I look up on a tall building and its wall of windows; I look at the lights that are on and the lights that are off; I wonder about who is awake and what they’re doing right now; a thing about cities is just how many people there are. I wonder about the neighbors on the twenty-seventh floor; to me, they are just shadows in adjacent windows. I see a couple dancing and a couple fighting; I see dark windows where I can’t see anything; All these different lives stacked on top of each other on the corner of Folsom and 3rd at about nine o’clock at night.
Month: March 2019
delete
Openness tells me there is still more to be gotten from a week that's either over or just beginning. Wide stretches of road when city cars are still sleeping in their garages. Weekend-waiters wanting in between still hungover from Friday and already working for Monday
another delete from the book
I wish we could have come and gone without the kite strings higher with the wind and higher until there wasn’t any turning back and we were closer to another planet than we were to the earth that we left from and so began a weird alien life where, as we got farther away from ten fingers and oxygen, we got closer to another life we didn’t recognize, but this was the risk we ran when we cut our kite strings and we knew that before so we swallowed our situation and put on alien suits to play along.
Like I have some control
Sometimes I think I’ve done something, made it different than it otherwise would’ve been. Like I have some control over small things that aren’t quite set. Other times I think no matter what, it would’ve ended up here in the same spot.
In between seasons
On a sunny afternoon in March, on a bench in South Park between second and third street in downtown San Francisco, this occurs to me. That it is never in the middle of a season that I can discern its identity. In the middle of a season it seems to be just the way things are. But in between, when two seasons are still deciding whose turn it is to play, playing tug of war, winter and spring, so that the days before this were all rainy, dark, and dreary, and the weatherman said this morning that the days after today will go back to the same. In this back and forth it is clear to see what the seasons are like. On a sunny day like today, I am open. I can see more. Like shower water, hot opens up and cold closes in. In the open hot sun, the brightness shows to me finer features that are hidden in the dark, as parts of general dark masses or concealed in ambiguous shadows. In the light it all seems open. More to take in, overwhelming almost. Also more to keep your attention outside of yourself. Whereas in the dark, like at night with your eyes closed before bed, you think inward into yourself, with lack of senses outside to keep your attention selfless. Hibernating in the winter, adding to and bolstering your ego, to warm up in the spring and let it all go in the summer.
old man
before the old man was ready to grow up, they started treating him like an old man, so he became one.
same for the happy man, unlikely to be grumpy, treated like a grump, becomes one.
and an outcast, treated as such, becomes even more so.
deleted from the book, leaving here
I walked by a beautiful church on ninth street and saw, through the stained-glass windows, the high ceilings. I stopped there on the sidewalk and thought about it to see if I could come up with something.
I thought to myself, “There is something about those high ceilings.” It is something similar to this that I think right before I write, usually.
“There is something about …” But I am stumped, sometimes, as I was when I stood on ninth street trying to write about the angels in the high ceilings or the music that echoed from the choir
—ideas from my childhood of churchgoing, which are like splotches of oil in artistic waters,
as if the divine words I was looking for were tucked into the missals (that I refused to open) in the pews (that I refused to kneel in).
I could not write about anything other than how I could not write—and so I wrote this.
in our love, we intersect
in bed, i wonder why, my leg will not move. i try, in the dark, to pick it up, with my mind; it will not move. even though i can, feel it with my hands. i realize, it is hers.
in our love, we intersect, when we are both feeling the same. thinking the same thought, in the same way, laughing, saying, “i was just thinking that.”
other times, we empathize, to become the other. the same object as before, now subjected to the same eyes.
later on, as we become one, none of this is necessary anymore. to say that one is this or the other is that, and then devise how to get them together, is nonsense; they are one, and one is together with itself, always.
i know i shouldn’t
i know i shouldn’t but i do it anyway – what really goes into this thought? do we know that we shouldn’t? or do we do it because we’re not really sure? and some feeling in the moments tells us to do it. so we go ahead without really taking the time to flesh out whether we know that we should or shouldn’t. partly because we don’t always have enough time to think about it. and even if we did maybe we still couldn’t know.
odds of survivial
you’re always playing the odds, i think at some point you have to release attachment to your survival, plane taking off, you’re playing the odds, but you’re better off just relaxing, if it’s time it’s time, and you’ll return to what you’re part of
bow and arrow
how much do you get out for what you put in especially when homeward arrows beckon stronger bows for a target that exceeds in space the hunger of the archer's quiver
green mint tea
watching steam dance from the rim of my white tea cup swirls that hold form and then break and crash into each other
sundays
wide stretches of road and opportunity when city cars are still sleeping in their garages openness tells me there is still more to be gotten from a week that's either over or just beginning blue skies without building obstructions invite levity to the soles of my steps eyes that can see farther start to dilate and take in more all this stepping out of the car on north point all this on a sunday morning that seems new
the story of a brain going down a rabbit hole
i was lying in bed
at 12:45 at night
and my roommate had his TV playing just a little too loud
and i started to think about the type of people that have TVs in their rooms
and i said to myself i’m not that kind of person
but then i thought maybe i’d like it, to have a TV
so i started to imagine having a TV in my room
then i wondered what if i were to get sick of it, what would i do with it?
and i imagined throwing it off my four story balcony
but you would have to be careful not to hit someone bellow
and there might be a blast radius
so i thought about how wide that blast radius might be
and i thought about whether it mattered from how high up the TV was thrown
and then i thought no it doesn’t because of some physics lesson that everything falls at the same speed
but no i said that’s momentum’s that’s the same for everything (even though i was wrong)
and even though the momentum stays the same the speed increases because the momentum is adding to it
then i thought about the symbol for momentum from my high school physics class
meters per second squared, but why the squared
then i think about how it’s the meters per second of change in the meters per second of speed
and i thought of how the units cancel out to get the squared
and then i said woah
and that was the end of the rabbit hole
empathy
empathy is the key to seeing more of the world. not just seeing through human eyes, but seeing from a door knob’s perspective, from the sun’s eyes looking down, feeling what it’s like to be a sound wave. loving with the dying heart of a soldier, thinking with the desperate mind of a prisoner breaking out. hundreds and thousands and millions of viewpoints. why just live inside your one?
i look at others and say, wait, is that me? my empathy stretches that far. when my ego explodes. everyone, everything even, becomes myself, so that i want to flex with my tree branch arms and kiss with my lover mouths outside the cafe across the street. i loose and flow like a river and crumple like a chip bag, anthropomorphisg—without any need, i might mention. if i truly become “every” thing, i can drop the anthro- prefix.
man-made man
think of how much in the city is man-made. surely at some point we were god’s creation. now, if we assume that our environment influences what we become, how is man affecting the creation of each subsequent generation. especially for those who grow up walking in paved cement, surround by steel buildings, and street lights and planes overhead. the city creates a whole other species.
what goes in these nights
what goes in these nights fighting age the malaise of youths eldered and all the seeing of light day consumed by nothing dark night fight these nights dark going elding youths no malaise not yet not while hope of the days light’s seen still beyond night’s appetite for nothing still beyond gnashing dark teeth like shadows inching elding into the day’s light at dawn these nights that fight the dread dark coming fight while youthful hope still lingers fight the night bring light here lighter hope the hope that brings near wishers dream a dream beyond night’s nothing young dear sweet bedmate keep beauty in these nights whence light once rushed hoped in hearts as youths tend to kept in sight of the day’s touch hold me hear dear sweet young beauty tell me what goes in these nights fighting
halfway love
i'm into you i'm also partially not into you whereas if i was into you all the way i'd cease to be me and become you so that saving some to stay myself keeps our love alive