hard cider & old chinese food

april 15, 2009
i am disappointed
the darkness has left you alone
and all you can say to me is
i like you

the duck is silent, waiting
her clutch is settled by the brick wall
and i pass by unknowing, intoxicated
by the sun that kisses my face.

i have a secret: i'm not like you
i listen to your blue collar riddles and i say i know but that is a lie. i can't help lying. because yould spit in my face if i told you that it is also your mind that makes you poor, i can see it in your eyes and smell it on your breath and hear it in the way you hate life. working at burgerking for three years will do that to anyone. i've felt it and let it hold me down, but not for long.?


april 20
i hate the thought of having to move, to see people and speak their sordid language. after all, we are supremely alone in the world. i want to get away to a place where all the people are strangers and my actions count for nothing toward tomorrow.

let me lie down in the cool rain and let them pretend to be tears across my cheek: that is their only solace, falling, dying. i will gladly give them this moment to speak for me of the past and the future: night lies behind and beyond, the gray of rain and despair.

april 22
i squeal loudly, your hand in my face. there is no danger here and yet the thought of you so close disgusts me. your words, carnivorous, take me by the throat.

april 23
the arrogance of empire
the first leaves are sprouting and i can alreay smell the green (of lzazy summer when the cicadas hum in the trees and i am too hot and tired to venture outside)

daffodil are you an individual or a number like me?

blackbirds warn me that i am not welcome here : run back to your sanitary classroom, girl

when i was a child i ate little golden ants, just to feel them burn on my tongue

april 25

today i saw a fiery cardinal calling from the top of a tall tree. elusive bird pledging fidelity to the world.

time to see what's become of me: shadows and sorcery.

july 4
the willow trees have the strongest backs
i lie on their bending branches
down by the river running.
if i play this character long enough
she will wake and run among the lilies and cattails
oblivious of the waking world

july 30
it took me a long time to feel like myself again: moody and preoccupied with my own thoughts, reading all day, eating little, exploring the world by myself. i forgot how much i dislike people. they are fascinating really, and i am miserable without them, but i still dislike encountering them when i'm unprepared. especially those i know. especially those who are (or worse, think they are) doing something useful and kind and marvelous and strategic with their lives. i have become one of the faceless masses. i am not content to do anything resembling work, and pine when i think what i could be accomplishing. the deep conversations i longed to encounter when i came to college have come and gone, and i sat openmouthed, dumb. i have no opinions, or imaginings, or beliefs.

licking a pine cone.

today,i saw two locusts, one black and one red. they sat together on the cement of the sidewalk and moved their hind legs, first one, then the other. they touched antennae, and continued the dance.
Today, on my way home from the pool, under gathering thunderclouds, a boy walks past me. He doesn't look at me. I wonder why, but I am content not to know. The sun is heavy on my face as i cross the asphalt and head toward the pond. I touch the tip of my bleached hair to my tongue to test the potency of the chlorine. I stop, about to cross the road--I can't help myself. Under a pine tree i pick up a pine cone that lay nestled in reddish needles. I press it to my face and smell nothing. It is a hard-edged cone, not one of the ones that are easily crushed in a fist. I put my tongue one one of the hard brown nubs. I cautiously feel the spaces in between with my tongue, test the shoots with my teeth.
I think I'm going crazy: teething. Wet with saliva, the pine cone smells deep, rainy. I put half of the pinecone in my mouth as i cross the road, sucking it like an oversized pacifier. I don't care who sees me. I want to see everything, smell, feel and taste every bit of the world.
I'll never write as gritty, offensive words as Palahnuik, or be as crazy as Plath. I can't capture the soul of solitude in a blade of grass like Dickinson. I realize I haven't been looking for real people to be my soulmates. I don't go where they are: i stay in my house, in the woods, on pathways where i am least likely to encounter anyone. And then i feel alone. I crunch the tip of the pine cone between my front teeth--spit woody bits onto the grass.
Passing the first row of townhouses, I smell the thick musky scent of the mulch they laid down today. It's July 30th, and people are moving out. I don't want any of them to interrupt my solitude. And two days of reading and solitude feels like a decade. I pass a friend, getting into a parked car. "Hey, how are you?" I say. "Hi. I'm ok, you?" I think she's crying. I walk on, homeward.

Perhaps I'll go downtown, get out of the house. But probably not. I'm afraid I might find something like intimacy there.

an offering to the god of doubt

you have something concrete to teach them.
And I, what do I have?

no gas to go anywhere
and no imagination
no cash for an adventure
and no desire for things to change.
Where have I come from
and where am I going?
The people i once loved seem to be fleeing,
their thrall over me so brazenly comforting.
The fan in the window seems to mock me
for all is still and airless despite the noise.

~
I can't believe i still get upset
after hearing you say, "I don't care" so many times
and yet all of it, is real-- lies.

Like that girl's hips and her smooth little thighs
you caught my looking with my old man's eyes
and laughed saying
"Are you sure you're not bi?"
And i smiled because it's easier to covet
and let my comparisons hide.

It's his hand on her waist
so possessive &
paired with that vacuous face
that's got me staring as though--
with sheer force of will -- i could vanish and take her place.

But neither of us want that.

the world around me is so gritty and real
i want all of it

i still believe that if i say i don't care enough
i won't.

I'm going to pretend
that none of this exists, at all
at all
because you're really just a character
i made up inside my head.

After all,
you're only real to me--
like looking through a mirror
what i see is a reflection
twisted by my own mind.

feeling strange
like the world
like the world coming out of the rain
and suddenly
the air is
here.

why are you gone
my little companion
i loved you so much less
when you were with me.

i wish i said goodbye.
what difference would it make?

questionable content quotes:
"Charming like a badger to the face, maybe."

what does this mean

oh life, why must you hurt so
when everything is so shiny, yet
all the memories pointed
so sharply
in their silence.
oh life, why must you be so soft
like a billowed curtain--
that cringes
and cries as loud as I.
Too pale,
at the edge of your world
i am instantly.
obscured, contented, terrified
here and everywhere
i must never cross you.


I'm naked in your understanding
that all this is temporary
and all my fears are this and that
and all this has already happened.

what now , world
i stretch my arms to greet you
feel the muscles
like liquid ore
begging so to meet you
and clouds like marbled ice
come down to kiss my cheeks.

i have never done anything that wasn't easy

When i came to college
I sold my soul
I killed my conscience
I gave away my moral compass
and I erased my resolutions.
I learned to see in black and white and gray
instead of colors
and I decided that the best policy
isn't often honesty
I learned to mistrust nice guys
and beg for compliments
I discovered that the best i can get
is taken at someone's expense;
I stopped sleeping, eating and dreaming
and I walk alone only when I am surrounded.
I learned to break the law and to defend the individual
I learned to be a good capitalist,
and i lost my imagination.
And now, I am an adult.