look at them tiny people. stupid, huge mountains making me feel small.
i was starting to miss the forests and trees of the midwest, there’s no green here
totally a scene location for the lion king
those weeds were so strange, i became partially entranced by how ugly, yet interesting they are
i was up late last night
1:
So I’m human.
And I’m feeling stupid.
And I have decisions to make,
Big ones,
Like moving across the country ones,
I don’t know what to do.
2:
I use poetry,
When I can’t figure it out.
I use essays,
When I have something to say.
And I don’t write at all
When I have someone to talk to.
3:
I’ll never uncomplicate,
I’ll forget I was upset.
4:
I’m watching this for you.
You said it was good.
Then asked again if I had seen it.
I wanted so much to have something of yours,
Now I’m watching this for you.
This odd-eyed voice-over walk the city streets,
Maybe I would have liked it, if I’d found it myself.
But I can’t get over how much this isn’t meant for me.
5:
I can’t take a photo today.
I’m not seeing it,
The different way of looking,
The way that will make it better.
I keep clicking and deleting
Waiting for one thing good.
6:
I’m listening to the songs I always hear.
They’re a comfort when they don’t change.
It’s why I dislike live music,
Something can go wrong, with what I love so much,
Just, exactly, very much, perfectly
How it is.
7:
I forgot how frustrating it is.
To be around someone who wishes you were different.
cute little things
really these should be called poems i wrote a sunday afternoon but scheduled for later
1:
Dammit there was something I was going to say.
It was going to be good –
The best –
But I didn’t write it down.
“I’ll remember.”
2:
Every once in a while,
I come across a word I’ve never written.
I check the spelling – I check the placement of the “e.”
I wonder how it is I’ve never written that before.
I determine to write more.
3:
I met an old friend from college
With her advisors and the other two-year, grad students.
God, I’ve missed being around smart people.
Who will push me,
And not mock me for knowing too much about something they don’t.
God they weren’t trying to sell me anything, it was lovely.
They didn’t care about me –
and told me so.
God it was marvelous.
And he dismissed me once I told him I wasn’t going back to school.
God I love that – that ignorance of the practical necessities of every-day working.
Oh, the majesty.
I miss being told I’m stupid. I miss not having a reason to learn.
4:
I want to start over.
I want to have the know I have now sometime else.
5:
I’m never sure when the fears I have will continue, “for the rest of my life.”
My back hurts –
My ribs ache –
My knees creak –
I’ll always be alone.
6:
My mother always says, “in the grand scheme of things.”
To give herself perspective. Like,
In the grand scheme of things, this decision I’m making right now isn’t important.
“And I just don’t want to ruin it for the rest of you.”
“I don’t want your memories to be bad.”
She seems fixated on the idea,
The importance of memories,
And not ruining them,
Like,
Somehow,
That will heal the old ones.
7:
I interviewed and said I was good with people.
Then proceeded to be awkward for twenty minutes.
we made squid taco balls. a first for me.
i’m just a bit off today. i’m sorry.
1:
I don’t have enough time
To say I don’t have the time.
2:
I saw a wreck at 36th and Main.
Rather, I heard a wreck.
Heard that noise I think should be louder.
That terrible kritch.
Two cars ahead of me.
All I thought was, I’ll never get home now.
I’ll have to wait on hold to get 911.
I hate having to go around.
3:
I bought 5 chairs for $35 on craigslist.
So I can seat my family.
Who invited themselves over for Christmas.
4:
I feel like I’m being bullied again,
Except this time by dyed blonde women,
Instead of the bleach blonde natural Kyleigh who did it the first time.
She would shove my books off my desk.
I would just pick them up.
Seemed to be the only way to get her to stop.
She’d just laugh.
These two just smile to themselves.
It’s just so much fun to play with people.
5:
If calling my mother is a source of comfort,
I know something must be wrong.
i went to my old high school to watch my brother’s christmas concert
1:
I want to be an old woman with
The old woman’s afro of pale hair
So that I can sleep through this terrible Christmas performance
And not have to care.
2:
These are my insecurities.
You can’t have them.
They don’t exist.
If I don’t tell them to you, and you don’t notice.
Please leave them alone.
They’re fine where they are,
Where they’ve always been.
Please don’t fix me.
3:
Praying a phone battery dies
Yes. I’m praying my mother’s phone battery dies.
So that she stops recording. And flashing.
It’s a common complaint.
I could say, it’s her experience, she should live it how she likes,
But I want her to do it my way, and like it.
And really, I just don’t want to be here.
4:
I’m going to go through my whole life
Like this boy on stage who doesn’t want to be there
Who doesn’t want the attention
Who wants to say his lines,
Then get off
And take off the elf hat
And have no one ever notice him again.
I’m going to go through my whole life apologizing for being alive,
On accident,
With my spotlight on myself.
5:
God I miss singing Christmas carols,
It’s almost worth going back to church for the month of December,
It’s just so much damn fun
Singing songs you already know with people who know them just as well as you.
It’s a community you have that you don’t have to work for,
It’s already there.
6:
Have you ever been in a moment when you know you’re going to remember it later?
I’m there right now.
Trying to figure out
Where to live,
What to do,
What routines to set up,
But I’m still not sure what will last,
And what will matter in a week,
That I only gave a passing glance to today.
7:
I sit next to a man who types too loudly.
And encroaches on my space a bit.
And has too much beard and not enough neck.
8:
If you give me the truth without any apologies or meanderings,
But just how it happened,
That’s the best of the best.
I’ll know you, if you do that.
9:
Belittle me all you want from your position of power.
I have no say in the matter,
Make me feel small,
Make me feel useless and incompetent,
Go for it.
crap picture, but weird fog
got it in just under midnight.
1:
You were meant for something greater.
Say that to anyone.
It will ensure restlessness.
If you want to.
2:
There should be more camaraderie at the BMV
It would make waiting easier if we all started singing songs.
3:
I won’t call him.
4:
At all things I am a failure.
I feel it today.
Can’t do anything right,
Never do anything right,
It’ll always be like this.
5:
If my Dad dies, I think I’ll be fine.
If my Mom goes, I think I’ll break
When I need to hear her voice,
Even saying the things she’s told me before.
Sometimes I call her just to get her going,
Just so I can hear her.
6:
I used to write dedications in the front of my school Bible
Then cross them out when I got older,
An exercise in thinking I’m so much smarter now,
Look how silly I was,
Look how much I’ve grown.
Now all my front and back page of Words are filled with little etched out sayings
Trying to be cute, funny, endearing.
And I still want to keep writing them.
7:
I’ve made up a Christmas tradition I tell the people at work.
Along with playing 500 rum, and marathoning 007 movies,
We watch Star Trek while wrapping.
Except we don’t.
Not either anymore.
Not after she said, “what do you want from me?”
8:
If I feel like I’m a terrible sister,
Doesn’t that make me a better person,
Isn’t that what I’m supposed to feel?
I won’t be good enough, so I’d better feel it.
oh this is just great.
1:
I don’t think I’ll ever have the courage to say out loud what I say to myself.
Mostly,
Though,
I wouldn’t ever trust another person enough
To tell them what I tell myself.
And not have them mock me.
But to say out loud what I only think would seem a violation,
Of me.
And also very insulting.
2:
What do you mean I have to explain to you why I like the glittery dinosaur ornament,
How long have I known you now?
And you tell me I’m cute, with a little shrug and twinkle
That you’ve only had since you were taller than me.
You’re still in that phase of thinking weird is unacceptable.
That’s fine.
I’ll be here when you’re over it.
3:
Things made for clumsy people have to be sturdy
And well designed,
Things made inexpensively,
For poor people
Break just sitting there.
This is why I am not fashionable
I won’t wear something uncomfortable unless it leads to breadsticks.
4:
Dear Pasta Lady,
I’m at another life post.
I’m having to change jobs, after paying my own insurance,
And writing calculated half-penny checks.
But I wish I could call you and give you a check up.
I want to hear you be proud, and mean it,
Even though I know you already are.
I want to hear it,
Like I want to hear the story of my birth,
Straight from my Mom,
Even though I have it memorized.
5:
I am so scared of becoming an alcoholic
But also of being scared of alcohol
And I’m scared of not being like my mother
But I’m frightened of being dependent,
And losing control
And changing.
6:
This one is for you.
Yep.
You.
I know you’re reading this.
7:
You’ve ruined my harmonica introduction of my favorite weepy song.
This is terrible.
8:
I put Christmas lights around my window in the hope it will keep the cold out.
I’m wearing a sweater over a sweater. I’m still cold.
I’m like David when he was dying and he couldn’t get enough virgins to keep him warm.
Cold in my soul.
True in more than one way, my old-friends would say.
9:
Hello old pattern, friend,
I haven’t seen you in a while, but maybe I never left.
Me and you, and my best friend, we’ve all started this all over again,
And it’ll end the same, all again.
But I don’t mind, I didn’t mind the first time, really.
At least something’s moving.
10:
Sometimes that’s all it takes you know,
One person, to make me laugh when I wasn’t expecting it,
And my belly laughs, and I laugh.
Suddenly I don’t mind being alone, as long as I can laugh without being embarrassed,
Or censured.
11:
I wish I had a tradition for the winter solstice.
I’d like to make one,
But I’m inconstant enough.
I’d like to dance with garland under the moon,
Or sing a song out a third-story window,
Or have something to mark the passing of time.
Some Bad Plankton 