Proximity 

In space, everything is so far from everything. 

I read a book once about how unlikely complex life was in the universe. It said one of the reasons life was still around on earth was because it was so distant from other stars. Without that closeness, we were saved from the cosmic uncertainty of runaway meteors and comets. 

We are alive because we are alone.

Like The Back of My Hand 

Nobody ever knows the back of their hand. That expression is a falsehood.

1. like our whole body, it swells and shrivels. 

2. Slowly, we replace all of our cells. You won’t even notice when it becomes a whole new Back Of Your Hand. 

3. There are twenty nine bones in a hand, at the tension and release of every tendon, at the flex of every one of the fifty one muscles, it changes. 

4. It grows to its greatest size and then it grows wrinkles. 

The hand that flies a kite is not the same hand that holds a drink, is not the same hand that toils away, is not the same hand that holds another hand. And even if the galaxy stops spinning, it will never go further than arm’s length away.

Things I Was Afraid of As A Kid

Things I was afraid of as a kid: 

sharks, 

(Tell them about seeing sharks at an aquarium when you were very little, trying to talk about them in a complex way, but it only coming out as “sharks have sharp teeth, and they gnash gnash gnash,” tell them about the jellyfish that had washed up on the beach that spring you visited your grandpa in Florida, you were a tween by then but when you touched one with your toe you still screamed like a baby. Tell them about watching some family friend petting a baby stingray, how you hated their gaping mouths and their flat bodies, and you still hadn't forgiven them for Steve Irwin.)

Death,

(Tell them about finding your half eaten dug up dead pets as a kid. Tell them how the coyotes only got to the legs for Monday and Sissy, but seeing that still changed your relationship with every fried chicken that would come after. Tell them how you found Amber, with only her back half left and fur scattered around the grave. Tell them how you ran away and called your mom and dad. Tell them what it was like, watching your dad rebury them under the darkening sky. Tell them how he put them under storm windows to keep the coyotes away. Tell them about how you could hear the coyotes, out in the woods each night. When they were hunting, you could hear the sound of their howls as they travelled along the trees, chasing their next meal.)

quicksand, 

(Tell them how you thought quicksand was going to be much more of a problem as an adult. John Mulaney thought so too. Perhaps it would appear around the corner on your way to work, and you’d be trapped, best case scenario you'd be late and your outfit would be ruined and it would be nobody’s fault but your own. Tell them how you mistook sinkhole reports for weather reports. Tell them how quicksand is only scary when nobody is there to save you.)

mistaken identity, 

(Tell them about the time you kept wandering off on your kindergarten field trip to Abe Lincoln’s cabin, how you kept finding another field trip, and sticking with them, then wandering off again. Tell them how you wandered away so many times you eventually wandered back to your old group, at some playground, tell them how the chaperone grabbed you and shook you and told you that you could never do that again, tell them how of course you got lost right after, but you didn't know until everyone went to get their bags by the tree and yours was by a completely different landmark. Tell them how long after you were worried you'd get grabbed and shook and pulled into a different field trip, then be stuck living a whole other life.)

being turned into an animal by a witch, 

(Tell them about the YMCA camp counselor that was turned into a centaur. Tell them how they would take all the young campers to the creepiest part of the grounds after nap time and tell ghost stories. Tell them how easily you believed them. Tell them about the witch they made up that tested experimental spells on campers. Tell them how all the counselors claimed to be part something or other. Cat, wolf, lion, bear, horse, always the kinds of animals you wanted to be, never frog or pig or giraffe. Tell them how you told your parents the scary stories the counselors told you and they said ‘well they look pretty human to us.’  Tell them about reading Kafka’s Metamorphosis in high school, and being incredibly moved, and a little bothered that nobody else was, tell them how you didn’t really like horror at the time, but this story, this story scared you, woke you up a bit. What scared you wasn’t the idea of becoming a cockroach, it was the nuance, the specificity to the fear it expressed, with the transformation and the being cast aside, the misunderstandings, and finally the idea of being a burden, and only a burden. It was so specific, you had thought you were the only one that had felt it. Maybe you were human after all. That scared you too.)

basements, 

(Tell them about the woman you thought haunted your basement. About how the previous owner was moving because the house was too big since his wife had passed. It wasn’t that big. Tell them about how there was a waterbed down there when you moved in, and how your parents dismissed it when you suggested that might have been the bed she died on. Tell them how you imagined dying on a waterbed, and you imagined her still on that water bed every time you went down there. Tell them how hard it is to move a waterbed out of a basement. About how you have to drain it, slowly, so the basement doesn't flood. Tell them how you thought about jumping on it for a while, but you worried that the ghost wouldn’t like it, or that your toenails would pop it, which would upset both the ghost and your parents. Tell them about how you would plead to her not to startle you, and that you would be out of her space as soon as you got this or that from the storage under the stairs. Tell them how fast you ran back up to the first floor. Tell them how you wanted to move your room down there, for the cool air, and because secretly the dark woods out your window at night scared you a bit more than the friendly ghost haunting your basement. Your parents made you prove you could sleep in the basement by making you sleep down there for three nights before you could move your stuff down. Tell them how you swore you heard her the first night. Tell them how what you actually heard, you would discover as a teenager, were rats scurrying in the ceiling, which was technically the floor, and how you saw one fall through an open ceiling tile once, but in the darkness you could have sworn it was her. Tell them that she never really bothered you again after that first night, tell them about moving your bedroom down there, tell them about pretending to talk to her, tell them about telling her everything.)

growing up.

(Tell them about how you haven't, or maybe you have but you don’t know what that means, but people tell you that you grew up that time you subleased an apartment and you and the renters got kicked out two weeks later, and you had to find a place on your own. That you grew up when your friend went off her meds and drove you mad with self doubt, and you left her behind, because you had to. That time you saw a girl for a month and then watched as she devoted her soul to the legal battle against her rapist. The time past it all when you handled it yourself and realized slowly you are now the one burying the half eaten pets in the sunset, and someday you’ll be the ghost listening to a scared teenager tell you everything.)

On Love, At The Scale Of Three Months 

I.

I want to be an abstract idea,

exploring itself infinitely.

I am the human race

I want to glue my skin to your skin

I want to put my face on yours

I want to go to a party with you.

we’ll wear our best pajamas

sit in the corner

sip my mom’s wine

I want to go to a party with you

but have you all to myself.

you look like every person 

I’ve let into my soul.

II.

Dominga says I have adaptability fuel

She says don’t ask for too much love

I have no agency sometimes

This is a house

You’ll find them here.

III.

Define your nomadic life;

My backpack is too heavy

And my dreams are a little

Too big for me to take.

More than a little broke always

Assume your position

Awaiting the crosswalk.

IV.

I can feel all the infinites

Between me and myself

I feel like

My shoes wear through

Faster than everyone else’s

I feel like

This is a house.

V.

The universe is tight on my finger

A freshly made ring

Little mountains in the distance

When I slow down

I can feel the sweat on my brow

I promise I found it this way.

VI.

That sliver of nothings gives an old feeling

The one that makes you think

Something’s out there for you

Now that I’ve turned the feelings back on

There is something about waiting out front

That just seems right

Not because of the cold,

Because of the doorway.

VII.

Why is the chorus to that song

“Only the good die young”

With such a perky horn line?

Why am I the only one here

Not smoking a cigarette right now?

It’s strange being the only one 

In the room

Not holding a vice.

VIII.

I keep finding this old something in my pocket. 

A sticker folding into itself

Someone slapped it on my hand at work

And I left it there

Then tucked it away,

Each time I find it

Both it and I grow smaller

Soon we will be nothing together

IX.

Is that fern real?

Don’t ask for too much love

Right now I’m between two moments

I think plastic ferns are hilarious.

X.

I’ve noticed I’m drunk

I thirst to

Rewrite my childhood

Maybe I can nose

It into the way I want it

Without using my hands

I’ll get what I get

All of us are fools

In some light.

XI.

Sit in the front of the red line train

See tracks speeding at you

See these lights speeding to you

Coming as fast as they can

Perfectly symmetrical

And suddenly

It all makes a little more sense:

This is a house,

Don’t ask for too much love.

She’s A Mother Now

she says skim milk

tastes like flowers now.

go to your garden

choose your favorite chrysanthemum

take your scissors

cut the chrysanthemum at the base.

leave its roots there.

cut the end at a forty-five degree angle

and cauterize it

so it will live longer.

put your chrysanthemum in a vase

every day, pluck a petal

from the chrysanthemum.

place it on your tongue

roll it around your mouth

try to taste the skim milk.

if you remember to do this

every day

you won’t have to watch

the flower wilt.

The Highway Ends in Arkansas

I saw the end of a highway once

I thought all highways 

went somewhere

or at least turned into another

smaller road

leading to 

some small town,

But in this case, there was just the last exit

then a little gravel.

Henry

When I held her baby

she told me to rock him

and hum softly.

Then she said to me:

“When babies are in the womb

they are always moving

they are always warm

they are always being fed

and there is always the noise

of the blood pumping

the heart beating

and the breathing.

then they come out.

and they’re all-”

here she squinted her eyes

and adopted a little voice,

“-what is this?

who’s gonna move me?

where’s my food?

where’s my noise?

and my warmth?”

that’s why, she said,

we have to rock and sing

to our babies.

Then she adjusted my arm

to better support his neck,

and I could feel his heat

coming off of his little head.

at party

I lean against this

cold windowpane and I can 

feel it through my shirt.

a psychologist once told us

while smooth jazz played

from a YouTube playlist

that group dynamics

work a lot like thermodynamics,

most of the time.

If you sit,

back against that cold windowpane

at your party,

it could also look like a coagulating ocean.

Empty Sky

While eighteen, in my last year at home,

My dog and I would take his evening walks

In the night time

Until then, I had been largely

Afraid of the dark. 

There was something about that 

Unending Illinois flatness 

All the way to the horizon, 

The pitch black countryside

It was terrifying.

I called it The Grand Nothing. 

That’s what made 

Moving to the city for college

So damn exciting; 

All those lights, 

All those directions you can turn, 

Instead of just left or right 

Like how it was on our 

Narrow Bumpy Country Path. 

But those late night ventures

Got me looking up

One could almost see 

The milky way 

Streaming by out there.

Before that final summer's end,

My fear for the dark had passed 

Leaving only the headlights, 

Rising out the drainage ditch

And stretching down the road, 

I’d have to reel the leash in tight 

So he'd not get hit

In his excitement for the speeding car.

Because You Didn’t Sleep

Watch the sun rise on a cloudy morning. Really look for it. Squint your eyes, you have to.

Rise

Children are raised on the songs of their elders,

So I'm told.

Sing to them the songs of Mother Goose.

Read them the stories of kittens and mittens.

Instead, I was sung the wise words of Johnny Rotten:

"They put a hot wire to my head 

'Cos of the things I did and said

And made these feelings go away 

Model citizen in every way"

They say listen to Mozart to make

Your baby smarter,

So my dad introduced me to The Dead Kennedys

Suicidal Tendencies

Public Image Ltd.

He let me find 

The Clash

The Ramones

The Sex Pistols

On my own,

And still tells the story

With pride

Of when I came home from fourth grade

To show him this cool song I found

"Teenage Lobotomy"

While we mowed the lawn

Trimmed the hedges

Did the dishes

He sang 

"It's a holiday in Cambodia

Where people dress in black

It's a holiday in Cambodia

Where you'll kiss ass or crack"

During my Green Day phase he tells me

"You and your friends should 

do a cover of California Uber Alles.

But make it about your middle school principal

Or Arnold Schwarzenegger"

Stopping at a gas station

On a long road trip he'd say

With a smile

"All I want's a Pepsi"

He’d hum 

Most of the song at the pump

and finally as we return to the highway

The titular stanza

"My best interest? How can you know what's my best interest is?
What are you trying to say, I'm crazy?
When I went to your schools, I went to your churches,
I went to your institutional learning facilities? So how can you say I'm crazy?"

Over these songs he tells me the legends of

Sid Vicious and Jello Biafra

Seeing U2 in Hawaii in the 80's

"Back when they were still punk"

Passing out at a concert

And waking up just in time to see The Police.

While we go through his old cassettes

In the garage, not long til I move to college

As we escape the layers of sawdust

And gasoline fumes

I can see the 

Angry former marine

With a white Mohawk 

And a membership card for

The Socialist Workers Party

That he left behind

For my mother.

He still sends me 

His favorites on Spotify

"May the road rise with you 

May the road rise with you

May the road rise with you."

9 Muses

Mnemosyne is the goddess of memory

She and I aren’t on the best terms,

I probably will forget your name a few times

But I like her daughters.

we talk a lot about beautiful things

ideas, concepts,

things to share with the world.

Sometimes they sing.

I’ve heard all the songs before

but I still appreciate it.

I’ve never seen them,

they hide in between the walls

everywhere I go,

but I feel that they are lovely.

Shoes

Take me to the cobbler

I need a new sole.

I've told you before,

His shoes wear through

Faster than everyone else's.

Perhaps he carries

Something heavy

And must drag his feet

So as not to lift them

Too high

And lose his grip

On the surface of it all. 

I Want To Dig A Cave.

The day of the fire, a stranger slept on my couch.

At two in the morning, a phone call.

An old high school memory,

Her friend, who she met at Summer Camp

or Riot Fest 

or whatever the hellish festival of musical debauchery

she was at last

was crashing at O’Hare that night

and had gotten locked outside

while smoking a 'cigrit'.

“Can he stay with you just tonight? he has nowhere to sleep, 

they won’t let him back into the airport,” she said.

I would have said no

if I wasn’t alone, drunk, at two in the morning

and living off the Blue line.

at 2:45 I met him at the Logan Square stop 

and walked him to my place.

after we had a little chit chat

about police brutality

we went to sleep.

He seemed nice enough

To not rob me.

The next morning, we eat eggs, scrambled. 

It is hours before his flight

so he heads downtown with me.

His suitcase in hand,

My books slung on my back,

“I’ll point out some places you should check out

while you're here,” I tell him.

we are awaiting the train

when I get a call from Mom. 

So surprising it came through, down here

In this long tunnel.

I didn’t feel the shock right away

it felt as if I was acting shocked.

Hand over your mouth

Eyebrows high.

“I need you to be strong,

because I don’t think I can handle

you breaking down right now.”

She says.

I can hear the tears in her voice.

I sit down, and speak,

“My parent’s house burned down

and my dogs are dead,”

I say.

The stranger who slept on my couch 

just stares.

Prometheus means forethought,

He stole fire and gave it to us,

all of us.

for this he was chained to a rock

while buzzards eat his liver

every day for eternity.

for once I am okay with that.

Thanks, Prometheus.

“This is California. 

it’s the edge of Logan Square.

All these elevated stops,

California,

Western,

Damen,

have a lot of great spots you could check out.”

“If you need to be with friends right now

I can find my own way around the city

don’t worry dude.”

a little bit later

I say “I hope my dogs died of smoke inhalation,”

get off at Damen

and walk to Dave’s.

When he lets me in,

I feel as if I am entering the set

of my own sitcom,

surely there was some dark comedy to this.

I sit down in the nearest chair,

recite what I said

to the stranger who slept on my couch.

behind it all I can see

my dog, slowly backing away from

a swift blaze.

I break down

and Dave,

Dave tries to massage my shoulders.

Cue audience laughter.

we end up drinking a couple beers,

It is quiet, except for the occasional

rhetorical remark by one of us.

He thinks I should skip class.

I don’t want to.

I want to go to my parent’s backyard

and dig a hole.

A cave,

mine for nothing in particular

except the act of digging

I will pick at it

with my shovel and my fingernails

I will dig until all that ore is gone

then I will hang lanterns.

I will work until it is done

I am sore

and pale

and must crawl out.

At school I break down twice.

First when it was just me and

two other classmates.

Then I break down in the hallway

in front of Kyle and Melanie.

I step out in the middle of class

to read the news article

and video, posted by the Gazette.

“They found our dogs huddled together

in the back bathroom,” Koeneman said.

Sarge and Epi, the family’s two rescues

perished due to smoke inhalation.

My pal Alec sticks with me after class

We buy a six pack, 

and a sandwich.

That night,

I sit on the phone with my parents.

most of the time, none of us say anything,

the only light on is my phone

as the bright hot sun slowly descends

behind all the houses

and trees and backyards

with dogs playing in them

and the evening Chicago breeze.

Lena comes by later with a bottle of wine

which we drink on the back stoop

staring at a rabbit licking its front paws

in the grassy alley.

Louie comes too, the three of us

talking about nothing in particular.

Lena has a flight to catch tomorrow.

Louie met someone.

At midnight we, at Louie's insistence,

go to a friend’s apartment nearby

and stay there until two in the morning

Playing chess.

I feel so very far away,

That night, I sleep on my couch.

There are buzzards in my room

Thanks, Prometheus.

Drunk Text 

it’s close to eleven

when she says

“No one ever preemptively

waits for the bathroom

line

#fact”

and I say back

“Woah

U just blew my mind

I never ‘might have to

pee’ it’s either on or off

You found the one thing

in this world that’s black

and white”

then she says

“That’s so poetic”

We are so very clever.

Imagine a Collection of Dice

"We have an ant problem,"

My roommate says

Picking at the moving 

Black specks

On our counter.

I join in and

Crush one underneath my thumb

And she exclaims,

"No! Don't kill them!

Chuck them into the sink

And rinse them down the drain.

That way, they drown

Far away from us."

Did you know 

Ants don't breath.

They don't have lungs.

Instead, air enters

Through tiny holes

Scattered all across 

Their tiny bodies.

She turns the faucet on and

Six little black specks

Lose their grip on the stainless steel

And wash down the

Pipe at the center.

The neck joint of the

Common American Field Ant

Can withstand pressures

5,000 times greater than

Its own body weight.

"When I was a kid I would drown

Them in a bowl of water.

I would slowly collect

Their little bodies in

There until I had a

Little massacre of ants

In a rice bowl.

Now, flushing them

Down the drain feels

More humane."

It's impossible to make an

Ant Giant.

Once it gets big enough

It can't even lift its own

Body Weight

The thing would just crumble

To pieces.

We have ant traps now.

Sometimes, I see them wander

Into that little plastic hole

Then turn and run.

Old Corn

The hairs on top of a corn stalk are called its tassel.

When you grow up in the Midwest

The classic summer job

Is to detassel corn.

You get paid by how many rows you get through

Before your sun sets.

My High school friends did that.

My parents’

best-friend-couple met in High School

Out in a field detasseling corn.

(Amber, she of the 

Best-friend-couple

Tells me this while we sit in her truck

Headed down a county trail 

cutting through the great grids of the

Grand Nothing. 

It’s Fall,

The fields are fresh-harvested

And the machines 

With their farmers in them

Are now spreading lime in the fields 

Turning the Grand Nothing to something like a snowless

White and soil Chess Board)

I wonder,

What there is to say to the cute girl you meet

30 rows in on an acre 1,230 rows deep,

Or deeper?

Who’s left to count when the last tassel has been pulled?

She's an accountant now,

He works an office job

and every morning 

when he sits down at his desk,

The man measures his beard

And texts how long his tassels are getting 

to his wife

And my parents.

Because they are the 

Best-Friend-Couple

obviously.

I got lost in a corn field once,

It was September.

Right before it all turned yellow.

I had to chase the sound of the school bus

because I had missed it wandering those tall stalks.

Warmth

“We did everything adults would do. What went wrong?” --William Golding, Lord of the Flies

Observations From A DIY Show And Unofficial Bernie Sanders fundraiser:

-A girl on a myriad of drugs draws feverishly on a crummy ikea table. Nobody claims to know her or how she got here.

-when someone wants to express appreciation for a noise band, one should stick their fist in the air and stand still, solemnly. 

-There is a scarecrow in a suit in the backyard, a spotlight is on it. it is headless. Nina tells me it was originally going to be Trump, but now it represents corporate greed, corrupt politicians, and wall street.

-The fog machines fill the apartment, setting off the smoke alarm. Nobody moves, a band named Opposites is playing.

-people are playing patty cake in the audience. 

-somebody has urinated on the scarecrow in a suit.

-I and a stranger stack empty beers into a pyramid on the counter, we do not exchange names.

-The last band has just finished their set, we are setting the scarecrow ablaze.

-One of the hosts makes a speech, then jams the torch into the heart of the scarecrow.

-We can all feel the heat coming off the burning suit, smoke is rising above all the houses in Pilsen. Drunk college students are chanting Bernie’s name. Drunk college students are chanting “Fuck Trump”, it’s a scene out of Lord of The Flies.

-I have stepped out of the crowd, and am now inside the house, observing from a window. The suit is still burning, and people are still dancing around the fire, but now someone is playing a banjo, and everyone is singing along to This Land is Your Land. The windows have bars on them, and I suddenly feel alone. 

-The next day, while watching Rushmore, Nina tells me they raised $427 for the Bernie Sanders Campaign.

“As I went walking I saw a sign there

And on the sign it said ‘No Trespassing.’

But on the other side it didn’t say nothing,

That side was made for you and me.”--Woody Guthrie, This Land is Your Land

there is a warmness

that each of us produces

which emanates

Emily

“our bodies release a hormone, oxytocin, which makes us feel more trusting and loving toward our partner. This hormone invokes feelings of optimism, boosts self-esteem and can relieve stress. Couples who cuddle regularly can become addicted to each other. This means when you’re apart from your partner and you miss them, it is actually the start of oxytocin withdrawal.” --Khadija Khan, The Plaid Zebra

She tells me this fact

Embraced on her couch, warm

Outside, a sun sets.

“What’s with all the scratches on your hand?” my friend asks. I look at the narrow arching scabs, scattered along my thumb and up my arms. I was seeing this girl over break who had a three month old kitten, the scratches are still healing, I tell them. “Oh,” they say.

157 miles.

Directions, fastest route, the usual traffic.

head south on N Michigan Avenue            .3 mi

Turn right on E. Congress Pkwy                .5 mi

Take I-90 to I-94 towards Indiana            11.4 mi

Keep right, merge onto I-57, follow signs for Memphis    123 mi

Take exit 235B for I-72 W toward Decatur/Springfield     18 mi

Turn Left onto W. Bridge St.                .5 mi

    pass the house with the eagle statue in the front lawn.

Turn Left onto County Rd. 1625 N.            .5 mi

pass that old farm, check to see if they still have miniature 

horses, and that llama that kept the miniature horses from fighting.

Slight Left onto County Farm Rd.            1.3 mi

    Pass that spot where Dad crashed Mom’s car that one winter.

Turn Right onto Lake Ridge West Rd.            .1 mi

    knock on their door, ask for permission to go in their woods.

Walk down the hill, make a right at the old cars that have trees

    growing in them.

    Walk along Goose Creek until you reach Cry Baby Bridge.

    Make a right, climb up the root steps of the steep hill.

    Check to see if the old rotten hunting cabin is still there.

    Check if the old rusting appliances are still filled with acorns.

    Find the old well.

    Sit on the hill, contemplate the well.

You have arrived at your destination.

Nostalgia, Chicago, IL

That’s the hotel my mom stayed in for parent’s weekend my freshman year. She got a horrible windowless room with a stained carpet, and had been particularly sad lately since my dad was travelling overseas for work. I stayed with her that night, which helped some. My dorm was only a few blocks away.

That’s the ATM Drew and I found. The spinning top inspired both of us, me to explore the city more, and him to make a surreal short film about his frustrations with technology.

That’s the beach Doris and I walked to. we got burgers on the way and walked another 40 minutes to the shore. We thought it was closer, but it was nice to eat and watch those dogs chase each other through the sand.

That’s the kids park Nina and I drank some beers in last summer. We climbed the jungle gym, hung on the nets in the middle, and talked about our childhood under the empty city sky. When it started to rain, we didn’t move, not until we were soaked and the metal bars were slippery under our boots.

That’s the thrift store Nate bought me my first hawaiian shirt in. It was my 20th birthday, and we had walked there all the way from wicker park. It didn’t fit me well but it was a wonderful soft yellow with a pattern of watercolor boats. He told me you can wear hawaiian shirts over anything. When we got back to his place, his roommate and his roommate’s girlfriend were watching High School Musical. I was never a fan but we left it on anyway.

That’s where I lived with Ro. The summer was great, constantly drinking with friends, howling at the moon and finding adventures in Bucktown. But then she moved in and it got so bad I started sleeping on campus. My cousin’s husband came down to the city with his truck and rescued me a few weeks later. As he moved me back into the dorms, he asked who broke up with who. I told him we were just friends. He said friends break up too.

That’s the roof Nate and I ended up on that fourth of July. I had spent the whole summer trapped back home, downstate, and came to the city to visit him with a backpack full of Hamm’s and various liquors. He wanted desperately to find a party or a barbeque but nobody was around. We ended up in Pilsen on Toshe’s roof. fireworks were going off all around us, none of them were ours.

That’s the abandoned train track Will and I broke into a few Julys ago. we walked it up and down, staying far from the edges on the bridges so nobody would see us. It had rained recently and the mud was soft and we left our footprints behind carelessly. We left when we found a teenager firing roman candles at a man passed out in the street. The homeless man got up and ran, and the teen gave chase.

That’s the apartment we ended Drew’s going away party at. We had watched his first feature length film at Miseal’s, already had a few drinks at bars, and Drew wanted to dance. The only party anyone knew about was a few blocks from where I used to live with Ro. I had felt disconnected and out of place the whole night, but Drew hugged me goodbye, and as I walked past the windows and to my apartment in Logan, he yelled to me from up there, and I got a little choked up.

That’s the theater I saw Inherent Vice at with Jeff. There weren’t any seats together so we sat separately and agreed to talk about the film over some coffee after. I was dreading listening to him oversexualize all the female characters, but at that diner, at one in the morning I discovered he did stand up. I’d been a comedy nerd since High School and had never found anybody to talk about it with.

That’s the mexican place my mom took me to when she came to the city after I lost my wallet. I felt like my life was falling apart, I hadn’t cleaned my studio apartment for weeks, and I was immobilized without my credit card, student ID, Driver’s License, or U-Pass. She helped me clean my apartment, we walked my path to and from class, and when nothing turned up, we got lunch there. It wasn’t memorable, or well decorated, or even particularly delicious, but it was good to see her. Afterward, we drove all around the city together and I got everything I needed.

Where Was I Going To Begin With?

A late summer day, in the back of a van headed to a friend’s boyfriend’s performance, I use a slightly scratchy throat to feed my apathy. They drop me off while we are still in my neighborhood, and I walk the 606 to my apartment. The sun sets behind the trees halfway but the sky stays lit for the duration of the four mile walk. it is breezy and I enjoy the weight of two VHS tapes tucked in my oversized cardigan pockets. I bump into a man I met during a trip to Wisconsin. He says he is moving to Colorado tomorrow. I bump into a girl who also attends my school. I pet her dog. The sun is in my eyes the whole walk and it is blinding and uncomfortable, but in the most perfect way, like a poorly shot video of a distant memory. I can see the colorful spot burned into my lense for a fair time after.

Is trail blazing a creative act or a destructive one?

Someday I’d like to have a garden I’ve worked at diligently, put real time into. Then, one day, I’ll pull out everything but the weeds, then see what grows.

There is so much beauty in Prediction. In humanities skill for predictability. To look at a situation with certainty--even false certainty--of the future, is to discover how to be content.

Night, early fall, I am heading back to my friend’s from the Western Blue line stop. I had just walked an acquaintance to the train. She was new to the city, didn’t know her way around yet. Within the first two minutes, the light mist that accompanied us on the journey there becomes a torrential downpour. Once you accept that you are already soaked all the way down, walking through heavy rain becomes a peaceful act. The puddles above your ankles lap solicitously, the sensory attack of rain on your head and shoulders like some heavenly massage. Calm nods to other soaked passers by are comedic. It is miraculous to be able to enjoy so much water--from above and all around--without drowning.

Every road in America is connected. I learned this from a car commercial, but it doesn’t make it less true.

Do you delete contacts to forget the past or refine the future?

It’s good to have things happen that don’t quite make sense.

Deep into the winter, but a sunny afternoon, I become lost in my thoughts and walk from navy pier all the way to the planetarium, staying close to the shore. Amazed at how well the silence treated me, and my comfort despite the cold, I brave the ice, and stand for a moment on Lake Michigan. The air is clear enough to see smoke rising from Gary, Indiana, across the lake. That summer, they said the ice had been so thick that some chunks remained floating in the wild blue, even in July.

It’s so easy to forget how big we are. Ants don’t need blood to carry oxygen, instead they oxygenate through tiny holes scattered all over their bodies. We need blood to transport nutrients and oxygen to the far reaches of our fingertips. Our feet are so very far from our heart, which is so very far from our mind.

If you trail blaze enough, you’ll find the world one giant barren intersection.

And He Remembered:

Summer after freshman year,

Home again, taking

His mom’s car

To some distant 

Empty cornfield during 

A cloudy sunset

And sitting 

in the fresh soil

In the wind

In the grand nothing.

How Had He Forgotten?

It Helps.

I sometimes 

Throw my keys 

Down the hallway 

Towards my apartment. 

Chucking them overhand, 

It helps to vent some energy. 

But then those keys, they get there 

Before me. So, as I approach number 

106, I’ll have to stoop down and scoop up 

Those keys and slot them into the 

mechanism of my solitude.

Coyote’s Gold

When I was a kid,

We lived by the woods

And every time one of the pets died

We buried them by the tree line.

And then

Every time,

The coyotes came

And dug them up

And ate them.

And every time

We would bury what remained

Under storm windows

By the tree line.

And then the coyotes would stay in the woods

And hunt.

Summer’s End.

I bike to montrose beach

And meet my pal who 

Just got back to the city.

Some local fest is going down.

The city grows dark

And eventually the 

Cops come and clear 

Out the people left over

From the show.

I unlock my bike,

And we go to find 

his friend’s car

But we are walking 

the wrong direction.

Montrose Beach turns into some docks.

Old rich guys drink beers on their boats.

My pal and I admire the blue lights 

under the water

And the flashing lights of the police cars

In the distance. 

“I want some of what these guys are on,”

One of the guys on the boat says.

We reach the tip of the peninsula

And find ourselves devastated.

We are lost, the city to our right, 

But distant, cold deep water between us.

The wilderness of the Lake Michigan to our left

Right beside us.

We call his friend, 

with the car.

He gives us directions. 

It’s late.

Sure,

He’ll give us a ride.

I lock up my bike.

On our way back,

I tell him I’ve been depressed since the fire

That I tried to write a note last week.

He tells me about going crazy

After his last break up

Last year.

He walked to the chicago river

With the intention of jumping

But he met a stranger in a tunnel

Who changed his mind.

“Tunnels are gateways to transformation”

He tells me

As we approach a brick bridge

Underneath the air is heavier

And our voices echo

But on the other side

I’m still me

And he’s still him.

We find his friend’s car

And get some breakfast.

Where are all the baby rock doves?

Pigeons, 

also known as Rock Doves, 

build their nests,

Flimsy mats of sticks and straw

And in the city, trash,

in places that mimic the caves 

and cliffs 

that their ancestors 

used in the Mediterranean.

Their Children

Don’t leave the nest

Until they are fully grown.

They enter into the world

As adults,

Four to six weeks after birth

Rock doves cut all ties with their parents

And build their own nests.

Unaccustomed to life in the city

They often learn not to nest 

Where we don’t want them

The hard way.

Ten percent of pigeons are missing

Partial toes

Whole toes

Or whole feet.

Sometimes, if you look close enough

At those preventative spikes

You can see their little 

Lost appendages

Dangling there.

I Always Lose My Headphones

Have you ever noticed

Headphones have magnets in them?

Especially those cheap

In-ear ones

You buy at gas stations

In a rush.

They are weak, but

If you rub the left ear

Against the right

They attract

In an unaligned

“Two acquaintances

Awkwardly hugging

With one arm”

Sort of way.

The pull is never strong enough

To hold

=though they are attached

By a thin wire

Encased in plastic.

An Object At Rest

A phone rests on a parked car’s dashboard.

The sun casts a molten shadow 

Through an imperfect windshield,

The air is warm. 

A small motor inside the phone

With an uneven cylinder at the end

Begins to spin.

The phone vibrates.

Its plastic shell shakes.

Against the dashboard

Also synthetic and rigid

The device moves, violently

Calling out its notification.

The molded body of the dash

Reverberates 

Echoing the throb of the phone

Amplifying and embodying it.

Energy, in the form of a wave

Spreads from the phone

Through the dash

To the corners of the shell

Quietly continuing its echo

In other components of the car.

The reverberations bounce back

And the dash vibrates the phone.

The device slides itself into the corner

Where the windshield

And the dashboard

Meet the car’s framework,

And stays there

shaking,

Until the motor ceases to spin

And the notification ceases to sound

And the dash ceases to rattle

beneath the hot air

And molten shadow

Of a stagnant car.

The Long Lives of Rocks, In Many Ways Eternal

When I was in elementary school

I would go to the gravel pit each recess

And,

In solitude, dig for interesting specimens

When I found one,

I would make a small mound,

Place the stone on top, delicately

Then bury the mound in more loose gravel.

The process would conclude with me digging through

The buried mound

To find my stone.

Invariably, it was lost

Mixed in with the other rocks

Seemingly disappeared.

Floaters

When I was little

And I caught 

That semiclear

Fuzzy shape

one sometimes witnesses

In the corner of their purview

-Though nothing is there-

I would watch it descend

Dancing my eyes across

A pale blue summer sky

And pretend

The fleck was on a 

Gust of wind. 

My middle school science teacher

Told us about his friend who

“Went Crazy”

and thought those specks

Were alien ships,

With malfunctioning cloaking devices.

To quote WebMD:

“Most eye floaters are caused by small flecks of a protein called collagen. 

The back compartment of the eye is filled with a gel-like substance called 

vitreous humor. As you age, the vitreous and its millions of fine collagen 

fibers shrink and become shred-like. Shreds can accumulate in the vitreous.”

That is to say,

Every single speck 

Little collagen floater

Or alien spaceship

You’ve witnessed

Floated down your eye

And came to rest

In a heap

Among others just like it.

And will probably always be with you

Though you’ll never see it again.

Tallboy

Listen to the band play.

I hold my beer can with both hands,

I can feel the vibrations in the thin metal,

So I close my eyes

And feel the vibrations in the thin metal.

The deep notes create a stronger tremor,

So I love them and seek them out.

But, I realize

The high notes throb too

It’s just subtle, quiet,

Guarded.

Then I love the higher notes more.

Red Lights

Biking Home

A hot summer Chicago afternoon,

I’ve struggled up a rare hill

To arrive at a six cornered intersection

At which the whole city seems to have stalled.

We all sit there,

           Stand there,

Waiting for our turn to cross in

A banal tableau.

Nobody Crosses.

Heat coming off cars ripples the atmosphere

Unseen curtains rising from engines to reveal

Air conditioned drivers

Squinting at the golden light

In its sharpest angle of the day.

They remain stagnant, fidgeting,

Nobody Crosses.

A chocolate smell is drifting through

Off the nearby factory,

Whose workers will be heading home soon.

It is the topic of discussion among

A diverse selection of pedestrians

Also trapped in their respective corners

Of the tableau.

Nobody Crosses.

Angry Punk Music blasts from

My device, 

Holiday In Cambodia

By The Dead Kennedys

And I want to move

When it hits me,

It All Hits Me.

All frustrations

Past, Present,

Yet To Come,

Those felt by others

Living other lives

And those felt

Here and Now.

I’ve realized

We’ve all been sitting

At a stop light

For dozens of years now.

Nobody Crosses.

So I resolve, biking through this tableau

Of a banal, sunny, hot, loud, chocolatey 

Chicago intersection,

To let out my barbaric yawp

For all others, 

trapped behind red lights,

They will soon forget

My brief display of insanity

And go on with their lives.

The Moon

I remember being small.

A doctor tells me my 

thumbnail grows at the same 

rate which the moon rotates 

around us. Then he turns 

Away, to explain some 

things  to my parents while 

I sit there and watch my 

nail grow. Or perhaps it 

was a priest who told me?

I suppose it doesn’t matter.

Make Your Space

I’ve come to the park

On my day off.

I’ve, perhaps, come too early,

They are still landscaping.

They are loud,

Blowing severed bits of green

All over my blanket

But their machines drown out 

The traffic

And my headphones drown out

The landscapers

And I can sit back,

With my book and my coffee,

And smell the fresh cut grass

And think of my childhood

And think of that text you sent me

“The odor of mustard gas

Is something like freshly mowed hay.”

Arbor Along The Roadside

I was on a walk, there was this tree. It was a great tree.

Right by the road, its branches reached nearly halfway across, then rose upward to make this perfect arc, taller than the buildings around it. It must have taken so long for that tree to get that big. I had to stop to take it in, it was so grand that I wanted to celebrate that tree.

There was this other tree, I saw it a few weeks ago. It wasn’t so big. It was planted in a spot that had shade most of the day. It was missing most its leaves, but the ones left, they made these shapes, what shapes, they were elegant. Nobody celebrated that tree and I didn’t stop to take it in, but I thought about it for a long while after.

What a tree.

One Grand Nothing

I found it, The Grand Nothing, 

In the cornfields back home,

On that vast flat landscape.

My dad once told me,

“You can see about 14 miles

(on a clear day without obstruction)

Before the curvature of this planet

Blocks your view.”

Who knows if that’s accurate

But every inch of this dark earth

Serves its purpose.

 Another Grand Nothing 

My bud Matt,

He put The Grand Nothing well.

He was trying to describe a dream 

From a couple days ago,

“I don’t remember much of it,” he said,

“But I remember it being really fast paced,

Yet every moment took a lot of energy,

Like climbing up a sand dune.”

A sand dune is certainly a Grand Nothing.

Think of how much sand 

Goes into a dune.

That’s a Grand Nothing.

Grand Nothing Part III

I was at this party once

They, the hosts, 

had connected a phone to a projector,

Which was directed at a corner of the packed room

Distorted by it.

One of the hosts was texting their friend

Saved in the phone as “cunt”

I didn't see what they were talking about

But I saw the last text, which was sent by cunt

And it said

“That's so poetic.”

Which is a text I’ve seen before.

 A Poem Formed From Long Term Exposure To Nostalgia, Written In The Dark Of Night, Drunk & Sleepy & With All The Lights Off, In The Last Days Of Life In The City:

I’ll be in a cornfield soon.

we’d been sitting around the dinner table for a while, when someone said to nobody in particular:

“Aphrodite Drinks 

Coors Light Straight From The Can.

Coldest Beer On The Market!”

Fields Have Their Own Circulatory System

It’s fall, harvest season in the midwest. 

This time of year, there are these bugs everywhere. 

A foreign infestation, a kind of Beetle. 

They look like ladybugs, but something about their shells isn’t the same.

Also, they bite. 

Billions of Beetles scatter across fields over the course of the summer, 

having never known another world. 

Originally, they were brought in to to eat the aphids off of soybeans, 

now they are everywhere. 

When harvest season comes though, they all get displaced, 

because there are no corn stalks or soybeans left. 

They flee to the houses and suburbs nearest to the cornfields. 

They start to nest in crooks and crannies, 

but most notably, they set up shop in the windows. 

If nothing is done, 

they build up on top of each other until they block out the light. 

I remember this time, 

I remember Mom 

getting out the shop vac from the garage, 

and vacuuming up all the beetles before the sunlight was completely blocked. 

I remember the vacuum getting hot and cooking the beetles inside, 

and the smell. 

Like strong dark soil and hot exoskeletons and death. 

We Were Never Good At Playing Hookie

We remember a fall day when we pretended to be sick to get out of school. We remember not leaving the house that day, because of the guilt from lying to our parents. We remember Dad working on something in the garage, and watching from the window, behind a thin white curtain, a tall lanky figure in all khakis walking up the driveway in slow motion, and glancing at us, then disappearing into the garage. We remember being confused but also a little scared. We remember going out to the garage, barefoot, to see who it was, but Dad not having any clue what or whom we were talking about. 

Some Vague Critique of Capitalism

I had bought one of 

Those glass bottles of Coke,.

When I went to pop the cap

I saw it was dirty,

But an old dirt,

Like the cap had been imbedded

In the land for decades

Then dug up

And some of the earth

Just couldn’t be washed away.

It seemed a little gross,

But I drank the soda anyway.

And Another Grand Nothing

I scream when I drive sometimes

Usually it's to a song

Or after a long day at work,

But it's always because the feeling

Inside me

Is so much bigger than I am.

Blank Red Hat

We found a

Plain Red Baseball Cap

Yesterday.

It said nothing,

Just laid there, red all over

And a little dusty.

We were wandering some garden

It was there, in the dirt.

“It’s all you,” my friend told me,

“I’m more of a beanie gal.”

We stood around it,

Like it was some stuck pig

Then I stooped down

And picked it up,

Though, perhaps, I should have left it.

Good Morning

Hi, yes, it is morning,

You are awake, again.

Welcome back.

A poem I only wrote so it could finally be outside of me, please don’t read it.

I can feel our

Possible futures

Pulling away

In this fast moving current

Like two cars on the interstate

In the dead of night

And one is going a little faster than the other

And all we can do is watch

Our headlights and our tail lights

Grow further and further apart

Until one of us

Disappears.

On A Most Basic Level

The laws of physics

In this universe

Dictate that all things must be

Attracted to most other things.

Atoms are drawn to other atoms.

Gravity pulls together planets.

It pulls those planets to warm suns.

And that’s why we have gravity,

And that’s why we have molecules

And that’s why we wake up and breathe,

And that’s why we care.

Drawing

When I was younger 

I would draw 

With a number two pencil

Dragging my hand

Across pages of smooth

Bleach white printer paper.

The smudges, they’d go everywhere.

The entire page, covered.

Sometimes bigger and darker

Than the drawings themselves.

Sometimes even spreading

To whatever surface I drew on.

I would spend so much time

Cleaning it all up.

After a while, I decided

I’d rather only draw with ink.

But now, I think back

To all the work I put into erasing those smudges.

How tired my arm and my hand would become.

How the eraser shavings scattered, everywhere.

How the drawings were still never perfect.

Facts

I used to search for the answers in

Hard Data,

Somewhere, buried in these feelings

Is something truthful and honest and quantifiable,

I was sure.

But I’ve only begun to realize the peace of embracing

Half truths

With the kinds of things

That only need to be true to me.

To know something might be false, and to not care,

Because it doesn’t change anything.

For Zarah

I once drank 40s with a woman

Named Zarah on a dock

Overlooking downtown

She wasn’t a goddess

But she had transformed into herself

From a man named Zach

And I’ve heard that’s

The kind of thing

Greek gods and goddesses do.

WikiHow To Stay Positive

Chain yourself to the absurdity

Recognize the cyclical nature of suffering.

Embrace the pain the same way

You oh too quickly embrace love.

One must imagine Sisyphus smiling

As he pushes the rock up the hill.

Being aware of all this

Won’t change the fact that it probably 

Is all building up to you dying alone.

I’ve come to realize

Man is better off

Plagued by curiosity

But unable to find the power

That is knowledge.

“Death is a part of every meal,”

My father told me,

And I’ve thought to myself

From time to time since

And now, as I tear open this banana

And eat it, mercilessly, without forethought.

I think of how this daily ritual

Makes a bed for death, welcome in my home.

To approach it at every bite

With such banality

Is graceful.

But I also think of the banana trees:

Their children, so far from home

Every year, more fruit grows

Each filled with hope

Each seedless, never to root.

Half asleep

I awaken

Late at night

The moon, setting

Out window,

Full.

Casting light

On warm bed

And pillow

And then

Sleep

Returns.