Tuesday, April 29, 2003

mark skin yellow to remind me that i am needed
"oh yeah - don't forget to put yourself in this time
don't forget to pack you"
and i think i would've
i forget that kind of thing
and god i do get jealous so easily
i need to step back
from far away the marks don't matter
we are only shadows
not a pile of words tinted by rainbows
not scars or X's or connected dots
but look at us shadows together
you're just going to have to remind me
that to be shadows we're required to have sun
in this darkness i forget
mark sky yellow to remind us that we have light
(and love, and all that, etc)
and we know that
we can't really pretend that we forget
but yeah i did lose sight
and god i do get jealous so easily
you have to forgive me
for the things i don't realize that i do
and my mistakes are just easy to hide
because i have had so much practice
and hey, i love your imperfection
so don't worry
but i'm sorry
i hate that i can't be completely raw truth
i admit it. i am a liar.
devious coniving manipulative evil
like mom always said
and she didn't even really know the whole of it
so raise a glass to mother's instinct
and cheers to imperfection
for now we can simply be shadows together
i need to make it last
and maybe, as long as there is sun, we'll be okay
actually
i really need that
and i need to be okay
i don't know how to function in the dark anymore
and i am going to be so broken
if we break
i guess i should just keep hiding lies
so that you won't see how i have to hide behind them

Monday, April 28, 2003

i walk so lightly that
i realized i'm barely staying on earth
i was stepping on glass shards
without being cut
i want to leave the pieces on the soles of my feet
and i'll walk down to the parking lot across the street
where there's always broken bottles
i will cross the whole place twice
and work up defensive glass feet
glass slipper shields that i will drop at the palace
in the garden
next to the flowers i planted with my own glass hands
green brown blue glass slippers stained red
because i had to keep them on
because i can't let myself lose them for a prince to find
i will be my own prince searching for a foothold on the world
big enough to let me in
small enough to keep me there
i'm floating away lately
i am standing in the backyard digging a hole
still wearing glass
on small feet and like shrapnel in the pale skin of my arms
i am destroying dirt and slicing roots
plunging madly into the land i barely stand on
if i plant myself here in a ground coffin
maybe i will blossom
and mom will come to press the air out of the soil
while i wait patiently
i've been waiting patiently
and all the flowers look so nice
spring fever again
and i swear this spring is the most elemental
and this fever is the most burning
i have a need to be watered in my soil
i need to water myself and the shirt of a friend/lover/stranger
while i can finally cry
and string the tears from my eyes into ropes to the sky
i have a need to see the world through salt and blurry vision
i need to see myself with cleansed eyes
i'm still only a little girl walking on glass shoes
that keep her separate from the world
and if she starts to float aways
she wants friends/lovers/strangers/Charmings to anchor her back down
even if she pricks them as she destroys her slippers
realizing that she is part of everything
her own being shattering the glass wall she put up between herself and them
recognizing love and acceptance as roots reaching towards her
she isn't really part of everything
but she's not completely separate

Sunday, April 20, 2003

i forgot just exactly what it was
that i loved about you
but you got up and said
familiar words
and the sound of you
resonating through the room
spitting ideas so fast
i don't know if you knew
what was going through you
but my heart fell off the see-saw again
you were back up there
shining in the pantheon
i held my breath
and your hands were writing the air
to think we were in the same air
to think you kissed the top of my head
to think you called me gorgeous
to think i want pink pants and a tambourine
to think i was invited though i can't be there
to think i still can't find myself in front of you

Saturday, April 19, 2003

Concerts are:
-not being able to see over the barricade of tall guys in front of me and my friends helping me push to where i can see
-red x on my hand indicating that i'm a minor and i can't go up to the bar
-a woman wearing a tight white nurse dress clutching her ass with her boyfriend's hand
-covering my own embarrassing body head to toe until i am music head to toe
-a stage cast in glittering fluorescent filtered light shedding smoke to the music
-my thighs touching when i sway
-just bodies and music
-so many people with one connected mind
-intensely quick roadies running out to fix the shit
-the drummer and the bassist singing strong even though they don't have mics
-eyeing the beautiful girl with the nose ring and the beautiful boy with pink hair
-seeing the stage more clearly than the people right next to me even though there's a huge cloud of smoke in between me and the performers
-thinking that the rhythm guitarist just made eye contact with me
-scissorkicks and swing moves and those great jumps that rock bands do
-the musician actually glowing on stage, and that is no metaphor
-remembering that the music comes from people and not photographs, that they wear clothes and have expressions
-falling in love with them for being real and having the strength to make so much sound
-the drum pound pounding right in my head and the guy is practically standing now, he's playing so hard
-finding escape and relief in the mixed smell of cigarettes and pot clinging to my clothes and skin for days after my ears start to work properly again
-a slight reverb in my ear making me think that more people are singing than there are. i think i can hear ghosts.
-touching my neck to hear my own bones vibrating to the hum of the sound and when i scream i feel it bursting through my throat because in here i can be the loudest
-all of my bones shaking with little solid stale water flying down my spine
-learning a new beat from the bass pounding my weak heart and it's trembling with sound
-not just that i want to marry the bassist that got him into my heart. he shattered my pulse and if someone were to check, i'd be pronounced physically unfit
-pumping blood coursing through my whole body and shaking up all my veins and teaching me to dance
-so loud that i can't hear myself think and this is what i have been looking for every time i turned on the stereo or put on headphones
and this is just what i need


help me add more to this list because it isn't long enough and help me fix this because i can't express this very well.
usually i remember trips as
drinking acid
counting 4 dead creatures on the side of the road
trying to convince my family
how good this album is
i will remember this trip because we all
(my grandmother + her son + his 2 daughters)
talked for an hour or so
we covered all the bases
she asked (as usual) if the boys are cute
and she made me tell her all about brock
even though i said over and over that he's just a good friend
she asked (as usual) how school is going
and whether or not we like it
and if the boys are cute
we talked about it all
and she said
--and this is pretty much a direct quote
from an elderly eccentric bible-thumping baptist republican woman--
"it doesn't matter how much money you make
as long as you enjoy what you're doing"
and she told us about how "[grand]Daddy never
made much money but
he did a lot of good for the forest"
i can imagine him young + dashing
with his 50s haircut, cleft chin, and dimples
(minus the wrinkles)
sitting in a tower above thousands of trees
making urgent calls on an ancient rotary telephone
warning the other foresters of a fire brewing
having drinks afterwards with smoky the bear and all the rangers
but he would just have a ginger ale, please, because he's a good christian
and i am so proud of my
elderly eccentric bible-thumping baptist republican grandparents
and i sleep soundly that night
the next day i am sitting on the patio and granny asks
if i've considered going into nursing
because of course i'm a woman, so i can't be a real doctor
and of course i'll meet a nice man when i'm just 21, almost ripe for medical school
but i won't even need to go because we'll get married right off
and i'll pop out a couple great-grandkids for granny
and i'll be able to live off his good money as a nice secure house-wife home-mom
she doesn't even give me time to answer her question
she never really wants an answer when she asks
she would rather just answer this herself
and think that i am living how she wants me to live
of course i can't tell her about
my secularity
my bisexuality
my liberal politics
my loud punk music
my artsy weekend nights
my open-mic open-mind poetry
because of course she doesn't want to know

Friday, April 18, 2003

she automatically thought about what she should be doing now
rather than singing along but
i feel bad because she can't sing along since she doesn't know the words
and i feel bad because i should've taught them to her months ago
so she is concentrating on her work
but i love it when she laughs out loud and whispers words to herself
i love the stars by her eyes almost as much as the stars in her eyes
and the click of her pen and how she had to borrow my headphones
and i wonder if he always wears a pony-tail to sleep
i love the look of him leaning on my pillow
how delicate his eyes are when they're closed
how carefully he took off his glasses
how innocent without the frames to protect him
i feel bad for him having to concentrate on holding them, and the pen
and i feel bad for the sun shining through his lids not letting him rest soundly
i am one leaf on one tree in the whole hilly landscape
with a cookie-cut splintered spine bent
over a yellow stream
i am not ready to dive in
but i keep coming back
and i can't make it clear
but i love the way
the pebbles look when i throw them in
like how i love the shapes on paper
and these specifically look worse than normal
because this is a rough road
but it's not as bad as if we had
to drive sideways on the rocky cliffs beside
he kept asking why i'm smiling
but now we can't see me grinning at him with his eyes closed
he's still carefully barely got his glasses and pen in hand
twisted over his knees beneath his arm under my pillow
his slightly parted lips during the drum solo
and his eyes are really beautiful like this
and now it's just me and dad
sharing nothing but genes and a favorite ani difranco line
but during this time we three have been one being again
and i felt so connected to two people in the dark
three voices strung together with night
three bodies connected by our hands, crushed on all sides
three faces pressed against the wind of our journey
three beings close enough to melt into
one mind singing to the harmony we have found

Thursday, April 17, 2003

i'm lost
i had the trip all planned out
i could see the road real clearly
a white path up my arm
splattered with freckles
and i was okay
until i found out where the road came from
it's not supposed to matter where the path started
when you're walking down it
but only where it leads
so look at all the things i thought i'd do
but haha fooled you
this pale road is actually black
and see the twisted skin?
and filthy obtrusive protruding bones who won't keep in their place?
and disgusting blue veins?
and the 20 white horses on a red hill
are something more like 15 rabbits strung with briars
scattered through a metal raspberry patch
and he keeps turning around
to see what i'm doing
and he doesn't look at me
like i look into the mirror
(filthy - disgusted - hate)
but he can't know what i'm hiding
and he can't know all the ugliness
that didn't leak out
he can't tell what ugliness
i keep locked inside

Wednesday, April 16, 2003

so you cough against the black green board
because you still can't turn around
eyes are always waiting
like they want Something from you
just for existing there
and Something is too hard to swallow
so you just stand around and swallow
air like it is life
that's funny
because it is, you know
it's just oxygen
so it's all you can do to breathe
and skim your bitten-down nails
over a bitter black green sea
and it scratches not any ocean
but your own surface
and waiting for some girl to drop her hanky
for you to rush in
because that's what they said
you just never thought you'd find
some tissue wet and sticky with blood
waiting on your doorstep
and this substitute won't cut it
so you'll just bend like a willow
weeping to the wind
and watch a line of ants crawl by
you see a castle in the sky
and you wonder how to get there
you found some stairs, but made of air
that's funny
because you know it's just oxygen
so it's all you can do to breathe
and step by step
you're going up

Monday, April 14, 2003

and that was you flashing by again
leaning out the window
of your shiny new ride
throwing jagged rose blades
into my tiny new heart
you don't associate with holes so you're
pouring jug after yellow milk jug full
of tipsy lisping songs into a cold soil
i am planted and full
of little wilting dances tinkling full of dew
we're asleep in a box of matches
i'll make the bed for you because
i know you have to hurry
to skirt the wet rain
i know when you get home
you'll be covered in silver dirt
and our world all yellow
like a leaf fell on top
and just crinkled for forever
because we couldn't make it stop
can't kill the veins running down the street
even though we unclogged all the gutters
we had to clear away our own cobwebs
just to get to the brooms
so we just made a huge ordeal of the whole thing
and we can peel away the orange
before it's even peeled
and strip away the red
off every apple core
we'll ship it off in a box of matches
all over the sea
because we like the clean green spring thing bare bean cold sheen shine machine we made look
at it
like i look
at it
look
didn't you want it?
and you can't leave me here like i'm
something old and moldy in the fridge
you can't leave me
i am not bread
you don't associate with wholes
but i'll be halved
without you

Sunday, April 13, 2003

she has to apologize
because you are
one damn beautiful flower
and now that she has
gone and mowed over the
whole damn garden
she knows it isn't
what she wanted
she can't get rid
of the feeling that she is
spinning on this merry-go-round
you were pushing her for a while
she was laughing too loudly
now she can't see you anymore
she's still spinning
but everything is
blurring
together
and that blue could be you
but it might be
the sky or
the sea or
someone's jeans
because right now
everything is so
upside down
and the world is just
blurry
and she doesn't want
definite lines
she just wants to know
if that blue is you
mom says it's time to celebrate
so better get ready
which translates into
get pretty
it is easier for me to break the mirror
than put the lipstick on
my eyelids are already dark
from too many late nights
and i shouldn't hide that
with a haze glaze of lying powder
even when i know what
the gazes of wolves feel like
making it hard to remember to breathe
the phone rings
it's anastasia, she's
jumping in the elevator so that
it won't get stuck
she is afraid to be bottled up
she has that kind of physical
claustrophia like being stuck in
elevators and mental --
she doesn't want to be boxed in
because she will always be a hurricane
and she's practiced lying
different stories to the same people
i quiver as i click down the reciever
i don't know how to kill the
same thoughts held by different people
and i don't know well enough how to
leave sanity without looking around
they don't let across any liars
to this side of the water
i think this is home

Wednesday, April 09, 2003

i accidentally said out loud “i'm gonna kill myself next year” and the guidance counselor two feet away with her eyes on me didn't offer any guidance and looking at ms. ennis yammering on about how we are all going to competitive colleges because we have goals for the future and we know what we want to do with our lives we want to be doctors lawyers successful and think how terrible we would turn out with no AP classes. looking at ms. ennis and my schedule -- the product of adult and peer pressure -- brings me so close to sobbing that i can't answer her questions because i know my voice will split into a thousand glass splinters and i will shatter in my tiny shell. i hate myself for the courses i'm taking i hate myself for the study hall i'm justifying and it's not even about the grades. i want to please the people i love i want to be with the people i love i want to be doing what i love i want to learn to love myself and, ms. ennis, you are not helping my self-esteem and i hate your pathetic shit-driven shit-ridden guidance. you and your society have shot down my dreams like little geese in the sky because hunting is not a crime here in the south and it's funny that i should mention geese because remember when they would land in the courtyards in middle school and we would watch them instead of class? i remember watching geese and squirrels and leaves but not the blackboard. now i don't know what to do because this classroom is in the basement and we don't have any windows and i don't know what to do because i am not old enough to make decisions for myself. if it were up to me i'd just take some honors classes and i'd sign for Astronomy and German or something and if it were up to me i wouldn't be so nervous and i would be making films daily and it wouldn't matter what some “guidance” counselor thinks (or what she's telling me to do, classes she's telling me to take, how she's telling me to live) because i'd have a strong-minded person to listen to instead. plus i can't stop thinking about the choices i've made because i wrote “classes” on my hand to remind me that i had to decide today and now that it is done i can't think long enough to rub ink off my skin. i have planned myself some amazing hell. it was not supposed to be like this. i'm shaking under my jacket and tears have been pushing their way out of blinks slowly over the last two hours and i can't think straight and i'm fucked up and i hate it. i am mad at myself for not being satisfied with AP/competition/lawyer. today i only want a hug from someone i love, to hear that i am still beautiful and now that life is sort of constantly like that, metaphorically, i thought i would get the literal thing easily. nah. i only get the gift of “LOOK AT THAT UGLY GIRL” in my ear drilling into my head. and no wonder i have no confidence, huh? don't worry, this thing is only a matter of time, right? time until i get over my stupidity until i get over my choices until the year of hell is over. hey i'm just jealous of your good day.

Tuesday, April 08, 2003

i can't hold anything up
and i'm taking in all the water
inside is too empty
and i need to know i still have
contents
so i am only full of water
full of water and bullshit and
the me that i can't stand
because look we're back to this old theme again
self-hatred
and where did all of this go for a while?
except before i just hated my mind
and my body for being my body
not for being female
i remember this
sitting on the cold sobbing bathroom floor
my paper and words cloaked in cat hair
and it's much too late
because if i had gone to bed an hour or so ago
these thoughts would not have been born
so it's late
and i'm even more insulted this time
again i've been unconsciously rejected
only this time i thought it might not happen like this
because he likes you
and he's trying to show it
he likes you so much
he talks his verses through to you
and i wash my face hard
but soap roughly over my skin
will not take off what i am
and i am waiting for the call
that isn't coming
because my wings are poking you
my angel wings are sticking you in the wrong places
and it hurts
so i'll stop
and when i go the feathers will disappear
because i didn't have wings
until you saw them

Monday, April 07, 2003

"you like her?"
yes of course
how could he not when
she gives him what
no one else does
when she is
exciting and
brand new as
tasting pink rain of a
cloudless day
and electric silk shocks
of laughter and smiles
and the kisses of her eyes
and i want her to see me
and have her be the one
to get questioned
"you like HER?!"
because if you like me
i won't mind
and if you like me
they'll probably call you crazy
hey, Love
i'll see you around
at your next appointment
slide into the slot
of your allotted time
i love these moments we have, Love
and you know that, don't you?
do you think we could fix this
to three times a week, at least?
i would say that we both deserve it
we all deserve a little more
beauty fit into a tight place
and somehow there is room for me
in the space between
your shining and my smile
karma macchiato
come on get in
the car is waiting for you
laughing and lying
egyptian style
on the pillows who are your friends
and when we start singing
i swear there are
more voices than just ours
i am crushed when we quit rolling
dragging myself up and out
put on a smile for them
smile crushed by the weight of
not carrying someone
but the doorknob in my palms
turning
they are waiting
but you're sped off
i hate for a night like this
to end
and i want to preserve it somehow
roll it up in a jar for the top shelf
take it down and stir it up sometime
so that i can remember
and the noise of our dreaming
over the sound of our breathing
and how your laughter surrounded us
splashing through a waterfall
showered and enveloped
with what you taught me
and it is just you
armed only with words and laughter
and an impossible aura
that is swimming to meet me
and in moments like these
we really do become one
we really are beauty
and we dance tonight
i feel this poem still needs some help. please give me advice. the end is a reference to brock's "panacea" poem. written today, march 19, 24, and 25.


he's too big for his body
and some definition
some words
boring weird male enigma
he will prove himself he will prove them wrong
because Goddess is on his side
no he will not be afraid of dancing
he will not be afraid of his beauty
no no no he doesn't need them
he doesn't need ridiculous comments
he doesn't need you
all walls down
he's too big for this school
where he is dwarfed by a big empty
big status
big possession
he's too big for that house
and the bobble-headed boys
in his bare living room who
might just never grow up
might just nod through life
when i've got a headache
his noodle day makes me better
and i wish we could go hunting for rolly pollies together
i want to transfer a tiny sphere of life
from my palm to his
i want his happiness
he is cutting down on coffee!
he is slowly killing his tea addiction!
boy, you are beautiful
i'm glad that we met the kid at
Sonic who used to go to school with you
and he left hating us
but he left hating us as ourselves
he drove away maiming us mentally
not having never known that we exist
because
we exist
LOUDLY
we are
ALWAYS US!
you
boy
you
have to admit that you enjoyed that
and look at what we can be all together
one big big being
what makes him tick?
a big big heart
classified enigma in
a big big world
scrawled in black ink-paint all over his keen hands
not your boy
and he laughs
and the whole big big world laughs
i promise that boy
will find a flat and fill it full of beauty
things and people
surrounding himself with wonder
he will go to Bombay, India
and try to get into a bollywood movie
by belly-dancing through the streets
waiting to be cast as an extra in a dance sequence
singing “VAYASHIANAYLADYAEKEAGOIA”
at the top of his high high voice
with that high high note sitting in the top shelf
one day he will be fulfilled
he won't have to keep searching for friends
when he is brooding at Paris street cafes
he will be approached by dead-thin artists
and love-sick poodles
and teary-eyed middle-aged women bearing pastries
who see him for what he is
he will be satisfied
when he lives in a nutshell house
with me and our beauties
he will be satisfied
as a gypsy dancing under a white-toothed moon
life is beautiful
and so is he
he is up in that smile
constructing constellations
fixturing the stars
i can see him on a ladder
palette in hand
painting the clouds on
i can't wait to see his sunrise
i can't wait to see
where this is going
he wants to be
free
frisbee-throwing
psuedo-pot-smoking
brooding, intellectual
loving and loved
gypsy boy
don't be upset
we love you too much to know you are unhappy
look at the moon smiling at you
as pixies we sprint over silver grassy fields
in the pale silver light
see the beauty of the night?

Thursday, April 03, 2003

it's not even 7am yet
there are only two cars in the parking lot
of Adult Fantasy Warehouse
i figure on belongs to the owner
and the other belong to the copper girl
standing outside the back door
getting keys?
or waiting for Boss to let her inside
now that she's given him the password
like the way she flaunts her body every day
she has her head down
trying to hide her face from the passing cars
because i'm riding on my way
to hear a woman preach to me
that abstience is freedom
and she knows!! because
she got pregnant AND married at age 17 and
she has been happy for 34 years
because apparently
at 17 she knew she was in love forever
and that she would be with only this person
for the rest of her life
but it's not okay
for us to make that decision
it's not okay
for us to go past a quick kiss and hug
because we ned to think about
GOALS
CHILDREN
MARRIAGE
well.
i know already the terible mother i would make
so i am skipping that one
and i know that i dont believe i can fit into marriage
as a stiff mediocre medium
i know my goals
and i can't see how young love would hurt them
you have come too late
we have minds of our own, now
you should have gotten to us
when they were teaching us how to conform
and i can't decide who makes me sadder
the Adult Fantasy girl
or you
with your fancy slides
thinking you are happy

Wednesday, April 02, 2003

you're always two steps ahead of me
flying along through streams of people
hard to keep up but
i'm right behind you
and you're still that milk-fed shake-head
you move and you're flying
float
pick me up in fiery skies
fly
pick me higher from these seas
you with charm-stung skin
your jumpy nerves reflect
the anxiety of your mind's eye
transmitted through your hands, your shoulders
your heart
flutters.
thump down deep
beat too hard
little bird trapped
little weak bird flies too hard
and she has got to sleep
because she shimmers through sheets in the moonlight
and this little bird cries too hard
she's up and she's lying
FINE FINE FINE
they shackled you
in the cage where your heart
beats so hard for you
it won't break
you are strong-willed but
they won't let it shine through
shape-changing for them
why
i see you like that
and i want to die
for my freedom
for yours
i want you to know what i do
feel the wind and cool breeze in the air
without monkeys having parties down our spines
i want to help flay whatever's haunting you
cast out the spirits they put in your head
because you're beautiful
and that monkey is an asshole
we'll throw him and his bananas
right out the window
and i do believe that
if we jumped out after them
we would grow wings
and sail the sky
navigate a new horizon of mysteries and beauty
let sunshine pour from thirsty eyes
into our hungry hearts

Tuesday, April 01, 2003

i don't know where imagining ends and real begins
the lines blurred between us
i'm swimming through it
and you are stuck on the bridge
the trolls underneath are telling you
not to cross
and you have never noticed them before now
now that i stand on the other side
with outstretched arms waiting
you sink back
i wait
the more this thing festers
the less it is about two people
the more it is about trolls under a bridge
and monsters under the bed
and whatever it is that you are scared of
and the things going through your head
you are deciding for the demons
this thing is dead before it can be begin
after this anticipation
and the terror of the rejection i'm saving for later
because really
i'm the hideous beast
grotesque and unlovable
what made me think
i could be worth something to you?
blind monster
lost in a river of souls
drifting amongst the trolls