Random Indie Artistic Love Child.

Twice

2012-01-19T20:30:00.001-05:00

in an egg-shaped quandary
with knocked knees protruding gracefully and
clustered purple clouds and
twinkling airplanes
soon I will give you a bowl full of
chopped-up Me-ness
soon you will have all the
TearsVomitJoyandYawns
mixed in with vinegar made from
Hope
and
juicy-looking cubes bursting with Lust
squeezed half of a Doubt
balanced by an
overflowing teaspoon of
Certainty
soon you will have
all of this and more, my
Love.
soon you will have swallowed
Me so that I sit
warmly, territorially, giddily,
in your tummy.
soon we will be all
LiesandLimbs
HandsandHearts
a Traditional moment
nestling (so precious)
in the pit of our
Modernity.

tulips

2012-01-16T17:41:00.000-05:00

All the beauties
And the all the horrors
The sticky winter wind
Broken trees
Fallen leaves
Smudged kohl
Invisible hole

primal

2012-01-11T00:29:00.002-05:00

wanting to get lost
in the black hole
your lips made
just for me.

what do i do?

2012-01-08T01:53:00.002-05:00

what do i do, what do i do, what do i do, what do i do, what do i do, what do i do, what do i do.

subjugation

2012-01-07T00:12:00.000-05:00

The sweet
smell of sadness
in my palms
pressed to my face
repressing the sudden and unwelcome
flow of tears
and the repeated declaration of independence
'i love you, i love you, i love you'

the trap

2012-01-06T23:00:00.000-05:00

Constant
inople.
Raspberry cherry pie in bed.
These are the dreams
of you I have
in my heavy
Little head.

midnight's children

2012-01-05T02:01:00.000-05:00

I learned how to play an instrument
Badly
and I would sit in the fields
next to the railway tracks
and the buttercup flowers
Or follow the two pretty sisters
with long hair
who had just
arrived from England.
Who were in love
with a Tommy.
Who'd wear tights under
their shorts
so as not to upset their mother.
All the while,
I was a politician's whore.
A befitting career
for someone who liked discounts
benefits
extravagance.
Once at a night time pool party
I was drawn to a different man
in my American flag bikini.
Later I cried as he undressed me.
And later still,
I answered all the questions
and collected all the money
in my grey/black pencil skirt.
The other man,
(I remembered, as I signed the papers)
(and smiled for the cameras)
had thrown his cigarette butt
onto a stranger's balcony.
This memory came to mind
when I ran into a carpeted room
full of spilled yellow rice
and started passionately playing
my badly learned instrument.

A Cherry Death

2012-01-03T16:19:00.000-05:00

His breath on my hand
My stomach in knots
My eyes refusing to open
The sudden twist of sleep
The weekend before everyone is happy
This dreaded empty feeling
Only the brightness of lights
Can bring about.
This too shall pass
This too shall pass
This too shall pass
The blunt thickness
of the Fingers I Use The Most.

florence night

2011-12-26T22:46:00.000-05:00

This sleep does not suit me
This sleep without you
When my mind cannot find you
it turns the shape of waves
into mermaid's fins
It runs naked on glittering beaches
It cries dreams of love
and wakes up sweating in winter
My Mind does not accept this sleep
no more than my body
or soul
My existence was a sullen rotting crater
its depths of uncertainty
an abyss
No men or children climbed out
from its ghostly well
So why should it continue to putter
and sink into the crevices of lonely despair
now that you are here?
Why should it not want to share
the piercing brilliance of the moon
that it had to endure
for eons
alone?
This sleep, my darling
I will not allow it.
I'd gladly rather lay a thousand nights awake
with you by my side
than close my eyes for a single breath
with you not here.

The Rain

2011-12-23T19:43:00.000-05:00

I sliced open the heart out
the pink of the citrus fruit
Ate it like a monster
When she spoke, my words were silent
but my eyes were screaming
I made 7 rounds
of the Ka'abah or the pyre
this I am unsure of
but my mind was elsewhere
when she spoke.

2011-12-15T14:52:00.000-05:00

I had a dream I was stuck in a house of dust, wooden floors and lots of windows. It was like a maze, but it was abandoned, save for the people who were looking for me. I had left the room with the volatile lesbians, the quiet, horrific-looking actress, with a pasty white face and black lips, the women that were handing hand-outs to me and my friends, to entice us to come back again. everyone was interested in watching the play, we were exhausted from gallivanting all day, and the door that led into this tiny cellar-looking room was appealing enough. before we knew it we were sitting at a long table, the room only big enough for people to get to and from their seats. We weren't really forced to stay, at least not explicitly. So I left.

But there was no way out. Only rooms and corridors and abandoned kitchens. I could hear the birds cawing outside, the smell of sunlight my only hope. The windows were barred and every other room or so had a decaying occupant. On one floor I almost walked into a room where little girls were filed into a single line, all wrapped in pink towels, supposedly being directed to a bathroom. Then I found a door that led me underground, and another that led me to a room with an unbarred window. I climbed through it and it spit me out into a sunlit alley.

The crows sang my song of freedom.

green dream

2011-12-14T07:22:00.000-05:00

I was briefly under water, standing on its floor, completing my espionage mission. I swam up just in time to get some oxygen for my brain, when I see that I am engulfed in a shark cage. A man with several knives tried to kill me, throwing his knives like daggers. I dodged most, caught some, and boomeranged them right back at him. A swift shove to the throat and the sound of flesh and loose blood confirm his death. I then drive the boat to land, we're running out of fuel and I have a strange need for doughnuts. Inside, I see a weasel sink his teeth into a feather mattress, a bitch give birth to yet another pup, a young girl going down on her Persian half.

two suicidal thoughts under one roof.

2011-11-27T13:27:00.001-05:00

I kissed Thom.
He had walked away, into a near empty field, the sunset looming somewhere far in the background.
It was the color of his hair.
He had been upset with the jumping into the water full of swordfish, the moving of the glass stove to make the place look big, the petty girls buying appliances from the little store. But most of all, he had been upset at his inability to say anything. So he left.
I simply followed him outside, grinning from ear to ear because I was so sure about everything. I followed him out and kissed him squarely on the lips.
His surprise was unmasked.
His lips were twisted in serenity.
The wheels of his mind were turning.
He held my hand and squeezed it, never once looking at me.
He was you.

Trains

2011-11-26T21:57:00.000-05:00

My stubborn sleeper
The demon and angel inside me
My church and mosque
synagogue too
my river, my waterfall
my sharp rocks at the bottom
the chocolate on my crepe
the salt on my wound
my map, my sky
my wings, my fall
my heartbeat
my choking cough
me me me me
my my my my
mine mine mine all mine

who/where/what

2011-11-16T21:40:00.002-05:00

I had a dream that the world was ending and everything was purple. I wasn't worried, because I was with my baby brother, who, if I think about it, is the only person I really give a fucking damn about.

Then in my nightmare, I was following two tall women dressed in white, wearing flower tiaras, into the brightest green forest I've ever seen. When I shivered us both awake, and he kept asking me if I was ok, I couldn't speak because the world was in my mouth, and I couldn't let it fall.

2011-11-15T21:49:00.002-05:00

'or at least face the realities of what you've done'

this western feeling

2011-11-12T09:11:00.001-05:00

I would love you so much,
even if you went blind.
I'd help you make use of your
hand in other ways
if they cut off your right
ring finger.
I'd use my hair as rope,
pull out your heart and clean it,
I'd be the angel to your Muhammad
(PBUH)
and you'd be the most perfect human
being ever created.

and so it is

2011-11-09T08:32:00.000-05:00

There is a blind man here, bald and white
His stick and stance are
dignified.
Left ring finger
occupied.
I bet what he sees is pure
I bet the words he hears
resonate in his mind.
Because he is lucky
unlike us sight folk.
The wind from the passing train
cools his scorched skin
the same way it makes
the ends of my skirt
flutter in delight.
The time he spends
away from home
is as precious
as mine
probably more.
And yet...
I wonder
if the words he hears
are more important
because he can't see them
coming out of his lovers' mouth.
if when a pen drops does
his mind go wild?
if the lights come on
does his eyes go blind
from the sudden brightness?

There is a blind man here,
bald and white.
His heart is in a better place
than us sight folk, because
he trusts his heart,
while the rest of us blame it.

2011-11-03T10:44:00.002-04:00

now that it is done,
everything tastes different.

I want to ask if you're happy, but I don't think I will.

2011-10-17T21:45:00.001-04:00

hold on.

about turn

2011-10-01T21:39:00.000-04:00

A weird mix of
strawberries and coffee
and how I mistook
the light of a lamp
for the magic of
the moon.
I don't ever want to
forget
the feel of your genitals
in my hands.
I don't ever want you
to forget
the girl with the thick
smile
standing
under the plush graveyard tree.
The angle
our love made.
360 degrees, baby.
Don't ever forget
how I wanted us
to leave that wretched circle
behind.

2011-09-20T09:10:00.001-04:00

birthday song.

2011-09-19T22:37:00.003-04:00

not going to cry.
not this year.
no.

this is a poem about sex.

2011-09-17T19:34:00.000-04:00

Frustration.
A delicate kiss.
My pink-colored affection leaves a trace,
everywhere I touch him.
Among the debris of the broken building,
next to the Latin Bible,
watching the picture of the holy
woman in purple pumps,
kick up her feet and say 'hey'.
I, too mimicking,
ridiculously laughing,
my limbs falling apart,
I,
there now,
I when I was four,
captured and framed.
To the sound of the sad harmonica,
dark hair covered in sweat and tears,
humiliation and reconciliation at its finest,
the white books full of green people fantasies.
The sudden choke,
the lackadaisical eye,
a mixture of fucking and tickling.
The weary disconnect after
eternal minutes of togetherness.
The boisterous neighbors wanting to
get our attention,
walking haughtily,
cranking music so that
my roof shakes,
my walls ache,
my heart breaks.

2011-09-16T08:36:00.001-04:00

pain knows repetition, and nothing else.

fotos

2011-09-07T16:01:00.002-04:00

stuff

2011-09-07T13:58:00.001-04:00

i need
a
warrior.

2011-09-06T16:27:00.001-04:00

the tears
they fall
without permission.

2011-09-06T15:09:00.000-04:00

The window of sleep is becoming increasingly small to climb through. My eyes are open like they're expecting someone to come kiss them goodnight. Yet they don't know who, so the gaze is that of a terrified child. Like Death.

the drill.

2011-08-31T10:18:00.002-04:00

my baby is a man now,
he loves and hurts and dies
like everybody else.

observation

2011-08-25T12:52:00.003-04:00

in their picture together, he is smiling, but his eyes are elsewhere.

i wrote a prose poem

2011-08-12T14:37:00.000-04:00

I had a terrible dream, my darling,
of two burning houses,
neither of them ours.
Yet we watched the flames
engulf its surroundings
like our passion
did to our souls.
I walked past the free tea house,
its dancers in the doorway.
I walked past a familiar face
that hugged me and walked away.
With my satchel and sandals,
hands in my sometimes
purple dress pockets or
high-waisted beige pants,
I went looking for you.
I know I started that fire, darling,
burned your ground
to my feet.
Now I'm walking around
this delightful city,
looking for your
ashes to eat.

2011-08-07T13:43:00.000-04:00

'i made sacrifices in my life so you didn't have to. but i guess i was wrong.'

100%

2011-08-06T20:26:00.001-04:00

when you play, you lose.

deal with it.

home alone

2011-08-05T11:25:00.003-04:00

There's not a single step I take that doesn't make me want to be swallowed by the ground. Always been interested in morbid depictions of love and idealized instances of hate. Stories that make your heart hurt and your limbs falls asleep so you sit here helpless, waiting for someone to shake you out of this nightmare that won't let you go.

i love you. yes, you.

2011-08-04T15:03:00.001-04:00

2011-08-02T21:27:00.002-04:00

i would be fine if the bug in my heart decided to come out of my nose.
about time, really.

Wedding!

2011-08-02T14:43:00.002-04:00

Not mine, sillies.

link

2011-07-17T10:53:00.000-04:00

he told me in my dream that he had left everyone for me. he said he didn't want to talk about it, that he had to think deeply about what he had done. he knew there'd be consequences. but he also wanted me to know that he had done it. he had finally chosen.

it's only when i woke up that i realized it was a dream.
in reality, he had left me for everyone.

Two Countries

2011-07-13T00:27:00.001-04:00

Skin remembers how long the years grow
when skin is not touched, a gray tunnel
of singleness, feather lost from the tail
of a bird, swirling onto a step,
swept away by someone who never saw
it was a feather. Skin ate, walked,
slept by itself, knew how to raise a 
see-you-later hand. But skin felt
it was never seen, never known as
a land on the map, nose like a city,
hip like a city, gleaming dome of the mosque
and the hundred corridors of cinnamon and rope.


Skin had hope, that's what skin does.
Heals over the scarred place, makes a road.
Love means you breathe in two countries.
And skin remembers--silk, spiny grass,
deep in the pocket that is skin's secret own.
Even now, when skin is not alone,
it remembers being alone and thanks something larger
that there are travelers, that people go places
larger than themselves.

Naomi Shihab Nye

2011-07-11T04:01:00.001-04:00

i don't get it, and i don't care.

everything is everything is nothing.

2011-07-11T01:00:00.000-04:00

i miss the old me.

2011-07-10T00:01:00.002-04:00

'don't fucking smile at me.
it's not a smile situation.'

fine.

the 90's and then some.

2011-07-07T02:40:00.000-04:00

i would happily kiss you good day because you were so patient as to kiss me goodnight.

you stayed and stayed, even when i asked you to leave. you didn't let me miss you. mr. future told me it'd be alright, all of it. waiting, still, to see if he was right.

if someone asked me to define us, i'd say 'it's like trying to balance dinner plates on monkey bars'.

2011-07-03T22:55:00.001-04:00

cried today.
this needs to stop.

2011-06-29T11:54:00.000-04:00

i had the most magnificent dream, of being on cocaine and dancing in a sunlit bathtub with my friends.

2011-06-12T20:58:00.001-04:00

I'm running, I'm running, catch up with me life.

j.d. salinger/ sine qua non

2011-05-30T12:41:00.000-04:00

How much diagonally can one lie on a single bed? Depression, self-loathing shortly ensues. ImissyouImissyouImissyou. You don't mind that my hair sprouts from the center of my head, and thus ends up everywhere. You don't mind my debauched vocabulary or my inexcuse for experiencing carnal pleasure. Who are you anyway? So far off, imaginary daydream of mine. Whatever it is, just know that I have memorized your scent by heart. Know that I am tired of daily successes (like finishing that fucking book already) and daily failures (the inability to get out of bed). I emailed them, after I finally forced myself to figure out what the problem was (because it's never me, you know), and apparently they don't make superhero garb in my size. How fucking fantastic, right? At least now I have a legitimate excuse for being a downright cunt.
'Excuse me, are you on the job today?'
'No, you fucker. Every day is off day for me. I win'

The End.

updated flickr

2011-05-14T23:10:00.002-04:00

face

fey woman

2011-05-08T22:02:00.001-04:00

Guilt caught me falling,
caught me in its arms saying,
'I'm not done with you yet'.
Wide-eyed, speculative, easy inside,
Wide-eyed, sleepy, just wanting to die.
Guilt holds on, ignorant in its mirth,
as I lay crying, singing,
'The Fool is hurt, The Fool is hurt'.

guest post- Brother Cavil, Battlestar Galactica.

2011-05-01T17:54:00.000-04:00

'I don't want to be human! I want to see gamma rays, I want to hear x-rays, and I...I wanna smell dark matter. Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can't even express these things properly because I have to...I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid, limiting, spoken language!'

Spring

2011-04-14T10:04:00.001-04:00

butts.

Spring

2011-04-14T07:12:00.001-04:00

perspective.

updated flickr

2011-04-11T18:34:00.001-04:00

here's a sample.
and the real thing.

i'm ready.

2011-04-07T15:31:00.001-04:00

guest post- sarah kay, 'point b'.

2011-04-03T02:16:00.003-04:00

If I should have a daughter…“Instead of “Mom”, she’s gonna call me “Point B.” Because that way, she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. And I’m going to paint the solar system on the back of her hands so that she has to learn the entire universe before she can say “Oh, I know that like the back of my hand.”

She’s gonna learn that this life will hit you, hard, in the face, wait for you to get back up so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.There is hurt, here, that cannot be fixed by band-aids or poetry, so the first time she realizes that Wonder-woman isn’t coming, I’ll make sure she knows she doesn’t have to wear the cape all by herself. Because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I’ve tried.

And “Baby,” I’ll tell her “don’t keep your nose up in the air like that, I know that trick, you’re just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back to a burning house so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him. Or else, find the boy who lit the fire in the first place to see if you can change him.”

But I know that she will anyway, so instead I’ll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boots nearby, ‘cause there is no heartbreak that chocolate can’t fix. Okay, there’s a few heartbreaks chocolate can’t fix. But that’s what the rain boots are for, because rain will wash away everything if you let it.

I want her to see the world through the underside of a glass bottom boat, to look through a magnifying glass at the galaxies that exist on the pin point of a human mind.Because that’s how my mom taught me. That there’ll be days like this,“There’ll be days like this my momma said” when you open your hands to catch and wind up with only blisters and bruises. When you step out of the phone booth and try to fly and the very people you wanna save are the ones standing on your cape. When your boots will fill with rain and you’ll be up to your knees in disappointment and those are the very days you have all the more reason to say “thank you,” ‘cause there is nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline no matter how many times it’s sent away.

You will put the “wind” in win some lose some, you will put the “star” in starting over and over, and no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life.

And yes, on a scale of one to over-trusting I am pretty fucking naive but I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily but don’t be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it.

“Baby,” I’ll tell her “remember your mama is a worrier but your papa is a warrior and you are the girl with small hands and big eyes who never stops asking for more.”

Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things and always apologize when you’ve done something wrong but don’t you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining.

Your voice is small but don’t ever stop singing and when they finally hand you heartbreak, slip hatred and war under your doorstep and hand you hand-outs on street corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.

for rationality

2011-03-23T09:07:00.002-04:00

paradise circus

2011-03-20T12:45:00.000-04:00

‎'Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worse kind of suffering'

guest post- thom yorke

2011-03-18T19:02:00.001-04:00

'I have a real problem being a man in the ’90s… Any man with any sensitivity or conscience toward the opposite sex would have a problem. To actually assert yourself in a masculine way without looking like you’re in a hard-rock band is a very difficult thing to do… It comes back to the music we write, which is not effeminate, but it’s not brutal in its arrogance. It is one of the things I’m always trying: To assert a sexual persona and on the other hand trying desperately to negate it.'

slow

2011-03-17T23:52:00.000-04:00

January stumbled into February which fell into March. Secrets unraveled like yarn out of control, and before we could collect our character with frivolity and without anyone seeing, nature's law and order came to set us undeniably and reluctantly straight.

guest post- vita sackville- west

2011-03-12T08:12:00.002-05:00

I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia. I composed a beautiful letter to you in the sleepless nightmare hours of the night, and it has all gone: I just miss you, in a quite simple desperate human way. You, with all your un-dumb letters, would never write so elementary a phrase as that; perhaps you wouldn't even feel it. And yet I believe you'll be sensible of a little gap. But you'd clothe it in so exquisite a phrase that it would lose a little of its reality. Whereas with me it is quite stark: I miss you even more than I could have believed; and I was prepared to miss you a good deal. So this letter is just really a squeal of pain. It is incredible how essential to me you have become. I suppose you are accustomed to people saying these things. Damn you, spoilt creature; I shan't make you love me any the more by giving myself away like this --But oh my dear, I can't be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that. Too truly. You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don't love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defences. And I don't really resent it.

However I won't bore you with any more.

frinkelswine

2011-03-09T10:57:00.000-05:00

Hair glowing like red fire in dark corners of familiar places.
I could burn your forest down and watch in boredom as you clean up the mess.

young fools

2011-03-08T17:43:00.001-05:00

the stars are out, and on the loose.

million dollar question

2011-03-02T22:10:00.000-05:00

do you look incredibly dashing?
and happy?

I am very cold, but I resist the need to warm my body with anything else but you.
Your fire-breathing dragon of a person.
I know you are unsure of me, but do not forget what I was in your eyes that night with glass bottles filled with incense and burning candles. Don't forget the music, the inadequacies of our spoken words, and the flesh that crept in to seduce us. Our chemistry played with our electricity, leaving our minds to suffer with the consequences.

wife.

2011-02-26T22:49:00.000-05:00

i taste so good in your mouth.
maybe it has to do with the biology of our bodies.
or maybe i just want to be in your mouth.

i think our sadness has bound us in an unbreakable bond of hollow laughs and honest embraces.

talk it out, talk it in.

guest post- e.e. cummings

2011-02-22T21:51:00.002-05:00

i like my body

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which I will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh...And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill
of under me you quite so new

truth

2011-02-18T12:26:00.000-05:00

if there is one thing you should probably know about me, if you don't already, is that I am a Radiohead freak. Their new album came out today, and...I have no words.
But Thom can dance, and here's some sexy proof.

now excuse while i dance and twitch in my mind's closet for the rest of eternity.

updated flickr

2011-02-15T21:58:00.002-05:00

you know what it is.

isaac and ishmael

2011-02-15T01:19:00.000-05:00

I withered, waiting for him, on the floor. First there was one bug, that came out of my forearm, then another from my nipple, then another from my ear. Soon, my entire body was covered in invisible insects, and I disturbed my bed made of unchopped yellow onions. I was doomed, caught in an avalanche of this putrid vegetable, bugs covering my body, and he was still no where in sight.

The warmth woke me up. The desire to have glowing honey hugging the inside of my throat made me come out of my self-made nightmare. I think about his waterfall legs, the creamy body of a tree, a lackluster pool of tar for eyes. The sun came out after the terrorizing darkness that winter bestowed upon us with its frozen heart.

He feels so much. He feels fantastical lifetimes worth of love and death, stories of the flesh and wooden swings, kisses on mountains. 'Bravo, lionlady,' he said when he left. 'We have killed the tiger'.

spare parts

2011-02-07T09:45:00.001-05:00

Her brow is tainted with furrows of a lovelorn. She is demure in a peculiar way. She walks theatrically, blinks loudly and sips her tea on high volume. The ghosts of next door rooms and corridors let her pass, sometimes with or without a second glance. He wonders about her, more often than he should, more often than he'd like, more often than was probably allowed. He pushes her hair away from her face when they're together, to feel helpless in those quicksand eyes. Her scent is making his breath short and quick. Earlier, she had made the mistake of hiding in his open coat. He had not stopped thinking about her for a single second after that. She brought with her a kind of disturbance in his life that he had been acutely unaware of. His chest was shut tight for days after she obligatorily left; when she would return was unbeknownst to him. Sometimes when they would stand side by side, he'd sneak a glance at her. She was short, far down from him, but her person made him feel extraordinarily small. Where did she stow away her warmth and kindness? Her sorrow and her pity? Her love and her jealousy? He felt like her being was an abyss. He could fall into her and quite possibly never come out.

enriched- stolen from Sean Moeller

2011-02-06T22:09:00.004-05:00

There are those days when we feel like we couldn't be more lost, as if we're literally fumbling around without any sort of pattern or clear destination in mind. We're blurry on the edges, half seeing things and half seeing right through them. We're breathing in fog, breathing out fog and our teeth are chattering incoherent error messages, making it feel as if every inch of our skin is short two or three heavy-duty blankets. We're off somewhere, for all intents and purposes, gone - out in the ether. These are the days when we feel that, to cut our losses, we should just remain on the sides of the windows where the least amount of damage can be done to us, where we're at least as safe as our belongings, our hoarded stuff makes us feel. We suppose that the knives could always turn on us and the same goes for the glass bottles and jars - likely always willing or capable of cracking off their bottoms sides on the edge of a counter to wield a jagged weapon. What we're most worried about - it seems to me and to Mr. Sam Beam of Iron & Wine - is not when our belongings might come alive, turn on us and seek blood, but when those other people that we share a home with, that one person we share that shaky skin with, decide that they want to turn on us. They don't know what this can look like and neither do we. We just believe it to be the worst that can happen. Beam, over the years, has written his way into these scenes, written us advertently right into them with him, alongside him, and we remain there, with him, unable to catch our breath. He takes the fog right out of us, counteracts our insecurities with the beautifully hushed uncertainty. It's as if he has a way of gathering up all of the bumps in the night, all of the fire light and all of the tender touches of a young mother or father, of a dying grandmother or grandfather and bringing them all into the picture to put us at ease. It's as if all of the things that we've ever feared in our lives - bringing life into the world, growing older and passing out of the world we lucked into, and all of the craziness in the whirlwind in between - are summed up in Iron & Wine songs, distilled into his leafy version of silence and love and shown to us in a way that makes them more enchanting than scary. He makes us think even more than we already do about Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree," and how even though that boy is sort of a needy little son of a bitch, the relationship between he and the tree is just about right and it tears us up inside, makes us want to weep hard, when we read it to our own children and think of them taking and leaving us until we're just a broken down stump someday - not meaning to hurt us, just doing what they have to do to make it through this lumpy life. On Beam's new album, "Kiss Each Other Clean," he's once again magnificent in his dry, honey prettiness, cutting us into these sad stories that are as classic as they come. We feel them in our bones. We cry for these people, if only, because they sound like people that we have so much in common with. We love when he writes things like "the night won't compensate the blind," or sings about how someone's getting lectured that time is neither kind, nor unkind because it feels like we're here, barefoot and feeling every blade of grass prick us in the toes, the arches and the heels, as if trying to get our soles to turn and look at what's above them. Just look up. See that sky up there. Wonder where it goes, where it ends and know well enough that all of us and our silly problems are quite minor. Such a thing will put the shine back in our eyes, keep the fogginess out of our mouths and hearts and will brighten up everything we've got stored inside that ribcage of ours.

electricity

2011-01-30T15:53:00.000-05:00

He does not kiss me fully, and his conscience touch stems out of distraction. He does not like to make magic love to magic music. To him, they were two different types of awesome, and you could only really pay attention one at a time, without disrespecting the sanctity and devotion of the other. The room had to be dark, for the most part. It made voices spit fiery balls of desire and hands plunge into a desperate search for treasure. And when you finally did allow light to stream in, you weren't surprised at the person holding your face, because you didn't know who you had just been with. When he slept, he rested his arm between my diverged breasts. Like an arrow through a heart, it was bound to be a mess; and so it was.

work.

2011-01-28T14:58:00.000-05:00

'i'm naked, i'm numb, i'm stupid, i'm stayin'.

voyeur

2011-01-27T19:14:00.002-05:00

photography

rouge.

2011-01-26T16:28:00.001-05:00

I have an open-toed, thinking heart. The arrow suggested I was going in the opposite direction. We were unpleasant and perfect, in a city that wasn't ours.

smalls

2011-01-25T10:32:00.000-05:00

'so what do we do now?'
'...there's nothing to do..'

the girls

2011-01-19T10:06:00.000-05:00

There was a passionate, melting, blending kiss. Then:

'There is nothing to forgive'
'There is everything to forgive'.

groovy shoovy

2011-01-07T21:09:00.002-05:00

mmmmm

pyro

2011-01-02T14:21:00.000-05:00

He told me (in my dream, of course) that he loved my words. He said that he often had to go over them, again and again, over a course of a few days. That he studied and analyzed them, that he had felt their presence in his life long before I showed up and messed up his routine. He told me he was afraid that he'd never be able to get on a plane and go around the world. He feared he would never be able to learn the international language of love. The one I spoke to him, and the one he could not speak back.

in my next life.

2011-01-01T16:21:00.000-05:00

hi banana.
hi banana.
how you doin', banana?
how you doin', banana?

i love you.
i love you too, banana.

a thousand butterflies

2010-12-31T04:28:00.001-05:00

Caught between me and myself. I just want to throw something at the wall, and have someone there to witness it. For really, what is there to restless nights on empty stomachs and empty hearts? A nickel's worth of content is all I seek.

He breathes in her ear, unaware of what this simple act of unconsciousness does to her beating heart. She adores his hair most when he is asleep, the soft brown mess feeling like silk under her cool summer fingers. Mistakes and minutes later, he will apologize, and she will ignore him, but she knows she is already doomed. For her heart has been taken away from her in the dead of a foggy, thunderous night. Not a trace left behind, not a single clue. No ransom was asked for, no karma police contacted. That is the trick, you see. When destiny decides to show up in your life and twist your fate like it was made of ears...well, there's nothing to be done about that. No complaints, no alarms, and no surprises.

Dalia

2010-12-27T21:53:00.000-05:00

When the doctor told us he was dying, we didn't talk about it afterwards. Ever.
I still nestled in his adolescent militarily muscular arms, laughing at his haircut, his uniform, his acne, and the fact that he was mine. I would play with his Rubik's cube, and clean his glasses. We would sit in the sun on the terrace, drinking hot tea for our hot heads. Love was made like it was the last day on Earth.

The only thing that bothered me (and I did not speak to him of this) was how it would stay. All of it, everything all the time. His thick-rimmed glasses, my memory of his skin shining in the sun, the Rubik's cube. I bit my lip, and he would ask me where in the world I was. I didn't have the heart to tell him, I'd rather stay here forever, then move ahead (because forever does not exist, you see).

I'd be falling. Face up, back down, mouth sewn shut. If he left, (which he would), that is how I would feel. I'd be falling till I hit the bottom and escape.

for hub X/ we knew right from the start.

2010-12-23T20:38:00.002-05:00

young love: full of promise, full of hope.
ignorant of reality.

'she must think i'm crazy
i kinda think i like her
i kinda think i do.'

modern day Romantic

2010-12-22T11:33:00.000-05:00

'We are the music makers
and we are the dreamers of dreams'

We drown our magic in wine that we fetched from the red rivers of our hearts. We run out like children of the forest, barefoot, running to grab the hidden moon. The trees are tall and bare, Mother is silent and resting till she is beautiful again. We dance, to music that keeps our backs straight and our heads fall off, unscrewed. Man invades us with his roads and parks.

Your lips are wet clay under my fingertips, I water them with my tongue, caress them into the shape I want them to be. You hold your elbows close to your body, I button up your sleeves so you don't feel threatened by me. We sit on a sinking sofa, and watch the moon go in and out of Nature.

are you a haiku?

2010-12-13T22:48:00.001-05:00

every face that passed,
i thought
was not
you,
but it was.

glow in the dark.

2010-12-13T11:50:00.000-05:00

i was swimming in a memory today. colors were polaroid- ish, grainy, everything was simple. I was watching my mother not know how to swim, her yellow dupatta shriveled up, pleated hair in her face. She was gasping for breath in the green water, arms flailing, looking for my father. He was right in front of her though. I think that has always been their problem. They've always flailed their arms around, eyes closes, in search of one another, and they fail to see what is so close to them. In this memory, however, he catches her. She clutches on to his wet wife beater, he is laughing and pushing the hair away from her face. I take a picture.

bear

2010-12-05T12:05:00.001-05:00

- scratch that

for hub IX/ the blitz/ goodnight elisabeth

2010-11-25T23:29:00.000-05:00

I've been noticing a lot of my own self recently. it's not too good. most of it is pretty washed up, pretty rusty. smells old and irreparable. I was very quiet today, very solemn, and dazed. I know I haven't been myself lately. I've been too blissfully happy. It's dangerous to be around people who love you literally just the way you are. Dangerous for me, personally.

Happiness is not a feeling. It's numbness. It's a tranquilizer. Blinds you, shuts down your system. It becomes an every occurrence, like food and laundry, writing on fridges with fading markers. There is no more joy left in happiness when you're happy all the time. Is that a bad thing? does feeling this way make me a bad person? ungrateful and almost selfish, no? don't you think?

my brother is my opposite. he is loving and kind and humble and incredibly wise for his age. maybe too much. and now S is off to school, her ambition making me cower in my own shadow. I noticed today, that I didn't have to say a word. Make my presence felt, contribute to the 'mehfil' in any way. All I did was look from left to right, and back again. I might as well have not been there. It was strange, being so alone in a very crowded house. There was a hollow feeling in my gut, like I was being dropped from high up. I felt sick, and jaded. I made my fingers do different wave motions to the music in my head. They moved very delicately, like a lotus floating downstream, not knowing where it's headed.

maybe this is my quiet plea for help.

-hb

2010-11-15T10:52:00.002-05:00

for hub VIII/ A Story

2010-11-09T01:50:00.000-05:00

they had an accidental baby, once.
it was only because she was so recklessly violent with her love, defending and mastering it's every move. she held on to it so tight, and let go just as easily. her manly way of sitting got to him one day, and to God, so they both decided to give her a baby, something she would not be able to let go of. something she'd have to think about, something she couldn't choke with her bare hands because it was inside and not outside.

bell x1

2010-10-29T01:50:00.000-04:00

tonight we're the scent of your long black hair
spread out like your breath across my back.

if i don't ask for heaven, something's gonna turn out right.

2010-10-18T00:33:00.000-04:00

i asked him to marry me.
the tree branch was swaying in the wind, and out of the corner of my eye, it looked like a shooting star. i was happy. the weather was very pleasant, and i was wearing my 60's skirt. for mid- october, you'd call me lucky. and i am. i didn't get on my knees or anything. i wasn't even wearing socks, so how could i afford a ring? it was like a light bulb turned on my head, like suddenly everything was bright and tangible. i put my pride in a single question, lay it out on the sidewalk among the acorns and freshmen. it made my heart soar.
he was very respectful in his decline. very polite. he used big lawyer words like 'surreptitious' and 'acquiesce'. he talked about our parents, and how sad and insulted they would feel if we went through with it, about the government and our passports, about tax papers. he was very willing, don't get me wrong. just not as...hasty about it. his palate was full with sured-ness. he had a plan. well, i hoped he did. he stopped me, noticing the light leaving my eyes. i looked to my left. two asian girls were running across the street into their building. a man on a balcony talking into his phone. a car with its emergencies on. the police. it made me sad, all of a sudden. very drained, i felt. very hungry, too. here was this moment we were having, perfectly perfect, smoking menthols and talking about movies and the like, enjoying the beautiful crisp fall in orange street lights, and i had gone on and ruined it. i had taken what was ours and made it mine, and was disappointed when he didn't do the same. i looked at the buttons on his coat.
'are you listening?'
'yes'
'do you know that i love you? do you believe me when i say that and mean it with my whole heart?'
'yes'

we walked home, hand in hand, tears making everything foggy for me.
oh well. it was a stupid idea anyway.

Hunter S.Thompson

2010-10-07T13:43:00.002-04:00

"We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and -- in spite of True Romance magazines -- we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely -- at least, not all the time -- but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness."

sick

2010-09-29T22:04:00.000-04:00

In a fit of love and loneliness (funny how those two are never separate), he had created something for her. The creation repeated itself, like a carousel of memories made in a hurry. It repeated itself till she left, because she herself was always in such a hurry. Whatever he ate, after that, never stayed. The rain did, the cold did, the loneliness did.

on call

2010-09-21T14:12:00.003-04:00

i know i make it really hard for you to stay, but please don't leave.

'what are you doing?'
....
'what are you DOING?'
'nothing. i'm doing absolutely nothing'.
'...'
'me too. let's do nothing together'.

eyes closed

2010-09-20T22:34:00.000-04:00

it'd be nice
to just walk out
and have something happen
so they'd say
crowded around her
what a pretty little thing
she used to be.

be sound/ birthday post.

2010-09-20T01:24:00.003-04:00

she said to me, over the phone
she wanted to see other people
i thought, "well then, look around, they're everywhere"
said that she was confused...
i thought, "darling, join the club"
24 years old, mid-life crisis
nowadays hits you when you're young
i hung up, she called back, i hung up again
the process had already started
at least it happened quick
i swear, i died inside that night
my friend, he called
i didn't mention a thing
the last thing he said was, "be sound"
sound...
i contemplated an awful thing, i hate to admit
i just thought those would be such appropriate last words
but i'm still here
and small
so small.. how could this struggle seem so big?
so big...
while the palms in the breeze still blow green
and the waves in the sea still absolute blue
but the horror
every single thing i see is a reminder of her
never thought i'd curse the day i met her
and since she's gone and wouldn't hear
who would care? what good would that do?
but i'm still here
so i imagine in a month...or 12
i'l be somewhere having a drink
laughing at a stupid joke
or just another stupid thing
and i can see myself stopping short
drifting out of the present
sucked by the undertow and pulled out deep
and there i am, standing
wet grass and white headstones all in rows
and in the distance there's one, off on its own
so i stop, kneel
my new home...
and i picture a sober awakening, a re-entry into this little bar scene
sip my drink til the ice hits my lip
order another round
and that's it for now
sorry
never been too good at happy endings...

before sunset.

2010-09-16T20:14:00.002-04:00

sometimes artistic relationships, like a painting, have too many clouds in them.

scene - 2 and the music that was english.

2010-09-16T17:12:00.000-04:00

touch.

my pores burst open, thirsty for contact.

running, feet red with happiness and embarrassment. the glass doors never did work, did they.

unfortunate lover

2010-09-15T03:20:00.000-04:00

On the phone, she hears the untwisting of a cap. Metal against glass. She hears him gulp; large, even-spaced gulps. The cap is twisted back on, like a sword cutting through air. He sighed. She missed him.

And later, alone, she watches lovers walk like monsters, retreat behind closed doors. She shuts the window she had been swinging out of, resting her forehead on the cool glass. Turns around to painfully finish her now nauseatingly lukewarm green tea. Watches the shadow of the unlit lamp on the locked door. Somewhere, a dress is being unzipped, and she can't help but wonder why it can't be hers.