Buy one, get one free

As a promise made in the previous post. PS - thanks Kat for the title idea :)

Why didn’t anyone tell me
That women are like Christmas trees
Really only good when they’re all adorned
With round silicone curiosities
And cotton to cover up their prickly idiosyncrasies
And unruly oddities
That they inherited from consumer fables
While they stood obedient, silent
In the vacant corner of the local deli
Forced to observe, and knowing better
Than to yell when the back is already turned
So that the merchant,
Void of any guilt from the illegalities entailed,
Can approach the customer
Tilt his head in the direction of the object so pleasing to the eye
And say
“Yep, they only come in real or fake.”


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I should've listened to the New England fireflies

While (procrastinating before) doing research for an essay, I found this poem by Amber Tamblyn and it's just too good not to expose to the amateur world.

He Seemed Like a Nice Axe

You were adept in the art of slow recoil.
Not a freckle on your face ever cared to surrender.

I stopped counting the times
I couldn't count on you.

Started the habit of smoking to
forgive your mouth for giving up mine.

Whose lips did you kiss
that last time we did?

You went for them like a draw.
A double dog dare.

You just gazed at the bridge of my nose
while the dams around it broke.

My eyes shrunk to combusting plums,
sadder than a Christmas tree on December 26th.

I should have listened to all the New England fireflies
who told me not to.

My heart was a wave
that broke for you.


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WHOO NEW POST ZOMGGG!!!111one

Because apparently, people still read my blog...

Honestly, guys, sorry for not updating. I've been horrible about this lately, but college is a whole new playing field for me. However, in honor of my birthday, I'm posting up another one of my poems. I was debating for a few days whether or not this should ever see the light of day, but I'm on such an emotional high right now that I feel nothing can crush me. Even your raw, ruthless criticism. I'm not giving any context, so take what you want from it.


Fleeting

The clouds move like a drunken New York biker.
Barely above ground level,
With no sense of a straight line or slowing down.

Fast like a subway train
Only it's the express one, so it skips a couple necessary stops.

Fast like the cigarette-infested October rainwater
Racing down battered concrete
into the Underworld.

Like a pencil gliding across a dead tree
To draw my skewed interpretation of Zooey Deschanel's nose
in 500 Days of Summer.

Why do we move so fast
Like braindead coke addicts?

I'm not on drugs.
I don't think.

I wonder if, when he wakes up,
He ever remembers how my eyelashes tickled his neck
As we drooled on his Ikea pillowcase
And pretended we didn't have class in twenty minutes,
Or that his roommate wasn't undressing in the bed next to us.

From the day we met,
We were as likely to last as the New York clouds could stay in place.

We raced through a fragile honey-colored plane of impossibilities.
When you speed the "in love" part,
It feels a lot more like falling.

And now
After the stale whiskey and screwdriver shots
And his lovely marks and my sleeping pills
And the uncontrollable, barely remembered hysteria,
After getting used to waking up without his warm elbow jabbing into my shoulder
After realizing his ability to ignore any emotion
After one week

I just keep thinking about the New York bikers,
Recklessly speeding and not caring who they hurt in the process
And leaving others to clean up the mess they've made.


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What is and what could've been

Two poems today, both by Laura Haskins-Bookser.


Regrets

I am seventeen
and I just came home
so drunk and
so high
that I've just pissed myself

My mother is alone, asleep in her room

I rush to clean up after myself
trying to be quiet
but when I get out of the shower
my mother is standing in the hallway

Screaming at me
in a rage that I rarely saw
Beating on me with her fists
slapping me wildly

Do you want to be like your father?
Do you want to be a drunk?

I dodge out of her way
make it to my room
and remember one year earlier

I sat my parents down
Told them I thought I might have
A PROBLEM

She screamed at me that day as well

You don't need help
You just want attention

So while she is
still yelling in the hallway

I lock the door
ignoring her
and fall asleep quickly
because of my lethargic state

The next morning
the masks go back on
the superficial talk of the day begins

I think to myself
It's only Saturday

I still have another night of partying
before my weekend is over

Sleep Deprived

I slept
slept like a baby
a normal baby, that is
who doesn't survive on
three-hour blocks of sleep

I slept
without one interruption
without one peep from your crib
without any noise at all
from you

I panicked
and jumped out of bed
raced to your crib
on the other side of the room

You are not breathing
I am sure of it
I cry out
call your name
pick you up
wake you up

Oh no

I slept
slept like a baby
and could have gone back to sleep
if only I hadn't woken you
from the deep sleep you were enjoying

You scream
and I laugh and I hug you
that's the baby I know
that's the baby I love

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The car ride home

"I first fell in love when I was 14," this man had told me.
I'm not sure why;
Silence was taboo on this 20-minute drive.
He asked if I had read Gone With the Wind.
No, I told him.
"You should," he replied,
"Those kinds of stories are good for your age.
That's when I read them." And then he proceeded
To tell me about his first love.
"I dated her for two weeks.
Man, 14," he repeated.
I smiled and read the license plates of cars we passed by.
"We held hands and all of that."
I looked down at my legs
And watched the sun burn the car leather right where I sat.
I usually hate these lazy scorching May afternoons -
always more of a winter girl -
but today was different.
"And walked in the park late under the moon."
He laughed.

With his left hand on the wheel,
He left the other motionless on the side
Still unable to break the habit of his old stickshift.
"I even cried
About her. Once. But after two weeks,
I was done."
His happy nostalgic smile nicely complemented his graying hair
Which looked white under the sun.
He wasn't old or anything;
He had a 10 year old daughter
And a worrying wife
Who, like a gypsy with her ash-black hair,
Looked flawless every day
With another on the way;
Above all, she was kind.
"Her I married within a month," he told me.
"Didn't want to wait too long
And change my mind.
Again."
But there's no feeling quite as high as that first love, he said as we pulled up to a red light.
Cars crawled like ants into the intersection
With men and women and children
Behind the wheel,
Killing time and thinking
And talking and smoking and drinking.
I wondered if any of them were also remembering their teenage girlfriends.

"What about you? Have you ever been in love?
And I mean like, real, crazy,
Pull-your-hair-out love?"
As he said this, his eyes flashed
Like this love thing was the greatest ever.
I could have said "Oh, don't I know it!"
I could have told him about
The Italian pizza I bought us for takeout.
I could have said, "Funny you ask,"
And told him about the books we planned to read
And the frozen yogurt
And the stolen bikes
And, of course, his grandfather's spoon.
I could have shown him my worn-out eyes
And remembered that morning I was sleepy but happy
After a long and perfect night.
I could have said, "Don't get me started!"
And told him about the day that we parted
And the strangely rectangular shape of his head
During all those horrible things that were said
Instead of a proper goodbye.
I could have chuckled and sighed.

"Have you ever been in love?"
"No," I lied.
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A day in my life, in haikus

Since I've unfortunately fallen ill this morning, I've taken a couple hours to catch up on writing some poems. This one is about Monday, March 9th.

0:41 AM
Took a leap of faith.
Talking is fun after dark,
Among other things.

5:08 AM
Don't make any noise.
Put your shoes back on downstairs.
"I made it in. Night :)"

11:32 AM
Phone call woke me up.
Do homework? Hell to the no.
He wants a lighter.

12:10 PM
Breakfast at Starbucks,
By myself, contemplating.
Wrote this post right here.

2:29 PM
Still drinking coffee.
"What are you doing?" phone beeps.
I reply. No answer back.

4:41 PM
Invites me to watch
"Kung Fu Panda" at his house.
Different couches.

5:10 PM
Why is this awkward?
We know each other like the
Backs of our hands. Bleh.

6:21 PM
"Wanna have dinner?"
He asks, "in like two hours?"
Hm. What to expect?

6:30 PM
Get home, finally.
Called mother, she's working late.
Killed time on Facebook.

7:30 PM
Homework? Hahaha.
House is eerily quiet
As it waits with me.

8:18 PM
I could eat a bear.
"Meet me outside in three mins".
But I look like shit!

8:21 PM
Cleaned the living room,
Washed the dishes, made myself
Pretty. I am good.

8:40 PM
Deliberation.
Mediterranean? Thai?
Italian? Gah!

8:57 PM
Ordered meat kabob.
Good conversation. About books.
I didn't think he read!

9:23 PM
It's an itch we know
We are gonna scratch, when oh
When will this egg hatch?

9:52 PM
Under the full moon.
Smiles by the little playground.
Arms lock. You smell nice.

10:05 PM
Big plans. Can people
Really change? Priya says so.
Today, I agreed.

11:49 PM
Best weekend ever.
Time to descend from the clouds.
What could go wrong now?


© Me, 3/12/09 Continue reading >>

untitled

"How painful, my darling, how strange,
With my roots interweaved in the ground –
How painful, my darling, how strange
To be split apart under a saw.
The wound in my heart won’t change,
But swell up with tears and drown,
The wound in my heart won’t change –
But dry up and turn into straw."

"As long as I’m living, I’m yours –
Can’t separate blood from the soul,
As long as I’m living, I’m yours –
Death’s partner will always be love.
You’ll carry it through every hole,
You’ll carry through darkness and wars,
You’ll carry through darkness and wars
Your genuine home, my beloved."

"But what if I can’t find a cover
From pity, incurable shame,
But what if I can’t find a cover
To shield me from cold and the dark?"
"We’ll soon meet again, you’ll discover,
Remember me one and the same,
We’ll soon meet again, you’ll discover,
At a place where we’ll both disembark."


"And what if I still disappear –
Just a short ray of light in the sun –
And what if I still disappear
In the Milky Way smoke of the stars?"
"Then I’ll never stop praying, my dear,
That you find the route you’ve begun,
Then I’ll never stop praying, my dear,
That you return without a scar."

He sat in the chill dusty train,
Became homeless, quiet, and content,
He sat in the chill dusty train,
Half-crying, half-trying to relax,
When the steel on the slippery lane
Roared a terrible echo and bent,
When the steel on the slippery lane
Tore the wheels away from the tracks.

An inhuman merciless force,
Destroying it all with one knock,
An inhuman merciless force
Took part of the earth to the stars.
And no one was spared in the course
By the promised reunion talk,
And no one was spared in the course
By the hand reaching out from afar.

Don’t leave those you love for endeavors,
Don’t leave those you love for endeavors,
Don’t leave those you love for endeavors
That even your heart won’t permit.
Say goodbye like you’re leaving forever,
Say goodbye like you’re leaving forever,
Say goodbye like you’re leaving forever,
Even when you’ll be back in a bit.






© Me
(rough translation of a Russian poem by A. Kotchekov)
Continue reading >>