like, love, miss, hate

I like that there's a girl named "Ali" in the tabloids, because there are some really funny headlines.
I like when you make food and it stays at the right temperature in time for you to enjoy it.
I like selling old books on eBay (strangely).
I like that the weather is starting to act like Autumn.
I like when I need a particularly sized battery, and I can find one without having to buy them.

I love the sound of cars driving through the rain for an early morning commute.
I love not living in the city.
I love inside jokes.
I love having conversations.
I love being scared by movies or stories.
I love looking at faces.

I miss May.
I miss when the only question was "Where?"
I miss the possibility of spontaneity.
I miss being able to dance.
I miss when I didn't have to shave my legs so often.

I hate the words "possibly" and "maybe".
I hate Summer.
I hate"red tape".
I hate when people act like something is mutual when it is only benefiting them, obviously.
I hate when people give up on anything. (Still and always).
I hate how long it takes for mosquito bites to go away.  

Ideally. Ide(ali)

Advertise here!
 Well I would, but I can't afford it.
But if I could, it'd say
 that I wish I had a wooden porch
that we could rot on
the last night before you leave town.
Dark and lit by buzzing bulbs
we'd fasten then disengage,
rinse and repeat.
Well we would, but I don't have one.
So I'd get notice through
a hundred sixty characters
ending with colon, hyphen, backslash.
And I wish I could sing and strum,
Well I would, but I'm a painter.
So this could be a song
maybe in 3/4
that'd look perfect on your hard drive.
It can't be on a marquee, 
frosted in a cake,
burned into your grilled cheese,
or professed on amplitude modulation.
And I'd love to keep my phone on loud
so I could wake up and say goodbye.
I would but I have had trouble sleeping.
And since I keep my phone on silent by my head
while I'm asleep
I won't know 'til the morning that
you've left.

The things I want to do, transitive.

I want to send you pictures of my cat,
and make you Windows 8. No, just to be safe, Windows 9, too.
And give you the paper that I shot a bullseye on.
I want to tell you my secrets, and maybe make up some of our own.
I want to draw on you while you're sleeping, and for you not to be upset about it.
And then think about all the devious, mischievous, manipulative things I'm capable of,
and shred them. 'Cause I don't want to do them. Not to you.
I want to discover something for you. If not a brand new color, then a second or third edition of a book.
And there's an image that I just have to perfect for you.
I want to look pretty for you. Or maybe it's for me to feel like it is for you.
Either way, I'd find my "season" and dress accordingly.
I want to impress you with my mental math skills.
Or set up the new flat screen TV, 'cause I'm just not that dainty.
And capture each of the three kinds of clouds and trap them in little jars.
And you'd never run out of AA batteries, because I'd always check the inventory.
I wouldn't let any toothpaste caps in a 30 ft radius get mucky,
and your sponges would never start to smell.
I always want to say goodnight, 'cause what if the world ends?
I want to watch porn with you, and maybe try something new.
But maybe not because it's great now.
I just want to be nice, okay?

for anonymous

I'm here! And here also! And right here! And right there! And there. And there and there. And over there! And over here! And out there! And in here! And here for you. And there for you. Always here. Over and out.

ubiquitous ali

You write a blog, and I tidal wave hello.

Maying and probably not concerning, but actually concerning many:

Do you know? Really. Contemplate the inflection on every one of those words. Do. You. Know? Do? You. Know?


I'm waiting for your reality slap. I've gotten so many that my face is crusty and tattered, held together by thread of my own making (hopes, dreams, sugar, spice, everything nice). You are a virgin. Your face is a virgin.

Triviality in the second decade is acceptable to surface feeders, intertidal zone. And there's an open ocean who doesn't notice, and doesn't care. But, the deep ocean. It's not where you are.

In the deep ocean, no one knows. And that's okay and right and just. There is no, "I know."

But you answered "Do I know what?" not "No. I don't."

Virgin face salt water slapping raw your skin and getting deep enough to where you have to cry and make the decision to be confident about your deformed face, or cover it up with makeup. It's rape and your purity's intact with concealer and rouge. Makeup artists dwell on land. You love your wounds and cherry's gone, and you get to sink or swim.

You get to sink or swim. But not float. Never float. Makeup artists float. Virgins float. They need protection of air. Envelopes and security and kisses but that's all. Swimming's lucky. It means you're fit. Understand that swimming is eternal. Stopping only for submarine sandwiches. Sinking is like falling from a helicopter. Except there's salty waters tickling your sores and pores and gangrenous face. And you're going to drown.

You will, no exceptions for you. No sudden swim lessons, or inner tubes. The sea will drip into your lungs and asphyxiate and anchor you to the mysterious ocean floor.

So. Do you know?

Signed,
Floor scavenger.

Elegant vocabulary and the iconography of smiling.

The onset of this condition is
unlike any other sensation;
From every appendage
pulls taught towards my core
And the remedy
is remedyless;
they exist concomitantly,
the high-thread count curative,
hitches of linens here and there,
and the inundating blight itself!
It's the feeling of release
when you clench your teeth.
Or the jollity and deliverance
of letting go a balloon.
And yet, it feels
like every internal organ
is being separately hanged
for execution of heinous crookedness.
The nooses weave all the way to my geometric center,
my midpoint a tangle.
But it sounds like pink,
and looks like Saturday evening chatter
in a crumby pizza shop.
It's the flavor of hair pulling,
and matte finish black,
and cigarette cellophane;
the split between wailing and coming clean.
Still I'm on the hill
but I'm not alone.

No one bothers to polish silver at this age.

Walking in from the rain a I sat down on a sexual milk crate and it kissed my inner thighs while I spread black plastic bags on the floor. After sitting and smelling the sultry air, it combined old wood floor with unscented candles, I walked down the hall to the room with unsorted odds and ends. This was the room that no effort was in. This was the room where nostalgia lived; the kind of nostalgia that works very well untouched. She sat in the middle of the floor and let her eyes circle the room. A set of encyclopedias, old cookbooks, extra chairs, Christmas wrapping papers, and trophies from the 1970's. In the North East corner of the room, unobtrusive, rested an urn. Blue swirled with black, and a gold stripe. I approached the urn and opened it, as if I wasn't sure what was inside, even though I knew. I stuck my hand in as far as I could reach. I wish I could say it made me feel closer to a relative, or God, but it didn't. It felt like an ashtray. The kind that's after a very long night. I withdrew my hand and went back out in the rain. Any remnants were washed to the concrete. I followed them to the sewer and watch them descend.
I walked back inside and again and perched on the sexual crate. It was red and passionate and it reminded me of a spaghetti. I thought of my spaghetti and my arms pulsed in preparation for implosion. Any second they'd collapse inward and the spaghetti would never get to stick to them again. My face got red like it used to when I got bashful, and I went to the kitchen and got out a blade. I spread out my fingers on the black plastic bag, and sliced into the skin of my fingers, to the bone, as if I were cutting an avocado, where the bone is the pit, and I circle around it, and peel off the skin, muscle and fat. I wondered if there was any residue left from the urn.