their eyes
the line of their jaws
the rounds of their cheeks and chins
the square whites of their teeth
against the smile their lips
i read in an article about online dating
and match making
that couples who look alike stay together
and when i’m out at bars or walking down the street
i look in the faces of the couples i see for resemblance
in the happiness of their faces
beneath the yellow halogen streetlight
over the intersection of 22nd and Harriet Ave
the red tailed hawk perched
i watched the snow falling lit from above
my iPhone set to shuffle
songs falling
‘goodbye enemy airship’ by do make say think playing in my headphones
or ‘failure’ by shotmaker or or ‘under the milky way tonight’ by the church or or or or or
the red tailed hawk, snow flakes lit from above
falling
the red tailed hawk, falling over me, wings spread
songs on shuffle, my Saturday gone and spent at work
i was falling
wings spread
lying in the shade of a palm tree on a white sand beach in Jamaica and falling asleep for a few hours and waking up so rested to the smell of jerk chicken being cooked down the beach and the sound of the warm breeze in the fronds of the palm trees above me in the dark running towards the bus i just missed watching it drive down lyndale avenue toward my place at around 11:45 pm and being drunk and alone and the loneliness and the dark cold and the only thing i can think of is just passing out in the warmth under my blankets against the 20 mph wind from the northwest that’s eating through my clothes at -3 degrees plus the windchill too and 30 minutes still until the next #4 bus on the overnight flight i took to Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport and trying to sleep amongst the crying children worrying about leaving my job even just for a few days and the crying children on the dark flight from Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport to Sangster International Airport and the crack of warm morning sunshine between the fuselage of the Airbus A319 and the gangway and the shiver i feel as i step across the snow covered curb in the -26 windchill walking in the warm white sand up the aisle of the bus at 12:20am not noticing the peaceful sleeping children and then
seeing their little closed eyes and soft breaths on the hushed bus noticing the snot dripping from my nose as my stiff body sways and bounces feeling the warm air from the bus’ heaters on my face a few more stops to my place
i’m not really sure, yeah i don’t know, like, it was something but we’re not sure, yeah i don’t know either, we heard it was like, this thing, but we aren’t sure right now, how am i supposed to know? it was their job to know, not mine, yeah i’m not really sure who would know, i couldn’t really tell you, we were told someone else knew what it was, it might be this but i’m not sure because they told me it was like, totally understood already, you know? yeah i’m sorry i don’t know, i don’t know, maybe they could tell you, ask them, yeah i didn’t really have time to know that, yeah i’m sorry, thanks, yeah i don’t know dude, we weren’t really interested in it so we didn’t think it was important, what? no. no, i didn’t know that, no, we were both really busy with stuff so we didn’t really think about it, no, yeah, my girlfriend was doing this thing so i didn’t know about it, no i didn’t see it online so i stopped wondering about it, i was visiting my mom and dad so there wasn’t time to understand it, i’m not totally sure, but i do know that they said they would get to it, i think the others were like, working on it, so i didn’t know about it, no, it’s something, like, i don’t know, it was like, this thing, but i just didn’t think it mattered to me, no, yeah we weren’t curious about it either and so, well, the executive team got no indication from them on it’s importance so, and yeah, so like the incoming data sets were outside of our, of our, like, task group, so we didn’t get to it then, i kept hearing about this huge, like, thing, but i had to go to this other place and like, there was no one there who could determine what it was so i figured they were doing it, yeah they weren’t sure either so i just went ahead and went to the store with, like, my boyfriend, no, there wasn’t really time for me to ask so, yeah, i’m sure they probably know what it means
her blue eyes a sparkling rain
“i am a cactus you hold with your heart”
her words wet and running down my face
“the blue of our pain in our sky”
my words dripping from my lips
“my breath a blue shadow on white snow”
my arms holding her red earth
“my spines are just leaves can’t you see”
as she walks her trail through me
a huge murder of crows
covered the top most gray branches of the trees i walked under
covering all the trees for 3 blocks down 22nd St
like rustling black leaves against the deep blue night sky
their droppings rained down sounding like rain slapping the icy sidewalk
their caws muffled and desperate
were they huddling together against the cold i wondered
against the cold single digit darkness
their flapping wings their shuffling bodies
blacker than the night sky above
and as i returned back down 22nd St a few hours later
the crows were still there, silent now, unmoving, fast asleep
and who was i going to huddle against tonight
as i sat watching the silt laden mississippi river flooding it’s banks
i imagined taking a sample of my blood river
would the meter say for the millionth time “silt levels are normal”
or would the meter say for the millionth time “too much sweet silt”
so my fire hose syringe injects clear insulin water
but maybe i injected too much
so two hours later my earth was in convulsions
or would the meter say for the millionth time “too much fresh water”
so shaking, sweating, ravenously hungry, i drove dump truck spoons of sweet silt into my blood river
but maybe i ate too much
so later that night my earth was puking over a toilet trying to get rid of the silt
this crazy 6 way balance my life swings upon
food to rest to stress to exertion to insulin to time
i was taught to achieve the perfect balance of sugar in blood
but, my life flows like a river in flood across the land
picking up debris and flowing different directions down dry creek beds
my life burns energy in ways the 6 factor calculus of Type 1 diabetes never accounts for
picking up love and flowing different directions down my lover’s curving side streets
i do my best to withdraw the correct amount of insulin into my syringe
for the stress i did not see coming
i do my best to account for the hours ahead
so that every gram of sugar i didn’t know i would eat is predicted
but when the stress storms hit and my blood river floods it banks
the convulsions, the lying sick on a bed, people calling ambulances for me
i feel so ashamed that i could not know could not prevent could not plan
so that never happens
as i sat watching the silt laden water of the mississippi river
i imagined being a civil engineer tasked with bringing the level of silt in water back to normal
managing a line of pump trucks pumping clear water through fire hoses into the river
commanding a line of dump trucks dumping soil one after the other into the river
sitting there in the job site command trailer by the river bank
every single second of every single day
issuing commands over neural nextel 2-ways so that normal levels are always maintained
while my life, my blood river goes ahead and floods it’s banks anyways
and for the millionth time i see the futility and the frustration and the lie that is this control
flash red across the face of this highly trained engineer in me
all that can pull me away from his desk to the river bank
tearing off my clothes pushing me in
is that i can forgive myself saying let it go, go for a swim
there’s this huge abandoned mansion in l.a. in beverly hills yeah dude yeah you can see it it’s there it’s on google maps it’s huge but nobody really knows about it and there’s this crazy community and shit built up there and like there’s this huge abandoned heart beating yeah dude, it’s like somewhere in the middle of the ocean on facebook or something dude yeah this huge abandoned heart this huge important beating thing but it’s abandoned out there and you and where the fuck were you you were like texting about the t.v. show to your gf and the beat the abandoned beat of this huge beating heart passed through you dude and you didn’t feel it
the coffee shop was full this saturday afternoon
warm coffee contemplative music a long tough week done
i sit and stare off out of the window i stare off out into the space of it
i see laptops glowing text books out and open tablets propped up with keyboard flaps out fingers
clicking and typing
faces glowing
ghostly white eyes oblivious
staring at screens
i love this coffee shop how it doesn’t even have to try
so many times i’ve seen kids playing games or running up to me and everyone else there
asking questions
dogs coming inside being greeted like regulars just like their owners
if a key is being pressed down here on a laptop is some weight being lifted up somewhere else?
what work is being done here, show me that which is being lifted up, what new energy being born
thousands of miles away
headphones on, back against the window, face glowing ghostly white
while children scamper around playing hide-n-seek
and a dog resting at the feet of it’s owner looks me in the eyes and lifts up it’s head and licks my hand
as i reach out to pat it’s head
did you fall
asleep with the book over your face and the light left on
your hand stopping to rest on top of your head your elbow locked up in the air
until it falls
and wakes you and finally you reach to turn out the light
head down resting on the seat back of the 2C bus after 1 am
you so tired so so tired
so hard worked n now done gone
fragile human
shift worked
deep breaths
fast asleep bouncing down Franklin Ave
fragile human
deep breaths
shivering in the falling snow at 4 am
your memories of her body soft n smooth n warm against you
your head bobbing against the tower head
it was only a little after 9 pm and you were falling asleep at the bar
fragile dreams to the beat of the moon n the sun
bouncing down Franklin Ave
heat flow 