Excerpts from Record Fair

There's no beginning to this story.

All apartments in Allston must be this cold, I doubt this shithole is special. There's no insulation or heat and these pseudo-intellectual faux-political Mass. Art kids think it makes them punk to suffer. They come into Record Fair and try to steal buttons that say things like "Fame may be fleeting, but obscurity is forever," and "Sit on my face, Stevie Nicks!"
Olive disappeared almost a month ago. James and I had our fight the night she left. He had said he's sick of making my vegan food and picking Jenn up drunk in Somerville, I said that's the least he can do. I told him, "my body's not your personal dumping ground, and if my needs mean nothing to you -- if you have no respect for me at all -- the least you can do is pick up my drunk sister.”
“I don’t want to love someone who is trying to die,” he said, defeated.
“I’m not a killer,” I retorted.
James's argument was that if I don't take care of myself, why should he?
Mine was if he didn't take care of me, why should I.





On my way home from work I’d worry that Erica would be dead before I got there. That I’d open the door, see her lying on the yoga mat, eyes open. Biting the arm that held her phone. Spilled coffee. Wearing two pairs of socks and my Slayer t-shirt. Olive pawing at her shoulder. I tried to prepare myself for it, the taking the phone out of her clutched fist and dialing an ambulance, calling her mother, kneeling next to her, checking for a pulse just in case. A part of me is still surprised that that never happened.

Erica liked to do things alone, which is all fine and good, but she used to want to be together. I’d drive her to work just for the hell of it. Every once in a while we’d call in sick together and stay in bed all day.
“I told you that I don’t like it when you touch me there.”
“But I like touching you there, honey, I think it’s beautiful.”
“It’s not, I can’t stand it, it makes me anxious.”
“How could it make you anxious?”
“Stop it.” Erica pulled a sweatshirt off of the floor and over her head. There was nothing I could say. She turned her back and slunk beneath the covers. He went to the bathroom and locked the door.
I noticed a thin, speckled red stain down the outside of the toilet, towards the back. It looked like a drop of something – shampoo? Period blood?
“Erica,” I spoke through the door, “is it your time of the month?”
“That’s what you think? I must be on my period?”
“No, no, I just couldn’t remember the last time you had one.” I sighed heavily and went back to bed.
“I can’t sleep.” I touched her shoulder. “I’ve been having nightmares.”
“All that caffeine causes bad dreams, maybe you should cut back a bit.”

Adam in the Bathroom

My teeth feel week and suddenly I can see that it’s not them, it’s me. The cars crash on the street outside and I, I am here, on the fifth storey with the blinds drawn, clock blinking like a traffic light. On the floor in the bathroom being tossed from one end of the tub to the other.
My hands slipped, water like oil, tears like wine, I let it hit me. I let me go.

Why We’re Here

If I let you in,
will it burn the way I think it will?

If I tell you the code
will you break my records?
will you ever leave?

If I give in
just because I won’t say no
does it mean you’ll eventually know?
will you tell on me?

you can say that you saw
the blood in the toilet

Accidentally Well

I’ll chase you backwards
to the same place
Our words fight for space

The Little Traveler

I go to that shaky place when I need to wake up
and watch myself decay

this flower soils my case
destruction whispers to my spine

we head out towards apologies,
but prevent forgiveness of ourselves

I plug my ears
and bite my tongue
when you say you watched me sleep

this special relationship we have
is colder than your mother’s dead son

She drowned him in a bathtub
the spinning door stuck

churches on t.v.
don’t call this beauty
I’m one of the ones who don’t care

4.13.07 - oh tonight?

You can't create without intake
a girl I know heard stories told
about escapeful abuses and calamity
Jane ate the bastard

I was raised to be eloquent
it was a war my parents fought
to erase where I'm from and shame
my generation

my friends call out "oh alexis! what is wrong!"
the honest answer is I don't know,
but i think nothing
oh I love us (missing) (crushing)
"loving (us) (you) dear"

I intentionally left 5 minutes late
I meant to get that bad grade
it defines me as this failure
the song of my age

will I be your type
when I become the hawk of war?
will you remember when we built that fort
at the end of the Rock?

we go so far back, we've changed so much
i just watched my fuel deploy
roll across the subway floor

4.10.07 - lucy

i love you nip
walk away and listen
i'll fake you out too
no you never scratch
i love you nip
stay in bed with me you
misnamed little miscreant
he loves you each other
you're a hit

4.10.07 - firestarter

if hollywood doesn't get behind the war, we won't win

ocelot ocelot on my fface
i know we've lost a lot
letting regret fester
wrecked the back of my teeth
my skin stretches to the wall
my heart shrinks
thumps hard
pump pump
no blood
tigheter creating a black hole
that sucks in my lungs
until my insides have disappeared

i molted my skin

04.08.07 / Easter

I prayed some when I was 19
I'd vomit on the street in broad daylight
and make friends with those who stared
and amends with those who walked away

a crushing guilt I was born into
broke me from my family
It snowed yesterday
and today is easter sunday

If the lord has Risen
in here did he lie
(if the Lord has risen)
is that what fell from the sky and into my hair

3.30.07 - 18 son

there is a light bulb in my skull but no electricity in my body. cut off. shave into a shape. make the old movements. backpedal to progress. let her curl on your body. protection is as it is as a sign of life. don't we act on our defenses? and always we'll wait to come to our senses
for aawake up call. or we won't ignore
we'll bend down to pick a penny off the floor
whenever on earth
you fate to dig
there will be dirt
and it will soil you
and it will makr you
be glad it's there
go wash your hands
taste a castle made of sand

if i do just naught
i just not just won't just don't
fele the urge to ever move
i would just not here
if i had no one to hurt