Speak Easy

2010-06-04T21:11:00.000-07:00

I keep sweepin' this floor
washin' clothes, dishes, babies
trying to clean up this mess
you made of me, my family.
Cry on that rebel
chocolate cake we got
because why the hell not
we're broke anyway
four dollars
same as four million
Selling eggs, sperm, smiles
Noodles and tomato sauce
to stop feeling hungry
even though I'm sick from it
spending the night
flushing undigested noodles,
expensive water
and all of my crazy pills
Stabbing myself in the ear
hoping I won't hear myself think

2010-02-26T10:20:00.001-08:00

Eyes like peaches
Swollen heavy
On the tree
My only movement
The rocking of my heartbeat
Outing me
I wanted to be still
So maybe earth
Would pass me by
She knows though
I am alive
Back in fifteen minutes
Atlas lied
I always help
But the universe
Fails to recognize
And one day
My veins
Will finally dry
No good neighbor
Will spy
My face in a ditch
For all the dirt
Caked by tears
I am myself
The ditch
I will finally rest
In death
I will bleed no more
In death
I almost pray
To God
If it is here
That we have
No afterlife

2010-02-18T07:58:00.001-08:00

Now this is the story
All about how
My life got flipped-
Turned upside down
I'd like to take a minute... See More
Just sit right there
I'll tell you how I became
Princess though the cat
Was first heir.

In Blacksburg, Virginia
With my raise
Making messes
Is how I spent mosta my days
Chillin' out Maxin
Relaxin all slouch
Drinkin' some bottle
Inside on the couch
When a sneaky l'il cat
Who was up to no good
Started makin' trouble in my neighborhood
I got in one little tiff
And my mom got scared
She said "I'm puttin' gloves on the cat;
Now that's only fair."
I whistled for a scooter
And when it came near
It had sticker license plate
And and a lion face to steer!
If anything I can say
That this scoot' was fool.
But I thought "man, forget it - yo Home, To my room!"

I dropped into the crib
'Bout 6:30 or 7
I yelled to my momma
"You'll smell me at 11!"

I looked at my cribdom
I was finally there
And that's how I became
Princess while the cat
Was first born heir.

2009-11-15T17:00:00.001-08:00

My home has a window wall
panes and all
that are hard to clean
but the light coming through
is worth it - you'll see
the view is to a street
so I can see what humans
are like by themselves
in a bunch
my home has scratched
wood floors
that scratch - a roller skate
and over there - a chair
fell backwards
my home has been home
to loves moms
strangers dogs
lonely artists
and parakeets
my home is warmed by the sun
and cooled by a breeze
my home rarely needs lamps
or voices raised
my home has a jade
with red tips
and walls made from brick
that scratch your elbows
when you lean on them
so that you remember her
whenever again you
scratch on bricks
my home will be for a while
until I am old
and I will give her up
for another homesick soul
with no idea
what she's missing
except for what she's hoping.

2009-11-13T16:29:00.001-08:00

Homesick for a place
I never knew.
It is almost
the place between
shoulder and chest
or the musty lungful
of his beard,
the breathy buildup
before her canteloupe
kiss-laugh
duck feathers, lemon Pledge
and a faint whiff
asphalt sealer and coal.
Half-a-half-a century
and I need to ache
to get to my home-not-house.

2009-09-27T19:15:00.000-07:00

trp trp hmmspsh
hmm tkp tkp
ck-ch-ck-ch-ck-ck-chhh
haah-haam-hu/
haaaumm pa ta!
ck-chh ooowph
t-t-ttttt-chhh-a!
hmmm paaah
tkp tkp hmmm
tkp tkp hmmmspsh
mmmmm

2009-09-13T13:28:00.000-07:00

After months of silence,
stillness, she is thin -
hangs her wings out to dry.
Her wings.
Her reward for
endurance, faith.
Slim veins pump blood and strength
into her
her great black and orange wings
beat their reward fiercely.

2009-09-13T13:23:00.000-07:00

Soft white floating bursts
of milkweed memories
all I ever knew
until gray thread
came from the part
of my heart that wishes,
surrounding me with
fear and hope, mostly fear.
I heard once about
cocoons or chrysalis
fairy tales
Now darkness, loneliness
replaces leg-counting,
slinking, contenting.
Pupate pu pu pate
The hardest part
is stretching my wings

2009-09-13T13:22:00.000-07:00

Halfway from heart
to butterfly
swings a piece
obsidian
obsequeous
ubiquitous
to stop fallen angels
burnt coffee
and invisible moons

My dream left knee

2009-09-13T13:17:00.000-07:00

Left foot, left knee
Right foot
Left foot, left knee
Right foot
My dream left leg
was double long as my
right leg-
left foot, left knee
right foot.
And I woke with a sore knee
nearly eight inches
not a foot wide
2 days later
from half my calf
to toe tips-
nothing! numb!
I know the foot
moves only because
a foot typically obeys
and I told her
move along, sister.
But she's as numb
as a dead rat.
Look at that knee.
She's lasted 24 years,
ole girl.
squish Squishy knee
Wonder if I
pk pk pk it
like a water balloon
if yellow-clear
water of me would
sprayyyy - psh!

1

2009-08-12T12:46:00.000-07:00

Spy those cows, man.
Perched on the green mountain
taking a break from munching
to cool on the damp grass
in tickling drizzle
legs curled b'neath
solid black bodies.
One is standing because
she likes the breeze
on her knees.

2009-02-13T09:09:00.001-08:00

morning eyes
petal fingertips
at the top of my spine
the relief of your lips
a sparrow in her nest
for the night
I crave tender minutes
with you like a mandolin

He is your blood.

2009-01-29T12:49:00.001-08:00

Cars are just cars
and not people going home.
Trees are just trees
not strong beings
reaching for God.
Mountains are part
of the road to get
to the place
where you eat and sleep.
Just a landscape
not living things.

How do you process the suicide
of the one person
you never found beauty in?
You are quiet,
reassure your mother
it was okay
to call you at work.
Explain.
Shake.
You let one or two
tears fall for him.
He's your blood.
You stop and shake.
And resolve to keep working
And sob
and explain, sobbing, to your boss
and run, sobbing, out of the office.
You scream at his ghost
on the way to your house
where you
eat, sleep, watch movies.
And you plead with your Father
to keep hands on your father
please don't let him...
...just please,
just help him to...
...please, just...

You thought you'd be relieved
when he did it.
You knew.
You saw his heart.
You thought you'd be sad.
He is your blood.
You never thought
you'd feel a first
real fear
for your father.
I don't know how
but please just
make him love.
Make him feel nothing but love.

2008-12-15T07:07:00.001-08:00

These spiders on the ends
of my arms fly
without rhythm
just doing whatever
my wrinkly CPU
says to do
make it up
or follow the rules
but never on
eight little steps
eight little stepping stones
to the house
walking in the mud,
staining the carpet
with a reddish smush.
His wrinkly CPU is
shorting out
and that is why
we have mud.
And why we stab our feet
walking through the house.

2008-12-09T09:53:00.001-08:00

I have a habit of starting over. I guess I like turning over new leaves.

A Pocket That Could Hold The Universe

Just for my personal stuff. This remains my little poetry and story corner of the world. Though it seems that part of me is taking a haitus lately.

2008-11-21T05:47:00.001-08:00

November snow falls
and I have two poems
in my pockets--
the first since July.
They are burning my leg
and I don't really like them,
but at least they are
furiously written
on the backs of shopping lists
and not by someone else.
This makes three.

2008-11-21T05:45:00.001-08:00

I'll read Ginsberg
with my breakfast cereal,
sweep the floors
with dreams of beautiful
brilliant Jonathan
Safran Foer,
bathe my daughter
and tuck her in
with Whitman
and shove hoards
of clothes into those
big white ugly machines
wondering where that stain
came from on Jack's
brand new slacks
while the slow snow
falls and covers up
this dirty 2008
and most of those
men are dead but
their minds still haunt
domestic little girl-women
in rural Virginia.

2008-11-21T05:42:00.000-08:00

On my kitchen table
mingle a phone book
a new watch
still in the package
because it doesn't fit
a video camera not yet used
stickers that came in the mail
even though my daughter
is not old enough
to know what her hand is
much less stickers
with mickey mouse faces
a copy of Howl
and a candle.
This kitchen is a
domestic dream and
outside the new snow
freezes everything.

2008-11-07T07:16:00.001-08:00

Blessings are two faced. Or many faced. What blesses one curses one. What blesses one blesses and curses. What curses blesses. What is sometimes hurts and sometimes heals. What isn't sometimes gives hope and sometimes damns. Don't assume, just trust the feelings that others feel. To judge the feeling is to judge the feeler. To judge the decision is to judge the decider. What's true isn't necessarily truth. I don't believe in truth. Just Love is only love or fair love?

2008-08-28T03:59:00.001-07:00

Elizabeth Aston
"You can't jump down the stairs in one leap, however much you might wish to, and you even more surely can't jump up it, but one step and then the next and there you are, at the top or the bottom and not a bit out of breath or discomposed."

2008-08-14T11:01:00.000-07:00

Today, I fell asleep while working from home (sh!) and I dreamed this strange dream:

My brother had a mullet. He didn't have an on-purpose-mullet, but a mullet because he'd gone so long without a haircut. My mom had kept giving him money to get his haircut, and he told us that he was going, but he wasn't going. He was stealing the money each time. I was furious at him and my family was trying to figure out a plot to prove that he was lying. Then, my dad marches valiantly into the house with plain gree, green with yellow polka dots, and t-rex t-shirt scraps and said that each time Russell goes to get his haircut, he leaves these t-shirt scraps in the truck! Since there were only three kinds, he was lying! We had proof! Insert random scenes of me vacuuming and showing my friend LeAnne this business that was located in my parents laundry room and Luke watching golf with my Papaw. We were all going out to dinner and I stopped at the steps to the door to the kitchen and screamed "AND HE'S NOT EVEN SPENDING TIME WITH THE FAMILY AND I WON'T SEE HIM BEFORE HE MOVES TO COLLEGE!!" and I was so angry that my brother was going away this weekend, the last weekend before he moves to college. (I'm not really angry; he has to do what he has to do!) So at dinner, no one talked to Russell. And at dinner, someone gave away three door prizes! Everyone wanted this pink stone charm with blue spots but one lady got it and everyone kept saying "I want it! I want it! I want it!" and grabbing for it like a bunch of children! The lady put her hand on her heart and said "I will give it to Blue!" (Blue is a bulldog that I used to know.) And she hands it to Greg, a man that interviewed me for my job and was also in my childbirth class with his wife. She gave it to Greg/Blue to give to his wife because she had her baby on Sunday. And Dad laid the scraps out on the table and told Russell "We know." very seriously. And Russell tried to play it off and I wouldn't give him a computer.

I had hot dogs before sleeping.

2008-08-14T06:43:00.000-07:00

Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me,
for in you my soul takes refuge.
I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings
until the disaster has passed.
I cry out to God Most High,
to God, who fulfills his purpose for me.
Psalm 57:1-2

Don't rely on other people to make you feel a certain way. Everything you want is inside of you because God put it there. Your happiness and your sadness and your self worth are in there. Relying on outside sources to define you does not make sense and will not work.

Sshh-sh; Don't speak-don't speak.

2008-07-30T06:32:00.000-07:00

2008-07-25T12:05:00.000-07:00

Amelia's strong little feet are up in my ribs today, kicking around and making my breath short and my chest hurt. I can feel her litte hands tickling me. It's hard to believe she is surrounded by amniotic fluid and placenta and all kinds of fat and gross stuff because I can feel every little movement like she's touching right on the other side of my skin.

She is coming soon. I don't feel like she'll stay in there the whole time, but maybe she will stay in there the whole time and longer. I just feel like it is so soon. Whether she stays in the whole time or not, she's coming soon. My due date is about 1.5 months away. I haven't done anything or gotten anything. Her "stuff" consists of a bunny, a diaper bag, lots and lots of wonderful hand-me-down (the best kind because you know they work!) clothes, some toddler shoes, three bottles, a bath thing, and an elephant. She has a disassembled bed and changing table/dresser sitting at my parents' house.

I think I am itching to do that whole nesting thing. I've started it around the house already. Everything is getting cleaned and organized. I am excited to put little lavendar sheets in her bed.

Love is the craziest thing. I love her so much. I took for granted my relationship with my mom for soooo long. We've always had a good relationship, I think; and now, it is great! But since I got pregnant and especially since I started feeling like I am getting to know my baby a little bit, I really misunderstood how my mom feels about me and Russell. I can't believe I ever argued with her or yelled at her or said I'd rather go out than spend time with her. Why can't kids feel that bond like the mother does? Maybe I was just a brat and didn't feel it; maybe Amelia will.

I am so excited for this. I feel like such a kid still, but I'm going to be a mom. I'm going to be completely responsible for another life. I'm pretty responsible for a lot of the things in Luke's life, but he could make it without me. Amelia is going to need me for everything. She's going to learn everything she knows from things I allow in her life. She will be scared of things I allow to intimidate her. She will love things that I allow to be introduced to her.

I had to go back and change up the baby registery today. I get intimidated by all of the decisions I have to me. Which stroller?! Which carrier? Which car seat? All of these things are things that will keep her safe and I have to decide judging from what other people write about them. Lots of pink though.

I can't wait to see her baby face and smell her baby skin. I can't wait to have someone beautiful to look at all the time. I can't wait to clean up her toys. I don't want her to grow up too fast, but I can't wait to experience so many things. I can't wait to put little pigtails in her hair and take her to the eye doctor. I can't wait to see her taste ice cream for the first time. I can't wait to read her clumsy handwriting when she learns to spell her name. I can't wait to laugh at the cat running away from her because she pulls her tail.

Yesterday, I had a talk with Naarah, my cat. I told her that Amelia would be here soon and she's going to be scary. I told Naarah that Amelia will love her but she won't understand her and she'll probably pull her tail. I told her that it won't hurt because Amelia wont be strong so she shouldn't freak out but just be understanding and not such a princess. I think she understood. I laid with that cat and Amelia kicked her through my belly and Naarah just laid patiently beside me.

I am crocheting bunnies. The first one I am making is for another baby. I am going really slow and can't seem to get motivated. I'm sure that when I make Amelia's bunny I will be more motivated.

I can't find baby clothes hangers anywhere. I want to go through the clothes that I have and pick something out for her to wear home.

I wonder what color hair and eyes she will have. I wonder if she will need glasses and braces. I wonder if she will like dogs or cats. I wonder if she will think fish are beautiful. I wonder if she will like to eat fish. I wonder if she will like strawberry ice cream. I wonder what age she will be when she starts to want a cell phone. I wonder if she will carry a toy with her. I wonder if she will be neat or messy. Shy or outgoing? I wonder if she will be okay with a camera always taking pictures of her. I wonder if she will want to go to Disney World and if she will like to swim. Will she be left handed or right handed? Will she be artistic or sporty? Or both? Will she be ditzy like me or have loads of common sense like Luke?

I never run out of things to think about now. :)

2008-07-22T20:07:00.000-07:00

West Virginia
whispers in her coal mines.
She has names and faces
fingered into the coal dust
on her houses in her coal towns.
She hugs her Mountaineers
with Big Walker Mountain,
protecting them from disasters.
She lets the sprinkling effects
of Tropical Storm Bertha
make her green, greener
while the Mountaineers scowl
but cherish the rain after.
She uses this shield
to fight off feral funnels
from the west so outhouses
stand like monuments.
Her Mountaineers,
dirty and calloused feet,
hearty and honest smiles,
grow up in her breast
mostly warm, mostly fed--
loving her like a 17-year-old dog
that tramps through the woods
with yuh never running ahead.
She glows in her odd,
frog shaped radiance
and tells her Mountaineers
she loves them even though
they spill her blood
to fuel the rest-
the selfish rest of America.
She loves them.
When they go away from her,
they miss her like a secret lover,
sometimes afraid to admit
that their hearts are drawn back
even if their feet are stuck
in someone else's cricks.
She'll wait until they're old
needing to be held like babes.
She'll welcome them back
knowing that they loved her all along.
She never leaves the hearts of
her Mountaineers,
you can't take her out of them.
---
It sounds cliche to me, but I guess if a love is that common in a people, you're going to get a lot of the same coming from them.

I don't live in West Virginia anymore. I live about 30 minutes from the West Virginia/Virginia border and even though I'm still in the Appalachian mountains and can't say "my neighborhood," but instead I say "My Hill," I know the difference. I am welcome here, but the ground doesn't reach up and tickle my feet when I walk on her. Virginia thinks I am all right, but she is not my Mother.

Today, I spent a little over an hour at the DMV (some things are universal I guess) in the town that I work in. I finished reading my David Sedaris book while waiting. I spent a long time talking to a lady, looking in a box, and waiting for the woman to enter my biography into her computer. I got a Virginia driver's license, a Virginia license plate, and registered to vote in Virginia. I took a picture in Virginia and took another picture in Virginia. I signed my name as a Virginian. I saw the state seal for the first time, and walked out knowing my license plate number would have to be missed.

I don't know my driver's license number by heart. I don't know my license plate number by heart. I have a heart on my driver's license.
---
On a lighter note:
I look like a lobster in my license photo because it was about nine hundred six degrees in the DMV, and I had been standing for a very long time. This is also the second photo taken because the woman making me a Virginian forgot that I want to give away my guts when I die. The first picture made me look angry anyway when really, I'd laughed just a second before.

The worst part was giving up my license plate number. I have been pretty upset about this since I've moved to Virginia but even more so since I got the reminder to renew my registration. My license plate number was so beautiful before. It was balanced so nicely by an eight at either end. Eight is my favorite number. Inside the hug of eights were two more numbers: 3 and 5; except for 8, I love odd numbers except for 7--3 and 5 were perfect. The last, and perfect touch was HP--Harry Potter. I could not have asked for a more spectacular finishing touch on my little Matrix.

And that license plate was dashed away and replaced by one beginning with XWF! I am not sure that I can think of a worse license plate. EX-WIFE! What?! NO! I am not and will not be an EX-WIFE! My mouth literally dropped when I saw it. I thought--Please, let her realize that these letters are terrible, worse than a scarlet A on my breast! Please! But no. She handed me two-one for the front, one for the back; I have never heard of having one on BOTH sides before. Now, whether I am coming or going, everyone in my path will see me as the Ex-Wife!

While lamenting my fears and woes to my friend LeAnne last week, she vowed to help me come up with a new, meaningful explanation to the letters of my car when I got them. But you can't just erase an immediate recognition. I am doomed. My brother tried by saying "Excellent Wife" and LeAnne tried by telling me that they were the actual letters of the actual Extreme Wrestling Foundation. She said it could also mean Extra White Female, which I am unless you know me by my driver's license photo.

I miss West Virginia, where I could be a Harry Potter fan and look like a frog instead of a lobster.

Montani Semper Libri.
Mountaineers are Always Free.
But that doesn't mean they don't love their mountain confines.

2008-07-08T09:52:00.001-07:00

Today, my husband, Luke, and I have been married for two years. Two years sounds like a really short time, but it feels like forever ago. I don’t remember much about that day because, honestly, I was just trying to get everything over with so I could finally just spend some time with my new husband and finally live with him.

In those two years, we’ve gotten to know each other better than anyone else in the world knows us. We’ve shared interests with each other and become mutually interested in each other’s interests. I watch strange crime investigation and hospital dramas with him and he watches family/reality shows with me. I read comic books and he reads…comic books. Some of my friends have become his friends.

Also in those two years, we’ve learned how not to hurt each other. We are kinesthetic learners, so we learned how to not hurt each other by first hurting each other and forgiving each other. I think we are both very lucky to be with each other because of the way we forgive each other. Forgiveness is hard, but we really love each other and it is worth it.

At the end of February 2003, we went on a youth trip with our church. We had probably already known each other for about two years and according to him, he had a little “crush” on me on and off for a little while, but I was with someone else most of the time. In Gatlinburg, we ended up together quite a bit and I really can’t remember why other than he was funny and charming and I think my little-sisteresque person at the time was starting to like him. (Oops. I didn’t know.) So, we stuck together that weekend and the night we all went back home, I had a message on ICQ (Who remembers ICQ?!) from Luke telling me that he had such a great time and enjoyed getting to know me and that he valued our new friendship and all of that stuff that you say to someone you’re interested in but aren’t sure if they think of you as more than a friend or not (which I did). Both of us being shy and silly, we talked online a lot and a little bit when we saw each other at church. He joined in sitting with me and my friends and I sat with his friends some. Without revealing too much of what I said (because it is kind of embarrassing and hilarious and totally out of character), we’ll just say I told him how I felt and he said he felt the same way and we were both being shy and silly and had a hard time getting things started. I drew the whole thing out too long, but finally decided that I really did like him and decided to date him. “I’m eighteen. This isn’t as if I’m planning to marry him or anything!”

On May 3, 2003, we started dating and on May 5, 2003, I went to the Dominican Republic—So Monday, when he went to school and was finally able to tell his friends and they asked, he said “well…she’s in the Dominican Republic.” But when I came back, we saw A LOT of each other and then in August 2003, I went to college and we only got to see each other on the weekends and talk periodically on the phone (long distance back then!) and online. In 2005, he came to college and made some decisions that I didn’t agree with and one in particular that made me break up with him as soon as I found out about it. September 16, we broke up and that caused me to be sick and lose a lot of weight and let my grades and standards slip a bit. November 13, 2005 (the day before his birthday), we got back together after we both cleared our heads of all of the garbage. On February 11, 2006, he took me out in the snow at Little Beaver State Park (where we went the most when we were dating), onto the dock (over water, which he is afraid of), cleared the snow, carved “LAS + LAS” surrounded by heart and asked me to marry him. I don’t remember what he said because I was pretty excited and cold and worried because we had slid all over the roads on the way out there. I said something or just hugged him or something and he put the loaner ring from Kay’s on my finger. (They ordered the wrong cut on the wrong color base in the wrong size…hah-our luck never changes.) And we went trudging back through the snow and back to Kay’s to give them the ring back, engaged, nonetheless. He took me home and I told my mom and he went home early because the roads were so terrible. July 8, 2006 (we planned fast!), we got married, ran out of the sanctuary to a Bright Eyes song (our song-which everyone loved even though it was Bright Eyes!), and took our bowling bag full of clothes to Country Inn and Suites for our one-night pseudo honeymoon and ate at Ruby Tuesday.

We lived together in Princeton with our amazing little cat (from Augusta!) until April 2007. Then we moved to Bluefield into a crappy basement apartment with our amazing little cat, a good landlord until April 2008. Now, we live in Pounding Mill, Virginia in a house with our amazing little cat and our amazing little daughter on the way!

This morning, the second anniversary of our wedding, I call to him (again) to wake up so he can go to work. He shuffles in his underwear and under shirt into the living room (where I am working due to pain) yawns generously, says “HEY!” with a huge smile, lifts his shirt up and smacks his belly about nine times, watches me laugh for a good 45 seconds because I am sitting here reflecting on our life together while he is smacking his belly, and shuffles off to the bathroom to shower.

After all of the good and bad and hard and hilarious that we’ve been through, I really wouldn’t trade it at all-not a second-not when I made mistakes or when he hurt me or anything. I don’t think I could be happier than I am right now. I’ve thought that many times in he past handful of years, but it just keeps getting better and I just keep getting happier.

All of these years, we've learned that falling in love is really a process. It isn't something we did in Gatlinburg, or any certain time we were together or apart or anything. It has been a five and a half year process and we just keep going. Our love is far from what it was in May 2003; I definitely don't love him like that anymore. And I think that is the best way--to have an ever changing love and as long as it is real love, it will never change so that we can't do it anymore. If our love never changed, we wouldn't love each other anymore. That's something we talk about every now and then--"falling in love" and how it works. We're still falling in love.

2008-07-05T14:06:00.001-07:00

Another day by myself. Will I lose it completely? Cast your votes.

2008-07-04T18:30:00.001-07:00

I always have a book with me.
I always think of something else.
I always remember.
I always want something more.
I always like my life.
I always wish something was happening.
I always think of "college" in Grammar class.

I never fully exist in this particular moment.
I never feel like I have complete control.
I never stop thinking about more than one thing at a time.
I never really know what I'm doing.
I never stop wishing sometimes that I am someone else.
I never understand completely.

2008-07-04T16:34:00.001-07:00

I used to ache for days like this. Days that I could use to just sit and read whatever I wanted to read for hours and hours.

I took for granted always living with someone...always having someone there. Zue or Kricky. We didn't even have to be doing something or saying anything, but the knowledge that another person was existing in that room or that apartment with me. I've never, ever had time to myself before and now that I have it in heaping amounts, I might just go crazy.

I always wanted to live in a city by myself in a tiny apartment for a few years after college. I will go ahead and admit that I still daydream about it--no responsibilities other than myself, no husband to take care of and clean up after and cook for. Spaghettios for dinner or Indian take-out that I could eat on for days. The tiny apartment would be filled with books I'd read and planned to read and notebooks of stories and poetry that I'd written and photographs that I'd taken in Italy and New York and San Fransisco and India and Greece and Texas, clippings from articles I'd written or stacks of things waiting for me to mark up with my red pencil. A cat and a cut from my dad's jade plant the only ones to greet me when I returned with bags of dirty clothes and a camera full of photos to sort through. I think I could be happy doing that even now.

But I am in a farm house in Pounding Mill, Virginia. With a fantastic husband. I have that affectionate, better-than-I-ever-imagined cat to greet me with a stretch and a meow. I have a baby kicking and punching around in my belly. I have a large shelf full of books in almost perfect order. My house is clean. My bills are paid. The view outside is beautiful and green. I have a good job, not my dream job, but a job I can enjoy and learn in.

I'd always dreamed of both of these things, expecting actually the first--never thinking I'd be the type of person that someone would fall in love with and want a family with and live in a farm house with.

With both of these dreams though, in the periphery, I'd had friends to go out with at a thought. I could call them up and we could go anywhere. I guess I never counted on the ONLY thing left for me to do is spending a whole day reading on a comfortable couch. I figured that would be something I set aside...something I'd turn my phone and computer off to do. A time to separate myself. But days and days I spend reading about people living the first life I'd dreamed of...the one in Boston or Philadelphia or Pittsburgh with the cat and the thriving jade plant and the mess of books and papers and photos.

I'm not regretting getting married and living in Appalachia. I like it. I think I'd just rather be less of a recluse. The cat has spent most of today curled up on a dingy chair in what will be my baby's room, ignoring everything until midnight because she is used to me being here and not excited to see me.

I get a text message from my mom and my friend Kayla (living in Abingdon, able to do the things I want to do) and a former co-worker. An email from my husband because I'm trying to plan at least a week in advance a get-together for a friend's birthday. And I feel old. A quick greeting from these three people and detailed exchanges about shifts and days-off. I feel old and spent up and like I have missed out on something or am missing something.

And I still go back to the couch with my book and wait until my husband gets home to tell me about a day in the world of Dish Network.

Name that stain.

2008-07-03T08:44:00.001-07:00

Me: What happened to your shirt?
Luke: What is it?
Me: A brown spot
Luke: Let me see.
(Imagine the looks on our faces when he says that--that's funny anyway. Like I can show him the spot on the back of his shirt? He takes his shirt off and looks a the stain.)
Luke: Found that piece-a cookie.

2008-06-28T08:10:00.001-07:00

"Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty... Were it otherwise he would never have been able to find those words."
Rainer Maria Rilke

Lots of little brown things

2008-06-26T11:41:00.000-07:00

Dream # 1: I had too many pennies and they wouldn't fit into my wallet/billfold/whatever you call it.

Dream # 2: I had a lot of freckles on my nose and cheeks.

2008-06-20T07:46:00.000-07:00

Bright stars, cigars,
smoke rings
on a bus in Rekjavik
there were children on the streets
jumping rope, spitting seed shells
while Jeryicah told me stories
of Ben-Hur and the Wizard of Oz.

Stucco muts,
dirty needle cigarette butts,
and sewage leaking from
a condemned apartment building
those streets were empty
And my name was on everything
like Jeryicah's hand bag made from
sweat shops and sold by rich men.

The bus was stopped
where it’s always a moonless night.
Troops in rags of uniforms
I looked for familiar faces but
I didn’t see yours between their
justice-starved frowns.

We handed them our
collected cigarettes and
children
stared at our clean shoes
they cried
because they were happy
that someone was blessed
with freedom.

(*A collaboration with Kayla)

2008-06-19T10:08:00.000-07:00

So close
we breathe
the same air
and get high
on each other's
carbon dioxide
and crack up
until we feel sick.

2008-06-19T08:24:00.001-07:00

My lungs never fill enough
with the thick, sweet
smell of your beard.
I welcome snuffs, sneezes
after the tickle of your
too long moustache
under my nose
when you kiss me
goodnight.
In a few hours,
you'll creep into
our warm bed
and your hot legs
will sneakily find
their way to startle
my cold ones.
We'll dream of each other
in our imperfect sleeps
waking, knowing that
even our dreams
aren't as good as
our reality.
I miss you
when we're apart
even if you're
only at work
for the evening
while I pat
around our farm house
in bare feet
making your sweet tea
revering the swell
in my body
that is your child.
Your hummingbird eyes-
perfect sage green,
my favorite color-
are the only ones
I never shy from,
can make contact with
not feeling exposed,
naked, vulnerable,
ugly, but instead
happy, content,
sometimes beautiful.
The grandest coop
to roost
is under your arm:
my head on your chest
and your heartbeat
reverberating in my ears.
Love isn't the right word
for any of this, but
no such word or
combination of words
ever did or will exist.

2008-06-16T07:18:00.000-07:00

Nervous Breakdown Cake
* Approximate preparation time: One week (168 hours)

Ingredients:
-One fifteen pound medicine ball
-One husband (preferably one with no concept of responsibility and without the “spend time with wife” priority)
-10 ounces of time with that husband
-40 ounces of regular job
-14 ounces of housework
-2 ounces of grocery shopping
-6 ounces of meal preparation
-168 ounces of constant pain
-56 ounces sleep (interrupted every 30 minutes to dispose of waste)
-Lots of Hormones (as long as you have a lot of wild ones, the amount and type doesn’t actually matter)
-The most important thing in your life which happens to require your mental and physical well-being.

Steps:
1. Swallow fifteen pound medicine ball.
2. Mix in a large bowl the following: 40 ounces of regular job, 10 ounces of time with husband, 2 ounces of grocery shopping, 14 ounces of housework, 56 ounces of interrupted sleep, and 6 hours of meal preparation. Blend until chunky, sticky, and the color and consistency of vomit after General Tso’s chicken and Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream.
3. Toss hormones very thoughtlessly into a separate bowl and beat with a wire wisk until positively unrecognizable. Grab hormones, walk across the room, and throw them into the first mixture.
4. Fold and knead batter for 45 minutes with your hands—make sure your fingernails are long and piercing.
5. Spread very thinly over a 9 x 13 inch cake pan.
6. Bake at 1000/F for 112 hours.
7. Remove from oven when batter has risen in the middle and fallen and burnt on the sides. Do not remove before nasty scars have permanently defaced the entire visible portion of the cake.
8. Let the disgusting heap cool.
9. Ice heavily and completely with 168 ounces of constant pain.
10. Sprinkle with surprise of husband taking a part time job at a comic book store without discussing it with you while:
a. You only have ten ounces of time with him a week anyway
b. He says he barely has enough energy to help you around the house with a few of the things that you have to ask him five days in a row to do anyway, much less anticipate what you need help with besides watching TV after working 46 ounces a week at his regular job.
11. Throw the cake into a large fan.

2008-06-13T06:27:00.000-07:00

Oh, Jack.
I would stand bowlegged
in the kitchen
apron bound
making dem ham and eggs
and I couldn't tell you
that "you just don't know...
how good this ham and eggs is.
If you khad any idea whatsoever
how good this is, then you would stop writing poetry
and dig in."
But if you wanted,
I could tell you to cut off
that pointed moustache
that you grew in the sanitarium
on one of your many drug cures.
And sometimes I don't know
what you're talking about
"Iki solousu fruidrit!"
but I love love you.
It's okay if you're fat
though you'd rather
be thin than famous.
I won't throw you out of the bed
screaming "Gordo!"
Excuse me,
it's a beautiful, happy
June afternoon.
Would you like to walk in it?
We're all going to die anyway.

2008-06-13T06:12:00.000-07:00

A little encouragement for those of us home alone quite a bit (with or without cat):

"There is nothing like being left alone again, to walk peacefully with oneself in the woods. To boil one's coffee and fill one's pipe, and to think idly and slowly as one does it." --Knut Hamsun.

2008-06-10T19:12:00.001-07:00

After all harliquin dreams
have come true
silence echoes
like the loudest
blood in your ears
because you or someone
put a pin from the past
in a shiny balloon.
Birds don't care if you listen and look
but one unwelcome gesture
and you've lost them forever.
Birds are beautiful but scared
because they are small
with fragile bones.
Some dogs always return
even beaten dogs.
We're not all basically alone.

2008-06-06T08:58:00.001-07:00

47 geese and
one duck

2008-05-30T10:02:00.000-07:00

Our pores are petite apartments
for things we love and with passion
passion heavy love we sweat out
pulchritudinous pleasing pheromones-
dwellers of our pores.

2008-05-30T08:17:00.000-07:00

You are beautiful
but perforated
and a dot connecter
is coupling those
diminuitive holes,
beauty-filled
by blood and tears,
to make a destroyed vein
of martyrdom.
Each time, pray for
a seam to remedy
spilled blood, tears.
and bloody tears,
and sweat,
bloody sweat
but you always
rent the threads
or a new perferator
makes a pattern
in junction
with the last scar
for the next dot connector
to tear along edges.
Activity, passivity
always at the worst time
and never in conjunction.

2008-05-27T07:54:00.000-07:00

You are wearing too much makeup when a girl surrounded by guys on all sides can smell it. I only like to smell the makeup when I kiss my grandmother on the cheek.

2008-05-21T12:01:00.001-07:00

Family Guy is not funny.
Pedophiles are not funny.
Dogs wanting beastiality is not funny.
Obeisity is not funny.
Stereotypical stupid dads are not funny.
Babies wanting to kill/harm their mothers are not funny.
Hormones raging out of control and promiscuity are not funny.
Nothing about this show is funny.

If I have to hear "Giggidy" one more time or if I get sent one more link to a clip on YouTube I am absolutely going to LOSE IT!!!!!

2008-05-19T09:58:00.001-07:00

Good friends tell you to count your blessings when you're being so negative.

Positive:

1. Making things for other people
2. a house that is cleanable
3. a really fantastic book
4. Amelia kicking all the time
5. thinking about Amelia
6. adequate sleep
7. financial stability
8. a couple of good friends
9. health
10. no hate
11. no addiction
12. no hate
13. windows
14. a yard
15. things to keep me busy
16. planning for Amelia

Negative:

1. Work that I can't understand
2. rarely any time with Luke

I think I'm doing pretty good.

2008-05-16T18:58:00.003-07:00

I love you so much.

2008-05-16T18:58:00.001-07:00

Everyone falls in love
with her and even though
he is spectacular,
he is another one
of so many the same
and I'm sorry but
her reciprocation
does not make him special.
She makes things happen.
And soon she will spit
him out and blame him
for not being perfect
on her teeth.

The only time I drink
iced tea is when it is his
so today, when he wasn't here
I poured him some tea
and drank it all.

I shaved my legs
for the first time
in months.
I have not done it
till now because
I can't look at my
naked body without
wincing or crying.
I didn't like it before
but it it is so strange.
The only good thing
about it is you.
I address only you
out of all ten million people
in and out of the world
that I am talking to
because you're all
that really matters.
I love many people
and one fuzzy man
more than any others
but you are everything
and I didn't even
shed a drop of blood
because I'm saving it
all for you.
All for you.

So many women are beautiful.
All women are beautiful.
She is four hundred pounds
and all I can think is
where is she plugged in at?
She is made of plastic
but has so much love in her heart
even if it is all for herself
she is glorious.
And she thinks she is ugly
and that makes her the most
beautiful because everyone else
thinks she is a goddess.

He can look at me
with eyes that have
seen so so so many
and he can see my lines
and embarrassing parts
and still call me beautiful
when he sees perfection
everyday and could have it
with just a word
but still thinks I'm beautiful.
I hope it isn't just
because his daughter
is growing inside of me
and that is selfish and
makes me uglier.

But even when she thinks
she is a little bit beautiful
her fiance looks with goggles
at dancing naked dirty dolls
and makes her feel ugly.
My singing friend says
in her best song
"...judgement is so ugly."

If I knew how to hate,
I would hate the word best.
I don't ever want to use it again.
All use it
and use it
for so many things
that it is cheap
that now I gag
with it on my tongue.

I wonder if I'll scoot
up and down the steps
on my butt
when I am ninety.

I hope I don't
think about hate
enough to learn
how to do it.

I wonder if hate
feels like love.
I wonder if love
is love if it is
easy to do to
everything.
So far, loving much
has not reached
the same kind of love
for that fuzzy man
or the kicking
girl in my belly.
That love is
_____________.

2008-05-14T11:13:00.000-07:00

Leslie’s Politics (in short, kind of.)

(*Some things weren't clear, so they've been edited. Thanks!)

Disclosure: Politics and choice were never presented to me at Greater Beckley Christian School, which I attended from the first to twelfth grades. We were taught that one party was right and one party was wrong. We were taught the following:
1. Christians are Republicans.
2. Non-Christians are Democrats.
3. Homosexuals are evil.
4. Abortion is never a valid choice and the only people that “supported it” were the people who would have one.
5. The people who kill people absolutely deserve to be killed also.
6. If you don’t have a good job, you and your family don’t deserve proper healthcare.
7. Welfare is evil and for lazy people.

Because until I was eighteen, I spent just about everyday with the people telling me this and didn’t know that “thinking for yourself” existed, in November 2002 when I turned eighteen, I obviously registered myself as Republican. Since then, I am absolutely a completely different person with totally different beliefs.

My beliefs about Christianity have been completely changed. I still call myself a Christian but I am not religious. I have a relationship with my God and that is personal. It has nothing to do with anyone else in the world but me. I let my relationship and discernment help me make educated decisions about me, my life, my family, and how I will raise my daughter. I believe in a new covenant that started with Jesus and that the covenant in the Old Testament of the Bible was replaced with the new one, not just simply added to. (I will further address religion at a later date.)

The Issues that Ruffle People’s Feathers:
Abortion. I am pro-choice. I am not “pro-life” and I do not even support the phrase; that implies that supporters of choice are actually supporters of death. I could not personally ever have an abortion, but I do understand that some people believe that they are making the right decisions for themselves when they choose to end a pregnancy. It is the personal decision of the person or people involved in the conception, pregnancy, and/or upbringing of the child that has been conceived. I cannot hold other people to the same standards that I hold myself to because people are unique. Each situation is unique and each person has his/her own unique set of values, goals, etc. I cannot expect everyone to live by my values and I do not expect everyone to have the same values that I have. If someone tells me that something I decide is good for me is wrong because it goes against values that they have, I cannot respect that because they are closed-minded. I refuse to do the same and tell someone that abortion is wrong for them and wrong for everybody.

Death Penalty. Jail has several purposes. Without question, jail restrains dangerous people and people that have broken the laws that this country believes are universal and worthy of being punished. They are taken from society to keep the people that are not in jail safe. Jail is also for punishment. The people in jail (generally—I am not referring to the people that are in jail unfairly) have done something wrong so they are not allowed to be out in society doing things they’d much rather be doing than being in jail. Jail is for rehabilitation. Time spent in jail is meant to help the people in there learn that they made a mistake and should probably not do it again. If we believe that criminals can be rehabilitated, then we should not take their lives. The death penalty assumes that people that have taken the life of another person are beyond rehabilitation. I am also going to add that every-day-argument that if we value the life of the murdered, why do we not value the life of the murderer? Both were children at one point, both grew up, both made decisions. Both are humans. We cannot devalue life. It is not our place. (I actually have a lot more to say about this and will link you to what I have to say when I get it up here.)

Homosexuality. Marriage, etc. Once again, it is not my place to tell a person or people what is right for them because his/her values might be different than mine. (See again: new covenant.) I am not going to say that homosexuality is right or wrong because again, each individual person is unique and has every right that I have to make his/her own decisions. What is right for me is not always right for everyone else. Again, if someone were to condemn me for my sexuality, I could not offer them my respect on that issue because I have made the decision about my own sexuality. I personally support gay marriage. I believe that if someone wants to marry someone else, nobody should have the right to stop them. We should not stop two people that love each other from making a committment that they want to make to each other. Love is beautiful no matter what color or gender it is made of and people who diminish the love of a man and a man or a woman and a woman are saturating the world with hate and ugliness. As a side note, I am choosing not to share my sexuality. Some may know and if you do, great-I trust you enough to tell you. (*edited for clarity. Apparently the first time, I wasn't so clear.)

Healthcare. This one isn’t so controversial, but plenty of people exist with the views that I was taught in my regime, er, school. I believe that we should have a system that will offer healthcare to people whose parents/guardians do not have a health plan until they are eighteen years old or until college graduation if they choose to go to college. It is not the faults of the minors if their parents/guardians do not have healthcare. Whether lack of education, lack of physical ability, hindrance of finding a job that offers a health plan—their fault or someone else’s, lack of care keeps the parent/guardian from getting some type of healthcare plan for their children should not punish the minor and force them to remain ill or hurt or keep them from getting proper care. Sometimes the parents cannot help but not have insurance and therefore cannot help their children. Sometimes parents are just apathetic about their children and while I hate to admit that happens, it does and that child has to suffer because of the apathy of someone else. I understand that we have some healthcare systems that offer underpriviledged children medical insurance (eg. CHIPS), but they are incredibly flawed as I have been able to personally see by the experiences of some people very close to me. If a mother and father get separated but do not plan on divorcing, they are both probably going to need jobs. With parents with two jobs making enough to live off of, the child is no longer qualified for CHIPS, but the person that has primary custody of the child is going to have to pay for food (because now she doesn't qualify for food stamps), random necessities, health insurance, and now a daycare service. Without an education and in states like West Virginia, she is going to have a very difficult time (if she can do it at all) that is going to allow her to afford all of that. So, no. I don't believe that we have adequate healthcare plans for children that are in situations similar and often worse than this cannot always get the healthcare that they need. My ideas are a kind of first-steps thing. Sure, socialized healthcare would be great, but Americans are too commercial and consumer driven for me to even hope for something that ideal-I'm just keeping it realistic folks. (*edited for clarity. I was too vague the first time through.)

Welfare, government aide, etc. Sometimes circumstances are beyond the individuals control and they just need help. I really don’t know how we can fix the welfare system from being cheated.

Putting our noses into the business of other countries. If we did it, we need to fix it in the most helpful, efficient, honest, unbiased way possible. The war on terror isn’t what it says it is. It is a war on people we think are terrorists. We had no business going into the Middle East after we didn’t find weapons. We assumed a group of people were plotting against us so we went looking in their land for their hidden weapons. We should have stopped when we didn’t find them instead of trying to force the rest of the world to be like us. We can’t even do democracy right here; we have no right to believe we can make other countries do it right. We assumed that what was right for us was right for another country. We shouldn’t have done that; we have enough problems of our own. We should fix what we broke and get out of there. I know that it sounds really heartless, but we can’t just go around trying to fix everyone else unless we develop a global police or a one world government. That is a bad idea, so we should have minded our own business. Ashamedly, I admit that we cannot help Darfur. If I cannot agree with what is happening in Iraq, I cannot support stepping into another country and trying to do the same thing. I do not support genocide or anything-ocide, but I can’t have a double standard.

Bipartisan system. We are, by name, the United States of America. If that is true, then why are we encouraged to pick sides of different people that want to be the leader of the country? I do not think it is a good idea for a united country to be fought over by two different parties. And if we must have two parties, why are the different people within the parties fighting each other? Shouldn’t they be working together? If you really want a Democrat in office, why are you fighting so hard against another Democrat? Don’t you have some kind of commonality and shouldn’t you be happy if another person from your party is qualified to do the job. Hilary Clinton should have stepped down a while ago. I think her actions are childish and reaching. Her actions are making people that might actually consider voting Democrat more confused and, as my friend Amanda said, divided. She offers her country numbers and rejoices when they give them back to her. But what does our country need at this point in history? I think we need something that we seem to have had nothing of for the past eight years and that is hope. She does not offer hope to the hearts of Americans and she does not try to offer it. She loves money and posters and color and shouting. Barak Obama offers hope of peace and asks questions of the people that come to him with questions. I think he inspires action in the citizens instead of allowing the citizens to expect the president to dictate what happens. That is what should happen. The president is the leader of the country, not the ruler. The president represents the people; he/she does not order them. Selecting from different parties is a round-about way of saying “I am better than you.”

---

Voting isn’t black or white, male or female. Just because we think her husband did a good job does not mean she will do a good job. Just because he doesn’t believe in killing unborn children does not mean he will do a good job with the issues that are really important at this point in our country’s history. Just because he is black does not mean he'll enslave white people. Voting on values doesn’t work and if you vote because someone does or does not support abortion or homosexual marriage, you make an uninformed vote. Voting cannot depend on party and values; it depends on the issues that are changeable right now. Allowing yourself to check a box of someone for a single issue and not the big picture or even the main issues is irresponsible. We cannot vote values; we must vote issues.

Don’t waste your vote in November. Understand that diversity in values, color, gender, sexuality is what makes the world. Make an informed decision about the issues that need to be addressed right now. We need to be made peaceful and secure. People will always support or oppose abortion. People will always support or oppose gay marriage. We cannot always be at war. We cannot always be on the verge of depression. We cannot always be in debt. We cannot always spend $75 billion a day on the war when it should go to better use—education, alternate fuel sources, sick and dying people, inflation, the globe--because without the money, we’re depleting the globe and without the globe we’re nothing anyway and it isn’t our place to take that away from our great-great-grandchildren. We are just here for the blink of an eye. While the voting system is imperfect, your vote is still important and so is your conscience. Whether you vote for him or her or him or him, vote informed. Vote on purpose and with conviction. Don’t just check a box just because and then feel proud that at least you voted; that isn’t voting. Be passionate about these things; they do affect you personally and the people that you bring into the world after you.

*Now, for really, really short: I am super open minded and extremely tolerant.

2008-05-13T06:09:00.000-07:00

This morning,
my eyes were transported
for twenty seconds
to a place where the carcasses
of deer and kittens,
opossum,
and expensive dogs
that line our streets
were replaced with
bodies, hearts, souls
of soldiers,
citizens,
small children.
While I was looking
for a paridise,
I learned that
what my country needs
is more of less
and some conviction
and Hope.

Sometimes, nothing makes sense in your head and all you have to go on is your heart, and in your heart you know that what this country needs is hope. So you place an X in the box beside the name of the American that inspires Hope, cross your fingers, and pray you're doing the right thing.

Good luck, West Virginians, when you're placing your votes beside me.

2008-05-12T13:24:00.000-07:00

I chat with the black cat
so I don't hear
the creepy creaking walls
that sound like men with weapons
that will punch my belly
and cackle and take the things
that mean nothing to me.

I in my house with dust
skating across the floor
and hoover humming,
while a real friend drives
through my town to try
to find my little house
to say goodbye one more time.

The wind is guffawing
and howling at a joke
the rain is telling
and Mothers' Day plants are pelted
and blown and they close
tiny trumpets protecting pollen.

Sctch, sctch, sctch
when the tiny black cat runs
away, away from the wind
that isn't ruffling her fur
but she likes the sound
of her toes in carpet.

Today the sky in this
tiny town is crying
and bans the sun
because he knows she can't
find the Indian boy
to shine on his
welcoming face.

2008-05-10T08:46:00.001-07:00

When I was little, I had two recurring dreams. Both happened after we moved to Beckley.

1. A naked female ghost sang to me in words I cannot understand in a ghost forest.

2. I had a twin brother and we had a goose and were taking it inside and he held it upside down and accidentally strangled it. I woke up in a panic everytime.

Once, in my house in Cool Ridge (which was shared with a fading-in-and-out little boy that I never feared who asked me to come play games he'd teach me whenever I was in my parents room), I stood on my bed and called for my mom. My dad came in and asked what was wrong and I told him I had to use the bathroom. He said, "Well, go!" And I did. That was the only time I ever thought something was under my bed and since dad was there, it would stay under there forever and never try to get me because it knew my strong dad would come if I called.

I had sleep apnia until 2006. My dad had himself trained to hear the stopping of my breathing when I was a baby in a crib. He would immediately wake up and blow on my face and get me started again. After that, my body started it again by itself. Sometimes, during naps, Luke would blow on my face. I thought it completely stopped until February when my friend Kayla and I went to a concert and stayed at some hotel and she said I stopped breathing and scared her.

I like getting the sleep out of my eyes; it is kind of poetic and I can't really explain it to you.

I love walking up steps with my cat. She makes such a huge deal out of it. She MUST be the first one up and meet me with her strange sideways-crab-jump -attack at the top.

I love when my cat pretends to attack me. She's never hurt me.

If I could change one thing about my body, it would probably be fat content. If that is absolutely out of the question, I would want to change how dry my skin is. Nothing is more disgusting than feeling your feet catch on carpet. Ick. Sorry.

I like to stretch my ears but I worry that I'll end up with monkey ears like my uncle Gene every time I do it.

I think birds and fish are perfect.

I believed my dad when he told me the long scars on his shoulder were from wresting a bear. And winning. I still believe him, I think.

2008-04-30T06:33:00.000-07:00

Things I don't understand:
• Hate
• Fear
• Addiction
• Why it is okay to make your child feel like it is their fault your self image is totally screwed up.
• Mothers that insist (also here) that their eight-year-old have eyebrows "like a supermodel" and a bikini wax. (I thought mothers thought their children were beautiful and perfect...)
• Why I can’t just review or edit books for a living (life is supposed to be perfect, right?)
• How someone so young can be so brilliant.
• That someone that is genuinely good and amazing in many ways does exist.
• Unhappiness
• Why I am so negative lately.
• Leaving
• Selfishness
• Why people just assume that people are in love with them.
• How someone can be in love with someone else if it isn’t requited.
• How a best friend can disappear and never talk to you again when he just decides to start his life completely over.
• Why everyone doesn’t embrace their genius.
• Real true friends that are there no matter what and always, always want to see you.
o Why if some people can get to that point, I can’t.
• How someone can be so beautiful and be so incredibly unhappy with the way she looks.
• The art (Also: here and here) that makes you physically ill because the artist is that brilliant and you love it that much.

2008-04-18T09:27:00.000-07:00

I can just think
reality is still
beautiful.
chaos.
Good and evil
contrast
and relate
and are sometimes
the same.
chaos
is reality
is beautiful
whether it
makes you wretch
or sigh
or flutter lashed lids
in disbelief.
Chaos causes beauty.
Reality is real
whether we partake
or dismiss.
And finding a smile,
a good smile,
and a touch,
beauty
in everything,
even tragedy
is what is
going to stop us
from being murdered.

2008-04-08T11:57:00.001-07:00

Isaac Bashevis Singer
"We know what a person thinks not when he tells us what he thinks, but by his actions."

2008-04-02T06:36:00.000-07:00

Poor little Red Riding Hood
just another groove
in the blunt of the whip
comforted by the news
that her mother
was killed by the scarecrow
in the dark of the woods,
black birds pecking
her eyes out now.
Poor little Red Riding Hood
hides in the leaves-
in the brush of those woods
so the woodsman
can't find her
hoping the wolf still can.

2008-03-31T07:12:00.000-07:00

Right now, I am sitting at my little cube in my office.

I just heard a rooster.

2008-03-26T11:56:00.000-07:00

Good compassionate and fair idiot Myshkin loves like pity, like superceding love.

2008-03-25T09:13:00.000-07:00

When no one is near, I am very small. And sometimes I wonder what number I might be. I can be a silly 6 standing on my head or a 9 holding onto lines to save my life. I might be an 8 who has her life figured out and sits curvy, contented on top of the earth. Perhaps 1 teetering on a needle foot trying to stay upright. I am not 7, wearing his hat and leaning so confidently watching everyone else go about their lives. I am not sultry, top-heavy 4, drawing men with her figure. She is in love with 7, but seeks attention from the rest anyway. Maybe I am 3, unsure and shying away or 2 who sits waiting quietly. I could be 5, in control, conducting. Or I might not be a number. No, I am a semicolon.

2008-03-23T16:35:00.001-07:00

Bleached bone trees
like holding hand "we"s
in a town where
only ghosts live
in houses near factory smells.
A checkpoint town
the blue blues blue one
with brightly colored and
brown boxes in front
all smashed in at once
like a sad, beautiful
photograph.
Bleached bone MEs
because of holding hand "we"s
on the inside out reality.
Meet me there
so our tangled up veins
can bind that waste of
bashed-up boxes.

2008-03-23T16:33:00.001-07:00

Her daddy ate fast
with black hands
and a black face
pushing coal dust
into his soft, red mouth
past teeth that were big and white
a little into her
leaf-filled blond hair.
He left smiling eyes
each morning
to hide underground
and hold the earth up
on his red shoulders.
And he stopped that
coal mining after eight
dirty long years to
work on top of the earth
and still somehow hold it up.
His little smile-eyed girl
learned the difference
between dark and light
and went left
while he hammered ever right.
And she wants to be proud
but those mountains are our bones
and that coal is our marrow

2008-03-23T16:32:00.001-07:00

A pretty blond girl
raised on Air Force bases
and a strong, hard-working man
raised in bars by unkind faces
had a baby squid
who watched with dinner plate eyes
her father digesting
Fox News at dinner
saying "What if we
don't want to cross
the 'Racial Divide'?"
His fathers killed
the pretty blond's fathers
in the streets of New York
because Italian
didn't like Irish
until she was so pretty.
And the squid girl
cut potatoes while
her mouth was closed
wondering at such faith
in this clumsy
president they love so much.

I am not so important as I think I am.

2008-03-21T21:06:00.000-07:00

I haven't really written anything in months and my skin is going to peel back starting at my fingernails if I don't do so soon. It's like my body can only create one thing at a time and writing is in the backseat until at least September. It is worth it, but God, I hope not. Do you ever feel like your skin is peeling off and hope you're right so you can finally see what you're all about? Well come on. Let's have it over with. Let me see.

Nobody else wants to see but me, so it's okay. I am an eight-hour-a-day girl except to myself. Eight hours at work and eight hours in the bed, give or take. Eight hours at work and give. Eight hours in the bed and take. It doesn't matter so stop pretending it matters. I am not your friend and I am not your artist. Am I? I exist for a few seconds to everyone unless I exist for eight hours.

Very small. And some of you are so big that you take up the whole world.

2008-03-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

I house bees behind my eyes.

2008-03-05T13:11:00.000-08:00

I drive through a town
where the trees stand tall
on tops of mountains
clinging long to
blankets of slowly
melting snow
because it makes them beautiful.
A town where tractors
are part of
what little traffic
it might get
in the early afternoon.
Where the chickens
with their cunning clucking
have the right of way
on dusty roads
and a contented cow
humbly massages
his enormous head
on worn and weathered stones.
A town with hills green
except when they're white
and souls with four legs
outnumber the ones with two.
The dwellers never leave
and the dreamers
can't find a home
to never leave.
It is populated by
sweet faced grandmas,
by grandpas with
alligator hands.
It is a town
where people still believe
that United We Stand.

2008-02-27T08:25:00.000-08:00

Stop mitigating your passions.
Staunch silent screaming
like you staunched
blood and tears.
What you want to scream
needs to be screamed.
LOVE OR HATE OR LUST!
What it is.
That's what it is.
Or something else,
but cease subsisting
so solicitous!
Etiquete means nothing
with passion in you
on you in you.
You submerge it like
skin has no sense.
Pretenders.
That's the end-ers.
Silly spiders
binding up
and winding up
prey
to cool warm blood and
what makes you hot
what makes you live.
what makes you Love!
You must.
You must dance-
scream-and-sing-and-scream
and cccreate.

Of blocks and thing like that.

2008-02-19T07:21:00.000-08:00

I am never inspired by things that plant trees in my heart. I can never blend them into the pictures or moments of word worlds that I create.

I like her poetry and his poetry and that photography and those trees. I am moved by that hate group and that sad girl that wants boys to look at her. I have things to say about them. I had things to say about strange choices in Tennessee and about dead bugs underneath chairs.

About the things that own a part of my heart, I can't say a thing about, only to. Like love is too precious to create or too huge for the four silly letters of l, o, v, and e.

A root of no inspiration is disguised under snow on the ground and trips me and I lay letting snow make me a secret too until spring wakes me up and that same tricky root is nudging me to get up and inhale leaves and grass. I must take after my Mother Earth and need a sleeping rest of death from creation in winter. Come on spring, I don't want to sleep anymore.

2008-02-19T07:15:00.000-08:00

I know someone
is peeking in-
watching me
trying to figure out
my body or my mind.
When I realize,
I am too late
to button up
unseen.
I was exposed and
the watcher knows
where I dress
and will always see
or will always have seen
and know what I look like
inside-out.
But by my invitation.
I opened the blinds
and diverted the watcher's eyes
expecting a usual absesnce
but was somehow worth watching.
Whether beauty, curiosity,
perverse, grotesque wander.
Now I will make words
like I button my shirt.
Quickly and as if
I have no other choice
but to be seen.

2008-01-31T05:23:00.001-08:00

2008-01-19T09:26:00.001-08:00

"The trick is not how much pain you feel - but how much joy you feel. Any idiot can feel pain. Life is full of excuses to feel pain, excuses not to live, excuses, excuses, excuses."

Erica Jong

2008-01-11T09:08:00.001-08:00

So long as we live among men, let us cherish humanity.

--Andre Gide

2007

2008-01-02T09:43:00.001-08:00

New years at home with the husband. Sad brother with a bad girlfriend. Twenty-nine credit hours for my last semester at Concord. No classes with Michael. The longest break-up I've ever watched. Psychotic teen girl and police. Anti-Russell Group. Dr. Roth. Dr. Ofsa. Not much sleep. Moved to Bluefield. Graduation. Job search. Interviews, interviews, and no calls back. Reassurance from mom. Facebook message from LeAnne Davis about CGI jobs. Apply, interview. Nashville. Not so good with Luke. Got job at CGI making good money doing good work. Finally quit Echostar! Long drives. New old bike. Kayla's hired too. Things got fantastic with Luke. No more identity crisis. Want a baby. New foods and drinks. New doctor that I hate. Kidney infection and kidney stone = ouch. Loratab! Atlanta. Atlanta again. I got pricked by a pinecone. New camera!!! Finally disposed of a bad friendship that I'd been trying to hold onto for WAY too long. Felt SO much better. Realization of what a friend really is and that I have the best one. New music. Henry Rollins. Grandpa has a girlfriend. Closure on Gramma's death. Lots of crocheting. Gained some weight. Taught a friend to crochet. Ate goose and didn't like it. Lots of cows. Coffee...oi. Russell's new girlfriend. Forgot to call my childhood best friend back. Lots of poetry. New blog just for blogging. New friends. Amanda wedding. new tv after the superbowl. halloween party. cartwheel in the ballroom. Bright Eyes Cassadaga concert. The last Harry Potter book. Busch Gardens. Chuck Pahlinuik autograph. published in 2 newspapers. some parties with friends. Culture fest. Vitamin water. Russell Cross country. Hiking at Grandview with my new camera. Russell/Lauren 18 bday party. Chili night. My friend has cancer. Almost went to Bob Dylan/Elvis Costello/Amos Lee concert. The Science of Sleep. Canvas shopping bags. Jones Soda thanksgiving. Cousin's babies. Parade in bluefield. Growing my hair out. New glasses. iPod christmas gift. lots of soapboxes.

Humans are pollution.

2007-12-28T05:51:00.000-08:00

I see cancer everywhere.
What happened to the sounds
of echoing laughter of
children playing?
And ffp-ffp of jump rope contests
on the hard ground?
Now the sounds
we hear on our playgrounds
are a series of blips, beeps
from the digital boxes
powered by batteries
that will leak acid
into our landfills
and carcenogize our ground.
We're all victims villians
of our History
and our Now of careless waste,
of chemical trash.
We drink after each other
and taste the lipstick
of the human moster before.
It tastes like whales
and baby seals
and oil
and garbage.
We fear a disease
that has gotten so
out of control
that we can't prevent it.
We could have then, but
We're lazy bastards.
I don't point my dry fingers
because I am part
of Mother Earth's ache.
I pollute her purity with fuel
and carelessly disposed of trash
not thinking or not caring
because I am human.
My race wants to own
and doesn't respect.
And I think of one lost puzzle piece
and wonder if what little change I make
will really avert the integrity
of the cancerous picture.
I drive down the country road
in my gasoline powered Toyota
to work in a building
stuffed with hundreds of computers
and see the running cow
and sob at the image of me
stopping that joyful cow
and taking a bite from her flesh
or chase a clueless hen
and gnaw her breast
stopping her contented clucking.
Weep and gag and lament
that I have a part in this--
almost like I condone it.
Mother Earth suffers delivery pains
day after day to produce for us
what we stomp, spit, take for granted.
And our children roll tiny eyes
at respectfulness and good.
Everything is accepted, "okay."
"That's just how she is."
And we pollute what is good and pure,
tangible or not--all is full of cancer.

We sing we're waiting,
Waiting for the World to Change.
If we're all waiting,
nothing will change!
Nothing's going to change our world.
We'll smoke and spill everything
until Mother finally exhausts
of being so forgiving
and loving unconditionally
and watching us kill her
and the babies she gives life;
she'll spin so fast
that we fly off of her face
and are burned to ash
and nothingness
in her atmosphere,
past that hole we made
in her ozone.
And she'll coooool down.

The globe is warm
because we're making her angry.

Kerouac in real life

2007-12-26T13:52:00.001-08:00

Photos of Kerouac make me weep
and even laugh a little
at the thought of the way
I'd probably react
to being near him
right up close
on the New York streets
with gallant swagger
and hearty laugh
bouncing off the sky scrapers
passing by twin towers or
downtown dirty fish bars or
jazz clubs where he sat
clapping sweating bellowing
YES, MAN! THAT IS IT!
BLOW, MAN, BLOW!
My heart would swell
and I'd be silent
watching that man
and I'd fall in love with him
just like every one else did--
the ones that were not
disgusted by his beauty.
Beauty is a cheap word
and he's so much bigger than
L-I-F-E.

And I'm afraid
to put his audio
into my 2007 stereo
because the genius
in that voice might
take the world back to 1957
and then I'd be forced to
go to New York
and look at beauty
in real life.

2007-12-20T09:09:00.001-08:00

"I will speak ill of no man and speak all the good I know of everybody."
Benjamin Franklin

2007-12-20T07:43:00.001-08:00

Look what you can do

2007-12-20T07:30:00.000-08:00

Like cellophane
sticking and smothering,
the poetry and photo-etry
strangle the wrinkled
center of my nervous system,
paralyze-yzing me,
then seizing me
van gogh style,
going to cut off that ear
and paint a bright red beard
and swirling china blue skies
like his eyes.
A crazy casual stance
dyptich with vintage
wallpaper sucking
the soul from the wood
in the walls
like you suck the soul
from the marrow of
my bones and streeetch
it out of shape and
smash-ash it back into
the mold
of me
so that it forces that
flexi-copper mold
to make a new shape
something you aroused
and I impressed
and we manipulated
into unrecognizable
and even better
soul shadow creature,
a new admiration of me
or myself or of you.

THIS along with that artist's other photography and POETRY inspired this and some of my other poems and, indirectly, some photos. I feel like a psuedo plagarist by not linking to him or at least giving him some kind of credit.

Middle school boy made my day.

2007-12-19T07:16:00.000-08:00

I am the former "teacher" (mentor for Energy Express) that former students do not avoid in Walmart but tap on the shoulder to say hello and get a hug.

I also just spelled hello incorrectly.

Professor

2007-12-19T05:58:00.000-08:00

Someone is in the office on the other side of the cube saying "Professor....professor.....professor....professor."

Leslie has 100 things to say?

2007-12-17T12:10:00.000-08:00

I have run across two other blogs today and both of them had lists like this. I was inspired to create my own. It made the day pass quickly.

1. I was born in November 1984, one month premature. I was wee, but the only problem I had after incubation was sleep apnia which I somehow got rid of in the past 2-3 years.

2. I attended private school for every grade except Kindergarten. I think the reason my parents put me into private school was Chance, my best friend that taught me thinks a 5-year-old ought not to mention at the dinner table, hah. Because of private school, I was incredibly naive.

3. Phonics and word games taught me to read. I was a little behind because the private school started reading in K-4. I used to pretend I could read.

4. After really learning to read, I consumed books religiously. I went on to major in English in college.

5. I have a sister and a brother. I only speak to my brother.

6. I am eternally frustrated with my hair.

7. I have gone from uber conservative to fairly liberal throughout my college career.

8. My favorite number is 8.

9. I have a big nose. I am always self conscious about it. Because I don't want to draw attention to its size is the reason it is not pierced.

10. I like to eat bland things. If I lived alone, I'd live off of soup, salad, vegetables, and rice cakes. I like rice cakes more than any human should. Yes, I like them plain.

11. But I also really like to cook and bake.

12. I wore seven earrings in my ears until last week. I'm feeling clean.

13. I used to dye my hair odd colors: purple, red, blue, black. Until it started breaking off about two inches off of my head and wouldn't hold any color but bright orange...eep!

14. I don't believe in truly ugly people.

15. I am typically quiet unless I'm around someone I'm very comfortable with. I'm afraid that people think I'm either boring or a snob.

16. I had an article that I had written about my mother published in two newspapers...local newspapers.

17. I didn't meet the first goal I ever set.

18. My cat is like my child. I love her bunches. She likes my singing.

19. I have two bachelor degrees and do not plan on going to grad school.

20. I love my job. It is a job no one could have predicted I would have liked or thought about taking.

21. I have effectively conquered OCD without therapy or drugs. (I still hold onto a few quirks though.)

22. I've been told I combine the use of both sides of my brain: I am creative and logical. That's what technical writers are made of.

23. I do not like the phone because I worked in customer service for two years. The only thing I miss about that job was the five minute commute and my awesome boss.

24. I am almost always cold.

25. I am half Italian but have light hair and ghosty white skin.

26. I do not tan. I get burned or sun poisoned and then become white again.

27. Every time I have gone to the beach since middle school, I have been sun poisoned or pinched by crabs.

28. I like Star Trek, Star Wars, and all of those nerdy things.

29. I like to feel small.

30. My first serious boyfriend introduced me to new ideas and that helped make me who I am. It mostly came from the music. Hah.

31. I do not go a day without a shower. I do not leave the house without a shower.

32. I took 29 credit hours the last semester of college.

33. My best friend is one of my favorite musicians.

34. Stretching is one of the most satisfying things ever.

35. I have been called a tree-hugging hippie. And I didn't take offense.

36. I am a terrible liar (I blame a little OCD on that) most of the time. I can do okay with the big things I should really not be lying about.

37. Polka dot is my favorite color.

38. Once when I was little, before breasts, I wore a ponytail and a baseball cap and was mistaken for a boy. I have not worn a pony tail in public since.

39. Technical writing was my favorite class in college. Followed very closely by biogeography.

40. I love parades even though they are inconvenient to people.

41. I plan to name a daughter after a Biblican demon and a literary whore. Not on purpose.

42. My mom and my brother are two of my best friends in the entire world. I am Italian (half anyway) and family is very important to me.

43. I have been the victim of attempted murder. (That is why I don't speak to my sister.)

44. I like mint in just about any drink.

45. I love easily and often.

46. I love to brush my teeth.

47. Scuba diving was the most freeing experience in my life.

48. Jello makes me gag.

49. I have always wanted to be a singer, but I can't sing well. I hoped that I could magically sing when I got my tonsils out, but it didn't happen.

50. I am half way there!

51. I think my mother is the most absolutely and purely beautiful woman in the entire world. Inside and out. (Closely followed by my best friend, Kayla.)

52. The smell of crayons is my favorite smell ever.

53. Sometimes, I have only not compromised my values because I did not want to disappoint my brother.

54. If I could be an animal, I would be a bird or a fish. They are the two most perfect creatures.

55. My college advisor changed my life with what she taught me. She taught me more than anyone else ever. She is closely followed by my creative writing professor; she helped me learn to write the way I like to write.

56. The only thing I regret from my entire 23 years is being mean to my brother when I lived at home with my family.

57. I still sleep with a stuffed animal.

58. Ideally, I'd be a photographer for a living. I like photography bunches. www.flickr.com/photos/lesliesquirrel

59. I have somehow crammed 40 years into 23.

60. I like beards.

61. I like fedoras on men.

62. My favorite movies are a few that few have heard of: Everything is Illuminated, Le Fabuleux Destin de Amelie Poulain, and Ghost World.

63. I really like to crochet.

64. The thought of eating flesh disgusts me, but I still eat it. ...

65. The only instrument I play is the didgeridoo.

66. I do not want a gun in my house.

67. I vote. I feel strongly about voting in the presidential elections.

68. I memorize numbers really quickly. I've been thought to be slightly autistic before.

69. Is not worth the attention it gets.

70. I get lost easily.

71. I think people (especially men) from India and the Middle Eastern area are very attractive. I also like the culture, history, and art of India.

72. I have used the same music storage/playing device for 4-5 years. It has survived flying out of a flipping vehicle, numerous drops and scratches, several personality alterations, and thousands of songs.

73. Insects interest me.

74. I am afraid of spiders. I can't explain why. I am also afraid of bridges. I can explain why.

75. I probably like you.

76. I do not attend a fitness center. Yet.

77. Something left over from OCD is a ring that I've worn on my left thumb since I was about 17.

78. My name came from the middle names of my maternal grandparents. Leslie Anne.

79. I did not watch much tv while growing up; I still don't watch much tv. I prefered to play outside.

80. I have only attempted suicide once; that was this summer. You'd think I'd have grown past that by now, huh?

81. I don't care about money.

82. I didn't drink coffee until I became an English major.

83. I have never been addicted to anything that all humans aren't addicted to (water, oxygen).

84. Guys in glasses are a weakness of mine.

85. I have been outside of the U.S. once (not counting several trips to Canada because I was there when we didn't have to have passports); that trip was to the Dominican Republic and not strictly for pleasure. :) Best trip ever.

86. Parade is my favorite word. It feels good to say. Say it. C'mon.

87. Trees are amazing.

88. Two eights in a row are twice as nice.

89. I fear failure. That is my only real fear. I can squish spiders and speed over or avoid bridges.

90. The only Adult Swim cartoon that I will tolerate is Futurama. I have a secret crush on Fry. Shh. I only watched that because I was doing homework while Luke watched tv and fell asleep on the remote.

91. Chestnuts are my favorite nuts.

92. I love Christmas trees and Christmas lights.

93. I am a big fan of children.

94. I am also a big fan of riding my bike.

95. I am sad that this is almost over.

96. I used to belch like a man when I was little and be proud of it. I have since discovered that it is disgusting.

97. My dad thinks I am really smart.

98. I am fond of squirrels.

99. I have gone through many sets of friends. When people go out of my life, I typically let them without turbulence. I'm a fatalist like that. I have only initiated the ending of one friendship and that was very recently. I've learned, recently what a real friend is, and that I was the only real friend in that relationship.

100. I always think I don't have a lot to say, but I just said 100 things. I think I don't have anything to say that anyone else would be interested in. I do not think I am very interesting or beautiful. I'm lucky to have the friends I have and the famimly I have. I am very, very blessed.

I am impressed that you've made it all this way. Thanks.

2007-12-17T09:35:00.001-08:00

Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect.

--Oren Arnold

(Thanks Lance)

2007-12-14T08:21:00.001-08:00

The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.

Albert Einstein

2007-12-11T09:37:00.001-08:00

By the swaying, waiting mother,
we flee flee feel

2007-12-10T10:50:00.001-08:00

money money death
not with me
I was like my mother.

2007-12-10T10:41:00.000-08:00

People work for money
for happiness,
work for money for happiness
work for money for happiness
work for money for happiness
so they can finally stop working
when they finally get happy.
The lethal corperate cycle.
They'll die before happiness
if that's what
they're working for.
I have money so I can buy this.
I have money so I can buy that.
I have money so I can buy more.
Owning things is invented.
It is not natural.
We don't live with animals.
We don't live with land.
We don't live with anything.
We own a pet.
We own a plot.
That is mine.
It has my name on it.
It has my number on it.
I'm your number.
I'm yours.
I'm owned.
I own because I'm owned.
We don't live; we do.
Pride leads to lust
leads to envy
leads to wrath
and greed
lead to gluttony,
leads to sloth.
And humans are doomed, oomed.

2007-12-10T09:52:00.000-08:00

I grow by understanding.
Father and mother wait at home
for grandbabies.
Money gently sways people,
but I am not people.
I can't grow 'cause
I don't understand.
How love and love and love
co-o-exist.
Or how to resist one thing
and bloss-ossom another,
how I have lived 39 years
but am only 23.
Tug-of-war me and
I'll help both sides.

2007-12-10T09:41:00.001-08:00

people drink grass
like mother gently homing
death by hate

2007-12-10T09:37:00.000-08:00

They hate farther with threat.
They do nothing about hate
but flee, sway, blame and kill.
They heap burning coals
by heaping burning coals
not kind words.
They love hate.
Possible?
They hate love.
That's possible,
though I don't know how.
Teeth and asphalt
copulating in a sheet
of blood and spit--
something to smile at.
Worth a cage
to see that
smashed face that
broken skull
those bone fragments.
Their idea of peace
and justice and jesus
and all of those
sparkling words
like pure and hope
those intangible things
is white white white.
White but splattered
with black, brown,
yellow, red blood.

I am naive to hate.
Hate is fake to me.
Can I hate hate?
hate hate hate
Say it enough and
it sounds fakkke.
and I cannazi your
Spiritureality,
ality.

2007-12-10T09:24:00.001-08:00

people sway people.
threat is not death.
or
death is not threat.
they were home.

2007-12-10T09:22:00.001-08:00

work, do, buy.
gently feel threat.
gently wait by me.

2007-12-10T09:17:00.000-08:00

think mother
they understand, mother
sway like grass
thank mother

Supernova x 2

2007-11-28T11:14:00.001-08:00

A Star unadultured,
a mind unmingled
nighed its Doppleganger.
Two, overcome
by the euphoria
of their conjunction
prostrated themselves,
enormous, amourous,
growing, grooowing
across the Universe.
They grew, grew, grew,
amplified, bourgened.
With the light, love
of the broadening,
enamored Starsouls,
the Cosmos shrunk,
no light, no love
like those two
unblemished ones made
can be caged by the
confines of the so
slight universe
and 'neath the burden
of such-so-pure,
Gravity collapsed.
Supernova Stars!
Two at once!
Whether out of grief
stress, respect,
or I-Can't-Handle-It,
Macrocosm
shattered, shuttered,
shivered, split,
mushroomed, oomed.

2007-11-28T10:19:00.000-08:00

Grass understands
about feeling threat

2007-11-27T11:40:00.001-08:00

Winter weather brings
certain little things
like peppermint mocha coffee
slipping, silking
swilling, spilling
down my throat
while the cold rain dots
those dirty windows
and a cat brrmm-brrmming
in nautilus form on my lap
with eyes so carefully knit closed
chimney burning
and cold, cold air
fill my nose with
"the smell of winter!"
from my childhood.
Get-this-done tasks
hammer-heading
but not mattering
because in 40 years,
you won't remember
eyebrow waxing,
but you will remember
the slinky cat
that keeps you warm
in a house with no heat
and the smell of Christmas

2007-11-27T11:26:00.001-08:00

I like the sound of papers rustling
like big, graceful bird wings
still on the wind then
flap, fwip; a gust upward

2007-11-27T10:27:00.000-08:00

they understand money
they understand hate
gently gently flee doves

*

money drove them
we await death
where grass is swaying

*

we grow like people
with feelings
feel
thank
home

*

home gently drove
it drove about the hate

*

2007-11-27T05:25:00.003-08:00

Is it love when
you can love so many?
Is it peace when
it isn't everywhere?
Is it joy when
it is gone so quickly?
Is there a spirit
when no one can see it?
What about your spirit?
No one can see it,
so neglect it.
No one will notice.
Sell your time and wares
to buy some more.
Fill our house.
Sell yourself
on downown streets
or in corperate America.
What's the difference?
All efforts are made to
squirrel away money
to fatten your wallet.
God forbid fat
anything else
So send your girl
to get cellulute sucked
so she stands sexily
at our side--
not your wallet side.
Stand in line
at department store doors
to hand a few
dollar bills to
shining child-cheerleaders
who didn't earn a dime.
Promote celebrity superiority
by paying bills to
spend uncounted hours
watching them on TV
telling you with apathy
"That's hot."
What about your spirit?
Feed your body by
throwing grease down
your open throat.
Feed your mind
with Life 101 with Paris.
Feed your addictioins.
Feed your habits.
Feed the minutes that
tick by when you're "bored."
Your spirit is starving.
Know when Britney
fails to fasten baby's belt,
but don't know a
childhood best friend's
married name or
if HER baby
was even born.
It is okay.
Nothing exists unless
you can see it,
touch it.
Spirits stopped existing anyway.

2007-11-26T06:50:00.000-08:00

I am Experimenting.

the teen drove
where money
gently understands
threat

*

death drove me home
by grass with swaying hate

*

threat hates grass like
camels wait gently
do threat work

*

they sway wind
fathers grow threat
grass was at flee

*

mother father
we were people
about feeling
the money grass

*

people grow it
where money feels
were not grass sway

*

thank death about
the feel
do grow
do not sway

*

waiting like death threat
think about father work
like death

*

think about people where death waits
understand about work
threat gently

*

thank me, do
wait teen by understanding
thank wind, flee.

*

was flee by the wait
do by work
sway at do

*

mother father understand
they drove me growing
understanding drove

*

thinking
think not about father
we people do feel wind

*

camels do flee
where father grass feels
they were they

*

I was growing by where grass threat
grow do threat

*

I think they grow
like father grow sway
think flee home

*

mother the home grass
where people do work
they do me

*

teen teen teen teen
people work where they wind
at me

*

grow money
grow work
do not think by wind
do me

*

grass drove home
think about flee
do not grow
we feel

*

at the sway
we wait
understand wait
teen think
teen thank

*

they grow death
feeling at money
Understanding was feeling drove

*

by peopling money
I work waiting
about the father

*

death waits grass
camel grow camel
threat was about father

*

I flee wind
mother flees hate
grass sways
they thank threat

*

understand
people understand waiting gently
they feel me
drove understand

*

about the money
I camel with me
the money feels about grass

*

teen flee death
flee hate
we understand
we thank
thank grow

*

I threat where death thinks
they work by grass
teening

*

home gros where we gently
flee it
threat threat threat

*

I hate gently
where they think
like wind in the grass
threat

*

we sway with the grass
it was where the it is at

*

I feel home
where they were
not money
threat flee home

*

I thank with work
they wait by money
we do sway

*

death gently hates grass
threat was drove at with hate

*

money drove people
mother feels understanding
father was at thank

*

threat thanks me
I feel threat
we think about waiting

*

I sway at death
hate was not wind
think was were

*

people threat at me
we think not feel
waiting

*

they think
thank the hate
sway sways
wait wait flee

*

I understand death
I think by father
they grow money

*

Swaying was like me
was was
abouting with me

*

we drove about by hate
like threat gently wait
not not

*

2007-11-21T12:24:00.001-08:00

America is a whore
on the dirty streets of countries
she doesn't belong in
lifting her skirt higher, higher
to reveal ripped stockings
inviting in only the ones with green
green cards green cash
but no one wants that dirty
(catas)
troph(e,y)

2007-11-21T11:00:00.000-08:00

When I was a little girl,
about three and four,
a see-through boy stood
at my parents bedroom door
on the really dark nights
when I would sleep between them.
While they snored,
he'd beckon me
to follow and we could
play games that he'd teach me.
I didn't wake my parents
to tattle on this boy
that faded in and out.
I wasn't scared.
I was just curious
about why he was in my house
how he was in my house
in the middle of Star Route 19
in Cool Ridge.
No little boys lived nearby
to play with me and he
never came around in in the light.
Mom, Dad, Misty:
no one could see him but me.
He just wanted to play,
and I probably should
have played with him.
It was nighttime
and he was lonely.
I thought, thought about that little boy
and where his parents were
and why he wouldn't show himself
to anyone but me.
And when that house burned down
after we moved to town,
I hoped he had gotten out.
He didn't move to town.

2007-11-20T11:14:00.001-08:00

Slickness on slug tails
and sting bites of red ants
Magic on unicorns
or Pegasus wings.

Blackness on coal dust
and coal dust on dad's face.
Bulldozers eating mountains
leaving none for my feet.

Water over small toes
and algae on rocks
Leaf-fall on hillsides
and snakes under leaf-fall.

Locusts that sing
just for me
'cause I'm the only one
that likes that sound.

Pinch crabs in sand,
sharp seashells in seaweed
cutting my feet
I didn't like the beach.

I like it now.
Just starting today.
Why not like everything?
It doesn't hurt much.

Images,
and feelings
and memories
and pangs.

What?
And how?
And Who?
And why?

Good and bad
and real and imagined
all of these things
make us feel.