+ black tables +

+ i wanted to land on you +

i wanted to land on you.

we were just coming into our own.
you'd throw me against the lockers;
me in my little skirt,
all hemmed and neat.

i wanted to land on you.

my lips didn't know what to do.
i was waiting for you
to teach me.
i was waiting for so long.

i wanted to land on you.

you gave me your lust,
and threw me away with
the strongest silence
i had ever heard.

i wanted to land on you.

i found out 7 years later
that she had made you.
i created my own coma,
my sweet.

i wanted to land on you.

the night came,
one soft evening, where
you called me.
you begged for me
to come and find you.

i wanted to forgive you
every single
day.

i still do.

+ we're all burning martyrs +

Shred the turning leaves
in your fingertips. The cocoon
unfolds its gentle warmth, and
beckons for your
return.
She’s only a blue
Bird for so long.
Her meek voice holds
Tiny pointed nails,
Rusted and
Worn.
We
Are
Now
Nothing
At
All.
These silken tides can
See the falseness dripping –
Honey dripping – from your
Sweet, golden core.
My lies are my pillow.
They allow me
To dream
And never
Wake up.

+ epilepsy is dancing +

As I came to a screaming
Hold me while I'm dreaming



For my fingers are curling
And I cannot breathe



Then I cried in the kitchen
How I'd seen your ghost witching
There's a soldering blue line
Between my eyes



Cut me in quadrants
Leave me in the corner



Ooh now, it's passing
Ooh now, I'm dancing

+ infinityinfinityinfinityinfinityinfinity +

+ Mogwai -- "BatCat" +

+ White Noise +

i remember tearing through our bookshelves at home, and discovering Don Delillo's "White Noise" buried at the bottom of the stack, dusty and yellow.
it had been my sister Heather's, and she made all kinds of ball-point pen markings on it -- but most of them simply said, "WHY?"

i've never regretted opening that cover since.





"There's a theory about déja vu."

"I don't want to hear it."

"Why do we think these things happened before? Simple. They did happen before, in our minds, as visions of the future. Because these are precognitions, we can't fit the material into our system of consciousness as it is now structured. This is basically supernatural stuff. We're seeing into the future but haven't learned how to process the experience. So it stays hidden until the precognition comes true, until we come face to face with the event. Now we are free to remember it, to experience it as familiar material."

"Why are so many people having these episodes now?"

"Because death is in the air," he said gently. "It is liberating suppressed material. It is getting us closer to things we haven't learned about ourselves. Most of us have probably seen our own death but haven't known how to make the material surface. Maybe when we die, the first thing we'll say is, 'I know this feeling. I was here before.'"

+ the good book +

"to the illumined man or woman,
a clod of dirt, a stone, and gold
are the same."

///////

"If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one. Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

+ + + + + +

i really need to take the precious time i have in my life to read the Bhagavad Gita.
what a waste if i never do.
what a waste.

+ "i am he as you are he as you are me" +

that which you are seeking is no longer found here
every exit is an entry somewhere else . . . .begin again.

+ CASEY, I LOVE YOU +

more often than not i'm too frightened to ever admit this.
so, i'm writing it here.
so it stays.
for good.

casey...
i DO love you.
i really, really do.

i'm sorry for any pain i've caused you.
i'm sorry for everything.

+ LOST HOPE +

God never spoke through you;
I know you wanted him to.
You step outside and the sun’s always a
Bit colder
Where you are.
You pack the snow in your pockets
And shove your fingers in
Until they burn like frost.
I see what you
Feel
For the black storm.
I see everything.
Your ballads for me were true
Only for five damn
Minutes at a time.
I whispered to this Lord
You know
The night you came back
From your own
Funeral.
He never heard.
He never even heard me.

+ + + + +

to LISTEN while you read.

+ i adore you +

+ Fat Ladies Floated In The Sky Like Balloons +

"That part was simple. I brought him home when I knew my house would be empty and made dinner. On the way there he told me how wrong he'd been to leave, how much he'd missed me. I knew his words were empty, the empty husks of beetles long wandered off, the shell game I always lost. Still I let him touch me. Gentle now, I said.

He had his problems. Disappearance wasn't the worst of it, nor was the plight of the innocent fat ladies. Fred couldn't control himself. He was what Florence, my godmother, called bad news.

He's a natural disaster and you're trailer city, Florence rasped, then took another drag of her cigarette. He's an itchy rash, a pimple under the skin. He's a toothache and you're just numbing the gum, girlie. You need to pull his mean self out and toss it away.

But I love him, I said in the smallest voice those words could afford.

Oh girlie, Florence said, That's the worst of it."


+ + + + + +

to read this piece in full, McSweeney's can fulfill your sweet little palate.

+ inhale/exhale +

Don't say a prayer for anyone, it doesn't do any good/
And please don't ask me a question, you'll just be misunderstood/
And if you could step inside me, you'd feel what hatred brings/
And if you could see with my eyes, you'd see what self-deception means/

+ flowers from the tomb +

"Roses lilies daisies...dandelions I want to sell you flowers...flowers with tears still wet upon them...flowers from the tomb."

+ "Was Lincoln a Racist?" +

There's no doubt about the ways in which my father views the world, and in his standpoints he cannot be moved. His thoughts are FACT, and that's it. I'm a sassy lady, and take any opportunity to prove my father, or anyone else, wrong. If you have an opinion about something, all I ask is that you back it up.
In consideration with what my father views as all encompassing and important, what rises above all are the people he holds as even grander than himself:

Babe Ruth, John F. Kennedy, and....Abraham Lincoln.

To my dad, Abraham Lincoln is the be-all-end-all of human perfection. One who saw what could be for the better, and actually made it happen. Being the brazen lass I am, during my senior year of high school, I brought a certain essay by W.E.B. DuBois to his attention which argued the idea that perhaps Mr. Lincoln wasn't as honorable in his viewpoints as we were all taught to believe. Needless to say, my father practically ripped my head off and was disgusted that I would even THINK of suggesting such a thing.

Du Bois wrote of a direct quote from Lincoln himself:

“I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races—that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”

I came across a lovely article this morning that not only references DuBois' essay, but goes into even greater length to question, "Was Lincoln a Racist?"

Please, by all means, read it for yourself and come to your own conclusions.
Educate yourself, argue your opinions, and stand by who you are.

+ you should have better +

why are you the one
i never write about,
but the one who
constantly
stays by my side?

i don't deserve
to have someone
like you.

you should have better.
you should have better.
you should have better
than me.

+ i can see things as they are +

+ ad infinitum +

you made me weep for
the loss of everything
today. i wanted
to believe that someday,
sometime, someplace
would be ours.
let me not fool myself
for the sake of
these
fantasies
any longer.
i just can't seem to
let you go.
all i wanted was
to eat your evil
all up.
i thought it could sustain me.
no more water.
no more food.
no more anybody else.
ever.
i'm picking apart the past,
and holding onto a semblance
of the ghost of your head.
i'm nothing
more than memories
to you now.
snapshots of the good old days,
when you broke my heart,
and left me festering with
all your other lies.

+ filthy +

+ you don't even deserve a poem +

so i won't write anything for you.
except the words,

I REMEMBER.

and i know you do,
too.

+ you did your time, so thank you very much +

As you lie before me now, like a shadow
On a pea-green sea
Never thought that I could find you so hollow
Laying into me

This cup of wine
All salt and brines make me sleepy
And sorrow sews
A field of tears that will never yield a single penny
But I don’t know
I’ve got nothing to hold onto

Wish for gold so I can buy you a palace
By the riverside
You come in and I would fill your diamond chalice
If you were still alive

But this cup of wine
All salt and brines make me sleepy
And sorrow sews
A field of tears that will never yield a single penny
But I don’t know
I’ve got nothing to hold onto
I’ve got nothing to hold onto

Were you sleepless, tearing at the air?
Was the water everywhere?
Were you fretful to wade into the room?
I’d been wanting to hear from you
Oh no

Hand it over
Hand it over
You’re weary
Lay him down
You did your time, so thank you very much
Hand it over
Hand it over
So now your hopes are all laid
But you hand it all away

Did his eyelids affix on empty chairs?
You had traveled to lay beside
A gentle torture
To watch it all recede
And all the while your mother slept beside him
Oh no
Hand it over
Hand it over
You’re weary
Lay him down
You did your time, so thank you very much
Hand it over
Hand it over
So now your hopes are all laid
But you hand it all away

Were you sleepless, tearing at the air?
Was the water everywhere?
Were you fearful,
And long to run away,
From the cold clasp of Illinois?
Oh no
Oh no
Ohhhhh

Hand it over
Hand it over
You’re weary
Lay him down
You did your time, so thank you very much
Hand it over
Hand it over
So now your hopes are all laid
But you hand it all away