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.