Ishmael Houston-Jones Workshop, January 2023

1. 

I DIDN'T REALIZE UNTIL NOW YOU WERE HERE
I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO BE LATE

I DIDN'T THINK YOU WOULD BE HERE

FORTY WOMEN WISH FOR BEAUTIFUL FEET AND FEARLESSLY YOU WISH FOR A SKYSCRAPER

AT MOVEMENT RESEARCH IN NEW YORK WE WALK LIKE QUEENS

LATE FOR SCHOOL

2. 

You didn't think you would be on time

To this summer meditation retreat

At basketball practice from the Sam's Club

Next door neighbor thinks he's the best gardener

And COVID survivor––you––don't know ever

My mom was late to pick me up from school

I loved everything I saw of myself or whatever seemed out of reach like a perfect old woman body

In a European country I lost your virginity

At the meditation retreat in Vermont I found out how to get un-addicted

3. 

In our perfect world we live tree-wise and funnily nothing ever happens

In a perfect world nothing ever happens and we do it together

In this perfect world we get in fights

We break up and leave and fall in love like cosmopolitan idiots

In this perfect world the old man plays his favorite songs

In our perfect world no one likes to eat their favorite vegetables

We all love Bjork

We are all Bjork

4. 

The old man wants us all to be having more sex under trees in Vermont

In a perfect world there is all this.

Sew

Written in response to video of SECT Inc.'s performance at Pageant. Performed by Iliana Penichet-Ramírez, Ella Dawn W-S, Isa Spector, Lavinia Eloise Bruce, and Josie Bettman

Don't come into this house looking like that

Bow your fucking head

Stop touching yourself and worrying while you work

Respond, reply, relay, react, reappear

Stop giving up

Read, reread, rerere read, re re re re reread

Edit boldly

We're in the house, no you and I

We're a body in a house

And there was a party yesterday

We don't mind the mess, in fact we find you beautiful

We unfolded the laundry just before you got here

Carve out daily daylit time to edit

Edit everything

Unfold everything

Needles fall in a house

And in unison we need a mother

This house is not a mother

Unthreaded needles fall to the bottom of the house we live in

Our mother-less existence knits us together

This house is not a home, nile harris (NOT Niall Jones, nor Niall Horan)

A resounding scream

"It's the end of the world"

They came out to thank us, and to tell us they love us

"You ever have so much hope you go broke?"

///

How can I be more and more fearless?

Renovator

In and out 
Up and all the way out of the room
We clean and we clean and we expect people to pay attention to us

You were so beautiful in that room

I ran my fingers through your hair to communicate my desire

Your body like a wall melted into mine

Cal Wall was his name

A small person requiring attention and care

Knows that eventually plastic gloves form holes

It’s a strange time these days

My window is open to the world

What will come?

Williamsburg Lesbian

Totally fine and green to be late left foot goes down to go up head crooks elbow eyes parabolic in some projected desire make yourself impenetrably porous [to] allow trusting handfuls of breath to arrive and depart through a softening belly dialoguing with each eyelash that falls toward getting up backward eyes like that kind of descent all that there is like that kind of knowing old friend like that one you think of sees the space of this window in 45 infinite hues you see it as time dissolving kneecaps poured into these hands made large enough for you and time and all my ideas never step nor do they simplify just fall and multiply space between eyeballs and hands moving backward through morning windows of nighttime sun

JanuaryFirst twenty twenty four poem

I LOST SO MANY THINGS LAST YEAR

I SPOKE SO BADLY OF SO MANY PEOPLE

I MESSED THINGS UP

I LEFT RUINS IN MY WAKE

I LEFT SO MANY PLACES AWAKE

I BROKE SO DEEPLY

I USED MY HANDS EVERYDAY

I WAS A MOMENT SO MANY TIMES

I LOST FAITH IN SO MANY MOMENTS

I WAS A MOTHER TO SO MANY

I FOUND SO MANY MOTHERS

I SPENT SO MUCH TIME ON MONEY

I DON'T WANT TO MAKE THE SAME MISTAKES

I WANT TO BE KIND

I WANT TO LEAVE THINGS AS I FOUND THEM

I SAID NO SO MANY TIMES

I LOST EVERYTHING

I PAINTED MY NAILS AND RIPPED OFF OLD SKIN

I WISH TO BE FREE FROM NEW AND OLD, SAME AND DIFFERENT

I WANT EVERYONE TO BE OKAY

I WANT TIME IN MY HANDS LIKE WATER

I WANT TO SAVE THE WORLD

I WANT TO BE ALONE

I WANT TO BE TOGETHER

I WANT TO FALL DOWN IN FRONT OF CROWDS, SMOOTH AND REAL

I WANT TO APPEAR MYSELF TO MYSELF

I WANT TO SPEAK EVERY LANGUAGE

I WANT TO HEAL MY DIGESTIVE SYSTEM

I WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING

I WANT TO SOLVE MYSELF

AND I FEEL SO ALONE IN MY HANDS TODAY

NO HAT CAN SOLVE YOUR PROBLEMS

BOOKS CAN'T SOLVE YOUR FUCKING PROBLEMS

SO STRENGTH

STRENGTH

SO

2024

In

- classical music
- red nails
- very cold apples
- books, stacked

- improvisation

- anonymity

- hiking clothes

- regular cleaning

- grad school

- performance

- truth

Out

- appearances

- bullying men

- social media

- anything assigned

- meditation

- irregularity

- poor arch support

- sample sales

- supporting mediocre small businesses

- being uninterested for more than an hour

- haircuts