Touch Prose Randomness

I am fascinated by touch.  That tantalizing tickle of your electrons and mine playing and giggling against one another.  I imagine every individual ray of sunlight warming my body as if I were a mug of tea resting between your palms.  Fabric and skin are the greatest tactile pleasures.  Satins slipping under my weathered grasp and corduroy soft and textured.  But water.  Water is everything.  Weightless, grip-less, painless, ecstasy.  

Broke in Black

goddamn the boinging

synthesized accordions of gawth

escape from the 80’s and into my fridge

turing up their noses at my leftover lasagna and mango “frou frou” soda

gourmet goddesses lounge in bed in the dark braless

no one can see stretch marks if there’s no light

to reflect the glittering, torn swaths of scar tissue

my tongue is burnt by my impatience 

lasagna vs. microwave, the loser is my halitosis 

I wish Sam would stop sending me telegrams

this budget doesn’t support anything except for textbooks

and boots

and expeditions 

tunneling through mazes of pre-worn pre-owned pre-shat-in garments

end goal: black velvet anything

the pleasure of self-mockery is reserved for old women 

lounging on purple couches

chuckling at pictures in which their eyeliner runs away from the heat

I want to age gracefully

and be one of those classy dames 

where you can tell, just from one look

she has enjoyed her life

she probably shelled out the cash and saw Peter Murphy

before the old bat finally keeled over

instead of ho-humming back and forth, until it was too late

and I was broke anyway

Pissing on Trees

Did you know?

These Eucalyptus trees are propelled upward 

by piss and acid rain

I have to piss.

Can you wait?

I have to piss. I'm gonna go find a tree.

Just don't get caught

It's friggin' freezing out side and where I'm standing isn't much warmer so I'll come out with you

And suddenly through the powers of suspended disbelief you are a bouncer staring at my chest and we are discussing douches

Not the vagina  kind because no douche will ever touch my lady lips because my mommy is a chemist and I've told you that a million times and she told me the shit they put in those things

There are euro-douches and Marin-douches and terra douche-a and doucheron; and novadouche and mill valledouche and douche city.

But what if douches were transformers and then we'd have Megadouche!!!!!  

I have to pee now from all the cherry coke thanks for the extra cherries or maybe you just like how when I pucker my lips to slowly separate the juicy chemical fruit imposter from the stem you're imagining that I'm taking the head of your dick into my mouth and tonguing each dip and rise of your shaft . . . or I could just be eating a cherry and working the cash register and shivering because it's cold out

That works too, right? 

Software Incompatibilities

You do not want my body

You long to press your mind against my mind 

and 

share with me wonderful auroras 

of brain chemistry 

and 

encoded imagination

I want to be one with your 

body

I want to share the things I cannot verbalize with my thick and cloying tongue

My mind runs a copy of you

Like a stolen copy of Mac OSX

In my mind 

You are fucking me

In my mind 

You are buried between my legs 

You are fucking spelunking with your dick 

and 

OH GAWD you can be the Indiana Jones to my Lost Arc any time!

In reality

You are running Windows Vista

and

I am tired of your screen saver

That pastoral farmland gets plowed more often than I do

We seem to have encountered

A software incompatibility

Mac has a conversion program

There’s probably an app for that

But damn you Windows Vista

You just keep rejecting me

and i cannot sleep

and i cannot sleep

because this brain is creating problems like a factory 

that is churning out guns that kill people

but instead this brain is creating problems 

problems that kill peace

and i cannot sleep

because when i shut my eyes i see things 

that no one believes for the sake of not wanting to believe

my nightmares are repetitive, comforting

my nightmares do not exist

and i cannot sleep

worries creating fear creating problems creating hurt

everybody would like true honesty

true honesty is not telling

honesty includes being honest to oneself 

i am honest to myself

and i cannot sleep

i like a child dismembering a doll

tear my world asunder 

this leg represents peace through silence

it has gone first

this leg represents peace through dependency

it has gone second

this arm represents peace through obedience 

it has been ripped away

this arm represents peace through self-objectification

it is still fighting

and i cannot sleep

So your girlfriend’s not Barbie

So your girlfriend’s not Barbie 

buy the book

dude, sucks for you

mine got lipo last week

laser hair removal

you could just sell her ugly clothes

upgrade to the new model

make her wear a bra to bed

10 Ways to Start The Diet Talk

How Her Genetics May Make You Fat

you can’t fuck her brain

try turning the lights off

give it as a present

remind her what you could be having

dude, she’s only getting older

hint

Is She Worth Changing?

45000781 or My Bones Want to Tell You Something

skeletal sample 45000781

dig site “verissimo valley”

caucasian

pelvic structure indicative of female

northern Scandinavian influence seen in structure of facial area

estimated height at around 5’4”

estimated weight 130 - 155 pounds

cultural factors must be considered before weight at death is agreed upon

age can be pinpointed at between 18 and 20 years

as indicated by nearly complete fusion of the epiphysis and length of bones

multiple hairline fractures on the phalanges and olphalanges

sign of large scale trauma to left tibia and patella

telltale scrapings point to surgery of some sort

reconstructive?

minor trauma to right patella

similar cause or compensation of the trauma to the left?

scar site at top right anterior of cranial structure

possible laceration and/or fall from some height

multiple stress fractures to the spine

possibly caused by repeated bending and pressure from odd angles

unknown cause

possible signs of carrying heavy weight, such as a pack, for extended periods of time

unlikely given found location

pelvic spread indicates 45000781 has given birth 

extent of spread points to a vaginal delivery

abnormal 

considering cesarian deliveries assumed to be norm due to average socio-economic state of other remains discovered in general area of dig site

state of bone at approximated time of spread indicates the subject was a between ages 13 and 16

younger than normative for possible age of origin and location of remains when found

wear to left carpal bones and joints indicates 45000781 favored left hand

anomaly could explain increased wear on left leg joints; favoring dominant side

pattern of wear to pelvic, spinal, and carpal bones leads to theory 

that 45000781 sat stationary for extended periods of time

note: investigate possible occupations

hair samples show repeated bleaching and dying with artificial pigments

jewelry found with 45000781

mostly silver

1 - necklace - intricate scroll work - watch parts w/ some small gold gears - unidentified jewel accent

45000781 appeared to have had a piercing of the nasal cartilage

possible tribal or subcultural affiliations

1 - captive bead ring - hematite bead - steel ring

Theory: 45000781 had three piercings on each ear lobe

Evidence:

2 - silver lengths of linked chains on ear-hooks - spiked ball detail attached to base of link of chain

2 - garnet - post - silver stud backing

2 - small silver bat - post - silver stud backing

no conclusions yet made from jewelry

study pending

no rings noted

negates theory that 45000781 was engaged in western practice of “marriage”

clothing too deteriorated to estimate socio-economic status

fiber analysis pending

foot coverings found at dig site, close to body

possibly removed after burial

motive unknown

classified as “boots”

constructed from unidentified dried, treated, cattle hide

secured with long, woven strips of synthetic fiber

possible theory: 

choice of foot coverings reflected existence of personal choice in clothing

possible tribal or subcultural affiliation

as yet unproven due to lack of evidence

known: 

no evidence of specific foot coverings as necessary for sedentary occupation as assumed by skeletal wear

Update:

second skeleton found in close proximity to 45000781

pelvic structure indicates male

epiphysis on sternal end of clavicle partially fused

complete fusion of epiphysis on end of long bones

age estimated between 20 and 25

no known relation as of yet

more evidence pending

Musings during Midterms

heaviness on my shoulders tastes tangy

keeping me awake with a dichotomy of sour and something else

I just can’t place

the catalogue of previous oral experiences has not been sorted

this would be easier if the dewey decimal system had been

implemented last time the computer 

demanded that its cutting edge software be updated

Between You and I

between you and I 

it is understood

that the prettiest cages cannot be but what they are

no magical morning will dawn

in which mankind will wake up

free from guilt and pain and greed

on an individual level

my worldview resembles 

an expensive pair of heels in need of new soles

beautiful and broken and soulless

tromping on nonetheless

making the repairs more expensive

with each subsequent city block

interestingly enough

the future is not yet leathered with age

cages may be cages 

but can they be put to different use?

because to be quite frank I’m looking for a bookcase

and it goes with the decor quite nicely

but we must wash off the blood before it stains these bleached pages

and books are going out of style, don’t you hear?

So these might be worth something someday to someone

What Are You?

What are you?

What are you?

Pardon?

Exotic is a dirty word

Exotic does not mean beautiful

It is a word used to denote 

'Other'

No longer human as they are 

Something unknown

Different

A new body to be conquered

Exotic is not sexual

Sex is a form of hostile takeover

Casanova was a conquistador

What better way to neutralize an unknown factor than to spill your base seed into it's harsh and biting depths?

Infect the ‘other’ with your normalcy

Exotic

We must name something 

label something

before we can accept that something

Now, what if that something is a someone?

Love and Karma and the Bastardization of Metaphor

There are good days and there are bad. 

And on the very worst, life is ephemeral.  

Painfully so. 

My lover lies beside me but leaves no place for me to sleep.  

He is all I need, all I could ever ask for.  All I never thought to ask for.  Is it a cruel form of justice that I managed to find someone even more stubborn and independent as myself?

Karma in only the westernized sense.  Karma for a woman sworn to marry only her scholarly aspirations.  

It is every cliche’d moon metaphor.  Pushing and pulling and balancing until we are all so wet that the cliche of a woman as the moon leaves our female protagonist round and fertile and open and everything slips into place.  In the metaphorical sense only, of course.

Vignette With a Plastic Goddess

In the name of the holy plastic goddess

I declare a war on BPA and polyester

Barbie, queen mother of the oversexed and underdressed, has issued a divine command

We must buy the complementary accessory set and multiethnic companion doll or we will never learn to make friends or combat racism

Speaking of racism; doesn't Pocahontas barbie look a hell of a lot like Chinese new year barbie or Peruvian barbie or . . . Wait a second there

Shhhh, merry Christmas barbie smiles in 2D and politely requests us to look past the limitations of diversity capabilities  

Am I not a full woman?

Do not call me a man

I value honesty above all things

and that is the worst lie you could say of me

I give you the power to have power over me

and you insult me by questioning my womanhood

if in attribute of personality rather than form

body dysmorphia cannot deny 

that I have brought life into this world by mine own womb

am I not full woman?

I have dominated with a woman’s strength

I have taken my right for myself

is there man in this?

am I not full woman?

all things being fluid, 

I can identify my own gender as I believe it to be so

my body may be round and soft

these breasts have preformed their function,

the one beyond objects for longing and fondling and pleasure

I am a carnal being

I am a caressing being

I am an earthly being

I am a  guarded, duplicitous, vengeful being

am I not a full woman?

there may well be no beauty for me to fall back on

no artist will ever find youth in my gaze

I am no innocent

I am no meek, tender virgin

you are not the first to plunder these shores

spoiled and stretched

guarded and cold

am I not a full woman?

We Used to Talk take 2

I couldn't sleep
Every time I closed my eyes I remembered
How you used to call me.  And we'd talk until the sun rose.
And I felt a longing for that feeling of being close, no matter how distant
And my bed felt like a frozen desert that stretched for miles with no sign of water,
Because a heart in pain is not a fountain one should drink from.
And I missed the past, knowing full well that the moments I wished to erase from my soul were my most important lessons.
And I feared the future.  Because the future felt like a force pushing the gap wider still; but that is only one possibility.
And all the love within me knew that you are a part of it, whatever it may be, and wrapped that knowledge around me in a blanket that burned warmer than any fire of my fear ever could.
But I still couldn't sleep,
As I watched the sky lighten and remembered how we used to talk until the sun lit the sky on fire.

Pardon the delay . . .

To the one person who (I think) keeps up with my dear little blog,
I have been moving into my college dorm and getting settled into a routine.  I start my semester-long poetry workshop today, so hopefully I will be posting some more quality posts more frequently.  Yah, even I know that last few have been crapola.  So here's to shelling out ridiculous amounts of money for a quality education! 
Luvs!

etc. on love:

Love is not a feeling I'm completely
comfortable with
yet
I may not get the chance for the
feeling to sink into my jaded, aging
skin
We are too young
Fact
We are in love
Debatable, as there is no
comparable or universal definition of the term
And this stream of consciousness is completely one sided
We care about the state of each other's hearts, even though we both are aware that the heart is not the seat of emotion
That much I am comfortable stating
But there is not much else I can say with impunity
Should I let myself love someone who may never forgive my errors of inexperience?
Should I let anyone love me, when the probability is that I will hurt them and leave them wanting?
Let anyone love me
I have no control over that save running and blatant sabotage


To love
Is to obtain total relaxation with my partner,
And surrender a portion of my heart with which they may do as they wish.
Is there heart left for me to give away while maintaining a strong enough beat to sustain me alone?
I cannot give too much
I do not want to be left stranded on the side of the road when I prove myself to be a faulty model
with holes in her software.


But this
This is all fear
And there can be no love where fear
makes the laws and constructs the moats and walls
Because to give someone access to your soul requires total vulnerability.
I am nowhere near that brave.

Around You . . .

Around you
I feel beautiful and valued,
understood, almost
Around you
I feel small and young, uncultured
and undereducated
My past both forgiven (but not quite) and painfully apparent

The mere fact:
that I cry when something you say
hurts
or
makes me feel. sad.
doesn't mean you are wrong for me.
In fact.
It means that you
are one of the few people I feel
safe
around.
If I didn't feel safe with you,
you would never know anything was
wrong
until. I snapped.

I dreamed that my very skin was dead
And when I cut into it
It crumbled
like stale fondant off an unused wedding cake
Leaving nothing but dust
and empty space

The Dream II

I am dreaming
There is a dome that is not a dome
It is the sky and the enclosure
I have been lured here
but not even I know how or why
I am surrounded by shadowy faces
But the room is empty at the same time
It is ritualistic, almost
There is a sense of anticipation
Around me, all is growing darker and darker
I’m growing claustrophobic
The non-people are closing in on me
The walls are closing in on me
Musty, yellow smells
And then
it’s over, and I am gone
I’m still HERE
Wherever HERE is in my dream
And yet I don’t exist. 
This dream never stops
Repeating as long as I can remember
As I age the dream becomes more vague
and occurs less frequently
But it is there
It will always be there
Reoccurring until I don’t exist.

We Used To Talk

We used to talk
until the sun rose pink and golden on both sides of the continent
Me praying that my parents didn’t wake up
You taking the occasional smoke break
We cursed our phones and opened our hearts
Because one dropped call
Could be the difference between unveiling the answers to the mysteries of the world
Or falling asleep while wishing I was in your arms
I can still hear Nick Cave turned down really low on my computer
And you sent me links of stuff I’d never listen to otherwise
Sometimes the sexual frustrations bled through
Sometimes you and I were practically one being curled up on a couch having a conversation without the midwest and texas in between us
It’s after midnight now and it feels like I should be talking to you
But I can’t.  I screwed that up. 
Now I watch the sun rise while fighting the thoughts that tempt me seductively down dark roads
I watch Sid & Nancy
I can’t believe that was Gary Oldman and the movie makes me even more depressed
Facebook flickers on a closed tab, taunting me with the possibility that you might respond to my pathetic attempt at a failed apology that wouldn’t do shit anyways
I see you added her
She’s pretty and blond and skinny and happy; everything I am not, at the moment
Here I am, a lead weight hovering at the edge of your conscious mind, forever offering my services
The ghost, my memories of you
They haunt me when everyone else goes to sleep and I run out of things to google or write or read or hear or do
We used to talk
Now I carry on conversations with the psyches in my head
Sure they’re interesting, but they have a flair for the dramatic
And they sure as hell can’t replace you

What is rape?

I imagine myself as some sort of monster
covered in the digested remnants of cupcakes and sympathy jizz
I see these
clothes
faces
bodies
bonds
that I want so badly
I want that to be me
but/no
none of that ethereal waifish beauty for me
none of that love shit for me
bloody noses bloody apendages bloody bloody
fucking bloody
not alternative enough for the alternatives
not in the right ways
but I don’t want to be right for them
them them what is this them of which we speak so disdainfully
a conglomerate of all we hate and cannot accurately name
it’s them’s fault
stop playing the victim
I’m the one who keeps eating
I’m the one who forgets to reapply sunscreen
I’m the one who got drunk
I’m the one who flirted with you (while drunk)
I’m the one who blacked out (screw the fact that you were supposed to be my friend.  What kind of friend screws a girl who has no idea what she’s doing? What kind of friend violates a woman, no matter how drunk, in a club bathroom?  What kind of friend am I to you for not telling you I was involved with someone before hitting on you when I was so drunk I had no idea where I was or who you were?)
I’m the one at fault
It’s not date rape cuz we weren’t on a date
It’s not rape because I hit on you first (Screw the fact that even the fucking lawyers realize a woman CANNOT FUCKING GIVE CONSENT WHEN SHE’S SHITFACED!  FUCK YOU!)
I ruined everything
Because friends don’t cause drama
Because you were drunk too
Because rape is too strong a word
Because I had to pay the doctor to sew me back up down there because you didn’t care that you were hurting me
Because I’ll never tell you that
Because you’d hate yourself forever
Because you don’t deserve that
I shouldn’t have been drinking
I shouldn’t have taken those beers they handed me
I shouldn’t have blacked out (even though it’s my body’s reaction to the toxins in alcohol and I had no control over it)
I shouldn’t have
I shouldn’t have
I shouldn’t have
It’s all my fault (and no one will ever see it any differently)
I remember a beer and a bonfire and and an artist from Burning Man
And then oblivion
All I remember is you pulling on my hair then black
then you’re helping me buckle my belt back up because I was too drunk (should that have been a clue?)
Then nothing
Then I’m being led outside and I get the vague idea I should be humiliated
Then a waking death/nothing
Then I’m talking to HIM
And it’s all over
Everything I hoped for wished for dreamed for held on for
During two years of captivity
Gone
Thank you.
Because now I know why women don’t talk about these things
Because now I know how it feels to know that if I say even a tiny fraction of what I’m feeling/thinking/knowing I’ll be ostracized/alone/despised even more than HE already does
Because I’m scared
Because I don’t want to hurt you
Because I feel disgusting
Like everyone knows I’m a whore/slut/easy/unfaithful/gullible/weak
Because I think I am
Because I lost the right to be happy/safe/loved/made to feel beautiful
Because I don’t have motivation anymore
I don’t deserve success
I lost the right to dream
I am not a victim
It’s my fault.

A Possible Future

If I can’t be beautiful, I’ll get so smart that no one knows the difference
my sexy brain will lure you in
surely as you need someone to bounce your stoner philosophies off of
I had a man once, who could match me neuron for neuron
But he’s only in my dreams now, but I wake up to you
At least you’re good in bed, cuz you’re sure lacking in the head

My bones are glassy frozen
Twin icicles connected by a jointed ice cube
Frozen frozen freezing cold
Sami ice queens
Shivering, waiting for the midnight sun
Cold hearts,
    Cold bones,
        Cold hooves
Wrapped in snowy furs
Spangled with fire opals
    Of the deepest black

Early Grey Tea
    Contentment
    Realization
        Sadness
I caught sight today
        Of myself
            Longways
In the window’s reflection of the
            Dark night
    The face was plain, plump, sad
    An albino apple on a
Dispropotionate dissappointment
    Of a lower half
No shining feature
    Save Otis
    Jolly Old Englishman
    Firmly planted around my middle
White, no, yellow marks
        The only proof that I can
        Bounce back
    From touch
An unspecial embrace
    That he gives to women
        Far more genetically blessed
My head
    My heart
        Must make up for . . .
            Everything else
    I have loved erringly
    And looked longingly
To my credit
    I am a realist
I will never get anything I do not
                Deserve
I tempt no man to distraction
Personality only takes you so far
            In love
I am a realist

Lock
Lock
And lock again
Never safe
Never sound
Speak
Speak
And speak again
Quiet down
Quiet down
Never safe
Never sound
Lock me down
Lock me down

I lean back and watch you
From between my knees,
Your face, barely visible
Above my legs, reflects an
Artist’s strain
    Your pain is beautiful
    In a way
I do not glorify the pain you feel
    I lean back
And admire your long, white fingers
You entrance me, and yet
    You terrify me

I am bound in a paradise
Of skyland
    Andromedas
        Sexless
    Sky goddesses in classical
               Cliché
Remodeling their spines
With paperclips and rubber bands
Who are the codependent Amazons?
    Flipping mattresses in a
        Nuclear winter

You’re a lump of carbon
That got lucky
Some celestial snot rocket
Rained upon the blue planet
And reacted
KAPOOSH!
There you were, in all
Your primitive glory
And then you subdivided
And multiplied
And screwed your way
Up the evolutionary ladder
But you’re still just carbon
Really lucky carbon

After I die
I will continue to dream
Long, harrowing, vivid dreams
I will see worlds collapse
And starving children die,
I will see a pale woman
Bathing in her own blood,
Her glassy eyes looking
So peaceful
Almost happy
But still very dead
She looks prettier dead
No more pain
Or self-conscious self-criticism
She floats unafraid
And perfectly nude
Drained skin softened by
The bath and turned to stone by rigor mortis
Each toe a perfectly wrinkled date
Each finger a delicately puffed sausage
Purple lips part slightly
With the memory of her last
Breath
In my dream I sit cross-legged
On a blood soaked shag bath rug
My arms resting on the porcelain
Side.
I tell her all this while
Straining my eyes for
Ripples in the water.
There are no ripples.
She is perfectly dead. 

My heart called in sick today
Because my soul
    And tolerance
Carpool with it, they are not here either
Do not speak without intention
God forbid you’re rude
I will stare into you
    With all the heat of
Fist breaking the sound barrier

Mired in toxic waste
    Cain courts Ophelia
    En pointe
    She must float above the
            Flowering lances
        And lowly toadstools
Doomed Ophelia
    Follows the wind into the glass wall
Losing elevation
    As the forest fire consumes
    From the knees down
Defective appendages
        Weak and pitiful
    Powerless as the contents of a
            Crysallis
    Given time
    The metamorphasizing mass
Of carbon atoms and luck
    Will discover that its wings
Can lift it
    Where its knees cannot

Do not wait, young man
    You are too young
To sleep next to the snow queen.
Can’t you see?
    You are melting her!  She goes
From crystal palace to crystal palace.
The reindeer do not like you.  You
    Should not pet them.  They bite.
She does too, for that matter.
Young man; you are too young
    To bed eternity.  Can’t you see this?

No luck
    Gravitational pull too strong
    Down we go
        To our knees
    So close
        So far
            How does this work?
Again?
    Principles of uncertainty
Stupid swollen
    Grapefruit appendage!
Burritoed alien child
    My heart may not be fine
IforgiveIforgivemeforgivemeI

Snippet of a dream

Do you take this man to be your one and only muse?
No.
This lawfully corporeal woman already has a muse,
as ethereal and intangible as he may be.



And then I woke up.  It was odd to say the least.

Observation: Fall 2009

Three kids.  Kids.  None of them have been kids for quite some time.  Two are smoking cigarettes.  One has a forty of Mickey’s.  The only girl in the bunch is curled up in a plastic garden chair with a plastic “glass” of vodka and cherry coke, innocent and yet completely sad.  She is the only one not from a broken home, but she does not discuss why she is here.  Not often, at least.  The boys have reasons.  Broken homes, escapism, etc.  One doesn’t even know how old he really is.  Paperwork, damn it.  They have set images, paths, pre-made decisions.  What is she? Goth, punk, raver, grunge, lazy bum, whatever!  She is a human female, still in the larval stage, still mutating into the final form.  A mutation, or mutated situation, has resulted in her reproducing before full adulthood is reached.  Thinking of it makes her miserable.  Still.  So she doesn’t.  Think about it, that is.  It’s easy not to think about it when she’s trying so hard just to remember what she did the night before and who she has to apologize to this time.  Who she has to hide what from.  The backyard smells of human and cat piss.  The boys find it freeing to drop their pants and mark their territory.  So does the cat.  How is it that with these people who love and accept her no matter what she does, she still manages to feel insecure, stupid, out of place?  She feels these things around everyone.  Well.  Almost everyone.  Refill.  Top me off.  The questions fade with her special awareness.  Instant gratification.  Want.  Get.  Want again.  Starve herself beautiful.  Drink herself lovable.  Screw herself wantable.  Talk herself out of it.  Or into it.  Depending.  She is over-dramatic.  Fact.  Contrary to her belief, it doesn’t make her anymore interesting.  She’d be interesting anyway.  A person doesn’t have to be loud to have a presence.  Don’t try telling her any of this.  She won’t believe you.  Half the time she doesn’t believe herself.  Ok.  More than half the time.  Continue rambling.  She’s still sitting in the plastic chair.  As the night rolls on the vodka to cherry coke ratio becomes more and more disproportionate.  She is, as we say, sloshed.  Let’s roll, they say.  Yah!  Now she is sloshed and warped.  What is wrong with this situation?  Simple.  How can she make decisions without knowing who she is?  Or what she is?  She feels trapped in a gelatinous, squishy, ugly mass of skin and fat and bones.  Like a brain and a heart suspended in pink gelatin.  With pineapple chunks.  Ugh.  Jell-O?  Jell-O shots!  Frozen heart rolling in a snowball.  Snowballing down the giant hill from her house right off the cliff at the barracks.  She bleeds herself, letting what is good in her drain out of the fatty corpse it is trapped in.  Goddess!  What an emo child!  Disgusting.  More judgments.  More drinks.  She’s gone.  Way, way, gone. 

Question

What is the protocol for posting poems inspired by ex-lovers?  Is it ok as long as you don't mention them by name?  Or does it violate some code of conduct; somehow breaking the privacy, the intimacy?  Does it somehow immortalize that connection between two hearts, the one that no amount of time makes any less painful to dwell on?  Are poems of devotion like love letters?  Elizabeth Barret Browning wrote Sonnets From The Portuguese, which I consider to be one of the most beautiful compilations of human emotion from that time period.  Maybe it was different in that it was published during a very different era?  And she eventually married the man.  But I digress.  What are your thoughts on the topic?  Would it be wrong of me to post these poems?

So far

this has all been relatively new stuff.  I wanted to get a bunch of stuff I've written in the last three months up all at once before I go on vacation.  Maybe when I come back I'll have some followers!  I'll post some of my older poems then to compensate for the awful writer's block I've been experiencing.

Goddess' Failing

This woman is no goddess
She has faults and pride and sin
Betrayal taints her blood
As she continues to cry for him
Weakness, unforgivable
No future entwined within
Her walls keep growing higher
Now the he’s not trying to get in

Waves crest a little less spectacularly
When the goddess becomes mortal
When there is no philosopher/seafarer waiting
It was a misunderstanding
Like reading too much into mediocre poetry
Only a mortal can destroy a something that never was
Only a mortal is blind enough
To hope.

Resistance

Pulls pull pulling
The poison is pulling pulling
Tempting to write a sequel to a movie that tanked in theaters
But no
Waking nightmares
Flashbacks to an event that wasn’t remembered to begin with
Torturing the inside of each eyelid
Whenever they are closed
This is the antidote to desire
This is the cure for the pull
The pain of a Heart pulling itself into infinitely smaller pieces for eternity
That will do it

There Is No Void

There is no void
I do not need to be filled
By something outside myself
Not smoke not drink or some random seed
You can’t fill an invisible hole with the ephemeral
The more shit you stuff in the more poisoned you are
Hearts can only suffer so much to pass through them before they surrender
I need a clear head and a pure heart but that takes some detoxing
All the falseness and cheapness I stuffed in my system takes some time and help to clear
I can’t cut and scrub all at the same time!
But every time I check
My soul looks a little less diseased
Someday I can purge this evil weakness out of me

How Does A Person Go About Replacing a Muse?

How does a person go about replacing a muse?
Can a muse quit? Or can they still inspire you without their permission?
Should you stage casting calls?
Wander the streets looking for someone with the same ratio of sexy to intelligent to weird to perfect to asshole?
Impossible? Yah, probably.
It is difficult to find someone who makes you want to tell them “freeze! I have to write this down!”
Or scribble down a bleeding heart in the wee hours of a sleepless night
Can you replace a muse at all?
Once they fade, do we wisp away with them? Or do we wallow until a new not-quite-good-enough-
replacement occupies the mind for a while?

Serenity

serenity
the state or quality of being serene
I tried looking it up in the dictionary
usually that calms me
in some sick bibliophilic way
but today my search was answered with a form of itself
how cruel
how real
I am sick to my stomach
I have no stomach
there is a hole there
I can feel it
no swallowing
no breathing
no appetite
tightening its way up my body
like a snake who can sense when the prey is close
close to relinquishing control
this disease must have a name
a diagnosis
some stability
it’s all fraud
like a wig on a cancer patient
which reminds me
I need to get those moles checked out
or maybe I should leave them
let them spread and consume me
digesting myself
glorious cannibalism
there is no cure for cancer
besides cutting it out
and poisoning the host
cancer
any type of malignant growth or tumor, caused by abnormal and uncontrolled cell division
an evil influence that spreads dangerously
yes
yes, that works beautifully
this feeling is a cancer
a cancer in my heart
but logically
we all the know that the brain is the seat of all emotions
and a cancer there
is much more deadly
poisoning
right from wrong
life from death
love from fear
cancer
yes
I like the sound of that

Hardening

Once I stood in the shadow of limbs
tendrils crawling to caress my untested cheek
I could not be burned by the heat of pain or sin or regret
for over my upturned face towered purity in the form of hope
of future

Crouching in the blue glare of trying
no success is born from sullied intention
when the silver sets but is not replaced there is no shield
the deepest moment of hurt
reoccurring reoccurring reoccurring

that perfect skeleton
superimposed beneath the skin of every man I meet
by now there should be an assumption,  preparedness
but I am not quite that callous yet
it will come

Why I Cannot Give You My Heart

I can give you everything
everything except my heart
I gave that away a long time ago
no, it is not lost
I know who I gave it to
but not where they are
oh no
not where they are physically
I know that
I can feel when they’re close
emotionally, I mean
their heart
I don’t know where their heart is
or who has it now
but my heart is with them and theirs
wherever it is
once you give something like that away
you can never get it back
even if you ask politely

We Write What We Know

We write what we know.  Be it the dark sheen of grime coated walls in squat houses, the drop of lead in the lower intestine when you know you’ve just made a choice that’s gonna screw you over, or the wail of the drunk lady who won’t tell you why she’s drinking.  These things are known.  No one ever writes about … never mind.  Some idiots will write about anything; even knitting sweaters for feral cats.  I had a ghost cat end up in the guacamole once.  Long story, you wouldn’t get it.  Maybe you would, but not unless you knew what I know, which you don’t.  There used to be an abandoned hospital near my house.  I would go there with my friends to break stuff and ‘tempt the supernatural.’  We were really good at convincing ourselves that we believed; that we weren’t scared.  The shit we told each other, that the other person then had to pretend to believe, was incredible.  Anyway, I stopped going there after my then-boyfriend took some thirteen year old girl down there and screwed her in the old exam room.  Sleaze ball.  Being human, I stick to what I’m comfortable with, what I know.  In this case, it’s sleaze balls and certain brands of vodka.  I’m very good at locating both.  I’ve been in a black hole for a while.  Call it treatment, therapy, what have you.  It was time.  Everything outside my mental terrarium is different, but ultimately the same.  People are gone.  People are dead.  People are serving time because they were too permafried to realize that flashing lights and sirens mean ‘run, you idiot, run.’  Something in me has changed.  I’m older, less impulsive, less inclined to hold everything in and then drink until I puked everything out.  My hair is longer and a color I hadn’t seen since middle school.  I’m not too happy with the way I look, but then, no one ever is.  I’m streaming my consciousness, out of control.  Just draining it all out to make room for something, anything new.  It’s not desperation, it’s exasperation.  It’s the apocalypse.  I am Famine.  And I am sucking the last bit of life out.  Like Bunnicula.  Except not quite as furry.  Postmodernism has destroyed the narrative.  Or maybe that was 4chan, but still.  My brain, it leaks. This can’t be healthy.  I’m remembering remembrances.  Maybe it’s vertigo, but I think I’m actually sideways, because I know that’s a rug.  I know a rug when I see one.  I’ve seen The Big Lebowski enough times to know a rug.  Just like I’ve seen this rug enough times to know that I’m not using all my brain cells right now.  But what kind of excuse it that?  Is anyone every using all their brain cells?  Still.  I know I’m in the process of remembering what I did. Whatever that was.  Sometimes when people are smashed they drool and smile a lot.  I discuss literary theory in my head.  Very productive.

Wake

Wake
I am not beside you.
No, I am not reading out back.
No, I did not go to get coffee.
I am not here.
I was not here to begin with.
I am gone.
I have been gone for a long time.
You realize this.
Every time you reach for me in a half-wakened state, you realize that my presence was only behind your eyelids.
Yours is behind mine, as well.
Why am I cold?
Why do I not feel the pulse of a living being?
I know.
Attachment is the last block before enlightenment.
Sentimentality is pitiful by most standards.
Escapism is true weakness.
But …
Memories can replace frozen lakes and avalanches.
Reality is so much more comforting than a picture formed of rusty synapses.

The Same Note Over and Over

The same note over and over
Written
Played
Screeched
Industrial noises block out the sun in my ears
I am banging my head against the wood
And the grain is leaving beautiful embroidery all the way down to my dermis
A narrative is a narrative is a narrative
This is not a narrative
This is the frustration of one woman
Condensed like chicken soup

Conflict in Translation

The mountains whisper to the painter
The painter creates a pigmented blanket
Of polymers and animal hair
Presenting tribute
        Displeased
    Clumsy digits cannot translate
One medium to another
Subtle rage
    Rotating
Inward outward; inward outward
Settling finally on the mountain
He started it anyway

A Study In Tranparency of Speech

Green to sand to freezing waves
An orange and setting sun
Leaving dual shadows between
Clasped fingers
An image
A nuzzle
A feeling rather than a phrase
This is a thought
Not even a memory
But a possibility for the future
I can walk on this beach in my mind
Sitting with Wislawla Szymborska
She’s telling me to be frank
And that frankly love is stupid
She chuckles at them, holding hands
They too will be washed away
When the tide rushes in

Stream Me

Stream me:
    Consciousness
            A limbo.
                Softly caress
    Breast. Shoulder. Eye.
        Contact.
    Follow my finger
See.
    Command: comprehend
404.
        Scan:
    Breast. Shoulder. Eye.
        Contact.
    Mind 2 Mind:        synch

Command successful …

Shopping List on an Airplane

USB
Wallflower
Jules Verne

Shopping list on an airplane
Commercialism completed complemented (W00T proper grammar) by the man on my right
Left: window: 10000 feet no commas
Static forces draw my hair like a halo of poor hygiene
But of course
There home back again
It’s a place not just a space in time or a direction I swear
The language gets in your blood with its fucks and damns but can we really communicate in blown up expletives and shorthand?
Postmodern femininity feels the death of sex the death of intimacy if we are everywhere we are nowhere if sex is everywhere it is nothing there is nothing left because everything is there to see
No veils
The veil was what made it lovable because we always love what we cannot see and once we see it we call our lawyers
My English teacher called this stoner thought so why am I still thinking this after being sober for a year?
Stream of consciousness is the greatest reality
All else is contrived
Too much thought goes into trying to create a product
You are reading me and I am not a commodity to be shaped into reader preferences using an app on your smart phone
You are plugged into the vast machine; everywhere is watching you and you are clueless like a child about to fall out of the safety seat of a roller coaster
Because this is not the movies
There are no checks and balances
You are part of a business operation, a larger objective
Welcome to the present, you already know your way around


You are the mirror attached to the back of my mind
If I turn around to look you’ll be gone as if you never existed
Orpheus gives a chuckle
Hopelessly alive in the cliché of currentness
Love is a codeword for intangibility
How many of you fools do I need to toss into the void before it fills up
Like a landfill
No, not special, just number 10 in a limited series
Your pass grants you special privileges and can be revoked at any time
Screw metaphor, metanarrative
Derrida only began to scratch the surface
Wonder if he too would fantasize about throwing screaming toddlers into blenders on cross country flights
Thanks to the internet that thought could earn me worldwide infamy and a new laptop
Boo-Yah-Cah-Shaw to abusive mothers on aisle twenty-three
Whatever happened to that test people should take before having kids?
Too late man
One greasy assface who looks like a rockstar and acts like Russell Brand can create an indie angel in miniature
At least he doesn’t slap his kids
Look lady on aisle twenty-three
The louder you yell, the louder your baby will scream
Direct relationship
Basic scientific thought
Now why doesn’t the 21st century have cones of silence yet?

Assorted Meanderings

Lock
Lock
And lock again
Never safe
Never sound
Speak
Speak
And speak again
Quiet down
Quiet down
Never safe
Never sound
Lock me down
Lock me down

——

Early Grey Tea
    Contentment
    Realization
        Sadness
I caught sight today
        Of myself
            Longways
In the window’s reflection of the
            Dark night
    The face was plain, plump, sad
    An albino apple on a
Dispropotionate dissappointment
    Of a lower half
No shining feature
    Save Otis
    Jolly Old Englishman
    Firmly planted around my middle
White, no, yellow marks
        The only proof that I can
        Bounce back
    From touch
An unspecial embrace
    That he gives to women
        Far more genetically blessed
My head
    My heart
        Must make up for …
            Everything else
    I have loved erringly
    And looked longingly
To my credit
    I am a realist
I will never get anything I do not
                Deserve
I tempt no man to distraction
Personality only takes you so far
            In love
I am a realist

——

My bones are glassy frozen
Twin icicles connected by a jointed ice cube
Frozen frozen freezing cold
Sami ice queens
Shivering, waiting for the midnight sun
Cold hearts,
    Cold bones,
        Cold hooves
Wrapped in snowy furs
Spangled with fire opals
    Of the deepest black

One Big Banquet

“One big banquet … Meat for the bugs”
- The Things They Carried - Tim O’Brian

All we are
Future meals for future creatures
Conqueror worms and beetles
Crawling from our eyes and under our skin
Macabre beautiful moving patterns
Like a raised kaleidoscope underneath the flesh
Rolling and bruising
Eating me alive

My Book

You will show up in the beauty of my discontent
Your secrets are not safe with me
Subconsciously you inform my sight
Subconsciously your life is a book in my library
I sweat stories
Of counterculture princesses and young men
Practically babies
Twisted and abused
When I was filled with miracles and horror
You were smoking weed laced with PCP outside Gilman
Your entire history is twisted up into my sweat glands
It is not safe
I swear I don’t mean it
But then
I swear a lot
One day you will read about yourself
It will be a self that only you and I recognize
You are a book
My book
Sitting on my shelf

Faith of a Different Sort

Keep faith, my half empty Icarus
You can fill yourself by your own light
It is the want, not the need, which is beautiful
A man, winged, stands in the dark
She pulls the chain
Bottled light
And he begins to melt
Does he mind the lack of wings?
Is the compromise satisfying?
Forgoing complete freedom
In exchange for love
How can he think through the sweat and blood?
Dripping heavy with the heat
I am wax
I have become wax
Sculpt and un-sculpt myself
Until it is too soft to mold

Illusion/Dillusion

It was as if totally unrelated things had been mashed together to create reality.

Different climates and faces and scents mingled in a state of general confusion.

I knew this once.  My fingertips feel rougher.  More fluid, less connected. 

Unraveling.  Disconnect.  No glue.  Pinwheel galaxies boing like tumbleweeds between my cerebral hemispheres.

Dizzy dizzy dizzy dizzy.  We all fall down.  Comprehend the uncomprehendable.

These things are not totally unrelated now.  I made them mesh.  I made reality.  My world.  My fingertips.  My fall.

Untitled

It is his heart that is oxidizing
Rusted flakes scattering in the gale
Chipped paint glows gold in the sun
Even if it lies dun when dusk settles
Weathering and erosion
There goes the aorta, now the ventricle
Boulders over a cliff

The sea tries to cradle the pieces
As they are bashed against the shore
Grating slowly, methodically past
It is her mind that has broken
She’s lost control again
An endless cycle, rising and falling
Grasping at organs

In Between Time

In between time
In – between - time

Only the – pause – can tell

The time before
And since
Does not matter for the ones caught

In – be – tween

Existing in the moments that do not exist

Imagining Summer

I thought of you tonight, sitting by the fire.
The plasma engulfed popping pine logs.
Water crystallized around polluting particulates
And succumbed to gravity, one pane of glass away.
The book in my lap smelled of bookstores and skin
And the coffee in the Moomin mug
That you hate.
The flue doesn’t work, and the smoke trails
Around me.  It smells like summer.
I thought of you tonight, imagining summer.

Control

I say that you bleed
Continuously, from your very pores
I say that you suffer
Cruelly, by mine own hand and yours
I say that you laugh
Pull mirth from your seething
I say that you obey
Rather than me leaving

Hypothetical One Sided Conversations

  I am so scared.  Scared that you will take one look at my bumpy skin, my endless rolling hills of fat, my status as a deity of distastefulness, and despise me for it.  I am not the girl you last saw, shining imperfectly pure in the low light.  You will not see me.  I cannot let you.  Is it lying by omission to withhold from you the sight of my greatest shame?  I swear I know.  How can I know?  Drawing on past experiences with men, I can only conclude that my current figure will be the line, the straw that broke your ever patient back, the end.  I have asked so much of you.  You have given so much to me.  How can I betray you by asking you to accept me as I am, when I am like this?  I do not fit in with your world.  Your word is self-confident, no boundaries, and thin.  Who am I to subject you to the jeers of your family and friends?  Who am I to expect you to withstand the taunts leveled at me?  This is not your body.  It is not your responsibility to accept, or fix, or love.  Who am I to ask you to love someone who cannot love themselves fully?  I guess it would be accurate to say that my self-hatred is only skin deep, or fat deep.  Whatever works? 
    Honestly, I am terrified of your rejection of my physical self.  I have been called ugly.  I have been called fat.  I have been called disgusting.  I hold these words closer to my heart than any declaration of love.  Because love can be taken away, but not hatred.  I have accepted these words as truth, and it would kill me for you to validate that truth.  It would be the final proof to me that I am beyond … love, acceptance, beauty.  But who am I to put this on you?  I create this flawed structure.  I allow myself to be destroyed by hateful words, because I know no different.  No.  I accept no different.  Somehow I have decided subconsciously that it will protect my heart to accept all the hatred and spite as truth. If I have been killed once, I cannot be killed again.  But to be called ugly or disgusting, or a bitch?  Day after day; it is like dying all over again, every single time.      And I tell myself it is true and that it is all my own fault.  So really.  Who am I to ask you to deal with all this?  My brain will outlast my body’s usage, but who can love a brain?  That is all I have to give you; my brain, my love, and my honesty.  I have only myself to offer.  I’m sorry.

Ghost Lanterns

Three lights in a shallow wood
Casting sunlight on the snow
Three lights together
It warms my blood
Three lights that no one will ever know
Bobbing gently as the hum
Electrical spectral shadows glow
Three lights on an overgrown lawn
Three lights disappear with coming dawn

The Future

“For the first time I am older than I’ve dreamed of being” – Allen Ginsburg

I want a cat
That I’ll name General Mao
And dress up in red collars with pyramid studs
But I’m no communist
Not that it would be a bad thing if I was

I’ll skate around the world
Country by country
Until my lover calls me home
Saying my portion of the rent
Is overdo by longer
Than we’ve been together

My hair will be the color of my mood
And I’ll dress like Patti Smith did
When she was trying to get Mapplethorpe
To love her again
Except with a little more Elvira
And some leather

I will have a metallic pumpkin
With four wheels and a motor
And a decal of a flock of bats
What they’re running from
I don’t know
Maybe I’m just going too fast
So fast
That they can’t keep up

I’m going to live teetering
On a cliff by the ocean
Maybe in Mendocino or something
And I’ll write poetry everyday
And my lover will make coffee
Because he knows
That the brown liquid of life
Is what brought us together in the beginning
Besides grey matter and pheromones
Of course

I’ll live ‘til I’m desiccated
And they’re trying to get rid of me
Because I smell like old people
And patchouli
General Mao will be long buried
And my lover’s heart
Will sit on a shelf
in my teetering house
And watch me write
About how old I am.

Eyes

   ::(EYES)::
Begin retina scan:
        Reveal: nothing
    Hard drive: erased
        Soul: raped
    Body: empty
        Shell: beyond repair
           Violation: complete
           Effect: totaL
            ::END PROGRAM::

Begin

End of line
    So much lost
        Yet to begin
    Plasma flickering in its own light
        Illuminating only that within
    Deliver unto us a life anew
        Quote old future too
    Take off
        BEGIN
    War drums of the future’s past
Beep boop
        Empathy.  Anticipation.
    FEEL!
        It. Is. Here.

Dream State

In the dream state
There is a cloud
constricting my mind, like a subtle snake
Pulsing pressure
Closing the fatalistic embrace more and more with each beat of that noble muscle
Thump thump … thump thump … thump thump
My heart is in my finger tips
Sending out Morse code against every surface that I reach out to
What is it saying?
Here beats a heart desperate for
Love?
                Affection?
                    Validation?
I create my own dignity
I tell my heart what message to impart
Thump thump … thump thump … thump thump

An exaggeration of emotion

I am my own master
I torture myself
Ripping the skin from my chest in strips
Experimenting on my mind
How much hate and pain can I take?
Barbed wire, metaphorical of course,
Prevents my escaping the hell-camp I locked myself in
Stuck in a pattern of pain and poor poetry,
I mash my head into the screen
In reality, keyboard face is the worst of my afflictions

The Beginning of Something Better than Mediocre

So I've been searching for a place to publicly post my poetry, flash fiction, and other such randomness for a while.  I looked into submitting my work to online publications or zines, but they often charge money and in many cases I would completely lose control of what happened to my work.  None of that sounded appealing to me.  A friend of mine mentioned a blog, and I thought it couldn't hurt.  Best case, people love it.  Worst case, no one reads it.  Either way, it can't hurt too bad!  Let's do this!