got these far away blues

i have three overwhelming new adorations:
grey's anatomy [thursday night happiness].
dr. preston burke [my new tv doctor of choice].
joe purdy, and his beautiful voice [heart-breaking folk music].

i just felt like i should maybe admit to these obsessions before they consume me.

i love rain most, when it stops.

making bananas foster and spinach quiche lorraine for dinner. being an insomniac [again] and thus really appreciating the comfort of my bed. filming a photo essay of my castle. dangerous hugs. dreaming [in spanish] about sobbing about fruit. indulging even when i don't have time. angelhair pasta, challah bread, sweet potatoes, peaches, tomato cayenne bread with raspberry jam, and peanut-butter covered pretzels.

the lake is angry, and beating itself against the shores.

we weather together it's never a feather your mother my father they sever the ties. they sever the tether that holds us together, the tether we sever is breaking our minds.
this girl's got a twitch, you son of a bitch, we are made to abstain: the cure for the uncommon itch. my name sounds the same when you say it like that, but i can't stand the rain much longer.
sing me a song oh bastard faced-liar, i know you can hum the tune of the sweet. even between lines you spin higher and higher, but i'm never enough of a melody to complete.
messiah, medusa, la musa, they call me. with fog horns and sickles together we'll be. you're reckless, i'm headless- my heart in the dungeon; with needles and telegraphs together we'll be.
these maps that you're leaving around in my easy chairs are covered in blood and fallacy ridden. stop wasting my time with your decaying red banter, i'd handle the truth if you wouldn't keep it so hidden.
bare polka dot patterns rip my ribs all to dust. and the old chinese rooster is beginning to rust. bury me bury me, in sand made of seaweed, we'll never love no one whose clocks mutter their trust.
we weather together it's never a feather your mother my father they sever the ties. they sever the tether that holds us together, the tether we sever is breaking our minds.


I'm so selfish | Won't you forgive me my haste | But I hope you last forever | At least all of my days.

like a polaroid picture

you and your unrestrained affection, shy or squirrely or calm and quiet-like, make me feel loved regardless of how horrible the day has been. sometimes it's only for a few moments, but you are why i know it's no mistake that i am allergic to cats.

you make me want to cry. scream. throw myself at you. call you out on your assface behavior. but i want me to be better than that. god dammit! i am a porcupine. keep (unknowingly?) pushing my buttons, and i'll spit fire. [i hate ambivalence. i've never said that before. i'll never say it again - i hope.]

you make a strange part of my brain ache. the part that knows i'm doing the right thing, but that misses what was there before. it's an unsettling feeling to realize that you do not want (what you used to so badly) at all anymore. it would be easier to forget any of it happened. can't.

you make me know that i'm not horrible. and that i'm not going crazy. and that i'm not the only one who feels like throwing f-bombs and rocks at boys. you make me realize truths that settle my soul. and that i can slack off if i want to every once in a while. that indulgence is something a girl really NEEDS when it is necessary. which means that dessert is never a bad thing.

you make me feel like a whole person, except for that you're not here, which makes me sad. but you also make me know that there is a lot more to a really good friendship than physical presence. you are the proof that there are people who will be there and understand and love no matter what, regardless of petty problems and busy-ness and distance. it doesn't matter if we aren't in the same place for a while. as terribly depressing and painful (seriously, it aches sometimes...) as it is, we'll be good. and knowing that makes me happy.

you and your curly hair and your lunch offerings make me smile. just a little bit. i've got no overwhelming hopes for anything, but whenever i see a broken mirror, i think of you.

you and your goofy smile make me feel like everything is all right in the world. like all of my sins are forgiven, regardless of my heathen ways, or my drunken ramblings, or my 'faulty' politics. you are more accepting than i expected, and this gives me hope for the world.

you have no idea how much it meant to me that you showed me those pictures. i'll never be able to express it, no matter how i try. thank you.

you assure me that i am loveable. you make me question my ability to love.

you are my collective gorillas. not meaning that you are dumb, because you're all ridiculously smart. you are my collective gorillas, because, if i asked, you would take a bat to anyone if they bothered me. and this i appreciate, more than you will ever know. and as it was referred to in good will hunting, that is called loyalty.


these are my pseudo-love letters. some of them are written with more affection than others. some of them are not love letters at all, but hate-letters, or as close to that as i will ever come. mostly they are to myself; not in the sense that i am schizophrenic, or afflicted with multiple personalities, but that i have the unnerving need to express these sorts of things about the way people affect me. some of them are direct as love letters should be, and if you recognize yourself as one, take it as my gratitude. some of them are more frustrations with my own emotions, and should not be taken personally. if you recognize one of these, my mirroring of you in the void of my semi-cynical heart, apologies. don't worry too much - i'll heal, if indeed i am broken at all.

the first one is about a dog.

i am listening with every breath i've got.
SAEGLOPUR: sigur ros (1:47-1:53)
DIA A CHANTAR M'ER: unknown (0:00-0:25)
GOD BLESS THE MOON : games of may (2:50-3:06)
ALL THE WORLD TONIGHT: graham colton (0:19-0:52)
BALLAD OF A THIN MAN: bob dylan (3:35-3:59)
HEY YA [acoustic cover]: obadiah parker (0:00-4:27)
DILAUDID: the mountain goats (1:11-1:40)



not being, but becoming…we are not yet, but we shall be…not everything shines and sparkles as yet, but everything is getting better.

cafe nottingham

red wine and coffee, in a rainstorm, is better than just about anything. except maybe polka dots, or black molasses cookies. the amps are crying! they're crying, i say, and the telephone is ringing. but no one can hear it, anyway. because there is a banjo, and an irish dirge, and 13,000 voices singing loud beneath the cobwebs and the chandeliers. electronic whales are swimming through the coffeehouse, and as the static arises, there is a man on a bench, carrying a mandolin on his acid dreams. the calico couples are sitting on couches with coffee stains on their knees, but that doesn't matter. there is a violin playing loud in the attic, and a llama in the trees.

a one-man band, bagpipes, fresh bread, and a bag full of apples that taste like cider.
sweatpants and thermals, at the farmer's market.
harmonizing at three in the morning with five guitars and a drum and sing-a-longs that are so spontaneous and off-key and filled with the blues...

i love being irish.
so come all you weavers, you calton weavers, come all you weavers, where e'er you be
beware of whiskey, nancy whiskey, she'll ruin you like she ruined me
whiskey whiskey nancy whiskey
whiskey whiskey nancy-o


'they wanted footnotes. the illiterate fucks!'

this space no longer fits.

and that echo chorus lied to me with its
"hold on, hold on hold on hold on hold on..."


babe, remember that time you told me there were multiple of you? and all of them sort of came crashing down on top of each other, and then there was a crack, and the entire world split in two?
i think that happened to me too.


so many words get lost. they leave the mouth and lose their courage, wandering aimlessly until they are swept into the gutter like dead leaves. on rainy days you can hear their chorus rushing past: IwasabeautifulgirlPleasedon'tgoItoobelievemybodyismadeofglassI'veneverlovedanyoneForgive me...


i've been reckless.
and now you're paying.
through the nose, bits of your
heart are
dripping
into your
too strong whiskey coke.


and i can see it when she comes.
and she never lets me go.
have all my efforts found the way.
have all my efforts gone astray.


mistakes are meant to be broken. hearts do so too easily. i'm sorry.

unstable catharsii is beautiful if you can find the words.

my feet are covered in mud.

people are returning to this city by the sea [ok, so mendota isn't a sea. i dearly wish it was...but if wishes were fishes - and i am understood] and we are the same, but we are all so very different. funny how three months can change perspective, change eyes and hugs and truths. some things are lingering, and i'd thought they'd gone, and their ghosts are giving me a headache. terribly depressed inside milliseconds, but mostly happy.
but it breaks my h-h-h-h-heart. and it breaks my heart.
saying farewell [ farewell is so much more elegant than goodbye. goodbye is melancholy and overused, like cheap wine. farewell embodies fancy crystal champagne and pearls.] to mis chicas a espana, with cosmopolitans on porches in rainstorms. pobre mi, pobre mi. my boys are bodyguards. which, of course, is why i adore them. obviously. tangential conversations of hilarity in the backyard of the hippies, surrounding: marietta the spy, subversive water antagonisms, ground black pepper, and 'finding tennytown'. WRITERS GROUP on the roof, dangling precarious over the edge five stories high and yearning for the time (and the inspiration) to pour out the words of all of the stories in my head. did you notice that 'stories' was used in twice different context within one sentence? surely this is not that impressive, but it struck a chord. and i pay attention to the chiming in my head when it hits. 'tis rather distracting. hence: my reign as the tangent queen continues.
just to break my f-a-a-a-a-ll. just to break my f-a-a-a-ll.
headless mice in darkened dirty stairwells. i drank the last of the beautiful, orgasmic, organic chocolate milk, and i am unabashed. the fountain at the center of library mall broke my heart on friday afternoon. having rained for days prior, the pooled water had all come from the sky, and it was littered with smallish bits of the atmosphere, and of the city. but there, at the very bottom, right near the edge, was a single drowned daisy. i am doomed to remember this until my brain goes blind (as is my fate...hearing more about the descent of my grandfather makes me think of two things: the white bone and the elephants who have lost their memories, and the way that unknowingly disappearing from the world around you is so terribly sad).
i got lost. in the sounds. and i got lost.
i'd like to think that the following is false, but in all possibilities, it is entirely true. the last time i will see amsterdam, the secretary of war, and the assassin, they were marching angrily and in black, waving flags and wearing masks, protesting the flailing, floundering nazis. it's fitting, though, that this might be my last impression - a. we are the sidewalk revolutionaries of the yellow traffic lights, and b. summer is an inherently fleeting season. many things are contained within summer months that are not meant to be stretched, not intended to continue into the cooling of the earth. people love to forlorn the loss of summer, supposedly because of the temperature change. i think, on some level, it is because what they are actually missing is the freedom, and the heat [which is subconsciously linked with passion] and the raw energy that comes with the temperate vernal expression. there are feats and adventures and anecdotes of mythic proportions held beneath the hours of our summers. i relish these; i mourn their passing; i cover myself in their memories like rubber cement, like sun-bleached cotton.
i hear in my mind. all these voices. i hear in my mind all of these words.

i am a breadmaker, a heartbreaker, a chaotic [mental] rolling stone.
i am threadbare, heartbroken, infected, detected.

there is a snaking string of colored lights emblazoned in the corner, glowing:
suit jackets.
cellar door.
folding chair.
copper jewelry and black ink.
memorizing the history of the entire world.
ivory and ebony.
rainy sundays.


i'll be outside in my two-man tent. leave me to the warrings of the world, and go.

sparrows and screws

screws the size of men,
most of them bigger.
symphonies, in the background,
and gravel.
the smell of sulfer,
burning cold like the blood red end
of a match
fills the nostrils
of soldiers marching
passed the chain links.
[or are they mirrored there?
are these fences bound together
like the bones of our
corpses killed and lying in
faceless boxes? they are
just
as indeterminate, exact replicas.]
violins in the barren bellies
of the warships send
tattered waltzes to the fishes
that lie in coral,
sleeping, beneath
rusted iron, and old cannon
fire, having long forgotten its gunpowder.
the space is now covered in seaweed.
on high, they sing hallelujah. in harmony
with the chords of flailing
bullet casings,
and always marching.
marching skyward!
those in planes, hovering over the land
like seabirds
waiting for the scent of
carrion to reach them
on the wind.
do they sing for revolution?
their words are lost in the
synapsis of their warheads,
falling toward the rising
breath
of some map torn mountain.


they're like mice with wings.
and curious eyes.
they come in waves. quickly. suddenly, like a rainstorm over the lake. but quiet!
and they're alive right now, but maybe they won't be tomorrow, maybe there will be a dog, too friendly, and young, too friendly and strong for its own good, and the dog will want to play, will take the sparrows between its teeth, like a tennis ball, but birds are not made of rubber, do not bounce. the dog will leave the sparrows on the sidewalk, damp, and limp, small balls of dead feathers.
but they are alive right now.


you.shall.know.our.velocity. [dave eggers]
ice cream for lunch.
seeing those i haven't in a while.
ruca!
butternut squash ravioli.


you're the reason why i burst and why i bloom

and it breaks my h-h-h-h-heart

Look into your heart and you'll find love love love Listen to the music of the moment maybe sing with me A lá peaceful melodys It's your God-forsaken right to be loved loved love

ah, gravity. gravity!

black eyeliner. sleeping 'til noon. vanilla yogurt. escaping on backroads at 70 mph + blasting folk music. returning to the bench, in daylight (and possibly finding matty?) espresso shots. wasting time in walmart, while yelling loudly of its horrid nature. kate, and her 21st birthday. waking up on the barren floor of an apartment in a pile of friends. being car-less (ala 8th grade). understanding arbitrary technology. spelling. french toast, 7 hour busrides, and gas station cappuchinos. having the 2 "big brothers" of my house back. underground hip-hop + dishes + industrial kitchen + perfect summer weather. inappropriately friendly little girls and unnamed baby dolls with newly coined monikers. light wash jeans. four dollar t-shirts and marker martinis. dreams about being blind, and the returning ghost of former infatuations. movies that make it impossible not to dance. CHANNING TATUM. photography among friends, [ghetto] amaretto sours, fresh cut grass, and clean showers.

i'm yours (jason mraz)
evening chai (blue scholars)
step up (soundtrack)
fidelity (regina spektor)

its your god-forsaken right to be loved loved love.

heat

it must feel good to stand above me | while i make you so proud of me

riding in a train, passed the calves of long horned cattle, and the winding river zumbro, and an old truck stop. there is a mound of earth a mile wide, and it has been silent for so long, the roots of misplaced rainforests have begun to sprout and grow wild. we are doomed to remember them as the bones of the earth, but as we melt into the atmosphere in pieces of translucent mica, i wonder if that smile you reflected in the glass wasn't made from something more.


interventions. the viewing of a chaotic summer, colors inverted and reflected in the eyes of family members unrelated by blood. unexpected coffee visitors. choosing caramel instead of chocolate, latte instead of cafe, and being all the wiser for it. early morning breakfasts in an attempt to escape into normalcy and ignorance. hugs necessary for the continuation of being. karma. unwanted white lilies. newspapers. sleeping during the day instead of at night. recounting winter escapades. dreaming of houses covered in moss, terrorized by storms, inhabited by faceless lovers, and surrounded by ugly memories. heartbreaking voices reverberating from stellar satellites. chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies with [regular, non-organic skim] milk.
wine.
water.
tears.
blood.
coffee.
limeade.
taking care of each other. traveling long distances for painful reasons. parking garages. the evolution of the meaning of a room. loveable assholes. the overheating of the planet. contemplating the beginnings of knowledge, and wishing for roots that were never there. old soft spots that will never rot. ice cream. sleeping open-mouthed in moving vehicles amongst strangers. heat.


and if our always is all that we gave
and we someday take that away . . .

and we all stood behind glass and witnessed.

humidified.
the seagulls are sleeping to fend off the heat which weeps from the air.
everything is quiet, hoping the stillness will radiate, form crystals that will
masquerade as ice.
even new lovers can't bear to be near
each other.
their body heat melting their skins before they've come together
in the way that lovers
do.
a hint, a single drop, falls from the sky, like light
yet the terra firma has eloped with lava,
and the dharma bums have taken their leave
in the jungles tonight.
we'll watch, and listen as the whole planet sizzles.

astrological mind games.
there is a plastic apple in the middle of a table five stories below my feet. we sit in the wind and the trees as the leaves funnel skyward in clouds like yellow bullets in slow motion. there aren't enough to saturate the air, but they catch in my eyes even from miles away and hold me still inside the vaccuum of air they are suspended within. a globe of noncircular time haunts the canopy of trees, and as single molecules multiply, they begin to magnify, their preoccupation of space. the lake is whipping itself into a frenzy, rolling in sheets inches above the horizon, and sending notes like fog horns just below the surface, until they reach the shore, when they smash into the rocks and split sound waves into ten million tiny carbon bombs. the zodiac voice is out and ringing, pulling planets from the bricks and the boards. letting them fall into place while they spin carefully across angles made of unborn chaos. memory, of course. the attic born prophet continues to splinter the mysteries, but in the background comes the rumbling of some great beast. metallic, and angry, it is the churning of mindless joints, cast from steel, driven by the hunger of its endless smoky heart. deus ex machina, in reverse...more or less. the flicker of heat lightning draws me out of my tortured meditation, and my eyes drift down five stories to the plastic apple. it has been left half eaten by the invisible man seated in the courtyard.

things to remember:
being a mirror.
temporary molten copper hearts.
"as the world bursts apart on literary fascination, and the weather."
finding a pistol in a drawer full of remote controls
smoking lilies
the muse is awakened.

the storm came on like a cyclone and the trees came down...
rain.
white caps racing their way towards shore.
this beastly thing of lightning struck through water,
electrified.
the muse is awakened.
the water was rising, and you were in a fury, and
we all stood behind the glass and witnessed.
wine. music.
and we all stood behind glass and witnessed.

mental record players

these things are singing in my head...
Opening credits: [new slang] the shins
Waking up: [banana pancakes] jack johnson
Average day: [passing afternoon] iron and wine
First date: [second time around] yo-yo ma
Falling in love: [samson] regina spector
Love scene: [can't stop] red hot chili peppers, or [after an afternoon] jason mraz
Comfort love: [kingdom come] coldplay
Fight scene: [shy] ani difranco
Breaking up: [i don't want to know] goo goo dolls, or [options] pedro the lion
Getting back together: [comfortable] john mayer
Secret love: [the humpty dumpty love song] travis
Life’s okay: [for the widows in paradise...] sufjan stevens
Mental breakdown: [i didn't understand] elliott smith
Self Love: [beautiful soul] jesse mccartney
Driving: [night swimming] r.e.m.
Learning a lesson: [don't think twice, it's all right] vonda shepard
Deep thought: [moonlight mile] the rolling stones
Flashback: [holland, 1945] neutral milk hotel
Dance party: [fakin' amnesia] bikeride
Happy dance: [hey man!] nelly furtado
Regreting: [ez] pete yorn
Long night alone: [land locked blues] bright eyes
Death scene: [if i should fall from grace] the pogues
Closing credits: [see you soon] coldplay

because there, i don't have to think so much. i can just be, and nothing explodes.

honey, now if i'm honest

i know it would be outrageous
to come on all courageous

there are only so many things that i can continue to adore about this place, that i'm living in, i swear. they just keep appearing, and i'm beginning to think i'll be overwhelmed with ridiculous affection, and i won't be able to handle myself. then i'll go crazy. not that i'm sane now...
and it's not just the physical place, either. it's this place that i'm in...sitting in, living in, loving in. because i love lists, and i'm bursting with little bits, i think i'll do it that way.

a. burning incensence and candles. i've gone for two years without doing so, and i just recently remembered that i can burn whatever the fuck i want in my room. sandalwood smoke drifts out my window on a daily basis now

b. the lake, and all things included. in the morning, and at night, it sounds very similar to the ocean. i know it isn't, because the scent is missing...but the sound is so close, i wake up smiling. i haven't done that in years. sunning myself on the dock. the trees behind our house that begin to engulf the back porch, and the attic. i feel that i am living in a canopy...a canopy way up in the trees, and that i have no reason to climb down. i can channel my inner julia butterfly hill. live like a queen in the trees...

c. having a kitchen (again). making scrambled eggs and potatoes and farina and chocolate milk. playing chef. doing the dishes (!)

d. adventures. this comes with summer, always. but it's so much different here, because the parentals are mia. the independence is intoxicating. this feeling that i have is difficult to explain, to make sense of in words, but i think i've phrased it as such before: i feel like i'm actually participating in my life.

e. getting sunburnt. having cleaning fits. vacuuming to blasting classical music. singing sweet jazz on the porch in the dark.

f. the fragile dance i do when i play with my own emotions.

g. being surrounded by people who introduce me to new things. new music, new movies, new authors. new ideas, new perspectives, new thought processes. its like being washed under a stream of fresh life...a different way of living. at work, in the co-op, all around me, there are these people who have a totally strange, completely chaotic way of functioning, but they're all surviving..thriving even. which gives me faith that i'll be able to carry on the way that i do

h. dysfunctional moments of unconventional amusement. in cars, via milwaukee. on couches, listening to records. standing on the porch, and soaking in the glow of the house.

i. watching the fireworks over the lake, and being completely jaded by the blind patriotism hiding within the non-subliminally enforced love affair with our democractic wasteland of a nation. comparing that feeling to how it was when we were young. what changed us? when did we become what we are now? what has happened to those small children, who looked forward to that sultry night in july that was covered in flashing lights, and picnics, and the glorious star-spangled banner. that flag makes me flinch, approaching doors or watching it wave in the wind. i associate it with something else, now. and i do not identify with it in the slightest.

j. there's a mouse in the frying pan.

k. being provocative. awkward. uneasy. outrageous.

l. "i like the way you sing. i can see you, as a young mother, singing to your children." there will be music in my house. always.


there will always be things i miss about the places i've been before. some of them are smallish [standing in the hallway by the drinking fountain. rolling down hills full of leaves. screaming obscenities into the darkness from swingsets and cars.] some of them are much larger [not so much things, but people. and the way we live together. ] but i think that the farther i go outward, the more that will wash over me that i will adore, and it will just build and build until one day i really will burst. i cannot wait for that day. i cannot wait to overflow.

i've got something with me. my soul's kinda gritty. now do i lie or run away. i'll be on my own. it don't matter i'm grown. i won't be singing no sad song. and if i rub you wrong. baby i come on strong. i got no mind to cushion what i say.

st. elsewhere and his band of maniacal moody monks

. . . flee . . . fly . . . flew . . . fled . . .

i did, she said. and when she could not speak for singing, and his eyes were dancing along with the curve of her hips, there was a
crack
deep beneath the surface of the lake.
because there is something radioactive in that glimmer,
the way she fills his
spaces, interior, with the kind of june blues that only come
from misplaced affection.
she walks ahead, afraid to stray too close in case
he catches on.
to her adoration, that is.
someone might find out, and splinter the fragile
connection they've both come for miles to
wonder at.
i've traveled a long way alone,
she whispers to herself, attempting to justify the hesitation.
but he gives her glow; a piece of night-blooming jasmine that twines along the rusted iron gates on the inside of her head.
she makes him echo.
so there that is, he said.
what is? she slides her arms through the air, spinning oxygen together so that it resembles bits of broken clocks.
this jazz you're singing, he says.
and at once she remembers the melody he is humming.
his voice is falling, deeper into its smoky depths, those places behind his vocal cords that purr until they break, illuminated by their own intensity.
stop, she says. she's crying hard.
there is no room for forgetting anymore.
i swear, if this chariot we're riding ends rotting in the dust. if it dies bleached blinding bright white in the sun,
there will be nothing left of me but this.
who says it will? he asks.
who says it won't?
i promise there will be no forgetting, he says.
you promise?
i do.
she tries to
. . . flee . . . fly . . . flow . . . flood . . .
into the looking glass, but out, his hands spread like oil
and her wings catch between their
opalescence, and
she settles, determined to
remain past the morning.


things to remember:
are you wearing a shirt? i had a girlfriend who wore a shirt once...
coffee talk
applebees.fosters.latenight chats.
amusing rotc stories
rain storms


cmon now
who do you
who do you who do you who do you
think you are?
ha ha ha
bless your soul...

things to remember

i'm terrified of forgetting. not big things, or people, because i know i will remember those. [i have the memory of an elephant, after all.] what i'm afraid of is forgetting little moments, the tiny spaces between inside jokes and shared words that begin to stitch people into a layer of silk and cement. the combination of the two, that makes us stick to each other, unquestioningly. without explanation. that space i'm afraid of, when it doesn't fill, and i'm even more terrified to forget the feeling that comes with it. on those nights (in kitchens, on driveways, around tables, over coffee, with movies, before doorframes, on sofas) that i just want to cling to, remember every second. literally...i'm not quoting a cliche. i wish i could fill myself with seconds like these.

things to remember:

voice inflections and the manners in which people tell stories.
the reflections of light in the eyes of hippies in the giant living room at dusk.
dancing to techno, drinking gin, making rosemary bread, and being in a bubble.
catalpa is a kind of tree.
the feeling of 'taking note' of your body.
the islands. the accent of the islands.
carrying stargazer lilies through humidity and crowded streets.
the way that the lake sounds so similar to the ocean outside of my window.

soundtrack (thus far) to summer 2006:
walking on broken glass (annie lennox)
leave me to love (imogen heap)
40 years (counting crows)
the other side (david gray)
gone going (black eyed peas feat. jack johnson)
fakin' amnesia (bikeride)
night moves (bob seger)
where there's a road (robbie fulks)
creep (tlc)
stirling brig (the corries)
fever (peggy lee)
send me on my way (rusted root)
don't stop me now (queen)
earthquakes and sharks (brandston)
katmandu (bela fleck)
the islands


GOD: i own you like i own the caves.
THE OCEAN: not a chance. no comparison.
GOD: i made you. i could tame you.
THE OCEAN: at one time, maybe. but not now.
GOD: i will come to you, freeze you, break you.
THE OCEAN: i will spread myself like wings. i am a billion tiny feathers. you have no idea what's happened to me.

the spiralling of a thought

all these strings are attaching to me,
and i can't find the scissors. yeah... i can't
remember where i was, i forgot. knitting it all, these holes
that i need, to crawl through a brick wall,
is hard to say the least.
where's that thought,
that thought uncomplicated things?
where's that peace of mind, that peace
that made it easy?
i got you a murky light, tell me what can you see?


tired body. the mind is begging for release, for time to expand and spread like the tentacles of an
ink-spotted squid in the midst of all that ocean, all that water swaying and sinking deeper into the sand so that it becomes
black because there is no other place for light but in the cracks that do not exist.
all that ocean, rushing against the corners of my skull, and it's spilling. if you look closely, stare directly into
the eyes that are buried beneath my lashes [those strands of piano colored wire] that have closed, behind the twisting memory of green and hazel
and gray that interlace the surface of my iris, beneath these lines there is the sea, leaking. beads are forming,
bursting through my skin and howling for ink. these beads are words,
haunting the invisible spaces between oxygen molecules,
seducing my finger tips with the promise of magnetism, then rushing away just before they're caught
in the steel.
so much pressure is building there, beneath the surface of my body. it's swimming through
my veins, filling muscle with sound so quickly, like violin strings shriek when they break. snapping. small. infinitely important to the symphony.
but the words are crammed between crevices, stifled inside the
moments just before i become silent, asleep. because of a tired body.


favorites:
gone going (jack johnson cover by the black eyed peas)
lonelily (damien rice)
jones green apple carbonated candy
the meditation room at the top of the tower in the morning, by the lake, with sunshine.
bob seger and neil young roadtrip repeats
dumpstered bread
tim o'brien
'the birth of something terrible'
rain on the roof, 3rd floor residence.
falling into schedules
pillows that retain scents
perkins and wine
tangent queen 2.0
co-op life
friends at night and cacciato in the morning
limeade, the slowing down of time, and sleep.


i'm sorry if i'm bad at this. i'm really not used to it... that isn't much of an excuse, but i think it scares me a little to finally have to leave me to love. it'll take me awhile, probably too long, it'll spoil, i'm sure. that's what i do. it's just that i'm trying not to this time. i'll try, i swear.

because if you let your eyes disappear from the points at which they are actually looking, things will begin to grow and sway and follow themselves in circles until their shapes have been totally misshappen. there is a constant buzzing, right behind the ears, and your eyes begin to follow things while they trace even though one eye will ineffectually and incompletely close. then the prickles begin, like pepper and cayenne, and they have melted and begun to fade inside your irises. the spinning becomes like the swaying of the ocean, which comes at five along with the sounds of that bell, that beast that rings across the waters like bullets of forgotten ballet-battled ruins.

there are multiple levels, which grow out of any sort of space that is inside or outside the consciousness. colors and shapes begins to collect words and emotions and ideas like the strings of lightning things that grow from the sky out of dust particles. the traces will never remain like they would in deep sand or between waves at night. your ears and eyes jump to twenty-four seconds at once, still beginning to sprout cerulean wrapped skeletons. hallelujah. thoughts begin to follow themselves down into stalagmite tunnels, rocks and hollow furrowings into the spaces of your brain that are all fizzing (like explosions inside ocean waves echoing through the nerve endings in your memories).

bottles of australian chardonnay contain stories on the label.

Six o'clock in the morning
You're the last to hear the warning
You've been tryin' to throw your arms around the world
You've been falling off the sidewalk
Your lips move but you can't talk
Tryin' to throw your arms around the world

my favorites in roch. traveling to wisconsin. a room in a house full of maps and wafting music and mary jane. humidity. finally getting the techno-ballerina some loving. madison by night. and tofu.

and he asked me where i was going
and i said i didn't know for sure
but one thing was obvious
the ocean wasn't going to wait 'til kingdom come,
i said
there's no time like this time
ready or not...

i miss the way you sing low

i give you major
you give me minor
don't fade away
she looks to me all right
Went to descend to ammend for a friend of the channels that had broken down.Now you bring it up, I'm gonna ring it up - just to hear you sing it out.Step from the road to the sea to the sky

favorite things:
techno love songs
$5 skirts
sleeping for 11 hours (guilt free)
the zumbro river under the railroad bridge
kiedis/flea/frusciante harmonies
driving
kahlua
madgab
finding my [kate-made] earring

non-favorite things:
dust + asthma + neverending cold
moving out w/ the parentals [= stressful]
missing o-house
skipping cd players
cowardly lions
being the last one
broken gears
itchiness


and that they hadn't heard us calling. Still do not hear us calling them from out of those rooms... where they went to be alone for all time... and where we will never find the pieces to put them back together.

what happens when i find things in random places.

i updated forgetting gravity (because the story changed.) it's still under the same post, except it's called forgetting gravity (revised.)...i believe that is around the beginning of march, if you really want to re-read it. i added 3ish pages, edited a lot. hopefully it's better. i dunno.

now here's another piece. aha! much shorter, much more abstract. really very random. apologies.

the way jellyfish slide along glass, and also the reason raleigh talks too much.

i like it when it rains through the windows and everything becomes slightly ravaged by the water, she tells him while riding the bus from Darcy Point to downtown Seattle. She's just met him [just meaning three hours earlier when she'd run to catch the shuttle as the doors were closing on her ankle and he had been the only one with an empty seat. his name was jonas, which did not fit him. his nose was too large for a man named jonas. possibly nelson, or raymond, although neither of those really fit him either. definitely not jonas, though. she does not tell him this.] my favorite kind of paper is always notebook paper, you know, college blue ruled with red margins that feel like boundaries on some sort of strangely radioactive map, like as if the map only shows up when it gets wet, she says. which is why i like it when it rains through the windows. he doesn't say anything, but his eyes move back and forth for a moment, as if he were trying to gather the floating bits of her words from the damp mid-evening air like pieces of electric wire, tangled and caught on the humidity. i'm raleigh, she says, with her face turned away from his, as if it were a side note, like she didn't really want him to hear, because if he heard it that means that he would have some minute piece of her identity to take with him and do what he would. this left him the freedom to ignore her, refuse to acknowledge his recognition of the back of her neck in a crowd, and she would know he was refusing because she knew that he was carrying that little piece in his pocket, twisting it between his thumb and forefinger like a rusty penny, as if he were contemplating whether or not to throw it into the gutter and reveal her to the rats and the concrete, and the mud which gets trapped between the souls of your shoes.

she didn't want him to forget her, like loose change in shallow graves, but she wanted even less for him to discard her like a useless shard of broken glass, as if he were afraid that she would draw blood, slice through the tips of his synapses like a razor in the brain, deathly terrified of the claws masquerading as eyelashes . that is why she whispers her name into the darkening row of uninterested strangers. self-preservation, she thinks. she can't see him anymore, except the silhoutte of his nose and the whites of his eyes when they pass under a glimmering street lamp or an all-night gas station offering a free carton of cigarettes with every fifty pound bag of ice in neon letters like a cheap vegas strip. she can't see him anymore but she knows that he's still listening to her, hearing her insecurities as they seep out like oil through the lines in her face. wondering whether or not to respond, whether or not to become involved and question in return, ask her why she didn't want to let him reject her. she does not give him time. she says, my parents got caught in a hurricane when they were driving to Georgia and they decided the best way to pass the time besides doing their laundry in a seedy motel basement was to have sex on top of the rumbling washing machine. they were in Raleigh - she tells him this and immediately regrets it, knowing that this detail is obvious, that she did not need to elaborate further on a story that was already sufficiently awkward and not the kind of story you tell a stranger on a bus during the night. it is really not a story you tell a stranger on the bus during the day either, but she's never had good timing or a sense of social regulation, and she was really becoming quickly infatuated with jonas. i was adopted, he says. she is horrified. i love you! she bursts out, and immediately regrets it again. she was only trying to make up for the sense of misplaced affection she had decided he felt towards the enigma of his origins, but somehow it only came through as a ridiculously outrageous statement of adoration. he looks at her for the first time, turning his head quickly to find her blushing and biting her lip, although he can see neither clearly because this stretch of highway is dark. thank you, he says, and looks out the window, the rain sliding like jellyfish across the glass, singing indignantly about their loss of memory and about why they couldn't wait to get free from the side of the bus.

you make me really uneasy, she says, and he grimaces. but quickly she stutteres it's not a bad thing, it's like when the waves break sideways and you can tell it's going to rain because of the way your brain prickles. my brain doesn't prickle he says and she says oh, maybe it's just me.

there is an invisible man standing beside you holding a mouse in the palm of his right hand, he says suddenly. how do you know he's holding a mouse if he's invisible? she asks. because the mouse is invisible too, he explaines. but if they're both invisible, how can you see either of them? easy, he says. when the mouse tells me where to look, i let my eyes relax and see through the atmosphere. he's real easy to see once you let the oxygen and the nitrogen return to their natural states. they aren't always so clear, but since that's how we've been told they look, we see through them. that's crazy, she says. maybe. what do i look like then? she asks. he tells her that it depends on the light, but sometimes she reminds him of barbed wire on rose petals, and sometimes she looks more like fire coral. she doesn't know how to take this, so she nods. he says that it is a good thing. then the invisible man puts the mouse on his shoulder and walks away. she still can't see him.

midnight [a meditation on the lotus kids]

The only girl I've ever loved
Was born with roses in her eyes
Now she's a little boy in Spain
Playing pianos filled with flames
On empty rings around the sun

it's so very close to being the end of things. i can feel it in the way we move together, the way our eyes are constantly meeting, hoping to express that constant aching feeling that this is the last time for anything, for everything. it isn't, but we feel that way now, with the urgency of it all. things will be different of course, but when we started all of this mess, it was a different thing for us then as well. and now look at it. now, it is this big beautiful chaotic thing, of all these ridiculous people with their ravenous emotional eyes and their hearts full of bursting turquoise adoration and their ambivalence [strong ambivalence] towards life and where it is that we might be going, it is this big beautiful chaotic thing of all these ridiculous people trying to BE. people are clamoring for room to breathe, and filling all the empty space with words so that they don't waste precious seconds, because this is it, these last days. with the knowledge that we will never be here again...we change. we open, like the magnolia blooms that fell for six days from the sky, and then we let everything in. there is an orgy of souls. there is time spent, and reminiscence, but mostly it is just these people, panicked and terribly desperate that they will lose something of them when everyone else dissipates from their atmospheres, and they've all got their arms wrapped around each other, letting every possible inch of skin and bone and flesh mingle, and melt. so that maybe, just maybe, it will retain. they're afraid to let go, to come apart, unravel. to let in open space, because it will only grow larger, for some. but they are magnetic, these people, and those that have too many gaping holes, too many missing pieces...these people will not lose their fragile grasp once the holes have formed. they will live in them, and under them, floating inside the white noise and empty translucent silences. these holes will be filled with people! we are these people.


Let's do it all this time.Into the shadow showing.Enter the rolling tide.Over the ocean so wide.Let's do it all this time.Everyone wishing well we go and.Everyone knows anything goes.We are the lotus kids.So better take note of this.

requiem for a dream

waking up too early
maybe we can sleep in
make you banana pancakes
can't you see, can't you see,
you gotta wake up slow

insomnia. by force of university. not by mental disability. i want to be sleeping. every part of my body is screaming at me to quit being conscious. buuuut i can't. too much to do, not enough [waking] hours in the day. the thursday night den party has become a pseudo-ritual, and sleeping on the weekends is usually optional anyway, so regardless of the fact that i find surreality around every corner and nearly every word that comes out of anyone's mouth sounds like it is being filtered through a fog horn, i'm awake. fun, fun, fun. [ i'm almost proud of it, in a way. 17 hours over the course of 4 days...that's pretty badass. psychotic, but badass.] i am the sleepy hippie. and apparently, there is a boy in hawaii who is perfect for me. !

favorites:
-the Parisian [but not the Figo]
-le Chardonnay
-high heels and slinky black shirts
-being 2006 NCAA Hockey champs GO BADGERS
-chats in the den, traversing across campus, and chapstick
-going barefoot, getting muddy, and playing with trees (literally)
-allen ginsberg on display in the public library
-finding [empty] bottles of mentholmint schnapps from dr. mcgillicuddy
-chocolate chip banana pancakes


terribly excited for this summer/next year. but also absolutely, terrifically depressed. i don't know what i'm going to do without my 2 favorite girls. they are my insides, the stuff of my heart, the best parts of me. even some of the best nights in college can't add up to the most random five minutes with them, and i feel like this separation means we're really growing up. BUT. i am not totally disheartened, because i do not think this is the end. not by a long shot. hear me girls? you're not going anywhere. even if we're MIA from the physical presence of each other for an extended period of time...this means nothing. nothing can break what we have. i love you.

you're beautiful when you're tired. i can just feel it, the falling. everytime you blink, with those sleepy eyes, that pirate smile - there i go again. we're idiots, babe.

a love affair

...the world owes me nothing, and we owe each other the world...

lovely weekend. i've decided to have a love affair with the city.

i made friends with an ant named ramona underneath a tree in the glorious spring weather. also, dining on hippie fodder upon the lake, while sitting on old picnic tables and watching squirrels [and boys] climb the turrets of elegantly deteriorating architecture. a birthday party was held in my honor (as well as for the champions of WISPIRGs 10% energy bill and a belated st. patty's day shindig.) drunken escapades with mardi gras beads, entire bottles (pronounced bo-tull, like the british do) of captain morgans entirely for me

"do you have a crown on your head?
then the captain says F-U.
stay away or we'll hook you."

green beer in giant beakers, miraculous feats of dancing madness and cloves on the porch. oh, and approximately 85 pictures. the secret restaurant of langdon which serves me sicilian shrimp and sun-dried tomato tarts and darjeeling tea in a fancy silver pot. flaming cinammon and bananas foster, piano men in black and white fedoras, and us gorgeous girls. the capital is, of course, featured in several candid photos (interrupted only by traffic...) while coldstone is the hotspot for dessert...yum for amaretto raspberry deliciousness.

there was drama of course (there always is). but it all fades when one falls asleep.


i might wave goodbye.
but probably not, baby, probably not.