Asteroids

Class Notes: Rule #35

Bad: A Bitter List

sunday night and too much caffeine for no reason at all
(i am full of bad ideas).
jittery and pissed off at a semester of spanish three homework
(someone else's bad idea).
email to ex-boyfriend is returned with unusual curtness
(i assume this means something bad).
friend's new boyfriend is a decade older
(i try not to assume this is bad).
best friend left for a semester in london on saturday
(before my bad (sun)day).
credit card bill is over a thousand dollars
(suddenly i'm a bad spender).
two weeks in and no fingernails left
(another bad habit to break).
want to go to an artists' colony and sleep and sleep and sleep
(no bad dreams).

already

headache and a
distinct lack of
protein return me
to a back to school
state of mind.

already procrastin-
ating a first day's
homework because due
dates are two weeks
from today.

and
already
i
miss
your
smile.

tea time

back broken by the lifting of lumber, jack could
do nothing but rest & wait for the return of po-
sterity through a slumbering regiment; sticky p-
otato chip hands, hot dogs eaten raw from the f-
reezer, falling asleep in his brown arm chair,
jack, white wrapped in long john coveralls, dri-
ed in the heat of the electronic hearth glowing
three’s company & draining battery lives till no
remote could change the arid airwaves—like sand
through an hourglass so passed the days of jack’
s life—just watching the same channel over & ov-
er & over again till it all was rerun & he could
predict the future & control time in thirty min-
ute intervals & in a symphony of board, hammer,
nail, jack was foreman once more molding from m-
emory a true HOME for the next generation, the
next lonely lovers to live in peace & comfort c-
oming together in a room of brady bunch sinceri-
ty, making the world a tv land once more.

Two Fortune Cookie Fortunes in One Day!

I wake up an hour before my alarm (set at 8:30).

I sit at the computer,
Full of too-early-morning yawns,
Where someone left me their
Good intentions:
Plan your work and work your plan.
Europe: Ou-zhou

Later we get sweet and sour (chicken),
And watch the sun fall through the trees,
After a day of vomit, papers,
And motorcycle tears:
You will be showered with good luck.
Telephone: Dian-hua.

I go to bed hours early (10:30).

remember when: a wandering

remember the nights when we were just like this
and i couldn't breath from holding my breath in my chest
beating like a drum like a rain dance like clapping thunderclouds
and no rain came
remember the nights that you never told me about
and i sat in the dark
the rug sparking around my feet like a tiny storm of commets
falling in the blackness behind my open eyes
and i sat
remember the nights when i called and left messages
that you never heard under the clamor
of voices and promises and tipping chins and screams
that i could not give voice to
in thirty seconds after a mechanical beep
so i said nothing
remember the nights when i waited and waited for the shower
and heat mixed with cold pounding drops
on my back and my knotted head of hair from shaking my head
no over and over in your eyes in my head
but i meant it
remember the nights like a spilled glass of water
i slipped from myself spilled out myself on the floor
unvacuumed for weeks, the dust settling in the emptiness
of your voice and
oh so many
poems about emptiness
and shit that happens
but really doesn't
but it feels like it
happens
and hurt this much
i'm exaggerating for no reason
except for to give reason
to the sick i feel
growing like a
living, breathing
lump
in my large intestines
and any other organs
that i can remember from
middle school.