Why do all my poems sound so sad?

The other thing: to be missed.

Danny and I were drunk facebooking because what else do you do at 2 AM? Right? And he said something along the lines of "I want to ignore him, but I want him to realize I'm ignoring him and feel bad about it." I do this a lot, sort of. Except I get sad or drunk or happy or forgetful and talk to the people I am ignoring again, because I really miss and want to talk to everyone.

But essentially what I am saying, is that it would be niced to feel missed. I miss you. (You in this case is very plural, implying a large multitude of people)

My typical drunk post:
I appreciate everyone I hung out with this week. It was a good week. It makes me not care about things with boys.

I like to pretend that people read my blog and think I'm really exciting. Like whoa I went to a party super drunk and danced forever and then made eggs while drunk and passed out and went to I-Fair and then napped and hung out with lovely people and tried to go to a party but campus safety busted it so we ate t-bell instead because we were drunnnk. SO FUCKING COOL.

Such tiny little things make me really happy. It's a trade off.

I-Fair was really good, but I'm exhausted.

New future career: Make kebabs.

I went to a Knox party called "awkward middle school dance" and it kind of felt like it, only I was drunk and didn't mind that boys weren't dancing with me because I don't like any of them.

I think I saw a boy I used to like, but I'm not sure because everyone looks the same. He looked at me and looked uncomfortable and turned around and I cared enough to keep dancing and pretend I didn't care, which is better than caring enough to get upset. If I were less drunk the situation would've made me uncorfortable. Anyways, I must be up in five hours for I-Fair. I am going to drink many glasses of water and eat pizza rolls and whatever else I can find.

I took a shower and the steam from the shower set the fire alarm off. So I was naked and wet and the fire alarm was going off and in my panic I put on jeans for the first time since May, only I had shaved my legs and that felt awful. Sometimes I so dumb.

I love working on my collaborative project Friday afternoons. It always makes me feel so good because I end the week talking about poetry and writing lots of it and hearing the poetry my partner wrote and it makes me think I should spend all my time doing this.

I dreamt I could sense animals. I identified them with a color. Like I said "I hate to break it to you, but there's a magenta in here." I dreamt there were little pigs that stood up on two legs and were really smart. There was an adoption crisis because no one was adopting them because no one knew they existed.



Pigs look so happy. I look animals that look happy.

I am going to grow my hair out until I look like this:

Maybe I would like getting compliments on how I look more if I worked really hard at it. Maybe if I went tanning and got surgeries and spent more than three minutes putting on make up in the morning. Now when I get compliments (which isn't often, but it's enough) and don't get me wrong, I appreciate it, but I think, "What about the things that I do? I want you to read my poetry and love that."

A few things:

1. I try not to judge people when they don't like Salinger. It's hard, because I read "Catcher in the Rye" in the midst of a great depression when I was fourteen. I read it in one afternoon, sitting on the couch in my livingroom, failed to write any of the essays I was supposed to, and shortly after that left school for awhile for reasons you might know about if you know me fairly well. So I could relate to Holden. In young adult lit. we discussed how Holden isn't necessarily representative of being a young adult, but rather he is representative of the grieving process. Holden remains relevent to my life in different ways. I understand though, if you didn't read the book at the right time or don't have similar grieving feelings or don't want to run around the city chainsmoking and drinking cocktails, then you might not like it.

But you should still read "Franny and Zooey." Franny understands me in ways Holden doesn't.

2. I just had the most boring class ever. We discussed two poems. In three hours. We didn't even discuss them indepth. Mostly the professor just talked about nothing. I was thirsty for the whole three hours. There was nothing I could do. It was like torture.

3. I want to have a talk like Holden Caulfield day, only I want to have it for the rest of my goddamn life.

I want to chainsmoke cigarettes and drink cocktails for the rest of the day in honor of Salinger, but I have no cigarettes and no money.
People I want to date today: Holden Caulfield

J.D. Salinger died. I don't know how to relate to my fictional lover of Holden Caulfield anymore. He's been cold all day.

Sometimes I suspect my roommates have sensors to tell when I'm getting ready because someone is almost always in the shower.

I can always tell that I've been drinking when I have dreams about drinking water and when I wake up far too early for the time I went to bed.

I want to drunk email Monica and ask her what she's doing by giving me this to read.

Stop me stop me.

(I had a lot of wine. Dee and I went and bought more)

"That's the thing with enlightened people. They say things
that are so infuriatingly simple when the world is not."

Tonight Julia and I made soup and roasted tomatoes and onions and we had bread and cheese and wine and it was all delicious. It made me feel so good. This feels like a good time to say it:

I love all of you

Tonight we talked about how it would be nice to be loved from afar. It would be nice if someone loved me like I love Matthew Dickman, for the things that he says. He looks like a pretentious fuck, but I know he is sincere for the sincere things he says in his poems. I trust poems so much more than I trust people. I have dreams where the people I trust betray me.

How do you really know a person? I don't know anymore?

I think I know Dee and Julia to some degree and it is nice, though I think somethings are still hidden. I think they understand the silly things I say though.

It's nice to see Simon and Laura too and I'm glad they appreciate the things we've made.

I love things people make. I love doing, I love making, I love love love.

People I want to date today: Matthew Dickman.
Things Matthew Dickman is: A poet.

I want to post a picture of him, because he's really attractive and he writes all these poems about having sex with women and sex with taken women and it really just kills me.



That's him and his twin. Don't they look awful? He knows he's awful too, he writes about it. I haven't felt this way about a male of the species since November. Not even Dylan Thomas gets such a rise out of me.

Finished my first paper of the term.

2 papers for Dylan Thomas left
2 papers auf deutsch
5 million poems

(that basically sums up my term)

Sometimes I get bored and do things like sneak tea into the computer lab. It's such a ridiculously small transgression that it is barely a transgression at all, but it's so pleasing to write the last eight lines of my paper with a hot drink.

(I really suck at conclusions.)
(My poetry professor had good things to say about my poems, but I'm pretty sure she has good things to say about everyone's poems.)
(She said I need to harness things more.)
(I can't harness things because I have no confidence in my ability to write.)

How do I have confidence in myself as a poet?

1. I like it when people tell me they read my blog. It makes me feel solid.

2. Sometimes I am vastly surprised to find that other people become heartbroken also. One time an ex-boyfriend told me, "Nobody has ever felt this bad before," and I told him that was nonsense and almost everyone has felt that bad before, but I understand. When you look at someone who could feasibly be heartbroken, they hardly ever look that bad. Pictures are lovely because in most memories everyone is smiling. Poems are nice though, because I know that secretly other people become as torn up as me about everything.

3. I want to date a painter.

4. People I do not want to date: people who like math, computers, or writing.

5. What this means: almost everyone I've ever dated, wanted to date, considered dating has liked math, computers, or writing.

6. What this means: I'll probably never date a painter.

Galesburg grocery stores make me sad. Everyone looks so tired and everyone is buying such awful food.

The computer lab is this lovely too-warm temperature that makes me want to sleep. I had gotten so utterly used to my laziness. Oh dear.

The best part about the summer is that sun and warmth occur simultaneously, unlike the winter where you have to pick one or the other.

My bed is really comfortable this morning. I really don't want to move.

It is interesting how much the topic of actually being alive is debated. Are some people more alive than others? What defines alive?

What do people do after college? Where do all those people aged between 22 and 30 go? I feel like I am entering a black hole. Things have been swallowed inside of it, but we will never be able to categorize them again.

Lots lots lots to do today in the relative sense of that I rarely have lots to do and today I will spend the day writing a paper, finishing poems, reading, attending Writers Forum, meeting with my poetry small group, and ATP/ASA informal recruitment which you should go to. I am in a good mood though, which again perpetuates this idea that moods are based off nothing and come and go as they please.

I have dreams of people invading my body, invading my space. I am back to that distrustful place, where I only let certain people near me.

Basically I am famous.

Would anyone like to read some poems and tell me which four I should submit to be workshopped next week?

I need someone who finds me endearing. I love the word endearing.

I woke up too late for brunch. Bummer. I'm going to go buy bread and eggs and make my own goddamn brunch.

On a side note: earlier tonight I thought

FUCK EVERYONE I AM GOING TO BE HAPPY.

I wrote a post and deleted it. It was very honest.

Here's the dealio: I care about things, but not forever, not if it is abused or hurtful. Then I stop. Here's the dealio: People are worse at dealing with things than I am. However, I am worse at dealing with their dealing of it.

I apologize, which I shouldn't, but I do. I want to deal with everyone's weirdness with stride. How do I gauge the feelings of others when we speak different languages? What if we spoke in pictures to one another?

I am so so tired.

Things I did today: Saw a ham put (people throw a ham as far as possible), saw ice sculpting, sawed a log, saw lace making, quilt making, and yarn making, almost won a game of pool, had an Amana colonies beer, sat on Amana colonies furniture, decided in the future I want to make lace and quilts, bought a giant pickle, bought Amish cheese, and slept for a long time in the car.

Next up: Shower, dinner, drinking, dancing.

Something I overheard today: "People don't party all the time."

Best thing I saw today: A flask with a bear on it.

Morning mania!

(the good sort of mania)

(where it's way too fucking early, but I'm cheerful any ways and printing off maps of everywhere)

I cannot sleep because I keep getting paranoid that I am going to oversleep for the Amana Colonies and I was drinking and alcohol severely disrupts my sleep. I often dream about drinking water after drinking. Usually because I am terrible at properly rehydrating.

Here is where I am going.

I wish someone with a beard were going (like John Williams before he shaved yesterday) so they could enter the "best beard" compitition. Sometimes stupid touristy shit is so fun.

For awhile my dad and brother and I used to go to the Wisconsin Dells for Thanksgiving and meet up with my grandparents. Eventually they stopped being able to make it and so there was a year or two where it was just the three of us and a bunch of silly Wisconsin tourist attractions. We went hiking in the woods instead.

There was an article in the Galesburg paper about how much Galesburg likes festivals and things, but they are lacking one in the winter. They talked about the St. Paul Winter Carnival and how in Minneasota we are better at braving the winter.

I've been very homesick recently. I miss people. Even though I was just there, I wasn't there. I haven't been many places recently. I am working on this.

I like Dee lots. I really do. It's nice, not feeling like I need to be somewhere. I like not having a crush on someone here. There is no pressure in my head. I just do what I want to do and what I want to do has little to do with other people.

Sleep. Probably going to the Amana Colonies tomorrow at 7:30AM and attempting to spend very very little money.

Dee and I found a movie about monkeys in the library called "Clever Monkeys." Our plans for the evening consists of watching said movie and drinking and then finding something spontanous and reckless to do, though we have planned the spontanaity so it's not really spontanous anymore is it?

Someone in Kaldi's called Chairman Mao Chairman Mayo.

As I walked into the computer lab, I purposely avoided going to one half because there was a person I do not particularly care to see one that side. It occurred to me, that if people never died, there would be many more people that we would avoid. Thus dying is wholly and completely necessary.

All the ice that has accumulated over the last few days is melting and falling in giant pieces everywhere. It feels like the trees are pelting hail at me. For some reason this is much more vindictive than the sky. I think it's because trees are individuals and the sky is a collective.

I am technically at work, but I'm pretty sure someone is printing off a symphony. They told me it would be at least fifteen minutes. I wish I could compose music. To some degree, I think music videos are a prime way of viewing things, because they have the visual component, musical, and often lyrical. I don't mean music videos as they exist now, but music videos if they were better. Video poems would be a lovely idea if media people and literary people thought the same and maybe they do sometimes. It needs to be a good pairing.

Also, it's Roe V Wade day! Let's celebrate by making lots of choices today!

Winter is very heavy. Snow provides a false impression, though it too, when accumulated is heavy. The trees are covered in ice. Sitting there, drooping, like me. I sit and droop and grow heavier even though I weigh the same. I like this notion of springtime, where it all melts off.

I spilled boiling water on myself and then proceeded to spill more boiling water on myself because my hand was shaking because it was burnt. I don't like burns very much, I mean most people don't, but in the hierarchy of injuries it's my least favorite, even really small insignificant burns like this one.

The campus is like the whole world in "Cat's Cradle" except we just fall on the ice, it doesn't consume us completely.

People I want to date for about a week and then have a messy drunken break up with: Ryan Phillipe/Sebastian, Dylan Thomas

I am busy/not busy. Life is going/not going. Mostly I am busy and life is going.

Writing discussion questions is stupid. It makes me hate classes that I have to write them for.

Okay, the real problem is that tangible things aren't real. Like the couch isn't real, the chair isn't real, my bed is absolutely not real and the only real things are the not real abstract things and those become the important things. It's very messy. Yes yes it is.

So tonight I was thinking, as I often do, and I was thinking about why I'm sad. I'm not very sad. I wouldn't call it a depression of any kind, it's just a little sad. I realized that really my ego is just bruised and I'm disappointed, but whatever. The bigger issue is other things and the other things aren't new things at all, I've known these things for well over a year. People are just so bittersweet.

Oh geeze, I'm worked myself into such a state of caring. It's all very silly caring. I call things silly when they matter a lot, but I don't think it makes sense or is purposeful for them to matter a lot.

I will reach a point someday where none of this will matter.

Life in college really doesn't make any sense. I have high expectations of life at some point. At some point everything will be really really excellent. I don't know when, but I expect they will be.

I am in a writing and then erasing mood. I don't want to expose too much. I want this to scream, "I don't care," to the right people and "I really do love you," to other people and, "See look I am not depressed or a pessimist," to other people still. If these were things I could ever say to these people I would, but to tell someone you don't care implies that you do, love implies far too many things always, when really it doesn't mean those things, but instead a gutteral feeling that is lovely and horrible all at nce. I think people think I'm depressed. I think I wonder if I am depressed because I always wonder it, but last night I clearly remember thinking, "I am far less anxious than I used to be," and it's true.

I sound drunk, I am not drunk, I actually have not been really drunk for quite sometime, I would like to be though, sometime soon.

I really like doing stupid little German grammer exercises. It's not hard, but it's something to do. It doesn't really take much thinking. Also, I really like the library. It's very nice.

My entire campus is an ice skating rink. I can't decide whether it would be better to fall with lots of people around, be utterly humiliated, but have people to help me up or to fall alone and I have to pick my cold, wet, broken, body off the concrete.

I had a zombie dream this morning, but they were very laid back zombies. They took awhile to change, didn't bite much. The only difficulty is that it is hard to identify them.

The trees are really excellent today.

When I wake up everyday my life is still my life. That's what is nice about dreaming, it's always different. Last night I dreamt I turned into a dog unless I tasted human blood. We were in Uptown.

I am excited for poetic pursuits. Yes yes.

I really hate it when dinner isn't satisying. If I could afford to buy food I would cook more often. Sadly, I am very poor.

On Thursday the front page story of the Galesburg Register Mail was about a fire at a Galesburg bowling alley. The Wednesday front page story was about the same thing. The earthquake on Haiti was on page three. While reading the story for mention of Knox I noticed something peculiar: someone had typed "Haiti" over the picture of the bowling alley.

I got into a discussion with a friend about this. I argued that Haiti should have been on the front page (it was finally on Friday, but this was several days after it had occurred), he argued that because the Register Mail is a paper is a paper for a somewhat small city that they should show Galesburg news as they probably have very little to add about the earthquake. I disagree wholly and completely. Galesburg actually has three newspapers, all of which report on local news. No one died in the bowling alley fire, whereas many people have died and continue to die in Haiti. I don't like the idea of something being sensationalized, but I think in a case like this, awareness with bring more aid.

I woke up and couldn't figure out where I was or why I was sleeping. I had to look down at my shirt to realize it was nighttime and I was in my room.

The morning is really lonely.

A note on Martin Luther King Jr. Day:
When I was eleven and had the day off from school my mom decided to tell me that her and my father were getting a separation right before we went out to lunch. I locked myself in the bathroom because it was the only room with a lock and refused to come out. My mom talked me out of the bathroom and we went to lunch like the conversation never happened. My dad was on a business trip. He didn't want a separation. He didn't want her to tell me that she wanted a separation. When he called that night she wouldn't let me talk to him. He came home the next day when I got back from school and started crying. It was one of the saddest things that I have ever seen.

I have a really mixed relationship with MLK day.

I live life under the assumption that somewhere inside people have feelings somewhat similar to my feelings. This is not always true. It's very strange to find this out. I start to feel like I am talking to an alien.

I feel okay.

Cycle
Cycle
Cycle
Cycle

Someone just shouted "Hey first floor, yall suck dick." This was after they played with the elevator for a long time.

I really miss some people right now. Oh geeze.

Watched 500 Days of Summer with Erin and cried through the whole thing. I haven't written a poem since Wednesday. I think I am about to turn a life corner.

Almost all human beings I know are flakey. It makes me tired.

It's arts and crafts time!!!!!

If I don't go to Austria next year, I want to go somewhere where I can help. Like Haiti maybe. Or I will work for a non-profit. I just need to do something. I am sick of this passive activism. I want active activism. I can't even think about the world right now, I just can't, I think about the dumbest shit all the time because it's easier than thinking about 100,000 people dying in a coutry that was already devastingly poor and illiterate.

In blatent constrast to my last post, I would like to say that my version of reality, though often pessimistic, is rarely disillusioned. I see the benefits of this sometimes. It enables me to be social or not social, depending on the situation. I do not fit in everywhere. Lots of times I am very shy, but I can pass. I feel like it is passing. I can pass for a human being who lives here and does normal things and will have a better chance of success then a lot of being because I'm middle class, white, smart, and I'm not unattractive.

A lot of people live somewhere completely differently. When you live somewhere else it's hard to function in the world, but you don't know you're not functioning because you live somewhere else. Except that's not true, lots of people know they aren't functioning.

Here is how people like me: People like me from faraway and people like me when they first meet me. I am interesting until I am not. I am interesting until that really insecure, desperate side comes through that says, "Please please please like me."

I just got the feeling that I am vastly overreacting to everything.

Yesterday I had the thought that it would be nice to share a brain with someone else, which sounds like multiple personality disorder, and I guess it is. But think about it, sometimes I get so tired of life and just want a little break where I can rest without thinking very much, which kind of sounds sad, but I don't think it should sound sad, but rather as a natural state that comes with being alive. I can't really do this though, I must be present in my head at all times and think when I don't want to think. If someone else shared my brain, they could step in when I need them to. It was really much more logical when waiting to go to dinner last night.

Sorry for my crabbiness. I have too much freetime and I am working on cutting some people from my life, which my irrational brain doesn't want to cut. Hang out with me and I'll be less crabby.

Please disappear.

I am not a very honest poet. I'm incredibly distrustful of my feelings and their validity, so I don't write about them fully. Thus I am trying something new, where I write out exactly how I feel at any given point in time and then I write it out again, only using some sort of poetic device like metaphor, simile, line breaks. It might've worked yesterday. At least I wrote a poem.

I am not a lot of work.

I am going to try and write a poem a day for the rest of term.

I wish I could make abstract noises on my blog. I could in fact, make abstract noises in a video and put them on my blog. However, I am too self-conscious to do this. This will happen when I am a different person.

I drank coffee. Grind grind grind. All I can think is I cannot go back to my room right now.

I wrote a poem. It's about elephants and my mother.

Trying to write poetry is making me crazy

It implies a lot of audacity to walk by the building of whose windows I am behind when I'm forgetting you. Really, have some respect.

I do not know how to write poetry.

Austrian app.

1. Essay- done
2. Resume- almost done
3. Recommendations- hopefully done?
4. Transcript- being held due to parental flaws, hopefully no longer.
5. Actual app- I should do that.

Let's not talk about this again in case I don't get in.

The removal process of human beings was easier at one point I imagine. Technology only complicates things. It leaves names and traces everywhere.

I am reading a book about the universe.

I want to be consumed by thoughts of things that aren't feelings.

Things to do today:
1. Work
2. Check mail
3. Eat lunch
4. Read books/write some poetry
5. Maybe History Club
6. Dinner
7. Recruitment week things
8. Read more books/write some poetry
9. Sleep

Thing not to do today:
1. Nap
2. Go on my computer other than for poetic/German/Austria purposes

I'm not really one of those faithful sorts of people. Neither am I the logical kind. Generally I am faithless and illogical, which is often why I feel bad.

Feeling kind of bummed again, but it will pass, it always does. Knitting in bed to relax. Going to sleep early.

Life is going. That's all I got.

I am learning a new skill: Patience.

It would be nice to know what exactly I am being patient for. I find patience to be rather painful at times.

Today the public relations office received a letter. All that was written on the outside was K-233. I gave it to the secretary and noticed a funny look on her face when she read it. It was a love letter. It went into long detail all the things that they loved about the person and how they loved having their arms around them and sharing music and all the things that they did together. It was simply signed -S. The secretary let me read the letter and I noticed that the heading was in German and the date written in the European style, with the day coming before the month. The German teaching assistant has a box number of 223, so it's possible that they simply wrote the numbers wrong. I feel like I saw someone's secret life. It makes me wary of the concept of love letters. At the sametime, to receive such a letter might be nice, but to see those things on paper, it's overwhelming. Especially to see them and know they don't belong to you.

I hate the little hope bubbles that float around in my brain waiting to get popped.

Human beings make me so tired. So tired. Almost glad the tear flood has started. When I was little and someone would tease me, as someones often did to me as a child as I was quick to cry and thus rewarding to tease, I would always claim I wasn't crying because they were teasing me, but because of some larger problem with the world around me, something deeper they could not understand. I still do this. I'm not crying just because of the people that have failed me, but also because of all the people that have failed the people I love. I become overwhelmed with the sheer mass of it and then cry harder, because I'm not sure I can function in a world where people are this awful all the time.

I must add my normal disclaimer, that there are people I like a lot, that I have faith in.

The nice thing is, for all the shit that disappoints me during the week (actually, all the people that disappoint me during the week) on Thursday night I always go to Jazz Night with John Williams and we bitch about disappointing people and how we are nervous and confused about said people. Sadly, we've been doing this since last year and nothing much changes. But it's nice that we do it.

Things to do next week:
1. Have things to do.
2. Stop napping. I have napped everyday since returning except Tuesday.
3. Spend less time in room/bed.
4. Write poetry.
5. Send application to Austria.

I hate wishing to be someone other than myself. I don't wish to be a particular person. Just slightly different.

I would enjoy being happier today.

I woke up feeling a little sad today
and then lay in bed thinking about how I am a little sad.
I read some poetry.
I wondered if writing poetry like the poetry I was reading was a good enough theme for the term.
The loss is too small to be tangible.
The loss is too conceptually large to be tangible.
I've been using the word conceptual too much lately.
I wish I had somewhere I absolutely had to be before 7:30.

People I don't know are really interesting.

I love poetry more than I love most people. The way I love some people over most is the same way that I love poetry and they in return treat me the same way that words do.

Two people I know have gotten in car accidents lately and have been injured. It is very very very sad. I wish I could express my concern in a better manner.

I am happy the way my dog is happy: a mindless wagging of the tail.

I am entirely separated from myself as someone who writes poetry. It's like someone else wrote them, someone who was happy and sad and in love. I want to be happy and sad and in love again. I am in all sorts of middles.

I can tell I am back at school because although I haven't done anything today, my body is tired and wants to nap.

I got 8 packages in the mail today. I know they are all books, but still it is terribly exciting. I do like books.

I am really cheerful today. It's nice.

My mom has started offering me everything in the house to take back to school with me. This is better then the fall, when she stayed up all night, broke out in hives, and tried to ride in the car back to school with me. She has already tried to ride in the car to school with me this time as well, but someone else is already riding with me. This is what makes me think I do not want to be a mother.

Worry Cry Calm Happy Excited Worry Cry Calm Happy Excited Worry Cry Calm Happy Excited.

This is how I am pretty much everytime I go back to school.

With everything I think there's a moment where you realize that you do care and then simulatenously at that moment you think, "Oh shit" and all you want to do is hide until you don't care anymore or even better, you want it to be okay to care.

Expectations live as images in my head.
So-called realism exists in flat words.
Neither are accurate.

When I am nervous, I pull my knees up to my chest
only moving to go through motions of doing something other then thinking.
Touch my face, look in the mirror.
The only reassurance here is that I have never not been nervous like this.

I think: I don't want to waste thoughts on you, as if there were a limit of how many I could have.