by the way, boys & girls

I still write. Sometimes. See Annachoic.

Mass Romantics

No one loves you in winter? In the parlance of the nineteen-fifties, no one dates. We cross calendars, seek comments, lock in patterns, narrowcast to our narrow castes.

If you've never been worth the words, the glue and scissors, my time when you're not around — well, what hours are you counting down? You're on the lost list. I had to replace my little black book. I'll recreate that list, but I can't recapture the kissed. Time being, I've got one.

One, and we're talking mass romantics and Internet semantics. We're illicit but complicit, maybe a little horrific. Horrifically cute, though. Oh, you.

And then I don't like you at all. I feel as baited as ever and can't touch my thoughts. It's sending me on an existential trip until I can't remember why I went. You're breaking all the chemical bonds that tie us to ourselves. You're dropping oil in water and shaking and shaking. I can't bear being a macaroni noodle, but half of a whole. You've come by me and tried to combine me.

Last night, this morning, I want something like sound. I turn on the radio and women cry. There are cities dying like no one you've ever known to die. Is there a moment of peace before an explosion? Don't they deserve it? They, and their sons and daughters with them.

I can't know why this happens. I sympathize for everyone on all sides until I cry too. You don't know that this happens. They were sleeping, waiting for the power to come on so they could study for their exams. You're tracing dark loops through glaring commercial zones. You should be learning. You are dying.

Good morning Britain, because you run summer time and I stay up late in summertime, late into winter and late to the year. I'll tune to where it's already tomorrow. BBC, you're there and I'm not. I'm not through with this year. I'm not even really ready to hear. But when I touch the antenna you polarize all the static between my cells.

Inverse Antennae

I clipped my clip to my shoplift shorts and lost it in the woods. I would've traded back. I couldn't go back. Every bite was becoming a great white welt, stretching my skin until I couldn't bend. The poison was spreading all the panicky folds of brain tissue. There was only one thing to do: cut my hair.

I lost it all and left it all behind. I have locks of Laura's hair still wrapped in foil. What would I do with my own?

The girl who kisses and tells and tells and tells could evade them no longer. Walking home I counted tallies: no, yes, not sure, yes, yes but straightened, no, yes, yes. Since then the count's up. One's the one I see but can't have, one's the one I have but can't see. One I stay in with, one I could go out with. I'm banking on minds beneath curls, but I am falling in love with falling markets.

The wind into the city is bold in my face. I hate pickles until April fixes them with chedder and tomatoes and I hate year's end until spring returns.

These Are Not Gypsy Premonitions

“Hey, you know what?” When I speak, you are the perfect listener in perfect silence until I’m afraid you’ve walked away.

You are always still there. The attention can be almost disconcerting. Like this it’s almost refreshing to have to fight for a little. But like this, I’m impressed you can remember who you called.

“Am I connected to other people by bubble people?” you ask me. “Are we all connected by bubbles? I think we are... oh my God, I’ve uncovered the secret of life.”

There is a great, great deal about bubbles. “We use language to describe our bubbles of thoughts,” you explain, “because they’re just bubbles.” This is how it begins. It veers into vast thoughts of bubbles, everyone’s bubbles, a pool of our bubbles in which we all mix minds. I cannot write you down fast enough.

“You don’t even have to wish,” you promise me. “The universe will take care of you, as long as you want it in your heart.” I'd like to have you, but at first you seem not to understand the concept.

“Well, which part of me do you want? There is my mind, which you have right now, and there is my body.” There is something about the way in which our communication allows me to have your mind. It is so abstract I can't cling to it long enough to write it down. I am weighing my worries: fear that having your mind is factually impossible, fear that I will never be worthy of it.

“However, if it is my body you want, the universe will take care of that too... at our second meeting. Yes...

“I don’t know where my pants are. Or my boxers.”

I break into giggles again. It is dark outside and I can't see the leaves of the trees until I press my eyes to the pane. You are far, far away. It is as if I have magnifyed the map without moving. “Hey, you know what?”

“I want to fuck you.” Oh, I know. That wasn’t what I was getting at, but I’m there.

Again, I must convince: “Yeah, really. Why wouldn’t you believe me?”

For once ever, you do. “Now I want it really bad. I have for a long time.” What? “I’ve known you in spirit for a year. We were connected by the same bubble.” Really now? “It's our lives, and our frames of mind...”

You see ghosts, on your shelf and at the end of your bed. “Two ghosts, and they’re playing patty-cake with their two ghost-like hands," you say, engaging and mystical. "They’re hanging on fishing line, making patterns. These are not gypsy premonitions, they are warnings, Anna.”

I have them all out of order. “Uh oh! They’re coming! I think they’re evolving!" you cry out in fear, breathing heavily. "I have to hide under the blanket! They’re going to eat me! I’m going to die.”

I laugh, I want to cry. “You will,” I say. I don’t lie to you! “But not right now, so don’t worry. Don't freak out, you'll be fine.”

A tiny sad man with no eyes is walking on your wall. His name is Keith. There is another person beneath your skin, and you want to take him out and see what he has to say. I kindly convince you not to use sissors. It's a bad idea, I say. Just pop the bubbles with your fingers. Besides, why would there be another you in your stomach?

“Because that’s where my gut feelings come from!”

The mind is what the brain does. “I have a tic," you say, "that goes tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, take time, tick tock, tick tock, take time. It’s coming down! It’s coming down! It’s got long arms with light bulbs on the end like searchlights and they’re looking for my brain -

“I’ve lost my mind.”

Like this it takes a try to claim your attention.

“I’m going to fall asleep and slip away into a land of magic. Which you wouldn’t know anything about. I don’t know why, I just felt like saying that. I’m going to be naked, riding a horse bareback.” Like this it takes a try to claim your attention.

“What?”

“I’m sort of fucking in love with you.”

“Really?”

You don’t believe a word, sweetheart.

How hard for the covers,
To be pulled from the slumbers,
But a ghost never gives up its sheet

Tell me is it the same,
For the rattling chains,
Or whatever you wear when you sleep

You remember the time
I told you to take off your clothes -
You were as naked as a window

But I’ll take all that nothin’
Over nothin’ at all

Oh, I’m just a hallway,
For ceilings and walls babe,
And emptiness all the way through

You know you’re asking too much,
To be held and not touched,
But somehow that’s just what you do
- Josh Ritter, “Naked As A Window”

Shenanihanaflanigans

Am I so conceited I would never notice eyes on me? I'm always in lower orbit, slow on the uptake or faintly clueless. Enough of you want a hand in my skinny jeans that I left behind my favorites. I ordered replacements and new ones, blue ones, which shipped here from Kansas and took all week.

I might have missed this before I knew I had it. I wear grey and black and brown and striped, but you haven't seen me in blue. I'm sorry purple is all you made it in. If it's consolation, you made good.

When I dream between pages too heavy to turn I wonder what I've missed, wake up and try to imagine where it is summer still exists. Can I say you get me off intellectually? In collapsed conundrums we dial names we were keeping to remember by, and speed speaks too: we never wanted to forget.

WTF? Conversation is enchanting. I'm making this up to you.

Magic Tricks

In this bottle I strand attributed, a strand attributed to the head of Abraham Lincoln. The South breathes around her bloody edges and I'm so slow in museums - I'll never leave, and you'll leave me all behind.

All alone, my cotton candy crystalizes in the air, into long hair strands I can eat into like acid. Jen tipped a pharmancy onto the floor, Jack won his tickets onto the ocean, Jen is going to borrow him and never let go. I'm a future future figure, a radio stickler, and I'm afraid my inspiration is going to go with you.

Did the boat sink? I traversed enough highway to keep you close but you're already far away. I'm writing thoughts into eyes on her screen. Blue movie moonlight brings tears and Jen makes me laugh, so go faster! Twins in zebra stripes! Don't wait one second - this belongs in ink.

Warmth inbetween lines on pages can melt them to bend and before long I'm hanging in your hammock like it's been forever. I can't slow my fingers curling. On Sangamon Avenue I tried to steal proximity and now it multiplies the distance. When the ship tips the theme is in minor key and I'm sinking through summer into ice solitude.

I miss the moments in them and in moments I miss them. I want a living image stepping off trains, curls and coats of arms, and real letters until then. If I were you I'd take so many chances, but if you were electric I'd be your wires.

The sound of the engines and the smell of the grain
We go riding on the abolition grain train
Steven A. Douglas was a great debater,
But Abraham Lincoln was the Great Emancipator
- Sufjan Stevens, "Decatur, or, Round Of Applause For Your Stepmother!"

Charmers

I fell through the floor of my great cement tower and beneath me lives a boy who looks like DiCaprio and acts like Dean.

And this kid with the skateboard is my emo boy. You don't even want to know where I dug him up. Poetry class.

So that makes two and with me it's three and that's company or at least a tight corner. But no one loves you in winter, and a rebel beside you keeps you safe in the city. I'm all wild or washed up and seductive apparently.

I can't bring back what I haven't written, but there are girls painting tiny pictures and everyone's messy rooms are so so beautiful. I'm all free, in sandals, in transit, in Chinatown, in this park where I kissed two boys last afternoon.

Another for the A-list: Depp is the King Cry-Baby and Edward with those sissorhands and herein lie the differences between my you-know-whos. Edward is all for this and fifties boy finds out after class. Hmm hmm.

So they've sexed me up and they're texting me back, and I'm bored and I dream - about motorbikes, and the College Board. Send me my scores, tell me your intentions, pose for my pictures, write me a poem, kiss my hair, stop time, and make me brave.

Should we get up
Let's wake up
Let's get dressed
I'll let you walk me up the street
Back home

Thank you
It was great
Let's make another date
Real soon
In the afternoon
- Cat Power, "Could We"