homeless with money is a boring series of cafes

I am moving to a warmer middle of nowhere. I have to keep reminding myself that this is the goal.

It’s getting Cold. Cold is not a  memory, it’s a fact. And I forget every year. I remember rage, shaking hands, damning the sky and needing dry pavement like air. But I don’t ever really remember the feeling of Cold.

 This year, just as all before, autumn is a gift and my heart leaps at the thought of stretching it down the Alcan. Fall is a season everywhere else but here. Here it’s a bitter tease, a jest.

Every year I don’t have enough sweaters. Where do they go? I’ve never had a coat that seemed warm enough. I need a coat.

My dog needs a coat. She’s loosing all of her hair. One of three things is wrong with my dog:
1. Nothing
2. Auto-Immune Disease that costs $20 a month to treat
3. Auto-Immune Disease that costs four hundred dollars a month for the rest of her life to treat

But, oh yeah.. Cold.
Lastnight was Cold. I cried in the parking lot of Wal-mart because I had a really bad headache and a stuffy nose and I’m working too much and my back hurts and my neck hurts worse and my pain medication doesn’t really work anymore and they won’t give me anything stronger, not that I really want to be taking medication anyway and I know there’s a couple beers somewhere in the van underneath all the clutter, that will at least help me sleep, but I already took the pain pills that don’t work and I smell and I need a shower and laundry and my parents are out of town and I wish I could go to their house and eat and watch tv and cry in the shower but our relationship is all weird and they won’t let me have a key and whatever ’cause some people don’t have parents so fine, I’ll be fine, I’ll just go to bed and if I masturbate I’ll fall asleep faster, but I can’t even jerk off because nothing is sexy to me and I’m too cold and thank god I borrowed that sleeping bag from Aren when I did or I would be dead and I need to give that back, so I need to get some wool blankets but Wal-mart didn’t have any wool blankets but why would they and I hate Wal-mart anyway but everything else was closed by the time I got off work and I could go sit at Barnes and Noble but I don’t think I can sit up because I feel sick and I just want to lie down somewhere warm but everyone is gone or busy and nobody cares that I’m too cold and I’ve been fucking up all my relationships because I’m tired and cranky and selfish all the time lately and it’s my fault I’m homeless and cold.

So then I’m like: ok, yes, you made this decision. There’s a point to all of this and you are working toward a goal. You will get there, and it’s not that bad. Many before you have dealt with so many more obstacles. Obstacles, you are strong, you are a lion. You are a momma cat, but you are also a bird. You are smart and strong. You are resourceful. You have been through so much worse than this. Fuck everything in your way. You can do this. I can do this.

And then I just went to bed. And this morning I awoke. Still alive.

I’m going to live with my father. In November. I’m going to nanny my new baby sister, Cedar, born in July. They live in a town sixty miles from anywhere on the Olympic Peninsula. I’ll have my cats back, get a side job, walk Kote through the snowy forest, get to know my dad and have lots and lots of time to make music and art. I’ll stay as long as I want. and when I’m ready I’ll go somewhere warmer still, hot even. I’ll go to where the queers are. And I will collapse, relieved, revived, in the arms of my chosen family.

pin holes into the sky

here there’s a certain kind of light just at dusk
blue stacked on white stacked on pink
the bare trees reach backlit black, upward

I don’t know what to say

a tattoo is made up of hundreds of single needle pricks
we’ve been going to fast
so we sit on the dirty carpet and poke intentionally
into each other
each point is an action
a map
I think of the one on my knee
jess you can
jess you are

in the black sky out the window
I watched the same star all the way back to Alaska
head full and heart heavy
knowing I’d forget the taste of Aden’s mouth
knowing I’d forget the clear color of the sky
what were you like as a kid?
did you get into trouble?
were you shy?

Alex said
that hummingbird and elephant hearts beat
the same number of times their whole lives
and that’s what relationships are like
is it true?
we all have a finite number of chances?

I told Beautiful she was the kind of girl I’d drop anything for
no matter where or who I was with
but I didn’t kiss her in the cabin in the woods underneath a stranger’s quilts
even though I wanted to
I remember vowing to become a musician just to sing a song for her

the people we leave our back doors unlocked for
planning trips and scheduling intimacy
climbing through each other’s windows
the friends we love, the friends we fuck
the love letters we’re writing behind our eyes when we talk
over coffee, over beers
great loves and perfect moments
slipping through our fingers and up into the sky
time and chance and distance
and sometimes working, sometimes not

I want your

cactus
spiral
f note
sunflowers
blue stars
four squares
puzzle pieces
crass
catfish
black spruce
anchor
cupcake
paw print
buoys
roses
airplane
black bird
heart
sinchi warmi
bambi
highbush cranberry
ship
clock
totoro
don’t worry
diamond
imaginary moon phases
stars
stars
stars

I’ve never told you that I love you
I told you too soon
I tell you all the time
I don’t tell you enough