Friday, October 31, 2008
Thoughts in the Morning
I have a question. This is just a question I was pondering, not something that has serious implications in my life, or even very many implications at all. At least right now. It's going to take awhile for me to state this so bear with me: How much does the number of times a person says something or the number of people a person says or feels something for, affect the quality or sincerity of this thing? For example: let's say (and this is real), I have friends at home and friends and school, does having friends in lots of places take away from things I feel for people in other places? Example two: "You are the most beautiful girl in the world," "Have you told that to other girls?" "Yes, but that was before I met you." Does that mean the statement isn't true? This is just something I was thinking about, because I tend to disregard a lot of things people say, on the basis that they've probably said it to a plethora of other people, making it less true, and I don't know if this is a logical thing to do or not.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
I'm sorry, this is going to be terribly cheesy and I am going to laugh at myself in the morning
I am a bit tipsy. Only a bit tipsy though, because the plan for the night was to drink one shot (of whiskey, because whiskey makes me warm and happy and it was cool this evening), and drink one beer, and then go home happy, and that's exactly what I did. On the way home I thought these terribly cheesy thoughts about how I love so many people so much, and it's really not just the alcohol speaking, even though I'll claim it is tomorrow, because I laugh at sincerity, I make fun of people who say things like this, because I am a cynic. But really, I was feeling kind of shitty about my life and about myself, and without saying much it's like everyone knew and made me feel better, but they probably didn't even know at all which makes it even better. I just worry, you know, being single, that if someone doesn't tell me that I'm beautiful, then I will cease to be beautiful, and if someone doesn't tell me they love me, then I will ceased to be loved, and really that's the problem with the world. We don't tell each other enough that we love each other and that we are beautiful or you are beautiful, and I know you are beautiful, because I think all of my friends are beautiful. And I know I care too much what people think, but people mean everything to me, people mean too much too me, and oh god I'm going to regret this in the morning.
But I'm never really satisfied
The best moments in life are when you are completely satisfied with where you are and who you are with. I need to work on making this happen, but first I need to reverse my thinking process. Instead of thinking, "I wish this person were here right now," I need to think, "I'm glad I'm with these people right now."
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
What about the bond between mother and child?
So I took a long nap today, like three or four hours, and I woke up and wrote this. It's nice when that happens. Except this was really depressing and I cried for a bit. I've gotten really defensive about crying lately. I cry a lot. When I get emotional, I cry, and I'm a very emotional person. I have lots of good emotions too. Sometimes those make me cry as well. See? Look how defensive I am. But it's my blog, so I can say I cried all the fuck I want to. Any ways, this is nonfiction, and it's about stuff I don't talk about a lot because it makes me cry.
I didn’t talk about it, even though it might have gotten me out of something (another F in math, the fifth hole in my ear, my long sleeves). It seems strange to me now that I treated it so casually, though that might have been a response of my disgust. My mother was in detox. I did not know what she went there for (they told me valium, but this was a lie). Later she told me that it was nothing illegal, and I told her that I did not care about legality, dependence was dependence, a concept I understood so well (at that time I was not being driven by the normal teenage vices of marijuana and alcohol, but things much more taboo). Everyone, I thought, simply had their own vice, and society generally insisted on removing these things.
As usual, my brother and I were condescending.
“I can’t believe she’s in detox,” we scoffed.
“I can’t believe she expects me to take care of her dog,” my dad said.
We got Caramel when I was ten, when my parents were still married. My dad never liked her; she interrupted his yoga. Caramel belonged to my mother and I. Like most dogs, Caramel was tragically in love with us to the point where she would not eat when no one was home. Thus, while my mother was in detox, I stayed with her.
I don’t remember going to school during this period of time, but I must have. I was also in a school play: The Skin of our Teeth, but this too exists in separate memories, as if I was leading two different lives at the time. The only thing that exists in my memory of that week (or was it weeks?) is lying on the floor with Caramel. I must have watched television, but I don’t remember what, or even the TV being on. I just remember feeling lonely, and thinking that soon, someone would realize that I was fifteen years old, my mother was in detox, and I spent every night alone with my dog.
It was almost the optimal situation for me; an excuse to be alone and depressed. I preferred the word wallow. I didn’t talk about it, or if I did it was vague and joking. I did not eat, but this was not something I mentioned either. I vaguely recall in The Skin of our Teeth, I volunteered to try on a skirt suit that was too small for the rest of the cast. I got a dubious glance from the costume director: I never looked like a skinny girl, but when I tried on the suit, it fit, miraculously. There is a picture in the yearbook of me wearing that suit. I looked at it and thought, “My god, was I really that skinny?”
Caramel seemed to understand we were in mourning. She stopped eating as well, and we curled up together, a fleshy pile of bones and a golden mass of fur, until my mother came home from detox.
I expected, not unreasonably, that she would go back to work, and that I would return to my transitions between houses and my normal dramatic range of emotions, rather than the quiet loneliness that I had inhabited. But no, she was sick. I assumed this sickness was physical. She stayed in bed, she didn’t eat. Her voice sounded strange as if her throat was raw. Instead of going to school, I decided to act sick as well, claiming that I had caught her sickness. As usual, I stayed up late knowing that I didn’t have to get up early the next morning, so I was sleeping when my dad came over to get her.
My dad recounted this story later, never once questioning why I was home with the supposed illness my mother had. He took her to the hospital, and she just kept repeating how bad she felt, over and over again, but never specifying. Finally it came out that she was depressed and they admitted her to the psychiatric ward. This was the day that my brother became so angry with my mother; he thought she tried to kill herself.
This period of time doesn’t exist in my head besides the phone calls. She would call and talk about how everyone else was in group therapy and I wanted to ask why she wasn’t in group therapy as well. Otherwise, there is a void. I don’t know if I went to school, ate, slept, or cried. I just remember when she came home (that’s when the narcolepsy hit, that’s when my mother ceased to be herself, and became this bony, shaking woman), I did not want to be there anymore.
And so I made myself leave.
I didn’t talk about it, even though it might have gotten me out of something (another F in math, the fifth hole in my ear, my long sleeves). It seems strange to me now that I treated it so casually, though that might have been a response of my disgust. My mother was in detox. I did not know what she went there for (they told me valium, but this was a lie). Later she told me that it was nothing illegal, and I told her that I did not care about legality, dependence was dependence, a concept I understood so well (at that time I was not being driven by the normal teenage vices of marijuana and alcohol, but things much more taboo). Everyone, I thought, simply had their own vice, and society generally insisted on removing these things.
As usual, my brother and I were condescending.
“I can’t believe she’s in detox,” we scoffed.
“I can’t believe she expects me to take care of her dog,” my dad said.
We got Caramel when I was ten, when my parents were still married. My dad never liked her; she interrupted his yoga. Caramel belonged to my mother and I. Like most dogs, Caramel was tragically in love with us to the point where she would not eat when no one was home. Thus, while my mother was in detox, I stayed with her.
I don’t remember going to school during this period of time, but I must have. I was also in a school play: The Skin of our Teeth, but this too exists in separate memories, as if I was leading two different lives at the time. The only thing that exists in my memory of that week (or was it weeks?) is lying on the floor with Caramel. I must have watched television, but I don’t remember what, or even the TV being on. I just remember feeling lonely, and thinking that soon, someone would realize that I was fifteen years old, my mother was in detox, and I spent every night alone with my dog.
It was almost the optimal situation for me; an excuse to be alone and depressed. I preferred the word wallow. I didn’t talk about it, or if I did it was vague and joking. I did not eat, but this was not something I mentioned either. I vaguely recall in The Skin of our Teeth, I volunteered to try on a skirt suit that was too small for the rest of the cast. I got a dubious glance from the costume director: I never looked like a skinny girl, but when I tried on the suit, it fit, miraculously. There is a picture in the yearbook of me wearing that suit. I looked at it and thought, “My god, was I really that skinny?”
Caramel seemed to understand we were in mourning. She stopped eating as well, and we curled up together, a fleshy pile of bones and a golden mass of fur, until my mother came home from detox.
I expected, not unreasonably, that she would go back to work, and that I would return to my transitions between houses and my normal dramatic range of emotions, rather than the quiet loneliness that I had inhabited. But no, she was sick. I assumed this sickness was physical. She stayed in bed, she didn’t eat. Her voice sounded strange as if her throat was raw. Instead of going to school, I decided to act sick as well, claiming that I had caught her sickness. As usual, I stayed up late knowing that I didn’t have to get up early the next morning, so I was sleeping when my dad came over to get her.
My dad recounted this story later, never once questioning why I was home with the supposed illness my mother had. He took her to the hospital, and she just kept repeating how bad she felt, over and over again, but never specifying. Finally it came out that she was depressed and they admitted her to the psychiatric ward. This was the day that my brother became so angry with my mother; he thought she tried to kill herself.
This period of time doesn’t exist in my head besides the phone calls. She would call and talk about how everyone else was in group therapy and I wanted to ask why she wasn’t in group therapy as well. Otherwise, there is a void. I don’t know if I went to school, ate, slept, or cried. I just remember when she came home (that’s when the narcolepsy hit, that’s when my mother ceased to be herself, and became this bony, shaking woman), I did not want to be there anymore.
And so I made myself leave.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Cecelia, you're breaking my heart
I've spent a lot of time by myself recently. Okay, I've spent the last four days virtually alone besides class. This is a really long time for me to be by myself. My coping technique for atleast the last five years or so has been making sure I have something to do of every minute of everyday. Part of it was because I had a midterm due, that ended up being fourteen pages long and required long periods of procrastination. I decided some things. That's not true. I decided one thing. I decided I'm not going to spend time around people that make me feel bad. Which sound ridiculous, I know, I mean, really how hard is it not to spend time around people that make you feel bad? But sometimes you like the people that make you feel bad. Also, I'm not quite sure who makes me feel bad. I'm still considering it. There are a couple people on the maybe list.
Side note: most of the people I am friends with don't make me feel bad. If you're reading this, you're probably not one of them. Most of the people that make me feel bad are the ones listened a few blog posts ago, the ones who are indifferent to me.
Side note: most of the people I am friends with don't make me feel bad. If you're reading this, you're probably not one of them. Most of the people that make me feel bad are the ones listened a few blog posts ago, the ones who are indifferent to me.
I'll make him smile just so I can kill it and eat it
I think I wrote this when I was 16 or 17.
Your number is still sitting next to the phone. Written on a scrap of notebook paper torn out of your math notebook. Part of a math problem is scribbled on the side. I recite the number to myself to see if I still have it memorized: I do. You gave it to me under the guise of working on a homework project together, under the guise of going to see a movie.
The movie was terrible, an action movie with no plot. Upon telling you this you exclaimed, “It doesn’t need a plot, it has action.’ When you asked me if I wanted to go see it, I said yes, not because any interest in the movie, but because I wanted to sit next to you in the movie theatre. I wanted you to grab my hand and we would look like all the other perfect couples scattered about the theatre existing solely so others can envy them.
You didn’t buy me popcorn or pay for my movie ticket. When we sat down my arm sat alone on the armrest, hoping the air felt as cold on your hand as it did on mine. When we said goodbye you dropped me off my house, said, “see you,” and drove off without waiting to see if I had gotten inside.
You drove me crazy then.
Your number is still sitting next to the phone, on the dry, dusty wooden shelf. I can see you inside of your writing. It’s slanted and ambivalent, like when you would sloppily run your fingers along my side. There is an open-ended future written in the numbers. A suggestion of what if.
I have scribbled out your picture in the yearbook. Your face is now a black oval with little white dots where the marker didn’t cover. The necklace you gave me broke. I wore it to spite you. To remind myself that I was merely an investment of a pay check, one that didn’t work out, but I could keep the leftovers.
Once in desperation I thought of calling you. My hand was on the phone. The tips of my fingers touching the scrap of paper containing your number. We were, we are friends, or so we said. But I realized just in time, just as my finger pushed in the first number, the phone admitting a jarring tone, I realized that you don’t care. That I only mattered for a moment and I was left as a freckle.
So I leave your number be. I expect that someday soon my dad will pick it up, ask me if I need it. I will pause, trying to mentally to define the line of what I really need and what I just want. I will tell him no, that I don’t need it, he can throw it out. I would appreciate it if he threw it out.
Your number is still sitting next to the phone. Written on a scrap of notebook paper torn out of your math notebook. Part of a math problem is scribbled on the side. I recite the number to myself to see if I still have it memorized: I do. You gave it to me under the guise of working on a homework project together, under the guise of going to see a movie.
The movie was terrible, an action movie with no plot. Upon telling you this you exclaimed, “It doesn’t need a plot, it has action.’ When you asked me if I wanted to go see it, I said yes, not because any interest in the movie, but because I wanted to sit next to you in the movie theatre. I wanted you to grab my hand and we would look like all the other perfect couples scattered about the theatre existing solely so others can envy them.
You didn’t buy me popcorn or pay for my movie ticket. When we sat down my arm sat alone on the armrest, hoping the air felt as cold on your hand as it did on mine. When we said goodbye you dropped me off my house, said, “see you,” and drove off without waiting to see if I had gotten inside.
You drove me crazy then.
Your number is still sitting next to the phone, on the dry, dusty wooden shelf. I can see you inside of your writing. It’s slanted and ambivalent, like when you would sloppily run your fingers along my side. There is an open-ended future written in the numbers. A suggestion of what if.
I have scribbled out your picture in the yearbook. Your face is now a black oval with little white dots where the marker didn’t cover. The necklace you gave me broke. I wore it to spite you. To remind myself that I was merely an investment of a pay check, one that didn’t work out, but I could keep the leftovers.
Once in desperation I thought of calling you. My hand was on the phone. The tips of my fingers touching the scrap of paper containing your number. We were, we are friends, or so we said. But I realized just in time, just as my finger pushed in the first number, the phone admitting a jarring tone, I realized that you don’t care. That I only mattered for a moment and I was left as a freckle.
So I leave your number be. I expect that someday soon my dad will pick it up, ask me if I need it. I will pause, trying to mentally to define the line of what I really need and what I just want. I will tell him no, that I don’t need it, he can throw it out. I would appreciate it if he threw it out.
She'll make him smile for the simple fact that he needs it
I was reading Julie's blog this morning. I am now going to quote Julie's blog. I'm sorry Julie. If you wanted me to unquote your blog and vaguely reference it I can do that too.
"This year is Life Boot Camp for me, I think. All of my negative and inactive habits and tendencies will be beaten out of me, and I will be a responsive, active performer and person. All my classes are boot camp. My personal life is boot camp too. The only thing that truly upsets me about all of this is that there's no room in it for cynicism. And I like my cynicism. But, these things happen."
Julie was able to say, more eloquently than I, what is going on in my life. It's hard for me to say things like, "I feel like I'm changing," even though that's in my head, because it's too cheesy, too insincere. But it's more like, I have to change. I sat down this weekend and asked myself what I did before (you know, the things I did before that weren't detrimental and self-deprecating). One of the things I used to do on a regular basis was walk down the Barnes and Nobles (this was in ninth and tenth grade, before I had a car), and read the stupidest, most vapid books I could find, until I didn't think anymore. That's what I did this weekend, besides writing my politics of art midterm. I am now on my fourth book of the last four days. These books are starting to anger me though. Do people really think that way? I mean it would be nice. They think about shoes and boys, and when they are sad they eat a carton of ice cream. I do this too. I think about shoes and boys, and when I am sad I either eat a carton of ice cream or nothing. But in between all of that, there is something raw and painful that a carton of ice cream doesn't actually help. I thought most people felt this way. You know, confused, hurt, sometimes extremely happy or extremely sad for no reason. But there are all these books, bestselling books, where life is more black and white than a picture book.
Side note: A really good children's book is "Sad Book," by Michael Rosen. Julia had it last year when she was evaluating children's books. I think everyone should read it to their children. Okay, I think everyone should read it. It has the same illustrator as Roald Dahl's childrens books, which I also think everyone should read.
"This year is Life Boot Camp for me, I think. All of my negative and inactive habits and tendencies will be beaten out of me, and I will be a responsive, active performer and person. All my classes are boot camp. My personal life is boot camp too. The only thing that truly upsets me about all of this is that there's no room in it for cynicism. And I like my cynicism. But, these things happen."
Julie was able to say, more eloquently than I, what is going on in my life. It's hard for me to say things like, "I feel like I'm changing," even though that's in my head, because it's too cheesy, too insincere. But it's more like, I have to change. I sat down this weekend and asked myself what I did before (you know, the things I did before that weren't detrimental and self-deprecating). One of the things I used to do on a regular basis was walk down the Barnes and Nobles (this was in ninth and tenth grade, before I had a car), and read the stupidest, most vapid books I could find, until I didn't think anymore. That's what I did this weekend, besides writing my politics of art midterm. I am now on my fourth book of the last four days. These books are starting to anger me though. Do people really think that way? I mean it would be nice. They think about shoes and boys, and when they are sad they eat a carton of ice cream. I do this too. I think about shoes and boys, and when I am sad I either eat a carton of ice cream or nothing. But in between all of that, there is something raw and painful that a carton of ice cream doesn't actually help. I thought most people felt this way. You know, confused, hurt, sometimes extremely happy or extremely sad for no reason. But there are all these books, bestselling books, where life is more black and white than a picture book.
Side note: A really good children's book is "Sad Book," by Michael Rosen. Julia had it last year when she was evaluating children's books. I think everyone should read it to their children. Okay, I think everyone should read it. It has the same illustrator as Roald Dahl's childrens books, which I also think everyone should read.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
The problem with my life
I'm in love with everyone.
Thus my heart breaks several times a day.
I'm not sure if I'm joking or not.
Thus my heart breaks several times a day.
I'm not sure if I'm joking or not.
I'll make you smile just so I can sit and look at it
It's nice, in a strange way, to know that there are people I can count on to not read my blog, in the same way it's nice to know there are people I can count on to read my blog.
Even though it drives me crazy that most of the people I write about are completely indifferent towards me.
Even though it drives me crazy that most of the people I write about are completely indifferent towards me.
Bittersweet Heat
He awoke me those mornings
If only to say, “It’s hot in here.”
Those mornings he drank black coffee
At a broken wooden picnic table
And woke me those mornings
To whine about how his tummy ached
How his head hurt the night before
He was eating ice cream, it was cold,
Orange flavored and the ends tasted like wood
The sun was too bright, it hurt his eyes
He groans about the customers
Grouses about his feet, his back
Tells me, “A woman just masturbated in the bathroom”
All I had were those mornings
The gripes of the sun rising
All I had of the nighttime was a picture
Of his beaten, bloody, lip
I told him one of those mornings that I loved the heat
And I liked to walk shoeless along the sidewalk
Watching my reflection as I went to work
And I bought two hard French rolls
To crack open and eat the gooey insides
Black coffee was too strong and I bought
Steamed milk and vanilla, barely tainted brown
He replied “It’s too hot in here.”
If only to say, “It’s hot in here.”
Those mornings he drank black coffee
At a broken wooden picnic table
And woke me those mornings
To whine about how his tummy ached
How his head hurt the night before
He was eating ice cream, it was cold,
Orange flavored and the ends tasted like wood
The sun was too bright, it hurt his eyes
He groans about the customers
Grouses about his feet, his back
Tells me, “A woman just masturbated in the bathroom”
All I had were those mornings
The gripes of the sun rising
All I had of the nighttime was a picture
Of his beaten, bloody, lip
I told him one of those mornings that I loved the heat
And I liked to walk shoeless along the sidewalk
Watching my reflection as I went to work
And I bought two hard French rolls
To crack open and eat the gooey insides
Black coffee was too strong and I bought
Steamed milk and vanilla, barely tainted brown
He replied “It’s too hot in here.”
Loneliness
I wrote this when I started college.
She opened her mouth and found
Oh, her lips would not open
As if bound together with glue
And oh, the air she breathes in
Suddenly does not fill her as before
Oh, what a catastrophe it is
Lips firmly pressed, tongue against teeth
The air is not so pure as before
It was not malicious intent she smelled
But oh, such loneliness lies in that of the unknown
She opened her mouth and found
Oh, her lips would not open
As if bound together with glue
And oh, the air she breathes in
Suddenly does not fill her as before
Oh, what a catastrophe it is
Lips firmly pressed, tongue against teeth
The air is not so pure as before
It was not malicious intent she smelled
But oh, such loneliness lies in that of the unknown
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Art History and Me: Why I Fail At It
Okay, I realize I'm in Florence on an art history program. It didn't occur to me until I started working on my midterm for, "The Politics of Art in Renaissance Florence," that this was a really bad idea. I suck at art history. I love art. I do. I love to draw, and paint, and make kids into color mixing robots at the Art Academy. I love to go to museums and look at art, especially the art I feel like looks like me on the inside (which I've decided actually looks like the pit of a peach). But I fucking suck at art history itself, especially how it relates to Christianity. I don't know who any of the saints are. I don't know the life of the Virgin. I don't really care to know these things. The art history class at Knox has been my lowest grade in college so far. I started going to the counselor because I was so depressed about the low grades I was getting on papers I thought were good (among other things). I've been avoiding working on this midterm, because it scares the shit out of me. I have to write four essays and so far I have part of an outline for one. It's going to be a long weekend. I'm considering shutting myself in my room for most of it. I think it will do me good. It's strange though, I've forgotten what a good distraction homework is. It's what I did last year: I worked on schoolwork until I forgot about everything else. That's why I understand German and not Italian. In Italian I sit, staring out the window and think about what's going on in my life. When I was in German I sat making and memorizing German flashcards, and not thinking about anything else. I started to dream in lists of German. As much as I complained about the work, it was kind of nice. That's the other thing; I've hated doing the readings here. I mean, no one really likes reading non-fiction about anything (or atleast in my opinion), but this is terrible. At Knox I get to read things about feminism and sexuality, and terrific things like that. I've never felt so stupid as I have while reading gender theory, but I don't mind reading it because it's interesting. People don't believe me when I tell them how interesting gender and women's studies is, but seriously it's amazing.
This is why I am going to stay in school forever.
This is why I am going to stay in school forever.
Self Portrait
I wrote this in the spring of freshmen year of college. It was an exercise for my creative nonfiction class. I would say it's still accurate.
I move my life through words. In the winter my world was vague. The walls appeared to be vague, the scenery around me vague. Galesburg, I felt, was not a real place at all, but a dream world from which I needed to wake up. I then moved into a state of confliction. At meals I would have to choose between cereal or a more substantial meal that was doused in oil and fat. Choose between working out and going home and curling up in my bed. These choices blossomed into larger choices, ones that I was not sure I could make and so I settled into a state of ambivalence. The trouble is that confliction is an ever arising emotion that I can feel curling itself around my ribcage. It settles in the bags underneath my eyes and the dip in my skin where the collar bones meet at the throat. Confliction is what awakens me from my ambivalent state of sustenance where I hide in the winter. It rises with the flowers and the buds on the trees and it brings with it razors, scales, and bleeding fingers.
It started with a state of boredom. Not the boredom of a humid summer day spent lying in the grass eating a Popsicle, but restless late night boredom spent staring at the television screen. This boredom was baffling to me. A type of boredom that traveled with me in the pocket of my jeans and crawled into my eye sockets when it was time to go to sleep. I lay there with boredom until boredom pushed me out of bed and onto the quiet St. Paul sidewalks to trample it away. I would wake up in the morning and find boredom written across the notebook pages at school in the morning, not realizing until I was sitting in the doctor’s office with scabs across my arms that boredom was a synonym for anxiety.
It was most often a he who made me anxious. A he who did not look at me the way I wanted him to, a he who became built up into my head until he was more than any he could ever aspire to. The he who didn’t see me because I had too much fat around my thighs, too many pimples on my forehead. Because I cried too much, yelled too much, and because I simply needed him too much. It was this group of the ubiquitous he that stood me in front of the mirror at night. I would stand there, picking at blemishes on my face until gashes formed, grabbing handfuls of flesh and thinking that I was too much. If only I were lesser then he would love me. It was the other group of he that left the red and white scars that crawled up my arms. This was the he that aroused confliction. The kind that told me how often they thought of me, but left out the context under which this thought occurred. The kind of he who forgot to call or never once uttered the word beautiful. It was him that left me wandering the streets at night.
Ubiquitous was the word that became associated with him. He was in my mind always. I carried him around, dangling from my fingers like a coffee cup. Occasionally he would change. His hair would get shorter, lighter, he would get taller, heavier. This ever coveted he, a more abstract concept than anything real. Despite my ideals of feminism he became the one that was supposed to save me from my anxiety that was eating away at my wrists and thighs.
It was not a he who saved me, but diversion. I got a job. Instead of curling into my remorse ball at night I would call people. I started crocheting and doing embroidering and so instead of a he in my mind it was counting stitches and rows. I ate three meals a day and went running at night. I filled my mind with schedules and lists and lined up my case of oil paints in rainbow order. He still rests in my ear amongst the long row of earrings and at night I still pace around trying to fill the boredom. During the day I emulate the word distraction. I took it apart and tried to discover exactly what it meant. As I washed my face and brushed my teeth to get ready for bed one night after working on homework for several hours I realized that distraction was sustenance. Concentrate on eating, sleeping, cleaning, and little else.
I move my life through words. In the winter my world was vague. The walls appeared to be vague, the scenery around me vague. Galesburg, I felt, was not a real place at all, but a dream world from which I needed to wake up. I then moved into a state of confliction. At meals I would have to choose between cereal or a more substantial meal that was doused in oil and fat. Choose between working out and going home and curling up in my bed. These choices blossomed into larger choices, ones that I was not sure I could make and so I settled into a state of ambivalence. The trouble is that confliction is an ever arising emotion that I can feel curling itself around my ribcage. It settles in the bags underneath my eyes and the dip in my skin where the collar bones meet at the throat. Confliction is what awakens me from my ambivalent state of sustenance where I hide in the winter. It rises with the flowers and the buds on the trees and it brings with it razors, scales, and bleeding fingers.
It started with a state of boredom. Not the boredom of a humid summer day spent lying in the grass eating a Popsicle, but restless late night boredom spent staring at the television screen. This boredom was baffling to me. A type of boredom that traveled with me in the pocket of my jeans and crawled into my eye sockets when it was time to go to sleep. I lay there with boredom until boredom pushed me out of bed and onto the quiet St. Paul sidewalks to trample it away. I would wake up in the morning and find boredom written across the notebook pages at school in the morning, not realizing until I was sitting in the doctor’s office with scabs across my arms that boredom was a synonym for anxiety.
It was most often a he who made me anxious. A he who did not look at me the way I wanted him to, a he who became built up into my head until he was more than any he could ever aspire to. The he who didn’t see me because I had too much fat around my thighs, too many pimples on my forehead. Because I cried too much, yelled too much, and because I simply needed him too much. It was this group of the ubiquitous he that stood me in front of the mirror at night. I would stand there, picking at blemishes on my face until gashes formed, grabbing handfuls of flesh and thinking that I was too much. If only I were lesser then he would love me. It was the other group of he that left the red and white scars that crawled up my arms. This was the he that aroused confliction. The kind that told me how often they thought of me, but left out the context under which this thought occurred. The kind of he who forgot to call or never once uttered the word beautiful. It was him that left me wandering the streets at night.
Ubiquitous was the word that became associated with him. He was in my mind always. I carried him around, dangling from my fingers like a coffee cup. Occasionally he would change. His hair would get shorter, lighter, he would get taller, heavier. This ever coveted he, a more abstract concept than anything real. Despite my ideals of feminism he became the one that was supposed to save me from my anxiety that was eating away at my wrists and thighs.
It was not a he who saved me, but diversion. I got a job. Instead of curling into my remorse ball at night I would call people. I started crocheting and doing embroidering and so instead of a he in my mind it was counting stitches and rows. I ate three meals a day and went running at night. I filled my mind with schedules and lists and lined up my case of oil paints in rainbow order. He still rests in my ear amongst the long row of earrings and at night I still pace around trying to fill the boredom. During the day I emulate the word distraction. I took it apart and tried to discover exactly what it meant. As I washed my face and brushed my teeth to get ready for bed one night after working on homework for several hours I realized that distraction was sustenance. Concentrate on eating, sleeping, cleaning, and little else.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
You're Nonexistant, Just Like Jesus
Nancy spent her entire life worrying
about whether or not Jesus loved her.
Her entire implying an ending of sorts.
At night she would get down on her knees
—she put down carpet for this purpose—
and pray for his divine love, until she was left
with red imprints on her knees and her arms felt weak
from clasping her hands together.
about whether or not Jesus loved her.
Her entire implying an ending of sorts.
At night she would get down on her knees
—she put down carpet for this purpose—
and pray for his divine love, until she was left
with red imprints on her knees and her arms felt weak
from clasping her hands together.
I was feeling left out
Julie and Martin have been prolific bloggers this week and I felt left out. I don't really have anything to say though. I crashed yesterday. I fell asleep in class and then went home and slept from 4:30 till 8:15 and from midnight till 7:30. Yeah, I really crashed. I spent a lot of time last week thinking. It was good thinking though, not detrimental or self-deprecating. I was trying to figure out what I wanted. Now I'm back and I'm trying not to think again.
I have midterms, and while they aren't very long, I'm really nervous for them. I've forgotten how to do school. I can't write formally anymore, I can't even speak formally anymore. Strangely, the assigment I wrote on Sunday night after getting back from Amsterdam got a better grade than the assignment I slaved over for a few hours. It kind of makes me wonder what the point is.
I don't know if I will be able to have any creative writing classes this year. I have to take one German class in the winter and two in the spring, which only leaves time for three other classes this year and two of them are 300 level literature classes, but one only gives me credit for gender and women's studies (Exploring literature by Chicanas). I hate not having a writing class. I need someone to force me to write. I need a little room where I can be locked in.
I have midterms, and while they aren't very long, I'm really nervous for them. I've forgotten how to do school. I can't write formally anymore, I can't even speak formally anymore. Strangely, the assigment I wrote on Sunday night after getting back from Amsterdam got a better grade than the assignment I slaved over for a few hours. It kind of makes me wonder what the point is.
I don't know if I will be able to have any creative writing classes this year. I have to take one German class in the winter and two in the spring, which only leaves time for three other classes this year and two of them are 300 level literature classes, but one only gives me credit for gender and women's studies (Exploring literature by Chicanas). I hate not having a writing class. I need someone to force me to write. I need a little room where I can be locked in.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Julie
Okay, so for class we had to write something describing someone. I had just talked to Julie, so this is kind of, vaguely, like Julie. Nothing is meant to be malicious or anything. Some of it is vastly exaggerated. Is that how you spell exaggerated?
One of Julie’s favorite things to do was to fantasize about kissing boys, but once she actually kissed them, she no longer liked them very much. The kisses usually occurred wet and drunk on her doorstep (why was it always raining when boys decided to kiss her?), or sweaty and drunk at a party, and neither of these was very appealing. Besides, she didn’t want to give up her autonomy, though autonomy was not a word she actually used herself, being a word of the feminist rhetoric, which she so despised. Julie was not entirely sure what this “autonomy,” or “freedom” was composed of, but it didn’t actually matter because she never got to the point of having a relationship with anyone. Another one of her favorite things to do was make piles. She made piles of everything, of books, of papers, and the dirty clothes weren’t quite dirty enough to put in the laundry. In her childhood room the piles would become as tall as she was and her room began to appear mountainous. Every so often she would try and clean out these piles, but once she un-stacked everything it appeared like more, and so she would simply restack it all. She tries not to do this in her new apartment, her first apartment, with a tiny little room with a window that looks out to a brick wall. This is the best part of her new apartment, the brick wall feels symbolic of something, but she isn’t sure what.
One of Julie’s favorite things to do was to fantasize about kissing boys, but once she actually kissed them, she no longer liked them very much. The kisses usually occurred wet and drunk on her doorstep (why was it always raining when boys decided to kiss her?), or sweaty and drunk at a party, and neither of these was very appealing. Besides, she didn’t want to give up her autonomy, though autonomy was not a word she actually used herself, being a word of the feminist rhetoric, which she so despised. Julie was not entirely sure what this “autonomy,” or “freedom” was composed of, but it didn’t actually matter because she never got to the point of having a relationship with anyone. Another one of her favorite things to do was make piles. She made piles of everything, of books, of papers, and the dirty clothes weren’t quite dirty enough to put in the laundry. In her childhood room the piles would become as tall as she was and her room began to appear mountainous. Every so often she would try and clean out these piles, but once she un-stacked everything it appeared like more, and so she would simply restack it all. She tries not to do this in her new apartment, her first apartment, with a tiny little room with a window that looks out to a brick wall. This is the best part of her new apartment, the brick wall feels symbolic of something, but she isn’t sure what.
I AMsterdam
I will write a post soon about my trip. Maybe post a poem or two. After midterms. Or most likely while I am supposed to be working on midterms.
(I just had a fantastic lunch of bread, gorganzola, and this other great kind of cheese that I can't remember the name of)
(I just had a fantastic lunch of bread, gorganzola, and this other great kind of cheese that I can't remember the name of)
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
So much for normality
I would tell more about Amsterdam, but I feel it's not internet appropriate. If you want to know more, ask. It's fascinating.
Oh, Brussels is fantastic. I had the best waffle while I was there. And the best beer, and the best chocolate. So basically Brussels is the best.
Oh, Brussels is fantastic. I had the best waffle while I was there. And the best beer, and the best chocolate. So basically Brussels is the best.
Friday, October 10, 2008
I am going to Amsterdam
Like for real, I am going to Amsterdam. Maybe I will write some things there.
Jealousy #2
Delia is a voluptuous woman. She has the kind of curves that men never admit that they like until they get to the bedroom and start grabbing. Delia finds men very grabby: they grab at her breasts, her buttox, even the excess flesh on her legs. Rather than becoming offended, Delia likes this grabbing. Her favorite type of man is the type that only likes her sometimes. The kind she has to strut around in a low-cut top with her breasts jiggling for. Often, even this doesn’t work and find herself perfectly bending over a lot—she knows men like her rounded ass—and picking things up off the ground. When she does this she pretends that all eyes in the room rest upon her. A lot of people say they don’t like Delia. She thinks this is a lie. She thinks everyone likes her.
Galleon's Lap
I wrote this for an exercise in beginning non-fiction. It almost got into Catch, but they didn't want me because it doesn't reach a conclusion, which is actually accurate to real life.
The third couch cushion served as a void. I always sat on the right side and he always sat on the left. He sat, slouched down with his legs parted or with his feet resting on the coffee table. I sat with my body angled towards his, my legs crossed with my foot curling around my ankle. In between us sat the couch cushion. I had never paid particular attention to the couch cushion before. The interwoven scratchy threads with particles of crumbs that held on with decisiveness.
That crevice that delved deep into rocky surface of my middle cushion, it evaporated at night when I closed my eyes. My comforter would turn into his bony form. The star covered cloth would grow arms that wrapped around me and there we would lay, legs spread, throats constricting with our whispers. I would lay my head on his chest, formed by my mascara stained pillowcase, and as my breathing slowed I would fall into sleep, my comforter soft on my bare skin. The two of us would be wrapped in it, be covered in the blue and yellow stars. Be held together by down feathers and fabric.
The problem was waking. Waking to find him reduced to a cell phone clutched in my right hand on the off chance that he would call me. Waking to find myself alone, hugging the insubstantial body of my teddy bear, Snuggly. His nose long having fallen off, his eyes scratched, and one ear partially disconnected. That’s the whole trouble with stuffed animals, with comforters, pillows, and closed-eyed dreams, is the point where they cease to be real. Where I awoke to find him reduced to a rumpled blue comforter or the disintegrating teddy bear. How, I often wondered, did Christopher Robin make Winnie the Pooh come to life?
We watched movies together, tentatively passing the popcorn over the gap, making sure that our fingers didn’t touch. There was always a tense moment as our hands neared each other, my breath would stop for a second, caught in my throat. When the moment passed my heart felt as if it were pounding throughout my entire body from the ever so brief stimulation of an almost touch
“I love that scene,” I said.
“What scene?”
“The one where he meets her at the top of the escalator. I think it is one of the most romantic scenes in any movie.”
“Someday, I will meet you at the top of the escalator.”
“But you aren’t in love with me, there’s a difference. We wouldn’t go back to your room and make love afterwards.”
True, he agreed, and the honesty of it lay in the space over the couch cushion until it slipped down my throat and began the voyage down my body, finally stopping to wrap itself so tightly around my ribcage that I could no longer breathe. At times like this, the foot and a half distance between us raged like a storm over the ocean. I sat and watched the chaos that ensued in the middle of us and he sat staring straight forward with his eyes on the television. I counted down the distance, a foot and a half, 18 inches, my voice got smaller carried over that vast space, making him turn to me and say, “What?”
How was I supposed to move from one couch cushion to the other? It was not as simple as picking up my bottom and sliding over. There were whispers in the way. The ones that said, “what if?” The ones that hung in space over the tortilla chip crumbs and the chocolate chip cookies pieces. The ones that lingered beside the drop of spilled peppermint bon bon ice cream.
He called me one night to tell me about his new girlfriend. The girl with blond hair and blue eyes. I threw the phone against the wall when we hung up. I didn’t want to look at it anymore. He and I no longer sat on opposite ends of the couch. It was not a couch cushion that stood between us, but a person. Who—compared to the couch cushion—looked like a giantess. I had never met her, only seen pictures, but these pictures came alive before my closed eyes at night, just as his sleeping form did. That picture of them kissing, it played forth as a pornography in my head, as a self-flagellation for my passivity. It had just been a couch cushion between us. I could have moved over at any moment, but I didn’t. I had gotten stuck, blocked by the crack in the seats. I could conquer a couch cushion, cross that vast expanse of air, but I did not think that I could beat blond hair and blue eyes. I was the opposite of this girl, where she had the body of a teenage boy; flat-chested with narrow hips, I was dark and curvy. I was not what the he wanted and so he stopped calling me and when his number disappeared from the back of my throat, I stopped calling him as well.
That couch cushion. An expanse of maroon with rocky crevices. But that is the trouble with examining something that closely. The rocky crevices are really only slight indents and one side of the couch was all I ever had.
The third couch cushion served as a void. I always sat on the right side and he always sat on the left. He sat, slouched down with his legs parted or with his feet resting on the coffee table. I sat with my body angled towards his, my legs crossed with my foot curling around my ankle. In between us sat the couch cushion. I had never paid particular attention to the couch cushion before. The interwoven scratchy threads with particles of crumbs that held on with decisiveness.
That crevice that delved deep into rocky surface of my middle cushion, it evaporated at night when I closed my eyes. My comforter would turn into his bony form. The star covered cloth would grow arms that wrapped around me and there we would lay, legs spread, throats constricting with our whispers. I would lay my head on his chest, formed by my mascara stained pillowcase, and as my breathing slowed I would fall into sleep, my comforter soft on my bare skin. The two of us would be wrapped in it, be covered in the blue and yellow stars. Be held together by down feathers and fabric.
The problem was waking. Waking to find him reduced to a cell phone clutched in my right hand on the off chance that he would call me. Waking to find myself alone, hugging the insubstantial body of my teddy bear, Snuggly. His nose long having fallen off, his eyes scratched, and one ear partially disconnected. That’s the whole trouble with stuffed animals, with comforters, pillows, and closed-eyed dreams, is the point where they cease to be real. Where I awoke to find him reduced to a rumpled blue comforter or the disintegrating teddy bear. How, I often wondered, did Christopher Robin make Winnie the Pooh come to life?
We watched movies together, tentatively passing the popcorn over the gap, making sure that our fingers didn’t touch. There was always a tense moment as our hands neared each other, my breath would stop for a second, caught in my throat. When the moment passed my heart felt as if it were pounding throughout my entire body from the ever so brief stimulation of an almost touch
“I love that scene,” I said.
“What scene?”
“The one where he meets her at the top of the escalator. I think it is one of the most romantic scenes in any movie.”
“Someday, I will meet you at the top of the escalator.”
“But you aren’t in love with me, there’s a difference. We wouldn’t go back to your room and make love afterwards.”
True, he agreed, and the honesty of it lay in the space over the couch cushion until it slipped down my throat and began the voyage down my body, finally stopping to wrap itself so tightly around my ribcage that I could no longer breathe. At times like this, the foot and a half distance between us raged like a storm over the ocean. I sat and watched the chaos that ensued in the middle of us and he sat staring straight forward with his eyes on the television. I counted down the distance, a foot and a half, 18 inches, my voice got smaller carried over that vast space, making him turn to me and say, “What?”
How was I supposed to move from one couch cushion to the other? It was not as simple as picking up my bottom and sliding over. There were whispers in the way. The ones that said, “what if?” The ones that hung in space over the tortilla chip crumbs and the chocolate chip cookies pieces. The ones that lingered beside the drop of spilled peppermint bon bon ice cream.
He called me one night to tell me about his new girlfriend. The girl with blond hair and blue eyes. I threw the phone against the wall when we hung up. I didn’t want to look at it anymore. He and I no longer sat on opposite ends of the couch. It was not a couch cushion that stood between us, but a person. Who—compared to the couch cushion—looked like a giantess. I had never met her, only seen pictures, but these pictures came alive before my closed eyes at night, just as his sleeping form did. That picture of them kissing, it played forth as a pornography in my head, as a self-flagellation for my passivity. It had just been a couch cushion between us. I could have moved over at any moment, but I didn’t. I had gotten stuck, blocked by the crack in the seats. I could conquer a couch cushion, cross that vast expanse of air, but I did not think that I could beat blond hair and blue eyes. I was the opposite of this girl, where she had the body of a teenage boy; flat-chested with narrow hips, I was dark and curvy. I was not what the he wanted and so he stopped calling me and when his number disappeared from the back of my throat, I stopped calling him as well.
That couch cushion. An expanse of maroon with rocky crevices. But that is the trouble with examining something that closely. The rocky crevices are really only slight indents and one side of the couch was all I ever had.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
My blog is locked
My blog was locked because they think it's spam. Apparently it appears like repetitive nonsense text. I'm not sure what that says about my poetry. I'm not sure I can even post this.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Jealousy # 1
He was a little man, little everywhere. He had stubby little legs, fat fingers, and little wisps of hair that stuck up from his balding head. The nickname "angry little man," was often embued upon him. As well the suggestion that if he were bigger then he would be less angry. This is not a suggestion that he disagrees with.
He is not supposed to be living where he is. He had gone after a larger apartment, a cleaner apartment, but he didn't have the down payment in time. When he tried to complain, all the manager of the building had to say was, "Sorry, they had it first, they had better credit. Better luck next time." He did not see luck like this though, as something flucating. Luck was something stable, endowed at birth, something he was lacking.
He is not supposed to be living where he is. He had gone after a larger apartment, a cleaner apartment, but he didn't have the down payment in time. When he tried to complain, all the manager of the building had to say was, "Sorry, they had it first, they had better credit. Better luck next time." He did not see luck like this though, as something flucating. Luck was something stable, endowed at birth, something he was lacking.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
How To Write
I found something that I wrote my senior year of high school. It was for the empathy project. During the empathy project we would talk with another person in lit class about a certain topic (love, education, friends, gender, etc.), and today I was looking through them and I found mine from the day we talked about writing. Here is an excerpt I enjoyed:
I hated memoir. I had a juvenile animosity towards it. I had my own life, why would I ever want to read about someone else’s? All of my hatred was entirely because I was eleven years old and had nothing to write about. Of course this changed by the time I was thirteen or fourteen. I discovered the shit headed joy of writing figurative self-mutilation. Writing is for escaping and writing is for continuously sticking a nail through your foot. Really writing memoir is the most masochistic thing anyone could ever do. I was depressed. Then I wrote about being depressed. Then I revised being depressed, and so by that time I have lived through depression four times around and I don’t like what I’ve written anymore, because I’m so depressed I’ve lost my self esteem.
Clearly the right answer at that point would have been to start a journal about my depraved feelings, but sometimes I needed a break. That’s when you start playing solitaire. Solitaire is the best thing in life. It’s great because now they have multiple types of solitaire. There’s regular solitaire, but you can go the easy route and draw one card at a time or you can be adventurous and do the three card draw. The three-card draw is a risky one, especially when you are in an emotionally fragile state of mind, which you probably are after writing. When I was fourteen I discovered Spider Solitaire. The amazing thing about Spider Solitaire is that there are three different levels, so that once you have mastered one level you can move up to the nest one. I am still on the middle level. Spider Solitaire is a never-ending challenge.
I hated memoir. I had a juvenile animosity towards it. I had my own life, why would I ever want to read about someone else’s? All of my hatred was entirely because I was eleven years old and had nothing to write about. Of course this changed by the time I was thirteen or fourteen. I discovered the shit headed joy of writing figurative self-mutilation. Writing is for escaping and writing is for continuously sticking a nail through your foot. Really writing memoir is the most masochistic thing anyone could ever do. I was depressed. Then I wrote about being depressed. Then I revised being depressed, and so by that time I have lived through depression four times around and I don’t like what I’ve written anymore, because I’m so depressed I’ve lost my self esteem.
Clearly the right answer at that point would have been to start a journal about my depraved feelings, but sometimes I needed a break. That’s when you start playing solitaire. Solitaire is the best thing in life. It’s great because now they have multiple types of solitaire. There’s regular solitaire, but you can go the easy route and draw one card at a time or you can be adventurous and do the three card draw. The three-card draw is a risky one, especially when you are in an emotionally fragile state of mind, which you probably are after writing. When I was fourteen I discovered Spider Solitaire. The amazing thing about Spider Solitaire is that there are three different levels, so that once you have mastered one level you can move up to the nest one. I am still on the middle level. Spider Solitaire is a never-ending challenge.
Why I Miss You
It's the reason for cotton
For silk and leather
(What's your preference?)
(Cashmere, my favorite)
And inside too, like carbonation bubbles
Traveling up as they go down.
For silk and leather
(What's your preference?)
(Cashmere, my favorite)
And inside too, like carbonation bubbles
Traveling up as they go down.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Everyone Writes Poems About Train Stations
At the train station in Chicago
A fat man with a crippled wife
Told me about the woman who sat behind him
And talked about her ex-husband for nineteen hours.
He told the same story to the cashier
In the convenience store as he bought a bag of chips
The cashier laughed and said, “Yeah, I know what she’s talking about.”
A fat man with a crippled wife
Told me about the woman who sat behind him
And talked about her ex-husband for nineteen hours.
He told the same story to the cashier
In the convenience store as he bought a bag of chips
The cashier laughed and said, “Yeah, I know what she’s talking about.”
When Was The Last Time I Actually Had An Epiphany?
Take cheese cake.
I see it,
decadent thinly sliced triangles,
drizzled with caramel, chocolate, and pecans,
Yeah, I like cheesecake.
Then I taste it:
Oh yeah, I don’t like this.
It is definitive. The nature of
someone pouring a bucket of water over your head.
I see it,
decadent thinly sliced triangles,
drizzled with caramel, chocolate, and pecans,
Yeah, I like cheesecake.
Then I taste it:
Oh yeah, I don’t like this.
It is definitive. The nature of
someone pouring a bucket of water over your head.
Lucy
At the age of nineteen she fell in love with a mall security guard
She liked to fanaticize about him running after shoplifters
In his blue trousers that imitated police uniforms
She decided the police would be so impressed with his apprehension
They would award him with a pink frosted donut and invite him to join the force
She liked to fanaticize about him running after shoplifters
In his blue trousers that imitated police uniforms
She decided the police would be so impressed with his apprehension
They would award him with a pink frosted donut and invite him to join the force
Insomniac Narcoleptic, Making Soup at Three in the Morning (Sleep in until Six)
It’s about the soup:
What are you doing?
I’m making soup.
It’s three in the morning.
It’s turkey soup.
It becomes the face of a door.
White, chipped.
The sound of knocking.
You have to
You have to
You have have have to
Get Up.
Are you hungry?
No.
We have soup, and that bread that you like.
Mama, it’s three in the morning.
But Mama.
You have to.
It becomes twelve hours in a hotel room:
But Mama, we haven’t eaten since last night.
I’m too young to drive the rental car.
It becomes
Just shut up, just shut up, okay?
It’s not my fault.
What are you doing?
I’m making soup.
It’s three in the morning.
It’s turkey soup.
It becomes the face of a door.
White, chipped.
The sound of knocking.
You have to
You have to
You have have have to
Get Up.
Are you hungry?
No.
We have soup, and that bread that you like.
Mama, it’s three in the morning.
But Mama.
You have to.
It becomes twelve hours in a hotel room:
But Mama, we haven’t eaten since last night.
I’m too young to drive the rental car.
It becomes
Just shut up, just shut up, okay?
It’s not my fault.
It Stands For Light
It Stands for Light
Lucia,
Wide hipped at ten,
runaway at eleven.
She only existed between
red cardboard binding
with gold printed letters
It Stands for Light.
She was a-
Smash bottle-pill popper,
temporary high school dropout-
college recluse.
Walls suffocate her,
And suffocation speaks of her mother
draping pink lace around her throat,
a hot curling iron in her hair, and oops
mother has dropped it on her neck.
Oops, broken window/bottle,
passout-sleep.
But Lucia,
Only existed in relation to-
Dollene,
Who did not like her name
at all, until it reached Lamberto.
Even though as a child,
she only associated this being
with lung-cancer and bastard-cousins;
her father’s big nose and wide, hard gut.
He picked a man up once by the neck,
and threatened to cut his throat,
but all he did was sit by passively, when
oops: mother has dropped a curler on the neck.
It was difficult: Really,
being named Dollene, with a mother
named Dorothy-Dolly.
Who dyed her dark hair blonde
and sun-tanned wrinkles into her olive skin.
Which is why, Dollene became
in writing
wide hipped, pill-popping Lucia.
Lucia,
Wide hipped at ten,
runaway at eleven.
She only existed between
red cardboard binding
with gold printed letters
It Stands for Light.
She was a-
Smash bottle-pill popper,
temporary high school dropout-
college recluse.
Walls suffocate her,
And suffocation speaks of her mother
draping pink lace around her throat,
a hot curling iron in her hair, and oops
mother has dropped it on her neck.
Oops, broken window/bottle,
passout-sleep.
But Lucia,
Only existed in relation to-
Dollene,
Who did not like her name
at all, until it reached Lamberto.
Even though as a child,
she only associated this being
with lung-cancer and bastard-cousins;
her father’s big nose and wide, hard gut.
He picked a man up once by the neck,
and threatened to cut his throat,
but all he did was sit by passively, when
oops: mother has dropped a curler on the neck.
It was difficult: Really,
being named Dollene, with a mother
named Dorothy-Dolly.
Who dyed her dark hair blonde
and sun-tanned wrinkles into her olive skin.
Which is why, Dollene became
in writing
wide hipped, pill-popping Lucia.
The Skin Is Very Happy To Grow Around Things
The Skin Is Very Happy To Grow Around Things[1]
She liked to stare at the pale pink
flowered wallpaper, that reminded her of the living room
at her grandmother’s house. She paused to examine
the mold stains, that had gathered
around the rim of the bathtub. She would linger,
only for a moment, to read an old issue of Dirt Bike.
She began a study of the black hairs
that grew in the caulking between the tiles.
One day she grew oh so tired, and decided
to rest for a bit, only a bit on the floor, and she became
fixated on the nails and little brown curls and mats of hair
that had attached themselves to the base of the toilet.
The ceramic felt cool on her skin, and she thought
a little longer would not hurt; after all
she had yet to examine the space behind the sink.
This world, so vast, yet to be discovered and she sits
counting the dead bugs in the lamp
and peeling back pieces of wallpaper to see
what lies underneath.
Her boyfriend brings her fried chicken
and they eat together, balancing greasy paper plates
on the edge of the bathtub, on the exposed toilet seat,
and they wipe their faces on the diamond imprinted
toilet paper.
Upon her inspection of the walls next to the shower,
she discovers these streaks, these stains
that are brown and orange and shaped like teardrops.
They are smattered on the wall, and she finds it
horrifying to imagine this coming out of the shower-
head and then being smeared across her walls, across her
body, so instead she make her husband wipe a sponge
over her until she feels like too much dirt has been removed,
and she is left uncovered; exposed.
Water in plastic, skin on porcelain, paper on skin:
this vast opening, the C beneath her butt-cheeks,
it is comforting, and he, still sometimes delights her
when he brings her a flower on Valentine’s Day,
a turkey drum on Thanksgiving and a potted plant
strewn with tinsel for Christmas.
And every night before she goes to sleep,
bending at the waist, to rest her head
upon her knees, her feet on the floor,
sweatpants around her knees, and her skin:
growing so lovingly around that which holds it.
Her boyfriend comes in, smiles;
“Please come out?”
“Maybe tomorrow”
[1] http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/03/13/768309.aspx - A statement made by Dr. Daniel Aires, as an explanation as to how a woman could become physically attached to a toilet seat.
She liked to stare at the pale pink
flowered wallpaper, that reminded her of the living room
at her grandmother’s house. She paused to examine
the mold stains, that had gathered
around the rim of the bathtub. She would linger,
only for a moment, to read an old issue of Dirt Bike.
She began a study of the black hairs
that grew in the caulking between the tiles.
One day she grew oh so tired, and decided
to rest for a bit, only a bit on the floor, and she became
fixated on the nails and little brown curls and mats of hair
that had attached themselves to the base of the toilet.
The ceramic felt cool on her skin, and she thought
a little longer would not hurt; after all
she had yet to examine the space behind the sink.
This world, so vast, yet to be discovered and she sits
counting the dead bugs in the lamp
and peeling back pieces of wallpaper to see
what lies underneath.
Her boyfriend brings her fried chicken
and they eat together, balancing greasy paper plates
on the edge of the bathtub, on the exposed toilet seat,
and they wipe their faces on the diamond imprinted
toilet paper.
Upon her inspection of the walls next to the shower,
she discovers these streaks, these stains
that are brown and orange and shaped like teardrops.
They are smattered on the wall, and she finds it
horrifying to imagine this coming out of the shower-
head and then being smeared across her walls, across her
body, so instead she make her husband wipe a sponge
over her until she feels like too much dirt has been removed,
and she is left uncovered; exposed.
Water in plastic, skin on porcelain, paper on skin:
this vast opening, the C beneath her butt-cheeks,
it is comforting, and he, still sometimes delights her
when he brings her a flower on Valentine’s Day,
a turkey drum on Thanksgiving and a potted plant
strewn with tinsel for Christmas.
And every night before she goes to sleep,
bending at the waist, to rest her head
upon her knees, her feet on the floor,
sweatpants around her knees, and her skin:
growing so lovingly around that which holds it.
Her boyfriend comes in, smiles;
“Please come out?”
“Maybe tomorrow”
[1] http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/03/13/768309.aspx - A statement made by Dr. Daniel Aires, as an explanation as to how a woman could become physically attached to a toilet seat.
His Girlfriend
It is more logical to be upset
when you cut your finger while slicing bread,
burning your tongue on boiling soup,
to sleep past that bleeping, blaring red,
than to cry over your losses.
Sure, maybe, your ring fell off your finger,
and your toothbrush is in the toilet,
But you can find a new one of anything.
when you cut your finger while slicing bread,
burning your tongue on boiling soup,
to sleep past that bleeping, blaring red,
than to cry over your losses.
Sure, maybe, your ring fell off your finger,
and your toothbrush is in the toilet,
But you can find a new one of anything.
Braces
Braces
Everything seems bigger in your mouth
Grapes, seeds, a piece of chewing gum
That hole on your back molar that is probably a cavity
Forget anti-sinus medication
It might as well be a whale
Outside the mouth there lies
A round squishy purple ball resting on my palm
Or pink, ribbed and sticky stuck to a desk
A disturbance in sound waves so small
It might as well stayed on the tip of my tongue
Everything seems bigger in your mouth
Grapes, seeds, a piece of chewing gum
That hole on your back molar that is probably a cavity
Forget anti-sinus medication
It might as well be a whale
Outside the mouth there lies
A round squishy purple ball resting on my palm
Or pink, ribbed and sticky stuck to a desk
A disturbance in sound waves so small
It might as well stayed on the tip of my tongue
Around The Pit, Things Are Sharp
Isabelle thinks it’s good that peaches do not have feelings.
When someone took the peach that she wanted out of the fruit basket,
she was forced to take the ugly dark peach, with a brown mark
running down its side. The next day she realized that she spent a lot
of time lamenting over fruit baskets.
Oh, but it must be the personality too! That’s where it hurts,
in the personality. The organ that lives next to the heart,
the one they briefly mention in health class. It’s shaped like an S.
Sometimes it throbs. Isabelle is sure that her personality throbs
an inordinate amount.
Isabelle thinks that lilies have been incorrectly labeled as
“virginal.” Some lilies have quite long genitalia. This was also briefly mentioned
in health class in eighth grade. The genitalia of lilies stain yellow. This is a good method
of identification. Isabelle is aware that her opinion of lilies stems directly from her opinions of herself. She was never one for roses.
When someone took the peach that she wanted out of the fruit basket,
she was forced to take the ugly dark peach, with a brown mark
running down its side. The next day she realized that she spent a lot
of time lamenting over fruit baskets.
Oh, but it must be the personality too! That’s where it hurts,
in the personality. The organ that lives next to the heart,
the one they briefly mention in health class. It’s shaped like an S.
Sometimes it throbs. Isabelle is sure that her personality throbs
an inordinate amount.
Isabelle thinks that lilies have been incorrectly labeled as
“virginal.” Some lilies have quite long genitalia. This was also briefly mentioned
in health class in eighth grade. The genitalia of lilies stain yellow. This is a good method
of identification. Isabelle is aware that her opinion of lilies stems directly from her opinions of herself. She was never one for roses.
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