I think I can, I think I can. College is hard and sometimes lonely. I wrote this when I was sitting in a courtyard, texting my best friend because no one would talk to me in real life. People are strange
The Biographies of Strangers
1.
I spent a year falling asleep in bathtubs around southern California.
2.
My mother wasn't my mother.
3.
I love my sleep. Life has a tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, y'know?
4.
The moon sings for me, but I may have hit my head on something.
5.
I have scars on my hands from touching certain people, but I made sure they had broken jaws.
6.
I'm pretty sure it's peanut butter- but oh, fuck allergies.
7.
Rehumanizing is such a long process
Friday, August 28, 2009
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Theme post! Poem one!
I've gotta tell the truth here. I am a lazy, lazy writer. Which really wouldn't be a problem, except I want to be a damn good writer and when those two crossbreed, the result is like a mule - unproductive. As I head off to college the fabulous Mills, I am afraid that the inevitable distractions of college - like oh say, earning a degree- will distract me from one of my real passions in life.
So this is my challenge to myself. I am going to write a poem a week for all four years I am in college. If we take a second to do the math, thats 52 poems a year multiplied by 4 years so
52 x 4+= 208 poems.
My God, that is a lot of poems.
But that's part of the challenge. If I can stick to this, I can do just about anything. I've fallen through on a lot of things in my life. I want this blog to be a practice run on how to follow things all the way through in my life.
And with that said, here's poem numero uno.
Barbary and Bengal
they say that gladiators fought the Barbary lion in the Coliseum
that if we flipped over cobblestones onto their bellies like beetles
we would discover dried varnishes of blood, DNA gathered by the sword.
those lions, they say, fought gladiators and pirates
(people who no longer exist except as Halloween costumes)
we don't think of it much, they way we don't think of lies
that broke down, kisses that broke lips, but tigers used to tread in Turkey.
there were lions in Italy, until we killed them.
at the death the twentieth century, the only Barbary lions and Bengal tigers
were left in private collections; Saudi Arabian oil sheiks, Russians
who ran from the collapsing empire with their pockets full.
aren't we all private collectors of one kind or another?
our memories padding the locked cages of our minds smelling of predator and fear.
The only things that survive are clawed.
So this is my challenge to myself. I am going to write a poem a week for all four years I am in college. If we take a second to do the math, thats 52 poems a year multiplied by 4 years so
52 x 4+= 208 poems.
My God, that is a lot of poems.
But that's part of the challenge. If I can stick to this, I can do just about anything. I've fallen through on a lot of things in my life. I want this blog to be a practice run on how to follow things all the way through in my life.
And with that said, here's poem numero uno.
Barbary and Bengal
they say that gladiators fought the Barbary lion in the Coliseum
that if we flipped over cobblestones onto their bellies like beetles
we would discover dried varnishes of blood, DNA gathered by the sword.
those lions, they say, fought gladiators and pirates
(people who no longer exist except as Halloween costumes)
we don't think of it much, they way we don't think of lies
that broke down, kisses that broke lips, but tigers used to tread in Turkey.
there were lions in Italy, until we killed them.
at the death the twentieth century, the only Barbary lions and Bengal tigers
were left in private collections; Saudi Arabian oil sheiks, Russians
who ran from the collapsing empire with their pockets full.
aren't we all private collectors of one kind or another?
our memories padding the locked cages of our minds smelling of predator and fear.
The only things that survive are clawed.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
The fact that I have a blog now is hysterical
Just because I take myself too seriously does not mean that you have to. For example, I read this to all the teachers at my school once and then made them do writerly things to it in a workshop.
Reasons We Make No Sense Together
(why I took my toothbrush out of your holder)
1. I’m an English major, Brit Lit. You’re dyslexic. My favorite book is Brideshead Revisited, yours is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
2. I can’t stand Bob Marley, particularly at 3:14 in the morning when your stoner friends come over to light up in our living room.
3. Thanks to your untidy bathroom habits, I now know more about the menstruation cycle than they ever covered in eighth grade Human Growth and Development.
4. When we kiss I can tell exactly what you’re thinking by how you get distracted and start chewing on my earlobe or how your mouth goes soft and loose and happy.
5. You are really distractible.
6. One time you wanted me to join your indie-folk band that you started with your sister but the only song I could think of was, ‘'I’m Not That Into Folk Music But I Thought You Were Cute So I Bought The CDs You Recommended And Now I Like It But I Like You More’. As a working title.
7. When I try and write you poetry for your birthday or Valentines Day or any day, I just wind up with a page of cross-outs and phrases like ‘the sun and the solution and the soles of your feet’ and ‘i lovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelove you’ and neither of those scan well at all.
8. Your morning breath is atrocious.
9. You think you can sing well.
10. You enjoy trimming your toenails on the couch that you stole from your college dorm and humming happily through your nose.
11. Sometimes, you take too long in the shower when I’m late for work so I have to go in regardless and then I’m even later.
12. Your exes have a lot of metal in their faces and names like Phosphorus and Louisiana and they know how to fix bicycles and bake vegan carrot cakes.
13. You dance like some beautiful mad thing, or Iggy Pop back when he did a lot of coke (the last time I danced in public was at my Bar Mitzvah).
14. It never gets easier. You are always a trial. I am always running your labyrinth with the gold thread in hand, answering the million dollar question I didn’t study for, holding back your hair when you puke.
15. The other day I took Excedrin and as I was tweaking from the side effects I thought of you.
16. You have absolutely no concept of personal space. You sit in the laps of all my friends and talk to them about declining bee populations and installation art.
17. If you ever left me, I would have to build you again out of garbage and feathers so no one would ever touch you
18. If you ever left me, I know exactly which of your friends I would try and sleep with first
(Morgan, then Audrey).
19. Sometimes when I’m riding the city bus too late at night I call your answering machine just to listen to your voice giggling over nothing, The Misfits buzzing in the background
20. You once told me that you didn’t ever want to have a girl, because it was too hard to be a woman, even today.
21. Again, your sense of personal space is extremely underdeveloped. This can not be repeated enough.
22. If I flew away, you would not come looking for me. I know this for certain, but you would leave the windows unlocked for a year and a day.
23. Not often, but sometimes, you have unspeakably dark days spent lying face down on the carpet. On those days, your silence is a pond where drowned things live.
24. I’m allergic to peanuts, and I’m pretty sure you don’t understand that you can’t have both your mid-morning PB&J and a live me.
25. You’re afraid of spiders, but not intravenous drugs.
26. I’d like to believe you when you tell me that you’ve quit.
27. When you met my mom and dad you didn’t get around to washing your hair so you bought a grey fedora that you cocked over one eye. My eighty-one year old dad flirted with you all night and my mom got the recipe to the applesauce cake that you brought.
28. I don’t trust you with anything. You killed the ficus I left with you for the week I went to Boston. How could I ever entrust my very much alive and beating heart? You’d drop it or something; grin at me and tell me it was slippery.
29. You should rightfully be dead and are, instead, beautiful.
30. Selfish as it is, I don’t want to be around for the inevitable flameout. I’d rather remember the smell of your hair and the way you faked like you were too drunk to drive home.
31. If you were the ocean, I‘d learn to float.
That's all.
Reasons We Make No Sense Together
(why I took my toothbrush out of your holder)
1. I’m an English major, Brit Lit. You’re dyslexic. My favorite book is Brideshead Revisited, yours is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
2. I can’t stand Bob Marley, particularly at 3:14 in the morning when your stoner friends come over to light up in our living room.
3. Thanks to your untidy bathroom habits, I now know more about the menstruation cycle than they ever covered in eighth grade Human Growth and Development.
4. When we kiss I can tell exactly what you’re thinking by how you get distracted and start chewing on my earlobe or how your mouth goes soft and loose and happy.
5. You are really distractible.
6. One time you wanted me to join your indie-folk band that you started with your sister but the only song I could think of was, ‘'I’m Not That Into Folk Music But I Thought You Were Cute So I Bought The CDs You Recommended And Now I Like It But I Like You More’. As a working title.
7. When I try and write you poetry for your birthday or Valentines Day or any day, I just wind up with a page of cross-outs and phrases like ‘the sun and the solution and the soles of your feet’ and ‘i lovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelove you’ and neither of those scan well at all.
8. Your morning breath is atrocious.
9. You think you can sing well.
10. You enjoy trimming your toenails on the couch that you stole from your college dorm and humming happily through your nose.
11. Sometimes, you take too long in the shower when I’m late for work so I have to go in regardless and then I’m even later.
12. Your exes have a lot of metal in their faces and names like Phosphorus and Louisiana and they know how to fix bicycles and bake vegan carrot cakes.
13. You dance like some beautiful mad thing, or Iggy Pop back when he did a lot of coke (the last time I danced in public was at my Bar Mitzvah).
14. It never gets easier. You are always a trial. I am always running your labyrinth with the gold thread in hand, answering the million dollar question I didn’t study for, holding back your hair when you puke.
15. The other day I took Excedrin and as I was tweaking from the side effects I thought of you.
16. You have absolutely no concept of personal space. You sit in the laps of all my friends and talk to them about declining bee populations and installation art.
17. If you ever left me, I would have to build you again out of garbage and feathers so no one would ever touch you
18. If you ever left me, I know exactly which of your friends I would try and sleep with first
(Morgan, then Audrey).
19. Sometimes when I’m riding the city bus too late at night I call your answering machine just to listen to your voice giggling over nothing, The Misfits buzzing in the background
20. You once told me that you didn’t ever want to have a girl, because it was too hard to be a woman, even today.
21. Again, your sense of personal space is extremely underdeveloped. This can not be repeated enough.
22. If I flew away, you would not come looking for me. I know this for certain, but you would leave the windows unlocked for a year and a day.
23. Not often, but sometimes, you have unspeakably dark days spent lying face down on the carpet. On those days, your silence is a pond where drowned things live.
24. I’m allergic to peanuts, and I’m pretty sure you don’t understand that you can’t have both your mid-morning PB&J and a live me.
25. You’re afraid of spiders, but not intravenous drugs.
26. I’d like to believe you when you tell me that you’ve quit.
27. When you met my mom and dad you didn’t get around to washing your hair so you bought a grey fedora that you cocked over one eye. My eighty-one year old dad flirted with you all night and my mom got the recipe to the applesauce cake that you brought.
28. I don’t trust you with anything. You killed the ficus I left with you for the week I went to Boston. How could I ever entrust my very much alive and beating heart? You’d drop it or something; grin at me and tell me it was slippery.
29. You should rightfully be dead and are, instead, beautiful.
30. Selfish as it is, I don’t want to be around for the inevitable flameout. I’d rather remember the smell of your hair and the way you faked like you were too drunk to drive home.
31. If you were the ocean, I‘d learn to float.
That's all.
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