Stain (draft)

Poppies, German fields, something
about death and life cycles
foreign, faded papers and
red, rusted bicycles

I do not belong here.

I sigh. Shift, and sip my wine.

Poetry readings bore me
All these pricks with their monotone voices
Empty, soulless pretty words
and not one damn insight or meaning
in the whole bar

(I wonder if I can sleep with my eyes open
and people will think I'm just lost in verse)

In my purse, my own poetry volume
And my intent here was to schmooze
I am pretty and proper
despite lack of black turtle neck and beret
(yes, some fucker is wearing a black beret)

I am not one of these pompous
overly-edited, overly-educated pricks
who have nothing to say
but derivative drivel
that spills out of thesauruses
and rhyming dictionaries
but not veins

I am cocky.
I embrace that I might just be
something new and rough
jaded and raw
unpolished and spontaneous
ugly and truthful and crazy

I like it.

Blinds

I live in a house of black cats
forty-eight stairs up in the air
and sometimes I feel gravity
ain't got nothing on me

I don't have a job
I don't have much money
and when the blinds are closed
I can pretend it's not sunny

stalemate (half asleep draft)

i don't know what to do
with this beloved, kind man in my bed
who says he can't love me yet
because he's afraid I'll break his heart

through snot and tears
I say I don't know how long I can stay
because if he doesn't want to lay claim
he'll break my heart

i want to punch walls
i want to scream from my fire escape
i want to stare down new york city
and get out all the things i dare not say

we are supposed to be wise
we are supposed to be twice shy
I know, I know, I know

but love can't be a chartered course
it can't be planned out at desks and offices

and i can't help but shake the feeling
that if only i were someone else he hasn't met yet
that he could let go
and appreciate the difference between
tripping,
falling,
and fainting

photosynthesis

the bleeding has stopped
i am clotted and bandaged

i have put the lava back in the volcano
i have contained the hurricane in a can

in the moment it felt free and beautiful
to cry on your shoulder, to open a vein

my voice cracked, i wanted to beat you bruised
it's no secret why i turned off all the lights, the tv

how can two people inches apart
feel hundreds of miles away?

the apartment still, fishtank bubbling softly
broken refrigerator roaring, frosting, defrost

and me whimpering and clutching
begging you to let me in
then begging you to let me out

and me simmering and worn
begging you to let me go
then begging you to hold me tight

i am lunar, i am tides
i can't help the way i ravage seashores

you are solar, you are periodic and predictable
perhaps concealed by cloud, by storm
but still there, steady, waiting

i rise and writhe, i disappear and shine
i am phases, i am reflected photons
i rule the night, dwarf further stars

and sometimes, just sometimes
i am faded and soft and white in your day
demanding your light
and distracting your photosynthesis

provocation (draft)

you can't be this good, this patient, this sweet
i shall provoke you
not of mal-intention or black heart
but i need to see, i need to see

you can't be this loving, this calm, this devoted
i shall poke you, push you
I need to see how far you swing away
before you swing on back

I am used to pendulums
mostly broken and erratic
I am used to patterns, askew

So forgive me, love
if sometimes I run away
I know it's not fair
to test you, to not trust you
to turn my back
just to see if you will still be there
when i am brave enough
to look over my shoulder

Ms. Violent Vanessa

Ms. Violent Vanessa sits inside
She is into scratchiti and tattoos
Ms. Violent Vanessa supposes
She draws conclusions
in bright red nail polish
spilled on kitchen counters

Ms. Violent Vanessa doesn't get out much
She is a victim of the Good Girl Guard
Ms. Violent Vanessa can read, she knows
She knows the details of the restraining order
and despite her flaws and flailing nature
she respects the law

Ms. Violent Vanessa misses Riot Grrl
She remembers Bikini Kill and the babes lost in toyland
Ms. Violent Vanessa was born wrong
She bursted onto a dead scene and
was tragically conceived, planned, and eugenicized
to not have a tongue

Ms. Violent Vanessa tastes like amber candy
She has sat away from the sun too long
Ms. Violent Vanessa sours and preserves
She is canned fruit, dusty, in wooden cupboards
in a house long abandoned, forgotten
by people who couldn't afford cardboard boxes

No one likes Ms. Violent Vanessa when she's angry
No one likes Ms. Violent Vanessa when she writhes
No one likes Ms. Violent Vanessa when she tries to explain
that all little girls, all sold-out women, all dried prune ladies
sometimes need a place to scream, seethe, and dream

the first month

am i synth or strings?
am i pounding or caress?
am i a lover or just a whore
beneath a thin black dress?

turn, turn, turn
i can dance when properly inspired
even i can trip and supine
when so appropriately inclined

and i'm pretty sure that i am
capable, that i am able, and aware
i have decided yes, that i am worthy
it is a brilliant, grape-flavored decision
bubbly, infected, and springing to sensation
that yes, i can love you
and yes, i can agree to the terms
of life, leisure, and lunacy
and still keep my maiden name

nets

love shouldn't have this much intention
i should be about affection, not attention
i should dance with butterflies
not flit and fight to catch them in nets

pink lips

hey mother fucker
my pink lips said
i shrink back and
hide my smile as
he turns, angry
big, tall, wide, imposing

i can't help that
my eyes always seem
innocent and shy
i can't help that
my lips are pink
and oh so blameless
in their crimes

Status

Janice likes to bleed.
She likes to scratch and scratch
at invisible itches
histamines improbable
skin beneath nails, blood smeared polish

Janice is a seether
A pot on a stove, low heat
Still to the eye, steam
tiny bubbles below the surface
scalding to the touch

great.

You're Suffering from "Unemployment Depression"

While coping with a layoff is never easy, it seems as though you've really taken your job-loss to heart. You may feel like the job hunt is hopeless, believing that you'll "never" find anything. No doubt getting out of bed has become difficult because your unemployed status has colored your entire life. Everyone can feel discouraged and down as a result of being unemployed, but if you're low on energy and are having trouble concentrating, eating and sleeping, it's time to ask for help. If you can, make an appointment with your doctor or a professional counselor. You need someone to talk to, someone who can help you cope and gain a new perspective on the situation. Confiding in a professional is one of the best ways to start the healing process.

In the meantime, stick with your pre-job-loss routines as much as possible (don't stay in bed all day!) and try to keep other life changes to a minimum. Don't cut yourself off from family and friends; they want to help you, and their support can make all the difference. Try to think of each new day as an opportunity, rather than a challenge. Rest assured you are not alone. You can find support and advice right now from other women on the Job Seekers Support message board at iVillage.

cabin fever

Day three - bad mood
I woke up cold and dirty
no heat or hot water again
crusty-eyed and bitter
blanket cocoon
I shuffle from bed to couch
so pissed off i'm pissed off
again

I can't shake this headache
and this feeling that I'm jinxed
I bury my face into the cushions
and try to will myself happy

everything seems like it's on my "to do"
clean clothes, dirty clothes
dishes, clutter, litter, clusters

i bury my head deeper
wish it was snowing, wish it was raining
something outside to match my inside
i bury my head deeper
ostrich-it deep inside comforter
deep inside my mood

it's so easy to simmer and sulk
so easy to point fingers
and not to walk

around 2 pm it'll change
around 2 pm the light will shift
around 2 pm it'll itch
and around 2 pm I'll breathe again

oh and

when I was 22 and had short black hair I didn't feel pasty -- I felt "alternative." I felt emo, I felt hip, I felt sexy. I didn't mind being called goth and I liked how it looked. I thought I'd dig it again at 30. Guess what? Since I dyed it last month I've had like two seconds where I liked it. I feel pasty and right now I have that wicked desire I get twice a year to cut all my hair off. In fact, i think I might. Having a manic monday. ha. literally. or something. just antsy and blah-y. i could do something HEALTHY about it or I could cut my hair and eat freezer burned sorbet.

i think it has to do with having such fun weekends filled with people that make me laugh and keep me company and then waking up monday morning and remembering oh yeah I'm insanely fat, I'm chronically lazy and undisciplined, I have no job, I have no money, and still have about 40,000 things I've been meaning to do but I'm just not.

by Tuesday the feeling fades and I've come up with SOMETHING to do but yeah, Mondays are the worst.

ick

I feel so gross and fat and crazy and delusional.

A picture. It's all from a picture taken of me yesterday.

I looked happy but I looked so damn bad.

And now I just wanna hide and if seen mutter apologies.

I do not love myself right now.

I feel too tired and hungover and chemically whirlled to do anything about it now but feel bad and sit on the couch listening to sad songs and wish this headache and this self hatred will dissipate and I can only hope that people don't see that girl when they look at me. I feel like they see the girl I want to be and I hold my breath and wait for them to open their eyes, for the light to change, then they'll know how repugnant i am. how weak and pathetic and vulnerable and pulsing and raw. a bare nerve. zip zap zip zap.

i am all insulation. no wires. i am all shorts and shocks, no closed circuits.

seven years

no one here knew me before the blood
no one here can tell what made me do it
no one here recalls the screams
no one here even knows.

this is where i drifted, where i landed
i was alone and abandoned and thrown away
yes, this is where I landed, where I drifted
when i was thrown away and abandoned

these streets know me, we go way back
this is the corner Andy left me to go find
an ATM back on New Year's 2005
I thought he was my date
he thought I was his fail safe
and I ended up walking home alone
stillettos, short skirt, through the projects
4 am

yes these streets know me, especially over there
over on Broadway I had another life
I took another train, I fucked another man
we fought vigorously like only the young can
i'd cry and plead and kick dead horses
until i'd fall asleep in a puddle of whimpers
and he'd take pleasure in thinking he'd comforted me

but see, over here, over in this zip code
where I reside now, where I wander now
they don't know I lived in Bushwick eight years ago
they don't know I've been in more ER's
than I can name
they don't know that I tried to throw myself off a roof
I don't even know if they'd believe me

I was always the good girl
I pouted and sulked but buried my anger inside
I wish I could have been with you
Looking at your high school pictures
400 miles away, six grades ahead of me
I wonder as you turn the page
if things had been different for me
if I had ran away
or dared to say "no!"

maybe I should've been suburban
maybe I should've lost my virginity in a car at fifteen
maybe I should've written more poetry
maybe I should've learned to play the guitar

But I am here now.
And I know that they don't know.
I know that I shouldn't care
And I know that the things I've spent
a decade defining myself by
diagnoses, faded diary pages, scars on my skin
are losing their relevance

every seven years
the cells of the body are replaced
I have lived five cellular lifetimes
I shed my skin, I redefine
I bend to your touch
I surrender
I wonder what these new mitochondria
will bring, will write, will sing

spin on spinster (draft)

we walk in the door and the bouncer,
pony-tailed, tattooed, and pierced,
asks for our IDs

I hand him mine and tell him my name
say that I'm here to perform at 10
he hands me back my license
takes James' and smiles slow
his lips kind, flirting, but teasing
"so you're the spinster"
he says to me

I giggle because what else can I do
it's before Valentine's Day
it's how I'd billed myself, promoted my show
but part of me throbs
the feminist inside kicks her
I remember freshman year
grrrl talk, grrl power, audre lorde
yaddah yaddah yaddah

i say yes and am glad it's dark
so no one sees me blush or care

what the hell else can i do?
you call me fat, i'm going to eat cake
and smile and lick the frosting from my lips

what can i do, indeed?
i'm turning thirty, i'm single, i'm childless
so I'll glue stuffed animals on my clothes
and smile and proclaim myself a cat lady

i'll throw parties to mourn my dusty ovum
and i'll wrap myself in spanx and
sting my lips til they swell with chemicals
I can't do that sex and the city thing
even with cosmo in hand it's not to be faked

i'll explain to my lover that i'm in no hurry
but yet there's a clock in my head that won't rewind
i'll continue on being practiced and cute and
constantly questioning and neurotic
and if he's worthy he won't be wary

(too much)

i'm trying to embrace the great
advertising motto of my childhood
and morph it with the lessons of
skinned knees and broken hearts
earned and inflicted on back dirt roads
and school yard ball fields

never let them see you sweat
and certainly never let them see you cry

i've learned to control my lower lip
the timbre and resonance of my voice
but I know my eyes are wide and alive
and I can't wear sunglasses all the time

i take the stage and am happy I can laugh at myself
I say laugh now if you're gonna laugh later
so I imagine the speeches that'll be given at my wedding
and the stories I'll tell my daughter
as I rock her to sleep
I'll tell her that her mommy
was a poet in New York City
and I'll leave out all the hard parts
and the times I was less than brave

Wednesday Before Midnight

finally, it's raining.

i was walking from room to room
when i heard the swoosh of
tires in puddles out on the street

I stop, turn, and to the window

the breeze licks the pink curtains
and presses them against my bare legs
i like it when it's cool but warm
rainy but misty
and the city slows

it's dark
headlights smear on the gated storefronts
and i settle to the floor
gracie's in heat again
on the other side of the apartment she howls
i lean against the cold radiator
focus on breath, on rain, on traffic

a horn sounds
I jump, hand to chest
I wish you were here
I wish you were awake
because it's the time of night when
I have so much to say
and no ears in which to whisper

close my eyes
drizzle from the screen on my knee
smoke monster truck screams outside
and although i have my own ammunition
my own self, my own ways to hide and fight
I wish you here again, like I do every night

a consideration of gonads and aging

I was just getting used to 7 years
in New York City
when suddenly it's almost eight

I was just starting to get comfortable
with saying "I'm almost thirty"
but now I most certainly am not

I have conversations with my ovaries
I've written about it before in
deep symbolism and high poetics
but I do talk to them
late at night I reach down
I feel the jut of hip bones
despite my weight, despite belly
And then in the middle
higher, lower, gently
we talk in morse code
I can't tell you what I say
it's sworn and secret confessions

and as I write this
I realize how funny it is
that I can say I massage and
whisper to my ovaries
and it's poetry, it's art
but when a man rubs his balls
and talks to himself
it's something all together
different.

(giggle)

5 pm, Sunday, Driving Against the Sun

I can't be much of a poet
if i can't write much of a poem.

Let's face it

As it is, I'm more of a scribbler
than composer

As it is, I'm lucky to get by
or complete a thought
with this mind of mine

Feelings come to me in
incomplete sentences
and conclusions and epiphanies
bubble and burst and erupt
from the end of my tongue
before periods can be placed
or phrases diagrammed

I twist the language
like tendrils of hair
around a lover's finger
and I love that you
sit back and watch
as I toss paint onto canvas
as I stomp on the puddles
you smile, wait, and see
what my feet and hands
can do

with you I melt
i lean into you and I can sway
you keep me steady
my arhythmic heart
taps morse code
as we fall into each other
naked, warm, discussing
serious, important matters
like the grape jelly conspiracy
and how to protect your neck
in case of cougar attack

words
there are words i can only whisper
i can only say in my mind
i can only say with my touch
because i am not yet brave
i am not yet whole
to scream them from rooftops
due to fear of a fall

I am a poet at heart
I am not of craft, of study, of reading
I do not claim talent or pride myself
in any charm, in any fame or greatness
and what matters to me
is not names on spines
or dollars in pockets
but your hand reaching for mine
across the console of your car

=] -- this smiley face was typed by my cat as I was re-reading the poem. haha. that's bubbles' addition

epiphanies

Perhaps it is perfectly natural for someone who has been at times psychotic, depressed, manic, and suicidal -- all specific, medical symptoms for the more vague and vaporous condition "crazy" -- to constantly ponder the meaning of the word and more importantly, the basic concept of sanity/insanity. I worry quite often that feelings I have are not normal. When I am assured that they are, I still have doubt. Sometimes I feel like I have emotional dementia. It's not 1943, I'm not back from the war, I'm here, in the present, and things have changed and progress has made and by all accounts, I am a different person.

It's the continuum I struggle with. It's true that if I could go back in the past and change even the slightest thing in my life that I wouldn't turn out the way I have - which, by most accounts (if not scales) is not a bad thing. As a kid I'd always flip backwards through Choose Your Own Adventure books to determine where I made mistakes, to figure out how I should've progressed. Not sure why I still do it in real life as obviously there's nothing that can be done. I guess I am hungry for lessons and knowledge. If I'm going to have pain, if I'm going to fail, I want to know why and figure out how to do better next time.

And I finally feel I'm at the age when it's possible. If I can keep my wits about me. And that's why I analyze and overanalyze everything. Why I'm so hard on myself at every twist and turn. I want to play life like a game. I want to decipher the puzzle so I can control the outcome. That part comes from fear and also the scientific, logical side of my brain. Funny how both are related. But the poet in me, the child, the lover of adventure and romance wants to just let go and let the winding river take me where it wants. But is that irresponsible? Is it irresponsible not to?

Maybe I feel and think such things because I am of the sensitive, creative, reflective sort. I'm not a Wall Street cod. Maybe I am home today, worried about unemployment and money, because of not some failture in my character or series of bad decisions (or a worthless union, actually) but because I am someone who is supposed to live life a bit more slowly. Is that narcissism? Rationalization, I'm sure.

I don't think that writing a poem or spending more time than usual to examine the petals of a rose makes me a better person, a more spiritual person, or any close to "god" or the central meaning of life. Or if I do perhaps I shouldn't. There is a direct correlation between 'insanity' and artists. Between irresponsiblity and creativity.

I wonder what it's like to not have had such sharp identity crises. I wonder what it's like to not have been psychotic and trying to throw myself off a roof. Not many people know what psychosis feels like. It's traumatic. I don't think I've ever really sat with that. It's uncomfortable and terrifying. It feels like this division from other people that can't be scaled. Most people have at some point in their lives been depressed. Maybe even manic -- or at least super "hyper." Most people have made bad decisions. Sadly, most girls I know have also been sexually abused or assaulted. But... as I sit here writing this I see what the real issue is. What really makes me feel so lonely and alone -- the psychosis.

It feels like you're in a nightmare. You know the dreams where horrible things are happening and you're panicking. No one around you is making any sense. And you are just so scared. You are pure nerve. There is no memories, there is no prolonged logic thought process. There is caged animal that is screaming and terrified and reacting. There is nothing but that very moment where you are filled with fear and paranoia in every cell of your body. It splinters you from reality. It is a nightmare. You can't control it. You have no idea why it's happening to you. You don't know what lead up to it. There are no shadows, just dark and threat. Ive felt it acutely and in the form of a slippery, sneaky predator. I've had it for weeks. I've had clear moments. I've had it like a knife in the gut. But the difference between me and you is that I HAVE had it.

Maybe that is why I feel that I am always outside of society. It is someting I can't apologize for or make amends for. Sometimes I feel like I wear it on my chest. I don't seem to think or feel like other people do. And so I slip back inside myself and turn to writing and poetry.

Or maybe I am jsut looking for something special to make me me. An excuse for faults and cracks and defects?

Don't take away my sins, my faults, my quirks. Because -- as I wondered one day in fear and nausea -- who would I be if I were not over weight, undisciplined, illogical, and poetic?

Fuck.

Epiphany.

That is the fear and anxiety I feel when I think about losing weight or exercising. It is the dread I feel when I think about a 9 to 5 sellign my soul to corporate America.

This is all so freaking confusing.

And why -- oh why -- do I share these struggles and feelings so publically? As a way to scream it out into the cosmos and hope for an echo? As an explanation for my self? As a way to relate?
As a way to ask for acceptance and salvation?

I don't know. But it feels more natural than leaving it inside to rot. The way I did as a child and suffered and suffered and suffered until I learned how to escape. Or so i thought. I just put the pain in a locked box. Where it seethed and grew and fed on itself all these years.

But anyway. Yes, fuck epiphanies.

I'm sitting in the dark. The tv's off and the only light is from the fish tank. The only sounds are the hiss of the radiator next to me, the soft blues from the speakers, and the bell in the plastic ball my kitten is batting around the living room. I want to be poetic and spit out something beautiful and meaningful but the muses aren't whispering tonight.

I really wish I had a cigarette. Or I knew how to take good low-light photographs. I wish I was somewhere warm and breezy. Dusty summer breezy, not humid and wet. I want like the days when I'd sit on the rope swing in our dirt drive way. Barefoot, toes tanned and in the dust. It was just a rope we'd tossed over a low branch and knotted, smooshed an old courdory sofa cushion to. Think about it. Don't you miss the feeling of swinging, too?

I miss grass. I miss sitting on that tree swing and looking up and down our road and seeing nothing but green grass and flowers. Blue sky. The smell of chlorine from our pool. I miss sitting on the deck. I would sit out there for hours, my toes and fingers dipping into the cool as I studied from one red regents review book or another. I'd lay back on that splintered wood and stare up the northern summer sky and watch the birds fly by. I can close my eyes and see it so clearly. It was paradise. And I'm happy to say that on some level I knew it.

this weather depresses me. But when I am in my apartment and away from the windows that face the street I can pretend I am somewhere closer to the ground, somewhere with a car parked outside, grass growing, houses with white siding and red trim. I can pretend I am six again and pilling into the back of our pick up. Growing up in the country was a blessing. tonight i miss it. I miss my family. I miss the way things used to be before everyone grew up and apart. I wanna close my eyes and everyone is happy again. And I wasn't a days' drive away, far from everyone, alone and struggling to figure out what I want to do with my life. What the past 30 years meant and what the next 30 will be. Thirty years went by so fast. It makes me feel sick to know that the next 30 will too. I really like this sourpatch brat of a life I have.

why am i melancholy when i am so happy? when I am so blessed? when I am so gifted with opportunity and love and potential?

30 years. how'd that ever happen. but i'm so happy it did.

james

I can't write when I'm happy.
I lie in bed and watching you sleep
I consider poking you, pinching your nose
Run through a list of mild but annoying
transitions to raise your blood pressure
without doing permanent damage
I do nothing, I turn and huff
Only I could find frustration in joy
I elbow you in the side, but too gently
I couldn't hurt you if I wanted
so instead I wake up the next morning
and tap away this bullshit poem
and consider the sunshine that illuminates
the end of my poetry career.

:)

argh!!!!!!

breathing
breathing
breathing

i sometimes wish i could just reach into my skull and pull out my brain and wash it off. like it could somehow rinse off all the bad thoughts and chemicals that are fussing with and fucking it up.

and it's a condition that makes you just ruminate and obsess. a snowball that just keeps feeding upon itself as it falls down the mountain until it's a freaking avalanche.

i'm having a brain storm today. and not in the fun, productive way. it's like a snow globe behind my eyes today. pieces of truth and sanity caught in a sea of chemicals that when shaken produces the effect of a gentle winter scene--from the outside.

ARGH!!!!!!

off

I wake up with yesterday in my mouth
and thus begins the list of failures and faults
I should've brushed my teeth instead
of falling asleep on the couch watching cartoons
I should learn to hide my phone from myself
No more insecure dialing on a Sunday night
And while I'm at it I should simply grow up
and stop being the kind of girl that I am

Not sure why I hate myself today
Perhaps nothing a shower and slap can't help
my orientation is misaligned with your magnetic north
I hate moments when I am today and yesterday
at once and I see only this in my tea leaves
I am at the bottom of an endless, dry well
I look up and there is just one way to go
only because this is where I put myself
once again, once again
but yet I blame it on a vertigo, a push
not a careless and practiced fall
not my unsteady footing, my propensity
to give in to gravity when challenged

klonopin

you tickle my frontal lobe
a bubble in my forehead
a reminder that sixty years ago
i might've been biting sticks
and watching my finger nails spark

fair skin never marked with haldol
i lie here and forget what i was trying to forget
mother's little helper
daughter's little enabler
but i have the permission note
to sit out of gym class today
so fuck off and I'll hold your jewlery on the bench

don't touch me with kind hands
if you touch me with kinds hands
you will remind me of the touch of kind hands
and we can't have that, we can have that in here

i can't make sense now
i want to tell you
i want to call and say
i think i started to go a bit crazy
and sorta wanted to go star spinning
down the length of grand street
and lately i can't help but miss
jumping, leaping, dancing, skipping
but i can't tell you this
i can't tell you this at all

that right now i wanna be naked in times square
just to pretend that it's a dream
and that the cold and eyes can't touch me

cartography

I am leaning in
I slowly, slowly peer down
Your hands steady me
but do not hold
My body anchors you
but I do not restrict
you are free to go
whenever you want
to move left, to move right
to throw me to the floor
and watch me cry
I have no claim
only a right to whimper
being that is of my nature

Lately I care only about verbs
especially the passive ones
that insinuate movement
but are just as still as you
and I
entwined

I am hovering
shadow boxing
I do not tell you
I want you to move
naturally
sinewy, a slow groove
along the paths and
inlets of your stream

I map you
I study, I sketch
I measure topographic features
enscripted in tree-vein script
and I admire form a far
and do not say
when you take my breath
for fear you won't return it