What You Fear Your Whole Life Comes

If It Had Been A Heart Attack, The Newspapermight Have Used The Word Massive,as If A Mountain Range Had Openedinside Her, But Insteadit Used The Word Suddenly, A Light Coming Onin An Empty Room. The Telephonefell From My Shoulder, A Black Parrot Repeatingsomething Happened, Something Awfula Sunday, Dusky. If It Had Beenterminal, We Could Have Cradled Heras She Grew Smaller, Wiped Her Mouth,said Good-bye. But It Was Sudden,how Overnight We Could Be Orphaned& The World Became A Bell We'd Crawl Inside& The Ringing All We'd Eat.

Sometimes I'd See My Father, Walking Past My Building On His Way To Another Nowhere. I Could Have Given Him A Key, Offered A Piece Of My Floor. A Futon. A Bed. But I Never Did. If I Let Him Inside I Would Become Him, The Line Between Us Would Blur, My Own Slow-motion Car Wreck Would Speed Up. The Slogan On The Side Of A Moving Company Truck Read Together We Are Going Places--modified By A Vandal Or A Disgruntled Employee To Read Together We Are Going Down. If I Went To The Drowning Man The Drowning Man Would Pull Me Under. I Couldn't Be His Life Raft.

I Offer Emily Half Of My Hit Of Acid- Love Saves The Day. It's My Second Or Third Time Tripping, Emily's First, And She's Understandably Trepid. Awake All Night, At One Point I Find Her Touching Her Reflection In A Cruelly Lit Dorm Bathroom, Asking If She'll Ever Be The Same. I Kiss Her Then For The First Time And Whisper, No.

I Can Weep Pretty Easily. I Can Get Tears In My Eyes From A Beautiful Work Of Art.

Memoir Is Actually The Most Egoless Genre, Even Though It Might Seem Ostensibly So Much Ego-driven. In Order For It To Succeed, You Have To Dissolve The Self Into These Larger Universal Truths, And Explore These Deeper Mysteries. If It’s Purely Autobiographical And Ego-driven, It’s Going To Fail.