just something

there are lots of things going on inside of me right now. lots. and i keep more to myself then i have in years. i keep to myself and up with him and trying to figure it all out. all of it, slowly.
i would like to write fiction. i would like to get a good night's sleep, in a warm bed, in a cold room with the air conditioner running full blast (or maybe just the windows open with a cold cold air rushing in, yeah that would be much better). i would like to fall asleep with a smile. i would like to run again, for real. i would like to feel like an important part of the greater whole, not that i don't, really, already feel like that but maybe something more along the lines of a team all working towards one goal, together. something i know i can do, something tangible. i would love to be overwhelmed on a regular basis.
all of these keep me quiet. all of these keep me thinking. all of these...
things are changing. shifting. people are shifting. and nothing is the same as it was 5 months ago. nothing is familiar to what it was 2 years ago. one year ago.
things, people, and ways are cleaving apart. i cannot explain to you who i am or who i want to be come but if you love me you will be patient. love is understanding and i hope to understand.

industrial size fan on our ceiling

life's incrementing artistry - lives intertwined
filled with the hope of a better way - an unpained breath
and living, in a world where few really seek happiness,
God it's hard --but your life is your own
and ever increasing with those you'd never otherwise've known
before, that moment
that exact moment that fell, falling, fallen
into place with your mistakes--the ones that made you rip away at
any one who wasn't everyone else.
you were alone
in a room, compartmented for something like a better comprehension
and a moment you'd attempted that suddenly became months, after it'd been days
slipping into something less is so much easier than expectation
than hoping you could be something slightly out of the ordinary.
(than hoping for, lack of a better word, love)
and when your guts stuck between the clenching knuckles of someone whose first pet you'd never name, whose sister you'd never meet
a hand you'd never hold--filling yourself with the joys of the world
joy?
and when we paused tears fell.
we fell to our knees never caring that the bones crept through our skin
the blood trickling steadily down the slopes of our curving legs and arms
we were fascinated by something like an escape from him, or her, or it
manifested realities--YOU CHOOSE THEM, something we seem to forget
from the lower cased existence they were all so pleased with--we screamed
into my pillow late at night, i bite til' i bled and i bet you didn't know you were
are--my inflammatory system--inflamed, scabbing, pulsing, cleaving edema
a friendly bruise, a forgotten x amount of time before you
an entire span of time unscathed, had i known you existed i would've better prepared
myself for your coming, but then falling might've never felt so sweet
complete, worthy of the scars, shaking hands with those who'd forgot
thankful we left ourselves unsettled, depressed
suffocating until the day
never did i ever know what it felt like to want to live
creating smothering satisfaction

we are anything but ordinary
however, when our bodies aline all the world leaps up
crashes down,
falls away like when a very large waves first hits the city
wipes away instantly, everything that once seemed to matter
empty clear land, wet from the demolition
you are my possibility; my clear, clean reason
you're my oceanic hurricane, stirring, spitting--everything
we find ourselves in the eye
cross legged, together
silently staring
into you and me and it's as simple
as complex as you and i sitting
still, staring
and i don't have to explain because you already know what i mean
you already knew, this is what i would say

"Interstate Love Song" - Stone Temple Pilots

retreat

retreat

there are certain things and places; from birth I've been told to believe in
and we've all been convinced of something, of sadness
inevitability. the laze at the end of a hard earned day,
the gaze into nothing but, except, the wires whose tips tap haphazardly into one another
spark, flip, contort and awkwardly twist -- a bright, sudden light from the graying edges
a life suddenly lit where before there was none.
not even the moistened tip of a tongue could procure.
these things and moments and people we've become so accustomed to, so unenthused
that when we find something worth living for we're scared?
scared to breath faster
scared to kiss open mouthed, open eyed
ease out of apathy into a new way of thinking
of feeling again, to realize you were changed by the mismatched wires in the past
the connect, conduct, build
current -- it's electric
alive. living.
day by days that feel like months
that feel like a tinge of what we might should've learned from the get go
a nod to what we've done, a forward footed dash into what we'll be.

it gives you wings

I am strong
self-assurance
I am strengthening
my grip
I am gripping, collapsing
the weakness of who was once
I am.
A picture in the frame, nailed
to the wall--without glass
over exposed and talking
always talking, moving--your movement
alive
with the glory
and I'm sitting here
smiling--your driving
your new music
new smile
traveling hands, in the air
over fences, barbed wire
single-sided swinging doors
I am
uncovering
a simpler way to live
to experience everything--challenge,endure,exposure
really, finally just living
on the outside
the sun, the night, giving back what i've been given to
abundancy--life,love,and otherwise--
hands held trust again--gripping shoulder's in the sun
on a tightrope we'll run
and i can't wait to sleep just to see a tomorrow,
hoping i'll see you there.

check "yes"

In his arms flecked with paint he'd never held
something so carefully as he once hadn't held her heart.
Properly she sat beside him now,
beside where he'd once felt
her and she couldn't bring herself to look at him.
She could talk, she could breath, still,
and so she supposed she'd feel his eyes
all over her, still. Things hadn't changed.
It'd been a year, locked on swollen skin
and he said what she'd needed to hear.
The words that made her fall, still
she saw him for what she'd wanted back when and then
she wanted it to be too late, to be so unforgiven.
Still he'd broken, the one place she'd never given
and living here still, the two together sit--the space between expanding
once lives, now cement; and she's supposed to be the one to fight.
The ants are crawling on her skin, she lets them--his eyes
eating away her t-shirt and jeans
stewing in her nakedness, she has no choice but to conceed to his
memorizing, photographing--his photographic memory she'd meant
to ask him to stop but instead fallen asleep still kneeling, head lain carefully in his lap.
Like his arm 'round her shoulder, he'd shaken her 'wake to save
himself--casualty, moves--and "Something In The Way She Moves" plays
and she hates herself all over again for letting him
cheat and win, the boy--little boy she'd first loved.
Fed every cliche
ripping at the seams of every stuffed animal
plastic flower, puppy dog, diamond heart-shaped necklace
her baby, two time valentine
and still, she said what she needed to say--
he swears he's changed, for the third time
and she wants to,
needs to,
has to,
seems to
believe.
But believings not enough in a world worth tasting
tactile & stimulating--the left over spit up in a restaurant napkin
she'd been.
Rejection at the root of every hair he'd ever spun
around a finger he then placed on the tip of another's tongue
he'd taste anything--his prayer for feeling,
his quell for an otherwise emotionless
him, still.
She will never understand how she came to be this way
this person so apart from these, otherwise so easily appeased
she has him to thank for only that--his entiredy changed.


She left to just
breath
learn to play, alone
she wants to sing, where she's torn
and mend, to run, on the outside
to lay and see her bones exposed
her confidence returned to her
stolen in the night.
the victim, she only sees his eyes
hands, self on her when she closes her own.

"Neon" - The Knife

what i've wanted to say

Blessed be, I hadn't heard your name in awhile
Not that I'd forgotten, more or less a little too busy
I thought maybe I'd just wait another day to call
A more convenient time perhaps, when life wasn't so filled
With sex and desire
And I feel stupid coming here now, too late
Out of place and afraid – of rejection
Of not getting what I want, which is? The answer, to my nagging
self, and I've discovered self doubt and along with found me
insecurity, but with you I never knew what today might feel like
alone, still breathing, I've forgotten your number—your middle name
I can't catch my breath – the air's really thick here you know?
I don't remember any of this from before – would I recognize you if you were here today?
Would I grab your hand? Could I again…did I ever, seek humility
life less pride – what purpose have I served thus far, what strength have you granted
that I noticed?
Where has my grace filled grateful heart gone? Where would I go if the world were stripped away from me? Where is the stillness of my dwelling place, my solitude, my warmth in a room all alone…all alone?
Where is the escape, the arms—of the world, of ever single living, breathing soul—here and gone…where are you that I once knew?
And who am I becoming that I can no longer sing…rebellion for liberation? For what…for whose acceptance and approval am I living?
Doubt. Is it that? Whispering approvals, "yes" understood by the selves of so many individual...where was I then? Where were you? What twist caused this…gradual…step down, turn, release, space between—fluid filled—broken, swollen, torn aftermath
Where is my conviction then? When I'm broken. When I'm torn. When I'm filled, emptied and filled again…with what?
With whom?
With it…can you quit
what you don't even understand how it was you began…
through the bitterness can you become again, what you've lost. Is that the goal. Does it require this much…decision making. Or are we always deciding, searching, wondering, questioning, straining,
upset at ourselves for becoming everything we once would hate.
And that hatred lives in my heart makes it break even more, because that's the only way to explain it—brokenness.
Even every single word I've ever tried to create into poetry cannot explain the void I've escaped into for so long now it's become natural.
They don't even know I ever claimed You. They never heard me sing through tears on bended knee at the alter, the pew, the front steps, stage, back door, wind ridden sand shores, the streets flooding in midnight rains, folding chairs, in hallways and sanctuaries
Is this living at all…where do I go to seek redemption through truth? Where do I go to regain my trust, Yours?
Where do I shed my tears and break the skin of my palms…whose feet…whose arms…whose hand needs holding?
Lead me. Need me. See me. Redeem. Forgive. Understand, I'm confused and seeking and forever I'm loving in so many different ways.
A love even I cannot understand – a love without simplicity
Uncategorized, without limit, the soft sooth of remembrance without regret
Experience freed from expectation;
Only wishing, needing, wanting – to please, fulfill
Fill You.
Feel me again please…I'm fighting it still.

"Psalms 23" - Jason Upton

Spring Revisions (times in Creative Writing Class)

"in fact" - gregory and the hawk
#1
in fact i don't wanna be friends
Spaghetti noodles
Their twisting highways
They're around your fork,
For now—there embracing.

As your fingers wrapped,
succinctly surrounding silver
worn and bring the noodles slip and slide into your mouth.
The way the noodles unwound themselves—from and in again between the tines
The lapping suction of pierced lips on wet grain-worms,
your tongue trilling tones against metal tongs

Lips,
tongues,
sucking - you're invading acoustics

your mouth—flecks of sauce linger on it
a stray spatter on your nose
the left nostril,
you sense it, you wipe it away
you
tomatoey sauces
yours, it was mushrooms slices and garlic bits
oregano and parsley,
homemade and homegrown,
A crimson thickness staining your lips

it was your mouth—I tasted myself on
I wanted to,
taste myself on you
I wanted to taste you—
I did.
your skin
taut
muscles
curving, winding black ink
hips
arcing down into clinched white
tight errless folds
you glowing in the darkness of near-morning, open windowed
your attic
The sheets, the spread, your bare skin.
The suds that slipped off my skin in the morning
standing alone in your granite-tiled shower,
I removed you with her pomegranate shampoo
With her toothbrush, spearmint toothpaste,
I washed myself in her smells
I removed the film you'd left with her taste
You were probably reminded all the way down the stairs I descended

The salt on your lips an aftertaste, iced awareness coating
The belly like a soft-shell crab's underneath my tongue—
A stalactite glazed over the back of my throat
The ribcage on the roof of my mouth—my mouth
left open, full of these places, dusted over with flecks of dead skin.
Yours truly,
and I felt you before I felt you
did you feel me too?

#2
lye's pith and lava
You are the in between of glass,
the see through part.
the shards of ice crystal fallen from a Northern sky,
where only flurries fall it seems—
an accident you found me
tripping in the middle of a thick forest deep—
the balding center of a middle-aged man's head
stood opening onto a tiny globed world of differentiating flakes.
A gift given, shaken to see the snow swirl around in it's captured tornado form
and wound to hear it's tinkering jingle bells whining in weaving return.

And all the "hellos" and laughter
all the jokes and games—like when you'd take hold of my hand and squeeze.
and the peach-kissed cheeks and jeans,
the ring round the middle of my left handed finger
the parts of me you've taken
In each of your photograph's frozen—all of it
stripped away as you stand alone in your winter

And something in your face, on your pale skin bared
something, a balding vacancy, I saw even as
the bloated clouds in your manmade sky colored and crafted this—
your suspended self.
In the slanted back and forth motions of an arthritic forearm, her wrist at an angle
A white-colored pencil on a cardinal blue piece of construction paper,
it was really quite simple when I saw—when I saw you and I wanted
to take you up, all your criss crossed shapes and lines, and tuck you alongside.

As easy as the water, cascades down my wet morning skin
I am the plastic melded into filmy building blocks—the shower wall
make-shifted bubbles inside, I wanted you as one of them
you, but you'd never sit still.
And it was your winter bed I left myself suspended
naked praying in; awake
with both eyes open and blinking—you'll never know the words I write about you as
we are still just
we are all just humming skin.

#3
taboganning
It's hibernation season again, and I've grown
Seething in my own settling adipose,
in my flightless plumage, my penguin skin
I scarcely find it in me to stare back at myself.
I've found no reason to change my ways—
as a new year waddles in.
Rosey-cheeked and ample bosomed;
more warmth to come by on a rack of sinewed bones.

I'm cleaving…
to a thick fallen snow fourteen years in the making
a pricker bush no longer standing
shrouded in a cloak 2 feet deep, a peddler's voice to the infantile.
Daylight savings came to pass (fourteen times nonetheless)
I've scarcely breathed to notice

to photograph my footprints. To have experienced joy—snowfall, fluorescent bareskin, moonlight spewn as the sun stirs
a six year old's eyes through tilted blinds

breathe, cloud, shallow
swallowing

It is only now that I recall
and want it back.


I am alone.
Aside from this I sit, amongst friends.
With a bottle of plum wine and 3/4 tempo I've come—drowning in and out his or her words,
all penguins are counter-shaded just the same and still,
insatiable is my will to record these moments—
of laughter without the nagging knowledge that it will soon end
a kiss with no conclusion (eye's open)
a wedding band stitched in wrinkles
the comfort of a past,
a present where held breathes can only last so long

this long this year.
I've seen a richer purple.
Edges bitten by orange flames, dull, a stricken imbalance like wind.
Nothing again will ever be this easy, life
the living.