One day

The windows are all open so it feels like spring. There's blue paint on the side of the court, little boys with signatures that will outlast their youth.

There's a woman dressed in layers, tending to her garden of broken objects. Spoons and tin cans hang from a tree and she's maybe what you would call "an artist", or maybe what neighbors would call "eclectic".

The India House has been closed for years, but the sign and menu are still up. The sun shines on the windows like the lights are still on, and I'm sure when people walk by, they smell the spices.

There are buildings, four stories high, where the refugees live with prayer flags hanging from porches. In dorm rooms and hippie chicks' bedrooms, the flags are just a passing notion. Here, they represent a past, a life, a memory, a future, a need.

On Cold Nights

The space heater by my feet has got an orange light and it makes a tick, tick, tick sound every now and then. When I hear that sound and see that light, I feel warm again.

The tip of my nose is cold and when you touch the back of my neck, I get goosebumps. I eat soup and curl my body around the bowl, sucking life out of the steam.

I'm under down blankets and the feathers sometime poke out and stick in my hair. I'll pull one leg out from the warmth we've created and let the cold settle on me.

When it is cold and the moon is out, I look around the world and think, I belong here. But I may never come back.

Antifreeze

He looked at me and said, "tell me something I don't know about you."
So I told him about the time my cat died when I was eight.

The look in his eyes, the smell of his fur.
Cross-legged, enveloping him.
The antifreeze he'd been poisoned with, the neighbor kid who did it.
The first time I saw anything die: the air changed and my fingertips tingled.
The first time I understood there was cruelty in the world.
But kindness, too. Cross-legged, enveloping him.

He looked at me and said, "I've already heard that story."
But he hadn't. I'd only ever told him I was eight, the cat died, antifreeze.

Profoundly sad

Sometimes I read her words and think I don't understand love. I think that, maybe, I missed something. I think that, maybe, I've been too cynical. Sometimes I wish I had that in me, that love, like sadness, that can seep into everything if you let it. And I wonder if I'll ever change.

Then I think about love, and I think of the smell of sawdust and snow. Opening that door with the three little window panes. Sharing a bedroom and talking in the dark. Patchouli and spices. Guitars and champagne. Watching those memories, packed so tight, escape slowly and finally find a place to sleep. Hidden pictures of skinny dipping and late night road trips. Canyons, castles, cities. The feeling of saying goodbye. Marking time by moments apart, not calendars. Quilts folded on couches. There are tears sometimes, screaming sometimes, but why waste your sometimes?

My love isn't better, it isn't as consuming. It's not that can't-breathe, got-fire-and-butterflies-in-your-stomach, cry-all-night-'cause-you-can't-live-without-each other kind of love. I couldn't live that way. My love is a quieter thing, melancholy at times, but usually, it's right where it needs to be.

Quiet stories

Sometimes you find stories in the most unlikely places.

"I knew it was over when Mom had me try on her wedding dress. I was five and it was Halloween and I stood on a stool while she cut off the bottom so I could wear it. Dad walked in the room and saw me and Mom with the dress and I knew it was over. They're still together, but the dress is gone and I'm still waiting for him to leave."

"So we were driving across town, right? We had this big U-Haul with everything he ever owned it in. We've only been together three months now, but we've been living together for two. It was weird that day when we were moving because he was driving the truck and I was sitting beside him with his dog's ashes in my lap and his ex-girlfriend's engagement ring on a chain around my neck. They were up front with us because they were the most important things he owned. His girlfriend cheated on him before he could give her the ring -- his grandmother's, re-sized to fit the girlfriend -- and now he doesn't know what to do with it. He won't give it to me, but he wanted me to keep it safe while we drove across town."

Not to be confused with

You can tell by the paint on the walls that they've got money, which most of us confuse with class. Rich colors; New England colors; reds and yellows and golds. You can tell by the beers in their hands, brown bottles with local brewery labels, and the tables with trays of steaming food. They've got nice smiles and all is well.

In our pictures, we've got old barns with Christmas lights and people sitting in heaps on the floor. We've got boxes of wine and bowls of Chex Mix and people dancing. We wonder what people will confuse us with.

Masking tape names

He got it in Rio De Janeiro, he said, but it's got pictures of his trip to Antarctica. When most people say they've been there, you don't believe them. But he's got the pictures to prove it.

He was handsome back then and was the only one on the ship with the camera. It's a waste now, he says, but I thought it'd mean something someday. Just like he thought he'd always be handsome. Some things don't last forever.

He wrapped us up in his mother's furs 'cause it's the only way he can keep us warm. We won't wear them. One of us is allergic, one is vegan, and one lives in Florida. But it's nice to be warm for a few moments on that cold night.

He wants us to put our names on the things we want, 'cause he knows that he'll die someday. He knows that his things aren't safe with anyone and might as well give it all away 'cause he can't keep the thieves out of the attic.

what's under your pavement

we used to slide back there. it seemed like miles. we'd get a running start and hit the ice and our boots were like skates and we'd go all the way to the end, where the river cut the field in half and was still runnin even on the coldest days. sometimes we'd jump it and get our boots wet and knew we were in trouble. frostbite happens, especially out here, mom always said. so we'd carry the person with the icy boot back home like they were already dead and get into the house with yellow warm lights and mom would pick the burrs out of our mittens and wrap up the icy foot.

daddy knew we'd outgrown our backyard when i bust the seams in my baseball. he made us these bats out of the spare wood in the garage and they were the most beautiful things in the world, smooth and the perfect weight and size, just for us. well one day i hit a pitch so hard it landed in the drop off behind our apartment, with the old rusted fridge and broken glass and tangles of thorns. daddy said then, we have to find a new place to practice. so he took us out to the field and we made a baseball diamond with some of daddy's old shirts as bases. the ground was uneven and there were burrs everywhere, but we could hit the ball as hard as we wanted. i hit those pitches so hard i cracked my bat and my dad never looked so proud.

there was this time i was all wrapped up in something, 'cause my friend kissed the boy i loved, so i went out there to the field. it became this place that i could go and it felt like it was mine, even though it never really belonged to me. i found this old broken down barn under layers of yellow grass and got these pieces of coal and metal and kept them in my pocket. i went to the tree on the other side of the river, the tree that grew sideways. i tried to climb it but couldn't so instead i just sat under it and watched my house. it looked so different from the back, lined up with the other townhouses like big, quiet people just waiting for something to happen.

Late night thoughts in the Vineyard

I can hear the ocean through my window and my skin's got sand inside it now. I'm on someone else's vacation, in a house that no one ever lives in. There are natives and vacationers and workers and I'm a little bit of all of them.

No return

I'll send you letters without return addresses. And you'll open them, one by one, and wonder who in the world could love you so much. You won't know it's me, and it's better that way.

people don't smile much anymore

"to the pretty brunette at the bagel market in essex: your friendly smile brightened my gray vermont day. thanks."

It's people like this that make me realize everything will be okay.

Listen

I want to write you back, but I'm not going to. I have a lot to say, but you wouldn't listen.

sincerity

Funny how I don’t even know if I was sincere. Sometime I’ll be able to talk again; sometime my voice won’t catch in my throat. Trying didn’t get us anywhere so we’ll sit back and watch now. We can’t make the world happy, baby.

It’s days like these that I remember you can only ever count on yourself. Cheers, friend.

nights with

It's the nights with poetry that I don't want to think about deadlines. It's the nights with artists that I don't want to look for tomorrows. It's the nights I'm already looking back on and realized I took for granted.

It's the days I wake up not knowing what's going to happen next. It's paralysis and freedom and what now?

Letter to no one; Letter to everyone

Someday, I hope you'll understand. I promise I won't wince when you smoke your cigarettes. I'll be honest and you won't put your hands over your ears. We'll look through all those pencil markings on yellow paper and know we've found something.

Someday, I'll let it all go. I promise I won't hold on forever so you won't have to be so sad. We'll stop walking in those circles and catch a boat over the Atlantic. We'll drink and eat strange foods and I'll throw my arms into the wind and everything will be right.

Someday, I'll understand why you love me. I promise I'll believe you and you'll stop worrying like I know you do when no one is looking. We'll do everything we always wanted and you'll let me go and I'll stop pretending like I'm cut out for this.

Life & Art

Even if I don't like their styles, Man Ray and Dali maybe had the right idea.

If life doesn't make sense, why should art?

an old response to an old beatnik

i watched my grandmother die
in the yellow room
next to the man who masturbated with the door open.
while she asked for her “damn cigarettes” he was
coming on his hospital sheets
for me to see and the nurses to clean.

my father’s face is clay now,
the kind crumbled at the bottom of the craft bag
and you can only think about how many guys i blew
before you.

i have your voice in my phone, save it for 21 days,
there’s ink on my sheets and
i only miss you because i haven’t eaten and
right now i’d lick the chicken grease from your lips.

i went back to that place where i live
with a lost soul on my mind and
old man semen under my fingernails
and you wanted me to cry with you over
the sounds and smoke through the window
through my walls
through my door.

it’s early in november and again i taste snow,
but you look away like we,
we were never naïve.
i remember when we could change things,
but our new found intellect tells us that we’re,
we’re too good to use our minds anymore.

i missed her by half an hour
and i’ll never forgive myself
for the hours wasted
watching them play activist, play revolutionist,
when we all knew they just wanted to hear
their voices in the stars.

you told me to hold on tight or i’d lose my way,
you told me, baby, it’s a wild world.
our words have been falling into the ocean and someday
they’ll wash on shore and
everybody will know but, baby,
i can’t fight your wars.
i’ll draw my way with sharpies on maps and never forget
the nights i remembered why i’m alive.

i watched my grandmother die
in the yellow room
full of cigarettes and words that i wrote on my hand
and the illusion of companionship was gone with her
and the ink washed away but the words are still there,
old words, real words, a lifetime of words,
and this is how we die.

summer nights

i remember driving to find the sunrise.
i remember nights that taste like storm.
i remember laughter and tears in the dark and warm stars and cold water.
i remember thinking that anything was possible, that we'd always have each other.
i remember you whispering that everything was changing, that things would never be the same.
i remember sleeping in the backseat and knowing that someday we'd find what we were looking for.

green boat

There’s this green boat and it’s tied to the shore with a double knot. There’s paint on the floors and a hole in the side and it’s sinking slowly. I ran to it when no one was looking.
I didn’t cry tonight for money or love, I cried for independence. I didn’t cry for my generation or my causes, I cried for my freedom.
It’s the one thing I’ve always had and the one thing I fight for the hardest. I’m afraid of what it means and need everything it is.
I will never be able to describe the sinking, desperate feeling I get when I realize I’m tied and double knotted. I will never be able to describe how beautiful it is to fight for my life.

forever

Yesterday I walked by the room she died in and I saw that my whispers are still under the bed.

And now I'm leaving more whispers, placing them carefully, the I love yous and the remember whens. I don't want this room to become a memory, too. But we all know that this is the last summer.
I try to find the compassion and sweetness everyone says I inherited from her, but it's been missing. I try to find that place where I'm strong, but that's missing, too. I try to tell them what I'm feeling, but my words are wrong.

I just want to know that goodbye doesn't mean forever.

honesty

It's funny that I can call myself a grown woman. I have to now, if I want to claim everything I've done as my own.
And it's funny, that as a grown woman, I still can't seem to be honest. It was always easy to convince myself that if maybe I just told the truth, I'd be an honest person. But that's not honesty.
Instead of facing the frightening or uncomfortable things in life, I've learned to evade it all and stay withdrawn. In some ways it's become easier. The distance helps. In other ways, I wonder how I've maintained relationships this long.
I could say everything. I feel the honesty in my mouth sometimes, but my voice carries it away with sarcasm or roughness or dismissal.
To me, honest people are the bravest people in the world.

don't you let me go tonight

sometimes i wish romance wasn't so foreign to me.

love, to me, isn't something precious and fragile. or even beautiful. to me, it's strength and trust and and comfort and honesty, visited with nice moments. normally i don't mind my rough version of love, but there are some nights when i wish i understood romance and that i could handle the delicate nature of it.

it's songs like "tonight" by lykke li that make me want that. don't you let me go, let me go tonight. don't you let me go, let me go tonight. god, it's passionate and sad and fragile and beautiful. but sometimes i wonder if that type of love doesn't exist unless it's pushed by sadness. it's that epic love, that fighting-together-forever, that is born from tragedy. when you're in love, the smallest things can become tragedies, and somehow, that's beautiful.

so i suppose i don't want to understand romance. i just want to know that love can exist without the constant sorrow and pain that seems to glamorize it.

bring me here

it's that sawdusted spirit, those cigarette breaths, that sun-dried skin that brought me here. it's that simple passion, those story-telling eyes, that stormy laughter that keep me alive.
and sometimes all i can do is smile and walk away even when no one else will stay.

just a minute

homework. sunshine. meeting. work. drive. friends. childhood dreams. concerts. late night letter writing. eight a.m. fingerprints. drive. old folks. smile. grandpa's house. sleepless nights. thinking nights. grandma's looking better, doesn't she look better? fake smiles. new friends. chaos. swallowed pride. occidentals in armchairs. drive. dusty town. baby love. grown-up love. drive. family reunions. late reminiscence. homework when the house is quiet. is she still there? wake up. more smiles. walk past the yellow room. answers to questions i didn't want to ask. brake failure. teenage ambition. uncomfortable, elaborate dinners. returning to nature. dust and lights and music and dancing. five a.m. laughter. hasty mornings. forgotten clothes. drive. rushed goodbyes. drive. bitter anticipation. home. drive. sleep on someone else's bed, just once more, just for a few minutes. drive.

degredation in numerals

I. it’s getting late and you won’t stop drinking. we’re sustained by telephone electricity and i’m afraid this is our last call. drop the pieces on cobblestone streets and smoky barstools. you say you want to forget it all but, honey, you know he’s coming back.

II. it’s getting late and it’s getting cold and i can feel you shiver through your t-shirt. i want to hold you but i know that it’s more than just a touch right now. it’s forgiveness and plaster and lets-just-forget-it-all. darling, just let me go alone tonight

III. it’s getting late and you’re changing. or maybe you’re not because you always are. prop it up with polytheistic unspecific prayers and tell me how beautiful the degradation is. it’s all for one, all for you. sweetie, how long ago did we lose you?

result of sleepless nights and beat lit

sometimes i wonder if i'll ever be good enough.
it's one of those things, you know, one of those crazy things that nobody believes but me but hey what can i say. i'm lost in these ideas of perfection, not your perfection, and suddenly i see it slipping away. i want to see the world, see the things that everyone else overlooks. i want to be the one that really understands, i want the streets and sidewalks to remember me, i want the cracks in the concrete to call me back.
i go to all these places and i never return, but i want to see them again so desperately. they're like a piece of myself that i never knew was missing. there's saxophones and spices in new orleans. there's red and orange and freedom in zion national park. there's thunder and dancing in west palm beach. there's discoveries and love in pompeii. there's ancient dreams and tear drop stone in rotenberg. there's citrus air and sunset sand in san jose. there's glass and sleeping rooftops in venice. there's underground secrets and silent gardens in london. there's twisted bedsheets and candle laments in paris. there's hinesburg parishville bar harbor chester croton on the hudson loon mountain the adirondacks the st. lawrence the atlantic rome austria sharon four corners potsdam home.
i think of these things and these places and sometimes i feel like i can't keep it all in. i miss them all and it's this weight in my chest, this weight that's telling me i can't have them all back. it's telling me some of them are gone forever, maybe they're blown away in the sandstorms, maybe they're washed away in the ocean, i can't return. and then this weight, the weight in my chest, is telling me i'm running out of time. i want to see so much more, it's not over it can't be over this can't be it. i've had so many nice things and i want so much more and who does that make me. this insatiable thing.
i think of her when i feel greedy, i think of her small room and her rosary on the doorknob. i want to tell everyone how much it hurts i want them to know what it means to me, but it's all the same to them. it's just another loss, something we all deal with. so i deal with it, because what else can i do? i hide it, i pretend i'm not dramatic, but god, sometimes i want to drive across the whole country just to have time to talk about it, talk about her, talk about me. she's me and i'm her, do you see? we're the same but she's so different and so far away now and i wonder if i can do it for her. can i fix it all, can i make up for the sadness? maybe if i try hard enough, if i live enough, she'll see me and know that i'm doing it for her. no one knows why i do these things and sometimes it hurts.
sometimes i wish i soaked t-shirt shoulders and didn't pretend. sometimes i wish i could write and let them see, let them see everything, it's all true and i hate things and love things and wish things and am more than this being, this walking talking thing. i'd talk and not worry if they were listening, just know that they cared.
they walked in and walked out and i was red dresses and smiles and they never knew. so i have this thing called pride, i can keep it in my pocket where no one can see it but i hate it actually. i don't like this thing called pride this ugly thing this face-saving fuck-up. it erodes away at me, it eats away at me and i still fight for it. it's like cigarettes or coffee or cancer. i used to take care of myself, i used to be good to myself. strange things happen when i lose the things that are important. i used to know home. i wanted to be there but now they're foreign and she's pushing us away, she's pushing us all away. like removing a sickness from her veins. we'll always be there, but she can pretend we're something else, she can pretend we're better than we really are.
sometimes i wonder if i'll ever be good enough.

another moment of melted snow and self-discovery

We felt the rain yesterday. It's that kind of night that I want to soak in the storm, breathe it, drink it, be it. We leaned out my window last night and tasted it.
With spring finally here and the snow melting, I feel like I'm re-discovering things. There's this whole new perspective that comes with a new season in New England. I'm seeing the world, my world, again under all the gray. It's been all adopted bitterness and preoccupations with sex and processed compassion, but I'm waking up again.
Maybe it's crazy, maybe it sounds cheesy, but it's there. Small parts of myself are resurfacing and it feels so good. I guess they were lost for a long time, years maybe, but sometimes it takes a whole lot of crap to get back to where you want to be. I know there was a time when I used to feel human. I remember the girl I used to be and I've missed her.
There's love in passion and strength in independence and truth in desire. I can still feel it all underneath my skin. I'll play piano at midnight, I'll taste rain, I'll stay awake at night because I can't do anything but think about writing, I'll crave the typewriter keys and fresh paper. I'll jump in a car and drive, I'll put pins in maps, I'll whisper bedtimes stories.
This person that I used to be, she played catch in the spring, she was sweet and polite and good, she was an inspiration, she sang with kids when their worlds were broken, she had big dreams. I spent so much of my youth trying to convince people I was more than that, more than what they saw, but I've come to discover it's silly to try. I focused so much energy on that, that I've turned into a person I'm not proud of, maybe even a person I don't like.
I remember when I was happy. Not just content and living, but honestly, truthfully, happy.
It's been awhile. I'm ready to come back now.

blasphemic provocation

my flowers are dying and my bookshelf reminds me of everything i might have to give up.

i've been all talk and no submission, i've been all mind and no provocation.
i speak blasphemy from my pedestal and once believed i was invincible.

this is the real world, honey.

sleepless words

i wore grandma's beads and took a deep breath. it was for her. weeks of sleepless days and nights and it came down to that. there were hours of driving and flowers and sometimes i forget how lucky i am. a night like this reminds me who's there, who really understands. my life is motivated by words, but sometimes they're really not enough.

i'm not

There's flowers and paper and missed calls and books and wind and she's there and I'm not.

the midnight thoughts

What is it that encourages us to explore the world? Why is it that it takes drastic change in setting to change us? We neglect to find depth in the places that are familiar to us; we use those places for comfort and refuge and nostalgia, but we don't have the capacity to see past our preconceived notions of them. Why is that? Can we gain objectivity without physically stepping back? Do we have to see new things in order to understand what we have?

I've always been fascinated with the world; I used to draw my dreams on maps with black sharpies. When I travel, I'm opened up to these new injustices, new ideas, new opportunities -- to me, it always seemed so glamorous to take on the world and stand for something.

Going to church this morning didn't necessarily enlighten me to a renewed Christian lifestyle, but it made me realize that it's people like that, the people that sit in the pews every week and attend all the routine church events, are the people that can see the entire world inside a small town. They're the ones that understand the need for revolution and action in even the insignificant places. They don't dismiss any gradient of pain -- it all means something.

Can people change when they stand still?
Can people find themselves when they never look down?

What does it mean to change the world?

it's a lonely job

"I wanted to be a writer once. But I didn't work hard enough at it... it's a lonely job."
(I accidentally watched Lifetime today. But I got this quote so it's okay.)

Today I took a route to Burlington that I didn't know. I ate whole wheat pizza and bought green glass bowls and listened to a static-y radio station I've never heard. I was bitter in the morning about being abandoned, but I realized for the first time that I'll be ok. I've always known I could survive on my own, but I understood today that I can be happy.

I'm ready for the job.

there's a place

there's this place i belong to
where i walk barefoot on graves and swim in the dark and touch the honest world.
it's the place i'll never forget. it's the place i'll always return.

wild world

baby, it's a wild world. hold on tight or you'll lose your way.
baby, i can't fight your wars. hide a knife in your boot and breathe.
baby, it's been a long time.

baby, it's a wild world.

a storm like this

i've never seen a storm like this before. there's lightning every night and i can taste thunder in the mornings. the clouds are purple and the sun is taking a break from the world. i'd live like this forever, inside the storm.