11 57

I'm waiting in the third or fourth car of a train on track 27, Grand Central Terminal. A Hudson River Line train to Croton-Harmon. My plan is for Slide Mountain tomorrow. It's supposed to be warm. My banjo sits on the rack above my head. This pad rests on a Guy Waterman biography on my lap. I'm off tomorrow night, a Monday night. The train ride will last 53 minutes, stop in Harlem and a few other local stops. I sit in a left-side, window seat, expecting to look at the river and roll north. The sneeze I just release sounds very loud. A louder metallic noise occurs between the cars. Girls seated closest to the door laugh at their own surprise. A man nearby stands and tries to close the door. He hits the inside of the frame when it only comes an inch out and stubbornly retreats. A man across the aisle from me sings to himself in Spanish. Now a woman in black with short hair tries and fails at the door. We have been slowly rolling for five minutes. The train accelerates. The wheels skipping the rail joints sound close and the dim blur of the tunnel's interior walls abruptly give way to soft glowing orbs frozen in the wet Harlem night. The man singing in Spanish is now able to make a phone call. He speaks to his phone loudly, interrupting himself to say "Hello," frustrated with the reception.
The train stops at 125th street. Over the PA a masculine voice says Marble Hill will be next. The wheel system wrenches and the breaks hiss as we cross the East or Harlem River. I don't know which one for sure. A few voices in conversations with phones or other passengers float up over the seats. I begin to notice the droning blow of the fan in the ceiling. I remember hearing it turn on but not sure when that was.  I confirm it's the off-peak period with the conductor as I hold out my ticket. He grins, nods, "of course."
"I got you if it's not but I don't want to break a twenty," I say.
"I hear you man," he says, chuckling and moving on to collect more tickets, hole-punching them with his clicker thing.
He tries the door. It seems jammed for him too. The train slows at the Marble Hill platform. Water makes the signs more shiny and darkens the concrete. I look up and see the collector has succeeded with the door. It's closed for only a second. A girl's face in the hood of a sweatshirt looks in at me from outside. Her eyes hold some kind of emotion. The train stops softly. The collector floats down the aisle, from the direction he came. Worried it won't close again, I wait for some action from the door. Then it appears from the wall on its own, with a gentle rattling, like beads rolling with little room for themselves. Outside it appears we're moving again. Dots of light on the blacked out bridge fall on the water and stretch down in unfading trails. They taper abruptly on waining ridges of rippling water.
I feel sleepy. The windows reverse a reflection of the inside of the car. My eyes are mirrors. They make contact with a man sitting next to the door that's now closed. He's seated facing oppositely of the train's direction. The Greystone platform crossfades in the window. The inside of the car solidifies when we leave the platform behind. My ass feels the last vibration of a 'missed call.' Chris left me a typed digital message and waited through the unanswered rings of my phone.
"Yes Yes," I type back. Then, "Donna Ferry Next." Correcting the mistake my third consecutive message reads "Dobbs Ferry". It's a place I may have never been to. The phone automatically capitalizing the 'D' and 'F'. Chris will not respond. He drives the dark wet double yellow roads, I assume. A man in a fleece shouldering a duffle chews gum. He walks through my door. The door works great by the way. Never broken, I confide in myself. Dry docked boats, Terrytown. The PA, "Ossining next."
"What you doing? With who? I just got on the train." A young guy sits across from me. The spanish guy now gone. The young guy might just take a taxi. His last word into his IPhone. "Alright."
"Tickets." The collector says in a way that surprises me. He punches a ticket.
Occasionally and randomly the car drops an inch or two. It shakes. I look through my own reflected eye at a light across the black river. Another red beacon glows nearby. Maybe somewhere floating on the Hudson, anchored

beyond cousins

On the way back from the freezer she read the instructions on the back of the box. The house was empty now. In the toy room downstairs the toys were not put away.

In the backseat on the way to the house the boy heard them joke that the exit ramp was an actual ramp to death. The car was full. The boy sat in the middle seat.

The kids watched The Predator in the basement, lounging in the scattered toys and gym mats and Nerf guns. It was getting late and the darkness worried him.

Where he saw March of the Penguins years later with his ex-girlfriend he saw Batman Returns with his parents and baby brother. His mother's cousin's family never showed up. They were the family in the car wrecked on the side of the road outside the parking lot.

car accident

        Her head tilts to read instructions printed on the back. Her hands clutch the box of frozen food like a steering wheel. The freezer door swings back into the freezer and the rubber seal pops on the white metallic surface. Her bare heals press on the tile floor. Her pelvis collides through her clothing with a rounded edge of formica counter and a portion of her body weight distributes on the peninsula. 
        Sixty watt light fills the room. White plaster ceiling slouches a little more than a foot above her head. Wood paneled walls unfold in multiple positive and negative right angles from the back doorway, over the pantry, around the fridge and onto the counter, oven and sink area. 
        Subtly bending blades of her brown hair hang from each temple, over her cheeks and eyes. She drops the moistening package onto the counter and the two dead orbs in her skull stare at the microwave. Clumpy spikes point out in stunted radius from the edge of her lids. The two thick lines drop their useless determination onto the lower lid and rest for what seems too long. 

i forget if i use titles

imagine just this neighborhood cashless

trees on the block regenerating

exact shapes of the dead

virginians eating slowly behind dirty windows

emergency services receiving his long stare

i started feeling depressed before we ordered pizza

the cursor went on to a dead stop

prahbakar sweater vest producing moths

in the slightest dust up

his interview later

police enjoying a good laugh

the ground can't cause a fumble

i was driving in to work today and i just couldn't leave in Analphabetapolothology. i slid the burned copy of z i made when it came out a few years ago out of the visor in my dad's car. the car was speeding down the taconic parkway and the sun was low, coming right in the windshield. i honestly don't feel like i can say anything strong about Z. it's a good rock album right. and circuital is a good rock album too right. i love rock albums. i can sing along with the first song. it's a good driving song i think. now i'm really thinking about mmj as a band. i can't really say anything strong or feel anything meaningful towards this band. i mean i spend all my money going to their shows and i don't even have a good job. one show i had a profuse nose bleed and still i stayed for the second set and it rocked. my life though, when i look at my life and i think about mmj right next to my life i just feel empty. it doesn't build on anything. i just feel bored. i'm really thirsty for meaning. i'm so thirsty and coffee really gets me going these days. when i hear wordless chorus or gideon, or the knot comes loose i'm not transcended anywhere. i'm in the handicapped section and i can't be there. i can't get any closer. the show is seated, not everyone is standing and dancing. there's a raccoon running around under the seats which are padded. we should have been having sex. not me and the raccoon but somebody and i. a human. a girl. but this band and phish. phish. the band that became the pheonix in the chinese lantern sky. they cleaned up and cut down their jams and got in touch with the base. they never did anything weird with their lives. i was never interested in them. i never wanted to go to the place where everyone who bought a ticket was going. i never thought i needed a miracle. i need one this sunday. i need to be at metlife. 

new favorite skater (todd falcon)

i saw 2 of this guy's videos just now

something to watch as i'm eating the free food at my job (black friday is a holiday here)

and i thought this guy is cool he doesn't give a shit

this is mitchell davis type shit right here:

smashes computers:

no look tricks, holding yard tools, snot rocket:

i done fucking know

this really resonates with me

THE PUSSY DOTH PROTEST WALL STREET TOO MUCH, METHINKS

How are you doing? I hope things are going well. We talked online today. I asked you how Breakneck was and you said it was great. You must have gone this past weekend. You put pictures on Facebook last night. Last night I was drunk. I went to a bar in the area and drank while watching football and playing words with friends on my phone. It has been over two weeks now since I came to your birthday party, wished you a happy birthday, paid you for the ticket and left. When you asked me for the money you turned away from me and gave the money to Ed. The conversation we were having was then over. I guess it wasn't really a conversation. I might have asked you two questions. You seemed really impatient. You said "Sorry I've been asking everyone." Then I went and sat on the couch that was behind the bowling lane. I saw Susan arrive and she couldn't walk up to the bowling alley part so I went and said hello. Then I sat back on the couch. Then I watched you and Ed say hello. Then you and Ed walked into the crowd together. When I saw that happen I asked Kenneth if you two were back together and he said, "from what I saw earlier, yeah, I'd say so." I told Kenneth I was probably going to leave and he said he didn't blame me. I was hoping not to see you on the way out. I'm sorry it was disturbing for you to watch me leave. The time before that I saw you you had the McDonald's food and you were punching in the code to your parent's garage. We drove back from The Quiet Man. You were on the phone part of the way with Speno. She was worried cause he legs weren't shaved that Ron whose house she was on her way to might notice. I told you to tell her it didn't matter. Then you asked her if she touched his penis already and you said that that sounded like fun and you wanted to do that. I guess after I dropped you off then, when we kind of hugged over the center console of the car and you had the McDonald's and gave a half-smile I guess because it seemed awkward, I knew that that was end of what I was hoping might be something between us. When we first saw each other that night you came along side of me and put your arm around me and I did the same to you. But I let mine slide off a little and you took your right off after that. I was going to throw stuff out in the garbage. Then I stepped out of the picture of Kenneth and Speno unintentionally. I guess in the bar that night I just sulked. I just wanted to get something going with you. To hug you or make you laugh or anything. I tried staying sober. You smiled at me once or twice. We talked for a few seconds. I asked you about your family vacation. Then right in the middle of us talking you turned and walked away from me. Other times I was near you you'd turn and talk to someone else as if I wasn't there. Before that we were at Kenneth's house together a couple times. The last time you were very drunk, dressed up in his grandma's clothes and drove home. I asked you for a ride but you were too drunk. You gave me a good hug on the way out. The time before that Ron picked you up and your shirt was coming off all night. When I saw you out on his porch alone, smoking I went out to stand with you. We were looking at the dark back yard and you kinda randomly said that I was amazing. Then you stopped yourself and said you shouldn't tell me that when you are drunk. You flashed people because your shirt was already coming off a lot. We all drank too much tequila. We were in Kenneth's parent's room and you told me again I was amazing. Then your shirt somehow came off. When I woke up you were curled up on your side facing my. I can't really tell you how that feels for me to see that in the morning. You didn't want to get out of bed when Carli said you had to leave but then suddenly you jumped up as if you remembered your car or the oven was on. We woke up that way at Ron's, weekend of the 4th. I don't know why it happened. It felt like 2 and a half years I struggled through were detached from me. You looked so beautiful I couldn't believe it was real. I felt like I was floating and the world wasn't real. I felt aware of a strong, constant feeling of you. We hiked to that cave that day and ate dinner outside in Cold Spring. It didn't occur to me until recently that when you said "We should talk," before the food came that you meant talk about how we had a falling out during your last relationship. It's going to be six years this summer since we first kissed in the pool at Mike's house. I probably haven't once given you the attention I mean to or said the right thing that you need or are looking to hear. I've acted really childish and made huge deals out of insignificant things. But I have thought about you every day and held on to every moment I've ever been near you. And again I have to watch your pictures from Breakneck show up on Facebook and you walking off into the crowd with that person. I've been so confused. I've been crying for some reason. The part of my head that feels sane witnesses my other part going insane. I'm on my bed aware of how alone I feel at the moment. I've left work and stood on random street corners for a half hour at a time just staring into space. I walked around my cousin's neighborhood when I was visiting her looking for food in the rain. I had to just stand under an awning and cry. Nothing went right for me. In September you said you would come out 4 or 5 times and never showed up. I went to the store just now and almost cried in three different locations. One of them was when the traffic light wouldn't let me cross. When it did I wished the car making a right turn would hit me. Even if it was going slow. The day we hiked before you went to the Phish show you said you didn't like him. You said he was a bad musician. You said he waisted money he didn't have on concert tickets. I don't know if you're aware of all this stuff or if it matters. I don't want to have to go away from you again. I wonder if I was ever even as close as I thought I was. I can't tell you how insane I feel. I know how the steep mountain and forest calms your head at night after you've been in them that day. I don't have that calmness anymore. My mind is vacant, brittle and pensive. I will try and remain your friend this time. But if I disappear suddenly it's not because I want you to feel disturbed or hurt. You can find me if you need me. I have to pretend this is the end forever. 

i really need to go to brazil. the women there have tan skin and good ass and breasts. they just seem more sexual and willing and able to be amused by a white person like me. like if a women like that is here she would definitely not be amused by me because there would be so many people like me. i am italian. after work i am stopping by the library on 23rd to pick up my hold books, then i might nap at home or skateboard under the BQE. then since i don’t have to wake up early tomorrow - i’m setting up live shots for the pre-game of game five of the ALDS - i might go out to a bar and talk to a girl i don’t know already. that would be ideal. i should focus on going to multiple bars without squandering the cash available to me at the time at one bar. i should concentrate on writing more understandable things. what am i writing? are these sentences, thoughts, complaints? is this stream-of-consciousness? what if people stated the obvious more often? what if they always said shit like i’m standing here looking at you. i don’t know. its colder now. jeans are one of the greater things on girls. maybe girls like them on men too. think about all the things in the world going on at once. some creatures must be experiencing pinnacle moments in their lives. people are making minor changes to infrastructure that will magnify into significant events in the future.

*

it was dark and it was raining.

a man in shadow emerged

from the back of a little soap shop and lit up

i asked him for the time

he said i have to check my phone

because nobody wears a watch anymore

which doesn't make sense to say

but the time he said

did not force me to act

differently

*

the roof was big enough for football

and it was depressing how far away

everyone stood from the band

*

i was really hungry so i ate a lot of barbecue 

chips 

it's good that there were so many in this bowl

it was bad that they were nearly all too small to be chips

and more like crumbs

*

there's a firetruck idling in front of the pizza restaurant that looks closed

but it's actually an ambulance in front of a convenience store

*

do you think people will care when sting dies?

*

i drink six abita seasonal beers with great ease last night

they were named harvest with each president in mind

and cost 11 dollars all together at a store called e-z pass

or deli, grocery, candy

or the one that plays music outside sometimes

*

for years the third drink at empire hunan was free

then the recession happened in 2008

well now the free third drink is full price

*

my suicide note would be

"where did i wash up?"