Wednesday, July 06, 2011

Tuesday, July 05, 2011

je sais, je sais que je sais jamais

you can't write lyrics for songs you don't sing
you sure can't keep track of every loose string
the wind will blow
notes come so slow
and holding on tight is how to lose everything

it's not just the good songs that get stuck in your head
and sometimes you're glad to sleep in a cold, empty bed
the catchiest tune
or the loneliest room
can both be full of words that no one should have said

what you never had will be what you miss most
it's easiest to be haunted by nobody's ghost
empty can ache
stillness will shake
what rips you wide open are those doors that stay closed

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

rambleraft of cognitive consommé

pardon me while my nartissticist spews...


jewelry-making? really? that's what it's come down to? the most blasé corner of artistic poserdom. anyone can bend some friggin' wire and string some stupid beads. we know this, because the internet is full of every no-talent dropout trying to make 15$ off 2$ worth of beads and wire, not counting shipping. but because i can't write or draw or sing or whatever... any real artistic thing, i have to drag my ass to the carnival fishing booth for some hobby-of-the-moment to distract me from my lack of integrity and the desperation of my dayjob and the soulsucking hypocrisy of my life. look! soap! i can make soap, that sounds fun. 2 days and $300 later... yawn. jewelry! i'll make earrings. 1 month and 450$ later... is this what i've become? what's next, scrapbooking? shoot me now. 

music... augh, i can't listen to one single damn song without skipping on to the next before it's 2/3 of the way through. i put my itunes library on shuffle and wonder what the hell's wrong with me that i have so much stupid music. no pleasure, from anything. can you literally die of ennui? i always thought that page in the gashlycrumb tinies was just a joke. 

blah. i can't write anymore, i can't write out all the crap in my head at the moment. my head this week is just like that picture in my postsecret submission. 

ooh, was that a confession? maybe.

Monday, June 27, 2011

braindead nailbed

moanday monday. complete apathy, or ambivalence. i'm only aloof because i'm bored with all the unrewarded effort, see.

you spend two and a half days erasing and can't quite make it. last an hour into the morning holding pattern, trying to hold on to some holdout, save yourself the heartache. but existence is an ache, so you just have to grit your teeth and deal with it. make the grimace look like a smile for the people who don't look closer.

itunes knew i was writing in here, so it shuffled up some arcade fire just for me to write to. but i have to change that, can't write to the same thing - even inadvertently - all the time. bon iver's got a new album out. so does agent ribbons, but i don't want either of them. i loved for emma, forever ago. and i loved on time travel and romance. and i don't want to tinge that love, vandalize the memories with the association of some new thing that's not as good. i don't need any more musical associations in my life right now anyway. it's getting to the point where i can't listen to anything in my library without skipping it before it makes me resentful. and i refuse to be a resentful person.

tiny little hammers building tiny little walls. some one's got to bridge the gasp and the sighs. and maybe to the untrained eye i'm sitting on my ass all day and biding time until i take you on. i like my orange juice with a little pulp. mmm. even when it's a bit tart and the orange is off. it's just like in the old days. i used to compose my own critical notices in my head...

at least i can leave little bows on all the knots i can't untie. if you can't fix it, at least make it pretty. so it looks good before you come at it with the scissors, with the fire. weird dreams about fire, about things that don't matter. i loved the premise, or the assignment that was mine at the premise. the execution was lacking, but the creativity, the ideas were there. and they were good. and i couldn't remember them when i woke up.

i have 8 key limes in the fridge at home that i don't know what to do with. 8 key limes isn't enough to do anything, if you don't have stuff for them to go with, and i don't want to go hunt down something on epicurious  because i'm not creative to come up with my own recipe. well, i am creative enough, i just... like i said, i'm bored with the effort. not the failure, i can handle failure, despite insistence to the contrary. if i can ace all this shit, i'll eventually have run through the entire gamut and come out on the other end ready for success, right? or is this more cyclical than they let on?

cyclical. geez, the cycles. it's a spiral. or a whole series of relapsing concentric circles. and the neuroses are firing on all six cylinders, but i'm hanging on by a thread to the thought balloon overhead and thread isn't very conductive. and i'm not conducive enough to pull things down, to be accommodating in my own little way. well, that's a lie. i'm always accommodating in my own little way, i'm just never accommodating enough for everyone else. and i get tired of trying to explain the jumps between my associations.

back to running laps. lapse.

it's a shame it's a pity - moondoggies

Friday, June 24, 2011

dream of piercings and overpasses

i had a dream you were supposed to meet me at a local convenience store, not the airport.

i was waiting for you on the bottom row of one of the refrigerated cabinets they keep the drinks in. the door was propped open, and i was curled up and clutching a pillow that half-obscured my head from view, so i was far more immune to public scrutiny than someone would be if they were camped out in a drink fridge in real life.

i was observing the people who kept walking in through the door, keeping an eye out for you, when i saw you come in and look around. you didn't see me, i buried my face in the pillow as you walked past looking at something else. you walked back out of the store and i kind of sat up to watch you leaving, when you turned around and locked eyes with me.

i climbed out of the fridge like, oh, sorry, i was napping... like this was totally normal, because it was a dream, and it was. you surveyed me as i stood there hugging my pillow and pretending you weren't looking at me, pretending you didn't have that disappointed and then completely removed look in your eyes that you did. i watched you hesitate, shifting ideas in your head, and then you said "car's out this way" and jerked your head toward the door.

i picked up my bag, still holding my pillow, and followed you out. you didn't even hold the door for me, trying too late to put all the distance back between us that had been there for so long. you were at your car already, holding the back door open. ah, you'd brought friends. "these are my friends, [name] and [name]. guys, this is...(you pause, biting your lip, and then shrug) chelsea."

i wasn't expecting more people than just you. i'm taken aback a little, but trying not to let it show.

i wave to the guys, say "hi, it's nice to meet you both," and put my bag in the trunk, but decide to keep my pillow with me as i climb into the front seat. as i get in, the car starts to shrink, it's so small my knees are up against my chest - or would be, if the pillow weren't in the way and my head is cocked to the side, ear pinned to my shoulder, because the roof is so low i can't sit with my head straight.

you get in and start driving. i'm fidgeting with my bottom lip, feeling for the holes from the piercings, there should be two of them, i freak out that they're going to grow back in all of the sudden, so i find some wire (i don't know from where) and twist it into a spiral, poking one end into the left hole, spinning it  so the wire wraps around my lip and into the hole on the right. i twist the ends up so they wrap around my lip too.

i pay attention to the dialogue going on in the car, now that i don't have to worry about my pierced lip growing back in.

the three of you are talking about the girl, another girl, the one i'm going to be replaced with once we get to her place. i feel sick, and sad and all knotted up, but act cheerful and offer to help with directions. you decide to let one of your friends drive. we pull over and he climbs into the driver's seat and we take off again.

the car goes back to normal size at some point, but i don't notice.

we're driving down a tall, steep overpass/exit ramp. i tell your friend, [name], to turn left. instead of waiting until we get to the end of this giant, tall, terrifying ramp to turn, he turns right then, driving us off the edge.

we fall in slow motion, i panic inwardly, apologizing that you're going to be stuck in the car with me when we hit the bottom and die in a fiery explosion, instead of someone less disappointing.

i feel my stomach rise in the back of my throat as the vertigo paralyzes me. my mind says nothing. i say nothing. nothing will stop the landing, the explosion, i bury my face in the pillow and wake up.