velcro

Fragile little wings of life
Unison, unison, we beat in unison--

Officially I am a failure. I am incapable of attending a damned community college. Ham sandwiches all around, with weak coffee to wash down their concrete system. Ahh, well, September.

It is now time for me to refigure my life, goals, dreams; retire my downfall. I don't know how I'm supposed to get through this with any grace. Sick of dreams and my failure, these tears are pathetic. I need a break! Curses, my skin is crawling! My heart twists and my stomach wants to disgorge itself. It just doesn't stop, this awkward life. I'll take it; my dimensional perspective of existence: is this life?

Time to incorporate my heart with my mind, I tell myself firmly, today's the day. But it's not, wait until tomorrow. That's the minuteman's lie I have been believing for years. Life is finite. F*ck, I know this bodily existence can hurt. Happiness is not one of those purchases that comes with easy-read instructions. I am not certain if it even comes in a box.

When I focus in, deep and to my core, I have joy. Why then am I afraid of reaching for it? Am I become a coward? No, happiness takes fearless courage. My college doesn't offer a course in finding the courage to be happy. I don't need one. I need honesty and support. My first step is into the unknown. So is the next and the next.

That which holds me apart from my true nature is the unknown. The unknown is both a place of possibility and of chaos. It's dichotomy is confounding. How can something be both infinite and exact? Being vunerable and not knowing what comes next is code for existance in the plane of human experience.

Looking honestly at my life, I tend only to see the first layer. The day to day existence and routine. I see my mistakes and resentments. Those few activities take most of my concentration. Concentration equals energy. I use my limited energy doing things which do not bring happiness. Knowing this why do I continue to do them? The status quo and the reality that I am not getting any younger. The pressure to perform in society and to be part of a machine. The fear that if I don't do this a vacuum will come along and suck me into outer space.

I can affirm that I am having a difficult time. Realistically, all of the signals are the universal mind telling me to stop. I am removing the layers and am preparing to go in deep. Here is the first step into the unknown, bringing me one pace closer to joy. Wish me luck and love, I will send greatings from the other side.

depraved

Even the connotation is based in madness.

There are times I believe there is a hole in my skull or heart; is there an effervescent structure amiss? I have no solid conclusions such a state of unbeing. Recognise the eyes I use to see are sequentially limited. I question my role: a limiter, existence is limited. The natural unstate. I do long division in my head, staring out across the haze, the horizon. Minutes pass, forty minutes. I proceed to class, I am an hour early, which leaves time for more numbers. Weary of numbers I progress to words. Words make promises. Words shape pictures across the red of my eyelids. Faster and more demanding, they thrash my eardrums. The cacophony stops more abruptly than it started.

Much later I push my voice up into a false tempo. Everything is just fine, my voice clips along. Astride my mind, I hunt for clues. It is a long and lonely night. My external and internal caress with lover's finesse. Nude I am left to witness their molestation.

a darker shade of gray:

September is the ides of March and April's fools all rolled into one long month of practical and impractical jokes. The last was losing my wallet. Which might have been a good thing 'cause I'm broke and the sun don't shine where I'm going.

School is a place where a lot of people look (no one speaks) at me. I am uncertain if this is because I have some large leafy foliage in my teeth or another less obvious reason. The days are dazzlingly airy. I put my sweaters away, sadly. I can't even wear a coat. People stand around talking, giving one another knowing looks.

Tons of people smoke tons of ciggies. Not me and not the French. Turns out they're trying to pass an anti-smoking law similar to New York and California... We here in good ol' Oregon with all our fresh air can smoke till the sky turns red.

Typical that France, emblematic of smokers and futurism and maniacal elitism, would ban their favorite hobby

rasp

A wet woolen sweater--

Two years ago today my life changed. This morning my mail declared that I am disqualified for financial aid. This is worse than bad and needs fixing. I have been having one of those months. My car exploded, I had to borrow the cash to fix it. Cash that I would repay on good faith of student loans. Those same loans that I now might not receive. Looks like internet porn (sic) is my last resort. This is one of those days, months. I am not fond of September and wish it would be over; it hurts like hell and back again.

But, as they say, cowboy up girl, cowboy up. And I will. I'll pull on my boots and fill out the forms. I will talk to important people and use decisive words. OR I'll say f*ck all of this and quit everything. That seems good right about now. No more children of miserable bosses asking me about the mating habits of marsupials. No more making less than $700 in a month. Instead I'll say kiss it! and start working a decent job with low morals and a high wage. By low, I mean pulling coffee and writing erotica for online magazines.

Why, I ask, am I doing all of this? Did I really suppose that I could better myself and have a decent, respectable future? Was that the point, or was it just something to do? Now that I am doing other things more fulfilling... There are allot of questions going through my brain. I am severely distraught and angry at the bottom of it. I dealt with this problem a month ago. I filled out the paper work, both the white and yellow sheets, and was not expecting this blow. Not today, today hurt enough without that.

mercury

poison leaks in like noise.

I polished my table this morning, changed the sheets on my bed, did a couple of crosswords. It was a practical and useful morning. In developing a new routine, I fail to remember all of it's components. Then, around one or two, I slap my head: "expletive!"

My house is a haven. The breezy rooms are filled with light and Chet Baker, a handsome man with an ear for vision. Chet was big in a Paris that no longer exists. Time, September, patterns, the details, have been showing up in my dreams. Paris was the end of my descent; I hit bottom. September has a way of doing this, showing me exactly where I was two, five years ago. Five: I was fresh and young on my way to Seattle. Two: my father was dying and I was on my way to Paris. Now: now.

Days and years and seconds passed for this moment to become and to fade.

a sandwhich without bread

Black heels, red lipstick, dark denim jeans, I am all set to clean my house top to bottom. But I won't. Instead I'll sit right here, and romanticize along with Ella Fitzgerald. The moon is a fraction from full, I am home and alone. For the last ten days I have been sharing houses with my mother, Lynn. Last night my house was empty, except for the wind and my cat and me. My heart thundered more than once. I woke up sure that the shadows cast on the west wall were shed from a ring of dancing women. They were preparing for a ritual I was not invited to. Wisely, I went back to sleep. Those women wouldn't stop dancing; they took a lock of my hair.

My return to solitude has been jarring. I am not lonely, but amazed that I can be so noisy in my quiet. The radio and the shower and the windows and the cat and the internet are all streaming simultaneously. I flitz around poking things and sorting mail I'll open tomorrow. I read a thick magazine (which one is irrelevant as they are all filled with identical trifles). I am back and my lips are red.

I recognize patterns of desire. I want juxtapositions: to be entertained and entertain; a solitary life, with heady doses of company. I swing less across the extreme diastema. I sink my teeth into the prose of my life, filling the gaps.

domain

The coastal climate rips across the sky; my mind ruptures, and I listen to the rain. I could do this: live here in a multitude of silences. Walking along windswept passages, I imagine a life I one day inhabit. Storms and fireplaces define the nights. Collecting bits of flotsam spit up from the depths of the ocean in the early dawn. Wind and salt age my face, especially around my eyes. I don't mind; my hands are stronger than ever and know their place. I carry a backpack, it is full-- rubish I will shape anew. Me, I see myself reborn with the tide. A shadow rising into being, manifest.

There is hot chocolate or spiced wine served with hot bread. The warmth that comes when it is too cold to be alone, out-of-doors. Settling in to a book and a blanket, the stars hide just beyond the Hemlock. With any luck friends come and we walk until our fingers are red and chapped, holding hands making our way home. Cinnamon and sage impregnate the small wooden house with a warm spice.

Time and fortune seem weak obstacles for so vivid a dream. My heart thunders in my ear, I am not alone. I court my solitude and I sleep and I dream. Crisp air blows through my room of windows. The ocean roars hypnotically, the rain incessant, I check the clock. Half past three, a dead hour. I stand, unclad in the deluge.

proximity

I am to spend the next 144 hours with my mother. After the 36 already spent together, that is a total of 180. That's a long time.

The push-me pull-you has been sticking it's evil jaws into my arms. A day in the life of a piece of gum. Starting out fresh and in it's foil, only to end up on my shoe— or worse my hair. People leave their ABC gum stuck any-ol-place; I lean back and a thick glob of nasty, sticky spit drenched gum fuses behind my left ear. I whip open my switchblade and cut the lock out. I have curly hair, the missing chunk is noticeable only in that it sticks out from my head at a right angle.

The real kicker comes when the person who left their gum stuck to the back of (my) dining room chair shirks responsibility. "You said that you were not going to be back for a couple of hours. I figured that I could just let the flavor freshen up for a few, and then really get to business". You see they are an aficionado, a real gum connoisseur. It is their duty to not only test, but keep accurate records of a variety of flavors over a period of time. "But,' I stammer almost helpless to this concrete logic, 'it's my chair, and why the f*ck are you even in my house?"

escribir

I read. I read everything, a box of cereal or a license plate is of no less worth than my newest pursuit. I am in awe of the modern novel. This is new, they are new. The hot flush of a well formulated sentence. I am hooked, my eyes are giving way and I am getting less sleep, but I just can't seem to stop until the last page. Books and lovers are cousins.

My teeth hurt I am so poor. I visit the public library, with a stack of books up to my chin and one tucked beneath my elbow I approach the front desk. I live in fear of the librarian. She looks over my books and, rarely, comments on them. It's those few words that destroy my esteem. I deflate as she looks over the assortment of thick books of photos, glances over the graphic novel, and alights on something by Christopher Pike. Yep, Christopher Pike. Cocking an eyebrow she looks at me, I smile through my teeth. Stammering something about rereading everything I have ever read, I grab my ten pounds of entertainment and flee. That's a half truth.

I am trying to decide what makes a book memorable. What, after ten years, will make me pick up a book and read it again. The answer is usually sex. I know: more women read; women are verbal; typically, best-selling books are written by men. Bam, add steamy sex and the formulaic teen novel has progressed to chic-lit. These books are trash and can be read in less than a day.

The next time the Librarian looks my at my stack, I will be proud. Noting the progression of my carnal devotion to the written word, she will sneak one of her favorites to the middle of my pile. I will give her my observations on the characterization of the american protagonist. She will take off her glasses, look me in the eye and say: I was thinking exactly the same thing".

So it Seems:

That I am the kind of woman who gets a book given to her in a bar. (That might have been because I was reading.) However, why men love bitches,seems pendandtic. Admitedly, I have a tendency to be kind and forgiving. But a book in a bar— am I that obvisious?

Aside from that life continues to persue it's course. Breifly, I scan faces I do not recognize. I take in posters and Coroner. The music is good, the posters worse. This event is not about an occurence. It is about agility.

That is a masked truth. I wanted to see if I was capable of having a drink alone. I still am. It's not difficult; for five bucks one can sit in a bar unmolested. Nothing but faces have changed. I leave by the front door, doubting if I'll back.

Glamour has been replaced. Flash:.. so mad, I got home and realized that the shit I bought off the street was crap. I thought it was M—, but he said he stayed home last night. I would cut my wrists if it weren't for my friends. Such a load of crap. Glamour is dirty and people are worse.