From the time you said it back
til the day my lungs turn black,
by the fire in my veins,
it'll never be the same.
There is nothing I don't want to know, phasing open windows and breathing in the truth. I take the world at face value and place my highest bet. You're too real, I'd say, before I'd tumble down onto the ground, and you're the place I've lost inside an empty bubble. Can you feel it when I talk? Can you close your eyes and pretend? And we could pretend. And I could dream. And I could taste. And I could touch. And I can feel the weight of you under my fingertips pressed down into the mattress like a lost sacred resting place, you fight to get in. There's a slow, empty throbbing that pushes nothing and takes everything with it. Draining. Dropping. Dazed. Distant. I've got miles and miles of paper wound over hills and treetops filled with the words I keep hushed under my breath when I dare to speak them, and every last letter is just for you. I've made a thousand wrong turns in this maze of life and I'm waiting to cut a corner and see more than a wall or a sign of warning. After this, let's fall back for a while. Let's extract every nerve ending and get all the sighs and the moans just right. It would come off lyrical, wouldn't it? There will never be a universe in which I am the best or the prettiest or the smartest or the only. There will never be a universe where I can pull myself away for more than a catch of breath. I'm not like the rest, I'm thorns and daggers and claws and teeth and all completely harmless somehow. You knew. You knew the danger wasn't for you, but for all the monsters you're scared of. You're learning. That you can be scared of monsters all you want because I'm different and hasn't anyone ever kept you safe before? You have lines and creases and curves and marks and stars I feel I can't ever reach. Tighter grip, dig your nails in. Hey, you. You. You. There was broken glass on the sidewalk and loud noises from the turntables near the entry way and I stepped back and covered my ears and sighed so slow I could hear the shake in my chest before I even let it out. I grip too hard sometimes, leaving damage in the wake of my fingertips and little lines and elipses of 'I wish you hadn't done that', as is customary for someone like me. But we have these things, and we're making more. Like artists in a blank room filling up the canvas from the floor to the ceiling, covered in paint and laughing and joking and sitting and waiting for inspiration to strike again inbetween, there haven't been any more before you where the wind feels okay a thousand stories up and I just don't want to jump. I don't want to jump. I liked the way it felt when I smeared the green bottle and tossed it back and felt it rip me apart and spat blood from my stomach. Then the panic set in and I saw red and thought 'Her. Okay, please don't let me never talk to her again.' and my stomach turned and blood covered the carpet. And that could've killed me, and it should've, and I'm floating. Six underground after dark in the last of the funeral songs. Hey, you? Could you be that way some more? It's pouring rain onto the houses and the streets and the sidewalks are empty and flooded so there's something to talk about in the morning. It hurts for the sake of hurting sometimes, unsuitably stupidly so, but there's nothing for it but to ride the storm out. And we could dream. And we could taste. And we could touch. And I could feel the emptiness of it pressed down into the mattress like a lost scared child. Hey, you? Could you be a little closer sometime? You're too far away for me to grab you like I want, fingertips and nails and arms with my face pressed up against your collarbone like the dream I never told you about. Hey, you? Could you be a little closer sometime?
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Dystopia.
There's a hole in the world like a great black pit,
its morals aren't worth what a pig could spit,
and it's full of people who are full of shit,
and the vermin of the world inhabit it.
I walk through these streets filled with grime and dust and feel the layers on the soles of my feet. The kind of dirty layers that are so thick it dulls the feel of the cement under your feet as you drag along. I can tell my heels are black without ever looking. Somewhere, children are sleeping on the couch in front of the t.v. Somewhere, caged dogs are snarling, angry, waiting for the next chance to bite a chunk of flesh through to the bone. Glass shatters in an alleyway nearby and a group of strangers laughs to some nonexistant joke. Can you taste the arbitrary? Oh, contrary. This means everything. And the sweat is pooling on your brow before we meet, but I wouldn't know. The holes in the knees of your jeans show where you've been. Please fasten your seatbelts and put your trays in their locked and upright positions. Prepare for a bit of turbulance. That goddamn dog on the other side of the fence is barking and snarling with its teeth. There is no refuge. We were in a place once where soot danced down from the skies and my biggest fear was losing hold of your hand when we ran. And we ran.
Pristine condition marble-laced floors, can't you smell the paint? Fresh and new. Deep and blue. Like me and you. She is fading so far from me. Sitting in my bathroom, dying her hair that black, black color that it was until that last day, and when I told her that the shower wasn't working, she said, let's take a bath. Nudge. Me and you? Smile. It'll be fun. And I ran my fingers through her hair to get all the black out, and it stained for weeks, under my nails and in my cuticles, the way blackness can linger in the cracks of your soul. But this hurt wasn't risidual, no sireee. Because we kissed and I let her find the shampoo on her own while those bouncy red curls and crooked buck teeth watched us from behind the video camera, with the water so black it looked like tar and her knees far enough apart to touch the sides. And I watched that video back a hundred times before I finally deleted it. I watched the part where she whispered to me so that the camera couldn't hear, her lips turned up and slow-moving. What did she say, anyway? What did she say?
Dragging myself up out of this shallow grave and shaking the dirt out of my hair, I'm not a fucking phoenix from the ashes, but an old patchwork quilt, sewn and torn and stitched and mended to keep you warm. You don't always have to have new things, do you? This could all be just for you. Every breath you breathe. Can you feel the chills and the knots in your stomach? Haven't you EVER tried and failed? Believe. Pockets full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down.
its morals aren't worth what a pig could spit,
and it's full of people who are full of shit,
and the vermin of the world inhabit it.
I walk through these streets filled with grime and dust and feel the layers on the soles of my feet. The kind of dirty layers that are so thick it dulls the feel of the cement under your feet as you drag along. I can tell my heels are black without ever looking. Somewhere, children are sleeping on the couch in front of the t.v. Somewhere, caged dogs are snarling, angry, waiting for the next chance to bite a chunk of flesh through to the bone. Glass shatters in an alleyway nearby and a group of strangers laughs to some nonexistant joke. Can you taste the arbitrary? Oh, contrary. This means everything. And the sweat is pooling on your brow before we meet, but I wouldn't know. The holes in the knees of your jeans show where you've been. Please fasten your seatbelts and put your trays in their locked and upright positions. Prepare for a bit of turbulance. That goddamn dog on the other side of the fence is barking and snarling with its teeth. There is no refuge. We were in a place once where soot danced down from the skies and my biggest fear was losing hold of your hand when we ran. And we ran.
Pristine condition marble-laced floors, can't you smell the paint? Fresh and new. Deep and blue. Like me and you. She is fading so far from me. Sitting in my bathroom, dying her hair that black, black color that it was until that last day, and when I told her that the shower wasn't working, she said, let's take a bath. Nudge. Me and you? Smile. It'll be fun. And I ran my fingers through her hair to get all the black out, and it stained for weeks, under my nails and in my cuticles, the way blackness can linger in the cracks of your soul. But this hurt wasn't risidual, no sireee. Because we kissed and I let her find the shampoo on her own while those bouncy red curls and crooked buck teeth watched us from behind the video camera, with the water so black it looked like tar and her knees far enough apart to touch the sides. And I watched that video back a hundred times before I finally deleted it. I watched the part where she whispered to me so that the camera couldn't hear, her lips turned up and slow-moving. What did she say, anyway? What did she say?
Dragging myself up out of this shallow grave and shaking the dirt out of my hair, I'm not a fucking phoenix from the ashes, but an old patchwork quilt, sewn and torn and stitched and mended to keep you warm. You don't always have to have new things, do you? This could all be just for you. Every breath you breathe. Can you feel the chills and the knots in your stomach? Haven't you EVER tried and failed? Believe. Pockets full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Pretty Pretty Please 2.
This is the one I wrote last night that I wanted to show you but I didn't. Have to before I get too scared.
A lovestruck romeo sings the streets a serenade,
laying everybody low with a lovesong that he made.
Sometimes I get ideas in my head that make my eyes blur up and my chest tighten and I start to feel like maybe I'm not one of the lucky ones. Can I just take a second to tell you that it's not about how things go so fast in my head that I can't even grasp it sometimes? Because they don't usually. This is just with you. I know I've never told you that, and I know you think that this is just how I am, but I'm just scared to tell you that I'm as scared about it as you are. And I'm typing this just crying and sniffling and crying and thinking and playing things through in my head. I can't put all these feelings into words and it's so frustrating. So, I'm trying. I can't be patient in all the ways most people can, and maybe it's because I've been through this in and out so many times that I know what to expect, or at least I feel like I should. The catch of breath before the first kiss and the butterflies from the first 'I like you' aren't foreign to me. And that's another thing I haven't told you, that I'm not really proud of that. That I don't want these things anymore if they won't last. And maybe you should try to trust me for that? I don't trust myself sometimes, but I'm trying, and if you're trying, it's okay. Life is mostly about timing. I just watched this movie, one of my favorite movies, actually, and there's this guy who is so in love with this girl... He writes her a letter, telling her how his heart stops when he sees her and how he thinks she's more than what people see in her... All those things that she needed to hear, and he's just too scared to give the letter to her. It gets to her on accident, and she reads it, and she doesn't know what he looks like. So she's going to find him and all these other guys are coming up to her, telling her all these things about wanting to hook up and how hot she is, and she gets fed up, then he finds her. And he tells her, but she's upset from all those other guys and yells at him. It's not until later, after he's gone, she realizes it was him and... in the end, he's about to leave and they walk away from each other, but he stops himself and goes after her. And I don't know how to describe this, just that I haven't cried this hard in a long time. But I guess, if that letter somehow never got to her, or if those other guys never hit on her and made her mad, or if he didn't stop and run after her in the end and instead just kept going... All these small split seconds change our lives, like you changed me somehow? So, I guess what I'm saying is that life is a lot about timing, and a lot about coincidence, that if certain things happen at certain times in your life, they can mean every little thing, and at other times wouldn't have meant anything. And both people have to be in the right timing at the same time, and how you and I even started talking, when other people in that community, Spencer-shaped for example, has had lines with me for over a year and doesn't even know my name. So this is just us, it's not everything else. It's nothing else. I'm so scared to say all these things to you because I don't know how you'll react and you still intimidate me even if you say you shouldn't. That's another thing that is only you. I'm so brave. So, so brave. And lately, since I moved, I've been so static and scared of risks and scared of life and scared of friends. I guess you never know what that's like until you've done it. Like when you came to the states and all, except if she had just gone away and you had no way of getting home. You'd be scared, right? And alone. And... that's how I am. I'm just waiting for this to feel like home, I guess. So I'm rambling and trying to find the way to say all these things. These things. It's okay not to trust me. It's okay to be slow. It's okay it's okay it's okay. I make you feel like it's not sometimes and I'm so sorry. I guess just because I can't wait to get past the point where things are scary. And for you to get sober and then to see how you are then, I can't wait for that, either. And all the time we talk about seeing each other, how it would be and how I would make you french toast and I don't know for sure if that will ever happen. I know I want it to. I know I've never wished for a teleporter this much before. But I can also tell you that I am a lot easier in person, you know? When there's not just text and I'm frustrated and you can see. I think you probably know that from Skyping with me, that I don't get mad when I'm talking that way. I calm myself down. It's when I'm alone and there's just text and I'm not focusing the way I should be and there are other things on my mind. And, anyway, I watched Sweeny Todd and I liked the part at the end where, after he'd killed the beggar woman, he goes down and picks her up when he knows it was his wife, and he sings to her, and thinks of all those things. I just... I guess I'm really stuck on love tonight. And how it's such a big, big thing, and everyone in it is just so small.
~~
I made a wrong turn once or twice,
dug my way out, blood and fire.
Bad decisions, that's alright.
Welcome to my silly life.
Mistreated, misplaced, misunderstood,
Miss 'no way, it's all good',
didn't slow me down.
Mistaken, always second guessing,
underestimated,
look, I'm still around.
Pretty pretty please, don't you ever ever feel
like you're less than fucking perfect.
~~
All I do is miss you. All I do is think about how gorgeous you are. And how I feel like we could talk always. The way you blow kisses and the way you said my name. You're so good at writing and drawing and all these other things I feel like I'm only semi-good at. Not the way you are. I don't want to... I don't ever want to say that thing that she said, that you're 'perfect'. I don't ever want to say a lot of things she said, I guess, but that 'perfect' thing, you know, I know you're not. But I feel like maybe you are the closest thing I've ever seen to it. I feel bad for all the times I made you upset. For not listening and for yelling for you to go away. You deserve better than that, right, and I'm good enough not to be that low if I try. Maybe things will change and maybe I'll fuck it up and maybe we'll fall out, or maybe this will keep working up into something spectacular, the kind of thing people will write stories and scripts about. I'm so guarded. I told you how no one's ever touched my sides like that. Not because they don't want to, but because I don't let them and I guess you say you can't understand sleeping with people you aren't in love with, but I'm just saving a lot of different things. Not that one special thing. But a million other special things. No one has ever slept over and had breakfast with me. I have never cooked for someone. No one has ever put their hands on my sides and held me. No one's ever played with my hair with their hands. No one has ever kissed all my fingertips. No one, ever, all these things, hundreds and hundreds of things. No one has ever kissed the back of my neck or put their arms around my shoulders. And I guess I'm just in this weird mood and I want to tell you before I fade out of it, okay? All these things I normally couldn't. That all the time, I think about you. I wake up thinking about you. Lately I wake up and check my phone to see if you're around and go back to sleep if you're not. It's that bad, huh? You're a lot more guarded than me so you don't randomly stick your foot up on the webcam or tug at your shirt or things like that but I wonder all the time, how your hips look, how they feel, how your skin feels. All the time and I think about that shy smile you do when you're feeling nervous or shy and I want to see it always. And I want this to be everything, okay? And I want to stop crying right now because I'm scared you'll read this and I'll be saying everything too fast. I don't want to ever have to have what-ifs about you. I don't ever want to regret. I don't ever want to not know what your hands feel like and what your lips feel like, even in my dreams. I want to tell everyone else no. And I don't want you to worry about that, no matter what, because I don't think anything could make me feel like I need something else. If it takes ten years before you trust me or before we get to that special kind of thing, then okay. I can wait it out. And maybe one day you can be sure and say the L word back? I can wait that out too. But mostly I can do anything as long as I know at the end you won't leave.
A lovestruck romeo sings the streets a serenade,
laying everybody low with a lovesong that he made.
Sometimes I get ideas in my head that make my eyes blur up and my chest tighten and I start to feel like maybe I'm not one of the lucky ones. Can I just take a second to tell you that it's not about how things go so fast in my head that I can't even grasp it sometimes? Because they don't usually. This is just with you. I know I've never told you that, and I know you think that this is just how I am, but I'm just scared to tell you that I'm as scared about it as you are. And I'm typing this just crying and sniffling and crying and thinking and playing things through in my head. I can't put all these feelings into words and it's so frustrating. So, I'm trying. I can't be patient in all the ways most people can, and maybe it's because I've been through this in and out so many times that I know what to expect, or at least I feel like I should. The catch of breath before the first kiss and the butterflies from the first 'I like you' aren't foreign to me. And that's another thing I haven't told you, that I'm not really proud of that. That I don't want these things anymore if they won't last. And maybe you should try to trust me for that? I don't trust myself sometimes, but I'm trying, and if you're trying, it's okay. Life is mostly about timing. I just watched this movie, one of my favorite movies, actually, and there's this guy who is so in love with this girl... He writes her a letter, telling her how his heart stops when he sees her and how he thinks she's more than what people see in her... All those things that she needed to hear, and he's just too scared to give the letter to her. It gets to her on accident, and she reads it, and she doesn't know what he looks like. So she's going to find him and all these other guys are coming up to her, telling her all these things about wanting to hook up and how hot she is, and she gets fed up, then he finds her. And he tells her, but she's upset from all those other guys and yells at him. It's not until later, after he's gone, she realizes it was him and... in the end, he's about to leave and they walk away from each other, but he stops himself and goes after her. And I don't know how to describe this, just that I haven't cried this hard in a long time. But I guess, if that letter somehow never got to her, or if those other guys never hit on her and made her mad, or if he didn't stop and run after her in the end and instead just kept going... All these small split seconds change our lives, like you changed me somehow? So, I guess what I'm saying is that life is a lot about timing, and a lot about coincidence, that if certain things happen at certain times in your life, they can mean every little thing, and at other times wouldn't have meant anything. And both people have to be in the right timing at the same time, and how you and I even started talking, when other people in that community, Spencer-shaped for example, has had lines with me for over a year and doesn't even know my name. So this is just us, it's not everything else. It's nothing else. I'm so scared to say all these things to you because I don't know how you'll react and you still intimidate me even if you say you shouldn't. That's another thing that is only you. I'm so brave. So, so brave. And lately, since I moved, I've been so static and scared of risks and scared of life and scared of friends. I guess you never know what that's like until you've done it. Like when you came to the states and all, except if she had just gone away and you had no way of getting home. You'd be scared, right? And alone. And... that's how I am. I'm just waiting for this to feel like home, I guess. So I'm rambling and trying to find the way to say all these things. These things. It's okay not to trust me. It's okay to be slow. It's okay it's okay it's okay. I make you feel like it's not sometimes and I'm so sorry. I guess just because I can't wait to get past the point where things are scary. And for you to get sober and then to see how you are then, I can't wait for that, either. And all the time we talk about seeing each other, how it would be and how I would make you french toast and I don't know for sure if that will ever happen. I know I want it to. I know I've never wished for a teleporter this much before. But I can also tell you that I am a lot easier in person, you know? When there's not just text and I'm frustrated and you can see. I think you probably know that from Skyping with me, that I don't get mad when I'm talking that way. I calm myself down. It's when I'm alone and there's just text and I'm not focusing the way I should be and there are other things on my mind. And, anyway, I watched Sweeny Todd and I liked the part at the end where, after he'd killed the beggar woman, he goes down and picks her up when he knows it was his wife, and he sings to her, and thinks of all those things. I just... I guess I'm really stuck on love tonight. And how it's such a big, big thing, and everyone in it is just so small.
~~
I made a wrong turn once or twice,
dug my way out, blood and fire.
Bad decisions, that's alright.
Welcome to my silly life.
Mistreated, misplaced, misunderstood,
Miss 'no way, it's all good',
didn't slow me down.
Mistaken, always second guessing,
underestimated,
look, I'm still around.
Pretty pretty please, don't you ever ever feel
like you're less than fucking perfect.
~~
All I do is miss you. All I do is think about how gorgeous you are. And how I feel like we could talk always. The way you blow kisses and the way you said my name. You're so good at writing and drawing and all these other things I feel like I'm only semi-good at. Not the way you are. I don't want to... I don't ever want to say that thing that she said, that you're 'perfect'. I don't ever want to say a lot of things she said, I guess, but that 'perfect' thing, you know, I know you're not. But I feel like maybe you are the closest thing I've ever seen to it. I feel bad for all the times I made you upset. For not listening and for yelling for you to go away. You deserve better than that, right, and I'm good enough not to be that low if I try. Maybe things will change and maybe I'll fuck it up and maybe we'll fall out, or maybe this will keep working up into something spectacular, the kind of thing people will write stories and scripts about. I'm so guarded. I told you how no one's ever touched my sides like that. Not because they don't want to, but because I don't let them and I guess you say you can't understand sleeping with people you aren't in love with, but I'm just saving a lot of different things. Not that one special thing. But a million other special things. No one has ever slept over and had breakfast with me. I have never cooked for someone. No one has ever put their hands on my sides and held me. No one's ever played with my hair with their hands. No one has ever kissed all my fingertips. No one, ever, all these things, hundreds and hundreds of things. No one has ever kissed the back of my neck or put their arms around my shoulders. And I guess I'm just in this weird mood and I want to tell you before I fade out of it, okay? All these things I normally couldn't. That all the time, I think about you. I wake up thinking about you. Lately I wake up and check my phone to see if you're around and go back to sleep if you're not. It's that bad, huh? You're a lot more guarded than me so you don't randomly stick your foot up on the webcam or tug at your shirt or things like that but I wonder all the time, how your hips look, how they feel, how your skin feels. All the time and I think about that shy smile you do when you're feeling nervous or shy and I want to see it always. And I want this to be everything, okay? And I want to stop crying right now because I'm scared you'll read this and I'll be saying everything too fast. I don't want to ever have to have what-ifs about you. I don't ever want to regret. I don't ever want to not know what your hands feel like and what your lips feel like, even in my dreams. I want to tell everyone else no. And I don't want you to worry about that, no matter what, because I don't think anything could make me feel like I need something else. If it takes ten years before you trust me or before we get to that special kind of thing, then okay. I can wait it out. And maybe one day you can be sure and say the L word back? I can wait that out too. But mostly I can do anything as long as I know at the end you won't leave.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Pretty Pretty Please.
Dear Aly,
Every time you think you've got a grasp on something, even yourself, it slips out and turns around and hurts you and tugs at you and gives you that sinking feeling. This isn't any different. You can watch all the love movies in the world and you'll never be that girl. You'll never be one of the lucky ones. That you think she cares like that is the funniest part. Give up, please, before there aren't enough pieces left to fix you.
~ Logic
Every time you think you've got a grasp on something, even yourself, it slips out and turns around and hurts you and tugs at you and gives you that sinking feeling. This isn't any different. You can watch all the love movies in the world and you'll never be that girl. You'll never be one of the lucky ones. That you think she cares like that is the funniest part. Give up, please, before there aren't enough pieces left to fix you.
~ Logic
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Ash yourself out.
I'm just missing you, I guess, and wondering why I let you.
Tip up your chin and gaze slow into the morning. Tell yourself lies that you don't dare tell to anyone else. What happened? To your strong morale and your witty words? You cannot decide who you want to be anymore. Every polar blank lashes out at you, screaming "Run, now, while it's not too late!" Haven't you ever lost yourself? Like misplaced keys that you just can't seem to find, haven't you stepped away from yourself and forgotten how to come back? Misinterpreted undertones. Can't we rewind? I meant more, so much more. Did you ever know? Did you ever know how much you meant? Happenstance. Those circles under your eyes. Your mouth. Laughing and talking like me. Planning our attack. And your fingers. Which we know would never be brave enough to pull the trigger.
Tip up your chin and gaze slow into the morning. Tell yourself lies that you don't dare tell to anyone else. What happened? To your strong morale and your witty words? You cannot decide who you want to be anymore. Every polar blank lashes out at you, screaming "Run, now, while it's not too late!" Haven't you ever lost yourself? Like misplaced keys that you just can't seem to find, haven't you stepped away from yourself and forgotten how to come back? Misinterpreted undertones. Can't we rewind? I meant more, so much more. Did you ever know? Did you ever know how much you meant? Happenstance. Those circles under your eyes. Your mouth. Laughing and talking like me. Planning our attack. And your fingers. Which we know would never be brave enough to pull the trigger.
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