stacks of paper

The yard was big. Then they took a chunk out of it. And surrounded fence with single-family homes. They left the chunk there though. Eventually it would be shaped and decorated and admired. But for months it was dirt. And some of those days it was mud. Mud that caked my skin, covered my eyes, and kept me from slipping away.

The room was small. They painted it colors and made sure it would stay. There were locks on the doors, doors for the closets, spaces under the beds, but those things soon stopped working. I cut little notches into the carpet in a corner of the room. And everyday they sewed it back together and took a picture.

It was boxes. Then it was bags. Then it was trunks. And cases. And casts. And books. And characters that were supposed to be apart of your life. The bags turned into baggies. The boxes turned into coffins. The books turned into stacks of paper.

So I building a home of things I know. I brought a window to look out of and a mirror to look into. There is a door knocker to replace the bell. There are no doors. The floors are made from the wooden shelves that held books, cups, records, and trophies. The one set of curtains is from the map of the world my grandparents used to have. It is going to have a fireplace fueled by pictures I haven't yet thrown away. And a bar.

fingersteps

It is probably some minor chord. That is how all those start. The ones you pick third for the jukebox. There is the long one that has a funk bass line that you pick first so you have a good soundtrack for picking the rest. Then there is the second one. Which is the one you really mean. It is loud. It is mean. It is sloppy. It hasn't showered. It hates at least one of it's parents if not both. It is broke. It smells like the bathroom back there late Tuesday morning. It drinks coffee from the day before and smokes the butts of cigarettes from the neighbor's lawn. It is just there. And most of the time we are lucky it even showed up. It is you. In a song. Then there is the third one. With the minor chord. That one is the real you. But you don't tell them. You just let it play while you do a shot and that woman in the corner counts to ten.

second or third hand

I keep drug addict hours. When the sun is out my eyes are blank, half-grey, and surrounded with sweat. My nails are kept long to remind myself I am scratching at the surface. My fourth or fifth borrowed car collects parking tickets in front of my building. I found myself standing alone on the corner two nights ago. The power was out so I could see the stars for the first time; the first time from this spot. I yelled and shook and surprised a stranger that wasn't there when I opened my eyes. I take my glasses off when I smoke those menthols my roommates scatter around. I trace a tag on the ground with one of my bare toes, skipping over the a in the middle. The money is all gone. Yawns bookend floods of creativity and resentment. I find churches to say I used to visit, forge receipts for tithes I make in my head, and keep the pastor's card in my wallet. My phone battery dies every twenty minutes. That is why I keep missing these calls. I write the phone number to the house I grew up in on all these liquor store receipts and but them in a green whiskey bottle.The hall closet holds a wedding dress and two vacuum cleaners. They have all been used once. Waves of sleep crash into the building. Sometimes I can stay up long enough to catch the last light go out. Then the hallway is dark. All of my furniture comes from a sober living house a few blocks over. It all has to be changed when they get a new addict. The manager gives me a heads up of what will be on the curb when. I got a necklace that way once. It was taped to the underside of a desk. It has the name of a gentleman on it. I got his desk when he couldn't take it anymore and stood on his chair with rope. I didn't get his chair. I have my own.

10 things about this night

that song we used to sing
about those records she all scratched
played on my tape deck
for the first time
since I had all those records shipped down south to someone else's she


these little notes
i keep pulling out of my pockets
scratched onto pieces of receipt from taco bell
never feel like money but i keep holding my breath


i turned my bed into a desk
my desk into a tv stand for a coworker
my coworker into a pusher


my pupils are growing sensitive to the florescent lights in my house
in that they consider 
the feelings
fears
and shadows
those lights cast on all they see


when i
walk into
my house
with a bag that is brown
i feel
like that
kid from
parenthood
with all the porno tapes


instead of the beer in the freezer being left in for too long
i drank it warm


i told myself
TEN
before you go to bed
and that was hours ago


the skin is all back
on the tips of my fingers
in case you were wondering


standing in the desert
is only worthwhile
to see all the stars that remind me of her freckles


i used to write this
to the melodies of songs
that i did not write
but claimed as my own
sloppy handwritten thoughts on suicide

Couple Skate

Randy is over there, by the bathroom. You can hear him knocking his bottle against the wall. Some kid just asked him what it was like when flannel was cool the first time. He keeps kicking the ground with his boot and asking the kid if he had ever heard why it rains all the time in Seattle. The kid repeats he doesn't know shit about the rain or Seattle or why they go together; he just wants to know what it feels like to be old. But he draws out the O for way too long. And Randy chuckles, he isn't that old, but it was great to always be warm, to always be prepared to chop down some tree or pose with some paper towels. Randy's voice sounds the same as it did back then. I remember laying in the bed of his truck one night in his back yard. He barely smoked the cigarette in his hand. He was counting the number of times he had said Truman that day. Randy had given a tour of the school to out of state prospective students and kept pointing out the spots that the old president used to smoke at. Truman didn't go to our school and he probably didn't smoke. Randy just wanted to give these kids something special to tell their parents about. A girl joins the kid and Randy now. They all look at me and shout something I can't make out. I'm picturing what it would look like to recreate the cover of that first Clash record with them. The girl walks up and says Randy told her I knew a guy who could help her out with this problem she has. I'd ask what it is but I can feel her staring at my hands so I don't bother.

Mission

A few blocks away, over on Mission, there is a liquor store called Don's. It is ran by a man named Randy. I walk over there whenever the president speaks on television. Randy has a small TV set behind the counter and he puts the speech on it for me. I get a Styrofoam cup from next to the soda fountain and dump Christian Brothers into it. Randy doesn't like it when I drink in the store but he turns his head when the president is on TV. Sean sits outside chain smoking and drinking Old Crow. I get tired of hearing the same things so I sit on the curb with Sean drinking during the applause and laughing at the kid begging for change.

glendale

There is this tall building on the way into Glendale. I saw a gentleman fall from it tonight. It is the one on the right. The tall one. Before Glendale College. Before Glendale Blvd. Before the Glendale Freeway. Before the Glendale Medical Center. Before all of that there is the tall building I saw the man fall from.

The song on the radio kept telling me that life went on, long after the thrill of living is gone.

I heard a rumor, that up there on some desk, there is a note that explains all of this. Personally, I am hoping it is just a highlighted paragraph from a book a lover gave him a couple of decades ago. That would keep with the theme, the motif, and the whole motivation of the evening.

His coffee is still hot. There are little lines of steam forming some sort of tower to heaven, or at least someplace with more room to breathe. The picture frames have all been put face down. No witnesses. No explaining. He took his second favorite pen with him; no reason to keep everything nice to himself.

A red light blinks on his phone. On. Off. On. Off. On. Off. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

He left his shoes. Light brown. Untied. In a drawer in his desk. That desk with the note, or the page from the book, or the matchbook with the phone number inside; whatever it was that we decided explained all of this. In that desk, where the folders alphabetized by last names used to sit, that is where his untied light brown business shoes stay. The left heel is worn more than the right.

He must have something wrong with his legs.

Otherwise he would have jumped.

But I am glad he didn't If he had jumped, instead of falling, I might not have seen him.

I might have kept driving home, to lay in my empty bed, to trace a route on a map, to start a book I started a hundred times.

Instead I turned the stereo up, stopped for dinner, a beer, and sent kisses from my lips into the air, that they might find the perfect cheek to land on, to keep safe somewhere else.