Graphomania

            Close your eyes.

            The shittiest taco stand is on the corner of Bard and Stanford. I’m sure that’s why I go there so much. A few words on the subject: If I haven’t had a tortilla stuffed with spicy ground beef by 10 PM, it’s hopeless. A bad night can only get worse. Freezer-burned microwave burritos just don’t hold up. I could search the city and I’d still end there.
            I’d rather walk at night than day. The heat in my hand seems heavier in the dark. A reminder that if I can hold a shitty burrito in my hand and in my stomach, I can hold myself up. Plus, all the lights look nicer. Streetlights and stoplights flicker in the windows. Sunlight bears down on the sidewalks without pause, but I like the punctuation of darkness. I dunno.

            “In love with daylight’s horror, I walk to the sun on molten shoes.”
            I laugh.
            The hour tacks itself onto 8.5 x 11 college-ruled paper. It needs all those extra blue lines to stand itself up. Chicken scratch on paper, sold for one million dollars. Dr. Evil would be so proud. His pen, on the other hand, makes $5 artwork. Smooth lines and clean dots that children would marvel at hung up on a wall. I’d like to taste it on my skin.

            October 24th, that burrito was a killer. Steve had a lot more spice in his beef that day. I don’t know why I trust a guy named Steve to know anything about burritos, but I don’t think he would trust me to know what guys should know. Dumb. What guys should know. What should I know what I should know what guys should know? I walked by a wall with “YAWN” painted on it in rough strokes, smoothed out on the edges with a silver hand. I yawned. A good sign. I heard psychopaths don’t yawn by suggestion.
            I shook my head and said no under my breath, spitting it over my shoulder and leaving it for the sun to singe.

            He wrote just like I thought he would. Acrylic fingers and steaming ink flat and simple on the page. Beautiful, he would say, but I was scratching at it already, an itch that wouldn’t go away with an accidental spill of aloe or another kiss.
            But what a kiss. It did its job and was done.

            90 steps to a block, almost exactly. Sometimes it goes over too far, 94 steps and 34 cracks stepped on. My mother doesn’t worry much about me, though, I think. She kisses me on the head when it’s just what I need, but she doesn’t say much else. I obviously don’t worry much about her. I’m not careful enough with the steps I take. Stupid.

            Allow me to take away the loneliness, wails in my ears and the night is gaping. Its ugly mouth gnashes its lovely teeth and garishly spits out the stars. Something in the stars tonight, I feel their heartbeat by candlelight. I’d give a million to stare with you, but you take the moment to bite and chew. 
            He was really sweet up until that moment. He tried to be, I could tell. His words dripped with sugar, and I loved it. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t get it all off. Crazy, crazy, crazy for you… 

            My dad used to wrap me up like a “burrito”. I was 10 years old but he still swaddled me like a baby and pretended to squirt hot sauce on my head. He’d tell me stories before bed. Circle up my blankets like a nest for Big Bird and lay his “burrito” in the middle of the taco salad. I laughed and I laughed. I don’t know what happened. I thought he would have known everything. I thought he would have known enough. I thought I would have known enough. Walking is hard.
            On that Tuesday I walked home, like usual. Everything must have seemed fine. We had spaghetti for dinner. I thanked Dad for it and he said, “You’re welcome,” and that was that. Mom smiled and kissed me on the forehead. I went for a walk.

            “I’ve always loved your handwriting. Since 8th grade.”
            “That’s sweet.”
            I stared at his stomach as his breaths rose and fell.
            “I used to keep your papers.”
            He smiled and poked my side. “You’re crazy.”

            …for you. I’d give a million to stare with you, but you take the moment to bite and chew. 

            I want to stay on the road forever. Done with sidewalk cracks, done with the cracks on my knuckles. I want to melt into the asphalt like a crystalized snowflake unfurling. I want to be the graffiti dripping onto the curb, pink and white and black. I don’t know. Part of something bigger than me. Part of something smaller. Part of something instead of parts of me.

            Just one more hour, baby. No one will miss you for one more hour.
            I could miss myself for a lot more.

            Blue ballpoint pen.
            Red felt-tip marker.
            Yellow highlighter.
            Smooth and round like his shoulders in the sunlight, glistening against the window panes. Words on the paper are quiet. They lay themselves back and let themselves be. Part of the paper, leaking over the edges and bursting through Sharpie stains. The permanence is heavenly. Burned up in green fire, a Hell for heavy hearts.
            His fingers became sticky. Whiteout.

            A lot of people spend a lot of time looking for the right words to say, their songs say so. They found their words somewhere. They floated in the open curtains and sang sweetly on the sofa. They reclined in restful rows and they shattered in the sore silence.
            I’d take those words!

            He told me I was crazy for the second time. I don’t think he believed how much I loved his words, smooth and sparse and sweet. But in the end, it wasn’t him. It wasn’t him. It was me. It just always was. Just me and his words, pinned up on the wall like butterfly wings. My aunt bought a piece of art at Salvation Army. 100 blue butterfly wings in a vintage gold frame that she hung on an eastern wall to catch the sunset in their little stained scales.
            Of course I know that in ten years I will look back and feel like I was alive and kicking and flapping these lips like a toddler who just learned “no”. I’d look back like I know I was more than my fingers glued to cardboard, and I will almost forget that I ever felt reduced to that at all. But that doesn’t mean it just stops. I can imagine infinity, but I won’t go inside it. Eternity. Everyone talks about God when they talk about eternity. He is ETERNAL. He is IMMUTIBLE. Or something like that.
            Crazy; I did love the word. I just like pens more. I just like the words that come out of them. I just need to write it out and write him out. He wrote himself out, damn it, so all there is left to do is write.
            Making the best takes conviction.

            I never took you hostage like the graphite took me.
            I never took what I didn’t want to do, to do to me.
            Never have I ever in my long-legged life met a long-legged sailor with a long-legged wife. No, never have I ever in my long-legged life.

            All these co-catastrophes colliding creations – corridor color-coding dull daft during day. Every evening escalading, frozen-feeling frost-bite freezing frost. Galleries of everything! How it tunnels into your cortex! It’s beautiful! It’s

            something
                        isn’t it?


(My terrifying first draft piece for workshop. Gulp.)