Although She Was Giddy With Exhaustion, Sleep

He Hated Crowds, Never Liked Punk. He Couldn't Handle The Nakedness Of The Rage -his Own So Sophisticated And Finely Tuned. He Could Never See The Similarity Between Himself And Donnie Draino Screaming Into A Mic.

You Were My Home, Mother. I Had No Home But You

I Wondered Why It Had To Be So Poisonous. Oleanders Could Live Through Anything, They Could Stand Heat, Drought, Neglect, And Put Out Thousands Of Waxy Blooms. So What Did They Need Poison For? Couldn't They Just Be Bitter? They Weren't Like Rattlesnakes, They Didn't Even Eat What They Killed. The Way She Boiled It Down, Distilled It, Like Her Hatred. Maybe It Was A Poison In The Soil, Something About L.a., The Hatred, The Callousness, Something We Didn't Want To Think About, That The Plant Concentrated In Its Tissues. Maybe It Wasn't A Source Of Poison, But Just Another Victim.

Let Me Tell You A Few Things About Regret...there Is No End To It. You Cannot Find The Beginning Of The Chain That Brought Us From There To Here. Should You Regret The Whole Chain, And The Air In Between, Or Each Link Separately As If You Could Uncouple Them? Do You Regret The Beginning Which Ended So Badly, Or Just The Ending Itself?

I Felt Like An Undeveloped Photograph That He Was Printing, My Image Rising To The Surface Under His Gaze.