My cat has lived with me for six months

And it’s only been a day

Since I found out

That he loves loves loves

To be touched on his eyelids.

He abandons his body to me

And falls asleep.

I suppose death

Doesn’t have to feel sad,

I just need something

Like that eyelid massage

For my own body,

And get a good dose of that

Before I croak.

I am a cat without owner,

Sob sob.

Let’s just put an ad on craigslist:

Edible
Reward
To The Discoverer
Of Uncharted

Erogenous
Zones.

It feels easier to write

When I’ve been reading brilliant books:

I feel smarter

Until I go look for a specific passage

And realize I remember them all wrong.

The guy inside my skull

Is rearranging furniture

While listening to my party mix playlist

On Spotify,

Which I am too embarrassed about

To make public.

I know what you’re thinking!

You’re thinking

That I really should write

About riding a fucking horse to California.

Either that

Or that guy that I’m hung up about.

Hahaha,

You think you know me,

Don’t you.

What I’m really thinking about 

Is the drawing

Of a bear

And an alligator

Having an argument

On the cover of Matthew’s novel

About our life together.

Je me demande:

Am I the bear

Or the alligator?

San Valentino

I wish I could say

That sleeping with someone

Who isn't you

In this bed that isn't mine

Felt entirely right.

(And I did kiss him first.)

That I don't mind

Stepping on used condoms

Days later.

I wish I could say

I didn't falter tonight

When I talked

In front of a crowd.

But my voice broke

Many,

Many times.

I'm not the best at acknowledging facts

Which is why I force myself to write.

I didn't know how much I missed you

Until someone mentioned you today.

She said that you drank a lot last night,

Because friends kept buying you drinks.

That you were hilarious,

That you apologized for the state you were in

And made sure everybody knew

How to get back home.

She had never really liked you

Before.

"He's a sweet drunk,"

She said.

I said:

"That's the person I met

In October,

And yes,

I thought he was great.

I didn't know

He'd been drinking

Since five."

And the further we walked

Down Bedford

Looking for Vanessa's Dumpling House

The more I longed for you.

Can you feel it

From your end

Of the borough?

I am sending it out,

This freak of a feeling

Because it needs some air,

The drizzle will refresh it

And on its way back home

It will hopefully get lost,

Get hit by a cab,

Wander the docks

Like a ghost,

Haunt Red Hook

For the next fifty years.

And yet

Eventually

I will hear it scratching

At the door,

It knows I need it

To give shape

To my restlessness.

I'm sorry I fled

A week ago

When our eyes met

In the hallway.

You were trying to be nice,

I saw the beginning of a nod,

I can lie to you in public

Where I'm playing

My role,

Pretending I don't mind

You're there,

Focusing on work

(As useless as it is,

Since I know

That you know).

But not when it's just

Your eyes

And mine.

I should wear a bracelet

That screams if I get too close.

Less than a hundred feet!

Whaaahaaa!

This is my sad

And funny

Valentine

For you,

An ego-boost for a rainy night

(In the unlikely case you read this),

The proof that I'm bored with everyone,

More than I knew,

And something that we'll never talk about

since I will deny it is about you

Until the end of times,

When stars start crashing down

And the Earth is ablaze.

Sometimes

You walk really fast

Because you're in New York.

You slip on ice,

You like and hate everyone you meet,

You feel ugly after trying on the usual size of jeans.

They are too small now.

You drink white tea

Not brewed very well,

And you wonder why

The person who once professed 

To love you more

Than anyone else

Is being a jerk.

He hasn't returned 

Any of your calls for weeks

And we all know what that means

In America.

You suppose he doesn’t need you as a friend

Now that he has a lover who isn’t just his muse.

She is a poet, so they write together

And she’s a dominatrix

So they do whatever it is they do.

Plus, she gets interviewed by Vice.

It turns out that

He doesn't really hate YOU, 

He hates the phone.

Oh, je comprends,

Let's all hate the medium,

Let's love the message,

But don't shoot the pianist

Or the ambassador.

Everything, 

Everyone,

Indecipherable,

Opaque,

Blank.

You like this loft you’re in

But you worry about

The cold.

Will you catch something and die

Here in New York?

Where you’re afraid

Of things being too good

Since you will have to leave soon.

You pray for the perfect balance of

Good and Bad,

You want a man

Who’ll love you,

But from a distance.

Brave

But scared.

Black and White,

Sensual,

Intellectual,

Predator and 
Prey.

I want to hate you right now
But in my dreams you are a nice person

I woke up to the stupid sound
Of my phone alarm

And went back to bed,

Since my flight to New York
Got canceled.

I’m in a print studio

That looks like our school's print studio,

Except its door opens on a sidewalk

With people hanging out,

Drinking wine,

Speaking Castilian Spanish.
I’m opening a drawer full of animal blocks,

You walk in

I look up

You nod

I look down,

Disturbed.

Then, it unmistakably becomes a dream

Because our print shop

Moving to a Spanish town

Is more likely than what happens next:

You open your mouth and speak to me.
It is small talk,

Friendly,

Nonchalant.
“I hate you,”

I say.

“Ok,”

You say.

“Come with me.”

You grab my sleeve,

You drag me out of the studio.

We’re on a lush, warm island

And we’re going up

In an open elevator

For what feels like hours.

As we do

I see a barn

With a grassy roof 

Where horses go to sleep at night.

We finally get to your place,

The elevator stops

There are many rooms

Strewn with clothes.

I look around,

I imagine you here with her.

I stop in front of an aquarium.

There are all kinds of threatening animals.

The hermit crabs are taking over,

One comes out of the water
And devours a spider

That was passing by.

It’s exactly what I hoped would happen,

I am surprised by my own cruelty.

I wonder where you went,

But I feel calm:

Wherever you are

You haven’t left the house

And I know that you’re still an asshole

But you care enough to want to talk.

Any moment now you will appear and tell me

Something sad but sweet 

And I will hate you a little less.

Maybe we will drink some whiskey,

I will imagine kissing you

But I most definitely won’t.

I will transfer that energy

To a kiss in the future,

To someone

Who maybe lives in New York

And wants to be kissed.

You still haven’t come back.

I’m looking at sea creatures.
My dreaming self is pleased:

"These sea creatures look great,
Good job imagining them."

This woman who sits on airplanes,

Who eats too much chocolate,

Is loved in a generic way,

By a mother 

And a father 

Who haven't seen her

In seventeen months,

The cells in her body have mostly

Been replaced by new ones

Which look like the old ones 

But must be worse

In almost imperceptible

But substantial ways

Because she 

Like you 

And everything else

Except some special jellyfish

Has an expiration date,

And her day of utmost beauty

And health 

Caught her unawares. 

She was busy translating 

Ovid in a cold building with

Orange walls,

Under the watch

Of a failed scholar

With dry, yellow hair

Who knew little about life,

And nothing about love.

Sadness would resurface

Periodically

Like a toothache,

When she let her focus slip,

Which was rare except at night,

Since survival,

Back then,

Meant perfect grades,

And she very much wanted to live

Just in case things might get better

Eventually,

When she would surround herself

With books

And maybe people

That would both comfort

And excite her.

Once Ovid was conquered

She would slowly walk 

Through resonating hallways

Towards the white-tiled restroom

Taking a detour first,

Acutely aware of the way her scarf

Fell on her shoulders,

Wondering if this time

She would get a glimpse of someone

Through a door left open

By a teacher who enjoyed a breeze,

Her hope unreasonable,

Since even if she did,

He would not have been looking,

He would not have noticed

That her beautiful blue scarf,

Which matched her hair so perfectly,

Was meant to suggest

Horse rides in the Sahara desert,

Like in that Italian TV series from the eighties.

Sixteen years later she's on her way to Helsinki

Sitting next to a flatulent man

Who eats beef bourguignon.

She's eating bread and butter,

She's forgotten to pre-order

Her vegetarian meal.

The boys who secretly admired her

At recess

Are musicians now

Or more likely dead,

Because how can somebody go on

Eating soup

Or tuning strings

After missing that moment

When a long warm glance

Of recognition 

Could have changed everything,

Reversed the relentless

Flow from full to empty?

She would have shared her body

With them,

Laughed at herself for not doing it sooner

This mingling of minds and hopes and terrors,

A breathless, shivering clarity, 

A new resolution forming,

The promise to let herself be seen,

As ugly as she felt.

Thanks to that glance

This woman,

Twice the age of that girl,

Would be writing a different poem today,

Or nothing at all,

She would maybe know better

Than clinging to this love for men who don't get her,

Compelled to reenact it

Until the spell is broken,

Holding on to the hope

Of an alternate ending.

She is doomed to be loved

Unconditionally

Only by sweet men she gets tired of 

In a month

While the men she wants,

Playful, witty, but with an icy core that 

She keeps mistaking for genius,

Admire her at first

But get tired of her intensity,

Suspect she might be nuts,

Hope she will leave them alone at last,

To their silly Texan girlfriends who do porn star tricks

(Why on earth does she need to know this?)

And laugh hysterically to the jokes she never gets

Because she was translating Ovid in Italy

When That guy said That thing

On American TV,

Or is it a hip-hop reference?

But really,

She might just not be funny

And she will always have

An accent,

Such an easy target for their cruelty

Once it's lost its charm,

Which happens on Week Two.

She's done this to herself,

This exile west,

So that feeling out of place

Would sound perfectly normal,

Her sudden lack of words

Justified,

And again tomorrow,

As she lands in Rome,

She has a convenient excuse,

It's her new life in America

That will set her apart,

Her familiarity with 

Squirrels,

Bad Mexican food, 

Automatic transmissions,

Nights spent at bars

As a shortcut to each other's

Softness,

Stumbling through Pilsen 

To a basement full of rabbits,

Laying it all out,

Bodies quivering with lust,

Only to take everything back

In the morning

When they will walk

Through the city

Like enemies

And if only she -

If only he -

...

If only

He was struck by lightning

Or, as an alternative,

He begged for her forgiveness,

She could finally move on

And desire to kiss

The perfectly lovely guy 

With Viking cheekbones 

who will hand her

A latte

At Starbucks.

I ask my Canadian friend

If she thinks I’m insane.

“No.”

What can she say?

She’s my friend,

She lives so far away,

She doesn’t witness

This hair-tearing business

Over paper-writing woes

And the coldness of someone

I considered a good friend.

Send for the wailing women!

Here I am

Beating my chest

Until it’s time to eat.

I will never be thin again,

Gone are the times

When rejection meant

Loss of appetite.

I do my laundry

And look for a new man:

1/2 cup Ted Hughes

1/2 cup Egill Skallagrímsson

1 tablespoon Louis C.K.

I have to write a paper.

Instead

I make narrative mix tapes

(Which, I swear, is an assignment!)

Because it gives me pleasure.

I spent hours doing this,

The songs tell a story of 

Longing

And leaving

From a woman’s point of view

And from a man’s.

Horses abound.

I printed the song list on 

Bright pink

Card stock.

I thought about giving you a copy,

And I know you would love it

If you listened to it

But these days you think I’m nuts,

And what’s nuttier than a woman

Who keeps giving unwanted gifts?

“Nothing”

Is the answer.

I should have asked

If I could keep my tooth.

My mouth had been its home

For twenty-five years.

It deserved a ceremony,

Or to become Art.

Together we survived the accident,

Fourteen years ago,

But neither of us fully recovered.

If you’re a tooth

There aren’t many ways to hide 

Your wounds.

If you happen to be me

You aren’t much better at

Acting like everything is cool.

Somebody once called it

Emotional exhibitionism

And I can get away with it

Because I’m European

Like Bas Jan Ader.

We’d rather embark

On impossible quests

Than pretend

We’re okay.

I need to move back to Europe

Soon.

Is tomorrow too soon?

Tomorrow I need to get a tooth extracted

And I have a year and a half to go

Before I’m done with school.

There must be an instructions manual

That someone forgot to give me.

I’ll never know how to be 

An American.

Everybody’s in on the joke but me,

No matter how well I speak their language

How wide everyone’s smile is.

They all seem to care

But nobody has the time,

Or the guts

To stop their

Meaningless Talk.

Silently

I carry my

Foolish

Hope

Around.

One of our cats died today,

She was black and white.

I was informed through a Facebook post

Since I live 5000 miles away.

I called my mom

And cried on skype.

I'm never home when animals

And people die,

I'm always doing something somewhere,

Except when Dado 

Went missing.

Sitting on the couch, 

Facing the terrace,

I saw something that turned out to be

His mummified body.

A life

Spent worrying

About papers due tomorrow.

Either that

Or The Horror.

He could call,

Apologize,

Admit he was wrong.

It’s a matter of time,

It ends in the ground

Regardless.

If I get to grow old

My spine will be as straight 

As it is now

Because I know how

Important

It is

To have good posture.

I will be eating what I’m eating now,

Chestnut purée from France

With a touch of vanilla

While I remember all the things

I tried to be

Since I couldn’t just be me.

I will know how deeply I failed,

Trying on a white silk dress,

Crying softly on the sofa

Of an unfamiliar room.

I could go on like this

For a couple more lines,

But I won’t. 

Fade-out,

Sentimental music.

One of those Sundays when I have a lot to do

But instead I just click on things.

I just noticed that you “liked”

My sound pieces on Soundcloud.

That was a month ago,

When you still talked to me.

Now I only hear about you

Or see you through your brother’s words.

Shut the fuck up

He says

And it’s exactly the same pitch and rhythm.

I wonder if I talk like my brother too.

It’s a rhetorical question,

Like all the questions I ask myself

When there isn’t a soul around me

-Existentially speaking-

For miles and miles.

Today I cried 

For the first time

Since the summer.

I was in my jeep,

At the laundromat,

A couple of blocks away

From where the asshole lives.

He had nothing to do with my pathetic 

Tears.

<>

Ok, he might have had SOMEthing to do with them.

But really,

I’m not used to having time to myself

It drives me insane.

What the fuck will I do when I graduate?

The other day I did something

That nobody saw,

I jumped into a moving car,

Prevented a crash.

My reflexes are good,

I might survive

In the woods.

The only reason why

I haven't cried in months

Is that I have a special cat.

He has a raccoon's tail

And fur under his paws

To protect him from the snow.

He's named after two kings.

When I come home

He falls asleep in my lap.

Oxytocin is keeping me sane

Through heartbreak,

Homesickness

And shame.

If somebody loved me

I would have to remember

To shave,

I would have to avoid

Making babies

And I would soon worry

About all those problems

That couples have.

I remember those

All too well,

And yet

This haughty solitude

Verily stinks.

If you can write a good love letter

I will elope with you.

Lately I’ve been watching

British TV dramas

Set in Victorian England

Which almost invariably

Make me cry,

How pathetic.

My horse doesn’t trust me at all

He bolts every time I ride him

And I’m starting to think

I should let him go.

Right now what I need

Is a passionate kiss,

Which would involve

Considerable groundwork:

A thorough but casual 

Display of my charms

A quick survey

Of my traumatic childhood

Finished off by one

Of my funny anecdotes,

But you don’t really exist,

Do you?