Leaving Texas

Poetry is magic. The New Yorker always publishes a few every week. Most of the poems appear almost comical and worthless, yet they reveal ordinary events so powerfully majestic it makes me laugh at even myself.

Here's good Poetry About War: http://www.caterina.net/paw/
My favorite.

The Lost Pilot
by James Tate

for my father, 1922-1944

Your face did not rot
like the others--the co-pilot,
for example, I saw him

yesterday. His face is corn-
mush: his wife and daughter,
the poor ignorant people, stare

as if he will compose soon.
He was more wronged than Job.
But your face did not rot

like the others--it grew dark,
and hard like ebony;
the features progressed in their

distinction. If I could cajole
you to come back for an evening,
down from your compulsive

orbiting, I would touch you,
read your face as Dallas,
your hoodlum gunner, now,

with the blistered eyes, reads
his braille editions. I would
touch your face as a disinterested

scholar touches an original page.
However frightening, I would
discover you, and I would not

turn you in; I would not make
you face your wife, or Dallas,
or the co-pilot, Jim. You

could return to your crazy
orbiting, and I would not try
to fully understand what

it means to you. All I know
is this: when I see you,
as I have seen you at least

once every year of my life,
spin across the wilds of the sky
like a tiny, African god,

I feel dead. I feel as if I were
the residue of a stranger's life,
that I should pursue you.

My head cocked toward the sky,
I cannot get off the ground,
and, you, passing over again,

fast, perfect, and unwilling
to tell me that you are doing
well, or that it was mistake

that placed you in that world,
and me in this; or that misfortune
placed these worlds in us.

* * *

I was burrowing deep inside this flesh for the DC Fall semester of 2007. I met Nicole and Ben, my roommate, and watched Zach depart from the Hill in early October. My job sucked worse than college, my desires for almost everything disappeared. Luckily, I crashed twice and was forced off my bike for a while, though I rode out to the Tacchino Cross race a week and a half after (almost) breaking my back. The highlight was losing consciousness in the aerobars. Twice. Even then, the weather was between 50 and 60. Not so different from January in Texas

Tthe past few days have been low 40's, colder than DC.

I'm not going to miss Texas nor my cousin or his wife Jacquie. I love them, but its time for me to move on. It was time after two weeks. Needed that *huge* discount on Greyhound, forced to stay another week. Jimmy basically locks himself in his room playing EverQuest II all day. EverCrack. It's like we don't even live together. I'm cruisin' on the couch while he leaves his bodily impressions on the office chair. If I was told he was an Army Armored Cav Scout 19Delta, I'd laugh. He's going to Iraq? HA! He's a soldier!? He lives on EverQuest.
I'm beginning to understand his insecurities. Sure, he's bored, but there's absolutely no ambition. Day after day after day of staring at a monitor tires the eyes and injures the soul. The distractions of life compel us with complacency. I I still have no job. Enlightening and freeing, in a way.

I spend most of my time alone. Chilling with myself. Relaxing in my young skin. Creating worlds, usually lacking depth and yearning for details, together with my insecurities, whatever they may be. I don't know anything about me, but we laugh hardily together.

"There's only one me and I'm stuck with him." Kurt Vonnegut. Boy, did I look up to that guy. I'm sure if I read him now I'd laugh heartily with him still, and laugh at my old self for thinking such idealistic shenanigans/tomfoolery. Yet, those feelings are burrowed deep in me. I wish my upbringing had more love. Education education education. I lost interest by 7th grade, but I found challenge in it. And I wasn't forced to interact with others. Those idiots. I was a machine, a cog. There was no ambition or creativity. I did the work to get it done, to forget about it. To play Counterstrike and Myth and UT. I thought that was the point of life. Wasn't it?

A great source of entertainment - a world of its own, really - exists on Craigslist, aka CL. I frequent it rarely, like once a month at most. I happened to look up some items to look at market prices when I felt compelled to look at "Missed Connections." Intriguing!

Humor
"Oh metro boyfriend...I see you every day and almost get up the guts to talk to you. Then I look at your pants and realize they're about 2 inches too short. If you get a new tailor I would love to talk to you:)"

Love and Anguish
I have these paranoid fantasies/fears that things will suddenly fall apart--usually when things are going well (perhaps it fulfills an apotropeic function--to ward off what I fear most). Even just writing about it here helps a little. But this time, coming back to you after an absence, felt different. You were different. It was not just my anxiety, my oversensitivity to even slight emotional shifts. I don't know why, except that it's nothing I've done, or not done. Something you're going through, and I can only stand by and try to be there, if and when you want/need me.

I'm staying calm. I'm giving you space, if you want it. I'm not pushing. But god I hope you are not going to leave me, us. I don't think I could take another heartbreak. The thought of it freezes the breath in my chest.

the "I know you won't see this but yes! yes! I hope you do!"
Tom, you were a cook, I was a waitress. We had some fun, and I thought about you recently... just wondering how you're doing these days.
I'm sure you won't see this, but if you do, tell me about the restaurant to verify we're finding each other.

I wish this was me, but then again if any girl caught me on my bike I'd quit cycling
I caught up with you going up the hill on 19th and then directed you towards City Bikes. We should have exchanged numbers.

Common Sympton: Shy
My roommate: I know this is pretty weird but I'd like to get to know you better! We should talk some time, I am just really shy.

The Delay! Silence. SPEAK!
I thought after lunch that everything was really cool; I know you've got stuff to work out and wrestle with, but I have felt a genuine connection from the first time we met.
Now I'm not so sure... I wish you would either tell me I'm being paranoid or tell me I'm on the money. Silence is the thing that kills me the most.

There's a clear difference in the styles between Men and Women. I don't have the time now to figure it out, but rest assured I will.