On Anna Karenina

When once I had Plath, today, Tolstoy made sense.

From Anna Karenina:

Page 423

"He soon felt that the realization of his desires gave him no more than a grain of sand out of the mountain of happiness he had expected. It showed him the mistake men make in picturing to themselves happiness as the realization of their desires... He was soon aware that there was springing up in his heart a desire for desires - ennui."

Page 436

"At every step he experienced what a man would experience, who after admiring the smooth, happy course of a little boat on a lake, should get himself into that little boat. He saw that it was not all sitting still, floating smoothly; that one had to think too, not for an instant to forget where one was floating; and that there was water under one, and that one must row; and that his unaccustomed hands would be sore; and that it was only to look at it that was easy; but that doing it, though very delightful, was very difficult."

Page 438

"He felt for the first moment as a man feels when, having suddenly received a violent blow from behind, he turns round, angry and eager to avenge himself, to look for his antagonist, and finds that it is he himself who has accidentally struck himself, that there is no one to be angry with, and that he must put up with and try to soothe the pain."

For a Final Post: An Examination of Fake Love

I wrote this six months ago.  I like the writing, but I could care less about the content.

For any way I was wrong and not enough, I’d made concessions and complied and never wondered when you would call because I would call first.  I knew it was okay this way, with you.  And now I compare and can’t remember why you were so awful.

But I digress.  No, I concede.  I let you be how I remember you, which incidentally isn’t very well.  I love or am in some comparable mire.  I search for it again so I can relax and understand it’ll hurt this much with someone else and I didn’t let go of that torture in vain. 

I wish I had something better to say than anything about your uncomfortable dirty mattress, the dog, the dander, the grease like tar.  The hair adheres so I won’t forget you two.

Piss water beer, boxed wine, well whiskey.  I couldn’t care less.  I just want my off switch and, my parents’ money, dip my hand in the bees and compromise integrity for a tall, dirty, cheap drink.

On Giving In: An Excerpt

To say nothing is going to change my world is too grand a claim, too banging beat of percussive droning, minor keys, moving with an unknown orchestra, and give into the song, come with the song, let the song change my world.  Let it be the song for the moment. 

It is always an ode, a couch at five in the morning, a crowd of watching friends wanting me to be happy (this could never be).  I’d like to think my back porch, my cigarettes mean something more than my slowly yellowing teeth and the coughs from colds that last too long.  This may be a hard winter for me.  I don’t know how to move through the wetness, to pull together the weather, to ride through it and to ride it out.

August's

Jared takes the tank, and the softer earth for sinking under weight (in tons).  

This is not the news we’re fans of, not the watery drink, not ice that moves nowhere.  I make trips southerly.

I am hopeless, a devotee, possessor of no knowledge worth knowledge.  I change my tickets, my chances, cancel reservations and hear no one.

I am ambivalent, but not ambivalent enough.  I am still bothered by the periphery. 

It’s in every boring detail not worth sharing.  I used to be that immature, but no one can be as invested as I am in me.  My poverty, my diseases, my addictions aren’t.

Solzhenitsyn & Pachelbel

In collecting the condoms, in falling asleep inside of you and in short or light of HIV, I've given into pessimism and it[']s poetry.

I was embarrassed for years, but you ended up being the fool.  I'd forgotten about the suites when all anybody took into consideration was the cannon.  And finally now I am no fool.  I'd forgotten about Solzhenitsyn until his death brought about your issues and my alleged illiteracy.  The writing is used, ragged, and I believe in the city even if I stopped believing I'd get there.

Better Than Fair

I felt an excess of women in the room, an excess of mattering, that the presence of one other penis almost went completely unnoticed until it didn't and then it was all I could focus on.

I didn't even notice the chairs.  I was focusing on the counter, on hysterics, on missing art.  I'd found some poor sad sap to listen to my rant, reach for my headphones, from floor to ceiling.  

There is no point in pointing.  I would just shower and sweat, wash the sheets and sweat, shave and chafe and sweat. 

I would move in, unable to afford your license or the clown-car that is New York, read Russian literature or translate and waste all the brilliant phrasing I've been hoarding.  I approve of lanugo.  

I roast, I tan, I sweat lines and rue the week.