"I guess it really is just me, myself and my millions."

decided that the best cure for breaking up with your boyfriend / moving out of your apartment / looking for a new job / feeling generally like jello is to  only listen to rap music and put money over everything

also, as an update on my life, i have been trying to write some poems about boys again, and so far, they are all ending with "We are two big idiots." so I think it is going REALLY WELL!!!!

Snow and the Dirty Rain

Close your eyes. A lover is standing too close to focus on. Leave me blurry and fall toward me  with your entire body. Lie under the covers, pretending to sleep, while I'm in the other room. Imagine my legs crossed, my hair combed, the shine of my boots in the slatted light. I'm thinking My plant, his chair, the ashtray that we bought together. I'm thinking This is where we live. When we were little we made houses out of  cardboard boxes. We can do anything. It's not because our hearts are large, they're not, it's what we struggle with. The attempt to say Come over. Bring your friends. It's a potluck, I'm making pork chops, I'm making those long noodles you love so much. My dragonfly, my black-eyed fire, the knives in the kitchen are singing for blood, but we are the crossroads, my little outlaw, and this is the map of my heart, the landscape after cruelty which is, of course, a garden, which is a tenderness, which is a room, a lover saying Hold me tight, it's getting cold. We have not touched the stars, nor are we forgiven, which brings us back to the hero's shoulders and the gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it. The lawn drowned, the sky on fire, the gold light falling backward through the glass of every room. I'll give you my heart to make a place  for it to happen, evidence of a love that transcends hunger. Is that too much to expect? That I would name the stars for you? That I would take you there? The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugar cube? We've read the back of the book, we know what's going to happen. The fields burned, the land destroyed, the lovers left broken in the brown dirt. And then's it's gone. Makes you sad. All your friends are gone. Goodbye Goodbye. No more tears. I would like to meet you all in Heaven. But there's a litany of dreams that happens somewhere in the middle. Moonlight spilling on the bathroom floor. A page of the book where we transcend the story of our lives, past the taco stands and record stores. Moonlight making crosses on your body, and me putting my mouth on every one. We have been very brave, we have wanted to know the worst, wanted the curtain to be lifted from our eyes. This dream going on with all of us in it. Penciling in the bighearted slob. Penciling in his outstrechted arms. Our father who art in Heaven. Our father who art buried in the yard. Someone is digging your grave right now. Someone is drawing a bath to wash you clean, he said, so think of the wind, so happy, so warm. It's a fairy tale, the story underneath the story, sliding down the polished  halls, lightning here and gone. We make these ridiculous idols so we can to what's behind them, but what happens after we get up the ladder? Do we simply stare at what's horrible and forgive it? Here is the river, and here is the box, and here are the monsters we put in the box to test our strength against. Here is the cake, and here is the fork, and here's the desire to put it inside us, and then the question behind every question: What happens next? The way you slam your body into mine reminds me I'm alive, but monsters are always hungry, darling, and they're only a few steps behind you, finding the flaw, the poor weld, the place where we weren't  stitched up quite right, the place they could almost slip right into through if the skin wasn't trying to  keep them out, to keep them here, on the other side of the theater where the curtain keeps rising. I crawled out the window and ran into the woods. I had to make up all the words myself. The way they taste, the wy they sound in the air. I passed through the narrow gate, stumbled in, stumbled around for a while, and stumbled back out. I made this place for you. A place for to love me.  If this isn't a kingdom then I don't know what is. So how would you catalog it? Dawn in the fields? Snow and dirty rain? Light brought in in buckets? I was trying to describe the kingdom, but the letters kept smudging as I wrote them: the hunter's heart, the hunter's mouth, the trees and the trees and the space between the trees, swimming in gold. The words frozen. The creatures frozen. The plum sauce leaking out of the bag. Explaining will get us nowhere.  I was away, I don't know where, lying on the floor, pretending I was dead. I wanted to hurt you but the victory is that I could not stomach it. We have swallowed him up, they said. It's beautiful. It really is. I had a dream about you. We were in the gold room where everyone finally gets what they want.  You said Tell me about your books, your visions made of flesh and light and I said This is the Moon. This is the Sun. Let me name the stars for you. Let me take you there. The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugar cube... We were in the gold room where everyone  finally gets what they want, so I said What do you want, sweetheart? and you said Kiss me. Here I am leaving you clues. I am singing now while Rome burns. We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack, my silent night, just mash your lips against me.  We are all going forward. None of us are going back. Richard Siken

forgot the password to Poorly Written History but I am still trying very hard to make this upcoming season / life about creating things again yet I really just want to snack and look at funny dog pictures so

finally have a day off after working too many hours this week with not enough sleep and a coffee dependency that felt similar to some kind of finals week frenzy

i can finally put my hair back into a tiny bun on top of my head, so that's moving forward I guess. still haven't unpacked my suitcase from when I went home for christmas though. win some, lose some. 

idk, feeling weird about everything and searching craigslist for jobs that are everywhere but chicago. does anyone in a warm state need someone to write emails? i'm ok at it and also easy to bribe with food.

cat mom of the year

turn up while watching law & order SVU

Tonight on the train home, a tiny Asian woman who barely spoke English borrowed my phone, then told me how America is “so scary when you are trying to learn all alone.” She politely asked me to read the PRIORITY SEATING sign aloud so she could practice how to pronounce the words herself. We just kept repeating PRIORITY over and over again until I had to get off the train, and she grasped my hand and made me promise to stay warm, and yes, happy.

Things are weird here, but I guess they’ve always been. It’s been a hard couple months? I say that with a question, because I don’t really know if that is true. I’m not trying to learn alone, but sometimes it feels that way. I don’t sleep in my bed very often anymore because when I’m home, I can’t shake the reminder that I’m not The Best person. Evidence is everywhere: my messy room, my unkept relationships. Am I caught in a place where I feel content and miserable all at once? I can’t remember the last time I wrote a poem, or created something that made me feel good. Here I am, humming along to the same settling cadences.

Priority, priority, priority. Things will shake out soon.

teen angst 

nailed it

"EVIDENCE OF A LOVE THAT TRANSCENDS HUNGER"