poem....not sure if i like it

I’ve stopped writing about you, maybe that means I’m past it
but I’ve stopped writing completely.
I’ve had a failure of imagination, and I’ve forgotten how to be me.
In the moments I remember, all I remember is you
and the shapes the freckles on your arm made.
I remember that you were my heartbeat,
even if I didn’t hear it, even if I didn’t feel it.
Some days, I didn’t notice. Some days, I failed to imagine.

Progress Journal

Spent about a half hour finishing the website tonight. The video is uploaded and all the links are up. Everything seems to work as it should.

Presentations are tomorrow.

Progress Journal

ATV:

Spend almost three hours tonight working on the site: added effects, played with fonts to look more youthful, fixed glitches. I think the homepage looks really cool. The fonts and effects as well as the contrast of bright color against a dark background are enticing.

The website is mostly a skeleton of the site right now. We need to add the videos and articles to their specific pages as well as create a more detailed "about us" page.

progress journal three

Because our group only met once outside of class this week, the bulk of decisions made have been individual. Chris and John have planned to do recorded interviews for our videos next Monday, Jessica is searching for articles and quotes, and I spent about twenty minutes last night on our host website searching for the perfect template.

Our group is geared toward young adults and youth. So, we want our website to be a balanced mixture of creative and enticing for high school and college students, but also professional looking. I found a few potentials, and once I show them to the rest of the group, we can make a decision.

This weekend, I plan to start working on the images for the site using photoshop to develop a logo and banner.

progress journal 2

Elizabeth Palmer
Project purpose, audience, etc:
To inform young adults and youth of America of their "freedom of speech," how it is often censored and restricted, and how the voice of American youth needs to be heard.

November 18
30 min meeting

created group proposal:

Group Proposal
Jessica Logsdon, John Radomski, Elizabeth Palmer, Chris Aveline

Directed audience: Youth and young adults of America
Modes of communication: Website which will include video footage of personal on-the-street interviews, photography, articles relating to the association’s mission, and famous quotes.
This media is easily accessible for the youth and provides different types of communication to better understand the ATV mission and how it affects them.

Ethos: ATV persuasively attempts to establish its existence, purpose, and usefulness through website and mission statement.

Logos: Articles and interviews provide proof of restricted and censored freedom, including specific events and quotes.

Pathos: Appeals to emotion are made by using strong, vivid photography as well as passionate interviews from American citizens.

How work will be split up:
John and Chris will create interviews, record, and edit the film.
Jessica will collect quotes and articles which support our mission.
Elizabeth will create the basic website and collect photography.
As a group we will put together the final website and create our association’s mission statement/“about us” page, as well as including specific examples to include on the home page (i.e. Lewis Black’s stand up and restrictions involving President Bush).


For next progress journal, build more on website, find sources for photography.

Progress Journal

Elizabeth Palmer
Project purpose, audience, etc:
To inform young adults and youth of America of their "freedom of speech," how it is often censored and restricted, and how the voice of American youth needs to be heard.

12 November 2009
10-15 min

Established Group name and purpose, brainstormed ideas for website.

Association for a True Voice (ATV):
--Video interviews on the street
--Photography
--Audience: Young adult/youth
--Clip from The Office?

For next time: find image and create logo for ATV, start building website, find quotes for website, etc.

basically....

I'm stuck on my paper, so I'm taking a break. (That, and I'm experiencing a bad headache and may take a power nap). NaNoWriMo started yesterday, and though my initial goal is to accomplish the 50,000 novel by the end of the month, more importantly, I just want to make myself write everyday.

Sometimes, I'm stuck completely. I can stare at a blank page longer than I should. Lately, I've taken to finding inspiration in images--particularly images from FFFFound.com.

These are some I've saved recently:

NaNoWriMo

615 words.

See how far I can make it here: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/508781

a few poems

I was rummaging through my external hard drive, the one I used to transfer everything from my dying desktop. Sometimes, I think about how much I've change over the past few years. But somethings don't change, like my voice and how I always want my last thought to linger.

Wired Shut

Maybe this was what it felt like
to lose someone when he was sitting right next to me.

Those blue eyes never looked so distant

and I knew it wasn't some invisible wall
between us, but months and girls
and things you can't get back.

You used to be the best shotgun DJ
because you knew what I needed to hear.

Did it really only take a summer
for me to still want acoustic songs
and for you to change the music?

California Rolls

Lonely lights, cast shadows
down the sidewalk,
on old brick buildings and posters
on telephone poles, claiming REWARD
for a lost puppy. An orange glow
that gives a new hue to the evening,
unlike day and nothing like night.
This is the middle ground,
outside of the tiny restaurant,
where only two workers speak English.
Illuminated most of all,
a kiss—a grazing of his lips upon hers—
caught in the lonely light of an electric sun.

I've been thinking about model rockets and the twilight zone.....it's complicated.

Other People's Clothing

I think we do it on purpose. We leave people with a part of ourselves, knowing that once they've passed through our lives, we will still be there. Somewhere on the top shelf of a closet is our hoodie, or stuffed in a dresser drawer, an old t-shirt. We leave these bits and pieces knowing full well that the next time they're cold and grab that sweatshirt, or the next time they shrug on a t-shirt for something to wear around the house, they stop. And a crisp memory of us gets thrown back into their minds. And they remember, tugging at the hood or pulling the shirt down over their stomachs, just exactly when that piece of clothing passed from us to them. We aren't a memory anymore, but something tangible and real. Something soft and worn in, like we never really went away.

new poem

She made beauty from broken things:

chipped teacups mounted to the wall,

weather worn window panes for picture frames,

a wall of odd shaped mirrors, dried flowers pressed in books.

She stained her beige sheets with coffee,

painted her bedroom ocean blue.

On her mantel, over the heart of her home,

she kept photographs of every man she ever loved.

And she never spoke.

I collect starter lines.

Little things I hear in broken conversations of passing people. Fragments of ideas from a poem or story.

There's this website I found on LiveJournal.com called 2_lines.

People can say whatever they want, whatever is on their minds. But it has to be in two lines.

I've gotten plenty of story ideas from these.

Some of the best ones I've kept:

He dared me once, thinking I couldn’t.

i've been feeling three feet tall this month, hardly indestructible

And most nights it’s still easier to get struck by lightening

than it is to absolutely admit to the truth to myself.

I've seen this picture around before. I wanted to know what it was all about and has turned into this article I found and probably going to be my position piece.

“The World Is Watching”…a Blurry Picture in Iran

By Nina Hamedani

WHEN THE Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance issued a media blackout for foreign journalists in Iran, mainstream U.S. media outlets resorted to social networking sites in order to provide some coverage—any coverage—of the events unfolding after Iran’s June 12 presidential election.

(rest of article here) ----> http://www.wrmea.org/component/content/article/212-2009-august/3060-the-world-is-watchinga-blurry-picture-in-iran.html

"Does the writer have a second thesis, distinct from the song analysis?"

I guess I'd say this was the most important question for my paper. Originally, I had a single thesis which tied the book and song analysis into one. But now I know that I need to split it up.

And now that I've included the literary element in my first thesis, I think the revising will go well to improve my final draft.

I never thought I'd actually miss any part of high school.

But I'm missing my creative writing class. Last year, I was the Editor-in-Chief of the literary magazine, Spectrum. Not only did the class force me to write daily, but it exposed me to my peers whose writing would inspire and push me to work on mine.

Every now and then, I find myself in these ruts. I've got a million thoughts and the urge to put something on paper (or in most cases, on the screen), but when I get to the point of sitting down to work it all out, nothing sounds right. I've spend years trying to stop myself from my bad habit of editing while writing an initial draft. Even if it's just a short little poem, I cannot let it go.

A few months before I graduated high school, I was in one of these moods. Instead of staring at a blank screen for hours, I decided to rummage though the old desk in the basement. It had been my dad's before he invested in a new one. The metal handles didn't always stay screwed in and the middle draw stuck all the time. I pulled each draw out and slowly, deliberately went through old papers and bills. Newspaper clippings and photos.

I found a folder stuffed with a few tattered notebooks and tons of loose pages, some scraps of paper, some notebook pages, some written in pencil, blue ink, black ink, some written on a typewriter.

They were my mother's. Her poetry.

We are more alike than I could ever understand.

story i wrote a few months ago

In Memory

Miss Janey May was a small woman, frail and slightly hunched over, like each year of her life had added invisible weights to her back. Her long, gray hair was always pinned up in a delicate clip made of silver and etched with filigree. The wrinkles and lines around her eyes and mouth told every stranger that she had a past and had been more than this fragile-looking woman she was now. Having lost her husband years ago and her five children all grown and mostly spread across the country, she lived alone in Wachapregue, a small Virginia town, populated by fewer than three hundred.

Wachapregue was the type of town where everyone knew everyone else, and they knew their own family, as well as everyone else’s back at least six generations. Days were routine, where Monday or Thursday was hardly distinguishable unless it was Sunday. In which case, the town was all piled into the one church, leaving every other building empty from the sheriff’s station to the diner.

Trip’s Diner was owned by Gregory James Hewett III, or, as everyone called him, Trip. His nickname, Trip would tell newcomers and strangers, was a clever one, adapted from the three lines at the end of his name. Hewett, and all but a handful of town residents, were that clever. In fact, Hewett’s classmates started calling him Trip during elementary school. Each recess, he would run out to the playground ahead of everyone. There was a section of the sidewalk that was awfully uneven. An oak tree’s roots had crept under and pushed up one of the large concrete squares. In Hewett’s excitement, he paid no attention and proceeded to fall flat on his face. This happened so much during his first time through kindergarten that, not only did his classmates start calling him Trip, but the town council embarrassed, had to call in a contractor from a neighboring town to redo the entire sidewalk.

Trip’s eldest daughter, Susan, began working at her father’s diner as a waitress when she was fifteen. During her five years of waitressing, she had only dropped trays two different times. The first tray Susan ever dropped was on her first day of work. Miss Janey May had taken a seat at her usual morning table, tucked away in the back corner near the window. As Susan passed Miss Janey May, arms full with a tray that could have almost outweighed her, Susan watched the old woman snap open her handbag and pull out a handkerchief. Instantly, the loud clatter of porcelain shattering on wood floors interrupted the early morning chatter.

Miss Janey May’s handbag was a deep navy clutch with a silver clasp etched with filigree, much like her hair clip. The bag was worn and the stitching had begun to fray near the bottom, but Miss Janey May carried it every day. She brought her bag into the diner, to her friends’ homes, to the annual elementary school play, to church every Sunday morning, and to Bingo night, which was every other Tuesday of the month, and held in the church basement. It was only in her own home, people who visited would report, that Miss Janey May didn’t keep her bag clutched tight in her hands.

When Miss Janey May’s husband, Stephen passed, his will specifically divided his money between his five sons. The last line, however, read:

All my assets in my bedroom closet go to my wife, Janey May, except my gun, which goes to my oldest son, Richard, ‘cause he asked.

Almost the second the lawyer finished the sentence, each son, except Richard, stood up as a group, raged. They shouted and argued and protested. The lawyer slowly opened the lockbox set in front of him on his desk, carefully removed the gun, and handed it to Richard. The cool feel of the barrel hardly registered to Richard before he took one look at his mother, and solemnly handed her the Colt.

All of Wachapregue knew the story, and they all knew just exactly what Miss Janey May kept tucked away in the navy handbag.

The only other morning Susan dropped her trays of coffee mugs and plates, happened to be the same morning Miss Janey May didn’t come into the diner. Every weekday, Miss Janey May would come in for her usual order of grits, apple jelly on wheat toast, and orange juice, which was always accompanied by her obligatory handful of pills and vitamins. By noon, everyone in town knew Miss Janey May had not had her diner breakfast, had not gone to get her mail or newspaper, and certainly had not been out in her front garden.

Sometime after supper and after the dogs had all been fed, Sheriff York and Doctor Collins headed over to Miss Janey May’s home. Wachapregue was, by no means, the type of place where locking a door was necessary; however, out of habit after she began living alone, Miss Janey May locked her front door every evening. Being that the town was so small though, the sheriff and the doctor, as well as the five year old boy next door could tell anyone that Miss Janey May kept a spare key tucked under the flower pot on her porch railing.

Sheriff York opened the door, calling out to the woman that he and the doc were coming to check on her. Slowly, they made their way to the back of the house toward her bedroom. Neither man was surprised by what he saw. Sheriff York nodded knowingly and muttered something about finding the phone book to call her boys. Doctor Collins said nothing, but headed toward the bed where Miss Janey May lay. Her skin was paler than usual, almost gray, and she looked incredibly calm. Her long hair wasn’t pulled up in a clip, but instead draped over her shoulders. Her nightgown, modest and aged, just as she was, was a pale pink but seemed so vibrant against her skin and the white sheets of the bed. The doctor felt no real need to do so, but knowing the answer, reached his hand toward her neck in search of a pulse. With a sigh, he shook his head, and carefully moved his hands toward hers. He peeled the ribbed handle of the old Colt from her hands, his thumb resting over the engraved horse near the trigger. Maybe it was slightly disrespectful, but curiosity got the better of him. With a click, he opened the gun, and nodded his head evenly seeing that it was empty.

I'm going to push myself....

I'm doing this in November...http://www.nanowrimo.org/

It's going to be hard, and I won't be able to settle for mediocre. I've had an idea for awhile, it's just going to take a lot of effort to flesh out and create something that is not just well written, but original and interesting and meets the length requirements.

I remember trying to write a book when I was about eleven. If I managed to find and read it now, I'd laugh and how amateur it was. But it was long...I'm sure almost as long as the requirements fro nanowrimo, despite how simplistic it was. I wasn't afraid of trying. I thought I really had a chance of it going somewhere.

Now, failure is never an option. And the risk of failure, the uncertainty of it, is even worse.

So I just don't try.

lyrics

I've been thinking about the lyrics assignment all weekend. I have an intense love for amazing lyrics and music. (And I'm a sucker for anything acoustic......name that song!)

My favorite band is Brand New, and I automatically knew I wanted to use some of Jesse Lacey's lyrics. So far (and this is even excluding the new CD which will officially be released tomorrow) I've come up with way too many song to choose from.

Song Name Album

1. Archers The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me

2. Degausser The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me

3. Handcuffs The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me

4. Jesus Christ The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me

5. Millstone The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me

6. The Storm is Coming Demos

7. Untitled 03 Demos

8. Untitled 05 Demos

9. Untitled 07 Demos

There are a ton of songs off the album Deja Entendu that I'm in love with, but the biggest problem is that I don't think the lyrics are obscure enough to pull out a separate meaning. Maybe I'm just too familiar with the album (I had to buy a second copy of the CD because my first was so scratch from continuous play that it wouldn't transfer to iTunes).

I won't post all the lyrics, but I'll post the song I'm actually listening to now.

This is Degausser.

Goodbye to sleep
I think this staying up is exactly what I need
Well take apart your head
Take apart the counting, and the flock it has bred

Goodbye to love
Well it's a ride that will push you up
Right against the wall
Take apart your head
Right against the wall
Chew it up and swallow it

(Does everybody really need to know everyone?
Do you really think you're really a part of it?
And is your army really one of some thousands?
And will you declare war on the loony bin?)

You're brought back but you're running
I fell asleep at the incline
I can't shake this little feeling
I'll never get anything right

Goodbye you liar
Well you sipped from the cup but you don't own up to anything
Then you think you will inspire
Take apart your head
(And I wish I could inspire)
Take apart the demon, up in the attic to the left

(When I arrive will God be waiting and pacing around his throne?
Will he feel a little Old Testament?
And will he celebrate with fire and brimstone
Yeah, I admit, I am afraid of the reckoning)

(Goodbye my love)
You're brought back but you're running
(You wait right here, and they will come and pick you up)
Let's sleep at the incline
(I've been on pause, but I'm shaking off the rust)
I can't shake this tiny feeling
(I've lost my charge, I've been degaussed)
I'll never say anything right

(I'm on my own, I've been degaussed)
I'll never say anything right
(I'm on my own, I've been degaussed)
I'll never say anything right
(I'm on my own, I've been degaussed)
I'll never say anything right
I'm on my own

Take me, take me back to your bed
I love you so much that it hurts my head
Say, "I don't mind you under my skin.
I'll let the bad parts in, the bad parts in"
Well when we were made we were set apart
But life is a test and I get bad marks
Now some saint got the job of writing down my sins
The storm is coming
The storm is coming in

You're brought back but you're running
I fell asleep at the incline
I can't shake this little feeling
I'll never get anything right

I'm on my own
I'll never get anything right
I'm on my own

Take me, take me back to your bed
I love you so much that it hurts my head
I don't mind you under my skin
I'll let the bad parts in, the bad parts in
Well you're my favorite bird and when you sing
I really do wish that you'd wear my ring
No matter what they say, I am still the king
And now the storm is coming
The storm is coming in

Pure proof that they are not over processed in the studio. I. Love. Jesse. Lacey.

Ishmael Beah

There were two quotes that Ishmael Beah said during his presentation that stuck out to me. I did not get the exact wording down, but I tried my best to keep a mental not of what he was saying.

1. He was discussing how everyone always told him he was strong. Strong for being able to survive what he went through. Strong for being able to become the man he is despite everything. To this, Ishmael said something along the lines that everyone has that strength, that hope is a form of strength. When placed in extreme situations, like what he experienced, is when you realize how "difficult it is to put out that fire of hope."

2. Later in his speech, Ishmael was speaking about how difficult it was to write Along Way Gone and how there were many times he wanted to give up. The memories were painful for him to relive as he put them into words. When he thought about how many other children in his country were going through what he went through and how he had watched so many die, Ishmael concluded that he "only had the memories to live with", and that "was a small price to pay to stay alive."

Ishmael Beah's words really stuck with me. My childhood and past in no way can be compared to his, but I have had experiences that some would not consider "average" or "normal." I used to try to write about them, but could never but words to my memories, to my emotions. But that is what I have, memories. And who will ever know them, if I can't put them into words?

post 2/3 for the week

I intend to write my Ishmael Beah post later tonight, but I wanted to post something else as well.

This is a story I wrote last year; I figured it would be good to see what kind of feedback I could get from people who didn't know me.

Apples and Change

The warmth spread out from my hands and ran up my arms, sending a chill down my spine as I clutched the large white mug. Swirls of mocha and parchment blended and twisted together between my palms, weaving into each other—invading the same space. I wanted to block out the hum of the espresso machine, the faint chatter in the back corner of the shop, avoid the clinking of mugs and the ring of the cash register. All I wanted to hear was the shower of rain pouring on the streets outside; I wanted to watch the droplets on the window next to me glide down the glass and glimmer in the golden hue of the dim lighting that surrounded me. But I couldn’t focus on anything except the sketch sitting on the table. I trained my eyes to follow each line and curve, to memorize the slanted handwriting scrawled at the bottom… “My sweet little girl” and the way the words and the shading had faded over the years. Too many years—folded up in a journal—tucked between pages of letters and poetry. Still, the penciled face smiled back, emanating youth and adoration. But I wasn’t his little girl anymore.

“I’m slightly…intrigued.” I looked up to a smirking face. He paused before his last word and grinned now, as though there was an underlying brilliance to his phrasing, as though he knew something I didn’t. I met eyes of deep oceans, crashing waves. My breathing hitched, and I coughed on the sip of coffee that burned my mouth. “Your thoughts seem to be making you distraught, uncomfortable even. And that sketch, is it you?”

He sat down in the chair across from me, though I hadn’t invited him. His eyes stared into me, and his question hovered between us. I heard something touch the table, and he slid his hand towards me. Slowly, lifting his palm, he revealed a penny. It looked like it had known too many hands, too many pockets, too many years. I felt the urge to laugh, to mock his visible, tangible cliché. Instead…

“It—it was. Well, years ago. Feels longer than ten years.” I fumbled over my words, tripping and stumbling in bafflement as to why I was speaking to this stranger.

“I could tell. Eyes never change, even with age,” he whispered back, eyes trained on the paper between us. “Who’s the artist?”

I unconsciously glared up at him, steadily becoming more livid at his blunt intrusion into my evening. Today wasn’t for strangers.

“That doesn’t matter to you.”

The waves of his eyes continued to crash and swirl behind his dark hair. For a moment, something flickered across his face, something that could have almost indicated I had been too harsh. It was too fleeting to tell. A crash tore me away from him. The barista crouched down a few tables over, sighing and picking up pieces of broken mugs. Blacks and browns of mocha and java and cream spread across the tile, bleeding into the cracks, blending hazelnut and French vanilla. It was an aroma almost shocking. I picked up the mug in front of me, still watching the girl carefully gather the pieces of disaster. When I set the coffee back on the table, a second penny sat in front of me, begging to gleam like it had once before. I hadn’t even heard the stranger dig for more change from his pocket.

“Why does my history matter to you?” I questioned, tilting my head slightly.

“You’re the type of stranger who feels familiar. Like you have a story I already know but can’t quite put into words.”

“What story do you know the words to?”

And he told me.

“A river separated my home and my neighbors from the school and the local shops where I grew up. I walked across a bridge everyday to get to the library and my classes and the grocery store. One night, I was late coming home. The sun had set and I stepped onto the bridge in darkness, feeling my way across. That’s when I saw him.

“Jeffery never talked to anyone in town. He lived alone. No one knew a thing about him. Sometimes, he’d disappear for a few days and come back with a look in his eye that no one could describe; he’d come back with eyes of different colors. I saw them brown, I saw them green, I saw them blue and ice-cold. That night, crossing the river, I watched Jeffery sit in his old wooden boat, oars in his lap, talking into his hands. He was whispering and I could hear the faint echo of each consonant flicker off the water. Jeffery used to tell his secrets to the fallen stars he said he could catch.

“I need to know your story.” He reached his hand toward me, attempting to touch the tips of my fingers with his. I jerked back, tugging on the sleeve of my sweater, wrapping it closer around my shoulders and the flowing, ruffled cotton fabric of my cream colored dress.

“I need to show you something. Maybe it will help you understand. I drew it the night I saw Jeffery on the river.” He bent down, reaching for the worn canvas messenger bag that sat by his feet. I watched him pull out a tattered looking sketchpad, the cover nearly torn off. Carefully, he turned the pages back, and I saw glimpses of rivers and trees and old men in wooden boats. He lingered on a page on which I assumed to be Jeffery on the river, but this time, sitting in the boat with him was a brilliant sketch of a crescent moon. He ran his finger along the arc of the boat and turned the page.

“This.” It was all he said as he flipped the book around toward me.

I blinked. I said nothing.

Maybe the features were a little skewed. The eyes weren’t quite right. The hair wasn’t exactly the right length…but the arm.

I rubbed the length of my sweater sleeve, tugging on the end. I looked at the stranger sitting across from me as I shrugged off my sweater, revealing my shoulders and my sleeveless dress. The ink almost burned on my skin. His eyes followed up from my wrist as he stared at the permanent snake that circled and swirled and slithered its way up my forearm, across my bicep and rested its head on my shoulder.

I fixed my eyes on the sketch, tracing the penciled snake.

“Please,” he whispered, pulling out a handful of pennies. “Tell me your story.”

a couple poems

City Walking
I walk the city

music pulses from under brick sidewalks

with brick walls and brick hearts

dragging along bad habits

of smoke and seduction and sound.

I am the street name, night life artist

leaving marks on coffee shop walls,

pulling, picking, plucking words from

the back of the mind

and I need to say:

Someday, this will all break your heart.

The Dancers
They passed as strangers,

but they knew each other once.

Time had come with wrinkles and canes and unsteady walking.

And memory that forgot love.

Age makes for fragile dancing,

but shadows hold youth, cast along walls.

If years hadn’t faded with his hearing, he’d recognize the waltz.

Another poem by Rives

Kiteby Rives

I mistook a garbage truck for thunder.

The morning after the first night we made love,
I dreamt thunder was chasing rain
through your neighborhood,
flooding the streets and keeping the two of us
indoors for days or even weeks,
until some old prophet could drop, by in an ark,
to take us and the rest of the paired-up animals
to a very high place, or an island maybe,
where we could just
sleep naked for a living.

But the thunder was a garbage truck.
And when my eyes woke up
a note on your pillow said:
"Good morning, Sparkle Boy!
I'll be back around noon.
You--make yourself at home."
And so I did.

Maybe.

I'm saying maybe I put on your slippers,
which were as comfortable as bunnies
because they were bunnies,
and then shuffled over my new favorite
hardwood floor to the bathroom
where maybe I took a bubble bath,
which is not something I can do at my place
because, frankly, my tub is way too skanky
to ever sit my bare ass down in.
And then maybe I got so caught up in the romance of the suds
I started quoting old Latin poetry from my college days
like: "fulsere quondam candidi tibi soles..."
You know: "Verily a bright sun does favor me this morning...muthafucka!"

And then maybe I...played with myself.
But it’s not what you’re thinking--
I’m saying possibly I just sorta
stuck my hand up from the water, going:

hand!(HERE I HOLD MY HAND UP LIKE A SOCK PUPPET
hand!WITHOUT THE SOCK AND MY HAND TEASES ME
hand!IN A HIGH, SMUTTY VOICE):

HAND: "Somebody got laid last night!
Ha-ha-haaaa!
It was youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!"

Or whatever.

And then maybe I...played with myself,
and it's exactly what you're thinking.
But if I did, it was only to put
the mental motion picture of our naked night together
on replay and replay and replay
so touching myself was just like...
Tivo in a way.

And yes, I was still wet when I borrowed your bathrobe.
And yes, I baked apples in your oven
and then ate them with your honey, honey.
And yes, I scared the birds away from your balcony
with my antics, dancing full-blast
to your old Prince CD's--
but please let’s just keep that my little secret,
because nothing is as private as a solitary dance
unless--maybe--it's standing in front of a full-length mirror
in a borrowed pair of bunny slippers,
slipping off a bathrobe and then wishing to a lightbulb
that my name, or my game, or my whatever were bigger,
wondering: "What kind of woman wants this skinny kid for her warrior?"

And so I made for you a kite, enormous,
out of coat hangers, brown paper bags
and the masking tape from that drawer in your kitchen,
and I hung it in the hallway
where you couldn’t hardly miss it,
and I tagged that kite with my words,
I wrote:

Just so you know--

My weird mind wanders and my brave heart breaks.
I've nailed some milestones, but I've made mistakes,
Cuz I got more faults than a map of California earthquakes.

I am taking a nap beneath your covers.
Wake me if you like me.
Wake me if you want me
Wake me if you need another poem.

Your once and future lover
has made himself at home.

and the video of him performing it.

He is the best cure for bad days filled with bad headaches.

this is what happens when i attempt poetry

Silent

When I was young, I used to stare into the mirror too long

until my features became wrong and unfamiliar.

I’d hear my strained voice repeat my name over and over again

until it didn’t sound like a name anymore.

And I was just a faceless, nameless stranger

who didn’t belong.

My mother would call my name,

and I wouldn’t answer

because it didn’t sound like anything.

I would smile when she walked in my room

because those were the times when I wasn’t allowed to speak.

She’d grasp my hand and pull me down from my seat on the dresser

and I’d leave the stranger behind in the mirror.

another memoir attempt

Just Call Me a Fichus

I sat crouched behind the plant, peaking through the fake plastic leaves and the dust that clung to them. Somewhere in the other part of the house, I could hear the counting.

one-one thousand
two-one thousand
three-one thousand

I imagined I was invisible, melting into the deep maroon and green of the wallpaper, becoming the corner of the room shielded by the plastic fichus.

four-one thousand
five-one thousand
six-one thousand

It was a position I never found myself in: the sitting in the corner and playing games with my older brother that is. Louder than my brother’s counting was the rain pouring down on the house. Occasionally, thunder would below and rumblea mocking chuckle every time I jumped. This was the rain that kept us inside, the rain that kept the bikes in the garage, the rain that kept me as my brother’s only solution to boredom.

seven-one thousand
eight-one thousand

He was becoming impatient; his counting sped up.

“Make it to twenty, not ten!” I called.

I regretted that. He’d know exactly where my voice had come from. I’d be caught instantly.

nine-one thousand
ten-one thousand
eleven-one thousand

Somewhere between eleven and fifteen, I stopped hearing the rain; I stopped hearing the counting and heard the chime of the doorbell. I cringed, knowing exactly who it would be. He’d be standing on the porch, a lopsided grin plastered on his face under a sheet of rain. I didn’t have to see him to know he was the reason my brother yelled

forfeit!

They raced to his room, stomping on each step, ready to pull out the massive boxes of Legos. I squirmed out of the corner, taking the stairs two at a time. All the effort made no difference. I watched the door slam in my face and heard the lock click.

I slammed my fist on the door. A child’s hand

pounding
pounding
pounding.





crack

The split in the wood was sudden, as was the silence in the room on the other side of the door.

“Let me in,” I whispered.

I heard the laughter and felt like maybe I really had become invisible.

memoir/free write

Summer Skin

“For every shadow, no matter how deep is threatened by morning light.” - The Fountain

We were the only two people awake in the world. The floor was rough and uncomfortable, but I refused to care. I was tangled in blankets and your arms, and we said nothing. There was no time; hours and minutes blended together, and we pretended it was true. Somewhere, playing softly and breaking the pact between silence and early morning, the song kept skipping. When we both felt my tear slide between our cheeks as you kissed me, I think you understood.

You gathered me up in your arms, wrapping the blanket around my shoulders, and you treated me like a figure of paper-thin glass. Never had I felt that small in front of you, so fragile.

Outside, in the middle of the front lawn, you pulled me to the ground. The grass replaced the basement floor and the ceiling had been ripped back, exposing the sky. Somehow you knew I’d been begging to see the stars. If only my hand stretched just a little farther, maybe I could touch them, let them slip from my hand, and scatter overhead. It would be heaven’s rain. The reality was, this moment was like a torn photo where the world seemed to end at my fingertips. And maybe it did.