old entry which somehow feels relevant today

I prefer the smell of chai to the man sitting in front of me. This is an immediate preference. I'm drinking a chai and the man in front of me reeks of patchouli, hair gel and salty food - food that would give me indigestion were I to eat it. I have indigestion anyway. And my body doesn't fold like it used to. I like the familiarity of buttons. This too is immediate. Right now I prefer the word button to zipper. Tomorrow I might fancy a different word, Salat perhaps, in Farsi or something else I saw while sitting idly and somewhat displaced in a book store. I'm tired now so I don't mind lingering on tastes. My body doesn't fold like it used to. A bend at the hip or waist creates an uncomfortable bubble of flesh-not-muscle. If you were to fold me in half you'd find it impossible to create a single crease. It would instead be a succession of three or four. 

A man in a jeep (on his way to me, wondering if I'm mad at him for being late) doesn't walk like others. He lopes. He'll be loping his way here in a few minutes. Maybe relationships themselves are nothing but this. Not what is said, not what's done and undone by time, stepped in or out of, but the timing of the entrance itself - into my life and then into this book store. Relationships carry their own unique rhythms and pauses, starts and stops.  I am drawn to and repelled constantly by romantic love. How infuriating always winning and losing each other to time and circumstance. One day you might find me searching endlessly for those red, beaded earrings I swore I left atop the dresser (to the right of my grandfather's picture and to the left of my hairbrush, also tangled and floating, strand by strand in time). You might commit yourself to writing your name on boxes, annotating carefully their contents only to later refill them with something different. The permanent marker marks remain, everything else changed.

for those in peril on the sea

trying to close our mouths to each other our ears. letting the water flow in. is tender the strange and somehow incorruptible heart as it reaches out. we reach for the sides. each man to himself and in another. rocking. how we try to hold onto it.

If I were a pie, divided.

I've gotten soft. My mind is soft, my belly is soft, my writing is soft. Jelly soft, not babyskin soft. Contentment will do that to a person if they're not careful. Contentment and allowing oneself to age too long too comfortably. Because along with this softness, has also come its reverse. Certain beliefs, certain ways of thinking have begun to calcify in my mind. I still enjoy the unknown, but I've never been this afraid of losing myself to it. At the same time, as though the nature of everything is to always be in complete contradiction to itself, it's clear that the impossibility of my getting lost (in Atlanta) has made it almost a certainty.

happiness is not enough

my hands work their way beneath your
shirt as you chop onions. a burst bulb

the kitchen offers only its half-light
a half-life. love is only a half-life.

half settling in the finger's bones to stay,
as if to stay. half going, going, gone with the

odor of onion washed from the lines
of the palm, the index finger, the thumb.

Persephone

I've always enjoyed pomegranates. perhaps I'm just drawn to disaster. to inevitability. everybody leaves if they get the chance. I wonder who and where I will be leaving from or returning to next fall. a new season has come to Atlanta, as surprising as ever. I've begun knitting. it's easy to appreciate bead-work and lace in Spring. the dogwoods have come alive so many other blossoming trees.

I was sitting on the front porch, sock monkey flannel pajamas, watching the storm roll in. I've always lived close to a highway or railroad. trains are sentimental (who doesn't enjoy the passing of a train?), but no one ever told me I would grow to love the sound of the highway. a poor-man's substitute for living by the beach.

there's a tornardo in the city and I'm easily swept away. I don't understand love. a night in Chicago. so much time to have passed. this was in 2005, a week before my marriage. I was there for a conference. I think I told you about it, the one where I was massively impressive?

my sister met us at our hotel. we had dinner at the navy pier. the ferris wheel climbed its great height. none of us could deny its beauty. the city spread before us and (I shit you not) fireworks went off as we reached its apex. lake michigan. the fairground swings. I suggest leaving your shoes behind. round and round bare feet and buildings spinning. I've never written about it. I have to say it was one of my happier moments.

and of course the blues bar we ended up at. I was a hoochie-cootchie woman. these past months I've had a crash course in embarrassment. bit of a light weight. but that night was absolute abandon. I may never be myself again. that night I was beautiful for sure.

does it ever mean as much to others as it does to you? I think not, but I digress.

suckas

I've been accepted to University of Pittsburgh's MFA program in poetry.

P.S.

I bought a guitar last night.

I also received my first rejection letter. It was from Washington. I think I'll frame it.

And okay yes, after 6-plus years of absolute sobriety, I have started drinking again. If you think that makes me a hypocrite you're probably right.