sometimes i get the urge

to cut off all my hair
to stop reading email, forever
to run away to the mountains
to stop using electricity
to eat everything in my fridge,
including at least a pound
of cheddar cheese
to stay up late
to pray for rain
to buy five-hundred dollar Frye boots
and one of those indoor composters
to scrub off my make up
all the lotions and hair gunk
and walk around naked
to make BIG art
to take up room

the future has a shape, size eight, straight legged jeans

I am going to Illinois in August, to study children's library services in a little town called Champaign-Urbana, where I will also take stealthy poetry classes.

Here, it is starting to get hot. I keep busy busy busy and it's less lonely, I guess. Looking forward to new horizons.

these things are good; these things are worthwhile

Learning new things; ice cream on a hot day; hot tea in winter; patience; passion; keeping promises; respect; the fight for equality; hand-made gifts; home-cooked meals; yoga at sunrise; calling the people you love, just to tell them that you love them; saying ‘thank you’; new school supplies in the fall; someone to help you stand up after you make a snow angel; running on the beach; smiling at strangers; replacing tolerance with acceptance; hand-written letters; tapioca pudding; long hikes; giving things away; floating on a lake or a pool or a calm ocean; the last berries of summer; hostess gifts; beeswax instead of petroleum wax; compost piles; speaking another language; loving someone who loves you back; reusing things; loving someone even if they don’t love you back (but not in a creepy way); long books you wish would never end; reaching out to others; unexpected kindness; sustainability; clean dirt; oatmeal; poetry read out loud; rejection of a life dependent on the suffering of others; live music; caring; curiosity; listening--really listening--to what other people have to say, asking questions.

i am writing some poems
and a very long prose piece
and my fellow has gone back
to england where is it cold
here it is too hot
and i think i am running
out of words