Small Brown Door

Swallow hard, swallow to get it all out
On the table, below your feet,
You are swimming so why not let the air in on a secret,
A tantalizing corner ripped from the connection between your eyes and your mouth,
and a fleshy shard, a human.
I can be quiet, most of all when I’m thinking,
About things that are sometimes yellow and sometimes white,
And how they overlap when you tug and send you spinning,
If only someone would open this door.
Small brown door, today, meet me where we used to play,
The quiet places between the blades of grass, the spot of shadow on the asphalt.
People I have thrown away, meet me on a higher plane,
The back of a car, the front of a house, an old yellow chair in the basement,
These are the places that I have been afraid.
But any time I try to seem like much of anything I end up collapsed on my bed, drowning my thoughts out,
Scraping wallpaper and washing bathtubs, tomorrow I will walk
Backwards against the wind, the breeze heavy with reminders, my eyes closed and my hands folded and my buttons tight,
Because I need the air, but oh, god, I don’t want to have to feel it.

Pythagoras

I wish I worked
Like a calculator always suspended,
And never rearranging,
Because I should be happy here,
In this place of good and denial slowly slipping into an hanging cage
Above fields that contain nothing, I know because they told me.
A feather, floating, attractive.
A ripple, slow and still, or better-
The thunder and the wind, which break the bird’s wings.
Instead the punishment is the grass, yellow and gray and together, trodden again and again by different boots and the same species,
The unintelligible roar, rolling myself out like a boxcar, ironing over and over and
Spitting out every last confession, impression on the wet clay, hardening in that cold, dark, place,
You Know, don’t you.
Believed to be perfection but an actress the eleventh hour, every moment, every glance an actress,
This is just an uglier version of myself,
Peach-colored and fermenting,
And I am what you need but never what you wanted for anyone but the smallest You, the inner shell, the blue orb.

Five Years

How could you let her in like that she
Does not know your name she didn't
See you cry like this she doesn't
Feel this way she doesn't
Have to wait five years' time to see your face

Five years, I'll be
Better

Five years, I'll be
Better

Coffee, sugar,
Please and thank you
I'll be better when I break you

Five years, I'll be
Please and thank you
Much better break you

Take your chances out on me
What would you have me do?
If it's not now then never will it be
I've had a bad year, too.

Can you
Feel it
Swelling in your veins?
Honor us and
honor your name

Five years, I'm kidding myself
Issued and returned as someone else

Coffee, sugar, please and thank you,
I won't have to they will break you down,
Build you back up.

And I only say the stupidest things
Because I know how to keep my own secrets
Have you ever really looked at me?
I only open my eyes
To fill the silence
So don't believe everything you see.

Can you,
Feel it,
Swelling on your veins?
Honor us and
honor your name

Take your chances out on me
What would you have me do?
If it's not now then never will it be,
I've had a bad year, too.

Giving (you) up

Sad songs have been my serenade for longer than it takes for a scab to fall off on its own.
I havent felt wind for a fortnight.
Obviously, the lamplight is a memory.
Risk a smile break a tie,
look up into blue green eyes.

Terms of Endearment

It is like sublimely stumbling through the woods at night;
The moon beams only shine straight into my irises every now and again.
Sometimes I shudder, I shatter as the cold air seeps through my veins and fills my lungs
Like balloons; it freezes my mind and I fall.
On the forest floor I grasp and pull at the ropes and roots and weeds for a glimpse
Of the water table, only to find myself
Up to an arm in gravel and mud.
But I do climb trees and see silhouettes and my knees do bend,
Sometimes.
Sometimes,
I think you are watching me, weaving through the branches that spark like synapses
Inside this forest of delusional dreams and nonsensical nostalgia; time is nonexistent here so stay.
I can see for miles and miles,
Over the hills and through the leaves,
But I can only sprint so far,
And my footsteps can barely begin to trace paths through the sparkle of spiders’ webs.

Made of Glass

Look me in the eye and know just how I feel because
I have broken and been broken alike.
Behind the shine of laughter and the crinkled nose
My eyes are mosaics and if you focus you can see your reflection
If you shatter these walls (they're only made of glass, you know)
I could be an ocean,
Or a parachute,
Or a deck of cards.
But hearts will be broken if you do as I ask.

Uncharted Places

I open up and shout
But no one turns around
And it's weird cuz I thought I was loud
He might not look you in the eye
But count yourself lucky if he's there to admire
Cuz I swear it's like a whisper in my ear
You were gone with a flicker and a flash and a fear
Of falling too hard
And breaking my heart
Beginning to start
And mapping uncharted palces
Uncharted places
The bottom of the ocean and the stars and the sand
Will never be explored until you're holding my hand
Love is a trick and life is a race
Inhibition is confusion and peace is a place
How can
You stand on
Broken shards of glass from your own two hands
How can
You stand on
Broken shards of glass from your own two hands
You don't even know
You pack up the show
Hurt me how you will
I know for a fact that you've been trained to kill.
The bottom of the ocean and the stars and the sand
Will never be explored until you're holding my hand
How can
You stand on
Broken shards of glass from your own two hands
Love is a trick and life is a race
Every hand holds a gun and peace is an uncharted place.

Ricochet

When I remember sitting in my best friends backyard, pretending we were brave sorceresses and carving words onto wood, it's easy to ignore the fact that not many people want to please me.
Few who smile do so because I am near and few who talk do so in the hope I will lend an ear.
I have learned to live with being honest with everyone,
and with tucking a stray hair back as the wind whips it loose.
I don't imagine myself imagining you watching me, anymore, really.
Because we're all just trying to get by here, right?
Every soul has a song, and even if spirits aren't real I have evidence of the music they reflect.
I'm going to tell you something true.
It's not fucking worth it to look over your shoulder, because you're only delaying the force that is going to overtake you sooner or later when your legs gets tired and your breath falls short of where your mind wants to take you.
And frankly, you just look like a fucking idiot.
Let it go and shout in front of people and kick a dandelion, for heaven's sake!
I like who I am, so don't say my name and cover your face and glance around you... haven't you ever stopped to wonder what it would be like to be who and how you wanted?
People can tell.
I can tell.
I can't make someone fall in love with me, and the most satisfying part of that is how they manage it anyway.

Shattering and Shuddering

The blur of a lamp
In the evening afterglow go

Satin and sashes and patterns
The gloves.

Tomorrow
Slip in the fingers and tug, tug, tug
On, on, on

Wool
She wraps

Into the boots go the toes
(Tug on.)

Crunch shoveling thing

The difference between the the scrape and the scrub can be found
in this place.

Shattering and shuddering,
We are,
Most sincerly,
stuttering.

A Very Random Post of Which There Shall Hopefully be More of in the Future.

So my house is full of smoke because my mom is making pork that has a alliterative title that I do not recall. The weather is being scary. And so I thought it would be nice to tell everyone about how I want to make this blog more snarky. Because, I mean, who doesn't love a snarky blogger? I recently discovered OH MY GOSH THE LIGHTNING IS LIKE A FREAKING CAMERA FLASH EVERY FIVE SECONDS I FEAR FOR MY LIFE. Ok so anyway I just discovered this freelance writer named Dan Bergstein. He does book reveiws and random posts for the SparkLife blog, affiliated with SparkNotes. And he's freaking hilarious. So google him. Yeah. And in case anyone cares my two favorite songs of the moment are Never Gonna Happen by Lily Allen and Beautifully by Jay Brannan. That is all. Unless you want me to tell you about how I spent my afternoon gluing random things to cardboard and listening to cheeky swear-a-lot Britpop. Which you probably don't. So bye.