Mid Morning Bath

the water rises.
hot then warm then cool.
the foam suffocates.
then dissipates.
soon my own flesh can be seen.
so far under my wrinkling hands grip porcelain.
grip something.
invisible tears

"sleep in the bed you make"

surround my fragile being.
unseen pain

"because of your divorced family"

sweats through my skin.
undetectable yearning

"prove yourself to me"

swims towards the drain.


you say i cant do better.
you have no idea i already have.

It Feels like a Monday

My first sip of coffee
warming my insides
My tired eyes
seeking a true world

Ready or Not - The Submarines

the grass and i part our ways.
i say goodbye.
anxious feelings of winter return.
a sort of trapped feeling.
the yellow bird in her cage.
swinging back and forth.
attempting to break free.

"can you love the way you live now?
ready or not
we are going to be here tomorrow.
wild with hope
in spite of everything."

could this december be different?
have a i learned my lessons?
can i maintain my own warmth?
be my own grass
green and life giving?

"everyday feels like a brand new chance to fall apart
while all the while your only doing the best you can."

or will i always be the yellow bird?
carrying around her luck
with the feathers on her back?

Finally

And there you sit

And there do i

And everyone else all around

And finally we share the same air

(i inhale your exhale)
(delightfully breathing)

And the room was filled with energy
And the space was static

And only i knew

And maybe You too
And the times before danced around

(shadows on the wall)
(only lovers can see)
(only lovers can feel)

And i wanted You

And could think nothing else

Crumb

A bird with a crumb
Brought home from far away
A yellow bird perhaps
A magical crumb maybe
A hope of existence
Then one special day
Caught up in desperate emotion
Suddenly filling and satisfying
The crumb was spent
And instead of gone
The crumb stayed with the bird
In the middle, between breaths
Through the winter and the next
Bringing the bird life
A beautiful life
Because of a crumb
A magical crumb

Black

my charcoal and mascara smudging my world erasing reality

becoming black

other lives. (black tables)

Where are You now?

Today i went to breakfast with my dad. I didn't tell him about the ghosts. Instead we talked about art school, and eggs-over-easy, and missing people, and flat tires. Someone said hi to him and he said hi back. And then we talked about that for some time too. I wanted to cry. I really dont know why. But the tears stuck around for a while after. They hung out all day. Swirling with my contacts, teasing my mascara. I never did cry.
Does that make me better?
I took a very long nap before noon. The sun was very bright in my room, but i still managed to sleep. I even dreamed. I dreamed about sleeping. When i woke up in my dream the clock said 3:50 PM. My room was a mess, like someone came in and searched for something. Then i really woke up. It was only 1:38 PM. My room was still a mess, but i knew no one was in it. Only me, and the very bright sun.
Taylor and I had coffee for a dollar eighty. Tis the season with Apple Cinnamon and Java. She was grounded but we still talked. It was nice. Until the vacuum started. I brought her home and the lake was all glassy. Light yellow and cornflower blue. Some ducks floated on top. I wonder if they get scared of fish biting their toes like i do?
The bike ride was fabulous. Made my heart beat faster than it has for a while. The crisp air all cold and fast against my nose. I was home in 38 minutes, right before dark. The time of day when the sky begins to close its eye lids and everything becomes fuzzy. I came home at that time and screeched my tires against the drive way. That made me smile.
My mom seemed sad when i walked in. She sat at the computer with her checkbook and droopy shoulders. She smelled like leaves and i wish she would have hugged me. I could have smelt the leaves more. My sister was gone. Again. I miss her i think. And next year i will be gone. This fact is a little devastating.
Now the moon moves outside of the window. Maybe ill watch it for a while.

A Night with a Stranger

Leonid.
Sounds like a nice guy.
Interesting and Intelligent.
Maybe ill spend the night with him.
Until early hours of the morning.


I might tell him about You.
Do You think he will listen?
Leonid.
Sounds like a good listener.
Attractive and Studious.


Do You think he would laugh at my stories;
And not make fun of the way I am.
I might bring up that one that hurts the most.
Leonid.
He would understand.
All quiet and empathetic.


Sounds a lot like You.
Funny how You always come up.
I hope Leonid doesn't mind.
My heart is already Yours.
Sorry Leonid.

A Late Night and My Paintbrush

The stars were crisp and shinning.

Maybe it was the winter air.

Maybe it was the merlot.

Maybe it was the paint thinner.

Maybe it was You.

-writen on a bathroom floor-

Saturday Nov 7th 2009


I am overcome in regret. My past few days have felt like a million different lifetimes. I feel as though i do not deserve these experiences. I am not well enough to handle positive moments. I have created my own misery. Thats what they say. They tell me i have done this to myself.


I do not understand. Why would i do such a thing to myself? Why would i create such an experience with such a predictable outcome? I know what happens next. The water never stops rising.


But neither do my problems. So it is me and these problems i have created. I am an artist, therefore i will ruin my own life and tear into every other. This cannot be my destiny. How can my desires lead to such a destination. I am a misunderstanding.

Drawing 3800 4B

Today the sun decided not to rise

and the darkeness forgot to be on its way.

It is a friday

and my head is full and spinning.

All i know is You.

I wish everyone else would go away

so i could find my way to You.

There is a vital piece i have forgotten

and need to see to become myself.

But i continue to carry on this life;

day after day;

and so do You with her.

For comfort, i pretend You still think of me

in peace

rather then the bitterness i left You in.

I listen to our music;

old but still new to my heart.

Every song is Yours,

and ours,

and holds a story i have yet to write.

The story of us haunts my mind,

and boils my soul until i suddenly beging to spew...

on days like today.

Days when the sun decided not to rise

and the darkness forgot to be on its way.

On these days i feel empty

and alone in my own skin.

i feel alone most of the time.

With my future so uncertain

and my dreams mostly in my mind.

so i keep my mind busy.

except on days like today.

8:41 AM

You are my king

and You dont even know.

Or do you?

Are we still attached somehow

by a tiny string,

from my universe to yours.

Do we still have that.

A beautiful path

paved by music

and freedom

and peace

and love

and everything that makes up You and me.

I like to think so.

I like to meditate on You

and remind everypart of me You.

All the times we shared.

All of our expressions

and all of You.

Just all of You.

(sketch)

I cant draw. I cant draw You!

(sketch)

And who am i to draw me?

I wish You would draw me.

or at least attempt inside of Your precious mind.

Search.

I search for You.

Outside of my front window i peer.

Onto dank sidewalks and heavy pavement,

Wet leaves pasted to the ground; orange and red and brown,

Shadowy tree limbs hang from a sleepy trunk,

A grave sky lays above, dull and insipid.

No one is outside.

Neither are You.

I search for You.

Around my quiet house i wander.

Into musty closets and forgotten attics,

Dirty clothes decorate a vacant room; sweaters and socks and shoes,

Lonely books poke out and stare from a corner,

A heavy ceiling pulls me in, to reality and now.

No one knows.

Neither do You.

I search for You.

Inside a stranger i seek.

Under faded gold strands and yellow cotton folds,

Perfect creases on chapped lips; mute and lonely and bare,

Weighty limbs fall toward anxious hands,

A heart beats and blood flows.

No one else.

Not even You.

I stand alone.

A dreamer.

A writer.

An artist.

A memory.

I stand alone.

And search for you.

Note to Self

i will write tomorrow.

monday, october 26, 2009.

will i be seeing You?

Jotted Down

It is funny how You always seem to come up in conversation. Everyday.

It is ironic how i continue to carry on with my life, and Your not in it. Yet i am Your best. And You dont know it.

I find it hard to believe i have gone this long, this lost. I have wandered too far and home is only a memory. I drown in this memory. You know the one. Before You left and i was all Yours. And You were all mine.

The glass pebbles and wooden board we played over and over.

The coffee cups, cream and sugar, and froth that decorated the rim.

The paths we walked and stories You told.

Love and Interuption-Page France. More of an Interuption...

i wish You knew how much You are to me.

A Minor Escape

These words shall be my escape for they have been trapped a while and have never been sure since their creation. But now they must come out.

Living with a frustration so deep and intense

Continuing to surface and sink as i wallow in my despair

Numb to my surroundings

My maker shakes his head and knows the way

I continue to wallow

Continue to wait for a sign

I am never sure, never ever sure.

And my frustration is still, roots deep.

I escape to my head, yet suffer there all the same

But today it rains and suddenly i am thinking clear

Clearer

Maybe the rains forces my thoughts to slow down

To separate

Oil on water

Now i can peer closer to the bottom

At all of the sharp edges; at all the decay

Pieces of my past and present and secrets and desires

Pieces of You and me.

My mistakes and expired joys.

Ignored once more for a time, i turn away from this sight

And yearn closer to happiness

Crawl towards the ceiling

The blue cloud sky

All the clouds

For now, i let it rain and listen to my music and sip my black coffee and consider being okay for another day.

More than life-

"I want this more than life."

I Hope You Find This...

i have called many my own and claimed their naive hearts; pilled each one in my backyard. but You are different then the rest. You are my lover. my magical lover with mirrors for eyes and a heart untouched. unlike my own. tattered and indifferent. but notheless Yours. although You may not believe a single word i speak, i know my own truths and am familar with my own darkness. so are You. You know me best. for the short time we were one, You understood. the best You could. You understood. and spoke for me. beautiful lyrics i listened to in the thick woods.

i seem to write the same over again here and find myself searching for You in songs and us in books. i have yet to find anything as precious. we were so precious. now what could we be?

Be Something

I want to go home and tell You all my secrets.

Whisper my entire heart through Your ear, to Your soul.

I would speak of how much i miss You.

Your calming presence, magical wisdom, and entertaining adventure.

Your pureness to know me for me.

Starting new seems impossible and completely unreachable.

Its been a while, and i still ache for all You are.

Your fathers sweater, those navy cords, Your circle glasses

The hazelnut coffee, bottles of wine, all of our hiding spots.

When we watched the sunset, we spoke of its colors, and shapes, and beauty.

You are the only one to seek out the stars at night and wonder what else there is.

You made life simple, and easy, and beautiful.

Our affection was rare and raw; the core of two beings entwined.

Holding hands. Your strong, soft hands.

They held my heavy heart, and wrote love letters from far away.

The music floated in unison through our insides, a soundtrack downloaded after Christmas.

Although Your grand advice is tacked above my bed, hand written, and almost memorized,

I am not enough to take it.

" The most vital part of an experience like this is not to languish in the bitterness or to become intoxicated by the sweetness, but to take comfort of tender memories and set them side by side with the cold realization that they are over. "

The phrase burdens myself. I simply can not take Your advice.

Yes friend, You still are my heart.

Yes i will still write. You will still write.

I will still read. You will still read.

At least we can still be somewhere.

At least we can still be something.

First Monday

i am done with school. with high school.

with drama dressed in low slung tank tops and sparkle lip balm.

with last names and their logo Polo's and new basketball shoes.

with soup-in-a-can smelling classrooms and hand sanitizer.

with rocket man and his diabetes.

with the scuba diver and his yard stick.

with the Brett Farve shrine and too much quiz bowl.

with red pens and check marks. (13 out of 30.)

with equations and calculators and numbers with letters.

with mandatory pep rallies and social football games.

with silver glitter prom nights and dinner down my dress.

with weekly dehydration and coffee drives between class.

with her and him and mr. and mrs.

i am done with school. with high school.

Sometimes you have to look reality in the eye and deny it. If you only look at the what is, you may never attain what could be.

now i study durning summer. graduate of 2009. i will not survive another year...at least not sane.

Learning to Leave

soft embers murmur and swell

breathing warm colors to a lonely midnight

a familiar back splash on suspended black canvas

a similar vibe with a ghost of sweet august

small conversation among various types

nothing is spoken between yellow and blue

distant from the melody shared times before

the air feels colder than hundreds past

and these trees don't whisper anymore

the magic man has left with the rabbit and hat

the soundtrack we created still spins

craving rewind and reaching for alluring eyes

a number is taken for Your conscious thought

as i attempt to teach myself how to leave

Forget the Following

Some things you do for money, some you do for fun, but some you do for love and they will come back to you one by one.

I climbed through my window at one o'clock that first morning and made out with You after a shot or two (or three.) We called it fireworks.

Months later there was love and Page France and musty sheets and no one else.

I always disappeared when You were with me. i floated around the top of the tallest hill like a ghost, a lost child, an invisible soul.

I was always among company; oak, poplar, and birch. They whispered and you whispered. It was a magical conversation.

You brought me a daisy as i arrived to You; an image i have stained in my mind and meant to much. You truly understood me. You let me be free and wild and out of line. I barely ever made sense next to You.

But you always wrote to me when the distance was too far. And You came home on a greyhound bus, 17 hours. We became love in Your castle and reality melted around us like candle wax. No one knew.

When we were scared and hungover You told me we would raise up any mistakes. You held me in your blue arms in the morning as i searched for comfort and made You my home.

We became real together at the top of a scary world. Not a word was shared; for fear is overwhelming. You still held my hand as the sun flooded the September space beneath us.

I traveled with Your father across the bridge. Public radio and charcoal pencils. A tall brick building, You at the door.

Your roommate was gone; thank heavens (always the top bunk, always in our world.) I loved the aluminum beer cans and the organic black coffee and greasy pizza we lived off of. The rain was not needed but I will never forget it.

I will never forget the august air and the pit and the canoe and Your blue eyes. We both jumped in and cooled our skin and kissed our mouths and laughed our lips, half dressed and drenched.

The food was great on Your last night in town, but Your company was better. We left no tip. You sang in the car on the way home before the light turned green. We drank hazelnut coffee and talked till they came to say goodbye.

I already missed You and my heart silently wept, my soul slowly dimmed. I still smiled and tried not to think to much.

Early You left. We made promises and You didn't let me cry. I never did and neither did You. We tucked the memories away with good intentions. The season began to shift as i drove away.

Yesterday You told me it will never be the same. I pray to Jesus Your wrong.

Never.

Sleep in the treefort of childhood my dear

look to the glowing night windows past

dream deep to the depths of the pit with me

dive in

(it was so warm.)

Always my evening prayer

forever my perfect picinic

the rainy day in purple shoes

an easy laugh

a first high

i never will forget these

never.

Remember the sunset

for i am there

i am the yellow

you are the blue

do you see me reach for you?

You Speak

At last i hear Your song again. Your words so put together. Like they were created and thought through months in advance. Like they were ment for gods to understand and kings to ponder. Each sentence You speak is a new poetry. Each phrase a shimmering lyric. I love to listen to You carry on about minor details; over exagerating the small parts of peices and objects and experiences. Draining the life from books and places and people. I collect ever drop and let it swirl in my mind, float and breath.

Fictional

My new counselor lady tells me to be "proactive."

She tells me i should conform to my parents ways; to the ways of society. She speaks at me over her nose glasses, bold colored plastic flecks around slicing eyes. Her protruding chest falls over the table, scrunching up notes about divorces and addictions. She is way to close to me. I lean back in my chair and nod. I soon crawl back to the inside of my mind as she goes on to explain why or how or what or something. She keeps chattering and i keep nodding. mhmm, yes, okay. now go away.

At least my mother isn't in the room.

I say this in the kindest of ways. She doesn't know how she suffocates the conversation. She tries not to, but always does. And this always annoys me. This always pangs my insides and screws my fingers deep into the chair arms. I always have to bite my tongue, look the other way, swallow defenseless words. The new counselor lady shoos her away and i take a deep breath. Her questions start immediately. She begins to write a story about me. It is fictional. No one knows the real story.

I only give to the world what i must now.

The bare outsides of my existence. I give the tired eyes which stare blankly, withholding, saving, preserving. I show my dirty feet as they tap tap. A distraction, a nervous habit. My lips as thy strengthen. Restrained words. Filtered words. Their words. I save my words for You. My story isn't written yet.

Past

greyhound bus brings you home on a friday

late in the evening, early the next morning

never thought youd hold on this long

never imagined

//

black bird carries bad luck back

upon its shoulders

feathers ruffled expressively

beak held impressively

onto my hand

tugging, yanking pressure

pulling me out of my warm nest

dropping fast

freefall

//

i remember it rained as i drove away

slowly watching it all freeze

your music was the only music i could hear

i felt

i believed in.

//

there is a fly in my head

pestering my brain

buzzing with noise

now yelling

now screaming

now crying

same buzz over again

day after day.

//

a storm rolls in.

but it never rains.

it just ends.

To choose. To slumber.

(written March 31)

I trade an on time arrival to my Pre-Calc class for a long drag on my morning coffee. First tardy of the new marking period, last marking period of my high school life. I could have made the class on time; i just chose not to. Now in class i look out the second story window. March snow swirls against a pale grey sky. Today is colder than yesterday.

Yesterday i ignored my Monday schedule. I skipped the first five hours, only to return to Pottery and English. I shared the newborn sunshine with you through car windows. we filled our absence from reality with caffeine and easy conversation. My eyes stung with exhaustion as you told stories sparkling with college parties, alcohol, drugs, and freedom. The words you spoke fatigued my rebellious heart that hung in my ribcage. Mono floated through my bloodstream and previous nights without sleep still weighted my bones. My stomach twisted, angry from lack of food. I ignored it and the past 48 hours. My concentration was purely on your presence. As we drove, i gazed at your profile. I forgot about high school, uneasy friends, and my torn family. I forgot about myself.

Blanketed with ice for months before, the frigid water begins to thaw. The sun yearns to warm the dark, cold depths. Reality pulls me to the bottom. My bloated body rises to the surface; it's pale composure my flag of surrender. Thoughts swirl away from my unconscious mind.

Mothers stern face hiding layers of concern and worry as she spells out failures. Sisters confident composure yelling words of disappointment to a streaked face. Fathers lack of affection, dismissing the words long to be heard, that he haven't been spoken for weeks. Rock back and forth, back and forth. Hands grasping its own shoulders. Rock back and forth, back and forth. Thoughts poisoning a empty mind. Back and forth. A dark room catches bitter tears. Back and forth. Sleep comes slowly.

Box

it has been a while since my fingers pecked at these keys.

it has been a while for a lot of things.

since the sun shined,

or the grass grew,

or my days were free.

it has been a while.

i cant help but feel locked up, contained, trapped.

my life seems to have me in a box