so funny

it is amusing what kinds of changes can be made in a few short hours. ... it is apparent that i in fact do not want to be alone on new years eve. but where to go? what to do? where are the friends full of love and light whom I was with last year? scattered like leaves blowing in the wind and maybe staying in bed wouldn't be such a horrible thing would it.

alone in my bed i'll smudge my makeup
but what mess does it mean
if i don't go out
don't meet up
and sit here cold.

is it okay to be alone
all i want is a little love
from whomever would like to give it
just a little love
for me from you
on the new day. new year.

but oh here comes the flood
and don't close the gates
it'll just run above
and flow down the road
into your arms
until you're buried
just like me

oh hey, 2011

so this is the new year. -dc4c

such a perfect day to end the new year on. a lazy morning and delightful brunch and kisses and then thrifting on my own, discovering new things, getting rid of the old, redecorating and preparing for all the future holds. here it is, my 23rd year of life and the first new year in a while that i will be entering without someone to lean on except myself. it feels good, it feels great. i feel free. I'm going to do all that I want because this life is for me, only me and might as well since hey, it will end.

I finally feel such a deep true love for myself and it feels pretty great. I can do this, I can take care of myself, I am so capable. and it feels amazing to finally remember who I am, with or without anyone else, friends and otherwise. pbr and annies, perfect new years eve. whole living and a comfy bed in a newly decorated room. I would be quite content to just sit here and enjoy myself. I am going out to meet some friends but I probably won't be gone long, just long enough to have a kiss at midnight and a couple beers and then back to my cozy nest.

Things will be great this new year. they will be the best they've ever been. they will.

I hope you have a delightful new years eve doing whatever it is your heart desires. Really, pay attention to what it desires.

avoidance

I'm really really good at hiding. Never picking up the phone or calling that person I'm supposed to because everything once again is wound so well that I'm functioning and it's okay this way, even though there's tension on my back. if I call then maybe I'll unravel and I just can't afford to do that now. I can't afford to break down because of all this stuff going on, I need to push through.

My book is out of the closet and living on my bedside table. Maybe tomorrow I'll take it out of the envelope. We'll see.

this is the place where
a metallic rainbow
once stuck,
you can still see the dirt clinging
to decade and a half-old adhesive.

the sun shone through it
and when i woke
the glimmer of color
washed over the supple hills of
my childish face.

this is the place where
a "c" carved into a tile once hung
and my long forefinger
fit curved inside it
like a worm in the dirt.
surrounded by green and love.

the floor, laminate brown
and her bright red walker
that slid right over my toes
and our laughter
ringing on the hour
of happiness.

this is the place where
i learned curiosity
is peeking through a hole
in the floor
and discovering the
basement, and mom with the laundry.

the cold draft blew
against my eyelashes
and batted them for me.
my voice tunneled through the opening
and she looked up
her beauty reflecting in my memories.

this is the place that
taught me walking is easy
but dancing is hard
especially with hurt feelings
and hugs are easy to come by
and hands to hold, even easier.

the crevices fill up
quickly with booms and thunders of
voices. their rolling hearts
are huge.
you can still see where they stuck,
when they said goodbye and left fingerprints.

merry christmas, new poem again, raw, just written, i haven't even read it over yet. let me know what you think.

there will be time?

yes, there will be time but what if now is the time?

be brave. you're brave, I know you are. just do it. don't wait until you're 40 something with kids and a husband in suburbia thinking "where did I put that book I wrote when I was 20?". do it now. just send it out, what do you have to lose?

I opened the envelope that houses my book today for the first time in months. Looking at it was hard because Jake was gone and I didn't have him to lean on when reading my book got too hard. I think I'm ready to go back in though, get back deep down in there entrenched in the words like seafoam tide rising up above my head until I'm scuba diving in the world I created. The characters stand up around me while I read like they have always existed, these people who just needed my pen to release them from their holding places. They stare at me and I know what they're thinking: "why do you keep us locked here? Let us out, let us be seen and heard" I know, I know. I'm trying to build up the courage. It's time though, time to jump and fall so far into the ocean that maybe the sun doesn't shine that deep. Time to prepare a face to meet the faces I will meet. Time to see if rejection hurts as bad as I think it might or if it will roll off just like all the others in my past. I can take it. I think. I do love that poem that I wrote. and the other one, oh and that one too. I have three, all in my own style, all in that style I created that sounds so much just like it's own thing. I love writing. I forgot, I think, I forgot this feeling in my chest of fullness so full I can't stop because if I do then it'll stop and breathing won't feel right at all.
ummmm I just wrote this just now so raw so so so new not coherent, hasn't been thought out, consider it stream of consciousness because it might as well be. but I need to start writing poetry again

Call Me Home

The road was bumpy and my neck
bent under the roof
because there wasn't room enough
in the car for all
of us.

Crowded laughter and windows down
to keep back
that one last shot they
had to have
accosted me.

Sirens called out into the
sky like stars across desert
highways in Bethlehem
and Jesus was at the other end
or you were.

For a moment you held me
in the palm of your hand
like grains of sand I slipped
and caught inside the crevices
of your life line.

Like Bethlehem you saved me
tethered yourself
back to me for just one moment
while the car swerved on black ice
in December.

That smell, like home,
your beard and childhood crafts
hung on walls so proud they beam.
Over the phone you wafted into my nose
and I breathed you in like
saying goodbye all over again.

Like a siren you called out
like a siren you called out
like a siren your night sound saved
like a siren you beamed out bright
like a siren, like home.

i've kinda been learnin this quick

i've kinda been learnin this quick, that to be happy you just do what you want to do right now and as long as it doesn't hurt you or any one else, it's all good. i've also been learnin that the best way to feel better or good at all even just a little bit is to help someone else out. even if you just make them smile. i've learned this week that there is nothing else in the world like a hug from a ten year old who thinks two weeks is FOR-ever, with the eye roll and everything. i've also learned this week that everyone has bad days, even the snappiest happiest folks out there, and that's okay. i've learned that there are really good things around all the corners, it's just that some corners are longer than others.


i love learning. and i really love feeling like i'm helping someone else, especially in the age of consumerism. my mom has 4 gently used jackets and 3 pairs of uggs for my after school kids and that's just my mother, much less everyone else i asked to donate, and those kids are going to flip their shit. i can't wait to see their faces. that's christmas for me. no more cold ankles!

holidaze

I wanted to give you your christmas present
her peeking face said over the corner of the door. I had forgotten tis the season and how to pick out gifts. It feels like Christmas has skipped me this year and all I want is a hug from my mom and to sit down with my dad and have a good conversation. I used to get so into it, I love making other people happy but it's hard to do when you're so preoccupied with you. I hate that I'm like that this year. I feel like I've been eaten alive by everything else in the world. My room is messier than it has ever been. I'm caught stuck behind this rock on this landslide of time and shit is moving fast around me. I am so completely out of sync with my thoughts and body and ideas. I haven't written productively in so long, I haven't created in months. it feels like years though. I don't feel like me. I want to stand alone outside at night while it snows, in a place that feels safe. like denison. I need to go to granville I think maybe. I need to just be in a place that doesn't make me feel so threatened. That makes me feel normal, or at least a little bit more like me.

I need something a little bit more familiar, something comfortable that I can just slide into seamlessly that will not hurt or pinch, something so my size. I think that's what home is. At least I hope it is.

christmas spirit

I'm beginning to get into the spirit. woke up this morning to tons of snow on the ground and it's falling steadily. Last night had a really good conversation and hope that it means something but I guess if it doesn't then I'll be just fine.

I'm not sure which direction I want to take. it's hard caring about someone. it's really hard. especially when you want it to work out in the best way possible but you're not too sure what way that is.

i got els some awesome stuff for christmas, sarah will get some cool stuff to and dad now just have to figure out mom.


i really do love christmas. i kind of just forgot to slow down and remember that.


gotta go clean the bathroom and other junk. busy busy busy busy all i want is cookie day.

christmas trials and errors

how can I say "I love you so much and miss you and care about you all the time" with a gift? I'd sometimes rather just tell the people I care about that I care about them. Give them a hug, and a small token of my love, a little pocket reminder that I'm here for them. I don't want to have to dig through stores and find something they'll really like for a month or so and then toss away. I don't want to contribute to useless spending to tell people I care about them. I think maybe it'll say more if I don't do those things, don't spend hours in stores looking for some chotchkey item, maybe if I spend some leisurely time wandering the stores in my neighborhood (if i ever had time to!) I'd find something really cool, I think that's the case at least. I want to find some awesome customized gifts for people something that's of my new home, something that is part of me and them and shows my appreciation outside of immense commercial spending.


I want to be sitting on the couch between mom and dad with a blanket and some wine watching some dumb reality show and laughing about it all. I have been really homesick lately.

there they were

Together they looked the same, like two pieces that went together always - a salt and pepper shaker set. One was not the same without the other. Standing on their own, they stood fine and looked normal but different.

He wasn't tall, but certainly not short. His silver hair and slightly furrowed brow intimidated me the way I knew my own father intimidated people he deemed lower than he - retail employees - who I was in the eyes of this man. As our conversation continued I saw his jaw slacken a little, the wrinkles eased and his brow unknotted itself and his smile began to shine through. He had begun to trust me. I knew this because they were the same steps my father goes through when dealing with someone. Expect no intelligence until it has been determined and proven, but once said person proves their intelligence he is quick to respect, trust and laugh. I knew this man. I knew him like the girl standing next to him knows him. His daughter. I knew her too. The way she respected and loved her father, I knew the jokes they shared only between them that could be told in a secret language without words and only eyebrow raises. I knew the bond that was tying them together because I have that too even though it's so far away.

It took everything in me to not walk out on them, out the front door, and sit on that bench to call my father and feel my tears freeze on my cheek in the bite of winter. I miss him and our banter, secret language and challenging conversations. That connection, I miss that. "Well laur, I'll miss having another adult to talk to in the house" is what he said to me when I told him I'd be moving soon. I never thought it would happen, but there I was, my father had become one of my best friends. It sounds cliche but it's so real. There are things I don't have to say or ask for understanding on, things I know will never be spoken of or judged because he gets it and knows that sometimes you have to be twenty two, or sixteen, or seven. He knows that sometimes you make mistakes and learn from them and pick yourself up carry yourself off and never even tell your parents, but he still knows what happened because he did it too.

So often I feel so gifted to have the parents I do and the father I do have. Fathers are so important, so crucial, and mine is the best one there is. No contest.

most interesting life of anyone i know

that's what he told me when i relayed the most recent events in my life. my reaction was "whaaaaaaaa?" you're living in thailand crazypants, you know really interesting people, THAI people! I'm just sitting here living in ohio! but then i started thinking about it and i keep thinking about it. i've been through a car fire and pulled the bag that was on fire out with my hands while jacci freaked out roadside. i've almost died in an ambulance, almost completely recovered from ptss and almost completely recovered from other things. spent years being idealistic and hopeful, lost it a bit and regained it. i survived armed robbery and put two guys in jail and rode in the back of a cop car. i've traveled on my own, with family, and with friends, and with strangers who became friends. i've written a book! i've lived on my own with an SO. i've lived through the experience of him losing his mom and us surviving it together. i've lost someone who was so close to me. i've experienced my own mother battling and surviving cancer.


wtf! is this life? is that what this is? is mine unreasonably packed with challenges and experiences or is it just how i'm looking at it now because up until this point when he said that to me i had only thought of it as my life because it's the only one i know. life is funnnnnnay

it's okay it's okay

"Shhh, it's okay it's okay" it echoes in my mind, the words, not the voice. The voice has been blacked out of memory.
"Just give us everything, give us the keys" his hand reaching out to grab my things. Sprawling, reaching limbs leaving ghost touch in their place. He rang so blind in my ears, only his words circle round and round like the wind and the snow on the highway at 7 am. It's the loneliest moment, when other people start to drive alongside and you're no longer alone. I know it seems strange, no longer alone and it becomes more lonely, but it's true. The separation of machine and person is made more evident when others join the race. There's solitude in the emptiness. I languish in it.

Your fingers rested against the curve of my hipbone and your stomach against my back. They dug underneath its edge as though you could find a way into my skin and remain attached. The tips of your fingers left their imprint on my skin. Your words remained part of my edges while you slept and I lay awake staring at the ceiling. Languising in the ghost touch of your chest resting between my shoulder blades and the spot where your hot breath kept hitting my skin moistened from condensation with your lips in such proximity. I drifted into your breathing and staring at the ceiling, lifted out of myself. Carried into the air and plucked, particle by particle. Pulled apart like cotton candy, delicate greediness. I dissipated into the white white white of the ceiling and sank inside the universe's mouth. Left you laying there with your breathing on the pillow instead of my back and cursing about my stealing the sheets.

trapeze swinger

Do you remember when we were babies and you protected me at night by sleeping under my lofted bed? Remember curling up in my papasaun chair, so college, and playing trapeze swinger over and over again to soothe my nightmares and keep me sleeping? "Please, remember me, fondly." Remember when you held me while I cried and had a breakdown and you said "look at my stomach! I'm so fat!" to try to make my relapse better and you hugged me so tightly? Remember when you broke up with your first ever girlfriend that you loved and you came to my room and we sat together and I held you and cuddled you while you cried? Remember how good we were? Remember when we stopped being friends? It still hurts me so so so deeply and maybe I'm just vulnerable now and wish I still had you as a friend but there it is.

Tonight I had a bad bad bad experience. So tonight I'm sitting in my bed, playing trapeze swinger over and over again and maybe I'll drift to sleep.

I miss you friend.

List of things to remember

Assassinations:
-Yitzhak Rabin
-Kurt Cobain (maybe?)
-John Lennon

Yitzhak died of blood loss and a punctured lung in a hospital in Tel Aviv. Shot by Yigal Amir, an Israeli student. No gunpowder was found on Amir, and no blood was seen at the scene by witnesses but when Rabin arrived at the hospital he was described as "gushing blood." Some claim that Amir only had blanks, given the evidence that there was no gunpowder found on him or near the scene and no blood on scene. There is potential for speculation that Rabin was shot within his car on the way to the hospital - but by whom? Yigal Amir has been recorded in court stating: "If I were to tell the whole truth, the entire system would collapse. I know enough to destroy this country." He had been employed two years prior by the Shin Bet in Latvia. Shin Bet meaning approximately secret agent. The assassination has been blamed by a physician on the team on Shimon Peres as a conspiracy. Shimon Peres took over for Rabin as prime minister and later became President of Israel.

There are obvious connections here to the death of Cobain which has been speculated with conspiracy theories as well. Here is some descrepancy between the two though, Cobain died April 5th 1994, whereas Rabin died November 4th, 1995. This pair did not die in the same year as stated on the website that I previously found that tidbit. It doesn't have an effect now that I have found other threads but it is important for story-telling purposes. A quote from Cobain is "music comes first. lyrics come second." Potentially unimportant, but a good note. Something interesting that I hadn't realized about Cobain is that his works are often about important huge things, like rape, Francis Farmer in Seattle, women's rights, he was inspired to write "Polly" by a story in a paper of a young girl who was raped and tortured at a concert and managed to escape by flirting with her attacker. He tackled big things. Bob Dylan is quoted on Cobain saying "the kid has heart." Cobain is tied to artists like Plath, Caulfield and Burroughs among those who wrote about the world's betrayals. That's how I feel too often, that the world is betraying me and here I am in the middle of trying to push it aside and befriend the world because it's kind of all I have and hating it for betraying my trust. To love the world is the most intense romance one could have. It trusts, betrays, convinces and gains your trust, is reliable and breaks your heart. The world is pretty human.

I feel a kind of kinship in Coutney and Kurt, I know, I know, it doesn't seem likely, but I do. Here's why: they trusted the world and they wanted to see beauty in it, they wanted the underdog to win and when they found out that the world often kicks you on your ass and rubs your face in the mud they decided to say "to hell with it" and did whatever it was they wanted until he died and well, she's quite on her way isn't she? I too often feel trapped in the flux of wanting to believe in the world and live a long healthy life and treat myself well, and the other side of just living right now and doing what I want to do with my current time. I mean, what are we preserving ourselves for?! What is the point? We all die, it's just a matter of when and if you don't do what you want to do now, then you missed your chance and oops, don't get that back do you because time marches on. It's a frustrating angering thing this world and life and figuring out how to live it. I'm certainly not doing harm to myself, I'm certainly not on par with Love and Cobain that's for sure but should I not jump off a bridge for fear I might break something and I should want to live until I'm 80? Should I not sleep late and instead get up and run so I can live longer or do I languish in the deliciousness of late morning sunlight and the warmth of the bedsheets? And if it's just about a balance then where do I find the balance? How do I decide when to sleep in and when to run and do I have to be on a schedule? I kind of hate schedules.

I feel like I need some help with direction.

Back to the task at hand though:

Cobain's death: March 1994, Cobain was diagnosed with bronchitis and laryngitis then had what Love calls his first suicide attempt




---UGH done with the task at hand for now. crying in public places has become my forte. I am a whiny baby pants. I need a hug. and some freaking LEEWAY from someone. please? can I have some wiggle room? all I want is to hug my grandparents and sit in church of the advent on christmas eve while my sister ruins all the candles and causes problems in the pew. That's all I want. IS THAT SO HARD!? I hate you, graduated life.

great big plans

I've got 'em! ... so I'm going to start writing here because if I open a word doc my computer says "NO! we are all filled up! stop it!" so I'm going to get more harddrive at some point but not today and today I want to start writing which is tough because I also have an enormous bandage on my pointer finger.

The point is, last night this painting I did when I was so mad about things fell off my wall. It has been there for three months and it just fell off. A sign I think. It is time to let go of this thing and those feelings and find some new ones. so I'm going to hide it and find something else to put there. maybe some more boxes, I might do that tonight since today will be taken up by work and writing. I need a big ol' change and I asked friends for book suggestions, one of which is Homesick, a book about Israelis, which I'm going to read and in the suggestions it said something about Kurt Cobain and Itzhak Rabin dying in the same year (he was the prime minister of Israel and was assassinated). I'm going to go to the lib and find books on this guy and maybe some on Kurt, I already know a lot about Kurt because, well, I love him. And so that's what I'm going to do - find some connections, some threads that tie the two together, I really only need one thread and I can fabricate the rest and it's not even going to be a story about them, I"m not sure what it will be yet but something, something important.


I just can't help thinking about that woman who read my tarot cards and said Susan is my guardian angel and here is this book about Israel and here are these things that make sense to me and are inspiring me. and it all came out of this painting falling and this painting that is mad because she's gone and her son's gone and all these things. My walls are too white and I need more than this.

Last night I had these dreams that all these things that I want were real and true, like my subconscious is working on the law of attraction for me. Pretttyyyy cooool.


I love it. love love love it. Thanks winter.

and there is comfort in the sound

i wish i could type sounds and smells. like this song by death cab and trapeze swinger by iron and wine and the smell of apple crisp in my house and my cold toes. i wish i could type these feelings. for a long time i thought like that, like how could i possible type out feelings and put them into words and the awful thing is that it felt too big, too difficult and i forgot that that's what i had been doing and practicing since i was 7. i know how to type feelings.

you're only across town but it feels the furthest away you've ever been. my toes ache for your warm sock feet, to rub against them under the down comforter while we make each other erupt in giggles and settle back down inside your arms. my chest misses the smell of your skin and cologne and how they mix to create a new perfect smell that's just you. i miss the way that smell blooms roses across my chest and neck even though it is embarrassing. my fingers are colder not wrapped in their clothing of your curls.


ugh i don't know i guess i'll just keep writing every day no matter how long or how shitty it is. what.ever. it'll come back to me i'm sure

christopher walken

is it sad that this just comforted me? like a lot?

http://i921.photobucket.com/albums/ad56/Trolling_is_a_art/Motivationals/motivation.jpg

the wire

i was so tied up perfectly wound so that everything could be held in and never talked about and never come out pouring like an avalanche. so perfectly bound up in wire that cut my skin it was so tight that i'd never have to feel all this heaviness, all this pressure, i could just keep avoiding it, forever. i was writing J an email though and, oh god, it's happening again right now just thinking about him being so far away, have you ever had your best friend be so far away you can't even talk on the phone? don't. ever. it's the worst and if that person is your lifeline then you're fucked. i don't let people in, i don't let people see my heart, the hurt, the shit that's all down there deep stewing. that's why most people think i'm happy all the time because of the wire keeping me so bound up. something slipped while i was emailing J and it fell out, it all came bubbling up and pouring straight out of me and i can't stop it from coming i can't stop all this hurt from filling me straight up and out and i don't know how to fix it at all i don't know what to do to make it stop and i don't have anyone to talk to about it at all. i have no one to cry to because no one sees me cry except a few people and those people are unavailable. what have i done so wrong to push so many people out of my life? do i rely too heavily on them? is it because only a few people see the real me so it's like all of it at once not spread out amongst a bunch? is that what it is? I don't feel like myself at all but maybe this is part of the recovery period, maybe if i let myself feel all this shit all this hurting and pain and deal with it on my own then maybe i'll be free of it. there's just so much of it. so much bad. i don't know where to go here, where my comfort places could be, i haven't found them yet. i need to hide though in a place that is just for me. i need a hug, a really good hug and someone to cup my face in their palms and say, you'll be fine just fine, remember? remember the last time? how fine you were? you got this.


i just need a fucking hug.

decisions decisions

I can't decide what to do with the rest of my life. A really big part of me wants to be in academia for the rest of my life, writing and being fully engrossed in the literature and fostering other young talents. But I just don't know if I have what it takes. I want to go to BU and do their creative writing program. I want to be in Boston doing that, in the cold cold winter with the nasty mean people who have niceties hidden underneath their scars. I want something good and magical and not torn apart and hurting.

Although on the other hand I want to help little kids, be a mentor and an advocate. Become a social worker, a therapist, something so I can help them see who they are. Maybe the answer is to write young adult fiction? Maybe is that what it is? Go get an MFA, dabble in some young adult fiction and volunteer or do therapy work on the side? Writing is always something that will be deep deep inside me, something that will grow and growl and yell when I stop paying attention to it for long enough. I need it, like air and water, it helps me feel like me.

This is the thing. The fundamental part of it all. Words move me, move within me, move time around me. Words are the piece and the puzzle in its entirety, they are my being. Instead of skin I might as well just have words inked everywhere because without them I am nothing, it is my mode of communication, not pen, not paint, not dance, words. I can make you feel things you didn't think you knew how to with words. They move me to emotions I forgot I had buried inside because the words dig like shovels, like tiny hands digging sand up up up from the beach to unearth the water running smoothly down there. Words, often, are all I have. I can't let them go.

something new off the cuff

her fingers were frozen in my hand, i was afraid they'd stick to my skin like kissing metal in winter. her fingers were the only thing touching me and I floated into the air shot back down like a clay bird. her distance resonated as loudly through my body as christmas bells at midnight in snow. my shoulders melted down into my arms, slouching to try and shrink my feelings. it's as though she deliberately avoided a connection with me. that's the worst part, her smirk of armor covering the potential she knew was there for something better, more than cold hands held in the parking lot. i couldn't look at her. i knew her face and saw her grey eyes looking past me already, i'll never forget that look. when all you want is a chance, to be looked at, into, the worst feeling is being looked past and not even given a chance. i loved her too much already. hopeless, i knew the potential was there and i clung to it like burnt orange leaves to tree branches but they all have to fall sometime in their decay. i could have pulled her back, maybe, asked to start over, but instead i shrunk down deeper into my bones and slunk away from her complacent fingers in mine. it's difficult to convince yourself there'll be someone better, or someone more right when you have someone right in front of you, really fucking hard. like ice bringing blood to the spot that it's touching and firing up your arteries to pump harder, she ran my pulse and stomped all over it. no reaction is worse than any reaction. i couldn't walk away though, i had hope, even though she was just a shell, even though she wouldn't show me what lay beneath her smirk.




- for some reason i felt inspired. maybe i'll start writing this way from now on, from an androgynous author perspective, it's interesting to consider my thought process when i write this way. hm.