"You" Is a Second Personal Pronoun to Distance Oneself

You fly off of the hot handle
of a brilliant red pan
where you wish your hand
would rest for
ever.
You whisper to yourself,
"God, you deserve it,"
and God doesn't respond.
You learned it in philosophy,
that some people believe in faith
in God
being the same as faith
in romantic love.
If you talk to someone who
works in mysterious ways,
why do you try to make sense
of a damn human?
You're too similar to distinguish
yourself from yourself.
You mutter your problems,
but will never move to speak
to those who try to help you.
And you feel sorry for yourself.
Damn you.
You.

Drink and Be Mary

I would take your fork
and silence your groans
through grinding teeth
with my hand.
I would guide you to my table,
if you were hungry,
to dine with me.
First with spoons,
cupped to catch the beams
from a skyscraper in the city
that moves with flecks
of inorganic dust.
We would not eat,
but we would dine happily.

We would sit
by an indigo ocean
in a rowboat beached onshore.
We would drink from oily
oyster shells and make
the water as salty
as history made our tools,

but you deserve better.
I would lead you with one
hand on the crook
of your arm or neck,
the intimate places
no one wants to think about.
Into nothing; onto nothing
in the center of everything.
The flame of the sun
slides off the moon
and bleeds yellow watercolor
into our purple sky

and onto our hands.
We would stain ourselves
with moonbeams and beams
of trees through the dirt.
We would have all of our minerals
and smile with fingernail grins.

 Based very loosely on Margaret Atwood's work. Gooooodnight. -.+

Sleep Deprivation

Strange to be the last awake.
To stare into nothing,
pretending to do
something.
To take a picture
from a frame with cracked
paint on the edges, and pull it
to our faces with our mindlessness,
with arms out to catch the rush
of cloud as it falls from our feet.
We lift a feather pillow
to suspend it on top
of the peaches
that grow
out of the living room river.
Now I step on them,
an airy, bubbling jam
or jelly—I never know.
The rug is an ill blue.
The couch retires into itself
and welcomes me
as a worn traveler named
Peregrine.
I still walk on the peaches,
my toes motionless
like the shadowy moving pictures
the painters drew on
the ceiling.
My light and dark matter
makes meaning where I find
that fruit sprouts from only
water.
That makes sense.



Seriously sleep deprived... it's 2:00 A.M.! Yeeeeaaaa! (Does it bother anyone else that "yea" is spelled like "yay" now?  Everyone thinks I'm saying "yeah", but really I'm just stubborn in changing my word choice...)  This is supposed to be based on Gary Soto's work.  Haha.  But it really seems absolutely nothing like it.  But, you know what? Whatevs.  Maybe he'd write about sleep deprivation in whatever way it came to him when he was really freaking tired too.  Kiiiiinda mainly "inspired" by "Looking Around, Believing", I guess?
Last line because... what the heck, it's 2:00 A.M., I can do whatever I want, right?  And... if we wanna get all serious, people have a lot of issues with more abstract poetry, I find, even though this isn't really abstract.  Everyone thought "Above Each Other" was really abstract and couldn't figure it out at all -- but they thought it was okay.  There was only one person who really had issues with not understanding it, and would prefer to... so, still pondering making edits on that. 
WHY AM I NOT WRITING MY LAST POEM OF THE NIGHT?? Gah. :-( I wanna sleep instead.

Cell Walls

It is cool outside, biting
without causing pain.
I'm sitting, cross-legged
because the vents are silent
for five more minutes,
and sleepy with hours
of "nothing much"
looking at photos of daffodils.

I wonder how the plants know

to spring up in the dry cold.

I wonder how they want
to come back each time
after a long, bitter winter
like the mal taste of an almond.

The heat turns on
and makes the curtains
wave to our chloroplast-
filled friends in the dark
and nubs in the dirt,
pale because their two lips
have yet to be kissed
by the fire, silent still.
The air turns on and off
again while my feet switch.
Is it warm in their toes?
They cross and bundle

dead together and alive alone.
I count the minutes until
I'll need to sleep,
weakness of a mind.
I wonder if the flowers count
the seconds between
each cycle of the sun.

This is the first draft of a poem that is loosely inspired by Gary Soto's work.  I needed some stuff to turn in tomorrow for lit mag... so here I am actually trying! :-) (I'm a procrastinator.)  However, I actually do like this "modeling after a poet" idea.  Gary Soto and Margaret Atwood are awesome.  Mostly this is based on the usual simplicity (straight-forwardness) of Soto's work and his brief story-telling qualities.  I'll revisit it soon, I think, because I feel like it lacks a lot of similarities to the best things of his work [his unexpectedly beautiful words, 

"With an eye we lift up the peach tree

And hold it up to the wind —  white blossoms

At our feet." (Gary Soto, "Looking Around, Believing"]

but that's a thing to work on when I don't have hundreds of points on the line.  

 Edits made: "while it's cold" to "in the dry cold". "silent" to "silent still". "sun" to "fire".

A bunch of crappy poems because, you know, what the heck

I Don't Want to Share My Room, No Siree, I Dislike It On Any Day I Do

I really rather dislike
this line thing down the boards
that separates our sides
because yours is a real bore.
I'd rather have a wall
to replace that pallid tape
so I would not have to look
at your mess when I wake.

It really would be nice
to not have to shut my face
because you're chatting with your friends
on that website that starts with "face"! (You see what I did there? That is a perfect rhyme.)
Imagine your joy at it!
To line the walls with black
posters of your favorite bands
and your skeleton mask, Jack.

But alas, our brother lives at home
and still, so true, do we
so when you ask to turn off the light,
NO, IT'S MY COUNTRY TOO AND I'M FREE.
Butnotreally,though.

 An Anti-Ode to Physics

So what if you're law?  Screw that.

She Could Live in the Couch if She Wanted To

One day I was sitting here,
doing what I'm doing now,
when *all of a sudden*
from the couch I heard a meow.

I turned to look at what it was,
"You say Tina fell in the well?"
But my cat just stared at me like I was dumb
And I figured it was just as well. (I'm so good at this rhyming stuff, you guys.)

I wrote a haiku.

It's deep and real meaningful.

Oh, I'm out of space.

And then all of the cheese in the world became stinky blue cheese and I was sad.

You can tell I like to write stuff because of my impeccable descriptions.
"...general blah-ness..."

Teeny Oreo

When cats just wake up
with flattened black fur
on their side and face
and yawn and stretch
to shake themselves
back into their normal state,
that's a beautiful moment,
amplified by laying again
and hiding their eyes
between their paws
and soft claws.

I seriously have the sweetest cats.  Seriously.  And I love them so much!! :)

You’re in a bed of cotton sheets.

You raise your voice, cry, and laugh.

This is where I’ve always belonged,

wrapped tight in peppermint sheets,

surrounded by my sleeping family. 

It’s a tight fit.

Again with my not knowing where something came from.  Also, I am a big fan and proponent of the Oxford comma.
Edit 3/21/12 -- Hey! I think I read Gary Soto's "A Red Palm" for the first time before I wrote this. :-)

Sometimes when the leaves fall,

it’s like they are sinking slowly

to the bottom of a mundane cup.

When I was half-grown, I asked,

“Do you drink tea, Summer?”

She fiddled with her fingers

and rubbed her palms against her cheeks,

(she had pink hair back then,

and it fell over her red fingernail polish

like a bad Valentine’s Day outfit

when she did this),

“Only in the wintertime,

because it makes me fall asleep.”

I was going through my "Lit Mag" folder on my computer (because I'm weirdly organized when it comes to school assignments) and I came across this.  I remember that the final had something to do with a girl who died of cancer and an old acquaintance didn't recognize her photo... but not this draft.  I don't think this had anything to do with the same story (I don't know where the final story is, anyhow), and I can't remember what the prompt was at all... Just thought that it's intriguing to forget things so well.  And that I still have much of the same imagery for this now that I did when I wrote it.  (I think with images -- how do you think?)

Above Each Other

He's the character of man
who thinks himself kind
and generous
until it's all that he is—
a gentle touch,
a loving caress.
Prick and squeeze,
penetrate and hug.
A single finger.
Or sometimes, cuddle
then fool around with needles.
He was not my Adam,
but I was willing to share.

Pushing palms down my legs,
he feels the bumps and rolling
of my muscles where they'll bruise
and prickle with scabs.
Like mountains and valleys,
or skin cells and the empty
places filled with electrons.
A naked goose on a table
readying to be ready to serve.
The flames burn like Hell:
my own hell for my sins
of the flesh, of the white
blood cell, of the ivory
lace of virgins.
I've been undercooked for years now,
my skin too white for my blood.

I made myself this way
by the path of my veins
leading to the core of my body,
pooling liquid next to my liver.
He made me this way,
but he is good.
I am good, outliving
my purpose with muttered words
from someone else,
as I stop my organs and
my organs have stopped
my mouth from working
over the mesas and rivers.

I look out over the table
with pure, hazel eyes.
I can see white wine,
pale bread, wan fish
that I have refused to eat
with my hands and tingling fingers.
I curl my toes and rip flesh.

At the point where my sockets
are blind and reach out with nodes
of pulsing fever, as they're meant to see,
I care enough to shake under
his fist and stare.
I was supposed to see him,
when the final moment came,
but I blind myself with faith
in a lover who fakes sleep
as He removes my unborn children
one by one.  I dull forever
in the 21st century.

This is supposed to be a poem modeled after Margaret Atwood.  I've really fallen in love with her work... because it's beautiful and, gah, beautiful. When I have to present this in class, though, it may get quite awkward... but oh well.

I like it when everyone can draw their own conclusion to/about any writing, but since this is my writing blog, I like to put down what things mean, at least to me, for future reference. So, if you want to purely make your own conclusions, don't read over light words!:

This is about my diabetes and God.  I'm not Christian, for those of you who don't know (though, I do believe in the concept of Jesus, just don't connect myself with the God, so I don't buy the package -- but this is a different conversation to have, I think).  One of the things I always hear, though, is that God created me, and God has a plan for me. And if I had been alive three-hundred years ago, I would have died at age 8.  And if I had been born sixty years ago, I might have died at 30. And if I'd have been born in Pinesdale, I might have lived on celery until someone got desperate enough to know God won't help me, and smuggle me out to a hospital or died. Will God help me? Did God intend for me to live, or do I live of my own free will? If I were to starve myself burning calories digesting celery, would my "time" come when he meant for it to, or when my cells were so degraded and digested themselves that they give up?

All of the sexual references... I don't know exactly how I got so many in there, but it points out to me how illness is in everything, like a faith, even though I like to say my diabetes does not create me at all.

["I want to be a little less like my father and more like my dad."  -- "David" by Noah Gunderson. I've been in love with this song recently, and really like this line of lyric.]

Green

"Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia."
Upon review, the past and future are strange
brothers, sons of a protective parent
with a brow that is vaguely familiarly shaped.
The parent, at present, opened to welcome
a high-flying, steam-washed fiber that follows.

I never took much from that lint, or the wind it follows.
Now, though, I see its hopeful sense of nostalgia
and it spreads its fluffy entrails as a welcome
to a new string of thought that breeds strange.
I wind its intestines in my fingers, a bow shaped
out of one thousand, lucky to be a parent.

In order to appear like the thoughts it is parent
to, she folds in on herself and the elastic that follows,
until she is one mass, one that is shaped
on a growing mound of spaghetti nostalgia.
She pleases herself with being strange,
her innards giving her a strangling, warm welcome.

It makes me uncomfortable, this welcome
that has been through breeders for years with her parent.
Perhaps it is justified that I am strange,
instead of the imperceptible line of youth that follows,
though I find it sure they will ponder nostalgia
because it stirs up what makes us human-shaped.

I remember being on a hillside with a bean-shaped
cramp that hit me with his open, gripping welcome.
I think of it when I think of my nostalgia,
for my past pain is always -- the future is apparent.
A train for stupid emotion manifold follows.
It tears me away and I become again strange.

But even while the past is weird and the future strange
each person finds oneself being shaped
by each successful thought that follows.
A friendly embrace to clothing, and a welcome
to each new bit of knowledge to which we are a parent.
We live in a world where everything reminds of nostalgia.

What follows us as we live is strange
as the nostalgia that shaped our nostalgic glances,
and our welcome for present to be the parent of our future.

Alternate title: Sestinas Are Long-Winded and Difficult
I rather dislike this.  It was kind of like, "Well, I guess I could go with this." Then the second stanza, and I felt okay, and then I just feel worse and worse about it with each successive stanza. Ooooh well. It must be done.

Louis, Time
is not ready for you
Some say it that opportunity
knocks opportunity;
all have to—
the true L'Amour knocks.
    but only once


(A re-organization of this quote by Louis L'Amour)

The Deep Ended

So much depends

upon

the drip-

dropped wires

eating their hearts

out

beside the crusted

dust.

Black OUT

Fling

I wanted to end up in love.
So many trinkets have scattered
and words have blushed
the wind's complexion
as they carry like wishes.
Centuries, for today.
For today I speak it
as if it is to land
on someone else's words
and multiply, like wishes do.

Tradition

My stairs creak, damp
with years of drought. /
Rain becomes routine
when it's unnecessary
and when it lays down in blankets
like it's warming the cement
instead of running cold rivers.
A swift wave of longing
washes over the window again,
dangling hurricanes in the street
while I turn so the small of my back /
watches and my hands
dangle ornaments and mementos
on the briars of the tree / like a fool. 

This is a work in progress, so there will be some changes made.  I just need to publish it now so that I'll remember it later!

Sometimes I miss you,
even though it was just a minute ago that we talked.
Sometimes I don't know what to say,
so I just laugh so I don't listen to silence.
Sometimes I want to stare in your eyes,
but look away because eye contact is generally instantaneous.

Going through all of the drafts I have on here that I never published, and publishing all of the ones that interest me. The onslaught is old.
I can guess who this is about.

Hello, Kitty,

sitting on a teardrop toolbench,

a hammer for the heart,

and one other for the eardrum.

A mallet for the toes to keep on feet and then run round.

A tape measure for the heartstrings, from heart down to ring finger.

Hello Kitty,

Hello, dear.

A glass for keeping eyes in -

No, a face as perfect as glass.

No hammer yet can break it,

But that of the Iron Man

Duct tape for the blood cells

for fixing holes for swimming

No crashing

crashing

crashing dandies

Lovely in their clothes.

What would you have to eat, sir?

One choice, not two, but one?

This one, or the other?

Still one it is, and one will choose, unless one chooses not

No, not

Choose not and you have no choice but to choose one

There's nothing

Nothing better than the umbrella that you carry

To keep in the sun

As a bowl keeps water
Oh, mine music, that sings only like puzzles can

And then tables tip
And left alone again is the teardrop
And left alone again is the toolbench...

One look was all it took. I didn’t want to look away. Even when the cart next over creaked as it turned and caught on wood, I didn’t want to. But I had my book in my hands, and had no more excuses. So I turned away with my fantasy, away from my real one.

Ding, dong, the witch is dead.
Left on the doorstep,
with one newspaper in hand.
Laughing at her!
All of the children laugh with me.
What a thing to say to them, too!
“My, my, my,” says she,
“What a pretty doggie! Yes!”

They sat together on the park bench with a backpack in between them.
“So, what do you think you’ll do now?” Sarah asked.
“I don’t know… maybe write some, under a pen name. Maybe paint.”
“That’s all good, but… what about the cops?”
“Screw them. They can’t have my backpack.”

To Celebrate

Two women, bundled
and swaddled like newborns
celebrate,
alike in structure and in
disposition,
the day that light finally
held them and fed them
bread
baked in the dark.

(Inspired by Sleeping Twins by Odd Nerdrum)

All the smiles betray me.