devour

impetus.

through the
looking glass.

tawdry,
elusive reflection
of what
he'd always
shown himself.

or targeted
obsession
based on
mere untamed
possibility.

his hunger.

notebook 2.27.12

i loved you more than these poor bones could ever take
some holes
are cleaned up
the emptiness
scraped out of them
until they can
be refilled
with something more
unholey.

some holes
are so holey
they have no
edges. nothing
left to scrape against,
when you try
to scrape out
the emptiness.

some holey holes
with no edges
to define the hole
from the unholey
have to be removed,
so there's nothing
to have a hole in.
and something
impossible
to grow holes in
is put in the place
of the hole's
hole.

so it's like
a double hole,
the holey of holeys.

covered up
so no one can see it,
except the person
who knows it's
there.

the person who
has to miss
two things, now,
instead of just
one.

windstorm - school of seven bells

it's what i listened to the most today. good song. catchy, in a feels-mellow-but-it's-not kind of way. anyway, i like it. you might too.

kenneth

i keep wanting to write to you, of you this week. make it specific and blatant, because i have looked for you and can't find you anymore, anywhere. just shadows, helpless traces in all the old places.

so here i am, reaching at the dark, because i felt ready to say this, or feel the need to say it. to say something... i don't know what i'm saying, just that in my very gut is some urge to find you.

you don't answer any of the old email addresses anymore. i've messaged them a few times. i'm sorry for being so angry, for not responding those couple times when you reached out last year.

i wish i could know you are well.

i wish you could know that i miss you. i miss the sound of your voice and the way we used to laugh.

so much has changed. i'm sitting here with one good arm, another dead one slung up against my side, and a giant scar from my neck to my elbow. i had cancer, kenneth. fucking cancer. i might still have it. i have to hang around and get checked up for another two years, hope the nodules they found in my lungs are just random growths that i've always had, instead of metastases.

but you know what? this is it. this is why i feel like i have to talk to you again, to find you and be friends.

i came out of a ten hour surgery, a surgery i went into scared completely shitless and wondering if i'd even wake up, or if i woke up would i only have one arm there? what if... what if...

and the first thing i said when i woke up, according to the nurse at my bedside, was your name. YOUR name.

the nurse was so confused. she kept saying, kip? kip? thinking i wanted to see my dad, but i was insistent. kenneth? who is he? he's not here. kenneth. kenneth. i didn't stop saying it until i realized i was saying it. of course you weren't there. and i knew i was awake, like i wrote in that poem.

i keep dreaming about you. old dreams, new dreams. max dreams. i fought it for a couple weeks, thinking it was the drugs making me overly emotional, or, i don't know what.

i miss you, is what. i've got this huge hole of waiting for my arm to heal, to try and use it again, and the only hole i've ever experienced like it, the only thing i can relate it to in all of this, is the hole of you. the hole of you that's so big, so bottomless, so.. fathomless. oh, the irony. the odds of fate.

i just want to know that you don't hate me, or that you think of me. i track visits to my blog sometimes. sometimes perth pops up in them, once every four or five months. such a tiny blip on a big radar, and i wonder if it's you. i hope it's you. and i wonder what you see, what you come back looking for.

if you ever see this, i want you to please not send back my things. i gave them to you, they're yours now. i want you to keep them. unless you've burned them or thrown them out... i don't know. perhaps you weren't as rash at the end as i was. maybe you left them at your parents' house.

i filled that black november with nothing but regrets. lost so many pieces of you. i still have the ring, i still have bear, and the birthday card. but i'm missing so many of the photos. the conversations.

i do love you. you matter to me. you always will. that doesn't change, can't change. as much as i have tried to make it, to ignore it, it's like trying to cut off a limb. you were a part of me for so long.

email me, if you ever see this. if you read this and feel like you could just assuage the small part of me that aches to know you're ok. email me, for whatever reason keeps pulling you back here. all my little corners of contact have stayed the same. even my phone number.

i just need to know that you're ok. that life is treating you well. that you're happy and healthy and that you know that i'm thinking of you. a lot. i do every day. i don't know if that means anything to you, but you should know it just the same.

just a hello, just an... anything.

love,
chels

stand yourself

if that apology from you meant anything, i'd accept it now with grace. well you and i both know it's just a ploy for you to save some face. if you had any self respect you'd turn yourself in for your crime. every time you go to sleep at night, every time you tell yourself it's alright, it just becomes a bigger lie. i hope that you can stand yourself tonight.

in between days full of hypertension, basking in the memories you hold so dear, remember the vibrant defining moments. the king making maneuvers and the grand ideas. i'm glad to see the world through a different window, where glory doesn't color every move i make. no lies, no fiction, no rose pink lens. just a truthful look at the love i gave to you.

evergreen saints pray for nature's sinners. preserving every petal that was so hard won. fold into her chest a mother's crutch. relishing the lure of a distant sun. now i'm glad to see the world through the winter palette. where color wheels stall between the green and blue. no white, no snow melt, no icebound lakes, just a bird song strung across the cobalt blue, boy.

golden rule that applies to you, a zero sum puzzle of our love. even just to say the name was bitter on the tongue. the boy sailed off to riches and the girl sailed off with none. another in a broken line of loves that she had known, another silver tongue, but mercury-hearted bag of no good bones.

nothing can be said. pacify the war raging in your head. nothing to recommend. never gonna see it from the other end. you can change it all around, but the secret's so profound. nobody will be saved. you intend to take it with you to your grave. nobody will return from underneath the bridges you already burned.

you can change it all around. find a secret so profound. change it all around. this is only the beginning for you. take some time to think it over, run it through. this could only end in trouble for you. take some time to think it over.

here they come, one by one. dominoes tumble forward. but why would i believe you when lying is all you ever do? there they go soft and low, singing ebb and flow underwater. but why, whenever i call you, is crying all you do? i'm awake in the flying dream. higher than i've ever been. and i'm way past spinning in the heart of a hurricane, getting spat out again.

i'm awake, hearing what you said falling in around my head. i still get pleasure, and relieve your pain. sweep you up and carry you away, but why would i believe in you when lying is all you ever do? i'm awake in the flying dream, higher than i've ever been. but i'm way past spinning in the heart of a hurricane and getting spat out again.

who's gonna follow you into the night? who's gonna dilute the poison in your mind? who's gonna drown in your hazel eyes? who's gonna bridge every river you cross? who's gonna carry the weight of your loss? who's gonna color your blue sky? did you ever feel like a call in the night, a good idea laid to waste and left untried? now the pillar of dust that is holding you up, it's crashing down around you now and poisoning your mind.

sunsets over the beaches from now on. each day looking for new ways to go. maybe i should drop by. maybe i should have called. maybe i should have followed you and beat down your door. maybe it's gonna be breaking you every time you fall. but to shower you with pity will do you no good at all.

slow burn watching the world turn from my arms. new way of measuring each day till it's gone. sunrise building a reprise in my heart. regret tight around my chest plays its part until it's gone.

my top 30 of 2011

i know i'm a month late with this list, but i figured y'all would cut me some slack (especially when it comes to ignoring that "y'all"...)

according to last.fm's scrobbling, these are the top 30 songs i listened to in 2011, in descending order from highest times listened. (Artist - Track)

Band of Horses – I Go to the Barn Because I Like The
The National – Apartment Story
Matt Costa – Astair
Efterklang – Modern Drift
The National – Brainy
The National – Mistaken For Strangers
Cat Power – The Greatest
Loney Dear – I Was Only Going Out
Mother Mother – Burning Pile
Mazzy Star – Fade Into You
Matthew Dear – Gem
Pepper Rabbit – Older Brother
Loney Dear – Airport Surroundings
Devics – If We Cannot See
The National – Conversation 16
LCD Soundsystem – Dance Yrself Clean
The End of the World – Show Your Age
Agent Ribbons – Chelsea, Let's Go Join the Circus
Basia Bulat – Run
Cat Power – Lived in Bars
Beth Orton – Central Reservation (original version)
La Sera – Never Come Around
Paper Rival – Cassandra
Justin Clayton – Collide
The Clientele – Never Anyone But You
Bon Iver – Flume
Pink Floyd – Marooned
Cate le Bon – Shoeing The Bones
Bon Iver – Re: Stacks
Air Waves – Knock Out

poetree

ghoststrokes

down the back

of a dead arm

twist response

in fever sleep

jars electric

refusal

deep in a

tender socket.

the weight

of impotence

and some

distant potential

measured in tiny

steps, baby

steps.

even this mess

of muscle,

bone & metal,

can't stop the haunt

of dark eyes

and dark hair

at my bedside.

_____

unsleep

is the hardest

part of

recovery.

unsleep

and the silent

stalking

of helplessness,

uselessness,

in every

dark corner.

they said

it was your

name

i called

when i

came to.

who is he?

he's not here

they said,

and i knew

i was awake.

_____

i wanted to know

if you knew.

it's so easy t0

tell the immediate

fears, the forthright

fright of

a situation like facing

some familiar

demon.

too many of those

stories sound

and end the same.

i can't reach

you;

i can't reach

for you.

and that's the only

thing at the front

of my mind.

_____

when you

finally

talk to me,

i'll be so

tired

it won't

matter what

you say,

just that

you

said it.

_____

chocolate curls

cavernous dimples

peals and ripples

perfect laughter

green-grass

little boy smell

hot small fingers

pudgy arms

wriggle around

my neck soft

eager baby

kisses nuzzles

jerked awake

empty arms

dead arm

bed of cold sweat

your face on my

eyelids

no escape in

the dark

_____

i miss most

the deep velvet

of your voice

and the sound

of your laugh

in the dark.

the times you'd

believe me

when i'd say

i love you.

that was never

the lie.

for kenneth

metaphysical therapy

i have a new shoulder. and a left arm that is going to have to learn how to work all over again. it hurts just to sit here while i try and type this with one hand. my left hand is the only part of it i can move by myself. but i can feel everything just fine, so no nerve damage. what was supposed to be a 5 hour surgery was actually 10 hours. he was meticulous, and confident they removed all the cancer (or whatever it is.) he said the full biopsy and analysis will take 2 weeks. so, just waiting.

every day is a new step of progress, getting a shirt on without cutting it up first. i wore a bra today, even. first time since the 25th of Jan. (day of surgery.)

remind me to tell you about the convict in the bed next to mine when i came to.

i'll be honest, what's getting me through is music and writing poetry, by hand, in a little notebook. i hadn't done that in a long while.

in the mean time, here's my "sharkbite." (that's what dr. randall calls it.) it's 16 inches long and goes from my collarbone to the crook of my elbow.