Eros&ersand

So, we've been packing up all our crap and getting ready to store it at our friends house. I had never thrown away a letter someone sent me, or a note someone wrote me until yesterday when I went through a closet full of letters and notes. A lot of those letters were from girls that I (hadn't actually) loved, and there were even some notes from highschool, mostly saying "write back, you son of a bitch." The largest collection, though, were from Tabi, at over one-hundred letters from 1995 to 2000. I had expected to burn them with Brad Rhoades at some point in time, but seeing as that won't happen before I move, and I don't really want to have to keep them just for that, I lit them on fire last night in my front yard. The smoke was epidemic or something--it even infected our home's insides. It was kind of perfect that it happened that way, though. It seems like after so much heartache (though deep in the past) the flames can be long-gone, but the smoke somehow still seeps in past the walls and into your living room. It gets sucked into the pages of your books and the sleeves of your sweaters (unless they're wool). It wasn't as dramatic as I had imagined it being when I decided to save them six years ago, but I'm pretty glad about that, too. I think the zao line says, Where blood and fire bring rest.
Yesterday was also windy, and our recycling bin was tossed in the afternoon, just after I threw all my old pictures and checkbooks in it. I found three unused books in the street, and a Polaroid of me naked (though artfully so!). It was just kind of funny I guess.
I finished (it that's even possible) arranging my first chapbook last night, which I'll send out to a few contests just for the hell of it this summer. It's called (for now) Eros & Ampersand. I think the title is a little more cheeky than I'd like, but I've got a few more days to best it. Right now the chapbook stands at 25 manuscript pages and maybe 16-17 poems. More than anything, it's just a good exercise for me to try out for fun before I have to start doing it for whatever comes after fun. I'm sending it to Burnside Review's chapbook contest, which is giving me some sort of deadline, but it will pretty much just be for me. Mostly it's about Kilnemia, love, my dad, and death, which seems pretty standard material.
I might get tattooed tonight!