masochist love poem

I am such a fucking masochist
you're breaking my heart
and in between tears and
non-existent emails
I think "that poor man.
I hope he's okay"

Patterns, patterns
repeated for twenty years
I'm so quick to give myself away
and leave so little for myself
clenched fists, early mornings
it infuriates me to think
you may consider my
sweet, open loving heart
for a sign of weakness
when in the long run
I was the strong one
and you were just
a fucking coward

Seeking Books for Review

I've got lots of time on my hands lately so if anyone has a book coming out and is interested in having it review by me, please let me know.

Janice Brabaw
c/o Tangled Up In Blue Productions
629 Grand Street
Brooklyn NY 11211

I'd be interested in book exchange as well.

chasm

how long can you call out a lost lover's name
when you can't even hear the echo of your voice
in the chasm he has dug before you?

my best intentions smashed, crushed like glass
no longer can I pine and worry about men
who will not even honor the past with a proper goodbye

away

i am turning blue
from holding my breath
i am turning cold
huddled up next to
the corpse of "us"

I am bruised from
kicking myself in the ass
for all the mistakes I made
So many apologies i sent you
that you never even acknowledged

you have pushed me so far away
when all I wanted was to be close
I've been living in dread
waiting for you to tell me to go
but I never imagined
that you of all people
would break your promise
to never ignore me
to never disrespect me
or strip me of humanity and compassion
and just hope that I'd take my heart
and go away

to softness

you mistook my devotion
as a betrayal of myself
but perhaps it was only a surrender
to softness

you trembled when I said "you only"
as if I was trying to steal in the night
the lit and dark of the depths in you
as if I was trying to rape and plunder
the very breath inside your lung

I saw your vulnerable and your blue
you built walls of ice and said
look here baby, you can see right in
but as I kissed and touched and
grew red and frostbit and oh so
insecure in my ability to melt
and drink the essence
when I said
look here baby, I need a little help
I don't think that I
can ever be enough
if I stay sane, if I fall to crazy
or just reject the validity
of everything I knew I needed
and you would not give
not even lend

I refuse to question
the ripeness
the rightness
the glory and tartness
the sweet and the saintly
of my simple and complex
my precious and rare
adoration
fireworks
you ignore
you bruise
you refuse to accept
despite given
with only the pretense
of strings
hypercolor
they only appear
when in question
when in doubt
of worthiness

but you were
honey
but you were
something to believe in
but you were
appreciated and adored
but you were.

these are the reasons I call your name
why I try beyond all reason
to scatter and settle and start over
in the hours we first exhaled
side by side
possibility on our tongues
when we awoke
when we tried
when we held each other safe and cherished
if not yet loved
if not yet loved

if not ever loved
potential energy
kinetic motion

neither created nor destroyed
bubbly shifting tao
the gurgle in my heart
the heat of my hands
where does it go
when the other side of my bed
becomes so cold

funhouse

the ceiling today seems absurdly low
I noticed as I lay on the floor
back to the tile, breath even
and yes, that trio of lightbulbs
seem so much closer and the funhouse
slant of my tilted house I can almost
trace with fingers that before could
never reach

this carpet is thicker, somehow, undeniably
i light a cigarette, i avoid the ash
I am sinking deep into newly plush threads
on my elbows, elbow-deep in crusty soft paint
I am writing words on cardboard
I imagine that if I ever see you again
I'll hold my sign up and if you still know your name
You'll come and sit and find me and explain

you said to go slow, i didn't know how until
i had crashed and as I recovered my carcass
from the burnt and twisted wreck I recognized
the state of our affair and I ran away
I hid in shadows and re-wrote poems
I jumped on a bus and swore I'd sit in the darkness
of the country that I fear more than death
I swore I'd sit there and look into it's heart
and I'd figured out what I had to do
to keep you and find myself

you said to me that you just wished
that I liked myself more
I could only say "me too"

but now your wish has true
I've fallen back in love with myself
as I've fallen out of love with you

Edge

I am bruised, lover, I am hoarse and sore
Your fingerprints, blue and fading
Indelible, still on my skin
Your taste is forgotten

I wait on the edge of my bed
Wrapped in my seafoam sheets
I wait to see if you will kiss me goodbye
Before you leave, like you always did before

different

fresh blood
arterial spray then only
drip drip drip drip
I lay on the floor
you carry me to bath
to bed
we fall asleep
wrapped as one
braided limbs
we wake
i crawl back onto the tile
veinous scratch
red red red red
and here I bleed
you step over me
you've gone to work
I'm growing colder
mouth moves slowly
fish without water

i thought you
were different

venting

I know I'm being unfair.

Feels good to get feelings off my chest.

Fleeting. Venting. Out.

thirty seconds

why do I end up writing poems
and talking with my friends for hours
about some stupid guy
who probably doesn't know
my middle name
or has the time
or call me for thirty seconds
to say "I miss you"

Futility

My last lover
Called after the our breakup
In the time in between
When we were supposed to be thinking
And healing and taking time
Said he was coming over
To go to a concert with me
I dropped to my knees
As I hung up the phone
I prayed loudly, damply,
Hands to heaven
I prayed that he still loved me.

I haven't prayed since.

doorways

I sit here and the only thing I can think
is "you're losing me."
Stare out the window, empire dims at midnight
I crave strong coffee, nicotine
and you

I kick stones
Toe loose dirt with sneakers
dusty with dry April
eyelashes catch the edge of sun
and I'm crying again

Do men really come to apologize
Do they realize mistakes too late
Do they hold boom boxes over their heads
You can play the piano
would you ever play for me?

I linger in your doorway
Lean against metal mailboxes
You live up these stairs
In the rooms where we made love
I am lingering in this doorway
Waiting for you to meet me half way

Review of Stephanie Bryant Anderson's The Paper House

I came across Stephanie Bryant Anderson while seeking writers to read at my music and lit series, Stained Glass Confessional. Even though she isn't a New York City native (she lives in Tennessee), I had to invite her because I absolutely love her poetry. Her writing is raw, emotional, practiced, and beautiful. Every piece is a glimpse into her life and she writes in such an accessible and clear manner that you can't help but respect her ability to be that honest and that insightful. Depression, heartbreak, failed love affairs - Stephanie Bryant Anderson is the sort of young, post-Riot Grrl female poet that I aspire to be. In short, I absolutely loved this collection and recommend it to anyone who appreciates my favorite kind of confessional and emotional writing. You know who you are. With the Ani, Tori, Liz, Fiona, Alanis, PJ, Sarah, and Courtney on your ipod and perhaps a dogeared copy of Prozac Nation fading on your bookshelf. This woman knows that is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all - but also that in the moment when love leaves all bet's are off.

The poets that I love the best have lines that grab me and I find myself circling them madly with a pen wishing I had written them first! These are samples in The Paper House that I highlighted that really struck a cord with me (perhaps its just the romantic, melancholy, sullen girl inside me but I like them a lot):

I take the stones, tuck them like a child into earth's bed,
because I need to lie, as in a quiet tomb.
Everything here is quiet, all except my mind.

-I Dream of A Human World

I no longer let him know the secrets
sliding in and out of my expressions
because every time he takes more
than my body with him when he leaves.

And as I walk from his front door,
I land on good soil -
because the earth knows what it is to love
the body and the soul.

Never again will I take my body
where my soul can not go.

-More Than My Body

I have placed him underneath a paperweight
for so long, to keep him here beside me.
But now I fold his arms like an airplane,
fly him from my window
and into the night air.

-Leaving the Paper House

These past years sent me this moment,
this quiet, beautiful moment,
where I am alone at last.

- The Ghosts I Have Been

I thought you had come to knock on my door,
to ask of my forgiveness,
to give me love, I thought you had come.

I startled from my bed, ran to find you
on my doorstep -
even though I would not take you back
even though
I would refuse to love you, I thought you had come.

The porch was empty.
The thunder knocked louder against the atmosphere.

I thought you had come back

- The Approaching Storm

I could go on and on sharing bits here and there but I want to save some fun her other readers. Brutal and beautiful, Anderson's poetry is full of many "a-ha!" moments that I really related to and like any good piece of literature, I felt I walked away with some insight about my own life. I highly recommend The Paper-House.

More information on Stephanie Bryant Anderson and her online journal can be found at www.upthestaircase.org.

Review of Chase Von's "Your Chance To Hear The Last Panther Speak"

Chase Von's Your Chance To Hear The Last Panther Speak is one weighty tome of poetry and I've been slowly picking away at it since last fall. Von is a talented writer and this book also contains a song lyrics, quotations, short stories, and even some line drawings thrown in for good measure. Your Chance To Hear The Last Panther Speak is a 234 + page book, perfect-bound available on Amazon.com for $11.70.

As a poet I was drawn to Chase's poetry first and foremost. Call me a sappy romantic, but I love poetry about relationships and this one is one of my favorites in the collection:

I COME TO YOU

I come to you
With a song in my heart
And a prayer in my spirit
I come to you
With love, hope, peace, and truth
And honesty
I come to you
With the knowledge
That I already know you
And the understand
You find that difficult
To comprehend
I come to you from a realm
Where things are like time, space
And energy
Are but words
That scurry from my wake
Like darkness
From the rising sun
I come to you
As I said I would come
So long ago
And I now I ask you
Will you
Come
With me?

Here Chase von writes vulnerably, honestly, and sweetly without being sentimental and trite. I love the line "I come to you/With love, hope, peace, truth/And honesty" that really speaks to the writer's ability to touch upon the raw emotion involved in baring your heart to someone. It is a spiritual and complex love that the author depicts in this poem that is mature, evolved, and devoid of romantic emptiness. The sincerity of "I come to you/With a song in my heart/And a prayer in my spirit" really touched me because of its brilliant simplicity that really, again, encapsulates the longing and hoping of a man inviting his lover to join him on this special path. Chase von manages to evoke trepidation yet hopefulness in so few lines. It is when he's brief and selective and simple that I believe Chase is at his best.

Chase also writes about war with the some passion and acuity as he writes about love. Take "Would Make":

WOULD MAKE

PSI
Pounds per square inch
Any three year old
Can pull a trigger
Having a gun
Doesn't make you a man
It just makes you
Someone with a gun
And any real bonafide man
Who has been to war
And has had to make
The hard decisions
Will tell you
That a lot of folks with guns
Aren't making any better decisions
Than a three year [old]
Would make

These are the sort of poems I like - succinct, words well-chosen, and packs an emotional wallop. Luckily, Your Chance To Hear The Last Panther Speak is full of 'em as well as many other hidden gems.

Me

I've re-written the day
I've taken my poor reaction
To your poor behavior
And made me the culprit
And you the pedestaled savior.

I called you and apologized
Over and over, email, calls, texts
but you never even acknowledged
no, you never even acknowledged me
No acceptance, no rejection
Just silence

It feels as if it brings you pleasure
at least some comfort or solace
to pretend I don't exist
and that I never mattered

Since then I sent countless smiles
Electronic hugs and kisses
Since then I've only waited
To make love to you once again

Long stem pink roses at my doorstep
in Brooklyn
someone missed me, someone couldn't wait
to see me again
and someone had signed the card
simply, "me"

I'd always dreamed of a secret admirer
sending me flowers and quiet love
but no longer did I care who "me" was
when you said that it wasn't you.

grape jelly

do you miss me?
what if I stopped calling?
would you remember
to remember me?
I'd like to think that even
if you don't care about me
the memories matter
somewhere, on some level

you used to watch me sleep
tiny soft snores made you smile
and on those lips mine would taste
how perfectly I fit into your arms
with my head on your chest
you were the one I wrote poetry to
read on half-lit stages
heart ablaze

you were the most patient man
I've ever met
and even if you've let me go
I will never again settle for less

I just wish you'd ask how I am
ask how my sprained ankle is healing
or if I've seen more grape jelly
on cheap, chipped diner plates

you are another empty sunday morning
a burned cd, a dirty plate
you are moans in the dark
you are something I continue to reach for
even though you're gone

come back home.

you say nothing

you say nothing baby
you say nothing
i bang at your door
i ring your bell
i send you love notes
i say "I'm here let me in, I miss you"
but you say nothing
you say nothing baby

draft three of letting go of crazy

*letting go of crazy. (2009)

I. Sunday Morning, Upon Waking Alone and Thus Not Distracted

What do you do
When it hurts to move
But if you don't move
It'll just hurt more
And you'll eventually
Never move again?

What do you do
When pain pills kill you
But if you don't find an alternative
You'll grow crippled
And eventually
Die anyway?

(repeated overdoses leading to lethal allergy bittersweet irony)

How do you find the energy to run
When the energy to walk alludes you
How do you explain that you are rotting
You are atrophying yourself
Forty feet above the street
in a crumbling rented playhouse

How do you explain to others
That you just may be slowly killing yourself
(albeit lazily and without any conscious and direct intention)
As you crawl away from society
As you hide from the light
As you accept the seizing of organs and joints
And you are ashamed
You are so ashamed

II. I Hate This Part. Disney Movies Have Poisoned Me And Fucked With Life Expectations

If I don't call you and you don't call me
It must mean it wasn't meant to be
anyway
And I have proved the world right
In this model it is you
It is never me

But then, no.
It is both of us.
Me being the Ursula, the disgusting sea-witch
(and thus obviously not deserving of love)
And you being the asshole Prince
Who won't even try to peer past
The supposed evil and ugliness
Who'd never attempt to kiss a toad
Just to see if a Princess would appear

Where oh where has Ariel gone?
I used to have red hair, too
But it wasn't the same
Tt never was the same.

I'm more Sylvia than Walt.
More Plath than Disney.

(Something else
Hauls me through air ---
Thighs, hair;
Flakes from my heels.)

I find joy in being right
That it is you that is unfair and unloving
But also that I am not worthy
Of attempts to slay dragons
And struggles through briers and thorns
To rescue me in my castle tower

(Does anyone know her real name
Was Aurora?)

No, indeed it is proof
It is logic and irrefutable facts
That I am no sleeping beauty
And I can dream myself quietly
Into gentle, un-fettered death
Undisturbed by attempts
At resuscitation


III. I Am A Masochist And A Sadist. I Like the Color of My Own Blood and the Taste of My Own Tears

Perhaps I am an ugly creature
Perhaps I am a sloth, a mole woman,
A warted witch
Perhaps I am best suited for dark internal rooms
Perhaps there is reason why nature has
Declared me not suited to breed
(If only by omission)

Depression and self-loathing are nature's way
It's neo-Darwinism
My species has no place for party poopers
Only the happy and well-adjusted survive
And let's face it, I'm not the best specimen anyway




IV. Self-pity Parties Are the Cheapest to Throw and Saves You Hundreds of Dollars in Catering Costs

I turn back into myself
I waddle and huddle
Into my cave with the view
I am retreating from all that I want and love
And for the life of me
I don't know why

I am thirty and arthritic
I am thirty and obese
I am insulated and safe
And eventually life will leave me alone
With its disappointments and pedestals
And other high places I can no longer place others
Only to watch them fall and roll away


V. A Reflection Due to a Lack of Objective Mirrors. With an Acceptance of Distortion

Go away
I will run from you
I will hop a city bus

My motus operandi
Is to hide and to be the center of attention
At the same time

My own paparazzi
My own shampoo-bottle Oscar speech
I don't take photos
Of myself anymore
And the pills that have half-helped
Leave me bloated, thin-eyebrowed, and
Still probably damaged goods

I still play Guyville on never ending loops
I listen to the music of my youth
because I want to be mesmerizing, too



VI. A Review of Conditions, Disorders, Medications, and Attempts to Diagnose and Pinpoint Reasons Why I Am Not Responsible for My Own Self

So many labels I have tried on
They never fit, they curl and split,
Tear and crumple
As if one term can explain all that is Janice
And one reading of the DSM-IV can find the cure

Can it be Effexor, Depakote, Topomax,
Paxil, Celexa, Klonopin, or Xanax?

And how do I get off and how do I get on?

Serotonin syndrome
Withdrawal syndrome
Suicidal crisis
Black box warnings
And me spending the early part of my twenties
On cliff edges with no FDA advice or knowledge
And no doctor's notes to get out of life

I have embraced crazy, creative, poetic, different, Chaotic, tortured, misunderstood for so long
To properly see they are excuses, not personality

Thirty years of chicken or the egg
Is it my thyroid? Is it my parents? Is it genetics?
Why so fat so early?
Was it emotional abuse on the playground?
Are my classmates to blame?
Or the gym teachers who forced me to run
And balance my bulk on gymnastic beams

Borderline, Bipolar, Depressed,
Eating Dis*ordered,
Crazy, Agoraphobic, Obsessive Compulsive, Emotionally Unavailable,
Emotionally Unstable,
Spinster, Self-Medicator, Binge Eater,
Post Traumatic Stressed

Weak, Pathetic, Bruised, Chronic, Hopeless.

Unstable. Warning. Do not enter. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars
Approach with Caution. Unpredictable.
Check any applicable symptoms.
Be aware of any potential side effects.
Please sign here, you have been informed.



VII. Here Is The Part Where I'm Going to Scream. I Might Even Curse. Bear With Me, Gentle Reader.

Look at me.
You, hey you, mother fucker!

Look at ME.

Buy a book, support a true artist.
I am entitled, you see, I have suffered
And thus I deserve your attention
and your money, your penance

Please.
Please.
Pretty please?
With my cherry on top?

You see.
You must
Understand that
I hate you.
I fucking hate you.

But ....
I am fighting demons you can't see
And thus I am important and raw and
DAMNIT
I have something crucial to say
that you
that YOU
could NEVER understand.

Look at me.
I am better than you
because I am vulnerable and did I mention raw?
I am talented and memorable and
(please please please don't forget me)

I am bad genetics, I am bad environment,
I am malnutrition, I am a memorandum
of psychopharmacudical pamphlets,
I am simply a product of rape, cruelty, of a society that doesn't love me.

I need you to save me. Carry me. I am heavy.
Bulk up. I am worth it.

But sad, sad sad sweet shame.

Nothing will ever be enough.
You can never be enough.

I am an imploding star
a black hole that sucks the air from your lungs
I am a car accident about to happen

It is inevitable that I will crash and burn

I will be spectacular, a fucking cosmic event
And you
will
NOTICE.


VII. I'm Sorry, You See It's Not My Fault. In Fact, Nothing's My Fault. You see, I....

I am incapable
I am a writhesome, fucking anomaly

The doctors told me
They assured me when Iwas locked away
When I was twenty-three and institutionalized
They told me it was not my fault

And back, at nineteen
My first psychiatrist
During my first mind-fuck
Proclaimed me "chronic" and forever diseased

It tasted bittersweet.
I imagined Angelina Jolie
In Girl, Interrupted.
I pictured Elizabeth Wurtzel
Naked and beautiful on Prozac Nation.
I can be a rock star at this.
I can be an amazing insane
Perpetually falling star.
Sylvia Plath with her head in the oven.
I can do that.
And I can be gorgeous
And luminous
An idol. Mysterious. A Marilyn.
I can do this.

Thank you for this role.
I am ready to perform.
I take direction very well.
I always take the drugs I am handed.

I don’t want to be the fat girl anymore
Crazy suits me just fine.



VIII. New Perspective Spoken by an Older Lover Who Has a Good Eye for Such Things.

"You have issues with growing up."

I laugh. I say I was menstruating at eight
I was wearing a bra on the playground
I have an apartment, I pay my own rent
I have lived in New York City
On ten thousand dollars a year
At age twenty-two.

I am an adult, my license proves it
Thirty years old this past March
I have the scars to tell
I am responsible and independent
and quite capable, thankyouvermuch.
I am in a union, buddy, and have
a hundred thousand dollar education


We walk in silence.
Cross Manhattan Avenue on the way
To our show.
I consider a past boyfriend who'd accuse
Me of manipulation
Of crying instead of talking and screaming Instead of communicating

You're a fucking child! a bratty, immature, Emotionally crippled child"

I'd act out more
I'd slam my head into walls
Bruise my hands and head
and use that as proof that
I was just "troubled"

I'm sick of being sick, I said five years ago.
But I never grew sick of talking about it.
I never took off the hospital ID bracelet
Burned my certificate of insane

Two more blocks
I say please don’t call me a woman.
I say this to the first man who’s held me
To the first non-boy to sleep in my bed
Nearly forty, balding, settled, stable, loving
Part of me wants to start a fight
Change the subject

I don’t.
Always I try.
Rarely I succeed. But more, in time.
Habits die hard.
Cigarette butts hidden in drawers
Stale but safe and there if needed.
Sometimes I just need to puff.
Nicotine. Getting mean. Staying clean.


Perhaps it's time to seal my juvenile record
Pack away my Liz Phair cds and
Wear long sleeved shirts
Put away childish razors
And stop drinking myself to amnesia

This world owes me nothing
Despite my shoulders, so deeply chipped

I am refusing to drink the Kool-aid
That I so routinely spike

I take his hand. We talk inside.

I am letting go of crazy.

Update on my website

I am in the process (with Ayumi) working on updating my website and changing the format so I, the computer illiterate one, can update it myself without bugging her :) So it should be up pretty soon and there will be lots of hurrays! Hurray!

On Turning Thirty

Yeah so I didn't take it so well at ALL.

I woke up and was in a good mood then I was on the couch watching tv and then just started crying and crying. Every little thing sent me into a rage or hysterical sobs. It was a really difficult day. I couldn't pinpoint just what was wrong and lashed out in every direction. It was really hard and really ugly.

I was thinking about all the things that I thought I'd have accomplished by 30 that I hadn't. I was thinking about all the BAD things and none of the good. I was measuring myself against some imaginary and arbitrary numbers. After freaking out and lashing out and crying and all around acting pretty cuckoo, I was able to calm down and go out to a lovely birthday party. But up until then... my goodness.

I am a pretty symbolic person. And when I hit such an immense symbol it was rough. I feel good now and I don't think I'll ever be able to explain the haywire thinking and feeling of that day but I'm sure glad it's over. Thirty has been wonderful since. But that first day... oh my goodness...

So thus all the wacky postings. A really turbulent day indeed.

snake berries

expansive
under water
cello serenade
tattooed wrist
i am swimming tonight
if only in my mind

i miss the horses in the meadow
the silver light of the moon
falling on equine backs
the distant howl of coydogs
nick drake in my ears
northern sky

once again i am writing poetry
that'll be read by all but the one in question
once again i am picking the snake berries
that grow next to my sand box
I am swinging on metal poles
in lightning storms
wearing rubber boots

country meditation on a blurry city love affair (draft)

Ablaze, on foot,
I step carefully.
It is the mud season.
Still I slip.
I rise. Cushioned yet covered
in North Country clay.

In the lawn, I balance
between moods.
Melancholy, my old flame
rivals and demands a duel
with Joy, my courting suitor.

I can only write poems
and see where I land.

I pick up my Buddha books
I remind myself, it's a practice not a perfection
I have lost my compassion
I am white knuckling life
I am strangling joy

Again. I am going to try this again.
For the millionth time.
Until then I am steadying my footing
I am lacing my shoes

Sigh. I'm going to fail again.
I am not going to get it right.
Bit by bit we live, we learn
I forgive myself for not existing
in magazines and motion pictures
I forgive myself for everything
but forgetting to be kind

I am a control freak,
a perfectionist,
a manipulative force
but mostly
yes, mostly
I am just fearful
and faithless.

I am so good at being blue
I am so good at being down
I consider myself water
I insist I have drowned

Ophelia-like, ropes and rocks at my feet
I crash and smash upon the cliffs
I am not car parts, I am not cutlery
How many times I have jumped
without cord or chute
How many times I have leapt
and landed
bruised yet complete

Reflected yet smudged
Mirrored yet fogged
I see myself too late
in the still water beside your bed
I recognize my features
my nose, the slope of my forehead

my god you were right, I'm beautiful.
my god you were right, I am holding on too tight.
my god I'm sorry, and you are no where in sight.

(I miss your arms. Does that make me clingy?
I miss your snoring. Does that make me crazy?
I miss your laugh. Does that make me pathetic?)

Perhaps I am more Norturne
than Fur Elise
but perhaps you could play for me
as I curl on your couch
a somewhat circle of girl
imperfect, utterly aware,
sincerely trying,
and lovely in sleep.

things I've never learned

Things I've Never Learned

If you are exhausted, you sleep.
If it hurts, don't do it.
If you are hungry, you eat.
If you are not hungry, you do not eat.
(I consider the waste and silliness
of over-filling gas tanks until
a biohazard is created)

If you are driving yourself crazy, stop.
If you are making things worse, stop.
If you are running in circles, stop.
If you are on fire, stop, drop, and roll.

If you love, you let free.
If you want, you give.
If you are tight and stiff, you relax and release.
If you are doing wrong, find better.

If you can't breathe, breathe.
If you are on the wrong path, turn around.
(Insanity is indeed doing the same thing over and over
expecting different results.)
If you cannot see, it is time to open your eyes.
If you cannot hear, it is when you listen.

When you lose yourself, it is time to search.
When you don't know, it is time to find out.
When you are screaming, find the silence.
When you can't, you must so you can.

I slip into auto pilot sometimes
I do not think, I do not feel
It is primitive, reptilian
Instinct and adrenaline
One track mind, running on fear
With no sense to know to stand still

The first key to dreaming
is to allow yourself
to fall asleep

suture (draft)

I am the most pointless foreman
Despite broken bones and
childhood cuts and scrapes
that healed without so much a thought
I do not trust my body
to be able to handle a broken heart
I'm afraid that if I do not relentlessly process
if I do not suffer or rub salt in wounds
I'll never be able to get over you

I am a watched pot that never boils
more and more heat and best intentions
I lance my own blisters
without proper sterilization and practice
Perhaps I just like to watch the ooze and the bleed
new ways to self-mutiliate and punish
under the guise of mourning, of relieving pain

It is as if I lack faith in everything including my own biology
I struggle daily with convoluted and molested chemistry
I lay down at night without prayers, only attempted avoidances

I am a flash flood in a time of slow, natural erosion
Irrigation and dams erected, false sense of control
as if I could wake up tomorrow, stretch, and be
this elusive, this vague, this illustrious "sane"

I crawl through deserts and I whip myself with chains
I pay penance for things I have not done, I do not deserve
I search for grails I already possess and polished

I have admired the craft and skill of the suture
I have applied the bandage and the gauze
I will not peek, I will not touch
Despite hints of red, despite the need to itch

rain and tides (draft)

this tastes so bitter
my tongue is burnt
bubbling, oozing

i recall champagne
i recall drinking stars
i remember constellations under my skin
i remember moondust licked from my lips

I fall
I break
I request elmer's glue
glitter, construction paper
scotch tape
and hope for amnesia
before I finish this collage

storm shelter (draft)

it is only after the storm
in the wake of the roar
that I recognize the calm before
the pressure drop
the sickening atmosphere shift
only after can
I consider the cellar in the dirt
only after I realize
the importance of hiding
and waiting the thunder out

berry (draft)

you taste like ripe strawberries
i used to pick in the fields as a little girl
crouched down in the rows of plants
lost in the red and the green and the dirt
my pint basket half empty at my feet
stolen fruit, juice on my chin
guilty eyes, shaking hands

hoping I won't get caught
that my youth and loveliness
will excuse me from theft

I hope the berries I pay for
will be half as sweet

sweet sweet shame (draft)

I roll down the window in the back
Dad looks over his shoulder, laughs
"too warm?"
I smile, slide my hand out of the car
"no, I just like air."

He lights another cigarette
He wears a camo jacket
We're driving to the thousand islands
I feel so far from my life and yet in the midst
"what? do you not have air in new york city?"

I say nothing, Mom cuts in
Babbles about the convenience store robbery last night
some story in the paper about someone
cutting off the tails of horses in the dark
We drive past a farm and she muses
"I wonder if those horses still have theirs."

Country blurs by
I think it's strange
that for a county so full of hills
so close to the mountains
that these flat meadows
stretch as far as I can see

golden, heathered, spring earth
in a couple months it will all be hay
the tractors will roar to life
and the north country will smell like summer again

it is mud season
the deer linger on the fenceline in the distance
I want to walk down the dirt roads
I feel ten again, innocent, curious

I try not to feel disappointed
I am sitting in the stir of pain and frustration
inside the hive of my mind
and trying to see past the whirl into the outside

These are the unlined roads
of my childhood that I retreat to when hurt
I am an accelerator cruncher
I am not one to line up pool shots
Just slam the cue
hoping something is sunk
and hopefully in my favor

I close my eyes
hope patience will court me
wish for the eye and the temperance
to breathe, aim, then shoot

it's such a sweet sweet shame
such a sweet sweet shame

Note to self

It's important to realize that it's not so much that people don't like me or care about me as much as I do them, it's that they don't have this overpowering, overwhelming NEED. They probably like me as much, probably care as much, but don't need me as much.

And considering I am so needy, it doesn't signify that they don't care or don't want me. It's jut that they are in a healthier place than I am right now.

And this does not in any away affect who I am or my worth or if I'm "loveable" or "likeable."

I've dated people who were needy and it's no fun. It's hard enough to center yourself in this life nonetheless be a full-time centering force for someone else.

I am just thinking about all the ways that I self-sabotage my own life and relationships. Having lots of epiphanies.

I feel out of control of my life. I feel like a failure. I feel like a failure careerwise. I feel like a failure relationship wise. I think it's one thing to allow life to take you where it may, to trust in the infinite wisdom and love of the universe, but it's another altogether to not even pick any sort of direction. This is the only life I have and I need to step it up and realize what I want and work toward those goals.

I feel a very intense LACK in my life which is insane when I live such a lush, abundant life. I need to step back and spend some time in the sun. I am a creature that needs to be dragged out into the day sometimes. I am such an existentialist, a romantic, a melancholy emotional little dreamer. I am sensitive and vulnerable. I am constantly in this process of losing and regaining my balance. I am so hard on myself for making the same mistakes over and over. I get so angry with myself for it. I can forgive anyone almost anything but myself. I don't own my feelings, I feel ashamed of them. I don't own my needs, I feel they have no validity. No temperance.

I keep thinking of this Alanis song:

Oh these little rejections how they add up quickly
One small sideways look and I feel so ungood
Somewhere along the way I think I gave you the power to make
Me feel the way I thought only my father could

Oh these little rejections how they seem so real to me
One forgotten birthday I'm all but cooked
How these little abandonments seem to sting so easily
I'm 13 again am I 13 for good?

I can feel so unsexy for someone so beautiful
So unloved for someone so fine
I can feel so boring for someone so interesting
So ignorant for someone of sound mind

Oh these little protections how they fail to serve me
One forgotten phone call and I'm deflated
Oh these little defenses how they fail to comfort me
Your hand pulling away and I'm devastated

When will you stop leaving baby?
When will I stop deserting baby?
When will I start staying with myself?

Oh these little projections how they keep springing from me
I jump my ship as I take it personally
Oh these little rejections how they disappear quickly
The moment I decide not to abandon me

But at the base of it, at the very center, I feel beautiful and wise and gifted and loved and BRILLIANTLY WONDERFUL. :) I lose track of it.

I look back at how far I've come since I was 19. Since I was wailing at the world. Since I was screaming and so in hate with myself that I tried to destroy myself over and over again. But the fact that I have grown is no excuse when I am due for another growth spurt.

So here I am. Thirty. And trying to understand that everything outside of myself, as wonderful and meaningful and blessed, is arbitrary. That everything outside of me is just icing on this cake that I have baking inside for years. Failed, of course. But learning. :) But you know what? I'm not a simple Betty Crocker mix! I am like... a luscious and rich velvet layer cake with a molten, thickly creamy center! And it takes time to get it just right.

I like that metaphor. I am going to work on my recipe for awhile. I give people tastes. Sometimes whole servings. And someday I will fall madly in love with someone who will wait patiently for the cake to be ready. And we'll enjoy it together with mouthfuls of yummy goodness haha. And frosting on our lips! But for now. Yeah. I'm not ready for the committment and love that I want. Even if Mr. Right showed up at my door THIS MOMENT I'd fuck it up.

And thus why James is smart. Go slow. Work on your recipe. It's instinct. Relationships, like cooking, is an art, not a science. It seems like I should know this.

Falling in love is an art. One that is be tried and failed at and perfected.

I am going to go out into the world and fall back in love with my foibles and imperfections. Hopefully someone else will, too. but I can't control that. I can only keep on my path. If someone comes along that decides they'd like to walk with me again (or still), I'll welcome them. But only if they like chocolate cake :)

grrr

Or it's not me at all. And some people just fucking suck.

my chemistry

It's my thirtieth birthday and I can't stop crying.

Not to many these things go hand in hand. And I thought that's all it was.

The fact is - there is something else going on.

I stopped crying long enough to form one logical thought. Buried deep beneath the feelings and tears a little voice whispered, "I think this might be the meds."

About ten days ago I decided to begin weening myself off of my Celexa, an anti-depressant, because I've gained so much weight and I never have any energy. I was so happy because I hadn't had any side effects during withdrawal - which are sometimes hellish. A year or so ago there was an unintentional break in my Paxil regimend and I went into full withdrawal which was just about the worst thing I've ever gone through. We're talking full out psychotic paranoia, suicidal thoughts, insane mood swings, electrical "shocks" in my brain and throughout my body, feeling like I was underwater--- just HORRIBLE. It was so bad that I couldn't control my emotions or impulses and my ex called 911 and they dragged me to the hospital. It takes sometimes up to a month or two to even out after such an episode -- and in the middle of recooperating my ex dumped me. A bit off topic, but anyway, withdrawal is HELL.

So I haven't had any of that. Actually I've felt lighter, more energetic, more like myself. Just all around healthier. Then.... well. It's all fuzzy.

I wanted off these pills so I could get a "baseline" of my temper and moods. I wanted to get all the pills out and start fresh. I wanted to detox myself from all the chemicals and start to deal with my anxiety and depression on a more homeopathic level. Supplments, herbs, yoga, natural stress and depression treatments. Only now.... man my head feels like a big ball of playdough that's been on the floor. It's covered with dirt and cat hair and crumbs.

I've stopped crying because I got scared. I'm writing because if I don't get these thoughts out I'll never feel clear. I need to feel clear.

What I hate about depression and anxiety is you're always wondering what is causing what. That's why I wanted a baseline. I'm always wondering if my problems are caused by drinking, by PMS, or malnutrition, or simply by outside stressors. I drive myself crazy trying to figure out just WHAT is bugging me.

I'm trying to breathe deep and I turned off the sad music I was listening to. I am trying to breathe through bad feelings and thoughts. I'm putting myself down for feeling this way. I'm telling myself that I'm fucked up and that no one will ever love me. There is this side of me that really, really hates me. You know what I'm talking about. Well right now that voice is so loud in my head (not literally, I'm not schizo). She's telling me that I should just hide from the world because I'm so disgusting and stupid and weak. She's the voice that makes me feel so badly. She is critical and she is always telling me how my friends and family don't really like me. How I suck at my job. How I'm a failure. How I'm a waste of life.

She's telling me how people don't really care about me. They're just polite. This is a big argument she makes whenever I'm sad. She says that people are only telling me happy birthday to be polite. She says that if I hadn't thrown myself a party no one would have wanted to do anything for me. You should hear the things she whispers about when Im dating someone. She makes it almost impossible to trust in anyway or anything.

I am breathing through these negative feelings. I feel bad for needing reassurance from people. I should just know that people love me and care without them having to keep telling me. I shouldn't take any perceived rejection so hard. A phone call that goes to voicemail is someone ignoring me and not wanting anything to do with me. I can't even begin to try to dissect the feelings I have today about James being in LA. And the feelings and terror I have for feeling that way to begin with.

I don't know if I feel the way I do today because it's my birthday and I'm sensitive. I don't know if it's because of a withdrawal symptom. I don't know if it's because I need more medication (or another alternative.) I don't know if it's because James isn't here and it hurts. I don't know WHY I am bawling my eyes out. Because I don't know why, I'm not sure what to do about it.

What I want in my life, above all things, is to be able to feel my true feelings and be my true self. I want to find the core of me. I want to strip away the chemicals, like stripping paint off hardwood. I want to get to the very essennce and nature that is Janice and be able to feel my emotions without guilt or fear or shame. I am ruled by fear and shame. It makes me so sad.

I don't know how to be in the moment. I want so badly to just be myself. I have no confidence that that is good enough. I realize that a lot of my friends don't ever talk about bad things. They pretend they don't exist. My family did the same thing. Is that the key to happiness? I'd rather someone tell me when they're mad at me then be constantly paranoid that they are and they aren't telling me.

I have someone really special in my life that doesn't talk to me. The more I realize he's not letting me in the more paranoid and scared I am. I don't know how to trust him. I don't know how to give him my heart. I dont' even know if he wants it or not.

I give my heart to people whole-heartedly (no pun intended). I don't know how to do less. I read these books telling me to be smart, to hide things, to keep things inside. I don't know how. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I am too intense. I am trying to teach myself not to say or do things that feel natural. I am trying to teach myself to keep my thoughts inside. It's making me depressed and scared. I cry a lot. I do. Lately. I wonder if I should just run. I need signs that I should stay. They come but I am so sensitive, I am so afraid of getting hurt, that every little imperfection feels like a slap. I am tiring myself out from searching for cracks.

It was so beautiful at first. I felt I had finally met someone that I could completely be myself with and I was so safe and wanted and appreciated. And now I feel that I have to walk on egg shells. I'm becoming less and less me. I am trying to contort myself into what I think he might want. Or what someone or some book says I should be.

Society doesn't give much credit to the sensitive and emotional. We are talked down to, we are told we're crazy or we're immature. I fight a constant struggle to balance. I wish that I could accept myself for how I am. Some people are more in touch with their inner tides. I get swept away. I have to learn to control my gifts. Like the mythical empaths that must reign in their powers or they'd risk going insane.

Is the way I feel the pills? A medical condition? Is it chronic? Is it something I can heal with the power of the earth, with syncing up my body and soul to the moon, to the ocean, to the sun itself?

Is it just because I am so sensitive to any rejection - perceived or real?

I feel so vulnerable, like bare wire, raw nerve so often. I understand the need to insulate, to regulate. I do. I just wanna strip everything down first. I wanna run to the country and lay in the muddy spring grass and feel the earth move beneath my body. I wanna breathe in time.

I feel calmer now. I am aware that I am particularly sensitive and vulnerable now. I will make no hasty decisions. I am sitting with these feelings. I am exhausted. I can feel the stress and anxiety in my back -- pain in my shoulders and spine. But you know what? I feel like I am on the path I want to be. I'm going to keep doing my detox. Tonight I will celebrate my life withmy friends (something that indeed is worth celebrating!) and I will keep working on find my core. Strengthening my center. It's like the Buddhists say -- you need to find your seat in the saddle of life. Once you are centered and strong, nothing can knock you down. You learn to be flexible and to bend but you do not break, you do not fall. You always return to center.

That is what I want for my 30th birthday. A creamy nougat center. :) Err, I mean a stronger sense of self. An integration of body, heart, mind, and soul.

I feel a lot better now. And calm.

I'm going to try something Ayumi said when I got upstate. I'm going to unplug from my life in the city. Just enough to get calls about jobs! I'm going to hide and seek.

Be Okay

I just want to be ok, be ok, be ok

I just want to be ok today
I just want to be ok, be ok, be ok
I just want to be ok today

I just want to feel today, feel today, feel today
I just want to feel something today
I just want to feel today, feel today, feel today
I just want to feel something today

Open me up and you will see
I’m a gallery of broken hearts
I’m beyond repair, let me be
And give me back my broken parts

I just want to know today, know today, know today
I just want to know something today
I just want to know today, know today, know today
Know that maybe I will be ok

Detox (draft)

I woke up to dandelion tea
Gulps of water and psyllium powder
If I don't drink it down fast enough
It all turns to orange paste too thick to swallow

I half-jokingly report
that my last days in this decade
will be spent pooping
peeing and turning my liver
and kidneys inside out

I'm allergic to aspirin now
because I tried to kill myself with it so many times
It is only now that I want to live
That it can close my throat

My idols have stayed and also changed
I am black thick banged
I am white wide and spunky
and I feel like bouncing tonight

Twenty Nine Years, Three Hundred Sixty-Three Days

I'm listening loud
I feel like dancing
Wonder what the neighbors think
I refuse to sigh

Mousse in my hair - first time since 1994
This is the last Saturday of my 20's
Maybe I don't want to lie down after all
Maybe even not with you

Hitting backspace at a speed faster than speech
Computers, they steal the thunder
They allow you the chance to take back, to retreat
Perhaps sometimes I just want to spill and not mop

I am looking for new words now, expanding a vocabulary
I am ready to set aside 2006, apologize to my liver
I can howl at the moon with the best of them, Tom Robbins
I just wish my coward's heart wasnt the only one in the cabinet

Meh.

ugh.

going crazy.

keep picking at scabs. not literally.

am trying not to be upset. am trying not to be hurt or scared or pissed off.

am trying to manifest serenity and let loose control.

am trying to let things gravitate and not pull or push.

am trying not to be hard on myself.

am quite aware that obsessing never helped anything

is making herself crazy and tired.

maybe a nap will help.

want to attach live wires to keys so i will be shocked if i do that what I'm not supposed to do.

may just throw phone and computer into east river.

am trying not to kick my own ass for needing an ass kicking

Universe, Disturbed Reviewed by The Barbaric Yawp

Universe, Disturbed by Janice Brabaw {is} a collection of poems written mostly during Brabaw's "raw and melodramatic" high school and college years in rural upstate New York. .... Universe, Disturbed is a wild, emotional roller coaster. Brabaw doesn't hold anything back - she gives you all of it, the highs and the lows, the lost loves, the suicide attempts, the fierce physical lust. I'm not crazy about poor-me literature - I mean, everyone has problems - but this is different. There is a strange blend of euphoria in this work, an unmistakable feeling of power. As she's gobbling down pills or slicing herself with a knife, Brabaw thinks about her parents, her friends, her loved ones - but it doesn't seem to matter. She's on this path of self-destruction, despite everything.

What's weird is the power I mentioned earlier. Towards the end of the book, when I'm exhausted by blistering accounts of mangled love and attempted suicide, we encounter a series of robust songs - a drinking song ("Drink it down ladies/drink it down gents/Another shot for love/ Another shot for hate"), a punk song ("You never loved me/you wanted what I had/You never loved me/such a nasty fucking lad"), a love song ("When your standards are low/You're never lonely"), a Riot Grrl song ("I could kick your ass/But I won't/I could break your heart/But I won't/I could end your life/But I won't"), an angry punk song ("Hid the knife in my pink panties/No one would doubt my sanity"), and some regular songs, five of them "Ooh I've been warned about/ Boys like you with their guitars/Close my eyes and drift into your song/Take me where I want to go/I'm all about the ride..../The ride... the ride....")

Another thing that saves this book from utter bathos is the sarcastic attitude Brabaw has toward herself. When in the mood, she winks at her own rants and furies, finishing off a suicide poem with 'maybe I should just take my damn anti-/depressants," as though the entire episode could have been easily avoided. When you are done with this book, you'll feel as though you've really been through the wringer.

by John Berbrich

Still sick..... still broke...

I just blew my nose and my ear did this horrible high pitched popping/squealing sound. I still have this stingy/irritated feeling in my eyes, nose, and throat. This is exactly the kind of cold that makes me wanna OD on nyquil and hide in bed until it's over.

So yeah, totally wanna write or be productive but it's just not happening.

I'm bummed because all the jobs I was up for fell through. Starting to get SUPER worried. But I'm just going to try to stay positive and keep on keeping on. I'll put in another futile and worthless call to my union on Monday. I dunno. Maybe it's time to change careers. I like what I do but if I do it only three months this isn't going to work.

Control

A manual, text book, an electronic reference
I have decoded myself
Handed you the blue prints
I point to a calendar and I say
here is where you send me flowers on my birthday
here is where you need to fuck me on the living room table
one more slip of paper, a combination
this is how to open my lock
and this is how to seal us both inside

press me up against cold and broken brick walls
write me scribbled notes on torn notebook pages
buy me my mocha as I'm about to open my wallet
don't give me a chance to say no or to giggle or blush away

understand that I don't want you to ask
understand that you can't get too lazy or shy
understand that I am to be coaxed and never taken for granted

mumble.... mumble.... blabbering.... ugh.... half asleep.... cold drugs....

achy, sneezy, and miserable

I seriously am the worst at being sick. All I wanna do is bitch and moan. Haven't left my house in two days.

I'm gonna knock myself out tonight with some sort of medication. Tomorrow I am in desperate need of picking up my laundry and getting some groceries.

I just can barely breathe and the sinus pressure makes it hard to think. My eyes watering, my nose like a faucet stuck on. The achiness in my arms and legs. Ugh.

Can't really think. I'd love to do some writing but forming sentences just isn't in the cards.

the mantras i've forgotten

what is meant for thee will gravitate to thee.

if it meant to be, it will be. regardless of everything.

if there is something you can do about a problem, there is no need to worry. if there is nothing you can do about a problem, there is no need to worry.

grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

note to self

note to self:

people fall in love.

they may trip,
they may slip,
they may faint,
they may wander down aimlessly,
they may lose their footing,
they may find their self below street level in surprise,
they may get carried away in tide and flood,
they may drunkenly wake up in the midst

however

people have never
throughout the history of time
simply
slowly climbed in.

if there is anything in this life to risk
if there is anything in this life to surrender to passion for
wouldn't it be the root of all passion and life itself?

To My Loyal Followers

It helps me in oh so many ways if you would please follow me publicly. I have a ton of followers but it doesn't look like it on my site :0) So if you could do it THAT way it'd be awesome.

I know silent, secret voyeurism is the way of the internets but just this time....

I'm sick as a dog with a sudden and nasty, achy, snotty cold. Stuck on my couch watching endless episodes of Intervention and House on my DVR and drinking juice.

I turn 30 a week from today. Oh boy :)

the vapors, the expectorate (draft)

i am stream of consciousness
i am a moment in time caught in a net
stringy, sticky, and always moistly wet
I am hocked up on city side walks, mixed with dirt

once while walking down the street
you laughed and said "my god we're contemporaries"
I imagined thick anthologies written years from now
I imagined my diaries sold at auction, letters bound and leathered

did ginsberg and kerouac and plath and burroughs know?

I can't help but smirk
think of the man who proclaimed me brilliant
"the epitome of the new generation of the New York school"
and when he asked me whom I read
I could only say "no one." or "they are all dead.
and I haven't visited them in ten years"

names fly by, spouted and spurted
I do not know them, I do not know them
is it vain to hope they will soon know me?

I know I am of no consequence
I do not torture myself with perceived importance
I have pride, I have ego
wrapped like bacon
salted and spiced with merry delusion

it is all a giant game of pretend
I am the unicorn
I toss it out
crusty tissues
do with my DNA what you will

the poets we learned about in school
do not compare their verse to bodily fluids
they spoke in deep symbolism and painted with flowers
(perhaps I am more stamen and pollen than petal)

I shall go down in history
as declaring my poetry the orgasmic splatter
that rages and erupts
spilling over your thighs and rampaging through
the pubic mountainside, clumping the trees
and bushes and twigs with ectoplasmic love and disregard
for the way words, the way sperm were intended

I feel in bursts, I am wave-like, and I am sinew
I am finger snaps, I am late night blues
At another time perhaps I was to be born
but delayed in utero, I grew fat and ripe

I am mouthfuls of juice
I am dew and sugar water on your chin
Delightful both tasted and worn like perfume

Like any human that soaks in their own juices
I am marinaded but yet sour on the tongue

I am sputum, mucus, phlegm
I am snot, I am spit, I am cum

I'd rather be a violent, vicious, passion-laden pelvic bruise
then cheap dollar store lipstick smeared on virgin lip

I am a pretty farm girl overladen with perverse conceptions
I am a hermit city girl that speaks in pixels and pulses
I am that girl that you notice only after she has left the room
I am the vapors
The mist and the fog
I am the vapors
and the expectorate

the language

i speak static
am fluent in typo
but despite my attempts
despite thirty years of study
I am unable to learn
the strange idioms
the illogical conjugations
the irregular and bizarre
language that is love

i am faux pas
i am slip of the tongue
i am twisted contractions
i am translation failed
i am constantly insulting the natives
i don't even know how to ask
where the library is
or "how much is this?"

i still travel the land
i still navigate the transportation system
i am, at times, able to un-lose myself
amongst foreigners in their homeland
and the mountains and gutters and steel

however, the tongue alludes me
and most of the time
all i can do is point, grunt, shake my head, or smile
and hope for the best

threshold

you preclude me
invite me then lock the door

i will knock
once, twice, maybe even three times

but sitting on your stoop
just to get out of the rain

i just will not do

tango

i can dance with the most skilled orchestrations
i am inept in all other matters of the heart

walking provides frustrations
constant terror due to weak ankles

skipping, I am afraid, I grew out of years ago
and running after you has never been my agenda

Letting Go of Crazy

I. Sunday Morning, Upon Waking Alone and Thus Not Distracted

What do you do
When it hurts to move
But if you don't move
It'll just hurt more
And you'll eventually
Never move again?

What do you do
When pain pills kill you
But if you don't find an alternative
You'll grow crippled
And eventually
Die anyway?

(repeated overdoses leading to lethal allergy. bittersweet irony)

How do you find the energy to run
When the energy to walk alludes you
How do you explain that you are rotting
You are atrophying yourself
Forty feet above the street
in a crumbling rented playhouse

How do you explain to others
That you just may be slowly killing yourself
(albeit lazily and without any conscious and direct intention)
As you crawl away from society
As you hide from the light
As you accept the seizing of organs and joints
And you are ashamed
You are so ashamed

II. I Hate This Part. Disney Movies Have Poisoned Me And Fucked With Life Expectations.

If I don't call you and you don't call me
It must mean it wasn't meant to be anyway
And I have proved the world right
In this model it is you
It is never me

But then no.
It is both of us.
Me being the Ursula, the disgusting sea-witch
(and thus obviously not deserving of love)
and you being the asshole Prince
who won't even try to peer past the supposed evil and ugliness
and who'd never attempt to kiss a toad
just to see if a Princess would appear

where oh where has Ariel gone?
I used to have red hair, too
but it wasn't the same
it never was the same

I'm more Sylvia than Walt. More Plath than Disney.

Something else
Hauls me through air ---
Thighs, hair;
Flakes from my heels.

I find joy in being right
That it is you that is unfair and unloving
but also that I am not worthy
of attempts to slay dragons
and struggles through briers and thorns
to rescue me in my castle tower

(does anyone know her real name was Aurora?)

no, indeed it is proof
it is logic and irrefutable facts
that i am no sleeping beauty
and I can dream myself quietly
into gentle, un-fettered death
undisturbed by attempts
at resuscitation

III. I am a masochist and a sadist. I like the color of my own blood and the taste of my own tears.

Perhaps I am an ugly creature
Perhaps I am a sloth, a mole woman, a warted witch
Perhaps I am best suited for dark internal rooms
Perhaps there is reason why nature has
Declared me not suited to breed (if only by omission)

Depression and self-loathing are nature's way
it's neo-Darwinism
my species has no place for party poopers
only the happy and well-adjusted survive
and let's face it, I'm not the best specimen anyway

IV. Self-pity parties are the cheapest to throw and saves you hundreds of dollars in catering costs.

I turn back into myself
I waddle and huddle
into my cave with the view
I am retreating from all that I want and love
And for the life of me
I don't know why

I am thirty and arthritic
I am thirty and obese
I am insulated and safe
And eventually life will leave me alone
With its disappointments and pedestals
And other high places I can no longer place others
Only to watch them fall and roll away


V. A reflection due to a lack of objective mirrors. with an acceptance of distortion.

Go away
I will run from you
I will hop a city bus

My motus operandi
is to hide and to be the center of attention
at the same time

My own paparazzi
my own shampoo-bottle Oscar speech
I don't take photos
of myself anymore
and the pills that have half-helped
leave me bloated, thin-eyebrowed, and
still probably damaged goods

I still play Guyville on never ending loops
I listen to the music of my youth
becaase I want to be mesmerizing, too

VI. A review of conditions, disorders, medications, and attempts to diagnose and pinpoint reasons why I am not responsible for my own self.

So many labels I have tried on
They never fit, they curl and split, tear and crumple
As if one term can explain all that is Janice
and one reading of the DSM-IV can find the cure

Can it be Effexor, Depakote, Topomax,
Paxil, Celexa, Klonopin, or Xanax?

And how do I get off and how do I get on?

Serotonin syndrome
Withdrawal syndrome
Suicidal crisis
Black box warnings
And me spending the early part of my twenties
on cliff edges with no FDA advice or knowledge
and no doctor's notes to get out of life

I have embraced crazy, creative, poetic, different, chaotic, tortured, misunderstood for so long
to properly see they are excuses, not personality

Thirty years of chicken or the egg
Is it my thyroid? Is it my parents? Is it genetics?
Why so fat so early?
Was it emotional abuse on the playground?
Are my class mates to blame?
Or the gym teachers who forced me to run
and balance my bulk on gymnastic beams

Borderline, Bipolar, Depressed, Eating Dis*ordered
Crazy, Agoraphobic, Obsessive Compulsive, Emotionally Unavailable
Spinster, Self-Medicator, Binge Eater, Post Traumatic Stressed

Unstable. Warning. Do not enter. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars
Approach with Caution. Unpredictable. Check any applicable symptoms. Be aware of any
potential side effects. Please sign here, you have been informed.


VII. Here is the part where I'm going to scream. I might even curse. Bear with me, gentle reader.

Look at ME.

Hey you, hey you, mother fucker!

Buy a book, support a true artist.
I am entitled, you see, I have suffered
And thus I deserve your attention
and your money, your penance

Please.
Please.

Understand that I hate you.
I fucking hate you.
But ....
I am fighting demons you can't see
And thus I am important and raw and
DAMNIT
I have something crucial to say
that YOU
that YOU
could NEVER understand.

And look at me!
I am better than you
because I am vulnerable and did i mention raw?
I am talented and memorable and
(please please please don't forget me)

I am bad genetics, I am bad environment, I am malnutrition, I am a memorandum
of psychopharmacudical pamphlets, I am simply a product of rape, cruelty, of a society that doesn't love me.

Nothing will ever be enough.
You can never be enough
I am an imploding star
a black hole that sucks the air from your lungs
I am a car accident about to happen

It is inevitable that I will crash and burn

I will be spectacular, a fucking cosmic event
And you
will
NOTICE.


VII. I'm sorry, you see it's not my fault. In fact, nothing's my fault. You see, I....

I am incapable
I am a writhesome, fucking anomaly

The doctors told me
they assured me when i was locked away
when I was twenty-three and institutionalized
they told me it was not my fault

and back, at nineteen
my first psychiatrist
during my first mind-fuck
proclaimed me "chronic" and forever diseased

i never forgot.

it's my excuse for everything.

i never was one to question authority.
i was always took the drugs i was handed
my mother raised a good, polite girl
that understood her place
and rarely ever thought for herself

VIII. New perspective spoken by an older lover who has a good eye for such things.

"You have issues with growing up."

I laugh. I say I was menstruating at eight
I was wearing a bra on the playground
I have an apartment, I pay my own rent
I have lived in New York City on ten thousand dollars a year
I am an adult, my licence proves it
I have the scars to tell
I am responsible and independent and quite capable
I am in a union, buddy, and have a hundred thousand dollar education

I consider a past boyfriend who'd accuse me of manipulation
of crying instead of talking and screaming instead of communicating

"you're a fucking child! a bratty, immature, emotionally crippled child"
he'd say and I'd act out more, I'd slam my head into walls
bruise my hands and head and use that as proof that i am just "troubled"

I'm sick of being sick, I said five years ago.
But I never grew sick of talking about it.

And I never took off the hospital ID bracelet

Perhaps at thirty, it's time to seal my juvenile record
Pack away my Liz Phair cds and wear long sleeved shirts
put away childish razors
and stop drinking myself to amnesia

This world owes me nothing
despite my shoulders, so deeply chipped

I am refusing to drink the Kool-aid
That I so routinely spike

I am letting go of crazy

Janice at Thirty (draft)

I. Sunday Morning, Upon Waking Alone and Thus Not Distracted

What do you do
When it hurts to move
But if you don't move
It'll just hurt more
And you'll eventually
Never move again?

What do you do
When pain pills kill you
(repeated overdoses leading to lethal allergy. bittersweet irony)
But if you don't find an alternative
You'll grow crippled
And eventually
Die anyway?

How do you find the energy to run
When the energy to walk alludes you
How do you explain that you are rotting
You are atrophying yourself
Forty feet above the street
in a crumbling rented play penthouse

How do you explain to others
That you just may be slowly killing yourself
(albeit lazily and without any conscious and direct intention)
As you crawl away from society
As you hide from the light
As you accept the seizing of organs and joints
And you are ashamed
You are so ashamed

II. I Hate This Part. Disney Movies Have Poisoned Me And Fucked With Life Expectations.

If I don't call you and you don't call me
It must mean it wasn't meant to be anyway
And I have proved the world right
In this model it is you
It is never me

But then no.
It is both of us.
Me being the Ursula, the disgusting sea-witch
(and thus obviously not deserving of love)
and you being the asshole Prince
who won't even try to peer past the supposed evil and ugliness
and who'd never attempt to kiss a toad
just to see if a Princess would appear

I hate you.

I find joy in being right
That it is you that is unfair and unloving
but also that I am not worthy
of attempts to slay dragons
and struggles through briers and thorns
to rescue me in my castle tower

no, indeed it is proof
it is logic and irrefutable facts
that i am no sleeping beauty
and I can dream myself quietly
into gentle, un-fettered death
undisturbed by attempts
at resuscitation

III. I am a masochist and a sadist. I like the color of my own blood and the taste of my own tears.

Perhaps I am an ugly creature
Perhaps I am a sloth, a mole woman, a warted witch
Perhaps I am best suited for dark internal rooms
Perhaps there is reason why nature has
Declared me not suited to breed (if only by omission)

Depression and self-loathing are nature's way
it's neo-Darwinism
my species has no place for party poopers
only the happy and well-adjusted survive
and let's face it, I'm not the best specimen anyway

IV. Self-pity parties are the cheapest to throw and saves you hundreds of dollars in catering costs.

I turn back into myself
I waddle and huddle
into my cave with the view
I am retreating from all that I want and love
And for the life of me
I don't know why

I am thirty and arthritic
I am thirty and obese
I am insulated and safe
And eventually life will leave me alone
With its disappointments and pedestals
And other high places I can no longer place others
Only to watch them fall and roll away

Fuck, I think I hate myself

V. A reflection due to a lack of objective mirrors. with an acceptance of distortion.

Go away
I will run from you
I will hop a city bus

My motus operandi
is to hide and to be the center of attention
at the same time

My own paparazzi
my own shampoo-bottle Oscar speech
I don't take photos
of myself anymore
and the pills that have half-helped
leave me bloated, thin-eyebrowed, and still
probably
damaged goods

VI. A review of conditions, disorders, medications, and attempts to diagnose and pinpoint reasons why I am not responsible for my own self.

So many labels I have tried on
They never fit, they curl and split, tear and crumple
As if one term can explain all that is Janice
and one reading of the DSM-IV can find the cure

Can it be Effexor, Depakote, Topomax,
Paxil, Celexa, Klonopin, or Xanax?

And how do I get off and how do I get on?

Serotonin syndrome
Withdrawal syndrome
Suicidal crisis
Black box warnings
And me spending the early part of my twenties
on cliff edges with no FDA advice or knowledge
and no doctor's notes to get out of life

I have embraced crazy, creative, poetic, different, chaotic, tortured, misunderstood for so long
my arms are cramped and my view too close, too blurred
to properly see they are excuses, not personality

Thirty years of chicken or the egg
Is it my thyroid? Is it my parents? Is it genetics?
Why so fat so early?
Was it emotional abuse on the playground?
Are my class mates to blame?
Or the gym teachers who forced me to run
and balance my bulk on gymnastic beams

Borderline, Bipolar, Depressed, Eating Dis*ordered
Crazy, Agoraphobic, Obsessive Compulsive, Emotionally Unavailable
Spinster, Self-Medicator, Binge Eater, Post Traumatic Stressed

Unstable. Warning. Do not enter. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars
Approach with Caution. Unpredictable. Check any applicable symptoms. Be aware of any
potential side effects. Please sign here, you have been informed.

I sit in the back of the group therapy session
The titles and faces change
depending on which condition, which affliction
I have decided this week
has made me its victim

VII. Here is the part where I'm going to scream. Bear with me, gentle reader.

I am not a part of everything you think you know
By proclaiming this so loudly and so fucking righteously
I am stepping outside of this society that I am rejecting

What the hell do you think of that?

Look at me!
Get your fucking eyes off of me!
I am a passive aggressive whiner
LOOK AT ME!

Please.
Please.
Understand that I hate you.
I fucking hate you.
But ....
I am fighting demons you can't see
And thus I am important and raw and
DAMNIT
I have something crucial to say
that YOU
that YOU
could NEVER understand.

And look at me!
I am better than you
because I am vulnerable and did i mention raw?
I am talented and memorable and
(please please please don't forget me)

Buy a book, support a true artist.
I am entitled, you see, I have suffered
And thus I deserve your attention
and your money, your penance

Can't you save me more quickly
stop giving me crutches and pills and kind words
Won't you feel awful
if some years after this night
you read that I am expired and moldy?
See this?
This is your responsibility
I am a just a voice and a series of letters on a page

THIS IS YOUR FAULT!

I am bad genetics, I am bad environment, I am malnutrition, I am a memorandum
of psychopharmacudical pamphlets, I am simply a product of rape, cruelty, of a society that doesn't love me.

That's what I used to tell my mother.
Sent to a corner, punished for sassing
I'd cry and whimper
why don't you love me?

Nothing will ever be enough.
You can never be enough
I am an imploding star
a black hole that sucks the air from your lungs
I am a car accident about to happen

It is inevitable that I will crash and burn

I will be spectacular, a fucking cosmic event
And you
will
NOTICE.


VII. I'm sorry, you see it's not my fault. In fact, nothing's my fault. You see, I....

I am incapable
I am a writhesome, a fucking anomaly

The doctors told me
they assured me when i was locked away
when I was twenty-three and institutionalized
they told me it was not my fault

and back, at nineteen
my first psychiatrist
during my first mind-fuck
proclaimed me "chronic" and forever diseased

i never forgot.

it's my excuse for everything.

i never was one to question authority.
i was always took the drugs i was handed
my mother raised a good, polite girl
that understood her place
and rarely ever thought for herself

VIII. New perspective spoken by an older lover who has a good eye for such things.

"You have issues with growing up."

I laugh. I say I was menstruating at eight
I was wearing a bra on the playground
I have an apartment, I pay my own rent
I have lived in New York City on ten thousand dollars a year
I am in a union, buddy, and have a hundred thousand dollar education

I laugh because he is new, he is not yet proven mal-intent
although me, ha, well I just assume it's coming

I consider a past boyfriend who'd accuse me of manipulation
of crying instead of talking and screaming instead of communicating

"you're a fucking child! a bratty, immature, emotionally crippled child"
he'd say and I'd act out more, I'd slam my head into walls
bruise my hands and head and use that as proof that i am just "troubled"

Yes, we're walking down the street
My new lover casts me a sideways glance

I'm sick of being sick, I said five years ago.
But I never grew sick of talking about it.

Perhaps at thirty, it's time to seal my juvenile record
Pack away my Liz Phair cds and wear long sleeved shirts
Perhaps it is time to look ahead
Get off my couch
Get off my high horse
Walk off this anger
Cry out these tears
And say good bye

Yes, I need to say goodbye

It may mean I walk about for awhile
With no past, no papers, no history
I am growing up before I grow old.
Being an adult is more than meaning
you can eat ice cream for breakfast
And not getting carded at bars

I am letting go of crazy.

Baz-Catan

baz-catan! the wiles of man!
I am being all I can

then i laugh, i laugh, laugh
i dis-helm this matter
and toss it over board
feed it to the sharks, matey!

baz-catan! the wiles of man!
I am being all I can