close your eyes & count your ribs & go to sleep

growth chart


i remember
when i first started
noticing changes.
in every single one of my senses
there was something new
fresh exciting terrifying
about him.

his voice had started to crack
and deepen, no longer
matching the smallness in his
stature, the baby shape
of his face.

he spoke and something sparked
far inside me, nothing like
i'd ever felt before.

i would stare at his hands,
just watching them grow, turning
into those of a man
and wonder how would those feel
running along my face my body?,
what would i do
if he touched me as a grown up would?,
what i would do for him to.

his lips filling out, his grin widening
but god those lips, to dream
of how it would be
when he finally grew grew grew
and knew what to do
how to be just to me.


----------


works in progress

we grew up in a time
where there were no
statements like
i had a great night,
no innocent kisses with
your mother watching out
of the kitchen window,
the towel for drying dishes
held tight and still damp
in her hands, while the
water ran out from the faucet
and the fear of what could happen
hung heavy on her mind.

we had too much freedom
and used it to every inch
of our advantage,
coming home two days
past curfew clothes on
backwards and inside out,
numbers tracing the new found
curve of our hips
where boys had previously
etched their way
into our heart mind body.

the porch swing was never seen
unless it was used to sneak out
but the back seat was well worn in.

I got bored with the old poems (and also, I seem to have misplaced my notebook somewhere in the move (which upsets me very much! It took me forever to get all those into one notebook!!))
so here are a few new ones.
[footnote: I don't know why I write introductions like this here.]
[footnote2: when I write, I take something that happened and weave images from it. It could be a picture I saw, a phrase I heard, something that happened to someone I know, a friend of a friend of a cousin of an uncle of a friend. I take one thing and build until it becomes something that moves people, in any sort of fashion.
All poems are based on something that happened,
but none of it is real. It is all fiction.
An illusion. A delusion.
So when you get to the last one, don't take it to heart.
I don't know anyone who would behave in such a manner.]

untitled.
he threw paint at
the windows, the walls, the
beds, covering
everything
in this ghastly (ghostly)
yellow, brighter than
the sun.

it is necessary,
he preached,
to hide all memories-
rid ourselves of every
single thought
that contains her.

all i wanted to do
was hold her.
i wanted my breath
to slow slow slow
and the frantic beating pounding
smashing
of my heart
to still stop and
quiet just as
her own fragile
thudthudthud
had done.

i wanted to wrap her
up in that soft
sea green blanket,
the one that
off-set the
putrid blue
her skin had turned.



----------



Redolence.
, n. The quality of being redolent; sweetness of scent; pleasant odor; fragrance.

my hands are starting to
smell like his,
the nicotine soaking in my skin,
staining through my blood
down to my bones.

i will smoke until
the day he dies and
forever after.

when i miss him, i will
fold my hands
like mother taught me,
holding them
under my nose
and breathe in deep
so deep,
wishing the sweet scent to
follow the air
and course through my veins
to my heart,

where he would stay
and be with me,
watching and caring
and making sure
i was safe,
like he'd always done.



----------



Mooncalf.
n. 1. A monster; a false conception; a mass of fleshy matter, generated in the uterus
[Earlier, unformed embryo (from the supposed influence of the moon).]


it seemed so odd
such an awkward
occurrence
to sit in that room
with it's comfy couches,
iridescent green
(living)
plants and couples,
chatting, acting as if
they do this
all the time
like this is their normal
monday plan.
they sat around,
doing homework and
writing up grocery lists-
oranges, a carton of milk,
eggs, for irony-
while i sat and tried
not to vomit (again).

i waited for her
to walk out of that room
and fall into my arms,
sobbing and needing
love.

hours later, she pranced
out bright eyed and
fresh-faced, like always,
grabbed me around
the waist and we danced
off, her singing in my ear,
how utterly
necessary a drink
is now that she didn't
have to worry about
that growing thing
inside her.

i ordered three Charles de Lint books
from amazon.
the first one got here today.
i love his books.
so so so much.
he gives me so much to think of.
so much to dream of.

i want to find someone
that believes like i do.
that gets so lost in the words
and the images they lay out
that everything else in the world
gets lost.
that everything else
(and time)
ceases to exist.
that you forget to even
breathe.

i want to find someone
that wants to travel the world
like i do just to track down
the places in time, the settings
in stories and see if we could even feel
just an inkling of the same thing
that these characters feel.

i need to find somebody
that can make me
feel and see and think,
somebody to challenge me,
to make me live and breathe
like i want to.

i am not a material girl

Robert Donald Miller, Sr
March 4, 1921 - February 22, 2009

Grandpa died a few hours after that last entry.



I'll never learn that material things don't make me happy.

I bought the camera of my dreams. I'm still sinking. Even quicker than before, I think.
The problem is that when I get depressed like this, I get easily bored.
I crave change in all aspects of my life.
My clothes, my hair, my style, my weight, my friends, guys.
I don't want a relationship or even just one guy.
I want to change that as much as possible.

I don't know what to do now.
There's this boy that I like (liked?).
We were taking it slow.
But now, it's too slow.
Now, I'm bored.
I want to change.
I still like him though. That's the problem.
It's just me trying to convince myself that I don't
so I can keep self-destructing.

I have a perfect opportunity for that this weekend.
And I really want to use that opportunity to my greatest benefit.

At this point, I really don't care.
About anything at all really.

I hate myself so much when I get like this.

i am too broken to live, too sad to die.

Last Tuesday,
my grandmother
came to me in a dream.
we sat and chatted
over amaretto sours
for ages and ages
before she asked me to pass
on a message.

tell him it's ok to go,
that you'll not be mad,
and that i miss him
terribly.



On Thursday the 19th of February
I found out that my Grandfather was dying.
They didn't think he'd make it more than two weeks.


A day later, they said it
wouldn't be more than
two days.

I went to see him yesterday.
I've been trying to process
and figure out what I feel
and make it coherent,
but I am failing miserably.
So instead, I wrote this...

my grandfather is (not yet 'was') a terrible man. when he'd come home from work at 3am he'd wake the children up and beat them for all they did wrong while he was away. the resentment and bitterness and contempt for him still flows heavy and heated and thick through the room just like the air at the nursing home. there are pictures on the walls, of the children, relative trees, fields, jesus but not a single one of the woman he was married to for over 40 years. they brought a tree in so he could feel like he was dying in the woods like he always wanted but there is nothing absolutely nothing there to remind him of the woman he loved. when i went to visit, i wore her turquoise ring, that large oblong set of silver and the gorgeous color, that she always wore. he grabbed my hand and ran his finger over the ring. there was something in his eyes that moment, a flicker a thought a feeling that i still cannot quite grasp. memories, sadness, heartache they were there but something more much much stronger was there behind all the rest. i want to feel all that he felt that moment when he saw the ring and thought about her. i want to to take his pain take him somewhere and wash it all away. i wanted to be the one soaking a sponge in water so he could drink. my grandfather like jesus, strung up and laid out, too weak to do anything for himself. he is dying for no one's sins but his own.

I hate the fact that I've always had to sacrifice dreams for reality; passions for life. As a kid, my family was poor. Not poor enough to starve or anything like that, but we had the bare minimum and none of the cool things the other kids at school had. Mom always made sure that we had food on the table and the bills were paid, or at least kind of paid, and after that there was no money. I had to quit all the things I loved just so we could eat. I had to tell my voice coach that even though he thought I was his most promising student, my oldest sister's husband had just quit his job, so we needed to give them money. I've never gone to college because we don't have the money and according to my family, no one would give me any sort of help because my grades in high school were so crap.

Photography is something I used to do every single day. Whether it was thought out planned out shoots, or just spontaneous ones with my sisters kids or my friends. It's something I love to do, a way that I speak my ideas, my thoughts, my feelings. My camera broke last month. I've found the one I want to replace it with. It's around $900. I told Mom this morning and she just laughed at me. I told her my plan, and she laughed harder.

I can barely afford to put food on the table, but I don't care. I will have this camera. I will take all my food money, all my extra money, and put it into an account for this camera. I want it so badly. And I'm sick of losing everything I love to do because life gets in the way.

i was walking with a ghost.

i said please
please don't exist.


Three more.



As each ray of light grew
brighter and brighter
the sheet crept
further and further
over her head.

I walked in to find her
lying there,
the stark white sheet
clinging to each of her
jutting bones.

The image froze me,
my mind replacing
the over-sized bed
with a cold
mortuary table.

I walked over to her side
and shook her gently.
She pulled down the cover
and gave me her
award winning smile,
the one that melts my heart
and makes me forget.

[19.May.2005]


-------------------------


I wake up and run my hand
along my collarbone,
searching for any mark
of your pain.
My fingers hit the pearls
that I took from my mother's
jewelry box
last May.
I had meant to pawn her things
(now that she's gone)
and see if I could
maybe
get your heart.


[4.Aug.2005]


-------------------------------


'I always wanted bony fingers'
she said,
startling me,
drawing a drop of tea
from my cup.
'So elegant, you know'
I mumbled a slight yes,
yes,
in agreement.

elegant and sickly,
said my brain.

In my mind
I see her hands,
a precious gem
set in silver
dangles
from each of her
elegantly
bony
fingers.

Two months later,
hands folded over her chest,
the bright beads of
the rosary
shine against her
cold pale skin.
Her precious bony fingers
intertwine
and cling to that string
as if it might
still save her.


[25.Sep.2005]