the cuff

ugh your genius bores me
i thought
sent-i-ment
may be the ghosts behind your bones
but it turns out
that livid feeling
is the bones behind your ghost
you talk pretty things,
things
that people sew into corsets
and other fancy
and glamorous things
that people want;
but i saw the sad in your eyes
and i know the
pedestal all too well...
it's lonely.
step down and swallow
it
before you turn into
something somebody forgets.

~k.

reprise

i'm too cliche to write, today.

everything i've typed and erased is forced. my head is swimming with too much to figure out what advice i need to give myself, so i'm just not going to give any.

the show will get finished.
i'll make it to work on time.
my grandfather will die.
i will go home for thanksgiving, too.
christmas will come and i'll get that sad cold in my bones.
i'll stilt for a parade or two.
next year will be here tomorrow.
and so on.
and so on.

no advice. just stick to the schedule and life will happen as it should, i guess.

~k.

queen of hearts

i.
can't.
wait.

but i have to, so i will.

but, universe, know this:

I DON'T WANT TO.

that is all.

~k.

riddles

give me things i can't see; give me the words in between the lines. give me this, give me that, give me the dashed sentences in between "see jane run"... i don't have a good frame to work on, it's clumsy and it's frail, i would think it's more of a whisper or a web, than let it be a frame. after all this time and after all this life you would think that i would know...

eh. i don't.

my frame has grown weak with winds, and words just fester, swell.

~k.

danny boy

i went to get a drink last night at a bar down the road from my apartment, just to sit quietly and let the long day of work and a stilt gig melt away...

no such luck.

as soon as i sat down, i got accosted by a drunk, foul mouthed dude in a dirty black polo shirt. he was rude and obnoxious, slurring to the bartender if they had any beer that was "kind of like blue moon, like you know, the one that's served with an orange?"

upon coming back from the bartender's suggestion that he look at the list on the wall behind the bar, and as said bartender was so graciously bestowing my whiskey-wine punch, he said to me, "well, i'm not going to buy you a drink, anyway, you never even told me your name. it's not being cheap, it's being fru- fru- frugal...", in between hiccuping what appeared to be beer bubbles that were just foul. just fucking awful.

it took seven minutes of him trying to have a conversation with me before i excused myself to go have a cigarette. seven minutes of inane gin-babble about how he quit his job and how he had been drinking all day and about how the neighborhood is nice but it's filled with too many "guineas" (which, i didn't know this but, it's okay for him to say because he's irish and the irish are allowed to say slurs like that to the italians cause they're enemies and everyone knows that)...

i had half a mind to kill myself while i was outside so i wouldn't have to walk back in from the silence of a cigarette break and hear his stupid, sloshy voice again.

i don't understand why people just can't leave me alone when i sit by myself at a bar. i have no desire to talk to you... and just cause i'm alone doesn't mean i have no friends... it means i probably just don't want to be around anyone at all, in general. otherwise, i would probably be around someone and not sitting by myself at a fucking bar.

it's not flattering to think that out of anyone at that bar that drunk, googly-eyed little irish man could have chosen to talk to, he looked at me and said, "now there's someone who i will have things in common with."

gross. i can't bring me anywhere. it leads to nothing i want. all the time.

~k.

cold war

"now hang me up to dry
you wrung me out
too too too many times
now hang me up to dry
I'm pearly like the whites
the whites of your eyes"

bone on bone
sounds like paint 
chipping off the side
of a house.
if i could wring
the you
out of me, we'd
be all set, then.


~k

the great lawn

ah, the damp underbelly
of fall, yellow leaves
sighing their way to the
cold
wet
concrete, somewhere
deep in central park.
three falls round
and i'm still here, still
beating, in this
tiny apartment slash town
and, from what i can tell
it's impossible just
to slow down, just
for a minute or two.
the sunsets and
walks and
smiles and
lovers and
dancing and
whiskey and
painting and
waiting have all been
the cold
wet
concrete
under my feet, these
three falls round,
one foot in front
of the other, in front
of the other.
central park awaits my re-entry,
as i bait
the carrot in front of
my horse, to lure me back,
to say good-bye.
the first fall round
was too hard
on my bones.
but by
the last, i
think my
walk in the park
will be much lighter
than the first, saturated
concrete and all.

~k.