Shattered, simply nevered
Food and fishing was the only answer.
I’m still unraveled.
Torn between, stability and adventure.
Indiana and the world.
I love you.
Brushing teeth
every
morning
every
night
stands for a stability
that can’t stand me
I see shapes, shapes that make me crazy.
Teddy bears in the grain of cement blocks.
Doors painted over,
time again,
blue paint to cover the scratches, gouges of being tried to not be let in.
we sneak in through basement windows
unbroomstick doors as a safe fast escape
did we climb out through the window of
the first building?
ahh, yes, but second story as you would call it
haunting, he said later, after he’d made me feel young again
Vanessa, we are not jumping out of upper story windows! Even if people are chasing us!?!?!?!?!?!!! Want to hang out this weekend?!?!?!?!? Are you at the mall?!?!?!?!?!?!????!!
I didn’t even drink that forty. I was going to say we should play Edward forty hangs, but that guy looked too old.
How she haunts me, through ever self-portrait inspired frame.
Jenna, come here! I found the pool.
The urban explored legend we’d trugged through.
To find a white upright piano in the swimming pool room.
I always shoot them light, white, bright, crank up the ISO.
You, she, the ISO in the dark, slow to shutter. But I’d been made afraid the shutter bug of slurred image focus.
Racing through crunching paint, trying to maintain silence.
That couldn’t have been smoke, cigarettes, just the musty gust from old places.
The bars.
The bars on the doors.
I can’t go any further
I want to run to the play ground
the swings
the swings are a safe place
let’s pretend to take pictures of trees
give me your sd card.
When I say did you hear that, you are supposed to say no. Oh,
It just looked like blood spatter to me.
There were cigarettes in the upstairs bath
and a mountain dew dated to expire in September 2014
When we walked I would hear footsteps
they would stop just after we did
I was sure I would have seen a shadow when I looked down that hall
then they were coming from the other hall
Once we found the stairs that we couldn’t find
and I knew we wouldn’t be able to
And jetted trying to make our silence
The smoke, cigarettes.
The steps.
Bursting out of our fast escape.
Don’t close the door.
The man.
How he followed us for far too long, yet too slowly, I was sure he had a team after mes.
deer
moments
so close
family
sneak to reveal cameras
we are horrible photographers!
I am in love-maybe I was wrong: this place is cool-so
moving photo
sorting in post
from good to still good
…
all of them
that is it
they are all great
every instant an image
those are toilets?
a high schooler told me
what would the use of this been?
such a variety
I can’t help it,
I like everything
all the time
always
then there were the games
the integrity
the still brilliance of color
stark
symmetry
without silhouette
only vibrance of whitness
in her dance
elegance
this is where I need to make the music video of me dancing
the noise
is the wind
the white screened plastic of the windows
tatters
into shatters
shade of sounds
every movement a foot step
until you heard the fast tire tracks and angry mans
escape
mid click
as I knew it would
the image half shuttered—blurred—and faded into less than painted
as we ran
again
fast paced society
so many stairs
you said you wanted to puke
and kind of liked it
I didn’t feel safe yet
did I ever again?
the front wouldn’t fit into my camera
the angles wouldn’t shove in
to the narrow space between the clicks
and shutter bug slashes
oh yeah, the vulture eagle? are you a bald eagle?
as we traversed onward
to the next location
this was not abandoned
yet I seemed to have moved in
we drank
and escaped in the rain
why are you taking pictures of flowers?
why are you taking pictures of flowers?
why are you taking pictures of flowers?
the meaning of life changed
from that of constant quest and adventure land
to that of front porch
contemplating life with a best friend
getting too drunk for grandparents
and just shitfaced enough to shoot the shit with your father
you and him
you two
perfect match for drunken conversation
I loved getting to drive you home.
But then to the pictures
Where we stayed up late
terrifying myself to death
I can’t believe I live through these things
and I couldn’t do it anymore
the next day I told you so much that it terrified you too
stores
then
I can’t count you
but she found straight jackets
and I an electric chair
I wanted the brains
the one’s you said you knew were there
to add to the collection
of aborted (abandoned) fetuses on the shelf
I didn’t recognize you
from the first of glances
hot, cold, air, breeze,
busting, dusting,
safe spaces—filled with asbestoses
every moment
every second
perfect
picturesque
on the edge of death
already abandoned
thrill a non
only in this moment do I feel whole anymore
but you
with all your holes
you hold them all
so many
so I don’t have to fill mine in
when I compare with you
pealing
peal
chip
break
stick
to the floor
double sided color
the back side of the room
every room
one chair
you go forever
I could never keep up
–
while she’s in the next room
sleepless another anthem to
not be held a candle to
I want to sleep here
in the green room
where the fibroids still lurk
unsure
plastic bag chips
crumbling like the plastic gown we stole from dry rot
files
scads
client-patient-doctor-hospital–confidentiality
blown
undercover detectives
blow up the walls the distressed locations
then you tear at me like finger nails
on another rant
we winepage through the alleys at night
hill chargers by the fire side
tiny rivulets run their veins blue, cold, a different pale face
and then there was you
you
you
again
the yellow light that I’d lusted after
dusted after
she filled me
although we found her in the men’s bathroom
her people
her places
her locations
where are we again?
double selfies in the bathroom
thump thump thump thump
I never saw that room
Can we move in? Get married? Have lots of babies? Take over the world?
Is that a tornado? Thunder?
To the asbestoses room.
Was that you? no.
But only after the silent moments of self.
As she played in the other room,
moments before the moment of terror,
contemplation
utter peace
complete belonging
let’s take over, let’s make this our world
our forever safe place.
only minuets, I couldn’t become attached, except to the wonder and unknown
We have been living in post-apocalypse
I am so attached to these locations
I’ve already moved in
Remember that moment when we walked over there
the vividness of it all
the sharpness and clarity in my mind
the pictures seem to lack the days they called upon to thrive
the grain and static take up the slack
but my mind remembers clarity intact
Midwest Urban Exploration 