Play Me

I know you.

I've sought you out, found you, fucked you, loved you.

I can tell who you are by the perfect way your hair is mussed, tousled about your forehead, fluttering dark brown, shrouding luminous dark brown eyes. I can tell by the white stitching in your indigo denim jacket and the way you arrange your albums chronologically instead of alphabetically. I can tell by your thick black rimmed glasses that I loved removing and setting on your nightstand next to your classic rock tableture and empty cans of PBR. I can tell a mile coming.

I know you.

And I keep returning because of the pedestals you build for me and so to keep the throne of your creation I'll recreate myself vacant and simple. Easy.
I'll play your perfect princess, your paper doll you prefer draped in vintage t-shirts and studded belts ready to be paraded around at your shows.

You love this, and you love when I kiss you prettily stage left after your set, you love when I snake my arm about your waist and into your back pocket as we're leaving the venue. You love to see me out back swilling beers with your band mates lounging on the bumper of your van.

You love to see me in your bed, and it's there where everything is quiet, when everything is still that I lay sleepily in among your mis-matched sheets, my arms folded under my cheek, an errant lip of your bedspread draped across the arc of my upturned hip and still I know you wish I was her. I know you, and I've seen you--I've seen you offer her more grace than you ever would me, hold her more gently, strum her softly make her sing and scream and now I'm screaming because with you I will always come second, and I can't stand to see her resting in your lap where I should be, her neck cradled in your palm, her heartstrings stretched from fret to fret and I know she is your only love.

I've sought you out, found you, fucked you, loved you--and I am fucking done with you, all of you.

So bring me a wordsmith, a painter, an indie film maker, but no more of you, because I know you, I know all of you and I refuse to lay still while you use her to turn my secrets into songs, stay quiet while you name me your muse, while you ignore my goals and use my vision to fuel yours. While you fuck me and love her. Play her. Lay down. Fuck her.
Play me.

Hers Is More

Like witchy bitches we
trade tales of conquests
compare your tricky likeness,
relate your wicked secrets.
You lick my silky neck,
switching hands and
she will hear of your flavor,
your fervor.
In verdant color hers is more
than you could wish to be,
her laugh more touching
than all of your touching.

House Rules

After much discussion, we decided there should be a list of things that are NOT allowed in my room.

1. No more guitars. Is there a frikken sign on my door that says "Guitar Storage"?
2. Falafel
3. Platanos
4. Any mixture of afore mentioned falafel and platanos.
5. Good beer
6. Three packs of Irish guys
7. Any one we don't know who's hangin out in front of Mad Dog In the Fog
8. Floor sandwiches
9. Dropping lit ciggarettes out the window
10. Snail trails
11. Red wine
12. clean towels
13. Patchouli
14. Anything having to do with Burning Man
15. Anybody other that me having sex
16. Hummus
17. Smashing Pumpkins

Please abide by these simple rules as they are sacred.
--M

Ghetto Fabulous

Recently, Violet was sitting on the terrace talking on the phone with a friend of hers back in Phoenix, and I had a sudden realization while listening to this one sided conversation that went something like this:

"Omigod! San Francisco is so beautiful! You have to come here, I swear to god! You'd love it! We have so much fun and our house is so cool and we just party and stuff and we live in Lower Haight and it's so awesome! Omigod! Haight @ Fillmore! YES!!!"

The realization was basically that it's actually nothing like this. Here is a list of stuff that we all tend to leave out when relating SF tales to all the folks back home.

1. The aforementioned "terrace" is actually a fire escape with a cheap plastic lawn chair and an old mop on it.
2. Three days ago, I found a dead mouse in my bathroom.
3. There are 18 empty beer cans in my room currently.
4. I have 13 parking tickets, Sarah has 11, and Peter and Violet's cars are both impounded.
5. While Violet has a sublet for next month, Sarah and I are homeless as of the first.
6. All the local drugdealers not only know my full name, but also where I live and have been known to yell up at my window asking for refuge when they hear gunshots.
7. There's beer on my laptop.
8. I have no time/privacy to write, as none of us in this apartment have our own room.
9. I should also mention that none of us living here at 525 actually live here. We're all subletting. Bryan came home yesterday, and Sam gets back in three days, but we officially have it until the first.
10. I have no idea how many people have had sex in my bed.

But most of the time, you guys call us or we call you and we paint this beautiful picture of our perfect, perfect fulfilling lives. So from now on, as things continue to get worse, this is what you'll hear from us:

"Omigod! It's so beautiful!! You have to come here! Lower Haight is so awesome! Dude, the streets are paved in marshmellows and instead of driving cars, we ride unicorns! Omigod, they're so pretty! And everyday the lollypop fairy comes and throws candy in our windows! It's so awesome! Omigod, wait--hold on, there's some one at the door...Omigod it's Santa Claus! Cool! Omigod he brought a box of magic kittens and the new Harry Potter book! Awesome! Yeah, dude--kittens are magic here. California's so awesome! Okay dude, I gotta go run some errands so I gotta go, but I miss you! I'm doing soooo well here, I promise; I make like a million dollars a day and my rent is free. Yeah! FREE! I know right? It's hella cool. Wait hold on, I gotta ask my roomate something. Hey Milkshake? MILKSHAKE!! WHERE'D YOU PARK THE UNICORN?"
--M

Sesame Street

I'm convinced that Haight in between Fillmore and Steiner is unlike any other block in the world. Here are some things you should know about Sesame Street.

Everyone has a nickname. Some, like Peter, draw theirs from Sesame Street characters. Peter is the Count, and because Will and Graham bathe together, they are Burt and Ernie. I on the other hand take my nickname from my Team Tenderloin roots and go by "Milkshake".

The official themesong is "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding.

If you can find someone to tell you how to get to Sesame Street, then come here and we will teach you the handshake. It's a little complicated, but soon you too will be able to glide gracefully from pinky swear to double-dap.

'Nado Whores and 'Tov's Rats cannot find true love. The reasons are many fold, but take my word for it that it's just not meant to be.

It is often deceiving who actually has a place to live, and who just stays at the 555 Guesthouse.

Sesame Street also goes by another name: The Wonder 500.

The official poem of Haight @ Fillmore: "71 to Noriega/48th street and Ortega."
--M

Tonight

From scattered sites
and misplaced homes
we now fit our keys
into one tattered gate
and tomorrow will be like the others,
girls who fear this run will end.
But tonight will be different,
tonight may be for us,
scarves draped on tables
candles lit;
we may turn to one another
and see the faces of fellow adults,
and we will know that we together
have managed to build but from consequence
something stoic and graceful,
and the dawn of the day will bring
a day like the others,
but in our own right.
Tonight,
will be different.

(Sarah, Violet: This will all work out. --M)

"It must be Tuesday"

So I guess I'm wondering about the meaning of love again.

Before I begin, a smattering of quotes:

"You’re words helped me see to love is to let go."
--Davey, always droppin' in just in time with more than two cents.

"And will watch you yield yourself to all of the kindness you never expected from another human being again to explore the price of being an individual to pay admission to becoming together."
--Lelyn, weekend warrior wordsmith and author of No Good Love Poems.

"Sip long on that sweet smell, honey, this is going to be one hell of a ride."
--Sam, my best friend and partner in crime.

"...and now I am the one seeking to replace what it seems as if I lost with some boy next to me who I knew then when all of them were there."
--Me. This one is me, and this is from the piece I flipped last night at Club Six, followed by heady applause (tee-hee).

I don't know quite what all of this means, but here's some highlights from the last couple of weeks.

--May have destroyed a couple of friendships with sex. Oops. I always say I'm not going to let that happen, and there it is again on the horizon. Further complicating the situation is that one lives two doors down from me, the other, four.

--Have told three people in the last week the following phrase: "I'm never going to love you."

--Have heard from two people in the last two weeks the following phrase: "I kind of have a girlfriend." I should also note that these two people are best friends.

--Realized that I've known my two best girlfriends in SF for a collective three months, and yet I didn't even get to talk to Sam on her birthday.

--Playing couple is becoming increasingly more appealing. Sam, you know what I mean, and for those of you who don't, read "For Davey".

--Being a part of a real couple is increasingly scary. I can, however, rationalize this with my age. I feel I'm allowed to do this.

Above all, I have virtually no drive to figure all of this out. I just want to drink, write, and flip a phat piece next Tuesday.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave.
--M

"The Monster I Aspire to Be"

Oh my dear lord, kids.

Just a quick note to say how well my reading went at Club Six tonight: IT WAS FUCKING AMAZING. It felt so good: Top Cat Playing the sax up againt the warehouse wall, my post reading meeting with the promoter in the basement that turned into my regular weekly booking, the applause and the nods that I asked for; the new piece that I was so scared to read that ended up catapulting my carreer. My carreer. Whoa.
I'm beginning to wonder what that even means--writer, artist, wordsmith...what have you--it doesn't seem possible for me to be so successful at a pursuit I've 'pursued' for only a couple of weeks. I mean...WHAT?

New piece soon, kids. Promise. New SF essay, and two poetic prose pieces meant to be read.

Cheers.
--M

(p.s.--those of you in SF--Don't miss me at G Bar, California @ Presidio Wed and Thurs, Club Six on Tues, all nights 'round midnight.)