Goodbye
goodbye is a language of it's own
it speaks in an absence
it puts tears on repeat
goodbye writes a name
on everything.
goodbye honks
when the light turns green
goodbye is startling
goodbye is anorexic
goodbye is starving.
goodbye speaks for itself
it lays you down
keeping you up
it dreams for you
while you wrestle with
unopened promises.
goodbye tells the same story
again to the same
friendly person
and goodbye is determined
to solve the problem
but it is as blind as you are deaf
to this silence
that goodbye left.

Flight

all my words are birds

blocked in a headlock.

snapped awake

like an alarm clock.

every curse

to demonstrate

i act

like an acrobat

and flip the switch

all my limbs intact.

the type shakes

but you don't react,

that is that.

bay hound,

hound bay.

bellow

to the

sorrowful

holiday.

overachiever,

rattling weather.

a simple blue sky

more beautiful then you

or them or i...

flying.

the rafters come lower.

the town is over dressed

in out of towners

and one lone dog

cries to the loners.

alone at Ihop

eavesdropping

numb stare of eyes

the blue of pavement, flecked

maple syrup on my elbows

elbows on the table

conversations like birds

snickering around me

"he was the one with the swollen throat... throat cancer i think.. smoking."

that's an elderly man. sing songy.

"my defects... well i haven't gotten there yet."

a young man. pride.

and then i hide my phone in my lap and play tetris

i pretend to be texting

a black haired boy across the aisle is snapping away at his video game.

not hiding. greasy haired. all in black. not hiding.

i contemplate bulimia.

but i'm already attached to my swelling belly.

i give up.

i twitch and tick. I mind less and less.

why does age take such caring, such pretense away?

screw it, i think. i'm interesting to watch.

i'm hiding and i fit in,

i fit into my hiding place.

there are too many poems in my heart

they waste my words on you

they make me alone

sugarless tracks in the snow

dragging my eyes

across bright burning cold.

i saw what i wanted to see

until the truth saw me.

a wave of stars

smashed up against your word

trash talk

dreams i can't remember anymore.

we were so long ago.

french kissing in the car

our eyes met on a thin line of lightning

our bodies jagged electricity

like how one travels down a mountain.

you are the son of your own destiny

and i am something else,

entirely.

Hurricane katrina

jesus loves whores

so you are forgiven by someone.

don't be flattered,

your sins are not original.

god did not put a third step between your two step

and my love. on blue and broken feet.

green fields you plowed through,

were picture windows blown out.

lives are so tender! i shout,

you broke the glass animal that was my heart.

smug bitch,

where are your words of wisdom now?

i divorce your quiet

with my own confessions

on this unsigned document

of the truth.

my superpower is love.

i have cramps
a couple of days ago the sky was a blue color i have never seen before.
it was an unrecognizable sky
i snapped a paranormal photograph with my eyes.
my heart is driving to the desert
i sigh
i curl into the italian
a short cry
and for dreams are his

i am not enough
he is not enough
there is never enough
enough is enough is enough is enough (song i danced to in the fifth grade in my bedroom covered in horse ribbons).
enough already
enough said

The problem with a heart
is that it doesn't have a brain.
I think a heart has limits.
i don't want it to..
 but i think it does.
when is enough enough?
when is it not enough?
when does love say no!
...stop and let go.
i don't fucking know!

dreamt my dad was off-roading in a cadillac, jumping it into an unswimmable river on the east side.  i had a horse in a hospital elevator.  the horse got nervous when i did.  he quivered and tensed..

i drove in circles.
narcotic romantic
circles.
my loves crashed
into me trying to swerve
away.

i don't learn
and neither do they.

how do you miss something you never became?

Afterlife

not often enough

are we speaking

in reference to afterlife

to the understanding

of our limits on legs

underfoot

the monster undertow

of tomorrow

is like a camouflaged submarine

barely crawling.

a magnet below us

pulling.

we laugh and scream

and finger cars

that cut us off

and slow our progress

to another meaningless

meeting of details,

sketches of something

we plan to goddamn make happen.

and every breath taken for granted

until this magic carpet is pulled out from under us

and we awake to the simple ending

ahead of all of us.

i want skinnier legs.

i am all human.

i am perfect.

i hate myself.

i thank God for what i have.

i am full of opposites.

i am in the trenches and high as a kite.

and low drowning in the river

and skating on fragile ice.

i am nothing

and if not everything

sigh. i want skinnier legs.

Clouds

we ran in tight circles

that stretched into serpentines,

ribbon candy and sparrows.

we parked behind the Toys R Us

in the air conditioned car.

we split a sandwich

and put our sunglasses on the dash.

we watched the greenbelt do the wave,

the clouds demonstrating their talent.

the trees like people in stadium seats

a sweep of shadow crossing the wooded valley

leaving behind a gulley

flush with light.

sometimes romance

is a surprise exhibition from clouds.

we are always who we were

go on.

with your bad self.

i haven't blogged in awhile. i'm busy. certainly not less to say.. but i've been putting it into songs rather than poetry. also i have no internet at my apartment right now. which is awesome! which sucks!

i'm working at the coffee shop again. i am a grateful barista. the money is good, the customers are beautiful and i drink coffee all day. it is a very good situation.

the band is playing lots of shows and we are getting better and better. i love those guys. they have given me my heart back. every show we do i feel happier and happier. it is like life has been breathed back in me.

i am waking up with songs in my mouth. there is a marching band on a loop through me.. making circles of my thoughts.. making stories of my circles.. making songs from scratch.

Dance hall

the stars were widespread

dappled dark horse

sky. texas night.

black heart

trucks parked

outside the dance hall

below the whore house.

no one died here though

i can feel it

the lack of ghosts.

something is missing.

it's saturday night

and the kids are all dancing

like ponies

in circles

around and around the ring.

and i stand

judge and observer

audience member

against a post

my failing back out.

smiling.

a slow and quiet grieving.

i grew a little this week.

i found some really scary weakness in myself and then i discovered the strength that has kept that weakness from destroying me all along.

i saw beautiful things like when the moon looked like a dirty smile and when i witnessed my dog seeing an old friend and expressing her content for that reunion. i saw myself begin to do the wrong thing and was able to stop myself before i did something stupid. and i also found myself taking care of myself at any cost.

i forgave some friends for being human and that gave me some forgiveness for myself. i sweat my ass off on stage. i felt pretty sometimes. i didn't care what people thought. i loved someone as hard as i could and he accepted my love. neat miracles happened! i cried over them. i shared myself with the possibility of rejection. i wasn't rejected.

i ate sour patch kids candies.

The authority of demons

i'm trying not to love him

but my scars are burning.

my heart so strong

is unhealing.

his demons are winning.

i begged him to fight for me

but his demons are winning.

mine are coming in a close second,

that which bears mentioning.

my scars are changing

my heart unbeating

i've gathered all the evidence

and his demons are winning.

this dark dance.

this hunter pace.

the sky blasts open

in a horse breaking race.

every house is leveled

we end at the beginning

again and again

his demons are winning.

my fingers ache with words i can't say.

the tremble is love

and deep loss

and you flying away.

you have seen me at my emptiest

now tuck me back into my blue jay nest.

the trees will grow up around me

ageless.

goodbye is for suckers

and i'm getting used to this.

earth silence..

the machines are making all the noise.

the mustard sky keeps changing it's mind .

for over and over it went,

it went into ragtime.

these tics are a dance-off on my cheekbones.

regret like a loosening jawline.

wake up senorita

you are hook line and mission impossible.

keep telling me things.

a need to know is burgeoning

when so recently i knew everything

and now such nothing.

-

-

-

-

-

i think about this for five clicks

from the kitchen. no more thinking.

let's know nothing.

The fall

my body remembers how to fall.

at first it is a confusion

i am upside down or not

i spit to see.

but then the knowing

that full moment when i accept

that i am in fact dropping.

that i don't control the speed

that i don't control the stars

there are no decisions in a falling

just spinning. and waiting.

for the violence of a landing.

(i dreamed)

i painted his eyes

and his insides

it was an abstract.

when i awoke

my hair was in a tangle

my tongue in knots

my spine stuck.

the sheets were wet

with sweat

and salted tears.

i misunderstand

(disassociate),

love way too deep

and run off.

i have to sit somewhere alone

and hold my own hands

to cup

the gravity of his face

and the tornado of mistakes

i will most likely

continue to make.

in a world full of beasts..

i love this beast most of all.

she brings me joy

when i can find none on my own.

she turns tears into laughter,

loss into gravity.

she is my truest heart..

my angel beast.

Open heart surgery

i am remembering the early 90's today. the streets of new york city. hand in hand with my future ex-husband. we have no idea do we? the beauty that awaits.. the devastation.. the miles of numbness.. the injuries.. the spells of joy. my legs fell fast asleep as the avenues stretched from harlem to the diamond district but he pulled me along. my heart like an engine that would not die.. i could have walked to maryland.

he was my boyfriend then. he was sleeping on his brother's floor uptown. i was sleeping in my childhood bedroom. i took the train into the city once a week to visit. nothing had happened yet. we were still going to be very famous. we were still going to travel and have adventures. we still held hands everywhere.. we had no life together.. we had no money yet.. no house.. no favorite television shows.. no private jokes.. no mutual friends.. no bed.. no christmas decorations.. no nightly candlelit dinners.. no little dog to love like the baby i couldn't have.. no change.. no disappointment in each other.. no what ifs.. no fence that he took two years to paint.. no relapse for me to disappear into.. no in-laws to resent.. no big bank accounts.. no bankruptcy.. no record deal.. no lust.. no anti-depressants.. no sad silence.. no sex life to sabotage.. no backyard for me to spend a summer staring out the window at.. no baseball card collections.. no clothes i did not need.. no separate vacations.. no history. we were just a boyfriend and a girlfriend walking thirteen miles straight down the middle of new york city like the first impatient and clean cut into a wedding cake. and i am remembering it like i'm tracing the long thin line of an open heart surgery scar.

France, 1999

i closed my eyes.

more than a thousand yesterdays ago.

i swallowed sleeping pills and cried

a few poems.

i prayed with the canadian christian girl

who i was sharing the room with.

she told me god had a plan for me.

so i slept like a child.

in the morning

i stood on my train legs and walked to the window.

then sat shaky

looking out over the rooftops of Paris.

the roofs of Paris like beautiful rotting birthday cake.

Lush

i sink back

into the tank

where all heart is delivered.

wounds deepen

my voice becomes hoarse

like a child's voice

from crying out.

i found a diving board in you

faith

a form of pain relief

dumb luck

siting the page you arrived on

shirtless and kissing.

i've taken more than my share

but in the end time will even the wage

nothing is unfair

or everything is unfair. it's the same.

it's death then life then death then life

born into reborn and buried for that birth.

will my life be this grid of no i don't

but in that square i did

such drunken measurements

are on the high side again.

where is God when you are making these decisions kid?

where is God this morning?

simple ghosts

nail beds, tapping

shoulder, tongue, lips

the notes of a prayer

i can say anything

and everything here.

this dream is lush.

i was brave enough to say i do

and brave enough to say

i can't anymore.

paperboats

liars & saints, sxsw 2011

Was just thinking

laws of the universe are one size fits all. i thought this as i ripped the foil lid off of a fresh cream topped coffee flavored yogurt. a small corner of the foil remained and as i clumsily peeled it off it occurred to me that, "if i drop it, i still have two fresh cups left but in three days i will be thinking about this cup and how had i just been more careful i would have a delicious cup of yogurt waiting in my refrigerator for me." and then i thought about money and how it is the same way.. that when wasted or simply lost one always looks back and misses it when it is gone. and in a very different way then when you are just broke and have spent it all. waste is a powerful thing. your bones know it.

i had a good hard cry this morning watching a You Tube video of soldiers coming home and surprising their children. the faces of their deep love broke my heart open. one of those children was a golden retriever that bolted out the front door with absolute glee towards his poppa. it was beautiful. love is beautiful. love that is no choice of your own. love that owns you. love that you belong to. love that chose you. that is true love. and you are already in it.

Thoughts running through my brain

*i'm not sure i believe in the concept of Karma.

*will's idea of his being an asshole is so far from being an asshole that i can only smile and say thank you God.

*the best word in the world is... become. becoming.

*Target.

*i'm in a band i'm in a band i'm in a band... (this never gets old for me or less cool)

*ssooo tiReed

dear morning. i am pretty happy. drinking instant coffee in my artificially frozen one bedroom. so close to the green belt that i have only been to once. my dog is snoring in her leopard snuggie against me and music videos are on the tube. yesterday i got the amazing news that the boys in Liars & Saints all want me in the band. i said, "yesssssss" because i love those sweet men and they are everyone of them uber talented and wonderful and i have always admired each of them and now i get to write and play songs with them. i'm a lucky girl. i'm a liar and a saint! .sincerely

i am obsessed with this Reckoner Dress by Secret Squirrel.

the I'm Not Like Them collection = the loveliest chill.

it makes me want to picnic in a field of paper flowers..

on a cold day.. my winter white legs goosebumping..

lookie...

http://secretsquirrellabel.com/collections/im-not-like-them-2/?image=25

Holy

loss reshapes us

it cuts a new path through the high grass.

i am running down it.

blackberries

crushing under my feet

accidental wine making

thorns catching on my sleeves

ghosts reminding me

that i am still so fleshy

a human of holes

and thinning bones.

but still

some high and holy mystery

fuels me.

it turns out that boobs solve most problems.

hungry like the wolf

The damage

i stayed loyal to a liar.

he left an ugly stain

like spreading ink

and black water.

killing

all the pretty

young

and fancy lilies.

a phantom limb,

the ache comes out of nowhere.

and i run away

my heart a sick liver.

a stunned

and bleeding baby

a swollen lip

a fever.

my old flame

and my palms on the burner.

that long and lost year

in his corner.

The promise

i have learned so many lessons.

they have come at me

like knives-

me the spinning wheel-a-girl.

with the closed eyes.

determined to be experienced

i held a shimmy grip as i climbed

the authority of the wind

pulling at me like a riptide

leaving pieces of my insides

that i wore on the outside

on the mountainside.

i made a bed of rocks

and ran back towards the shortcut

only to find a desert

dried and moonless.

one set of footprints

one year of thirst.

i have been thrown.

trampled.

punched

and drowned.

dragged lifeless to the shore

and forced back down

only to jump in

the shark rigged water

the dark ring.

i crawl home again

bruised and bleeding

beaten.

but he is a gentle lesson.

a sweet reminder

that life is a kiss on the steps.

life is a constant beginning

it is unexpected innocence

it is.

innocence.

that you can expect

you never would have believed it

if promised.

which it is.

promised.

i promise you. you are innocent.

life is so surprising and constantly wowing me. about ten years ago i remember thinking that all my choices had been made.. boy was i wrong. it seems funny and so very innocent now. as if at thirty i was who i would always be. i have been through many changes since then. musical, romantic, addiction, financial, career, creative... every deep level and each surface side of me becoming and unbecoming.. losing color and then turning into the bright spectrum, then fading to pastel only to become florescent. life is ugly. life is beautiful. it is God and love and horses and birds and weeping willows. it's apples and monkeys and pavement. it's an old set of keys and brand new winter coat. it's perfume and scars and cowboy boots. it's his dad's piano and the moon and broken hearts and burning embers. life is a scratched and warped record that you still try to play. it's the dance no one invited you to and a ruined surprise party. it's also a kiss and noodles and high heels and diving boards. it's a hangover, lemons, sunrise, music, a dented pickup truck. it's your memory and your day dreams. and your quiet hope. and my quiet hope.

there is a past we don't know about within us.

it haunts us.

the clocks are plucking birds from graves and shocking them to sing.

and it's just you and i

remembering

nothing.

a good sunday cry

a tear. one drop. rolls from your eye

into mine

and i cry.

we don't always remember the beauty we miss

you called it homesick.

my homemade cure

was a hug and a kiss.

work, i wished.

there is a future we don't plan within us

it wakes us.

i tell stories... they improvise skits... fun!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7TQSylYciI&feature=player_embedded

my sheets have him tangled he is a sweet and low perfume from the next room. sweat and weed and sex and sleep he sounds like the timber of a birch tree. sad moon a sad moon a bird song calls it calls me from feathers

as i fall.

i heard guitars in heavenly stereo

up above

i leapt

and landed in love.

2010...

it was a difficult and beautiful year. my heart opened, closed and then opened again. there were times when i felt like i was never going to grow up. but i did..

i survived the heartbreak of my life. i did it with tears and friendship and bad poetry. i did it with an equal mix of grace and childishness.. i did the very best i could. i continue to process that loss but i wake up every morning in the absolute belief that everything i have been through is just as it's supposed to be. i think i will always miss that man and what we could have been but i know in my strong heart that it is or it isn't and i have to show up for what is and let go of what isn't.. some days i am at peace with that.

i lost my ambition. it is the best thing that has ever happened to me. i am living in my life today and not what i want to be next year. i am happy and content in a way that i have never experienced before. thank God!

i hurt someone. i am sorry. i learned how important it is to be careful with a man's heart. i learned that the fragility of others needs to be respected. but i also learned that in order to be my true self i have to make mistakes, face them and forgive myself. and i have..

i got a job. it solved 90% of my problems. i love taking care of myself financially. it turns out i am responsible and hard working. it also turns out that i like people... a wonderful surprise! my co-workers and customers have become a second family and they give me so much love and support. i love my Strange Brew.

i have become aware of how much more of my family and friends i need in my life. i don't reach out enough and i'm not sure why. but i'm looking into that and i will report back when i have a better explanation than, "i'm so busy."

i lost someone. someone i need. it was very much half my fault.. it was a snowball of damage.. i don't know if she is gone forever but i love her from over here. for now.

i made new friends.. they are funny and weird and moody and creative and loving and annoying and they like splenda and know my punchy side and write me poems and fly like sparrows and make fun of me and flirt with me and yell at me and love me! and they are the very best part of 2010.

2010 was about friends and family and growing up. it was about seeing myself more clearly than i have ever seen myself before. that i am as much a knucklehead as i am terrific. that i can love and respect my dark as well as my light. that i am the sun and the shadow. and that you are too. and so i have seen myself through loving others. truly. and for the first time.

thank you to my friends and family.. for knowing that i do the right and the wrong thing and for taking care of me through both. i resolve to be a better daughter, sister and friend in 2011. and to walk the dog more. and to remain a non-smoker. and to have more dance-offs.