Thursday, December 8, 2011

you are my hungry ghost
and I wish
I could fill your belly up
with earthly delights.

please oh please

write poetry for me
call me your muse
w
  r
   i
    t
     e
me .

Love me like I love you, for then it would truly be glory.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

light it up

death of a friend

You are my mourning music
My dirge
My sad melody.
Can you keep speaking, so I can cry some more?
These are complicated times
I need something to happen. 

Sunday, November 27, 2011

لا
Не
没有
Ne
nej
Nee
ei
non
Nein
Αριθ.
Babu
פלסטיני
कोई
Nincs
no
いいえ
아무도
nei
نخیر
Nr
não
نه
nr.
нет
no
ne
nej
ไม่มี
No
کوئی

Now available in your language of choice

Sunday, November 20, 2011

bullseye

Before I was a girl, I was an aged crone.
A wise and withered ghost;
exhaling all my years,
deflating at the front.

Before I was a girl, I was a man.
I was with power and esteem
and honor.
I spoke and planted thoughts
for bloom.

Before I was a girl I was an afterthought.
A consequence of pleasure
and an object,
weighted by sin.

Before I was a girl
I was black and blue,
a baby soft with hot, hot irons.
A fire breathing, slow witted
pillowcase strewn with
last night’s face.

Before I was your girl I was your mother.
I hung like bells calling you to tea.
I hung like heads,
leadened with shame.
And I gazed at you with hate
like love,
and tucked you into sleep.

When I was no longer a phantom,
I was a form.
Moving fast as light,
a rhythm in your chest,
the spindle pulsing to 2,2 time
plucking and pulling the thread
to harden the heart.

Before I was a girl,
I was aged by my heart.
But now I am a child,
born from a jealous mouth
nothing ever more.

a less than three day grace

you've given me your words
to shape in my mind
and form themselves
into arms, against you.
And though they are only products,
of hackneyed thought
and ridiculed hands,
they mark your memory
a nameless epithet
for an empty grave.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Autun Cathedral (St. Lazare), west tympanum, Last Judgment. c. 1130-1135. Autun, France

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

recreational trips to the airport

I always feel okay in airports. Everyone there is a traveler, no one is rooted in some airport culture. It's personally isolating, collaboratively nomadic. It's easier to define one's character in a suspended state. Routine and culture are too often confused. In the class I visited today, they were talking about character without context; how people separate themselves from a collective past to become individuals. I understand that. If we live too devoutly in tune with our history, we are simply living the past, reaffirming a point we already know

Thursday, October 13, 2011

I will never trust my hands

For once,
In a dream,
They became so searing hot
That they burned straight through my self.

I will never trust my mouth
For the words that flower from
this kettle, piping hot
float like steam, up, up, up.

I will never trust my nose
For each time
I smell peppermint
I think of needle and syringe.

I will never trust my eyes
For each sight
Is just a thought
Plucked from another man’s head.

I will never trust my feet
For they have led me
Disembodied
To heights where fear has leapt.

I will never trust my heart
For I have known it as a man.

I will never trust my mind
For once,
in a dream of fever,
it dreamt my death by mine own hand
and as I wept, rising to the sky,
I felt my body leave me.
And I could never trust a man,
Who left so slyly in the night
And I could never trust my form
That rose so quick from mine own sight.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

having family trouble?

this is not ink,

this is blood.
these are not tears,
I promise you,
they were not drawn from me, but of me
with a needle's precision ,
a blind woman weaving hands from words.
This is not warmth,
but a brutal,
unflinching chill
to fester in you bones
and exhale all the cracks.
I was not born whole
but built broken,
maimed,
forgotten.
I was not reared with jubilation
but with soars for eyes
and a chain link mouth.
I tasted copper against my tongue
and swallowed all my teeth
and rinsed my face clear of grime.
For once I was a beauty,
once I had a pulse and a rhythm all my own
but now
I am but a head to hold your thoughts.
I am weary and drawn
and held taut against
the searing stars. I am a man's cold reflection
to gaze upon
and to see nothing.
I am blood
and ink
and bone
and sweat
and fear
and grime
and warmth
and I am the voice to sing them back to the sky.
up
up, up,
float up and be free.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

I fear more the illusion of aging than anything else; the prospect of knowing I am no longer sprightly, nor remotely fluid in my steps. Not that I ever was, but was I close?

Friday, August 19, 2011

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion" -Albert Camus

Sunday, August 14, 2011

sometimes, I write you letters, or even the more trivial email, and simply keep them. I want some miniscule reminder that we once communicated, that we were once so fond of each other. I never address them, as one would in the fashion of a dear friend, for the epithet reads like a poem of mourning. I like you more than I mourn you, I miss your companionship more than I miss your memory. I write memories, so that when the day has passed, I can remember them in concrete syllables. I write direct, conscious memoirs so that I will know them when I know nothing.
When I am gone, I will my words to remain.
it's the chance to take a million hearts,
and hold them close
to feel them beat
to feel them yearn
to feel the lights go out,
like the hiss of midday prayers.

you are a fool

but so am I.

and the numbers keep swirling in my head
like waves
like waves
like churning and turning and writhing and squealing
and all I want is for you
to want me.

Saturday, August 6, 2011

there reaches a point
in which you realize that you don't matter enough
to sweat the small things

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Friday, July 8, 2011

it was like watching someone else drown
like breaking someone else's hands with steal rods
but waking up with splintered fingers

Thursday, July 7, 2011

I feel you climbing up,

clambering through the dampened tunnel

rooted in purgatory.
I feel you reaching out,
like some willful militia
born from my veins.
I hear you retching
and choking in your own,
liquid form.
and I see you gasping,
growling,
hollering
at the still born plasma
come to drown you.

And still you come,
in rain, in sleet, in shine,
you come to fill my sweet bowl
up with a melancholy surprise.
you come to clean me out
and fester for a while.

I can't tie you down
I can't bring you with me
you were never mine to keep.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

all day long,
I have been making lists. Lists of loves, hates, like, dislikes, sadness, happiness, so on and so forth.
I've been doing this in preparation of evening, so that tonight may be the night I finally sleep.
I need to rid my mind of thought, and plunge deep into this emptiness.

Monday, June 27, 2011

I hate when the night's on fire,
when flames rise and light the day
and the sun unlit serves as but a reminder

Sunday, June 26, 2011

this was supposed to be cathartic

but it's something of a mess
I only write when I'm sad
but poetry flows from my sadness
like ink from my veins.
It permeates the water like broken capillaries,
a blackened concoction of blessings and faith
a blackened conflagration of greeting cards and soiled linen.

I only write when I'm sad
and when I'm happy, I live
free of paper and ink and pen
free of paradox and hyperbole
of  sentence structure and rhyme scheme
when I write,
I give my life to the paper.
draining my veins of all their beauty,
and watch as the living slowly become the dead.
please don't try to be my mentor,
all my idols are dead.

give me two hands to rub for warmth

and one heart to keep me chilled
forgive me
forgive me
forgive me
my feet ache from walking on these bones
and kneading knives with my knuckles.

And I've grown bitter with this cold
and dumb with discontent.

and
and
and
I've never known a winter more frozen than this

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Sometimes I think they only pretend to believe in god

Sunday, June 19, 2011

they flicker for a moment
then illuminate the galaxy as though they were false stars,
fit for no greater purpose than that of a court jester

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

sometimes I wish in poetry

and other times I write melodies in my head.

sometimes I kiss my sister goodbye
and other times I simply walk out the door.

I regret each action

mere moments after they unleashed unto the world.
and I cry most frequently in the afternoon,
usually to the tune of midday soaps.

sometimes I sleep with all my makeup on,
so when morning comes,
my colors have all run together
like the constant drip of some rust-ridden faucet.
other times,
I stain my skin with shades of soap
and bleach the day away. 

Monday, June 13, 2011

I've got one hand on the gas
and another in the burner
let's go bake a cake

Monday, June 6, 2011

summer, you are the sweetest

array of syllables to ever be uttered
you retrieve the dead from their bones,
and cut into being 7 new men
holding hands like identical little strangers.

I thank you for your kindness

I thank you for your poetry

I thank you for your freedom, as clear as cantaloupe.
This burden has been lifted
and I intern have floated up to heaven
rid of my earthly form,
to find solace in solitude.
and sweet, sweet surrender 

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

I like you just as much if not more

A name means nothing. Your form is constantly at the tip of my tongue. It may actually BE the tip of my tongue.

and every other part of me

into the depths

There was a time I thought I could swim
I'd float to the center
and stay there awhiles
I would close my eyes and do backstrokes for miles
until the waves illuminated the moon
and the surface felt cool as stone.
I'd skip all the way home,
stoned by the mercy of the tide.

But really I've been drowning
drowning, drowning down.
I've been here so long,
inches beneath the surface,
watching as cracks form in my memory.
I've been here so long,
lips parted,
drawn to the finesse of that last breath.

I want to let my lungs fill with salt
and watch as
The colors of my skin all run together.
I want to lay my body down
and rid my bones of heavy burdens.
I want to know you
and I want you to know me,
inside and out.
I don't think I could ever love you as much as you want me to.
you're a hypocrite
you're a liar
you treat me like a child
you don't seem to care
you laugh at everything
you act like this is temporary
you never mean it.
any of it.

Friday, May 27, 2011

death mask

my neighbors scream

like gun fire.

And here I am. Alone on a Friday night. Drinking diet coke and just wishing this year would end.



                BUT THE END IS SOON TO COME. 
and not even in the frightening May 21st apocalyptic way either.

for that thing growing in your heart

If you walk away,
I will trail in your wake,
warmed by the presence of your mere memory.
And I will love you more
And I will love you more
than that first moment of kindergarten affection,
enlightened and devoid of my humanity.
for I am a purist at heart.

I will hold your hands
and kiss your knees when you weep
but never your cheek,
for grief is a horrid contagion.

And I too will weep
for that thing growing so close to your heart
for that thing trapped inside your stomach
for that thing that feels so much like love.

If I could,
I'd unhinge your upbring
and piece back together each shattered reflection.
and when the ground shakes,
I'll paint your bruises over with shades of
pink
and green
and fuchsia.
and when the time comes,
we'll paint them black with nostalgia.

and I'll kiss your knees
and sing a song to your belly
and watch as dirty rivers form across your face
and I'll  close my eyes, because the hurt's too much.

I want to pull out your grief,
like a cancer from your lungs,
and watch as it pulsates
and writhes with the fervor of a mournful heart.

I want to write your name across the skyline
and whisper it in melodies to the airwaves.

But in truth,

I fear that my love will fall to the scope of man's achievements

in truth,

I fear my love will fester like a sore, a reminder of soured camaraderie.

let the scabs ripen,
rip them open and start anew.
I want a reason to love your pain away.

hey gal pal

sittin on my left

you are a favorite of mine
I hope you have an amazing last photo class
everything you do makes me smile

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

help me to pull thin air from thin air
and meaning from concrete syllables.



help me to unwind
and
u
n
w
i
n
d
like spools of thread
and skins from apples

love me like leather,
be my pillared feet to hold and my patron saint to have

It's sad when you miss something that was never yours

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOVE OF MY LIFE

Monday, May 23, 2011

I can't I can't I can't I can't
do anything productive
pretend to care about you
continue to be so fucking ambivalent to everything
I hope with summer comes the ability to once again make decisions and form coherent sentences.
    admittedly I'm not even that excited about the prospect of summer
it just feels like this portent of aging.
I hate it.

Friday, May 20, 2011

I cut my lip

I'm sorry that I cried in front of you. I didn't mean to put you in that position. it's just sometimes difficult to regulate my vulnerability.

I can feel all my wisdom teeth coming in. They're puncturing the exterior without a single care.


There
         is
            a
               HOLE
                
                               in
                                  my
                                       tongue.
I wish you were here to hold my hand.  

Thursday, May 19, 2011

A thought.


A single though to plague my mind.
It devastates and rages within, confined to ideal circumstance.
It lends space for bloom,
But all that grow are wicked and deranged.
Mangled with the sounds of crying eyes.
Gouged by the meaningless monologues of some horrifying necrosis.
The thought but festered before I reached the shore.
And I felt a burning in mine mind.
Plunder fast and rid me of this curse
Or leave it to hover in disguise.
Let each to affect the other
And in conflict, resolution will form.
And if collapse I before solution’s sound,
Place bars around my bones
And weights upon my breast.
Let me to be a barnacle
And without air, the thought shall die
And we again be free.

sbiblical sallusions

contusions
solutions
assumptions
resolutions
indignant
indignant
indignant.


Yes?

Tuesday, May 17, 2011


God, 
I have found you
you were stuck between the cushions
between bits of lint and chewed up gum. 
You let out a scream
when I grabbed to free your form.
And I screamed too,
for I know no other command. 
I looked for god in heaps of scrap metal 
and in bowls of soup. 
I focused on the emptiness of the thing. 
He told me to breathe,
and inside I turned blue. 
Stuffed within a thoughtless form,
 how might he ponder of the alms and aves
of the wearied, skyless prophet?
How might he free himself from ease?
Throw himself to folly?
On the day of our baptism,
We will pour iodine to clean our wounds
and rid our tormenters of sleep.
We will bury our dead amid soiled salutations
And borrowed surrenders. 
I have found god amongst the dregs 
of soured milk
and in the listless elastic
of second hand gym shorts.
I have found God,
But he

has turned
away.

Monday, May 16, 2011

she looks like a ghost

but she worries like an afterthought.

I think I was an afterthought. A sort of, "how the fuck did you end up down there?"
sometimes I wish I could see the mechanics, I want to know how these things work.
And I like you, yes, but I doubt the feeling is mutual. I doubt for a second you might even take a second look at me. I honestly don't care that much, but perhaps that is simply my apathy shining through. Maybe it's better to keep the things I love out of arms reach. I feel I will appreciate them more that way.
That's true too, I do love you.

I keep getting panicky each time I think about you. Panicky and sick. Panicky is sick. Panicky to soothe the nerves and to wrestle the strains into accord.

I know you don't believe me

but I meant it.
I wish you could comprehend the full magnitude of my affection for you.
I take this shit seriously. Between you and me, the words are made up of more than syllables. I wish you knew that I don't say these things to anyone else. No one. I didn't invite him not because I was tired, but because I like you and me more than any other duo imaginable. I wish you knew how special you are. On a selfish level I would prefer you be permanently attached to my hip. I don't really know. I should probably go to sleep. I haven't been all that well recently. Sorry you've had to put up with me.
You know what? I don't lie as frequently anymore. Does mendacity become less easy as you grow to love a person? I don't know.
I don't know.
I have no idea.

but the things I do know I know all too well.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Yea, I miss you too.


OH WAIT YOU'RE SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO ME.

and no, you're not boring. you're the farthest thing from it, because you're sitting right next to me (lol, get it?)
kazthleen fucks up sometimes(the latter was added after the first publication, signifying the death of reason)

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

granted,

I've been known to forget.


Granted, I never seem to have the correct response.


PROPAGANDA? the art of willing deception, the art of false correspondence.

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,

We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming
Four dead in Ohio

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Kiki Smith
Louise Bourgeois
William Blake

arc of time

a



    b
  c
d


e
                            f



g                   h

i                                                                j
k


l

                                     m
 n

o                                                                                                                 p


    q







                                                        r


fuck this.

Egon Schiele

burn baby, burn



the contents of my head are jumbled.

cartwheeling

lumbering limbering timbering

falling

I'm going to give myself a break.

                     because obviously I'm getting a whole bunch done
why is it that whenever I think of you I hear "Elenor Rigby"?

stop asking me

stop it, really.

I HATE FEELING LIKE A CFKUING REFUGEE EACH TIME I SEE YOU

I still love you, but you make it so hard. I'm not angry that you're better than me, I'm just sad you know too


Sometimes we're both so fragile
                           I don't know who'll break the other first.
 we seem to crush each other, even when we're apart.

maybe our friendship isn't the safest outlet.

we keep teeter-tottering
swaying with the rhythm of some unbearable weight.

maybe we won't break. maybe we'll melt.
not in the fashion of great heaps of discarded, rusty snow

we'll melt like after-thoughts; the ones that were never meant to last.

GO WRITE YOUR ESSAY MIRANNDA

Monday, May 9, 2011

Henry Darger
"Ghost, ghost I know you live within me
Feel as you fly
In thunderclouds above the city
Into one that I
Loved with all that was left within me
Until we tore in two
Now wings and rings and there's so many
Waiting here for you"

When I die,
Bury me amongst the dregs of hollowed trees
And the roots of toiled labor.
Let me to lie in stale coffins with starry nights to light the pages
And illuminate sullen misfortune.
Philosophize o’er my bones
Until they spring anew with ripened integrity.
Now watch! Now watch!
The bone dance jilts and murmurs in ecstasy
Waiting for that long awaited tug,
To rip the flesh,
And twirl like the marionette of some deranged drunkard
Who peddles his wares amongst the loons and pioneers.
When I die,
Watch as I burst into flame.