ronny

bless the sky and bless the rain and bless the streets and bless the people and bless the brass and bless the drums and bless the strings and bless the voice and bless the words that bless these things and bless your love and bless your truth and bless this mess because the mess is you.

want something to do with you want love thing to do with you want dumb thing to do with you want drunk thing to do with you want slam dunk to do with you

want anything to do with you want bunny thing to do with you want money thing to do with you want honey thing to do with you want onion thing to do with you

even if you don't want anything to do with me that's okay because i

🌧️

i came crying into the world in California but i’ve cried all over— i’ve cried in North Carolina i’ve cried in New York i’ve cried in Illinois and all across the great midwest i’ve cried in my friends’ arms in dive bars i’ve cried alone at the airport i’ve cried sick as sin at sunrise roused by bittersweet Dolly Parton and TikTok videos of cute baby burbs speaking cute words then heartbreak hits like a crumbling castle like vomiting alone in a hotel room on the 20th floor gazing across the way to high rise luxury condos spotting the occasional person and realizing they are not your lovers or even your friends in fact, they are not even people they are expensive lamps large lush pillows.

and when i’m not in the feeling? when i disagree with the heartbreak? when i say, sell everything detach from all anchors travel free as a mote of dust follow the heart thorny, pumping powerful then what?

💋

upon arriving in a new city, i wonder: how long to a first kiss?

the answer: not long at all 10 hours 20 hours 50 hours

i don’t realize this at first dressed in the burning hot coat of heartbreak walking to the bar for a sovereign remedy and then to another and another until sometime after midnight i’ve met someone who smiles with understanding and then gets on their knees to show me, sovereign remedy.

but heartbreak is an arrow that slices pleasure— rolling around in the dead leaves and dirt blue sky deep like twilight before twilight surrounded by throngs of strangers kissing squeezing giggling at sunset finger frills of floating fancy high tea jasmine and ceramic adrenaline multicolored macaron virginity drowned in latex satisfaction fat on squid ink pasta tiramisu loving the cold breeze loving the hot sheets muting the wailing nighttime sirens when rosy fingered dawn arrives— out the other end flies heartbreak.

💭

precise intact fanged waiting— heartbreak, is it you who makes me conscious? or is it desire?

down time water the plants water the hands wear the scarf of a former lover out the door into the realness blurry, faceless, multi-faceted multidimensional being uploading itself to the feed full of fire

i see ghosts on the subway wearing lipstick, chapstick, ear muffs, dreads dangling, hats whispers swimming behind hands compliments like darts a child trips and falls adults alert, easy loving

it’s all poetry poetry at the airport poetry in the security queue poetry staring at strangers poetry taking off its shoes poetry removed from its case poetry placed in its own bin poetry with its arms in the air,

surrender. the city is a poem and how many lines do you take when you take the subway— get on here get off there this is the end. a brain

within a brain pulsing on the concrete tendrils everywhere asking the earth— pathetic chills precarious loneliness fragmented emptiness confused eagerness abstracted achievement bottomless annihilation—

how long to a broken heart? 50 hours, 20 months, 10 years not long at all

and all the while i’ve dreamed i have dreamed of a scowling man with a baseball bat i have dreamed of another man carrying a bag of six flutes on his person i have dreamed a woman dreaming of meat i have dreamed of a pretty young Bengali girl wiser than the wisest men who have ever lived i have dreamed of an ice cold shower on the banks of an ice cold river that would set minds free i have even dreamed of my love returning to me

but i wake up from these dreams in spite of desire because heartbreak means sleeping like shit eating like a vagrant at all times on the verge of sobbing cold and miserable, unwise hot, desperate— lucid? only when a dove, hunting.

🕊️

hello

hi

i like your style

thanks

are you having a good night?

yes

easy with such good music, right?

yes

can i buy you a drink?

[pause]

yes

what would you like?

an old fashioned

[the drinks arrive]

i thought you had left earlier

so you were watching me

i noticed you

[smiles]

i don’t need to change to be loved, supposedly

so what does it mean when love is lost?

i don’t know, but can i kiss you?

yes

❤️‍🔥

the heart beats us full of life but says nothing about love it only says live, live, live, live

and when it stops?

i walk along the brownstones thinking it’s the first day of the year when a wispy-haired elderly woman steps out from her grotto and says good morning but then checks the time and shakes her head chuckling at mortality— the tree branches curl, the cells knowing.

a stopped heart says nothing at all.

at the moment of goodbye i feel a soft gentle breeze, a fine cotton gingham, the low rumble of a train leaving the station, and tremble with fear.

but why be afraid? i know my purpose:

a life lived in love, a death met with peace.

i met a middle-aged woman named Lynn in Denver. i told her i had an an aunt named Lynn in Fort Collins.

i met a young woman named Molly, who had just gotten out of a long relationship, had cried in the train restroom the night before, and the next morning had written poetry about it.

i met a Bengali girl named Zen. i smiled when she told me this. well, she explained, that was not the name her parents had given her, it was the shortened version of a band name she liked, which she’d adopted as her new name. she was 22, and was traveling with her husband, 34. they had fallen in love seven years earlier, she said, but they had known each other for many years before that. she was three months in America, he had been here since childhood. they both considered themselves students of some ice man who argued that icy cold showers and baths made you a more powerful being. freedom was theirs, they believed fiercely, and they fiercely, joyously laughed in love every time they were together. whenever they spoke, they looked directly at me with clear, confident eyes. when i pointed out to Zen that we both had the same purple phone, she softly pinched my hand.

the unicorn and the blackbird sit in a puddle of tears iridescent depressed but impressed with the sunshine still emanating from each others' eyes.

beans and rice and tears shivers and piano scales the dog’s worried eyes no cumin in the pantry.

i believe i am alive. i believe i am love. i believe i am salty sea spray of the ocean, mother. i believe the poets. i believe music is god. i believe god is change. i believe it’s all in rhythm. i believe harmony is joy. i believe everything is impermanent. i believe i will die. i believe death is an illusion. i believe life is an illusion. i believe i am alive.

yes, i am nothing as is everything as is god who i am a part of as is everything which is nothing.

time is a flat circle my professor girlfriend always used to say and i never understood it and i still don’t but i am still standing in a crowd, in a ballroom, in the city exactly where i once stood four years ago and nearly cried because a Spanish woman on the stage sang “volver, volver” and we screamed and clapped in mad ecstasy.

last night i saw a Japanese sound artist playing 100 toy keyboards arranged in a flat circle hopping between them deftly, sometimes accidentally striking the flimsy plastic, stuffing popsicle sticks in between the keys, concocting a massive divine drone running off AA, AAA, and 9 volt batteries— people sat, people walked, people slept and dreamt, of course, and some people even snored and sniffed in the corners.

we are dust and nothing matters, yet we scream and cry and jump with joy, exhilarated sentient mud.