In the community I work in, grandparents buy $250,000+ houses so their grandkids can live in them.... o.O

Guess most people here are too good for bootstraps...

Dear world,

I do not think you know what love is. Love must be taught, it must be practiced, it must be done. Affection is felt. Infatuation "happens." Love is done. Love is the hard work behind affection. Love is the greatest task, in both weight and glory. To love is a very great responsibility.

Best parenting keywords EVER.

Natural consequences and logical solutions. BOOM.

I came out on facebook

It's not really something I'd realized I was keeping a secret. However, to make a point about judging others by our standards and our perception of their failings and sin, I announced to the world that I do not believe in punishing children.

Where do I go from here?

I have an impulse to explain myself, to say things like - I was almost never punished as a child and I'm not a serial killer, or talk about the latest psychological findings in the area, quote books I've read, even point out where in the bible translations, assumptions and culture have marred the very message of our Lord to our hearts. But I don't think I will. Not now, at least.

Suffice to say I think punishment is a sinful desire to control the behavior of another. I have never been punished by my savior or heavenly father, nor have I always been saved from the natural course of my decisions. Christ has taken all my punishment. I am simultaneously worthy and unworthy, guilty and blameless. In this tension, I hope to grow closer to my creator.

Our pastor, Joe, said one day he brought his three children into his study - one by one. His first, his son, he asked "What is the most important thing I've taught you? What is most important about life?" "Always do the right thing," his son answered.

I have failed, Joe thought.

He brought his second son in and asked again. "What is the most important lesson I've taught you about life?" "Always do what's right. Follow the rules," said the second son.

I have failed again.

His youngest, his daughter, came in next. Again he asked, "what is the most important thing?" he asked. "Jesus will always love me," she said.

Truly, I want the most important thing in my son's mind to be that Jesus loves him. I don't want him spending his life trying to mimic the fruit of righteousness. You can paint a rock red and tie it to a vine, but it's a far cry from a ripe tomato. You cannot punish a child into loving God or himself or you or his neighbors you can only punish him into feigning such things. Therefore I hope to disciple my children in the limited ways a sinner can so that they are pointed to God's mercy and love. The world has enough pain to teach the lessons the world demands. Mercy is not taught through a lack of grace.

And that's my opinion.

My flesh is made of song.

tight

When I say things are tight right now and you say "I hear ya!" I don't think you quite understand. Tight is not "on a budget" or even trying to grow your own food. Tight is not cutting back on eating out or saving less than normal. It's not buying one pair of boots instead of three.

Tight is leaving a grocery store in tears because you don't have enough money to pay for groceries and have to eat from the dwindling pantry for another week and a half.

Things are tight. You're comfortable.

someday far

one boy never home
in the time mother's door
gave away every mountain
in the last well garden
and dead things' bones
taught fallen boys to sing
to the sea-wind woman
sing with the blood bairn

we've seen winter men
lay broken words down
with hands born in water

God found every mountain
and named the snow river
whose water gave singing
and the words carried time
to face birds in the morning

Music dances in my blood.

not feeling much outside of anger and numbness today. hooray.

a borrowed ear

I log on to social networking sites, but the truth is I don't trust a lot of people anymore.  I don't trust them to not be cruel.  I much prefer the few who know me here, along with any wandering strangers.  It's a mess, you know.  I feel caught in a jacob's ladder of second-guessing others' impressions.  Some days I don't know who or what I am, other days I'm as sure as salt.  I feel as though one mind occupying separate bodies of emotions & concerns.

So friends and strangers.  I'll tell you what I couldn't tell fb or g+:  I'm soaking oatmeal for the morning.  Enough water to cover it and a bit of buttermilk to acidify it should be enough.  I have high hopes for waking up early and fixing it all up before church.  I know my record for high hopes, but I choose to have them regardless.

I greatly enjoyed the act of pulling out my little kitchen scale, the clink of the glass bowl on its glass plate.  I love the word and meaning of tare.  It makes things seem weightless - it seems to mess with the very physics that hold the world together.  Anything can be nothing.  It makes the world feel minorly unsolid.

I like the perfect numbers as well.  One point zero zero.  For a moment it read one zero one, but a generous pinch corrected it's error.

Scraping the smushed oats out of their cardboard cylinder bit by bit.  It's a cousin to the feeling of plunging your hand into a bag of smooth grain, or scooping cool softness of a well-turned bed of earth.

Tomorrow I look forward to folding in dried fruit and pouring maple syrup into the thing and pressing it to the corners of my pyrex pan.

The baby burned his finger today.  Just a little - on a pan that had been out of the oven a couple minutes. He was barely upset & I was glad for a real example of the word "hot."

The past couple weeks have felt so difficult, so full and heavy despite the fact I was off an extra two days.  I feel so wobbly and tired.  Now this house is making noises and it's freaking me out a bit.  

friends.

They're knitting a web.  Close and comfortable.  Private.

It hurts my heart that I'm on the outside.

I don't feel loved.

My son qualifies for early intervention speech therapy.  There isn't much in this world that is more frustrating than being told to get him on medicaid when you've been doing everything you possibly can to make that happen, yet still been denied twice.  The government is just so well run that they make things due on days it's impossible to turn them in.  Like Sunday.  Perhaps the only thing more frustrating is being told to talk to him about everything... when I already do.

I took dev psych, people.

My son could also have a very bad blood disorder.  I don't know because I can't afford the tests without his medicaid.  See, even as he sits here in my lap, the iron in his blood could be building up in his tiny organs, damaging them beyond repair.  There's no cure - just a lifetime of blood transfusions (and the risks associated with those).

It took me a year to get a (free) eye exam.  Because so many other things are more important.

We're getting kicked out of our house.  My husband plays video games instead of packing.  He turns on the TV to dull my child's brain and he dicks around on the computer.  He won't take care of his loans even though all he has to do is make one call to the school to get them to fax one piece of paper.  Then he gets mad at me for not doing my lab time for my spanish class.  I've accepted that part of my classwork is going to suffer because of this move.  Our credit and finances are infinitely more important than 5% of my grade in what is essentially an elective.

I should leave and take my son to the museum.  I should take the modem and his power supplies with me.

He dicks around and wastes time while getting to do what I desperately want to do.  Stay home with my son. I try to convince myself I don't know why I have the dreams I do - but it's a lie.

A cold and spiny creature nests beneath my breastbone.  It pushes my organs aside for a bed, lining it with hatred plucked and gnawed from its body.  When it stirs, I clench my jaw, sending pain through my teeth.  It infects me. Like some horrific fetus fatally misplaced, it writhes if investigated.  So I leave it.  It can't get out.  For now.

The Quakers ruined holidays for me

but in a good way...


"Friends have also eschewed the traditional church calendar of holy days, not observing religious festivals such as Christmas, Lent, or Easter at particular times of the year, but instead believing that Christ's birth, crucifixion and resurrection should be commemorated every day of the year. For example, many Quakers feel that fasting at Lent but then eating in excess at other times of the year is hypocrisy, and therefore many Quakers, rather than observing Lent, live a simple lifestyle all the year round (see Testimony of Simplicity). These beliefs tie in with Quakers' beliefs on sacraments and the belief that all of life is sacred."

I leave my kitchen light on at night.  The dim light illuminates the sink with its soaps, scrubs and colander in a warm, yellow glow fading to gray in the room's corners.  My mom left her kitchen light on.  I would wander toward it for a cold glass of milk on occasion.  I remember the floor being much too cold; I remember shivering to move the sleepy, sluggish blood in my veins and the pain that shot through my dilated eyes to the back of my head. 

I never need the light anymore since my body has outgrown milk and water is never quite worth the journey.  My son will make the same little midnight pilgrimages in only a few years, but until then, his midnight milk is warm and snuggled next to him. 

But still, my kitchen light is on. 

The drops settled heavily on the glass. My skin pricked as the sun rubbed uncomfortably up my arm. The night's chill slowly settling down, drawing itself into the clamminess of the air as the summer's morning sun warmed the world too quickly. I was lost. In that cast iron chair on the porch, chilled by the dawn, I soaked in the sunrise. Watching another day fall over my small, unruly stretch of grass, gravel and brush was comforting, in a way. It was the regularity of it, the promise, the constancy of change. Time bloomed forward effortlessly, simply. I always felt like I was meeting face to face with a deep and beautiful truth when I stayed up this long, waiting out the darkness. Waking up to it was never this way, I was always too dazed with sleep to really feel anything other than the clocks ticking away. The urgent push to move, to ready, to leave. No, it was different this way - like we were equals, like I'd kept in stride with time. I even sort of loved the tiredness that came a few hours later. The true weight of sleep always fell so heavily after these mornings. The crushing force of it reassuring me I really am human. I loved giving in to that feeling.

I'm not a mother I'd like to have.

My mother isn't who she used to be. I can't trust her anymore. She's letting the wrong voice in.

My father is so fatigued. You would be too.

My grandmother is blinded by hate and lies. She'll live forever, but I'll never really know her.

My brother may not survive over there. It really wouldn't be fair to him, he deserves so much more out of life... I wish he knew that.

My friends are thin. All we talk about is how we should get together more. That's hardly having anything in common. One of them, I feel like I never talk to her unless I've got something informative to talk about. I feel awkward and am overly aware of my elbows and how congested the skin on my face feels. I feel sick when I talk to her, because I know we probably aren't friends. I just need a friend so badly, but can't step out of this shell anymore.

I feel like I'm always reaching.

I feel remarkably sad that some of you are so far away from me, physically or emotionally.

I'm sorry for being a bad person. Perhaps I'm just bad at being a person.

Mon enfant

Every hour I am away from you
I want to draw you closer
But I still can't understand
the reality of you
You are still but an extension
of my being
Must I love myself before I can love you?

On Motherhood

But the strength of God is sewn in my seams;
binding this patchwork being.
Stitching the skin to heal
in silvered scars.
Like a punctured wineskin
I pour forth into you
my child.
You rent and tear my heart.
He holds us together

His seams weave my being anew.

Homeschool moms with their WIC & their libraries, their SUVs guzzling govt-subsidized gas, babies all covered by Medicaid, complaining about the slackers living off the system - it kills me.

a highly sensitive child

In first grade, the boy I gravitated toward cut the back of his hand. He came to school with a white bandage wrapped around it. I remember feeling so sad that my chest hurt. He was perched in the homemade treehouse in the playground of the school and I stood at the base of it. Wanting so bad to comfort him and show him how sorry I was that he was hurt, I picked up the broken handle of a plastic spoon, quickly studied it to find the sharpest spot on it, and repeatedly scraped it across the back of my hand. The pink, ashen scratch rose slightly off the back of my little 6-year-old hand. I showed him how I'd hurt myself to make him feel less pain & he just turned away. He didn't understand. No one really did.

Do you?

soul.

soul.
sole.
bottom-down.
underneath.
that which presses into the ground.
that which is closest to the earth.
center.
stillness.
axis.
foundation.
support.
strength.
rest.

I prayed so hard.

I'm sorry.

I don't feel like sharing. I want to... kind of.

But my thoughts have become more geometric... out of necessity. I guess when a thorn is removed, you can't paint with blood anymore.

I can't seem to see anymore. I can't see how I used to.

But the other day, I was walking up the concrete steps to our door and I smelled the concrete and the dust and the lingering cigarette smoke and I felt how the smell reached deep inside and pulled out a vague memory. So vague, all I could remember was emotion; a certain way my soul was settled on days that smell was layered in my mind. It was peaceful, young and full of exploration and curiosity.

I rejoice for my son and the days he will know that feeling.

it was intentional...

I think I probably have about 15 blogs.  That's gotta say something about me.  They seem to all start out as a playce to bare my innermost self, to play withe words, to leave off punctuation     .

But then i forget them.  I forget to be smart enough, creative enough, witty enough 

for myself.

my standards.

i'm never what i wanted to be.

but i think i might like who i am... for the most part, at least.

And that's saying a (whole heckuva) lot as i remember looking in the mirror and vowing to never pull back my hair because I looked like a boy.  I remember despising every fibre of myself when I stood silently under their hateful, judging eyes.  I was such a sad child.  Everyone thought I was shy, but I think I was really just sad.  and scared of being hated.

Now I can feel it better, like a cold, off-blue wave creeping toward me.  Sometimes I can manage to jump as it hits, floating over its surface; keep breathing.  other times i can't jump high enough.  Most of my childhood was spent drowning... and no one knew; not even me.

would you kindly look your best?

i think something confusingly sad has wandered into my life. sad, good, sweet, soft,

sadly sweet

but there's no bitter, this isn't bittersweet.

just sad.

i think my friend's back.

the sweetness is only that of familiarity.

i'm going to go clean him away.

there's this girl i know.  i hesitate to call her friend because of the past year or so, yet she is someone for whom i care deeply.  i've tried to explain the distance to myself so many times, but i suppose it's just the both of us, trying to be distant but foiling our own ends by pretending we're close.  her bitterness and fear is palpable, just as much so as i imagine mine to be.  a sad thing in the end, really.

i mention her because she was my roommate.  when she first came she was an art major.  she's meant for something else, but she chose art for her degree.  she's much too organized to be an artist.  anyway, the point is that i always feel so judged and belittled by her whenever i voice an opinion on art.  granted, i'm not going to say that my opinions on the great masters' work is a well informed one, and i won't say i know more about theory or history than she does.  i won't say that any skill that i have is more developed than hers; however, i do believe that i have a right to comment on art and what i believe it is.

first, there are two types of art that i see as very distinct but which have been often categorized as the same thing.  Art and Craft.  it's odd that those two words conjure up the images they do when a single 's' is added to the end of each, but the two words define the two facets quite neatly.  art is a communication of something human to others, while craft is deliberate creation through skill.  both have the capacity for immense creativity, inspiration and influence, but just because one calls the thing one creates 'art' does not immediately confer these qualities upon the work.  

another quality that can distinguish pieces in either category is what i like to think of as 'open' and 'closed' pieces.  i generally feel that an artist/craftsman creates one or the other on a regular basis, with unexpected appearances of the opposite on occasion.  

open work is something quite indescribable.  it'll cause you to stop at times, and stare.  the female form is most often an open work in itself; men and women both have been captivated by it for ages.  most pieces cheat a little and recreate that form in some medium or other... borrowing art from another artist.  open art has a way of making you stare longer, come back to a piece again; the powerful pieces seem to send tendrils of themselves of some communication into your brain and lodge themselves there, like they were flowing into the place they were meant to be.  as if there were some small void in one's being that was unfelt until something took its rightful place there.  

closed work has much more of a finality.  good work of this category feels stable, finished, complete.  there's no yearning for completion in it, but a solidity like a boulder sunk into the soft ground with moss settling in its corners.  or a smooth, unbroken field.  pure geometrics seem to be the distilled form of this quality.  they don't allow you to become a part of them, but instead rest beside you.

doctors are sadists who think they're God and like to watch other people scream.

i want a baby.

thoughts on leaving

"In all things…Christ pre-eminent."

You've made these words ring hollow, Covenant.  My heart breaks for those you've driven away in your blindness.

addendum to a high-schooler's insight

innocence is bliss, ignorance is embarrassing, knowledge is painful, but wisdom is knowing it's all woven together for good.

soleil

the heat of summer strained through the skin of spring

pressing out against the world

overdue

and yearning to be let out into the rainwet world

strong chords resonating diaphragm deep

leading forward, pulling through your chest

drawing out the joy that hides

It's tantamount to giving a jew a swastika christmas ornament.

Never get me anything fleece.  Fleece and I are archenemies.  

this is THE most fucked up website i've seen

Just see for yourself.

It looks kinda normal...until you try and read what it's saying. I dare you to understand what some of those comments are communicating.

i've a feeling...

that all my training in psychotherapy is just going to come down to this:

Loving relationship heals.

There.  All the research from the past 100 years into all the ins and outs of people's minds summed up for you.

And God said it first.

song for asher

http://hypem.com/search/breathe%20nalick/1/

buzzzzzing

there's no way i can sleep right now. i fell asleep for an hour and now that i've decided to go to bed, i can't get back to sleep. i'm just really bothered by what's been happening lately.

i'm just too busy to do everything right now.
here's my list: (in no particular order)
dishes when i can
keep room neatish
fold clothes
get enough sleep
remember to start meds
keep close eye on credit cards for a large purchase i made
come up with budget for wedding
call venue and see if the date can be moved at all w/0 losing $300
call mom to get addresses
mail more support letters
get in touch with jason lehn about support letters and late money
attempt to get in touch with my future mother-in-law (difficult to do when no one picks up the phone) to
explain that i don't hate her
try and get some answers on why there's a problem with the date
explain that i want to work things out for the best for everyone
attempt to get in touch with my family and tell them to try and call his family
make my appointment on friday
begin to acquire and read 60+ resources for my SIP
check due dates to make sure i'm not late on anything
find a wedding coordinator i can afford
make lunch dates with three friends (and somehow keep them w/0 a car)
clean the dishes i make at his house
write and turn in a resume in 2 days
set up meeting with alecia by tomorrow
find the hours for the french lab i'm supposed to do by tomorrow
get invitations made and out in a month
get more info on the job (but from whom?)
finalize a budget limit
search for a reception venue that'll be open, affordable, and w/0 a corking fee
look for an affordable dress online and go dress shopping at a time when someone can go with me
look for affordable bridesmaid dresses
keep my parents updated on wedding plans
keep his parents updated on wedding plans
keep my maid of honor updated on wedding plans
prepare for berlin trip
find time to exercise
spend time with him
resolve the random disputes that tend to crop up in stressful times
help him find a car
schedule surgical procedure
schedule several dentist visits
find a way to have money for a security deposit
find an affordable apartment if the job won't work out
find out if we could have internet at that house
get schoolwork in on time (find some way to plan ahead effectively...something i haven't figured out yet)

and yet, i'm apparently a terrible person because i haven't been able to keep in touch enough and because i haven't been keeping everyone up-to-date on every thought and consideration i've had about the wedding.

there. i'm sure there's a lot more on the list (i've almost completely neglected the specifics of school due dates)...but there it is.

i have a lot to do. i can't do everything. it's not fair for people to blame me for not doing what they think i should be doing. i don't have time for their shoulds, i only have time for whatever i can get done.

M: she has a juicy butt....

M: by which i mean it says juicy

A: you have a one track mind...the PENIS TRACK

A: because christianity is confined to the size of your package

A: you could just send the y chromosome home.

M: ok, guys, go home. (looks at crotch and points out the door)

A: i think we have another x chromosome in the fridge.

live the poetry you cannot write

A poet is an unhappy being whose heart is torn by secret sufferings, but whose lips are so strangely formed that when the sighs and the cries escape them, they sound like beautiful music... and then people crowd about the poet and say to him: "Sing for us soon again;" that is as much as to say, "May new sufferings torment your soul." ~Soren Kierkegaard

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.
~Mark Strand

There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either. ~Robert Graves

Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted. ~Percy Shelley


A poet dares be just so clear and no clearer.... He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it. A poet utterly clear is a trifle glaring. ~E.B. White

To be a poet is a condition, not a profession. ~Robert Frost

The poet, as everyone knows, must strike his individual note sometime between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five. He may hold it a long time, or a short time, but it is then that he must strike it or never. School and college have been conducted with the almost express purpose of keeping him busy with something else till the danger of his ever creating anything is past. ~Robert Frost

You can tear a poem apart to see what makes it tick.... You're back with the mystery of having been moved by words. The best craftsmanship always leaves holes and gaps... so that something that is not in the poem can creep, crawl, flash or thunder in. ~Dylan Thomas

I grew up in this town, my poetry was born between the hill and the river, it took its voice from the rain, and like the timber, it steeped itself in the forests. ~Pablo Neruda

Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows. ~Edmund Burke

Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood. ~T.S. Eliot

Each man carries within him the soul of a poet who died young. ~Sainte-Beuve

Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind. ~Thomas Babington Macaulay

The poem is the point at which our strength gave out. ~Richard Rosen


Poetry should... should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance. ~John Keats

I gave up on new poetry myself thirty years ago, when most of it began to read like coded messages passing between lonely aliens on a hostile world.
Russell Baker




A poet must leave traces of his passage, not proof.

Rene Char

God is the perfect poet.

Robert Browning

a cracked polystyrene man

i'm listening to 'fake plastic trees' on repeat and low volume. it's the first time i've checked out the lyrics (i'm completely awful at catching them while listening) and i think i'm in love with this song. i'm also falling for radiohead in general.

i'm peaking on my stimulant and i'm energetic and happy and restless. it's weird how drugs can artificially induce feelings that are normally fueled by situational elements. like that ecstatic restlessness i get sometimes, or that overwhelming feeling of happiness that can bring tears to my eyes, or a crazy desire to clean and organize EVERYTHING.

or the feeling of caffeine flowing in your veins...feels similar, just weaker, to when the nurse injects the delodid into your IV and you feel a shivery energy sweep over your body.

that whole radioactive dye thing though...i have yet to equate that with anything i know. it's a deep, soft-burning warmth that spreads slowly through your body, creating a metallic taste in your mouth, a strange sensation in your eyes, and an overwhelming, burning need to pee in your nether regions.

it is wholly possible that i misunderstand the lyrics

but to me "upwards over the mountain" makes me want a son.

"mother remember the blink of an eye when i breathed through your body
so may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten
sons are like birds flying always over the mountain."

[this is a mental note for me]

encourage biblical confrontation

'niceness' - interaction with another person intended to not make a person feel any negative feelings

my mother is the most beautiful person i know.

most of my problems with covenant can be distilled down to:

they justify what they do that isn't very biblical with "well, we're an academic institution." and they justify everything else with "we're a religious institution."

--------------exposition---------------

in my opinion, they have not done well enough at either of their "goals" to make me proud to be here.

some people are paying their own way with loans. these people deserve a better answer to the question "why" than "because we know what's best for you."

perhaps it's because my parents always explained why they had the rules they did...

i just want the same amount of respect my parents paid me when i was 8 from my college. is that too much to ask? i want the respect that comes with authenticity, straightforwardness, and honesty.

no one told secrets today.

it's almost a blessing. not the secrets. the time. i feel freer now.

there's a richness to life i know. and i'm close to it. so close i can close my eyes and smell the color of it. so close.

like pregnant earth smell, this richness.

like the smell of someone you know,
that heavy, alive smell
of water.

or the musk of birds' feathers.

a strong, leafy smell
on your tongue.

as rich as consciousness,
immediate,
and whelming.

l'hoeuf

true.
i am sharp pieces.
pieces...pie-ces.
pie.
glittering glass pie-ces
of one another.
an-other.
bones are vibrating.
and my tongue.
breathing too fast.
no matter the
words you use,
we are broken.

all held up in our palms.
glittering glass.
cuts and slivers.
hey, you look like me
a little.
and you look like me
more.

have you ever met that guy?
he's big, and strong.
and he doesn't have pie-ces.
but his hands are cut
with slivers.
my slivers.
my cuts.
my glass.
and i love him.

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break me off a piece of that fan-cy-feast!

ugh...sick no good.
aptmate with no work to do...no good either.
missing scrubs...terrible
not missing the office...happy
missing all my classes today....suck
not being able to turn in my paper til monday...i hate this shit

my first attempt at voice recognition software...

Hello. My name is Mary nothing is no longer on the whole world is no real human evolution I want to buy pizza gave work and work recognizes my voice not your words that you couldn’t well I only get too big and the longer the whole world is no real human evolution of the law I turned it off because it would not recognize your face beyond no you been being big buck and women in and women in the workplace in lower it was pretty good fire retardant ruling regarding the world as soon as we continue using the N. C. chairman of 9:00 AM in the German government

FUCK.
i hate the rules here.

also

the most amazingly funny site ive seen in a while:
http://icanhascheezburger.com/

back in.

sorry that this post is a bit belated, but he and i are back together. i dont feel like explaining it here, or anywhere online. i'm not sure i'd explain it right now anyway. i'm not far enough away for the perspective or understanding that it would take to effectively communicate everything i went through for those three weeks or everything that was said in that late evening when he offered the bracelet back and i cried and pushed him away, and cried and finally took it and tied a shoestring back on his wrist. it's a bit of an open wound at the moment. quite tender, and not ready for the eyes, ears, and judgment of others. this part of me is raw, and held close to my chest; protected from an acidic world.

i love him more than i could begin to tell.
i miss that heavy, comforting feeling of his presence;
like standing beside the ocean with your eyes closed.
like feeling dwarfed by the ground you stand upon.

written sometime in june...

i'm out
it's over
i wish i could forget
after a few days, i was willing to try again.
i hate myself
he won't change
i need him to change.
needed.
i feel so alone now.
all i can remember is the night he held me.
he told me i'd be a wonderful mother.
he told me i was beautiful when i cried.
i cried for happiness.

it doesn't matter that his plans and my plans were once our plans...

the hem had moved from her knee to her hip, with little left to the imagination. she'd thrown up on the sidewalk outside the majestic. the lights were on and her keys locked in the car. we were standing outside the majestic, some smoking, attempting to find a distraction of some sort in the city in which we were strangers. they asked our help. we're not good people, mind you...we just have exceedingly loud consciences at times. she smoked a clove to get the acid taste out of her mouth. i took one and breathed the smoke in through my nose. we sat on the pavement by their car, waiting. they were strange people. perhaps because they were normal...the kind of normal jokes are made about. it was interesting to realize how different my friends and i are. not just different looking...but different. something elementally different from "the world" or "society" if you will. anyway, we stood there, then sat, leaned, and stood again; waiting for the arrival of AAA. We'd lied and said we had been riding with them. Better than them sleeping in the park i suppose.



it doesnt matter than his plans and my plans were once our plans...
i dont believe in being in love anymore.
i believe in pain
and an ache in that red fist
pounding away beneath my breastbone
and wanting to be with someone
when you cant stand them
just to be next to them
i believe in cynicism
sarcasm
and shitty cars,
betrayal
and wanting to believe so badly
that you sell yourself
to people who just want something
to shove their dick in,
or kids who would say yes
to a whatevernumber-some
to be accepted
to be loved.

love is a terrible lie
told by hollywood
there's something so much bigger
than being in love
or in lust.
i'm sick of it

i believe in two people
working hard
not giving up
or giving in
i believe in maturity
and strength
and the confidence i get
around the people
who used to intimidate me.
they are real
i havent seen real
in so long...

a meter strangely similar to mine

I do this thing where I think I'm real sick
but I won't go to the doctor to find out about it
Cause they make you stay real still in a real small space
As they chart up your insides and put them on display.
They'd see all of it, all of me, all of it.

All the good that won't come out of me
and all the stupid lies I hide behind.
It's such a big mistake
lying here in your warm embrace.

Oh, you're almost home.
I've been waiting for you to come in.
Dancing around in your old suits going crazy in your room again.
I think I'll go out an embarrass myself by getting drunk and falling down in
the street.
You say I choose sadness
that it never once has chosen me.
Maybe you're right...

(rilo kiley - the good that wont come out)

his hands were hot on my legs
the wine was dulled by the cigarette smoke
still hanging in my lungs
and throat
the smell of sulfur
and charcoal
lingered in my hair and clothing.
i was the one who looked
naked
in the light from the city below.
i was the one who was
naked
tonight.
and it burned with the sharp
searing
of fire from their fingertips
coaxing her from the machine

if tomorrow i asked you a question, would you answer?
if i asked for a beat or two, would you spare them?
if asked to name you, i couldnt
i'm no good at making things up.
the only thing i'm good at is feeling
the ache, the longing
that twists in my chest
shooting down my arms
to the palms of my hands
and pressing there
painfully
until i press my hands together
completing the circle
creating release
without escape

have i lied to you?
have i misdirected
empathy?

my heart is hard right now.
and far from God.
and this voice inside
says let go
when the longing comes
it says deal with it
when the anger comes
surging, hot on my nerves.
it says stand
do not kneel
and the flood washes around my ankles
stinging bits of sand and shell
cutting my feet
letting the stinging saltwater
bleed into my flesh

i never meant to keep your voice.
and i wonder at the fairness
of losing you
but keeping your criticism
losing your love
and caring
and comfort
while keeping the pain
and overbearing voice
with me.

that which i would wish forgotten
stays
despite repeated tearing
hardening
and distraction
your eyes when you smiled at me
your words that comforted and loved
through my tears and doubt
i wish it all forgotten.

{in your trunk, there was something for you...i dont know if you found it}

mendacity is a system we live in

so that disgust with mendacity is really disgust with myself.

just a few more hours

just a few more days

patience...

currently:

enjoying two very broken people yelling at each other to not be so very broken.

sticky feet from human waste all over the bathroom floor.

an hour and a half and it's still not clean.

emotional breakdown.

cue exhaustion.

what i think i believe, written in the pauses.

how can you see anything if the mirror reflects the mirror?

the truth is there, so sharp. finger pressed firmly against the knife...at the threshold of pain; and knowing. is it better for the blood to run? or for us to be left with the red, raised scratches on our arms...from the back of your head to the base of your shoulders. is it better to bleed under the surface? to bruise or to make a mess of things? yes it gets everywhere...and it's hard to clean up...and it's a bitch even with stain remover.
then again...i've felt a sharp pain before, and it was only nerves twinging.
i wonder how many people understand the minute heart attack and the emptiness of that lost beat when the speakers flicker...even when you're not expecting a call.
what a strange place this is.




yes, i believe in love,
yes, i'm a dreamer.
but i'm not alone
there are more of us than you suspect
and we've got bombs.
truth and beauty bombs.

{i didnt mean what i said...i'm sorry}

something i heard once...or twice

If you hate the taste of wine
Why do you drink it until you’re blind?
And if you swear that there’s no truth and who cares
How come you say it like you’re right?
Why are you scared to dream of god
When it’s salvation that you want?
You see stars that clear have been dead for years
But the idea just lives on

In our wheels that roll around
As we move over the ground
And all day it seems we’ve been in between the past and future town

We are nowhere, and it’s now
We are nowhere, and it’s now
You took a ten-minute dream in the passengers seat
While the world it was flying by
I haven’t been gone very long
But it feels like a lifetime

I’ve been sleeping so strange at night
Side effects they don’t advertise
I’ve been sleeping so strange
With a head full of pesticide

I got no plans and too much time
I feel to restless to unwind
I’m always lost in thought
As I walk a block to my favourite neon sign
Where the waitress looks concerned
But she never says a word
Just turns the jukebox on
And we hum along
And I smile back at her

And my friend comes after work
When the features start to blur
She says these bars are filled with things that kill
And you probably should have learned

Did you forget that yellow bird?
How could you forget that yellow bird?

She took a small silver wreathe and pinned it onto me
She said this one will bring you love
I don’t know if it’s true but I keep it for good luck

so i just might get addicted to xanga again. you should see the new stuff they've come up with. it puts the new layout thing that blogger/google has to shame. check mine out.

ehiley

Brick: And what is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof?

Maggie: Just staying on it I guess, long as she can.

fin.

i would really appreciate prayer right now. even just a little one. like right now, every time you read this...just a little prayer for help and for me to be focused on God.

thanks.

i have come to consider that perhaps the lauding of masculinity is the greatest indication of the lack of it.

translation please...

The death, this is the death
but love, this is love
The death, this is only the death
but love, this is love

just a few things...

there are a few lyrics that just seem to say something they never said before.

This is no great illusion;
when I’m with you I’m looking for a ghost or invisible reasons
to fall out of love and run screaming from our home.
__

But you are what you love,
and not what loves you back.
That’s why I’m here on your doorstep,
pleading for you to take me back

And the phone is a fine invention—it allows me to talk endlessly to you,
about nothing, disguising my intentions,
which I’m afraid, my friend, are wildly untrue.
It’s a sleight of hand, a white soul band,
the heart attacks I’m convinced I have
every morning upon waking.
To you I’m a symbol or a monument,
your rite of passage to fulfillment,
but I’m not yours for the taking

But you are what you love,
and not what loves you back.
So I guess that’s why you keep calling me back.

I’m fraudulent, a thief at best,
a coward who paints a bullshit canvas;
things that will never happen to me.

La mort, c'est la mort
mais l'amour, c'est l'amour
La mort, c'est seulement la mort
mais l'amour, c'est l'amour

yay for a free scanner!

Now all i need is a seal kit to fix my camera so it doesnt do that overexposure thing you see to the left.

This is one of my favorite pictures that i've taken...though i think it's quite ironic that i'm lactose intolerant.

[a year old]

something caught in the back of your chest, just behind your lungs. tugging with longing until the sharp paint comes because it's tugging in a direction you cant follow. and whether you feel it with cold goosebumps in the woods or with dusty bare feet with the sun burning your skin, you know it's the same thing that called people from their families so long ago, searching for what had such a grip on their hearts.
sitting at the airport alone, looking at the detail of the weave of your suitcase with the chill of the air conditioning on your arms and back and at that moment, you can feel every sensation magnified a thousand times, like pressing on the edge of a knife. and somehow, the veil is thinner here, and all the distractions are seen apart from the reality and you realize something language has yet to comprehend.

use this button to type in hindi

Is it bad that I would love this car more than anything shiny with a guidance system?

And if it ran, that's a perk.

damn it all. i wanted to go to bed at like 8...stayed up on the internet until 11 and now i cant sleep. oh, also, i realized i have to work tomorrow so i might as well stay up and then go to bed later and be groggy for work. good heavens, will the vicious cycle never freaking end?

If She Wants Me - Belle & Sebastian

I'm completely in love with this song. I hadn't looked up the lyrics until tonight...the only real part that I knew was "If I could do just one near perfect thing, I'd be happy," and it just seems so true to me sometimes, but the rest of the song is fascinating as well.

I wrote a letter on a nothing day
I asked somebody “Could you send my letter away?”
“You are too young to put all of your hopes in just one envelope”
I said goodbye to someone that I love
It’s not just me, I tell you it’s the both of us
And it was hard
Like coming off the pills that you take to stay happy
Someone above has seen me do alright
Someone above is looking with a tender eye
Upon her face, you may think you’re alone but you may think again
If I could do just one near perfect thing I’d be happy
They’d write it on my grave, or when they scattered my ashes
On second thoughts I’d rather hang about and be there with my best friend
If she wants me

And far away somebody read the letter
He condescends to read the words I wrote about him
And if he smiles, it’s no more than a genius deserves
For all his curious nerve and his passion

I’m going deaf, you’re growing melancholy
Things fall apart, I don’t know why we bother at all
But life is good and “It’s always worth living at least for a while”

If I could do just one near perfect thing I’d be happy
They’d write it on my grave, or when they scattered my ashes
On second thoughts I’d rather hang about and be there with my best friend
If she wants me

If you think to yourself “What should I do now?”
Then take the baton, girl, you better run with it
There is no point in standing in the past cause it’s over and done with

I took a book and went into the forest
I climbed the hill, I wanted to look down on you
But all I saw was twenty miles of wilderness so I went home

i suppose i'm afraid of a doll in a doll's house.

it's becoming more real.

more of a threat.

and i'm afraid.

last night...

we were at my old house, moving out the last bit of furniture and boxes. suddenly there was this roaring sound and smoke began to filter through the cracks in the door. i opened the door and flames shot out, fueled by the fresh oxygen. i shut the door quickly and ran to get out of the window. something was gnawing at the back of my mind, i was forgetting something. i looked back and saw the exposed gas line. quickly i grabbed what i could and covered it, running into the bathroom, i grabbed a stuffed animal and soaked it in water. i placed it over the valve to the gas line and then went out of the window, hoping that i had bought more time than i'd spent. everyone had made it out and they were waiting for me on the lawn. i got there and realized all the dogs were still inside. i looked back and all three of them were running toward us from the burning house. i grabbed them and put leashes on them to keep them safe with us. the house didn't explode...and the fire died down. though the fire was out, there was still the danger of the gas igniting and the whole house exploding. we carefully worked around the house, trying to do something. someone decided to put up a big, plastic grid just a few inches off the ground. it was hooked up to the gas line and if it was pulled hard enough, it would break the line and the gas would escape...causing an explosion. we tripped over the plastic several times and each time, everyone caught their breath and we all knew that we could die at any minute.
*********
i was with him and some other guy. they were walking ahead of me. they didnt want me following, but i did anyway. the other guy turned off but i still kept following him. we came to a wooden bridge that hung over a deep ditch and he suddenly turned around and yelled at me. he was so angry because i was following him. i stood there, stunned and on the verge of tears. he whirled around and continued off. i sat down on the bridge to wait for him to come back. he'd told me to go away, so i would wait for him. ahead, i could see him entering the swamp. he met two guys there who were using this very strange contraption to sort of "fish." they weren't getting anywhere with it, so i went over there, despite my strong desire to just wait, and tried to see if i could help them. i took the boat-thing and drifted off into the swamp..."fishing" i suppose, when behind me, i heard one of the guys scream. he was yelling "get it off me, it's on my foot!" i figured they could take care of themselves so i continued to quietly float around the swamp. the guy continued to yell despite the feeble attempts at help, so i turned around and we used the net on the boat-thing to catch the small alligator that had decided to attack him. it was about four feet in length, but it's tail had been chewed halfway off (though it had healed). we proceeded to get the alligator out of the net and hold his mouth shut so he couldnt bite us. on the way back to the house, we ended up catching two more, both much larger than the first.
************

they were part of a crowd that liked to pretend time had stopped. a time when they thought things were better, places were more opulent, women held a quiet kind of class, and the men smelled of cigars, expensive alcohol, and heavy, woolen suits. they liked to pretend.

the two women hated each other, though they were forced, for appearances, to use the same hotel suite to dress that night. their relationship had passed as friendship in their circles for most of the time they had known each other, but there was always a bitter jealousy behind their eyes and clenched between their teeth when they smiled at each other. anger burned between them as they tied their dresses on and hung their heavy diamonds around their too slender necks. their husbands were already at the bar, pretending with the others. the women tried to ignore each other more venomously with each layer of pretense they placed on their bodies. the anger in their eyes shone with more fire than the glassy stones strung around their necks and dangling from their ears.

...

when in the prescence of a king, do not ask for small gifts

God, i pray you would fill my vision;
blind me;
engulf all who stand before me.
Lord, i pray you would deafen me;
silence all other voices
in my head,
in my heart,
in my ear.
Father, i pray to know nothing but
your
love
in my heart;
to feel no touch
but yours.
Abba, i pray for you.
i want you.
ravish me.

May all your expectations be frustrated
May all your plans be thwarted
May all your desires be withered into nothingness
That you may experience the powerlessness
And poverty of a child
And sing and dance in the love of God
Who is Father
Son
And Spirit
Amen.

i miss my friend who wrote 'i love you'
and meant it.
i miss the time when she was open and loving.
i miss the time when she was understanding
and not condescending.
i miss her playful attitude.
i miss the time when she was willing to admit
she might be wrong.
i miss the time when she didn't think she knew
everything.
i miss the time when she didn't act
like she was better than me.
she was real then.
she's fake now.
i miss my friend.

i want your flowers like babies

sometimes im sure my dreams are full of all sorts of symbolic imagery and meaning. if i could only decode the confusion, i'd know a lot more about myself.

like poetry that is telling you something you can't understand...but you know it's true...and it's beautiful.

like a song that speaks secrets to you in a voice of chords and strings.

secret things you know are true.

::very loud sounds of frustration::

so all i want to do is switch global trends from mask to haddad. you would think this would be an easy little 1-2-3 operation, but no. i have to get a form and then try and find my advisor to get him to sign it. i honestly see this as a big waste of his and my time. i dont have time for these stupid hoops. IM SWITCHING PROFESSORS IN A CORE CLASS! this has NOTHING to do with my major. my advisor COULDNT CARE LESS! this is completely ridiculous and unnecessary. i'm a fucking junior in college, this college is entirely too expensive as it is, do you really think i would sabotage my last year here? or that i'm stupid enough to do that? JUST CHANGE THE FREAKING SECTION AND GET ON WITH YOUR LIFE!!

i know you forgot
or you didnt see it.

but there's a part of me that screams out that you did it on purpose. that you're turning me off too.

but i know you forgot.
i know you didnt see it.

but that part is still afraid of what you might do to me. there's still a little child who's terrified every day someone will leave her...

i dont trust you to stay.
i dont want to trust anyone.
you cant ask me to trust you.

im confused.

im driving home tomorrow.
im leaving home tomorrow.
they want be to come back.
a fresh start is so inviting...
theyve always taught me that problems follow you.
it's a theory ive never tested.
i dont know if i ever will take that chance.

why am i so scared right now?

... L’amour de Dieu est folie...

to die would be an awfully big adventure

life is heavy right now and i feel as if i am about to fall. those i've relied upon my entire life are proving untrustworthy. theyre leaving me behind. it feels like they forgot me...out of sight out of mind. im still your child, and though i may look grown up, i still need you. i'm about to enter into the hardest part of my life thus far...and i dont feel like i can trust you; you, whom i most need to trust. i need you. i need your help. i cannot do this alone. i feel isolated and abandoned. youre making up cheap excuses for your own laziness, and it angers me. my wellbeing is still in your hands...and it feels like you forgot it and left it behind somewhere. dropped carelessly on the floor. and yet, i'm not strong enough to stand up on my own, i'm still learning to walk. i still need you there. i miss you too...but i also know what's best for me right now. but i still miss you.

so much cheesy goodness...

i made macaroni and cheese in my room. i pretty much have given up on chartwells...

remember the mountain bed

Do you still sing of the mountain bed we made of limbs and leaves?
Do you still sigh there near the sky where the holly berry bleeds?
You laughed as I covered you over with leaves
Face, breast, hips, and thighs
You smiled when I said the leaves were just the color of your eyes

Rosin smells and turpentine smells from eucalyptus and pine
Bitter tastes of twigs we chewed where tangled wood vines twine
Trees held us in on all four sides so thick we could not see
I could not see any wrong in you, and you saw none in me

Your arm was brown against the ground, your cheeks part of the sky
Your fingers played with grassy moss, as limber you did lie
Your stomach moved beneath your shirt and your knees were in the air
Your feet played games with mountain roots as you lay thinking there

Below us the trees grew clumps of trees, raised families of trees, and they
As proud as we tossed their heads in the wind and flung good seeds away
The sun was hot and the sun was bright down in the valley below
Where people starved and hungry for life so empty come and go

There in the shade and hid from the sun we freed our minds and learned
Our greatest reason for being here, our bodies moved and burned
There on our mountain bed of leaves we learned life's reason why
The people laugh and love and dream, they fight, they hate to die

The smell of your hair I know is still there, if most of our leaves are blown
Our words still ring in the brush and the trees where singing seeds are sown
Your shape and form is dim but plain, there on our mountain bed
I see my life was brightest where you laughed and laid your head...

I learned the reason why man must work and how to dream big dreams
To conquer time and space and fight the rivers and the seas
I stand here filled with my emptiness now and look at city and land
And I know why farms and cities are built by hot, warm, nervous hands

I crossed many states just to stand here now, my face all hot with tears
I crossed city, and valley, desert, and stream, to bring my body here
My history and future blaze bright in me and all my joy and pain
Go through my head on our mountain bed where I smell your hair again.

All this day long I linger here and on in through the night
My greeds, desires, my cravings, hopes, my dreams inside me fight:
My loneliness healed, my emptiness filled, I walk above all pain
Back to the breast of my woman and child to scatter my seeds again

today was shit.

The Ache of Marriage

The ache of marriage:

thigh and tongue, beloved,
are heavy with it,
it throbs in the teeth

We look for communion
and are turned away, beloved,
each and each

It is leviathan and we
in its belly
looking for joy, some joy
not to be known outside it

two by two in the ark of
the ache of it.

Denise Levertov

i wish you this much happiness

i feel like mcguyver

i fixed my phone!! using a nail file, nailpolish, nailpolish remover, more nail polish, rubbing alcohol, and a permanent marker. granted, the nailpolish remover was to correct a mistake...as was the rubbing alcohol, and the permanent marker was only to draw a fleur de lis on the back, but still! i spent entirely too much time trying to fix it by taking it apart...including some time in the bathroom with a bobby pin and a hammer trying to make a tool that would unscrew the back. when this failed, i moved to nailpolish. so yeah...i'm pretty darn awesome.

lauren + coffee = hummingbird on crack

one surefire way to clean off your desk:

spill water ALL OVER EVERYTHING!

today's been fun...

if you can't hear the sarcasm in that statement, then you don't know me.

And here's where your mother sleeps
And here is the room where your brothers were born
Indentions in the sheets
Where their bodies once moved but don't move anymore
And it's so sad to see the world agree
That they'd rather see their faces fill with flies
All when I'd want to keep white roses in their eyes

Two headed boy she is all you could need
She will feed you tomatoes and radio wires
And retire to sheets safe and clean
But don't hate her when she gets up to leave

jeff mangum

coming home

i'm starting to remember why i hate coming home. it's the interminable boredom. i have nothing to do. i've watched entirely too much tv and i reread one of my childhood favorite books, julie of the wolves. i sleep too much and feel like crap the rest of the day. i could drive up to my cousins' house, but all we'd end up doing is talking, watching a movie, or sleeping. i want to go out and get some sort of alcohol because i can. but there's no one to drink with. the dogs stink and need a bath...but i dont have the energy. there are plenty of cookies and pies and breads and dinners i could make, but i just cant seem to get started. that's what i really want to do, i want to cook. i want that warm environment and the wonderful smells and the mess and the sweet accomplishment afterward. i'm just not comfortable here.

the one up side is that my bed is warm. for so many years, i've struggled to get my bed warm. finally, i have found the right combination of blankets to keep me from waking up in the middle of the night shivering.

i need something to do...desperately. i really wish we had an extra car. plus i just feel so damn guilty using my parents' gas or time or car or anything.

why can't someone cook good food?? i'm freaking tired of takeout.

"I thought I had found my prince charming. He was perfect and wonderful and we were going to live happily ever after. Imagine my surprise when I kissed him and he turned into a frog! I was so angry and hurt and I felt so betrayed. I felt deceived. I pouted and raged until I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror and found that I too was a frog."

-my mother

tonight i am blown away by the amazing girls on my hall. i have underestimated all of them. i was wrong. these are some of the most amazing and real women i have ever had the privilege to know, much less live with. i hope i have time to get to know as many as i possibly can in the next two weeks.