i should mention…

I woke up this morning.

Outside it should’ve been bright… but it wasn’t… it was dark and alive.

Then the rain came.  So, I quickly made a playlist consisting of some of my favorite rainy day songs…

…and starting reading my book.

It was a peace of comfort.

Then, [partly because i’m addicted to the internet and partly because i’m waiting for this silly screen to tell me my future], I checked my email.

An email from my father.  [these rarely happen, but when they do, they’re either hilarious or blindingly thoughtful… this was the latter.]

It started with, “Preface: A Letter from a Father to his Daughter”

I read and read and just started bawling.

“Because of you, I am a successful man because Love is the measure of worth & nothing else matters.”

In bed, wrapped up in down, Sufjan Stevens playing, it started hailing [hailing hard] and my cheeks were streaming with love.

I can’t help but share.  I want there to be more recognition of the success of love within us all… in me… in this.

The day went on… the rain stayed pretty steady throughout the day… which was fine because I packed all day… ’tis moving time.

Okay, I didn’t pack all day… I had brunch with a friend.  She went to the bathroom as we were leaving our brunch destination and asked me…

– Do you ever get an overwhelming fear of getting locked in a bathroom?

I laughed out loud as I remembered this story:  WHY DID YOU LOCK THE DOOR??

Oh, good times… or, funny times at least.

The aforementioned friend came over to try on clothes of mine that I was purging in honor of the recent move.

I sat on the floor of my living room that contained most of my material life in it while she fashioned outfit after outfit.  I drank my coffee and read Billy Collins in between all the “oohhhh”s and “ahhhh”s.

We giggled to ourselves as I read aloud…

Purity

My favorite time to write is in the late afternoon,
weekdays, particularly Wednesdays.
This is how I go about it:
I take a fresh pot of tea into my study and close the door.
Then I remove my clothes and leave them in a pile
as if I had melted to death and my legacy consisted of only
a white shirt, a pair of pants, and a pot of cold tea.

Then I remove my flesh and hang it over a chair.
I slide it off my bones like a silken garment.
I do this so that what I write will be pure,
completely rinsed of the carnal,
uncontaminated by the preoccupations of the body.

Finally I remove each of my organs and arrange them
on a small table near the window.
I do not want to hear their ancient rhythms
when I am trying to tap out my own drumbeat.

Now I sit down at the desk, ready to begin.
I am entirely pure: nothing but a skeleton at a typewriter.

I should mention that sometimes I leave my penis on.
I find it difficult to ignore the temptation.
Then I am a skeleton with a penis at a typewriter.

In this condition I write extraordinary love poems,
most of them exploiting the connection between sex and death.

I am concentration itself: I exist in a universe
where there is nothing but sex, death, and typewriting.

After a spell of this I remove my penis too.
Then I am all skull and bones typing into the afternoon.
Just the absolute essentials, no flounces.
Now I write only about death, most classical of themes
in language light as the air between my ribs.

Afterward, I reward myself by going for a drive at sunset.
I replace my organs and slip back into my flesh
and clothes. Then I back the car out of the garage
and speed through woods on winding country roads,
passing stone walls, farmhouses, and frozen ponds,
all perfectly arranged like words in a famous sonnet.

——————

I’ll never be able to get over that one line, “I should mention that sometimes I leave my penis on.”

“I should mention…”  haha… so amazing.

And then I remembered what a love sent me some days back…

Oh, please let my children [in the event that they ever exist] recite Billy.  I’m sure they’ll sing bad pop songs and maybe even talk smack about monsters…

…but please PLEASE let them recite Billy.