mentally ill abroad.

hopeless.
without help, on any side-
i don't speak the (language).
I called my friend,
who called my husband.

i called from a dark room,
from my bed.
I haven't moved in nine days.
I called using one finger.
The only body part
with the ENERGY to MOVE.

I cried for help,
quietly,
before I locked myself alone.
With the blinds shut.
(before the razorblades)
(before the pills)

I called my friend,
who called my husband,
who told me I was fine.

underneath it all

somewhere,
there is a bone deep convictuion
that i am not good enough.

genesis,
beginning.
matters but doesn't matter,
because it surrounds me every day.
the images.
the songs.
the glances.
small adjustments to clothing,
always with a defensive air.
the defense -
i deserve to exist.

there are always two voices in my head.
one insisting i should hide,
i should die,
i shouldn't force my own company.
the other insisting,
ridiculous.

i'm so tired of the argument.
when will the fighting stop?

angst

at the end,
all our posturing,
all the effort,
is to counteract that one lonely question:
if i wasn't here,
would anyone care?

different

we are different,
the same in things that matter.
our cores
speak to each other,
our centers are the same.
the counterpoint.
we finish each other's...

yeah, fuck that sentance.
let's tear up the surface
and get down to what
matters.

shackle.

happiness is a shackle,
anchoring my ankle to
the sinking ship of committment
gone sour years before -

happiness is a chain
tying me to the lost cause
of acceptance and contentment,
where will is just a memory.

happiness is a weight
in the ocean, dragging me
down into the darkness,
where there is no hope for change.

happiness is the lie
we tell our children, and never
grow out of -
as we drown in the tedium of life,
we cannot understand
why the shore is still miles away.

flirting by rote.

When I am with you

I should be butterflies

I should be ethereal

I should be sitting on the edge of my seat with excitement,

Breathless

Wanting

Waiting.

When I am with you,

I should look into your eyes and feel my chest constrict tight,

Tight,

Like a ribbon suddenly pulled into a bow.

When I am with you I am faking.

I am saying the right things in all the right places.

I am working the eyes and working the faces.

I am flirting and playing and making the grade.

But when I am with you I’m faking.

I know in my heart what I’m doing is wrong,

Could fuck up your world, your ideas, your thoughts

Of how women are.  Your trust in the process.

But when I’m with you I’m faking.

Like a compulsion, like drinking or eating

It’s gaming.  It’s expected

For me to be charming and try and want you…

To want you to want me.

Attention whore, or just wanting to be wanted,

The most human of all emotions.

Unfair and unbroken and totally heartless

Totally selfish.  Totally bad.

Even for a fleeting moment of thinking,

In my head,

YES this is a good idea.

Or even doubts about YES I WANT THAT.

It’s true,

When I’m with you I’m faking.

In my heart of hearts I hope you’ll know

Better next time, pick someone who cares a little bit more

About what could happen,

Rather than needing something right now

Consequences be damned.

But today you’re shit out of luck,

Because when I’m with you I’m faking.

Seams

-->

I have found as I have aged and gotten older that the words appealing to me about life have shifted.  As a teenager growing up I was focused on words inspiring my passing and heart, things like strength and power and courage.  To not give up the fight.  To overcome my obstacles.  To be built on struggle.

It’s commonly held that people slow down with age, especially those who are involved in youth culture.  The music that appeals to youth, especially adolescent boys, is filled with aggression, screaming lyrics appealing and giving voice to that deep angst and anger fostered in white suburbia.  It takes energy and commitment and a huge passion for throwing body and mind onstage each night in front of whoever happens to be watching.

Not only youth focused culture but Americans in general focus frantically on youth and being able to hold on the vestige of rebelliousness and stupidity and energy entwined in the early days of life.  We lose sight of the beauty and earnest joy in acceptance and in the gentle softness that comes as we all get older and begin to lose our tension.

Certain phrases hold appeal in truth and in the ability to age intentionally.  To admire the seams in a weathered face of a wise man.  For your face to crease in a smile.   To be pillowed in the kindness and warmth of one you love.  These are words to calm and soothe.  Language so different from the terms of death and decline used with impunity in discussion on the subject.

Aging intentionally is to embrace these changes and move slowly toward a softer strength, to move from tawny skin and smoothly bunching muscles to fragile hands and slow walks.  Though we focus on the aches and pains, we lose sight of a solid sense of self and easy confidence that comes with age, if we’re lucky.

So, in the end, to trade vigor for calm, strength for acceptance, that inevitable choice, is all a matter of the words we choose.

fucking racist maggots ate the world

169

to depression, to despair

the end of hope

unacceptable, this is unacceptable

to scream and cry

body wrung out exhausted

from failure, your failure

169.

my commodities are rotten shelving

beat up and bloodied, alone in a sick twisted perversion of riot girrrl feminism

believing and dying and two sided coins,

squeezing the flesh on my arms into red peaks

169.

were we committed, clearly these problems

would find purchase in some other town or tier,

worming into my ears and my brains, or from my brains?

Can you make yourself crazy?

169.

it’s here to decide the fate of your mental threat(health)

drugs and pills and therapy and knives

liposuction’s on sale this year,

where feet grow out of faces’ holes plugged with fat from your abdomen,

169.

relentless and wild there is no hope of escape

from issues haunting each step I take,

it’s not anything you kill or create

but a redheaded stepchild society hates,

169.

prose and poetry and fucking shit sprayed into bathroom stalls

do nothing to address the goddamn weight

pressing down on my head,

heavy enough to crush my lungs with the small vacation of one deep breath,

169.

to lie to yourself is supposed to be the lowest form of expression,

reality, my friends, is the key to changing our thinking –

yes, we must accept things as they are,

lest we discover reality is only your own brain fucking with you.

169.

mistakes

You are

The wound

In my side

Leaking tequila and blood and shame,

The flush on your mother’s face

When she saw me

In the morning.

city/nature

the city moves in its own rhythm -
like the earth
(parody)

(god is laughing)

walls

we spend all our time
building up walls
(defenses)
(from who?)
and wonder why we are lonely.

camera closeups on faces
turned away from the crowd

shrine

locked within these four walls
i cry out -
still alone,
not alone. lonely.
i need a partner in crime...

help me build a shrine to my demons.
therapy,
dissect my problems
bloodless, opened on the table
by a scalpel i can no longer use.

why is my soul so unsatisfied
in the warmth of the summer sun?

i love you because i love you

i love you
because i love you.
not for logic
or facts
or longing for heaven -
your existence,
merely
inspires my heart to light.

i love you
because i love you.
no list is long enough to hold the reasons;
no hatred.
no remorse.
you move me,
the mountain has come to
-m

i love you
because i love you.
and today,
that may be enough.

asylum disbelief

i've been calling out for years.
when you would rush in,
no one looked in the closet.

called me crazy,
my delusions,
a pain in the ass.
but no one looked in the closet.

they believed me.
believed me,
the first time
the second time,
the third time,
the thirtieth time.
now they ignore my screams of pain.
no one looked in the closet.

except once.
the last time.

when they looked and saw a pair of eyes peering
out from behind my winter sweaters.

now you are the crazy ones.
the loonies
the freaks.
your guilt and guile for never seeing...

no one looked in the closet.

RF2010

i was in a crowd of people when it hit me:
i don't miss you anymore.

last year was a bad year.
fights and crowds and tears and heartache
worries about missed opportunities
falling over each other to prove
we were now better off.

and it hit me.
you will never be good enough for me.
i am living out my dreams.
my name will be known.
and you will never be more
than a footnote
saying:
in spite of me, she...

walking home alone at night

My footsteps are one

In the chorus of many that make up the city.

Through the keys jangling, babies crying and laughing

Lovers meeting and leaving each other

Dogs barking and walking and sitting and staying

People talking,

Sirens and saws,

Laughter I hear distant across the field.

My footsteps are one

In the chorus of many that make up the city.

Through the lights flashing red and blue,

Streetlights changing and flashing and filling and popping,

Cars swerving and driving and changing and breaking,

People are talking and laughing and singing

And music is playing.

My footsteps are one

In the chorus of many that make up the city.

The leaves are shifting and blowing and falling,

Doors are opening, swinging and closing,

And everywhere buildings are falling and going

Up in the air.

And my footsteps are but one

In the chorus of many that make up the city.

landscape

your river cut valleys
into my soul -

the mountains and rises and dips and pauses
a testament
to your work in me.

i leave myself in you -
the imprint of your passing
is the creator of my landscape.

untitled 1

your beauty
takes my breath away.
i am overcome.

search

my heart is full of a vague and
overwhelming longing -
my whole life has been a
search -
what if i never find it?
what happens if i do?

estatic

estatic laughter
burbles up from my soul -
this is joy!
unrestrained -
break free of the bondage of separation -
i am the truth,
he said.
we are all truth
beauty
light
life!
hate others and you hate yourself.
i cannot contain this boundless love!