dear r: 8.16.08

8.16.08


dear r:

it was just the two of us
our sex and our despair
all day (accompanied by
a few other pleasures, sins).

photographs and shots, just
bits of pretending to be okay
for moments at a time.

there was dancing and singing
there was food and music but
mostly, there were lots of things
under the surface that cannot
be explained or simplified
under the influence of anything
more than a certain pain that
mostly goes unspoken because
words are just too simple.

JANEisnotplain 8.16.08

on not making love, its over.

dear r: when you sing

dear r:

when you sing you
make me feel like
a child on the first day of school
all the pretenses and butterflies
and the words get stuck behind my teeth

when you sing you
make me want to write
to spill myself on a page in a barrage of colors and sounds
to sort through the cacophony
to find a harmony to match yours

when you sing you
leave me sleepless
searching for the perfect words
to answer the sounds
in your eyes



JANEisnotplain 8.14.08


when she sings HAND TO HAND

8.08.08: dear r

8.08.08: dear r


dear r:

its all in the perception right?
this thing that looks meaningless
and harmless from across the room.

but upon closer inspection i found,
captured in ink between the lines
on this wide rule notebook paper,
a life altering string of words written
in a hand unfamiliar to my eyes.

and now my jaw is working fervently
confronted with the sentiment of
my lover's lover, i ask why?

i cannot stay any longer.

love,

JANEisnotplain 8.08.08

on finding a love note to you from Vio.

dear r: 8.3.08

dear r:

i want to believe you
just don’t tell me that
distance is relative
as if my aching for you
were an invention

this space is not variable
eight thousand miles is
a long way to go and
i am not sure you’ll be there
to meet me once i arrive



JANEisnotplain 8.3.08

dear r: restless

dear r: restless



dear r:

and i have been so angry.
i know you can feel it.
i see red. my white is staining.
the blue is fading.

but what is anger?
one upset that is two?
(fire and sun)

what is sadness?
two upset that is one?
(moon and water)

or vice versa
) (


love,

JANEisnotplain 7.08

dear r 5.3.08

5.3.08

dear r,

i imagine escaping like this
with laughter sealed in the hollow of your collar bone
and fingers on the friction slope of your lips
cursive kept under your tongue like a love letter

i want a rush of consonants and vowels
and footsteps i cant retrace

but instead i have
notebooks to balance with percentages
schedules to show up for on time
miles to cover without a breath
things to stumble under

i smile
i talk effervescence
but i still cant find enough cotton
to fill this small hole
which whistles with sadness when i exhale

i don’t remember how to live without you
but i am, i am, i am


JANEisnotplain 5.08



r's response


dear e,

i've imagined escaping like this
with laughter echoing through empty halls
and fingers on instruments that no one hears
my tongue moving with every solitary song

I want a rush of ideas and dreams
recorded to visit again and again

and now i have
schedules to show up for on time
routines to settle into
fresh air to breathe
balconies to relax on

i smile
i sing effervescence
i weave the rainbow of my dreams
around my aching heart
to heal the lonely spaces

i still live within you
and you are in me, in me, in me

dear r: run ons

dear r,


quietly and unremarkably love you, i
practice being where i am if i invent
you i already learned a way to recollect
the major moments of happiness, the minor
tree branch, the live wings changing
how our lawn poses statu[e]s of collective
nouns imposed thus far without such various
coordinating conjunctions are not equal
to the task is being, knowing and
valuing whole this is here, so this
embedded presence defines present tense
as real and legitimate with and
without each other
one of us


JANEisnotplain 4.08


after one full month apart