i was dreaming of another life today

http://lost.net.au/vic/ ___good find Ashtree!


one where we're not girlfriends __ secret agents __not brothers who don't speak on the phone to their sisters enough, __who live in faraway timezones so the memory of their friends erodes slowly, __who miss first and second weddings __and struggle to keep up with your job interviews and your daily stories and your auditions to be a world famous supporting actress in a comedy category. another life. quieter and stiller and less full of clutter and traffic signs. (ever think how quiet it was when there were no cars? no buildings. no machines no television. when the world was just what grew out the ground and out of women. could walk from town to town and mistake wind for music. God's morse code. help me help me help me.

__one where we're not at the end of youth __where the books got read __we had the right numbers __they liked our resume __they'd been waiting for someone like us. __and when you planted something in the ground you could see a tongue poke out to taste sun, __and our girlfriends weren't mad at us for being late __selfish __aloof __scared,nervous,anxious __where we didn't have paranoid attacks at 9am about needing to take showers and didn't feel fat at 2am and go for runs and didn't feel stupid all day long

that life. __a dream for fools and beggars and too young men too much already dead and forgotten. __but look at its colours. __the way sunday drifts into wednesday , __for almost three years i lived on a mountain in the desert. i must never forget that i say to myself sometimes. __for almost three years i memorized maps. Botswana and North Dakota and the Galapagos Islands and Kyrgyzstan , __for three years we slipped away from our parent's divorces and siblings' high-school dramas

where we're riding on carousels __and sunset is a feeling __where i can think in poetry, so that i smile as i walk home from the bus-stop at all the loveliness in my head __where our friends kiss their wives in front of us and we smile for them each time like we did at their weddings, __and their children are born whole and healthy __in old boxes we find our childhood toys, hollow yellow plastic baseball bats that served as electric guitars and swords and when stood on a surf board
____where our cars drive straight __and when we put our arms out at night we feel a body, what's more a body we're glad to have near, __and when you kiss her shoulder she groans and automatically turns into your arms, we sleep like handfuls of vines __where colours have ends so we after staring into eyes and ocean's horizons and pink tutus we reach a satisfactory conclusion. __where our ties always match __our opinions are based on our willingness to become informed __where we dance when we're alone __and go to the beach even though we're fat and thin and have patchy skin and rashes and bald so we need sunscreen on the tops of our heads __and our Faith makes us believe it's worth the time to hug, to speak to children, to sit a little bit each day in quiet rooms just ourselves and all the screws and nuts and bolts of our too large universe that we cannot control or fathom or fail to be a part of

where everyone stops speaking to me when i listen to Thomas Tallis so that i may forget that i have skin and not angel's wings

i was dreaming of another life today
where i was not late. __average. __not sitting in a room alone, __where i was not worried __not doped up with shaking hands __where my laundry was dry


*___*___*

LITTLE PRESENTS PEOPLE GOT ME THAT I'LL REMEMBER FOR EVER AND LOVE FOR EVER AND EVER (AND THE PEOPLE THAT GOT THEM), A LIST:

Kiana, the film Magnolia (she'd heard it was my favorite) on VHS

Ginger, a drawing

Dad, a box larger than me. insider another. then another. then another. the last small, the size of my hand. insider it the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles nintendo game that came out on monday that cost $50 and i knew we couldn't afford

Gol, Entropy Pieces, selected writings by a pennyfortheoldguy (and 6 months of patience before it finally caught up to me)

Jinab, a painting i'll die before i let outta my sight

Chad, two inny-winny super tiny moleskins i use as my daily to-do lists

Mona, who one-upped him by finding them in red. (and two green pens for valentines day when i knew damn well there were no more of my fav green pens available anywhere in town)

Ashtree, Prayers and Meditations, softcover, so that i could always have it when i travelled

Martha, Pablo Neruda. (but actually, i remember more fondly the poem written in her own handwriting in the back of one of my notebooks)

Mona, 6 polaroids that pretty much sum up our first 5 years of friendship.

_ _ _ _ _, an ipod with an inscription: yours is the music for no instrument. so that for two years when i thought of her i thought yours are the poems i do not write.

Richard, who listened to me love and miss and eventually die because of _ _ _ _ _, a striped black and white shirt. and he said Q... _t r y_ and look after yourself. ok mate?

Eman, a small chess set that's soo much heavier than it should be

soo many things.
my walls are full of your pictures and drawings and photographs and prints from india and my shelves are lined with you autobiography of bigfoot picture books and if someone ever stabbed me all your names coloured bright bright red would come stumbling out.

it's good to be me tonight.
love you all.
hopefully see many of you in the fall.