the continuation

Aisle anywhere but here.

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 03:02:38 GMT

Fire in aisle three.

(The plastic bags holding loaves and loaves of pre-sliced bread are starting to melt into the other plastic bags holding loaves and loaves of pre-sliced bread. And now they are creating mounds of melted plastic on the metal shelves. It is oozing through the small holes on the bottom of these shelves.

Why are there holes on the shelves? Does it make them lighter?

There aren’t flames, just heat. Bread does not burn the way the muffins a few shelves down do. They pop and sputter. Blueberries bursting out of peer spite to the banana nuts.)

Ahem. I hear someone clear their throat to my left. I look over and there is Joe. He is motioning to my breasts. Again.

“Good morning, Joe.”

Ahem. He clears his throat again. He is still motioning to my breasts. I wonder if he started some new rule about breasts in front of the customers. Kind of like shorts above your knees and earrings longer than three centimeters in length. Breasts are not to be worn between the hours of seven and three. Thank you, management.

“Can I help you, Joe?”

Now he is motioning to Nick’s chest. Nick does not have breasts. Nick is not breaking the rules. Joe mentions to my breasts again.

Nick leans over and whispers in my ear, not taking his eyes off of Joe. “Your nametag…”

Now I am looking at my breasts. There is no white plastic rectangle looking back up at me. Shit.

Joe gives me a look of disdain and hands me another shapely nametag. Today I will be Nadia. How nice. She is a Palestinian deli chef. She must have Mondays off.

---

We are not done yet.

Apres Moi

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 03:01:40 GMT

The night I lost my virginity, it rained and continued to do so for three weeks.

My mother was trying to tell me something. I wasn’t paying attention.
It didn’t mean anything to me.

The sex. Not my mother. Well, both. Neither.

It wasn’t love, it was biding my time.

---

The thunder reminded me of her voice. She yelled, late at night after everyone had gone to bed. Sometimes she would come into my room and sit on the edge of my mattress and tell me stories. She would talk about what it would be like once we were out of here. How free we would be. She would fantasize about the sunshine and how sunny it must be in other parts of the world. Anywhere but here, she would say.

Those were my bedtime stories. I would fall asleep knowing that in a few hours, she would return, not being able to sleep. The creak of the carpet right outside my door would give her away. I would wake myself up enough to be able to respond, but wanting to sink into the words she spoke. The monsters under my bed never scared me as much as my mother did.
And sometimes, she would just cry.

I found, on those nights, that I couldn’t sleep. But I would drift off eventually with the sound of her weeping in the next room. I could hear her through the drywall the entire night.
She was good. She was so good.

---

The first few days all I could do was watch.

On the fifth day of the rain, I got into my car and rolled all of the windows down. It was not until I opened the sunroof that I felt the rage of the wind. I drove aimlessly that night, daring her to speak to me.

“WHAT? YOU HAVE NOTHING TO SAY NOW? AFTER YEARS OF TALKING, YOU CAN’T SAY ANYTHING, CAN YOU?”

It was dark. The automatic streetlights recognized this and turned on one by one, flickering in the downpour.

I drove faster and faster, hoping for a car to hit me. Willing myself to run off the road.

I situated the steering wheel on my knee and reached my hands out the roof. The rain was like pellets on my fingertips. She enjoyed the pain too much. I could feel it.

I slept in the passenger seat on the deserted cul-de-sac next to the house I grew up in. It didn’t stop raining until I shut all of my windows and then I was too afraid to open them again. She was playing tricks on me, I knew it.

---

She was laughing at me now. The branches above me shook in the sunlight when the squirrels chased each other across them and light drops of last night’s rain sprinkled down on my head, waking me up.

I could hear her chortle in the songbirds of the morning.

“My name is Denise and I’ll be taking care of you this morning. What can I get started for you, sugar?”

“My mother’s name was Denise. I’d like some coffee please. She’s dead.”

My mother’s name was not Denise.

The Real Denise stared for a second before nodding and walking back to the counter where she pulled out a ceramic mug and a steaming glass pot of coffee. She set it down in front of me with a saucer of cream and a menu. Then turned abruptly and returned to the kitchen.

My mother’s name was not Denise. But my mother taught me how to lie.

She also taught me how to swim.

---

When the second week of downpour began, I ended up outside Joseph’s house. I did not ring the doorbell or knock or even get out of my car. But he was waiting for me.

I didn’t have to say anything, but he met me halfway to the porch, wearing nothing but the clothes I left him in two weeks ago.

His lips were even dry in the rain. Rough, like sandpaper. I enjoyed the pain he caused me and the love he gave me. Screw you, mom. We stood like that, tangled in each other, in the rain, until my legs collapsed beneath me and he carried me inside.

I woke up again in his bed, like I had two weeks ago, though this time I pulled the blanket closer to me and let him swallow me in his arms. My mother taught me how to swim, but I just wanted to drown.

We stayed like that in bed for three days. There was no sex, no drugs, no rock and roll. Sometimes the whispers of our hands, talking to each other and trying to figure one another out. And other times you could hear the faint murmur of conversations with our lips. The most thought provoking ones I’ve ever had.

And on the fourth day, we awoke to darkness. The transformer box on the street blew. It was the only one in the city to get struck by lightning.

On the fifth day, Joseph was sitting on the edge of the mattress.

“I can go, if you want,” I told him. He looked at me and shook his head and laughed quietly.
“I don’t know what to do with you.”
“I don’t know what to do with me either.” I don’t want to lose him.

When he was on the mattress like that, all I could see was my mother. The way her weight shifted the box spring beneath us. Her breathing too close to my neck.

The sixth night, I tried to leave while Joseph was asleep, but my engine was flooded.

I stood on the sidewalk outside the house and stared at the dark clouds forming again.

“MAKE UP YOUR MIND,” I yelled to her.

I was met with a strike of lightening and another round of thunder.

---

“I love you,” I whispered on Saturday morning, my lips in synch with the lobe of his ear. Nibbling on the curve of flesh, gently nudging him awake.

Mother was satisfied, because it stopped raining that afternoon.

There was a week of sun showers when I finally fell in love.

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 02:59:42 GMT

The little black sparrow on my knee tells me “Today will be the conquering.”

I lathered the shaving cream over his little black beak and try to get the stubble without nicking my skin. I am not doing this very well. Soon, there are little pink streaks in the cream as I am washing it off. It does not sting, but I can see the little wells of blood starting to rise.

I turn the water off and step out of the tub and onto the shag bath carpet, its threads twisting around my toes. I am standing in front of the mirror.

Through the foggy mist that has accumulated on the glass, I look beautiful and dainty. A pale, creamy blob of naked flesh. My breasts look perfect, the way I imagine them to always be and the rough outline of my collar bone is more protruding than I remember it. My fingers run across the condensation that is stationed on my face. Through the five little lines I just created, I look jumbled. My nose and my eyes do not seem to match up correctly. I can only make out one ear clearly and my lips are still hidden beneath the mist.

I turn the hot water on again so that I slowly disappear. I am not supposed to look perfect.

---

I am still at my kitchen table at three forty-nine. The milk is no longer cold and my crunch berries have gone soggy. Three minutes later, I get up the energy to pour the bowl out in the sink.

I am late to work, but as I am riding my bike down the street my skirt gets caught on the upper part of my thigh, releasing the bird on my leg. He tells me “Time is just a memory.” So I slow down. And enjoy the ride.

My boss doesn’t even chide me anymore. I throw my bag down under the counter and go into the back room and turn off the sprinkler system. The roses look nice today.

An hour later, I am back on my bike going the opposite direction as before.
1347 West Hill Avenue. Fourteen blocks.

Seven blocks later, I am in a part of the city I have never seen before. That is not true; it is a part I do not see often enough. I recognize the brownstones, but I have only been on this sidewalk. But I am on this sidewalk every Thursday.

When I get to 1329 I slow down. The little tree is coming closer and when I reach it, I use the heel of my shoes as a brake, just like my mother always told me not to do, and rest the bike against the tree. I climb the six short cement stairs that leads to the double doors. By now I should have my own key, but I like buzzing myself in.

I reach for the second button from the top and press it using my middle finger. Only once and the door in front of me clicks and I enter.

Mrs. Barrett lives on the sixth floor at 1347 West Hill Avenue. Apartment three. She was always standing at the open door, waiting. The hallway would fill with the musk of her perfume and whatever it was she was cooking that day before I ever made it past the fourth story.

“I brought you French Honeysuckles today, Mrs. Barrett,” I told her as I reached the landing. Her smile grew, and she gently reached out her hand. I placed the bouquet lightly in her grasp as she turned and walked further into the apartment. I closed the door quietly and followed.

She removed yesterday’s white Daisies and slipped the fresh stems into the vase on her kitchen table.

“What does today bring?” She said delicately, not facing me. She disappeared into the kitchen as I pulled out the small notebook I carried in my bag.

“Rustic beauty,” I answered. She emerged from the other room only to look at me with those eyes.
“Are you calling me old?”
“Never,” I grinned. “Antique has a much better ring to it.”

She pursed her lips, but her old eyes were still smiling and left the room again. She came out with two large glasses filled to the rim with a light-colored liquid and stack of letters. As she set the tray down, she set one glass in front of me and another at her place near the head of the table.

I never dare to drink from the glass after the first sip. The directions on the packet of lemonade were always misconstrued as two cups of sugar and not tablespoons.

I picked up the first letter in the pile. It was where we left off last week. I slipped my finger under the crease of the once sealed envelope. It was brown with age, almost as if it had been tea-stained in such a manner that it was only made to look as old as it really was.

Mrs. Barrett leaned back in her chair and left her lemonade untouched, her eyes closed, as I began to read aloud.

“March thirty-first, nineteen twenty seven. My dearest Marie. It has only been months, though the days grow longer, making it seem like years since I have been able to feel your touch or run my fingers through your delicate locks…”

---

When I get home I am met with the unwashed dishes of this mornings’ cereal bonanza. My feet will not let me stand long enough rinse the warm milk out of the bowl and I collapse onto my futon, only inches away.

My cell phone is buzzing away. Three missed calls. Four new voice messages. I know who they are from.

The sparrow is looking up at me from his slanted angle of my leg. “Ignorance is not always bliss,” he says. I am sure he is just mocking me now. I do not need a sparrow to tell me what to do. I let the phone keep buzzing, knowing he will be waiting by the phone whenever I decide to call him back.

If ever.
Muffin lands on my stomach in a giant heap of fur. She is a predictable being. Purring only when she knows I will feed her or pay her more attention than the mailman.

I hear the polyphonic chords of the generic ringtone I assigned to the generic boyfriend whom I never call back starting to play again in the back of my mind. But I am drifting off to sleep…

---

He has stopped asking questions as to why I am always late and where I disappear to every Thursday afternoon and the occasional Monday.
I was unpacking the shipment of Hyacinths that were left on the back loading dock when I heard the plastic flap of the back curtain being opened.

“I am not paying you to daydream, you know.”
I am not paying attention to what he is saying. He will not fire me, I’ve tried.

“What else would you pay me to do?” I do not particularly want to test him today, but I am not in the mood.
He sighs and walks back through the plastic curtain dividing the front and back of the store. I make a mental note to be nicer to him. He is the only reason I still have this job. He means no harm, usually.

I am sure that he is helping a customer when I hear the bell ring of the door to the front of the store opening. When I hear his low murmur about potting soil and fertilizer, I pluck four or five white Hyacinths from the clay pots I just unwrapped. I make sure they are short enough to fit nicely into the pocket of my shoulder bag.

I have moved on to the mix of Zinnias and Posies by the time he returns to the loading dock, where I now spend most of my days.

---

I have rung the bell for the third time and there is still no answer.
“Mrs. Barrett,” I finally say through the slotted intercom. “Are you awake?”

I wrack my mind trying to remember if she told me not to come today. Maybe she had some sort of appointment. I can’t remember. I frantically ring the buzzer a few more times before another resident exits the building. Without looking to conspicuous, I grab the handle before the door clicks shut and walk inside.

There was no answer when I knocked on her door either. Her neighbor finally cracked her own door open just a bit and whispered something to me in Italian. I shook my head lightly. “I don’t understand.”
The old woman sighed and returned to her own apartment.
It was four fifty five. I was late, again.
I left the small bouquet of Hyacinths that I picked yesterday and a few Violets that I added just before I left the store. I tore out the little piece of notebook paper that I had scribbled on.

Hyacinths (white) - unobtrusive loveliness
Violets- modesty, purity

They were still cradled in the nook of the doorframe as I pedaled away towards the east side.

---

It was much the same for the next few days.
There was always that pained look on his face whenever I walked into the store. I almost started to feel bad. But he never said anything to me. I think he knew better.

I was snipping rose stems today. There were white, red and pink roses. But it was only September. The watered down remnants would stick in between my fingers, leaves holding on for dear life.

The phone rang in the front and on the extension next to my table. I might have almost answered it, but he got to it first. There was the same faint murmuring and some hushed silence. Some sort of hallmarked statement and the click of the receiver.
I was looking back down at the roses in my hand when I heard the swish of the plastic curtain opening.
He walked over to the table and grabs a bin of roses that I have not gotten to yet and walks to the other side of the room, where we keep the arrangements.

“Make yourself useful,” he is walking back over to my table of rotten stems. “Take these to West Hills.” He hands me a slip of paper with the address on it and four small assortments decorated with Lilies and Sweetbriar roses. Funeral arrangements.

---

Thursday’s flowers are sitting in a vase on the kitchen table next to last week’s Honeysuckles. On the counter there are hundreds of old dried flowers. Some aged more gracefully than others. I recognize the Queen Rockets, the Tea Roses, the Orange Blossoms and too many others.

Mrs. Barrett’s daughter watched me run my fingers over the crinkled leaves before she spoke.
“I found them all over the house. In books, on shelves, in the dishwasher.” I didn’t know what to say. “Mom never mentioned you, though.”

My eyes met the stacks of envelopes and she noticed, too. “I’m not sure what those are yet, I haven’t finished going through them.”

I didn’t take my eyes off the letters, but opened my mouth to speak. “March twenty seventh, nineteen twenty seven….”

“What?””

“My dearest Marie, it has been only months, though the days grow longer…” She just stared at me, bewildered. Not sure what to make of this.

“I read that letter to your mother every Thursday for the last four and a half years. It is from your father, when he was overseas, before you were born.”

---

This morning, I look in the mirror. The sparrow has migrated to my left shoulder blade, trying to hide from me.

“I see you.”

Now he is on my hip. Today, the banner in his mouth says nothing. For, there is nothing to say.

It has been four days since I have been to the shop. I’m sure my boss knows by now. There are still seventeen voice messages on my phone.

Tomorrow, I will look in the mirror. The sparrow will be staring me right in the face; he won’t be able to escape this time for he will have a heavy message to relay.

Tomorrow, and the next day, and for as many days as the tattoo ink lasts, the banner in his beak reads:

March 27, 1927

My dearest Marie,

It has only been months, though the days grow longer, making it seem like years since I have been able to feel your touch or run my fingers through your delicate locks. The rain in London only prolongs my daydreams of the day I will return to you and our family. While I have not seen the sun for many days, I feel as if your love is all the warmth I will ever need to feel. I just wish that it was closer.
I remember the last day we spent together, in August. Has it been so long since I have last felt your embrace, Marie? Do you remember the meadow and the wild grass? We had no use for the giant blanket we brought as we were swallowed up by the wheat fields anyway. I only dream of the next time I can run through the fields with you, Marie. I savor the next kiss we will share, for I know it will not be our last and that it will be soon. Soon, Marie, I promise.

Yours, forever and until the end of time
Edward

the real

Mon, 05 May 2008 03:25:57 GMT

i saw you. and at three in the morning i heard your engine on my street navigating the dark that is my driveway.
i heard you whisper my name, but i pretended i did not hear you. your pebbles were not robust enough to wake me from my slumber.

i saw the footsteps this morning that you left in my freshly cut lawn.
they spelled out the hours you paced beneath my window.

everytime the cuffs of my jeans rub against the blister on my ankle, i remember the days we spent navigating the river bed jumping from rock to rock, trying to find our way home
but only finding a way farther and farther away.

when my mother talks to me about my moral compass, i think only of how the moss grows mostly on the north side of a rock. and how you told me this when we climbed through the forest that was your backyard, pretending we had no idea where to go.

i laid sleepless last night. this morning. thinking only of the way your fingertips grazed mine and lingered just a little too long.
and i know you were only thinking of that too.

baloon child

Mon, 05 May 2008 03:11:14 GMT

balloon child

sleep has ceased being possible.

(i'm a little more than stir crazy now.)

why must everything and everyone not be here...where i am? at this moment? with me?

i can't slumber

i can't stop

i can’t control

this feeling is addictive

the continuation of time has changed who i’ve become

to the point where i was

unrecognizable

i don't know who she, me, it was, is, am anymore

but this may be the start of a beautiful friendship

attraction versus your face

Mon, 05 May 2008 03:06:53 GMT

attraction versus your face

push me against the closet wall and lock the door.

reciept. charge me.
you say credit
i say debit

cash? i second that motion

i wish i could make grecian art as beautifully as i once did.

but we’ll all move on and dance

then kiss the plaza tower

though i doth not protest much, good sir

i once had a friend.

he was as tall as the empire state tower. and i would draw beautiful things all over his body. and he would let me

sometimes i forget why i started out to do anything.

love is in the air

Mon, 05 May 2008 03:02:57 GMT

i want to believe in something.

that's what i keep telling myself.
but i believe

the sun will continue to shine

and the birds will continue to sing

and artists will continue to create

the world will continue to spin on it's axis

and people will continue to fall in love

every time your car gets covered in pollen
(i think that's what they mean when they say "love is in the air." right?)

roller coasters

Mon, 05 May 2008 03:00:47 GMT

the continuation in the form of a mad girl's love song

con·tin·u·a·tion (noun): something that continues some preceding thing by being of the same kind or having a similar content: Today's weather will be a continuation of yesterday's

i make up plot lines in my head.

sometimes they come true

i’m waiting on the rest

the continuation of life on a pier

i want something official

the continuation of all things fucked up

i want to know whether i should be

making connections or

breaking them.

the path my life has taken is very mountainous as of late

like a roller coaster

roller coasters should only go up and never come down

huddle

Mon, 05 May 2008 02:53:17 GMT

i want to stay out all night

sleep in my car

look at the stars

through my moon roof

i want to stay up

watch the sun rise

i want to huddle in my backseat

wondering if i'm in love.

Jacob: "trois poésies courtes"

Mon, 05 May 2008 02:48:03 GMT

un

edit

(i said no, let's move on.)

i wish in my mind this wasn't such a big deal. you said you didn't want to hurt me
i wish i wasn't so far gone. you want a clean slate, you've got it. go
i promised myself i would never do that. i need a relationship, you don't want one.
i used to have morals. did you ever?
you said sweet things, but they started to make me feel sick. and i've never felt this abused.

you said you would never make me do anything i didn't want to.
but i don't know what i want anymore.

deux

Planetariums send me through the roof.
Hands under the sky, under my...
Legs making friction, we learned about that, right?
Fingers tracing outlines, shall i draw you a schematic?
If only faces traced each other, i would be terminally happy.

trois

be careful, it might be catching.

i'm trying not to have a one track mind, but it's all i can think of now.
i keep having flashbacks to what happened and remembering new things.
remembering your hands. remembering your face. remembering your touch. i remember too much.

and i rely too much on the future.

the real

Mon, 05 May 2008 02:06:07 GMT

i laid sleepless last night. this morning. thinking only of the way your fingertips grazed mine and lingered just a little too long.
and i know you were only thinking of that too.

Sat, 03 May 2008 16:29:50 GMT

the unplanned adventures of spontaneity and miracle

i had a penchant for naming things as a child.

i told you the story of how i named my brother, though i admit that kevin is not as exciting as vesuvius or diego.
i have already named the novels that have yet to be written

my autobiography: simplicity in two parts
(part two: simplistic was what i started out for)

i love the way words form in my mouth and roll from my tongue (it clicking gently behind my teeth)

i have named the children who have yet to be conceived

daughter: boston grace
son: nathaniel (nate) jacob (insert last name here and there)

noah would be nice too, though the bible was never my thing

(matthew mark luke and john did not have my flair for naming)

i feel that the only creativity i can express is through the names i give my poems and my life

i have stayed up late at night (as the best words are written at three in the morning) making lists

children: lillian, emma, boston, asia, mariella, christopher, charlie, kyle
poetry: the continuation (parts one through one hundred)
pet names: pillowcase, lover, sherman the pet boy
bands: those are all my secrets

and it is these lists that make me want to stand in front of a crowd and read the title of my work
and take a deep breath

(waiting for words to roll out, my brain making connections from the paper to my eyes and almost to my mouth)

irreconcilable differences

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 03:21:32 GMT

you owe me $4.57 for the antihistamine cream i bought for the hives you gave me

and no, not hives as in the bumble bees that i want to let loose in your room (your very tiny and yet oh-so patriotic room)

and could you please return the plethora of conversations and secrets that i loaned to you?

at three in the morning, when i find some other dashing young fellow to talk to, i may need them (and by dashing fellow, you were not implied)

you can make the check out to “the girl who i was dating while i asked another to prom” (in the memo line, could you write “and in compensation for the months you spent trying to get over me while i relentlessly kept you in my life for no good reason except for my own benefit and because i happen to be that amazing”—just so i don’t forget.)

sign at the x

initial here

and there

and one last time right here

now, do you understand the terms of the agreement?

…

no, i don’t think that a restraining order is taking it a little too far.

locked

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 03:19:49 GMT

“i can’t do this if something doesn’t change”

repeated for months in my head

leading me on
(i am no longer your patient companion, heel sit stay)

i gave you the key to both the collar and my heart

you kept the leash, but lost the key (if found it in the pocket of your pants I washed last night)

i find it ironic how my feminism, sexuality and freedom of speech went out the door

when i became the submissive

and tried to fix

(who) what (where) wasn’t broken.

the control you once had

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 03:18:16 GMT

unspoken truths of me waiting until three in the morning

too afraid to call, or do anything else for that matter

the constant apologies i gave and received none in return

the months i spent (more than twelve of them, by the way) pining

too chivalrous to really end it

i actually believed you (instead of listening when my girlfriends told me the truth)

feeling as if i had to tell you everything

was the worst waste of twelve months i could ever ask for

no matter how long you had been absent (or not, for that matter) my heart grew fonder and fonder by the minute

it took all those months (more than twelve of them, by the way)

to take back what i had given, which was really too much to give in the first place

rebel

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 03:15:37 GMT

rebellious teens

on the radio
he’s playing the sax

he’s playing her a song

won’t you sing along?

I wish I could sing

but I wish I could touch the sky

I wish there were more wishes to be had

and don’t wish your world away, child

don’t swing it like your moods

throw away the spray paint cans

you graffitied the schoolyard with

you’re surrounded

come out with your hands up

there’s nothing more you can do

to help those

rebellious teens

limbo

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 03:14:19 GMT

we’re in

~~limbolimbolimbolimbolimbolimbolimbolimbolimbolimbolimbolimbo~~

(and i’m not flexible)

they tell me it’s cute, we’re adorable, that’s cool.

they tell me we won’t sit together, but “have you talked to him lately?”

and you smile at me and I wonder

is this for real?

because I can’t be this vulnerable

and that’s how I feel

but I hate to bring it up

because you’ll just tell me

again and again

“ I feel the same way”

that's too much space. (is this just my imagination?)

but I still won’t believe you

until something happens

and even then

i never would

and there

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 03:07:13 GMT

i am just a little confused by the signals you are sending

my antennae adds to the noise that is blocking the brainwaves

not only is the way your hair falls in your face

attractive

but the futile attempts to brush it away are

adorable

and the way you hold your fingers together on the edge of your pockets

when you dance

i admit i was dancing just a little too close

apparently, so.

and not only did i fool myself
by thinking the rush of the crowd and the bump
bump
bump
of the bass was (bump bump)
bumping us together

when you drive away i want to
STOP
the traffic
from flowing
hoping the
bump
bump
bump of the bass
would help me out again

somewhere

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 03:05:16 GMT

it's nice to know you care and nicer to know you don't

somewhere along the way,
i lost track of time. i lost track of this place and

where we were headed.

some nights i come home alone
and lock my door and fall away

fall away from this place

fall into the moonlight

i never let you get to me. i said you could never affect me.

(but i was wrong, i was so damn wrong.) because you're in my head.
spinning around. over and over (and over and over and over and over) day after day.

leave me in peace.

just leave me in this place, for before i was there, i thought i was the happiest i could ever be

somewhere along the way, i let go
i gave myself over to a greater good

but vulnerability was never my game.

i can't play by the rules
i can’t read the fine print

somewhere along the way, i stopped caring.
i thought if this is meant to be, it will work but that's not how it should be

somewhere around here, i vowed to stay angry.
to stand my ground, to not let you sweep me

somewhere awhile back, i promised myself i would not be this person

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 02:51:07 GMT

the complications i could do without:

i have no inhibitions
when surrounded by hundreds of moving bodies

i wish i felt that way about the rest of my life so that i wouldn't end up looking like a complete fucking idiot everytime i opened my mouth.

being out- in the breeze- at night. plays tricks with my mind.
i need a cigarette.

"need is a very strong word," is what my mother used to tell me.
now everytime i "need" something that phrase will run through my mind.

i would like a cigarette very much at this moment.
though smoking, i have realized, gives me migraines. but i do it anyway and annette will always continue to feed my habit until i eventually end up on a respirator still smoking through the hole they cut in my throat so that i can breath on my own.

i will end up in a dark alley lying against a trash can with a sign. and bruises that look suspiciously like track marks on my arm
but should i dance for food? maybe i could sing them a song for a few dollars.

though i'll blow all my money on booze and crack cocaine
because i'm homeless and am in a dark alley lying against a trash can with a sign. and bruises that look suspiciously like track marks on my arm

i could feel the bass in the shoulder blades of the girl in front of me.
the fact that the room smells like sweat doesn't phase me really at all.

rhythm always threw me off. the rhythm of life or whatever.
some quasi-freudistic shit they fed me during those ten years that my parents continued to pay ten thousand dollars to send me to private school. (shit defined as all of which i disregarded after i graduated the eighth grade)

ten thousand dollars a year they could have spent on depaul

"i don't really feel obligated to give you any money for depaul," is what my mother now says.

though i have to say that that is probably not one of the things that will play constantly in my head whenever my daughter asks me for money for college.

i'll say, "sure, sweetheart, i don't mind living in a mortgaged suburban townhouse so that you can follow your dreams and get the heck out of dodge."

i wish i could be that selfless.

if my grandmother dies, i can go to college. just the yardsale alone from all of the shit she keeps in her room will pay for my first two semesters, i'm sure.

i should probably start keeping track of which circle of hell i am at so that it doesn't come as a surprise later.

dear mom,

i don't really feel obligated to pray for you when you ask me to every morning. nor do i feel that i should say goodbye to you as if it is the last time i will ever see you everytime i walk out the door. what was that, mother? you say that you need that to get through the day?
well, mom, you always told me that need was a very strong word.

sincerely yours and 804.38 miles away,
molly.

back to the bat cave

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 02:48:20 GMT

i am a cry for help.
(can you recognize me when i finally show myself and take off my disguise? must you group me with the ones i don't get along with? angst, hormones, being seventeen? i am a hand reaching out from the dark. i am the emo poetry. i am the couch that you sit on during family counseling. i am a baked potato.)
i am a love letter.
(obviously, i go ignored, passed off as something else. i try to be honest. i am the feelings you never give up or let go of. i am the friends you will never talk to again. i am the curls of hair you grab on to in the throws of passion.)

i am in a pickle. i do not understand the ways of love letters or family counseling. i don't want to go to prom with a virtual arm tied behind my back. not that i want to let you go, but to be sane--i have to.
i am an overdramatic seventeen year old girl who does not know how to control her emotions.

(i am a cry for help. i am a love letter. i am the angst in your emo poetry. i am the white noise feedback from your speakers. i am the thought constantly running through your head. i am the car tailgating you down the highway. i am your mother. i am a student loan. i am your twenty-two thousand dollar credit card debt. i am your dying grandmother. i am you empty bottle of zoloft. i am the couch you sit on in family counseling. i am the first video game you ever played. i am the telephone number you are too afraid to call. i am the nail polish chipping off of your fingernails. i am a baked potato. i am a summer squash. i am an inanimate object.)

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 02:46:05 GMT

for life

my brother plays clumsy chords on the piano across the hall
his fingers not quite long enough to play f sharps
his hands not quite wide enough to finish any of beethoven's symphonies

i throw insults from my back row seat. you used to write beautiful things
if the rain continues to drop the way it has been, i might have to close my sunroof

(which only properly works when i am alone and driving barefoot, thirty seven over the speed limit)

if i were a drug addict, i may have something to rely
it doesn't mean i have a problem

to whom it may concern
i see your lights are still on at three in the morning
and i wonder what you might be writing, hunched over your desk like that

and i wish perhaps that maybe if i had the nerve to ask
if we might be able to take a walk together

through the thick, soaked leaves of the forest in my backyard
(through which i can still see the moon, spring has not quite arrived)

and when i find the need to be outside. i open my window and stick my head out, looking down, wondering what would happen if i were to

jump.
i cleaned my closet and found the little blue backpack that i used to stuff every time i felt the need to run away

1 winnie the pooh coloring book
check

three pairs of pink and white socks
check

1 expired map of the hudson river
check

i thought i could be like huck finn
and build a raft out of the logs under my swingset and set down the creek
floating away from my childhood problems

instead, i sparknoted the novel
and decided it might be better to stay inside today.

the continuation

Aisle anywhere but here.

Apres Moi

the real

baloon child

attraction versus your face

love is in the air

roller coasters

huddle

Jacob: "trois poésies courtes"

the real

the unplanned adventures of spontaneity and miracle

irreconcilable differences

locked

the control you once had

rebel

limbo

and there

somewhere

it's nice to know you care and nicer to know you don't

somewhere along the way, i lost track of time. i lost track of this place and

where we were headed.

some nights i come home alone and lock my door and fall away

fall away from this place

fall into the moonlight

the complications i could do without:

back to the bat cave

for life

somewhere along the way,
i lost track of time. i lost track of this place and

some nights i come home alone
and lock my door and fall away