Puke Poetry

The last two weeks.

2008-07-13T10:59:00.000-07:00

A week and a half ago I hurt my shoulder while avoiding a dog that ran in front of me on the bike path that takes me all the way from my apartment building in Seward out to the nice borderline-suburban house of a fantastic woman where I do yard work and clean the house and take on various projects indoors and out and play with her monstrous half-Russian Mastiff half-Pit Bull named Kingsford, whom I love deeply. If I hadn’t been a stoned retard it might not have even happened, though not in the anti-drug commercial way where you DO DRUGS and do something gawdawful because of the DRUGS and forever regret it. It was just that I had spent the hours before going out there with Ian and Ian is one of my favorite people in the world. He’s small like me, and heavily tattooed with all of these awesome old school designs and wears raggedy clothes and a baseball cap with the brim turned up. He’s from Milwaukee, too. Ian is my drugs buddy. Most days that we can mash our schedules together he’ll come over to my apartment or we’ll run errands in his turquoise station wagon missing a ton of parts and smoke bowl after bowl with the windows rolled up. Sometimes we’ll stop at gas stations and he’ll return to the car with his waistband full of Butterfingers and gum.

That week Kim (the woman who I work for) was out of town and I was kind of house sitting. I was only going to stay there a couple nights, but work a ton the other days while the house was devoid of other people and the dog – it was just me and the three cats - Harry, Cowboy, and Bark. So I was riding out there in the evening, still before the sun went down – it was early July so the sun wouldn’t end up bowing out until after nine anyways. Me and Ian and my best friend/probably life partner Mary had gone to Punk Rock Church with my dad’s rusty old road bike latched into the rack on the top of Ian’s car. On the way there, Ian and I smoked a bunch of weed in hopes of enabling our tiny bodies to be able to eat more food. This was a weekly ritual. Punk Rock Church isn’t so much church as it is church people at this church in Uptown feeding people generally delicious dinners for free and setting out boxes of almost stale bread for us to take home and not have to dumpster. They didn’t even preach or hand out pamphlets to us. I explained to Mary that they were acting as they think Jesus would (feeding the poor, blah blah) and so we would be inspired to also live in a similar manner, a manner that necessitates a deep seeded love for our Lord Jesus Christ and the big, sometimes-benevolent-sometimes-vengeful man upstairs. That’s dumb and sneaky, Mary responded. The punk rock part of the name stems from the large percentage of punks that attended this weekly feeding. This week it was slightly-too-sweet sloppy joes, potato salad oozing with mayonnaise, green beans, corn on the cob, salad, and upside pineapple cake with ice cream. We inhaled what we could.

After dinner we got my bike down off of Ian’s car and I took off one way and they drove the other. I rode down Lyndale to 29th and turned down until I came to Bryant. Like always I stopped and drank a bunch of water before latching my bag up and flying down the entrance path to the Greenway. It had been pretty warm earlier in the day but now with the sun dipping down around the edges, the breeze was refreshing and it was a really nice ride. I found the perfect gear to ride on after a lot of mid-ride fiddling (my dad’s bike that I was now riding had been sitting in my parent’s garage for ten years and was completely without of grease and had some rust here and there) and I was flying. The best part about riding the Greenway is how nice and flat it is which compared to Minneapolis’ relatively uneven and hilly surface streets is a miracle. There were a lot of people out that night. People who spent all day at desks and came home at night to change into spandex racing suits and zoom along on their $2000 Treks with douche-baggy aerodynamic helmets on, people pushing their kids in strollers, couples out holding hands and being revolting, huge families walking three abreast, people rollerblading (as if they hadn’t gotten the memo about rollerblades being totally lame), and as I would run into later, people walking their dogs. Along part of the path, past Uptown, a set of train tracks runs parallel to the Greenway and that night there was a train going through and to my delight I was going faster than the train. My thighs were burning from the resistance of the pedals, but every rotation rocketed me forward and I felt incredibly powerful. I soon found myself racing the train, loving how the wind felt on my shaved head and bare shoulders and marveling at some of the huge tags painted on the sides of the cars. I wondered fleetingly if there were traveling kids on board that train; Minneapolis was crawling with traveling kids now that summer had hit. The train was blocking traffic that I was able to zoom through. Entranced by the speed I was going and how little I was wheezing I looked around and realized that I had no idea where I was. I’d made this commute a ton of times by now and all of a sudden I was crossing a bridge I’d never seen in my life. I was still on the trail but had I magically transferred to a different one? The woods were denser than they were closer to the city and I crossed a sparsely populated street. Fuck, I am lost, I’m pretty sure I said out loud.

I slowed down and at a break in foot traffic hung a u-banger (a really gross sounding way of saying “u-turn” that I can’t help but use) and started heading back. With the train blocking the streets I must have missed my turn off. I thought it was hilarious. I was so zoned out and full, or maybe so zoned in on riding my bike and beating the train and the fire ripping through my thighs and the air catching ever so slightly in my throat that I’d completely overshot my mark, by over a mile I came to find out. I was getting into my stride again, peeling carefully through the foot and two wheeled traffic when a dog on an inappropriately long leash bounded in front of my bike. I had about five feet to react. I jerked my handlebar to the left where I would not hit the owner because they were fifteen feet behind their dog. In doing so, my backpack, which was holding my rather formidable laptop, my hardcover journal, several books, and a u-lock, slid and slammed into the back of my right shoulder, causing my hand to jerk off the handlebar. While managing to stay on my bike and correcting myself and not hitting that goddamned dog, a ripping, tearing, burning pain spread through my shoulder and I yelled out loud. I might have yelled FUCK! but I’m not sure. The pain in my shoulder was making my eyes water and now the rest of my arm felt light and floaty and like I wasn’t making contact with the bike at all. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. I pulled off to the side by a white wire bench and hopped off my bike. I slid my now regrettably heavy back pack off and clutched my shoulder still wincing and displaying my extensive curse-word vocabulary. Glaring at the backs of the oblivious dog and its oblivious owner I rolled my shoulder experimentally to no non-excruciating-pain avail. I slowly shook my arm, praying as much as an atheist can that the feeling would come back in my arm. After a minute or so it did and my shoulder agreed to just throb, so I carefully put my back pack on and mounted my bike and took off, checking carefully for roving dogs.

The next morning when I woke up I couldn’t move my shoulder from my side without tears popping out of my eyes, like my arm was a lever for the waterworks. After a handful of ibuprofen and a half hours consideration I decided I shouldn’t just ignore it and should just suck it up and go to the clinic campus and get it checked out. I called Kim and told her what happened and told her I was going to the doctor but don’t worry I’d still get out to her house the rest of the week to water the flowers and feed the cats and maybe vacuum later in the week if nothing else. She encouraged my doctor visit and told me to call her with an update when I have one. Thus far, being relatively independently employed has resulted in some fantastic bosses. I rode my bike down the Greenway to Bryant to 29th to Lyndale to Franklin, doing my best not to put pressure on my right arm and moaning a little every time a bump in the road jarred its way up to my shoulder, and caught the 2 bus to campus. On the way I called Mary and told her about the incident; Maybe they’ll give you loopy pills, she said. Maybe they WILL give me loopy pills, I thought. At that point they could have given me anything to stop the pain in my shoulder and I would have started a religion around their greatness. I called my mom to tell her that her eldest daughter was minorly retarded and probably injured and I just thought she should know. She wanted to know did I dislocate my shoulder and I sure as fuck hope I didn’t was my answer. She sure as fuck hoped I hadn’t too, she assured me. Call her with an update when I have one.

Two hours, two nurses, one doctor, three x-rays and a lot of painful poking and prodding later I had a sling on my right arm, notes for work, and a prescription for oxycodone. They did give me loopy pills after all. I rode the last leg of my journey home, through the Mall, across the footbridge, through West Bank, up 20th, down the little short cut path to 9th and home on 21st. All I wanted to do was sit down, put a bag of frozen stir fry veggies on my shoulder, eat a couple pills, and cry.

My bosses all agreed that I shouldn’t be working, partly out of concern for my well being and comfort and partly so they wouldn’t be liable for contributing to my injury and so I had an empty week gaping ahead of me with a ton of unfinished house products, a half eighth and fifteen loopy pills. I quickly found out that oxycodone, plus my daily meds (two different kinds of anti-depressants), and weed made me feel amazing and buzzy and melting-into-the-couch-y, and made Dr. Phil and Oprah fascinating and come evening instilled me with a manic need to be productive.

And now I’m sitting here on a Friday night, almost two weeks later with a conclusive verdict on my injury. Earlier this week I went to a nice better-groomed-Santa-ish sports medicine doctor who told me that he thought that when I ate shit off the front of my bike a few months ago I displaced some cartilage in my shoulder and consequently tore my rotator cuff in avoiding a canine collision last week. That is great, just great. He told me to lay off work, quit using my arm, ice it, and here’s some hydrocodone (Oxycodone may as well be horse tranquilizers, he told me). Before I saw him though, his nurse took me into the examination room and asked me questions and took my blood pressure and temperature and weight down. I think she was Haitian and I liked listening to her talk. Until, after a long pause during which she stared at the computer screen, clicking away mysteriouly, she looked up and asked me if I’ve been sexually or physically abused. My mind blanked and I was physically and mentally taken aback. For therapist and lady-doctor appointments I prepare myself for that question – apparently I felt an unreasonable sense of security in describing my shoulder injury and not expecting a question like that to come up. Shaking my head rapidly, a little dazed, I said Uh, not recently? She looked up at me and asked me if I had been in the past. Staring at my toes and reluctant to answer I said yes and when she asked if it were sexual or physical I muttered Sexual to my knees. Ok then and she left the room.

At this point I have been on drugs, high or just buzzed, for almost two weeks and I have enough to last me another day or two. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time even though I’m missing work, which kind of drives me crazy. I’ve painted two walls in my living room (with limited motion of my right arm of course) and two walls in my bedroom, patched pants, worked on random sewing projects and started making a quilt. I’ve also read a ton. In fact right now I’m battling with myself to keep writing because I have Valencia by Michelle Tea sitting open at my knee half read and damn if I don’t want to dive back in. But this special combination of mostly prescribed-to-me medications has made me feel like writing for the first time in months.

achievements

2008-06-09T20:22:00.001-07:00

list your achievements:
fill in the blank.
there's a lot of gaping line space.

well, dear reader, evaluator:
i feel a little more alive today
than i did yesterday,
and that's something.

i left my ghetto fabulous
hometown in a sprawling
city's clothing
near a year ago.
it's been the best decision
i've ever made.
and that's something.

i've survived rape, abuse,
control, deception, and shame,
and i will someday
have my revenge
on the source of these
battle scars.
and that's something.

i've gained eight pounds
in weight and muscle
since i dropped below 107
last august.
i'm still small,
but i'm strong and
more than able.
and that's something.

i wake up every day
and remember to breathe
and am finally condfident
in my capabilities as a living being.
that's something, and really,
all i need.

Severe Weather Watch

2008-06-09T20:20:00.001-07:00

my three cats
they stand confused
by the wind whipping
the trees around
like they were rubber
they're staring intently
through my raised
first floor screens
posted in a line
on the back of
my and their
favorite armchair
watching, tense and alert
like they're waiting
like they've caught the scent
of something, and it's telling them
that something is coming.

in search of

2008-05-24T06:07:00.001-07:00

i've been finding myself
searching for your face
in every crowd, in every door
on every bus and street
i don't even know your name
and still i've got this
unbridled hope and ball of nerves
sitting home in my stomach
they all ask about the
cuts and bruises, scars and tattoos
no one's seen the blood
under my fingernails yet
lucky since i don't know where it's from
and maybe someday i'll see you
in passing and your words will be
a breeze across dripping sweat shoulders
and maybe you'll tell me to get ready,
the storm's comin.

2008-05-16T09:02:00.000-07:00

so we slipped between our sheets of words
and i lost you somewhere in between
i ain't pretty when i cry
cause it's what i look like on the inside
which is where i told you part of me is dead
and you nodded like you knew
and i said let me keep my secrets please
i know you won't look at me the same again
they never do
but i whispered them straight to your mouth
we shared that breath that was a knife
between my ribs
and i said i'm waiting til tomorrow
to see if you take off and run
i won't be mad because i already know
it's nothing new
you told me don't worry
"i'll be here in the morning"
but that's not quite what i meant

i breathe free next to you
and i'm sorry that might stop

Explain to me again about absence?

2008-02-05T22:41:00.000-08:00

The ugliest stories you can tell are thinly veiled truths and the rooms we leave gaping aren’t waiting for new residents because they’ve been there longer than we know, lurking, biding their time because they can, because we have none. We hid ours and induced amnesia hoping for the greater good to glow brighter than the moon since we could only breathe together once the sun hit the dirt. But one look at our wounded and bruised feet and paths will tell a story older than anything and emptier than nothing. We reflect and absorb love lost and love absent - radiate human condition inhumanly well. I never promised you anything and you always floated up near the ceiling skimming the limits of the space provided and finding none because of it. The last time we really looked at one another for what we were and weren’t – what we’d maintained all along and what we’ll never express – for the comfort of flaws and imperfections – has been just beyond reach for a few months now and I don’t know if fonder is what I’m growing.

Natural Reaction

2008-02-05T22:19:00.000-08:00

i've got grimy, stained windows
to watch this story through
but all i'm watching now
is all of the corners come loose

you learn how to whisper
when you're cold
how to make yourself heard
and when to encourage oblivion
you learn how to slide
in and out of focus
second and third thoughts
but never home, cause you've got none

i lost you
somewhere out there
breathing in dead air
and sunrises
dancing til you fall apart
staring, staring, silently
til there's nothing left.
nothing but the words behind their eyes
but they'll burn eventually
we all have to blink sometime.

Adventure

2008-02-05T22:11:00.000-08:00

i woke up this morning
knowing the opposite of full-well
where i was going or what i was doing
just certain that one time or another
had come
and i
carried half of my life thus far
strapped to my back
and the other half hung from chains
themselves heart-held
and i found the cave
i'm predestined to dwell in
the cliff i dreamed about
two years past four still
and i'm walking blind with no light
but my hands are telling me
the stories the lipless walls and eyeless dark
never could.
and my chest went from cavern
to scream
in one tear drop
one moment left for
someone elses cards to read right
i'm echoing like a secret spit into
the night sky
before anyone could stop it.
we've met before and we know
what this breath held open door means
we ease through collapsing sides
and sighs sing us to sleep
before we know what hit us.

i do recall

2008-01-26T16:16:00.000-08:00

i remember
the shallow breathing
sound of your sleep
and the security that seeped in
sitting there next to you
i remember
the secrets we were supposed
to keep
and the spectacle we made
of what was supposed to be sly
every time that reckless
happiness crossed your face
the light behind your eyes
when you looked into mine
the impossibility of
the situation we crafted
i remember
talking to you
when you were sober
it's been awhile
i remember
you not letting me
hide from pain, blockade my brain
every now and then
i remember
a certain night, a certain party
and a certain first of many
snuck next to a certain garage
i remember conceding and compromising
and i remember
walking away.

i wondered who we were fighting
all that time
but now i know that i'm in bed with the enemy
because that enemy
is me.

leave

2008-01-13T20:02:00.000-08:00

to that part of me, that part of my brain, whichever part of me that's dead and that's cold - the part of me that's not quite right - the part that doesn't make me an old soul, just too old for my age - the part that's always boiling, always seething, on the edge, ripping and tearing - the part that's permanently shut down, locked out - that part, that part of my puzzle...
leave. just leave.
i can't breathe and i can't trust or get close - i can't open up or let myself fall - i'm blind, not healing, just rotting, just stewing...
just leave.
if i could pinpoint the location, i'd be there with a scalpel in the blink of an eye - carefully remove every last molecule - it's just not fair to anyone - i'm not feeling anything...
just leave.
prophecized when i was a baby - two words and eery accuracy - he looked at me and said "ice queen" - and here i stand, as stone - every inch of my skin, drop of blood, heave of my chest - everything is icicles - nothing's real...
just leave.
what do i tell him when he asks? because he's going to. - i've got no answers - truths are just as distant to you as they are to me - remedies remain mysteries and my lips are stitched...
there's nothing there.

leave. just leave.

Something of a Womanifesto.

2007-12-28T20:19:00.000-08:00

Perfection is in the eye of the believer and the girl sitting in from of me with the long, mascaraed lashes and salon made hair believes in perfection with all of her heart.
There is no such thing as perfection.
Perfection is a myth.
It's subjective and situational, historical and trendy. It is a facet in the societal brainwashing that tells us, the possessors of pussies, how to look, what to think, how to act, what to eat. It is all-consuming and devours life and youth.
Life is too short to destroy yourself chasing such a vicious wet dream.
Just because you stop looking and listening doesn't mean the patriarchal clutch has released - it's just evolved and lulled you into a false sense of security.
It's hips, tits, lips, and ass - stay focused. It's never our hearts, minds, work, and words - stay focused.
They've got t-shirts telling us "Girl Power" and "We Can Do It" - but no one, especially not the cunt-bearing we, should need reminding.
We are and always have been the backbone of what's called civilization.
We are the life-givers, the story-tellers, the lovers, and the warriors.
Every human being holds one identical bit of knowledge - the first thing we knew was the womb.
They've got us hating our beautiful bodies and thinking that laws have some hold over them. They've got us turning on ourselves, ladies. They've got us judging and hating, dismissing rather than relating. They've been beating us down for centuries - feeding us false prophecies and destinies.
We're only as broken, we're only as voiceless, we're only as weak as we let ourselves be.
Our hands do not belong politely folded atop our ankle crossed laps - they belong clenched, ready to fight, thrown to the sky.
A fist in the air and a finger in their face.
We are not breeders, we are not places to make bruises, we are not objects, we are not disposable.
We are miraculous and amazing, we have voices and unspeakable power -
and no one,
NO ONE,
can stop us
if we don't let them.

Uncovered.

2007-11-07T17:10:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you find old journals and read things and think to yourself "Damn, a lot has changed." Found and read this and am really happy about how far I've come in just a month. But there's something important about putting these things into the world. Here goes.

Part of me is still dead.
It's the part that holds on to people. It's the longevity of my caring. It's the lifespan of my patience. It's the muscle behind my trust. It's my belief in planning for the future.
It's what I see in the mirror. it's what keeps me in bed until the last possible moment. It's my newly short temper. It's my scorn and cynicism. It's why I don't believe in anything any more. It's why there's no heaven or hell or before or after. It's every ache in my body. It's why I suddenly feel frantic and disjointed and like the air in my lungs isn't enough. it's why these words that I'm writing are being screamed in my head. It's why I will never be enough. It's everything I've lost and what I'll never gain. It's why I fear weakness more than anything else. It's how I learned to hate.
Part of me is still dead.
It's been almost a year.
I've moved on and along from what I thought was love. What I can't let go of is what was left behind.
I've fucked two others and I've moved 350 miles away.
But everything still hurts.

There's a furnace in my chest growing too big for the world, let along my tiny bones.
Burning everything down.
Destroyers, destroyers.
I am a monster.
Lose weight, clearly think.
The pounds are rolling off, but the fog's rolling in.
Destroyers.
An ache for touch and caring.
Spreading.
Crying makes me ugly because it's my inside showing.
This is the sound of one girl dying.
This is my holy ground.
And maybe I'll rise someday,
but it won't be some day soon.

I wish you would hear me.
You out there: elusion, illusion.

My bones are made of sand.
And my mind is sliding down the walls, making tails that look just like home.
copper on my tongue.
I don't want to hear another word.
Forgiving comes naturally.
Forgetting is hell.
Forgetting is impossible.
Absolution is a myth, a wet dream.
All I want is to slide my fingers into the caves of freedom and redemption and make them come with me.
My hearbeat's echoing through my chest.
Nobody's coming to save me.
No answers are wirtten on pages or walls.
Burn the world, clearly think.
No masters, no fortunes, no omens.
I'll paint my own life [clearly think].
I can still taste your judgement, even with this distance writhing between us.
You are no mbetter than me.
You have no high horse to sit on.
Clearly think.
This'll have no end, til I spit the beginning out, full with blood and teeth at the side of the street.
I'ts not over. This fight isn't over.

Clearly think.
Clearly think.

A new porch.

2007-10-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

I breathe in.
I take everything from the air that I can.
I breathe out.
I give it back to the world.

I sit on a small wooden table, painted a few times too many. This table serves a dual purpose beyond being a junk piece of furniture abandoned by a former tenant at a borderline junk piece of property. It holds open the broken front screen door on the enclosed front porch on the boarding house turned apartment buildling I now call home. And right now, it's serving as a seat.
It's a Sunday morning, though barely.
11:30am.

I'm still in sweats and yesterdays t-shirt with a second-hand sweatshirt pulled over. My feet are bare and I find myself wishing that they weren't. I'm hungover; my brain feels swollen, my eyes feel too heavy to keep in my sockets, I'm insatiably thirsty, my muscles ache, and my stomach lining feels freeze dried.

It is absolutely pouring outside. I'm watching from my seat on the porch with a cigarette clamped between my fingers. I bring the filter to my lips, suck in the smoke, move the cigarette back down to waist level, let the smoke begin to curl out of my mouth and inhale it back in through my nose. Exhale.
A french inhale. French.
I do this now without thinking. I learned how while lying in a twin sized bed one night with a guy I don't talk to anymore.

Repeat, repeat.

I'm staring out, into the street and across it. A senator lives in the gray house. It's nice and modest enough. I bet she doesn't do her own yard work though.

The water draining through our aged and rusty gutters is falling rapidly to the front steps in thick columns. There's not enough time to focus on one strain before it's broken and another one has taken its place.
Gray skies, cold breeze.

An internal debate on the merits of a beer for a hangover cure; it might work, and I'm generally a fan of beer, but the idea of beer in my angry, empty stomach makes the nerves in my arms cringe.
And Jesus Christ does my back ever hurt. I need a massage.
I need a baked potato. I want someone to make me a huge breakfast. Fried eggs and bacon. And hashbrowns. And vat of orange juice. Finish with coffee.
I'm thinking about hollendaise sauce, eggs benedict, asparagus. Mother's Day. And Hi-Fi. And Webb's Benedict, though a cheesy bastadization - still delicious.

Inhale. Release. Inhale more.
Full exhale.
I fucking hate Camel Lights.

I'm inwardly grateful that I don't have to work today, but not because I don't like my job.
Because I don't want to bike or walk in the rain. I don't want to scrounge up bus fare. And I'm hungover.

Cigarettes never last long enough, especially when you're trying to quit. I flick the butt out the door and it drowns upon contact with the sidewalk.

I think about someone for half a minute.
I miss them. A lot.

I have a book to read and a baked potato to cook and eat.

Nothing really happens here.
This is just the first fifteen minutes after I regain consciousness.

Three new ones from the land of the Vikings.

2007-09-07T11:03:00.000-07:00

on foot

i used to have pretty feet
and now they're gnarled
and summer colored
sandal tans and sidewalk dirt
and leather-like soles
from constant shoe abandonment
badly healed toe bones
and long chipped pink polish

i walked to get coffee and booze
cigarettes, food, and friends
to increase blood flow
and sober myself up
i walked morning-after hurt away
i ran for buses and from old flings
i tripped and i fell
and i stubbed every toe
i stumbled barefooted
and traveled perfectly in 4 inch heels
i was hunted and hunted
i was at the right and the wrong place
plenty of times

i walked the poison out
and i've got rib and hip bones
protruding thanks to it
but damned it the breaths
aren't coming easier

i could pack my bags and never come back
or i could throw my baggage out the window
and let these poor feet rest.

intention

i think this whole stumbling over our words bit can stop at any time.
it's been discussed and decided:
thing > fling.
and this most certainly was
and by all accounts still is
and may continue to be
A THING.
it's for a lack of better term or word
and certainly for a lack of certainty
and conviction.
the distance is measured in miles
and travel time
now.
it's everythign we ever took for granted
about each other
about said "thing"
rolled up into one big wrecking ball
a bird of prey, if you will,
though typically
you won't.
everything's the same though -
nothing's changed really.
save for my place of
residence -
where i'm calling "home"
this year,
for now.
but that alteration
that glitch in our pattern
that changes everything,
doesn't it?
unfamiliar words flying to
ears unaccostumed to
the admissions of the day -
a day, granted, seemingly
a week too late.
how many days were contained in that six month span?
how many breaths?
and what do you multiply that by to calculate the life-span of this new-found regret?
i am just as i was
right this second
as i was before this even started.
i remain the same human being
one to whom loyalty
is compulsary
and it's till there
beating away like
someone elses heart
jpumping blood to some place
or another.
and this is where the physical "there"
becomes a memory,
a facet in a long-winded story.
this is where we run into
late night calls
and a sudden bought of honesty.
where i become a commodity
my presence and self
coveted
beyond all previous belief.

but we've got our hands tied, don't we?
we've got steps
and hwole paths
to choose carefully.
sure we've got option and solutions
but not an ounce of confidence
in any of them.

so for now, the best conclusion we can come to
is that you've got some sitting
to do
some scenery to view
and some leg cramps to walk off
after five hours in a car.

i miss you,
i do.

welcome

and so this is God
and so this is home
so this is the ice age
we've all been praying for
so this is distance
so this is lonely
this looks a lot like
an empty inbox
a lot like words and hopes
all lost in flight
even before they got their wings.
so this is the rambling
you'll never hear
this is me knocking on wood
for too good to be true.
and so this is free
and this is lost
this is night-long
stomping across my ceiling.
this is the phone call
i'll never make
please listen carefully
please take down notes.
this here is what i'd say:
"hold onto that thought
and the reasoning behind it.
i don't want to steer you
or have any hand in this -
but YES
and please do."

and so this pen is all i've got left.

2007-09-06T22:13:00.001-07:00

she asked me didn't i think i was a little old for, a little too mature for, a bit beyond this or that.
and i hated the way her mouth looked when she pronounced the letter "o". it was ugly and puckered and entirely unattractive. she was not an ugly woman. not what i'd call beautiful, but certainly not ugly.
but all it wanted to do was make her swallow her teeth. every word out of her mouth was another tooth i wanted to hit the back of her throat.
palaniuk has taught me that you can swallow a pint of your own blood before you puke. this is not something i have tested personally though i may in fact review that portion of my life in future and find out for myself.
i hate everyone who walks by me. crosses my path. interupts my thoughts. they're too friendly here. i'm used to milwaukee where we'll talk to just about anyone, but fuck if we'll trust you farther than we can kick you. everyone talks here. i talked for two blocks with an old man about the tourist opportunities in milwaukee, and honestly, the lack thereof.
i am in awe of the people i know and love.
i miss some people so deeply. i never thought i would or could like i am but here i am and there i'm not.
i've not got what i want.
my back and joints are achy and i've no reason to get out of my futon mattress (ain't got a bed) in the morning. but i do and i manage to be mildly productive and i tell myself that the day has been a success.
i told myself that i was going to stop smoking. then i told myself i was going to start rolling my own cigarettes. and then i bought the cheapest pack of cigarettes i could find. they cost me three dollars and fifty cents. they look awful, but camel's cost five dollars and i'm too much of a twitch to effectively roll my own and quitting at this point in my life and stresses is not an option.
addiction is not an option but i've got mine well timed and on a time line.
and the orange non-original contents of my water bottle are oddly orange and taste awful. but they don't need to taste good. they need to do their job and they are. doing their jobs that is.

my bed sheets are jersey. they feel like the biggest oldest t-shirt you've ever slept in. but covering your whole body.
they were my finest $20 investment.

taking stock

2007-08-23T19:33:00.001-07:00

i have a lot of hopes in my belly, mushroom dirt on my hands, and work at ten am.
i have scars that show where i've been, who i've been, and how i learned to hate.
i have a full size bed that never fails to feel and be empty.
i have words living in my throat that will never pass my lips.
i have one hundred and eight pounds and they'll never be enough.
i have a new life waiting for me in a city i've been to once.
and i'm scared that once i'm there... nothing will stop hurting.

Same Old Saying

2007-08-22T08:43:00.000-07:00

sing it, sing it
sing it again
for this
love of
tunnel vision.

'cause baby
just because you
can't see the cage
around you -
that doesn't mean
you're free.

Follow

2007-08-15T17:30:00.001-07:00

if you
let your fingers
and affections
follow the path
past the daisies
you'll find yourself
exactly where we've been
since march

nothing's changed
and the words
are just the same

Prophetic Silences

2007-08-15T17:26:00.000-07:00

holy chaos
new order of being
we are the
cries and war paint
of the fallen
and ascended
the cold earth
on still warm hearts
the two clutched palms
of the life-givers
and story-tellers
these scars
run like rivers
and paint their pasts
and scream their sermons
these reminders
stand taller than mountains
but they'll never
manage to massacre
merely to strengthen
and light fires
in heaving chests

One of Those Nights

2007-08-15T17:22:00.000-07:00

it's the soft
and steady slap
of bare feet
on city summer concrete
it's screaming law enforcement
as soothing white noise
it's the coveted breeze
that only comes out
after two or three a.m.
we let the wind take our breath
so the words can't all spill out
we dine of the
uncertainties and guarantees
of youth
we dance like we're free
and sing til
there's not a sound left
in this world
and we love
like nobody's watching

it's the glass in my feet
and eight bruises on my legs
it's self inflicted
and unintended and unnoticed

i never wished i could fly
like i did that night
to escape from
where i wasn't
and couldn't be

This is What They Call Adventure

2007-06-17T11:15:00.000-07:00

there's no motivation to be had when june acts like march
(march itself took the liberty of mimicking january)
but that's wisconsin [life] for you
a porch at 3 am is more of a wake up call than the phone pressed next to my ear even though i'm busy praying for the call to hold
the air was filled with the remnants of dandelions gone by
and i'm inwardly thankful that i haven't been drinking or i'm sure i'd cry at the sight of what appears to be snow on an early june early morning
it moved just like snow when it settled en-masse on the street to the left
i moved just like i was still sleeping - only slightly more intentionally -
fueled by excitement and relief in the pit of my stomach
the car ride was freezing - we four avid smokers with impending doom clenched between our index and fuck you fingers, so all of the windows were wide open, spitting cold air and our own ashes into our faces.
the glory and complete lack of censors or whispers of she and i in the back seat reared it's head then - the icy wind whipping around and loud music muffled what they could
that night was an immense modern art statue of a question mark - it screamed "what the hell," but the front seat didn't hear it - one sided tension and slight aggression reigned up there
we kept warm with our proximity and full volume whispers.
then our destination was reached and he and i got out and watched my back-seat-accomplice (turned passenger) and driver drift off down the dark street
a ten-cent tour, introductions to three cats, a dog, and two sleeping roommates later, our feet were on the sidewalk, one right after the other.
we head to a misnamed park - modern art strikes again, though this time quite literally
then tip-toeing ensues and a toaster oven is retrieved from a kitchen with a sofa in it
along with a last minute fire extinguisher and the largest umbrella ever.
clever after thoughts and the second snow illusion of the night bursts from a hose onto unsuspecting cars.
a floating chemical haze is left behind in our wake.
the latest dinner or earliest breakfast in recent memory is consumed
while the rising sun eats the velvet navy night sky alive
a huge fucking knife for safety's sake
a shortly lived stream of consciousness is exchanged
early lives explained
contentedness gets in touch with affection and sleep prevails

and alarms and obligations call entirely too soon.
but we've both got heartbeats, and so our lives live on

moment upon moment, building a new day.

nothing but my mind.

2007-05-30T20:30:00.000-07:00

i'll wander and search and seek
sit and listen, breathe and scream
til there's nothing left of me
i will become immaculate and blessed
in my mansion built of nothingness
on someone else's holy ground
with patches of my own past
littering the sides of sight
creating dimension
and a sense of reality
i will watch my mind
tick tock, drip drop
slowly work it's way to lost
i will hold my heart to the sky
to be anointed by the stars
and have the scars brushed away
by a heavy, whispering wind
i will dance along this path
no compass, no map
i will give my gut the chance
to prove it's instinct
and not a bitter bone in my body
will be in the lead
and i'll let myself sink into
the fields, with their open arms
filled with what i never lost.

Torch

2007-05-30T20:06:00.000-07:00

the ashes stuck to my foot and shoe like the sides of my throat to one another when a secret was tip toeing to the surface
i hauled back
kicked all that remained of four years of words and investments and lies

i watched it, twenty minutes earlier
go up in flames
fueled with what later helped the healing
ate my heart alive, still beating
at that door
and when
my lips and eyesight began to tremble
my chest and mind joined in
and when it hit, that earthquake, that shattering moment
i was ripped right back open

every word
felt sincere at the time
i counted down the days like the end would never come
nothing seemed real then - just beyond reach
and seeing them again
after they spent so long rotting away in a dresser drawer and then a box in my closet
that was the walls closing in
faster than ever before

then it was sitting in front of me
that once silver, now cindered box
filled to the brim with
hopes, dreams, blindness, and now hindsight
nothing but
heaps of smoldering gray, black, and white
they and he burned before me
disappeared
destroyed

i know
i know deep down
that the devastation will never be mutual
it'll never be equal or fair or right
vengeance and justice will never really
come knocking at his door
but seeing the end of
every bit of evidence of his grasp
wiped my face every bit as clean as his
and reminded me
my hands
were never
the ones
soaked
in
blood.

allow me to reintroduce myself

2007-05-15T22:23:00.000-07:00

this is
the first sighting of
a new leaf
the rain making
itself the definition of
a new day
a new life
a first time breathing

with the
clouds moving as fast as they are
it's easy to see
miles down a road
named
some synonym for
"the future"

and when the sun peeks out
through sheets of relentless spring
one voice remains
absent and silent

pain pouring
and running away
from my skin
nature's baptism
makes me believe in
one foot
in front of the other
again and again
with weariness
sulking in the shadows
and a
sense of worthiness
seeping back in

i've got
lungs full of secrets
that shift into
battle cries
the moment they hit my tongue

the aches of
a looming past
will be all that remains
and the rest
i'll throw to the flames

same moon

2007-05-14T21:00:00.000-07:00

i woke up this morning - on my own, no face next to me, eyes closed, head on a pillow - feeling like i'd already
packed and ripped one - you and everything was a haze
you because of distance and the world because i can't get it away

i know the plot line - i know the beginning
and i know the end
i know the result and decadence
of dancing round and round these holy circles
dizzy and losing my way

why is your question
and because is my answer
take everything i've ever told you
and there is your answer:
i'm alone and hollowed out
my mind is a hurricane and my heart wishes it could
get back to racing
destruction is the perfect description
and i can't close my eyes without falling back into another time where all i could do was bite my lip and mind
pretending not to cry
there's no rest for the wicked
and not an ounce of disappointment when nothing is expected
that's your answer why
so that i can sleep
so that my thoughts can get quiet and fade into the background

i could pull the moon down
cause that's the only time we breathe
but i can tell you how it ends, it's us
staring to the sky thinking where the other is
and if they're doing just the same.

Along the lines

2007-05-10T11:28:00.000-07:00

First time we kissed was
Right next to my garage
In the middle of the night, before
Everyone else caught up.
Next to a wall it was a
Dart of a kiss, three
Seconds long, but I won't forget.

injury checklist

2007-05-07T22:14:00.000-07:00

i live in
a mountain
of quilts and blankets
cocoon of
secrets and guilt
mascara on my pillows
from a
liquid confession
a vault opened
arrows flew out
tipped with
flame and fear
left a mark
i can't take back

i am
the shattered bones
and massacred organs
of embracing
a speeding
oncoming
semi.

i am
the gaping hole
left by a
well-loved
perfectly angled
shotgun.

i am
all that's left
after a house
engulfed
cinders and ashes
destroyed memories.

i am a nightmare
but i breathe
and if you
close your eyes
just right
you'll see.

on fear's similarity to vomiting.

2007-05-04T02:52:00.000-07:00

overcome and
vomiting
fear
like the
homemade
moonshine
gut rot
a neighbor
provided.
face stuck
to my pillow
tears and
sweat, mixed
bit by bit.
fear and
vomit
taste
just the same
in the morning.
same
aches and pains
but
one's fleeting
and one stays.

metaphorical simile

2007-05-02T19:34:00.000-07:00

this falling is

the scent of a bonfire
clinging to shirts and sheets
like we do to our skins

of sulfur-soaked fingertips
like addiction and avoidance

it's whispering and muting
like a secret already spoken

it's shock and laughter
stories and stolen moments
we sneak for no reason
like there's glass beneath our feet
but we still walk with a stomp in our step

but down-hearted does not
begin to describe
like the hail and heartbreak
knocking at my window
in the middle of the night.

on unfortunate weight loss

2007-05-02T15:31:00.000-07:00

doing what i've come
to do best
noticing imperfections
raw skin
defined ribs
and jutting hip bones
baggy jeans
not for fashion
but from losing
weight

...and it's all
sitting on my shoulders
these days
and there is no
control
no brake petal
no emergency exit

i'm just locked up here
with myself

at war.

One Can Only Hope

2007-04-26T18:39:00.000-07:00

the walls will finally
learn to speak
when one night
you wake up cold
wishing you'd had a heart
and that crack in your
soul, quickly turning to
a gaping hole
will introduce itself
and my name will
haunt you until
your dying day.

and i'll stand up straight
hold my head up high
and i hope it hurts
i hope it
rips you limb from limb
when you're hitting bottom
and you end up nothing
and i'm just a blur
off in the distance
that you still can't reach.

let me know when
you trip and fall
and just stay down
because you've finally
realized
the world has no use
for you.

and that'll be the day
that'll be the last day
you'll ever see
a smile cross my lips
at the mention
of your name.

this means war.

2007-04-23T21:52:00.001-07:00

can we stop and talk please? can just you and me go on a walk and talk for hours? can i tell you a story? it's older than i could ever be but is everything i can be. right now,

at this moment in time, let me tell you. i've nothing but five dollars in cash, a bus pass, a pocket full of hopes, a bowl packed of green, and stone walls around me such that no army could ever pass. and i am slowly, bit by bit, allowing the stone to sink in. have it's way and influence.

and then nothing can touch me. if i am stone, solid and cold, nothing can hurt any more. stone has no memory or trauma in its past. it is still and cool and strong.

it's a far cry from here and maybe i should be there.

...floating. i am
in and out of everything. i am split, noncommittedly evenly. i am that kiss on the cheek, half quickly,
half
breathed. your hand's at my nape, mine cradles the back of your skull. and we can tip toe 'round and breathe in the smells of summer yet coming. beer is on
the breeze.

...slamming. an open door in the wind, never locked. ripped
open and pinned wall to wall with little blue location pins. slowly sinking, leaving behind every day. i am soon to be consumed by relief or release or resentment or
the the rictus you wear on your heart.

Over Seventy

2007-04-22T10:42:00.000-07:00

there's nothing like a
no longer lethargic sun
and a breeze that smells
like the birth of something
beautiful
to open my eyes up wide
and make you shine.

before, during, after: the fact

2007-04-09T12:07:00.000-07:00

there's no
breaking the habit
of breaking hearts
when your voice
is the first hit
of subzero air
assaulting lungs
and tears a like.
and there's
disbelief in my eyes
as i glance at the
words you spill onto
a useless and barren
screen.
you want to
fly 'round the world
without ever
having to leave
the ground
and you're sitting there
thinking
that intelligence grows
and glows and gleams
through wire rims
but you've merely
made yourself into
a spectacle -
the kind you used to scoff at.
you think that you're climbing
higher and higher
but what you're not seeing
is that you're in
a free fall
and you left your
parachute back here
with me
and who you used to be.

like a religion

2007-04-02T16:03:00.000-07:00

i'm not waiting for a sign from God
i'm not expecting for the sky to open up
and to rain answers down on me
i have no expectations of simplicity and ease
i am not counting on miraculous healing

cause my chest is still cracked open
and my heart is hiding from my sleeve
and the hole in my life
is not where you once were
but where i never learned to be

disgust, regret, hatred, and shame
that's what's coursing through my veins

when i can forget everything
is the only time i can breathe
oblivion is the gleam in my eye
and amnesia is what i wish for
not on shooting stars, i count on shooting blanks

round of applause, and a pause,
a moment of absolute, perfect silence
for feeling completely hollow inside
let's make that moment,
that still, that hush,
that point of realization, confession
and absolution
last forever.

Look Alive!

2007-04-02T14:08:00.000-07:00

the word "myth" keeps popping up -
uglier than a bad habit
hits harder than
a fist to the cheek, chin, or teeth

and my heart's beating
like the end is looming
my tears feel the pressure
perfection is suffocating
and in the eye of
someone i can only call foe

and i can only
shake the images
illustrated memories
with blunt force and a haze
otherwise
they're clear as day
here to stay

but i sugar coat
and i blow over
and black out all the pictures
and fill up the voids
or the negative space
immense, intense, and brutal
death valley pales
there is no survival rate

but there are no words
there are no words
there's nothing left to be spoken

"look alive, look alive!"
he said
"it's not your time to die!"
but she's
standing in the ruins
somewhere close to
the end of the world
screaming, asking "why?"

babygirl, babygirl
cause they don't
and the won't care
not. one. bit.

Waiting

2007-03-26T12:20:00.000-07:00

I eat the night alive from
this back seat,
surrounded by
someone elses sorrow
and my own denials.

The street lights illuminate
the question mark
riding shotgun.
There's never a straight
or decisive answer -
nothing's ever easy;
but I find our concern to be
decidedly lacking.

I've become
one big nervous tick,
wanting to get up and run
and never look back.

I'm this blank slate
that cannot be marred.
Challengers are welcome
but are all but doomed to failure.

I'm standing here though,
waiting for
the thunderstorm to roll in;
hoping for
the wind to pick me up
and completely blow me away.

Brew City Moonlight

2007-03-14T11:49:00.000-07:00

we like to
cruise through
drive through
roll through the
silent, shut down
sound asleep city
windows down
cigarettes alight
beats and screams
vibrating through the seats.

waiting for
four a.m.
there's plenty to
talk about
when you've had
too much to
drink
or
too much
fresh almost-spring
air filling your lungs
absorbing right next
to the constant stream
of nicotine
past your lips
through your mouth
down your lungs
exhale out

milwaukee's rarely
beautiful
if ever
we're not the
classiest of cities
but the
green-signed streets
and broken homes
over grown and
some kept lawns
corner dice games
drug exchange handshakes
brown bag liquor
and city buses
they run in my veins

and at night
milwaukee, she shines
in the haze of
orange and yellow
street lamps
corner store signs and
the flicker of
late night tv through
curtains or old bed sheets

we visit
super video
two
it's the only one
open this late, see
we'll wander the aisles
and wish we had money
we'll move along
to a diner on kk
a mountain of french fries
slightly more than a buck fifty.

and now it's time
and we retrieve
what we've all been waiting for
and now we've got her
full with smiles, hugs,
cloves, shoes and stories

and still we
just can't sleep.

A Fairly Unorganized Collection of Thoughts on Dissatisfaction.

2007-03-12T12:37:00.000-07:00

Fine weather makes me a bit squirrelly, and really has yet only to enhance my feeling of wanting to get out and away. It has magnified my dissatisfaction to a seemingly unreasonable amount.

"Do you always look this dissatisfied?"
Sure, the questioner was under the influence of drink and sleep deprivation, and yet it was hit perfectly.
I personally hope that I do not, purely because I do not want to give people the impression that I don't enjoy the time spent with them; yet at the same time I can't see why I wouldn't look "this dissatisfied" all the time.
I am "this dissatisfied" all the time.

But what's to be done? What can really be changed? I've tried and I've thought about it and the only solution that I can see is dropping everything and starting over again somewhere new. Somewhere where minimal people know me or my name.
I don't want these papers: they mean nothing.
I don't want this life: it means nothing.
I am doing absolutely nothing worthwhile.
I do not care. And nobody else cares.

This is not a cry for help, nor a cry for somebody to care.
This is written in hopes that once the thoughts are no longer merely internal, I may find solutions and direction. It maybe and perhaps should be ignored and left unread by everyone save myself.

I know what I want, I just don't know how to get it. And when I do have an idea of how to get it, there's always someone else standing in the way.
(destroy to create, destroy to create)

SEVAS TRA

2007-02-21T15:40:00.000-08:00

The following two bits of writing are taken from my livejournal. In the past couple of weeks I've found myself entirely dissatisfied with my life and everything around me. I wrote through a lot of it and have come up with a plan to fix it. Full steam ahead, profanity and all.

1.
holy shit.
i have, in the last hour, been overtaken by an inexplicable and unavoidable feeling of dissatisfaction and disappointment with myself, other people, life, and the world in general.
now for the overwhelming feeling of brutal ass depression.... and go!

what in fuck all am i actually doing with my life? i have all of these half formed ideas (which i tell myself are great, when in reality "mediocre" is the better descriptive word for them) and absolutely no real means of getting to these endpoints i've made up for myself. i have no real motivation. i have the things that i say motivate me, but those are lies and new and fun ways of beating around the bush. what motivates me in school? the fact that i know that if i were to drop out and decide i don't want to go to college or even if i wanted to take a break, i'd be disowned by a large portion of my family. horrible horrible sin. that's like, number two on my family's ten commandment tablets: #1 - thou shalt not murder thine sibling anywhere that cannot be easily and thoroughly cleansed of blood. #2 - thou shalt not even so much as THINK about not continuing your education.
i don't want to do anything. nothing. i want to do nothing and a lot of it. the reason why i can't see myself anywhere or doing anything is because right now all i want is to sleep. i want to sleep until i'm not tired any more. i want to sleep until i can't feel any more and until i can start fresh.
right now? i am exhausted.
i'm exhausted but i can't sleep because i'm too busy going to school for the one thing that i thought wouldn't drive me completely nuts even though i have no fucking clue what i want to do with my life or even if i'm goign to do anything with that degree or maybe graduate with it and immediately drop everything and move to new york to persue my fashion design career that i've imagined myself to be possible. i'm too busy living with hopes and expectations to kingdom come but never with satisfaction or conviction. i'm always searching, always looking. DISSATISFIED with everything i could ever imagine. and what the fuck right do i have to be dissatisfied with anything? i have a ridiculously decent life. the form of my life is a good one and one i should embrace and love. but i'm boring and bored and useless and MUNDANE. i'm nothing special and i'm not unique.
monotony is killing me. it is draining the life out of me.
but trying to change that, trying to make something interesting won't work. it'd be trying too hard. it'd be trying to be someone i'm not.
i can't pursue shit with out it being agressive and intimidating. and people don't like the feeling of being intimidated by a five foot four, buck twenty pound girl. so i stop hearing from them. and here we go.
i was right. i was right. i should have. FUCK.

i've got nothing. i'm blank.
fuck all of this, honestly. i'm going to sleep.
mother fuck.

(Authors Note: For my parents sake, who will read this I'm sure, I'm not actually considering dropping out of school. And I'm pretty sure I know that you wouldn't actually disown me. It was a bad night. We have those. My bad. Yayyy school.)

2. "Sevas Tra"
I have formed for myself a some what feasible plan which will, in theory, quiet my inner rumblings of dissatisfaction and hatred of my life and everything involved therewith.
As of this afternoon I've begun designing again. I haven't sewn a goddamned thing since before school started in September. That is UNACCEPTABLE. Entirely not okay. Education and work are important, yes, but it is unhealthy and insulting to ignore your art.
And so. This Sunday I will be doing nothing but cleaning and making my room an environment in which I can both live AND create as I so please.
Beyond that, from Sunday night on, all downtime will be dedicated to creation. Whether I'm sewing, designing, writing, or reading in order to write better - I will be productive. On average, between the hours of 10pm and 2-3am I do nothing but sit on my ass and watch TV or dick around on the computer. Unless I am doing homework or for some other reason tied up, I WILL be creating.
I may or may not become a horrible caffeine addict and may dapple in sleep deprivation, but right now I'm fine with that. I'm sleeping entirely too much as it is and I'm tired of hating myself for producing nothing but mundane, monotonous bullshit that means absolutely nothing. I am done with that. I want to do nothing because I've become content with doing nothing. Done done done.
I'm hoping to get back into selling my designs at Fasten and am going to work hard at getting things into fashion shows. I'd like to get more of my writing published, so that's getting looked into as well. Open mic nights will hopefully be bountiful, due to the fact that most of my poetry these days is certainly best enjoyed when read aloud.
This is my declaration of independence from hating myself and my life. Art saves all of me.

As far as my personal life goes, I'm still at a loss there, but I have this funny feeling that if I'm happier with my life in general and allowing myself to create as often as I see fit, I'll be much happier with whatever life throws at me. Even if that means a period of involuntary celibacy. As it stands though, the aforementioned celibacy needs to stop. It would be a much more easily remedied situation if I didn't have "standards," but I do, and they're not going anywhere. And I work with what I've got.

All in all, I am prepared and pumped to tear apart existing pieces of clothing and making them into something infinitely better. Destroy to create, as always. I should get that tattooed on my right wrist or something. Constant fucking reminder.
Fuck abandoning your art. Fuck. That. In the words of Jello Biafra, whom I had the pleasure of hearing speak the other night, "The best way to not let that happen to you is to not let that happen to you." I'm done lying down and being my own victim.

And on that note, I'm off to a class that I pretty much loathe. Sweet.

Ode to a Non-Existant Valentine

2007-02-12T12:49:00.000-08:00

(Author's note: I think I've come to the conclusion that Valentine's Day is less about those in relationships having a day to focus all their attentions on their loved one and more about making single people feel like shit. I don't like thinking "Damn, I wish I had someone right now." I don't like feeling like I need someone, because I don't. But all this Valentine's Day ruckus has got me thinking that it would be nice to have a boy who would take me out for Indian food and then watch gorey movies with me late into the night. Roses and chocolate would preferably be replaced by maybe a knife and some nice cigarettes. But instead I've become comfortable with the fact that I'll get home at 9pm from my night class and watch a Cheaters marathon on TV. And it'll be just another Wednesday night.)

her eyes shown like sunlight as the ax came crashing down
and her tears screamed of midnight as her heart burned through the world
she's sinking not swimming and she'll try to take you down with er
right after explaining that you don't mean a thing

it'll just be another lonely Wednesday night
i swear it's just the same
same old me
same old absence of a "you"

Fireworks

2007-01-30T20:56:00.000-08:00

all i can see
clearly, that is
in between all that's blurred
and fuzzy
are the fireworks
in your gut
and you tripping
over my feet

i hear the forced
civility
and conversation
you wish was casual

all i know is
if that came out of my mouth
my hands, my mind
wherever
you'd hate me even more
and have nothing
but venom for me.

this is me
on my raft
floating off
alone.

a memory exercise

2007-01-28T22:30:00.000-08:00

i've come to
wish the wounds inflicted
were physical
so it wouldn't just be my word
you'd have to take
they'd be visual
i'm not loveable
and that's fine
it's accepted
i'm crazy
i've made these neuroses mine
but this room's too tight
and i'm feeling way too heavy
my eyes are getting pushed back in my head

and so i'm sliding out the door
and letting it
crack me in the head
on my way out

so i don't forget.

(scraps)

2007-01-22T09:23:00.000-08:00

(Note: These are just little unfinished blurbs. Maybe I'll work them into something bigger, and maybe I'll leave them alone.)

ONE
i wish i could feel something besides the dry burn in my throat and eyes of too many tears.
i wish something besides the weight on my chest felt real.
i wish i knew for sure that this would crush anybody, and that i'm not weak.
but i don't know anything
nothing at all
and all i really want
is to throw my heart against a wall
and i want to see it stop
i want to see it shudder
and i want to hear it scream
as it. stops. beat.ing.

TWO
wanting to be miserable
is not masochism
for me
it's recognition of a job well done
depression
is what i do best.

THREE
the realization
of being a piece
to someone
is damning
it's a death sentence

a piece of ass
a piece of shit
a piece of baggage

and knowing that
is a knife to the heart
cause all i want
is peace.

An Inquiry Into the Effects of Chain-Smoking on Your Front Porch Amidst a Snow Storm

2007-01-22T08:59:00.000-08:00

It's funny how white noise becomes an irritation when it snows. The snow blankets everything and a hush falls down on the city and it's just such an unnatural hush - or by technicality it's the epitome of natural, but it's just out of place in the city. The noises of cars and buses are commonplace, mundane - a dull roar. But now, with big, fat snowflakes making themselves comfortable all over everything, those noises don't belong.

The snow's balancing on the branches like words on the tip of your tongue. It sits there almost mockingly just the same. And it's going to stay there until something changes. Temperature, wind, situations, healing. Everything depends on everything else.

Depression is the hush in a snow storm. When everything that's normal becomes wrong. I only wish it lasted the same length of time. A five hour bout of depression would be fine; but that's never how it is.

Times like this, when school's about to start again, I think a lot more about how I shouldn't let it be in charge, how I shouldn't fold. It's just so easy to trip into the giving arms of depression, though. It's quiet here.

Everyone's advice, no matter how well-meaning or warm-hearted, comes down to the same thing: get over it. Like it's something I can just step right over if I just add a little jump to that step. And I beat the phrase into the ground: easier said than done. The idea of being healthy and well adjusted and functioning is certainly a nice on, but it still comes down to the fact that it's easier to stay in bed. It's easier to be comfortable being miserable.

I hear "suffering from depression" a lot, and maybe that's my problem - I don't suffer from it - I've come to embrace it. It's what I know best and it's become more comfortable than anything else in my life.

There's no sleep like the sleep that comes in the storm of depression. It's something I'd be willing to wrap myself in and stay with all day long.

And it's never as simple as just getting over it. Depression is the weight of not just one snow-covered mountain, but the whole range. And it's the kind of mountain range that you end up getting lost in, and you're screwed because it's a solo trip - you don't have any travel mates to turn cannibal on when times get desperate - you just end up eating your own heart.

Depression isn't some room you're in and can just open the door and walk out of. It's not some outside entity. Depression is you. Every skin cell, every stand of nerves, every millimeter of vessels, every bit of muscle, ever sliver of bone, every single last organ, every drop of blood. "Getting over it" would entail tearing myself to shreds, dismantling myself, and burning the remains. The best I can do is to keep it at bay, but it'll never be gone, it'll never really leave me. It's become the only thing I know I can always count on being there, no matter what.

I've begun to think about writing him a letter. I know I could never speak to him in person. That I know for sure. But there's so much left to be said - I can't just leave it all at the lip of the voidcalled "moving on." Abandoning that would be like abandoning a child - in a snow storm.

But how the hell do you even start that?
"To my most loathed Robert,
You're a pedophile and a miserable human being who robbed me of four years of my life."
That's no way to start a letter. Or maybe in this case it is - I owe him nothing and he deserves nothing less than hot pokers to the eyes.

I want to tell him that I don't remember losing my virginity. But it's not simply that I don't remember, but I'm almost certain that I've blocked it out. And not just that single incident, either - but most everything up until about the middle of my junior year of high school. It seems to me that that's not okay. That's not normal.

I want to tear his heart out and feed it to his dogs for telling people that he and I didn't meet until I was fifteen and that we didn't start dating until well after that. I guess it's easy to bend the truth when you have face to save. But I was TWELVE when we met. All I wanted for my thirteenth birthday was to get a guitar and learn to play it. That was the worst decision of my life. We met when I was twelve and I lost my virginity at the age of fourteen to a twenty-nine-year-old-man. I though he was twenty-four. And yes, that five year difference did make a difference.

And it's been suggested, by one of his friends no less, that I was a slut and stupid for having sex at that age. It was stupid - but it was never something I felt that I had control of. And there's no law that defines me as a stupid slut - there are mountains of laws that define him as a pedophile and as the sick degenerate that he is, was, and always will be.

In some ways I wish he could know the damage that he's done - and in still other ways I don't want to give him the satisfaction.

clarification

2007-01-14T20:47:00.000-08:00

i listen to their words go by
and for a long time it was all greek
but now i have it figured out:
you hope and hope that someday your prince will come
but when he does
you'll just
choke, or spit, or swallow
or wipe it from your belly or your back
or throw it rubber-wrapped to the trash
and still you won't be whole
or matter any more
and i just smile and lean back
and i keep listening because
i'm not waiting for any damn one
let alone some prince.

pretend

2006-12-19T12:14:00.000-08:00

we like to pretend like
there's no tomorrow
no work or school to trudge to
no bus to catch
no exams to bomb
like no one's coming early in the morning
we like to pretend until neither of us can breathe
until we're wheezing
compliments of
a mutual addiction to nicotine
until we can't see
until the only option left is sleep
we like to pretend
like there's no twin cities
no twelve hour bus ride
no fashion design
looming over and sliding in between
like there's no static
from outside sources
no advice or admonitions
no road blocks to run into
no open graves to fall into
until we can't breathe
utnil all we can do
is hold onto our respective skins
and pray for the sun to stay down
and you
kissed me like you were starving
like you'd never breathed until
that second
and you did it like i was made of glass
but i can be steel for you
and all we can do is
kick around the
what ifs
like they were
the chunks of ice and snow
melted away last week
when the rain came
and we all laughed and danced
but we just like
to pretend.

can't won't stop screaming

2006-12-19T12:00:00.000-08:00

(this is "puke poetry" at it's most pure - it came from a minor mental breakdown. i'm going to scan the original and post it later.)

i saw her shrinking back like the world was throwing sticks and stones and bricks and knives - like it was looking for a bar fight, wielding a broken beer bottle with menacing and tempting edges - i saw the walls sliding down like concrete rapids fed by a year of headaches and bruised necks and egos - like the scars won't show and burn through like the mother of god herself screaming her existence to a forgetful and vengeful world - like a ten alarm fire that hasn't eaten for months looking for hearts to consume and digest and spit back out - how else will we feed when we can't breathe or see through the trees standing like an army at our feet - battle cries and smoldering white flags, the rage of freedom in every last eye - lungs bursting throats bleeding never conceeding always proceeding - because left, left, left, right and then we left - we inhaled the sunrise like a cigarette and what we lost we'll never find because the world's out for blood and her - another notch on the club and black ink tear under the eye - i am she is we are all battle scars - open wounds - reminders - we are every nightmare every sleep walk every step in front of a moving train, off a roof, out a window - we are every pill, every needle, every bullet - we are immortal in our potential to destroy and create, to obliterate and to change and we'll never settle for decimation - the ring is right but the numbers are fucked and disappointing and numbing and frustration embodied and i need you to see the beating beating drum of this and these hearts - i need to feel the head rush and the subsequent crash back to earth because the sahara is in my mouth far too often and you'll never taste it like you can the copper fear on the tip of your tongue since fear tastes just like currency and blood - it's on our hands and there's no one coming to save us or to rectify the situation or to dole out our appologies or publish our obituaries - we will not be forgotten and yet oblivion is in our small and blue prints - i still can't feel the knife at my neck - the invasion being inconsistent despite the inconvenience of ingenius - and i can't stop screaming and she can't stop bleeding and everyone can't stop cascading like they're avalances - like they're the only hope - like they're the only hearts that matter - self involvement indulgence destruction is the word of the day - three times and it's yours, three more and it's mine - i can't stop picking at the edges unraveling cannibalizing everything that i find - it's all i know how to do right - just a girl that hurts - she me we are - it's an art like sylvia dying - how many times the charm before the lock's picked - how many sucker punches before we look up first - how many broken fingers before we learn to quit slamming doors - how many times until no is yes and wrong stays wrong - i can't stop screaming until she starts smiling and she can't start smiling until they stop dying and they can't stop dying because there's nothing else left and so
i
can't
stop
screaming.

One More Word

2006-12-10T00:36:00.000-08:00

i'm so sick of
pretty, sexy, hot
my face and body
are on fire
and my brain's
left here to
rot

i'm so sick of
lying by
omission
instead i'd like to
just lie here
sleeping
and on a mission

i'm so sick of
you being no kind of
athlete
with the ball
spinning in your court
maybe if you'd spit it out
you'd be just short
of beat

and if i loved myself
the way you say i should
i'd have to shoot you in the head before
you could utter one more word.

anonymous

2006-12-06T11:17:00.000-08:00

that pain was
eaten, cannibalized
this weakness was
beaten, brutalized
and as i stumble
swimming through rain
spitting on regret and shame
i know that
all we will recall
will be our sins
and our 20/20 hindsight
our hazy eyes and minds
swan dives from
concrete watrfalls
alternate universe
realities, identities
androgenous beauty
it's a mountain, a canyon
to be revered and
bowed down to
prostrating ourselves
before a great, deep
all encompassing nothing
it's all we see, want and breathe
it's all we'll be, stunt and bereave
it's miraculous and immaculate
and fills us with something
that will forever remain unnamed.

three heil marys

2006-12-06T11:12:00.000-08:00

as cited in
left food, right
backhand and
long hair, buzzcut
that baby's golden
no more love
cause beauty's swollen
immortal and vindictive
in the hands of the beholder
heart and liver of the believer
it's gospel and
blasphemous
invisible, invincible
insatiable and inconsolable
and i've got
a hole in my head
the size of the word "but"
perma-open wound
to have, hold, and control
forever and ever
always and never
say it or just
kiss the bullet and say
amen.

Found

2006-12-04T11:32:00.000-08:00

i met a bathroom today
that time forgot
and i found a part of myself
i'd never known was lost

all of me became
a five foot four inch, hundred and fifteen pound fist
i was fury as i breathed
but now i'm healthy, seeing clearly

i took words from
one heart
to my own
and it's about time

and i may want to
never get up, not eat much
and continue chain smoking
but some days i know better

like today
and today
i do know better
than you

After 'While

2006-11-26T17:18:00.000-08:00

i want to
stand
scream
with hooks in my
heart, eyes
mind and mouth
i want to
float and fly
and feel fulfilled
i want to
freeze you
and your words
with a stare
or a sigh
or the kind of bellow
that'll break bones

cracked ribs at the ringside
(existing is your door prize)

but you like
building walls
a fucking fortress
your castle -
impenetrable
and i'm
murmuring mysteries
mangling
(magnifique)

but i'm sure if you'd cry
you'd fill any
self respecting crocodile
with pride.

The Day We Caught Noah Off-Guard

2006-11-26T17:14:00.000-08:00

we want to
preach what
life is and isn't
incomplete and inconsistent
we're inconsequential, so we're
inwardly grateful
for the punches and blows
cheap and sucker
we want to embrace
Atlas' fist
but we've got
the courage
of a dust mite
and we float along
just the same.

and i wish
you and i could
share a pair of
eyes and one brain
just for a minute
but it'd
be a cataclysmic storm
not even Noah would have seen it
coming
with hearts like
hurricanes
held haughtily to the horizon.

we know i've got some
moving on and
walking to do
and though we may
try
and
hope
with all of our might
it can't happen
from this bed.

definition/repetition/reassurance

2006-11-14T19:43:00.000-08:00

i can't let this anger become all that i am
and i can't realize one more time that for four years i was everything that i hate
i was every dumb bitch
i was a doormat
i was a pushover
and i was blind to everything
everthing i was and wasn't doing
and everything i was allowing to happen
i rolled over
i was an emotional avalanche
a romantic tsunami
and i never fucking knew it
i instantly became the deer in the headlights and almost immediately then the road kill you all see and then keep on driving with pity in your heart and disgust in the pit of your stomach
but i'm still breathing
and there's still blood pulsing through me
though reluctantly
and i can still scream
i can still shatter
but i will not be broken
never again
i will take no prisoners
never again
i will not surrender
never again

i am masochism at its finest and most glowing and glaring
and i dare you to find my epicenter
my incinerator
and i dare you to reach out
to fall
and let go
i dare you to free fall with me
i dare you to breathe with me
i dare you to tip toe to the edge of our very own oblivion
i dare you to be everything you want to
i dare you to embrace this existance
i dare you to see me.

I am this swan dive. I am this nausea. I am the catalyst, means, aggressor and road blocks to my own revolution. I will not beg. "Please" is not in my vocabulary." I am this dark horse, this black sheep, this beast. I am Famine, War, Pestilence, and Death. I am Chaos. And I am calm. I am the eye of the storm. I am the clenched fist, the punch and the subsequent bruise. I am the fracture and the cast and the pain killers. I am the deep breath and the insufficient oxygen. I am confusion and clarity. I am simulatniously joyous and vengeful. My forgiveness and ability to let go are my baggage. This violence and upheaval is my peace. I am balance and contradiction. I am love and hate and affection and scorn. I am my enemy and ally. I am my right hand man and my arch nemisis. I am belittling and moral boosting. I am action and apathy. I am lost and I am found. I am silence and cacophony. I am certainty and second guessing. I am bigotry and acceptance, meek and aggressive. I am class and trash, collected and undone. I am a scream and a whisper. I am a comfortable blister. I am damnation and salvation.
i am rage. i am rage.
i.
am.
rage.

The Big Thaw

2006-11-14T15:24:00.000-08:00

with our words
flowing, fluid
back and forth
the stories, theories
arguements and ideas
every word
a breath of fresh air
and together we
can suck the pain
out of the space
floating in between us

and a
shared
hand-rolled cigarette
bed-side, post-ride
tastes like
perfection
for those
ten minutes
eye opened
wide

and reality
seeps its way
back in
uninvited

you've got your
paper and pencil
sketches exploding
i've got my
paper and pencil
avalanche of words
we like to play with
creative suicide

and so our
eyes glisten
back and forth
at each other
iced over
but thawing
bits and pieces
at seeing ourselves
reflected.

and i'd give up anything

2006-10-24T23:03:00.000-07:00

I ate

my own escape

quite alive

still bleeding

heart took a beating

beating beating

one two one two

stealing glances

left to right

taking liberties

omitting fallacies

from a pedestal

is a long way to fall

still breathing

oxygen intake

still breathing

lived a mistake

still breathing

how many breaths

in fifteen hundred

and twenty one days?

open up wide

looking inside

cracked open ribcage

bleeds out your

calculated lies

gaping and gasping

holding onto nothing

I’ve got a

five year fingered

fear clenched fist

for your

vacuum hearted life

and I’d

give up anything

to see your face

when it finally

hits you

"We're young; it's supposed to be tragic."

2006-10-15T09:24:00.000-07:00

(((it's not poetry, but i thought i'd share anyways.)))
This has honestly been the longest two weeks of my life. Everything everything has changed. Absolutely everything. Waking up is different. Going to class is different. Working is different. Watching TV doing homework making dinner doing laundry washing dishes getting dressed taking a shower changing the litter. Is different.

And I can say that dispite initial unpleasantness these changes will be for the best. Moving on, being free. I keep saying and everyone keeps saying that I have too much to do in my life, and he was just not fitting into that. I keep hearing that I was too good for him. I keep finding out things that I never knew, or at least made an unconscious effort not to know. I keep wondering what I'll never find out, even if I try, because of the front he has on.

I keep getting emails and messages stuffed to the brim with his apologies and "how are you"s. It would be one thing if it were genuine, but this is the formula of the messages: answer the original question, how are you, shit shit shit, horrendous sweet talk. He'll sit there, and borderline illiterately shit on me and then bounce right into how he still loves me and he'll always love me and I was his true love and his angel and how much he lost.

What I want is to sever ties. To forget him. To never see him. To not have to think about him. And he's making it impossible. I'm not saying that nine months or a year from now I won't be able to be civil if I see him at a party. But not now. I want the next time I see him to be a year from now, less really, when I say goodbye to him and the Boys because I'm moving. I want so badly for that to be our next contact. But no.

I'd also like for him to know what I've felt like. And there's no real way to convey what it feels like to want to take steel wool to your skin to try and take off the feeling of having had sex with a stranger for four years. It's not heartbreak, it's oblivion.

He's holding two belts hostage. And for someone who swears he'll never be able to "erase those memories" of me, I find it pretty interesting that he returned every letter, every note, and every poem I ever wrote him. He returned pictures and birthday and christmas and travel gifts. I guess he meant he wants to rid his house of every physical memory of me, and wants to cling to all the internal memories.

I used to get to the house sometimes, a house that for 6 months I practically lived in, and my toothbrush would be hidden in the bathroom vanity drawers. My shampoo would be stowed away. Once all of my underwear and tights and things were in a bag at the back of his closet. I only ever questioned the toothbrush thing. He said Russ came over and made fun of him. I said it was bullshit.

I always thought that there was someone else. Or a couple of someone elses. I never said a word.

He explained to me in the last message that he was "coming clean" to some of his "close friends," who, in the following sentence were revieled to be his "g/f's" ("g/f's" is actually how he typed it). I was suprised to hear that. He's telling these girls who drool at every incorrectly spelled word he types out that instead of him being 26 or 29 or whatever lie he made up this week, he's 34. I can just imagine Caitlyn, Bianca, and JJs reactions. How glad they are that he confided in them. How they think it's so sad that he lost me over that "one little lie." How they're here for him.

How I've always thought they've been "there" for him. Especially Bianca.

I never felt like I could have male friends, because they were always taken as a threat. But I had to take the "g/f's" in stride and suck it up, dispite the fact that a few of them had outwardly expressed interest in him. But I was supposed to play nice and go to their parties and drink with them and hear about how cute they though my boyfriend was and how they just got so mad when they found out he had a girlfriend. But that was supposed to be okay and even funny to me. But if someone expressed even the vaguest interest in me, even mentioned in passing that they liked my hair, any time their name would come up, it was all over.

I think I was a lot more tired than I knew. That relationship was a lot of work, and obviously now, more than it was worth. It was a lot of work keeping things to myself, not being myself, sitting at home, never being with friends. Being with someone who not only is of the opinion that their shit doesn't stink, but also that they're Gods gift to women is a lot of work.

I think it's true that he probably loved me more than I ever loved myself, but I was never able to love myself when his love was all I thought I had.

So I'm not just rebuilding my life in terms of dating, sex, romance, whatever. But I'm rebuilding myself - I'm finding the parts I love and appologizing for leaving them in the cold for so long, and I'm slicing a Robert-shaped part of my life out and throwing it into the flames.

5>6

2006-10-11T10:58:00.000-07:00

this silence
this internal screaming
feels like dust
at the back
of my throat
and a five year lie
is an apocalyptic
sandstorm

and i'm left
with a spear in my chest
boulder on my tongue
blade lodged in my brain
cement in my lungs

i'm left explaining
that i lost my virginity
to a man
fifteen years older than me
at the ripe old age
of fourteen
how old i thought he was
how we defied the laws
how he said he loved me
and i loved him back
a smoke and mirrors romeo
and a stupid fucking juliet

i guess
what i really want
more than anything
is for you to know
what implosion feels like
what evaluating
the efficacy of steel wool
in the attempt of cleansing
my skin
to get rid of the feeling
of letting a stranger in
feels like
what it feels like
tracing the trails
of a million tears
i never cried
because i never knew
despite a heart opened wide

i defended us
our judgement
integrity, morality
my mother and father's
parenting abilities
i took more blows
than you'll ever know

and now i stand
breathing in
the fall out -
you regret
that you got caught
rather than
who you lost
and your apologies
are echoing,
though unending,
still emtpy

i want you to know
that i'm surviving
i'm okay
migrating, evolving
and despite the size
of the crator in my life
i've got
no place
for you.

Yep.

2006-10-05T11:09:00.000-07:00

It's not mine by any means, but it's perfect at the moment:

"and i want to attack
i want to rip out your heart
and lay you flat on your back
and vomit a world of agony and truth
into your throbbing illness of memory"
-Otep Shamaya

et spirito santo

2006-09-14T23:28:00.000-07:00

[Note: I'm pretty sure the title is several languages mashed together, but I like how it looks and sounds.]

and i
i see you there
breathing, breathing
in that massacre
feeling, feeling
that suffocating
heir of masochism
standing there
tall as anything
and i, and i
all i see is you

broken bones and dreams
shattered panes and
impact sites and scars
of yesterday
and tomorrow
the cycle, the story
keeps on buring through

this is
an open wound
and i, and i
i'm feeding the muse
watching
a growing
christ-shaped bruise

smoke and
two-way mirrors
and all i see is you
all i see is you

bleeding
heart strings
star gazing
post-apocalypse
and an empty, holy sky

and where's the epicenter
where's the starting line

all i see is you
and all i see is you

ate that fury
broke that rage
and all i see is you

all i see is you

A Quiet Suicide

2006-09-14T23:24:00.000-07:00

[Note: Mom, you might not want to read this. To everyone else, this was written on the one year anniversary of the death of my uncle Steve. RIP.]

A year is 365 days and too long a time
For it not to have been yesterday
For the earth to still be fresh on the
Beer-watered ashes of a permature addition
To a fatal second stroke in a place
Where the ground drops and flowers break hearts

A year's not long enough for everything to be gone
For a name to slip, a truth and a longing
For a box of old t-shirts to sit there lonely
Silently seeping out stories of a life once loved

A year's just long enough to remember a stale sandwich
A last outreach, a light left on and a door just ajar
A phone call after dinner, a surreal weeping
An anger and a rage and an unfamiliar screaming
From a handful of raveged hearts, raw with the sound of
An uncle, a brother, a son - quietly leaving.

Gerber Daisies

2006-09-14T23:16:00.000-07:00

the simple
stabbing of
one needle
same two
spots on my
angry but
no longer
blank skin
over and
over and
how many
times over
is my
woman-
ifesto
my standing
and screaming
fuck you to
potential
infertility
to those
who think
my ovaries
might make me
a push-over
to anyone who
even thinks
that maybe
i can't
these two
perfectly colored
and shaded
and accented
with white ink
flowers
can maybe
cover and open
your eyes
and pave the
road to
my life.

Tuesdays Are My Long Days

2006-09-12T20:20:00.000-07:00

everything
and i mean everything
looks so different at night
with the rain and the shadows
the parked cars and the street lights

the blinds that are still open
so i could watch tv with you
see your ugly 80s art
through your un-curtained window

i've been analyzing all day
but it's still nothing like
picking apart all the sounds all around
deceiphering and deciding
from whence they came

is that my sloshing
jeans hem in the mirror pond puddles
or is it a stranger just walking
behind me?

i never noticed those gardens
those bushes or lights

are those red white and blue
lights in the form of a flag
left over from the fourth
or up for the eleventh?

and i come home well past hungry
blood sugars've been dropping and
my brains shutting down
so left-overs it is
but now
i have left-over left-overs
and absolutley no clue
where my jello cups are

A Call for Wallet Silence

2006-09-12T20:16:00.000-07:00

i really like
the idea that
i can breathe
all on my own
big, big girl
no assistance needed
but then there's my wallet
screaming obscenities
discouraging and ravaging
great plans for modifications of my skin
and a soft bed to sleep in
but i stop it short
so its yells are choked
shut the
(because i'm not a)
fuck up
let me sleep
let me read
because i'm actually enjoying
plato and his
socratic heresay slash worship
and the ideal city
where the gods are only human
and so should be censored
because sometimes
the high and the holy
set an example
we don't want for our children
and so
i'll live off of hot dogs
(that is, fresh ground-up mysteries)
and locally grown,
and of course organic
eighty-nine tiny cents per pound
paula red apples
and i'll learn about corpses
and rates of decomposition
russian mail-order victims
and the brides of juarez
seven different utopias
and the women within them
political thinking,
st. augustine in a
theoretical fist-fight
with senor rousseau
fractions, equations
high school repeating
and sun salutations
lead by a flexible psycho