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
Monday, June 27, 2011
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.
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.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
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 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
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
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
Saturday, June 25, 2011
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.
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.
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
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?
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?
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.
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.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
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?
Saturday, June 11, 2011
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.
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
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
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?
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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 …
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?
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
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
- 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
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
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.
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
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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 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.
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
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
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!
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