this is where stars go to die

You thought it was a shooting star. You thought you could squint your eyes into a version of evening and wish upon and wish upon and wish upon

You thought this is where love derives from

You thought this is a sign from planets to validate your existence

You thought     this is beautiful

You thought this was a necessary explosion of transported lust

You thought this was a sign of romance and rust of musical movements

(but)

This is actually the death of plasma and gravity

This is just an American-made jet fighter

This is a collapse

This is just a calculation of patterns

This is an adventure of sky and planets and you are trespassing

This is actually just a whisper of meteoroid

This is just a British drama with or without laugh track

This is just a novel

This is an airplane full of over-worked travelers and screaming babies and some guy who is flying away from his life down below

This is just a song by Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Elliot Smith before the stabbing

This is an explosion of heat and third-degree burns and unless you can donate your skin, stop watching

This is just a scratch in the sky

This is strange and innocuous but also toxic and may cause permanent damage

This is just a bully of light

This is just a formation not an evolution

This is just a repeat from yesterday’s indigestion of cloud consumption

This is not beautiful

This is not marvelous or made to help you arrive at a conclusion

This is not love did you think this was love this is never going to be about love

This is not smashing; this is just smashed

This is drunk

This is sky addicted to flash

This is just sky

This is just a light

This was never going to be about wishes or wishing; you can remain down here for that.

a howl of sleep

In the distance, a dog barks. It is 1 am. It is 3 am. Round it to 4 and then 5 and I wonder how long one can howl before sound is drained.

This is New York, I whisper. Why is no one yelling.

Where is its mother/father/owner? Does it hunger. Is it cold or too warm or fearful of the evening sting on its fur. Is it tied too tightly to fence or thirsty or in need of a meal. Is this dog howling for its mate?

I feel angry at this dog for taking my sleep away and yet I also recognize our kinship. I have been howling for months. One could argue: years. In search of. Hungry for. Longing. Lost.

When the dog breaks away from its noise, I worry. My body begins to settle back into sleep and then its bellow arrives once again. The cries extend longer. Louder. Deeper. There is desperation in each push of sound.

I had a lover who led me into an alley once and told me to scream.

It feels good to let out the screams stuck inside our bodies. And there is no warning attached to these yells or fear. It’s just one giant, screaming exhale.

Sometimes one needs to extend all the rage from the body– the screeching music– in order to move on and through a day or moment.

It is dark and I cannot differentiate one rooftop from another, but I still push my way through my tall window and hop onto the roof of the apartment below. It is a far jump, but my lack of sleep removes my fear of height/injury. The bricks are uneven and they become like a ladder, which allows me to climb down further. I follow the footsteps of this dog’s howl. I am getting closer. It’s like thunder–when you count to notice whether it is moving nearer or further away.

I am almost there, I say out loud.

The moon points through its neon and though the dog is more like a moving shadow, I know I am upon it. It howls. I howl. We mourn and cry and remove our body’s losses together. Our tones differ. Mine is less deep, but more desperate. We rarely permit ourselves to just let it out.

The sky fills with our wails and I feel like the air is hugging us. We are going to be ok.

In the distance, another noise joins in. Not a howl, but more like a yell.

Shut the fuck up! says an unseen voice.

The dog and I continue just a little while longer. There is comfort in the acknowledgment of our screams. When my throat begins to hurt and voice grows smaller, I begin my walk back. Up the bricks. Onto the roof. Through my window. Back to bed.

 

civilized sewage

collect lovers like baseball cards: trade up trade up trade up

On an evening so close to morning that the aroma of coffee confuses the air, feet fumble over railroad tracks as the moon plays phone tag with another part of Brooklyn.

Glass is everywhere, crumbled like love letters.

Spiderman hides beneath the rubble as fists turn into paper, scissors, rocks.

What time is it now and does it matter that my hips are bloody wings beneath these layers and if I pick the scabs my complexion will weep.

We are plugged in even when we are not and why can’t sewage be romantic, since reflections can be found within its oil slick and the smell is no different than our breath in the morning or death. Or death. (or death)

I may only be alive because I am aware that you are next to me. Because I felt the wind from your lashes flap against your tinted skin. Because I asked for death last night and the line was busy.

This whole world is a wasteland so grab a corner and fold this earth into something neater.

The sky is freckled. And bodies can pretend they are amused due to the shared aroma of whiskey, banjoes in the background, lunges against loft walls, thrusts of confession.

The truth is love can only be mad if you strangle it daily.

This Brooklyn likes to top from the bottom. This Brooklyn cross-dresses only when the lighting is right. This Brooklyn is a tour guide through graffiti swamps. This Brooklyn likes to high-five strangers to push out the bad thoughts in [its] head.

* * *

[so what does this mean]

Go to Alaska. Order a pint. Sit in a corner. Connect straw to candle light and suck it in and suck it in and suck it in. Question the chosen decor. Fondle someone else’s foot with yours. Memorize the way she pauses. Grab a needle. Suction this night into its torso. Press it into your forearm that has been warned. Get high on evening. Get high on stories. Get high on something that can never be found again.