I KNOW October 22, 2008

i know i can’t sleep
 
and i have only been harmed. how do you sleep at night? never mind, i imagine it is knowing that you are right that allows rest. it is measures of assets and gains under your mattress that squeaks a lullabye.
i believe you shouldn’t be able to sleep if you had a conscience or were mature enough, were courageous enough to…. feel…
wrong.
words you are afraid of being aimed at you stand on the lip.
Truth, in other words.
yes, i am still ‘very angry’ with you. yes, you should know and hear it from me for i hate this ‘forget me’ business and the betrayal towards me and all i hold dear, which is much grander than you know.
no one else will tell you.
as it turns out Time is not a healer in week increments.
besides, the thought of you laughing or having fun pretty much rips me up. that sort of mouth wide open or buckling over should be caused by another effort entirely- as your karma -not because i think so. 
it is hard to enjoy my favorite time of year, even the sun has to be introduced to me minute to minute. the leaves and their colors have to be spelled out phonetically before i really take note of their existence. the geese heading south remind me i lost my way. appreciation is difficult though i can smile everyday for pretends and redefine the answer ‘i’m fine’ to mean ’i'm suffering’ just to save myself the agony of reality. i deserve that sparing, you don’t.
all the words i won’t say to you get pretty rough and you may be able to figure them out if you applied your inner wisdom.
before you i had not known a person toward whom a fuck you wouldn’t do justice.
justice.
what a grace that would be.
 
i cry every day and when i force myself to stop my eyes get so dry they itch.
my hands look older and swollen from the fists they always make.
even comfort food is boulders in my gut.
i shiver with a cold from the inside out.
under my eyes the lines are colored outside of with crayons named sleeplessness and torment.
my shoulders blades are brick walls where wings once sprouted. 
my heart is non responsive, i wonder if it is a kidnapped prisoner of war unable to contact home… and i wait for that video of a bag over the head plea for …. life. that is, unless it shows up racing nearly sprinting from my chest threatening to run out of this hell hole.
my dreams are stolen and replaced with house fires, gunshots or balloons popping and cackling animals fornicating shouts among other mysterious confusions.
my faith in the goodness of myself and others has wavered at such a foundation level, well,
you should know.
 
and never forget.
 
though i know you can pretend to very well.

how love is August 3, 2008

^{He wrote–}

You can’t describe it. It’s like trying to explain how chocolate tastes to a dog (“Well, Lucky, you’re not supposed to eat chocolate but let me tell you, it’s like the best poop smell you could ever cram your nose onto mixed with a raw steak and a really gnarly bone. Or no, let me see, it’s like a really meaty bone dripping with fresh blood and bacon bits sprinkled on it, strapped to the back of a helpless cat, Or no, it’s like…aw, nevermind.”).

August 3, 2008

i needed to rise above the word fuck and fucker, i needed to not want to punch the face of all in my way, i needed to not be around pleasantries until i was certain i wouldn’t snap. or cry in a ball on the ground. as punk as that sounds, it isn’t cool. i really don’t like that tantrumic self image.

 

August 3, 2008

Staggering blurry sentences

Tossed like green salad

Coated with a dressing of blood and cum-mud

Hard to understand in my head but simply put

My heart knows awful things are happening

Traps trapping- snapping decisions bones and cords

A lump forms in my throat and I know.

This is not a happy ending unless the end is the happiness itself.

 

endless August 3, 2008

^{The smell of the washed pillow case smothers her. She rinsed it in Lavendar and rose because she has antiquated ideas. He left her two days ago and she was stunned most of that day. Then she began washing; walls, lamps, sheets and towels, drawers were freshly lined, the porch was swept. Every window was clear and the world was outside. It was hers as it always was, just now it was for her alone.}

^{the bed was empty except herself and the phone. Clean sheets on her bare skin made her believe he missed touching her. He would touch himself without her. She clutches the pillow as you would spoon a lover and almost cries but insists on getting to her dreams before the pain can. She ignores the repetitive chant in her head, ring- phone- ring. It is hard to fall asleep without the goodnight.}

She tosses over twenty times before looking directly into the phone as she had into his eyes that day. It is as responsive as he was and she begins to boil. She reaches over to the back of it and pulls the plug. Off. Dead. Unavailable. even if he wanted to, she is not answering him now. There is a certain disconnection.

Still, she takes the silenced receiver end and lies it on her head as if listening to him tell her good night. She snuggles in and finally falls asleep

.

 

checkstand July 31, 2008

there are hours of my workday when i am On Reg, meaning i work a checkstand. i like having a few hours to stand there but remaining active. at times it feels robotic and that is a welcome break from wandering and stocking. if i get dizzy i can hang onto the lip of the counter to steady myself.

i talk with people in short bursts. you learn something about a person by their shopping. a collection of items take on a feeling of essentials. a random trio of items for an animal, houseware or dressing are more the true esentials and i admire sticking to a list.  other essentials are more personal; candy, flowers and wine… you know. sweetness. icecream, chips and soda water are about comfort. i can see how healthy a person intends to be, how wealthy they feel, if they plan on making dinner, maybe lasagna, from scratch…

 carts billowing with products are intimidating and you know you’ll be chatting with them for a while as you scan then bag it all up. one such woman was, as i could tell by appearances and foods, busy, possibly single and wealthy enough. her appearance told me she was a christian (gold cross pendant)  and image conscious (coiffed and smelling of perfumes). i scan a bevy of frozen delights and ask how her day was going. it’s afterr five pm so it is safe to assume they are changing from business to casual with the shopping as the in between. 

she gave the standard and thoughtless, “fine”.  sometimes i let that go and talk about myself seeing as they are not to be bothered. but not her, i asked “really? just fine? let me ask again, what did you do today?”

 she paused to think and lit up. “i went to a foster home for seniors and did a dear friends nails, i’m a manicurist and donate my time once a month…”  she went on to share in glee what a great thing this was, to be doing for others, making them feel pampered and beautiful, putting them back together. she also went on about what this old woman had given her in spirit and story. she was amazing it sounds like and i understood. i know old ladies like this. as she spoke i got goosebumps for the joy she transmitted with the whole thing.  she chatted the whole grocery time and as she left she said thank you to me for helping her remember what a great day this has been. it has been more than fine.

drinks with evel knievel July 17, 2008

^{several years ago i was sitting in an old haunt in Spokane, Washington. I’d had one of those days off that I started drinking at happy hour and stayed in to see people. At about 9pm ish a red white and blue RV pulled up swallowing the street view i had been enjoying a smidge. It eclipsed everything, almost took all the light out of bar. The door opened and out stumbled a man i knew as the usual end of the bar guy, an old drunkard i sometimes talked to. “who’s place is that?” i asked. “that is evel knievel”. I want to go in there. “I;m sure he’ll let you in.“ my friend walked me in and there was this EK, nothing as i wanted to see, no super suit, barely upright in a styling roving planet, not evel knievel I knew. He was doitn hsoe little rascal commercials now. Inside was amazing, there were mirrors everywhere and a large etchign of him on a motorcycle. EK sat in a stately lazyboy and said hello. I said hello back. In real life I left shortly after that, drunk off this random event in a glorious Man Town on wheels, but I’d like to pretend he told the driver to move, and we drank together driving around the blocks of downtown Spokane.}

^{i was speechless.}

I have wanted a home like that ever since.

 

Mortified July 17, 2008

    The rule was;It must fit in the Trunk.

My offering to Mortified lacks the journals. I lost them through time. To fire, trash heaps, left behind and missed greatly. I barely have photos of past times. But I’ve always had this blue trunk of …stuff. I started it in high school, during the mid to late eighties. I have moved it across statelines and added many stickers along the way. recently I was reunited with it from storage. There it was. I was glad it was still around. I held back for a whole afternoon to go through it‘s content. it seems more slight than I remembered, or wanted to, even if it is jam packed.

Things I would show and tell-

The trunk itself.

One of my art class sketches. They are horribly eighties. Totally half assed. Drug induced. Tennagery.

A school dance picture. Maybe group or maybe the most hideous one of all time, I could really get Mortified.

Matchbook that says “Enjoy Life“ on one side and “eat out more often” on the other. Yeah, nasty.

the bud light keg cap or a paper beer label that’s been peeled clean and completely off it’s bottle ( which meant….).

Zine/ flyers by friends of mine

Cassette cover art and empty cases. music was a pretty big deal to me. sigh, The walkman. Personal savior.

The typewritten locker list from Pasco high with all the names of bands I thought were good, cool, or I should, like no matter if I never heard them. I highlighted some that I think were what I acquired, and more lines and stars without a key. The bands are completely new waver punk circa 1985.

The plastic bag filled with san Francisco stuff, not teenagery, from aardvarks on haight but contains funny stuff, I was still a kid in many ways.

A piece of a senior year boyfriend’s flannel.

A few yearbooks and journals are there, but those are only funny to me. Nothing really juicy. Except juicy bits from half of 1986 into 1987.

But most intriguing is the large mail envelopes marked with names, not years. The names of past girlfriends – and boyfriends- eras. it’s all I have kept of what’s left of them. I plan on keeping it as long as I can. Inside each pouch are trinkets of all kinds, then letters or notes. There was a flushing gushing joy when I received something in the mail. Sigh, again. Nostalgia.

I always loved to write, keep in touch, even if we were in the same room. I also have been a packrat, knowing I’d want to see these things again, even if it made no sense to keep them until I was in my late thirties.

There are many notes once passed around at school.

The long letters from a Hawaiian mormon plantation.

Girlfriends

Jael

Doodles.

Mine would have to be more show and tell rather than my journals. Those are gone daddy gone.

 

 

what i meant July 4, 2008

open up or so help me i’ll kick this fucking door down!

i prefer to think of it as ”better than it sounds”

ology July 4, 2008

what’s your blogology?

sermonious celebrity I can read.

A file of my creative attempts.