You say you're gonna go burn the house down.
Good luck.
I know it's harder than it seems.
You love it
And what it holds.
You're just insane with hormones.
But that's okay, because so am I.

When you think about it, we're all insane with something.

Here mom.
I got you this gift.
I tried to think of what you need
What you could use
What you would want
And what would say the right thing.
I wanted it to say "I support you."
Or maybe "Good luck!"
But I know what you're going to hear.
"I'm mocking you"
"You're not good enough"
"I don't care about you".
I wish everyone would interpret life
As I do.

I understand
That you are going through a change
And you just want to have fun.
I understand
That your self-confidence is low
And you want to hear someone tell you you're pretty.
I understand
That you feel lousy
And you want to talk about yourself.
But please
Just this once
Could you please care about me?

I miss you.
It's dark and it's night
And you should be laying beside me.
We should be tossing and turning
Together.
I'm tired of being apart.
I'm tired of not being tired.
I want to be able to
Feel you behind me
Or to see you
And to put my head on your chest
And listen to music in the dark.
I miss you
And I can't wait til we're together again.

Everything is too easy.
Not once have I suffered
To win.
I skim through books
Glance at notes
And I am a perfect success.
The only difficulty I've ever had was social
Or maybe physical.
But I haven't earned my life.
I haven't tried
I haven't made the world better
I haven't been of use.
Maybe it's time for some
Self-imposed
Suffering.

I'm pretending this grape soda is a beer.
Instead of grapes
I taste hops.
Instead of sugar
I taste bitterness.
And when I take a swig
It erases some tension
Til sip by sip
I will become a puddle of relaxation.
Or maybe nonexistence.
It goes well with the tear tracks on my face
And the sad song on my iPod.

She's getting older.

I always knew she was old.
The dry lips
Can't just be a family trait
The wrinkles
Can't all just be smile-lines.
The fact that she was my father;s mother insinuated the fact.

But I didn't realize she was old.
She's never been old in
The feeble way
Hunched over while walking
Not noticing everything around her.
But now she hunches
And she doesn't notice
And her voice doesn't take
That cutesy tone when talking to me.
She doesn't use her silly sayings
And doesn't scout the store
For shirts I might like.

She's old.
And when you get old,
You leave.
Forever.
But she can't leave.
I love her
And I need her to be around.
I need both of them to be around.
Forever.

I don't have *** dreams.
I don't get ******* in my sleep,
Much less in daylight.
but I do get a sort of
Nocturnal comfort.
I have love dreams.
Dreams where beautiful men
Men with dark eyes
Bedroom eyes
Love me
Ache for me
Chase after me
As a gentleman does.
Last night I had one.
He loved me
He wanted me
He thought I was
The epitome of feminine perfection
And beauty.

I think I get these beautiful dreams
Instead of wet dreams
Because I don't know what an ****** is
But I do know
Exactly
What love is.

My tongue runs over my swollen gums.
I taste the blood.
I feel the aching zones
Between off-white and red.
It stings.
There's not enough room in my mouth.
My tonuge runs down the row of 16;
There are two prongs sticking up
Where they shouldn't be.
Wisdom teeth.
Four corners, four teeth.
My teeth are textured.
Some feel smooth
Some ripple
Some have edges that grate against my tongue.
One tooth hides behind another
Afraid of the air
And the water.
The tooth that once housed a hole
Is now thicker than the rest.
Thick with plastic
Or whatever it is they use.

It's a cavern of discomfort
Cause by my own doing.
Blood.
Plaque.
Pressure.
I should've been a bird.

I wish I didn't make that face
When I swallow wine.
My face contorts.
Mouth goes sideways when brain goes upside down.
Everybody's smashing things up
And my brain-hole likes it.

My mouth tastes like *****.
The internet says it's my
Swollen gums
And tooth plaque
Acting up again.
I just hope the taste
Doesn't become the actual thing.
My chapped lips wouldn't take kindly to that.

My toenails are metallic blue.
My feet are scrubbed and soft.
An older Asian woman with leathery skin
And crazy soft hands
has polished them to perfection.
She told me about eHarmony
Her ****-clothes
Her elderly boyfriend.
In an accent I could barely understand
She told me about her life.
She rubbed my calves with lime green
Exfoliants
And lotioned my legs
With cream-colored juice.
Her nails were French-tipped
And long.
She flicked off the excess polish with them.

She does this dozens of times a day.
Dozens of pairs of feet.
I wonder how many people have heard her story
And know about her rich boyfriend.
How many people have felt those soft hands
On their toes.
I wonder where else those hands have been
On her old boyfriend.

There's something beautiful
In eating meat.
Devouring what was once a living being.
Turning that animal into calories for you to burn.
My teeth pierce the skin,
Tear the muscle from the bone.
A performance of delicious savagery
While staring into my lovers eyes.
Primal.

I think her life went in sections.
Clearly defined.
Dysfunctional family
Independence
Trying again
Raising kids
Finding herself.

I really like where she's ended up.

The sugar courses through my veins like adrenaline.
I feel it in my blood.
My arteries expand with energy
And my ankles start tingling from the inside out.
I feel like I should go to sleep
Is this how diabetics feel?
I feel like my body will start to swell
And I will explode once my innards take over my flesh.
I will turn into a cloud of glittering crystals
And unicorns will spout from my eyeballs.

Pretty girls
Pretty blonde girls, pretty brown girls
Try on wedding dresses on late-night cable.
The dresses are pretty too.
Organza and flow and corset and satin.
Pretty dresses for pretty girls
Who will marry pretty boys in a pretty church.
One is less pretty
Fittingly, her dress is less pretty.
Where most have satin, she has cotton.
Eco-friendly, she says.
I like it.
She not very pretty
She's neither blonde nor brown
I wonder what her boy is
And where her wedding is
And if everything is "offbeat" in her wedding.
I hope she gets to use an adjective
Other than pretty.

The drive home is long.
Where usually I'm surrounded by cedar trees and grass
I see only black skies and cop cars.

Where usually I listen to skinny boys with acoustic guitars
I listen to angry fast-poets with hate to spare.
It's not the same drive
Though I'm on the same road.

I don't get that feeling of serenity
That usually makes itself known between the trees.
That flows between the rivers I cross
And melts into my soul.

Instead I feel an ache in my gut
And the buzzing in my head tells me
Something's coming.
Something I am not ready for.

He tastes like salt and sunshine.
I spend an hour
My hands scrambled in his satin hair.
My lips picking out the flavors of his flesh.
I taste down to his manhood
Still salt and sun.
My lips meet his head.
They feel the silk
And taste the soul.
They turn flat against his steel.
Hard-pressed.
What seems like hours of exploration
And experimentation
And suddenly I taste his essence.
His love.
His heart.
It tastes like salt and sunshine.

My best friend doesn't consider me her best friend.
My confidante does not confide in me.
My peer doesn't see me as an equal.
But I always, always know
That the love of my now
Unequivocally
Undeniably
Undoubtedly
Sees me as the love of his.

I don't want to write about farts
And limp *****
Or dry vaginas, as my gender would suggest.
I want to write about love
And laughter and beauty and joy.
Because maybe
If it's true that life imitates art
That is what my life will become.
And I crave that hope.

When I was nine-ish I planned to give my mother a book of poems for her birthday.
Mother's Day?
Christmas?
Something.
I would write fifty-three poems for her
I was in a Jack Prelutsky phase.
My sister preferred Shel Silverstein.
I don't remember any of them
Or even if I made it
But I remember planning.
At night I wrote on the slats of my sister's bunk bed
She always got top bunk.
I wrote my plan
And ideas for these poems
And styles and layouts and covers.

I don't know if I went through with it
But if I did
I hope that she kept it
So I can remember who I was.

He's beautiful.
His all-encompassing smile
The jail cells that hold his teeth
His strong nose.
I want to trace the bumps of his nose
With a pipe cleaner
And have him feel the soft fuzz against the jagged bone.
I want to run my lips
Over his full ones
And taste him
And feel how soft they are.
His eyelashes are black as ravens
And his eyes are pools of earth
That I want to live in.
His eyebrows cut across his forehead
Showing his native background
And his scars tell me stories.
His hair never falls
Only expands.
It's perfect because it's his.
Black and soft, it feels like satin to my hands.
His ears poke out
Like small mammals checking to see if danger's around.
They will enlarge with age
And that fact makes me smile.
Mainly because I know I will be there
To watch his ears grow
And his back get hairy
And his face to wrinkle.
I will always be there
And I will know the locations and cause of every wrinkle.
I will tease him for every hair on his back.
And I will kiss every inch of his ears.

Sometimes I can't tell if I'm writing poetry
Or just journaling.
Is it the spacing that allows me to call it a poem?
Because I have no stanzas.
I have no "Dear diary" either.
So which is it?
I hope it's poetry. I hope it's art.
When it just falls out of my head like this
No otherworldly narrator
No rhyme
No beauty
I doubt it
And through my doubting, I make it doubt itself.

If anyone should have high self-esteem, it is you, dear words.

This is contentment.
Or maybe it's that point of just being.
One or the other.
The air is too cold. I feel it bringing up ridges on my skin.
There's an ache in my side and an itch in my ******
But this is just how I am.
The world is fuzzy and sleepy and hollow and overwhelming
And that is just how it is.
If I was removed from the situation little would change.
The air would still be too cold, though no one would feel it.
The ache would be in someone else's side.
The itch would be in someone else's ******.
The world would just be.

The wine isn't as good as I remember.
It's sour, and the sweet aftertaste isn't there.
It does the job though.
Two gulps and I'm chilled out
Ready to take on all the socialization that life's going to force on me.
Instead of uncomfortable and anxious
I will be a calm observer.
The scent of my breath will make her upset
But it's what I need to face the rest of the night.
The world is more beautiful
The leaves on the oak become beautiful green Styrofoam
The smell of the bushes enchants my senses.
Because of the wine, everything is better.

I wanted to write something
About how people are never as important as they think they are
And how the actions of others don't really affect me.
But I waited for inspiration to strike, and it just wouldn't come.
Not that there's not evidence.
So I'll just write this note.
No poetry, no prose.
I'm not sorry if I offended you.
I'm not sorry if you think I dislike you.
I'm not sorry if you think I have a vendetta against you.
Honestly, it's all in your head.
You don't matter that much.

Last night it was dark out
Blackness dotted by bright streetlights, put there to protect my innocence.
I heard the birds chirping their morning-song that is usually heard at my grandparent's house, early in the morning.
But it was three-thirty a..m., and not at all sunny.
It confused me.
When I was returning home, I once again heard the birds.
It was seven-thirty at night, and not at all sunny.
It confused me.
I always believed these were morning birds, singing their morning-song to my grandparents.
I guess they're constants.

When I leave you
I'm not trying to abandon.
I'm seeking serenity and solitude.
I need to go be alone
To be able to smell the air
Drink some wine
Listen to the running water.
It's not you.
It's me.

It's really sad that this won't last.
My creativity comes in spurts
And I'm not ready to let it go yet.
It's possible that obsessing about its exit will spur it on
But I can't help it.
I love the part of me that sees and feels and hears and understands
But it never stays.
I wrote a story once, with the help of a friend.
At the time it was beautiful, a tragic tale of love and lies and hope and hate.
Looking back all I see is stylized garbage, with the core of an interesting idea.
I hope that's not what these end up being.
I want my prose to be cherished and seen as a testament to my love of words
My love of ideas
My love of thoughts and brainwaves.
But I'm scared that that's not going to happen.
That's why I don't share it.
If only I see it as garbage in a year
It won't be as bad as if my whole life is aware of my failure.

I hope this is good.
I hope this is cherished.
I hope I am real.

How do I summon my narrator?
She's the one who writes the good ****.
Her voice is breathy
sultry
But it's mine too.
She's connected to the world
to the water
to the earth
to the wind
She feels.
She feels how soap slips on her skin
and how her teeth need to be brushed
and how her hair needs to be torn apart.
She senses more of what's going on then I do.
If I could be her I would.
I tried.
I tried to be connected like her
But I know that's not me.
That's not who I am.
I'm denim and cotton
While she's soil and grass.
When you pretend
You just end up with disappointment
And desperate wishing.

I know that I'm trying to hard.
I'm not the natural poet
novelist
singer
dancer
lover
But I wish that I was.
I know the words dripping off my fingers
Onto these black-and-white plastic keys
Are ridiculous
over-the-top
unnecessarily esoteric
But where's the fun in life if you can't be disturbingly aware of your dysfunction?
This one girl
This ever-changing sunflower
She writes novels like there's no tomorrow.
At least, she starts them.
I don't have the creativity for that.
This other girl
An iris, though she'd rather be a daffodil
She writes poetry
Emotional, heart-wrenching poetry.
At least, that's the impression I get
I can't imagine it'd be anything uplifting.
But me
I occasionally get into a trance
In the shower
At the river
In my bed
And disjointed words fall out.
While they're flowers, I'm a leaf.
Unnecessary. Available in abundance.
But occasionally you can rip me out of my home-stem
And run me through your fingers
And tear out my veins.
These words are my veins.

Twenty minutes, lost.
I though I had been under my steadily flowing deity for hours. I thought I had had a spiritual experience lasting longer than Genesis.
But it was only twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes
Of standing naked under falling water, feeling soap suds and scratchy cleansers and sharp tangles
Cleaning my skin and my soul of my physical reminder of my connection to the river
To the world
Thinking only flesh and water, flesh and water.
It was the mantra in my head.
We are all just flesh and water.
I was ripping through the harsh curls of my hair thinking flesh and water
Flesh and water.
I caressed my goddess, my god, my spirit, nature’s spirit
When I caressed the showerhead.
I saw it clean me of the plankton of the natural water and replace it with synthetic chemicals
To keep me sanitary and acceptable.
Twenty minutes.
It felt like that was how long it took for the blade to run across my skin, my wet-and-dry-sand skin. Twenty minutes running up from the product of the hills to the home of my womanhood.
I noticed how the man-made razor matched a section of veins on my wrist.
Twenty minutes.
In twenty minutes that were actually twenty lifetimes I became Pocahontas, daughter of Earth and sister of water.
I felt my connection to what sustains me and it changed me.
How did twenty minutes seem so long
Under the florescent lights?

Everything’s wrong.
Going to a sub par school for a liberal arts degree
That I’m not sure I want or even need.
Drinking alone at night, six nights a week.
Lying in bed for hours waiting for some sort of nocturnal relief.
Failure at ***. Failure at friends. What stories do I have to tell my uncared for grandchildren?
All I have is a brain of useless trivia and shameful memories I would give anything to erase.
My past is embarrassing, my future’s depressing, and my now seems pointless.
Really, what’s the use?

So you like solitude too?
We seem like similar souls.
I bet you’re uncomfortable with your body
And you feel you aren’t living up to your potential
And you like to read books that make you look smart.
I want to go ask you,
To see if you want to share your serenity
But that would debase both of our natures.
I wonder what you’re reading,
And why you’re in your swimsuit in the shade.
Do you adore the feel of the breeze and sun and earth on your skin too?
I think we’re the same.
Too bad I can’t ask.

Bohemian goddesses stalking the coffeehouse
All wiry hair and flowing skirts
Points of view and opinions and self worth
How her soul craved to join them
Don headbands and sandals and learn to be like them
To play the bongos and be part of natures and kove what’s real
She wanted to feel her soul in the mass joining of the human spirit

She envisioned it, and it was beautiful.