Afternoon Tea.

2012-01-29T11:34:00.001-08:00

Your soul is like a vagrant,
slinking through the alleys
of exposed cat ribcages
and rotting mangoes
and maggots lacking wings.
You watch a rabid mutt
peel flesh from the bone
of something long decomposed.
You're gathering
a stack of phonebooks
a spool of cobwebs
for a nest to keep you warm,
momma bird.
But don't you know,
that I could be your home?

I'm back.

2012-01-13T18:12:00.001-08:00

For a long time I felt like I was unable post here because the man I was dating was obsessively checking to see if I had leaked any of my thoughts into this blog. This place has always been a refuge- a place to write and release and heal and ramble. But I couldn't ramble about my love-life insecurities and my anxiousness to leave and my suffocating, sorrow-ridden self in a public place. It would have given me away long before it was actually over. After that, I was nervous to write here. I would sit down with a hot cup of tea between my knees and stare at the little blinking cursor begging me to spill, and my hands would tremble and my pulse would quicken and I would always, always end up dumping out my cold cup of untouched tea and pick up a book to mindlessly lose myself in. I couldn't write because I refused to wallow. Life, since then, is blissful. It's healthy, you know? I live the healthiest, happiest life. I wake grudgingly, but happily, at an ungodly hour when the sky is still dark and the streets are empty save for vagrants and troubadours. I brew coffee and read the paper in the quiet, sleepy hours of my workplace and set out hot steaming cups of caffeine to the addicts and early-wakers of my city. I walk to school, my bookbag slung across my chest and my water bottle swaying slightly with my footsteps. I learn, I buy a cup of tea, I learn again, I buy another cup of tea. I come home to naked bricks and unreachable ceilings and best of all, a tall and open-armed man that laughs when I lick his face like a kitten and kisses me with a fervor equitable to Howard Roark's architectural desire. Life is good, and I'm back.

(Official) Change of Address.

2011-09-25T08:12:00.001-07:00

Safeguard all that is important to you. Take your yellow curtains with the lace silhouettes down. Neatly fold your clam-colored sheets and the quilt your mother gave you for your birthday and place them in a cardboard box. Press your fingers to the spine of each beloved book and carry them to the elevator. Place them in your backseat. Glance at the mailbox with the tiny numbers and your name written on a wrinkled piece of yellow paper. Disassemble the cradle of sleeping bones. Pack it up, pack it up, pack it up. Withdraw your possessions into protection. Not a trace of you remains here. Do not be afraid when you close the door to a hollow room. Slink to your knees inside your loft that smells like fabric softener, your loft of scattered underwear and exposed bricks. Count the neatly stacked boxes of buttons and threads and bubble-wrapped ceramics. Feel your lover's hand slide into yours and squeeze. Become cognizant of that feeling- that sedated, placid, extremely blissful feeling associated with home. Feel a smile spread across your face and the laugh lines in the corners of your eyes crinkle because your eyes are smiling too. These boxes mean something to you, but not what they used to.

Day One and Two.

2011-03-22T09:53:00.000-07:00

Three hundred and six point three miles. Sixteen limbs. Eight eyes. Forty eight pairs of ribs. Forty one dollars of pretzels, cinnamon pecans, and pull n peel twizzlers. Three sun hats. Two queen beds. One magnet in one black bag that relentlessly demagnetized six hotel keys. Two frozen custards. One hazelnut truffle. Two hundred UV altering nail polish bottles. Two games of March white elephant: one XXL pirate coloring book, four broken crayons, ninety two temporary tattoos, two pink piglets with quarter slots. SPF 100. One photo booth. One beef chimichanga from Pancho and Lefty's. One apple empanada. One order of fried ice cream. Two tacos. Four hours and fifty four minutes for one degree of weather change. One chemistry exam in seven minutes, missed two. One phantom sunburn. Two days left. Please stall Thursday.

2011-03-07T13:53:00.000-08:00

Stairs rattle
on the way up
to fill a coffee cup, ink
and batteries for the oracle.
Every tier is parallel
to four skeleton legs
where they tread,
silver with disease,
slowly eroding,
as the top of the staircase remains untouched
however desperate the stride.
This sun god mythology
serves only to undercut
a wilting Inca sky
under which rising flares
one cream one gold
peel the cracking heels
from steps caked
with buttercups.

Typical Morning.

2011-01-31T07:38:00.000-08:00

There is a piece of cellophane on the floor. There is a half eaten bran muffin still folded up in the filmy outer paper on the counter next to me. A drop of cream that fell from the cold, silver canister when I filled it. A coffee bean. A paper clip. A few grains of chai powder. This is my morning job. Two refrigerators hum beside me. A shiny register. A yellow cylinder of whip cream. Vanilla and cinnamon and hazelnut syrups. A cup of blueberry tea between my knees, a steady stream of steam slowly rising from the pill shaped opening. A darling man downstairs, making our lunch. It feels much earlier than it is, and I miss sleeping in.

Desert Sleep.

2011-01-21T19:27:00.000-08:00

I dream I am
a pale saguaro.
Shedding needles
pierce a yellow rind
shriveling
at my ankles.
Her seeds,
stale and gaping
in a nest
of terra cotta.
I recall
waking up
in a desert bog
with sand beneath
my fingernails.
The morning
reeked of sleep
and lemonade.

Hello, Again.

2011-01-09T14:58:00.000-08:00

Hello, again. Hello, owl eyes. It feels like months since I've been here. It's like returning to a familiar room that you've been away from. Dust has gathered on the eaves and rose scarves are moth infested and you spot a faded book you used to keep under your pillow, so you pick it up and delicately turn the pages, thin with age and slightly transparent. You find petals and aspen leaves pressed between the letters and you remember the smell of the summer when you walked around your culdesac, barefoot, plucking one petal from every garden and one leaf from every tree of every yard, and you placed them in the thickest book you could find. Russian olive trees and hot tar and scones from the carnival down the street, you remember. You whisper to the petals and dehydrated, brittle stems, wake up, wake up. I have missed you, Afternoon Tea.

The winter break has been the loveliest of reprieves and textbook hiatuses. It's given me a chance to take in my new home. My new home with the oddly shaped bedroom nooks and tiptoe balcony and ceiling air vents. It's taken me a few weeks to adjust to the modern architecture of this fifth floor and lament on my second story fire escape with the parking lot window scene. But the expanse of time that I've acquired over the past three weeks has given me the chance to find shortcuts. If I pour cream into the bottom of my cup before I pour my coffee, I won't have to use a spoon. If I take sixteen stairs to Barnes and Noble on my break, instead of turning the corner for Starbucks, I can order cinnamon tea in half the time and still have twelve minutes to read in the break room on thick leather benches. If I sit in the basin of my bathtub, and curl myself up so that I'm nearly touching the drain, I reduce the risk of cutting my ankles with a new razor. If I coat the kitchen counters in fig-scented cleaner, and use three paper towels to clear debris, I eliminate lackluster streaks that change shape at odd angles. If I fall asleep curled into the warmth of the body next to me, I dream of feeling yellow and little jars full of buttons and fragile things. Most beautiful of all, about the break, is that I've somehow lost track of myself. Hours and days have somehow vanished from beneath my precisely planned schedule books and minute alarms. I found myself wondering what day of the week it was, how long I had been lying in bed reading, and at what hour we turned the lamp off. A new semester begins.

2010-12-23T16:10:00.000-08:00

Found an early, bitter snow
on your barren outer piece
so I peeled away the flakes
like dead cells from the fleece.
My teeth became the seeds
and my gums became a shell
while I warmed an early frost
and your swollen brothers fell.

It's Strange.

2010-12-06T12:37:00.000-08:00

I've been neglecting this little writing place. Lack of time, and lack of sleep. I'm sorry, readers, (you lovely little things). My life right now, feels so strange. What's strange though, is when things become routine and you don't like the way they are. When you find yourself falling in love with passages created by Virginia Woolf instead of creating your own clever words that sometimes remain inside in your notepad, unused, and unread, and sometimes end up as unfinished poems by lamplight in the morning. It's strange when you feel like you can't kiss someone enough, when your mind suddenly realizes their lips might vanish right from under yours.

It's strange, when the person you used to name your dad calls and you see his name, you see it flash across your screen in an instant and you are so frozen that you can't bring yourself to touch "slide to answer" because you fear you'll feel his skin, and you know you'll hear his voice, and that terrifies you. It's strange, when you put the receiver to your ear and you hear his voice at the other end, talking to the machine he hopes you'll listen to. It's strange when he says things like "I miss you. We miss you." and "I think it's time for us to put all of this past us." It's strange when you can't bring yourself to call him back, or talk about it with the person you used to talk to, or accept advice from your dearest friend. It's strange when you miss your dad, and you're not allowed to miss him. You can't gather enough courage to call him back and instead you send a text message that he never responds to, with words that spell things like "a phone call doesn't unbury me." and "I love you, I miss you too." and "I just can't.."

It's strange when you realize the semester is almost over and your home, your very first home away from home with the hissing radiators and the pale glass cabinets and the wallpapered ceiling, will soon be someone else's home. It's strange when you feel angry at yourself for complaining so much, and not saying enough out loud, and feeling sad for yourself. It's strange, that no one really knows you at all, and you can't help but feel sad on this Monday in December. It's strange when you realize you do strange things, like make telescopes out of gum wrappers while you're reading. It's strange all that you really want is to hold the moon.

2010-11-15T13:56:00.000-08:00

Quiet in your movements
as your teeth split
like sea clams.
Opening and closing.
Your dove-gray jaw
heaves in high staccato,
charting gentle flagships
and postmarking
a sea of white-washed
heel and shin conversations.
Tiny splinters of light
beneath the tide pools
reveal delicate shells,
making real
the faraway sounds
of a name.

Photo Credit: Maragret Durow

Happiness.

2010-11-05T07:06:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time coming.

2010-11-04T15:01:00.000-07:00

This pastel morning
has two monogrammed organs
to ease the aching

Something Special.

2010-11-04T14:52:00.000-07:00

I’ve been running and slipping and I can’t catch my breath even when I’m sitting still, legs outstretched in my new black boots with the metallic insides, outstretched onto a marble table and my back flat against a taupe-colored chair that is probably meant for relaxation and light reading, because I’m in the library of the university that I’ve been attending and there are a hundreds of living bodies and sleeping bodies and ill bodies wandering and dozing and side stepping their way around me, with slack jaws and sucking teeth and sandbag dropping eyes, and there’s a bundled woman in front of me with bare feet and tired toes and we smiled at each other because we both have one of the those faces that you see and think you recognize so you smile sideways, just in case, and we may have had a class sometime, both quietly sitting in hard wooden chairs with smooth, silver legs and our lips tight and straight as we listened to the others converse and we studied by ourselves before midterms and hardly squeaked in class, our grey little faces like mice in the back of the classroom or in the taupe colored chairs of the library, two shy little things with hearstrings and irregular lungs because we can’t catch our breath and perhaps it’s strange that identifying with a barefoot woman is comforting but don’t we all call people with similar characteristics our friends and our lovers and it’s only getting harder and harder for me to identify with the people that share such close similarities to my own because I’m weary and getting defensive and hardly an exclamation point in the universe if you see it as a narrative and earth is hardly a pinprick, and I’m rambling and the thin black letters are getting nearer and nearer to the time where academic books will be opened and pens will be picked up, vertically dragging on sheets of crisp paper, and my heels will clack on the cold linoleum that always reminds me of a dimly lit hospital hallway and really, in relation to the milky way, we are just rambling bodies that are smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.

2010-10-29T10:23:00.000-07:00

Freshly soaped shoulders
are lapping up blue paint
as the refrigerator hisses
and lungs gently deflate.
Webs and spindled legs
are unraveling in the sink
and a spoon of heavy pears
is clinging to your drink.
The faucet's dripping mold
but your skull- it feels at ease,
your mouth is slightly open
and it's letting in a breeze.
Your fingers kiss the kettle,
caressing lustrous metal,
and it's cold inside this home
but the halls are yours roam.

Basic Space.

2010-10-16T17:45:00.000-07:00

In Seattle, the air smelled like salt and clams and basil and crisp autumn leaves. The loveliest smells, the warmest smells on the coldest of mornings. We drove past callow gardens with red and blue birdhouses. Walked beneath crossroads with spiderweb cables, guiding swerving metro buses. Stepped over manholes where steam seeped from the underground city. Fish scales lined the walls above galleries and pale strings hung limply from tree limbs. We drove from the forest hideaways, away from the most darling of twins. I wondered if business ever brought you to Seattle and I wept when I thought of the souvenir gifts that I couldn't hand to you and the letters I had been writing but never slipped into the mailbox. I made Peter feel the hollow spots in my hands, the places where tiny birds could make a nest for little robin eggs. Between the bones. Middle finger-forefinger nests. I snapped photos of the lumber factories, the steel factories, and the cement factories. Man-made pleasantries in the middle of somewhere. I drank chamomile lavender tea and coconut black tea and raspberry Italian soda in the loveliest cafes. We drenched ourselves in hotel hot tubs in our underthings because we had forgotten swimsuits. I whispered goodbye to the sea when we stepped off four wooden posts.

On the way home, we drove from the outskirts of Portland alongside the yellow lights of steam boats and white sails. The basic spaces of my skin and three sleeping bodies, my skin and the road. I came over the top of a midnight hill, the top of the world perhaps, and I saw a thousand blinking red lights. I've missed you, I thought. Hello, hello, hello they blinked to me. I stared at my face in the rear-view mirror for a moment, I looked so pale, so washed out. You ghostly thing, I thought. We hid away on the interstate and I thanked Peter and Chelsey and Sean for the loveliest three days away from home.

2010-10-05T18:03:00.000-07:00

Have you seen the skies?
Almond slivers
and apricot strokes.
Porcelain bats swoon
at the nape of bare wrists,
suspending the flares
with crescents shaped
like fingernails.
The silhouettes of
grapevine limbs
purr at hollow webs.
But there are rings
around the moon
and frost is coming.

Photo Credit: Duy Huynh

Half Asleep.

2010-10-04T07:24:00.000-07:00

The water trickles and I'm mumbling to myself to turn the music down because there are two sleeping bodies outside the door and I'm half asleep and it's early. I step inside the shower, brush against a thin curtain of pale greens and blues and the shower scalds me, brands little tear-shaped marks on my lower back. It's so hot that it's cold and I stare at my kneecaps covered in gooseflesh and I wonder why the uprising of hair follicles is called something so bizarre. It's dark outside and as soon as we hit a steady 68 I let myself linger in the space between dreaming and living. My left cheek is pressed against a pair of blue denim. I sit up slightly and stare at the delicate blue threads. I am a moth and my wings have left white powder on my resting place, I breathe into the air and they dissolve and we breath them in, these little wings like specks of dust. I place a small gold key inside a small silver lock and twist, I listen for the chime of gears moving and a deadbolt fastening and I smile, remove a gray wall that's collapsing inside of itself. I think about losing my friend. And it's only the middle of my week and I can't hear anyone over the music because it's too loud and I'm muttering to myself to turn it down. And then I realize the music is just my humming, something someone once told my they do when they're nervous. But I'm not nervous, I'm just half asleep.

2010-09-21T15:17:00.000-07:00

Deathwatch beetles crawl
within lackluster rings
as back-lit cabins fall,
but they are lacking wings.
Our tongues are silent rails
in an ash-enveloped cage
and a catacomb of blurs
are mistaking lust for rage.

Rusty.

2010-09-15T10:22:00.000-07:00

I'm taking a moment, a brief relapse, to purge the words. My skull is like a rusty little typewriter in the shadows, tapping black keys. I'm taking a break from memorizing literary terms and breaking down the human cell until there's nothing left but a thousand little electrons buzzing around a tightly bound nucleus. The past few days have been rushed, in a word.

I keep thinking about a beautiful baby girl, my best friend's little sister gave birth to the most amazing spirit. Her name is Lilleigh. I held her a few short hours after she emerged into the cool air. I brushed the pads of my fingers over her fontanels, feeling the grooves where bones folded into skin. I wept, staring into her gray eyes, watching her, watching me. She looks so much like her mother.

My calves are sore from organizing the spice cabinet in a new, yellow kitchen. My mouth felt strange for the expanse of about three hours, I said the word dad, out loud. To him, in the flesh. It was so strange. It really was.

My eyes are tired from staring at this back lit-screen in coffee shops with aromas of nostalgia. I'm having a hard time finding time to write, and read. I want to read so badly, I walked into a bookstore and was compelled to buy new books but could only manage the first thirteen pages of the lyrical script before I had to set it aside and picked up a heavier, denser leaf with a thousand more prickly veins and a wider stem. This semester is killing me, and I'm afraid I may have packed on too much, but I crave the knowledge. I crave the avalanche. My books and I have a paradoxical relationship. I have fallen in love with every one of my classes. My creative writing class, especially. I wish I could make time to write. This morning I made linden flowers tea, I held honey by the ankles and let it bleed down onto a dusty teabag. I let white petals loll around the vacancies of my cheeks, I let steam warm my fingerprints. I'm hungry for boredom.

2010-09-06T07:55:00.000-07:00

There is a pair of mooncalves,
blue and stagnant on the wall,
and the window traffic slurs
and the legs begin to crawl.
Their cold protruding caps
are enticing like the tides
and my sweet Achilles gills
are all sputtering in stride.
The water here is murky
as my chest compresses bones
and I'm thirsty for escaping
and not for casting stones.

Photo Credit: Margaret Durow

Morning Tea

2010-08-29T13:02:00.000-07:00

I wrote this for my creative writing class last week, my first fiction piece ever. Flash fiction. It's slightly morbid. I apologize to those of you with weak stomachs.

A hard, wooden chair cut into my back like razorblades, bruising the protruding disks of my vertebrates. I sat with my knees curled into my abdomen and for precisely twenty-three minutes I watched the violet shadows disintegrate into pale sunlight like an embryo escaping the womb. Sweat swirled from my tiny teacup and whisked itself into the cavities of my nostrils. It was then that my grandmother, aged ninety-eight years, interrupted the still morning. Her face was made of endless layers of skin, thin and transparent like a decaying peach slice. She made her way to the counter to pour herself a cup of tea. The splintered marrow in her hands caused her to drop the teapot, a Blue Willow china set from my mother’s first anniversary. I began to cry. Her nimble legs stooped down to pick up the shattered pieces of blue and ivory petals. I dripped from my chair and puddled around my grandmother. I stroked her hollow cheek and smiled at her to reassure her that everything was okay. She flinched away from me, cracking her skull against the corner of the counter; a tiny stream of blood trickled down her forehead and dripped onto a fragment of the teapot.

I stared down at her limp chest and embraced the stillness of the room. I sauntered back to the kitchen chair facing the window and gripped my warm tea. It was lukewarm now. My fingers were sticky like maple syrup. I glanced at my grandmother again, her limbs looked like a paper doll chain, the ones my mother use to help me slice ribbon for to hang in the windowsill of the reading room. I held a large shard of Blue Willow in my palm and remembered how easy her skin was to slice through, like aged paper. A pool of blood seeped into the floorboards, it was the color of gingerbread tea. I decided to steep that for the afternoon.

2010-08-23T11:48:00.000-07:00

I can sense your soul

slipping and hanging there

like a mid-morning cat,
and your grasp on clarity
becomes a porous scene
from monotone lungs.

But the sun is pale
and whisked with wings

like smooth vanilla tea

and I can feel you clinging

to the tiny white feathers
in the garden.

Photo Credit: Vavovi Rec

Angst.

2010-08-18T09:47:00.000-07:00

I am feeling anxious, and nervous, and excited, and like a volcano is simmering in the very tiny capillaries of the arches of my feet and slowly, s l o w l y, rising up into the kneecaps and hip bone sockets and pelvic cavities and abdomen, and singeing the wings of the thrashing damselflies and butter wings hibernating there. Another academic year, and did you know, that I often miss the first day of class to purposefully avoid introduction games and the blushing of cheekbones and stumbling of words? I bet you didn't. I think this year, I'll attend the first day. I'll quietly sit in a mothball scented auditorium with two hundred students and listen to the hiss of the radiators. I think back to last year, and running to class early to claim my seat by the window, or seat 86, or a place to hang my mittens and my scarf on the radiator hinges. I would open up my journal, and write until my elbow ached, like little pinpricks, write until my professor would stalk in, three minutes late everyday. I would watch him swathe the board in white chalk, throw the green slab upward with the flick of a wrist.

Mostly, the volcano is warm and familiar. The thought of my soles on a lackluster shortcut to the library or the humanities building, padding the smooth freckled concrete. Gathering leaves to press in my yellow leaflets, adding to my watercolor leaf collection. I am ready to fall back into routine, ready to carry a thermos of cinnamon coffee in knit covered palms. I'm anxious to slip beneath the train tracks and watch the flickering lights twitch, feel leaf tornadoes surround my calves, inevitably glance at the branches to see if the world has changed colors and dipped into Autumn.

2010-08-15T14:38:00.000-07:00

When ankles are tea lights
blown out with the whirring,
and lungs swell like dreams
that are more than recurring,
blue spokes melt the lightning
that drip from wax fingers
and bones cling to narrows
where the seeping road lingers.

Free Writing.

2010-08-09T11:58:00.000-07:00

I'm out of breath, and out of words, and every building annex is a quiet escape from the tornadoes. The past fourteen days have been like a speeding whirlpool in a deep, chaotic sea of colorless waves. Last night, especially, was when I felt it.

I was so quiet. So shy. So antisocial. I was worried of tying up my tongue, saying the wrong words. Blushing like warm summer tomatoes. And so I sat, eating dinner, four little children at the table to my right, and seven others laughing and reminiscing. I was silent, blue eyes staring at my plate. The little pieces of mango and black beans. I watched a lonely fly cling to the white cotton oxford next to me. The little guy, starved for attention. And then I thought to myself, I am feeling sorry for this little fly, and I should be contributing to the conversation at hand, or shooing it away at least. But I couldn't, I couldn't think of one thing to say. My introvert personality crowding my thoughts. I wish that I didn't get like this, at times.

I'm excited for the upcoming week, however. Silence and bare shoulders and scabbed knees and bristle cone pines. Ten or fifteen flashing lights, like healthy comets, focusing and refocusing and delicately learning. Insanely high altitude, and my blonde hair whipping around my lips and tangling in my lashes. A different setting, a different lifestyle, if only for four or five days. And now I'm home, finally home from the busy weekend and the busy dinners. My home away from home, for a few more hours, before I leave for the city again. Writing, and tracing mosaic shapes on the furniture, and talking to my mother about which classes I should be taking, and trying to find my textbooks online. And I'm in a good place right now, even with all of these natural disasters of hearts raging around me, with everyone I know clinging to the trenches. I'm bringing the colors back. The hues are returning, I'm feeling better.

2010-08-08T14:16:00.000-07:00

It was morning when

spider lights burned

in the attic of my mind,

when splitting boxes

kissed the floorboards

among the withering moths.

It is now almost Autumn

and it will still be months

before I shake the powder

and smooth brown lips

to rip and rewound

the events of May.

2010-08-01T20:58:00.000-07:00

Let's walk, my legs say, sweeping heels
against the cool cement, tendons flexing, knees

peeling from the bone. I drift to the roots,

a little slinking. The pursed ashen lips

are a mess for the dawn, and soon enough,

my veins are the night. Twelve ribs crackle

and clamor from sight, and the warm air rots

beneath thin almond eyes and tangled brows

whether someone left the light on, or not.

Thoughts,

2010-08-01T11:11:00.000-07:00

I am in love with this heat. This sickly sweet, syrupy heat that drips from my ankles and earlobes and encrusts me in honey-colored sap. Even yesterday, in a wasteland of blue searing doors and dirty pavement, windblown walls. I keep thinking how nice it would be to be a caterpillar and wrap myself in gossamer, dangling from white bark branches, hibernating through the winter in my warm little cocoon. I am eagerly waiting for autumn, but I could do without the snowflake infested winter. I had a dream that I had shark skin. Smooth, grey skin that was sleek and shone like silver rings in the sunlight. I loved it, strangely. My pores felt so encased, but it was a change of feeling. I think I loved that more than anything. Feeling out of my own skin. There's a little hole in the wall next to my home on the love seat. From my peripheral vision, I always think it's a little black eight-legged creature. But I know that it's just a hole. I still catch myself glancing over every so often to make sure that it hasn't moved. Silly, isn't it?

I asked someone how they healed. So quickly! it seemed. She told me that she didn't, not fully. Still healing, she said. I am still healing, too. I think I will be healing from this for a very long time. My mind often wanders. To what you may have cursed, the shade of red you may have turned, the amount of sweat that fell across your upper lip. When I detailed abuses in my cryptic tomb. I imagine your green eyes lapping up the novelties, searching for your name. A mention. I often wonder if you were more upset that you didn't fill the pages like you dominate emotions, and the swollen sun. Did you read me, to see how I was doing? Or to see how I was doing, without you? You could have just called, and saved yourself the effort of reading all the archives.

2010-08-01T10:45:00.000-07:00

A strawberry curl
from well-polished pins,
wash over the knots
infecting her skin.
The high lilac furrows
diminish the yawns
in a basin of porcelain,
the drizzling dawn.

Photo Credit: Lissy Laricchia

2010-07-25T16:23:00.000-07:00

White clay swathes my ankles
as I'm placid in the garden.
It breathes like dawn is coming
as the mud begins to harden.
I straighten with the milky sun,
taste the blushing colors come.
I'm thriving in this drought
beside six hundred tiny sprouts.

Photo Credit: Margaret Durow

2010-07-22T08:56:00.000-07:00

Red leaves lick my fingertips
and pool around the veins.
The air is soft and sickly
but the inhalation strains.
I taste my blood condensing
with the calloused center stem.
I know how it feels to fade,
disintegrate like them.

Photo Credit: Camille Solyagua

Run-on, run-on, run-on sentences.

2010-07-18T10:32:00.000-07:00

Chalk creases the lines on the underbelly of my hands, the ones palm readers will trace with their fingertips, comparing them to tarot cards and zodiac signs. Lexi draws the moon and the comet swirls and I draw skyscrapers beneath the pedestals of blue teacups. We run across heavy pits of tar and gravel to reach my apartment doors. The heavy black doors with little silver studs. The three of us, Haeleigh, Lexi, and I, exhaust our limbs on the floor of my bedroom, sleeping deeply side by side. Six twitching eyelids.

We hold hands and cross the city to grassy fields, wild, pounding speakers and thirty white tents. I finger the pages of handmade books with blank insides, and I wish there were lines on the pages. Peter walks on the outside of us, cradling my knuckles. We push our way to the front of the stage, bobbing heads, laughing, screaming in each other's ears. Hallelujah, hallelujah. Lexi and I sit in the basement, ironically named The Attic, we elevate to the roof garden, echo down the endless staircase.

We fall asleep on the opposing hill of a taped-off lake, picnicking under helicopter trees. We sit in a dark, grey room, heavy with too many coats of paint. The ocean walls sweat against the music, seeping into open pores. We melt into the leather, praying for the fans to switch on. I watch the blinking lights mimic the vibrating strings, I catch glimpses of the train from the cracked blinds. I peel my eyelids from the red, the yellow, the green. I feel the notes in my empty water bottle. We sweat, we sing, we bend and unbend our cracking knees. We run on, run on into the night.

2010-07-15T09:30:00.000-07:00

My skull is an aquarium
for lustrous serpents.
To silence the slithering,
I mute the airwaves and imagine
setting fire to my thoughts.
My eyelids whisper,
Please be still.
But they are beautiful,
the silver serpents.
I would rather they hum
in the ridges of my ear canals,
than be a quiet coil of embers.

Photo Credit: Estelle Hanania

2010-07-11T11:46:00.000-07:00

I pressed firm indentations,
curling words with a quill.
Draping ghostly creations,
by the pale window sill.
I smoothed deep pretenses
with a thin leather strand,
and veiled golden senses,
urging souls to expand.

Photo Credit: Chema Madoz

2010-07-11T10:12:00.000-07:00

Through a telescopic lens,

I can almost see the sky

but the stifling city air

keeps me writhing like a fly.

I'll slip to midnight towns

so that I can watch the stars

without rising window lights

suffocating earth from mars.

Calamity.

2010-07-11T09:39:00.000-07:00

I watched my mother dip chocolates last night. She's so graceful, even when working with simplistic things. A spoon and a bowl of microwaved Ghiradelli became an art. I asked to test my own skills, dip my toes in the ripples of milky masterpieces. It's obviously not an inherited trait. I've been reading so much about the road. Hitchhiking from one side of the continent to the other, if I weren't so scared, and if I had a better knapsack, I would almost consider it. The empty lot that overlooks my bedroom window, it's been full the past few days. Crumbling beneath the footsteps of a hundred people. They reminded me of an underground colony of ants. Haeleigh said they were shooting a film of some sort, she saw familiar instruments. Three days, I woke to the sounds of them across the busy road, and then one morning, they were gone. Slipped out in the middle of the night. It was almost sad to watch them go. I felt like they owed me a goodbye. It's strange, that my mind went to that. I should have been grateful for the calm, but I missed the calamity.

2010-07-05T21:39:00.000-07:00

An alabaster cigarette

curled fog around your wrist,

like silkworms weaving sweat

inside a spool of morning mist.

Nicotine-laced neon lights

burned lemon in my eyes.

The chain smokers will fade

but darling, I feel so alive.

2010-07-01T23:10:00.000-07:00

I'm a pallid white ghost,

pressed thin to freight trains.

Dissolved and erasing,

my vessels are bone-stained.

I'll haunt all your cabins

like a tight-splitting tension

so that you can extract me

without audible mention.

2010-07-01T23:00:00.000-07:00

My mind's sloughing cells

and it gives me nostalgia

of stale summer snakes.

I wonder,

did you ever wonder

about my adulthood?

Did you believe

that two tiny fish braids

would dip slim black pens

that would brand

the inside of your soul?

Because I didn't.

Photo Credit: Cedric Bihr

Roadtrip.

2010-07-01T21:33:00.000-07:00

We drove through thunderclaps and micro bursts. Bay harbor waves swept against the windshield and we clutched fingers and grazed wrists. We laughed, and I sang, and you smiled. I rolled my seat back, and fell sleepily into dreams of thigh-high snake grass and faded maps. We visited mystic bookstores piled high with weathered pages, sweating with old books that hung oddly from the tight spaces they were confined to. I ran my fingers over crackling spines, feeling each fondled vertebrate and wondering about the lives of previous owners. You showed me an intriguing handwritten note on the inner fold. We drove past rundown buildings and cinder block apartments with bars on the windows and you told me they were beautiful. We skipped to the pool to read our new books, our old books. I read Kerouac and you read Burroughs and when the humid air was suffocating, you immersed yourself in water and I dipped my toes in the shaded ripples, watching you. You took me to lovely little restaurants and we ate until our stomachs were tight and our mouths were sticky with honey toast. I ran my fingers over banisters by passing gondolas and crossed my legs against the glass of the aquarium for a very long time. Sting rays and silver dollars and electric blue fish swam beside me and I wished to be inside the water with them. I hated to leave the shiny city and the white air, but what a sight to behold.

2010-06-28T09:47:00.000-07:00

I fluttered from caves,
counting tall constellations,
like a thirsty fruit bat,
lost in starless migrations.
I hollowed ripe berries,
from a sultry green leaf,
and drank to the moon,
with the night in my teeth.

Photo Credit: Cig Harvey

Shanna Black.

2010-06-28T09:17:00.000-07:00

A funeral tomorrow, my Great-Grandmother. I had a dream that I was asked to write the obituary. I paced the room, heel to toe, unable to find the appropriate phrases. I pressed my back against the kitchen cabinets, flipping through the cook book she published, letting the thick, white wood soak through thin gossamer to cool my flesh. The tribune clattered against my doorstep the next morning, and I flipped to her soft-focus photo. Her obituary was not a well written hymnal depicting her life, it was a beloved recipe. It was fitting, and I smiled, tucking the newspaper into the pages of her book, and resting her inside the cabinet, nestled beside the cinnamon and nutmeg canisters. It was strange when I read her actual obituary, "Bon Appetit!" filled the void on the last line. My darling Grandmother, I don't have the ability to write about your blissful life, it's too early. Ripe wounds, you know?

But I do promise to cook with you.

2010-06-27T00:25:00.000-07:00

Chasing canyons through your palm,
with rivers made of faulty lines.
Quiet smiles and a morning calm
as webbing roads lead you astray.
We made a bed of ivory strings
above the creaking wooden beams.
Slip softly from the seasoned heat
and rest beneath my eyes.

2010-06-26T23:33:00.000-07:00

My bones were an easel,

and my skin stretched tight,

crosshatched in ocher dye.

You painted with numbers,

pouring white light

inside of my ash-covered eyes.

Whispers swathed lids

in cryptic blue hues,

staining the sink in your lips.

Glass held my breath

in the mirrors you drew,

secretly burning the scripts.

Photo Credit: Cig Harvey

Threepercent.

2010-06-19T22:10:00.000-07:00

When my lungs feel like they're going to die and curl inside themselves like pink lovers, when every street corner is an unfinished poem and every face is an artificial name recorded in leather bound journals, when it feels like someone's sucked all the calcium from the marrow of white bones...I reach for close encounters. They make it all so easy, the broken mending the broken. I know how hard it is- to save someone else when you're just as frail. But they do a damn good job. It's bizarre that claw tubs and his and her sinks and sienna-stacked tea cups make me smile momentarily. That one of the few people that actually understands me is someone that I've never met before, but cried with a hundred times. That I feel most at ease in this sacred place, this public place that feels so private. Monet and creamy potato soup and sticky summer couches, held beneath the covers in t-shirt weather. Warm hands encasing mine makes being erased less noticeable. Makes three percent of my blog posts, meticulously picked at, less noticeable. The whirlwinds, nipping at my skin, they're settling. I'm getting better, or closer to getting better, and I'm burrowing closer to restless legs, cocooning myself into a much sturdier frame. Morning, my favorite time of day, is becoming more bearable.

Photo Credit: Cig Harvey

2010-06-19T12:48:00.000-07:00

Sulking with the bottom feeders,

mint green eyes and feather scales.

While scavenging the ocean floor,

my fingers crawl with silver snails.

I want to meet the eager waves,

but fear of boiling blood within,

will lead me to the oyster caves,

to nurture glazing dorsal fins.

Photo Credit: Denis Olivier

2010-06-13T22:41:00.000-07:00

Wet pendulums on the glass

and the echo reminds me

that my body is an auditorium.

Shedding and reassembling.

I swept myself into the organs

and my bones were dust,

floating melodically

like a sheer column of light.

I hope that one day,

you regret what you said

Dad.

2010-06-12T23:37:00.000-07:00

2010-06-12T09:02:00.000-07:00

My heart between the tapestries
of gold and violet thread.
In curry-scented restaurants,
the crowded murmurs spread.
I heard the strangers clearly,
telling tales in dampened rooms.
I told them all sincerely,
that the light was coming soon.

Figure Drawing.

2010-06-11T13:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, my heart throbbed. I walked through three locked doors, following a sickly skinny man with a heavy key. He led me to an empty room, a thin layer of sawdust covering the carpet. "Renovations," he said, "We'll be done soon. You can change here." I slipped out of indigo jeans and a black top. I stood in the room, both hands on the wall, telling myself to breathe. I looked down at my body, tied in a thin string bikini. Brown, simple, lovely. I tiptoed to an adjacent dimly lit room, crawled onto a circular podium. Fifteen men sat before me with enormous sketch pads and thick charcoal. Lamps illuminated my curves, my bones, my skin. I focused on the man with the easel. Kind eyes, kind hands. They joked about their jobs, I laughed and tried to stay still. I joked with them, like I was one of the guys. I was careful not to move my body, just my tongue. My elbow ached, the man with a scruffy beard said: "Five more minutes, guys." I sang Venn Diagram in my head. I glanced at a sketch pad, the contour of my skin delicately sewn into the pale paper. It was strange, to see my body in some one else's eyes, in someone else's hands. It was unreal and intangible, but I loved every passing moment. An amazing experience.

2010-06-11T13:15:00.000-07:00

I can't escape this feeling
of invitations to infection.
The shadows self embracing
will expose my pale complexion.
Talons leave a searing brand
on withered adolescent hands.
And even though you've gone,
I'm still a fragile marble pawn.

2010-06-07T11:42:00.000-07:00

Your drizzling crowns
and electrical waves
were quietly treasured
and peacefully saved.
And I felt so at ease
with fish bones dangling
in rice paper screens
my linen legs tangling.
And I'm trying so hard
to unravel the vines
that relentlessly snarl
on the bridge of my spine.
But I can't let you take it
through limp little limbs
Because it's all that I have
that reminds me of him.

Update.

2010-06-07T11:13:00.000-07:00

The week started nicely. Bridge jumping with Lexi while Haeleigh documented. The three of us, spotlighted by yellow streams, clad in bare skin and wide-spread smiles. The air was frigid and biting, the water warm and calm. I laughed uncontrollably at paranoid accusations. We jumped, holding hands, holding breath. Lunch and pedicures with my aunt and grandmother. Pesto pizza, white petals on our toes. Roses lined the creases of lavender thread, I quenched their thirst in the depths of a white tea pot. Tiger rolls in crowded restaurants with Peter. Monster rolls in quiet restaurants with my Mother. Journal writing, tea light lighting. Jackson's nine year old hands running through my hair. I had never felt more at home than that moment, his little fingers combing, calming. Driving by myself, down familiar roads. Time with Jory, my darling brother. A tiny black kitten, drinking from measuring cups, burrowing beneath blankets. Wildflowers, beautiful wildflowers, wilting in my sunburned hands. The week ended nicely.

2010-06-04T13:21:00.000-07:00

The wind is blowing backward
and the Universe is off today.
I'm feeling heat from poppyseeds
and harvesting the gray away.
Nameless leaflets bend and sink,
revealing supernatural ink,
and all that's wrapped around my mind,
but this time ripples aren't as kind.

Photo Credit: Daniel Southard

2010-06-04T10:15:00.000-07:00

Compass needles dance alone,
poised deep inside the clutter.
Wisps of light are floating in,
beneath the crooked shutters.
Flushed against a wrinkled hall
are never-ending labyrinth walls,
tangled thick in thorn bush lies,

Tread softly on my hungry eyes.

Photo Credit: Daniel Southard

2010-05-30T12:58:00.000-07:00

I glimpsed the yellow light
behind those frothy peaks.
Please carry me to bed,
my legs are growing weak.
I hid beneath the overcast
for fear of winter yawns,
until you told me apple blossoms
had been scattered on the lawn.

2010-05-30T11:55:00.000-07:00

My pens were quick to slaughter
words you soullessly declared.
That I wasn't your daughter,
and that you no longer cared.
But I feel safest in this printed tomb
of tea stained thoughts and rhymes,
and I have sixty something readers
that wouldn't bury me alive.

Infection.

2010-05-30T10:39:00.001-07:00

No sleep, no sleep, no sleep. Fire ants filled the back of my throat. Honey lemon cough drops, a tall glass of ice water. No sleep, no sleep. I crawled to the tile, filled the basin, faded into the water. I pressed my hands flat against the surface. Rapids fell from silver cliffs, cascading into porcelain bowls. I emerged naked freckles beneath an inch of water, slowly scalding. It was quiet there, beneath the ripples. Knuckles cracked, tiny maracas, my ears heard everything different. Illness cocooned itself between the caved walls of my skin, wrapping winter around my bones like white lights around the banister. A conscious effort was made to slow my breathing, to be still. Water pooled around my stomach, my breasts, my jaw line. Water slipped into my open mouth, swimming on my tongue like a pool of mercury. Into my breathing lips, my pink lungs. It seeped into the tiny corners of my eyes and soaked inside my skin. Acid rain. The rapids slowed, the waves calmed, my coughing ceased. I slipped into a blue cloth and back beside a percolating blood stream.
The water, it heals me.

Photo Credit: Elizabeth Weinberg

2010-05-28T09:14:00.002-07:00

Trickling from infected veins,
the bloodline you created.
If womb care was left up to you,
she would have been sedated.
Bless your lack of follow-through,
our names needled in tattoos.
The ink is far more permanent
and much harder to remove.

2010-05-26T10:13:00.001-07:00

Olive palms curved brittle spines,
flexing naked window panes.
Puddles swallowed lipless songs,
seething lungs with fragrant rain.
Fog pressed thick on fingertips,
like beating wings of raven moths.
Waxy skies leaked melting drips,
dousing light with evening cloth.

2010-05-23T09:34:00.002-07:00

Morning porches woke the dawn,
sprouting bleeding centerfolds.
Novels spilled across the lawn,
accompany the marigolds.
You filled oyster baskets
and lined cardboard caskets,
with remnants of a former life.
I drenched painted lashes
while you scattered the ashes,
but I found where you buried the knife.

2010-05-22T22:23:00.001-07:00

I fossilized against the moon,
my pulse ran slow to stone.
Crescents lit my granite skin
and crumbled dampened bone.
I swam in pits of iris bands,
and withered comet swirls.
The milky ways are fading fast,
for wide eyed Saturn girls.

2010-05-22T22:06:00.002-07:00

Petty clones slurred cold remarks
on foreign canvas totes.
I never caved to frigid words,
a word-of-mouth misquote.
I hardly thought your seeping ink
would help me feel you breathe.
But I felt every wire bolt
that caged your fragile teeth.
Fingers stained a violet throat,
I matched your leaking seas.
And no one knows it darling girl,
but you saved me.

Florida.

2010-05-21T00:36:00.002-07:00

I took a plane to the coast. To see an old friend, to flee from the surrounding mountains. Denver had sufficient air conditioning that kept my lips blue and my body rickety. Atlanta had ripped bench seats and shiny windows. Jacksonville had Chelsey and cellophane and humid breath, my skin was sticky like syrup. The three of us spent warm nights folded in patchwork quilts, remembering younger years.

Lake Alice led me to a lazy alligator, swishing his tail in midnight waves. We waited on chipping benches, viewing man-made attics house thin wings. We waited while the sun slithered down branches, surrounding us in darkness. They soon appeared: 45,000 bats, trickling from the attics, gliding through the sultry air with their webbed hands. Enveloping the skies, circling overhead, I fell in the love with their fragile hearts.

Lush, green overgrowth covered the cities. Jungles lined front yards and wooden swings and dusty back roads. Emerald fingers poisoned busy highways. Callow vines stretched themselves past yellow boundaries. Wildflowers thrived in overgrown cemeteries, sprouting their vibrant petals through the cracks of toppling tombstones.

I flexed my toes on the shore of Crescent Beach, daintily letting the white waves brush against my skin. I watched as think foam ran over footprints, erasing all evidence of previous humanity. I inspected my own indentations, untouched by the ocean’s salty brine. It was nice to think I was the first one there. We ran out into the sea, rolling with the whitecaps and diving with the wrinkled water. We wandered the coast, gathering washed-up shells and splashing in tide pools.

We were free little birds.

Chelsey, Madison, Haeleigh

Torn.

2010-05-21T00:33:00.003-07:00

Well-poised emotional detachment for the past twelve months, I’ve been practicing. But biting letters split wounds in my skin when I was deemed deceased by my father. Hot tears fell from freckled faces instantly upon reading the ruthless words. They stood boldly behind cowardly keypads: You are dead to me. A metallic, bitter aftertaste, is the easiest way I can describe the flavor. Haeleigh mended me, she held my hand while uncontrollable tiny earthquakes rippled through my body. I was reminded of a time we drove the span to Colorado, the roads were dark. Yellow streams leaked from our headlights. Haeleigh’s anxiety rose and I stole away her negativity, calming her trepid nerves. Energy cycling. I learned it from my mother.

A thirty six hour day followed. I wrote short stories on the back of wrinkled itinerary paper. I wrote letters and made promises to future newborns. I told myself I wouldn't print them here. Graphic, hurtful, abusive. I calmly marched through fire alarms and smoky terminals. I pressed my back against grey leather seats and waited for cabin pressure to puddle around my feet. I wrote, and I wrote, and I wrote. I collapsed against dark arms and let heavy beating pound against my cheek as I drifted into sleep. I drove home to my mother and her healing soul. My beautiful mother, all I need.

I'm not okay. But I will be. Thank you, Haeleigh. Thank you Jory. Mother, Peter, Angie, Lexi, Chelsey, Caroline, thank you. My gratitude is everlasting.

2010-05-19T02:15:00.001-07:00

Drenching flesh with bitter salt,
a quail beneath the floorboards wept.
Heartstrings burst with icy wounds
while rotting bodies overslept.
The oceans split to acid streams,
coaxing out a piercing scream.
I may be lacking needed sleep,
but feel my corpse's steady beat.

Still breathing.

2010-05-18T16:35:00.002-07:00

Egg shells swam in lily pads
of melted herbs and thyme.
Cattails stirred a grainy brew,
and whirred a waltzing chime.
I assumed the swamp had bloomed,
while poised wrists buttered toast,
and false facades of swollen pods
lay blistered on the coast.

Awards.

2010-05-07T10:41:00.003-07:00

Hoorah for Bella, a darling wolf girl. She presented me with an award, and in return, I display my gratitude with seven things you lovely readers may or may not know about me. Also, I must choose seven more souls to accept the award. To accept, simply do what I just did. Link back to me, list seven unknown traits, and then single out seven blogs you adore and frequently return to. Here goes.

One, I collect tea pots. They are displayed in the glass cabinets of my kitchen niche.

Two, I am currently reading a book called The Yellow Room, by Mary Rinehart. It was a gift from my grandmother and printed in 1946. The pages are yellow and coffee stained. It's beautiful.

Three, I mumble while I'm slumbering. If you ask Haeleigh, she'll fill you in on the inner workings of my dozing subconscious.

Four, I wake up singing something every morning, it usually determines my mood for the day. Today: Driftwood, Cursive.

Five, I explain my mood in terms of colors. Violet, today. I write the colors on the calender in my kitchen.

Six, Caffeine has not effect on me. I think my mother drank copious amounts while I was in the womb, so I'm immune now. That doesn't stop me from drinking at least two pots a day.

Seven, I once had severe frostbite on my feet, my junior year of high school. I couldn't walk for six days.

Awards presented to the lovely:

Caroline, Callie, Jordan, Lexi, Macy, Michelle, Samantha.

2010-05-05T12:25:00.009-07:00

Soles furrowed rivers in Venice,
heels cracked the stones in Peru.
Mist-coated leaves of tired Red Seas
billowed while calm whistles blew.
Dark lashes dripped sap
in the creased, yellow map
of a sweating hotel in Berlin.

I filled travel cases

and emptied the vases,

before giving the globe one more spin.

Someday.

2010-05-04T15:32:00.002-07:00

I'm going to write a book.

Someday.

Sundays.

2010-05-03T11:57:00.003-07:00

The eighth year, a red brick house, cherries ripened on the peppered tree outside the window pane. The girl next door, my best friend, had a spacious front yard. It seemed miles long. Against the seasoned heat, dragonflies swarmed the open space. It was surreal, hundreds of rhythmic, translucent wings. The air swathed in rainbow sherbet. My lively heart soared next to the winged masses. Arms spread wide, chin up, I would spin and spin and spin, staring at the miraculous creatures braiding in white sun dresses. The fire-breathing animals. It’s strange now to think of open fields. Outside the parlor window rests an empty lot of paved meadows. I find asphalt charming sometimes, when rain seeps past the bubbling tar, through the open pores, when the sleek black rivers look like wispy mirrors, reflecting flickering street lights and syrupy signals.

I spent the day yesterday, with thumbed over pages in my hands. I read a book my mother lent to me, Stiff. A life of cadavers. I could hardly put it down when Haeleigh asked me to come pick her up from the station. An accomplishment though, to finish a book that wasn’t posted in the syllabus. It was nice to read. To drink tea and read. To sit in a porcelain basket of steaming water and honey scented bubbles, my legs draped over the sides to protect the creamy pages from getting wet while I soaked my flesh. To lie upside down, my hair spilling over the white petals, book in hand, reading pages, turning pages, feeling pages. I missed it, more than I care to admit. It started raining, again, and I watched the lot across the street magically spin itself into something beautiful again. I heard rain on the rooftop, strange because I live on the third floor of a four story building. My imagination, perhaps had run away with me, or maybe the upstairs residents were methodically dropping rice on the floorboards. I switched the buzzing television off when Haeleigh’s eyes had closed and quiet breaths escaped her lips. I stretched in bed like a tired morning cat, arching my back. I listened to cicadas play their tiny violas, and fell asleep, in the skyscraper wasteland, the corners of my lips tugging up into a smile.

2010-04-29T16:18:00.001-07:00

Underneath embedded nails,
tadpoles swim in schools.
With reveries of ivory whales,
their watercolors pool.
Pallid streaks of rolling streams,
flicker on the vaulting beams.
I'll fall asleep on placid sheets,
inside the concrete jungle.

2010-04-26T10:19:00.000-07:00

Little disks on little spines,
clutching tarnished twill.
Lilac shadows line the vines,
needled boundaries spill.
Crimson bent my foiled shell,
wringing spiraled carousels.
Steaming vials smother trays,
mending dismal, callow days.

Photo Credit: Lisa Wiseman

Pour Me a Cup.

2010-04-23T08:43:00.001-07:00

Today I woke with the sound of little oceans tapping against the salty pane. I smiled and pressed flushed cheeks against the glass, letting the icy water shower my freckles with dew. I dressed quickly, clad in alabaster threads. Pure and refined. I walked across the sea this morning, grazing little puddles with leather soles. I held the great lakes of Michigan in my furrowed palms, caressing white-capped tides with gentle strokes. I drove to work in a submarine, bypassing sea animals and brushing waves away from the thick windows. Icy capsules slid beside my honey butter skin, and for the first time, I wished that I weren't waterproof. I wished that I were a gray cloud, encasing those little oceans. I wished that I could cautiously watch my rumbling cloud friends shoot lightning bolts from their electric mouths. I wished that I could tepidly wait for the rattling thunder, shaking drenched bones. Today is a yellow day, even though the skies are varied shades of ash. Thank you, darling, for making it pour.

Photo Credit: Flora Hanitijo

2010-04-20T16:17:00.001-07:00

Strum me like a slivered fiddle,
splice me open through the middle.
Split apart my petaled skin,
watch the crawling sap within.
Feel my lungs expand and sink,
hear my ticking organs wink.
Catch my piercing, coiled song,
threadless mumbles strung along.

2010-04-20T12:28:00.003-07:00

Sultry powdered lemon drops,
lolling around my arid cheeks.
Fresh from rustic candy shops,
the slipping smiles swiftly leak.
Drowsy popcorn blossoms bloom,
beside the tightly bound cocoons.
Bliss lines pan across my face,
and laughter fills the empty space.

2010-04-17T21:38:00.001-07:00

GRIN.

Birth Right.

2010-04-17T21:35:00.002-07:00

April fifteenth marked the nineteenth year. Salmon smothered sandwiches and acorn squash ravioli with mother at lunchtime. Sky colored scarves blindfolded heavy black eyes as Haeleigh drove my nervous body to an unknown destination, scraping curbs and raking loose gravel. Clear glasses and sparking water met me there, accompanying warm faces. Spider venom made my arms decay, but I laughed with my lungs. Violet lips left murky marks on thin glass, curved like a crescent moon. James and Ian strummed their wooden instruments, and we sang. I envisioned a campfire there, in the middle of the wooden floors, filling the darling home with thick smoke. Quill pens, parchment paper, heavy books, invisible ink.Three new ceramic teapots to line in the kitchen niche. My grandmother wrapped the most amazing novel. Whittier's Poems: 1849; a decaying green hard cover. The smallest print on flaking pages. The most amazing feeling when I held those yellow leaflets. My mother, my beautiful mother recreated my fifth birthday party. I held red stone bowls while we ate dinner on the green, green grass. Spring grass. Warm breath blew down the back of my neck, sun filled swooping curves. I swung at a ladybug on the rope swing, filled with chocolate pleasantries and candy necklaces. I blew candles from chocolate mocha cake. I smiled, I smiled until my jaw ached. The nineteenth year, I do believe, will be brilliant.

Whirlwind.

2010-04-11T07:58:00.001-07:00

I've written about windmills a few times. Here, here, and here. But I can't get enough, I'm obsessing. I love to stand beneath them, those steel pinwheels. I love to close my eyes and feel them twisting. Sometimes, I pretend my breath is deep blue so that I can see it escape. Escaping voices, escaping air. I like to imagine streams of it, floating away, intertwining with the canyon's breath, disintegrating against the ivory pillars. Methodical mending. Releasing city spores from spidery lungs. I wish that I lived closer, I wish that I could drive to the mouth of the canyon and watch the little blinking lights. Soothing, calming, easing. I wish that I could drive past the endless stretch of pavement, my eyes aching for the first glimpse of tiny white whirlwinds, cascading across snow banks and anthill roads. I wish that I could pull the key. Listen, feel, Heal. But homes reside so far away. Creamy light is crawling through the open window, lathering sun on the naked walls. It's here, morning's here. I think I'll pour myself a second cup and drive. I'll drive to the spiral giants.

2010-04-09T08:46:00.004-07:00

I slipped from crying colored bells,
and to a charming, gentle place.
Crackling spines of papered rice,
were dipped in quills of starless lace.
Leaflets piled birch wood shelves,
and sparkling souls so tightly sealed.
While minds decayed with aging smells,
I felt the rotting city heal.

2010-04-06T06:38:00.000-07:00

A kaleidoscope of amber threads
trickled from a canvas heart.
Heaps of wilted blossoms spread,
and stems trailed gracefully apart.
While straining hourglasses fell,
tiny breath strokes floated up.
White caps creased my steeping tea,
and oceans curled inside my cup.

Wild.

2010-04-05T00:22:00.005-07:00

A drought-infested mouth kept me silent, I was so afraid to part my teeth. The underbelly of my tongue would whip open, angry words spewing from my mouth like fleeting bats in a torched cave. A cordial smile and a cold embrace, while howling shrieks boiled inside my throat. Silence in a festive facade. I'm done. Except to read The Lorax to my grandmother when she's too weak to turn the pages. I must remember to do that.

But sometimes I take comfort in the silence, you know? Dark lulls and a warm heart throbbing next to me. That's the kind of silence I enjoy, the kind with braided legs and interlaced fingers. With electric fingertips, shocking new waves into a lifeless body. You're very much like a lightning bolt, darling. It's refreshing. A cool glass of lemonade making rings on cedar tabletops. Healing.

Lead me to bluebonnet and lavender and scarlet sage. Lemon mint and foxglove and Texas paintbrush.

Lead me to the wildflowers, for that is all I need right now.

2010-04-04T23:59:00.001-07:00

Your porcelain grin is chipping,
revealing all that you conceal.
The puppet threads you're gripping,
have lost benevolent appeal.
Do you think your forging smile,
is hoaxing anyone worthwhile?
You're not fooling even one.
More than strings have come undone.

2010-04-01T12:20:00.003-07:00

Espresso lines my creasing palms,
like paint between defining slits.
Leaking skies cleanse pallid flesh,
blending seeds with emerald knits.
Swollen lilacs swim in pools,
outside the fingerprinted pane.
I fold against a threaded spool,
and fill my cup with sugar cane.

2010-03-29T13:26:00.003-07:00

It's been a delicate morning,
the sandman never visits here.
He slipped away to calmer beings,
drifting from a splintered pier.
Sun spilled through a hole of keys,
waltzing on my calloused floors,
while seagulls drank his morning tea,
and dripping hands held heavy oars.

Eggshells.

2010-03-29T13:19:00.003-07:00

There's blood on the moon. Foreshadowing, you know? I dreamt eggshells lined the floorboards, thick and white and beautiful. I held my breath as I made my way to the kettle. Six years old again, cautiously walking on hard snow, careful not to break the surface. Immaculate and sparkling. I wonder what that means. I woke with limp limbs, tired from the whirling hurricanes thrashing about them all night. My restless skin, my crawling skin. I felt too much when daylight broke. I felt it all. I held my breath. I imagined carefully strolling on a frozen lake, meeting shivering geese for hot breakfast. Drinking from arabesqued novelties. My uneasy heart has been pulsing so fast, drowning in a black lagoon. Relentless thoughts. Relentless and fleeting.
But through it all, the hurricane hearts, the eggshells, the crawling skin, I'm happy. I'm honestly happy. I'm healing, you know? Scars are fading. I'm getting there. I'm progressing. I'm not breathing stale air anymore. I have clean sheets, lavender sheets, and I'm smiling. I like that.

2010-03-25T12:55:00.002-07:00

Anxious wind nipped lucid rays,
beneath the hearts of thawing skin,
Bending lights withheld my gaze,
as pebbles skimmed a jagged fin.
While hasty gills were fleeting hooks,
finding peace in salty nooks,
spirit guides held open palms,
urging glinting scales to calm.

2010-03-22T17:17:00.000-07:00

Draped in gowns of slivered sorrows,
made from strands of windy sleeves.
I'm treading through the underbrush,
pockets filled with quaking leaves.
Tiny flakes of crystals flutter,
waking stems from silent tongues.
Brooding air is pouring thicker,
sealing off my anxious lungs.

Photo credit: Cedric Bihr

Waterlust.

2010-03-22T16:35:00.006-07:00

I felt the letters trickle down, dripping from the open space between my lips and my teeth. Spelling out names in black needles on backs of sun kissed skin. Leaving silver marks on tired cheeks. Illuminated by the black light. Filling empty space and empty boards with triple scores. Letters. I remember seeing fence posts against your arms, like blue birds lining barbed wire. It was strange to see you like that, in my head like that.

I felt numb driving home. Dead driving.To thick clouds of gray haze, a giant cloud of smoke hovering above the city. It's so dense here.

I stared at a fixed point above the cars in front of me. Lemon daylight above silver tin. I followed signs, I let them lead me to the drop off. I shouldn't have. I should have driven blindly. Let the road take me. To steel factories reflecting off salty lakes. To driftwood shores and charcoal skies. To rippling mast forests. Lost at night. Driving blindly.

Waterlust.

Marble Showers.

2010-03-18T12:18:00.001-07:00

I pressed a furrowed forehead and shaking hands against cool marble. I kept thinking about becoming part of the stone. Eyes closed, emerging into freckled slabs, rooted in time like a stagnant statue. Exerted spirits sloughed their way between peppered fragments. I let them go. Naked and frozen, I bridged against the shower's wall. Lights out, blanketing sight from needy senses. Rain fell over the arching skeleton, the aching skeleton. The scent of musty quarries filled gaping wounds. I imagined morning dew sliding through silver leaves. I imagined tumbling brooks cascading over gleaming fish scales. Raw skin sizzled under searing droplets, but I didn't flinch. I became the marble stone, peeled from swathes of somberness. Calmly, I stood. The wild breezes settled.

2010-03-14T23:27:00.001-07:00

Wet beads of sweet elixir,
sliding down my desert throat.
I'm filling floors with paper ships,
creasing docks to aid the float.
We'll stare at porous ceilings,
wishing that they'd disappear.
And while your tales are sailing,
I'll hear the oceans in your ear.

2010-03-14T22:25:00.004-07:00

I watched a tempest symphony,
fragile strings pierced stifled air.
Wheezing lungs shook cold debris,
scattering the silent prayer.
The charcoal sky was brooding,
lapping up the yellow light.
I wept when bolts came shooting,
splicing through the vacant night.

2010-03-12T13:50:00.001-08:00

Abandoned by a bitter soul,
the feral child wept.
A dulcet wolf embraced the girl,
although she never slept.
She craved the sight of human hands
instead of speckled paws.
But fleshy bones were never seen,
which forced her to withdraw.
Her tangled hair fell in quilts
across her empty eyes,
and howls escaped a swollen throat;
her savage lullaby.

Photo credit: Sally Mann
Poem inspired after I read THIS ARTICLE

Today.

2010-03-11T10:45:00.011-08:00

I see: six white buttons lining a professor's blue oxford. A cheap leather jacket, navy suede, cold eyes. Faded cloth, revealing muddled tattoos on a wiry arm. Gleaming zippers in a red pool. Palms encased around a stubble-covered chin. White bricks, exposed, naked.

I hear: rustled papers on a crowded desk. Tales of murders in Vietnam and heroin addicts. Clearing throats, shoveling mucus from the pit of heavy caves. Tapping keys. Sighs from a weary passerby. Candy wrappers whispering.

I feel: Needles creeping into the arch of my foot, numb toes, paralyzed eyes. The birds in the pit of my stomach. Smooth paper against smooth palms. Eyes tracing my jaw line. Cool air from the open glass. Hard tile. Black phantoms in a mirrored room. Warm tea sliding down my throat.

Warm tea. Warm tea.

Cream lathers thirsty taste buds. Visions of crowded oak desks keep entering my mind. Curtains flutter, papers stir, black pens writhe to the edge. To be completely honest, I'm feeling slightly numb, unaware of biting wind. I want to feel a pinprick of reality, "Let's run, Mad. You'll sleep, I'll drive. Up through Rhode Island, don't look back." I want to watch life ooze out of a microscopic hole at the bend of my elbow, where a network of teal veins collect like a series of streams, emptying into a clear, open sea. Fish bones, you know?

Weightless.

2010-03-10T17:41:00.001-08:00

An experiment as an author in a darling girl's journal.
Click Here

2010-03-09T11:55:00.003-08:00

You've been washing in the wild,
silver pens and plates compiled.
Suds are clinging to your knees
dripping sunlight through the dock.
Gills inhale our morning tea,
painting scales with heavy chalk.
Gather lilies from the nile,
make a nest for crocodiles.
Sing while faded porches swing,
we will kindly wait for spring.

Photo credit: Cedric Bihr

2010-03-05T13:00:00.007-08:00

Harp strings line cocooning curves,
peeling back my rippling nerves.
Swathed in drapes of honeycomb,
the vacant hives are humming.
Sunbeams brush the ancient wounds,
splicing through familiar tunes.
My wings danced through vanilla foam,
the violet skies are coming.

Muddled Writing.

2010-03-02T12:03:00.004-08:00

Today, I'm free writing. Please forgive the muddled mess. A ghost wrapped in pasty sheets. I lazily rolled over and scanned the vacant floors. My body was placid for a long time, the stillness of the room made time suspend. Light poured through cracked blinds and open curtains. I accepted the morning, I welcomed it with a warm heart. Twine cluttered hallways and hardwood floors. My reflection smiled in the glass of my vanity. An ebbing heart. Warm arms, blue birds, hollow walls. I found relief in thumbed over pages. Thin pages, rotting pages. I held them close, whispering fatal breaths. Beating hearts and white knuckled hands. Promise me something. Promise me blueberry pancakes and hot tea every morning. My hands trembled and salty fluid spread through inked gate numbers and promised seats. Airports have an air for goodbyes though, maybe that's why the tears came so fluidly. Anchors fell behind faded couches, forgotten and longing. The crown of daffodils around tangled hair absorbed the light beneath your chin. Sundresses blew. Our feet planted in solid ground, growing roots beneath the earth. Branches broke through the marrow. Pulsing with the core. Teal suitcases. I caught your aura against the white board. Promise me something.

2010-02-25T12:25:00.000-08:00

An indigo child born with strawberry hair,
guards letters behind the ivy bricks.
She strains to make her eyes aware,
while candles flatter thawing wicks.
Her bones exposed through music boxes,
reveal her dreams of dozing foxes.
She'll know the glowing skies are close,
when kettles fade to comatose.

Photo credit: Oleg Oprisco