this weekend

this weekend i painted a face onto my upper thigh
with henna
at first it looked like mud... a wide eyed pouty lipped generic well proportioned face
an elementary school art teachers lesson on how to draw a face...
drawn in strange smelling orange mud on my upper thigh.
it had huge eyes so it looked like my mom.
all the faces i draw from my mind look like my mom.
the mud peeled away and left the face there...
vague and faded... and orange.
henna
upside down when i stood up.

i went with some friends to a place i had never been before.
a place i had passed many times.
i didnt know it was there.
there, where it was, was between two huge mansions.
one mansion probobly owned the place.
the bit of left over hill between this house and that house...
there were stone steps...
uneven and invisible in the dark... leading down the hill
tawords the water and the reflection of the yellow sci-fi movie moon.

halfway down the hill was a sort of wooden porch...
sticking out from the grass...
it was a kind of look out...
there was a railing and a lamp post.
the lampost was on a wind caused slant... leaning back up the hill.
adam sat there and looked like a photograph i think ive seen,
of a skinny man leaning on a leaning lamp post.

we watched the oposite side of the river where two trains passed.
one train had silver windows and looked beautiful
one train had red windows and looked evil
we talked about fear.

we ran home and skipped and held hands in the street
and proclaimed ourselves leaders and ran to the front
and proclaimed ourselves followers and lagged behind
and then i tripped and skinned my knee and laughed till my heart fell out in the street.

and back in jakes kitchen i sat on the counter.
and looked down at my legs.
one was bleeding and one had an orange upside down portrait of my wide eyed mother.

we talked over eachother
about everything that was incredibly important and irrelivant and completely unable to be explained... ever
only able to be understood.
and got mad before we remembered not to care so much.
and then we got tired.

and then went to sleep

and then we woke up at seven... three hours later.

and i went to temple and the rabbi told us to look at the world through open eyes
and that if and when we did
we would never be cursed
with the kinds of curses that the young boy chanted from the torah in quick quiet hebrew...
curses like lonliness and sadness and paranoia.
curses that you cast on yourself by having narrow eyes...
and that you lift from yourself by having open eyes.

and i thought about the place halfway down the hill
between the two huge mansions
and about how wide my eyes must have been
pupils dilated in the dark
looking out over the river at the silver train and the red train
under the yellow sci-fi movie moon.