air(headed)for empty

I'm really not all that vapid. It is all the truth. Honesty shouldn't be forced or sugar coated. Hatred, true gritty and sick hatred, is a stranger to me. I wish you all the best, I hope you get all you deserve. Maybe you shouldn't smack the puddle with your paddle as much as you do. Do you hate me? You probably do. If so, delete me. I've said it before, I'm stating it now. In purple plainly. I don't hate you, never will. In fact, we probably could've been great friends. I know I've tried to not care about you and it hasn't worked, but obviously I must sicken you the same way I do everyone else. Just tell me bluntly. Just smack my face with it. "Just" by Radiohead is a good song. It reminds me of my daughter, but also of you. Also myself. Hell, maybe it applies to a little piece of everyone. Perhaps not, I know some people who wouldn't see it as so. It is definitely not stupid, though. If you don't want to know me, then don't read. Simple as that. You just do it to yourself. You do. I don't care if anyone reads this or doesn't read this. I don't care if anyone cares about all this. If it's here, hidden among the millions upon millions of binary gigabites of internet garbage, then Skylar won't be reading it. And that for me is enough. A paged and written journal isn't safe from her dowsing rod hands. And she reads well.

megrims

I have arrived at a point in my life where I realize that I cannot afford to take a bad view of myself all the time. I don't think that every human being comes to this sort of realization, as there are some who never think badly of themselves at all, or some who just never get to a point where they can see any good in themselves ever. All the people I went to school with have careers or something, or at least the ones I still associate with. And I have grown a habit of swallowing bitter concoctions of regret, megrims, apprehension...poultices of pain as well. All I've done in my life thus far is birth four kids and survive two miscarriages and nine years of an akimbo relationshit/marriage. I did graduate high school which is something my mother never did because of my impending birth. Had I not been the custody of the state of West Virginia for my high school years I probably wouldn't have. I'm not giving up, though, is really what I've decided. I have no idea what I might have to offer, but something is there I'm sure. I'm not my mother's or my father's child, in other words.
I generally feel very lonely. I've tried to not make this make me seem overly desperate, so I spend a good deal of effort trying not to get too involved with people. I'm constantly worried I'll say the wrong thing, or that people really don't like me even though they act like they do. Half the time I feel like people don't, the other half I'm chastising myself for being foolish. But feeling like a hated creature does nothing for my self-esteem, and my view of myself does nothing but feed that feeling of feeling like a hated creature. To take a clinically detached view of these feelings is tantamount to being sucker punched repeatedly all over my body. And brings me to believe that I am nuts. But having friends who really care nothing about my fears, dreams, or bowel movements is disheartening. I have a friend I speak with daily. I hear her problems, her fears, her pains (heart and otherwise), her dreams, and yes, about her toilet time as well. She hears nothing of mine. If there's a lull in conversation, and I start to speak about how my day went she suddenly has to get off the phone.
I feel true friend reads you, they listen, and they offer a clearer voice in all the chaotic background noise. They FOLLOW. When the path is dark they paint it glow-in-the-dark, or help you paint it anyway, and then you can find your way back after whatever beast has been vanquished. When they need it, you FOLLOW, and help them back. I don't think I'm wrong in my assumptions. In these days things don't mean that much to anyone anymore. But they do to me. So I guess that's why it bothers me so much. I don't know how to quit letting it bother me so much when I feel idiotic to do so. I've tried to be completely nonchalant, and it doesn't suit me. I've tried to revel in ennui, but those playgrounds are too quicksandy. I know that my life isn't of much importance to anyone. I know that the exploits of infant gymnasts are much more amusing, or the whining wheedles of prostitutes so much more shiny. Guess I'll FOLLOW, even though when I need it I don't have a wingman. So delete me if you want. My words, whatever I've given you. I understand that that is the way you like it since you don't like me so much. Why read or keep any of it when it is really of no consequence to you? When it's gone I'll understand.

third prize goes to...

I HATE YOU
but love you all the same.

unutterable

you believe you are not
superficial
but you are mired in it.
yes...the juvenile,
but not so chaste...
they prey there
for the timorous,
the simply doltish,
the tartly piquant,
the covertly amorous...
those sweaty, palsied
wielders
of axes and other dandy
artistic engines.
should all this be despised
or pitied?
you have no idea just how
many years (yes EONS!)
you have trod
through corridors
in my aching mind.
you have ambled slow
and lazily through
meadows there.
contrived stairways
to scale star-crowned
mountains.
you are armed
but your weapon is slung
across your back,
easing for employment.
and i...i have
become ensnared in
all this circumlocution.
anchoresque bonds which
burn away and reform
without end.
and the resulting
plethoric embers
cannot be cudgeled
to ashes.
perhaps a lack
of effort?
maybe one day
i will fashion
an enchanting inferno.
all the right words
won't always be known,
but the features playing
in those flames will
be phenomenal...
such entertaining undertakings.

Sam McGee

a matter of convenience only;
keys lost or bent,
tumblers not engaged.
no twisting to define
that rusty mechanism.
the flood will pound it
to pieces.
it cannot be dammed
or tamed, or diverted.
thriving in that tumult
is a creature of nightmare.
love? it is called love?
love then is no angel.
hands of a cherub, perhaps,
but fanged reptilian face,
hatchet eyes to
decapitate reason,
all shiny and flat
with madness simpering.
and fingers ceaselessly
picking apart the seams.

the fish market

fish eyes blind
surveying bloody cobbles
blood of fish
of whipping boys
of those never
given a chance
corners of gypsy
sirens, soot blackened
lids and lashes
flashes of lace
under skirts
vaginas already
plowed, and
sown with seed
seed uprooted
wiry abortions spilling
fishy messes trod
under heels of
oh well. whoops!
and, so what?
quickening hearts
stopped in midbeat
eyes as white blind
as those of the fish.

For about the first three months of each of the pregnancies of my younger two children, I prayed for miscarriages. Frankly I feel this makes me no better than the people who get abortions willingly. I'm not talking about the ladies forced into them, all in the name of love of course, by significant others who wield love like a crushing hand. Or for people raped. There are some Catholic hospitals where nuns will give the Morning After pill to rape victims. The Vatican says that that practice should be stopped. I guess if I were a good little Catholic I would unwaveringly swallow that edict and love that nasty taste. Seems I'm not a very good Catholic. I also realize that there can sometimes be extenuating circumstances where a woman feels that an abortion is the only option. Sometimes they are just too ignorant to ask the right people for answers. Ignorance can often be forgivable state of mind. No. This is my anger for the kids, yes fucking kids, who know nothing of real life. They are given everything. Mommy and Daddy will provide all. You know, the car, the sexy underwear, the plastic surgery, the fuel so that their little hunnies can travel from town to town following screaming performers, all for that all-American roll in the hay. Fucking idiots. Then in the aftermath any and all problems are taken care of. Oh dear! A problem? Ma and Pa will take care of that. When it's done, they pat manicured hands, reveal that in the interim they bought their little darling a new thong, a tank full of gas. After all, wouldn't want to miss that show next weekend. That is real life, according to them. They are handed everything, and then complain at the hardness of it all.
I had some very promiscuous foster sisters from time to time. One was that way because she was poor and didn't know any better. One of the girls had come home from school with her little brothers to discover that their mother had put a gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger. Then she had crawled under the only bed they had to die. Their apartment consisted of a single room. Only one. So the smear of blood that led under the bed was noticed immediately. I guess their mother felt she had nothing to hide any longer. Anyway, the three kids were split up, and she rarely got to see either of her brothers. This girl was driven by a need for acceptance, and shelter, the coldness of being in the system, the lack of interaction with her brothers and therefore a way to hold onto her past, as poor as it had been, and when you are a teenager if you don't screw around with a boy he's liable to leave you just like your mother did. Right? Just not quite in the same fashion. I loved her, and pity moved me to cover for her more than I should have. But I was seventeen, so much older than her fourteen years (haha), and hugely pregnant with Sean. I myself had only slept with one person, in fact I still have only slept with one person. I didn't understand the need to sleep with just anyone willing enough, I hardly understand it now.
But anyway...all those arrogant, self-absorbed, slutty, obnoxious, spoiled bastards and bitches. This one's for you. That bloody smear leading under the bed is something that you know nothing about. And for those who never had a chance, or felt they didn't, this is for you as well. But mostly...it's for that deplorable part of myself. I am glad my prayers for miscarriages went unanswered back then. I would be missing out on two of the best experiences of my life.
Curiouser and Curiouser, life goes on, with all the stumbles, all the dirty marketplaces, all the questions waiting for answers, all the discarded socks and shoes to trip over in the night, and all those streams full of water coursing toward a fuller sea. Is there a further edge of that sea? A chasm of dark nothing, and a drop so long as to never have an end? A sign there reading, "Here there be beasts", in the Olde Tongue? I dunno. I do know that there are plenty of beasts not aborted. And plenty of beasts who abort responsibility. With skin of man, and two legs to walk the earth and soil it. And yet, life goes on. And for the most part is definitely much more than worth it.

smeared expunge

circumvoluting philosopher
unyielding axis for anchor
dizzying, satisfying, mercurial,
an emotional thermometer.
ambition fever, dreaming awake
snake down for checkmate
wooed drooling when limping
by death shovelling fate.
the humpted, and dumpted
those grinning, buggy sluts
the in and out of money
vapid word orgasms abrupt.
the ailing of vocabulary
odium scribed strong?
delete what isn't wanted;
t'was realized all along.

fook off

it is a hated thing
and convincingly misguided.
justice...justice never was
a bird
with keen eyes and
unwavering talons.
its form a bat instead
leathered wings with thumbs,
frankly blind?
seeking truth with echolocation?
real truth, muddy
twiggy idioms.
so much kindling,
for antsy orgies to form
fires fit to fuck by.
hoarde it.
drape it on the shoulders
of the cowering
solitary child.
one someday rising to contest
once laughter is forged
for ammunition.

don't think twice, it's all gravy

don't humor me solely
for the sake of diplomacy
i never asked for any pretenses
i'd rather have concrete
when honesty is obsolete
mucked in fucked up inferences
push n pull, you shammed it
thoughts uncharted planets
don't lie, they're not inhabitable
your games have no bearing
your insolence tritely wearing
your very essence unpalatable
stop birthing stony fruit
all your theories unduly moot
your only tune a one-hit-wonder
you believe you are arcane?
with your lisping, off-key refrain?
no, i'll heed those of which i'm fonder
i've found i'm stronger than my past
even in darkness remarkably vast
i'm no penny candy easily bought
i will no longer be a hindrance
some loony, grinning annoyance
i'll be more than just an afterthought.

novocaine

this confessional smells feral,
stale sweat, stuttering lamentations.
ah, i see you knelt here once
crying misused thought and situations.
SCHOLAR's not the name of that cap
on the cesspool you call head.
damn whiny, loathsome, deluded tot
it screams IDIOT instead.
i'll no longer caress your lies,
your pleading whimpers i'll ignore.
to me you are simply a nonentity;
erased, not there anymore.

patchoulli

I rarely untie my shoes and retie them. As a result I run around and around and around slipshod, wondering all the while why I get blisters on my heels. A saner person would infer that the way to avoid the blisters is to untie and retie, leaving no room for misunderstanding. Unfortunately, I sometimes have the same problem with words that escape from my mouth or through my fingers. I'm sorely tempted to break my fingers, or diaper pin my lips together.
Diaper pins are these miraculous little contraptions. They clasp together the corners of shit containers with an adamantine temperament. Rarely volatile with closure they are. They help keep the piss from hitting the floor, and hold crap in by default.
In all honesty, I am shy. I am afraid to speak much around people unknown to me. I have a serious fault being afraid to be me at times. On the other hand, the people I do feel I know well get my best, my worst...all that's equidistant as well. That's where the diaper-pinned lips would come in handiest. Because sometimes, I say what I shouldn't.
I don't know what it is about me, but I find it hard to feel one thing at a time. And that characteristic in itself results in a yearning for a definitive way to better express myself, which result in frustration, and that results in...yeah ~white noise~ ~white noise~ ~white noise~
That is not completely accurate since tons of words are in that white noise, but it is very much like it. I'm lacking a more adequate expression at the moment. I could say it's like laughing and shooting boogers out of one's nose at the same time. Or enjoying a roller coaster only to find bepissed pants clinging to one's crotch when the ride is over.
joyful/harmlessly disgusting---exhilarating/embarrassingly childish
BUT EVEN THAT doesn't quite skin the kill.
I'm glad I used cloth diapers. I know there are diaper pins around if I should feel the need to use them.

fulminate

I was a vessel sometimes. Tending individuals within until they became too comprehensive. Bloody fodder not food enough for cravings. Even the pulsing primordial sea had languished into tepidness. It was in this way that such contractions as can't, haven't, shouldn't, and isn't bore new hearts to a strange beacon. Tremble, hope. believe that when rabid moth wings beat false rhythms the flame won't stumble. Darkling is too steep, and there surely isn't enough bread to stuff that mouth into silence. So let it cower, because the light converts profanity into euphemisms. Those are softer, mostly meaningless.
Leave the hearts free to crash into sylvan trees or climb them. Also easy for them to cartwheel through barren lands, fueled as they are with the passion of a million stars. And, for entertainment solely(soul-ly?), they point questions like fingers and ignite mountains and savannahs alike. They aren't choosy in that sense. Later when the y run giggling through the ashy terrain they find life there, and not the death, which is oftentimes expected. Who, is his or her right-as-can-be mind, would not want to be a spectator, a coach, a secret-catcher for such as came before.
And me? This nothing? I? Well, all that is my favorite sitcom of course. The funnest game to teach or play. The most tickling whispers ever. I'm just not sure if I help stoke the fire, or bellow it into exhaustion. Or if I'm supposed to be its lantern glass. I mean, do I volcano? Convey? Play poker behind enemy lines? Intone? Or subtly excoriate? In essence, nothing more than shavings rotting on some unlevel floor. Sometimes that does seem to be the correct answer. But this vessel was not kilned, I'm certain, to grow nothing more than rampant autophobia and festering words. There's more.

11:13

Tolkien...yuuuuuuum

step on a crack...

I'm not entirely certain when the title of "Mother" began to mean something less than home to me. Was it the yearning for it in nights spent in child shelters that it became something else entirely? As one memory faded another materialized. Maybe it was the nights sleeping under bridges, or unkempt houses, days dimmed by cheap wine? The one or two nights that were blacked out altogether. The running, the showers in homeless shelters, being arrested for being a runaway ward of the state? No, it cannot be pinpointed. In those days a hatred for my mother roiled inside me. Home meant nothing, for I didn't have one, but even underneath all the bitterness and cynicism I knew that days of dazed drunkeness and nights huddled on riverbanks or in the ghetto apartments of friends wasn't any kind of life. I didn't want to have a past of numbered ochre shapes, like vomit dried after drinking too much. I didn't want the nights of gunshots in the hallway, alternating between praying a bullet wouldn't chew through paper thin walls to embrace my heart into stillness, or praying that one would. See, that was one reason I clung to Jesse insistently. Looking back, I have nearly concluded with certainty that it was almost a love of convenience, rather than one of truth. I feel dirty expressing this. I did love Jesse, wholeheartedly at some points in my life. But I was one destitute stray looking for any love to warm me. And I was a convenient hole to fuck when he couldn't find one elsewhere. I'm not IN love with Jesse now, nor have been for a very long time, but I wish him all the best. The realization that Jesse was not the author of my being was a thorn that was deep, and slowly and excruciatingly removed. But I did it. There is also the matter of the four-limbed four creatures created during the tumult. But he has stated that he doesn't see them as "his". Rather they are just mine. That's fine, I'll claim them gladly. And it's his loss. I want my kids to always see home in me, to hear it in the word. Mother is a mantle I've donned for ten years now. I've grown up with my kids, in a sense. I'm not finished, and I don't think that some parts of me ever will be. That's just fine, as well. The catalyst, the chemical change denying me from beginning a groovy dirt nap at sixteen was a phone call to my mother from a place called Patchwork. Patchwork had put up with me for about three days at the time. It was a place that helped runaway teens to save them from dying on the streets, and it was a place that promoted sobriety. So I wasn't drunk. In fact, I had helped with the grocery shopping for the place earlier in the day, and had done my laundry. So I went to the phone and called my mother. At the time she had no idea where I was. Only that I had made an exit from Davis Child Shelter, and had been MIA for several weeks. I told her that I worked in the office of the Medical Examiner, and that I thought the body of her daughter had been found, and would she please come in to try to identify? She said, "Oh my, God." The anguish in her voice was surprising. She had given me up, but maybe had not given up on me? She was crying when I told her the truth. Then she was pissed and told me she'd backhand me the next time she saw me. And she did, the next time she saw me. But ANYWAYS, mother began to mean something to me again. Not home, no, but something tinged with love. And the truth of my matter is that I tried to kill the love that I had for my mother. It didn't suffocate, regardless of all the debris I piled on top, all the storms I called down to spin it. It just stayed, and stayed, and stayed. But it was never again that lamp in the window of home. I, myself, hope never to lose that meaning.

gimme your poor, your huddled, your rotten old poetry

"If you love me, you'll do it." I hate that. Could there possibly be a more manipulative phrase in all of creation? That phrase is some trusted adult touching you as you sleep. And when you wake with a gasp they chuckle and slink out the door. That phrase is someone's spouse asking that they fuck someone else, just so some voyeuristic climax can ensue. That phrase is the spoiled brat who asks for another car, a kegger at graduation, the veruca, veruca, veruca salts. Not healthy for human consumption.
In my experience, as short, ignorant, and not so bad as some as it may be, that string of beads has been a choker, not a necklace. It is not a gift I would give to anyone that I truly loved. I wouldn't yank that leash to make someone else do something undesirous.
I don't know why I think the way I do. I don't why I write all day long. In my head, on paper, letter hopping on a keyboard. It is my release. I can't afford heroin. I have no sounding board or wailing wall besides this. This. If it is unread, that's fine. This.
Am I just completely fucked up? Or did I find a grotto ? Or is there some beast on my shoulder whispering, "If you love me, you'll do it"? Divisible, invisible. The beastly part of me? Sheesh, I don't care anymore.

And poetry. What is it? I feel it should be as always an exhalation of the writer. The hot breath on a cold pane. Unclear, narrative, a window looking in. Finding beauty in death, a cloud, aching hearts, war, the maggots in a heaping pile of shit, handprints on the wall, the sticky on the floor. Anything. And anything doesn't always rhyme. Is the writer overly concerned with whether or not a reader will extricate exactly the same zing from the experience? Not usually. It's like, "You see that red there and there?" "Well that looks more orange to me." "No, you're both wrong! It's maroon." Yeah, and that's just fine. That is my take anyway. And since I'm exhausted it has been an e-x-e-x-e-x kinda day. I'm such a geek.