Advice.

Just emailed this to our intern about a feature story i assigned her:

I want you to really get into this. Don't feel like you're a reporter for this. Feel like it's your job to make people interested in this, to really extract the feeling from it and present it in a way that will change people.

Make the importance of the story be bigger than just this 1 person's story. :)

I think it's good advice in most things. 

a hook with empty promises of prey

speak to me in any language but my own

speak to me with the scent of your body

with your terrible touch, a caress i've come to like too much

speak to me in sacred texts and foreign dialects

in colloquial language, a jargon full of curiosity

come to me between thoughts

we can't come together in a place already in existence

the clouds could hold our gaze

but we'd still be fish out of water

meet me there, kid

because

when we're here 

your arms wrap around me 

your skin presses to me until the ink from your tattoo

sinks into the fresh mess of hectic white covering me

i could call it my skin

but that'd imply that i had something to contain my sharp, cutting organs

they've shattered spectacularly

lost and circulating through my body

so when i attempt to call upon them

it's separate; 

i've lost that feeling

where everything linear makes more sense

i've lost that feeling where i can hold onto sometime for an extended time

i've lost the feeling like a fish finally breaking, struggling rips the hook from it's gills

my gills open, close, pulsating, relearning how to balance breathing a mix of catastroph and continuity

the fisherman jerks back a hook with empty promises of prey

ripping night crawlers apart with his fingers

baits again

and again

casts the line

and scales shimmer just the same

it's easy to recall the hook

but remembering why not to go for it again; escapes me.

Walk Down Baldwin

he is an amazing artist^ go check out his work, linked on the photo

no one liked this poem. haha.
***

Walk on Baldwin

legs rush out to open door

light slices

like oranges slices

damp apartment eyes

mid-morning crispness

like THE scenery's an elaborate stitching

brightness rips the seams

better surprise than the bulge between your thighs

razor sunshine

tiny black holes flooded 

9 am

legs carry half-alive figure

breath white

cold

no

freezing

fuck

we get used to it though

perfect

 5.5 blocks down Baldwin Street

ego slips

out egg shell splits

infusions

neighbors

bar

coffee shop

and i smile at the man who cuts off my crosswalk sidestep with his big truck

he gets that im not startled, smiles back 

its OK man, i got the time you don't

gaze rests ahead

spending seconds,

spaces special 

3 blocks

common morning occurrences suspended

a surrealist's start

abrupt stop

rail road

X-ing

stop.

wait.

that's all we can do.

is

stop

wait.

sit.

wait.

stand.

wait.

run,

then wait.

turn it on. 

wait.

turn it off.

wait.

turn it around. 

wait.

so i do. 

wait like a dixie cup for water

like a dishwasher for soap

like 

a

house

hold

appliance or accessory

because we spend our time to wait to

buy shit, to have shit, to have it contained by the bigger shit we've bought and that shit sits and collects dust until we can pay someone to come clean the shit we have sitting around waiting

and who's the dust waiting for?

goddamn nobody, nothing

it floats

it

takes

and it

gets

so

the railroad xing lights are flashing

the red and white stripped bars come down

but a head nod left

then right

no trace on the tracks

so as i take my last step over this iron mastery that's been here for over a century

a  man

there

right there

he's on a latter

and he's...

either fixing or testing the signals

I CAN ONLY ASSUME

he's testing

the warning signals

but there was no warning to the warning

so it's forward

KNOWING

THE TRAIN

may still come

but

this

guy screwing around with the electrics or whatever

along with a few contextual clues

he unchained me from the impending

if the train were actually coming

has lost all importance

and severing its existence from the chain-like sequences of my mine

i was bigger than it now

i became it

i was it

charging, speeding, steaming, colossal, 

and i begin the day

like most never will

coffeeless

and invincible.

http://www.saimanchow.com/Summer-of-Love

"you're just not on fire yet"

they can take you anywhere
the obedient one
the one that says yes when all the others say no
and they like to know you in this manner,
but it's not about them

you get to be that
one
thing
and
that's
the only difference to you.

but it happens sometimes, doesn't it

the no
creeps

she spells your name with anemic letters, malnourished
and the feather pillows bare the imprint of her face
when you awake, she takes whatever she can
without wrecking you completely

just enough to get back on your feet
just enough to let you be, with out letting you be
and she says over dinner
"you're just not on fire yet"
avoiding it without seeing it,
side stepping the urge, blind, sectioned
second nature with the spark, only after-thoughts,
a side effect, a reversing, whatever the reverse of flame could be, you'd be it.

some trade their weirdness for silver-plated fear
rubbing their teeth together, nervous, hoping its riches won't take a life time to deplete
it's a rough transition

but some people spend their whole lives pressing it down
disillusioned with the idea it's easier to kill it than let it live
life's always easier than death
good's always easier than bad
we have to think about it when it's bad
good exists without any explanation
with no justification

what have i done to you
what have i done to you
i wanted you to burn with me
feeling fucked, ripping, you're heart's blood not yours
catalogued like library books on the shelf
rip em all down
the floor's our library now and the books
grow out of the ground, roots n all
and we rub the dirt closer to our eyes than our egos

i wanted to disrobe you of the fire proof cloak
and
finally
breath
the flames
you're only real activator
without it
you're here
but you'll never
get
there.