writing crap about trying to write things that aren't crappy

more coffee, more tea
beat me, beat me, beat, beat
somethings gotta rev this engine
and haul this tired, fumbling mass of mine
into literature about literature
and journals based on
lies
lies
wilderness lies
I'm wandering
around
downstairs
barefoot in a december storm
letting rain
beat me, beat me, beat, beat
the
wind
keeps
time.

You were never mine at all...

I have a problem with letting myself feel bad feelings. Maybe it's a good thing. Maybe its a sign of a good self-defense mechanism. Or, maybe I'm just a baby that needs to realize it's okay to feel bad every once in a while. I'll do whatever it takes to not feel hurt or disappointed or neglected or depressed or stressed or jealous or stupid. Anything.

Feeling bad has its advantages, I'm starting to figure out. I think just letting myself feel the weight of all those bad things I've been ignoring will change me for the better.

If I can handle it.
I've been numb for way too long.

Things to look for

Well, this might be pretentious of me but I was thinking I'd post a few poems I've written this year through taking a poetry workshop with Claire Davis. So in the next few posts look for that. In my four years at college this is my first poetry class so I definitely need improvement. Despite having multiple workshops in fiction & nonfiction I still need improvement there as well, so if I can find old work I'll post it here too. Just don't steal my stuff. ;)

Criticism is welcomed with open arms.
I'd rather have someone just rip my work apart than say, "Oh, good job...it's like, good...or whatever. I liked it..." which comes up more than you'd think in some creative writing classes. Also, I'm in the process of researching the progression of literature for my senior thesis and am coming across a ton of interesting things there, so I might get the urge to share some really cool aspects of literature....if you're into that sort of thing.

So, look for poems below this post and everything else above.

list poem

September 15, 2008

Whirling Memory


Mystery aches inside us, its path in cackling, cracking bones, emerging through thin paper skin. Longing holds us together even as we feel like breaking into who we used to be. Spinning through the darkness, what is left glows. We are beating hearts knowing how to die. We are echos of the slap, a newborn's first prompt. We are a glimmering milky way trailing memory.

And what will it be that takes us?

Car accidents, lightning strikes in the middle of a soccer game, murder, drowning in the Snake, disease, cancer, suicide, "hold your wee for a wii" competitions, wild animal attacks, starvation, heart break after heart break after heart break, love, choking, strokes during sex, child birth, drug overdoses, war.

Falling, failing

Summer's final shooting star
Our faces illuminated
With the moon
With the glow of not knowing
You're next

You were meant to let it go

Balding, a comb
over like angel hair
spaghetti
Lost her appetite
More than that
His sweat
dripped
Onto her
Had enough
This is the last time
This is it
She sighs
turns
watches
Channel 5 News
She forgets the
simple movements
Moves on
and on
and on
and on
She's gone

anaphora

Free (Anaphora)


I used to be different.
I just don't know when I changed.
I used to be different to them
All these people that line up at my door.
Spilling into the staircase
Pumping their collective fist
When I don't tell them anything
Because all that knocking is hollow
To an empty room to their empty shores

I used to be different
Am I?
I'm gone.
My notice uncharacteristic
of a slave to the system
I used to never want to leave

I used to be different
I used to care about the anger that filled absence
I used to be different about making these plans
I'm sorry but I'm leaving
I'm selling my shoes
I'm selling my shirt

I used to be different
I used to be the same
I used to listen in the break room, in the bar, and in the bedroom
To silence and nothing words that moved like baby waves at my feet.
Now you're all fuming that I'm breaking free

I used to be different
And all I can think about
is the road
and how I used to be like you
and how I used to be me
and I used to be different
I am
I'm better
I'm leaving
I'm free

Costa Rica

Costa Rica


The thaw of a North Idaho winter
Found arms that held legs made for leaving
Something slipped, stuck.


The Spanish-English translation guides, lists of people with open couches, bikinis, bug spray, loneliness, guidebooks, sunglasses, mace, bottles upon bottles of XXX vitamin water, blue bandanas, brimmed hat, camera, passport, Band-Aids, emergency toilet paper, freedom, photos of your parents when they were together, addresses, phone cards, passport, comfort books, desire, shorts, and ideas for primitive first greetings were abandoned.


For love that hasn't understood
You've been packing
Pulling roots
Selling space.

the senior drag

You've been there. The place in your life where you've just run completely out of gas. Well, I'm here in any case and I really don't like where I am at all. I completely suck at school this semester. Missing more classes than attending, procrastinating until there's no other option but to stay up all night or fail, half-assing research projects I normally would be thrilled about doing, etc. I've been terrible. Now I'm coming up on deadlines for Independent Study classes, end of semester projects, and stuff like that at a time that coincides with a time where I have no money, no energy, no health, no time and no other options but to push, push, push. There isn't anyone else out there that can help me. My parents are at odds with each other. Every week or so I get a call from one of them berating, hating, making plans to leave the other. Every month or so I attempt to mentally prepare myself for their divorce after what...26+ years of marriage. Every few months I loan my rent money to one of them so that they can get buy, pay off bills, while I scramble to survive.

This semester is terrible and I haven't been able to say any of this to any of my professors because I think it sounds like whining and I'll be damned if I'm a baby. The thing is, I'm not sure if I'm going to make it through the last month and a half of school. It's just so hard and I know I don't even have it as bad as some people, but I'm barely scraping by. I have medical bills, maxed out credit cards, bill collectors on my tail and no goddamn bailout plan. Really the only third job I have time for is donating plasma up in Moscow for 30 bucks a pop...but by being sick I can't donate and as soon as I start to feel a little better I go in, donate what I should keep to myself so I can heal, and the process of Julie's idiotic but desperate winter sickness begins.

So, I guess from all this, you could say I'm in a bit of a rut. I'm trying to get out of debt by looking for a third job, attempting to get healthy, and making adventitious goals for school work especially during Thanksgiving break, but I just want it to stop. I just want a break so I can get ahead while everything else just slows down.

Well, whatever. Dare to dream, right?

In any case this is my effort to let anyone and everyone know where I am in the world, even if it's not that great of a place to be. If I make it through this I'm starting a motion for movement. Out of town, out of state, out of comfort zones, out of the country. I plan on packing up and leaving. Growing up and blowing away.

Hype!

I'm pretty jazzed about this website my friend Robobone told me about and thought I'd send it out into the stratosphere. (Or, where ever...)

http://hypem.com/

It's mighty impressive if you're into that sort of thing.

It's 12 a.m. and I'm hearing the skid of a train mixing with the wind.

It's not the first time I've been at Blogger.
Last year I stumbled upon it and filled my (now very dated) account with blogs about ambition and motivation and the things I thought I wanted to do with my life in the future. It's funny how I thought I had it all worked out.

I never thought that I was seconds away from having things, people mostly, move through my life like rain, changing things, changing me into someone new. I'm back now to the blogging world with a new account, hoping to find out what new adventures are waiting for me.

This blog is required for my Advanced Writing and Communications class but I'm hoping it will be a place for more than just posting assignments and trying to make the grade. If I have learned anything about writing is that it can't just be about academia. Not yet anyway. I hope that this "requirement" will present a new place for me to figure things out about myself, others I know and don't know, and how we are all connected in this crazy world.

I will be posting a review of Jonathan Safran Foer's novel "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" within the next day. Thanks for reading and any (constructive) comments are always welcome.