the constant brain ache makes it near to impossible to think, let alone write. I keep praying for a good night's sleep and it keeps evading me. The nerves have set in about the approaching homecoming. I cannot wait to see my family, but my jaw locks when I think about everything else. Why I am returning to a city that I am no longer invested in, that I no longer care for, and that no longer cares if I am there?


I stand at your funeral
though you are fading
in a pub three blocks away
the hairs I found on my pillow
and the letter i wrote for you
lay in the hole at my feet
i pray of you to stop
your following me
I can't stand the haunt
and when the worms
eat at my fingertips
maybe then I will
remember the movements

we sat on the plastic bench and miniature yous crawl from my eyelash follicles. they sketch your favorite Picasso on my exposed back. but because your ear is in your pocket, you forget the chalk applause. eleven blue recycled years and you curtain me with your arms and whisper to the trees let's call it a life.

kiss me one more time
lie about the storm
the winds rips the skin
as your fingers stroke my hair
you push me into the eye
and i am swallowed up
the hurt crawls around my ankles
biting teeth bone
i laugh and salt chokes
my voice creaks like the stairs
to your lashes

my eyes cry tiny winged rubber bands
breaking against ice walls
i lift my arms
and the trees twist from between my ribs
the owls whisper 'yesterday's street'
and i slide inside your mouth
and sketch on enamel

lost thoughts of dinner

when i awoke your dust outline
had faded to a pale chartreuse
i slithered down the bed post
carrying your conscience
in my cleavage
your mouth falls open
jaw tweaked to the left
leaking out verses
and sonnets and tomorrows
i lick each word
tasting like black coffee
and dry southwestern air
you drag your mandible
into the loom
weaving the hair you
cut from head
into the oriental rug
of promised pasts
my scalp bleeds into
your pant leg
like a long-faced rose
but when the stitches
are cut from the eyelids
the table of cold skinned fins
and the tiniest dress
are in the mirror
facing today

when i was luna

i am the moon
and you didn't mind the craters
you and buffalo women
used cowboy skills
to wrap the rope
round my waist
you would let me pull you
i would lead you
through the tall grasses
and funeral processions
past outstretched children
and broken feathered concrete
you thought things
and felt more
but then you remembered
i was the moon
going dark
and you couldn't stand
the acid reflux
that came with the dark side
and the drugs didn't help
so you let go of the twine
and i am lost in the sky
like the poodle shaped balloon
that the clown made brown
and no one likes brown

and my shadow
was just her size
she slide right into
the silhouette
and so will the next one
but none of their boots
will call your name
on hardwood
like mine

my eyes cry truth
in all lowercase
i catch the t's in a jar
and drop in a light match
they glow
and melt
and roll
like lightening bugs
drowning
in mercury

you read my body like a map
finding the quickest route
to Albuquerque
coconut cookies taste
like your mouth
dripping with blood
my teeth leave tattoos
on your lips
peel the aluminum
from under the dermal
he put it there
for radio signals
he wanted to hear
the opera but he
can't speak italian
but you are gone
and the zipper
won't lock me
in your bag
because your eyes
stuck to the ceiling
blink
disapprovingly

chasing your tread marks

you chase the rooster in circles. clutching tail feathers and coughing out meal worms. i beg you to stop. 'the fire is too tight' i tell you because you told fire he could hold me. my mouth hangs crooked as you chirp at me with squared fingers. i can't make my lips upturn. my jaw is loose at the seams and now the screwdriver is stuck behind my wisdom teeth. when i bite down there is a clicking in my right ear. you used to find it endearing, but now you just want me fixed. the sex has become photographs with coffee stains that you tuck under my books to be forgotten. i never wanted to be missed. i only asked to sleep on your breastbone and to ride in cars and sing together. but the windows wont move and you left me in the garage.

i open my mouth and lift my tongue to hide you inside. you will have to sit to the left of the banjo and my dad's sweater, they were there first. i promise not to cough too hard so not to muss up your pompadour. i ask A to hold the hot sauce. i know how it makes you sneeze. in the mornings i will let you sit against my incisors to watch traffic against the breakfast colored sun. everyone will tell me i need to come to terms, i can't hide you forever, a mouth is not a suitable place to keep you; but their panda faces will blur into the glass of warm milk i drink before i hand you the night quilt. please don't try to crawl out through the gap in my teeth. i would miss that full mouth feeling.

I answered the yellow phone because it was calling out tomorrow. The static sounded like a song about trees that I sang at 5th grade graduation. So T and I decided to go for a picnic. I opened the basket and found a handful of my hair and three slices of pound cake. T smiles to show the tiny shrimp that sleeps in his cheeks and cleans his molars. The orange one is named Raul, but never call him it to his face. The yellow phone used to be black before I discovered T's plan to leave. T loves pound cake. And the color yellow.

the begging is ugly
and you can't stand the look
of ice cream for breakfast
but when sleep is under
light dusted blinds
no one makes you eggs.

and no one will take
you west to build
bungalows of bone
and forgotten teeth
where sand blows
over the welcome mat
and the sun dies
behind stones named
after watermelon

and no one will open
your throat too wide
to teach you to scream
to let out all of the ugly
creatures that are digging
burrows into your throat
like hairless badgers
and mohawked mud-puppies

and no one will read
or reread words
written by your cigarette
stained hands of old
and used up
dried and withered
but full of juice
it is worth the squeeze

and no one will watch
to see you spit out
a rhombus or isosceles
when it is that night
that you've shoved a match
in your ear and can't stop
creating and mating
licking his wounds yellow
until bye bye bird eyes
like my swallowed raven
dead behind bars
irreplaceable

because no one will catch
3 singing lovebirds
from the christmas eye spy
to place in the aorta
because the pumping
is irrelevant to you now
and mostly because you
is me

and i cannot write letters
with no surname
expecting them to be recieved

and i cannot bruise kneecaps
by atoning for hours
on interstates

and i cannot take the drive
for future years
down yellow dotted black
because there is now room
next to the bronze tea kettle
to keep me warm
but the burner is not my home
i cannot simmer alone

and though i cannot,
i would make speech bubbles
filled with tiny dreams
and force them in ears
lifting the gray matter
like a helium garden
until the parade is escaped
and you and me and i and
his and hers and she and
him and us and we and them
are having tea under sheets
with four legs like tentacles
crawling and entangled to two hips

but you won't ask
and are already gone
my feet are chained
to this circumstance
and i cannot reach
the revolving door
that you are now erasing

only leaving a mail box
and a small library
with a collection of fines
and my shattered fingernails

meet me on the steps. bring your army, joe, and barbie. i'll bring baby jenny, raphael, and teddy. we will sail with the cat and the owl to an island where peter lived. bath time happens when the world is muddiest and we will have tea served out of leaves and sticks. mulberries will be dinner forever. we will be married to trees who sing sweet songs like every god we ever thought we loved. we will buried our lost under stones marked by sidewalk chalk. rain will never be feared. years will never pass. we will have found the past and nustled into its breast bone.



(post 100)

pumping my blood

catch a lovebird and place it under my ribs. the bones of the ravens rattle too loudly. my chest cracked open and waiting for the flutter of wings. I will fall asleep waiting, because you cannot close your hands over his tiny beak and you will never come.

step on my face
i beg of you
your lips were
the closest call
then you hung up
the cord curled
over the interstate
through drowning fields
and here i stand
begging for your claws
but you shake your fur
and pass on by
high standards
for prey or mate
i curl up with
stoned birds
and yellow plastic
praying the eyelids swell
until the leakage ends
and you won't redial
fingers too messy
wineprints on the phonebook
but she looks closers
you'll take her to bed.
and i sleep in the sky
empty ribs

i don't smile enough.
i talk too much.
i contradict myself.
my face is too round.
i cry too much.
my legs are too big.
i am dark.
i get too nervous.
i am anti-social.
i am too motivated, but don't follow my dreams.
i am too doubtful.
i am paranoid.
i am ocd.
i am too self-conscious, but am a self-righteous bitch.
my skin is too pale.
i am too smart, and a total idiot.
i am hateful, and i care too much.
i walk with a limp.
i don't give a fuck, but i try too hard.
i don't party enough, but i'm too drunk.

did i forget something..please let me know.
tell me which one was it, which one sent you running?

little black letters
crammed into my mouth
choking and spitting
coughing up lies
and excuses
burning silk
inhaling the fumes
until i pass out
naked under
raining ceilings
dust into swollen
eyes and blood
dried lip lock
blue glow fallacies
that breaks everything
step on your teeth
till they are powdered
and bottled
sold to the next love lost
girl whose thoughts
too honest for safety
don't send electric whispers
stop fulfilling your needs
the shellfish is disgraced

and the pygmy creatures
scurry over the severed
fingers held tightly
on a first date night
where the broom stands on end
hounddogs eating the brains
of the girl next door
playing double dutch
with the hoses from gas pumps
and the headlines reread
from what is never ending

a mouse crept across my foot like a furry palm. And then nights fell and four feet with toes stuck to peanut poison plastic. And it cried out loud to jesus to his mother to his lover like me. And your worker hand like a catcher mitt forced my mouth wide fondling my intestines and raising them. 'Til they met your steel toed boots. and i cried for his big eared cries. i ached for Fievel never making it west and Ratatouille's dusty spoon and for Tom's empty chase. Jerry is fly paper glued to my linoleum. cancel saturday morning cartoons.

i hate when i am stupid. when i check out my brain to tequila like a lost library book and don't expect it to come back. i don't even realize its gone until i am choking on intoxicated tears that burn worse than a lost lover. a fight with your face breaks bones more than when he walked away. birthed then separation of cryogenic proportion for three years and now anger hurts like fractured femurs.

razor toothed tiger faced
bitch behind the desk
dripping onto the counter
red pools gem stools
lips of decay sign
the letters with x's and
oleander sitting in milky
skin stretch like porpoise fin

my kind of love letter

i am planning a genocide
a mass killing of my gender
a bleeding out of the bleeders
til birds sing like gargling
fountain genitalia

take out all the moon-faced
saucered eyes milky girls
with yarn farm hair
'round round glasses

kill all the big eared
spike headed
balder than you are
umbrella girls

murder all the counterfeit
needle nook armed
noose necked girls
with the smoke oozing
from pores too cool
to be anything but fad

so you are left with me
and my scissored up legs
and overly friendly breasts
toe-thumbed reject with
the beauty of a hundred
hidden moths
with state border hips
and a whistling smile.
your vagina toting Hitler
shellfish queen of the massacred

dying to be intertwined
navel to navel
fleshy mismatched
puzzle pieces
kissed together
to hide in the corner
from the black eyes
of the taxidermy beaks

lemon scented romance

dear mr danston
dance with me thrugh
the rain and genocide
catching metallic tears
on sunburnt tongues
where i lap up
your drunken skull
pains that leak into
children's lead poison
play things threaded
with recycled paper
envelopes that carry
the letters i copied
in green ink
from the squid
you bought
on our birthday
death wish me
death bed flirt
until i face-plant
onto your naked femur
and last years tears.

the odd couple

It was living in my retina. for about 7 years, 4 months, and 23 days, It lived in my retina. Its long legs and fur covered arms would stretch out in the mornings tickling my macula. while the streets leaked drunkard soles into the fish stench warehouse kitchens, It read the Times, safe behind my lid. Flipping through the Living section, It remembers why he packed the needle-nose pliers and the electric drill, with removable drill bits, before venturing into my optic region. Taking an afternoon swim to my tear duct and watching the sunset while resting on the iris, It feels alone, but pretends every look is actually for him. Every face is stolen from me, every pupil taking me in is somehow reappropriated to him. I could bathe in a sea of blue, brown, green, and hazel, but I'd fine that It would be there first, scratching my intials out of the golden specs. I kneel at night praying for a scratched cornea. Lasic surgery has improved my vision, but It spent the day hiding in my pupil. It thinks forever sounds like today and I rub the goop from my eyes praying for a torn fur limb. Forever is donating my eyes to science.

the nausea nestles
cradled in my arms
like the mama bird
splatter across the concrete
skull in two like reflections
like the glass ground
in your vegan meal
of manner pretentious
til the birthmark crawls
down the spine
until metatarsals dance
into weary mornings
of weary minds
wrapped in bean sprouts
from the curd stored
between the blocks
of the city streets lined
with placenta and tied
to the umbilical cord
but i am chewing through
time to sever
to say goodbye
i grow to fifteen feet tall
and slide you into the rubber
grooves in my boots
wear you well

eat worm word laced
shoes where hidden
holed tights bury
deep into my throat

i cough your mother's pearl
into the hair clogged sink

in the lace covered
combat boots i
march to the line where
front stands stood
with lemonade
but no one pays me with quarters

swimming through comfort
into the obscene
unseen trees that grow
out of your fingertips
handed tiny forests
homes for tiny owls
who call to me as i concave
collapse
into batteries
but receive nothing

and the influenza
married me years before
for the status
worry you none
the sex stopped with gold
circled phalanges
and no one loves
the amputee

so i cut your hair
in the night
braided
and through the eye
stitching at the elbow
you to the bone

so i hear you are living in the weeds
dream big little man, eating back
the words you spit into my ear holes
on sweating days and broken glass
lazy susans in the home lot
but it is all alright, man
inhale deep and feel the spin
i wish you nothing but chilly mornings
with breath ending dawns
where you choke on the papers
and the green laughs at you
your hyperfallacies can't live with me
anymore. enjoy evaporating
and think of my laughter when
you are trapped in the cycle
of becoming acid rain
or is that too hard?
stick to the gentle shit
until your lungs crawl out
and trail your esophagus down the street
breathe deep

coat me in silicon, man. and carry me home to your father. receive the stamp of approval like the cut of meat in the ice, equally as blood soaked. rinse my hair with the vodka brewed in toilet bowls. pick out the stems from cherry tongues spit spat sputtered as the stutterer rocks the eyeless doll in the corner. i hate you for being lost in the future. what time is it there? 12:25 pm. You're still early and it's made me late. terminate the termite pregnancy because I can't stand its squirming reminders of you. Take your six legs and seven shoes and bicycle back to Maine. I won't write your father again and I hate your postage stamp five o'clock shadow. Eat your postcards and vomit the mountain forevers.

phantom limbs
being attached to
my rib cage
to hold feathers
and place begging kisses
like lost bookshelves
birthed from love handles
like branches on a
pining tree
being pulled to
300 mile hands
waiting to cup
lost breasts
like bonnets on babies
until the warmth returns
and the amputation is complete
i'll mail you my arm
brown paper and string
soaked black

chew away my tongue
because i keep licking
the snot and tears off
the blood dried lips
where the bird wings fall
and you wrap me in feathers
mummified with care
until the sun rises seven
days from today
and teeth are worn
as accessories
for date day is planned
and my knuckles are lonely
each space between bone
fits the letters of your name
and i fall asleep in your laughter
and awake in the bathtub





blogging face

the view licked your neck
til you drunk drove into
my clothes
blue glows for help
chirp into vibrating hands
and heaving brain
eggshell cracked skull
ethical dioramas clay coat
my facial features
creatures
leeches
hold onto me kissing
like sealed promised wax
to the history channel
civil sex obsessed
drying out my fingerprints
cut from the bone
to use as beading
but her dress is stained from white
mites
lice
louse
crawling in my hand
pets you see
don't let them go
keep them close
something needs to protect me

flames lick my thighs
prehistoric bones pierce
through my aging skin
too young to shatter
but giving into the crash
i shove the wreckage into me
i'll cradle the crumpled aluminum
in nine months i will
birth my end

combat booties on kittens

pop my lip
bubble like zebra
stripe tattoos on
my hands spit kiss
you and the mulberry toes
squirming worming
families after the rain
i line them up by size
momma dad and babies
boiling she keeps saying
and it hurts my teeth
like my hair hurts
and the popsicles fall
to splinters and the ants
drowning in grapes
that the teenager down the
block slides inside her while
her boyfriends watch
i wish i was my child father
and hopping trains
with rabbits in coats
and men with tails

skin tastes of prehistory

can i swallow you
with fat fat lips
and stolen teeth
behind the gay bar in
the city
that always wants to sleep
drudging/
drumming
the brain to the skull
til the black plastic rips from
my ear canals
deaf death deaf
nest
i tear
the white from the burn
the right from me
i surrender to wrong
and A will know
she will
and no one else
when balls of
red coiled bird calls
creep past nostril hairs
fair to be seen
live the love me lines
from stove top films
from the classic era
fuck technicolor
i lick you gray.

newbrainonscreen

walrus tusk pierce my nostril
and i bleed into your soup
A will serve it anyway
that is what A does

i cuddle close to the arm
of the record player
and vomit on the leather
glove you left on my hand
to think of you

the gut worms are awake
and say "hello"
A offers to cut them out
i take the sharpened spoons from
her three fingered hand

i dream of you trimming
my hair on a wooden stool
in a kitchen that
lasts forever
i collect the fallen hair
and nest in your wrist holes

i lie. i truth.
keep me close. but not there.
far. but don't leave.
she can't be me.
can you?

the ivory leaves lead
in my lungs and
i cough out scantrons
fill in the dots to make
my winter wonderland
wonder when

i ask you to open my skull
and you kiss my ankle bone
with a rolling pin
i straighten the gray matter
and hold it in place with A's knitting needles
no straying thoughts

the cigarette towel smells
of your face and
the toast with the jesus crawls to the door
i quit searching for miracle men
and begin to count steps on my sternum
the map points to me
and i take the scalpel to the xiphoid process
breathe deep once four two gone

fingernails crusted acrylic
purple dirt painted faces
come back to me
fingers bend backwards
and loose the brush
where did it go

taking the bunny eared
antennae and cut the thigh to
the bone, stuffing the wound with
crumpled printed words.
i peel through the layers
to decide what should go on top;
what you should see;
what will you want in your skin.
i pray for your fingers licking
my uglies all the pain all the
past but are you even reaching?
how far are your bones stretching?
i wonder if i pull like the moon
or if you've carried in the right half
of gray matter to make it seem.
be my tide and with
eyes that i cut wide see
me true and don't erode.

black coffee morning

i hope it wasn't all a dream

and the red seeps from swollen lids
that are giddy to be tired
leaking like a juice box
while bells are chiming
charming alarms
til ears are danced upon
by cleated voices angry
with their mothers
and Freud is smoking on your
uvula, swinging and swaying
etching your thoughts into
the tonsillitis
but the face creeps to content
lying in your blue gaze glow
screen and it's
the happiest exhaustion
observed

and i'm creeping, until
your back bleeds,
and your eyes staple
themselves shut.
i hide in my pocket.
and digital blush.
publish my inconsistencies
in ink on my ribs
roll me out
fleshy papyrus
and read me aloud
the stage will shatter
and i will dance in tiny pieces in
between the ridges in your fingers
because you are
all new and
i cannot move my lungs

i wrote today...

past time museum romantic

insects shut her lids
mechanically blinking her oval
opals
broken beer glass falls from her
eyes, green, blue and brown
like on the shore
slitting cheeks as it falls
thumbelina brings the blind mice
in on the handicapped van
and pack the recyclable material
you are jealous the
fairy tales get more
of her than you
her bug gutted blood painted
skinny skin face stretches to your
fingertips
you pick up a wrench
and demote yourself.
you'll let her stay for an hour
you've always wanted red linens.

poem i just wrote

untitled 1

faded people flipping
through paper mache picture books
to compare my insect legs
to their modest stock market
crash dolls
and their Nixon midriffs
but my cardigan smells more historic
so I write you a letter in
crayon, sea foam green
and melt it down
using aged nostrils as my seal
p.s. love, write back
quickly, the baby is buried
in the pumpkins and
oxygen is scarce











taken by s.sleevi

real life today

i had an amazing day at my internship and yet my chest still feels like it is being crushed and my lungs burn. i don't understand how i can be so upset. i just want someone to talk to. an ear to press to my lips so i can lick their skin with my excited words. i had such a good day and yet i sit on my computer watching myself cry on a crap webcam because it makes me feel human and its almost like having someone to share my emotions with. i just want to tell someone about how well today went, and how great i am doing at this agency, and how much they love me there. and i want someone to be excited for me, and proud of me, and genuinely interested in it.
but that's asking for too much..




i want to always be on film. to be caught in the cut coffee sober.
-why?

my type

how do i manage to become so over invested in someone who is barely there. a faint outline of a potential. a whispered type. my heart beats fast and my breath aches. dressed as a nerd because it is the trend on my skin. my eyes bleed and i pour the third cup of black down my throat. it satisfies nothing. how did i let the so unknown become so important. why do i care? and yet i am lying and wishing that i could ventriloquist your ass and force your lips into the 'N' and wait for you to understand.

daydreaming

and it's scary. i think the week of serious insomnia is taking its toll. i have adjusted to the shaking, because i do that all the time anyways, but after being up until 4 or 5am every day and rising at 8 or 9 to start my day, my body is turning on me.
i am daydreaming, while functioning, horrible awful dreams. day-nightmaring. i am walking down stairs and i see myself trip and bust my mouth open. i can taste the hot metallic in my mouth like sucking on a warm nickel. i feel the fragmented enamel dancing on my tongue and the flesh that was my lips tear and swell. but i am standing and there is no blood. there was no fall.
i am crying from the pain and the ugly words you spit as you walk out my door, leaving me. taking with you the laughter and the solace. but i don't know you. we haven't met, you're face is a blur and we haven't loved yet.

newest poem

fix your floral bow tie

you're top hat is too
tight and you're uvula is knocking
against the knick neck
the drugs are failing you
and the trip becomes
bloated until the beer settles
into your cardigan buttons
bet on
the painted mullet
laughs into the leather interior
of her thighs
the vein swells bluebad
mad across the bridge of my nose
and she with her fine leather
and new car smell
carries steel on her face
and mescaline in your pocket
scratch me until i can live under
your nails
and burrow into you
creeping like pin worms
but your sandbox litter
races the rental
where the midget makes love
to the flaming angel
with a tuna in the
thirty pound purse
til the lesbian curses
you with beer cans
lets go swimming until
the trumpets end
carry her back to the
dealer and take your cash
for clunky bait slut
the doctoral dancer leaves
her string on the yellow line
and leash the swine
for the shower.

leaf lap

it's fall today and i welcome its spine pricked, winter licked winds on my neck. the smell is familiar and chilling like your grandmother's fresh baked bread the morning of her wake.

i saw a yellow cruiser today, chained to a mcdonalds, begging to be straddled. it made me miss reBIKEah a lot. i need to fix rhonda so I can go for long bike rides now that it is beautiful and cool out.

and so

i am not sure how i feel about the readings the other night. two of the actors did an amazing job performing three of my pieces. however, the performance of the final piece i had submitted, almost brought me to tears i was so angry with how it was done. i guess the one good thing is that i've come to the agreement that i need to be reading my own work so that people can hear my words how i meant for them to be heard.
lately i have been feeling split. like i am only living a half-lived life. the other half just drags behind me, unexplored, like peter pan's shadow sewn to his shoe. i need to stop grasping onto what the shoulds say and start taking what is wanted. reality needs to come home so i can stop living in what never was.

written 5.24.09:

company lost at the amputation
the drawer knob
next to the blue postage stamp
i cry into its corner
and close it on the sprout
i eat you in two bites
no need for the process of mastication
masturbation
like eggs sunny side up
where the whistles
become wall paper
and the man slides
his head through the gate
and coughs the gravel back
into the cement foot holes
under my carpet
laid by the woman
while girls cradled lost arms
and bookends creep away
her despair smelled like exhaust.

your mouth my words

tonight is the night of the poetry out loud performance. 4 of my poems will be read aloud on stage by actors. i am really not sure how i feel about it. i am really excited. i am hoping josh, the professor who taught my poetry class and got me writing again, got my email and is going to come. i think bungyecca is going with me. i am going to rush straight from my internship so i can make it in time. i think i would be more excited if the ones that inspired me where here, or if i could share this with someone who really cared and was excited for me.

the lonely crept from under the bed
even though you checked the closet
its prying off my toenails with your hangers
and eating me from the ankles up
i call your name and you
don't turn
your eyes slide to the back
of your haired skull
blink blink
turned away
my knees are gnawed
stomach acid tickles my toes
i hold onto your discard hat
and tear the seams
i am alone
and devoured

words to define

lips can't form the desperate words
and the pages are eaten
from webster's hands.
tragic is a pity until
you hate it most
and no one seems to know
chaotic hopelessness
but the porcelain lips eat
your bucket list and the pail.
the bear carries the pulse away
and you abandon his paw
and yet you find that you are I
and am clinging to the fur.

drunken daytimes

had a crazy weekend. a lot of fun with a lot of strange emotions, though. saw defiance, ohio and this bike is a pipe bomb and had an amazing time.

positive

my poetry is going to be featured in a staged poetry reading production. which means, I submitted my work for review. four pieces were picked. so there will be actors on stage, reading my work aloud for an audience. i am really kind of excited and anxious about it. like butterflies with razorblades for wings are hanging out in my abdomen. i think i would be happier if i had someone who i could call that would be excited and want to come with me to see the performance.

cant spread the news

so the day passes and i am aged and empty like the last drops in a bottle of wine that no one wants to look desperate enough to suck at. you manage to weasel in when you are most hated and slide through the floor boards as soon as you're desired. i am begging of the clouds or the grass or the sand, let it be done. i am ready for the new. introductions are well overdue. just dig out the last of the shrapnel from my bloody disheveled back, and drop it into his bag. i am ready to accept a feeling or a word.


shouldbetwin


truest


life on blur

letters to "you"

dear stupid man on the bus,
thank you for chatting away on your handsfree headset. thank you, for one, for being so self-involved that you really need to be on a handsfree headset to chitchat with some random friend of nothing of consequence. Moreover, thank you for picking your nose blatantly and then wiping it on the seat while on your handsfree headset. And once more, thank you for being just so with it that you cannot even manage to figure out how to properly wear your handsfree headset. You are a winner; a key member of society. Thank you for letting me grace your large-nostriled presence, I am humbled.

dear elderly woman on the the bike trail riding a child's bike,
your purple and teal sparkle magic bike, pedaling so slow on the trail, in your classic yellow pants and your hanging bingo wings creates that combination that is undeniably awesome. You win.

dear human resource department,
thank you for being so talented at your job that you can manage to lose time cards. I am thrilled at the fact that I will not be getting my paycheck for last pay period. How did you know I really just wanted to have to wait another two weeks before I get paid for all that work? I really am grateful for this lesson in patience. Oh, and your phone manners-impeccable! Listening skills are a ten, even though you couldn't understand my last name after I spelled it 5 times. Keep up the good work. Cancel those extra training sessions you were considering, unnecessary.

skinny love

there was a sign posted on an electrical box on michigan ave in downtown chicago. written in permanent marker on bright blue paper was an email address at the top. then two lines from the bon iver song, then a heart, and another email address at the bottom.

i won't ever have that. it's time to accept it, and move on. it's so far gone. no horizon in sight.

i told you to be patient
i told you to be fine
i told you to be balanced
i told you to be kind
now all your love is wasted?
then who the hell was i?
now i'm breaking at the britches
and at the end of all your lines
who will love you?
who will fight?
who will fall far behind?

another new poem

satisfactory for you

hey! i found your perfect life. just thought I'd let you know. the friends, the job, the girl. i found it. you won't come for it because you think you've done it wrong. but it exists. don't waiver in the belief that it is there. but pray for your soul because your pride will fight you down, and it will always be a glimpse of what you should be in a frame. the view is broken like my glasses after you step on them, hanging from one side of my face with webs on the lenses. i wish you wouldn't see it through that forever. let me know when your done sewing martyr to your t-shirt and I'll see what i can do. there may not be much left. i am breaking at the ankles and falling to paper shreds. find me before i am trapped in the office vacuum. find me before i let them eat me whole. find me before i abandon your abandonment. the walks alone in the drunken mornings are ugly at best. the bus keeps crawling up my thigh and i can't seem to hold my skirt down. the fabric sweats into bleeding crayons and i hate you for letting me alone.

my newest poem, I don't know how I feel about it, but it's me writing so that's an improvement:



your character and my bedside alarm

dump on me one more time
and fold your eyelids
you will be my favorite page
with the flaming skies and frozen
jaw stuck between a frown and a scream
blind and pisscovered i swallow you whole
living under my arm, i scoop you out
into the back of the toilet
a strange bird you are
with scaly arms not quite wings
you pull me under with you
when you don't want me
i wish to quit this
but the computer show
roars on in my cerebellum
whisper the headline past my neck
you lied to __
and __ knew it
__ held you anyway
the travelling puppet show explodes
into a coma induced laughter show
in your extra 20 lbs you found brilliance
and that ticket stub i handed you
that page, favorite of all, with charcoal
finger paths smudge on the teeth
i am __
and you are devoured
wishing away the hunger pains

resurrection

i have avoided internet for most of the summer; trying to stay busy as possible leaves you with little time to sit on the computer. finally back up in chicago after a weird, but great summer in cincinnati. i am realizing how much i actually do love some aspects of that city and that as much as it frustrates me, something keeps pulling me back to it. starting an amazing internship here in the city, working with some amazing individuals who really make me inspired to do the work i am doing. i love the visitors; playdates (or play-weekends) are so much fun with friends from back home.
the loneliness is there but not overwhelming me yet. its a weird sort of split personality thing i have going on lately. i am trying really hard to find a way to incorporate my poetry into my life and my work now, and I am finding it harder than it was before. i also hate the lack of creativity I have been feeling lately. the summer was definitely devoid of much writing or painting. it makes me feel a lot emptier than i used to feel.


best pals playing in cincinnati


friend time at the beach


blast from the past visitors


my dangerous love affair


me in my cafe home away from home

61009

i will ride the rocket ship outside the grocer's until you come again with quarters.

black rat snake

never thought it'd be like this and when i wonder why there are more question marks in everyone's eyes. there are no answers. there is no right. life is being dragged away by the four foot rat snake in my yard and i can't figure out which hole he went down.

and it's wrong

and thank god for the breeze that just wrapped around my arm through the front window

and her white dress

reminded me never to stop

eyes stapled

eternal rest time

41

back aches and burning eyes. need to get out of this place. the sun doesn't shine bright enough and the rain falls too cold.

coming up basil

every step i take blooms wild strawberries and lavender. thyme springs from under my toes. i want to curl up in the warm soil and nap in my mother's gardens.

hate it

i only seem to feel happy on the move now. as long as wheels or feet are moving things are alright. never settle. never stop. and never look back.

people are strange

isn't it strange that the one person you want to baby and take care of your entire life can all of a sudden be grown up, and wise? she talks to me like i talk to myself. and for the first time in years, she reminded me of me. it's been a long time since we've been this connected. i forgot how much i missed living for her. she makes it so hard and so easy to be messed up and no matter what she makes me want to be better. i want to show her what to do and what not to do even if it means fucking up. and part of me thinks i did a little. maybe i didn't screw up as much as i always thought. i love you sister/best friend. you will always be my little, and my goo, but thank you for being wise and being able to hurt and come to me and be strong and be there when i am hurt and weak. i forget that you are still so young and living everything for the first time because you have lived so much with me, but i am glad you can do it unscathed with no scars. you are beautiful and will be stronger than i ever could be.

alh, love you little sister.

over

totally done caring. lies slowly warp into laughter and i am unafraid of you.

blunted

head aches and constant shakes

sometimes it feels like my eyelashes are falling out and I have to stop what I am doing and feel my eyelids

boderline personality disorder

lets all live on film.


catch me holding hands with ophelia and a faint-hearted smile but the horse is foaming
and i am sad.








p.s.
ruby got three compliments today when we went for a ride, great bike.
i found 4 blowpops in my old purse

must be

must be me

thank you to the woman today who said
"the past does not exist and the future does not exist. you cannot live in either."

i take away patience.

like a wonder-bra

thank gods for helping hands
holding up broken necks
and smokey houses where
there are whiskey floors
and loose change
for the challenged few
who envision lies
and reach for touch on public transit
but leave us laughing
for miniature glowing
screened words from
fingers hours away
for little whispers
from family trees
and little whiskers
from family canines
pain lines
recede.


things are really busy. i can't keep focus. i have too much stuff to do for school plus work and the unpaid internship thing. shopping trip coming up soon. maybe some new changes that I am waiting to hear back about. maybe doing an invisible children thing this weekend. or maybe a hillbilly party with some rat patrol people. mbcc meeting on sunday of this week. then the last of my finals. then summer.

end scene

i am not ready for my curtain call..

if the world needs me, it would be nice to let me know.

and so begins the longest winter.
today will be the date.

lungs filled with cement

and i just fucked my elbow up so bad, it's growing a baby elbow

eyelashes

there is no exact reason why everything should seem to be shit lately, and yet it is. everything I do sets of a chain reaction of the worst kind and I cannot figure out how to stop it. I am nervous and worried all the time. I think that's why my hair is falling out at an alarmingly high rate. it takes so much effort for me to take those first steps in the morning and to do what I have to. I thought this was what I wanted, and now I am just praying for the end. The only calming thing I can seem to find is to put my hands over my face and open and close my eyes. Eyelashes dragging across my palms. I have locked myself in this place where I have nothing. I see no one. The faces around me in potential social situations are blurred. I count minutes to hours to days to nothing. The count down leads to nothing. Nothing good nothing bad. I just keep repeating the numbers. Sometimes it is overwhelming and I feel like 5s and 7s are crawling down my throat. Other times they are the only thing holding my eyelids open.

even on days that start with dreams of sundays and skies the color of breakfast, when i can't shake the smell of syrup and my fingers seem stained black, i tumble back into the counting and the nervousness. sometimes I think the move will be the answer, so the number sums up to about 2 years 1 month and 9 days, or 769 days, or 18,456 hours. But sometimes I think it won't be enough. What if it follows me there. Or what if that's where it started to begin with. I am counting down from 769 to a date that means nothing. I will get to zero and rejoice to find I have dug myself deeper into what I wanted to escape.

I keep watching the money slide out of the box glowing on the screen, and keep working the hours, but nothing seems to come of it. All of the things that actually matter seem to disappear faster than everything else. No one ever tells you life gets emptier as it goes on. All of the 'best times' of my life are complete lies, and somehow everyone else got it right. Where did I go wrong? Maybe they are right. Maybe it is all my fault. I choose to be this way. I want to be miserable.
Still sounds like bullshit to me.

i lied.

for the first time all week, an okay day.

the book i wanted to read arrived at the library today. yes! for reading material for the bus ride back to my apartment.
i also got news that mtw may come on family vacation this summer. hopefully his work will be understanding and let him have that week. i really really really hope so.
going out tonight with lily hopefully.

rest of this weekend is going to blow.

that empty chested feeling with the wet face. it's ugly.

bbiiccyyccllee

ratrick events for the past week were great!! I am so glad mosh&brew cincinnati came out, and had a blast. i miss hanging out with everyone already.

little ruby, new bike, is sitting in my room waiting to be worked on. i cannot wait until she is rideable. and i MISS rebikeah!

it was a great week. everything was so much fun. rode a ton, which is so much fun. going out to relax with brian and meeting a bunch of rat patrol people on tuesday was great. yeah! for green beer. Wednesday I saw sunshine cleaning for free, free=sweet. the show was a ton of fun, and beer, oh and delicious cheap pizza by the slice. the games were good. i wish the chariots hadn't broke before ally and I got to go. best thing all night. the cops sitting at a light as we moved to a new location and them saying over the loudspeaker, "you guys are great. we like you better than gangbangers." yes, above gangbangers.

on top of ratricks stuff, and mosh and brew people, bungyecca and kswain came and saw me. lots of lounging and friends watching. and a nice trip to navy pier and ben's for dinner.

great great six days

i hate that its over.
i miss it.

the guys checking jerrys tall bike before his third, and victorious, joust.

and into the light

nice day. still feels empty.

soon it will feel drunk.

people shouldn't whisper when it's not theirs to whisper about

tired

exhausted of waking up with swollen eyes and a wet pillow.

eyeball

everything seems wrong and i hate that. it's all my fault. i don't try hard enough. i "could change it".

they say.




so i spent the day distracting myself. sewing patches on my vest. playing on sammie's mac. now im gonna drink beers and play wii.

maybe i'll make myself forget.







and now i know what i'd look like as a chipmunk...

not quite negative

dealing with the crap of 'real' life after a week or so of the way my life should be is hard to swallow. I just hate being back here dealing with the smells and sounds of it all. I just stay busy and bury my head.

I am going to try to keep my chin up, or build some sort of invention that holds it up for me. I just keep looking forward to next week, looking for a jean jacket to make a vest this weekend, getting my back patch, and my new bike I am buying on sunday.

think positive
think positive
think positive




miss you..

foggy life

when watching lives becomes life, there's not much farther down it can drop.

each day starts with hope for better than the last
and ends with monotony





i'll see you soon, but i will be empty.

ugly pulsing

why can't you ever mean what you say.
I believe the words through phone lines, but the proof speaks differently.

when yesterdays whisper ugly

counting days takes so long.



i am trying to focus on the good things right now. like my new painting, or picking out which poems to submit for publication in Cadence. but I keep getting hung up on the papers, and lectures, and exams, and cramming, and alarm clocks, and dead cell phones, and lousy connection, and ugly memories.


^one of my drawing on s.sleevi's walls

today

never grow up

little stone elephant

I kept one on my dresser when I was little. it was beautiful; white and grey with tiny carved eyes and toes.
I wonder what happened to it.

whispering to myself

1.my sister, me, and our dog butkis 2.me modeling for a project in h.s. 3.me modeling in the courtyard in h.s. 5.butkis in a hairnet 6.me on a back porch when i still smoked 7.me after a cigarette in the shade of blue 8.old photo of the women in my family dancing.

lost the eraser

the sun is out today. it is nice.




i just wish it wasn't so lonely.

can you imagine working on a skyscraper

he knows when not to say anything.
and when to out of the dark say exactly what i always wished someone would say.










amazing weekend. cannot wait until the twenty-seventh

never had one

elvis costello: you never asked me what i wanted. you only asked me why. i never thought that so much trouble was restin' on my reply...



by s.sleevi

extremely loud

I read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer last night. It was nice to see someone else, even if it was a character in the book, that appreciates door knobs. my grandmother and i love door knobs. i used to love to go antiquing with my parents to i could find old doorknobs.. it's so much fun to imagine what they lead to. maybe the bronze one with flower detail lead into the room of a woman with too much time and not enough love, maybe the tarnished silver one with the filled in keyhole lead to man who lost everything and refused to go outside, maybe one lead to what we're all looking for and we just don't know it.



anyways... i'm still trying to figure out information about this on campus publication so i can submit some poetry. but i was listening to Yo La Tengo, now that my record player is here, and wrote a new one.

beard mop on gnome
sends the boy in the white dress
and squeaky badger nails
when whole eye pupils jump rope
with trash can floss
and braided moss hair
with no poison
no not like ergot
they blame
for crucible sights
mane squeeze next to
juice box jokes
there are no more eggs
but a num num room
with kings cell free cell and the
alcoholic gene with
a button fly
and screaming wings with air torsos
so hissingly under
a red ski hat

ice wheels

some random pictures of winter stuff. trashed christmas tree, which always makes me sad. the immense amount of water that has frozen while draining from our building, and the river downtown.

winter has been a little bipolar recently. it always looks like its raining outside my window because of all the ice on the back of the building melting. then every other day there is more snow or everything freezes again.

the read came up for the weekend. show on the 31st which was great. after they played MTW djed for awhile, which was fun. then lily had an aqua dance party. at some point someone got a 40 broken over their head, but i missed that. then i sat up til 7am listening/talking with troy and lily. then after saying goodbye to MTW, they got the van stuck in my alley in the ice. I watched from the window. it was pretty great.

busy week coming up, but some interesting things going on this weekend. so it should be good.

tundra stress

I am thinking about submitting some of my poetry to an on campus literary magazine publication thing. I wish it wasn't an on campus thing, but everyone has to start somewhere, and I am thinking about reading my poetry at this literary/music open mic type thing in Kentucky next time I am back in Cincinnati (if I am there for the right Wednesday of the month).

I am looking more and more like an arctic traveler with every day of the week. I am up to three pairs of socks (because of my leaky boots), two shirts, pants, sweatshirt, scarf, hat (with two hoods), and my gigantic down knee-length jacket. I waddle around Chicago hoping my nose doesn't fall off. I need new batteries for my camera to take a picture of the crazy ice 'sculpture' that naturally formed on the pipe carrying water from the laundry room outside.

Long weekend with nothing to do except fill out applications for the 5 year program and fieldwork placement. Somehow it's the first week back and I am exhausted already. I don't know how I manage to create stress before anything has really started. I am thoroughly ecstatic about season 3 dawson's creek and chai tea on my couch.

failure

so I am a blogging failure. I have not posted anything for over a month. I will blame this partially on the fact that I spent a decent amount of time in an technological black hole in Maryland over my winter break. Otherwise, the blame is mine, just too busy.

This will be a short and most likely unseen post. Here are some pictures by my sister and best friend who is working on her photography skills. AH took a few of me in Maryland, so here...






Now I have to drag myself through the snow and head to night class. The beginning of the semester makes me nauseous for about a week.