nomad, not mad

Gentle humming

Of a gentle breeze

Brings me back down

Well-worn knees

Gentle humming

Of an oiled machine

Clears my head now

Blackberry teas

Gentle humming

Of your best tune

Blooming into my ear

Holding you soon

Gentle humming

The ancient sky

Watches it’s tears

And a well-told lie

Gentle humming

I can try, I can try, I can try

To fly, to sigh, goodbye

a non-poem conglomeration of thoughts

1. in less than twenty four hours i will be tackling my baby sister and harassing her about boys.
2. i can't count on one hand the people i know who are engaged. seriously--they've popped out of nowhere.
3. i have an essay due in about nine hours. i haven't really started. (that's a bit more than a minor problem.)
4. i really don't want to do said essay. but i also really don't want to deal with the consequences.
5. i am under the spell of a melody, it's an epidemic in the key of d
6. i wish i was going home instead of mississippi. well, that's not completely true--i wish patrick was magically going to be in mississippi, then thanksgiving would be absolutely perfect.
7. i'm running out of money. and soap. (not good)
8. all i want to do is curl up in my bed and watch hugh laurie awkwardly act in sense and sensibility.. but i have to write an essay...
9. i just want to be with patrick again.
and
10. i love patrick david foss

something like living in the moment

i've been living in the evidence

for quite a while now. it stings

my eyes with its smoky reassurance,

i just can't prove that my lungs

still oscillate around my sternum

or that my liver still sifts my blood

like sand, leaving chaf for the

winds of time that sweep us

through our all-too-brief lives

that are all-too-important to let

us take risks.

all i wanted was to ink out my

existence, no, to ink my existence

into my skin, just maybe the

evidence will prove i exist. i'm

still here. my brain pounds against

my skull but all i feel is the space

between my fingers and the

wondering that oozes through

my body, on a quest to prove i'm

no longer alive. i can sit more still

than you. so still, you'll forget

you'll forget the warm hand that

touched your face that day and

flicked away your tears.

my fingernails will keep on growing

without me and maybe i'll never

be the same. the way i once was

when the happiness was a disease

in my body, tiny virus, creeping

the corridors of my insides.

how about we bring back the

summer sun from its untimely

death and revive the winter moon

that sings us to sleep under a

flannel sky of tic-tac stars. i don't

remember the silly/beautiful words

my brain once fostered--the stillness

begs questions and tosses fear in

front of my feet like an invitation

to a tea party. won't you come and fear

for your life with us? no it's not that i

fear--open my brain and tell me if

there's anything in there at all--

it's the evidence that proves the

existence.

lay me down on a bed of roses

the love
i__i__o_t__i have
for you
w__n__r_i_to hear
will not
a___m__r_n_for(-)sake(,)
be gone
n____y__e_g__of sanity
when i
t___a_f_i__seeing that
see you
y__r__l_n_go crazy
in thirty
o___m_e_m_nonsense
four days.
u____s_c_y_
___________i

happiness in a parking lot

once, when i was little

i made a list of everything i

wanted him to be. i dreamed

up the most perfect creature

my little brain could

comprehend.

once, when i was a young girl

i was deathly afraid of dancing

i just wanted to be asked for once--

stupid preteens, so mean, so cold--

it was all i could do to look

that boy in the eye.

once, when i was becoming a woman

i let myself go blind, now i still

don't quite understand how

my grasping hand just couldn't let

him go. a virus in my mind, he

took from me a piece of

silence.

once, when i was sure the rain stuck

to the soles of my shoes, another

offered me a sweater, at last, and

a shy and blushing sonnet with

which to comb my tangled hair.


it is surely the winter that allows appreciation
of what is good. it is surely time and an almighty
that allows a grasping hand to find what it needs.

you are surely what i needed. 

washwish wanderheart

(In response to "Eveline," a chapter of James Joyce's Dubliners, in the format of Gerard Manley Hopkins' "Spring and Fall")

Eveline are you grieving?
Over adventure's leaps at leaving?
Daddy's abuse was just enough, to
be too much, but not enough to
push you over the edge of abandon
your doubts line up in mortal tandem.
there, there, little girl, don't ever dream
of leaving home, of ripping a seam
of saying exactly what you mean.
washwish your wanderheart into its cage
you and your mother, same at that age
what fear sprouted, hearthope could not subdue
deer, in stockstill silence, wasting seconds few.
you'll return to your dear drunken dad,
this day will forever leave your spent heart sad.

it goes like this

she found herself falling
in and out of a world that
couldn't get enough of her
but couldn't get rid of her
fast enough. like a candle,
she burned for truth and
love she could call sacred,
but that boy was a child
with a single desire burning
up his brain. and what did
she know? as a girl sitting
on the floor, playing with
her toys, mom and dad
had explained the world
with a logic and a reason
that didn't leave any room
for love, and why should it?
"you live, you procreate, you die.
and love has no place among
our purposeful world. your
purpose does not allow for
love--don't ever fall in love
my dear, or you'll become
a slave." defiant as ever, she
searched for love, to prove
her senseless parents wrong--
but in all their teaching they
never told her how her father's
logic still locked the doors
at night and brought her
mother a steaming bowl of
soup when a scratchy throat
just wouldn't leave her alone.
so she imagined that love was
in her body, waiting to be let
out. this boy could let it out,
couldn't he? of course he could.
we'd love, she thought, and
then a golden band will lead
me into my life. the logical
life that has room for love.
i've proved them wrong. but
the boy didn't know how to
make soup or hold her hand
when the movie was just too
scary. to him, her body was
a playground and she quickly
became disillusioned.. love
doesn't exist. they're all the
same. and like a fallen angel,
she picked up the broken pieces
of her broken heart and trudged
into the darkness of a life
that has no room for love.

i never was this girl, but i
thought i might become her,
when i saw the emptiness of
that other boy's eyes. but your
heart soaked up mine in a
single instant, that day the sun
wasn't quite as warm as we
were sure it used to be. well
you have my heart, it's right
there next to yours, beating
in perfect time. i have plenty
to learn about the intricacies
of love, but a wise man (who
strangely resembles me, and
always loved my mother as if
she were a precious gem) once
told me that love can only be
seen in the how and what a
person does. love is, after all
the blinding light and racing
blood pressure, a verb in its
truest sense. you may follow
your feelings from time to time
but above all, you choose who
you love. i've chosen to love
a boy who knows how to make
soup and tenderly puts a
bandaid on the broken skin of
my pitiful little finger. if only
she knew that they aren't all
the same, it wouldn't always
go like this.

doesn't erase

i hate what i've said.
but you can't draw into
yourself the words
you've already released.

and from your lips she drew a hallelujah (egregious plagiarism)

oil spots on the (maybe there's a god
above-- but what did we ever learn
from love...?) face of heaven,
seven spaces for seven faces--
once there was a way... to get back home.

i'm running out of words to
describe the way our hands
fit together and the how of under
an umbrella of stars we nod our
heads into a lulling sleep.
(i don't mean to say that i slept
with you because, well, I didn't)
but someone tied bricks to my
eyelids and the gentle hum
of the air coming out of your
lungs filled my world
and clouded my ever cloudy
senses. (now, don't think i was
drunk or anything because, well
I wasn't. I never was) but
i'd give anything to start this
dream where it left off--
i'd give (now, don't think i was
dreaming of you because, wait...
I was...) ask me for a pack of dreams
like you'd ask for those bicycle
kings and queens--i'll wrap them
up and send them to you. or you
could collect them from my
anxious fist. every character
eerily... you? (now don't go thinking
i'm a creeper... well, just don't okay?!)
it's always here we are walking past the
swings, and there we are kissing
on a bridge.. why aren't there
any bridges here? (i can't see them)
(it's a cold and it's a broken--
mandolin of sorts that whines our
shaky love) i won't open my eyes
for fear the world still turns without
you. (for fear my world still turns
without you) tell me you're sorry,
no, don't do that. i'll dig the hole and
step into it, handing you the shovel,
crouching in the mud. i've already
dug the hole in the ground where
my body will rest. cheeky girl,
you'll say, pulling me back into
your world. (i'm sorry) or maybe i'll
give and take away, like i've done
for months now. maybe i just
crave the power... the power to
deprive. (take away my power.
just rip it from my selfish hand...)
(if i did it here's how) if i had multiple
personalities, one of their names would
be bitch.

you can say it's not true, but you've
known in your heart of hearts what
i've been all along. Could you bear
to stoop yourself to my level?
sometimes i wonder if i'm lost.
and then i ask when these thoughts
started sinking in, poisoning our
perfect fairytale--what have i said?
what am i saying?! i've poisoned
our fairy tale.


(this is the most ridiculous thing i've ever written.
just disregard.)