Distractions

I can hear them

Right outside my window

Pumping the gas

Spinning their wheels

Digging themselves deeper into the snow

Rhythmic ignorance

The engine roars, "Cease!"

The Comforts of Home

There was supposed to be a snow storm

And for sure babe, it's snowing

A thin dusting from heaven's floorboards

Turns to crunching feathers under my tumble

Dear Universe,

Today

Another day checked off

On the calendar of my residence

In this body

One day less

One breath closer

To my inevitable departure

Is life a soft lit candle, huffed out too soon

And never revived?

Just incase it isn't, I've composed a few requests.

Assuming I was not horribly wrong about the Bible and get sent strait to hell with all the other spit fire, wild child sinners

I'd like to be reincarnated as a flower

A poppy, perhaps

Wild colors seem to suit me

Delicate, wrinkled, red and orange

Or maybe I could be a tree

A mighty tower

Cracking bark

Flittering foliage

I'd never want to be a Planaria

High school biology is not for me

But I could be a mud puddle in the early spring

Or even a hefty, beast of Alaska

A moose among moose, lumbering in the tundra

Nibbling on greens all day

But, perhaps, I think I might like to be

An abandoned ship in the Bermuda triangle

Stormy seas would toss me

On calm water I would float

And maybe someday I'd slip underneath the blanket of water

And see the extraordinary on the journey downwards. 

Older Stuff

I finally brought home my english notebook from first semester and I found a few things in it that are worth sharing. Here they are, in chronological order.

[author's note, mopey moods don't always make for great poetry]

Are you ever lonely, just like I am, all the time?

Is your mind bursting with questions, just like mine?

Do I make you feel alive, just like you make me feel?

Do you long for hours spent wandering aimlessly on sidewalks, like I do?

I wrote the one below in study hall one time, I was sitting close to Dylan and I wanted to meet him, so I thought about the creepiest way possible. I wrote this poem and then I emailed it to him :]

Freckles. Splatters across him arms and face, neck and hands

Angel kisses? 

If so, he must have been popular with those winged watchers long before conception.

Fingers hesitantly dragging across his keyboard, diligently studying.

Eyeglasses clinging softly to pale skin behind his ears

Chocolate brown hair curls up from the nape of his neck, 

Brushing against a solar system of freckles.

Sitting in a chair, too blue

In and classroom, too quiet

In and world, too constraining

I bet he wants to scream.

This next thing is just an excerpt of an attempt of escaping my complete boredom during study hall. 

The air we breath, the air we breath. Poisoned or enhanced? Curses and pollution? Jesus, why do you always need a prompt when you're not depressed or something? Well, might as well keep writing, you know, it makes you look like you are doing something. Conferences, eh?

Nom, 

And this last one is from the night I had my first pomegranate.

Slicing nicely, juices drip

Staining the counter, the cloth

Trails creeping through pomegranate flesh

Delicate jewels of puckering flavor

I dig with fingertips, patiently extracting

The fruit.

It falls into the bowl,

Children to their bed, resigning after a day of mischief. 

Stifled

It doesn't have to be:

streaking meteors

blaring radios

gushing floods

blinding neon colors

thundering storms

spritzing musky perfume

machine gun rattle. 

It can be:

embers glowing

ice cracking

dew dropping

the pastel sun rising

a spring breeze flowing

the smell of fresh cut grass, floating 

soft suffocation. 

Aspirations

You're with me always

Though, I not with you

And sometimes that knowledge is comforting

And sometimes it stings

And sometimes I think that someday I could be the feathers in a pillow or the clacking in a tap dancer's shoe.  

Void

of any reason, but here I am avoiding homework ... so this is what I found

10:54

Knots, scribbles, labyrinth

Through the confusion, a single red string runs through my chaos

Joy

It may be in my DNA

Calculated out as social survival skills

An explanation for what makes my heart skip like a scratched disk and grow warm as soft knits in the dryer. 

What Falls Between

This poem is by my dear friend Chloe. I read it on her blog and it struck me [as her poems often do] and asked her if I could share it on my blog, so here it is :]

In moments it is gone

my racing heart swept up

and disposed of, 

politely 

in the corner

Letting life continue it's unending 

Monotony

I think I brushed with fate

I think I was close

So close, 

But when I open my eyes

All those dreams fall away

and once again I realize

That I have missed my chance

My Trip To The Doctor

Starburst

The only thing I must look away from

A clenched fist

A pinch of the skin

I feel energy being sucked from me

Hot

Cotton pressed tight

Secured with a brightly colored sticky strip

And now I can turn my head to see

My purple blood 

Sloshing in a small vial

Specific Horrific

Lacking in perfection

I admire them as they were

Barren fingers outstretched 

Sunlight is cheap

Moist, grey skies awaken 

BLAH

I feel so completely useless

Sleep leads to sleepiness

I've snatched the hours time has given me

And spun them into a tangled mess of nothing

I'm even too lazy to give this poem structure

Free verse is my friend

The friend who drinks all my parent's alcohol

The friend who needs their hair pulled back while they get sick

And I hold their hair back

Because it's good to be needed

Cold fingers

Bloodshot eyes, glazed over like high calorie carbo treats

It's just been one of those days

Though, at 9:05pm I can feel the sun beginning to rise again

I'm feeling better already.

Curtains

Private is private

The end, swept in by red velvet

Coy, delicate lace

Functional blinders from bed-sheets

And so I pull them back to reveal the day

Or rather, my face to the streets

From the desk of the poet who needs to shower and write her english paper,

Poetry is not love

And love, not poetry

Be not won by words that flow

Like nectar to hummingbird

Many poets lie to lie

So be not won by words

Be not won by glances

Those, you cannot prove

Be not won by song

Though it may cling like honey to the ear

Be not won by good intensions

Those are but brightly colored chalk on sidewalk

Washed away by mists of moisture

Be won instead by the contents of your own heart

False heart cannot prove false to itself

Therefore, your heart will remain true to your own questioning

And, by chance yours align with another

Do what you will

Proclaim, hasten breath

Or whatever your false heart's desire

For hearts are not false in moment passing

Only in comet streaks and lightening strikes whereon 'forever' is spoke.

Wash Your Hands Obsessively, Excessively.

"It's a sort of, mild case

I've been through this before."

Is what I told my doctor

As I lay there on the floor

"All the times, previous,

It came in with a bang

Stomach tied all up in knots

An awful, sickly pang.

The first time round, I drowned it

Starvation for the last,

It's been a struggle, sometimes war

For cases in the past

But doctor, dear, this one I've got

Grew slowly in my gut

I know not whence it came from

Nor which door I must shut

This sickness, gentle, fleeting

Chokes my speech and guides my eyes

Are there no vaccines?

No way to sanitize?

My doctor just peered down his nose

And slowly shook his head

He sighed and scowled and glowered

And this to me, he said

"You've done this to yourself

I'm certain that you know

This illness is preventible

You're the one who let it grow."

Without Gravity

The raging sparkle of that stream

I'd pluck it as it flows

But I've been to shore to harvest jewels 

And my dear, it isn't so

See the wild, purple petals?

I'd gather them as they grow

I've stooped low to breath their scent

And my dear, it isn't so

The setting sun spits orange and red

My dear, it isn't so

A butterfly, delicate, flowing sighs

My dear, it isn't so

The promise of tomorrow 

My dear, it isn't so

But in this moment, we can be

The river's glitter glow

Sssssskiing

Silent Satan's secrets seem so simple, seem so sweet

Severed, screaming sickles slicing slowly

So she'll slip, silky sour

Standing still, siting strait 

Sickly sipping soda

This is what History class is good for,

And so I was sitting in class staring at the ceiling, trying to count the pockmarks in the tiles. They reminded me of stars and they reminded me of pebbles in a fish tank, but most of all, they reminded me of the missteps I've ... stepped into. Infinite in yesterdays, passing moments and in the intangible calendar; stretching forth until and beyond my closing scene. It also made me think; just as the spots on the ceiling maybe my mistakes were intentional. Each mark isn't planned specifically, but the general idea is that there will be punctures, and there will be many. With this in mind, fearing my missteps seems a silly thing to do. It's time to charge into my blunders with a flying leap [much like a mud puddle] and leave written evidence of the experience. 

As The Moon

As sure as sunrise, I feel a warm blush in my face

Offhand jokes provoke my laughter, rainwater shaken from a birch tree

Like a soft, plum sweater snagged on a prickly rosebush (they know not their effect)

My eyes catch on his face (they know not their effect)

Foamy seawater rolls over and envelops grainy beaches, consistent and in rhythm 

Just as my thoughts turn to him

Like socked tiptoes on carpet, I probe his mind for clues

But I feel more like river dance, loud and obnoxiously obvious

It's adventuring with a faulty compass

I am the needle, spinning

I'm on a hyper-active merry-go-round

Round and round

Turn turn turn

I know not what's my ankle nor nose

Yet, this feeling, though well known to me

Peaks from the soil like a timid seedling

Soft greens, waiting.

Stale Fortunes

Wilted rose

Torn up lace

Empty yogurt cup

There is the water

There is the money

There is the soil

Two pale lilies

Soft, black silk

Earthy wombs

Ladies, 

Clip your budding flowers

Buy your dresses shorter

Sow seeds in abundance

Sunlight will do the rest.