Recently I’ve been daydreaming of Indonesia.
Fantasizing people who say
“Oh you look so Javanese!”
Filling me with a sort of guilty pride.
Who, me? You don’t say.
Blushing through sunburnt cheeks
Too giddy and cocky to apply sunscreen
To the whiteness in me.

I loved that they loved my skin.
Recognizing in it a bit of themselves
and a lot of the west.
What they saw as javanese
The shade and texture of my skin,
My High cheekbones and elongated ear lobes
I imagined as beautiful jewelry
Something I could wear to the party of that country
Where I was sure to receive some endearing remark
Oh this old thing? I would say,

What they saw as Western
The pale white of my protected chest
And my broken Indonesian.
I saw as unsightly stains
Something to cover up with quick excuses.
It’s milk, I tried washing it out, but I just can’t get it off,
Apologizing for something I couldn’t control
But wished I could.

There was something inside of me
that needed to excuse the white in me.
Apologize for sharing blood with
People who had manipulated and mistreated them.
Apologize for being two things at once.
A double standard.
I wanted so badly to be all Indonesian.
To drown the white in me deep within a coral reef
Burry it at the base of a mountain.
Somehow loose it and find solice in a land
Where I could feel new and special.

But it wasn’t the Javanese they loved in me.
They recognized that jewelry as their own
something they shared freely among them,
old and familiar that they loved
but that did not excite them.
They loved the whiteness in me.
How it turned the coffee color of my skin
Creamier, more luscious less bitter.
How it sloped down my nose
Changing the shape of an Indonesian’s face,
Making it seem new and familiar.

To every mixed blooded child
Trapped between two layers of skin.
Love your whole self
And learn to say,
What, this old blood?
Where’d I get it?
Oh It’s just something passed on to me
From my parents, and their parents before.
Just something special thats all.

She is in the bathroom and I am sitting on the couch eating a box of CHEEZ-ITs and watching commercials for the sound of talking voices with more joy for cleaning products than I can muster up for sex without love.

She is brushing her teeth and washing out her mouth with LISTERINE and I am eating the last five CHEEZ-ITs and replacing them with one of her MARLBOROS and a BIC lighter and the sickening burning taste of fake cheese and crackers in my mouth.

She is spitting the LISTERINE into the open drain of my old sink and turning on the hot water faucet to splash her face with warmth and freshness and I am sucking the whole cigarette into my throat and coughing and I stuff the burnt end into the bowl.

She is touching my red towel hanging from the hanger and damping off her wet and warm face with slow gently pressing fingers and hanging it back on the rack with a mindfulness I rarely give to it and I am pushing the water back behind my eyes with the base of my palms.

She is opening the bathroom door and slipping on her coat and scarf and hat and shouldering her bag and walking past me on the couch and opening the door with her left hand and something is glinting on her finger and turning her head for a quick look at my bent back and closing my door behind her and my coats are bouncing on their hooks and on the television a bearded man is shouting at me to buy a magical cleaning product that will remove my stains as if they were never there to begin with. and I am crying.

(oh and I’m using a new theme here for the site, what do you think? And here’s a link to my other blog: http://epistomology.tumblr.com/ where I hope to be posting a story as soon as I can muster it out.)

Thank you for reading, Happy new year.

___

Dance with the dogs in a dazzling display of desperate danger.
Mingle with mung beans and muenster mystery magistrates for the magic of it all.
Quibble with the quintessential queen of queers over quadraphonics and quadriceps.
Fuck five or four feisty females for fame and fortune and fun and fear.
Sing with singers of soul and simplicity who spend seconds simpering in shadows.
Write a poem with as much alliteration as possible and give it up at the end
when you have nothing left to say and you’ve said nothing at all to begin with.
But know that no matter how your life unfolds countless generations of people
have tried their damndest to say
“have fun”
one way or another.

___

the moon and the sea

I leapt under your fingers,
ocean waves feeling the pull of the moon
in and out and in again.
I crashed onto the earth,
under your touch and your size above me
bright and quiet,
pulling from me the screams
of every drowned sailor sinking
beneath my waters
in and out and in again.
I swung my oceans skyward,
showering salt
amongst the stars,
soaking you in sweat,
tasting my salt dripping
from your face
and your shoulders,
tugging against me, moving me
in and out and in again.
Sometimes I hate you,
how still you sit against
the darkness
always so silent and strong
always above me
and always
pulling pulling pulling,
and always
pushing pushing pushing
me constantly
in and out and in again.

___

sex dreams

He dreams of touching. Of slipping his fingers along her thighs and her back. Of touching her soft parts. Of dipping into her wet parts. Of touching her inside.

She dreams of holding. Him in her hands. Of grasping him. Of taking hold of his staff, his stick, his shaft, his strength. Of feeling him grow between her palms.

He dreams of slipping. Deeper, and deeper inside of her. Of grasping that most elusive of all red stones in the palm of his hand. Feeling it shudder, tug, and slip.

She dreams of kissing. Of parting his lips and tasting his tongue, his ear, his neck, his collar, his nipple, his hip, his meat, his warmth, his thickness, his heat.

He dreams of screaming. Of shouting and yelling and howling and crying every time she clenches onto him. Every time she pushes him further and further.

She dreams of shaking. Of pulling him into her stomach and dripping her salt onto his chest and thighs and lips just parting and drinking and shuddering with the taste.

I dream of breathing. Softly inhaling and exhaling your breath through my lips. In and out. In and out. Of sinking into you, of my heart kicking against yours.

if you ever find yourself
spending your nights
awake and wedged between
a blonde and a brunette,
one who wants to fuck you
and the other
who wants to sleep;

if you ever find yourself
spending your nights
eyes open and watching
the lights of late night car rides
flash through
their bedroom window;

if you ever find yourself
spending your nights
pissing in a bathroom toilet
that is slowly beginning
to feel like yours,
even though
you still lower the seat
each time you finish;

if you ever find yourself
spending your nights
loosing your socks
over and over again
only to find them
each morning
more and more
caked with your sweat;

if your ever find yourself
spending your nights
so caught up in somebody else’s
goddamn sheets that
each morning you forget
where you are and
why your still there;

find yourself a pillow
and a blanket
and just sleep
alone.

___

the moon and the sea

I leapt under your fingers,
ocean waves feeling the pull of the moon
in and out and in again.
I crashed onto the earth,
under your touch and your size above me
huge and round,
bright and quiet,
pulling from me the screams
of every drowned sailor sinking
beneath my waters
in and out and in again.
I swung my body skyward,
showering salt
amongst the stars,
soaking you in sweat,
tasting my salt dripping
from your face
and your shoulders,
tugging against me, moving me
in and out and in again.

So here are the three versions of this poem.

___

Pantoum (Version I)

I read the look in your eyes like a beacon.
Beckoning me to your body, to your lips.
Exposing your neck to my thoughts
and this night to my memory.

Beckoning me to your body, to your lips,
to your bed and the sheets cold to the touch from the open window.
My memory of the night is of chills and heat,
of teeth and smiles. That bend and warp with time.

Your sheets were cold in the morning
and I hid my head in your blankets.
Smiling with teeth. Bending the time on the clock with my mind.
But you, had morning yoga, and I, well I needed a cigarette.

Hiding in the blankets of smoke,
I did my best to replay the night.
So while you saluted your sun and me my smoke,
I lost myself within the folds of your sheets.

I did my best to replay the night.
But my best is just my best,
and I got lost there, tangled in the folds
choked in the white of the sheets and your skin.

My best is just my best.
And perfection would cut like a knife
if it didn’t already choke us into heavenly submission.
Imperfections speckle my memory like teeth marks.

And your eyes cut through my inhibitions
with steel rods of passion.
speckling my body with teeth marks
and exposing my body and my soul to our memories.

___

I read the look in your eyes. (Version II)

I read the look in your eyes like the Beacon.
Beckoning me to your body, to your lips.
Exposing your neck to my thoughts
Recording this night to my memory.

Beckoning me to your body, to your lips,
to your bed and the sheets cold to the touch from the open window.
Recording this night to my memory,
like a video played on repeat, and repeat.

You left me there in your bed and the sheets cold to the touch from the open window,
and I remembered the soft touch of your skin on mine,
like a video played on repeat, and repeat.
I remembered the curves and lines of your bones beneath your skin.

I remembered the soft touch of your skin on mine.
How you opened like a beautiful book.
The curves and lines of your bones beneath your skin.
Your spine, cracking as I opened you with my hands.

You opened like a beautiful book,
and I lost myself in your pages.
Your spine, cracking as I opened you with my hands,
curved upwards as I placed my hand at the small of your back.

I lost my self in your pages.
And you had morning yoga, and I, well I needed a cigarette.
You curved upwards as I placed my hand at the small of your back,
and I said goodbye to the words in your lips.

But before you left for morning yoga, and I tasted my cigarette,
before you exposed your neck to my thoughts,
and said goodbye to me with your lips,
I read the look in your eyes like a beacon

___

Sunday, September 1st, 2010 (Version III)

I read the look in your eyes like a beacon.
Beckoning me to your body, to your lips.
And your hands like waves slapping against
the side of my boat. Nudging me towards
the shore and your dock and your harbor.

I read the look in your eyes like a beacon.
warning me against rocks and currents
that tug and crash, grab and break.
And your hands like waves pulling
and pushing my boat and
tipping tipping tipping
me into your sea of salt.

I read the look in your eyes like a beacon.
So I fucked you
And watched you drive away,
to your morning yoga class,
(where Forest will guide your
with his gentle encouraging hands
in the downward dog)
through the haze of cancer smoke
I exhaled into your living room
even though you asked me not to.

___

He dreams of touching. Of slipping his fingers along her thighs and her back. Of touching her soft parts. Of dipping into her wet parts. Of touching her inside.

She dreams of holding. Him in her hands. Of grasping him. Of talking hold of his staff, his stick, his shaft, his strength. Of feeling him grow between her palms.

He dreams of kissing. Of parting his lips and tasting his tongue, his ear, his neck, his collar, his nipple, his hip, his meat, his warmth, his thickness, his heat.

She dreams of slipping. Deeper, and deeper inside of her. Of grasping that most elusive of all red stones in the palm of her hand. Feeling it shudder, tug, and slip.

He dreams of screaming. Of shouting and yelling and howling and crying every time she clenches onto him. Every time she pushes him further and further.

She dreams of shaking. Of pulling him into her stomach and dripping her salt onto his chest and thighs and lips just parting and drinking and shuddering with the taste.