better than bad.

There is a certain stillness to the morning,
The kind of ineffable hush that can only be compared
To the sound of falling snow.
Those who have really listened—
And can tune in to this frequency—know this score:
The hum of the heater overhead,
The drone of the speeding cars,
The dull roar of the distant highway;
All of these subtle sonances
Harmoniously merging into white noise.
Then, a familiar numb seizes
Enveloping its captive
In a comatose bliss.
Padded walls; a cozy straitjacket,
Drifting off into the silent lull
Of the falling snow.
It is this absence of sound,
As the crystalline doilies kiss the ground,
That resonates the loudest.
And there are no shadows on the walls,
Only moments of light—pale and fair.
Blues and lilacs melting into the backdrop;
This kind of hazy overcast emerges,
And everything is muted, soft and still.

Halloween was magical:
Thursday, I went to the hood for a little bit to see some friends,
And the dichotomy of the neighborhood children
Playing in the leaves with a crackhead
Was both beautiful and bewildering.
That evening, I sat on the patio,
Enjoying rare and unexpected remnants of summer’s warmth,
Shooting shit and chasing doses of vitamin c
And Tylenol cold and sinus
With Crown Royal.
Later, in the burbs, we went on a night reconnaissance,
Traipsing through backyards à la the blair witch project.
The night air was warm, the sky was eerie,
Painted in glowing oranges, greens, purples and grays.
The moon was full; it looked apocalyptic.
The ground was carpeted in leaves,
The evening smelled like incense.
It was beautiful.
At one point, it started to rain.
So we danced, because if you’re going to get wet
You might as well dance.
The following night, on Halloween, we painted our faces
And stayed in, because there was nothing out there for us,
We visited friends, trading tales over the candles,
Catching each other up on the gossip, reading our fortunes
And cackling like witches.

(Old friends made contact:
It seems as though everyone get nostalgic
Around the holidays.
It’s a strange phenomenon, remembering the past.
What were you doing this time last year?
Who were you sleeping with?)



I’m in love with life.
I love how I can still get together
With my friends, despite being dispersed
About the nation, away from each other
For weeks or even months at a time—
And we can still come together,
Collecting on the back patio with drinks in hand,
And pick up where we left off,
And it’s like summer never ended.
I love my nose,
I used to hate it, but after deciding
It resembled George Washington’s—
Dignified and impressive—
It started to grow on me.
I love overhearing anecdotes:
“…my grandpa used to tell me he loved
When I came in from the cold in the winter
Because my cheeks were rosy…”
I love how receptive my friends were
To my coming out.
I love the irony
Of my rant about my distain for the flamboyant gays
With their sparkles and boas and high heals,
When I was wearing face paint and make up at the time.
I love what’s happening.


I slept with someone recently.
I don’t mind one night stands:
Two humans being human
Following the directions
And going through the motions
That every human inherently knows.
It’s beautiful. It’s reviving.
It made me feel human again.
Even if nothing comes of it,
And even if it was just for one night.
It was nice while it lasted.
It was nice falling asleep with someone.
And it was nice waking up to someone.
I’ve been living my life with no expectations,
Because no expectations means no disappointments,
Only surprises.
What I’ve learned is, it’s better
To make the best of a situation
Even if it’s not going to go anywhere in the future,
Just to enjoy and appreciate it for what it is,
And to have something for the time being.
Because that’s better than dwelling.
And it’s certainly better than nothing.