After some thought, Lauren

I've decided that there are some things you are not supposed to live through
and when you do
you have to make a life again
its raw
and so am I

so there
is the conversation you wanted to have
last night

Love Song - Sara

Head under water,
And they tell me to breathe easy for a while.
The breathing gets harder, even I know that.

You made room for me but it’s too soon to see,
If I’m happy in your hands.
I’m unusually hard to hold on to.

Blank stares at blank pages.
No easy way to say this.
You mean well, but you make this hard on me.

I'm not gonna write you a love song,
'Cause you asked for it,
'Cause you need one, you see.
I'm not gonna write you a love song,
'Cause you tell me it's,
Make or breaking this.
If you’re on your way,
I'm not gonna write you to stay.
If all you have is leaving,
I’m gonna need a better reason to write you a love song today.
Today.

I learned the hard way,
That they all say things you want to hear.
My heavy heart sinks deep down under you,
And your twisted words, your help just hurts.
You are not what I thought you were.
Hello to high and dry.

Convinced me to please you.
Made me think that I need this too.
I’m trying to let you hear me as I am.

I'm not gonna write you a love song,
'Cause you asked for it,
'Cause you need one, you see.
I'm not gonna write you a love song,
'Cause you tell me it's,
Make or breaking this.
If you’re on your way,
I'm not gonna write you to stay.
If all you have is leaving,
I’m gonna need a better reason to write you a love song today.

Promise me you'll leave the light on,
To help me see with daylight, my guide, gone.
'Cause I believe there's a way you can love me because I say,

I won't write you a love song,
'Cause you asked for it,
'Cause you need one you see.
I'm not gonna write you a love song,
'Cause you tell me it's make or breaking this.
Is that why you wanted a love song,
'Cause you asked for it,
'Cause you need one you see.
I’m not gonna write you a love song,
'Cause you tell me it's make or breaking this.
If you’re on your way,
I’m not gonna write you to stay.
If your heart is nowhere in it,
I don’t want it for a minute.
Babe, I’ll walk the seven seas when I believe that there's a reason to,
Write you a love song today.
Today.

Quotations that I'm into right now...

We must not say that every mistake is a foolish one. - Cicero

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.
Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948)

If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you. What we call failure is not the falling down but the staying down.
Mary Pickford (1893 - 1979)

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.
Cyril Connolly (1903 - 1974)

Keep writing. Keep doing it and doing it. Even in the moments when it's so hurtful to think about writing.
Heather Armstrong, Keynote Speech, SXSW 2006

Let each man exercise the art he knows.
Aristophanes (450 BC - 388 BC), Wasps, 422 B.C.

Art is on the side of the oppressed. Think before you shudder at the simplistic dictum and its heretical definition of the freedom of art. For if art is freedom of the spirit, how can it exist within the oppressors?
Edith Wharton (1862 - 1937)

I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.
Frida Kahlo (1907 - 1954)

What I dream of is an art of balance.
Henri Matisse (1869 - 1954), O Magazine, April 2003
Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.
Henry Ward Beecher (1813 - 1887), Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1887

Steve Warner's words to me

It sounds like "Magnolia" made a serious impact on you. Sometimes we find a film that speaks directly to us at a specific moment in our lives, and those are the movies that are most memorable, and prove that film is something far more than just a flickering image on a white screen. Movies can be magical, transformative. They truly are art. By looking at and analyzing all of the cinematic elements that make up this film, you were able to see how the director manipulated each individual piece to create this stunning final product, and it is through this analysis that we learn to truly appreciate the film itself. This is an excellent paper, perfect in all regards, that shows you know what it means to truly appreciate a film, and the steps that sometimes must be taken to achieve this appreciation. Great work, awesome job, bravo.
A

the boys in the parking lot

oh boys
you will never grow old
and you will never grow up
i saw you,
peeling away and fishtailing
in the snow
this poem sucks
but i was talking to my mom and wanted to remember that moment
you helped because you were so immature
and reminded me of ex-boyfriends back home
thank you

ee cummings

[somewhere i have never travelled]


somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands

Funny, isn't it?

How my dearest friends
know nothing about the
second worst night of my life?

That talk with Barbara today

She said, how have you been dealing with the guy?

and I said,

I don't want to talk about it to people,
not because I don't want to talk about it.
But because I don't want their pity, their condolences,
to be treated as though I am weak or damaged,
with kid gloves,
or as a freak.
I don't want them to see me as a victim
when I see myself as stronger than I've ever been.

And I've found a peace with myself now that I'm living in the present.
And while I can talk about the past,
I refuse to live in it.
Don't place me there in your mind,
because I will fight you to the death

like I fought the guy to survive.

I'm pretty sure I just drooled on myself

Things like...
wormwood...
work their way into my mind at this hour
and i think of all the inks
i want to slip under my skin and carry with me
as a testament
to my endurance
and my temperance.

Never will I be real enough to some people in this world to matter
but to the world I walk in,
I will leave a mark.

The world may leave marks on you,
but you must leave a bigger one on it.

I could list and check my way
down the myriad of SHIT
that has hit my fan this semester.
But it would all sound like excuses

instead of the collection of scars I've grown into and now
cherish so much.

So I don't want to sound like a whiny bitch,
and I'll let you guess what has gone so horribly wrong
in the life of this girl
who grew up in the country
but whose eyes never left greater things.

Vaseline

cover my eyelashes with vaseline
and let the goop shape the world
that surrounds.

the light filtering in through a layer
beating its way through oil and protection

and i'd never have to see your face on the L again.

i'd never fear my fun times in Chicago would be shortened by your judging gaze.

I'd never have nightmares of walking onto the L at Belmont and watching
your eyes shift up
from my feet
to my legs
to my thighs you knew so well once
and finally to my face.
Which would look at you and smile, knowing my strength now.

And that smile would kill you.

I have nightmares that my smile will kill you,
since I know you are and were made of so very little substance.
And the grit that's collected in my laugh lines may have looked like dirt to you
but you never got close enough to see the diamonds.

Illness and Uncle Geary

When death knocks the bones of your frame
and you feel your laugh rattling through the cage
that is your skin.

you know that the body is only so much.

and when the body that could have given life to one so close
barely survives a lonely, bitter, harsh winter flurry
of emergency room visits
and iv's
and blood tests
and vomit bags
and spit and snot and piss

i would give anything to go back and give you the healthy part of me, Uncle Geary.

Your life taken so many years ago, by idiot doctors
who couldn't put two and two together.
The recent West Nile Outbreak...
and a severely sick man with an unknown illness causing
HUGE
organ failure
brain swelling
diabetes
and blindness

I'm so angry at those doctors for cutting short your chance to hug your grandchildren.
And for them to hug you.
They were just starting to say, "Ganpa"

And the quiet gentle giant you were
endured so much pain in these past few years
and lost so much weight in the battle
but gained so much dignity and pride
and so much of my respect.

All my love to you, who is in a better place now.
Healthy and robust again.
You will be missed.
I love you, Uncle Geary.
What I wouldn't give to kiss your scruffy beard one last time before I go home.

Vintage Vinyl

The wine sits cold in the bottom of the bottle
aching to be slipped through the neck again
so tight
and close.
It aches for the green glass embrace again.

The firmament of our lives gets paint
splashed and splotched and pushed upon itself
and we become the artist
with no brush
but some torn threads and loose ends as bristles
and we paint this way.
We push the paint across the canvas and through the clouds
until the sky itself is inky and muddled with the pigment
that blood carries.
Only raw. Let it only be raw.

Cajoling the oils and pastels into the weaved webwork knitted into our lives
no, not knitted.
it IS our lives
the intertwining loose ends.
the brush becomes our hand
the brush becomes our canvas
and do you see how we become the painting that is our life,
just at the same time as we are the painters?

it's the choice of the wine to sit
the sediment filtering and sifting down through the sunlight
in the open door of the chiller.
it sits at the bottom of the bottle, yearning for the past
and what will again be the present
in the future.
knowing that the cold green glass bottle embrace
will again bring calm energy to these tired bones.

Katie's Hurt Feelings

I hurt Katie's feelings tonight.

She crawled up into bed and started throwing bobby pins at everyone. I said, stop throwing them. Because I knew, they would clutter the room and eventually I would pick them up and throw them away because Katie just doesn't notice them. And that's fine, that's the way Katie is...her life is busy and hectic and she's constantly running and that's not a bad thing! I'm not upset that she doesn't see those little messy things, because it's her nature and I love her.
However, we JUST cleaned the room and we've all been expressing how much we love the clean room, how orderly it is...how wonderfully clean it is. I pointed out that I didn't want it to get messy.
She said, ok, you can stop being my mother.
And I said, no, Katie, I'm not being your mother, I'm being your roommate. And I have a right to expect that my desk and my bed and my side of the closet and my living area stay clean, especially after all three of us put SOOOOO much time into cleaning it yesterday. She just looked hurt and didn't respond and rolled over and apparently went to sleep. I think she's just lying in bed angry and isn't speaking to anyone.

Throwing the bobby pins was a way to get attention because when there's more than just Katie and a friend, when it's a group of people, Katie wants the attention on her. This doesn't define her, it's a small character aspect, and like all character aspects, it has a legitimate motivation and isn't always a negative thing...We're both a little like that but I find myself loving to observe/sit inside my own head more and more as I get older.

I don't know, I'm fearing that Katie will turn this into a cold-shoulder drama instead of an adult discussion. I just want to sleep on it, get over it, think it over rationally, and then discuss it. I hope this happens. I hope this is capable of happening.

And now I want to write poetry, so...new blog!

College Education Semester

late for class
nap
work
I slept through lecture
study at library
text
read another book
weekend party
school again
graduate

The Refrigerator Poem by Lauren (last two lines from Amanda)

What is feeling
she has her tune
write on paper
no way this question was ever easy
like night with serious sleep
or when time's extemporaneous
there by the room
find us all far from LOVE
and what will they have here
go longer needing smell of him, it
take heed our a.m. drop

About Me Section

This was such a good about me section I wanted to save it somewhere...

A lot of things in my life are in a transitional stage right now.
I'm learning to love myself. I know, that's so cliche, right? But it's really true. Today was the first time in a LONG time that I was able to laugh with abandon, to say that I loved my life! Yes, there are a lot of...complications...
I had just given up on my life before, I wanted to throw it out the window like a shitty computer and just start over! But now, I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
I am who I am. I understand my behavior better, I understand myself better, and I'm so grateful to have control over my life again.
For many reasons, having control in my life means so much. When a person loses control of things that have occured in their life, it's crucial that they find some way to gain control again.
It took so much sacrifice in my life - unfortunately, I may have sacrificed that which was most dear to me. I destroyed my relationships, my self-confidence, my enjoyment, myself, and (most horribly) those I love before being able to make a change.
I've come to terms with a lot of loss in my life, and I consider this a sort of renewal. I've had to lose a lot, but hopefully I haven't burned all of my bridges and I can regain much of what I have destroyed.
My relationships have born the brunt of my problems, and for that, I am eternally sorry.
I understand if what I've done is unforgiveable, because I am not sure that I will ever be able to forgive myself.
I've begun to surround myself with love again - making amends with my parents, my family, old high schools friends. I'm reconnecting with a past I thought I wanted to leave behind. Where my new friends have fallen short, my old friends have picked me up. In the greatest times of need, true friends have kept me from myself in times where that was most crucial. It is true - make new friends, but keep the old - some are silver, and the other gold.
I love my golden friends.
The light at the end of the tunnel is so bright, so beautiful...it's the rest of the my life, the hope for my future, the determination to perservere through all. It's the love of my family and my friends, it's the carefree laughter, and the times to simply be held and cry.
I thank you all for loving me in a way that I have been unable to love myself lately.
You have given my reason to move forward, strength to take on tomorrow, and courage to make my mind up for myself and for no one else.
To everyone -
Surround yourself with love.
Apologize when you have done wrong.
Forgive when you have been wronged.
Spend time in the sun, if only to remind yourself that there is one.
Play with carefree and giddy laughter.
Hug often. Hugs heal pain.
Choose the life you want to lead.
Be kind, compassionate, and considerate to those who do not, or cannot, show the same to you.
Real love is a permanently self-enlarging experience.
Let yourself be loved. This is the most difficult of all.

Sorry about the delay

I realize it's been a while since I've blogged, and that's mostly because I've been fighting off death. Literally. With four health center visits, two emergency room visits, three antibiotics, and five prescriptions medicines (including some narcotics), you'd think that I'd have kicked mono's ass.
Oh no.
It was surely kicking mine.

But now I'm feeling better (knock on wood) and I have been thinking and feeling much inside myself lately.
The urge to write and get it out of my skin is....tingling inside.

So...I want to write down some things tonight that I was thinking about and that inspired thought/words/poetry before I forget them. Forgive them if they don't make sense right now...they will be elaborated upon later.

I went to rainy Kansas and I learned the truth.

The trinity of the past, the present, and the future. Doors. Locked doors, locked away, the past.

Speaking the language of the otherworld. Translation.

And now...to what Lauren and I have been talking about over the past half-hour or so...and what triggered my nose bleed.
Yeah, a nose bleed.

We started talking about insane asylums and how cruelly they treated the patients. For whatever reason we started talking about the Holocaust and concentration camps.
I said that I've never been more overwhelmed by a sense of darkness and evil and despair than I have when I was at Mauthausen. You see some things that you just can't forget.

And I let it rest at that for a while. Then I started dwelling on it, and I knew unless I said something, I'd sink into the pit of darkness in my head and have bizarre nightmares about the intense and indescribable suffering that these innocent people underwent.

So I started speaking about the things I saw and felt at Mauthausen, things that I haven't been able to tell anyone or even get out of my mouth without just losing it.

I told them about the barracks. How the museum people had a few of the standard bunks set up for us in an otherwise empty barrack and explained that three people would sleep in each bed frame, with no mattress, of course. Three people in each bed, three beds high. Nine people in a space that we wouldn't expect two people to reside within.

And next to the bunks on the worn grey hardwood floor was a dark splotch. The floor had been waxed years past, but of course the varnish was missing in spots and it was mostly dull bare wood, aged and matte. And then, a dark stained splotch on the floor. We all wondered but no one opened their mouths to ask because we already knew, really.
Using human blood as a wood stain...I can't even walk on the floor the same. I avoided that spot when they shuffled us through the room, out of respect for those who were fell in that place, for the dead who were killed without respect, without dignity, without their family near. For those who were forgotten as just another number, and moved, and disposed of because that's just how life was on the inside of those granite walls. For the people who died in that spot, inside the walls of a prison that they built with their own backs, their own sweat, their own blood, from the quarry down below. Can you imagine??? Being put to work to build your own cage?
When the work didn't kill them, the SS did.
Officers given strict commands to work the prisoners until they were dead. Literally.

I was so angry, I wanted to kneel and cry and scream and tear at my eyes and my hair and my ridiculously proud clothes and the haughty life that I lead without considering any of it. I wanted to go back in time and bash the heads of the villagers together, villagers who lived with a dark secret in their backyard. Don't tell me they didn't know...they KNEW goddamnit, and they did NOTHING.
Oh, but they had to survive somehow, and loose lips sink ships.
Really?
Because I know 6 million ships that sank without a sound in a dark harbor, without a single SOS response, without a single nod in their direction, slipping into the inky abyss without a flag raised in respect.

I hate getting irate about this, because I rant like a Republican preacher. There's nothing less convincing. I know that my anger is justified. That my disgust with the past, the lives of the guilty and the guilty by choice of silence. I feel the disgust with my own privileged life. With the ease with which I live.

I remember walking down the stairs into the areas where they did they worst business of all. Hanging from above the steps was a wire, with a loop on the end. I was confused...this wire didn't overkill for simply hanging decorations or signs. And then, they told us, "That wire was used to hang people on the steps, where you are standing. They would attach the rope here - to this loop - and then push them off from behind."
Even in the sunlight I was afraid to touch it.

Then in the corner, at the bottom of the stairs, to the left. A corner. Very dark, because no sunlight reached it. I wondered what was in that corner, and peered closely at the wall. I didn't step into the darkness because I felt a sort of respect for it, a fear or understanding of its depth. The plaque read - Headshot Corner. The officers would make prisoners kneel here, interrogating them before shooting them in the head at close range.
The darkness had less to do with direct sunlight and more to do with the fact that the cement walls and floor were saturated with the blood of innocent men and women. Stained.

There's more I can remember, images burned into my mind. But that's all I could handle tonight before I started to cry and my nose started to bleed.

And it's all I can handle right now.

My heart goes out to you.

Amanda

shower thought or, emotional recall exercise # 1

mrs. j invited me over for a nice, catch-up chat.

we were smiling and having a good time in the living room when you come up behind me.
i turned to see who was there and it was you,
and you, of all things,
knelt down and said,
"will you marry me?"
and you meant it.
ring and all.
it was beautiful, stunning, by the way.
breathtaking.

so i looked at you, and the box, and the ring, and at your mother.
she nodded, and said,
"i invited you over for him. he asked me to."

and i turned back to you and the ring and the box.

and i said, "can i hold it?" and you said,
of course.
and i held it, and i said,
to mrs. j,
excuse me.
and to you,
can we talk outside for a moment?

and outside the sliding glass door i said
i love you.
and this is a beautiful ring.
but i can't and won't ask you to live a life
with someone you don't want to support, not really.
and i won't ask myself to do that either.
so, this ring is beautiful, david,
and i closed the box,
and i'm sure whoever you give it to will love it.
i love you,
but we just aren't what the other wants or needs.

i walked back inside and left you standing with a box in your hand

and turned to your mother, who was staring at my hands, which i was wringing in front of me.
i held up my left hand and shook my head and said,
no.
i love david very much.
and i love your family and you, and your beautiful home.
you have all been so kind and loving to me and i love you.
but we can't be what the other needs and
it would be unfair to ask him to live his life that way.
i love you, and you are a wonderful mother.
and i hugged you as you stood up to speak
and whispered in your ear,
and you have raised a son that means what he says with all his heart.
congratulations.
i love him.
please take very good care.

and i turned to you, who was standing inside the door by now,
and said,
please take very good care of yourself.
and i love you.
and i am here for you in every way a friend can be.

but now i have to go.

thank you, and, mrs. j, i hope to see you again in this lifetime.

david

why couldn't you dig me up from under what was covering the better part of me?

mostly i'm so glad that we're done
but sometimes,
sometimes,
i wish i could hear you say that we'll always have each other...
that at least we have each other.

i am so angry and so disappointed in you.

and i hate that you left me alone to deal with my shit
instead of standing by me like a friend
or a lover.

could you not see through what was covering the better part of me?

remember, there is and always has been a better part of me
than the one you saw for the last two months.

more than ever, i want you to sing this song.
remind me that your promises aren't empty
and someday, again, we'll have each other.
if only as friends.

don't walk out on the promises you made.

dig...

We all have a weakness
But some of ours are easy to identify. Look me in the eye,
and ask for forgiveness.
We'll make a pact to never speak that word again.
Yes, you are my friend.
We all have something that digs at us,
at least we dig each other.

So when weakness turns my ego up
I know you'll count on the me from yesterday.

If I turn into another
dig me up from under what is covering
the better part of me.
Sing this song
remind me that we'll always have each other
when everything else is gone.

We all have a sickness
that cleverly attaches and multiplies
No matter how we try.
We all have someone that digs at us,
at least we dig each other.

So when sickness turns my ego up
I know you'll act as a clever medicine.
If I turn into another,
dig me up from under what is covering
The better part of me.
Sing this song!
Remind me that we'll always have each other
when everything else is gone.
Oh, each other when everything else is gone.

ooooh....
(15x)

If I turn into another
dig me up from under what is covering
the better part of me.
Sing this song
remind me that we'll always have each other
when everything else is gone.

Oh, each other when everything else is gone. (x2)

you come like an answered prayer

god i love dave matthews.
you come like an answered prayer...
how much hotter does it get?????

nurses

I'd just like to thank my nurses, Lauren and Katie,
for taking care of my super sick ass these past few days.
I love you.
And you mean so much more to me than I can ever explain!!!

Amanda

honestly

honestly, i've begun to see
the most beautiful parts of me
are the scarred ones.

the prettiest angles and curves
cut into the deep dark sticky
center of who i am and how i am

and just like a really great antique,
the best part about me is how i've aged.

so when a man may be attracted to me for my smile
or the blue in my eyes
or my fat ass
or...my feet...
the real man will come along and see the beauty in my scars
and realize they aren't imperfections
but the signs of aging and growing.

like rings on a tree
stretch marks for growth
of the heart and the body both
run in circles around me
and im convinced
honestly,
my scars are the prettiest part of me.

what k said

she said, i wish i could just punch him in the face
it took all i had not to burst into tears
and tell her all the hurt in my wrinkles
all the pain that catches in my eyelashes
on its way home.

yes, k. i want to punch him in the face too
i want to destroy who he is and make him disappear from this earth
i want him to cower when he sees me
to know i hold in my head and my heart all the words it would take to end him

i want to rip out his eyes
and pop them with my carlos santana shoes
wipe the shit off in the grass
and kick his teeth until they flew like snowflakes

i want to pummel his stomach with the heels of thousands who love me
i want to stand back and watch my real friends
beat the living shit out of him

i want to deliver the final blow to his pathetic face.
i want to scalp him and shove it in his mouth
so he won't bite his tongue
when i cut off his dick
and stab his balls.
i want to lean down over him and whisper...

i'll never be able to make you hurt and ruin your life the way you did to me once,
so i will take your life instead.

and i want to drive the point of my heels
into the holes where his eyes were, i want to shove his nose
into his brain
until he bleeds from every surface and hole.

not that i've dreamt about it,
but yeah k,
i know what you mean.

so my friend and i were talking

so my friend and i were talking and he was explaining
he would fuck rosie for money.
and i thought, well, he might just get rich.

but i can't give that part of me to someone
who doesn't give a shit.

to someone who doesn't see me for what i am,
for who i am
scars and shit and pus and all
i want them to see that first
and then see if they'd still like to love me with their body.

because doing the opposite has not worked, as we can see.

and while i'm not so sure my body is sacred,
it's connected to my heart and my mind
and those are.

so fuck off,
i hate you,
and i am in control now.

Pit

She said, "there is no bottom
and you have to choose
to turn around and drag yourself back up."
bloody fingers and all, i guess.

and i'd rather ruin this perfect manicured life than
slip further into the places you want me to go.

funny, pits are deep and dark
and hold the seeds of life inside
you just have to point them to the sky
and watch them grow.

I've been gone for a year and a half now

I've been gone for a year and a half now
and it was during my absence that you fell for me

but when i came back, i was an unwelcome house guest
a third-wheel in-law in my own relationship.

never will i be me to you,
your vision is so sadly distorted by the shit that your father has fed you for dreams
the shit he has fed you for dreams that
demote me
that demote my pain and the scars
and the real honest-to-fuck pain

because fucking is so much more raw than god will ever be to me.

so, thank you, mr. j
for creating a smaller version of yourself
attracted to damaged women
but not inclined to help clean up

and bless you, mrs. j
for folding up your own wounds
and licking them clean
while picking up the shit that three little boys make
and calling that a life.

your determination to forget will always inspire me to remember.

and i will love you more each day, because i see in you the pain in me and i want nothing more than to hug it away.
because i know, no son of yours will ever see his mother the way that i can.

so i put pen to paper and called it a note
sealed away my hopes that you would not hate me
sent it to you and have yet to hear back
and i will leave it at that.

my hand is still there for you to hold.

My Neck Hurts, so I'm writing...

Before I was ra-ra-ra-ripped from my own head
I was ripped from my own goddamn mind
I followed what he had to say
that women are less
less money, less brains, less.
women are less.
and i said, yes. i am less.
and now i am one less to him
i am one less
bitch he will have to listen to
i am one less
girl with a big head and a bigger mouth
i know my flaws and point them out
like road signs leading the way home

my mind is a woman when my body was not
and it always will be.
my mind points out the signs of
abuse
and abuse
and bullshit you fed me but now
i am one less
dumb-ass cunt you will waste your time
and money on
i am one less
mouth to feed
one less
burden in your pocketbook you selfish fucking prick

my body may be marked
by the shit that's run me over,
the shit that has lived in my body and
taken up residence in the folds of my mind
and the lobes of my heart
and my body may be marked
but it is well-marked
and well-earned.
my body is mine, again, finally.

and i will play it like the guitar my parents bought me for christmas

i will use it as the tool that it is
to entice and incite
and never will i be ashamed of the marks
the marks are road signs
pointing my way home.

Check this shit out

I love it. Oh, how I love it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOv47njeLHQ&feature=related

Not poetry

I know it's not poetry, but I wanted to say that I'm sick.
Like, sick as hell sick.
I have an ear infection, which makes me vomit most of the time. I am sick to my stomach becausethe antibiotics suck balls.

This sucks.

Magnolia

Claudia Gator: I'll tell you everything, and you tell me everything, and maybe we can get through all the piss and shit and lies that kill other people.
Claudia Wilson Gator: [to Jim] I'll tell you everything, and you tell me everything. And maybe we can get through the piss, shit, and lies that kill other people.


[Claudia kisses Jim]
Claudia Wilson Gator: I wanted to do that.
Jim Kurring: Well...
Claudia Wilson Gator: That felt good to do - to do what I wanted to do.
Claudia Wilson Gator: I'm really nervous that you're gonna hate me soon. You're gonna find stuff out about me and you're gonna hate me.
Jim Kurring: No. Like what? What do you mean?
Claudia Wilson Gator: You have so much - so many good things. And you seem so together. You're a police officer and you seem so straight and put together - without any problems.
Jim Kurring: I lost my gun today.
Claudia Wilson Gator: What?
Jim Kurring: I lost my gun today when I left you and I'm the laughingstock of a lot of people. I wanted to tell you. I wanted you to know and it's on my mind. And it makes me look like a fool. And I feel like a fool. And you asked that we should say things - that we should say what we're thinking and not lie about things. Well, I can tell you that, this, that I lost my gun today - and I am not a good cop. And I'm looked down at. And I know that. And I'm scared that once you find that out you may not like me.
Claudia Wilson Gator: Jim. That, that was so...
Jim Kurring: I'm sorry.
Claudia Wilson Gator: - great. What you just said.
Claudia Wilson Gator: You don't know how fucking stupid I am.
Jim Kurring: It's okay.
Claudia Wilson Gator: You don't know how *crazy* I am.
Jim Kurring: It's okay.
Claudia Wilson Gator: I got troubles, okay?
Jim Kurring: I'll take everything at face value. I'll be a good listener.
Claudia Wilson Gator: I started this didn't I, didn't I - fuck.
Jim Kurring: Whatever it is, just say it, you'll see.
Claudia Wilson Gator: ...You wanna kiss me, Jim?
Jim Kurring: Yes, I do.

Jim Kurring: [to Claudia] I can't let this go. I can't let you go. Now, you... you listen to me now. You're a good person. You're a good and beautiful person and I won't let you walk out on me. And I won't let you say those things - those things about how stupid you are and this and that. I won't stand for that. You want to be with me... then you be with me. You see?
[Claudia smiles]

the softness

the softness in the side and hips and thighs
makes me wonder why grown men don't fall
it trembles under touch and reaches for release
and it's soft, so unbearably soft

i could break you
he said
because i am so soft
and his lips let slip
so soft
ive never felt more proud

a woman is what she is and
this one is soft

mmmmm

she said,
he sees you as a woman,
and i cried.

because the woman in me
wasn't there
it was the beast
i was the beast
i was the monster scratching for survival and needing the slime in my life to breathe
i haven't been a woman in so very long

it's the nicest thing you've ever done for me.

Brisk through my nose

It's brisk through my nose when I breathe in and I feel it in my ears
it's sifting through my past and covering over the dead in me
sighs of
relief
hurt cries out, the hurt cries out and i,
i smother it with booze and drugs of all kinds
it's safe to me, sweet to me
the taste of the silence in my mouth
which has sickened me
now forces a smile onto my lips
and i breathe in and it's brisk
and i forget the time before now
and here
and me
and now
and you
and now
and i crave it like a fucking meal i swear to god i need the drug you give me
in my blood
i need you in my blood

and i take another breath and it's brisk
and i smother you and you are silent
and the silence makes me smile in the carefee pain
and the dis-cum-passion makes my heart disappear

these have no names

______________________
All the Fire

All the flame
And the fire
And the heat
That bit into every nerve I had
With sweet sweet irresistible teeth
Has left
And for all the pain of the bite,
Id rather bleed.

_____________________________________
It begins with one soft touch,
A surprise to my neck
My ear,
Your breath on my ear,
It opened my eyes in a gasp
And my mouth in an “o”
And made my muscles go tense and loose
And tense again.

No, the first time wasn’t good.
It was awkward and strange
A newborn thing on my mouth
And I was totally unaware of how to make it work
If it was working
So, that being that…
I missed out on the warmness of the newness of my first kiss.

_________________________________________
When words have failed,
Touch came and translated, translated, understood.
Touch understood.

Touch led to kiss led to moan led to linger
Lingering eyes and hands and fingers and lips and eyes
Eyes and eyes and eyes
Led to bed led to nothing in between.

Nothing in between led to trust.
Led to trust. Led to trust. Led to trust.
Led to love.

Led to care
Led to concern led to compassion led to
Sympathy led to pain led to pain
Pain pain pain pain pain pain

Pain numbed the words,
The words always failed
The touch tried to translate, tried to understand
But the touch was hard to come by, the touch was hard.
The touch never came.

Led to pain pain pain led to pain.
Led to sad, led to truth, led to lies, led to disbelief and unsureities and insecurities and doubts led to hope.

Hope led to you.

Hope was always led to you, when words failed and touch never came.

Hope led to you.

Hope led to love led to love love love love love love love
Led to you.

_______________________________________

Pressed near your warm firm chest I feel safe god help me I feel safe and I hate myself for it that it is only when in your arms that I feel fine I feel fine in your arms and near you and you get me without me speaking and you know me and I want to know how you know and what you think and I want to know why it is that you let me into your arms and your bed is it because I insist or because my insistence lets you let down your walls and let me in if only for a few minutes a night
_________________________________________

oh you let me in for a few minutes every day and those minutes feel so good
they feel so god damn good
and they feel so right.
“he sees you as a woman”
she says and I cried
because it’s so true and so right
and that’s why I love it.
That’s why I need it
Sadly
But you’re the first man I know to see me for what I am
And still see me as the woman that I’ve never known

God help me, I want to be a woman to you.
I want to keep being a woman to you
I want to keep feeling like a woman.

i am clipping you out of my head

i am clipping you out of my head and trying not to let him take your place
because i already have a therapist

and i already have the drugs i need so much
and i am clipping you out my head and my heart and i love the feeling of these blades in my head
i love the feeling of th blades over my heart just enough to tease, just enough to make my toes curl

he made my toes curl, not by making me blind
but my touching me in the places where i am most beautiful, by touching the parts of me that everyone and anyone can see and not the places where i am hurt and damaged and in trouble those places are not where he touched he did not touch and will not touch those places...
but he made my toes curl, curl to get away from the way he made them curl, they curl to hide and run from everything he was showing me
i am terrified of everything he is showing me
he's a big person, yes, but his soul is even greater and it stifles me and it terrifies me and i need to take in a breath
so i must push him off and away and breathe again

until i need him to suffocate me so that i know i am alive and still feeling
and then is when he is sweetest of all, then is when he is hot in my mouth and my head and makes me dizzy
and he will once again make my toes curl and i will hate him for it just like i hate him now

the drugs in my blood

the drugs in my blood beg for more beg for friends that it knows i will so willingly give

and the drugs in my blood beg for love and hate and something that it can feel and i will feed it with both.

the drugs in my blood make me hungry for the words and the words make me hungry for the tears and the tears will not come for fear of the blood

and so here are the words behind the blue of my eyes and the green that you saw
here are the words that nibble at my mind when my mouth is not moving, which is not often enough
my mouth is moving to keep the words at bay but now i give myself over to the words and let them own me and eat me and devour me and i will gain their strength because the words are who i am and the words are hungry

when all is said and done and the drugs are in my blood again i will feed them with more words and more drugs and more more more more more more of whatever they ask

fed up

i cant even bring myself to think of you because you are my greatest disappointment to date.

you made promises you couldn't keep and i couldn't see that it's not ok to love someone so much

it's not ok to love someone and expect them to understand you when they are standing far too close to see you.

you were so close you couldn't even focus your eyes on my pain and see it and lick it and heal it for what it was but no you licked it with knives and the knives in your eyes cut me in so many ways away from you and this is your fault.

this is your fault.

after the substance inside you fades away i was far enough away to see you as you really are and to see you as you are made me vomit.

i can't believe i shared ten pathetic months with your incapable ass.

oh, and by the way, i lied.

the sex was not that great. especially not when it got boring at the end.

also, your penis is my second greatest disappointment.

because it sees more it is willing to see less

Because you have seen more of me you are all willing to see less
and i cry in your warmth

when you wipe my self-pity from my eyes and you smother me with work and love and hate and love and respect
i begin to see myself the way you see me

as i am seen.

as i am seen by you, i am loved by you, and the love in your eyes makes me your forehead furrow and i can see through those fields and into your heart, which for you, resides in your mind.

and my chest leaps forwward into your chest, leaps forward onto your feet and all too eagerly laps at your eyes and the liquid they are seeping and you are holding back

but you knew before I did that I would be all too eager and you accept that.

And I stand before you and you join me in that night when I was lower than I have ever been and you see that night in my heart and hear it in my lips and tongue and need it just like i needed it, you need it to know that I am just like you

I am just like you.

And I hold you in my heart and my arms when you are not around.

And I want to say thank you for seeing me in that moment and not just looking but seeing.

An early morning after (no) sex

On this early morning after no sex,
I take in a gasp
and surprise myself with the embers in my pit.

the cold on my skin licks the heat in my skin and my head
and the purple in my head and my heart forces me into awe
purple, because my thoughts of you are red and blue
and never without linking, never stopping the mixing and the churning and the utter confusion.

you gave me a gift of tongues

you gave me more than you thought you did, thinking then
it's only no sex.
but now, now, now, it's so much more in me.
it's so much more because it is the first time in two years that i've been able to look at myself
and see the woman you touched when you fingered my skin and nuzzled my neck

i look at myself and see the woman that you saw, that you see

the one that makes you burn inside, the one who dominates your thoughts who steals the time from your mind and puts it in a box and shuttles that box into the sky to be lifted lifted lifted

on this early morning after no sex, i saw you and it terrified me.

that i say things to implicate you, to implicate your heart, and that i am playing with it like a cat and a mouse and it's hurting me inside to know that i want to destroy you.

god help me, i want to destroy you.

god help me, you are the best friend I've got that sees the woman I am and I want to destory you.

Your eyes lick over my breasts and my thighs and my calves, touching all the parts of me i've always thought were sexy and then you see them as they are and they should be and they tremble under your eyes
your eyes make me hate you and love you and need you and know that i can never really have what you could give
i can never really have what you could give
i will never have what you could give

i will hurt and destroy and confuse you to equalize the conflict within

you looked so good this early morning after no sex.
you looked so goddamn good and i wanted to touch your chest in the middle where you liked it, where you sighed when i touched and pushed
i was pushing my way into your heart and your life and your mind and i want out now.

i want out now, please.

your kindness is terrifying and i cry when i sit and stand and speak and i cry because you care and it terrifies me

that i am as great as i am, in my head, as i've always told myself how great i am.
that it's true, terrifies me. if you see it, and i see it, i am not blind.
i am not blind and you are not blind
and i've become an awkward beast who knows not its own strength
and i simply want to play

but that play will turn into kiss wiil turn into taste will turn into lick will turn into tease tease moan moan tremble and push and pull and pull and pull and pulling you into me with no sex.

and that play will burn your eyes and into your heart and through your blood i will own and destroy

so please stay away from me when you hold me,
please keep yourself in that distant land of weed and booze and musical peace and not into my head and my heart
i hate it that you are there and i lie to my friends and you are there and i hate it.

the peace and calm that you understand me with makes me hate you because i cannot understand myself with that peace and calm and i cry when i see the frustration in my eyes and i hate it because i love you.
i love you, who you are, not with me.
i love you the best way i can, which is far away from me.

so please...stay far away from me and i will love you that way and you will touch me in the night in your bed in your arms and i will be as far as the planets and you will love me then too

It's been so long and dark

It's been so long since I've written in this thing, I forgot I had it. Literally.

So here's my newest poem, and I'll be writing another today. I'll never be able to put myself and my heart and the things I see into words, but these are my best efforts at the time.

When the light is turned off, the light is gone, the light is dimmed and gone and done and has left you with yourself.
When the light is gone and left me with myself, I knew myself. I knew who I was, what I was, saw myself most clearly when the light was gone.
I saw the pit and the hole and the deep dark ocean that swallowed all me in ink and blood and milk.
The scent disgusts overwhelms hates. The ink hates the milk hates the blood hates hates hates it cooks the inside.
It boils the inside and cooks the heart, done, rough, tough.
A tough heart can't be cut, boil it you motherfucker
BOIL IN THE BLOOD

It's being naked in front of you, who will not run, will not turn, will not disappear. Hate is better than nothing. Hate is always better than anything. Hate me. Please. Look at me and hate me.

I thought he would be there, but I was so fuckin wrong, stupid, alone, BOIL IN THE BLOOD MOTHERFUCKER I FUCKING BOIL YOU

I FUCKING BOIL YOU

You weak piece of shit, weak shit, weak weak WEAK MOTHERFUCKER
the strong boil the weak, i fucking TERRIFY YOU WEAK SHIT

muscle and grit and dirt inside terrify you, grind you, grind your fucking eyes till you walk out you piece of shit.
I will grind your fucking eyes, I will boil you in the shit of my life, I will feed you to the beasts that live in my heart and my head and terrify me until they devour every part of who you used to be and what you could have been. I will boil you in the shit of my life, I will feed you to the beasts in my head.

I will FEED YOU TO THE BEASTS IN MY HEAD MOTHERFUCKER

Sass stands up, sits down, nothing. Sass - not even close. I have not spunk, not sass, not sweet, not sexy.
You're too blind to see.

You're too fucking blind to see.

Shield your eyes so they're the last to go. They will go, they will be chewed and eaten and spat and shit. The beasts will shit your eyes out and they will ruin you, your eyes will ruin you.

The beasts in me run me, ran me, ran me over. Run me over with hate and heat and greed and need and want and want and want like fucking booze and drugs and sex, i fucking need need need need to feed the beasts with all. I feed the beast with heart, boiled, boiled heart, boil it in the blood and simmer it in the ink and drown you in the milky shit of my eyes, the shit behind my eyes that you can't see in my eyes my eyes my eyes have seen the beasts and stared the beasts and fed the beasts and starved the beasts and beaten the beasts.

My eyes will eat you. My heart will reject you, motherfucker.

Stay as far away as you can possibly get, motherfucker. The beasts will boil you in my blood, my blood will erode your skin and your eyes and I will eat your eyes for snacks and pop them in my mouth like grapes, motherfucker.

I will ruin you, the beasts will ruin you, we will ruin you, because we are one and the same, we live in these eyes and we live through these eyes and we feed through these eyes and these eyes will destroy the nothing you are.

The beasts feed on the nothing. I feed on the nothingness.

I feed on the dark, the light gone. The beasts feed on the light, when it's gone. They eat and eat and eat into the black hole, the black hole eats them and they eat it and they grow in strength by eating their own tails and hearts and claws.

Chewing on claws and biting the fur and tearing the flesh and that is the beast in my eyes.

And the beast in my eyes will eat me, stronger, I will eat it, stronger, it will eat you and shit you out onto yourself, motherfucker.

Somedays...

You've got nothing to say but create a blog anyway.
Nothing, except that each person should be left to their own choices, their own decisions. If the government tells a young girl she can't have an abortion, then they have just as much power to tell me that I can't follow a certain religion. Controlling personal lives bsaed on your own fundamental beliefs is pathetic.
Having fundamental beliefs is not.
Thus stands the current debate - Whether Amanda is a heinous bitch for thinking that women and men are incredibly different, and that in a marriage, women should be taken care of and appreciated as WOMEN, and men should be taken care of and appreciated as MEN.
Yes, I'm suggesting that women care for the home and men bring home the bacon. So traditional for a modern woman, no?
My point is, men and women in this post-Feminism society have learned to see only the bad in one another. Women have demonized the male gender, blaming our misfortune on them. Men now view women as manipulative bitches, blaming their misfortune on women.
If we can learn to see that men and women are different in biological, psychological, and socially conditioned ways, then we can accept not only who WE are, but who the other gender is. Not every man is an asshole. Not every woman is a bitch.
It takes a balance of power to create a strong relationship. No, I'm not suggesting that men are better than women or vice versa. I'm extremely opposed to that kind of thought. But where women lack in physical strength, men meet that weakness. Where men lack in emotional communication skills, women meet that weakness.
No one person can do everything alone, so why do we still view ourselves within marriage as autonomous?
Simply because a man has a higher-paying job does not mean that he beat women up to get it.
Simply because a woman does not let others hurt her vulnerable side does not mean she's a bitch.
My good friend Nik argues that I'm wrong, because I'm supposedly stating that men and women are not equal. Equality has nothing to do with gender, race, etc. If you are a human, you have the same basic rights that I do. Period. End of story.
He also argues that much of the differences between the genders can be explained by social conditioning. While I know that some differences are based on social conditioning, it's the same argument that Christian Fundamentalists use when claiming that homosexuals are freaks. In conservative eyes, a messed-up environment creates homosexuality, not genetics or biological tendencies in the womb.
Therefore, I hesitate to even honor the social conditioning argument. I will say this - if this conditioning has been going on for such a long time, and it is only in our current culture that we experience a near 50% marriage failure rate, then maybe the "old ways" aren't such a bad idea! If I was socially trained to like dolls and pink fuzzy things (well, it didn't work. I hate pink), then maybe there's good reason I was trained that way.
Same for boys - they are trained to prefer aggression over peace.
Now, let's ignore the link back to cavemen, when aggression was the only way to survive, and men were protecting their families with that violence.
Let's just pretend that link doesn't exist....
....
....
But it does. Social conditioning cannot account for all gender differences.
Eh....I think that's enough for now. I'll wait for someone to fire back and tell me how I must hate my own gender and how Feminism brought about so many great things and why would I want to revert back to the "old ways"...
Save your breath, I've heard it all before.
And, as this is a fundamental belief of mine, it's not changing now matter how hard you try to convince me to change.
Make an educated response.