Wealth (poem #7)

In the beginning, they were artists.
In Fabio’s paintings were crazy women:
grey women with green hair,
it looked like somebody’s mother.
A woman with passed out on a bed
with all of her purple clothing pulled open.

Jeanne tried watercolor
and the colors of the oranges,
their reflection in the window,
matched the blue and orange fresco
they had left uncovered on the wall.

This is the beginning of all stories in Florence;
they all wanted to be artists.
Mateo looked like someone who knew about hash.
He did in fact, know about hash.
Mateo came to Florence to be an artist.
“Do you still make art?” I asked.
“Of course,” he replied.

Fabio now designs brassieres,
which is almost the same
as painting crazy-haired women
who have passed out from drinking too much,
smoking too much.
He runs a store, which is almost the same
as the picture of the crazy clown
wearing a ruffled shirt.

Jeanne cooks dinner
and lunch
and she puts the coffee out at breakfast.

The truth of the matter

That was on this week's postsecret

Friendship (poem #6)

"I know every single person in this goddamn city
and I am still alone."

A statement condemning.
Even with electricity these buildings are dark.
The windows have shutters that let through only slivers
and I am surrounded by silence in the form of a person.

I read books:
Vonnegut, Alice Adams, Joyce Carol Oates, Joseph Heller, Anthony Burgess.
It got worse:
I read chick-lit for company,
books that are turquoise and pink.
I learned about relationships with shoes,
something intensified by stepping out onto the streets,
staring downwards.

"I see you walking by everyday,"
hunched over, perhaps unfriendly.

It is best described by the three Italian couples
we met sitting at Santa Croce;
couples like, "she's my best friend's girl,"
and they kiss and scream, "dormire,"
sticking tongues in each other's ears.

Friendship like being hit in the back with rocks,
when you are otherwise invisible.

In my life the furniture eats me

I don't want to hear that I am going home in blank number of days and it's so close. I don't want to hear about being optomistic or how lucky I am that I am in Italy. I don't know what I want to hear. I simultaneously want everyone to talk to me and no one to talk to me.

Today was very strange: I went to Pisa and had a very good time. I got a picture of me holding the tower up. I ate a very nice pizza. I even had a decent train ride back. I got home and started re-reading things and taking notes for the essay I have to write and everything crashed. I did not want to read, I did not want to be in bed, I wanted to do what I do when I am really upset and cold; I took a shower. This is what I did. My mood continued to sink however. I don't know why. I didn't do anything. I was trying to work, be productive and all of that went away and I want to talk about it, but I feel like I will get lectured.

I am reading "Norwegian Wood," by Haruki Murakami. This is all I want to do.

I also have "Timewarp," by Kurt Vonnegut. I also want to do this, but I am saving it for the plane ride.

I have a poem to post, maybe I will do that.

Ignorance (poem #5)

Demonstrative:
Blonde hair (there is a reason it's colored like gold).
English (money has a language).
There are worse things that can happen
other than being robbed three times.

Less appealing:
Big eyebrows (the stereotype; like caterpillars).
He was just an old man (as if at a certain age the penis falls off).
She said later," It was only a soup kitchen, I got free sandwiches."
There are worse thing than eating with the poor.

The couple in line at the Colloseum.
GRAT-ZEE, they said.

Like that time the guy pissed in front of him
and he stepped in it, and the guy yelled,
“Yo, dude, you saw me pissing there.”

Maybe they are just content to peek inside your head every once in awhile

I had a dream last night that I was pregnant. I never saw the baby, I gave birth (something I was also not present for) and then immediately went to the gym to work off my pregnant belly. Sadly, I forgot my sports bra at home and was going to turn around, but time jumped and if I wanted to make it to yoga class I had to go in at that moment. We had to take a train from the parking ramp and the gym and for some reason I was naked in front of a lot of men on the train. They kept smiling at me and I kept apologizing, because I was trying to put my clothes back on and it wasn't working. I went to yoga class and everyone had a sports bra but me. An old black woman told me if I put a carabiener (that is definately spelled wrong) on my locker keys, then I would fit in. I was much thinner in the dream than I am in actuality. I ran into some people I knew. All of them had babies too.

If you want to sleep with me and talk about existence, we'll need more than fifteen minutes

I want to write better poetry. I'm not sure how.

Love (poem #4)

I went for a walk,
the focus that comes from moving eyes
away from the still-life on the kitchen table—
pears, oranges, bananas, and apples—
these images, the myth of Italy.

I was walking by the Arno.
This is how I know the word sporco.
A man behind me on a bicycle:
a hand on my behind: a squeeze.
I gasp, try to think of what to shout,
but I can’t decide which language to speak in.

I rode on the bus.
All I could think about was my backpack:
I was wearing it on my back; what a terrible idea.
In Italy, the bus doors can grow arms
and unzip zippers.

I was riding to the train station,
a direct bus- a man shoved his way on.
I was being pushed too rhythmically-
with the wrong body parts.
Sporco.

And they ask: have you found an Italian lover?
I have gotten approximately ten marriage proposals.
“I see you walking everyday.”
Hunched over, perhaps unfriendly.
A man on the bus invited me over
A Sunday morning, Church service?

Beauty (poem #3)

I have gotten approximately ten marriage proposals.
Each one declaring, “I love you.”
I (might as well strip down) (those eyes peeling)
the breath (my breath) like the bedroom.

I realized (one day)
sitting on the Duomo steps that
every man who passed by
had looked up my skirt
(I see that head dip, peer)

These are out of proportation.
The David, his head, this is unrealistic—
The Italians with their grease sculpted hair
and grease (this imagined) seeping
from their pores, grease too, expulsion
through the mouth, skin.

My body as well (in comparison)
My hips (these women so small),
as if I were a sculpture
(Donatello’s David is my favorite,
his drooping butt).
Her hips are too large.
They cannot eat the meals that are laid out before me.

I always seem to be going home in ten days, never more, never less

I keep getting good grades on things and I don't understand because it takes me like two hours to write painfully bad pages on papers right now. Any ways, I thought I would update my list of things I have to do in order to make myself feel better about having to do work.

Here is my original list:
1. Creative project or paper (I am going to try and write a series of poems for this, but I have to call my professor about it).
2. Short paper (500 words.)
3. Short paper about Lorenzo (2 pages).
4. Test about Medici things..... (too hard).
5. Paper about the Spanish chapel in Santa Maria Novella (I forget how long).
6. Test about art and politics in trecento art..... (too hard).
7. Italian final.

Now all I have to do is:
1. Half of my creative project (six more poems.)
2. Test about Medici things.
3. Test about art and politics, but this test includes two take home essays that are several pages long enough.
4. The palace walk, which I've already done, turned it, but I did so poorly on it she gave it back to me and told me to do better.

That doesn't actually look that bad anymore. Maybe I will actually post some poetry later.

Here is what the inside of my head looks like: "Home, home, home, home, home, home."

Last night I called my dad and my brother to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving and they were betting how many drinks I had. My brother guessed seven. That probably wasn't that far off, but the large majority of it was wine.

I wrote something on the bus

You think: there might be something wrong with me, some disease. Those rumors of those crazy girls.
You think: am I one of them? It must be so. I sing and dance (this no metaphor) then go home and cry. Bipolar disorder does not shift this fast. I must be borderline.
I think: maybe I'm just alive, but then
I think: is this it? Is this living?

If you like everybody, your friends don't feel special

I have a lot to say, which turns into nothing at all because it becomes overwhelming when I try to type it. Thanksgiving tonight. My entire program is eating together, which sometimes is a pleasant experience and sometimes... shit I can't say what I was going to say. It's not mean, it just sounds too angsty.

I finished Slaughterhouse-Five. Vonnegut always wholly depresses me. Why do people always say he writes comedy?

My brother and dad are eating Thanksgiving dinner alone. They got food for eight people.

I try and say: this isn't how I am. But I get worried that it is.

What I Own

It's my body. Not your body. My body. Therefore, while I'm walking down the street it is completely inappropriate to ride by on your bicycle and GRAB MY ASS.

Intelligence

This might be unfinished. I could see it getting a lot longer.

Steve did not believe in intelligence tests. He thought they were irrelevant until questions were added such as, “A girl comes up to you and start to flirt, what do you do?” Nonetheless, he found intelligence to be quantifiable and he awarded most people with very little. He preferred his opinions on this to be described as “accurate” rather than “unfair” or “cruel.” After all, not everyone can be intelligent. As for the idea that there are different kinds of intelligence (i.e. “street smarts”), he found this to be ludicrous as well. If a person was intelligent enough, they should be able to manipulate every situation to their advantage.
The-girl-Steve-was-in-love-with thought Steve was stupid. (He also thought she was stupid, but that was another matter). She thought he was stupid because he had cheated on her.
“But I just wanted something physical,” he argued.
The-girl-Steve-was-in-love-with thought that if a person was intelligent, they could use their logic to out-weigh the desires of their genitalia.
“But I was drunk/high/drunk and high,” he argued.
The-girl-Steve-was-in-love-with thought that if a person was intelligent, they would not be drunk/high/drunk and high around someone that would increase the blood flow in their genitalia, though she didn’t necessarily find being drunk/high/drunk and high unintelligent in itself.
The-girl-Steve-was-in-love-with was very liberal and she thought that in order to be intelligent, a person must be very liberal.
However, lots of people found the-girl-Steve-was-in-love-with to be stupid because she was a socialist. In return, she thought these people were stupid for their enthusiasm about an economic system that required a large lower class and a small upper class. She also thought that altruism was part of being intelligent. The people that found her love of socialism to be stupid often claimed that she didn’t understand economics. This was true; she only understood the social repercussions of said economic systems.
Steve thought she was stupid because she studied things like the social repercussions of said economic systems. Steve liked science and math. The-girl-Steve-was-in-love-with told him that most of the things he studied involved level-one learning (i.e. memorization). This caused a lot of arguments between the two of them, which caused both of them to have stupid yearnings for other people.

I hate it when people are vindictive simply to be vindictive

I need an outlet. Not like a wall one, like the other kind of outlet. You might be thinking, "Gee Tasha, what about poetry?" Poetry is more like a wall outlet.

I have two more poems written for my poetry project, but they need some revising before I post them. I am writing two more tonight. It's becoming a collection of hate poetry. (I hate feeling hateful and thus hate the people who make me feel that way even more than I already did.)

All hearts float in their own deep ocean of no light

One paragraph to go.

One paragraph to go (I am on the 5th page). 1:50am. Cups of coffee: 3. Am talking to: No one.

If you want to end your life end it, you don't have to kill yourself to do that

I am so excited to go home. Only I will be completely broke. I will be walking through the snow in my new boots, which is part of the reason I will be broke. That's okay, I've been broke every winter break, even the winter break I had a job, because I hated my job, so I never tried for hours. That's part of the charm.

Atleast 3/4's of a page to go. 11:54pm. Cups of coffee:2. Bathroom breaks due to said cups of coffee: four? Am talking to: Jenny.

This is what I feel like: this sound of glass

I think I get more depressed with every sentence I type. I hate art history.

At least one more page to go. 11:00pm. Cups of coffee: 2. Bathroom breaks taken from said cups of coffee: three?

"It seems like very desperate procrastination"

I am now procrastinating by brushing my teeth. I have approximately zero sentences more since my last blog post.

Sometimes I confuse myself with fictional characters

I need to stop reading trashy novels about witty Irish girls. I start to think like a witty Irish girl that drinks too much and spends too much money on shoes. While it's debatable whether or not I drink too much and I just bought a pair of purple suede boots, this is not actually my personality. Also, I start thinking that people can read my thoughts like I read thoughts in books, and no one is actually reading my thoughts, therefore there is no reason for my thoughts to be witty other than the fact that I quite like to tell people what I'm thinking.

Atleast 1 and 3/4 pages to go. 9:58pm. Cups of coffee: 2

Florence Nightingale was a cannibal you know

I always feel there is some injustice in that even though my life appears to be falling apart to some degree I still have to write these stupid fucking papers.



Two pages atleast to go. 9:21 pm. Cups of coffee: 2.

Fortune (poem #2)

The sky is raining on my clothes,
an act that is spiteful at best.
But it is endearing, that colored line of underwear
that flaps in the wind. Endearing in the same manner
as stepping in dog shit in the rough stoned streets
(but look at the streets, they are old! Stone! You can just feel
the history).

But it’s not all bad, I ask you,
And you say, “The worst thing?”
"Having to ask prostitutes for directions,”
But no really, the worst thing:
“Being locked out of my house at four in the morning.”
Like that time the guy pissed in front of you
and you stepped in it, and he yelled
“Yo, dude, you saw me pissing there.”

It all seems to be about falling:
off the curb in Cinque Terre I scraped my knee
and now I’m left with a quarter shaped scar
and in Venice I slid like sledding and laughed and laughed,
and the last time, the worst time: the worst time,
the time I don’t remember and I woke up in the morning
with blood on one knee and a giant bruise on the other
(but it’s a matter of pride not shame.)

The next time I worry they are going to take more:
my wallet, my camera, my notebook.
Things that are valued more than the skin.
It always comes back to: one pound of flesh.
I've given three.

Nature (poem #1)

It can be articulated in the building blocks on Happy Street.
But to call it either happy or street, would be to award too much.
Happy is an Indian man with a liquor store, on the street
that should not be called a street at all, but something in progress,
something becoming that never becomes. A series of stones,
pounded into the dirt, and it seems—removed again—only to be
replaced. Three months, at least, three months of this apparent regression.
Happy too, is inappropriate, better suited with “Creepy” or a name such as
“Trickster,” “Swindler,” “Takes advantage of ignorant Americans.”
Instead of “Happy’s Liquor Store,” it could be named
“At Least You Think You Are Getting A Good Deal.”

The hard persimmons taste like vanilla and the soft ones
taste like sweet potatoes smell. They grow on the trees in Florence,
almost a contradiction in itself—excuse me, trees in Florence?—
Yes, they are behind the walls, like the grass at Santa Maria Novella;
surrounded by the un-building blocks. Glory can be found in something growing.

Once, a man came to dinner that resembled Lorenzo il’ Magnifico.
He had a wide greasy nose, hard brown eyes, and a giant stomach.
His wife was small and the verb, “crushing,” came to mind.
The next week Julius Caesar came over. He had a little skull and olive
skin dotted with black heads. His wife was small, her nose not large enough
to belong to Cleopatra. The women stopped eating after the second course.

At some point, Michelangelo stopped finishing his work.
They are called “Prisoners,” this romanticized idea
—figures trapped in stone—
The un-building blocks, and everyday the workers
pound forth, but there is still a pit at the end of Happy Street,
which is not really happy at all. Scaffolding, scaffolding, everywhere
like the “Prisoners,” set in stone, and these things are labeled with
“Masterpiece.”

I need your help

For "Fortuna e Nature," my class on "The Decameron," I am writing a series of ten poems in ten days. Because I am writing ten poems in ten days they will be extraordinarily shitty, thus I need your help to make them better. Everyday I am going to post a poem (maybe two today because I am behind), and I want you to tell me what you don't like about them. Thank you. Be mean.

I wonder if I can leave things untitled

Okay, I'm still sick or convinced I'm sick. I didn't go to class this morning, which is a first for me, but I'm going to the Accademia (where class was), with Allison this weekend any ways and I felt far to dizzy to stand up for an hour and forty-five minutes. I'm going to try and be productive. Here is what stands between me and home:
1. Creative project or paper (I am going to try and write a series of poems for this, but I have to call my professor about it).
2. Short paper (500 words.)
3. Short paper about Lorenzo (2 pages).
4. Test about Medici things..... (too hard).
5. Paper about the Spanish chapel in Santa Maria Novella (I forget how long).
6. Test about art and politics in trecento art..... (too hard).
7. Italian final.

That looks like a lot more than I thought it was.

Stop

I am an open person. I share pretty much all of my feelings on everything all the time, so when I say, "I don't want to talk about it," I should hope that would be respected. If I don't want to talk about something, it's for a good fucking reason.

This is what I get

I feel sick. By I feel sick I mean I: slept for twelve and a half hours yesterday, I'm dizzy, I am either very hot or very cold, and sometimes I feel naceous. Shit, I always spell that word wrong. The problem is, from elementary school through high school I pretended to be sick so often that I no longer can even trust my own evaluation of my illness. I am not actually sure if I am sick or not, so I am going to continue to go to class unless this gets worse.

Nymph

My Professor said the nymph looks like me, except my head is bigger. I don't entirely disagree.

How To Write

She is sitting under a bridge. She is not sitting under the bridge because she wants to be sitting under the bridge, but because she wants to tell people about sitting under the bridge. In fact, she distinctly does not want to be sitting under the bridge, it is cold and there are goose bumps on her legs where the skin is revealed between where her socks end on her calves and where her skirt begins by her knees. She is smoking a cigarette; she does want to be smoking a cigarette, though she claims that she is quitting. Most people who smoke are quitting, she believes.
There is graffiti under the bridge. It is not good graffiti, as the only people who ever see it are the people that sit under the bridge smoking, and no one who is any good at graffiti would waste their time spray-painting there. Sometimes trains go by at the very bottom of the hill underneath the bridge. When the trains go by, she runs. People aren’t supposed to sit there, under the bridge; it is too close to the trains. Sometimes the police come. When she police come she runs as well; she is too young to be smoking.
She brings a moleskin journal with her under the bridge. She likes moleskin because Hemmingway liked moleskin, even though she doesn’t like Hemmingway. It is conducive, she thinks, to writing things. Just as sitting under a graffiti covered bridge and smoking a cigarette are conducive to writing, effective only because these are things that writers do. She would not label herself as a writer though; she only imitates how writers act. She isn’t yet effective at doing these things, for instance, she is cold, and she wants to go inside and watch television, and often she smokes cigarettes until they burn her fingers and she drops them in surprise, and she hasn’t yet perfect the absentminded look on her face, as if she were thinking of one million other things (when in actuality, she is thinking that it’s cold, and she is thinking about the one boy that she had sex with the other day, but she really only had sex with him because she wants to be a writer, and having sex is one of those things that writers do. She didn’t tell him that though; he wasn’t interested in her writing).
She rubs her feet against the rocks on the pebbles on the ground because she likes the sound that it makes. It reminds her of hiking through the woods and her cabin, where she also sits outside pretending to be a writer, only she doesn’t smoke a cigarette because she doesn’t want her dad to know that she smokes.
She is sad. She is never sure if she is sincerely sad or if she is sad because she wants to be a writer and writers are sad. Hemmingway was sad. Hemmingway and Dostoevsky, and Sylvia Plath, and John Berryman, and probably everyone in the Victorian age (think of what all that repression must do to the personality of a writer), and Mark Twain was sad, and everyone, everyone was sad. However, she does not think they were sad why she is sad: because of the boy she had sex with—because she is trying to be a writer and writers have sex with people—hasn’t called her in several days, and she feels fat and bloated, but these things are inarticulate and miniscule, so she does not write about them in her moleskin notebook, with her expensive pen. Instead she writes about being under the bridge, and the feeling of the sharp rocks that she sits on, and the sound of the train in the distance.

Splintering

The skin becomes concave
where it is pierced- deflated
without the frame (but I was
stretched still and nailed down.
Reconstructed in a new place.)
A view of the stomach, but that
is all. Bleeding later- my knee
like a child's, one bruised,
one bleeding. Places unmentionable,
what stretches open while the mind
swims on the floor. I fell,
just stay down here, tiled. I say
Finito (things out of order-
the toilet, floor, bed, kitchen,
these things rearrange themselves).
Where did I start? Whole, pieced
together, compared to
the naked nymph in Piazza Signoria.
Look at those legs, those legs, those eyes.
And even earlier, ciao bella, I love you,
You don't have to be Cleopatra everyday.
Ma ho finito, naked nymph.
Toilet, floor, bed, kitchen, how these things
Rearrange.

I don't know what to say right now

I can't deal with this. (Even though I said this morning, I said, "I can get through this, I can deal with this," but I can't.

I stole this from Chris' blog. I feel like it kind of describes our first night in Amsterdam.

Heute ich werde auf deutsch schrieben.

Hier sind dies alles mein Geheimnis. Nein, ich erzähle eine Witze. Nur Colin und Dan können dieses Blog verstehen, aber muss ich deutsch betreiben.

Leben ist traurig. Ich weiß nicht warum. Jeden Tag weine ich. Ich lese und schlafe nur. Nichts anderes. Ich vermisse Freunde. Ich bin zu müde für blog schrieben... später vielleicht.

Ho visto...

I now own almost the entire postcard collection from the Uffizi. Okay, not the entire one. Most of the Carravaggio's, Gentileschi's, and Bottecelli's though. I went and looked at the Carravaggio's today. It was wonderful.

All of you suck at commenting. Just so you know. This is of course assuming people read my blog, which I think people do because they mention it.

How I became more radical in approximately five minutes

"You have absolutely no sense of self-worth do you?"
"Nope."

I went to say hi to a friend, and I was walking home and I suddenly understood radical feminism. I always thought that some tenents of radical feminism, more specfically radical lesbians were extreme, such as claiming that as long as women have relationships with men then sexism will persist. I looked at it the wrong way. I thought they meant society as a whole. I had an epiphany on the rain in the Florence streets: it is men that destroy me. Saying men sounds weird, but boys sound innappropriate. How about "it is humans with penises somewhere in their twenties or late teens that destroy me." I don't think I'm ugly or stupid or fat, but two people have said I have low self-esteem this week. The first, one of my professors who said that, "You're an intelligent girl, there is no reason you need to act like a ditzy female, you need to have enough confidence to say what you want to say without being silly," and the second the friend I went to see who said I had no self-worth after questioning whether or not he actually likes it when I come to say hi to him. They were both right. I didn't argue. I know I have low self-esteem, I know I come off as having low self-esteem. But why do I have low self-esteem if I can look in the mirror and think that I can look okay and I don't need to radically change my appearence or diet compulsively, and I know I am atleast somewhat intelligent? It's because of how "humans with penises somewhere in their twenties or late teens" make me feel. They make me feel inadequate, as if the attributes I have are not good enough, like I will never look good enough, never be thin enough, and oddly enough, never lack enough intelligence to appeal to them. I bet you want to argue the last part, but let me explain. Intelligence is good in a long term relationship. Intelligence is not good when you just want to have some fun and the person you are just having some fun with overthinks everything and then goes and write poems about it and can name several books and short stories that remind her of the situation. I don't want to stop having relationships with "humans with penises somewhere in their twenties or late teens" though. I am not sexually attracted to women. I'm not sure what to do. I'm sick of "humans with penises somewhere in their twenties or late teens" having the ability to do this to me, but I don't know how to stop it, if outside the realm of relationships I am a confident person. This reminds me of something that Robin Metz (a creative writing professor at Knox) said of the characters in one of my stories, that was actually me: "She's completely capable in every aspect of her life except with boys."

Geometry

Question the idea of shape.
A square.
It has four points.
It doesn't mean anything,
but yet we label people as such:
squares.
Thus the squares become personified
as being immovable, confined by corners.
I for example, am spiraling.
The spiral is different than the square.
It is not predefined, it can come to a point.
It can be a column.
I am spiraling outwards.
This could be engulfing.

(Picture by Colin)

Riding the bus in Roma

I don't know why I didn't say something, either while it was happening or after it happened. I've never been told what to do in that situation; it's always hypothetical. In circumstances of sexual harrassment, it become a question, "Why did she kick/scream/punch/yell?" It becomes a statement that, "Yes, she was wrong, but she could've done more." We say these things from a position of education middle-class safety in a classroom, but no one ever told me what to do on a city bus in Rome when a middle aged man pressed his crotch repeatedly against my leg. I wanted to yell, to tell my professor, but I was worried I was imagining it. Even though when the bus came to a stop the rhythmic pushing did not cease and I swear I could feel his erect penis through his pants. He got off the bus a stop early even tohugh it was an express bus to the train station and the stops were intended for entrance rather than exit. Still, I felt such an accusationw ould sound vain, that a man on the bus could become erect because of me. So I didn't say anything. I got off the bus, walked into the train station and gor on the train. I hadn't been taught what to do afterwards either. I tried not to think about it. I tried to make it sound lesser: it was just a man on the bus for ten minutes, it might all have been imagined and I was fine.

Songs should be under three minutes long

It is a rhyth-
mic death as if
through music. The
pounding: the beat
of a drum. A
pulse that goes on
far too long. The
ears feel warm (the
ears are percep-
tive, almost more
than the-)

I love the women that Vermeer paints

I have decided that all of lifes perdicaments can be described through food.

Why am I doing worst in my one English class? After awhile I become apathetic.

Instead of

If I could only eat an almond,
but no, chestnuts, walnuts, and pistacchios abound.
I eat them anyways; I'm not full yet.

I will remember to remember to forget you forgot me

I will post about Rome when I am not so fatigued. I've been so tired lately. Being tired with a parent with narcolepsy is like forgetting things with a parents who has alzheimers: an ordinary thing that becomes threatening.

It's only fun on stage

Sometimes I play the disappearing game. I disappear. This is different from the "I'm not talking to you" game and the "I'm completely indifferent to you" game. The word game is used incorrectly here. I play it alone, I don't do it to fuck with people. That's the problem. In all of these circumstances it's a spiteful act, a passive aggressive way of showing that I'm upset, but usually I am upset with these people because they are indifferent towards me. This seems to be a common thread in my life. If it's not one person, it's another.

I'm going to Rome. I didn't decide this, my whole program is going, but it's good. I can disappear. And I can say I'm going to Rome on my blog, because all of the people I'm disappearing from don't read my blog, and I think many of the people that I play the "I love you very much and want to see/talk/hear from you as much as possible" game with do read my blog.

How to Make a Mask

First the head is inflated,
a rubber balloon.
The skin is cut into strips
soaked in the paint
and applied in layers.
Sometimes there are bumps:
these must be smoothed out
before the paint is applied.
Once the skin is dry,
the base of the head is popped.
A face is applied
with tan color painted,
pink circles of cheeks
and holes where the eyes belong.

Driving to Arts High

At the freeway exit
a homeless man with
dreaded hair and a dirty beard
held a sign that said,
"Smile, it will make you drive better."

At the freeway entrance
a man in a tattered
army jacket and big brown boots
held a sign that said,
"Shit happens, it could happen to you."

Things to remember for today

1. Barack Obama is going to win. He has too.
2. I need to not cry. I've been crying everyday. This is because of my birth control and/or lack of birth control.
3. I am not a doormat. Sometimes I get confused and think I am.
4. Be happy, no matter what.

But still, it bothers me, because everything does

One time in kindergarten another girl in my class took my scarf. I laughed, she was joking. I tried to get it back. She ran around the entire playground with it, and we had a massive wooden play ground. She ran around with it, until she was standing on a bridge dangling it down and I was on the ground trying to jump up and get it. I started crying. She laughed at me and everyone who was watching my struggle started laughing at me too. I feel this is indicative of who I am as a person.

Spite

1.
It happens
In the shower, bare naked
the worst, in bed
I gag, in the street
I smile, smile, smile

2.
This is the second stage.
I do it like the sun shines.
Not everyday, but too bright.
I do it.
This is what is important.

Love

Amelia is fifteen years old.
She has always been fifteen years old,
besides those two days where she was
a forty year old man with a beard.
But generally, she is fifteen years old.

The brain is not fully formed.
It is irrational.
Just wait until you're eighteen.
No, actually it is somewhere in your twenties.

Amelia knows from the two days that she was
a forty year old man with a beard
that formation and decay are used as the samething
in this context.

She pictures hormones as fireworks that go off
in her brain, the feeling, the moment
the drugs hit the system.
Standing after drinking for an hour.
This happens to Amelia several times a day,
and then several more times
the moment the drugs hit the system,
when she stands up after drinking for an hour.

The brain is not fully formed.

She only sleeps between the hours of five and twelve, less
when the fireworks go off.
The feeling the moment the drugs hit the system.

It is irrational.

That's why it's fireworks and not a rock.
Things go up and then come down.
This is not a unique concept. Cannot be
evaluated by an equation.

It is irrational.

It is all consuming, like a cannibal.

Things I need to do before Tuesday

I want to have fun on election night watching Obama win, but Italy is seven hours ahead, which means I want to have fun all night long watching Obama win. So I have to get everything done before Tuesday.

My to-do list:

1. Read day eight, stories 2, 3, 5 in The Decameron.
2. Write something about virtues (this assignment vastly confuses me, I think I have troubles distinguishing what's virtuous, as I try to live altruistically, rather than virtuously), around 500 words.
3. Write a five page paper about the Sassetti Chapel, comparing it with the Strozzi and Tournabouni chapels. Technically due last Wednesday, then technically due on Friday, and now technically due on Monday. My entire class is turning it in late. Good.
4. Finish my 77 slide power point. I have all the images. I just need information. For 77 slides.
5. Prepare to lead discussion about day eight, story 8 in The Decameron.
6. A worksheet for Italian, due last Wednesday, but only a couple people turned in it on time.
7. Normal reading homework for my politics of art class and Medici class. This might not get done.

So I have two days to do these things. Positive. I need to work better and sleep less.

I'm a grown-up person capable of taking care of myself, I cannot literally be abandoned

Often I feel like an infant. I cry, scream, and throw fits and I have to guess as to why. Do I need to be fed? Burped? Put down for a nap? So I take a guess, and do things until I feel placated, but really I never know what's wrong or what will make it better. I feel like so much of life is composed to trying to guess what we want and hoping we get it right.

I hate hormones

How am I supposed to get anything done, when my body decides I need to be emotional and bleed sometimes? Huh? Huh? I was upset all day, for no reason and then it just hit me like a menstral cramp, and I was like "Oh, I know what's wrong with my life. My fucking uterus." And I'm sorry if you're a boy and this freaks you out, deal with it. You know what women have to deal with? Having blood come from places you never want to see blood come out of and stabbing pains in their abdomen. That's what. So I can complain all the fuck I want.

Okay. That's all. I'm done. I think I'll go to sleep.

Even Nice Boys Want to Penetrate Something

Other circumstances: such as needle in the arm (injection, necessary), during this too, eyes shut.
Does the skin make it insincere? We got it switched around when lack of flesh made it not.
Skin doesn’t mean anything.
Other circumstances: Nothing outside the body. All of it requires removal/insertion. (Sometimes during surgery tools are left inside, they infect, rot.)
Oh, so you like my skin, do you?
Let me tell about my—
Other circumstances: Burn victims; that would be the worst. They’ve lost the only thing.
Bruising seems to be an apt word.




*Note: The title is a quote taken from a friend. I've written another poem with the same title. I find it very inspiring.

The Refrain

Feet on the doormat:
it used to say something, but it has been flattened.
The choice moment:
key in the lock.
Eyes closed, deep breath:
It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.

Red, at the stoplight.
A glaring red, they are situated so.
The countdown, too slow.
Street corners were meant
To put people on display.

In bed, with knees and stomach.
Three blankets are not enough.
This becomes like:
trying to push the last of the toothpaste
to the end of the curled up tube.



Side note: sometimes it's really hard to do things you really want to do. I need to stop being passive.