spicy

I just "upgraded" my bloggerness. i don't really know what that means but my majadra wrap from oasis was really disappointing. tomorrow is my last required blog entry...i wonder if i'll miss it. i have learned this much:
there are bags of sugar cane candy that french kiss the inside of your eye sockets and when you start stinging all over needing so badly that fix- you'll get pussy-schocked by the electrical circuit hard-wired to your pace maker

untext

i should go home now so i can get some coffee-i've got a lot more work to do tonight. SNAGGLE! I can't believe that there's only one more week of school left and i still have so much work to do.

6:45

today i start drinking at 6:00 because it's just that kind of day. not that it's crazy or hectic, just incomplete (i'm not saying that alcohol will make everything okay, just that my frustrated need for drink comes from the incomplete-ness of the day). gogol bordello is perfect. i don't know why. probably because i used to hate them and now that that's out of the way i see how awesome they are. Edward is terribly annoying and i don't know why he's still around in my life. i definately don't need more stupid people in my life, i make up for most of that myself. i just submitted poems to two literary magazines and i'm nervous because i don't think any of my stuff is good enough for it, but i decided to just go for it anyway because what the fuck- you know? YOU YOU YOU. like you exist. "start wearing purple wearing purple, start wearing purple for me know"

ok- it's time to stop this rambling and start wearing purple and doing something with my life (yeah right)

a poem for you!

in this windy maelstrom
the ice cuts deep
but it's too cold to bleed


hmmm....so lovely

i hate the internets

i hate them so much because i have a lot of shit to do but instead i'm here- writing nothing doing nothing listening to the smiths and watching the cat's climbing up the sides of our house and it's icy out today so i hope that he's okay. but really i have to write this paper that i don't think has any point or meaning- which sucks and i can't really find an advisor for my thesis which also really sucks- bummer all over the place and since i'm being so eloquent i think i'll focus my literary prowess towards another project

as if you read

i'm not listening to music right now so no sneaky lyrics will pulse their way into my writing, unless, of course, the Rolling Stones song that i just heard on my way into the computer lab plays loudly enough in my head to get translated into this crazy technological format. meg's wooden mountain range is frighteningly sexual and i feel uncomfortable grabbing it the way that i just did. ok- i'm going to go now because class is about to start and i can't concentrate

88 seville

look! it's a palm tree in the middle of deeetroit. how exciting. "i'm going to the radio station by way of some errands". shmeggegi. i'm wearing a shirt with a radio on it and soon i'll go over to my boss' house so i can borrow one of her winter coats because my winter coats are still in CLEVELAND and i'm stoooopid (stooopid stoopid stooopid) and now i'm going to put on some socks because FUCK my feet are cold.....

example

ode to my long hair

despite the numerous times i've washed them since i got my hair cut, i still find long hairs in my clothes. they remind me of why i cut my hair in the first place: so there would be less of me to spread around. i can't afford to loose too much of myself: eventually there will be nothing left. i manage to pull the hair out and let it drop in the subtle november spring breeze that has picked up on this absurdly warm day
"be free" i think "don't make your way into anybody's coffee- that wouldn't be nice"

"breath in, inhale vapors from bright stars that shine"

i dreamed last night that i couldn't sleep. talk about bad news- if i'm asleep, i at least want to enjoy it instead of freaking out, thinking that i'm counting sheep when i'm really deep in REM. This is probably one of my favorite songs "what'd you do last night? we did, um, two whole cars..." "the new moon rode high in the crown of the metropolis, shining like 'who on top of this?'" ahhhh,,....so beautiful and perfect and like everything i always figured music should be like- i wonder why- it's not like it's my reality- it's more like it's that dark heart beat that lives in every molecule of me- something gypsy and unknown- lost- shunned- throbbing.
"so much on my mind that i can't recline"
there's a girl in one of my classes that i can't stand and she makes me feel like a bad person because she drives me so crazy- i just wish she'd think sometimes a little more than how much it seems like she thinks.....
"for trees to grow in brooklyn, seeds need to be planted..."

"everytime you turn around your soul gets sold"

it's been a long time since i've felt this kind of energy surging through me- like i might tremble to the point of extinction , i might fall apart if i can't figure out where the seems are to go about suturing them up- making sure the stuffing fits in nicely- I can't hold the glue long enough in my hand to put it in the necessary places. it's all spilling out from the sides and hissing on the burning coils of heat all around and its hissing and hissing and hissing and spurting and the burns are getting in my eyes (and i wish i could see how it burns) and the burns are getting in through the cracks (and i wish i could feel how it burns) and the burns are everywhere like scabs on an old mans head- the kind that flake and you don't want to look but you're also curious as to how that happens and whether or not it will happen to you. it is this kind of energy the kind that makes me dance to songs i can't stand just so i can hear that can feel that creativity that people pour out over pianos and drum sets and her eyebrows are so tattoed there and the circles on his cheeks make me want to get lost in something warm- like maybe her touch and i want to lose myself in her lips and to feel my fingers slip into that waterfall of things i can't possibly understand because nobody makes me feel that way i want so badly to make her feel. and he kisses like there's something i'm not telling that he wants to find out. and i'm scared of the way that is- how you can just say "i like you" and have it mean something- and the other kisses me out in public and wants me to rub against him and that's all i thought it meant but this outdoor thing- where people can see- i don't know that that works for me. and the other writes me things i wish i could say aloud, and the other son't even recognize me and yet the other asks to come in when i want to go to sleep and i don't know where loyalties are and who i'm hurting and whether or not i exist in any of it- just a robotic piece of flesh making my way from bed to bed throwing my head back here, escaping orgasms there, thinking of women when men are deep inside of me, thinking of men when i'm deep inside of me thinking of nowhere when they want to look in my eyes and find something that they recognize as themselves. this is the energy that burns me now- swirling around in thompsonian wind gusts except they don't lift me up to her lips or wrap me around his jawline- no they raise me high up and then let me drop down hard hardhardhardhard when they disappear. so fuck

"he not busy being born is busy dying"

today the world is hiding in its own socks- trying to pull something together out of the deranged molecules scuttling about. and you wonder why this is this and that sometimes is that and is at other times completely at odds with itself. like a hippie wearing brand new shoes, a girl with a shaved head who can't figure out why all of these other girls keep trying to kiss her. and i look for something to consummate me- utterly consume and twist into odd figurines- a flick of the tongue here, a sad lopsided grin there and in between- just someone who can put their arm around me and tell me they'll weather the storm. the uglier we are- the more we try to prove that we aren't, and the more beautiful, the harder it is to be anything but. i wish that i could tie up your eyelashes and guard myself against that fateful stare that totally and completely exterminates what i was going to say in terms of resistance. but your eyes are so blue and those hands feel so much like familiar to me so i can't remember how to shape the word "no". it's time to learn about old men long dead and words that get us confused with people that think and feel and cry when in reality we are the same beings that scrape along the floor of some poison ocean-excreting our old romances in those black bile fumes that we all have to now live in. speed along old man- there's no body to buy here.

number 50

this is my 50th post but I feel like it's all been pretty much the same. I'd just like to say, for the record: "LAND DOG" because that is what life's all about. I left my portfolio at cafe ambrosia today and I fely stupid calling them to ask for them to put it aside for me...I'm sleepy from wading through the dust bunnies in my house- trying to get everything clean so that when we come back from thanksgiving break it will be to a sparkling new house.

fever post

I really miss those mountains- the sky that great expanse swallowing the all of you making all things absurdly small- the mate stuck in your teeth, the garlic in your potatoes, the hickie on your thigh. it is so much less gray than these ice days. bla

the new man

we met a man from nigeria last night at the bar and he seemed pretty cool- he was different anyway from the people we normally meet at bars so we figured- why not. then the time came to go home and we expressed as much with him offering to walk us home. thinking he was being polite we told him that wasn't necessary but he insisted and the three of us left for our house. we walked up to the door and he told me that i could go ahead and go inside but that he wanted to talk to jen a little longer. he told her that he was "going to be upfront" and that he hadn't had sex "in a long time" to which she responded, awkwardly, "oh". he let her off the hook with an e-mail address and we giggled collectively about how creepy he had become.

i really want to take an english course about graphic novels and this morning, as i'm getting ready to go to work, i decided to write the teacher of the course to try to get myself in the class. just as i was finishing the e-mail, getting it ready to send, i see the nigerian man walking up our front step. he hands me a bag of pink gooey pastries and tells me "they're fresh" then proceeds to ask what we're up to tonight, what my e-mail address is, etc.

i think that's creepy

just before class

for real- I'm wet- because it's disgusting outside and i think that i need a real crush who might possibly return the favor and not try to rape me. that'd be great. i think that was insensitive. i love emily canosa!

tooth

kiss my kneecaps twist my hair up into your divine. there is consumption here- cannibalism gnawing away our fantasy. Milla walks home along the winding wharfs overflowing with crying teen babies crack sophisticates holding out their bone stubbles craving her brain waves. And do you wait around the corner- creeping in away up front without your pocket change. swirl me twirl me twist this stubble into something beautiful- make the music nerds spit their rhetoric at their own reflections- i think it would be more profitable for us all.
snaggle

nutritional yeast

i am recovering all of the time and brushing the dirt from my knees everytime i fall down. most of the time people don't believe me when they see the stitches across my side and down my ribcage- they assume too pure thoughts for that much surgery. but just wait, wait and see time reveals things that not even tabloids could hope to unvcover

sometimes this piece of masking tape is all that holds me together and when i expand like yeast continents in a pool of flour and water, i threaten to escape all bounds and that's when they come for me- frightened of what kind of power i could have over you all. the initial shock is in the secrets we keep. because everyone already knows them and when the phone calls keep coming in and none of them are from who you want them to be from and they hold stupid words for you to sift through and you can't quite remember the last time you had sex because it was just that long ago (and of course because you remember almost the exact day sometime before easter it haunts you even more especially because you remember particulars like how you were face down and almost came too fast). but these things are all for a yesterday outside of time. now i will eat my mango chutney and drink my french press coffee and pretend that i am a real human being for a little while until i dive into that chaos once more.

hanging like a curtain

my eyes don't work and the drugs are injected in the hole in my head. direct effect- go straight to the source and all that. there are swirls around the way you talk to me, they spit fire across the table, across the continents and i will never find the time to call you back. i was reminded last night of how hands go places you don't want them to and sometimes people let you know how strong they are when you would've preferred not to know. and i don't know how to slap hard or struggle out and i hate the way i smile when i'm uncomfortable and all i want is to be comfortable all i want is to be comfortable. but you wouldn't really know much about that, right? remember when skin was new and you wanted to do everything you could to polish it right- get to know it in this way and in that way, learn which it liked more; peanutbutter or chocolate, lick at wounds when they smarted and apply the coldpress hard. those days are gone, my dapple-eyed daughter, those days have flown by arrowshaped to canada. now is the time for pushing in and touch my cock- here i'll do it for you. now is the time for sleep. now is the time to keep your eyes closed so you don't have to watch what's happened.

daddy and k

can you believe how this time has gone on. and i am stuck here alone. there has always been an opposite, always been an other, but now there is just me just me and myclean smells and hairy legs. and this is the way it was always meant to be- I think. i have twisted myself up enough to know that i don't resemble myself much at all and yet i keep referring to mysef as if it were something extant. but it is not- with you credit card in the air- it is a lolligagging sinew of neck brace that is all i have left of this false corporeal. and you smile at me like that- like you know what it is- like you know what i am, like you know that i know that i know what i am. but it is just snow in july- just my reason forging itself a new form. i will let you go. i will let you go. i don't want to hold on anymore because you are heavy and my arms are out of their sockets- have been for ages now. and you never wanted me to catch you anyway. so now it is- i will finally let you fall and we can both be all the more comfortable. you know, there was a time when i was all floral patterned icing cakes. and i had feather eyelashes and glittering somethings and i had immortal thoughts on't, my gossamer veins shone like ravers at a gang-bang and my teeth were sharp enough to cut through the metal piercing my neck. you've never felt that kind of cold, have you...it bites, i can tell you that. it bites through and through. i don't know where that small one has gotten to- she's gone by now- lost somewhere and i miss her- except in my nightmares when she comes back, cutting through my brainwaves, and I wake up bleeding out excuses. bleeding out something true.

non-entry

today i felt sorry for myself and out of it. i don't know what went wrong. i guess we all just have "off" days but i can't imagine having to pick up another book. doing anything seems like something unattainable. i feel like a leper. i feel like i'm never going to have sex again. i feel annoying. i think i should go to bed.

mention

i don't know if i've told you this before but sometimes you look like lucifer. maybe it's just the way those horns look growing out of your head and how red that blood is dripping down from the side of your mouth. i'm sure that if you didn't hold your trident in that way- if you didn't use it to stab down the empty skeleton souls that crowd in your living room, you wouldn't give off that impression.

for now,
i think that we've come to an understanding
i go this way and you go that way and when we happen to cross each other's pass
we won't freak out or be those insecure little monsters we are on the inside
o no
we'll just get out our hand grenades and sawed-off shot guns. we'll uncork our barrels of napalm, bare machetes and go after each other like civilized human beings.

that bad?

winter days were warmer when i was walking towards someone who looked like you used to. things were warm even when the sun was so cold and the snow spiraled down around my icicle breath and even when i slipped and fell into some winter pond and the water threatened my blood- things were warmer then. because we had blankets made out of fairy tales and socks that we improvised out of our cupped hands and your skin always felt hot against mine and there was so much fire when we came that i never noticed the cold.

not like now- when the wind bites through everything i'm wearing and my bed is so emptyemptyempty. the temperature hasn't even dropped as low as last time- but i already have hypothermia

scandal

ok- not really- just life and all of it's corners and twists and frustrating things that happen when you don't ask them too. I am the lead in a show and I think that I have yet to understand it. I must leave- this is not the time for me to be dawdling online- it is the time for paul and I to wander through time and spaces dimensions and worldsrunningawayfasttogetherfallinginlovewithpeoplewholoveusaskingforgiftsthatwillneverbeourslearninglanguagesthathaveneverexisteditisthattimenowandnothingelsewillmatterexceptwhetherornotican get away

doodle

“Cleveland?” Thom looked incredulously at all of the license-plates with that curvey Ohio signature. “What the hell are we doing in Cleveland?”

“This is where I call home, baby. Home sweet home, good ol’ Cleveland, Ooohiiiiioooo.” Annie blew her smoke out at the factories scattered around them as they began to cross the river.

“Watch out with that cigarette, Annie, if you drop it, the river might start burning again.”

“Fuck off.” Annie put her head out of the window so that even if Thom had said anything she couldn’t have heard him.

He couldn’t figure out that look on her face. It was like she was seeing something that he couldn’t. The way her eyes softened over the haze of the smoke-stacks. The way her lips seemed to embrace the measly skyline. Her smile was one of comfort. Like she had fallen into something soft and covered in satin. Where he could only see “fucking Cleveland” she was seeing home and even the trash on the highway seemed to welcome her back.

to make up for the last two days

I haven't been around much recently and i have to apologize. it must be weird for my body- to walk around without anything on the inside. but, sometimes i have to escape- run away to places yet untold and in my mind everything is well- everything is calm- while my body gets hung up by the thumbs- twisting and pulling and peeling- high pitched lemon tears. "make it a double make it a double" (that;s the second morphine reference i've made in my blog- shit...) it is 10:20 am and i have officially decided that it is time to get things moving- put ink to paper- say fuck it all and kick some ass. yell at the world for holding my head underwater and rip off my shirt to reveal the thousands of iron muscles underneath...bitch.

too many yer mom jokes for one evening

what if one day i say "uuumm...i was with yer mom last night an it was really good" and you start laughing because i always joke like that but then there's this uncomfortable silence because it's actually true...i WAS with yer mom last night and it WAS really good...would that ruin our friendship?
-different thought completely-
sometimes it would be nice to just tell the truth. For example:
-How was your night last night?
-Pretty good- I fucked myself until two in the morning- my hand still has a cramp!
-Wow- that sounds like a workout!
-Yeah- how was your night?
-Oh- you know, I cried myself to sleep because I miss you so bad.
-That sucks- I'm sorry. It really sucks that we had to break up but I just hated the fact that I still had to sneak into your house so your mom wouldn't know I was there and you never washed your underwear.
-I know- it was pretty lame. Plus, I never told you but I was sleeping with your brother the whole time. So it's probably a good thing we broke up.
-My brother's gay? You're gay?
-Only sometimes.
-Well, it was really nice to see you, but the conversation just got really awkward so I guess it's time to part ways.
-Definately! And even though it's a terrible idea, if you ever want to have meaningless sex with someone who's still totally enfatuated with you- give me a call!
-Wow! That does sound like a terrible idea! I think i'd rather smash a brick repeatedly into my skull.
-I'm not gonna lie- that really hurts my feelings! But it's all good- because I'm sleeping with your sister and all four of your roommates too! See you around!
-Yeah- see ya!

8:40

it was stupid of me to work today- working everyday- not stopping to get any work done- not the best way to exist in the world. today is rain and this weekend has been ghosts. i see you out of every corner of my eye- why do i sometimes miss you? only now- only when the leaves are turning- and this month is supposed to be someone else's. and danny says that we should love the whole world and to spend to much time on one person is to deny you the knowledge of someone else and it's your duty to know as many people as you can and to love them all. but my heart is not that all-incompassing. i need to take my time, survey bodies and make maps to use when i get lost in someone's skin. i need to feel that slow falling in- the transition from complete strangers to complete comfort...even though one day when you go to lean on your lover they have disappeared- and you fall on cold. i hope i can get a haircut soon- i don't want my hair to become mulletoid.

meh

sad face...llike this: pouting your lips down far- away from each other, towards the cluttered floor. knit your eyebrows like the mittens you'll never learn how to make. squint your eyes up scrunchy and whine a little bit in between talking about sad kind of things.

happy face...like this: stretching your lips up and away from each other and towards that clear blue sky. open your eyes up wide to take everything in and laugh the way you did in middle school when you all would laugh so hard without understanding why.

liza face...like this: remain neutral- almost robotic because you don't actually realize that these things are happening to you. scrunch your lips up to your nose to see whether or not it's cold. blink a few times because your contacts are dry.

"when the war is over you can read the paper"

ahha! so that's the way of it then? Why the fuck is this all underlined??? So annoying. Everything's so annoying. staying over my house- eating my food, drinking my beer when i offer it- what's up with that. i wish i could get my life back together for a minute or so. i hope i did ok on my paper- if i did i hope i get it back today- if i didn't i hope i won't find out any time soon. Morality...such a strange concept really- doesn't really make sense but we all know transgressions when we see them. Do we like them better when they're so impossible for us? Or are we appropriately turned off from the whole idea? I like comics-really i do- they are everything- they are life- they are not my life- but i kind of wish they were- i wish that brian vaughn and terri moore and david mack just flowed off of my tongue like your saliva- but they don't really and i'm always swimming in some lake full of stuff I don't really want to be submerged in. It's getting in my nostrils. in my eye-sockets. and you looked comfotable yesterday. so comfortable that i wanted to forget that we're supposed to hate each other now and i came so close to wanting to kiss you that my insides fell out through my fingernails. You were there and i was not. or we were both there but couldn't see each other. or we were there and i was yelling at you so loud to turn and face me and just make something make sense out o f this pile of shit. but you couldn't hear me i don't think. and then what happened next i saw not and speak not of.

ramblings

There is a light outside my bedroom window and it flickers on and off. Like it’s a motion detector and it can tell when the butterflies in my stomach are flying rampant and when I’ve been able to calm myself down. Off and on; somewhere between helpful and annoying, somewhere between light and dark. Somewhere between laughing and crying. It flickers on and it makes me think of the way he smiled and it flickers off and it makes me think of the way he cried and the way I wanted to gather him up in my arms forever and whisper him stories that never happened.

I got uncomfortable around him easily because I knew that I could do anything at all and he would still love me and I didn’t know what to do with that kind of power. We would sit on the hill across from his work overlooking my old elementary school and he would watch the way I had no idea how to communicate with him. We would look at each other and he wouldn’t flinch when our eyes met and I didn’t know what that meant so I would kiss him and try to force myself to feel something and then when I felt something I would kiss him again to kill whatever it was I was feeling.

And he would smoke and I would tell him he shouldn’t smoke and I hated myself for sounding like a mother and he liked me for sounding like I cared. And he would drink and I would say that I didn’t drink and I hated myself for sounding like I thought I was better and he liked me for not being like everyone else in his life.

And he would cut himself and I would tell him that he shouldn’t and I hated myself for looking after him. And he liked me because I noticed.

The light turns off. The light turns on. The way he would hold my hand even when I didn’t want him to. The way he wanted me even after I had left him for someone else. The way he never asked me questions he didn’t want an answer to. The way he put his arms around my stomach at a concert and the way I felt proud to be there with him and he felt proud to be there with me. Like we were both saying to every one else: “look what I have, this person is mine.”

The way I smelled like someone else. The way he knew but didn’t ask because he didn’t want to know. The way I wanted to cry when he told me he loved me. The way I have forgotten what it means to love someone else. The way I have forgotten how to cry.

The light turns off.

germans play golf with a shotgun

they're taking down my house around me and all of my windows are open- I'll have to get dressed in the bathroom. i can't believe it's already almost noon, I feel like I have more to do then i had thought and then tonight will be all crazy with closing at the job I don't actually work at....bla. These people are going to keep coming into my house- GO AWAY! Today is almost my day off. tea is warm. cereal is cold. i should have just had tea for breakfast. but i guess that's not very filling is it? I'm out of it this week- don't have anything to keep me zipper-lined to the ceiling- instead i'm bumping all around the room- like helium balloons in the apocolypse.

paul...my bedfellow

the weekend has been non-existant and everything swirls around me without getting caught in my fishing net. I've heard from dead men, walked arm-in-arm with annie oakley, changed genders three different times and danced with strangers. Right now I am pouring hot water into an old tin bowl so I can get in and stay warm. not until november, i keep telling myself: not until november. I left early yesterday at everything and I hope that my lovelies understand that my wanderlust has little to do with anything apart from how heavy my body has become. working under silver jewelry and falling in love with people that cannot belong to me. smoking cigarettes that invade my brain putting burn marks on neurons and smoked nooses around my capillaries. I swagger cowboy style when you see me, but really, I've lost my legs.

"i'd like to take it apart and find your bloody heart"

my fingers are only bone splinters that twist around your entrails at the days closing and you are so tired and wish it would go away but your pillow has turned to stone stone stone and when you try to fluff it up you break your hand. Isn't that how these things always go? Spinning around toytop until fall and break open on the concrete sand. i think i had a dream with your face in it glowing like always and then exploding into everywhere. and you tell me that the remedy is there i just have to look for it. all i know is that there are small ones around our stomping feet and they break easy when our boots fall hard. you'll ask your mother for forgiveness and your father for protection. your sisters will knit you socks and your brothers will kick my ass and you can sit lotus in the middle having some big breasted woman stir honey into your tea. is that what it is then? just you (siddartha) and me (jezebel) and our guide (orpheus) walking around blindfolded bumping into each other. eating our hearts for breakfast and our livers for lunch and our jugulars for dinner. what's for dessert? i only wish that i could tast you briefly before we bleed ourselves to the end of it. see if i can claim what's yours underneath all that mess.

o! light shining through

last night my computer told me that "judgement" was spelled incorrectly and that in fact it was spelled "judgment" and now I'm looking at the third volume of the ex machina trade edition and it clearly has "judgement" written on the cover. and next to it is a pack of michigan lighthouses and on the other side operation ivy and "the wealth of nations" along with an umbrella and a roll of masking tape. my socks are right over there and a pile of applications i've picked up over the past couple weeks is cluttering the table by the window. my roommates colored on some paper plates yesterday and now we have one of the sun and another saying "bienvenidos a nuestra casa". i feel like they should be hung up somewhere but for now they're just resting in front of the record player. i am too bored to make it through today. the go here get this done tell them what to do write up on this thing duck your head down there kind of day spent with people who think too much of themselves and never shut the fuck up. that's the kind of day that i have in store for me and it makes me want to get back in bed. i was the first one up today even though my roommates both have class at ten and i have class at 12. i wish coffee money grew on something that was close to my house so i didn't have to consider it an expense.

onion eyes

kind of strange to realize that this is it. i mean, i'm writing on the internet for nobody really at all except for myself and that's kind of depressing. like i'm reaching out into the universe but only coming back with a fist full of air. hopefully the electronic world of the internet and my computer is enjoying the tickeling sensation it gets while i type, while i post- otherwise my life will be like the bottom of a pot of beans that have been left on the stove for two days- that no one wants to clean because it's so caked in by now. then again, maybe my life is like that anyway. i'm tired and sick of not doing work and instead just sitting at cafes trying to come up with other things to occupy my time. i'm tired of talking and sounding the way i do. i'm sick of the things i say. i'm bored with my limited knowledge and over-pronounced opinions. i'd like to just be translucent for a while. a piece of plastic wrapped around cylindrically sliding up and down sidewalks. i'm done with creating things that no one will ever like and never having enough time to make things that i like. i'm through with having the only people who like my stuff be people who don't know the difference. i'm bored with thinking about sex i don't get and the memories i don't like. i've grown too old for your face (that fucking face) and i'd like for it to disappear. i'd like for us all to disappear. from time to time.

all I need to be happy

I coud eat whole boxes of macaroni and cheese and listen to Joanna Newsom for the rest of my life and be content. all i'd need in between is a good book, a phone call or three from my sister, a cup of tea and every once in a while someone to touch me in the way that reminds me of what i'm supposed to be evolutionarily. That's really all. all i really need.

in the morning

it's hard to figure out what to wear when it's raining so hard. makes me wonder if it wouldn't just be best to get back in bed and sleep the grey day off like a hangover. my bicycle is sad these days without a nice day to frolic in and my neighbors hack down their trees with such gusto like there must have been something offensive about the whole thing.

there are some stories i just wish would never end.

everywhere and nowhere at all

weird how things get scrambled together and fried like this. like remembering how i used to look at his back, remembering who else has put butterflies in my stomach remembering how long it's been since anyone has and how long until anyone does. and that's ok. just odd sometimes. like my life isn't quite what everyone is always telling me it's going to be. and how "friends" sounds so easy until you realize it's just a very fine film over the roaring monster that really lives underneath. if you scratch, like i always do, you'll see how ugly it really is under there and even though the cover is creamy and a little salty like they all used to be, you'll prefer the outside to the hostility that's underneath. and who knows why it's there in the first place. it just is. it's just the way things go because once you find out who someone is and then leave them behind, we all get kind of embarassed that our secret has been discovered. so we turn beastial. and that's where we all live. somewhere between secret sharing and teeth bearing.

i'd like to unstring your knees so i can finally get my harp to sound like something important again. your tendons never did sound so sweet as when i was plucking them like this.

ode to you who i should have loved

you words are cold on white screens, dear plaid eyes. I wish you'd breath more life into it.

the basement is warm as any carpeted cinderblock could be. nintendo creeping into your fingers while Kraft singles melt into their plastic without anyone noticing but we eat anyway and can't tell the difference.

one day my 15,000 page autobiography will be found clogging my gutters and you'll wish so bad that you could read it through the water damage

rabbazabba

yesterday i climbed into bed after i took a shower and i felt my skin get so warm against itself and the steam from the bathroom was piling billowy into the hallway and i was so happy to be there with myself until i remembered that sometimes there is someone else there and they crawl into bed with you and tuck their legs up underneath you and even though you can be warm on your own, you'll never be cozy like you are when you're snuggled there with someone else. thinking like that got me to shivering and i tried not to remember the way skin feels right up close to you but the memory was so sweet like ice cream after you've eaten too much anyway and that's where you fit in with me yesterday.
i guess nobody's ever told you about how the steam gets in your blood, boiling it away until it's nothing but a thin layer of scrap on the basement floor. at first you might be kind of upset about all that blood getting away from you, but i've lived without it for long enough and it's honestly not all bad as they make it out to be.

are you a hologram?

time, you are a sly bastard...sneaking up on me like this and not letting me know which are the rules that you play by even when you know how different they are from mine. "it's going to be twice the phun...cuz it's two way"

i found a wedding bouquet on the ground today...a little odd if you ask me

an ode to menthol cigarettes

i use at least twice as much rice as real food...especially if the real food is spicy. it's not that i don't like it- just that my mouth is a little wimpy sometimes. today i saw one of the past loves of my life's mother and we were talking to each other like we wished we could be in on some secret together. i found myself wishing i could be her daughter-in-law without having to anything with any of her children and it made me wonder what all that's about. why i love the families of my exes so much...why i forgive these boys their idiotness as long as they take me home for dinner every once in a while. emily gave me pirate band-aids today and they make me happy.

did you ever use to make out at red-lights and then the cars behind you would honk all crazy because your 16-year-old self got lost in the way one of his hand felt behind your neck-the other on the steering wheel and the light had turned green.

has life ever snuck up behind you, slithering on the floor, grabbing your heels, tying them together like shoelaces and it hurts but you can't scream out because you have company and you don't want to alarm them. Are you still sitting there, too embarassed to stand up and show the world?

so what if a glass of wine gets me drunk

seriously though folks, are you even LISTENING to the local music show on WCBN? Jacuzzi is officially my all-time favorite band...like woah. "Get down Ann Arbor, I know you want to!" so true... so true. Wow, I'm almost using caps! almost. Right now I'm wearing grandma shorts that I acquired from the Pioneer costume room. it's pretty fantastic. the navy clue pants in combination with my super red collared shirt make a perfect soccar mom. which is really what I've always wanted to be. One love, Ann Arbor. and Goodnight
~lizaaaaaaaaa

to my reflection over the top of my computer screen

whenever i see you, you don't look like the person i always thought you were. i mean, the double standards somehow don't fit within that one body and...is it my body? is it my face? the loves of my life will read everything i've ever written and know for certain that the "you" of which i speak is them. each of them. they will twist our memories until it fits my description (just as i twist their's- so desperate to fit somewhere). but, you see, they don't belong anywhere on paper. i have only ever been writing about myself because myself is all i know enough to write about. and because i need to remind myself that i am watching, that i am there. i am not alone as long as i am here with me. am i schizophrenic? it's always a distinct possibility. the dresdon dolls sing the same songs to me and i wish that i could sing back- just to have a conversation with someone without sounding like the way i sound. and because they have more self-interest than i do...and you gotta admit- that's saying something. someday i'll wear yellow petticoats while i water my red roses and even though there are parasites eating away at the bottom of my feet, my red smile and white skin will shine all the way through to the neighbor's front porch. it won't matter that my daughter's a crack whore at 13 or that my son robs corner stores while he should be at soccer practice because i will blissfully ignore it all and just keep on smiling and baking cake after cake after cake.

so liza, aren't you coming out to the bar?

sometimes the wind catches me off balance and i land into you with the loudest of bangs. here we are. on the floor with a pile of unanswered correspondences. they crinkle under our bodies as we scurry away from each other, scared of what the mess will do to our carefully crafted egos. your feet get left behind and my ears droop down until they trip me up and i land on my ass again. the dogs are out tonight, dear. they howl like untrained opera singers and they gnaw at the edges of my toes until the blood spills out like it always wanted to do. they know the taste of your flesh and they are looking they are looking they are looking. but you have always been good at hiding behind me. letting me get all of the attention while you sneak out safetly through the back. you know, there was a time when all i could do was say your name. now i am hung up in the garden with my lips sewn shut. a scarecrow for the lost souls we never gave names to.

my post

yesterday jen slept until four and she was the first to go to bed last night. she was confused and frustrated but i was kind of jealous of her. i'd like to sleep all day some time. not like it's a great thing or anything, just because sometimes your bed is really fucking comfortable and the day is grey and your shoes hurt, so why the fuck not? Right? I finally decided that i'll be writing about rhode island and corey because i miss him and because i don't really want to talk about anything that's happened recently- in a way it's still kind of happening, even if it doesn't seem like it. i'll scoop up a whole bunch of these white flowers in my backyard someday and make a bouquet just for you and you'll say it smells really sweet and i'll know it has no scent at all but i'll still appreciate that you said it did. does. something.

if i were a rch man...daidaidaidaidaidaidaidaidai dum

This is an ode to hairy legs and to sweat-stains. An hommage to those girls that will never be able to contain their genes enough to be perfect. A recognition of all who deal with uni-brows and mustaches, big feet and rounded bellies. In other words, it is for every one. Every girl who has felt like less of a girl because when she airbrushes herself it doesn't stay. For anyone who has tried to cover-up their sweat-glands and put cover-up over their dark under-eyes. Us imperfects who are everywhere but nowhere in our mock-ups. Why is the idea of "feminine" always a negation of humanness. Girls should never smell, always shave, never admit to having a digestive system except to embarassingly admit to liking chocolate. I'm no ball-breaker but I'm kind of sick of having to question my femininity. Aren't a female if my genetics and my psychology agree? Why am I a dyke or a man-hater or more masculine for cutting my hair and not shaving? How is that a logical argument? I still have a vagina, right? SO what is a woman? What is feminine? And why the fuck do we expect ourselves to follow along with such arbitrary definitions if it's not what our character tells us is right?

your love gets sweeter every day

my eyes are tired and my throat is scratchy. i know i should like this music because it's motown and everyone sould like motown but for some reason i'm really annoyed by it right now. annoyed by a lot of things and somewhere i'm kind of stressed out but mostly i'm able to stay above everything and not care all that much and yea, that's a little bit of a lie, but not terribly. last night i went to a poetry reading and it made me want to do something like that- like getting up in front of everyone and showing them want i sound like when i speak in my own language but i know that it's not as endlessly fascinating as it is to me. i know this because a lot of the poems last night weren't all that fantastic but you know the poet felt like their entire being was in that poem so who are we to talk trash? "oh bob" "oh tina, you're feeling good baby" "oooohhh" "ahhhhh". i'm confused.

sometimes people make believe they love (me)

the first boy i ever kissed was my best friend, sam, and we went at it for what felt like a life-time. i remember being so surprised by how lips moved and all of the things they could do and how tongues could be like exclamation points or elipses depending on your intent. it was like some secret was suddenly revealed to me and i finally understood why people did it so much and that i would do it so much or at least try to because kissing was like the gateway to this other world where anything was possible even if nothing ever happened.
the first boy i had sex with was my high school boyfriend, danny. we had just watched "angelheart" (a danny devito movie about the devil) and he was almost on his way to work and my dad and step-mom had left for the symphony and before we knew it we were half-way up the stairs, most-of-the-way undressed and we reached that point where we both wanted it to happen and our bodies were telling us it was now but neither of us could actually bring it up. until he did or i did and then we did and even though it hurt it was like seeing a new color and it's so bright you think you have to close your eyes. he was so close to me it made me carnivorous; wanting to press him further into me wanting to taste every part of him so i could know it when he wasn't near.
the first boy who ever insisted on not using a condom to the point where he "put it in" even after i told him not to was matt. and he had no real relationship with me except that we slept together for a month or so. i remember being so shocked by how naked i felt with him there without anything without me wanting it and even though we were sweating i was so cold and i just kept trying to tell myself that i liked it because i knew that if i admitted that i didn't, i'd completely fall apart.
the first boy who refrained from having sex with me because he wanted to get to know me better was Lucas. and even though i was annoyed because all i really wanted to do was get laid, i was so happy and so confused. he cared about me in this way i couldn't understand because i was still hung up on my ex-boyfriend but when he kept not wanting to have sex it made me realize that he knew my distance and wanted me to close to him in every way-not just physically. i wanted to care for him the way that he cared for me, not so we could fuck, but so i could understand not wanting to.
maybe this is too personal. maybe it's too intimate maybe none of it's true.

it's sunday...huzzah

the more i learn about he art world, the farther away from it i want to get. with its high-heeled gallery openings and up-turned noses. it makes me sick. it makes me jealous it makes me lost confused because what do i do now that i know i don't want a part of it and maybe my whole life i was meant to be a bio-ethicist and here i am drawing pictures all of the time and being more happy at painting then at anything else i've ever done in my whole life but i haven't been able to paint in years so i'm not really a painter any more am i? was it hegel who said that the true artist could never actually create a piece of art because it could never be as perfect as the creator...or something like that. maybe that's it, or maybe i'm just lazy or self-conscious or not pretentious enough blablabalblablabla i write that a lot don't i? last night i danced like i'd never danced before and it reminded me of my ex-boyfriend and how we never danced because he "didn't dance" and i'm pretty sure that's why our sex-life was never mind blowing and then i started thinking about my other ex-boyfriend and how we danced all of the time even when there wasn't any music and how it always felt so awesome and now i'm thinking i should probably stop thinking about the exes because those thought-processes always end in the same realization that no matter how much you think, none of that will change what reality is and maybe that's a bummer but i'm pretty sure it's a good thing. i wonder what my parents would think if i brought a grlfriend home for thanksgiving dinner....

blabalbala

last night i got stung by a yellow jacket twice. once on my chin and once on my chest. it got a couple other party-goers too. it hurt! i can't remember the last time i got stung by a bee-type insect. crazy. after that a girl at the party fell off of her bike and chipped her teeth. seeing as it was an accident prone evening, we decided to leave as soon as possible. which wasn't really soon enough...people make me nervous...or something. i think i'd just prefer to not be around them. that's not entirely true- i like my friends and i don't mind that other people exist (necessarily) i just don't like having to talk to them when i don't really want to. i keep cutting my hair at random lengths and now i'm worried about getting hair all over our new bathroom so i tend to not cut enough in trying to avoid a mess! i finally have a bike! i'm very excited. i think we'll get along pretty well. she has red handle bars. remember in high school when guys used to call pig-tails "handlebars"? that was really annoying. there were fraternities and sororities at my high school (don't ask why...) and for Beta, the "pledges" had to wear pigtails every tuesday and thursday. so when guys used the term 'handlebars' with them i thought it was funny, because i thought they were stupid...or maybe i was just jealous that they stole my best friend. her name was lauren and we got into trouble together. it was fun. we pulled stupid pranks on people and got drunk before writing our ninth grade math term papers. after a while it got weird though because we started competing for things, like who had made-out with more guys or gone to more parties- stupid shit like that. after a while we just stopped being friends...i think she may have slept with my lame ass boyfriend on my couch once. high school is fucked. my legs are really hairy and i love it and i'm totally self-conscious about it too but don't really have to worry too much since i'm not exactly trying to attract the alpha-male or anything. i don't know what i'm writing about...i'm done...

it's 10:40 and I'm going to sleep

this is the corner of my room...and it makes me even sleepier then i already am. really...i'm sleepy. i put photos all around my room today (although not in this corner). pictures of my sisters and my nephews and my parents. there are ones of when we were all little and our mother and father still looked each other in the eye. the corners of the photos are rounded. we each look like a different species from what we are today. i'd like to find what's left of them in us..we doe-eyed children and wide-smiling parents. there has to be something left. i am slanted today. bending towards the ground with unbending knees. walking downhill was all but catastrophic. i wish i could figure out what story is mine to tell...

what should i be doing instead?

-No, you're going to DO the radio show.
-blablabla
-(laughing)
-blablablablablabla
-No, really Allison. You've got to do it!
-blablablablablablablabla
-Ok, but I should go, I haven't done ANY homework and you have to go do important stuff too.
-blabla
-I know my parents are going to totally freak out.
-blablabla
-I know, but you remember what happened LAST time that happened.
-blablabla
-(laugh) You like mixing it up, Allison.
-blablablablablablablablablablablabla. bla.
-Yeah, I know. Me too. Ok, well I'll talk to you soon.
-blablablablaa
-(laugh) Just tell her that she's been whoring out her sex toys to other countries. (laugh laugh lau)
-blablablablabla
-Ok ok ok. I miss you! Talk to you soon.
-bla
-Same here!

you've been telling me this whole time that things are just as they are (as they are as they are as they are) and i wish i could believe you but it's in the way that we all smile sometimes when we're so drunk off of 55 cent beer even though it's monday night and, yeah, i know that i don't look like her and that i'll never get her and that he'll never like me (because who the fuck doesn't shave under their goddamn armpits) and i really wish that i could tell you i didn't care and that i'm happier the way i am because i am enlightened. i know the TRUTH but of course we all know that's complete bullshit...i just wish i could prove that the hair around my drain could form something beautiful if i lifted it up in the right kind of way. i just wish that friends would stay forever if you held them tight enough. i just wish that with enough training- we could all become something worthwhile. Meanwhile, she is brushing her teeth, examining the angles that her jawline make against the white tiled walls and she's counting the number of blackheads that make her so imperfect and the number of muscles that make him so delicious and she wishes that she could tell me....but i'll keep not listening...because i've cut off my ears...because the noise is too loud. and i'm pretty sure that one day i'll see him at a bar and then we'll be talking and then we'll be leaving and his hand will be around my waist so casual and when we get to his house (which is closer than mine) i'll suddenly forget what it felt like to not want this and then our lips will be so warm and tongues will live and hands will be everywhere and his bed will stumble upon us without introduction and the way he unzips my pants won't be like intrusion and the his hands fit everywhere won't be rude and the way my fingers hold onto his skin will be perfect and the way we don't see each other later will be the way i have always wanted it to be....but i create these lies for myself all of the time.

We’re speeding down the highway singing Bonnie Raitt. Ok, go on, make fun if you must (and if you’re an ex-boyfriend of mine, there’s no use because I already know you’re thoughts on the matter), but clearly if you’re disapproving it means that you’ve never flown down some Southwestern road (most likely lost) with your sisters and mother singing “Well I met you on a mid-way, at a fair last year” just about as loud as you can. And as far as you’re concerned you all sound just like the recording because the wind whipping through the open windows is too loud for any of you to actually hear each other. You know that no matter how sad the lot of you are and how angry at each other and how frustrated that you’ll never forget what you’re parents looked like kissing each other and how happy you were for a minute because you thought it meant they wouldn’t get divorced, you know that in spite of all this, there is this song, this album, and you all know it by heart. And for a minute you can all be together on something. And if you’ve never had this experience, I am sad for you and realize that you must find joy somewhere else and so I will permit you to make fun of us for still liking Bonnie Raitt.

your castle and my moat

here we are and i'm not sure why my stomach feels like this but it makes me want to scream really loudly until everything spills out so i can just eat my fucking dinner. it's not about want or need it's about that memory fire that starts burning so hard and it pricks at my skin in a way i don't really understand but i wish i could because then maybe i could control it, control myself. make everything bad turn good. remember how much better being alone is when you're not waiting for someone else. there's nothing i can point to nothing i can comprehend just that fucking memory fire scorching through me just that burnt smell of my skin reminding me how hard i can cry sometimes. the cats are coming in- crawling around our house, up the walls and down again and they sleep in my lap when i black out and chew on my fingers when the blood stops circulating. there are things pounding down on this keyboard- things that i want to say, want to do. there are memories swarming around me and earlier i kept letting them slip out and that truth would just be hanging between us, a bastard child of some other time and i wanted to pick it up, give it a kiss let it know that i still loved it. but we could only ignore it, because that's what happens now. we know everything but we keep it wrapped under because reminding each other of what we tasted like on the bridge or how sometimes peach juice would coat my lips or how the silence that used to build up so tall next to us- all of these memories would get to knocking down this oh-so-carefully manufactured wall we've constructed so guard us exactly from these things. so none of it happened, or none of it was supposed to have happened, or they happened but everyone should just pretend they didn't and the ignored memories start burning up, smelling like dead bodies and we wonder what all this smoke is around us. And how the fuck do we get away from it....

i'd love so much to have my stomach all in one piece.

i summon the mail gods

so cold. there is an empty man in the truck threatening to tear through the window in the front of my house and his head is made out of cloth but his shoulders are metal through and through. somewhere there are mountains missing me like i escaped their womb and they sing to me in my sleep sometimes but i try to pretend not to hear them otherwise i might get up in the middle of the night and walk my way down to that cowboy country and you'll all wonder where the hell i went. so i cover my ears with my pillow and i try to hummmmmm try to bury everything under try and make believe that liberty street is an endless hill of towering possibilities. "well i can dish it out but i just can't take it".

and you stand there screaming but i can't hear what you're trying to say

there are very small things and they hide just underneath my cuticles. they get to scratching sometimes and that's when the biting begins. the kicking the screaming the fistfulls of hair that fly around this room like animals trying to escape something that lives inside of them and no matter how many times they run against the wall they can't get it out can't get it out get it out. i think that this room may be made of glass (just like the side panels of your skull- that's why it crushes so easily under my feet) and i'm so scared of running through the walls- thinking it's an open door like those birds that get caught in train stations and airports and you can't help but wonder how the fuck they got there and how the fuck will they leave? But this isn't a story about exiting- oh no-and it isn't a story of imprisonment. it is a story of how tall things get when you water them too much and how depending on how you say "success" people will always think you're saying "suck" and they wait for something dirty until you finish the word and then they'll get disappointed because they'd really have preferred to hear something that ended wet...pavement has taught me this just now (thanks stephen malkmus). i always forget that i'm the kind of person who waits for the phone to ring until i find myself there again- balancing on my toes counting imaginary measurements of time to justify my actions. "Ok, at the count of three i'm just going to say 'fuck it' and call him...one........twoo............twwooo and a haalf...................what the fuck, it doesn't even matter anyway." Anything can get as small as you want...if you just close your eyes tight enough.