one of the doors at work was jammed. who knows why it wouldnt open, but my manager taped a sign on the door to warn others of this unfortunate situation. it said:
the door
it does not work
please use next door
sorry. :o(

me and my coworker laughed, but it was a loving one. because we love our manager for all of his hard work and for his little mistakes. He has a thick accent. he came from El Salvador. he spells american names phonetically. his mustache is usually curled up in a smile. he laughs a warm and full laugh. he accepts you. he shakes his head when youre late but does not scare you. his energy and face are naturally sweet.

Larry, a regular customer, is a middle aged man who always seems bitterly tired. He has the pocked face of someone obsessive. i guess he picks things apart, including his own face. i never see him smile. i never feel positivity from him. he never asks how i am. and i remember his name. his aura, energy, whatever you would call it, is not so repulsive i dread when he comes in, its just not pleasant, not something i want to surround myself in, its the equivalent of a gentle wince. but thats because i dont know larry. today though, i got to understand why i felt this presence from him. i heard him laugh and since ive never heard him laugh, i looked to find out why. he was reading the sign. i chuckled and said, "oh, yeah.." and then he said,
"Made in the USA, right? Am I in America?"
Oh Larry, you shithead.
I was startled by his response and couldnt think of anything to say in those few seconds after he said it, so he just left and i came up with things to say when he was gone.

are you in america? yes you are. it is a diverse place. the man who wrote that came from el salvador, did you know that? he came here because America, the shiny apple that it is, seemed to have more opportunity for him. in fact americans came to california because they thought things would be better there too. they came and squatted on mexican landowners farms until the owners were basically kicked off their own land. (thats a very brief history lesson) and we all know what happened to Native Americans. America is culture. America is undoubtedly crass, sure, but it is choice, it is options, it can be grammatically incorrect.

i broke a lot of hearts at one time. because i was broken too. how cliche. it was a rampage of lost attention. now you see me now you dont. and i said i would call and i didnt. lets hang out with no real intentions of doing so. thoughtful notes with no real feelings attached. detached. smiling with sheer amusement. bored. fickle. careless. chaos i controlled. click. its over. sorry, this isnt what i want. but. generally things get old. this was a couple years ago, maybe more, probably more. i was looking for someone. for me. for something. i looked too close to find it. you know people say its probably right before your eyes. my problem was that i tried to love everything right before my eyes. i tried to focus in what was right there. tangible. fuckable. i didnt just step away. so perhaps you knew this then. but i felt like it was real and that i could love you. and we could draw pictures together and get into explosive arguments that would end in explosive sex. and i thought it would be so convenient. and i thought that together we tasted good. but i thought too much. and i thought out of my element. i thought in loneliness. and i wanted to thank you for holding that other girls hand. for swinging away with her right in front of me.

and i wanna thank the boy that i was sort of trying to see before that. the one that just never called me back while i stared at an empty phone. like a blank face telling me "i am not interested". and i was so excited that i shook him off like a disappointing frost. i was too expectant and i was too much. too everything oozing out at once. desperation really does hang over you like some unflattering cloud fueled by nerves and horniness. would i really wanna date me then either?

these were the two necessary slaps to my ego that i hadnt felt in a while. it felt so good to be crushed again. you are not in control anymore! love has found you out. you are powerless to it. sorry.

and these disappointments occured around the same time because i was so out of sorts i felt it necessary to blur "projects" together. that i wasn't something if there wasn't someone. but i got tired. and i wallowed around wondering where all this yearning energy was going. but one day something inside me just said "relax why dont you?" just make a friend. so i saw you and you knew the same people as me. and i said theres a friend. it helps that hes cute yes. but theres someone to talk to. god dont just hang some heart over their head automatically. and with these ideas it happened naturally. and we fell in love as two unsuspecting people often do. and really i was thankful for those failures because they made me terrified. they made me hesitant and thoughtful. thank you failures. that crazy desperate energy found a way to remain dormant so my feelings could play themselves out and that energy became passion saved for the genuine. and i felt you. and you felt me. and how could i not be in real love without real pain?

when you're feeling sad

You open the door,
but just as I think I have made it in,
you shut it on my chest,
my lungs collapse on its hinges
& my heart is shaking out onto a pillow.
I'm swallowed by sheets,
but they dont hold me like you,
they don't kiss my neck & slide inside of me,
they are flat &, without dimension, I am too.
I am wandering in a depthless blue,
I am thinking up sad lyrics of you,
I am walking in my own shoes.
My soul stays in my eyes & does not bounce off of you,
& I don't look so good these days, its true.
They say some new clothes & color might perk things up,
but I don't find you on a hanger or in box,
I wish maybe that I could put you there though,
because you hang on the hooks of my thoughts,
you tangle the wants and what I oughts,
& in defense I make a shield of superficial strength,
until it becomes my own abilities and skin
until I become the door worth looking in.

Life is passing me by
I forget to floss
I forget to stop and fuck the roses
I sense this
and I wanna be senseless
but there is money involved
and I pay for knowledge
and I pay for gas
I pay for fun and I pay for fast
I hope for skills
and I want like, an awesome tan
I want a degree
so at the reunion I can say im important
and people will say "oh really? that's interesting."
I want walls of my own
vacations that I save up for
drugs and groceries to buy
but this idea of routine
makes me pull out my fake color hair
that I bought from a box
cuz I think genetics need some help
and I think a lot of things need help
but people are helpless to ask for it
I think my thoughts are just constant distractions
but and theres usually a but
thoughts are really exceptional
except for brains in small boxes
minds with no color spectrum
signals simple and thick
like the lamest greeting card you didnt think up at all
I dont wanna be friends with that
but I always want people to wanna be friends with me
even though its much cooler to seem like you dont care
im pretty sure thats stupid though and not in my genetics
and sometimes genetics don't need help
sometimes you were born with all the right chemicals
sure, you probably have a.d.d
your attention could have no structure
it could be spiky and resistant
you could be writing about things that are pouring from your head
and spilling in circles that you hope someone will like