its been a few years...

january 2007




the night is bitter, the city long since abandoned by this hour. the impermanent warmth of the drink had evaporated after last call and those with lighter minds and fuller pockets now enjoy the sweet release of drunken sleep. it is sometime after 4 a.m. the wind is ripping away at my face and hands, numbing and biting the flesh i failed to cover.

(i don't remember minding the cold that night.)

substance means sleep, as of late, and my mouth has been dry for days.

i reach the overlook and collapse my body, exhausted,into the snow. i light a cigarette, painstakingly, for i can not feel my hands. a bit of black fingernail falls to the snow and rapidly drowns, the flesh it once protected becomes raw by the time i manage the first drag.

a slow exhale.

smoke joins the falling snow in a spiraling upward dance. the wind heightens and it swirls around me like a two liter tornado. as any beauty you experience alone in nature, it is surreal. i could step out of my body and see everything happening.

laying above this sparkling city as it sleeps, i wish that i could.

closing my eyes i bring myself back to a similar scene only 2 weeks prior:

{i had walked down the beach that night for over two miles, not a soul to be seen. it was a week before christmas. tis the season to wonder how the hell i'm going to explain myself this time. the air was warm but soothing and goosebumps raised up on my knees as it breezed through all the tattered holes in my jeans. i love the calm of an ocean at night. i wonder why none of the locals are ever around, its so beautiful. but i appreciate the solitude. i wonder whats going on in that deep black sea. is the moon's stream of light the disco ball to a party of fish, indulging their gills in the spilt posessions of a drunken sailor? seahorses in circles smoking grass? sharks fucking dolphins behind abandoned coral reefs?

i lay in the sand and begin to bury myself as i have a conversation with an old friend, long since gone. my phone dies but i heard what i needed. i try to soak in the warmth, the soft crash of the gentle night waves meeting the shore and rolling back, the cool sand between my toes...

i want to get a bottle of wine or two before the store closes. i regret walking out this far as i bury my cigarette in the sand, for the walk back is long and all that awaits is drunken rage and a long, cold, winter seven hours north...

i don't want to start over again...}



i'm starting over, again.

i deserve it... i accept it... i don't mind.

i enjoy the look of the smoke as it slips from my mouth and explodes against the frigid air.

the frozen brown river lurks, motionless, below my mountain-top perch. it is ugly as shit. and holds no possibility of an orgy of drunken fish. i laugh for thinking this and wonder how the ocean would be tonight. well, the city skyline is what you have now. and you are stuck here for awhile.

i realize that the snow has started to pile up around my body and my cigarette has burned down to the filter. back up the mountain.

i awkardly step into an unfamiliar home and curl up on the hard floor. i wish i had a pillow. or a few gulps of bourbon to take the cold away.

even inside i can see my breath before me.

someone upstairs is turning on the shower, i still don't know their names...

the sun is coming up. fatigue consumes me. i give up.

a few miles away the beehive is opening and i think i have enough for a hot cup of coffee.

i'm only nineteen. its going to be a long year.