| | Current Music: | upwards over the mountain | iron & wine | | Security: | | | Time: | 12:22 am |
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| I am reticent
asocial
reclusive.
I am avoiding.
I am refusing to admit that I am living solely in my mind.
I am denying the reality.
I am not mindful.
I am not present.
I am not capable of emotion.
I will reject & escape & withhold from these habits of life.
[See, I am above this;
I am not real;
I do not breathe or eat or sleep or care or touch;
I am cold. I am cold.] | telegraphs went out of style:6 fought the whistle :or: bring me home   |
| If it seems like I've replaced you with someone else, well, I haven't. I haven't replaced you with anyone, really. I just spend more time in the art room, where I don't have to explain myself, or why I'm printing in bright fuschia, or why I layered two negatives over each other, or why I can't quite get the taste of smoke out of my mouth.
I don't have to talk.
And it's a nice change. And I'm still always there if you need to talk to me. You just might have to look a little bit harder. And I still love you equally, I'm just a little quieter about it.
There aren't really enough words, right words, to say what I meant to say, to say what I can't articulate, to say why. So I'm choosing red lights and grains of silver, ink rollers and linoleum blocks. Maybe I'll achieve that perfect non-verbal communication that comes from the right mixture of light and focus, or colour and lines.
Please... don't be upset with me. I've offended some of you, or one of you [if these people read this anymore], and I never intended to. | | telegraphs went out of style:6 fought the whistle :or: bring me home |
| | Current Music: | coming undone | | Security: | | | Time: | 12:15 pm |
|
| no no, you're mistaken. i
want
this.
(don't be courteous
shut your mouth
[nobody loves you]
bite your tongue
choke back the synonyms and rhythms.)
and moreover
never turn your back to the window. | | |
| | Current Music: | trapeze swinger | | Security: | | | Time: | 11:16 pm |
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| Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear.
Light up, light up... This will be... alright.
Back in school, with no incentive to try normality. I'll just go straight back to coffee and four-hour nights. I'll be exhausted and worn-out. I won't eat... I'll lose concentration at the drop of a pin. I'll down ibuprofin, skip the placebo week of my BC. I'll spend free periods talking to my english teacher about Nietchze, about the role of the woman in Ancient Greek society/ mythology, about communication, about the ripeness of mangoes and about the age of Romanticism. I'll try to hide my fingers. I'll get lost. I'll fight with the people I love. I'll break down sobbing for no good reason. I'll yell if you're nice to me. I'll stop talking for random periods of time. I'll be sarcastic with you. I'll pick fights with strangers.
I will not be pretty. I will not be dangerous, or lovely, or artistic, or quiet, or aesthetically inclined. I will not speak when spoken to. I will not... Shut your mouth, girl. Keep your goddamn bedroom eyes out of my head. Don't dance when you walk. And for fuck's sake, girl, don't smoke that way in front of them. | | |
| | Current Music: | delicate | damien rice | | Security: | | | Time: | 11:20 am |
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| For the love of god, why are you jealous of me?
Hell, I don't know where I stand with you anymore. I don't like not knowing who you're writing about anymore, more than I used to. I wonder if this person you hate but love, are jealous of but want to see, have found things out about but still envy... I wonder if this person is me. And I don't want to know this.
I don't want to think that I'll be constantly on guard with you now, because I know that it is me you were talking about, in all of those messages "just about people in general, no one in particular" because that was bullshit for the most part. Can you tell I'm irritated?
Change, fine. I'm all for change. We need it. And it's been good for you. I know that.
Some of it, though... It comes at a cost.
[I never knew this, no. And you didn't need to tell me, amor, because I could have been blindly oblivious to all of this. It never would have bothered me. I can't say for sure, though, whether I prefer knowing or not knowing. But you seemed so shocked when I had no idea about any of this. You thought I had at least a clue. And maybe something would have keyed me in, but I was too distressed to realize it. And maybe something would have clicked later... but I simply can't understand the
why
of it. Why on Earth would anyone be jealous of me? If I could understand that, then this would be easier to stomach, I think.
Or maybe I have this all wrong. I never know with...] | | telegraphs went out of style:3 fought the whistle :or: bring me home |
| wired wired wired
strung fine and high;
and all of the thoughts within
rub your fingers together and feel the smoke
jump like caged crickets
because it doesn't stop with hello.
[it's like an addiction i need to quit. but one you can never quit until you die. the more i think about this, the less rationality i bring to it. replacing one addiction with another hasn't worked in the past, though i'm going to try it again. maybe. maybe. i can't explain this, i won't explain this, don't confront me, i'll tell you if you ask, i'll tell you if i can pull out the words, i'll tell you if you make me, i won't explain this unless you make me, don't make me.]
tonight:
"entrancing, beautiful, mysterious."
"i'm not entrancing, or beautiful, or mysterious. you're not going to get anywhere with anything but mysterious, and that because i never say what i mean, i am always cryptic."
"you're the most beautiful girl i've ever see. i can't keep my eyes off of you."
"you're blinded by love. you have no perspective."
"other people share my perspective."
"you're wrong. and next time... next time i tell you something that hard to pull out of my mouth, you can't roll your eyes and walk away. you're pulling strings in my chest again. they feel frayed. and i can't stand for you to walk away when i tell you something that... hard. it hurts too much. it's a dismissal. it's a rejection. please. please."
"alright. i'll stop being a bad boyfriend."
"leave it be. you aren't."
"i must be, if i roll my eyes and walk away whenever something bad comes up."
"no. leave it be." | | telegraphs went out of style:bring me home |
| | Current Music: | These Things- She Wants Revenge | | Security: | | | Time: | 01:54 am |
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| It's been a bit of a mixed metamorphosis. Butterfly wings tied with nettles, fairy tale wars with Alice in my mind. She ate the rabbit, and I know she couldn't help it. I just wonder
Who's going to be next?
but it's never too quiet for next.
Don't look. Don't look. It's that. It's what. I don't want you to see.
It's been a bit of a mixed metamorphosis. Solitaire played with minutes and hours, traded for the time of day from a stranger. It hasn't been a metamorphosis. It's been complete. It hasn't happened. It's not through yet.
It's not through yet.
If you don't like cryptic, why bother
[telling me?]
[asking for clarification?]
[even reading this?]
[trying to detangle?] ?
I already know. | | telegraphs went out of style:2 fought the whistle :or: bring me home |
| | Current Music: | passing afternoon | | Security: | | | Time: | 10:28 pm |
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| the small measurement of faith that i had to go by was the typewriter in the office. but yesterday when i needed to use my fingers and feel the shape of the words... my father must have taken it with him when he left; was evicted; moved on; vanished; stuck like sour milk and damp cloths.
it's not there anymore. there's this new version which is boxed, and the keys go down as smoothly as a normal computer keyboard. either my memory went, or he took it, or my mother couldn't stand the sight of it anymore and tossed it. i'm hunting. yes, i have my computer, but some evenings i want to sit in the light of my lanterns and not have the words backlit. i miss those noises. i miss that drum salute.
i don't know what else to say. | | telegraphs went out of style:9 fought the whistle :or: bring me home |
| | Tags: | list, my father | | Current Music: | jazz 'round midnight album | | Security: | | | Time: | 09:58 am | | Current Mood: |  quiet |
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| This is what my father thought about me as a seven year old: [Copied verbatim off a list.]
egocentric
kind is fading
mom is appearing*
too silent
too witholding
too distant
no respect
no to everything
(no time for adults this year)
loud
not listen
disrespectful
no dancing
I'm really tired of being the meanie on the side there(?) cost in space.**
says food is good
starts with the mystery novel 1st afternoon
cried at math, I cut it out
wanted to play on 1 time after practice***
goes on own to "practice" & can't, insistes on autonomy & blows it everytime with whatever distraction there is
[wants to be the best & responds to firm limits & expectations once her attention is gotten.]
disrespectful attitude
won't "work hard"
handwriting is atrocious
room a mess though it started out fine
left things everywhere, forgot them.
goint to bathroom like a crisis
table manners- yet aware of 7 yr. old's bad ones
no sense innate of completing or finishing
no sense of order or structure
* The list about my mother is shorter, and possibly harsher:
egocentric
self reliant
unappreciative
deceitful
witholding silence
complains at world
denegrates the world
whines
** His handwriting is dreadful;I consistently have a hard time reading it, even now.
*** "practice" refers to the bagpipes.
I found this list in the outbuilding which used to be his office, which we are now cleaning out. He didn't take everything with him, and this was in a box of his papers.
Most of the people who know me well know that my father and I stopped getting along around the time of seventh grade. I didn't speak to him for four years. I started blaming him for my depression during the third year of it. I started talking to him again during my sophomore year, and things were looking like they were getting better between us. He had married a lovely, lovely woman named Gail, who I love to pieces. [This poses the question: But why on earth did she marry him?] Things have happened recently, though, that made me remember all that I hated about him and why he put me through such hell. But when I was seven...
I was a daddy's girl. I went everywhere with him. He took me with him to Lynne, Rockingham, Goffstown, everywhere he worked away from home. I visited with his friends, I stayed with them. I adored him. We rode around in his Jeep, we explored the Dartmouth campus, we went to the Evans Express Marts at six in the morning and had breakfast before going to my bagpipe lesson, or Greek lesson, or Russian, Latin, skating, horse-back riding, pottery... the list really is that long and longer. I was a daddy's girl. I loved him.
This list would have broken my heart if I hadn't already dealt with what my father is to me. He will always be my father, I know that. And I know there is more of him in me than I'd like. He's insane, and I do mean that seriously. And I'm always watching myself for signs of him that may spring Athena-like out of my fingers or lips or skull. I am wary of myself, sometimes. I don't hate this man. But I only love him in this resigned, unwilling, blood-bond sort of way.
I've met men who would have loved to have me as a daughter. Who wouldn't have written that I was "egocentric", at the age of seven. Who told me that anytime I needed a place to crash, I should call, and they'd drive the four or five hours down to Enfield to get me. Who've told me that I shouldn't have ended up with my father as, well, my father. [That is another story.] Men who I have trusted more than my father. And I don't trust men.
My English teacher told me this, the last day of school: "I have the feeling you've been let down a lot by men in your life."
These demons will take a long time to subside, this time. | | telegraphs went out of style:5 fought the whistle :or: bring me home |
| & now i am standing & now i am falling
alright. okay. alright. okay.
the moon is still watching us
"is this alright? i can't confine this to the restraints of your copper bracelet. there is too much light. the moths will lose their way."
don't forget the clouds, love.
"no no really. i swear. when did you stop smelling like leather? no no really i'm too self-conscious
turn off the lights close out the moon i don't want the stars to see me
don't look.
don't look."
darling, godsend, i started eating again. and it's just made things worse and worse i've been gradually slipping back into hating myself a little for it and i know it won't ever be completely gone it's one of those things that stays in the back of your head and no matter how hard you try and try to forget
it lingers. don't look at me that way! you... oh you lovely hypocrite.
my hands are little tan spiders cutting strawberries redder than blood. sun-blood-red.
[my hands are little tan spiders trying to compress my sides into a black hole.] sometimes they skitter over a page and leave little black trails and i can't quite understand because i've gone somewhere else and i wonder if they're bleeding if they're trying to tell me something if i should pay attention but not now
later.
alright. okay. alright. okay. i will slip back into what i was before when i painted my eyes black and told you about the monarchy and hawaii and how it all fell apart because of american imperialism. you oh you i haven't seen you & this is going to be fucked up for all of us when we return to the monster being gutted. i'll
spend time elsewhere and not remind you of What Might Have Been
and maybe he will too and it won't hurt as much
because you don't deserve this pain that will come.
"and what happened to the moon? i thought i closed the blinds, really i did. at least i pulled the clouds shut over my eyes."
"she won't leave. those are all moons hanging electrified all fifty of them they have their own tides."
"why?"
oh my darling. i am the vines and not the bricks. when asked why i will tell you it is because i haven't been quiet enough
& i haven't dreamt enough
& i can't sleep
& you are my echoes.
[where are the cicadas? what happened to the fog?] | | telegraphs went out of style:3 fought the whistle :or: bring me home |
| | Current Music: | the moon | | Security: | | | Time: | 11:42 pm |
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| señorita sombra, this is to you.
the ark is waiting:
i would build mine from dusk
spiderwebs
ink
& smoke.
señorita sombra:
the thing you forgot about an ark
is that
it only needs to work
until the rain and floods subside.
you don't need it to float forever.
because someday...
someday you'll land.
until then, if it starts to list in the water...
point your feet towards my house
and i'll meet you halfway.
[i meant to tell you this today.]
-musa | | telegraphs went out of style:3 fought the whistle :or: bring me home |
| | Current Music: | the moon | | Current Location: | hanover | | Security: | | | Time: | 02:11 pm |
|
| don't do this to me
why admit you threw away love? why admit that it was because you couldn't set aside your jealousies and hates and pettypettypetty.... damn you. damn you.
get out of my head. get out of my fingers. get out. you had your chance and you do not belong here anymore. calliope belongs here. a cowboy in a southern drawl belongs here. smoke belongs between these fingers and blood belongs on these fingertips. face painting me with my own tears... do you remember? i'll paint myself.
that was part of what you hated. you wanted me beautiful. but you didn't want me beautiful anywhere outside of your sight. my beauty was for nobody else. my skin was for nobody else. my eyes, my ears, my mouth... my hair. they were all yours. no-one else was supposed to see me.
and they did. you couldn't see my side of that. if a man alone in a bar draws me a rose because he didn't have one to give me, and leaves it on my table when i dance... that strikes something into me.
but to you... it was proof, or sorts, or something else, that i would leave you. or had kissed him, touched him, this other person who you created in your head, most times. when there wasn't a man with a drawn rose [who i never spoke to], there was some phantasm in your mind.
and i don't mean this to be cruel. and i don't mean this to be harsh. porqué, señor, no te odio.
but please, señor, get out of my head. | | telegraphs went out of style:5 fought the whistle :or: bring me home |
| i am a bit of electricity beneath my skin. [too much of me.] too real too real too real and never
ever
real enough. [i am not enough of a woman for you, and for you, not enough of a girl.]
i still haven't slept & you haven't convinced me of anything new & yes. it is still raining.
i want to be able to tell someone about those little wisps of smoke at two am and not sleeping and tilting my arm in the predawn light and being shocked. there are still rivers in that silt. there are more rivers in that silt than i have remembered. [trace those pathways.]
it is time for me to go, and i know that. and she can't accept it. and
i
cannot
leave.
even when it burns in my feet and spine and outer ears. i trace my fingertips along all of those locks...
[please. please. please.]
i think this is for you...
radio silence
or static & salt
play me like your guitar, boy
or as you will.
slide off course:
[of smokeless rings]
& no. i don't sleep in the summer. | | telegraphs went out of style:2 fought the whistle :or: bring me home |
| i feel like a disappearance.
men still tell me i am beautiful. [i let the pretty girls cheat, says the vendor at a fair booth.] [& always the eyes. you have beautiful legs.]
women still look at me like a windowpane. [this is pulling me down like lead weighting half-cracked crystal.]
i am not. i am not.
no, this is not a litany. no, this is not denial.
but i am not that person.
i am the woman who ghosts used book sales. who misses her hips and ribs and spine. [once i told you to remove my spine and string it on fishing line. and you would not. and you could not.] i am not real enough to hold that. i am not real enough to bear that up. i am alright in the spaces between the words and margins. don't put me elsewhere.
you do not exist to me anymore. this is becoming easier. because you are not the boy i fell madly, completely, in love with. and i am not that girl. i am not a girl anymore. & perhaps that was part of the problem. oh janus... oh janus. sometimes i run my fingers across my waist & i remember yours. sometimes i catch a glimpse of you in my room. but i do not smell you anymore, & your name is not enough to pitch me downwards. i clench my hands on the wheel and wish for freedom. but that is all. you & i both know this would have been an incredible summer. but that is something you gave up.
do you still love him anymore?
i don't know. i suppose that means... no.
this is the summer i wish most for a camera. document my fascination with the cirrus wisps that turn cumulous... merry-go-rounds & wide-eyed babies... sunsets redder than sailor's delight... all of the holes i've ever left.
perhaps i will drop off the radar for a while. it will be easy. i have a broken voice, tape player, cup of pens, scribbled lines random limning pages, the books this ghost has collected.
ariadne lives in a corner of my spine. she's telling me all of the things i could never have spoken: i want to paint you redder than sin. i want to take your phrases and bury them under alveoli and aureoles. i want. do not leave me to the cool still water and saddened fish eyes. i will surpass all of your dried roses.
[don't. just... don't. i will disappear if i wish. don't try to keep me. please. please.] | | telegraphs went out of style:10 fought the whistle :or: bring me home |
| Lithos:
Even to an outsider, it seems as if you've done everything you possibly could to hurt me. It was just one thing after another... And now you tell me that you want to be friends, and how you tell me that as if I should just brush off the blame you placed on me, heavy as your name. I infuriated you because I wouldn't wear certain things around you [because then you seethed with jealousy because other boys would see me in it as well] and I wouldn't do certain things around you [because you were never around, or when I did, you ridiculed me] and I would do all of those things with other people [because they didn't seethe with jealousy or ridicule me].
You'll take some of the blame for it now, yes, but in that way that tells me you don't really believe it. And yes, it is too late for that. Because you already placed this blame on me, and I've already born it, and it is heavy as your name. You can't take it back with a simple phrase.
And, Lithos, that jealousy I felt around, as you put it, "certain people"? No, that was one person, who you currently are in the process of trying to date. You tried to teach me to sublimate my instincts, and listen to you alone, but see... I was right. And I'm not haughty about it, I am not flaunting that. It is a simple fact: I was right. And now I will remember to listen to myself.
And now, an excerpt: You infuriated me. The things you did... the way that you wouldn't say certain things around me, you wouldn't wear certain things around me, you wouldn't do certain things with me. But you'd do them with other people. I would have loved to jump in the river with you. I would have loved it. But that never happened. You'd jump in the river in your underwear with god knows who, you'd wear swimsuits[yes, I would indeed wear swimsuits... I'm not a fan of skinny-dipping with other people...] and have a shit load of fun with everyone but me... I know it is stupid, but it really got to me. I'm not blaming this entire thing on you, by the way. It is my fault, too. More so my fault, probably. I know I'm stubborn, set in my ways, I know that I get something into my head and it's damn near impossible to get it out. I know I drove you crazy, that jealousy you felt towards certain people? I felt that almost every day. I usually felt like you were cheating on me, or like I was losing you, even when I knew you weren't or that I wasn't... It doesn't make much sense, but there you go. I fucked up, yes. I fucked up a lot. And I still am fucking up. I shouldn't be cold towards you. I shouldn't make it this way. I shouldn't make this awkward. But I am. And that is stupid of me. Really fucking stupid of me. *sighs* I'm sorry. I'm going to miss you... I wish we could be friends. I really do. Maybe I'll see you around. I hope I will.
Lithos, you've got things stuck in your head about me that aren't true, and never were. I am not the person you think, or thought, I am. I would be happy being a creature of no substance: Smoke me into existence, smell those roses and I know I will spring into your head, fully formed as Athena. I am in gasoline, and paint, and white christmas lights, and coffee, and jazz. I am in the colour blue. You will always find me there. But still, I would prefer that I not exist in a quite tangible way. And you remember me as a person who "messed around with a bunch of guys last summer" and "infuriated you". And I am not that person.
I will never send you this letter. I will never tell you how you mined a cavern inside of me and brought the diamonds into your heart, and won't let me have them back. I will never tell you how awful it was to feel the same way after this Solstice Festival as the last one, and for the same person. You. I will never tell you how hard it was to not cry on Alison. I will never tell you how I thought my atoms would simply stop holding together.
Because that would be giving in. Because I think you did do some of this to get back at me, and to hurt me. And I know... I know I never hurt you as much as this has me.
So, Lithos, don't ask me for this. I miss you. But I can't trust you anymore. I can't love you anymore the way I used to. Because in the absence of love, hate is the next emotion to take hold. I can't hate you, but it would be easier. Because I remember all of the good things, as well as the bad. And yes. That does make it worse. Because I remember all of the good things about you, as well as the bad... And so I cannot hate you. And I cannot hate what we had. And you know... I'm sorry too. Because this could have been easy: Split, simple and part ways. And you've done things that won't let that happen.
You've left me with a hole, and more bad things than you know. But this is the legacy of iron river, see. And I am the blower's daughter, see.
Lithos, don't tell me. I will always belong to Autumn.
Goodbye. | | telegraphs went out of style:4 fought the whistle :or: bring me home |
| I keep thinking that things can't get worse. And then they do. This... I thought my atoms would pull apart. I didn't think I could physically stay together.
He... I can't say this. My mind is shutting that off. It happened to someone else. It happened to someone else. It happened to someone else. It happened to someone else. It happened to someone else. It happened to someone else. It happened to someone else. It happened to someone else. It did not happen to me; none of this is happening to me, I am not me, this is not happening.
Why? God damn you, why?
No, I'm not angry, per se, but... I thought I was hurting all that I could. But there is something else untouched as of yet and it's bruising and choking back life.
My god... my god... School ends on Friday for me. Couldn't you have waited those few extra days? Instead of evading me... Instead of...
I know I can deal with this. And I know I am "stronger than I know". But jesus... I just want to stop hurting. I'm just waiting for the next bad thing to happen. And maybe the next thing to happen will be good... But I can't see that now.
I can't see much. But my god... This just hurts. Whatever I did to hurt him could not have hurt this much. And... Oh, this argument goes on forever. But that doesn't change anything. Just how many hands I hold and how many hands that rub my back and smooth my hair and tell me things will get better. Because they have to.
[I want to be the girl in my icon: Forever asleep. And oh so calm... Don't jump at shadows. I'm not that despairing yet.]
Ellie... thank you. You have no idea. | | telegraphs went out of style:17 fought the whistle :or: bring me home |
| | Current Music: | porcupine tree | | Security: | | | Time: | 07:09 pm | | Current Mood: |  yay! |
|
| Yes, I know.
In other news:
Leave me an anonymous comment telling me something you want to say to me, but would not say in person, for whatever reason.
P.S. I know your writing styles...*smile* | | telegraphs went out of style:18 fought the whistle :or: bring me home |
| my bones have this feeling trapped like amber. that inevitably, we will be back together some day. that we will walk down to the shores of the connecticut river, peel off our shoes and socks and stand in the water. that someday we will walk out of the doors of the hop again together. that it won't feel like lightning when i walk out alone.
that some day we will sit on that worn basement couch, and laugh. and laugh. i don't feel like i'm laughing the right way anymore. because it is solitary laughter... and not accompanied by an echo of recognition.
see, what i'm saying is that i miss you. and for all of the bad times, there were twice as many good.
and what i'm saying is that... you enter into love knowing that you will hurt. and if you are stubborn, if you refuse to be hurt again... how are you going to enter into love ever again? i'm not saying that you're to blame. my minotaur and my maze bother me.
when we drove this morning from canton, i didn't feel that cavern. the moth wings didn't brush the edges to let me know where it ended. but slowly, as we came closer to home, i felt it. like pressure building up, like waves and tides and iron filaments. and it hurt, and ached, and those weren't moth wings anymore. they were the brittle edges of disaster. and when we hit the places i know from sight, it hit me again.
flashback. | | telegraphs went out of style:3 fought the whistle :or: bring me home |
| | Current Music: | my heart was a lonely hunter: theresa andersson | | Security: | | | Time: | 09:46 pm | | Current Mood: | worn thin |
|
| irony, you are my saint.
but your sarcasm and lack of regard for me are wearing me thin.
roses and the way we say the same words and my midnight disaster panics are only endearing
for so long.
but i entered into this knowing what you were, irony.
this isn't working, irony. we are both sadists. we both want the thorns and the sweetness but not the petals.
irony, i clean my room in your honor.
irony, i paint the overtaking of my heart in your honor.
irony, i can still laugh.
i still have that.
even when it hurts. and you give me the rose i don't want. and i smile and say nothing to your red-rimmed eys and sidewalk tripping.
iirony, you must remember the fifty white chinese-lantern lights in my room.
and the black curtain by my window.
and the clementine box nailed to the wall.
and irony... can't you remember the little prince?
querida, don't sigh and tell me you'll be fine.
tu estas mi hija. tu estas mi hermana. tu estas mi amor. tu estas... todo.
because athena's daughters are spiders, and they will not let me be.
because you are still asleep and there is something out there that wants you. some midnight disaster panic. some horror too mundane to notice.
i would take this from you, querida, and burn it in my campfire.
because irony is still my saint.
and irony, i can still laugh.
and irony... i can't leave you.
| | telegraphs went out of style:8 fought the whistle :or: bring me home |
| | Current Music: | wayside/back in time: gillian welch | | Security: | | | Time: | 05:18 pm | | Current Mood: | worn out |
|
| sometimes you need to remember how sharp things are.
a red heart crossed with blue.
for me, viaticals are paper and pen, knives and lipstick, lighters and smoke, music and paint.
blue moon or never?
and which promises made would you think i broke? and which promises made would you break?
[i'll leave you alone, then, because once you wouldn't have said you were fine.]
saturn, your children are stone and you cannot forsake them again.
there are different kinds of strength. yes, i lied.
what would happen this time around? would the carousel pony fling me off? would the music fade?
athena, your children are spiders and they will not let me be.
father, stop blaming me. | | telegraphs went out of style:3 fought the whistle :or: bring me home |
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| there was a time no one could read me like a book, and no one could read my eyes, and i did not laugh, and i watched myself make motions without understanding [separate from the action]. there was a time when no one could read me like a book, darling...
that wall is the only thing keeping me up, now. and you want me to take it down so you can see what's inside. and maybe i could have done that once. but now... i have no reason, really. i have no promises to keep to you about what i eat, or why i wear long shirts and henna. because you don't want to concern yourself with me. and i understand.
that wall is the only thing keeping me up, now. and you want me to take it down so... what? this could happen again? it's there for a reason, querida, madre, hija, hermana.
[it is never querido, padre, hijo, hermano. not anymore.]
yes, i have my problems. yes, you have yours. and yes, once we were able to hold each other up. yes, yes, yes. once, i could have held you all up. and been glad of it. now, i simply can't bear to be taken care of. because i know you have enough to deal with. and i know that i'm just being a burden. and you can't take care of me the way i need it:
salt-clear fingerpainting and steel arms and scarred lips and that growing spark of arrogance that you once told me
you hated about yourself and wished i would help you eradicate.
and.and.and. i am a hungry ghost. i bite my own lips. i am a telegraph. i pull off my shell and pick myself apart. i am starting to
not exist. slowly. quietly. it will be alright, then. | | telegraphs went out of style:7 fought the whistle :or: bring me home |
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| when i was a trembling aspen in your kitchen, your arms wrapped around me closer than steel, lips scar pressed toward my crown, my feet between yours shh... stop shaking... it's alright... shhh...
i could feel those butterfly wings.
you saw the dust from their wings on my face. you pulled me closer.
and i thought we cleared the uncertainty with that same tilt of the head as we had before.
and i thought. and i thought.
this is what you are:
a message in a bottle and all the ways have the things the ocean couldn't untangle.
[a pile of mollusk shells, red lips, ash & sky]
a list of reasons i have never written anything for you.
for anyone.
safe.safe.safe.
everything about you that i have ever loved. everything about you that i
have ever questioned.
when i was twelve, i crushed jewelweed on my calves and spine and fingertips.
a year later, i dipped, fell. malachite. silver.
copper and the taste of scorched bronze. i was a mess & everything i created
had the air of something lost.
in all the measurements of time,
i found everything led up to finding you.
[i never created anything functional.]
there is something in your eyes stronger than dusk in a city,
stronger than the glow of street lamps against black posts against
faded apricot blue sky.
there is something in your hands stronger than a motorboat idling at
nightfall in a lake
and the scent of gasoline.
and that is what was.
what will be:
white lights line the corners of my room; rise and fall.
screens silk painted leaves, vague and lacking eloquence.
my bed will be laid with that passed-down quilt, lost and found.
i will wait. i will wait.
[i will pour the tea, and creep through the blackberry bushes,
and wash my hair, and hold my breath through the dive.
i will be here.] | | telegraphs went out of style:bring me home |
| | Current Music: | Scarlet's Walk- Tori Amos | | Security: | | | Time: | 12:30 pm |
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| twelve days ago i was a pile of seashells and musk and red lips
now i am a pile of papers discarded, pencils not sharpened.
the words refuse to reveal themselves to me, and i search as blindly as the edge of insanity
tremble and fold into dust
you pull tornadoes out of the sky with your fingertips
i reach
earthbound. | | telegraphs went out of style:2 fought the whistle :or: bring me home |
| Go back and re-read what you wrote down for the list of 10 things you wanted to say, but would never say to that particular person. Then see if they're still true. If not, re-write them. This was my original: http://sepulchral-sea.livejournal.com/52367.html
1. You make me do things I don't want to do. I find myself in positions I don't want to be in. You manipulate me in ways I would never consider using. I find myself comparing you, finding you wanting. You blame me for things that are not my fault. And when I say this to other people, I think that this isn't right. But when things are good... they are very good. It's just so rare that it happens this way anymore.
2. I don't talk to you much anymore. It isn't a "healthy relationship", and it makes you worried and upset. Most of my relationships with men aren't. What do I say to you?
3. It wasn't hypocrisy, or melodrama, or a fall of pretenses. It was all of them. You didn't listen. But we've both grown up... I won't say my temper is any less. The same things provoke me. But it takes more. And I see something genuine in you that I was blind to before. And I see the same experiences in you, though they do vary. [You deserve an apology. If either of us ever gets the courage to talk about this, I will.]
4. You have no effect on me anymore. I use you as a comparison to what I have now... but there is nothing else. You deserve more than this.
5. I still think you're as wonderful as the first day I saw you in the cafeteria wearing that shirt that still sets me off into spasms of giggles. Yes, giggles. I may even consider you more wonderful. This is still true: you are one of those few people I think I could spend forever with and not find it wasted. Yes, I think that's about right: Queen Grace. Because that's what your name means, darling.
6. I see you seldom. I say hi, but nothing more. I don't want to get sucked in again. I don't want to have to discern truth from lie out of every word you speak.
7. I know you try. But increasingly, I get the feeling that my entire life is doomed, due to things that are occuring now. That's the impression I get from you... and I know that isn't what you intend. I still lock myself in my room, but I talk to you a bit more, I bike with you, I smile and make you coffee.
8. I haven't always been that great to you. I know this. And I regret it. Because you don't trust me the way you used to. You won't say straight out that you speak of me, but I know. I know. And I still love you. And wish things were alright. But I know they won't be, for a while... I'll be here, though I don't want to make promises that I might inadvertently break.
9. It is going to be a good summer. I will make it so, you will make it so. I know.
10. I still envy you. But I don't think you're quite as perfect as I once believed: I got to know you better. And that is alright.
[And the edit:]
11. I've talked to you even less. But knowing that you're there, no matter how many hundreds of miles away, even thousands, helps. A lot. Because I know that I'll see you again one day. And that is comfort in itself.
12. I thought you called the other day. But it wasn't you. I tried to describe you in Spanish today, but it fled at the thought of a tape recorder making permanent my voice. You have white hair, live in France, worked in a bar, and am my uncle. That is all I got out.
13. Sometimes I resent the way you speak to me: Condescension. I don't want a mother; I am the mother. I am supposed to take care of myself. I do not want a mother. I do not want a caretaker... except for those times when I don't want it, I need it. And instead I get a bed full of synonyms.
14. I'm glad I started talking to you again. We were friends a while ago, and then time and tedium seperated us. I don't always help the situation, but you always have my best sentiments and motives.
There are other people who have come to play more important roles in my life than I ever thought they would... And who deserve seperate entries. But later. Later. Later.
Cast party... Friday? Saturday? Ennnnnnnnnnnhhh... Should be... a blast? Tomorrow is Friday... it is going to be warm... mmmmm...
This entry isn't nearly interesting enough for me or my standards, which is a shame... Maybe I'll post another later. | | telegraphs went out of style:bring me home |
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silent
alright
depressed