read books sipping new coke outta crazy straws and dub the nights away

The only news i'm gonna read anymore is about books. i will read books and write books and read about books read and written. i will also be happy to read about unwritten (and therefore unread) books and books remembered that once were forgone or forgotten.  banned books will be a priority. translated books will be fine though i will prefer the native tongue. i may even learn another language if it helps. i will hashtag books in search queries all over the dam place. i was once an english major and truthfully got sick of reading books and books about books. most of them were novels. and i even stopped reading them though i never stopped writing them. i went into the dark room and redeveloped a fondness for paper and letters, alighted by fixer and tongs. the chemical baths in the house woulda made an ordinary old maid very sick. but this strange one (i call me) saw words appear out of letters in the shallows of the print trays in the shadowless red light district of my kitchen. digital was a four letter word in my house and if you spoke of oneupmanship in megapixel cameras on mobile phones, you would find your throat cut and the crime scene captured on old minoltas. we were in love all over again. we had books and manual inautomatons. we had tinfoil on the windows. the smell of formaldehyde and the spinning of drying prints in the hamster wheel (minus hamster). we locked ourselves in closets with one finger on a tape lead to a cartridge like a silver rubix cube with a hard on for mysterious. our lexicon was unadulterated by robots. ink from an inkwell was in fashion. we got the led out on old boxes with long silver antennae. newspaper print sullied our clothes. the speakers splashed by many a paint project outdoors and dual tape decks whereby we would sip new coke outta crazy straws and dub the nights away.

Journal # 04.23.16

You had a yo-yo and could walk the dog and spin a bottle and beeline where it stopped, rushing into a body, knocking torn denim boots and books and knocked up if you don't watch out. And maybe you won't cause maybe you wanna raise a kid with me? Unless we think of the future. Big with it. Feeling it. And nobody else could be happy.

I remember the road trips very well. Close enough to see all the stars been pounded into the pavement. Shoe string budgets and the smell of gasoline. Stretching youth into the sun. I'm glad I made them with you. The nights of headlights and dashed lines and loving you inside your angst. How we found joy in the midst of an endless journey. Must have been the laughter over stupid shit. Got the character outta me and it cracked you up. Nirvana and Pearl Jam all over the radio. Immortality got a tan on the beach. I began to trust you and not myself. Bleach. Marley on a tape deck, and the clock on the screen is digital green. Glowing and the butts end over end flipping behind us, flicked out the windows when windows were rolled up and down. Life was more manual and maybe we liked it that way. The soundtrack of pre-millenium America. See the old Gulf gas signs above the bible belt bullshit?

 My stomach kept getting upset. I tried to calm her down with lengthy and prolonged cream and coffee, but it was no use, she continued to grumble and make my life hellish in the middle of the night. Flamingos and origami cranes. Paper journals on backseats with Big Books. She almost made me sick until I hit the joint. NA was put back another day. I lost the point. Tunnels to Mexico beneath us, Tijuana, and why are they all coming this way? Like you and you made me so happy. Goddamn. Lost the point like Marlon Brando on an island. Jane's addiction. Carefree when wet.

Today I was binging on Netflix in the dark. Remembering that three-legged dog in traffic by the tracks on Broadway. I postponed anything real, awash in afternoon rains. Maybe that's how I begin to remember the names and the places and searching for the kindness and laughter still so hard to find sometimes. The streets carry scent of flowers and here in the City of Trees -- all has turned green, too, like Chicago trying desperate to win back all the land it lost. Last winter. I love you.     - Katya, 2016