good old war.

every time i fall asleep, my fingers wrap around my phone.

and i see light through my closed eyes--i keep hoping someone (anyone) will want to say something (anything) to me when i can't sit still and i'm all out of cigarettes.

but i had this thought tonight.

why do i ever even waste time thinking about her.

when i've got friends like you instead.

i think that's kind of beautiful.

thank you.

my spotless mind.

my stomach feels like a low & rippling tide. a disturbing minnow, swimming cyclically inside of an itching, hollow space. & it's hungry. & it won't be fed. this self dialogue sounds like jim carrey on the beach at montauk. void & cold--such a traitor to the cause.

laying on the floor, stretching around and twisting my back. pointing my toes toward the heat dish. reaching my fingers out to...something. listening to the black keys tell me i'm not the one. i'm not the one. i can write myself a bunch of nonsense. like taking what i feel and what i think and burying it down, down, down. just digging a hole and throwing it in there and covering it in dirt. or words. but i know from experience: forgetting is made more simple when i have a bottle of dragonberry smirnoff and a flask of sunny brook whiskey. i have about a week before my house arrest begins. i have about a week to self medicate before i am faced with more time alone in my mind than i have even now. every time i hear mumford and sons, i want to throw my fists and pierce my eyes and scream.

i dream of sunshine on my face, marlboros between my fingers, life inside my eyes. drown myself in fruity drinks & mellow smoke & humanity found in crowded city streets beneath skyscrapers & the tallest billboard ads. orange & yellow birds painted on my windowsills, chiding me "good morning." cheap living in a downtown studio. a real bank account without 2:00 am overdrafts. no more four-dial safes & no more keyed-up lock boxes & no more holes hidden behind posters in my walls & holes under floorboards, rugs beneath the ground. cigarettes indoors. cat stevens sleeping on my legs again. & i want to bring home a new baby puppy--a pug because they're fat & stupid looking & always loll their tongues between their teeth in dumb, happy smiles.

this name blows arrows through my chest, the feathered tips sticky with something foreign to me. the prospect of lacunar amnesia has been so appealing to me lately. i can never sleep. i mean, my god--all i have to do is lie on my back and wait for my thoughts to be erased. i know i wouldn't. but i wish it were that easy. i wish anything about her was ever simple. sometimes i think i'm smoking on the back porch and listening to trains, and there's someone beside me. holding both my hands.

don't you fucking dare read into my words.

you don't have the decency to miss anything.

i don't know why i feel weird lately.

i know i poke my tongue between my teeth when i laugh. thanks for noticing.

how my mouth will move.

i roped off the light switch in my room with sticky, note covered bandaids and a smiley face that thought thank you out loud. ace of spades card with it's corner wedged tightly, awkwardly into a crevice of my clock--reminding me wake up when the alarm goes off and it's still dark outside. bare feet on cold carpet, bare thighs in cold air; someone's going to have to start the coffee around here. 

and yes, i'll wake you up when i hear the drone of a morning siren seeping through the cracks in your door, the noise alone is not enough to bother someone so far gone on pain pills and benzodiazepines. and i am a devoted member of the amphetamine club lately, i will stagger about in this hard, empty house with my notebooks and journals encircling me and pulling me to my feet until vyvance and adderall and ritalin fold together in my stomach and press my eyelids open, coax my cheeks into a shit-eating grin, again.

it's like she said: medication pumps me full of emotion. socialization rids me of my calm. i remember living for days like this; in a state of hypnagogic hallucinations while time flitted past in seconds and minutes. that was the only place i felt okay around you. between dreams and waking, i would pull your hands up close to my lips and breathe soft and slow and sweet. and i could feel this--your lungs jerked so much quicker, so much more shallow than mine.

she said, "i need to feel safe in my own home."

is anybody hearing this?

is anybody hearing this?

tang.

clouds of fog fill and float around my eyes.

i haven't left my room in three days other than to drive around with people who make me feel needed. my eyes are sore. my nose is sore. my lips are sore. i keep scratching at the cuts and claw marks on the backs of my hands and around my bony wrists. i want to push up my sleeves, but i don't want to stretch out this shirt i'm wearing. my sleeves remain hanging loosely above my knuckles, and i remain uncomfortable. i feel unsettled.  i don't eat very much lately, and when i do eat it isn't very healthy. i never want to eat again. i never want to feel the taste of anything but smoke on my tongue. i never want to go through the motions of my jaw grinding. the bullet around my neck is feeling heavy and my head is slumping downward. i'm thinking about orange powder and brown mud. i'm hardly thinking at all. that space i  have heard about recently--the space between the base of your lungs and the top of the gutty area in your stomach where all the wires seem to come together and connect--feels like there's wind blowing through it.

i'm twenty years old

   and there is wind blowing right through the middle of me.

the scent of something.

i was given this beautiful little ash tray today. it's a sort of foamy blue colour and has tiny speckles on it. it reminds me of a robin's egg. there are three notches around the lip to lay my cigarettes in. and there are yellow blossoms painted in the base of the bowl. i love this ash tray. i really do. i want to have a new home to parade it in. i want to have a home that is mine. but right now, my room doesn't even smell like me.

i feel kind of sick.
i will lay in bed.
i will read something beautiful.
i will try to breathe in
through my cracking, alligator lips.

why is it so hard for me to ask for help.

why can i even think

i can act the way 

i am acting and

still, someone

will want to

see me and

make me

smile.

twin sized bed.

he said i got shy around you.
i think i just get quiet when i'm drunk--
every girl i see, a censor goes of in my head:
target! target! target!
it's not because i want anything from them.
it's because i think girls are just... soft.
it's a habit from my glory days.
i really just enjoy sitting with them,
holding their hand and kissing their ears.
that's about the extent of my sexual wants.

and every girl i spend time with
is labeled as my girlfriend at least once or twice.
i guess my reputation proceeds me.
why won't they believe me when i say
i don't want to be with anyone.
i mostly want to be myself.
i mostly want to be.
     maybe i've been cast as the dating type.
     i consider this a problem.

61.

this isn't normal writing--i just wanted to see how i fared: 
_______________________________________________________

Ten Things About Yourself
10. i fall in love with almost every girl i meet--at least a little bit.

9. i like chain smoking cigarettes when i am really high, and when i am really low.

8. i don't really hate anyone because i think it's just easier to love them.

7. i want my body to become a book of poetry for the world to read.

6. i think it's very easy for me to be very happy. about everything!

5. i am very easily excited. by everything!

4. there is hardly anything in the world i treasure more than my friends.

3. i am thrilled to know i have overcome what i have overcome.

2. i really like flowers--especially yellow ones.

1. i love that i am 'too soft'.

Nine Things You’ve Thought About Recently 

9. moving to salt lake city this summer.

8. why i view humanity as so flawless and beautiful.

7. why i haven't been able to be proud of my writing in a while.

6. the dangerous summer and my bamboo partition. 

5. coffee on friday.

4. coffee today.

3. how i'm going to acquire more cigarettes.

2. sycophancy and narcissism.

1. not thinking about her.

Eight Ways To Win Your Heart

8. smoke cigarettes with me while we talk about things that matter.

7. kisses on my neck.

6. waste time adventuring and roaming with me.

5. call me on the phone every now and then just to say hello.

4. love people that other people hate.

3. listen to music and know the lyrics and tell me what you think.

2. have an opinion on something real and share it with me.

1. live like you like living.

Seven Favorite Albums You’ve Heard Lately

7. waited up 'til it was light - johnny foreighner

6. wild hunt - the tallest man on earth

5. two dancers - wild beasts

4. contra - vampire weekend

3. tell it to the volcano - miniature tigers

2. for emma, forever ago - bon iver

1. reach for the sun - the dangerous summer

Six Things You Do Before You Go to Bed

6. text

5. turn on my bed

4. take off my pants

3. smoke a cigarette

2. lock my bedroom door

1. think of lyrics and writing

Five Things You Wish You Could Say To Five Different People

5. i'm not sure how we got to be such great friends, but i feel like i'm very blessed for it. you are the most fascinating person i've ever met, and i wish i could think and feel the way you do sometimes. i love it when you sing. i love it when you listen. i just love you. i don't think you actually realize how beautiful you are.

4. thank you for pounding sense into my head a lot lately. i think with my heart, and it makes my head stupid in a lot of different ways. but i feel like you care about me even when i'm crazy. i love you so very much. please remember that i will always love you and i will never try to hurt you. you helped me realize i'm more than what i'm told. i love you, sweet pea. you deserve the best!

3. you are my significant other! being with you always makes me smile and i want to talk to you about every little thing. you are hands down my closest friend and i would gladly have your babies. thank you for always being my friend, even when i go crazy over girls. i treasure the time we spend together. i love that you let me know you enjoy my company. i think about you a lot. and i think i  could maybe be straight for you. and i know i would be completely lost without you.

2. you taught me how to live. you taught me how to fall with grace. i can see that you hurt so much more than you let on, and i wish you would stop hiding and pretending for the sake of safety. part of life is getting hurt and moving on; it's just how we learn. no one on this earth has hurt me more than you have--i still love you. i don't know if anything you ever said or felt was real or fake. i wish i meant something to you.

1. i want to be your friend so badly, but you always seem so busy! i'm excited to see you soon. i'm excited to get my tattoo because at least i can have a part of what i think is so beautiful about you. you make me want to live more. you make me want to invest myself in others more, because even when i think your heart is breaking i'm proud that you can feel so deeply. i want to drink a lot of beers with you! i want to be your friend so you will know you are always, always loved.

Four Things You’re Doing Right Now

4. drinking peace tea.

3. talking to my husband.

2. noting everything in my room that is out of place.

1. writing in this stinky blog.

Three Things You’re Scared Of

3. satan and all things surrounding it.

2. being a complete asshole and not knowing it.

1. skinny skinny skinny love.

Two Things You Want to Do Before You Die

2. show someone how to live without trying.

1. have my family be proud of who i am.

One Confession

1. i consider my arrest to be the greatest blessing in my life--if i could live my life all over again, i wouldn't change a thing. 

midway.

laid out on my skin, others stories that i tell the world. these characters, these shows and you are an event that lapses inside myself. 

who am i to you?

what scars do i establish through our talking and our touching?

these are the love songs that i sing to you:

satan & cigarettes.

i thought it was great, the way i was reminded how i am alive again. my doctor taught a lesson yesterday to a group of sick men and women gathered in a circle, legs crossed like children. we smell like smoke and coffee and someone in there was sick, i could tell. pale and sweating. but the lesson he taught them--my words spilled from his old and lipless mouth. i could hear myself behind the strategy and efficiency of living in a way to love yourself and love the world and its inhabitants. i participated like i had never even heard these theories, these mantras before. he asked me, what is a lie you have told yourself?

i told myself she must be heartless--i only thought it for a second, but it near kills me.

i told myself i was incapable of really caring for anyone.

i told myself i could never stop hurting the people i loved.

i told myself i wasn't able to be loved.

words.

only words.

but they were carved deep into my chest and burried in my bones.

i wonder if she put them there.

post-it notes upon my brain.

i don't believe those words anymore.

i am granted trust where it isn't warranted.

there should be suspicious and caution--

but i have proved to my caretakers:

i am happier feeling.

i am happier living.

i am just happier.

and m will always tell me that i am loved. i hope she realized how i care for her, too. 

and we talk about how she is like watching zooey deschenel or listening to regina spektor; you don't know what is different about her, but there's always something there that just blows you away and makes you feel so young and so small still. and we talk about how her voice sounds sleepy, and bored. and she herself--looking at her you feel she could just float away.

i just smell like cedar and smoke.

drowned in striped sweaters--a bandana wrapped bandit.

coming off junk.

choose life. 

          choose a job. 

                         choose a career. 

                                        choose a family. 

                                                  choose a big television, 

                                                            choose washing machines, 

                                                                      cars, 

                                                                                compact disc players and 

                                                                                electrical tin openers.

                                                                                          choose good health, 

                                                                                                    low cholesterol, 

                                                                                                              and dental 

                                                                                                              insurance. 

choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. 

          choose a starter home. 

                    choose your friends. 

                              choose leisurewear and matching luggage. 

                                        choose a three-piece suit on hire purchase in a range 
                                        of fabrics. 

                                                  choose d.i.y.,

                                                            and wondering who the fuck you are on 

                                                            sunday morning.

choose sitting on that couch--

          watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing junk 
          food into your mouth. 

                    choose rotting away at the end of it all, 

                              pissing your last in a miserable home, 

                                        nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, 

                                                  fucked up brats you spawned to replace 

                                                  yourselves. 

                                                            choose your future. 

                                                                      choose life.

and you.

choose fantasy.

choose normality.

choose duality and fraud.

choose your malady over something real.

this is the last i'll think of you.

this is how you've made yourself to be remembered.

this is how a lot of people think of you, i hope you know.

this is what i want you to be reading right now.

this isn't what i wanted for you. ever.

this is what you made for yourself.

this is the last thought i have regarding you:

you are a small and insecure child.

i dare you to try and play me again.

i fucking dare you--watch me turn you away.

when i think of you,

   when i hear your name,

      when i see your pictures,

         when i remember how much i care about you (still),

            when i consider the person you could be,

all i feel is deep, abysmal, gut-wrenching disgust.

you are never on my mind.
you are the horror story that my friends tell.
you are not even a memory to me.

let me know if you ever grow up.

i choose life over the living-dead i am with you. 




(i wish it were different.)

my skinny, skinny love.

who will love you? 

this is my sunshine.

i envy your 
lubricated 
brain for so 
quickly forsaking 
any hurting of 
feelings 
and going 
for the throat; 
like a demented 
oh, so mutated 
virus. call 
it stealthy, 
call it bold--
i call it simply 
my keldy. 
where 
would this 
world be 
without our random 
but consistent 
cases of the 
FUCK YOU's?

lu`bri`cate   [loo-bri-keyt]
-verb (used with object)

1. to apply some oily or greasy substance to (a machine, parts of a mechanism, etc.) in order to diminish friction; oil or grease (something).
2. to make slippery or smooth; apply a lubricant to: to lubricate one's hands with lotion.
3. to smooth over, as a difficulty or human relationship; ease: to lubricate the friction between enemies.

 i love this new found ease.

all these sad songs and sonnets of macabre poetry have ceased to well up inside of me. have stopped yelling out in gurgling, stammering coughs and rumbling deep inside my setting lungs--now i feel that i can finally breathe. and no longer do i think of snow white porcelain skin pressed thinly between my scarred up fingers, darkly against it's nature. no longer do i think of emerald green eyes that blink so dully--lifeless and bland and empty, abating and consuming. and i don't reminisce of old crooked lips and teeth and camel silver smoke drifting from our chimney mouths while i had my hours of normalcy out by the coffeehouse and wasting wishes willing things to become more simple and beautiful like they were before. 


i am wrangled up, entangled in a mess of smiling eyes and singing tongues. he's pulling at his stringy beard and wrapping up his fingers in mine and we talk about how he really is a beautiful writer, how i would love to be a part of the spilling of his thoughts upon blank and wide-ruled paper. and s is learning about herself while we blow jeger-cherry fumes around in o's and french inhales and mushroom clouds. she's singing johnny cash but her voice makes the lyrics sound so soft and free, not glutteral and stomached and choked so i can hear the lyrical doggerel clearly. and m is just so sweet and smiling. feed my stupid drunken stupor. sit in the rain and listen to ani difranco while we read to eachother these words and rhymes and names and only whisper stories of things we would rather not be involved in. we have a super-friends coffee mug we fill with flavoured grogg, and she always sits outside with me while i smoke around. i saw m-bear last night. i missed her. but estatic i hugged her and held her and picked her up and swung her around because i never have to choose to have a night of calm and peace over having friends who love me.

i feel all progress starts and stops with her.
the claws that have dug in my skin and held me in place for so long have finally been removed.
and now i have nothing but open gashes, scars upon my sides.
i know that god enters through the wounds.

thank you for making me so holey. 

i love this happiness.
i love this freedom.
i love feeling like myself again.

big beer tears--this is not for you.

the honest truth: i love you.

i'll never stop loving you.and these words i stole from you: i live them while you recite them as a justification to explain away your misunderstood behaviour. and i was applauded. but i wish that you could see who you are as clearly as i can see who you will become by living this way. i still defend you. i still love you. i wish you would stop cheating yourself. please. know you're worth the effort. and the heartache. maybe no one else sees it but i don't care. i think you have within you this beauty and this horrendous awful symmetry for living. i don't mind if you need to hate me, i really don't. but at least let this waste open up your eyes to what you're worth. and maybe you are too afraid of what everyone thinks to be able to see what i see in you, but lately all i ever see is this beautiful girl who is decieving herself. you don't deserve what you hand yourself so readily, without regard to your own best interest or any thought as to what you really belive. you deserve so much more. so, think about what you consider your stolen poetry. think about what those lyrics mean. because you don't live them. you only ride them into escape and excuse. hate me if that is what you need--but you deserve so much more. you are alive underneath. you have a heart underneath.you are as real as they come underneath if you only learned who you really are. please, darling: surface yourself. become a part of no one. 

surface.
surface.


hate me if you will, but find yourself.


surface.
     surface.
          surface.

all i've ever wanted was for you to be loved. all i've ever wanted was for you to be alive. all i've ever wanted was for you to believe in something real. i'll always be here for you. i'll always break my back to carry you wherever you want to go. let me know if you ever need a real friend: a person who loves you for exactly who you are--good mood, bad mood, ugly, pretty, handsome, what have you--a person who is still going to think the sun shines out your ass. 'cause you know i'll be there through it all. you will always be my friend. you will always have a hold on my heart, because you are the one who taught me how to live. you will always mean something to me. and i believe in something real in you.

(but i just can't stick around.

and wait and cry like you did.

i won't let myself be ruled 

by someone else.

who doesn't want to care.

but know i love you.

and know i'll be here for you

when ever.

where ever.

what ever.

you need me.)

i love you, fancy.

good luck finding something real.

you deserve to be happy.

but so do i.

this is what is wrong with...

anyone can see that i am clearly selfish.

i am the pit of this world, the axle upon which everyone rotates and floats around unknowingly. silently. resentfully. empty. i live in an electrified symphony of broken-hearted people and dramatic interludes. when i invest my love in a loveless client, i break down and write sad poems on black abysmal pages--but it's no secret that i'm lonely. you can't read my cryptically acclaimed shamed happiness, but please let me show you my sorrows.

and why must i save you from yourself? why must i even care? can't you see that i am happy, and that you do nothing but ruin my day with your concern for me and your immature emotions? there is nothing wrong with me--i am obviously and blatantly flawless--but it is humanity that suffers these rude ailments and sores. let me map out for you a list of your wrongs and how you have hurt me.

i want to hear you say you're sorry. 

i want you to change for me, because how you are right now just won't cut it. i loved you once. back in november and for christmas and new years. why did you change into this all-knowing, self righteous asshole? i'll pretend to stay away. i know you are wrong, but i'll forgive you and return someday into your cold and unfeeling arms. you know i will return. i hate you. i hate you. but i need you still. i feel like i'm a battered housewife who can't get out of this abusive home. you break me.

you break me.
     and break me...
          and break me.

i am just so...

delicate.

we smoke like chimneys.

i'm sitting in my room with the lights off and the window open--red cloud sun spilling in and my room really isn't dark enough for sleeping. but it's dark enough for rest. i feel awkward and stupid with my clicking; clicking digits on my phone, clicking keys beneath my clicking fingers and my clicking teeth in my clicking head. this is the sound of money spent on cigarettes and fuel to move your car and playlists and conversation given free of charge and meeting strangers outside the produce side of grocery stores for a smoke and awful stories, at the expense of sleep and my parents to be content. but the return was worth it. because--not often, but only sometimes--i feel alone.

you played a concert for me last night.

the venue my worn down speckled carpet, your back against my bed.

you blurt out quick coughs and curses between chords and searching fingers. holdonwait. waitwait. justasecond. and i laughed because you can hear it too. i think your songs should be on the radio. every single one. the ones you make up on the spot are the ones i write down to reread later. i think i like the idea of improv songwriters. the lack of censorship is alluring to me. and honestly, i could listen to you sing for days without losing interest. 

and when you speak, your voice still sounds like music.

i like how you rhyme words and phrases and talk in strings of poetry.

unraveling.

     unraveling.

          unraveling hearts and heads.

sacrilege.

dear god,

please let him know i miss him.
please let him know i still think he's funny--
i can't remember a time he didn't smile.
please let him know i'll take care of his friends down here.
please let his family be okay.
please give him a hug for me--
he really is a sweet guy.
even if he is very, very, very stupid.
and i'm sorry i'm smoking while i pray right now,
but thanks for being cool with it anyway.
i want to make his daughter brownies or some shit like that.
is that weird?
maybe it's my mormon upbringing.
i could cook up a casserole--stupid funeral potatoes.

love, keldy.

(i feel like i should be more emotional about this.
      or be upset or something. that's normal, right? that's what normal
     people do?
          but i'm really just okay with it. death or jail. death or jail. that's
          how people like us work.
               and i know that he'll be okay.)

(there are things i wish i could tell you... but i'm afraid of what you'd say.)

like whipped cream.

bathed in bass and screaming treble. nodding out heavy heads to the shredding beats, blown back by the wind from the open windows. my legs are shaking, my lips are bleeding smoke. i smell like cedar cologne and drafty cigarettes and my fingertips like whiskey and dark brewed coffee. this is how i'd like to be with you.

this is how i am.

a tiny bit reckless.
caged and tagged--always on the maps.
my eyes smile bigger than my teeth.
i drum my fingers when i want to move.
i whistle songs
     because i'm too afraid of hearing my own voice to sing very loud.
but i love it.
and i love days like this.
i am free.

they can take me. they can take everything i have to my name.
but i will never lose my heart.

material shit doesn't bother me.
i'm into this effervescent way of living.

(when i die.)

(i'll return to god as foam; sea-green, frothing.)

bitchin' ride.

driving with the windows down and led zeppelin. my hair is still wet and the wind is making my ears go numb with cold, but i don't really mind. that's why we smoke marlboro reds! they put hair on your chest. the cigarette of a real manly man.

i could use being tough and real a lot more in my life lately.

i feel liberated. i feel like today is so beautiful, you can watch me dancing out in front of the coffee shop. pretending to wave signs around because i think i'd be a great sign waver, you know? i could dance and wave and blow kisses and smoke at all the oncoming traffic on state street and 100 north in provo. i would definitely get honked at, not for being pretty but for being eccentric--which by the way, i think is a lot better a reason to be honked at. today is a great day for day drinking!

we drove over to the mall and i stopped by wet seal to see my super secret gay boyfriend and he shooed me out and told me to meet him out back for a smoke, and we did! it was excellent. camel smooths are cool, too. i think i've been digging the taste of real tobacco, real smooth and mellow and mild and not menthol at all. and i'll still smoke smooths till i quit. but i like the mellowness. i like how it makes me feel and forget about when i smoked menthols. he invited me to a real happy party tonight. i will be there like shareware, baby.

i just hope she'll do okay with s and c tonight. i worry about her, still.
i wish i had come home in time to say hello. must have just missed her.

but i am so thrilled for coffee.
and i am so thrilled to spend time with r tonight.
he said he'd buy me a whole pack of cigarettes--just for me.

and he said he's excited because
     i can smoke them all night long.



i'm not an eagle. i'm a firebird! a real shaman.

(this is about aaron prestidge!)

killer clowns from outer space.

i love the first cigarette of the day.

     it makes me feel floaty.

i love sitting on the curb and watching cars.

     it makes me feel free.

i love that you're so sneaky, dear.

     you make me feel so loved.

i love everything about you.

sea sick.

these compliments 

and praise of character--

is that supposed to 

make more palatable this 

sort of rejection? 

they hardly soothe as a 

cold brick lies 

flatly, 

numbly 

in the pit of my stomach.

i'm so influential.

part of me always wanted to grow up and become a pirate.

swashbuckling.

i wouldn't need to care about anything but the high seas and the kracken and gold.

part of me always wanted to grow up to become the marlboro man.

defiantly independant.

i wouldn't need to care about anyone but the red cattle out on the purple horizon.

part of me always wanted to grow up to become a robot.

electric. grinding.

i woudn't need to care about anywhere but where an outlet was--recharge.

sweet as silver.

mild as may.

simple as science.

oh, baby. that's me.

god and whales.

i am so far from perfect.

it makes me smile so big in real life.

i think this bothers people.

but in their heads, everything has a reason. everything has some ulterior motive, some deeper, darker and definitely more intelligent purpose or illustration. i read today that lewis carrol meant for alice in wonderland to reflect upon the realm of quantum physics--where insanity is rule and reason cannot make sense or even be called reasonable. expect the unexpected, and you can count on everything making sense once you've lost your mind. captain ahab was a saint driven by a demonic heart; obsession with killing all so evil and vulgar in the world that he'd baptize a hand-forged harpoon in blood and pray with satanic forces to give him the strength to stand for god. and his first mate was the pied piper that corrupted a crew of naive, innocent men. too righteous to kill a man that led them into hell. and citizen kane? rosebud. rosebud was all the giant knew, all the mountain-of-a-man could connect any meaning to or hold near to his heart. rosebud was the single thing in his life that held his heart, the love and compassion of a man more grand than the world itself. in the end, rosebud was the scraps of wood that lost it's meaning with the death of an emotive black hole. rosebud became the tinder for a funeral pire that no one would attend a viewing for. i hope someone got his inheritance. just for the fun of it.

and me?

i'm only skin deep.

dig as you may--

there's not reason behind my actions or my words.

(most of the time.)

don't hold it against me if i throw my dirty fingers into a plate of green lime jell-o. just because i want to feel it squish in the places in between.

i liked lewis carrol.

in an world of insanity,

the sane man will be lost

while the lunatic reins king.

don't you know?

you put up curtains of steel and iron-clad locks on your windows.

to keep the dust out.

to keep your room beautiful.

to keep your glass baubles and china dinner wear--

safe.

i wonder how long it's been?

when was the last time?

when have you ever seen the sun.

when have you heard the birds outside.

when have you watched the sprinklers on your neighbor's lawn.

pulsing to the right.

racing to the left.

steel curtains to keep the dark in.

hickory.

ebony and grey and pearly. curling and blossoming--sticking to my fingers, staining yellow the skin of my crooked, straightened teeth, sucking at my watery, swimming eyes.

sit
outside
with
me.


love
the
beast
that
everyone
else
tries
to
kill.

i think you're absolutely incredible.
i think i'm very bad at saying words about you.
we talk with our fingers and our teeth and our ribs though, don't we?

yes.
yes we do.

bangerang.

you know you're not really peter pan, don't you? this is only a dream. when you wake up, you'll just be peter banning--a cold, selfish man who drinks too much, is obsessed with success, and runs and hides from his wife and children!

dark and sinister man, have at thee.

my adventures aren't over.
to live.
to live will be an awfully big adventure.

and i am... grand smiling in real life.

(i should have asked permission. but: thank you.)
(you really never cease to impress me with your words.)

i like the yellow one!

i think it's incredible, really. how you don't use a pick like those stupid boy bands, scared to get their hands sore. and your brother uses his flat fingertips, dirty and dry and desperate and plucks out these notes that i've heard from the sixties before. i don't even know how it works, i've never gotten into it, but it looks to me like you only need the blade of one finger and you can sing songs you've never thought about before and they make me smile and laugh and yeah, i want to write about you. is that okay? i think the words you say are beautiful. i think you have these thoughts that i ALWAYS want to talk about and discuss and we can spit out theories and stories like no one's business, and it's why you're my song. the one i like the most, honestly. i think i feel shy around you, which doesn't make sense. you should know, i talk about you a lot to people close to me.

is that okay?

and i really like how you noticed my cat looks at me a lot.
like he's searching for approval, right?
it's cause he thinks i'm his mom.

i wrote this song for you. it's not the reason that i left, but it's the one that kept me hanging on to you.

i bet you've heard those before.

i bet you will.

because you can listen when they only wail.

i wish they could let me go.

so i could embrace my wasteful days with someone like you.


dammit.

inside me a lunatic sings.

drifting on a silver river.
you illuminate the whole world and your blue stare
cuts the starry sky.
i make a wish and close my eyes
and yes, do that, now begins the story.

drifting at light-speed
inside a heart explodes, an airplane crashes.
down on the earth they hear singing.
i make a wish and close my eyes
oh yes, do that, a silly dance
all is forgotten in very little time and yet begins
to open eyes.
oh no!

my best friend no matter whatever happens-- 
i swallow tears and breathe soft in hair.
a bad break, we cry in each other arms.
when we meet
when we kiss,
our lips burning, we still hold hands.
i see you wake.
i see you naked.
always rushing, we run fast
until everything becomes smaller,
and i scream louder.
i'm with a shell, drifting away.

when we meet
when we kiss
our lips burning, we will hold hands.
i see you wake.
i see you naked.
Inside me a lunatic sings. 

(clap clap clap your hands and say yeah!)

wow, i can get asexual too.

i

think

i

know

where i'm

standing.

it's

the people

who

dance

and

move

around me

that 

make moving

so

difficult.

thank you, ollie. 

i only think

in business terms now... 

fuck bitches.

coffee rings.

we're the mud on the bottom of your shoes.

sucking and pulling at you,

bring you down down, stay around a little longer.

and we'll sit and mold and bubble

as the bugs burrow deep into us, tunnels.

when the sun comes out and we can hear it;

the distant call of chapel bells pealing.

but every road gets hosed eventually.

and then we will run and drip into the sewers,

swept away in a tide to become clean.

we are the rabbits caught in your iron cage,

shaking and our eyes are red,

force a smile, maybe we can be just pets instead.

and we're trapped here, but not within these walls

we're slaves to our own heads.

but our hides are so pretty, so pale.

and the hunters want to skin us

and scrape the hair away with a dull knife.

please, show us how to survive.

please keep us safe.

we were not built with reality in mind.

what rules apply to those as unruly as us?

we're too big for these rooms we gather in,

laugh and wink and swap war stories,

our hands folded in our skinny, skinny laps.

but here we are--so clean, so new through

the old leathery canvas of scars and shots.

and we really don't know what to do with ourselves.

sit in these dens of curling smoke and coffee rings,

feel lost and giant once we leave the door.

we are realities puppies.

we are nomads.

we are yes-men.

we are kings.

illuminated ;; again.

i had forgotten how it felt--so quick to remember and jump back into my rippling, endless conversation. there's this buzz sitting right on top of my heart like little fingertips drumming so fast and rolling back and forth, left to right and back between my collarbones. the flashing lights from the show out on university are still popping and strobing in the back of my head, right behind my dilated eyes. and they're casting shadows into the corners of the room where i sit and surround myself with magazines and open yellow college-ruled notebooks, scattering across my dirty berber my treasures of the day; four different beer bottle-caps, leftover bus transfer, a pair of expensive looking glasses with one temple arm sloping upwards at a 78 degree angle, bright green tennis ball, and a folded letter with a girly script wishing: this one thing will be in our room, or anywhere. BUT IT WILL BE ONLY OURS. i thought those words were beautiful. i thought they were beautiful and i took them home with me, holding them near my chest. 

i keep chiming out these thoughts and strings of sentences with words and side notes locked onto the punctuation of the ends of my drawn out, breathless whispering to form this sort of stream of nonsense. my voice feels like bells. my voice sounds like sand. so soft and stupid and hushed and airy. i tried to read some of my poetry out loud and i think it's the first time i've heard my written words escape my listless, livened tongue. i thought the sound waves were ruining the interior structure of my scribbled out prose, though, so i stopped pretty fast and asked him if he thought i had a raspy voice--smoke choked yet.

     he said no.

     i said that's a shame. 

     i've always wanted a voice coarse like sandpaper and echoing,
     ringing.

and there are really only three girls in my life. one who is born from the movement of water, another who makes sound by striking the air, and a third, who is embodied only in the human voice. i've known the first for probably sixteen months, second for twelve, third for two. and they burn me, they drown me, they pull me and words and lyrics and these pretty thoughts about simplicity and contact come spilling from my dripping lips like a mouthful of dry skin spat spat spat into the air. flaking down. building up. this is how sounds and silences find me--abrasive, rich emotions, raw, and lots of air-brazen cursing. you are the goddesses who inspire creation through mesmerizing me and making me stumble around dizzy, stricken and sick and smiling so simply. and i can see myself falling too far into this now and becoming a cawing, chattering magpie just like the rest of them. but i don't care. if you're a bird. then i'm a bird.

     meditation and practice.
     song.
     and a memory.

and i can already feel those bugs crawling up and down my legs in slow rushes of fast, hot blood that's been on overdrive for hours. my skin splotched and fine hair standing on end and i don't think i've ever had this many nasty dry, nasty oil, just plain nasty patches on me.

i can still feel my heart jumping underneath my ribs.

knocking at my windpipe.

let him out now, while the world is so full of grace and gentleness--
so easily explained.

let it out now!

my life is still illuminated.

halos of light around my mellow, mellow, yellow eyes.