—SO, COME HOME TO ME NOW, IT WON’T MATTER ANYHOW

 

 

Falling Man

 

I have not forgotten you, flying upside down, amused or bemused I’m unsure, your left leg cocked, arms at your side, outside the striated face of the North Tower as the lid of the building smoldered from plane wreckage, while below, sirens blared uselessly, everyone terrified, thinking Orson Wells, thinking hoax, thinking End Times, the streets horrified, too, trying to gather up their asphalt skirts to catch you before it was too late and you became #2,997, another number that wasn’t a number at all.

—I’D HAVE A CARDIAC IF I HAD SUCH LUCK

 

Fall

 

The leaves trundle like curdled scrolls across the road, like hands clasped without an object or a hand to hold. A deer bucks sideways, missing my oncoming car. An owl shifts her head counterclockwise as the wind whispers prayers and profanities, every cedar trembling or else waving a white flag. There’s gold in the earth, someone once told me, nuggets as large as missile casings. I was so much younger then, but now I pull to a stop and kneel down, right here, partially to pray, but mostly to claw my hands through the harsh and moist soil, searching for fortune like a blind man who has lost so much but not yet his sense of touch.

 —REMEMBERING YOU, STANDING QUIET IN THE RAIN, AS I RAN TO YOUR HEART TO BE NEAR

  

…I’m trusting you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with people you love. I sure hope so. And also, I’m grateful that you’re here.

 

…If you can’t find me, it means I’m off the page, which isn’t a good sign.

 

…Some people break themselves almost every day.

 

…Sometimes trying to save a friend feels a lot like cleaving off your own skin with a dull butter knife, one bloody layer at a time.

 

…It’s easy to feel relaxed when you’re dead and don’t know it.

 

…I wish I could hold a grudge the way the moon does, but what good would that do?

 

…Today every tree looks like a felon, out on parole and agitated.

 

…Last night I could hear every coyote howling for a ransom.

 

…There’s always too much to hold in.

 

…I wonder if insanity is hereditary. It would make a lot of sense.

 

…What I need to do is stop falling through trap doors and into quicksand.

 

…Right now, my pulse could use a second opinion.

 

…It’s something else when the air tastes untrustworthy.

 

…My sixth book is finally going to have a birthday soon. 

I wonder if anyone will read it. 

I’ve been excerpting a few lines here and there on this post, so you don’t need to call or text me with your concerns about my state of mind. 

Unobjectively, I think the manuscript is awfully good. It might just be my best yet.

 

…Just so you know, this has nothing to do with forensics.

 

…Just so you know, this is all coming on a Monday, when I have nothing, and too much, to say.

 

…I’m going to let Friday off the hook one more week, then bang!

 

…If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?

(It’s corny AF, but I always thought that was a really witty lyric.)

 

…I have absolutely no confidence in my insecurities, which makes me wonder--WTF?

 

…Does the air where you are ever feel like a straight-jacket? No? Then, lucky you.

 

…Do you ever wonder how often the world looks lopsided, or is it just me?

 

…I keep expecting these walls to run or speak or convulse, but, what a shocker, they never do.

 

…There is no real way to heal water.

 

…Sometimes everything means what it doesn’t.

 

…It’s the thoughts that turn your organs to foam that count.

 

…Even the shiniest apple has a pouch of cyanide in its shirt pocket. So be careful what you eat.

 

…What the prophets never tell you is that sometimes there’s not a correct answer.

 

…Do people ever claim you’re good at engaging them, but not forthcoming yourself?

 

...I just want to know: Isn’t it appropriate, and okay, to feel bitter sometimes?

 

…Grace might be on our side after all.

 

…Sometimes the best way to torture yourself is to avoid suicide.

 

...If you look too wounded to be alone, you shouldn’t be.

 

…When you’re as shaky as this, every day feels like another earthquake, and, sadly, it’s normal as hell.

 

…It’s something, to forget what you just forgot.

 

…The things you find in a handbag can tell so many stories. 

 

…Stories, of course, may or may not be true.

 

…The weather is so dull here, it can’t even give me a clue about what’s going on.

 

…Where’s Confucius when you need him?

 

…If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

 

...I don’t want a hug when a gin will do.

 

…It’s odd how long a year can seem.

 

…It doesn’t matter how beautiful the seasons are if no one notices them.

 

…Another story? Who doesn’t want to hear another story?

 

…The cold is brutal and honest, an endless freeze.

 

…People always say, a slap across the face, but it’s really the slap on the face you remember. 

 

…When is the last time you received a compliment and actually believed what you were told?

 

…How did that make you feel?

 

…In the scheme of things, how important is laughter to you?

 

…Have you ever sabotaged your success for no apparent reason?

 

…You would have laughed so hard at me yesterday. I know I did.

 

…The recipe for success is luck + people you know + plus uncontaminated pay.

 

…I wonder…

 

…I wonder if I could get arrested for what I write here.

 

…Give me some grace, okay?

 

…What I’m saying is (…)

 

…When the sun goes down at 4:28, it changes things.

 

…Just keep moving.

 

...I watched the beaver swim the length of the lake yesterday, which I always take to be a good luck omen. But it must have been a short man in wetsuit instead.

 

…I know I’m many things. One of them might be an enabler, but I don’t know how to shake myself out of it.

 

…Watch “Lessons in Chemistry” if you can. Watch “The Golden Girls” when you feel golden, which I hope you do often.

 

…I might raise a flag one day, then shove it up someone’s

 ass.

 

…Isn’t love love? Are there really degrees?

 

…I know I need to get an attitude change. That’s pretty obvious.

 

…“Take a peek, Patterson.”

 

…I am deeply superstitious, which can only mean one thing, but which thing is it?

 

…I got a degree in Poli-Sci and never saw a stitch of real law. Thank God for that.

 

…Thank God for this hangover.

 

…Thank God I still believe in you. Pretty sure I always will.

 A LITTLE FAMILY    /     Kathryn Rantala

 

 

When the cat goes out one night and fails to return, he takes all the good ideas with him.

 

Sometimes my mind is so full I must dismount and proceed on foot, supported by angels.

 

The human fear of standing under a ledge may be overcome by habitually seeking out a sunny place to stand.

 

As circular as yearning, like a ghost that cannot kiss, beauty poured to pour again—what good could come of this?

 

So much in life goes uncared for.

 

Absence rubs on absence like a thought.

 

…: goodness often a bore to so many.

 

Fortunately, the damage is visible only close up though once seen, the speculation it invites is unsettling.

 

“The tender self is animal, my friend.”

 

Everything moves toward destination, and all music toward the conductor, the home of what it means to create.

 

Asleep, dead, alive—who was I to say they had to be anything?

 

My hand was by now almost a being of its own going resolvedly forth (though what it understood of true search, I don‘t know.) In alarm, I bent down a bit more and leaned in so I could see it again—see if I still recognized it, if it would come when I called—and as I did so, for the briefest of moments, I thought I saw another hand approaching from the opposite direction, feeling toward mine as if to seek it out.

 

Desire is the most unaccommodating sense.

 

Well, I do not believe in mirrors and the evening was getting on and on, so I stood up and let the whole matter go.

 

Sunday, the traditional morning of regret.

 

I believe that in their hearts, even the smallest animals sense what they are.

 

At night my heart weighs itself against its better deeds and is not light.

 

Sometimes I just have to sit and let everything come at me from all sides.

 

I believe in expectations as well as embarrassment…

 

Luck is not the opposite of sadness but similar to it, as death is to swamp weeds for a mallard.

 

“Things can disappear when you not looking at them.”

 

The aim of imprecision all equal, I aim to connect epiphanies.

 

Sometimes the injured animal does not, after all, turn toward you or open its eyes. 

 

Nearer to me, over the rooftop chimneys, the silhouettes of trees seem to be waving for help.

 

Something always leaves the door open, one must be careful not to fall out of it.

 

Every nest, a tree.

 

WHERE TO BUY THIS BOOK:

https://www.spuytenduyvil.net/a-little-family.html

—YOU WERE BIGGER AND BRIGHTER THAN THE SNOW

 

undeniably November

  

 

outside the leaves and other dead detritus scuttle along resembling a charcuterie board gone to waste have you seen it or are you riding the most beautiful carousel in the world around the rim of a volcano i bet there are secrets you’ve never told a soul that they swoosh like a bad batch of gazpacho in your otherwise empty belly or maybe it’s just me thinking of when i think too much my teeth stretch and run laps miserable and nostalgic when i think of you the air tastes dyslexic when i think of  you my mind’s tornado wolfs down a tsunami burrito and the dead things make up songs that slur my name this year is a tired fox with withered molars so i’m walking backwards on a bed of broken glass beneath my frozen toes it turns such an impressive shade of ruby yet i can’t feel a thing other than the sting of your slap slap slap your diamond ring papercutting skin and that abrupt goodbye you left like a bag of dogshit on fire at my feet

 —NEVER LEAVE “I LOVE YOU” LEFT UNSAID

  

 

…What did I miss, I mean, besides everything? 

 

…No one hates goodbyes more than I do.

 

…Haven’t had a dream in a long time.

 

…It’s funny how you think you know someone all these years then, nope, you didn’t know them like you thought you did.

 

…I’ve rarely had my temper flare, but I’ve seen a lot of others, and I’m telling you, those are some big flames.

 

…It’s entirely possible to trust someone too much, and to also not trust them enough.

 

…Maybe I’m just better at holding things than other people.

 

…But on the other hand, “Take a peek, Patterson.”

 

…Maybe the problem is we all remember too much. What say you?

 

…It’s kind of impossible to get too much Sufjan. Or Regina for that matter, though they’re entirely different.

 

…Hey, remember that time when we decided to kiss anywhere except on the mouth? 

 

…“We have a deficit of wonder. When I ask people questions now, they get out their phone. I say, ‘No!’ I don’t want to know the answer. I just wanna wonder about it a while.” 

Tom Waits

 

…If you ever need a song to lift you out of the gloom, play, “Take Your Mama” by Scissor Sisters. Just don’t ever watch the video for it.  

 

…Ditto, The Killers, “All These Things I’ve Done.”

 

…But if you ever hear, “Pocket Full of Shells” blasting from my office, probably keep your distance. 

…“Each one wraps himself in what burns him.” Dante

 

…I envy people who can make a decision at the snap of a finger. I vaguely remember being like that, once upon a time, when I had to, when it wasn’t an option.

 

…Some good advice, from the most handsome man on the planet: “When you can’t hold on, if you can’t hold on, hold on.” 

 

…To think, once upon a time, we actually took typing as a class.

 

…“Well, you get a pass for that.” A. Soprano

 

…Everybody is watching somebody, but some do it with more circumspection. 

 

…“I might have to have you sign a waiver.”

 

…Wait, what?

 

…The Big Dark is here already, and she seems to mean business. Just look at all that ink outside the window. There’s a lake somewhere, too, I think.

 

…All I have to do is read that final line over and over to understand everything.

 

…See the luck I’ve had can make a good man bad.

 

…You can count your chickens all you want, but aren’t they really just chickens?

 

…I just want to be understood for once. Who doesn’t?

 

…I did something to my right palm, not once but twice, whereby I pulled the tendons out of their normal position and now they’re like sailor-knotted ropes, little flesh-colored nubs. It’s difficult to entirely stretch out my hand but I’ve come to see that the bumps against the creases resemble the face of a mischievous Buddha.

 

…Telepathy could be wonderful, or else, frightening.

 

…I wonder if cavemen had friends, or if they were mistrustful of everyone and everything.

 

…You know you’re old when you remember penny candy bubblegum that looked like the sun with tiny sprockets of purple scattered throughout.

 

…‘The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it’s still on the list.” Poster from India

 

…He laughed when I said it, but I only think he laughed because it sounded unbelievable and he believed it.

 

…Don’t most people have more questions than answers? I think so. But sometimes I get tired of being asked questions.

 

…So, two old men have lunch, and it’s not so bad. They laugh. They connect. They hug at the end and say, “We should do this again.”

 

…“I watch you when you don't know I'm watching you

and every look I steal from you

it adds a day to my life"

--Sam Shepard

 

…You run the NY Marathon, and my God, you think you can do anything. Which you probably can.

 

…After having run the NY Marathon, I immediately took a cab to my hotel, got in a freezing cold bath, ordered a massive pile of room-service pasta, then passed out on the sheets. Next day, I was on a plane, then ready for work. A meeting with 500 people. That’s how it was then. How did I ever pull that off?

 

…It sounds so fucking corny, but really—every day—it’s a gift.

 

...Nowadays I have to lean against a dresser to fit my foot through a pant-leg, otherwise it’s a colossal collapse. But that’s a gift, too.

 

…Just keep moving…

 

…People can change. I used to not believe that, but I’m a huge believer now.

 

…The night I wanted to jump out of a hotel window led to one of the biggest changes in my life. And thank God for that.

 

…Where did the Scissor Sisters come from, and why are they suddenly stuck in my craw?

 

,,,You write your heart and people are going to hear it or they’re not. You can only do the writing. They have to do the hearing.

 

…Maybe these rings will save my life after all. It’s not like I have many other options.

 

…I read a lot of not so-good stories today. 

 

…Today wasn’t perfect, by any means, but it was pretty damn good.

 

…“I hope to arrive at my death late, in love, and a little drunk.” Atticus

 

…There comes a time when a person desperately wants to away from shit that’s not killing you, but making you stronger.

 

…“There’s nothing you can do to turn me away,” is a Carly Simon lyric, one she must have accidentally appropriated from the Bible. I don’t fault her. It’s a good one.

 

…“The course of true love never did run smooth.” Shakespeare

 

…I’m a master of mixed reviews.

 

…Are you an optimist? I think I am with most things, but with others I’m horrible. I suppose the world only needs so many Mother Theresa’s, and that’s why they’re so special.

 

…“Don’t plant your bad days. They grow into weeks. The weeks grow into months. Before you know it, you got yourself a bad year. Take it from me—choke those little bad days. Choke ‘em down to nothing.” Tom Waits 

 

…Every day is a winding road.

 

…Maybe the correct question is: What if things get better? What if we can actually do this?

 

…Now the days are so short you couldn’t touch them if you wanted to.

 

…I don’t hate you so much, Friday, but I still have that cache of poems stored, just in case

 

…If it makes you happy, then why the hell are you so sad?

 

…I’m aging a little faster than I’d like, but I’m (mostly) enjoying it; life.

 

…I think the thing most people want to know is: Tell me why I should care about that.

 

…What’s scary is being scared for no reason.

 

…I guess another question you could ask yourself is What makes you twitch?

 

…I’m pretty confident that I’m insecure.

 

…Maybe love was the wrong word after all.

 

…What I don’t need, and no one else does, is another false alarm.

 

…You only find so many masterpieces in life, so cherish the fuck out of them.

 

…All the moon and stars have gone, but I can see the light of dawn, like a golden smile lighting up a brand-new day.

—IF ONLY I’D THOUGHT OF THE RIGHT WORDS

  

 

THE GIFT OF EVERYTHING    /    Lang Leav

 

 

I don’t know if what we had was love, but if it wasn’t, I hope never to fall in love.

 

You think falling in love is holding on, but it isn’t. It is hands gripping the edge of the world and letting go, one finger at a time.

 

Nothing felt like mine anymore, not after you. All those little things that defined me; small sentimental trinkets, car keys, pin codes, and passwords.  

 

I could have sworn I caught a glimpse of you, only to look again and realize it wasn’t you after all.

 

Look at you. You’ve stitched your life so perfectly together.

So why do you keep looking back at the one thing that can undo it all?

 

Tomorrow you’re going to fall in love, and it would be pretty.

 

One day, you’ll meet me here, and I will tell you this: I will tell you that we made it.

 

Love looks pretty on you.

 

Love is the only thing that time can’t touch.

 

Isn’t it strange how much of our lives are interchangeable, how little is truly ours? Someone else’s ringtone, someone else’s song, someone else’s words, someone else’s broken heart. These are the things we inherit by choice or by chance. And it wasn’t my choice to love you.

 

Who you love and who loves you back determines so much in your life.

 

When I was down to one, I couldn’t choose between a knife and a picture of you.

 

If I could tell my younger self one thing, it would be this: There are many things in life you can postpone, but love isn’t one of them. 

 

Sometimes I wonder if my inability to function in the real world is really such a bad thing. I wonder if that’s why I’ve spent so much time sheltered in my imagination.

 

Sweetheart, let this be your one glorious mess because in the end the only person you should answer to is yourself.

 

The day you become a woman, they hand you a grenade. And you must choose between hurling or holding. Between want and expectation.

 

Excise your desire while you are still hungry.

 

But first of all, you need to matter to yourself.

 

I wish I could put a pen in your hand and gently remind you how the world has given you poetry and now you must give it back.

 

And aren’t you always saying how glad you are to have met me?

 

I’m not asking for promises or tenure—I just want a hand to reach for a breaking point.

 

What I will tell you is this: it’s okay to be hurting as much as you are.

 

No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to pick myself up off the floor.

 

Everything I write is observational—even when it is my own self I am watching.

 

I have learned to stop saying yes when I don’t mean it.

 

Everything feels sentimental these days.

 

There it is, that one thing in your past you wish you could undo. If only you could get to it.

 

Nothing hurts like hope.

 

It was like hearing every goodbye ever said to me—said all at once.

 

 

Into a well 

a girl threw a penny 

 

What do you wish for 

asked the well 

 

I wish for a penny

said the girl

 

 

Please don’t send me shooting stars when my mind is a loaded pistol.

 

In the wrong hands, your past is a weapon.

 

I am somebody else’s story.