So this is it

It ends with the last poem. Words continue, but they speak of someone new - no longer the poet. With a new voice, the aspiring artist has entered her twenties. She now plays house and pretends to be a woman - until, at last, it appears she is. . .

1987 marks the year I found my people, my family of choice, my tribe. I awkwardly dragged myself onto a path that would lead me forward. There was no noble reformation. I still made a lot of the same questionable choices as in years past: falling for people who would never love me, loving people who were unavailable, swearing allegiances to dead ends and impossible dreams, and then breaking the tension flippantly with easy lovers. Even as I watched those around me deadened and stupefied under the influence of the substances we abused, I was confident that my lifestyle presented no risk to me.

But I also got a little perspective in '87, and probably just in time. In the spring, one of my closest friends entered detox. What for? I literally did not believe in alcoholism before then, so it gave me a lot to think about. Later that year, I found myself in Cicero, Illinois, living with my boyfriend in a transient hotel owned by his father. The glory days of the gangsters were long past by then, leaving only the hookers, drug addicts, down-on-their luck schemers and old gamblers who spent their cash playing the horses and paid for their rooms with food stamps. I couldn't walk outside the building at night, for fear of being mistaken as a prostitute. I met a man there who had never traveled 6 miles east to the lakefront, and another who told me, "If you're going to marry a guy, make sure he has all his teeth." For someone as worldly as I tried to be, I was clearly out of my element.

I was nothing but a princess to the tenants there. And frankly, I was glad. That kind of tough life was not for me. I was a tourist in a place that never saw any visitors. I felt guilty to be able to walk away so easily - in some ways, I was more transient than anyone else there - but it was only my sense of adventure that brought me there in the first place. My stubborn self-preservation, on the other hand, readily convinced me to move on. In my home town, I had been a wild fish in a very tame pond. Chicago opened me up to the great river of life, and I was not always big enough to swim there.

Cicero was only a stop in my transition to Chicago. In the fall of 1987, at 19, I finally broke up with the boyfriend who I'd been in and out of love with for two years, moved to a neighborhood on the north side, and returned to college. Art school, this time. Everything on the class schedule was something I loved - writing, film, dance, and theater. The halls were filled with people like me: artists and searchers, some of them in trench coats with cigarettes and bottle-dyed hair, and some fresh from the suburbs, with their oxford shirts and innocent curiosity. And all there to study art. Why??? I didn't know. Maybe because for us, there really was no other way to get through college - or life, for that matter - except by alternate means. All I knew was, it made me feel less crazy to be with them. As I said, they were, and still are, my family of choice.

* * * * *

This is the best place to stop, I think. Everything that came after - the love and marriage, careers and lessons learned - it is just a human life, and it is a story that is still writing itself. I am grateful for it all, but I will leave it respectfully alone, for now. The teen poet is gone, now. Long gone. But she left her poems to turn you on. . .

To My Rock

It was so silent.

It was so silent, I heard

the cars moving along

the street

two stories below you

over the phone.

It was so still,

I imagined

the drip in the sink in

my kitchen

echoing -

through the wires.

I have not had a solid

night's sleep since you

sank to that place I

could not reach.

It used to be all jazz

in that red light.

The masked woman from

Venice, hovering above us,

gave us invitations to festivity -

night light, secluded sensuality;

strong hands and fingernails.

I knew that woman could do

anything she pleased, we were sure

she could climb walls

and speak of the unknown

we knew --

One night, in my dreams,

she turned her head to face me,

she was going to speak --

I have been familiar with

the agonies of the mattress,

it was breakfast in bed

three days each week --

I have fought those needles at

my fingertips;

and welcomed them;

and nourished them.

There are leftovers in my freezer.

What I think you think

is not what you think,

you react to what you

think I think

I CAN'T THINK ANYMORE

I had an idea, once,

that was healthy and pure

I mothered a cactus to full bloom --

five wide petals that felt like skin

and looked like sea anemone;

wilted, on the floor,

they formed a stray banana peel,

peach-soft on the backsides

like my child's skin.

I have sinned

by forgetting my child's name

her growth is stunted

without identity.

I thought you knew

the true values of the moon

you say you do (you do! you do!)

sometimes it's undeniably

there in your eyes

then you turn full around,

aim your darts at my heart -

say I'm "idealistic" and

I lose.

Richard at work said

I should try three things:

1. get in good with your family

2. write you a poem

and

3. smile.

- April 18, 1988, A.D.

My Rock (explanation of title of last poem)

At the back corner

of the thrift store -

for only a dollar -

I spotted a real

live lunar sample -

a charming example of

the mooner stock.

I found it resting in

the water on a fish

tank floor, and swore

I wouldn't be complete

without a lunar rock.

And so I, barely able

(with the fish tank and its table),

carried home this little stone

and placed it safely upon

the empty half of my bed

and since then -

I have watched as the little

fish have swum in and through

and around him

I have marveled -

he doesn't glow

he doesn't grow

but oh, I love him so. . .

- April 18, 1988, A.D.

El Dream #2

The faint rumble of the train lulled me into near catatonia, my eyes wandered off into the middle distance, and all the little voices in my head mumbled, or spoke in fragments. I didn't notice where we were, I payed no attention to the voice of the conductor. I simply trusted - as we all did - that eventually, this train would get me to where I needed to be. And so, as we were stopped at Belmont, I did not hear the words of the conductor until they were repeated a second time.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, this train will be running express to Oblivion."

Had I just heard that? My eyes shifted back and forth, as I tried to conceive of this new information in some logical way. I looked up at the faces of the people on the train, and they were all blank. They must not have heard. All of those people were on a train that was headed toward the bowels of oblivion, and they JUST DIDN'T KNOW. I stood to get off the train, but the doors closed. I reached for the emergency release, but by the time I got to it, the train had begun to move again.

"Huh," I said, turning back towards my seat, "Well, what do you know about that?"

I moved to sit down and then stopped myself.

"Wait a minute. I can't just sit here while somebody else controls my destiny. Where the hell is that conductor, anyway?" I stormed off toward the front of the train.

At the end of the next car, I spotted the conductor - a short woman with glasses, whose jacket sleeves reached down to her thumbs - and I approached her.

"What is the meaning of this?" I charged, "This car cannot run express to oblivion! My stop is Morse. I want off at Morse. I want to go home and make a sandwich and read this book that I just got yesterday - I do not have any desire to enter oblivion!"

The conductor stared at me with glazed eyes. I was about to repeat my argument when she cocked her head to the left and put her hand up to her neck.

"Do you ever have one of those kinks in your neck that you can't seem to get rid of, but you keep moving your head around to figure out which way is the most painful?"

"Listen, woman, I don't want to hear about your fucking neck, I want you to stop this damn train and let me off!!"

"Have you been smoking?" She said, still poking at her neck.

"No, I haven't been smoking, I - "

"Have you been littering?" She asked, angrily.

"No, dammit, I - "

"Well, where is your radio player?"

"Lady, you can check my pockets, but I'm telling you - " She leaned over to look into my coat pockets.

"Look," she said, "if this is about gambling, that's no allowed, either. There's this guy who comes on with a newspaper, a red ball and three cups, and if you've seen him - "

"Forget it!" I said, "Just forget it. I'll take this matter to the driver." As I pulled open the door to the next car and slammed it behind me, I heard the voice of the conductor: "Hey, did you pay for this ride?"

"Oh, fuck you," I said, under my breath. I moved forcefully through a small group of people standing by the doors ["Oh, in a hurry to get to oblivion, are we?"], and then I heard the conductor in pursuit. I got as far as the second set of doors, when she yelled out:

"Fares, please!!"

I stopped in my tracks and turned slowly, counter-clockwise. I shot the woman a furious look, and I reached into my pocket, pulled out my CTA pass, and flashed it in her face. She flinched in horror, and I saw the reflection of the hologram burning her eyes. She took two steps back, and looked at me, hurt. I smiled, and turned back towards the front of the train. I pounded on the door of the driver's compartment. A man opened the door.

"I am not allowed to speak to you while the train is moving," he said, with a look of fear.

"Well, then, stop the goddamn train!" I said, trying to contain myself in the small doorway.

Then, the fear in his eyes went away and was replaced by the same glaze as the conductor's.

"I can't stop the train, this train is running express to oblivion. Please step up. There is a 'B' train right behind this one."

"Look, Jack, I am not going to stand for this! Oblivion is much too far away, I am cold and tired, and I want to go home!"

He tried to smile then, but the effort alone seemed to hurt him.

"When we stop at oblivion, you can catch the next train southbound. The trains come every fifteen minutes. . ."

"WILL we be STOPPING at oblivion?" I cried.

"It's thirty-five minutes to the loop," said the man, "I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed to speak to passengers while on duty." This was said with an inflection of helplessness, as he closed the small metal door between us.

As I heard the door latch, I looked out towards the tracks, and I noticed that they were slowly fading. The buildings we passed were becoming less and less clear, until at last the whole scene was just a dull, cloudy white, like a winter sky. The train slowed, and came to a stop.

1/12/88

Trust Me

Try the water

(rocks that shine and pieces of light

underneath

seashells);

touch the sand.

memories and emotions are starfish,

exploring the meeting of the elements.

- Jan. 5, 1988

Tame Me

Torrential fantasies

and

motionless

escapades

must

end.

- Jan. 4, 1988, A.D.