after buddy wakefield's "hurling crowbirds at mockingbars"

if i was created in god's image
than when god was a little girl
she sat in corners and daydreamed
looking at spiderwebs and her own world.
you left me on the tire swing
sitting with gravel in my shoe
sticking into my toe
a constant reminder
of loneliness.
i tried to tell you to look at the clouds
moving like freight trains through my childhood
and you said no, i'm going with them.
so i stayed, and i stared and i saw that
the clouds weren't moving
but i was and the yellow spread out fingers of honey sun
drizzled across the blue blue blue
weren't containing me

they set me free.
so i shook the pebble from my shoe
and i ran away from adolescence,
ran away from you.
i ran into my mind and into the spiderweb world
i created where you don't leave and i don't have to run
because when i say stop, look,
it's you up there,
you don't leave for the others and the tire swing spinning like wild blue tidal waves sweeping you in to save the open spots from drowning while my lungs are filled up up up with all those moments you left.
you don't leave,
you stay and fill the empty spots between my fingers instead,
leave the empty spots inside, we'll get to those later,
but here, right now, there are stones in both our shoes.
so we compare sizes and color
until we run out of things to say and just listen
to the hum of the honey color spreading out
bleeding into the blue and turning it twilight.
until we run home
and realize home is right here, this night.

someone once said that writing is easy
all you do is sit down and open a vein
but what if you're running out of veins?
it seems i'm getting close, and why only veins
are arteries not good enough?
suffering is hard to come up with sometimes and without it writing seems
false, lame, less than it could be.

suffering is the writer's paint. ink. it is the material with which
we express all other things
but it is a sad sad way.

Driving back from home

I drove on the still-dark highway, twilight had not yet come before the sun rose. Everyone's dying. The trees are barren and scraggly like my Grandmother's hands that clutch the nurse button in the hospital. "Thanks for calling, have a beautiful day" is how her voicemail ends in her voice that quavers like a leaf in November. She is the most beautiful color of Fall, quavering on the strands of her branch. It's almost dissolved, her connection to the branch, to her tree. It stresses me out, feeling so rushed, so rushed to get it all in to say it all to hug her again and smile and see her smile her brownish blue eyes, so strange for a sicilian woman. There are things I need to know from her! About her, about food and her life, and the family. There are laughs we've yet to share! There are fragile bird-like hugs I have yet to give her fearing the whole time I'll crush her. It's so selfish too that it is stressing me out. She has had a beautiful day. A beautiful life. If she wants to stop clutching to the tree, that is up to her.

My grandfather sat at the dining table on Thanksgiving, his sugar plummeting. Sarah saw him sneak some M&Ms, he didn't have enough to eat. He always says the blessing. Always says Grace. He couldn't this year, we skipped right over it while he mumbled to himself and giggled once or twice and we encouraged him to eat eat eat. Sugar, have jello, have cranberries, potatoes, quick sugar carbs in your blood now. And after ten minutes of sitting on pins he came back "Cindy's just sore she sucks at euchre."

I hate being so afraid of losing so many people all at once. I'm scared my family will be down 5 members in one year. The worst part is having no one to talk to about it.

Home

It is so bizarre to be home. Sleeping on a cot in my old bedroom that used to be yellow but is now a shade of blue that I would never have allowed. There's this wrought iron thing hanging on the wall and some photos but it looks uninhabited. The bookshelf has four books whereas my room was bursting out the seams with books everywhere. I like to sleep under the window that faces the street so when I wake up in the middle of the night like I have every night since I was five, I could look out the window to see the street lamp across the street lighting up its puddle of asphalt. The trees look different, thinner and I no longer watch T.V. so cable seems unnecessary. It is strange to be here where my things lived, where I slept, for 21 years and now those belongings, those things that make me feel home are in my new home, waiting for me, where my bed is big enough to sprawl out on and I have 8 pillows and little things that make me smile waiting for when I wake up. Rainbows every morning when the sun shines through my crystal and a cold house when you walk down the stairs to brew coffee before anyone else is awake. Here morning starts earlier and it smells like home, smells like cinnamon and pine and cookies and coffee and rumblings of conversation and light filtering in through the bottom of the door and it's comforting but it is no longer my permanent home and that is okay. it is a little weird to feel like a visitor in this home that I drew on and cried in, and curled up in.

there will be time, there will be time

I can finally listen to bon iver without tearing up and thinking only of the bullsheet office and winter and red hats.

I am so excited for winter. I know, it's like the "dead" season but for me, fall and winter are periods of re-birth. Periods of reflection and self re-birth when I can discover new things about me and the people around me. I know that summer is the season for love for most people but I fall in love with winter every year, again and again. Maybe it's the writer in me, lover of suffering, finder of beauty in the breakdown, seeker of symbolism in clean snow covering everything. As M once said "it will be a shame when spring comes, you are so beautiful in winter." It is my season. My time for new things and better beginnings. I am so thrilled and excited. I am even beginning to revel in my loneliness. It is time to start writing again, writing something seriously.

I don't have any ideas so I might just start recording what I do and see where that takes me. I had an interesting conversation yesterday with my supervisor at the after school program about alchemy and how poetic it is. I think I might start there, do some research on alchemy and see where it takes me.


Even the WORD alchemy sounds poetic. oh I am so excited. and I will be home next week even if it's just for a little bit of time, I will go home.

I have had a pretty exciting life so far. Sometimes I devalue it because it is my life so I am used to it and know its ins and outs and what has happened it is normal to me but I've experienced and known a lot of things people and moments that not many people are exposed to. Sometimes I get scared that I wont do everything I want to do but here's the thing, life has been pretty great so far, pretty extraordinary so far, and I think I can make the next 40 years equally as amazing. At least 40 years, I'm going to live forever, be healthy forever. Got that Clinique anti-aging cream. hahahah.

things I need now

-a crossword in slayter pit with homo and brendan while drinking coffee, waiting for yohnzo and liz.


-an all nighter in slayter top floor watching the sunrise, a library back step break, watching the cars, trying to sit in the sunlit spots to stay warm

-river road.

-sunshiney people saying hello.

-boys who drink all saturday, all day, long, and goad others into joining. playtime in shep

-pine tree scents and cinnamon and the nsync christmas cd and my warm warm warm house with warm warm warm smiles and hugs and questions about what i'm doing

-burroughs drive

-hiding in the stacks

-friends. i really need some friendship time. some sit on the couch and watch tv and not have to say anything until ready friendship time, some yohn and laura tell me honestly what's going on friendship time, in person. some solution time. some "i care about you" time. someone who wants to help me figure it all out time. or at least who will be there to hold my hand while i do time.


so alone. so so so alone.

Is this it?

Is it that sometimes people are just not compatible?


OHHH is that the lesson that most people learn in high school or college or somewhere along the lines and learn to accept it because it just is how things are? I know it sounds stupid, and it is stupid, but rejection is not something I am used to. I'm being honest. I don't know how to deal with it all that well and I know most people don't but I haven't dealt with it that much, I have a tendency to break things off before I get hurt to save myself.

We are all damaged I guess, all of us have been hurt. Besides all that though it does still hurt. Feeling like you're not good enough when the right thing to think is that you're not "right" enough and that's not something you can change it just is what it is, I am who I am you are who you are and that's that. it works or doesn't.

I'm just getting tired of being lonely. Tired of being tired.

where's the lesson

Is the lesson "never date guys with insomnia" ?

Is the lesson "stop being attracted to damaged people" ?

WTF WHERE IS IT? WHICH is it and here's the thing, how do I control it or myself rather, how do I make sure I'm not getting involved with an insomniac orrrrr someone with a sordid past? i'm tired of waiting around with no response because oops fell asleep and i'm so sick of broken promises and plans and tired excuses and the sweet apology. i'm sick of being a sucker, but i'm also really sick of being lonely.


I just want to know what I should do differently. Stop the heartache.

i am the bad one

maybe i am the bad one. maybe i am the one who hurts the way i fear being hurt. and i think the worst part is that i lure people in with my supposed sweetness and niceties and cute funny things. and then i am mean preemptively because i am so fearful of getting hurt so i hurt first. i push away and for some reason i have reasoned this because i think maybe the ones who get past my hard pushing are the ones that are good for me. but maybe i should just be easier on people.



you pulled my hair just a little too much and it hurt
but i liked it because they were your fingers tangled there.
your blue ocean poured over me and when
you made that face dancing it reminded me
of people and person and past and fun
it made me think never let go.

but everyone has to let go sometime.
hands do not last forever.
skin falls away
and bones disintegrate
and smiles fade into bed sheets
while sleeping.
will you just stay for a little while longer?

the best conversations

I have this friend. We talk and have some of the greatest conversations. He helps me figure out what is real and what is not.

we talked about me being unreasonable. here's the thing, it's not good to blow off friends and i would have understood! I would have said yes okay wonderful great have so much fun! But only if I had known earlier, it is not nice to tell someone late at night that you cannot hang out with them because you are with your friends. I'm not in the market for getting hurt. I've already been there deep down inside it and I'm good, I'm pretty full up of all the hurt I can handle for this life.

We talked about what I want in a person. I said this: someone who wants to be with me, and thinks i'm great and likes even just sitting around because we can be funny together but also is interested in adventures

and my friend said "that's it?" and I said "kind of, but no, more like this: someone funny and smart, with dark corners that take a while to discover, and a big big smile who kisses me without hesitation"

he didn't know what dark corners meant. I tried to explain but those secrets, it's hard to tell someone what they are. The little moments when noses are touching on a pillow and sometimes your hand can reach up and grab my jaw and then there it is the secret escapes and I say something like "oh no I can't believe I said that to you already" and he says "it's okay it means you trust me, that's good. I'm trustworthy I promise" and I say "okay" but I think "oh no. oh no. what if this is the end and he uses it against me?" and then eventually I'll find out one way or another if he's going to use it against me or if he's going to hold it locked up inside his ventricles and atria so hidden inside those cavern walls surrounded by the rhythmic pulse of life flowing around it.


I think I had such a strong connection with J for so long that now everything is compared to that and nothing is ever that again ever so now I'm confused about what dating is supposed to be. I don't really know how to do it and I keep looking for someone who will just love me as much a J did or does, I don't know, someone who will be comfortable but comfort doesn't just crop up like that, it happens later so much later. We had years to find comfort. YEARS. The other night W said "we're too young to have been in a relationship for 6 years" and I said "I know, it was on and off, but I know." Too young to have so much big experience.


I would love to find someone who's as screwed up as I am.

Fear and Hesitations

There is no place for fear amongst the artistic. Those egos that we're said to have are self-induced inflations so we feel less dumb about putting our ideas out there. Just like a little girl standing in front of a boy saying "I like you" it sounds dumb, or could, if she isn't sure of her words and their weight in the air near his ears. Instead we learned to stand tall, build ourselves up and say "yeah I know that this could be dumb and sound stupid but here I am and this is what I've got"

I'm watching Andrew Bird on Ted.com and he's talking about feedback loops and the environment and how if things in nature get too close to where they came from bad things happen (feeding cows their own brains=mad cow disease, incest, inbreeding, etc.)

Today I didn't do much of anything. I changed the clock in my car to account for daylight savings time.

What about this idea about circles and cycles? What if it was translated to emotions like if the emotion gets too close to its originating point it becomes self-destructive. Can that correlate with heartbreak and self-analyzing? Sometimes I am so far deep inside my head that I don't enjoy the situation that I'm in, or don't experience something fully because my brain is thinking about what it is and what it means. The biggest problem is that I can't figure out how to make it stop. And this process of thinking rather than feeling is often self-destructive because then I prevent any kind of connection from occurring. I don't know what's wrong with me. Something for sure though. Maybe I am a self-destructive feedback loop.

POETRY is sometimes the best way to say how you feel

this is a poem I wrote likeeeeeeeeeeeeee 6 months ago maybe more.

The Etiquette of Tragedy

Do we eat?
Tiny hunks of cheese and grapes slid around a plastic plate
and a napkin with a couple crackers,
at your Uncle John’s house in New Jersey,
they were the only things we had eaten in twenty four hours,
since our roommates had forced us to eat. They had gotten us
through the shock and rallied around us and passed around hugs like
the family they had become.
They took our minds off of the plane crash
when it could not stay off, and danced
around the kitchen and us like figure skaters,
they gave us jobs to occupy our confused hands and said
“that’s okay” when we said “I just can’t.” They fed us
and hugged your Aunt Eva when she showed up. I was surprised how Eva looked
not like your mother and remembering your mother’s dark curls,
I expected someone like her. Later
I realized how they were alike, their laugh was the same.
Can we hug and kiss, say things like “Happy Valentine’s Day?”
Is it selfish to be upset about our missed reservation and
the day we had looked forward to together?
We were going to spend the day in bed drinking champagne.
New York City instead, to bury your mother in a cemetery in Queens.
Is laughing okay?
Holding babies and thinking about other things besides sorrow?
Talking about the Gollum with Eva?
Learning about your mother’s Judaism and
her life growing up? Is it okay to talk about Safta
and the disgusting meals your mom told us about? The lung
and brains she had to sit at the kitchen table
and finish? And to laugh about it again,
like we did once with her around your kitchen table?
Is it okay to talk about anything
except the tragedy?
Is it okay to sleep close? Can I put my hand on your chest?
Do you want me close or far?
Can we kiss? Sensual and soft? Is it okay to feel passionate?
Are jokes alright and will you forgive me
if I made the wrong one?
Is it okay to stop worrying?
Is it okay to notice the little girl on the playground
and giggle at her cuteness?
Are distractions okay?
Trapped in the flux of mourning.


This is one I wrote in April RIGHT right right before my manuscript was due, the day of actually, and I still like it, I still think it's written pretty okay.

Birds Fall

We made the morning last longer
talked in bed and I moved my fingertips over your skin
like tree branches across the pigeon-colored sky.
We hadn’t put our feet on the carpet yet
as though we knew
that mourning would come.

The weight of the sun tried to sneak in bed
with us between the sheets and rub its legs
against ours bare under cotton,
but we ignored it and shoved it off the mattress.
As though we knew
that mourning would come.

Downstairs voices of those who had awoken
rang in the hallways and the mumbling
of the coffee pot started to spread
its aroma, but we stayed in bed.
As though we knew
that mourning would come.

In the United Kingdom, starlings fell
out of the sky, there was no known cause
but speculation that their flight pattern had changed
suddenly. They flapped broken wings on the ground
as though they knew
that mourning would come.

That night another flight pattern had changed
from “we’ll land shortly folks,”
to “God, oh God.”
We both startled awake at 3 am and stared at each other
as though we knew
that mourning would come.

More than one hundred birds rained down
from their cloud perches. There was no poison found in
their lungs, no toxins. Their graceful patterned flying
turned into falling
as though they knew
the mourning had come.


I'm trying to write more stuff, more new stuff, but sometimes I think maybe I should slow down and work on what I've got right now. I have so much material that I need to clean up and organize so probably I should just clear that stuff up and away and then deal with new stuff. maybe. we'll see.

Things That Piss Me Off

1. Middle-Agers on Facebook. No, not really the fact that they're ON facebook so much as their lack of internet-etquette and it's reflective glare in their status updates. Somehow somewhere along the line of the internet developing we millenials figured out what etiquette and tact looked like online. They must have missed the boat. Sometimes it frustrates me SO MUCH. And maybe even more so because I know that I should just accept it and move on and not look at it and it's not my place and blah blah blah and there's nothing I can do about it but whatever. Still pisses me off.

2. My duplex neighbor watching T.V. until 4 in the morning. His bedroom or T.V. room must be right next to my room and I swear he watches it SO LOUDLY. I thought my housemates were having a fight! Or that someone was crying! It was just his stupid T.V.

I think that's all the hate I've got inside me right now. Being sick will do that to you I think, because I'm not feeling well, nothing seems right. OH WELL sometimes you get mad.

Conscious

I am making a conscious effort to reclaim all the things that I love. They do not need to hold memories that will make me sad. They do not need to be anything but what they are, a song, a season, an article of clothing.

I felt so guilty the other night when Bon Iver came onto my iTunes and I was with someone that was not M and it was only because of that night when we stayed awake until morning and listened to them. I cried. I admit it, I teared up and hid my face.

So here is my reclamation of all the songs and artists and moments and seasons and clothing that I love that are mine and are what they are without your fingerprints dotting them. This is for the moments that existed, the moments that are in the past and will never happen again. This is for the moments that were great and the moments that were horrid. I am packing them away in their place and leaving them there. I will no longer look back or forward too far, only right here like a horse with blinders on. I will focus on right now and only what's next to me. There is no reason for me to give up the things I love because they are tinted with shades of you. The only problem is that I had to give up you. And I loved you. So it resonates that I should also give up the other things we shared and loved together. They can be all mine though also. Just my favorite things.




It is supposed to snow on Thursday and I cannot wait. I know I already messed up and didn't write yesterday ... sorry. I'm sick, that's not an excuse but it's the truth.

November is Here!

Yay! Finally it is Fall in Ohio and the weather is lower than 60 degrees every day! I love Fall the most, well, second most, I really really love Winter the most.

I have promised myself that I will begin writing every day and I don't see why I shouldn't since I don't have much else to do besides look for a job. I'm just not sure what to write about so I'm going to use this blog from now on as my daily reminder that I need to write. This means I'm going to write here every day to exercise my writerly needs but... it might suck, no it will suck sometimes, my writing will be so horrible sometimes that you might lose faith in any kind of skill you thought I may have had at some point. That is just how it goes. Other days I'll be alright, some days I might even be great, but it is just how it goes. You know how you have good days and bad days and you can't really REALLY control it? It just happens and you're grumpy? Sometimes that is how writing is. I can try to make it better, I can work on it later and improve and take things out and edit and rewrite, but sometimes the first time around is just out of control bad. That is not the point though, the point is to practice, to commit to writing every day, to use my art and over time maybe it'll get better. No, it will get better. And then eventually, maybe I'll have some kind of coherent idea and be able to write a book again... yayyyyy! Everyone will be happy if that happens.

So here it goes for today:

Writing Exercise 11/1/10

For a few moments before I opened my eyes I didn't want to feel anything except the patch of warmth on my cheek where the sun peeked through the blinds. I like when it hits my cheek rather than my eyes. Every morning I feel like a runaway sun-convict with the slats of light striped across my skin. Hitch-hiking my way to morning. Riding on the tail ends of dreams. The middle of the darkness is the worst part, the eye of night. Every night I am trapped there. Surrounded with my hands in the air by nightmares and creeping spooks behind my eyelids. Staring at the ceiling works for a little while but eventually my eyes become heavy and slide down in spite of me. The bad things creep back from the corners and attack again with their chest-tightening harshness. Scaring me away from sleep and dreams all together. When the sun hits my cheek in the morning, or even my eye, I do not care about brightness and annoyances. It releases my shackles of nightmares. Even my dream catcher can't stop the creeps. But without darkness there is no light and here I am every night falling deeper and being retrieved. The sun's slats kiss my shoulders.


Bahhhhh see what I mean? Sometimes, most of the time, my writing will suck. I am out of practice. BUT I just wrote for a period of time that was more than none and I guess that's the goal. Maybe tomorrow it will be better. Maybe I should start writing poetry again.