15 minutes of what?

balloons

2007-04-01T18:33:24Z

there was one day i had decided to be cruel. I picked apart the front door lock and traded its pieces with an old kitchen corkscrew. as if i needed you to swear you'd leave me once more - I watched your bags grow. a tumbling monument of tweed and fire. + your last four words burned my wrists. "i am going home."

the same as a wink

2007-03-26T07:26:06Z

sometimes i move slowly because i know you won't notice. i guess it's something that i want to try to get away with. when i was little, i would count the pennies that fell to the floor around my parents dresser. one time, there was 32 underneath their shoes alone.
when it's cold out, i miss you. i want to watch as the summer peels itself off the tree branches and slides down to the wet concrete. you would be walking there - holding a bouquet of flowers. see - i don't know you. i just know that you live next door, and don't have much to do on wednesday nights. i can hear the reality tv shows blaring in my kitchen. if i squint i can feel your breath on my neck when you get up to pour yourself another glass of wine.
it's too dark here and everyone falls into their own silent circles. but when it's that dark - my hands fly up. a sort of secretive hawk mission. you would just hear the inflection in my wrists. maybe a bone or two cracking.
mary got up and dusted the top of the dresser off with a wet paper towel. why hadn't she done this earlier? she would just stare at the top of that surface every morning, laden with dust - and wonder where it came from. next, she opened the door the bathroom. she inspected the hinges. they looked rusty but they barely made any noise. every morning she would think, those hinges look rusty. but today, she took out her screwdriver and took them off slowly. not having anything to replace them with - she propped the door against the wall.

tongue

2007-03-17T18:20:52Z

the potatoes in the lower right drawer had turned into mold and dust. as you leaned into the sink I held my words in a rare V pattern cutting the tips of your ears accidentally. but as you were just cutting a pile of onions you didn’t notice + simply turned your hands over in cold water – once, twice, three times. I swallowed and the weight freed up an entire block of ice I had lodged behind my eyes. my vision cleared + streaked in rapid succession. I bent down to pick up the potatoes and I did so only peripherally - holding them at arms length as I dropped then in the garbage one by one.

steep

2007-01-17T04:24:41Z

we all try to warm winter as well as we’ve been taught.. sometimes we learn about the right combination of whisky to keep us going. this is the third time it’s snowed though normally I wouldn’t mind.. I just keep looking on regardless. I think that the compromise can be fond huddling at the bottom of the sidewalk with a rusty cane and a limp from neglect.. does the snow makes us remember or forget in the morning? you bite into the third apple of the day.. I keep your teeth in check, crinkling up my receipts in my pocket as I stare through the wide windows. If I had windows like this, I reckon, I would change quite quickly. I would pause while devouring my oatmeal in the morning, I would name a pet squirrel. now I am drinking coffee. it’s black and hot and sort of feathers its way through my veins. in the winter, you’d come to visit me and we would both draw chalk lines on the old tables of your living room.. I would make pasta because I didn’t know what else to do, but eventually we would enter into a quick clip in our sarcasm and the night would fold into itself as we moved through it in one breath and full of thick tomato sauce and mozzarella.

I had been staring at my arms for one long month.

2007-01-07T18:24:17Z

The cradled curdle of the rainy morning woke me up and I shook the alarm clock for one whole minute. Maybe. There was a pause at the radiators lips. Had to let it bleed out – turn the key. Watch the thin trickle gather in the bucket near the foot of my bed. How could the idea of the bus stop be enough motivation to move anyone at all. I practiced my own motivation quite quietly.. Maybe I could clam up the outside sounds of passing cars with pinecones from the gutter.. they would buffet the tires like blankets if I could do it right. This girl in class had handed me a bag full of cigarettes. It was a brown bag, all crumpled. I opened it and then shoved it in my desk fast as a shot. Nosy Meredith told me she was going to tell the teacher. It wasn’t my fault that I had this bag full of cigarettes. But they were sitting in a cosy lump in my desk. I convinced here through sealed teeth that I would throw them out after class, right there – in the garbage can. I quieted her somewhat. She returned to trying to spell “filet mignon”. The teacher rattled on about the meaning of AC/DC. That it meant you swing both ways, that’s what that band was all about. He pursed his lips and gave a wide look around the classroom. Absolutely disgusting, he said. I felt a surge of panic about those cigarettes. That he could smell them from the other end of the room. He was wearing blue cordorouys with green whales on them. He walked pigeon toed.

I waited for Meredith to leave so she wouldn’t see me avoid the garbage can. I shoved the crinkled paper bag into my own canvas bag.. zipped it closed. Tried gathering it under my arms so as to avoid the smell it might emanate. At home, I ran to my bedroom. Then i dug through my bureau finding the eyeglasses case I had kept. I neatly placed 12 cigarettes, 2 rows of six, in the curved molded plastic and then snapped the case shut. I then hoisted myself in my closet and placed the case above the fluorescent light fixture.

fall

2006-10-02T16:05:34Z

we rinsed our hands in cold water. brought forward one white enamel plate after the other. "how long has it been since he died?" I asked. my ears thundered. you drew yourself inward, turned toward the corner. i never knew him. your uncle. but i was used to fucking up our silences. letting a single sentence destroy a seemingly perfect evening. i turned back toward the cupboard, rearranging the tall water glasses. they stuck to the tips of my fingers. squeaked somewhat silently - my hands could hear them best. I shuffled their bodies into neat rows. "I'm sorry", i said, and reached to steady my palms on the counter.

back

2006-08-31T16:00:55Z

riding into tall grass you could smell the ticks at our heels. a flat plastic smell.. as resolute as burning wood - hung a fixed cloud around summer. did you want to tell me to let go, latch my wrists, dig my fingernails in, worry me solid? i'd move with the heat as heavy as humidity - clamoring up hills, facing cliff sides, seeing gold. can't catch night without cupped hands. a lesson in letting things close around you. i cared enough to crawl into the back of your calves, rest my knees - burrow into your muscle to find you whole. we could become a tunnel. a mix. a fixed way of rotating. you are 60 degress. i eat with a risky shoulder slump - bag up the leftovers and hang the plastic back over my thumb. tight. we can't hold hands yet, it's so clear - we shield our arms from sight wile walking through the park after dinner. i want to catch you. and let you go.

gaps

2006-06-30T04:48:22Z

it was most likely the letter opening. the slow movement rustling its way down the hallway that pulled you from sleep. when i gently pulled the flap it undulated perfume, hearbreak, + a slow sigh that unhinged every door in the room - brought all suspended objects to their knees.

belt

2006-05-03T01:05:18Z

you are the smooth plank of wood on the dining room floor. but the nail you’ve held on to is coming loose, + I keep snagging my socks when I try to walk over without looking. I’ve nearly pried you up on those half-runs to the doorbell. + I’ll pretend I knew that you were there all along oh, that old plank – I’ll get to it someday. find that hammer and make sure you’ve sunken back into place. focus on every color in the grain. smooth you down, buy that expensive polish. + to tell you the truth, half of the time it’s not even the doorbell. it’s more around midnight going to get a glass of water, I’ll look down to see my crew socks unraveled to the toe.

lunch

2006-03-29T16:41:51Z

You were biting through a whole pack of twizzlers all at once, and one bite nearly halved them. your lips glittered with licorice flecks. plunking the scraggly leftovers in your glass of soda, you leaned far over the lip to suck up the rest of your drink through the knawed ends. ahh.. you exclaimed. slapped your belly. outside the traffic screeched and business men checked their watches + cell phones every third step. you dug your elbow into the counter top. rested on the edge of your palms and leveled your eyes to mine. what do you mean you want to break up? I regarded your widened pupils blankly . the sugar rush seemed to shimmy up your neck – your jugular dancing as the diner light signaled and flickered in the far left corner.

your barked for a cigarette from some guy passing for the bathroom. leaned over real hard, cupping your hands like shielding a baby chick. exhaling dramatically you pounded on the red vinyl seats of the booth with your fist. you fucker your hissed and snapped up your coat from the hanger in tornado fashion, nearly hitting three families with the blurring fabric on your way out the door. outside you smoothed your skirt, reached into your bag and handed two kids playing video games the majority of the contents. three packs of twizzlers, a notepad, bubblegum, bangle bracelets, housekeys, and an impressive collection of ticket stubs and then dashed across the street for the 49 headed uptown.

i've been known to

2006-03-02T16:21:50Z

whittle my bones down to hollow. to wedge air across the gaps. to find a way to not face you in the morning. to pick up broken whisky bottles and tumble the garbage into dumpsters. to wipe my hands across my knees to be convinced that the day will wipe it clean. to loop across moss-covered sidestreets to look for tracks three years old. to remember the way summer moved us to the point that we thought we had both changed. to race your knuckles down my spine to remember. to drop the book where its left and to pocket all fallen quarters and hang on to those receipts.

creases

2006-02-18T19:33:58Z

we’ve got a tendency to remember the way ankles tuck into crossed-legs. down the half-a-cup-of-coffee on our way down the hill. the orange spread of morning bends over the corner and presses dirty hands into my temples. there’s a haze. an elementary way of risking it all. as busses cross in front of noses, to take that 3 inch step.. but it’s inevitable to crowd into motion together. down to the rusty level of the hand rail. chew bagels despondently and drum fast staccato rhythm.

stencil

2006-02-01T16:21:00Z

we wove into each other with knotted knuckles. hair tugged into wire. strength that startled riptide. days are a shaky phonograph warble - arms lock across an angle of rust and ice. a motion that is at once ancient and jarring. you. constantly touching fingertip to forearm. a gesture that two years ago would bellow a huff from my lungs now climb up the tendrils that attatch sinew to muscle to ripple and break waves across my chest.

january

2006-01-04T18:34:29Z

your lips poised at the side of the whisky glass – begging another second before tipping the whole thing back. wiping your chin with the side of your hand, resting your palms against the top of your thighs. outside was so east-coast. the bare branches of trees pleading to let their arms drop at their sides – exhausted. and the snow kept gathering itself in neat little piles on the skinny limbs. we would hear the snap throughout the night, of all those limbs breaking. as neatly as separating a smooth bar of chocolate along each row. never noticed how you would clear the dishes so abruptly.. as if it all been laid out, felt, and had to go. now its all pacific northwest winters – green in January and a grey fog that’s followed through my head most afternoons. keep trying to shake off the weight of it – but I can’t clear it up quite right. everything feels divisible but there’s never a whole number to be found in the equation. and our nights drift us all apart: breaking us up. puffy white clouds.

ozone fire

2005-12-23T03:24:35Z

you sat across from me + plunked a shot glass on the table. your arm swooping through caustic air as quickly as tearing a page. my throat burned inside-out + upheaved itself. a car engine starting at 50 below. could have just released the safety brake + watched myself back away. an obtuse angle pours through my knees. the sound of light fingertips + ransom stories. the weight of the air too thick to move through and not find you - your hands a sun that bore through clouds like ozone fire.