if you were here... you'd be confused by now

screw the angels.. everybody wants to wear my red shoes

2007-02-15T07:28:00.000-08:00

What? I don't know. I have been kind of crazy lately, and I may still seem a little crazy externally, but I really am totally in the zone (obligatory Sports Night reference). Seriously, I am so on top of things right now (except car insurance, gas & cell phone bills- I have the money, I just haven't paid them yet). I feel invincible. I know I'm not, logically, but red boots make you want to dance like no one's looking and make sure everyone is.

I have been very conscious of myself lately. I don't think self-conscious is the right term though, because I don't feel shy or reserved or unconfident. I do feel a little false, but I'm working on that. If YOU build yourself a persona, it's still you, right? So I've been persona building. I've been going through old journals, throwing our clothes I'll never wear, buying red boots and corsets, and wearing makeup. That's right- makeup. Unilateral rejection'll do that to a girl. So will February. I've been kicking ass and taking names at work. I am organized, efficient, productive, in charge, and making it look good. Jekyll and Hyde've got nothing on me. Seriously, I can't say I don't recognize the crazy girl that's been writing in my journal for the last two weeks, but I sure don't feel like her right now. I've worked her in- I think there's some value to spontaneity and impulsiveness. And it feels damn good being me right now. I feel really lucky to say that. Now I just have to clean my room. Not just... there's a pretty long to do list, but I'm on top of it. I am in the zone.

kind of sort of maybe almost sex

2007-02-15T07:27:00.000-08:00

My first time almost wasn't
kind of didn't happen actually...
or... I don't remember how it ended.

I remember how it began-
'80s cartoon movie, vegan chili, video games
and a futon

Friends passing in and out of the room
with an increasing frequency
that coincided with our decreasing modesty
so that eventually
those friends were passing
video game controllers over our
entangled bodies.

and then there were three

his best friend asking him
"is this weird?" and after the
"kind of"
they silently agreed to avoid
each other's mouths and
focus on the girl...
pressing lips to my neck, my tongue
my... nevermind
the point is:

I've had sex.

But boy, we were never about that
Ok, we were kind of about that
but it wasn't the same thing.
You were never supposed to be
one of them.

I never felt more sexy than
in bed next to you fully clothed
cradled the moments like
nursing a baby-
slow and gentle
fingers on spine, inside of arm
back of neck
toes up and down legs
wedged into the socks
you forgot to take off
and pressed our feet together
like palms
traced the inside of your hand
with my fingers
as patient as I had to be for you
to work up the confidence
to close your fingers over them
stole kisses like I couldn't afford them

surprised when you tried to match funds
happily

rode that train like I didn't have to go
to work the next day.
And no, that's not a metaphor for sex

we were only kind of about that.

she's a jar...

2007-02-12T22:09:00.000-08:00

I'm listening to that song right now, but it seemed appropriate. I don't know when I'm going to stop. Anyone who's talked to me in the last 2 weeks probably has some idea that I'm kind of in a very self-involved disassociated rambling phase right now. I've been writing like crazy, living out of my purse, my car, and vending machines. I have slept in five different cities in the last 2 weeks, and am quite frankly channeling me at 21 a lot more than I'd like to admit. I don't know when I'm going to slow down, or stop living this day to day messy, messy me. I've been feeling a little restless and temporary lately. It happens every so often where part of me thinks its a good idea to wander city streets, stay up too late smoking, drinking, and waxing philosophical. Then you wake up in a 9 by 6 whitewashed room in brooklyn on Sunday morning, realize you haven't slept in your apartment two days in a row in like 3 weeks, and that you're kind of scared to. I don't know, I think I'm afraid that I'll become complacent if I stop moving.

Anyway... blah, blah, blah. Angsty twenty something quarter life crisis. I'm sorry for every mean thing I've said about Zach Braff. I had a good night. Had dinner with Rob, who keeps me honest. He makes me admit when I'm bullshitting myself. Plus I can be totally weird with him, and he likes to plan, so I don't have to. Seriously, like a walking Zagat guide. Then I went to Out of the Blue for Jme's feature, and read a couple of new pieces, then bought this gorgeous journal that was $40, cuz, did I mention I've been a little impulsive lately? Jme was great. I literally cried. Then we got some drinks, so again, I got home at 1am, because I am becoming irresponsible instead of complacent. Maybe I don't have to pick. Anyway, I have to wear a suit tomorrow, which means I should sleep

embarrassing

2007-02-12T11:18:00.000-08:00

so I was reading my old livejournal today. WOW, is that embarrassing. Perhaps what's most embarrassing is how little my tone and modesty has changed in 3 years. Anyway, here's what I learned about 20-21 year old Cara.
*She listens to DMX, NERD, Madonna, Matthew Sweet, and Jay-Z... only some things have changed.
*She knows how to CHANGE A TIRE? I don't ever remember having done that.
*She apparently was not very bashful about talking about things of a sexual nature in a completely public place. Also, not very shy about talking about the guy that she liked, even though he clearly was a frequent reader. I think I've lost some of my boldness.
*She was exactly the same amount busy as I am now. We never learn.
*She was a pretty good rapper (or at least better than i gave her credit for)
*She took a lot of online quizzes
*She had some WEIRD dreams. Like super detailed weird dreams about cars with alaskan huskies painted on them and car accidents and
*She meets a LOT of random guys and never does anything about it but write about them (which I guess works for me because I have all kinds of great dialogue moments)
*She was very self-conscious about feeling very self-important
*She had a very sex and the city like mentality
*Her porn name (and I guess also mine then) is Lisa Highland
*She made a lot of lists (um... yeah)

and then there are some great things that I just can't break down into summary:

"grace: (intertwining her fingers to mimick handholding) "it's like practically sex""

"[coffee shop conversation]From which, I might add, Melissa's genius theory on men (or men in my situation in particular) originated. That is, to not take no for an answer. Apparently, if you just decide that you're in a relationship, you are. It sounds nice and all, but I'm not sure how successful this hypothesis will prove to be."

And lastly... my genius summary of the perfect man (February 4th, 2004):

"boredom leads to livejournal entries... because sleep, who needs it? so i've decided to outline the qualities attributed to my ideal man. if i could build a man from scratch, this would be him... let's call him... jonah.
ok, so jonah basically is as follows:
-sarcastic, dry sense of humor, can make me laugh
-a taste for the bizarre and obscure
-not afraid to call me on my bullshit or tell me to shut up if it's warranted
-willing to watch (and enjoy) foreign and arthouse films, but appreciates the necessity of the occasional stupid funny movies
-on a similar note, enjoys going out for sushi, mediterranean food, etc., but also doesn't have a problem just ordering a pizza and vegging out with pizza, beer, and a movie.
-is interested in what i'm working on, but has his own thing going on.
-doesn't mind sleeping over sometimes, but gives me my space when we need it.
-tells me what he REALLY thinks about things im working on, constructively.
-tells me to go away if he needs space.
-enjoys music, movies, and reading, and understands how important these things are to determining compatability.
-doesn't mind spending an hour wandering around the used book store. or at least doesn't mind leaving me there.
-wants to learn new things and wants to teach me new things. (he he... fortune cookie game)
-on that note, has no problem laughing during sex. sex should be fun. shit, my mom reads this...
-physical appearance: ideally is about 5'9, has dark hair and REALLY blue eyes or DARK brown eyes. Is broad shouldered but not too muscley, but not too pudgy, and not too skinny. i don't do well with extremes. I should be able to kiss him standing on my tippy toes.
and likes to cuddle, but doesn't take it personally if i dont ALWAYS want to. if anyone can think of anything im missing, clearly its important so let me know."

Yeah. Special, Special stuff.

hmmm...

2007-02-12T07:45:00.000-08:00

I just realized that I have done no laundry or grocery shopping since the beginning of the year. Nor have I cleaned my room. I have only used my stove about twice, and I don't think I've used the oven at all, or watched TV. Reason being? This is the first day I have actually been in my house for more than just sleeping or showering since new years day. I have had every weekend this year booked straight through, and have been working on my days off. I had to force myself back to sleep about 4 times this morning because I was so anxious about filling the day. Not that I don't have things to do, mind you- laundry, groceries (because i have been spending way too much money on food), schoolwork. I was planning on going to the BU or Emerson bookstore to see if they have this book I need for my first essay. Also, yoga, the gym, the library. I have lots of options. But I don't want to leave my bed at all. And I'm trying really hard to allow myself to not feel guilty for taking ONE day off from running around like a crazy person. But I haven't even gotten all the books I need out of my car yet from last weekend, and my room has not been cleaned since right after Christmas.

However, I have kind of been taking comfort in my life as a vagabond. Had a great time in NY this weekend. I'm really glad I saw Jon's play (well the second one). It was the first play Aaron Sorkin ever had produced, and it was kind of cool to see his early work. And if there's anyone more obsessed with Sorkin than me, it's Jon. Also, the house music was Jay-Z and Ashlee Simpson. All in all, good stuff. Sleeping in unfamilar places, i.e.- bus, Jon's room, make for interesting dreams. I mean, I don't know that I ever got to REM this weekend, and I was having these weird alternate universe dreams. I don't remember any of them, but I know that I was just kind of hanging out in between. It was kind of cool. Sometimes I don't understand why people bother with drugs. Your brain has so much potential to mess with you before substances even enter the picture. Also, I bought a really cute corset top and a really cute vintage t that says "i left my heart in ny." thought it might be a cute V-day top. AND I went to my favorite Chinatown bakery (to which Jon replied "you have a favorite Chinatown bakery? YES) and had TWO yes TWO coconut rolls for breakfast yesterday. Hmmm... food, right. Jury is still out on whether I will actually leave the house before the afternoon, but I do only have peanut butter, and if I go to the BU bookstore, I could stop at TJ's in Copley to do shopping on the way back... and the Library I suppose. However if I had in that green line direction, I'll be tempted to call someone that I'd like to talk to and it's probably best that I don't. Maybe I'll just go back to sleep.

thinking out loud

2007-02-09T14:44:00.000-08:00

I don't know why I have been writing here so much lately. I've been so busy that I have had a lot of source material and not a lot of time to talk to people and share things that have been going on, so I guess I'm kind of saving it for myself for when I get to slow down for a minute and process everything. Because I am super anal-retentive about not losing things, so I save scraps of paper, fortune cookies fortunes, business cards I will never use, almost gone tubes of lip balm, emails i will NEVER need, IM conversations that I think will be good for play dialogue sometimes. That's probably pretty messed up. But I think that people should know that when they talk to me, they are being memorexed for future use. I learned from a playwriting professor in college that writers are always taking notes. Maybe that means we don't feel as much because we're always observing, even when we're living. Maybe that's why it never works when I try to be with other artists.

Anyway, this has been an absolutely insane week. I have seriously reconsidered everything about my life. I'm always talking about how I hate that young people are expected to be building toward some sort of someday conclusion, so I always try to live even when I'm building, but that's not REALLY true. I never live in the moment. I'm always building foundations, and I never see it through to a full house. One thing that I have not written at all this week is an annotation or essay for school. Exhibit A. Work has been crazy, and I don't feel like I will ever be able to establish a routine. I haven't been able to drag myself to the gym ONCE this week (probably because of the nyquil), and it seems like everytime I get used to something it changes. I wish I could be the Cara I felt like when I got back last week, that could leave anything in her wake and cut strings like scissors. I got an email today that the Omega retreat center is hiring for seasonal staff, which essentially means that there are people that go and live at this amazing holistic retreat center for 6 months, get paid, get fed, make beds or do laundry, organize workshops, or run desks, and then get to spend the rest of their time taking movement classes, yoga, tai-chi, dancing at drum circles and writing poetry- ok, that's what I would spend the rest of my time doing. But I can't just stop. I can't cut strings, put my stuff in storage and go find myself. Where the hell do I think myself is hiding? In Rhinebeck NY?

What has been most stressful this week is that I had to write a 200,000 dollar grant in like a day and a half while the staff was dismantling itself and I was quickly coming to the realization that I could very well be the last one standing, which means doing like 3 jobs on top of the 2 I already feel like I have. Which really mirrors my last job. I've invested so much here in building the Youth Media Institute, that I really don't want to leave it behind. And I don't want to leave my teens behind. They are AMAZING, and I think that we have a lot of great work to do this year. So it's interesting that crisis has kind of made me more committed to buckling down and reassessing priorities. Dropping all the balls I've been juggling and picking up what I can. For which purpose, I've created a blocked schedule for myself, so that I can make sure nothing slips. So I realized that I only have weekend nights unscheduled. To be fair, the R&S stuff is not always all of those nights, just things I try to keep blocked off for Our Sisters, group, Street Theatre, the new planning committee for Trans stuff. So, ok, yes, potentially all of those nights- but not always.

And that's before even scheduling in What's Up and ACME meetings, and me and Lexi are talking about starting up a women's writing group through R and S... So between work, and school, and the gym, and I swear I have friends that I like to see sometimes, I don't really feel like I even have time to worry about relationships and crap. But then I think of how I hate when people say that. Because yes, relationships are work, but they shouldn't be a burden. They should ease the rest of the burden. And I do feel like I always go for men who are at least close to as busy as me so that I don't feel like I'm neglecting them, because I hate feeling guilty about all of my other commitments. But I really feel like if both people understand that there's a lot of other stuff in life and enjoy the time that they can have together, that it shouldn't be a huge stress to be with someone. But I've always viewed the men I've been with as like a teammate, so if someone doesn't see a relationship as a partnership, like an opportunity to take on life together, then I guess I can see how they will always get frustrated with yet another thing they have to juggle. The whole mars and venus thing I suppose. Dating scares me. I really don't understand how it's done in real life. Stupid ALL school. But I do know that I'm done being the other woman, done kissing frogs that I don't even want to turn into princes just because a warm body seems better than an empty bed, and I'm done investing time in men that I'm really just trying to fix. Men are not houses, and fixer uppers are not worth the investment.

new poems (because i've turned into a graphomaniac)

2007-02-09T13:13:00.000-08:00

detour home

Boston roads go everywhere
behind your back
they are like secret passageways
in castles that little kids are afraid
to talk about in the dark.

I've learned my way around
a little bit better
each time I've found a different
accidental way home
and there are always new ways
to get lost here.
Black holes running from
Dorchester to Mission Hill
and into the Fenway
and I never understand how I end
up under the damn Citgo sign
every time...

like it has a magnetic forcefield
around it
or you under it.
another place I lose myself...
your back is the backroads of Milton
in the dark and snow
10 minutes and an hour away from
my bed.
your hair those tree lined streets
on the Jamaicaway that I had no idea
would throw me into Brookline
cost me a dollar to get on the Pike
to find my way home again.
your scars are landmarks...
the Citgo sign, the Zakim bridge, the
gold dome over the State House
that let me know I'm on the right track
that I'll be home soon
or at least know where I'm going.

The road home is always closed after
midnight
after I leave you and that stupid sign
in my wake
follow orange signs all over Downtown
Boston
tracing arteries through one way streets
and almost the right way
and I've wasted so much time getting lost
in those city streets
late at night
your cheekbone, the top of your spine,
the back of your hand...
sometimes I kick myself for
not keeping better notes for next time
but in the end I always find a new way
back to myself.

poetic license

don't worry about me.
i know that it may seem like
i'm falling apart
that you broke me in half
or more pieces than you think
i can repair
but that just sounds better
than "you were a fly in my pudding
and it take two minutes of whisking
to make a new batch."

i know you think you saw
my heart through the cleavage
resting above my low cut dress
but that's not where I keep it.
and I only wear it on my sleeve
because it can take New England winters.
baby, i saw that you were a bull
in a china shop the moment we met.
do you really think i would
leave the breakables out on the shelf?
those mason jars labeled
pride, dignity, future
aren't made of glass--
they're titanium alloy
the stuff they make spaceships
out of
you need some serious fire
to cut through that shit
and I just don't think you've got it in you

and you could be anyone
the boy I had a crush on in
the third grade
a passing stranger on the T
a weekend of memories
because truth and beauty
are two different things
and hyperbole reads better
than reality
and I can't say I know much
but I've kissed enough frogs to
know that lips don't make princes
but my pen always can.

Aqua Teen is da Bomb

2007-02-09T13:02:00.000-08:00

I'm so sad that I was in VT when all this stuff went down. But I am immensely amused by the aftershocks (pun fully intended). Mallory came to group wearing a shirt similar to this one the other night, which made my night:

She's so stylish :)

Colleen's friend Juan just sent this video, which absolutely made my day after going through 1,170 email messages that accumulated while I was on break. Yes, about half of them were SPAM, but that still leaves a lot of apology emails and meetings next week. I'm totally staying in tonight and sleeping.

The dangerous lives of celebrities

2007-02-09T06:03:00.000-08:00

When Princess Diana died in a car accident almost ten years ago, newsmen hung their heads low and lamented how fame had killed the young princess. Anna Nicole Smith will get no such eulogy. Even in death, the bombshell is still famous only for scandal, her life story immortalized in Playboy and tabloids. I can't say that I have ever been a fan, but when I read that she'd died at 39, just months after burying her son and while embroiled in a custody battle over her newborn daughter, it hit me strangely. Obviously, the autopsy results are still being gathered, the five bags of evidence from her hotel room are still being rifled through in some CSI lab, but to say that the woman was not killed by fame would be ludicrous. I read this morning that she was "famous for being famous," and I can't think of any way to better put it. So, just because she wasn't run off the road by rabid paparazzi doesn't mean that our voyeuristic thirst didn't push her into an early grave. Despite that early departure, it would be difficult to make the argument that Anna Nicole Smith was not resilient. Comebacks, fad diets, lawsuits, dead husbands, dead sons, she's like a one woman Kennedy family reunion. Say what you will, the woman was a fighter.

"the inevitable death of privacy"

2007-02-08T15:17:00.000-08:00

That's the cover story of this week's New York Magazine. Kind of got me to thinking... Ok, I will say this- I have not read the article yet. So, I am not going to comment or critique on how I feel about adults trying to define a generation that they don't really understand, or about old technology doing the job of the new blah blah blah McLuhan blah blah blah Locke blah blah digital age. I'm focusing on my writing this semester, not media theory, so I digress. Plus, I can't stand when people use rumor and conjecture to refute hearsay, so I'm just going to go with some of the ideas it sparked.

Why do I have a blog? I don't know. Because passive aggression lives on the internet. Because I hope that I'm cool enough that a couple of people who don't get to see me all the time like to keep up with what's going on in my life, or at least what I'm writing right now. Because as much as it makes me cringe, there's something cool about going back and looking at what I was thinking 6 months to 8 years ago and quite frankly, I'm running out of space in my bookshelves for notebooks. I am pretty proud of myself for not deleting my old livejournal and still having that as evidence of how insane I was when I was 20. Hopefully, this will serve some similar purpose when the punchline hits.

How have blogs affected the way we communicate? ALOT. I remember this one time that a friend in college was having a fight with a girl he was seeing, and she asked if they could move the conversation to AIM because she'd feel more comfortable... WTF. Also, that Freshman era story has recently been featured on Jon's blog as well. I think we may both give too much consideration to modes of communication. But no, I think that communication is important. And not just in that cliche, trust, communication, and respect do a healthy relationship make part (though I think that's probably only a cliche because it's true)... but I'm really fascinated with how emerging technology changes interpersonal relationships. I know that I'm much more passive. I know that I don't seize the moment as much because I half assume I can kind anyone I need to on myspace. I study up on people before I ask them out. I am an internet stalker.

Lastly, I think that its interesting that communicating through mediums like text messaging, emails, facebook and myspace comments, and instant messaging has kind of eliminated the need for beginnings, middles, and ends. I mean, maybe I have studied creative and dramatic writing too much, but people, this is basic. There are three parts- beginning, middle, and end- it's very simple. A beginning is usually something like a greeting- hello, how are you, hey, whats up, yo... any of these will do. Then the middle can be any array of things that both parties want to engage in conversation about. Could be making plans to hang out later, maybe catching up on something you missed, just bullshitting because you don't actually have the time to see each other in person. Here's the important part: when the conversation ends, there should be a conclusion. Something like: alright, well I gotta go, or i'm on my way out the door, i'll talk to you later, i'm out, see ya... or something to that effect. Similarly, if you happen to accidentally implied your availability, but cannot actually engage in conversation, one of these farewells works as well. Like, hey sorry I can't talk right now, or something like that.

I think it is very strange that with our dependence on media for communication, it is a lot easier to seek out physical human companionship. You have people on call via your keyboard, why make plans to see them in the flesh? (maybe because its much more entertaining and engaging). Also, I don't think I talk to PEOPLE as much anymore. So some of you will have to suffice with this. I'm going to go have dinner with a real person.

ADDENDUM: I have been waking up each morning this week to email updates from the hospital about my Uncle's recovery from his heart transplant. That has to make it much more easy for my Uncle who's keeping post at the hospital, and much less tedious than a phone treem, but we're all still in the loop. So, there's a check in the plus column.

little boy blue

2007-02-08T14:12:00.000-08:00

I remembered that last night in New York City
the little Italian bistro in the lower east side
wedged between the coffeehouse
and the lesbian sex toy shop
where you talked me into ordering a goat cheese panini
(the bistro, not the sex shop)
even though I was a strict vegan at the time

i was never a strict anything around you
...you always crushed my resolutions with vices
like jack daniels, camel lights,
hot chocolate, mango smoothies
your hands

... and all that before I even realized
I was hiding behind fake hotel
lobby shrubbery... poorly
caught easily
and i pretended I was looking
for my supposedly ringing cell phone
damned the supposedly missed call
awkwardly stumbled into your
waiting arms
pulled away before your hand
could settle into the familiar
groove
in my back
before you could pull away first.

And a year and a half of almost
hanging up first floods back to me
with the almost regrets of hanging on
for just five minutes more than I know
I should
just to file away five minutes more
of your voice in my ear
and the kicking myself
for letting you win again
and what was your prize?

i imagine my dignity in a box
with a bow

but it's been a long time
since those late night/early morning drives
listening to the morning traffic report
as I shut off my car and climbed
three flights to an empty 5am
bed
it's been a long time since we ate
lychees and peaches
and our mouths and fingers
shared the juice
over black and white films
and strawberry sweet hookah smoke
it's been a long time since you
called me when you didn't need anything
except me

I've got a strong heart
but I been thinking about that
box of dignity
resolved to keep it safe
I told you to mark it fragile
and send it back to me
and decided to be strict
with myself for once.

but I have never been strict
anything around you.
I think I could give up those
camel lights, maybe even chocolate
you like it more than me anyway
I may even be able to do away
with my morning coffee
but baby you're like
nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, serotonin
and crack
all rolled into one beautiful
mirage
and all i see is those blue
pools
and your nose that always
gets in the way
when I want to press my mouth
against yours

and I have a feeling I'm going
to be smoking a lot
this weekend.

nyquil

2007-02-07T22:49:00.000-08:00

is awesome. but it does not taste good. why am i regressing to high school? ok, to be fair, i am not medicating depression this time, but a chest cold. still, i am concerned that given another week of this i may not be able to sleep without it. and nyquil is expensive stuff, man. so it's starting to kick in, but a couple of random thoughts (in bullet point form, because i've been told that THAT is all i need to do in order for things to be more clear WTF)

*i just spent an INCREDIBLY long T commute home mostly with a very interesting man named rudy who (a)asked me if i understood after every drunken obviousness he uttered (b) told me i was obviously a smart girl, or i think thats what he meant by 'i can tell you're not a dumb dumb just by looking at you" (c) however, also by looking at me thought i was 29 and 5'4, so perhaps he was wrong about the other thing as well (c) asked me if i wanted children, then answered no for me, saying i was probably the career type (a phrase he choked on like whiskey down the wrong pipe) (d) and told me that there were a lot of vietnamese people in my neighborhood, but that the hispanics were everywhere and that he thinks there should be laws about how many children people can have. delightful travel companion.

*i will never EVER have a dinner that prevents me from retrieving my car on a Wednesday again, no matter how delightful the companionship. i really did not remember the commute by T being so horrible at 1am.

*i realized something about myself. i am a shittaker... no, not a shittalker, well maybe that too, but i digress. i do what i think is necessary to make other people happy in the blind hope that it will be returned. this applies to essentially every avenue of my life. i acquire abusive relationships like stamps in a backpacker's passport. some people think you need to get hit to be in an abusive relationship. those people have probably never quit the same job three times.

that's all. ok, i think the taste is worth it.

grrr...

2007-02-07T09:01:00.000-08:00

I am freakin out today. There is just TOO much to fit. The only reason I am even typing this right now is that (1) I need to vent and (2) the stupid frickin fax machine is SLOW. It is not humanly possible to accomplish all of the aspects of my job in the time allotted. I cannot handle not having a Program Manager anymore. I know this is just a reactionary today has been really stressful vent, but I'm hitting the wall. I have a bazillion phone calls to make, site visits to set up, tax paperwork to finish up, accounting software conversion, and like 3 grants due by next Friday, two of them this week. Plus I have to hire two new kids, and I feel like I don't even know what my job is anymore. I felt SOOO good when I left Vermont on Friday and i feel like that has been completely beaten out of me. It sucks, because I liked that Cara a lot better.

For Jess

2007-02-06T14:16:00.000-08:00

Today's Craigslist "missed connections" highlights

1- You were leaving the station and I was entering. We locked eyes a few times while we were passing each other on the escalator. You were a brunette, and I was wearing a black hooded jacket. I wanted to get back on the escalator and follow you up. I truly regret not trying to talk to you. I don't imagine you'll find this, but if you do, I would love to know who you are.

Good luck everyone.

(you were a brunette and i was wearing a black jacket? thats half the frickin city)

2- I was carrying two dumbbells; you offered to let me cut you in line. I should have offered to buy you lunch. You were very sweet, I'd love the chance to see you again.

(ok, this one is a little more specific... It is titled, by the way "Cute Girl at Wal-Mart. good to know where i go next time i have a late night craving for dumbbells)

3- Hey buddy. You really should call Jen today to see how she is feeling. Wondering if you took the right advice and ended it with her. Just curious. Get back to me since I am unable to email you at this time. I left Mariah a message to.
Any good concerts this week?????? I don't think Jen will be going to hers this week.....poor little angel.

(wow, way to hang out the laundry to dry)

4- Everything you do and say are done with a methodical intentions to hurt me or play me like a fool. You said yourself you say things just to hurt me and leaving things openly for me to see. You never wanted this to work. If so you wouldn't be fucking another or others as I have known since the beginning. Have them, Have her...hope she can give you what I can't. Remember as well you only get respect when you give respect.
I'll take of myself (go get tested) and the family (court.custody and child support). Your not all that buddy, I'll know I can find a nicer man and surely a more well endowed one as well with a real job and real ambition.
Good luck.

(because passive aggression lives on the internet)

ah, other people's misfortune amuses me so much more than it should. i need to start scouring this thing for dialogue ideas.

think about that, would you?

2007-02-05T13:42:00.000-08:00

Jme just posted a couple of great vents about the outdatedness of the Bible, and it reminded me of this clip from the West Wing. I heart Aaron Sorkin.

new draft- manic depressives make good lovers... half of the time

2007-02-05T07:22:00.000-08:00

beautiful, silly, and enigmatic

that was how he described me
but damn the boy was always
in front of a mirror

his reflection was all over the place
and his image captured
everywhere we went
by friends and acquaintances
with devices meant for proving
real life was real

he was the "it kid"

she thinks about the day they met
with every detail she can
hold in her tiny hands.

the radiohead drifting in from
open bedroom door
the clouds of hookah smoke
the hot chocolate laced with
liquid courage
the hour it took her to
say hello
the five seconds it took
her to scald his leg with
her clumsy hands and cheap liqour

we met in cafeterias
and i loved him
but
everyone wanted to be near him
and i never got
why i was the one
that got to sleep
skin to skin

the weeks after are more
fuzzy
the late nights blurring into
early mornings
never sure which was which
until the sun interrupted

she never understood how they
made the night go away
so quickly

never got comfortable
every night of sleep
there was this constant
self-awareness
even in dreams
each shudder of his leg
each arm adjustment

i was so sure he
was going to leave me
i didn't sleep for that entire
winter
despite how warm his body
was then

he was always on dub speed
the words faster
than chipmunks
but she always remembered
them
the next day
would write him into plays

he was bob dylan
in that city
rambling like he was
born that way
and i never fancied
myself joan baez
i wanted to so bad
but couldn't see the
beauty he claimed
illuminated even against snow

i steered us clear
of washington square
and when he tried to offer me
diamonds
i just saw rust
in the icy snow
splattered like
blood

spattered like blood

maybe my memories
are getting mixed up

like the time i got a concussion when
i was a baby and got a Happy Meal
in the emergency room

and that's how she
remembers him
now
she forgets all of
the things that hid
behind the haze
of first love

the days without a call
the nights she couldn't
recognize him
because the bottle was too empty again
the apologies left with kisses
on discolored arm skin
the dna left on the
note she could never
bear
to open
the semester it took to
recover
from having nothing else
left of him

there was no snow there
just linoleum
both times

they asked me
if it was him
to take my time
to be sure

but his reflection was
everywhere
in the metal walls, the tables
colder than his body
had become

and he wasn't beautiful anymore
wasn't silly
like in all of the pictures

five years
and those pictures
stay in the box
with the letter
and even though the
glue has come undone
on its own, she still
won't open it
won't read his words.

she's already written him
into history
and he's got no say
it's probably better that way
legends
are never self-made
and they always love you more
when you're gone.

fading with grace

2007-02-05T07:20:00.000-08:00

opposites attract

negatives repel

a spark some fuel will inevitably create a flame

but no one ever tells you what happens
when mediocre
gets together with mediocre

when two stars dance
ferociously
trying to burn themselves out
into blue and red magnificence

they'll manage

the burning out part
but who knows how many will
get to witness the
magnificence?

kid
we were both trying so hard
to be great
for the world we forgot
to be good
for each other

thinking that could never be enough
because we both wanted to be
up on that silver screen
both wanted to command the crowd
to point out our names
in history books
to our grandkids

"see... I used to BE somebody"

but we never mapped that
shit into the plan for real
too busy chasing our tails
to think that you gotta have
a kid to have grandkids
you have to make a baby
and in an ideal world that means
you gotta make love
you have to have a lover

kid we were never lovers
you
were one hell of a sparring partner
and the swords we used
sometimes disguised themselves in
pressed mouths
hands in hair
salt to salt to salt to
morning
eyes closed like shades and if the

oh yes oh yes oh yes

was loud enough we could
ignore the rooster too
snuff out its caw
with claws in hip flesh

but we were both somewhere else
mapping those interlocked appendeges
into how to make it big

we shoulda made films because
we're both projectionists
only lasted so long because we
decided
we could be whatever we wanted
if we pretended long enough

i never saw myself in those women
you scripted on to stages
but you saw them in me
and damn if i didn't think
you were my very own
James Dean

but the only time you ever
drove fast was when you were
trying to get that scary bug off
the windshield
your scream like a five year old-
vulnerable, human

extraordinary is like a balance sheet
with no checkmarks on the side
that's titled
boring, annoying, normal, mundane

so i just ripped the page in half
let you be extraordinary
tried to keep up
put on my red dress

and tried to be a star.

good night

2007-02-05T04:42:00.000-08:00

Leaving the Lizard Lounge last night, Christopher Johnson repeated the last line of the last piece I had read (Legends are never self made/ and they always love you more when you're gone) back to me and said "I'm going to sleep with that tonight." It was such an awesome compliment, totally made my night.

In other news, I'm still sleeping in Worcester. I've been in Boston Saturday and Sunday, but haven't stayed. I can't figure out why, but I'll be back tonight.

epistemology

2007-02-02T07:14:00.000-08:00

how do we know what we know?

that's apparently a central question to answer in order to get a little piece of paper that says you deserve to put a comma M.A. after your name on business cards. so how do i know what i know?

i don't think i know anything more than I did at the beginning of this week, but I feel a real sense of clarity. i feel like last semester was just practice. now, i'm actually in grad school. i feel really excited about my advising group, my advisor is this amazingly phenomenal playwright and performer, and i am so excited to get to really get some good critical feedback on ALL of my writing, and really build my skills as an essayist and storyteller.

it's incredible and incredibly sad to be with all of these amazing people who you bond with SOOO intensely and then know that you only get to see them twice a year. I mean, yes, you can visit and stuff, but its just such a different collective experience than a traditional program. i have not slept more than 3 hours in the last 3 nights, because i just wanted to suck in every moment i could with these incredible people. there isn't a single person here that hasn't changed my mind about something. it's like putting human experience on dub speed for a week. and then after today these people are in LA, and Portland, and Baja and New York, and I am in Boston. and part of what makes these people so amazing that they are where they are doing what they're doing, so its like this catch 22.

anyway, i'm glad that i am kind of easing back into reality for the weekend. I mean, I work tomorrow, but with my teens, and then on finishing up some paperwork, so it's a nice little easing time. then i'll have a nice sunday/monday weekend to just kind of be on my own back in my own bed. i so need that decompress time. i'm not really looking forward to going back to reality, i mean, people, yes, but the bills and the logistics and the to do lists, not at all. but i feel pretty confident about really taking stuff head on right now.

me and marissa and minna did a piece i wrote last night and people were actually asking me where they could look it up, like they thought we got it out of a book. it made my night. and i just feel like we channeled this real raw feminine power, and i really do feel ready for anything. i'm exhausted, sore, and maybe a little catatonic, but that really sounds a lot worse than it is. i'm letting myself really feel for the first time in a long time. and it feels pretty good.

leg cramp

2007-02-01T04:34:00.000-08:00

i kind of woke up with one, but was able to catch it before it got really painful. i was hyper aware of my own sleep last night, like i talked myself through it. it kind of made me think of embodiment studies. i made my body take over in a very focused, almost meditative way. it's one of the first times i've ever been able to meditate without being guided. it was kind of cool, actually.

in other news, i almost went to bed very upset. luckily, my friend al doesn't really sleep and leaves his door open. cigarettes also help. i'd had such a good night too, it was really kind of... well, upsetting is an uncreative way to put it. without getting into specifics, because, well, no one really needs them, but i need to get the feeling part down to come back to, i feel really tired of starting new things. it's very daunting, and putting a month into learning someone new just to find out you didn't learn anything is really hard. i'm tired of writing prophetic poems. it's like i'm just fucking with myself.

tired, just tired. and a little mournful. but, tonight is the cabaret, so that's kind of perfect. always a good time.

beautiful, silly, and enigmatic

2007-01-31T16:55:00.000-08:00

following

2007-01-29T16:41:00.000-08:00

following
one another
is a strange act
because the leading
always switches
or never is

catching eyes
across a crowded room
with the quick
look down
as if to say
"come get me."

she doesn't know
how to play coy
has never been
so shy
and so naked
at the same time

he has never
been in the presence
of anyone so alive
never had someone
so openly request
his presence
without words

but her eyes plead
and he thinks
he can believe
that she wants him
as much as he
wants her

not just press
against walls
want
but forget others
in conversation
want
eyes smiling
with even lips
want
hands in hair
without thinking
want

the kind of want that
feels like need
the kind of want that
feels like it needs
naming

but cannot be.

a reflection

2007-01-29T14:05:00.000-08:00

In one of my workshops today, we talked about eliminating the reactionary in workshop facilitation and stuff. So, one example that Caryn, the head of the Transformative Language Arts program here came up with was online communication... Hmm... reactionary? me? Possibly. Also, she pointed out the lack of context available in emails. Tone, body language, etc. All things I'm aware of, sure, but it was kind of like she said it just to me.

There were way more important parts of that conversation... you know, cultural appropriation, ethical considerations of beginning our practicum, etcetera. Sometimes it's easier to think about the unimportant stuff. I'm trying to decompress a little. It's cold up here, and I ran out of wine.

creation myth

2007-01-29T10:42:00.000-08:00

flowers are feminine
but the earth is
hard
cold
like men are told to be

Eve laid down with the
earth
and Adam learned
jealousy
created competition
resolved to destroy
the earth
to have Eve for himself

Eve understood the
grooves
of the ground
walked with the rythm
of the earth's heartbeat

tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump

and Adam
even asleep next to her
felt his own pulse drowned
out by the sighs of
wind through trees

watched as her chest rose
and fell
with the subtle draw
of the moon lapping on the shore

He didn't understand
how Eve could
nourish the earth
worried
that she couldn't love him
and
the cool sand beneath her feet
didn't understand
that she and the earth
worked together to feed him
to make a bed for their love.

but Adam couldn't sleep
kept watching Eve's
collarbone
rise and fall
watching the shoreline
rise and fall
in sync
in tune
without him

so he built a wall
built a house
built Eve a bed
of wood and down

tried to woo her from the earth

but she tended the garden still

he hunted for her dinner
made stews of boar and beef
told her they wouldn't
need
the fruit anymore

but she tended the garden still

so he built her a greenhouse
tried to separate
earth from earth
told her the rain would
take care of the rest

but she tended the garden still

so he built a tower
locked her in it
as high into the sky
as far from the earth
as he could manage with
his two hands

he left no stairs for her escape
locked the tower
satisfied that he'd
separated his wife
from her lover

looked around and found
himself
alone
with a world he could not understand.

maybe some other time

2007-01-29T10:41:00.000-08:00

he tells her that he's
glad she's here,
no one else
calms him
the way she does.

it's a strange thing
to say to someone
he's only known
for 12 hours

she doesn't think so

or at least doesn't
think much of it.

she laughs
fills the room
without moving

they don't need to
move
here
there's enough to
do without it.

still laughing
she talks about
the last winter this cold
about the phone calls
almost unending
from the emergency room
the almost lost
loved ones

her tone is
surprising
and even she,
as the words
tumble from her lips
is wondering why she's
saying these things
to a stranger

through laughter no less.

he doesn't think much about it.

"teenage suicide... don't do it."

they conjure the scene from
Heathers
talk about cinematography
and how the snow
sparkles
in the moon

how they wish they could
capture it on
film
but know it wouldn't be the same

how they wish moments
like these could
last
but know it wouldn't be the same

she would not have sat
with him
in a crowded restaurant
in Boston
because he lives in LA

so sure is she
of this
and of the sanctity
of time and place
that goodbye kisses
hang in the air
like uncashed checks

because checks are promises

and she's already overdrawn.

da-mn

2007-01-29T04:39:00.000-08:00

So I have been in a mode the last couple of days where I have been very much wanting to write, and it's not that I have writer's block, per se, but just have been getting so much intense emotion, information, and self-awareness that it's like I need to digest a bit or it's just going to come out as projectile vomit... lovely, I know.

One thing that's awesome, is that apparently, Goddard College has deemed me unfit to live with a roommate. This works really well for me, because there's such a social climate here, and its VERY intense, so it's nice to be able to retreat. I know, I know... you don't believe that. It's true, I sometimes become overwhelmed by other people. I have definitely found a couple of people that I have felt incredibly easy with... and I don't mean sexually, though admittedly, I have been like a 12 year old boy the last couple of days, and don't get me started on this new faculty member... da-mn.

I mean everyone here is INCREDIBLE. There isn't a person here you could spend a half hour with and not feel transformed in walking away. There is a handful of people, though, that I have felt immediately able to be myself with. I was having dinner with this one guy the other day, and I found myself talking very lightly about really intense personal experiences, and telling him things that I just don't talk about anymore. It was weird, and kind of intense, but didn't feel uncomfortable.

I have also been thinking a lot about pushing my comfort zone. I have a kick ass work group, and a great advisor, and I think I'm going to be spending a lot of time this semester working on my writing voice. I'm really trying to push those walls out, and find out why I choose the safe spaces that I do. On that note, I think I'm going to apply to the Youth Media Council job, just to see. They are taking applications until February 6th, and I'm not going to lie- I don't think I'm ready to push 3,000 miles out of my comfort zone- but I do think that if I don't at least apply, I will wonder. So I might as well at least take that step.

I'm really starting to be present with my own system of decision making and judgement. Why do I make the important life choices that I do? How have I gotten to where I am? How do I think about other people? How do I choose companions? Do I want to cuddle just because its cold?

but i digress

my 5 month ago self was thoughtful

2007-01-25T13:31:00.000-08:00

and new exactly what i was going to need to read today. at the beginning of this session of R&S, we all wrote ourselves letters to open at the end of the session. we got them back yesterday. i just finished unpacking into my dorm, and wrapped up catch up work to take the week off, and then i opened the letter.

the first page is kind of depressing, because it basically was just me knowing myself too well... like "I know you haven't actually started taking Italian lessons" and "manage your time better" blah blah blah. but the second page made my day. it is a list of things i "should do if i haven't already." i think its good advice for everyone (feel free to play with pronouns)

1. invite your sister to spend the night
2. take a nap
3. call your grandparents just to tell them you love them
4. ask out a boy you're afraid to talk to
5. buy an outfit that feels dangerous
6. give your all on stage
7. write a MYview column for the metro
8. go visit friends in NY
9. do something nice for your parents
10. look great for yourself

if seatbelts were enough

2007-01-25T06:00:00.000-08:00

this is a messy, messy first draft. yesterday was my baby sister's 17th birthday, and for some reason I could not get this conversation we had a long time ago out of my head. but there's a lot of things that i want this piece to convey that it just doesn't, so it needs a lot of tweaking. i'm trying to capture the idea that i don't know if i'm more unprepared for being a mother or being an aunt whose niece's mother is 16, and how unprepared i am to deal with the changing dynamic of that relationship as she grows into adulthood and 7 years becomes less of a distance all the time. especially since at one point, i seriously considered how it would affect my life for her to come live with me... so i guess that's a lot. but i'm pretty crafty. i can even sew.

i'm driving down park ave
and i notice she's not wearing her seatbelt

again

i gently pull the car to the side of the road
directional and all
because i have to set a good example

she knows this drill
but we repeat it anyway
and as i pull back into
traffic
we still haven't exchanged
words
just my silence
her pout

"em"
i say
mustering my best
older sister, wiser adult
voice
"there are just some things
you do to protect yourself."

"like not having sex without a condom"

my foot hits the brake
no- gas
so fast
we almost crash

thank g-d i made her put her seatbelt on

"exactly"

is all i can say
because that's
exactly
what i meant
and I don't know how she knows

and it scares the hell out of me
that the baby i practiced on
held like she was my own
isn't a baby anymore

and i cling to that role model
self in the rear-view
try to make sure my eyes
don't show her the
ept tests under the sink
the cross hatch marks
on the calendar

because i am the good example
i am the big sister

and i'm not supposed to do the things
i said i'd never do

not supposed to do the things i tell
her not to

i am the good example

and i always thought i'd be the aunt first

manic depressives make good lovers. half of the time

2007-01-25T05:57:00.000-08:00

she thinks about the day they met
with every detail she can
hold in her tiny hands.

the radiohead drifting in from
open bedroom door
the clouds of hookah smoke
the hot chocolate laced with
liquid courage
the hour it took her to
say hello
the five seconds it took
her to scald his leg with
"i've clearly already had enough to drink"

the weeks after are more
fuzzy
the late nights blurring into
early mornings
never sure which was which
until the sun interrupted
she never understood how they
made the night go away
so quickly

like he was on dub speed
the words faster
than chipmunks
but she always remembered
them
the next day
would write him into plays

and that's how she
remembers him
now
she forgets all of
the things that hid
behind the haze
of first love

the days without a call
the nights she couldn't
recognize him
because the bottle was too empty again
the apologies left with kisses
on discolored arm skin
the dna left on the
note she could never
bear
to open
the semester it took to
recover
from having nothing else
left of him

five years
and even though the
glue has come undone
on its own, she still
will not open it

if she did
she might have to
remember him
for who he really was
and what good are first loves
that way?

hmmm...

2007-01-23T19:07:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about being a grown up a lot lately. Mostly about how I don't think I'll ever really feel like one. What's the most weird about that is that I cannot ever remember feeling like I wasn't a completely capable autonomous being. Like, how we coddle three year olds and try to do things for them. When I was three, I remember feeling like I was totally capable of doing anything and of taking care of myself. Twenty years later, I feel like I stumble more than I ever have in terms of capability. I depend more on my relationship with my parents than I have in recent memory, even when just for little bits of advice or highway directions.

Anyway, what I really meant by thinking about being a grown up, is that I've been thinking a lot about the fact that 25 is not very far away, and I'm almost half done with grad school and I'm going to be in a place to make big career moves when I have my MA. I'm also beginning to look at doctorate programs. Specifically EdD programs. Because, you may or may not have heard that I want to start my own school. Right now, not so qualified to do that.

Further than that, I've been thinking about why I want to start my own school. One, because I really like teaching, and I think our public schools have it pretty messed up. I'm pretty fascinated by educational theory, and ways to work cultural diversity training, media literacy education, and social justice work into primary and secondary education. Small class size, technology training, multi-aged grouping, and project-based learning are some other stuff I'm looking into.. but that's beside the point. I've realized, and I mean I guess I knew this, because it was a conscious decision I made, but it just kind of hit me that a big part of why I want to start my own school is so that I can educate my children, but also be working and be teaching other children. I don't want to put my kids in daycare or get a nanny, but I want my career too.

I've been pretty vocal about this, but I think it's bizarre in our culture that we separate adults and children so much. I feel so privileged to work in environments where children are a welcome addition to the dynamic. I have had 3 baby-filled meetings this week, which is probably the catalyst for this rant, and I love having them around. I mean, really, how weird is it that women are asked to CHOOSE between career and children. Screw that, I can create life in my body, I can do both. It's just been kind of weird to be thinking about these things in a life planning sort of way lately. Like, this is not far away big dreams stuff. This is in the next five years blah blah blah. And it doesn't freak me out that I'm thinking about it. Which kind of freaks me out.

and now's the time of year I get restless...

2007-01-22T09:41:00.000-08:00

I would like to throw out there that I am NOT unhappy with my job or apartment or anything, but... I did get this in my mailbox this morning and man is it cold outside. I don't think I'm a California girl, but...

JOB ANNOUNCEMENT

Media Justice Organizer

The YOUTH MEDIA COUNCIL (YMC) seeks a Media Justice Organizer to lead our Grassroots Media Activism Program, including membership coordination, regional strategy and mobilization, public education, and national field building. The position is full-time. Salary $34-38K DOE. Full medical, dental and vision benefits, substantial vacation package, optional HSA, and quarterly personal growth stipend provided. Position is in Oakland, CA. Applications due before February 6th, 2007 for a position beginning March 2007.

To Apply: Please send a resume, cover letter, and writing sample to MJ Organizer Search, c/o Youth Media Council, 1611 Telegraph Ste. 510, Oakland, CA 94612 or Email to taishi@youthmediacouncil.org. For more information, please contact Taishi at 510-444-0640, x381.

Who We Are
As a leader in the movement for media justice and communication rights, the Youth Media Council believes that media and culture are critical tools for creating real justice. That’s why the Youth Media Council builds communications power and defends the communication rights of youth, communities of color, and organizing groups working for racial and economic justice.

Launched in 2001 to counter racial stereotypes and anti-youth bias in the news, YMC is a media strategy and action center dedicated to building a strategic and collaborative movement for justice by strengthening media strategy, capacity and action in California and beyond. The Youth Media Council works with youth organizing and racial justice groups in the Bay Area and other key U.S. regions to take action against media criminalization of youth and people of color, reframe racial justice in public debate, and transform the current media system into an inclusive public resource.

Principle Responsibilities
The Youth Media Council is looking for a skilled organizer, activist, or policy advocate who is passionately concerned about the impact of media bias on the lives and conditions of historically disenfranchised communities. Experience with strategy development, base building, and action planning, as well as past work with communities of color and/or youth is required. Primary areas of responsibility include:

Membership Recruitment and Leadership Development
∑ Develop and distribute recruitment materials
∑ Plan and conduct membership recruitment activities
∑ Develop and implement leadership development process, tools, and activities

Membership Coordination and Tracking
∑ Develop and implement annual membership plans, including events
∑ Develop and maintain tracking tools
∑ Maintain and track members in our database and online Action Network (ACT-Net)
∑ Write membership updates in bi-monthly e-bulletin
∑ Maintain regular and ongoing communication with members, both online and off

Implementation of Local MJ Initiatives and Related Materials
∑ Research and develop annual action plan
∑ Identify and build relationships with key allies in the region
∑ Identify strategic opportunities and carry out strategic action locally
∑ Maintain content for http://action.youthmediacouncil.org
∑ Engage ACT-Net members in local action
∑ Partner with the YMC Training Director to plan, develop materials, and conduct public education for local initiatives
∑ Document local initiatives through development and publishing
∑ Partner with the YMC Media Strategist to plan and conduct communications for local initiatives

Media Justice Field Building
∑ Work with local allies to develop concrete project plans for our national Media Action Grassroots Network (MAG-Net)
∑ Recruit and coordinate the membership of MAG-Net
∑ Represent the YMC in national and statewide media policy coalitions and networks including the Media and Democracy Coalition
∑ Represent the YMC at related conferences and strategy sessions
∑ Participate in related funder briefings and other fundraising efforts

The Ideal Candidate
Qualified applicants should have: at least 1-2 years experience with leading campaign or strategy development, base building and/or leadership development, and alliance building or network development, as well as a documented interest in media activism, media policy, and/or cultural organizing. Ideally, the successful candidate will have led or participated in planning and implementing at least one organizing or political campaign, have demonstrated success in making some concrete change, have a knowledge of media conditions in communities of color, and a willingness to learn. At least 3 years experience working with non-profit organizations is required. Other important qualifications include excellent written and oral communications skills, ability to plan and manage multiple projects, solve problems, work well in a diverse team, set priorities, and the ability to work occasional nights and weekends.

People of color, members of the queer/transgender community, and women are strongly encouraged to apply.

Guiding Questions for Cover Letter:
• What do you see as the role of media and culture in shaping conditions for youth/communities of color?
• What role would you like to play in engaging youth, communities of color, and other groups disenfranchised by media bias in the process of transforming our media system?

Position begins March 2007.
APPLICATIONS ACCEPTED BEFORE February 6, 2007. POSITION OPEN UNTIL FILLED.

Please visit www.youthmediacouncil.org to learn more about our programs and work.
The Youth Media Council is fiscally sponsored by the Movement Strategy Center (www.movementstrategy.org).

Oakland is a lot warmer than Boston.

if there is a him

2007-01-22T07:31:00.000-08:00

i want to paint him a world
where words don't hurt
where pores in fingertips
open to let the human experience
hiding behind art
into veins
pumping hard to his heart
red even without oxygen

because love feels
more important

i want to tell him that music
is everywhere
and everywhere is where i
want to be
because even though sometimes
new york
feels like the middle of the universe
there are so many other
unreachables
and the subway song
can take you lower
than delancey
and further than jamaica, queens
if you listen with something
bigger than your ears

the melody is a dance
like sex
but i like to sing along
so i need to know
the words first

and i want to read him
my favorite bedtime
stories
and show him that the oldest
art i know is
how to fold yeast
into dough
and stack the layers
like i'm building the
colosseum

i can't paint him into
a masterpiece
but there are no watercolors
like his eyes
so it doesn't matter
that my unskilled hands
would stumble over the
contours of his face

because he's already been
captured that way
and in song
and poetry
and on strips of celluloid
click click clicking away
through skilled projectionist
fingers

everytime someone tried
to project this
elevator starts too quick feeling
on to film or canvas or page or stage
it comes out in the same code
and the decoder ring doesn't come
in a box of cracker jacks

its in the corner of a smile
or the giggle between kisses
the foot resting on knee
for some reassurance
the half asleep arm
underneath lover's pillow

i don't have to write it down
for it to be art
i don't have to paint it
or make a mix tape
of people that have said it better
than me
but i want to try

because if woody allen
could make manhattan
and louis armstrong and ella fitzgerald
could dance cheek to cheek
if gustav klimt could immortalize
a kiss in layers of oil
than the least i can do is
write one little poem

What my friends think of me...

2007-01-22T07:23:00.000-08:00

Last week, Kelli had a VERY belated birthday party, and had a great idea for a party game. She put everyone's name on the wall, and people wrote down the top jeopardy categories for them... here's my list. I'm glad I know what people think of me

CARA

1. BOOZE
2. HIP HOP
3. GHANA
4. Poetry
5. getting hot tattoos
6. being a cat detective
7. cutting hair
8. craigslist
9. “I have a crush on every boy!”
10. South beach

Abject Reality- First Two Chapter edits

2007-01-21T06:17:00.000-08:00

XI

“Can I buy you a drink?”

Just what I had been afraid of. Two days before the New Year: 1997 and my best friend said I needed a new outlook, a new lease on life. So she dressed me up like a doll and dragged me off to the sketchy bar on the corner that we usually reserved for late night amusement from the comfort of our own third floor porch. Now she’d abandoned me to a club full of rabies-ridden college boys for the one halfway decent catch in the whole place. So much for fake Ids. On top of that, now I had to fend off the advances of one of these frothing-mouth assholes.

“Why? So I can feel obligated to let you walk me home? No thanks.” Before I could stop the words from slipping past my lips, Adam met my eye. He was supposed to be in London for the semester. He was supposed to be out of my life. I was supposed to be over him.

“How have you been Janie?”

“Sorry. I’m fine. How are you?”

“Well I’m a bit taken aback by your allegation, but other than that not bad.”

“I thought you were going to London.”

“I’m leaving in a couple of weeks. You know, I wouldn’t expect you to be here.”

“It was Carrie’s idea.” I tried not to inhale too audibly, but deeply enough to restore my shaken confidence. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re doing well. I should be getting home.”

“Let me walk you.” He grinned mischievously.

“I think I can manage the one block. Besides, you didn’t buy me that drink.”

“Well then why don’t you let me?”

I winced, knowing that I would let him. His bright blue eyes pierced right through me still, and there was always something about the way his glasses sat on his Woody Allen like nose that pulled me into unorthodox fantasies. A friend of mine once told me that there is a fine line between endearing and repulsive. I don’t know what it is about Adam that kept him on the endearing side, but a mere half an hour later we were back in our familiar routine: laughing, talking, flirting, touching. I pleaded internally with myself to stop, but the message was intercepted somewhere in between my mind and my fingertips, which were inching their way toward Adam’s carefully worn in jeans. I used his knee to steady myself as I leaned closer to him.

“I’d like you to walk me home now,” I whispered, slightly slurred, and regretted it before I’d even finished.

I woke up the next afternoon with a massive headache and an empty bed. When I went into the kitchen to scrounge up some nourishment, Carrie was sitting at the table with a mug of hot chocolate and a disapproving look on her face. I grimaced back, wincing through the pain.

“Oh, don’t give me that.”

“What? I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to. It’s all over your face.”

“Hey, if you want to fuck yourself over again, that’s fine. Just don’t come crying to me next time he sneaks out in the middle of the night, non-committal bastard.”

“Hey, I’m the one that broke up with him.”

“Rightfully so. He wanted the best of both worlds. You to cuddle up with, and any other girl he could get-- and he’s a charmer-- to fuck on the side.”

I sighed. She was right, and I was in no mood to argue a losing point.

“Do we have any ibuprofen?”

“Top shelf.”

“Thanks.”

I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I knew he was leaving in two weeks, and he’d made it very clear that nothing I had was enough to make him a one-woman man. I wanted to think that maybe he’d changed, but that was impossible, we’d only broken up a month and a half ago, and his psychosis was too far embedded to solve in six weeks. Mine as well is apparently going to take years of therapy. I still can’t even look at another guy without instantly comparing him to Adam.

So I let my charade go on for two weeks, each night hoping that he’d stay until the morning. Maybe we could go for a jog or I could make pancakes. Read the paper together over breakfast and coffee, and go back to bed just to hold each other a little bit longer... But every morning I’d wake up to find that he’d carefully untangled himself from my sleeping death grip and made a safe and speedy escape. Three days before he left for London, I caught him in the act.

“Where are you going?”

“Babe, I have to finish packing. I’ve got tons left to do before Sunday.”

“You’re going to pack at…” I glanced at the clock. “Four thirty in the morning?”

“I have to get some sleep.”

“Why can’t you get some sleep here?”

“Because it’s not familiar. It’s not my bed, okay?”

“You’ve spent nine out of the last twelve nights here.”

“But not to sleep.”

“Yeah…”

“Oh come on, Janie, don’t pull this.”

“Don’t pull what?”

“You knew what this was, you knew I was leaving.”

“Yeah, but…” He was right, but there had to be something. Didn’t he feel anything at all? “Don’t you
feel anything at all?”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“For me.”

“Janie, you know I care about you.”

“But not enough.”

“What’s enough?”

“Enough to spend the night. Enough to stop sleeping with other girls. Enough to miss me when you’re gone for a whole semester in fucking London.”

“Do you think I won’t miss you? Do you think I haven’t missed you? The month that we spent apart was hell, but now I remember why I didn’t stop you the last time you told me to fuck off. Why I didn’t come after you when you got on that train.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I care about you, but we fall back into this too easily. This co-dependent shit isn't good for either of us.”

“Co-de-fucking-pendent? You think I’m co-dependent? Fuck you Adam. Get out of my house.”

“I was on my way, if you’ll recall.”

“Good. Have fun in London.”

“I will…” He turned on his heel, then paused a moment. “You know, I haven’t slept with anyone else
since that night in the bar.”

“Wow, congratulations. You kept your dick in your pants while all the little freshman girls were home for break.”

“God, Janie... I just... wanted you to know that. Goodbye.” And he left, without ever turning around or meeting my eye.

I

I remembered the first time I met him. It was easier than sleeping then, to just reminisce. Sometimes thoughts are all you can get. Sometimes it’s easier to deal with the idea then the person… sometimes it’s better, no fuss no muss, and there are nights that I look forward to those quiet moments between awake and asleep. Sometimes… sometimes I worry that I could be content with that. I wondered if maybe I was sub-human. Co-dependent??? Was I really co-dependent? Well he’d been gone three days now and I was still sleeping with his shadow, careful not to roll onto his side of the bed, where he couldn’t be bothered to sleep. Nine days of not sleeping there, and his imprint still remained. I was tempted to stack pillows there to sleep a little better.

The first time I saw Adam he was in the cafeteria, talking with a group of sorority girls. He was always surrounded by girls. It never seemed threatening somehow, though, as if I were being silly to even imagine that he would think of trying to nail any of them. Of course that’s how he nailed me… he snuck right into my comfort zone, and he didn’t even want in. He didn’t want me so bad that I couldn’t sleep at night without clawing my pillows and wishing they were him.

We met our second semester at school, at a party at a mutual friend’s house. “Mutual friend” is a rather vague detail. It was one of those girls that we both would say “oh yeah, I remember her,” but would never really be bothered to call up and see how they were doing. Even now, I can remember distinctly the vibrant colors of the apartment, the Pulp Fiction and Trainspotting posters adorning the narrow hallway between the bathroom and the living room, the prayer flags in the kitchen, Radiohead's “Fake Plastic Trees” pouring out from an open bedroom door. I cannot, however, remember her name. She invited Adam to the party because she wanted to nail him. That was not to be. In fact, I’m almost positive she never slept with him. That night, specifically, I know she did not, because I did. Not screwed, not shagged, not fucked… but for the one of the few times ever, slept with him—next to him at least, on the lounge sofa in our freshman dorm after staying up all night talking.

Despite having spilled most of my tequila laced orange juice on him (and the vague-nameless friend’s sofa), I was feeling a pretty heavy buzz. Enough of a buzz to want to take him back up to my double single and have my way with him. I held myself back then, somehow, between spilling my dinner and my thoughts and dreams, and after about a pack and a half of Parliament Lights we knew more about each other than anyone else at that party.

I knew that he was a chain smoker for one, but rarely when not in my company. I had the same affliction with him, and as such, much of our early relationship revolved around wildly flailing cigarette-laden hands in the middle of the night on one empty quad or another. We found a common ground in entertaining each other, and told rich stories of former “loves,” (neither of us really had any idea what that word meant), miserable classes, and unbearable roommates. We shared books, movies, music, and food. Soon, our middle of the night deviations led into daylight excursions to share in each other’s many passions. I introduced him to the wonders of tofu, and together we dipped into the many neighborhoods of Boston and Cambridge, seeking out the hole in the wall places that everyone talked about but no one seemed to know how to get to.

We toured the world in one week. Monday we went to India for Samosas, Tuesday we had Pad Thai in Thailand, Wednesday to Greece for goat cheese and spinach quiche, Thursday to Italy for wine and dessert, and Friday night we had sushi in bed with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca. That night we made love for the first time while I introduced him to Sarah Vaughan. We had Summertime in the dead of New England winter and never fell asleep that night, just sat on the steps of our dorm, smoking our Parliament’s and staring silently at the full moon. We’d never run out of things to say to each other, but somehow none of them fit into that moment. It was big enough with just the two of us, inches apart, feet grazing each other lightly, as though making sure of each other’s presence.

When the sun came up he went back to his room and napped for the day. I went back to my room too, and stared at the ceiling for many hours. I made a list of all of the books, and movies, and albums he had recommended to me, and made him a list from me. I read Sexual Perversity in Chicago, watched Fellini’s 8½, and went to Newbury Street to rifle through crates looking for an old Nirvana bootleg. When it started getting dark out, I took a pill that the girl across the hall had given me to help with studying and a shower, and figured he’d be calling soon. He was sitting on my bed when I got out of the shower, and we spent the next twelve hours locked in my bedroom.

Two weeks earlier, however, on our first official date, both of us had acquired a nervousness that prevented us from even reaching for the other’s hand in the theatre. We had dinner at a hip café just across the river in Cambridge. It had recently been revamped, painted bright shades of cantaloupe and honeydew, as the formerly dark green cave-like walls were no longer “in,” the mourning period for grunge had officially been ended. We ate and drank quietly, as though we’d run out of things to say after sharing so much the night before. He was the perfect gentleman, holding the subway door so that it didn’t close on me, and then offering an old woman that got on with us a seat that could have easily housed both of us.

We decided to see what was playing at the Brattle Street Theatre, and caught this French film all the kids in my film class had been talking about. I was glad that he didn’t try to kiss me, I was so wrapped up in the movie, which turned out to be every bit as good as the too hip kids in my classes were saying. Two hours and three Kleenex later, we were on an empty late night train back toward campus. He finally got up the nerve to lace his fingers in between mine, somewhat unsure of himself, but I was sure enough for both of us. I rested my head on his shoulder, and could have fallen asleep right there. My mother always told me that was when I would know it was right. I was sure that Adam was “the one.”
We stepped off of the train into the deserted station next to our school, and in my three quarter length skirt and vintage shoes, I felt like Vivien Leigh under the skilled guidance of an older man. I was so lost in my own dream world, that when my heel caught in a subway grate and I lost my balance I almost missed him sweeping me safely into his just strong enough arms. In that perfect moment we shared our first kiss and I surrendered any chance I had of ever getting out unscathed.

We were much too much for each other right from the beginning. It was foolish to think that either of us would be bound to the other anymore than we could be anyone else. Looking back on journals I’d written at the time, I know that I was just that foolish. I believed in love for a brief moment, and that it really could conquer all, even two neurotic minds, manic depression and a fledgling speed habit. Then again, at 19 we all think we can have the world. It truly is that year, that odd year where nothing seems to change, that it all really does, right behind your back while your waiting with bated breath to be a grown up. It’s like when you’re 13 and all of a sudden you have hair where you don’t seem to remember it being. It had to have grown at some point, but it seems to have just sprouted up out of nowhere. My infatuation for Adam seemed to grow overnight and after I, foolishly, tried to trim the unfamiliar growth away, it quickly returned, more feverishly than before.

The first month that we were together was, I assume, much like anyone’s first month together. All we wanted to do was have sex and gaze longingly into each other’s eyes. Despite neither of us being virgins, we seemed to be under the unflappable impression that sex had never existed outside the context of “us.” It was our very own special discovery, our dirty little secret, and for a month I didn’t even tell Carrie that I was seeing anyone.

Our freshman year was my first time away from home, but like every other 19 year old in the world, I was sure that I was more grown up then the rest of them. I had my own dorm room (my roommate had left just late enough to secure me a single for at least one semester), a clear cut path to my dream career, and the perfect boyfriend. All of my pillars were in place, and I felt like a strong, solid structure. This was also around the time that I had started getting into pills. Some people call it crank, speed, meth, which I guess makes me a speed freak, but to me, it was Desoxyn, and to my naïve 19 year old mind, it was just something to help me stay up and study from time to time. Soon time-to-time became a daily ritual, and that’s where it got messy, and the girl across the hall with ADHD was no longer able to satisfy my need with a fraction of her weekly meds.

Two weeks after our first kiss and our first night together, Adam surprised me by taking me to see my favorite band, which I’d tried to get tickets for months earlier, at no avail. I remember, It had been a particularly neurotic, first month kind of week where I questioned everything about us and whether or not we would make it because he had three solid days of exams, so I didn’t see him and barely heard from him for that time. On the afternoon of the third day, at which point I was religiously checking my voicemail every hour on the hour in case I’d somehow not heard the phone ring in my nine by twelve high rise cubicle, he knocked on my door.

When I answered the door, he was wearing the same thing he had been three days earlier, and despite the fact that it was rumpled, messy, didn’t match, and smelled of three-day-old dorm room, it is still my favorite memory of him. That night answered any questions I had about us. As was customary of crowded club shows, we held hands to weave our way through the crowd without losing each other. Once we’d found a place, he rested one hand in the small of my back (it fit just right, like the two pieces were molded to fit together), and the other on my left hip, leaning a bit so that his chin rested just on the top of my head. He said I smelled like candy. He made me feel sexy and interesting and wanted and loved, and that was what my fragile writer ego needed. Similarly, his stage-hesitance (he wouldn’t call it fright, he wasn’t afraid), was eased a bit by a few encouraging words before and after a play reading or a stand up routine. I even set up all of my stuffed animals one night so that he could practice with a real audience. That night, at the club with it’s purple swirling smoky lights and clove cigarette air, we were the only one’s there. Crammed in to regulation like sardines, we felt like we were at our own private show. Speaking strictly for me, it was the most perfect night of our young lives.

In reality it was one of the many stages we shared. We were both performers, both artists, and both required too much attention to pay enough to a lover and ourselves. We liked the attention we were able to give each other for a short period of time. An affair of such intensity cannot last for long, however, and soon we were plagued with more troubles than our lack of experience had equipped us to handle.

time travel

2007-01-20T20:10:00.000-08:00

so i was looking through some old notebooks tonight, reminiscing. mostly laughing at myself for being so whiny and thinking that stupid boys were really amazing (and I'm pretty sure most of the high school notebooks and chapbooks are in boxes in the study, so we haven't even REALLY delved in yet). nonetheless i did find this gem of a poem in my notebook for my junior year of high school english. it has a lot of notes from my teacher about not handing things in on time and not actually doing the assignments and maybe being better organized between plays, stories, and poems, but my grades are pretty good. anyway, so I wrote this April 14, 2000, when I was just shy of 17. i'd like to stress that i barely kissed boys at this age, but from reading this, if I was my daughter, i'd be concerned.

untitled (i never titled things back then)

I'm not the girl you want me
to be
the type to walk down the aisle.
I don't enjoy afternoon tea.
A midnight snack I can handle
as long as its quick and sweet.
Daylight bothers me
I hide in the shade.
The dark is comforting, like a
childhood blankie.
I sleep alone
unintentionally deliberately-
a product of my subconscious.
I climb in and out of windows
with ease.
I wear skirts like jeans
with t-shirts and sneakers.
I don't spend more than 5 minutes
on hair and makeup
and I never have time
for breakfast.

juggling sucks

2007-01-19T08:40:00.000-08:00

I failed at my new years resolutions. That is, I didn't make a very important one. I realized yesterday that the most important resolution I should have made goes a little something like this: "slow the F down and stop trying to be everything to everyone." I have come to the conclusion that I have a really annoying personality trait that makes me try to do way more than humanly possible and not ask people for help until its too late. So I (a) look like a flake to everyone because nothing gets done as well as it could if I applied a normal amount of time/commitment/energy (b) get migraines (c) justify destructive behavior as a way to de-stress from over-commitment and (d) am kind of a scatterbrained mess and live in a sea of to-do lists. Needless to say I had a long day yesterday.

So I'm starting over. January does not exist. I leave for Vermont on Thursday, and when I come back it will be February already. So I have a list of things to do in the next week so that I won't be playing catch up when I get back from a week of work vacation. In fact, I made a list for each of my identified stress areas (work, home, financial, "extracurriculars," and relationships) so this will be an interesting week. But February 3rd, I will wake up ready to go back to work, in a clean room, with a balanced checkbook, a reasonable to do list at work, resolve to stop acting like I'm still in college, and on track to pull off V-Day.

I need Kelli's book of affirmations.

silent saying

2007-01-18T13:40:00.000-08:00

My body language
is a dead giveaway

you just need to learn the words.

I can be a little confusing
if you're not fluent.
The words for
"I could love you if I let my guard down"
and
"You repulse me"
are only syllables apart.
Click your tongue the wrong way
and you'd get it wrong...
like how Cinderella might have worn
squirrel fur slippers
I get lost in translation.

There is no Cara to English dictionary
though I've been told that
"Cara time" is 45 minutes behind
eastern standard
despite a shared geographic location.
"Cara logic" defies any law you can think of

even gravity
because I fly in my dreams.

and sometimes my stomach gets that
elevator starts too quick feeling
around you too.
I walk in my sleep and my
leg wakes me with a start
confused at why it doesn't
go anywhere.

But it's just you
holding me in the dark
and you might think that
my back to you is cold.
But it's just that my shoulders
are thicker than my ribs
and I want to put some
distance between

you

and my heart.

Same reason I hug you quick and
run away
Same reason I would rather write
you a poem than call
won't make eye contact in a crowded room...
I'm still working on that dictionary
so for now, let me translate-

If I didn't care what you thought
I'd bat my eyes without a blink.
I'd let my hips brush against you
as I pass.
I'd yawn just to see if I could catch you
looking my way.

Trust me baby, if I didn't want your
arms at my waist
I could put them there.
If I didn't want to kiss you
I could throw you against a wall.
If I didn't care, I could wrap
myself around you like a blanket.

But like I said, my ribs are thin
and my breastbone ain't much
thicker.
So I don't think it would take that
long for your heart to coax mine
out of hiding
and get them all tangled up like
the cat's cradles I could never figure out

And baby
you could do a whole lot
more than break it
if you pulled away first.

I am an evil genius...

2007-01-17T07:24:00.000-08:00

I always knew, but now quiz farm confirms it...

You scored as Evil Genius. Your an evil genius! People better stay out of your way or its straight to the gas chambers when you take over!

Evil Genius

72%

Hero

57%

Alien

55%

Ninja

43%

Psycho Killer

43%

Normal Average Guy/girl

33%

Demon

26%

What are you?(evil genius, ninja, etc.)
created with QuizFarm.com

life on marinate

2007-01-16T06:30:00.000-08:00

I really like using the word marinate as a verb outside the venue of food preparation. So I've been letting somethings marinate lately, and trying to kind of slow myself down a little (not working so well, but I'm using time more efficiently). So last night I decided to not do anything with my evening that I could not do from the comfort of my own bed... hey, eyes up here. So I can't do one thing at a time. I have to be using at least 2 senses at once or I get kind of antsy... unless I'm asleep. Anyway, I decided to take a look at this novel I wrote the summer I turned 20 and see if it was even worth editing, which is a project I've been meaning to take on since... well, the summer I turned 20.

I don't know if its because it's semi-autobiographical and I can recognize some of the moments in it, but I got really into it. I think I'm actually going to suck it up and pull out the red pen. The weirdest thing is that I haven't looked at the thing in almost a year, and I used a lot of similar imagery and phrases in recent poems that I used in the book. Specifically things about stoplights, and spaces between shoulders and collarbones... like literally exact quotations. I have some weird wiring in my brain.

My favorite line though is this: "What's your real life plan?" A real life plan is like your back up, for if you don't get to be a rock star or a novelist or in the wnba (what can I say, I was an ambitious 13-year-old.). It's funny to me now, because the main character's real-life plan is being a novelist... if making movies doesn't work out. I still have to wonder how much I've really grown up since I wrote the piece, though. I love what I do, but I'm not going to lie, I love meeting people I think are really cool and finding out that they already know my name ALMOST (ok, not quite almost) as much as I love talking to 16-year-olds about hegemony. So I don't know if I have a real-life plan. But I am pretty impressed with the storytelling skills that I had at 20, and seriously feel like I need to get back to honing them.

Deeply Embedded Neurosis

2007-01-14T12:16:00.000-08:00

I remember it like it was a childhood memory... mostly because it is... Yes, it is approximately 3:45 in the afternoon, a couple of days before Valentine's Day 1993. 10-year-old Cara is walking home from school after staying after to work out the last details of the Valentine's Day dance that she and a few friends have convinced the Principal to let them have from 3-5pm (before the big kids dance). Across the street, walking parallel to her route, is Anthony, the boy she had a crush on for all of 4th and 5th grade. He yells for her to come over, where he is standing with another boy in their class. When she gets to their side of the street he says:

"So... I heard you wanted to ask me to the Valentine's Day Dance."

My response?

"Well, you heard wrong!"

Then I turned on my heel and walked back down the road down to my house. Why did I do this, you may ask? To be honest, I'm not exactly sure. It could be that I'm too proud to make myself the more vulnerable party in a conversation. It could be that I also kind of thought his friend was cute. It could have also been that I was too thrown off by the possibility of being asked to a dance by my crush that my only response was... well, a near violent outburst.

In any case, to fully understand the history of Anthony and I, you would have to go back to the Valentine's Day before, during our 4th grade year. I really, really liked him. So I traded my brother a couple of my valentines, which I think were Saved By the Bell, for a couple of his Ninja Turtle ones. I gave Anthony one with Michaelangelo, my favorite turtle, on it. It said something like... "cowabunga... you rock!" on it. Did I mention that Michaelangelo was my favorite turtle? So I was sure that Anthony would understand that I really, really liked him. Except then I was a little worried that he would know that I liked him (I'm not really sure what I was going forwith this gesture). So then I wrote something like, "not! you make me want to puke!" on the back side of the card, and then a little heart and my name. Yes, yes, there may have been some mixed messages sent that day, but I never could have expected the response that I received.

That day was the only day in my entire life that I ever had to be picked up by my mother and sent home early. Yes, I made the boy cry. I guess he might have liked me back, but you know, I wasn't entirely sure, and I didn't want to deal with the rejection. 9-year-old girl hearts are very fragile. Apparently so are 9-year-old boy hearts. Ok, so that doesn't really explain any better the near violent outburst in the fifth grade, and I can't say I either really understand either interaction. I would like to say that my tactics have changed in the near fifteen years that have passed since these incidents took place, but I find myself still running hot and cold, throwing rocks at boys, and telling men that I think are smart, cute, and funny that they are stupid and ugly. Why do I do this? I don't really know, but I think it may have started back in the fourth grade.

best morning wake up ever

2007-01-12T08:50:00.001-08:00

not the paxil, the video...

particles

2007-01-12T06:23:00.000-08:00

i feel so broken.
maybe that's why my chest
is so tight
my shoulders so tense...
my body is desperately trying
to hold itself together.
i roll my neck
pull back sore shoulders
rotate hips to stretch
my torso-
and it works.

momentarily
but as soon as i stop
the tightness returns
the tension takes back over
because it's not a physical ailment.
it's this gripping fear that leaks
over every inch of my muscles
paralyzing me
and making me desperate to move
simultaneously.
my right half wants me in a wheelchair.
my left half wants to run like my life depends on it
and it thinks it does.

left side saying:
"girl, get the hell out and start
over again. this one's not worth it
either."
right side, through sleepy eyes, whispers:
"i can't go back to the drawing board.
it takes so much to erase a whole page
and i'm damn near exhausted."

and they can't agree to disagree on
alone
because damn it's nice to have a warm
body in your bed
and someone to say goodnight to,
to believe your lies until you feel bad
enough to tell the truth
who's polite enough to wait until
after you tell them
to say they knew all along.
a second plate to wash,
someone to tell you that your ideas
are crazy- but do it anyway
they like you that way.

i'm right handed.
so yeah, the gemini in me
wants to pack up and leave
with some dignity
but the cancer homebody
can't get out of bed.
she wants a sparring partner
just as much as the twins
but
she's not thinking about
how much fun it can be to
discover a new person
inch by inch.
she's not thinking of how special
you can feel when a man goes
out of his way to stop by your office
just to see your face.
she's not even thinking about how
nice it can be to kiss without asking
if its ok.
she can't remember those things.
she wallows in the moment, remembers
only the tragedy
the fingertips moving away
the icicles left as excuses.
how many days it takes
for a scent to wear from an
old sweatshirt.
and she's feeling a whole lot older
than 23.

and she wants someone that makes
her feel like a kid again.
someone that makes her feel like
she's in a cheesy independent film
where no one dies of cancer at the end.
someone that will make her dinner at home
and let her pay when they go out.
someone who takes her to bookstores
AND amusement parks
and understands that sometimes she
wakes up at 4am to write a chapter
that won't get out of her dreams.
most of all, she wants to know that
that person is out there.

Sometimes Humor Helps

2007-01-11T11:27:00.000-08:00


	Cara Lisa Powers was the cause of the apocalypse.
	... afterward, Cara Lisa Powers went to the movies alone.
	'How will you be remembered in history books?' at QuizGalaxy.com

garland of men i probably shouldn't have kissed

2007-01-10T11:06:00.000-08:00

I don't have a title for this garland yet, nor do I really think I'm going to do anything with it. But it was a good exercise.

1
Sometimes the moon can intoxicate me
but on that night, I think it was the beer-
pulled down my defenses and killed the fear.
We started in a circle under a tree

but that moment, it was just you and me.
The others in the room I didn't hear.
You were my biggest wish my thirteenth year.
I kept my eyes open so that I could see.

Wanted to ask you to "be my boyfriend."
Now, I still remember your phone number
but the space between each call grew more, so
we lost touch after our eigth grade year's end.
Lost my chance, couldn't feel any dumber.
I don't ask for a reprieve, I just go.

2
I don't ask for a reprieve, I just go.
I did not mean to break your heart though I
noticed it took a whole lot just to try.
When you kissed me goodbye, I just felt low.

Your biggest joy was being my "beau."
Took two months to ask me out, you were shy
and afraid I wanted another guy.
You were patient and let me take things slow.

My father, he loved you like his own son
(but not a son-in-law). We were 15
So our parents just let the "race thing" go
sure that, so young, we hadn't found "the one."
That wasn't why I left, I still feel mean,
crawling out of my skin sometimes, you know.

3
Crawling out of my skin sometimes, you know-
that's how I felt when I was around you.
Yes, sure, at 16, that my love was true
but still always afraid to let it show.

You'd play games like "push her down in the snow."
Then there was that time when I threw my shoe.
Never got serious with me and you
You thought it was funny to call me a hoe.

I pretended that we could be an us,
something more than a quick fleeting second.
I wrote bad angsty schoolgirl poetry
and always sat next to you on the bus.
Can only think that you liked the attention.
I close my eyes so I don't have to see.

4
I close my eyes so I don't have to see
your hands in my hair, your mouth on my lips
surprised by the movement in my own hips.
I never imagined this- you and me.

You were kind of my first discovery
felt like I could give my best friends some tips.
Felt drunk, though I'd just taken a few sips
like I had found a whole new way to be.

You were notorious for doing this.
I wasn't looking for anything more.
We let go of each other happily.
I don't regret our time, that night, our kiss.
It wasn't hard walking you to the door.
You said I entrapped you easily.

5
You said I entrapped you easily
I thought that was the lamest line I'd heard.
We made no sense- a pot head and a nerd,
but I thought I could make you right for me.

I didn't want you, you didn't want me.
For us to be more than friends was absurd.
When you kissed me I couldn't find a word,
there was kind of an electricity.

In the days after things started to change
just for me though, and not for you
closed my eyes, tried not to let anything show.
For a time thought I had you in close range,
think I just wanted something that stayed new.
Held your hand, though I knew nothing would grow.

6
Held your hand, though I knew nothing would grow.
I appreciated the attention.
I shouldn't have acted on the tension,
but in your eyes I had a special glow.

Worried that you saw a higher plateau,
I scrambled to stop my own ascension,
but you anticipated the rejection.
When I said "I don't" you said "I know."

Just the same we stayed in touch through the years
only a little awkward around friends...
it was like it never happened, you know?
I even went shopping with you at Sears,
thought then that our friendship could make amends.
So sure, you thought you had me at hello.

7
So sure, you thought you had me at hello
and then, not so sure- "was it good for you?"
Had to know it wasn't good for me too.
I think you shouldn't have to ask to know.

In terms of smarts, you had me toe to toe
and I would say we had chemistry too,
but when I left I didn't feel blue.
Funny how you can reap less than you sow.

Don't know what kind of a girl you thought I was,
but pretty sure it wasn't who I am.
Who knows, maybe you accused me rightly,
no regard for the what if, or because.
You were only a "wham bam, thank you ma'am-"
came quick, made up by holding me tightly.

8
Came quick, made up by holding me tightly.
Watched the Transformers movie as foreplay
and you left before the first signs of day,
kissed me on the forehead very lightly.

Was self-conscious of my hair- unsightly.
The morning was dark and it was grey,
on my porch, my mistake there on display.
You said you'd call me later, politely.

Lover, I never did regret that night.
I'm not saying I wanted more from you.
Yes, I was happy after the door closed,
remember watching you walk out of sight.
Knew you wouldn't call, didn't want you to.
You made me feel beautifully exposed.

9
You made me feel beautifully exposed
like an open book or reading my palm,
and around you I never could stay calm.
There wasn't a day that I stayed composed.

This floweret, I wrote, my heart enclosed.
Your kiss hit me in the chest like a bomb
then like that, you were over like the prom.
Wondered if my love was misdiagnosed.

I hated you for at least a year
couldn't face that we were only playing.
So mad at myself for letting me fall.
I'm proud and I don't like to shed a tear,
so sometimes I still find myself saying
You didn't mean much, we had fun, that's all.

10
You didn't mean much, we had fun, that's all.
Honestly, you didn't mean anything,
but you were just there, waiting in the wing.
My roommate woke to find you in the hall.

I'd already gone to work at the mall.
I slipped out without saying anything.
You were this silly nineteen year old thing.
I, at 21, too mature to fall.

I was like Mrs. Robinson to you,
and you bragged to my little brother's friend.
Yeah, we had fun, but there wasn't a spark.
I was the envy of high school girls too,
not a pedestal I liked to ascend.
I'd lie to tell you you hit the mark.

11
I'd lie to tell you you hit the mark,
but you did come damn close several times.
We didn't talk at all, we were like mimes,
hiding from the others in the dark.

You put me in drive when I planned to park.
You'd been flirting with women past their primes.
We were there, and things just happen sometimes,
and I know that I was just a checkmark.

Yeah, we didn't exchange information.
Woke up on the other side of the bed,
slipped out of the hotel while you still dozed.
But you were a nice little vacation.
I don't remember anything you said.
I should learn to sleep when the bar is closed.

12
I should learn to sleep when the bar is closed.
Or at least, I should go home by myself,
lock the door and put my needs on a shelf.
Instead, closed the bedroom door, you enclosed.

More than sleep happened. I wasn't opposed
since I drank a bottle of rum myself,
something else I should have left on the shelf
or hidden in locations undisclosed.

We were a mess- all arms and legs and mouth.
I don't even remember who kissed first
but I know my roommate heard through the wall.
My expectation of restraint went south,
and you seemed so practiced and rehearsed.
Yeah, I never expected you to call.

13
Yeah, I never expected you to call...
Saying it now, I know that it's a lie.
I really never thought you'd be that guy,
a big nose, glasses, and you weren't that tall

but conversation made up for it all.
You had me at "Sports Night" like I was high,
even had two drinks that I let you buy
and held your hand so I wouldn't fall.

Those are two things I never do,
but with you that night it just felt so right.
Walking around the North End, through the park,
I could have stayed there the whole night with you.
The sun came up and ended the night.
You sure did look beautiful in the dark.

14
You sure did look beautiful in the dark,
not to say that you didn't in the light.
Didn't plan on taking you home that night.
For the flame, you have to follow the spark.

You were taken by every remark,
never had a girl like me in your sight.
Least that's what you said, though it sounded trite.
I'm an artist, and you a business shark.

It could have never worked, I'm too stubborn.
Stayed up together until the twilight,
you saw something I didn't see in me.
It's not like either of us left lovelorn
but I liked you there under my skylight.
Sometimes the moon can intoxicate me.

15
Sometimes the moon can intoxicate me.
I don't ask for a reprieve I just go,
crawling out of my skin sometimes you know.
I close my eyes so I don't have to see.

You said I entrapped you easily,
held your hand, though I knew nothing would grow.
So sure, you thought you had me at hello.
Came quick, made up by holding me tightly.

You made me feel beautifully exposed.
You didn't mean much, we had fun that's all.
I'd lie to tell you you hit the mark.
I should learn to sleep when the bar is closed.
Yeah, I never expected you to call.
You sure did look beautiful in the dark.

can't put you down

2007-01-02T19:08:00.000-08:00

it takes a long time to learn a new language
but babe
i learned you quick like
riding a bike and never
having to put the training wheels on

i don't know how to describe you without
similes
because everything reminds me of you
try me
give me any noun and i can trace it back to you
in six degrees of separation...
something you said or some little
quirk
that i just picked up on

and the typical ones won't do
your eyes are not like oceans
or even chocolate
but your voice melts me inside a little
every time
there's this gentleness that disarms me
and i've got no one liners
no cynicism, no hyperbole
but there's poetry in every step
once i collect myself

i try to take notes for later, but
i'd rather hold your hands than a pen

you make me beautiful
and i've always been pretty
or cute
and yeah, I'm a little cute around you
you make me want to giggle like i'm 13
i have to remember to breathe
when you touch me
because my autopilot dies
like by holding my breath I can will this moment
into forever
there's something about discovering you
that makes me forget that someday
i'll know how it all turns out

like maybe we could be a good book
without a last chapter
i can't hold that last page in my hand
and that feels damn good right now
i'm not even tempted to peek at the ending
but i've been taking it with me everywhere
reading before bed
on the T
in between emails
while walking to the ATM...

trying not to finish
but to know a little more
each time
like a bottomless bowl of ice cream
with no stomach ache
or a song you can't get out of your head
but aren't sick of yet
or like you adding another hour to a night
i was sure had ended already

adding another page
that i can't stop reading
wakes me in the middle of
the night
like a good movie
right before bed

and you're so new
so unblemished by familarity
a football field of virgin
snow
for me to stomp all
over
with another one waiting
next door

you've got a fence up
but i've been shopping
for some wire cutters
and i'm breaking in after
dark
making some snow angels
and a mess
just so you remember
that you've got a co author

future retrospective

2006-12-29T11:51:00.000-08:00

i bookmark moments
try to keep track
of how quickly time passes

wonder how things will turn out
wait
for the punch line

this too will pass...

i remind myself

and

...everything happens for a reason.

but i click back to the moments
just before crisis
far enough to not miss my cue
and i
regret
with a vengeance

... and i don't believe in that shit
i really DO believe that everything happens
for a reason
it helps me sleep at night
gives me something to curl my fingers around
when i try to understand
why two year olds die
why babies cry when you've done EVERYTHING you can
and they can't tell you what's wrong
why i cannot for the life of me get it right no matter how hard i try
and how sometimes i don't have to try at all
and pieces just fall together

drop twenty dollars
and get a winning scratch ticket
buy a homeless man a hot dog
and sleep through the night for the first
time in two weeks
you can't always trace it back
like trying to explain how you got to
your favorite hat when we were
talking about where we might have
been when the challenger
exploded
and our tiny baby brains mistook it
for fireworks
linked it in our heads with
punky brewster
and crying.

point a to point b
is a long journey
that sometimes we're
right in the middle of
i'm not saying that b is death
there are so many ab's in this rhyme
scheme
that i rap sometimes
just trying to figure it out

and i bookmark moments like these
remember the thought
when the punch line finally hits
make a note
write a play or a poem
cast myself in my own life
on repeat
write scripts in my sleep
trace the freckles on my arms
to make maps
of all the crazy lines
that life draws when no one else
is looking

idle chatter

2006-12-27T05:16:00.000-08:00

ok, usually I don't use this for things that aren't poetry or prose, but I've had too much family/friend/self-reflection time to not make some notes.

First observation: my little brother and baby sister are very nearly grown ups... they totally blew me away with their maturity this week. it's weird, i feel like we are beginning to have these grown up sibling relationships. maybe it's because i spent time with both of them and their significant others yesterday, and i got to see how they're actually human beings and not the little girl that followed me and my friends around or the angry 13 year old kid who broke my nose one christmas. now the two boys, that's a different story, but they will both be in high school next year which is scary enough... and I think I noticed pey's voice break the other day. scary, scary stuff.

Second observation: when i say i'm going "home" people need a clarification. i've kind of gotten a repuatation in my crew, particularly my college friends, for having a rotating cast of interests in habits ("any new tattoos?" "are you still vegan?" "who's the new guy?"), but i noticed that when i say home, i mean the place where i pay rent, where the majority of my belongings reside, etc. i've had my own place for 5 years now, but this is the first time it ever felt natural to call it home. to call another city home. but for better or worse, or possibly only 2 years, boston is where i'm building my life right now.

Third observation: ok, not really an observation, but all of my school loans are taken care of for next semester, and it just really hit me that in a year and a half, i am going to have a masters degree, which means i could potentially get an adjunct teaching job. i guess its kind of weird how i'm stuck in between educator and student right now with work and school. Also, since i don't have to make student loan payments until graduation next August, i actually have a real grown up salary. i'm going to be able to afford health insurance and start a savings account. crazy. i may even buy fresh produce on my way home from work a couple times a week... how utopian.

Fourth observation: my parents and grandparents are such amazingly strong people. they don't always know it, but they have built such a strong foundation for our family, conventional or otherwise, and they try to pass it on to us kids, but they have to have done something right for us to turn out ok.

Fifth observation: it's all going to be ok. man, i am lucky as hell. i have amazing friends, wonderful family, and my health. my biggest new years resolution is to truly appreciate that every day.

First Writing For

2006-12-22T08:25:00.000-08:00

After Suheir Hammad's "First Writing Since"

For Lisa, Sofia, Jesse and Adrian

there can be no words.
i have not written one word.
no poetry in tears of sixteen year old motherless childs
no prose in the grief of childless mothers whose children will never be anything
but sixteen
not one word.

nineteen is a balancing act between adolescence and adulthood.
it was not meant to be his last- the world is turned on its end.
pins and purple ribbons where once were prom pictures.
memorial cards where once were high school transcripts.

hate boils on cold city streets. no, fear. and I stopped fearing for my
sister's life for 3 months while she read behind bars. and now again,
and for the rest of us, as we watch our future killed off in tens
and at ten.

first, please god, let her need a ride to the hospital, a stop at the flower shop.
then please god, let it be a grandfather, a great aunt.
please god, after the tears came, please, don't let it have been by
another 19 year old hand

i do not know how much better an accident is than a murder
when the result is another clock stopped before evening
what does it matter who took out the batteries?
i have never felt so helpless as there, holding tissues
like a white flag of surrender

more than ever, i believe there is no difference.
police, parents, papers and policymakers, still see only three words: "another teen dead"
between young mothers, drug dealers, best friends, honor roll students, star athletes.
more than ever, there is no difference.

now what?

2006-12-19T11:49:00.002-08:00

I had everything figured out but
Now what?

3 weeks ago the world was spinning
Slightly tilted on its axis
The way it’s supposed to be
But
Now what?

Between me and the horizon of
Unknowns
Clearly visible was the next two
Years:
Perfect job
Great apartment
Nice car
And two years away
From a certificate that says
I’m two years away from
Being Dr. Powers
But now what?

the extra pounds that
Troubled me in my childhood
Were melting away
Like the butter I no longer
Eat
And a beautiful man wanted to
Share my bed and my
Ideas
But now what?

Now what?
Now
I want to eat chocolate because
My car just blew a tire
At the crossroads
And I can’t get back to my apartment
Where the locks have been changed
And I have to hide a key behind a shovel
Because I don’t have time to have a copy made
Because the perfect job’s not so perfect anymore
And I don’t make enough money to pay for
The pretty certificate that says
I am a master

And I don’t even feel like the master
Of my own destiny since
You walked away from me
And made me question my
Stability
Like, girl,
What do you really want to be?

And three weeks ago I could
Have told you
With a certainty
But I don’t even remember
Being that version of me
So now all I can do
Is repeat the question back to you
Stumbling over the words
Because they don’t make any sense
And my whole life feels like
One big mess
Like my bedroom
Another problem
that I don’t even have to time
address
And this cycle of over thinking and under doing
Just adds to the stress

So now what?

It is amazing how one week can build
So many bricks on top
Of you
That you can’t even imagine
the sunshine anymore
and you can feel
the mortar seeping in
between the cracks
of the moonlight

sealing out the oxygen
that once mingled
with hand holding, laughing, sharing, reading, writing, loving, learning, LIVING
so that you can feel less and less
breath coming in each time
your chest expands
and contracts
but with the little air
you can muster you
resolve to come up with a solution
asking yourself
as you push your backs
against the bricks

Now What?

aliens

2006-12-19T11:49:00.001-08:00

Growing up I always
envied the
dark
complexion
of my grandmother
and mother's
skin
and I
remember
that my mother called
it olive

but my grandmother
does not look green
to me
like an alien
a thought that
scares me for
a moment
but it's ok
because the
US government says
that aliens
actually
come in brown

and one of those
aliens
shot a Black
police officer
in Houston
and suddenly
the black man
is allowed to be the
victim
because he is
AMERICAN
(but isn't Mexico in the Americas?)

but Bush says the
aliens are coming
and so just like
Blacks and Latinos
were lowered from
poplars after
9.11
and told to cheer
while the Arabs were lifted
in their place...

now the Black community
has its evidence
that these aliens
really
are attacking
and Will Smith can't
save us now
We need to secure
our borders
before another
Black cop gets shot

But what if it was a white
doctor
who put two bullets in
the back of that
young Black man with
five children

I doubt it would be
at the top of the
hour
drowning out
word from the
White House
that we are
LESS SAFE
now than 5
years ago

A recent anniversary
which has made
sure
that the
Muslims
continue to be
strangled in
those
trees
just with some new
company

and
we
don't
get
it

that as long as there
are ropes
hanging
from those trees
it could be
any of us
hanging from those
ropes

and to stand in the
crowd
as
ANYONE
is stripped of
their rights
and not say as loud as
you can
THIS IS NOT RIGHT

is damn near as bad
as tying the
noose
yourself

we are not done yet
we cannot rest at
small victories
we need to align
in solidarity
for
and not against

so even if we take all
the guns
off the streets
we're not done

because some
people don't have
food to eat
and my cousin's
marriage
is not recognized
in any other state
and my size 2
best friend
thinks she needs to lose
10 pounds
and a
Mexican immigrant is
being profiled
right now
because a murderer
shares his nation

and if that's the
litmus
test then
we
are
all
fucked
because the
blood
of millions is on the hands
of an "American"
and the crowd is
gathering under those poplars again
and maybe this time
we’re all strange fruit

please do not be a president

2006-12-19T11:49:00.000-08:00

It is so easy to get
Mad
I have to
No
Seriously
If I wasn’t so pissed off
I couldn’t do my job
But
If I was only pissed off
Than I could only do
My job
As well as our
President
And I think that the
Young people of
The good ol’
U S of A
Are getting screwed over
Enough
As it is

So I get Mad, yeah
I get downright furious
There are days that
I want to punch random
Strangers
Because they look in
My mind like
That jackass guy who penned the
“that’s just the way it is”
Bullshit letter to the editor
Last week

Yeah this 5 foot nothing
Ray of sunshine’s a
Pretty big anger ball
But for all my yelling and
Fuming
I love a whole lot too
I create
I encourage
I mobilize
I understand

But there’s a whole hell of a lot I don’t understand
Like why 3 beautiful children
Get drowned and stuffed into the washing machine
That should have their school clothes in it
And I hate to say it, but I am
Almost
Relieved
That there mother was killed too because I have a hard enough
Time looking at their
Faces
Smiling back at me from the color pages of the metro
So I can’t even imagine how she
Would begin to rebuild her
Life

But I can imagine that picture multiplied by millions for every 3 children
Killed
By US bombs and
UN sanctions
And NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND
And every child
Locked up or
Gunned down or told they are
Stupid or
Ugly or
Worthless
And their parents don’t have enough time in their daily grind to tell them
“Don’t listen to that shit,
You
Are
Amazing.”

So I am saying it now
To every 16 year old girl
Who doesn’t fit on an 8.5 glossy
And every young Black man who thinks he’s got four options in life
Gangster
Rapper
Baler or
Dead

You
Are
Amazing
You are beautiful
There is so much ugliness in this world
And you don’t have to be a part of it

You are smart
You are creative
You can be a doctor
A lawyer
Senator
Youth organizer

But unless we fix what the hell it means I beg you

Please do not be a President.

blind faith

2006-12-19T11:47:00.000-08:00

There's nothing left
to say
because as cliche as
it may sound
the cliches have
said it better
than I ever could.

For example
someone once said
"an eye for an eye
leaves the whole world
blind"
and how the fuck
could i say that better?
or even add to it
except to say
"hell yeah"
because it's so
damn true

It's too late though
and we're all
blind
walking into walls
piecing together
our other
senses
so convincingly
that we don't
recognize
our broken noses
and crooked paths.

How else can you
explain
so many people
standing by
as innocent people
of every
color
creed
gender
and age
are raped
killed
blown apart
and buried in
mass graves
called
Manhattan
New Orleans
Bagdhad or
Afghanistan?

How else can
we
explain
our lack of outrage
as an adminisration
who plays a hand
of 2500 dead innocents
to
strip billions more of
the
right to say...
well anything really...
and then somehow
the right
of a 16-year-old in
South Dakota to
abort
her own
brother or sister
from her womb so
that even if her
rapist father gets
locked up for life
the trauma
of carrying the result to term
will live in her
blood
in another
until that son turns
18
and gets sent to
WWIII

Another cliche
that is only a
cliche
because it looms so
impendingly
over our broken
world
and we are so
blind
that we still
cannot see it
but we can
hear
it in the distance
behind the words of men
telling us
that if men can
marry other men
than the
terrorists
win
and I can't say shit
about it
because my phones
are tapped
so instead I
weep
openly
on the T
over the morning
paper
and I can't see anymore
but I think
I hear the
baby
next to me
whimper
in agreement.

nice pretty words

2006-12-19T11:46:00.000-08:00

It has been hard
lately
for me to
indulge
in beauty

when it is not
intrinsically linked
to revolution.

It would be
wrong
for me to say
that i had been
only dealing
in ugliness
just because
I have found
myself
dwelling on the
death
deceit
and destruction
that seems to
absorb the daily news
and my daily planet.

because I have seen
great
beauty
in between the lines
of poets
and singers
and rows of people
coming together
for the beginning
of something new
and not against
something that
has more
than runs its course.

I have felt my blood
pump faster because
it united with the blood
of 100 other people
in the same space
reaching together
in clenched fists
for a better tomorrow.

I have found my mind
wandering into
bedrooms
where it can lay
in my body
with the pumped
fists and the bodies
attached
and the beautiful minds
underneath
singing revolution song
and making a better
world with our hips
neglecting anything
but ourselves
until we are two
frames for pictures
of a new world order

Because I have been
very self-involved
lately.
despite my quest
for knowledge
and my sore
muscles
from pushing against
walls of beaurocracy
I have been doing
it all for me.
Because I love it
and I have been looking
for some nice pretty words
to talk about my love
of reshaping our culture
with my own hands
and waxing philospophical
in a hotel jacuzzi
with people I have wanted to
meet for years
and being blown away that
they want to
meet me too.

And it's really that
last part that sticks
because even Mother Theresa
had to have gotten
some pleasure out of
her work.
And I have been looking
for some nice pretty words
lately
to explain why I love
what I do.

the heart is a muscle

2006-12-19T11:45:00.000-08:00

I could never love a poet
Now, please don't take that as rejection
It's a challenge

You see
I have
lost my footing from a well
executed
"What did I do to deserve you?"

And I've swooned over
a convincing rendition of
"Baby, you are so beautiful."

I have even
had my heart "skip" a beat
from a simple question like
"Why aren't the other girls more
like you?"

Screw the skip
and the pitter patter
I think that your sentiment
laced with a simile
or a metaphor
might make
the machines
flatline

And I'm sure you could
revive me with your
rhythm and rhyme-
your flow could teach
my blood
And have my heart
dependent on the
breakbeats
that lay the canvas
for your paint

Now that's a serious
responsibility
so if you're not ready for it
think
before you spit your clever line
and save your poetry
for a girl with a stronger heart

traffic (revised)

2006-12-19T11:44:00.001-08:00

Red
Green
Yellow
Stop
Go
Slow Down
Slow Down

Why don't we ever slow down?
Stuck in the constant flux of
Stop and
Go
We forget to take our time
We only know how to
kill it
While we wait in the stand still
both picking up smoking
so that we don't have to think of
the ghost in the passenger seat.

We have stopped so often
That when we
Go
I do... as fast as I can
holding you close
kissing your lips
trying
to get you to take your g-d damn shirt off...
fitting as much as I possibly can in
before we stop again.

I miss yellow lights
the warning...
knowing when to start weaning myself off
of the needing.

But we never did have those
yield signs...
It has always been
hot and cold
night and day
not being able to get enough of each other

and then...
STOP

Never sure what triggered the red light
too much
too close
too fast

But it was you who wouldn't let go

You who kissed first
You who crept to my porch
You who kissed me and told me
how much you would miss me
the night before you left...

And I prayed for a yellow light then
an extension on our parting
But city traffic is unreliable
and I have been stuck smoking
at this stop light for
two fucking years
and I don't think I can listen to
Suzanne Vega sing
"Cracking"
one more time.

I can see the light turning yellow
for the traffic to my right
This is the longest three seconds of my life...
one
did you miss me?
two
who's that other guy?
three
when are you coming back?

the green light is coming
but I'm sure there's more
red
ahead
and it is high time
that I quit smoking

warning signs

2006-12-19T11:44:00.000-08:00

Have you ever seen those tags
attached to hair dryers?
You know, the ones that warn
you not to shower while
drying your hair?
What concerns me most about
that is that if I have to assume if
there's a warning on it
it probably means that someone was
dumb enough to try it.

Like those boxes on application
forms
that are only big enough for
one letter
and for some reason
there are specific directions
that say to ONLY FILL IN ONE
LETTER PER BOX
so there must be some idiot
trying to fit all of the letters
of some ridiculously long name
like
Schwarzenegger
into one teeny tiny little letter sized box

and the idea that these
things need to be reiterated seems
so ridiculous to me
when people
don't come with those warning
labels

like road signs for relationships
"slippery when schizophrenic"
or
"has a girlfriend

and doesn't care"

I have to warn you
that I don't come with one either
but I believe in being fair
so here is my warning sign
for you:

don't get involved with me
boy
I'm no good for you
See I have a penchant for
fucking up a good thing
and you are some
awful beautiful shit
that I can't shake

kind of like
stabbing myself in the leg
is excruciatingly painful
but the blood
on concrete looks beautiful
on frames of celluloid
spinning at 24 per second

like 5 scoops of ice cream
seems
like a good idea
before we go on this
rollercoaster
and it lands in an amusement
park wastebasket

I am all wrong for you
and I don't come with the warning
tag that I should so I'm telling you now
I am an awful beautiful mess that looks
best after she has just fucked up again
and I don't want to put you on any list
of one night some nights morning after what’s his names
but I can read it off to you so you
can cross all the others off in red pen
and I promise I will try not to add any more
in fact
crumple the paper up and throw it
away

don't let me near a pen and pad

see I am just looking for someone
to be better for
I tried it already myself
but I can never hold me
accountable
maybe if the stakes were higher
than my face in the mirror in the morning...
like yours in my bed--
maybe then I could shape up

I want to sleep next to you
fully clothed

I don't know why I fuck strangers
to feel sexy
but I can tell you right now
I felt more beautiful
in your embrace
and a winter coat
with sleep weighing down my
eyes
than I did naked
as he traced my shoulder blades
under the flattering
glow of
candlelight

Maybe you could give me
a chance to
be beautiful in the daylight
instead of creeping around
under the moon like I always do
even with you
but we could take
a walk in the park
or go to a book signing
out for coffee
or to the zoo

and you could hold my hand
notice the sun getting caught
in my curls
know me by sight
instead of touch

maybe that beautiful wouldn't
be so awful

maybe, but
baby you're young
so I'll tell you the
one thing I've learned
that maybe you haven't yet

see, when someone tells you
they're no good for you
that they'll only break your heart
that they're a mess you don't want
to get close enough to to fix
that they're awful beautiful poison
with no elixir and a bitter aftertaste
they're probably right

baby,
trust me on this warning tag
I know it may sound silly
like you should know better
but remember
that tag is there for a reason:

if it needs to be said
it means someone was dumb
enough to try it.

blood pressure

2006-12-19T11:43:00.000-08:00

sitting at the subway stop
waiting to go home
I inhale
deeply
watching the fake fur collar
of my coat
rise and fall each time
my chest
expands and contracts

and I'm thinking about
how much
harder
it is to feel that rise and fall
when your chest is
on top of mine
how I take that breathing for granted
when it is through your mouth

I am more acutely aware
of the limbs that still
feel
your touch

the hips that have settled against yours
the lips that you carefully traced
even as I whispered endless
nonsense
afraid that if I stopped talking
we might lose each other
to sleep

the fingers that you held
beside me
underneath me
so that I could feel the arch
in my own back
where you traced the outline
of the tree of life
at my waist
carved karma over the
characters in its trunk

and I must have been real good
last lifetime
to walk with the memory of your
fingertips travelling my spine

my waist feels more
defined
remembering how small it felt
in your hands

and don't tell me that fingernails and hair
are dead cells
because they still feel
where they left marks in your shoulders
where they draped like velvet curtains
over your chest
while we slept
so that I could remember you
even in slumber

still waiting for the T
minus 30 degrees from
the 70 of last week's November
heat wave
I breathe as deep as I can
my coat tight as a blood pressure cuff
storing as much oxygen
in my veins as possible
to hold me until I
get home and

so I can breathe through you
again

like a virgin

2006-12-19T11:41:00.001-08:00

I am a new woman
every day
when I wake up
and not just because of the
diet, wardrobe, and makeup

I've been pouring through
books
with each cup of decaf
coffee with two splendas
and light cream
listening to all of the songs I
feel like I missed

making lists of films I have to
see
and books I have to
read

Almost like I've regressed to
my senior year of college
stocking the too many bookshelves
in my room
with Salinger, Vonnegut, Mamet
and Ginsberg

Listening to conversations between
people who seem cooler
measuring myself against them
with this imaginary ruler
trying to mold myself into
the same kind of perfect
that they seem to me

And every so often I stop and
question myself
about why I've embarked on this
self-improvement journey
how I've developed these benchmarks
whose ideal is this
size 8 revolutionary
practicing
self-control, yoga, perfectly coordinated
ensembles EVERY DAY
and abstinence

from sugar

I wonder to myself as my friends
do aloud
"how much of this is for me
and how much is for you?"

but really it doesn't matter
because it's all for me
after all
I want you for myself

so I'll keep dragging myself
out of bed before the sun decides
whether or not to shine
make it to the gym before the rush
run without going anywhere
(I don't want to run away
if you can't find me)

stock up on Miles Davis albums,
Kerouac volumes and
thrift store designer fashion

and I'll make it all look good

and if you don't notice my giant
silver earrings
my slimming figure
my makeup so perfectly painstakingly
applied that it looks like I'm not wearing any
my copy of Catcher in the Rye sticking out
of my knock of designer gym bag
my on stage prowess
my hair like a lioness
my casual on purpose Rick Springfield T-shirt
ripped jeans and hot pink heels

maybe this self-improvement plan
will seem like a waste

but if it really works
I'll actually believe it this time
when I shrug my shoulders and say
"his loss."

breaking

2006-12-19T11:41:00.000-08:00

there is self loathing love abound
there is little to do and little to say
and leaves and snowflakes on the ground

your breaking heart does not make a sound
I think I could be better for you another day
there is self loathing love abound

I am looking to be lost and you to be found
It is cold here with the breeze coming off of the bay
and leaves and snowflakes on the ground

our words only circle and confound
we can't say what we want to say
there is self loathing love abound

neither of us dares to expound
there are prices here we cannot pay
and leaves and snowflakes on the ground

before you're out of sight, I turn around
you look at your feet, or the other way
there is self loathing love abound
and leaves and snow flakes on the ground

poetic license

2006-12-19T11:40:00.000-08:00

Fuck You
Ok
Fuck you hard in every fuckable orifice
of your
perfect
beautiful
body

6 months in LA and
you became so
HOLLYWOOD
that you don't even recognize it
when you paraphrase
Jake Gyllenhaal in last year's
sappy Best Picture
"You wish you knew how to quit me…"

Well listen up
because I am quitting you
right now
No
you don't get 2 weeks
notice
and I'm not giving you a chance
to give me another pink slip.

I am packing up my desk and
cuting
this tether
so pull all you want
cuz I won't feel it
anymore

Fuck your 8pm drunk dials
and your poor excuse for chivalry…
bringing me tokens of your affection
that you just happened to have
in your pockets anyway
like a crumpled souvenir from the party
that made you two hours late
is supposed to make me feel special

Fuck your apologies
and your playing innocent in
love
and hard in
life
Fuck your
sweet talking
bed rocking
no feeling
deal sealing
heartless, thoughtless self

and fuck the notebook that you "left"
under my bed to "remember you by"

Fuck You
and I hope your listening
good
cuz that's the last
fuck
you're ever getting from me

you weren't supposed to see this

2006-12-14T20:08:00.000-08:00

i know all of your
words. why am i even here?
you won't take me home.

i found this line for you
but you don't read my poems anymore.
i hope i wrote the right zip code
on it. the postman is lazy
and i know he won't try twice:

i have not lain with
beauty all my life telling
over to myself

telling over to myself...
my best laid plans have been
torn up
again
and
again
by my tiny hands
not even strong enough
to hold you

i didn't mean to
falter this time. he was just
a notch. you'd be more.

if you wanted to.
i would hold you
like the teddy bear I fear
I'll never outgrow-
sleep with you on top
of my arm
and wear the pins
and needles like
your scent throughout
the day

you could be my pen
i could be your paper. we'd
trace calligraphy

on each other's skin
like a pillow book
carving our names
in each other spines
so our bodies could
follow the instructions
in our marrow.
you don't have to say
a word
and i'll try not to-
let our hips say things
we're afraid to.

you feel right right now
and right now is all i know
right now i want you.

i don't care if its cliche
a poet for a poet
Ginsberg finds his Orlovsky
Plath her Hughes
Miller his Nin
and who is June?
i am a gemini with
cancer tendencies
to build a hearth
and home
where I can
have midsummer night's
eve
parties and toast under
the mistletoe to your kiss.

i know all of your
words. i could repeat them in
sync with you. our lips

would match
tracing the air between
like a promise to
eliminate it.
you said yet.
yet is not a promise
but a hint of one, and i know
you didn't think of it
the words flowing out of your
fingers
like my ribs
could
would if you wanted them to.

if i did this right
this pantoufle de vair will
find the right person.

butterflies in my tummybox

2006-12-03T14:53:00.001-08:00

I hate physical manifestations
of emotions
and NO I don't mean our conscious
actions
of holding, pressing, interlocking
so I can manifest, physically for you
how it feels to press my heart
against yours

No, it is those subconscious
unconscious
belly flip flops that I can not
control
and I cannot
stomach
hitting my chest like a head
cold
or a stategically placed slug
to the gut
The physical discomfort of
needing
you
hits me harder than any
winter virus
ever could.

(how can it hurt this bad to feel this good?)

Hurt is the wrong word though
the staggering in my breath
when I think about you
is not a pain
but the contraction of my lung's
already shallow depth
cannot be good for me
You press you hand against
my chest
and whisper that it is fast
but I am slow
so instead of devouring you
I press my hand against
your heart
and we connect bloodlines
that way
tracing from our thumbs
to our central nervous system
Blood pumping hard to make
up for the fact that

I
cannot
breathe

From where I sit
I cannot see your face
so I study the movement
of your foot
keeping time to the music
and I long to feel it
travelling up my leg
in my bed
rustling me from sleep
just so that I know
you're holding me still

but not holding me still
I want to run with you
loosen those muscles
that tigthen when you
smile
That clench together when
I watch you come alive in your art
3am and you're no longer tired
in fact you're wired
painstakingly studying each note
on the page
The way I study you when you play
and you are amazed
that you can amaze anyone
this much
and even still it is enough
for me that our legs
touch
while you compose your next
masterpiece
and I am working on my own feat

because you amaze me so
much that now I'm inspired
now I'm wired
3am and this physical manifestation
of my emotions
bleeds from my pen to the page

and this one does not hurt

though words hold that power
And I count each hour that goes by
until I know I have to tear myself from
this world that is just you and me
and I know I should sleep first
so with each passing hour I rationalize
1am
Seven hours is plenty of sleep
3am
Five hours will do
5am
I've gotten by on three before
7am

I don't want to unplug
from you
and you're shower is unfamiliar
and you're drifting
you're gone
standby mode
until I return
sleeping so that I can go to work
and I wonder if I'd be able
to remove myself
if you didn't
and I am terrified
that I have to go about
my day like I'm not
so preoccupied by you
that my brain squeezes
around the memory of your
smile
like a winning scratch ticket in my hand
and part of me
sleeps in that bed with you
all day
feeling the ghost
of your foot
on my thigh

Love in the Time of Science

2006-12-03T14:53:00.000-08:00

for every action there is an
equal
and
opposite
reaction

so I'm trying to break it down--
does that mean that if I
advance
2 inches to kiss you
you will retreat 2 more
to
reject me?

or does it mean that you will
advance those inches
in my direction
and the velocity of our
mouths pressing
will send shockwaves to
our fingertips

because I understand
the laws of kinetic energy
but trying to apply it to
double negatives
has got me trying to
decipher
language from science

and that's difficult for me
you see I aced English
but failed chemistry

so maybe YOU could break it down for me

see I'm trying to understand
if I take your hand
will you pull away
or can I convince you to stay
resist the magnetic
push
of polar opposites
and press your palm into mine

or does Newton's first law mean
that we'll always miss?
what goes up must come down

so does it even matter if we kiss?

I mean, even if we overcome that
other law
if we can convince science that
language is right
press our bodies together
and catch electricity
like we've got a key
and a kite

does that falling apple mean
that in the end
we'll still be reduced to
sorting records and books,
fighting over a wagon wheel table
and looking for that kit and key
desperate to recapture
the chemistry

maybe my
scientific theory
is just an excercise in
metaphors and similes

you need me like two molecules
of hydrogen and one of oxygen

your love is any object
falling constant at 9.8
meters per second
gauranteed in a vacuum

but we don't live in a vacuum
and while scientific inquiry
claims to be infallible
literary fantasy is anything
but

so where does that leave us?

sitting in this car at one in the morning
straddling Shakespeare and Einstein
I'm still not sure how to proceed
but I think you can help me

you see, whereas I have only Dorothy Parker
I feel like you have Slyvia Plath and Marie Curie
You understand both sides of this anomaly
So, I'm asking you now, without language or science
could you please just kiss me?

Just another MC

2006-12-03T14:52:00.000-08:00

It took me a long time
but I outgrew you finally
When you told me
that Talib Kweli
was just an MC

and not a poet

You love Hip Hop
but think poetry is lame
and I'm a poet
I love Hip Hop too
probably more than you
but our relationship is more complex

See I didn't fall in love with Hip Hop
at first sight
I didn't grow up in the Bronx
didn't feel the power of a culture
rising up around me
My ghetto is not brand name
but it is a ghetto

Hip Hop was the boy next door
and yes we kissed in my closet
and in forts we made of bed sheets
draped over kitchen chairs

but we never fell in love

Maybe its because I took it for granted
maybe because the music blasting
at the block party
wasn't KRS one or Public Enemy
but Sir Mix a Lot

... and yes I like big butts and
I cannot lie
But love is something else

In 1993 I listened to Salt n Pepa's
Very Necessary
until the tape would
not
play
anymore
I studied the lyrics to Crossroads
by Bone Thugz n Harmony
and the Score by the Fugees
and I wrote bad
middle school angsty girly poetry

And there were b-ball style
boys by the mile
smooth brown skin with a smile
but it took a snotty white boy
from Scarsdale
to make me fall in love

with Hip Hop

You clung to Ice Cube, Chuck D
and Blackstar like a phrophecy
never fully understanding the
humor
in your empathy
but you reintroduced me
to the boy next door

And with my own words ready to mature
I realized something
I hadn't before
Yes I was in love but something more
we had a
relationship
a give and take
want and need interplay
than no man has given me
to this day

Hip Hop believes in me
pushes me to be the best I can be
cares about the same things as me
and most importantly
lets me be me

You wear Hip Hop like a badge of honor
a "look how down I am"
symbol
of your street cred
You bling while I organize
and the more I step into
this role as a model for young people
preaching about 4 elements
and the struggle
the more you
nod your head to the next top 40 album
and talk about the hussle

So I want to thank you for
bringing me back to my
roots
which I now wear natural
I can tell you with all sincerity
that you were my first love
as much as those words have
stuck like peanut butter
to the roof of my mouth

Maybe it could have worked
between you and me
if you'd never made that remark
about Talib Kweli
But I've learned to align the Hip Hop head
and the poet in me

So fuck you if you think
all I am is an MC

Window Shopping

2006-12-03T14:51:00.000-08:00

my timing is off
again

like the jeans I wanted so bad
in that thrift shop window
but could not justify the expenditure

I waited too long
before dreaming about the way
they would hug my curves

and now they look good on her

me getting there just too late
with the emotional funds to commit

which you tell me all the time
"that's your problem, you never
get close enough"
and you get so close that I don't know
what to do
so I let you get close to women
who fall quicker than me
because I bruise easily

we talk in metaphors
you say
"see, you wait too long to tell
people how you feel"
and mean
"you could have kissed me a year ago"
I say
"you always fall for girls like that"
and mean
"what's wrong with me"

and we're talking about other
men and other women
but somehow it feels like
code
and I still don't know
if I have the emotional funds
necessary to purchase you
but I want to put you on layaway
which isn't fair to either of us
but your name pops into my head
whenever I see a star

and I can't tell if you're trying
to play salesman when you
call me
"babe"
or invite me on weekend
getaways
ask if you can spend the night
trying to get me to fork
over that heart
that part of you thinks I
don't have anyway

but it's not true
I do
and I know those jeans
would hug my curves
in all the right places
they would even look
good on my floor

I just don't know how many times
I would wear them
before they got tucked in the
closet
with all of my other
impulse purchases.

1971

2006-11-21T06:33:00.000-08:00

the italics are sung (marvin gaye, what's going on; bob marley, redemption song; lauryn hill, ex-factor; india arie, video)

my mother spit rhymes so elequently
so naturally
up next is me
i drop it truthfully
so all of you can see

what's going on
whats going on
whats going on

nineteen seventy one
and mother mother
there's still too many of you cryin
and too many young people dyin
and politician's ain't doing shit
but whinin
and Kanye was right
cuz Katrina showed us they
ain't even tryin

but everyday i see
shit that's inspiring

brother brother there's so
many of you smilin
sister sister sister so many of you
tryin

trying for a better day than yesterday
skipping lunch on saturday
just to find a dollar to brighten a day
by any means necessary

holdin it down on the block at night
stepping in to break up a fight
even when the combatants are
twice your size
you have the guts to look them in the eyes

won't you help to sing
sweet songs of

freedom, love, and redemption
of more youth than ever before
voting in the last election
of holding hands
and holding eyes
holding politicians and big media
accountable for their lies

making a difference in some other lives
getting up each day just to strive
for a better dream
than what may seem
the only way to get the means
to win this game that some call life
and others call strife
and even when it is rife
with shit that makes it difficult
they still say "the struggle is beautiful"

but it's not
the struggle's an ugly motherfucker
when you get caught
but the people that walk with you
make it worth what you're taught

it could all be so simple

but it's not
so you have to learn from the life you live
give all that your heart can give

put your salt on the shelf
go on and love yourself
cuz we can make everything just fine

love in the time of science

2006-11-21T06:18:00.000-08:00

for every action there is an
equal
and
opposite
reaction

so I'm trying to break it down--
does that mean that if I
advance
2 inches to kiss you
you will retreat 2 more
to
reject me?

or does it mean that you will
advance those inches
in my direction
and the velocity of our
mouths pressing
will send shockwaves to
our fingertips

because I understand
the laws of kinetic energy
but trying to apply it to
double negatives
has got me trying to
decipher
language from science

and that's difficult for me
you see I aced English
but failed chemistry

so maybe YOU could break it down for me

see I'm trying to understand
if I take your hand
will you pull away
or can I convince you to stay
resist the magnetic
push
of polar opposites
and press your palm into mine

or does Newton's first law mean
that we'll always miss?
what goes up must come down

so does it even matter if we kiss?

I mean, even if we overcome that
other law
if we can convince science that
language is right
press our bodies together
and catch electricity
like we've got a key
and a kite

does that falling apple mean
that in the end
we'll still be reduced to
sorting records and books,
fighting over a wagon wheel table
and looking for that kite and key
desperate to recapture
the chemistry

maybe my
scientific theory
is just an excercise in
metaphors and similes

you need me like two molecules
of hydrogen and one of oxygen

your love is any object
falling constant at 9.8
meters per second
gauranteed in a vacuum

but we don't live in a vacuum
and while scientific inquiry
claims to be infallible
literary fantasy is anything
but

so where does that leave us?

sitting in this car at one in the morning
straddling Shakespeare and Einstein
I'm still not sure how to proceed
but I think you can help me

you see, whereas I have only Dorothy Parker
I feel like you have Slyvia Plath and Marie Curie
You understand both sides of this anomaly
So, I'm asking you now, without language or science
could you please just kiss me?

toward being an open book

2006-10-27T10:28:00.000-07:00

I am that girl that you talk to
on a bus for an hour
who tells you her whole life story
I don’t know if it’s because I’m a writer
or because I’m a narcissist
but I will tell anyone pretty much anything
because I am always writing
and I’m proud of my work

I am a storyteller
and I can remember the most
mundane details about conversations
I overheard at a bar four years ago
and given the right mood I will tell you
all of them

My internal censorship board is very
lenient and
sometimes I say things that make other people
uncomfortable

I don’t blush easily
so most of the time I am simply
testing my limits
by testing yours
seeing what makes you squirm
and taking notes in my head
for my next story.

There are some things I’m not
comfortable
talking about.
things I don’t even like
answering clinical questions
about.

These are the patches that I
don’t wear on my sleeve—
the ones I keep tucked away
like a girl scout badge
that is only cool in certain circles…
well, never cool. but there are places
where it helps you
fit in.

Probably more places than
I expect
because one in every
six women
has the same badge
tucked away
but there are so few
sewing circles
where we feel
comfortable
bringing them out.

And sometimes
even there
I’m not sure if it’s okay—
my excuses ranging from
“It wasn’t as bad for me as it has
been for other girls” to
“It was a long time ago
and I’ve gotten over it”

The one I selected when
waiting four years
to tell my mother
that the monster under my bed
never hurt me
it was the monster next door…
and he didn’t really hurt me
exactly.

But I know now that he did
because I can’t even look people
in the eye
when I talk about it,
and never in specifics
because they make me shudder.

I don’t know if I’m protecting myself
or the six year old version of me
that I think should have known
better
even all these years later
partly blaming myself.

Girls like us
aren’t afraid of the monsters in
the closet
or under our bed,
even though we know that if you
leap on to your bed from far enough
away
he can’t get you.

Most of us don’t know that what
we’re really afraid of
is that no matter how hard
we try,
how many other misplaced
affections
we try to build upon
the one that
tried to break us,
how many times we tell ourselves
that crying won’t help,
how many time we tell ourselves
it’s best to pack it up
and pack it away…
we can’t.

But I think the only way
to make the monsters go away
is to wear those patches
on our sleeves
to cry in the arms of someone
who wants to help
and to forgive yourself
for letting down that
little girl
who thought the scariest thing
was the monster under the bed.

tomorrow sometimes (title by dina :) )

2006-09-15T11:34:00.000-07:00

On a clear day you
can see the place where the
ocean and the sky meet, seamless
and blend into one another
barely discernible in shades of
cobalt and gunmetal
and I guess that kind of looks like
tomorrow sometimes

But for me,
tomorrow just looks like
the same laundry list
as the day before:
4 papers
2 grants
1 empty checkbook
3 missed calls
5 unreturned messages
1 getting to Field’s Corner
right as the train crosses
the bridge toward Savin Hill
and 2 cigarettes
while I wait for the
next one.

Tomorrow is crumpled
in the wastebasket

All i want to see is
right now
this bed
and what we can do with it
I want to see my eyes reflected
in yours looking into mine
I want to see our fingers
intertwined
like an elaborate basket

I want to see the
back of my eyelids as I
drift
off
into that
sweet space
between your shoulder
and your collarbone
and today and tomorrow
where lifetimes can be lived
in eight hours
and nobody waits for the T

single serving boyfriend

2006-09-14T19:32:00.000-07:00

I don't have one night stands
I have single serving
boyfriends

Like Ed Norton and Brad Pitt
except none of them have
been quite that
fetching

don't get me wrong
I don't lower my
standards
just because I know
they won't call
tomorrow

and this isn't
an
assumption
on my part
I am not making
an ass out of u
it's just me
because I let it
happen
again
and
again
and again

this one just
like
the
one
before....
out the door
as soon as they've
come to the
revelation
that they somehow
needed me
to get to

i don't know how
i became
"that girl"
but I'm sick of
being called
fantastic or
cultured or
different
or whatever the fuck
you think the prescription
is for your ailment
I am not penicillin
and I'm not a fucking
novelty
I'm sick of your soul
searching
and I ain't got shit
to show for it

this isn't your movie
stop playing
zach braff
he's not even that good at it
i am not natalie portman
or kirsten dunst
and I sure as hell
won't cry
if you get on that plane
we don't know each
other that well

if you're thinking
that we might have a
fun weekend
think about what happens
to me
on
monday.

what i cannot be and cannot have

2006-09-13T12:01:00.000-07:00

he is neat
and i am all loud
color
mess

he is patient
and i cannot
sit
still

he is wise
and i lust after
every bit
of knowledge

he is calm
and i chain
smoke
camel lights

he is framed
perfectly
in the hallway
with the light burnt out
because I don't bother
to change it
but he is lit
like James Dean
with the light
pouring from my
bedroom

where I lie
waiting
in his shadow

i am not unbeautiful

2006-09-12T09:06:00.000-07:00

recently I have found myself
running my hands along the
new smoothness that has begun
to take over my body
and the new curves
that appear daily.

it is like discovering uncharted
land
and yet it is
in words and thoughts
that i have found myself
recently

and i've thought about you
the space between us
and how i feel closer to you
than i did the last time
that you held me close

it becomes more inevitable
everyday
that i will see you again soon
and i go from fear to excitement
and back again
every hour
because i am not the same
woman that you left

i know so much more
about myself
and my place
and my feet fit
naturally in the earth
and the concrete
and my curves settle
against amazing people
who inspire me
and hold me close to them
because i am
beautiful to them as well

and I have become more
beautiful
to your standards
with each calorie burned
and each cookie
abstained
and each hour at the gym
every morning

but it is the beauty
that i feel inside me
beyond the new curves
that my hands can travel
it is the new ideas
that roll in my mind
and the anger that burns my
tongue so that my
mouth stays
open
constantly
flapping to keep some cool
it is this beauty that i hope
you see

so when my friends tell me
how much you
will regret our past
when we meet again
i hope that it will be
for how much more of me
there is to know
and not
for how much less of me
there is to hold

traffic

2006-09-12T09:05:00.000-07:00

traffic

Red
Green
Yellow
Stop
Go
Slow Down
Slow Down

Why don't we ever slow down?
Stuck in the constant flux of
Stop and
Go
We forget to take our time
We only know how to
kill it
While we wait in the stand still
both picking up smoking
so that we don't have to think of
the ghost in the passenger seat.

We have stopped so often
That when we
Go
I do... as fast as I can
holding you close
kissing your lips
trying
to get you to take your g-d damn shirt off...
fitting as much as I possibly can in
before we stop again.

I miss yellow lights
the warning...
knowing when to start weaning myself off
of the needing.

But we never did have those
yield signs...
It has always been
hot and cold
night and day
not being able to get enough of each other

and then...
STOP

Never sure what triggered the red light
too much
too close
too fast

But it was you who wouldn't let go

You who kissed first
You who crept to my porch
You who kissed me and told me
how much you would miss me
the night before you left...

And I prayed for a yellow light then
an extension on our parting
But city traffic is unreliable
and I have been stuck smoking
at this stop light for
two fucking years
and I don't think I can listen to
Suzanne Vega sing
"Cracking"
one more time.

I can see the light turning yellow
for the traffic to my right
This is the longest three seconds of my life...
one
did you miss me?
two
who's that other guy?
three
when are you coming back?

the green light is coming
but I'm not sure
if I should keep going
or turn off this road
for good.

whitewashed

2006-09-12T09:04:00.000-07:00

I do not have
white pride

because

white
is the absence of color
and although I have sometimes joked
that you can see through the barely there pigment of my skin
I derive my pride from
the colors I have within

red
of sunkissed tomatoes in gardens
from Roxbury to Campobasso

green
like the beans I harvested from my mother's
ghetto garden
stemming them one at a time
in a broken plastic strainer

blue
was the color my baby brother turned
the night he stopped breathing
and the machine that we brought
home with him from the hospital still
sometimes blinks

yellow
in my mind

purple
is the color of the sky against sienna streetlights
on nights when I sat
on a third story porch
letting the summer mist envelop me

black
like the holes
left behind by stray bullets
inches from my brother's
bed pillow
13 and he still sleeps in the livingroom

orange
my gemini power color
sunset
and the crayon i sometimes
used when drawing pictures of myself
as a child

white
is an absence of color

it is a state of mind

it is agreeing to be nothing
in the name of holding others down

it is allowing yourself to forget that
you were once barefoot
stomping on grapes
black hair braided coarse down your back
singing songs while you kneaded dough and
praying for better for your children

it is believing that NOTHING is
better than something that other people
think is dirty

well I will play in the mud
because my sun spots are
sporadic
and you cannot see
the herstory
in my hips
taste the wine on my lips

hear my soul crying out
I AM MORE THAN THIS

hear my soul crying out
i am more than this

so think on it a bit

because if we keep the beourgoise
whitewash our ancestry

it won't be long
until none of us exist

night light

2006-09-12T09:01:00.000-07:00

I feel like I learned last night
what it was like to be blind
to have your other senses heightened
by the dark.

The last thing I saw was you
moving toward me
cat like
and when we met in the middle
i closed my eyes
knowing that your night vision
was no match for mine.

And even though my eyes
were looking only at my eyelids
and occasionally in to yours
While the strong muscles of your
back moved
underneath my tiny pale hands
I can still see the smooth caramel
skin
contrasting with my ghostly complexion
pulling out the freckles in my arms
like a blue shirt
brings out the color in my eyes.

the heart is a muscle

2006-09-12T08:59:00.001-07:00

I could never love a poet
Now, please don't take that as rejection
It's a challenge

You see
I have
lost my footing from a well
executed
"What did I do to deserve you?"

And I've swooned over
a convincing rendition of
"Baby, you are so beautiful."

I have even
had my heart "skip" a beat
from a simple question like
"Why aren't the other girls more
like you?"

Screw the skip
and the pitter patter
I think that your sentiment
laced with a simile
or a metaphor
might make
the machines
flatline

And I'm sure you could
revive me with your
rhythm and rhyme-
your flow could teach
my blood
And have my heart
dependent on the
breakbeats
that lay the canvas
for your paint

Now that's a serious
responsibility
so if you're not ready
think
before you spit your clever line
and save your poetry
for a girl with a stronger heart

tomorrow

2006-09-12T08:59:00.000-07:00

On a clear day you can't see tomorrow
but you can see the place where the
ocean and the sky meet, seamless
and blend into one another
barely discernible in shades of
cobalt and gunmetal
and i guess that kind of looks like
tomorrow sometimes

But when I see tomorrow
all i see is
the 4 assignments i need to
finish
my bank balance
the morning rush at the gym
the smelly guy on the red line

I don't want to see tomorrow
all i want to see is right now
this bed
and what we can do with it
I want to see my eyes reflected
in yours looking into mine
I want to see our fingers
intertwined
like an elaborate basket

I want to see the back of my eyelids
as I drift off into that
sweet space
between your shoulder
and your collarbone
and today and tomorrow
where lifetimes can be lived
in eight hours
and nobody waits for the T

longing

2006-06-01T19:55:00.000-07:00

some people say that when
you go a long time without having sex
you don't miss it anymore
i think that they may be right

i don't miss sex

i miss hands tangled in mine

i miss being held too long and too close

i miss forgetting that i have to get up in the morning

i miss fitting into that little space
between a shoulder and a collar bone

i miss stealing the blankets

i miss pushing you out of bed

i miss dvd menus playing on repeat
until i cannot listen to that
stupid song
one more time

i miss the feeling in the pit of
my stomach
when i don't know exactly what to expect
when we get to the door

i miss tiny tender kisses on
every star on my shoulders

i kind of miss being a girl
that didn't miss those kinds of things
and even thought they were dumb

i miss pretending that i am
tougher than i am

i miss you knowing that i am
putting on a front

i miss cooking for 2 people

telling someone about my day

knowing that someone else gets
why the perfect line in a scene of Sports Night
makes me hit the couch
like someone just scored a touchdown

i miss reading things that you
think i'll like

i still buy lingerie i know
you'll like

and i know it sounds silly

but i don't miss sex

My Mother's Hair

2006-05-22T10:34:00.001-07:00

my mother's hair
does not curl in an
orthodox way
it does not follow a pattern of
consistent loops or ringlets down her back

much like my own, it zigs and zags
sporadically
and defiant pieces
strike
wildly at the air

its coarseness beckons hands to
understand it in a tactile way
wrapping the natural curve of
the locks around their finger
as my mother often does
before dragging a front
piece through her lips

my own hair has recently
recovered from the strain
i put it through
when i was younger
repressing the curls
like my grandmother did
her accent

sometimes my mother would do my braids
45 minutes on one side
play for a while
then another torturous sitting
then one time she flat ironed it for me
after i begged her
not knowing how else to defy
the other little girls that
called me nappy head
other than to make my hair
shiny and straight
like theirs
as my grandmother had once
tried to flatten her curves
with calorie counting
and diet sodas.

i have been down that road too
pretending that celery and
saltines were a normal
lunch.
trying to make my outside
appearance
fit in as much as i
desperately wanted to
i understand now why my
grandmother lost her accent
and my mother lost her language

i no longer try to smooth
down the unruly curls
as they grow
OUT
and not down
i have learned to embrace
its unwieldliness
as a part of my own
my mother told me
recently
that if i can be patient
long enough
the weight will eventually
pull the curls
down
my sister came into
the livingroom then
her straight hair
filled with gel
and crunched to create
the illusion of curls

i used to think it was
funny
how my sister tries to
create the illusion
of curls
that my grandmother
mother
and myself have all tried
so desperately
to repress

but i understand now
because when my granmother
lost her country and
my mother lost her language
i lost my culture
and that's just her way
of trying to get it
back

someday i'll start using titles

2006-05-22T10:34:00.000-07:00

this is not a hostage situation
exactly the opposite...
we demand that you release all of the hostages
IMMEDIATELY
from the shackles of media message fueled
by age old beaurocracies designed
to keep the cogs in place

we refuse to be cogs anymore

the machine cannot work once the gears stop
turning
and we are pulling the plug

here is our list of demands

we demand that the media that informs us
INFORM us
ELEVATE us and
EMPOWER us to EMPOWER others

we demand that fat white american men
in suits stop telling us how COOL it is
to be skinny and glowing tan while
eating McDonalds
smoking Newports
and wearing Tommy Hilfiger jeans

we demand that the corporately owned government
stop using mind control to
make us believe that we are safe by
scaring us into letting THEM
protect us

we demand that the same government stop using
the media and the illusion of democracy to
facilitate genocide of our youth

we demand real education for all people
regardless of origin, race, creed, or wealth

we demand an information audit of Washington DC
so that we can become informed consumers of
political bullshit

we know how to play the game
but hopscotch is for kids
and we've grown up

my ghetto

2006-05-22T10:26:00.000-07:00

my ghetto is not brand name
i am not from the bronx, south central, the southside,
or even roxbury like my mom
the gunmen behind the bullets in my baby brother's bedroom wall
or baby keila's two-year old back have never been played by
francis capra or fredro starr

the two burning cars outside my bedroom window
were not part of a protest or riot,
and the rash of arsons that claimed families all over
the neighborhood
only made the local section of the paper

the weapons that we found playing in the vacant lot
did not belong to bloods or crypts
though the latin kings had a strong hold on the block
we used to watch the local news,
to see if we saw our street on tonight, or anyone we knew
the fires were on sometimes, or hit and runs, or drive bys

we were invisible, however, when zero tolerance
swept young people off the street and into
DSS custody or juvie for wearing baggy clothing
or walking home late at night through their own street

invisible still when giant potholes killed the shocks
on the old beat up cars we tried to keep nice
and the sidewalks made rollerblading or even
walking under the dim broken streetlights dangerous
but that didnt really matter, cuz when the streetlights came on
you better have been inside anyway
or your mom would come drag you in

we were invisible when we held meetings in our
backyards
with lemonade and the couple of beat cops who cared
enough to listen
speaking in a communal voice that losing our kids
to guns or jails was not a good enough choice

there was no tape rolling when grandmothers yelled from their
porch to "SLOW DOWN, can't you see there are kids trying
to play?"
and the basketball game would halt momentarily as we
all scattered to grab a nearby piece of sidewalk as the
offending car bounced up and down on the rocky road

there was no photo op as we all worked together to clean
up the empty lot,
using earth day as an excuse to have the city come pick
up the broken couches, tvs, and car parts
and then planting a patch of vegetables so all of us kids
could see how things grow
still no copy when the police chased a robbery suspect
out of his bedroom window
and tackled him on top of a patch of carrots and lettuce
still too young to harvest

still we watched together as house after house on the
block was boarded up and burned into the night
and once, i remember, before school
and the firefighters rolled in,
but not as quickly as they did each fourth of july
when we'd block off the intersection and heap
mattreses, broken chairs, and tables onto the road
filling the sky with our own version of fireworks

secretly i was grateful for the firefighters on those nights
i could feel the heat from the fire in my bedroom, always
terrified that mine would be one of those houses
even kept the things i wanted to keep in a bag next
to my bed, in case the beeping woke me in the night
and i had to get out right quick
before the smoke filled my lungs like it had monique's and
her dad's.

this is just the way i remember it though
and the fuzzy lines of 15 year old memories can be unreliable
but there is not documentation to disprove it
the meetings, the cleanups, the lack of police consistency
the fact that they never found the man that put those
our bullets in baby keila's back while she slept

this is our history and there is no book
there is no movie, no tv show, no newspaper articles
and almost none of it can be found on the world wide web
it sounds trivial, but without being able to see our
history, how can we learn from it?

this is our history
it is a story with many chapters and mine is only one
it is not the first, and it will not be the last
but it is mine
the way i remember it
it may not be entirely accurate
but it's what i've got.

i wrote this when i was 18

2006-01-06T11:34:00.000-08:00

i wanted to kiss you

last night

at the park near your house with
too many people in the car.

And I wanted to hold your hand and
feel your lips on my forehead...
so i hit you and laughed and
we played tag like that for a while
18 year old kindergartners.

And I caught you looking at me
and the dissapointment masked
by annoyance when
i mentioned another man.
and do I do that when you mention
another girl?
maybe you saw me wince when you
stung me with that one.

And you said that you liked it
when I bit you
and I bet it will leave a scar

and no matter what happens
all your girlfriends will ask what
that mark on your shoulder is.

2005-12-30T09:31:00.000-08:00

A stolen kiss
sheltered by the shedding trees
hidden by the passing clouds
and forgotten
tucked into my back pocket
where i keep a crumpled
picture of you and i
and all the things i
wished i'd said
before we said goodbye
our lips parted
not to meet again
an unspoken promise
sealed by broken promises of
phone calls and late night meetings
where we'd hold each other close again
seconds less each time
my arms growing heavier
with each moment that
you are not in them
and colder with the weight
until you melt me again.

looking through old stuff today

2005-12-30T09:30:00.000-08:00

i've though of lots of words, phrases and lyrics
to sum up the feeling in the pit of my stomach
that is you
and i didnt want to make up my own
because you're too new
and i know i'll regret it later
but i know that you're not a you
anymore than he was a he
just an abstract idea
a face to place the butterflies on
to dream about in place of a pillow or teddy bear
and ive thought about how i could be a better you
a salt to your pepper
sugar to your cinnamon
and in a short time youve helped me to
develop more into
the me i want to be
and for that i cannot regret
your face on my butterflies

hardwood floors

2005-11-16T06:59:00.000-08:00

My last four apartments had these beautiful hardwood floors in all of the bedrooms and living/dining rooms. As much as I love my new apartment, there is this sterile, hotel like feeling about it that the wall to wall carpeting really contributes to. I remember, the first time I went to New York City on my own was right after I moved into my first apartment, and while I was there I bought an old Josephine Baker record, some Duke Ellington, Count Basie, the Manhattan Soundtrack, and Cheap Thrills by Big Brother and the Holding Company. I kept my record player on the floor then. When I got home, I put on Joplin's Summertime, and laid down on the hardwood floor. It was November and freezing, since we hadn't put plastic on the windows yet, but there is something really nice about that memory, about being 19 and letting the little things be the big things. That was my favorite bedroom. I painted it bright orange and sponged a darker carrot color over it. I had a postcard collection that I hung with clothespins on a line i ran around the room off of the drop ceiling. I didn't have a closet, but a clothes rack that I covered with a shower curtain, and I had this huge queen/twin bunk bed that I hung curtains from, and my bed was like a little cave. I remember the day that I painted it, I was going to a concert with a boy that I liked, who was coming fro out of town, and he wanted to see my new place. So even though the walls weren't done drying yet, and he had to wait a half an hour for me to get ready since I was still covered in paint when he showed up, I made sure the walls were all painted, and that my bed was put together and made when he showed up. The livingroom was still covered in boxes, but my room was perfect. I even set up the ball pit that I had then. I do not remember now, what led me to buy a ball pit, especially one built for toddlers. I guess I've always enjoyed novelty. I also don't know why I woke up this morning thinking about all of this stuff, but I did.

Cara Comma

2005-03-04T18:29:00.000-08:00

Looking around my room after my eyes adjust to the dim light provided by the pink-orange streetlights, I find my mind wandering more than my weary eyes. With much of my time consumed by the monotony of day to day life, this is the little bit of time I have to myself. Here, in the dark room with shadows as my only company, is where I am myself with no context. The rest of the time I am Cara comma. At work I am Cara, the girl from the coffee shop. Sometimes, even after a year I am still the girl from the video store. At school, the WheatBread girl or "that writer." In social situations: Katie's friend, Nicole's roommate or "wasn't she with that guy?". Once, asked 'what I did' (and isn't that a funny question, as though there were a one word answer that could stuff my whole life into a tiny little nutshell), I responded "I wear many hats... that's all I do."
Sometimes it seems that way, as the time flies by and I morph seamlessly from coffee girl to student to mentor to basketcase, it seems there isn't enough time to be any one thing well. It is this rapid passage of time that takes the joy away from the little things, that turns you into one of them: the whiny unsatisfied worker ants. Worse yet, turns you into a drone, a going through the motions machine. I decided a long time ago that I refuse to let that happen to me. I decided more recently that it had.
Sitting down to write out something important to me, I found myself grasping at straws, being afraid to attach that much importance to any one thing. Somewhere in that battle with myself, I found that I wasn't sure what was important to me anymore. In fact, I wasn't sure that anything was. To have lost all optimism at 21, what a thought. In realizing this, that the jaded cynicism of a 17-year-old had my mind in its clutch and I was just too busy to notice it, I decided to make a concerted effort to remember when I had last let myself dwell in a moment of simple, unadulterated pleasure. It is, after all, those moments that make the tedium of necessity worth the hassle. As Ethan Hawke says, in Reality Bites, "so I take pleasure in the little things."
The little things... I began to ponder what my little things were. As Mr. and Mrs. Poulain in Jeunet's Amelie, I very much enjoy the art of reorganization. The hours that follow a good room cleaning are always among my most productive. These every day occurances, seemingly mundane, should be taken for what they are. For that little bit of magic that makes you say "so what" to not knowing what it's all about.
It is always amazing how much the sting of a hot coffee at six-thirty in the morning can take the edge of off pre-dawn wake up calls. I sometimes have the opportunity, just as the sun is beginning its ascent from horizon to horizon, to step outside and take in a bit of the morning air. My fingers, stinging from the cold in the early morning breeze, are unable to grasp anything for a few moments. It is the kind pain that, as a child would have brought me to the fetal position, but that now is strangely comforting—a reminder that feelings can be felt. Taking a drag of my freshly lit cigarette, the hot coffee coats my throat, and the smoke slithers easily in and then out of my lungs. There are no hurried phone calls or demanding customers and I am able to indulge in my own self-destruction.
It is easy, in routine, to forget the good things. For eight hours the same faces pass by: The woman who is always late, but is picky anyway: bucket of French Roast, double cupped (make sure the seams line up). Then there’s the guy who will be back in an hour for another coffee, at which point it will be waiting for him on the counter, motivated slightly by the consistent dollar tip he leaves, but also by the amusement we get from his love of AC/DC, and his insistence that headphones are an efficient weather-proofing device; The acquaintance I don’t remember who swears we were at the same party last weekend (the details of his face escape me now), the dark eyed young man who, despite his love of flavored coffee with lots of cream makes at least an hour of my shift worth the two minute casual exchange that he supplies to pepper my day with aesthetic pleasure. In this haze, the only way I can tell apart one day from the other is the amount of time that can be spent looking longingly at my bed as I gather my things to make the trip to class. My only escape is those infrequent moments that punctuate my day. In these moments I ignore the passing people and the pressure of daily life. Inhaling, I feel my tense arms loosen at my sides, as though the smoke is spreading to the very tips of my body.
Walking through the park on a misty day, pausing atop the bridge and watching the ducks swim below, I take a pause. The sky is a thinly grayed blue and the chill in the air is easily thwarted by a sweatshirt. The center of the park is far enough from the street that there is an illusion of aloneness from the civilized world of streetlights and honking horns. I can hear myself think, and though the words I sketch out onto the blank sheet in the back of my mind will invariably disappear regardless of how many times I repeat them, there is a comfort to be felt in being alone with those words. In these moments- the little things that I so take pleasure in- it is hard to understand how I ever get frustrated with life. I kick myself for ever letting a sleepless night, or a boring class curse the human condition. For what beauty there is around us, just waiting to be gobbled up by all of our senses.
No museum, coffeehouse, studio, or theatre need bring us these things, either. Easily, we romanticize things found in these packages. I, myself am eternally guilty of this. When I hold a martini glass I think of Dorothy Parker and New York City literary roundtables. I think of a time when celebrity was sometimes the same as intellectual, but not a replacement for it. When I enter a dark smoky bar, I picture Bob Dylan in the corner repairing a snapped e-string. These are the images that haunt my mind's landscape. These are interchangeable though, and sometimes it is Joey Ramone or Janis Joplin and a bottle of whiskey.
This is historical envy, a decision made by society long ago that flowers in poetry are prettier than flowers in gardens. It is the sensibility that tells us that no film can ever be as good as Citizen Kane, no symphony like a Mozart. This sensibility freezes us in our tracks, makes us give up hope of any lasting achievement, has created generations of cynics. It has made us forget that these little things can be anything, anywhere. They can be the things that punctuate our mundanity with elation. A good song that can steal part of your soul, sometimes just for a moment. The same way that a good movie can, at its credits leave you feeling exhausted and exhilarated all at the same time; like an adventure, a new home, or great sex. When it fits just right, someone else's words and voice can capture exactly what you're feeling, thinking, and not being able to say on your own. Sitting stocking-footed on the hardwood floor of an apartment cluttered with artifacts from busier days and taking in a lazy breath of fresh air. Waking up in the morning and finding the coffee pot recently filled with hot coffee, reading a book you loved as a child, remembering a good dream that felt so real it stays with you all day. Little things like these are often overlooked, tossed over the shoulder or stomped on in favor of dwelling on a parking ticket or a long day at work.
Gliding down a road with no one on it and nothing but blinking lights from here to your destination. Being alone with nothing but your thoughts to occupy you, some revolutionary at the moment, others that will fade away by the end of your journey, or shower, or workout, or period between awake and asleep. These alone moments, these me without a context, within myself moments are the ones in which I am most able to decode where my true nature lies. That is when it becomes clear to me what I am at my core. I am a writer. I am an observer, a regurgitator, a craftsman. Rainer Maria Rilke said, in his Letters to a Young Poet "This most of all: ask yourself, in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? And if this answer rings out in asent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple "I must," then build your life in accordance with this necessity." If I were forbidden to write, could I live? If by taking away writing, not only is my pen, paper, keyboard taken away, but also those idle moments in which I am able to scribble on the blank sheet of the back of my mind, then yes is the only answer with which I can reply.
Later in his Letters Rilke says, "If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for the Creator, there is not poverty." Often times, when I have heard enough lament about a city without a culture, of greener grass abroad, I think of this. What right do I have to blame others for what I cannot find in my own life? If ever there is a time when I cannot find a spotting point, a place to focus in order to prevent dizziness, then I have lost my skill.
When the little bile-invoking troubles of the day come up it is the hardest to stay objective. It is in these moments though, that it is most important to reflect on the good little things. It is in those moments before I slip off to sleep that I feel the most alive, the most aware that anything can happen, and the most willing to believe that that is true. Of course we all falter, it is hard not to think about the end of the night, when the morning is broken not by light through the shade, but by the monotone mechanical notes produced by my cell phone. Eventually I am able to move my wandering mind toward happier thoughts, though, and with my handmade heating pad in hand, I settle into the cavernous wonder that is my bed. Surrounded on all sides by pillows, a failing attempt at producing the illusion that I am not alone, I melt into the familiar groove where my body has miraculously left its impression, despite seemingly infrequent visits to the spot. Stretching my feet, and wrapping them by the ankles around the pillow that shortens the length of my bed to better suit my five-foot frame, I edge closer to the pillow that rests against my back. Finally, I pull my teddy bear close to me and rest below it the velvety purple heating pad that, in the months after I made it, exuded the smell of jasmine. With this, and the haunting lull of the subway train, reproduced by my windowsill white noise machine, I pass quietly into the realm within my head. The realm where there is nothing but Cara, and not the anticipation of a box to climb into or a name tag to be worn.

Deep Thoughts not by Jack Handey

2005-02-03T10:23:00.000-08:00

Cara Lisa Powers
Assignment #2

Fumbling with keys, my icy fingers have trouble finding the lock. Open. Close. A plastic runner under the door sometimes gets stuck, but not today. Closing the wind behind me, I start the car. Elvis Costello croons to me from an aging tape deck that needs to be cleaned and glows the time. Ten minutes fast for my own good, it pierces the dark car with the digits: 6:03. As the car warms up, and the night street becomes more clear, I buckle my seatbelt and stuff my hands under my legs, in between the cold seats and my cold jeans, hoping some reaction will warm something.
My fingers, stinging from the cold, are unable to grasp anything for a few moments. It is the kind pain that, as a child would have brought me to the fetal position, but that now is strangely comforting—a reminder that feelings can be felt. As my fingers dull to a comfortable numb, I reach for the manual window crank and roll the window down enough to fit my hand through comfortably. Lighting up a cigarette, I take a sip of my scalding hot coffee before pulling out on to the street. This is the moment I wait for all day. Knowing my house and all of the lack of obligation that it represents are only five streetlights away, the hot coffee coats my throat, and the smoke slithers easily in and then out of my lungs. There are no hurried phone calls or frustrated car honking to occupy my non-steering hand, and I am able to indulge in my own self-destruction.
I glide easily down Park Avenue in the post rush-hour lull, an even marker of dinnertime siesta. Immediately following this, the happy time, is the sad time, the title that myself and my roommate have given to the time of day at which we set our cell phone alarms to 5:30 and 6:30 AM, respectively. The time when I shut off the car, and Elvis Costello, Frank Zappa, and Bob Dylan disappear with the haze of the headlights, into the black of the night, and I trudge up the fire escape to the world outside my head. I will in the next two hours eat, shower, discuss my day with my roommates, whom I see far too infrequently, leave a message for my best friend who I see even more infrequently, and give the dog a cookie, so it still loves me and remembers me when I get home tomorrow. Then something will most likely distract me, something that pushes my bedtime back into the vicinity of midnight.
When that magical moment finally happens it is hard not to think about the end of the night, when the morning is broken not by light through the shade, but by the monotone mechanical notes produced by my cell phone. Eventually I am able to move my wandering mind toward happier thoughts, though, and with my handmade heating pad in hand, I settle into the cavernous wonder that is my bed. Surrounded on all sides by pillows, a failing attempt at producing the illusion that I am not alone, I melt into the familiar groove where my body has miraculously left its impression, despite seemingly infrequent visits to the spot. Stretching my feet, and wrapping them by the ankles around the pillow that shortens the length of my bed to better suit my five-foot frame, I edge closer to the pillow that rests against my back. Finally, I pull my teddy bear close to me and rest below it the velvety purple heating pad that, in the months after I made it, exuded the smell of jasmine. With this, and the haunting lull of the subway train, reproduced by my windowsill white noise machine, I pass quietly into the realm within my head.
Regardless though, 530am always comes too quickly, and whether I fall into my bed at 8pm or 2am, the alarm always sounds next to my head just early enough to be jarring. I bundle myself like a kindergartner no matter what the weather report, preparing for the frigid wind of the predawn walk to work. By the time I arrive at work, I am slightly more awake, thanks to my friend nicotine, but the half hour it takes for the espresso machine to heat up is always discouraging. The whirring of the coffeemakers and the loud hum of the oven makes it necessary to turn the music up so loud that my co-worker and I often wait until we’re already open to discuss our weekends.
For eight hours the same faces pass by: The woman who is always late, but is picky anyway: bucket of French Roast, double cupped (make sure the seams line up). Then there’s the guy who will be back in an hour for another coffee, at which point it will be waiting for him on the counter, motivated slightly by the consistent dollar tip he leaves, but also by the amusement we get from his love of AC/DC; The acquaintance I don’t remember who swears we were at the same party last weekend (the details of his face escape me now), the dark eyed young man who, despite his love of flavored coffee with lots of cream makes at least an hour of my shift worth the two minute casual exchange that he supplies to pepper my day with aesthetic pleasure. In this haze, the only way I can tell apart one day from the other is the amount of time that can be spent looking longingly at my bed as I gather my things to make the trip to class. My only escape is those infrequent moments that count out my day into segments. In these moments I ignore the passing people and the pressure of daily like. Inhaling, I feel my tense arms loosen at my sides, as though the smoke is spreading to the very tips of my body. Then another three hours. No matter how excited I am about a class or an assignment, or a meeting, each moment is spent thinking about how many more moments are between me and my car, me and my bed, me and the weekend, me and May and freedom. At the end of that class, though, while I glide effortlessly down the five streetlights of Park Avenue, there is only that moment. There is only me, and Elvis Costello, and my coffee and my cigarette. That is my grounding moment. That is my Zen.

old poem (embarassingly cliche)

2005-01-20T20:59:00.000-08:00

we lost our footing
but no one fell
this balancing act is tiresome

if i walk away will you fall
if i let go of your arm
will you fall
will you fall in love

because thats what ive been wanting
waiting craving
foolishly
im not a fool
im taking off this silly hat

under a clear cold night
half naked in a chill
i tripped into you
we kissed and more
and i knew then what i know now
that things would never be the same.

An Apothegm

2005-01-05T11:31:00.000-08:00

I cried the last time I felt like this. I don’t like crying. I want you to go away before I want you to stay anymore than I already do. I want to hold your hand and kiss you. I am a slave to my wants. I hate dependency. I want you. I don’t want to hate you. I want to be with you more than I want to be alone. I like being alone. I hate reading aloud. I want to read you poetry. I make myself up when I’m with you. I can be anyone. I like feeling invincible. I listen to songs and wish I’d written them about you. I listen to songs and wish you’d written them for me. I am messy, lazy, and unkempt. I want you to think I have everything figured out. I run away because I want you to chase me. I hate the way I think. I want to make a list of movies, books and albums for you. I want you to be an adventure. I dyed my hair an unnatural color. I thought, as the red went down the drain, that it was to be less invisible to you.

For Billy

2004-12-28T07:58:00.000-08:00

Tripping over legos
In the middle of the night
After giggling until it hurt.
Helpful trees and stolen paint
In the summertime.

Undercooked french toast
Sunday morning
Without waking dad.
Sewing, drawing, writing in
The backyard under lilac
Trees that made me sneeze.

Screaming and yelling,
Hair pulling- you’d bite me ‘til
I bled.
But if someone else tried to hurt me
You’d jump to my defense.
If something broke, we’d
Fix it.
And if I ever had a nightmare, and
My teddy bear could not coax me back to sleep
I always knew you would.

You love others
But cannot love yourself.
You’re beautiful when you smile
But grimace too much,
Beating your fists against iron walls
You’ve built around yourself to
Keep out
A warm embrace or a kind word
Woodworking frames around
Kurt Cobain
Worshipping a man you never knew
Hating yourself because you think it’s
What he would have wanted.

The Photo Album

2004-12-23T13:44:00.000-08:00

It was bound in a blue leather-like material. Twice the size of an average family photo album, it was beginning to split at the spine, cracking in places and exposing the brown of the cardboard beneath. The young man opened the book and flipped past a few pages. He found the page he was looking for, dated in scribbled marker at the top, 10/14…
The first picture was taken at a park. There was a young woman in her early twenties pushing a little boy on a swing. It seemed very sunny out, and the woman shielded her eyes with one hand as she looked up the little boy who was casting a shadow across her. She was wearing an autumn colored sweater, clearly indicating the cool temperature of the day. The little boy was bundled more heavily, in a winter coat and a hat. There were leaves scattered on the ground around the swings and underfoot.
A picture on the opposite page had, in its right corner a large black dog. The foreground, however, appeared to be a large red fence, against which a large pile of leaves had accumulated. The dog was panting, unaware of the photographer, and instead looking off to the side at something apparently more interesting to the left.
Below the dog was a close up picture of someone’s gloved hand against a fence. Beyond the fence was blurry, but the focus seemed to be on the hand’s entrapment behind the chain link.
Another photo seemed to have been taken at an Asian restaurant. It depicted a set of hands pouring sake from a small carafe into a cup. The hands seemed to belong to an older man, showing some signs of age, but still balanced with grace.
The man sat back in his bed, stuck in a pensive moment of his own construction. He thought back to that particular day, bringing himself back to the sunny cold middle of October. There was a particular feeling in the air that comes with that time of year, where clothing changes daily in New England from tank tops and skirts to sweaters and leg warmers. Sometimes eighty-degree days are decorated with pumpkins and littered with apple cider. He tried to capture this on that particular day, passing pumpkins on porches and piles of leaves, taking pictures of kids in leaves and tiny, gloved hands.
Over the course of his day he encountered women in scarves and boots with sunglasses, shivering in the cold while shielding their eyes from the blinding sun. By day’s end, some coats had been shed, and the lawns of the nearby campus had begun to fill with lounging students, grasping to a final day in the sun.
He looked around at his surroundings now, the beeping machines and monitors, the IV in his arm, the hospital issue sheets, and was eternally grateful for the opportunity to capture so much life on film. He was glad he’d had the foresight to compile this collection to comfort him in his final months. Now, alone in his hospital room he though about the little boy, who might be starting kindergarten this fall, and the dog, who might have had puppies. It made him a little bit happier to know that he had some sort of connection to the world outside, besides a small obituary column saying his name and that ugly word… cancer.

A Letter from Home

2004-12-23T13:40:00.000-08:00

James tossed his backpack onto to the bed and kicked off his worn sneakers. He looked around the room, discerning whether or not his roommate was back from class or not. This missing towel and shower caddy from the other side of the tiny dorm room indicated that Hans, the stranger with whom James had been cohabitating, was in the shower. After two weeks they still had barely spoken two words to each other, and James was beginning to wonder if in fact Hans did not know how to speak English, or perhaps did not know how to speak at all.
James reached into his back pocket and retrieved from it the Wisconsin postmarked letter that he had received that morning. He hadn’t heard from home since he left for school. He hadn’t heard much from his mother at all since he decided he was going away for school a few months earlier. She never said it out loud, but she felt like he was running away. The look in her eyes the few times he’d seen her over the summer was the same shame and disappointment she’d tried to conceal when talking about his father. James, Sr., never too clever to live up to clichés, went out for a loaf of bread when James was 13 and never came back.
The letter though, was not from his disappointed mother, but his best friend and cousin Benny. Benny had recently decided that he was just plain Ben. Unlike James, formerly Jimmy, he did not have the luxury of starting over in a new state to rid him of his childhood pseudonym. James sat down on the edge of his bed, dutifully ignoring the naked Dutchman in the corner. He unfolded the scribbled letter and began to read.
Dear Jimmy,
So it’s been two weeks now and Mary Ann still hasn’t returned my calls. I think she’s still mad at you for setting her up like that. No wonder you said you didn’t care if I dated her when you left, there’s no way in hell she’ll talk to anyone who knows you as long as she lives. I’m sorry man, that was rough, but seriously, you shouldn’t have gone after her in the first place if you knew you were just going to leave her at the end of the summer. Enough lecturing. Shit man, I miss the hell out of you. I’ve been having to hang out with that lame ass brother of mine. Johnny says hi, by the way. So does my mom.
Met any hot college chicks yet? Man, I gotta come out there and visit you sometime. You’re coming home for the holidays, right? I’ll tell you Beth got back from the summer camp last weekend and damn did she grow up over the summer. Me and Johnny went down to the bonfire last weekend. He went out for the football team this year… and we thought he was bullshitting, right? He’s second string, but he fuckin’ made it man, can you believe it? He’s going to get all the chicks we always wished we could. Anyway, Beth went with us. She’s going to the community college with me and Rosie next week, so I thought it would be cool if I started hanging out with her some more, you know?
So we get down to the fire, and there’s all those kids, and all us guys hanging back just kind of drinking beers and laughing at ‘em. Then over walk, get this, Artie Warren. The guy got out last week. So we’re all catching up, and he tells Beth how he got arrested after the State Finals for stealing his dad’s VW. Turns out his dad didn’t send him to military school after all, he fuckin pressed charges, and he’s been serving 8 months over in County. Who knew, right? I never thought Old Man Warren would snap like that. But anyway, so he tells us about this place his cellmate told him about. It’s this hole down in the quarry. It’s pretty well hidden by the rocks from above, but pretty easy to get into once you’re down on the level.
So we go down to the quarry with Artie, right, at this point it’s just me, Artie, and Beth. Johnny stayed at the rally with his new girl (more on that later). So he’s all “sshh, sshh,” and we’re telling him to shut up because his fuckin’ hushing us is worse than the whispering we’re doing as far as the echo, you know? So we go down to this hole in the quarry, a cave really, not even knowing why. I mean, we’ve got a couple in us, right, so we ain’t thinkin’ too straight but he hasn’t even told us what is in the cave anyway. So we go in and there is, get this, cocaine EVERYWHERE. He tells us that this is where some of the cops at county stash what they steal off the perps. No one is supposed to know about it, but it’s actually not too well kept a secret. So anyway, we end up doing a couple lines and Artie goes stumbling off into the woods talking about the fucking squirrel that stole his favorite socks. I have no idea what he’s talking about but I figure it gets me some time out with Beth, so I let him wander off.
I probably shouldn’t have just let him wander off like that, in his condition, but you know-- I’m not much better off. So he goes off and me and Beth are out on this rock overlooking the water, and we’re just talking and then she kisses me. I mean, I know you’re thinking I made the move, but I swear she kissed me. So soon we’re just tearing each others’ clothes off and making out. At first I was looking out for Artie, hoping he wouldn’t find us there like that, but then she started giving me head, and I stopped thinking altogether. So then we’re going at it, right there on the rock, and eventually we both just pass out.
When we come to it’s light out and our clothes are all over the place, we couldn’t even find her underwear. So we get dressed as best we can and we start heading back to the car. We figured we’d find Artie on the way. I had the worst fucking headache. It was like a hangover times fifty-five. I felt like crap, but I started getting worried about Artie. So me and Beth start screaming: “Artie, Artie!” But we couldn’t find him anywhere. So I start thinking maybe he fell into the quarry, and I’m fucking panicking. But then we get out to the road and we can’t find his car either. So then I’m pissed, I’m thinking the bastard ditched us. So we start walking down the road, and about a half a mile up there’s Artie’s car, plowed right into a tree. We start freaking out again, and we run over to the car, but he’s not in it. So we’re looking around, and ten feet from the car, there’s Artie—bloody as hell, and his arm is hanging off the side of his body. That’s all he was man, a body. It was the freakiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Anyway, I gotta run, but I’ll call you sometime this weekend.
-Benny-

posted novel

2004-12-23T11:57:00.000-08:00

I was cleaning out my old computer and dredged up a quasi novel i wrote last year, sans editing.

http://abjectreality.blogspot.com

Strange Amalgam

2004-12-19T16:52:00.000-08:00

I used to watch A Little Princess a lot when I was a little kid. I liked that Sarah had this whole alternate universe that she invented, and that she would share with the other girls. I always thought that if I was in solitary confinement, I'd do okay. I'd just sleep and get good songs stuck in my head. But if I didn't have a pen, I think I'd talk out loud a whole lot. Maybe that's how people go crazy... they're just trying to keep themselves entertained. I have a whole host of characters that I make up to keep myself entertained. Mostly, I think I just like dialogue better when I get to write both sides of it, so I'll take bits of things that have already happened and explore a different route. This is a recent amalgam of stories I’ve either been told, overheard, or thought about doing myself.

Elizabeth had been engaged for two months, but still the ring had not become a comfortable addition to her hand. In the third grade she had a claddagh ring that she bought at Cape Cod for two dollars. She wore it on her ring finger everyday until she was 17, when it fell down the hotel drain after the Junior Prom. She'd felt at the time that it was a physical sign of her own betrayal. Something precious was taken away from her because she'd broken the rules. She didn't have sex again until after she'd dropped out of college.
When Henry had proposed to her, she felt redeemed. He wasn't like the guys she dated in high school, or slept with after college. He was a nice boy, at least that's what her mother said, when she'd called to tell her the good news. She'd hoped that the ring would fill that void on her hand, meld right into place and be that thing that she'd been missing. She was waiting for something to complete her, as people are often bound to do, and expected to know right away that this was it. Elizabeth was never given a rulebook, but she knew that what she was doing was against the rules. Sitting in the rundown diner near the last exit to the Pike, she twisted her ring on her finger, waiting for the familiar roar of the 1987 Elefant. She wasn't going to sleep with Jeremy... at least she wasn't planning on it. But when her ex-boyfriend had called her to say he was in town and needed to see her, her catlike curiosity got the better of her.
He was already 20 minutes late, but that was to be expected. He was always late. Except for the one time that he'd made her late, and that was the last time she'd seen him. She turned out not to be pregnant, and he said that the job out of town had nothing to do with her, and that he wanted her to come with him. This was days later, when he called from Minnesota to see how she was doing, and to make sure that she wasn't pregnant. They'd been 22 and 23 at the time, and two years had passed since then.
She'd barely heard the engine in the parking lot, when the door to the diner breezed open and in walked Jeremy. He hadn't changed at all in the two years that he'd been away. His hair seemed lighter, and his hands aged beyond twenty-four by manual labor. But his eyes still held the gentle expression that had always tricked Elizabeth into believing that his intentions were honest and good. She found herself on her feet and in his arms before she was aware of herself. He pulled away when he felt the cold metal of her ring on his neck.
"Wow, Lizzie...congratulations," he stammered, staring at the modest stone on her left hand. "How long?"
"Almost a year," she lied, knowing that the truth would be easier for him to ignore.
“Wow… You look great.”
He looked great. He always did. Even as she was at the free clinic, silently cursing his existence, she wanted to be on the back of that bike, blazing down the highway. She sat across from him in that rundown diner, that had, when she first came to this city been aglow with possibility and romantic notion of late night coffee that had now faded into its shabby actuality. She had come to terms in two years with the fact that ripped jeans and quarters for coffee was not always worth its novel appeal, and had even stopped carrying the copy of Howl in her back pocket that she kept with her in the first couple of years following her abrupt exit from college life. He seemed to be riding that same take each day as it comes wave that is so easy when the blinders of adolescence haven’t yet been removed. She missed those days.
After they’d ordered, he paused for a moment and studied her face, almost as though taking a picture of her in his mind. She wondered what he saw, having always wanted to be “the girl” in a song or book or poem of some lasting quality. Without thinking, she touched her own face, only realizing what she’d done when he reached out to pull her hand away, resting his own atop it on the Formica table-top. It took her too long to pull away, straightening her self upright in her seat.
“So what have you been up to? It’s been ages.”
“Odd jobs. Construction, worked on some bikes for a while in Minneapolis.”
“Where are you living now?”
“On the road… I’m heading down to West Virginia right now. A friend of mine just started a shop and he needs a mechanic. He thought I might like to give the south a shot for a while.”
“Settle down on a plantation?”
“We’ll see.” He paused again, thoughtfully. “I didn’t realize how much I’d missed you.”
She didn’t know how to respond to that. So she didn’t. Eventually they moved on to more small talk. In the two hours they spent chewing on overcooked hamburgers, sipping fountain soda, the conversation never stopped being awkward. It was a strange kind of awkward that comes from knowing someone too well. The problem, of course, was that they knew a two-year-old version of each other and neither had expected the other to have changed at all, despite their own growth.
As the summer sun began its long descent, they exited the tiny diner to the parking lot. Elizabeth walked with him to his bike, pausing just a few feet from it. He pulled her close to him, and it was the kind of hug that you savor at the beginning of a relationship: just too long and just too close, breathing in one another’s scent. She clenched her left fist, fingering the inside of the ring, and forced hersef to pull away.
“Elizabeth… Lizzie… I’m going now. I’m not staying here tonight. I’m not staying at Garret’s tonight. Garret doesn’t even know I’m here. I just came to see you.”
“I…” She didn’t even know what the next word was supposed to be.
“If I asked you to get on the back of this bike and come with me… what would you say?”
She hesitated, but not long. When she spoke, she was surprised by her own words.
“I… I have to work tomorrow.”
His look wasn’t disappointed or startled, but more amused. He chuckled, despite himself, shaking his head.
“You need this.” He looked around him, taking in his surroundings. “You grew up, Lizzie. You left me behind. Isn’t that funny? I left. But you left me behind.”
She couldn’t even muster a response before he saddled his bike, and literally rode off into the sunset.

found this in my old blog

2004-12-16T07:32:00.000-08:00

im sick of myself, not just now but from a year ago, and six months ago, and everytime i look at myself from maybe even just 2 weeks ago, i'm kind of disgusted with who i used to be, and so probably even who i am right now. anyway, i decided to never look at my old blogs again, and instead just post selections that specifically highlight who you should be glad you don't know right now. this is number one, from before my life got tipped on its side and then back upright about 9 months ago. im bruised from the fall, but what else is new?

Oh, probably because I hate you... that's right. And another thing, you can take your fancy blue books and multiple questions and shove them up your short answers. That's right bitch.

Yes, I have been not studying all night for two midterms tomorrow that I am entirely unprepared for. Things that I have done instead:
went to Deerfield Press
went to Duffy's and bought 4, count 'em 4 boxes of Tazo Green Teas
went to the Bean Counter TWICE (once for an iced latte and Jean and I went for a walk, then once for an application and a raspberry mocha, of which i forgot to get soy instead of regular milk so i felt kind of sick all evening)
went to Target, almost bought Blondie's Greatest Hits, but decided against it, almost bought a cute sweater, decided against, almost bought a dress, decided against it... bought nothing
watched a half an hour of "Slackers" (i think that Jason Schwartzman is going to propose any day now)
went to dinner with my dad, jean, and melissa after an unsuccessful apartment showing. hopefully friday will be more fruitful in that regard.
got officially hired for my new job
participated in a CUFS meeting (showing up late and leaving early seems to be my style... im the worst co-director ever)
made out... i mean hung out with chloe in the WheatBread office updating my blog and talking to sarah and jean and waxing philosophical over vanilla djarums. i've become such a privelaged college fuck. That's about it for now.
*hugs and kisses*

Short short story

2004-12-15T18:22:00.000-08:00

Dear Alexander,

Considered what you said (stop) Do not wish to continue conversation (pause) in fact wish to never speak to you again (stop) Do not try and contact me (stop) It is better this way (end)

-Celia-

What is this about? I don't know, I'm just sick of writing about postmodernism on television and Aristotle.

-c-