Caught a Glimpse

Like cooking in the dark,
your arms went limp
against a pale brows wink.
Safety and precautions
unlit and
unproven.
We believe and believed
in the belly of the whale,
full and eerie,
waiting children,
waiting for permission
to get out
from under our desks
and look
to the an empty sky,
threats averted
threats averted
time to leave.

A thin strap,
loose fit,
run stockings, run.
Yellow halogen with a girl
whose hair was long
and mistakes forgot themselves,
with a cheeky disposition
of whatever will be
can't be.
I'd like to think she would
remember,
I'd like to think.

We all fit in,
the dark love
making us
into what we are,
liars and thieves
of one anothers own
everything.
I remember them.
Without a word,
I'd call up
to hear an old voice
tell new stories
about what it used to be.

New Years

The year was forty five minutes old, making every action a first. Another first kiss, first dance, first shot of burning cinnamon schnapps from a friend of a friend, the first memory of regret once the sting settled in my stomach but the burning lingered in my throat. Soon though, life was moving in fast forward again, a new day already full of memories and moments in just a handful of minutes.

Charlie and I escaped the party out the back door. We hadn’t been alone together in over a week, the holiday season consuming all spare time for family and any obligations besides ourselves. Climbing down the back porch, I was blinded, the sudden gust of cold felt in my bones. My legs were almost bare to the elements, hidden only by thin tights. The ground was covered in snow and ice, fresh coats from unsteady storms that kept spinning in circles, showering us deeper and deeper with each blizzard. A realization came over me that we were standing on the platform of California Avenue, the yellow street lights mixing with the red heat lamps to create a soft orange haze. The bars were still full while we huddled closer to one another, savoring the hum of the heater.

I don’t recall any meaningful conversations, there had to have been. Looking back though, anything that seemed significant at the time loses meaning once you’re sober, becoming just another alcohol laced exchange, a jumbled mess of philosophical tangents with no closure.

Making plans was our go to topic as of late, trying to keep things as light as possible out of fearful optimism. Most likely we were talking about the neighborhood. A few nights ago while we were eating dinner I explained how my transient lifestyle had been taking its toll on me. I wanted roots, familiarity, the sense of community that only comes from connections that go deeper then just a name on a lease.
Drunk paired with my excitement, my sense of whimsy began to take over, I declared undying devotion to California Avenue. Or Kedzie, maybe both. Or for the tan apartment buildings that dotted the streets of Logan Square, inexpensive housing designed specifically for students, artists, working class; exemplifying the nature of Chicago, different worlds contained on a single block.

The train eventually slowed at our station, allowing the passengers to file in for their bi-annual free ride, only available on New Years and the Fourth of July. We hid behind the door partition, drunks to our backs and the cold seemed worlds away once we slid into the subway portion of the tracks.

Sitting close, hands resting on each others’ knees, our merlot stained lips moving faster then our drunken ears could chase. So many follow up questions, a ballet of fumbling words and misunderstood repetitions. Circular logic on a ride to the loop.
The train came to a screeching halt at our transfer, we slowly climbed the layers between platforms. The normally busy stop felt silly in the early hours. The bustling hallways were empty, the gigantic advertisements seemed ridiculous with only two people, drunk and suddenly mystified how an escalator works. We kept going though, aware that eventually the trains will stop running, the celebrations had to end sometime.

The majority of the city was either still at home or never even left, drinking the annual champagne at home with friends and family huddled close for their own set of firsts. We waited, peering around the corner to look for the airplane pictograph that signified our ticket home. Two trains passed, sexual tension and winter taking a toll on our patience, released only by complaining about the Orange Line until our plane was in sight.

We ducked in the conductor portion of the last car, two seats secluded away from main compartment even if we really didn’t need it them. We were alone. We felt away from it all. The cold that flushed our cheeks or the voices of other passengers, just feet away in a separate car ceased to exist. The only sounds were the clacking tracks and ourselves. The flirtations turned serious once we were alone. The innocence of a night out quickly turned pornographic. Our breaths shallow and coarse, my right leg straddling its way around his back while my left was trying to keep myself balanced on the plastic seat. Words came between the kissing, the feeling, the searching of each other. Something unmentionable but also unmistakable.

I stopped. Sitting up, my eyes an inch above his.

“I want you. Right now. Here. Now.”

Simple statements, uncomplicated and honest with their intentions. The loop flew past at thirty miles per hour. The buildings were familiar but blurred; focus was too much to ask for in the state that I was in. Charlie moved fast too, rifling, unwrapping, only to rewrap. All in correlation with the glass panes flying past, closer then they ever seemed. If the window were open I could reach out and trace along the fastly fading architecture.

A state of panic overtook me. This moment was perfect, so it couldn’t possibly be happening to me. Not the girl who spent the majority of high school hidden behind books, eager to have a conversation with Nick Adams but never with a real person, let alone specifically a real boy. Yet there I was, the same person except not. Completely different. Nonsensically in love with another person and in total lust for the moment. Absurd almost, how much a few months or a couple of drinks can do to a person.

The thoughts kept racing but I took action. I ripped my tights, hiked up my skirt until our hips were touching, friction filled the nook. We tried to match the only rhythms of the sleeping city that were available to us, the quick catching of wheel on rail that propelled us forward until the train just stopped.

With an abrupt flash of our heads from side to side, we knew we were halfway from Adams and Wabash until Roosevelt, the Polynesian restaurant advertisement I knew from so many rides on that train was the only clue.

However a dormant train didn’t stop us. Our own rhythm exceeded the clacks, the unconscious metropolis that contained us kept dreaming while we, stuck between stations, reveled in ecstasy, fueled with liquor. Millions of people were unaware of the simple beauties of that night. I placed my hand against the Plexiglas, littered with etchings from adolescent dares, felt their marks, understood why the overlooked handles were so important. Those names were not just names, drawn with an old key on the side of a train, barely decipherable from a set of lines yet somehow full of pride. Our breaths were short and deep. We disregarded the heat and we sighed on. The city only slept so long before the echo of a sunrise ran through the raw buildings pitted against the wintry lake, rousing the young and old who would see these same windows, read the same names, watch the same disappearing windows as they go around and around. The fleeting throes of passion were irresistible, causing us to act like teenagers on that winter night, a first to end all firsts. If I hadn’t noticed the weather worn faces standing on the Roosevelt platform, well, who knows?

Midwestern Roots

I've learned of myself,
through fields of old snow
dotted praries
three legged dogs that leap at hawks,
pale taupe wings over my windshield
dashing for themselves.
What it was,
the realization,
the eye-opening term
was how great this all is.
How the darkness swallows my headlights,
the support of a bridge glistens rows
and rows, three eyes high
as the smell of hay and soy rise higher.
But these forgotten places are below the radar,
forgotten with good purpose
because I never should have discovered them
even if they helped me.

Found Gonzo

Knock and roll,
head every of anyway.
You tell the kind of people crowd
the impression let in public.
They'll come here,
in this town,
you have you,
you're shit.
I take me,
no goddamn derby.
You tell in the inlet,
I've learned this,
not a faggot.
And I know
one thing every year
to be giving some cent
is minute.

Found Education

List:
a gain,
a high,
problems.
Depress his identity
to five, encourage
all but the five
in green
and in order.
Problematically acceptable,
with no self critic and late wills
where problems prompt me.
Interest ticked the second
I read, "Stay. Do not want a question."
But sometimes legs twitch,
urging to learn.
Being above has its
disadvantages.

Hill Myna

Memorizing the words of dead men
does not
does not
does
not
make you great.
It makes you a bird.
Passerine and dull
recitations that make you seem
greater,
but you're comparing
yourself
to bird brains.
You idiot.

Lake Michigan Pt. 1

Somewhere in the overflowing bins of photographs, there is one image of myself, at age seven, standing in front of a portal to another world. The entrance is dim but filled with creatures who allowed me to escape my own reality for a few hours. Somehow my eternally fleeting attention was captured by them, I stood at that portal for the entire length of a school field trip. While my classmates dashed like refracted light around the aquarium, bouncing from each glass casing to the next, I stood in the same spot, watching these magical orbs glow.
Thy would float in all directions, the only motion that could be detected was a silent swoosh of their gooey exterior. Their rings would shift colors, blending with the blue background of the container until there was a fluorescent explosion of any and all imaginable colors. I still have no idea why it was these animals that made me want to take notice of their every movement or breath, well they couldn’t breath really. They had no mouths. Or heads, for that matter. Just fragile orbs with no resemblance to me, but there I stood, impatiently fiddling with my instant camera, reading their description over and over again.

Aurelia aurita (Moon Jelly)
Thailand
NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY ALLOWED

My inner voice of reason tried to convince me that I wouldn’t have any photographic evidence of this new world, it probably wouldn’t even come out with the only light source being their outer membranes, only a dull glow. But another voice kept piping up, this voice just wouldn’t let it go. It kept harping on me to just do it, no one was even paying attention to these guys except me. They deserved to be immortalized through film, their phosphorous qualities would live on through the magic of my three dollar camera.
This battle went on for some time. My two selves were both determined to get their way so much so that I didn’t even notice the woman standing next to me until she tapped me on the shoulder.
“Would you like a picture with the Moon Jellies?”
“Yes, but – the sign. It said, no pictures.”
I could barely form words, which happened often to me as a child. I’d flush, my face turning as red as the lobsters in the previous display and hide, mumbling a requisite answer to whoever was talking to me until they went away, leaving me to wait for the blood to stop filling my cheeks and allow my body to function normally once more. She was pretty though, I remember that. Her chestnut hair seemed to reflect the marine world where we stood in perfect harmony, even more so then her aquamarine polo did. Then I saw the name tag.
“Oh, you work here.”
“Yes, I do.” She laughed, almost too loud, the jellies floated to the right side of the portal. She was watching me, I could tell. Even though I was staring so intensely at my own two hands, I knew that she was waiting for me to do something. Yet all I could do was stare at my hands, trying to hide the camera, trying to hide away my thoughts of disobeying the rules.
“I love these guys too. I actually got to go get them from their original home, in Thailand.”
“NO WAY!”
I realized that I was shrieking, like a little girl, which no doubt about it I was but I never behaved that way. I was what most adults would call a “creepy” child, keeping to myself more often then not, busy with my own plans and ideas that engrossed my attention for hours upon hours.
“Yep. It was pretty neat, lots of unique sea life that lives near there, much different then this Lake.”
She pointed out the window at Lake Michigan, a navy pool with patches of earth green underneath the cold water.
“Here, let me take your picture.”
She placed her hand on mine, slipping the camera from my grip into her own. I tried to stammer out a reply but instead just turned to face her, all teeth, and a little gum while standing on my tip toes.

Frozen Toes

Today the weather in Kirksville is at a low, only reminding me of another day from this last break, when the official temperature laid at negative six degress. That was the high. Most people would've stayed indoors, camped out on the couch with a blanket, or five. But I was walking, even more like shuddering my way down around Lincoln Park, wearing a skirt, in negative six degrees.
Charlie and I were searching for a street in this cold, after catching a well-timed transfer we had just gotten off at the Fullerton stop. Sitting in the car, filled with a whistling window and screaming children, we were tempted to stay but still we hopped from car to platform to sidewalk. We're not really a couple to talk about the weather, so we were probably making hateful remarks about anyone wearing earmuffs. We were over half way there, we had hoped. We were not sure which way from the station was the correct way, one of those three street meetings that never really seemed logical to me. Or Charlie, as we found out, so we ducked into a small chicken and ribs joint, Wilco posters hanging on the wall with a crew of prototypical male fronted greasy spoon.
Charlie had wet feet, my epidermis was running low with flushed cheeks but we still had two blocks. And no money to buy anything and stay in the warm confines of the store front. So out into the quickly disappearing sun we went.