Perfectly distracted
Listening to Shabazz Palaces in the early darkness winter collecting bits and pieces from last month’s journal. flipping through the pages until it becomes uncomfortable to the finger prints of my thumb and pointer. we stayed at the windows mostly / we did not discuss our feeling. more has been coming up for me as I write, lately. things I have wanted to be able to write about are popping up in unadorned ways that have no other demands.
mom and dad have shown up a few times in a natural and good feeling way. family always sits there as a thing to draw on. it overburdens me easily and I shy away.
writing small details no need to keep going, unless the words keep coming then I keep going until the scene suddenly closes or halts to take off in another direction. it is in the whereabouts of first tries / sparkled starlings leave the wire in a wave / with the sound of a page being whipped in wind. that bike ride I took with the bike from pa’s corner of the barn. I rode in a square, paved two lane-paved one lane-gravel-overgrown between fields.
there are so many things I keep in this shoe box, many shoes boxes now, body stashed. waking up on the grey hound entering Milwaukee. through the Dakotas with the Tao de Ching as the storm burst constantly south of us, a row to myself. I wish to write a novella on the bowling ally diner, huge parking lot, cook came out her trailer, squinting, as the bus pulled in for 30 minutes. out there, clouds like quilted tufts of ice blue. I don’t remember where that was. annoyed when the lights go on at every stop in the night.
I can’t forget certain things. I don’t forget these things. arguments too, I did wrong, bad communication. still the internet cafe / dark phone booths lived against the wall / could barely hear Granny to assure her of my still living. keep between focus and distraction, the third way I felt essential in Deer Park. I only used cold water for awhile, the ochre yak wool scarf laid with others along the base of the temple lives in the coat closet now till summer. nightly walk that thin street to Thamel to see if I could meet anyone, walking back aware of drunk scooter riders, dog packs asleep at shrines.
I wanted to wear sandals like the locals. I stubbed the big toe on my right foot until it was a purple and deep red protrusion. then I got used to the rough sudden speed bumps. after we climbed the hill we smoked the last of the tobacco and hash and went down to separate experiences together, I was given the choice of where to bathe, she was not.
the small window at the peak of the roof we stayed for a night before Devisthan in the town that was a turn around big enough for the buses. we woke to Ram scraping his tongue and clearing his throat to the dirt. the wheat moved like fish scales in the sun and wind across the terraced valley we had come far to get there. certain and specific choices. already an idea of certain things had to be done to arrive where I am now, duh. once I figured out I could be a bus boy, save all my tips and quit whenever I wanted to come back later and work again.
in Marfa the man at the taco truck told us the tacos were small and that we would need many to be full. it took us all day to eat most of them driving east in Max’s white car with no ac, stopping every hour for Cosmo to be able to stretch his back. I christened our hotel bathroom with a puke of undigested meat. I liked the place there that makes the most amazing tortillas, we sat in the back yard on a picnic table that was level and balanced. the night at the hotel came with a free breakfast at the next door diner, huge plates, eggs nuclear yellow, gravy and biscuits thick and I liked that. everyone deals with their garbage differently / it would be better without plastic wrappers.
instead I picked up all these things I do not want to forget now then thinking of how the rain looks hanging onto the bottom of the gutter before it drips. I though it would be immediate and heavily apparent. instead, I got here circuitously wondering what I have forgot.
1/5/24 6:53PM
