light sensitive daguerreotypes and the warning of corrosion

“bone ash is good for roses” ….Frank Simone

Dear _______________,

I need to tell you that things are going to change. I need to tell you that your hair will get brighter; your habits will grow more expensive and disruptive; your reason for coming to Brooklyn will become replaced by poor decisions. I need to tell you that you are going to fall literally. You are going to sit in a movie theatre next to a woman with hair darker than midnight pavement. Then, you will head to your favorite _____ bar, which will close down two years after you fall in front of it. You will walk inside and she will order you a pint of something locally brewed. You won’t feel right. You will tell her you need to walk outside for some air. You will feel dizzy and panicked. This is the moment you fall, face parallel to the concrete. You won’t remember calling out her name as your chin, opened up and bloody, frightens everyone that stands above you as spectators. You will wait in the ER for over an hour, forego plastic surgery on your chin to save time, and receive nine stitches. You will spend the next two weeks trying to convince everyone that your fall had nothing to do with being drunk (you hadn’t taken a sip yet). You will explain that you got lost inside a moment of _____. You won’t explain that it had to do with your _____ trying to _____ again and the stress of _____ about how you ________. Because of this fall, you will have to go to the dentist. This will cost a lot because you have no insurance. You will have to go to the dentist because you will notice with your tongue that your tooth is cracked and when you are bored, you will reach your fingers far back there and try pulling it out. Suddenly, you will have a piece of your tooth in your palm and then you will become obsessed with running your tongue over the remaining part. It is rigid and sharp. You will start to worry that more things are wrong in your mouth, so you finally make an appointment. When you get there, you will explain your fear of dentists, doctors and anyone trying to inspect your _____. The dentist is a woman; this makes things easier. However, she will tell you that you need a root canal. This procedure is extremely painful and expensive. It will take you a year to pay off that bill. I need to tell you that you are going to receive text messages from _______. This person is going to contact you on your birthday when you are doing your best to stay out of trouble by attending an open mic so you can read your poetry. ______ is going to ask for ______ in exchange for _____. You are going to consider this. (I’m not sure you are ready to hear why.) You will ignore _____ this time. You are going to try to ______ on New Year’s Eve two months before you turn _____. It will snow. You will be staying at your _______’s house while she is away. You will have a lot of _____, hoarded and saved. You will order Chinese food. You will watch two Woody Allen movies. You will write a note to your family that you later rip up because writing a _____ will seem too romantic and narcissistic. You will finish all the _____ and _____ yourself. You will wake up the next morning with a _____, _____ and red, with _____ all over your _____. You will tell no one of this. I need to tell you that things are going to change. You will buy a box of _____ but never open it. You will start obsessing over _____ and _____. You will take more showers. You will memorize the scent of _____. Are you ready for this? Are you sure? You will become ______. You will grow into a seasoned liar. You will gather most of your income from ______. You will use a lot of this money to make a move to _____. I know this is unexpected. I know the idea of leaving New York seems tragic. You will impulsively apply to _____ at _____ to finally finish your ______ degree. You will get in. You will feel like this is a sign to remove yourself from the trauma you created in Brooklyn. You will use all the saved up _____ stacked up neatly in _____ and this will get you there. You will clean yourself up, staying away from _____ for almost 7 _____; then, you will _____ again in ______. You will become ______ once again and find yourself ______. I need to tell you that things will never be the same. Your body will never recover. You will become diagnosed with ______. You will fall in love with the best ______ you’ve ever breathed against. You will tell _______ what you’ve done. You will worry you passed your _______ onto _____. You will find relief when ______. Unfortunately, you will lose _____ too. Perhaps you shouldn’t be reading this. Perhaps this is too much to fathom. Perhaps there is no such thing as warnings, only condolences.

(x/o)
______.

what has not arrived has arrived

What has arrived in me can only be defined as a loose poem. A sawed off slice of petrified wood announcing the arrival of stunted time. A promiscuous sleep. A bitten tongue due to acidic underbite of regret.

I have been carrying around a letter I wrote in my wallet for almost four months now. The sweat in July from my thighs moistened it. After a monsoon in August, it grew wet and stuck. Its pages grew delicate. Several days later, it dried, but now its corners crumble and some words dripped away. It’s for a woman who climbed into my pocket in the late Spring. A woman too tall to see the tops of trees; she converses with the missing pieces bitten out of the sky. She is mermaid-thin. She is mermaid-beautiful. She is a mermaid. Some things are easier admitted on paper, pressed into envelopes, interrupted by a stamp and mailed away. Some things are easier mailed away. In her letter to me, she studied the anatomy of her torso sucked dry by another the way one might devour a heavily marinated sparerib. Gobbled down in a good kind of way. In my letter to her, I tell her all my secrets or the one that matters most. The kind of secret that interrupts dinner parties and sexual encounters. I tell her what I’ve done and what has not arrived yet…….

*
marriage.
[back-ordered] love.
tranquility.
translation.
a baby.
forgiveness.
a heal.
a rest.
death.
life.

a let go. . . . .

*
My skin flakes off in fearful glances. Where did I come from? Why do I arrive like this?

*

I announce to a decoupaged dancer that I am contemplating a travel. I announce to a decoupaged dancer that I am worried that the sick stuffed beneath the fourth and twelfth layers of my skin–which has been lurking for years–is oozing out of me.

*
And then someone sends me a sunset. And then I drink a cup of coffee and burn away the bad thoughts corroding my throat. And then I write a poem. And then I kick a woman out of my bed. And then I isolate isolate isolate. And then I cry kernels of my childhood into steroid-enhanced boulders. And then I eat some more. And then I purge. And then I hum a song I made up while bike riding. And then I forgive myself. And then I change my mind.