2005-02-08 & 06:17 : and you never knew, you never knew

these last three nights i have come home and made a study of emptiness in its various forms
drinking tea instead of eating meals, my stomach learning to hollow itself out to make way for
the music i have been listening to and the
talking to people through cable transmissions while i figured out a way to become
smaller and smaller, folding up softly within myself like my favorite paper fans from my childhood
tiny tears forming along my creases
the coaxing out of small tendernesses while i figured the penstrokes
that i have been keeping secret
the letters that i have been meaning to write
small journals filled with worrying and longing
dark red ink, .03
collecting stamps in quiet rows and vellum envelopes with pictures pasted to the insides

i use the tea as a way to get the honey into my mouth while i think about how
i miss having places to send my confessions, the idea of the papers being stacked under pillows, falling under a bed
the promises written on the rubber cement side of collages made for someone
who i wondered about, wrote lines about along my walls
who i would send letters to, lined with lemon juice pressed lip prints
whose correspondence i could wrap ribbon around and hide away in the cedar box my brother made me when he was in 8th grade

i still have little nemo in slumberland stamps hidden in that box, i have been saving them for special messages, i have my hand traced on rice paper to send
to the right one


I came to your party dressed as a shadow and you never knew, you never knew
I rolled through the halls like a velvet wave, as quiet as an empty stage
I blackened your eyes and stole the light from your glass
But in the cold calm of the morning, lay like a death-kite on your lawn
I came to your party dressed as a shadow, without invitation, without a motive
I parked three streets from the moonlight - the soft walk to your house on a silver string
You were dancing in the backyard to a biscuit-tin beat
I slunk between the notes, posting them off to the night
This is symptomatic of you and me : I have jars full of your breath
I have shelves of your words but you have nothing of me but a space where I would be