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.