becauseyoudon'tknowmyname

we leave home not only to make room for ourselves but also to avoid the sight of our parents losing steam.


I was a rag-bag of selves, torn fragments of people I might have become. some days I sat crumpled in a corner like a string-cut puppet, and when I jerked into life, you never knew who could be there, in my skin. sweet or savage, serene or stormy, funny or sad: I had as many moods as the Old Man of the Sea, who would transform himself over and over again if you tried to grab him, for he knew that if you did capture him he would have to grant you your deepest wish.


Fortunately, i found you. you who would hang on to me, holding my spirit tight in your love.without your love, i might go horribly wrong. for i am terminally alienated. the idea of family and community is almost dead in me. each is pygmalion, both are galatea. they are a single entity in two bodies: male and female constructed they themselves.


you are my only family, I am telling you. you are my only earth. both are heavy burdens, but I bear yours identically in return. damage is the only condition of life. the fissured ground, the crumbling inferno. where we will feel at home.


you wont do it. most of you wont do it. the world's head laundry is pretty good at washing brains. dont jump off that cliff dont walk through that door dont step into that waterfall dont take that chance dont step across that line dont ruffle my sensitivites im warning you now dont make me mad ure doing it youre making me mad you wont have a chance you havent got a prayer youre finished youre history youre less than nothing, youre dead to me, dead to your whole family your nation your race, everything you ought to love more than life and listen to like your master's voice and follow blindly and bow down before and worship and obey; you're dead, you hear me, forget about it, you stupid bastard, i didn't even know your name.



certain shapes pursue me
i cannot shake them from my heel
certain people haunt me
in their faces i will find
the things i feel

uncertain fate it daunts me
but im going to have to live with that raw deal
no authority's vested in me
on what's good or bad
or even real

and i can feel your love pour down on me
and you are the ground beneath my feet

all the earth i need
but earth is not solid
ever-changing
shape-shifting

fissures, cracks, movements
every single step
every solid touch of the earth
is what is real

everything else beyond one step per se is pretentious
and subject to change.