RIP-TVRIP-TVRIP-TVRIP-TV
RIP-TVRIP-TVRIP-TVRIP-TV
RIP-TVRIP-TVRIP-TVRIP-TV
RIP-TVRIP-TVRIP-TVRIP-TV
2001-02-13
Tonight I am resolved against making any vows. My sister points out that had our father not chosen to take so many vows, it wouldn’t have mattered—but he did take those vows, and was believed, and then he broke them. She says, “I haven't taken any vows!” And to my great relief I realize that neither have I.
No vows, then, only goals—for instance:
Still aim to please, but stop avoiding it at any cost.
Get new unscratched glasses and keep them that way.
Prepare and post for public view something I’ve kept tucked—no I’m sorry I want it to be a surprise.
Today I kept to yesterday’s resolution, which was to keep my nose to the grindstone today turning out editorial copy. Now for the sheer hell of it I will beat myself with the giddyup stick once more, and go do the math.
So anyway (thank you whoever you were for the built-in on-screen calculator, all of you, blessings) today I submitted 1,773 words, pared down to the absolute bone from, I don’t know, 3,000 originally? 6,000? 425,000? Who cares? They’re gone.
But I am tired, and so tonight I will fall back on sharing a few more small, old, nasty Valentines.
Oh the tiresome task of sorting through the population at hand for another set of genitals to finger—
can I be bothered to reduce someone new to confusion—
someone who might drink too much and say things she doesn’t mean?
Or to retrace my steps into the ring of old flames and attempt a big rematch against what had been better judgment—on both sides—
how sweet could it be really, waiting out another’s prime.
The sad semi-defeated straining inward of people long without sexual companionship, a diaspora into self.
What is the inner glow but desperate boredom casting searchlight rays.
Charred pilings—no more bridge.
The residuum of bad love, stubborn, caked, like boot prints on the lunar surface, part memory, part proof.
I go out and wave my broom at the full moon try to get a little breeze going up there—
slow work.