i feel like i write differently, depending on whether i'm writing in my notebook or on the computer. i think sometimes when i write on the computer, the tone of my writing tends to be a little more sarcastic, a little more sharp. or some other way that i can't quite put my finger on.

i just know the sensation of the things that i've written digitally or in analog tends to be distinguishable. is this just me, or do other writers have this problem? i asked it on twitter the other day, and my friend Collin confirmed that he too feels that way. anyway, that interests me, and i have been thinking about it this week, as i try to work on a new goal that i've set for myself, to go back to writing right before i fall asleep every night, for at least an hour. with no distractions, not even music. (that's a huge thing.)

i used to do it all the time, from like 2004-2007, and then i just got busy, and i got a computer and well, the internet has killed lots of useful time for lots of people, so i don't really need to justify (because i can't.) but i like knowing that i'm not the only time-wasting writer in the world. (when writers say they have "writer's block," they really mean "the internet" anyway.)

i've been avoiding writing out anything prosey lately, because there have been a lot of emotions that i've been dealing with, personal, secretish type of emotions, which i am comfortable with divulging cryptically and enigmatically into poetry. and with prose, i can't hide. maybe some people can, but i'm not one of them.

so i end up being so straightforward, and blunt. and say things that perhaps you won't be disappointed in, but that i would.

it's easier to explore my emotions in poetry, anyway. or it's tidier. i think them out in my head and try and translate - or abridge - them down into an image or an idea that fits the feeling. like cramming a huge pillow into a tiny box and all anyone can see is the box, but only i know that the pillow is stuffed inside. that's a shitty simile. but it kind of fits. you see the box, and sometimes the pillow, if i've done a good enough job divulging, but mostly you just see the box, but when i read my poetry, i see the box AND the pillow at the same time. so i remember exactly what giant knotted emotional mess was crammed in my head when i wrote it, and you just have a pretty little package to look at. does that makes sense?

do i care if it makes sense? no, not really. i'm writing this for me. explaining things to myself. and there are a few of you who know that this blog is here, who read it on occasion, but mostly i am just keeping a journal here. a journal that gets left on the nightstand and strangers find it and peek through, but only for a few pages, because it was meant for me, not them, and you can tell it was meant for me, and you become uninterested and walk away. because you don't see your name, or you do see it, but you don't want to read it. because what i have to say isn't what you expected. or because it's exactly what you expected, but you don't want to be reminded.

hang on, i'll go find an old poem and tell you what i was thinking when/as i wrote it.

Uncomfortable Isn'ts

I pluck dead words
from the rafters
at night, 
(i'm trying to pull whatever words i can grab
out of my head tonight.)
 
meet each shrunken
arrival with a doubt
and a stutter.
(each small, misfit wrong word that comes,
i second-guess, and can't quite get out. second-guessing myself,
really, not feeling confident enough to write this evening.)

Could I lick
the palms of your sweet
successes?
(i just want a small taste of what it's like to accomplish something,
because it seems like everyone else around me is accomplishing good things
and i want to know what that feels like.)

The honey of your
today stings straight
cinnamon on my lips 
(it hurts to see how sweet the lives of the people i called my peers
have become, while mine feels anything but sweet. i want the things
that you have right now, to be mine right now too, but they're not.)

and my tongue
pretends I know
the taste of tomorrow. 
(so while i watch you have all those things that i wanted/want for myself, 
to deal with it, i just imagine that someday i will have all those things too,
and that's supposed to make it hurt less.)

I have been Widow:
shutter-eyed;
waiting 
(i've been left alone by what i loved the most,
now my eyes and expressions are masked and closed-off
from everything outside, just waiting for something to change.)

for no one
once dinner's gone
cold. 
(...even though i feel like what i want is something that's never 
going to show up. and i'm wasting the time that i have right now.)


see, i don't feel like it's too much of a leap between what i wrote and what i mean, but like i said, i know the pillow's in the box. maybe the reader doesn't. that's what's floating at the top of my mind as i write this, anyway. not a day for digging deeper. no more emotional prose. for the moment.

weekend notebook

kneaded

i roll your indifference
indifferently
between my thumb
and forefinger.

i'm watching
other things, my focus
elsewhere,
but my attention
holds and moves you,
back, forth
at the back of my mind.

like the distraction
of a kneaded eraser,
familiar, tangible,
when you can't draw
and can't think
of anything to draw,
but are trying to.

this is not to say
that your indifference
is comforting.
just distracting.

and i will hold it
while i try
to think of better
things for my hand
to do.



small stones

jared laughs,
makes fun of me,
sometimes

when i tell him things.
(or because i tell him things.)

you can build a friend
out of small confessions.

you can build walls
with small confessions,
you can build
regret, and bridges.

burn them all
with small confessions.

in the end, life
is small confessions.

pieces of self,

tiny stones.
tiny perfect, flammable
honest stones.



back page

i am writing this
on the back of a page
that has already
been written on.

and this is a new thing,
a start, not a
continuation of what
is on the other side.

(i never do this.)

i hate doing this.
i hate the haunt
of the backward
ghost-letters i can see
behind what i am
now writing.

like this page isn't
good enough because
part of it has been
used.

and i relate to that.
and i hate it.
and i never do this.

but today, just now, i did.



(untitled)

i can be the kind
of person who writes
on both sides of the page.

i can spend a day
with strangers
and survive.

i can give,
and not get
what i gave,
but i can get
an experience.

i can get
used to being used
to you, or
by you

or used to
letting it go.

letting you go.

i can unwind
and blow
away.



sinner

sinner, sinner,
chicken dinner.

in a few weeks,
it will be back to red.
no more blonde
for me.

it doesn't fit,
makes me angry.

it was this hair
that you grabbed,
and i need it
different.

and you, you stopped
talking to me
because i said no
too many times,

or because i said
too many things.

or because you're just
busy, but i am
better at coping
when i can blame myself.

i'm a woman,
i bit the apple
and blamed me
ever since.

and you,
you pulled down
pictures
and then your pants,

and it's a woman
who picks up
the pieces.

a daughter,
a wife,
a mother,
a sister.

i am eve.
i am even.
i am evening
the score,
since you need
settling.

shhh.
here, eat this.

i've had one bite,
and now i'll be
feeding you
forever.

i will meditate
on this,
translate it,
expand my suffering.

an nth degree
for my first degree
felony.

amplification
of suffering is
a son,
i will digest
this bite. he will
eat it vicariously,

sucked from my
very heart
and middle.

swallow my sin,
you'll grow.
experience is
a nutrition.

regret,
a necessity.

the shame
of no shame.

regret that
the bite of sin
is tied to my name,
every time.

and the son,
and you,
and you,
and you,
point and forget,
even while stuck
in a web.

for my name
is tied

to everything.



forced

necessity compels
the page be still
and submit
to the stab, slap
and scrawl
of this pen.

a black prick
of ink
erasing white
virginity as it
draws its desire
into being.

to begin
a picture, or
a poem,
is the most
violent thing.

it is a destruction,
a construction
with the inability
to rebuild.

and it can never
be unbegun;
it can never
be anything but
something

brutally past
the beginning.

whiteout

i'll write out the cracks in my current sky
sitting outside with a giant sharpie,
trying to dot out pinhole stars
like it will ever be accomplished,
like i will magically stop
waking up crying over dreams i
can't remember.

4 am is far more sinister than 3,
because at 3 the potential for more
sleep can still tantalize you.
but 4 am is a famine and leaves you
desperate for more than two hours,
which is all you could get.

every old flame burns my unborn
baby into these charcoal sockets,
so if i wake up dry, i can find
something quick to cry about anyway.

brown curls. brown eyes everywhere.
i see him in you, and you, and you.
it's enough to claw the sight out of days
and take solace in a warm sclera
blood gush from somewhere besides
the empty middle whole of me.

i want to curl my fingers up in
that one's hair and pull his face close,
feel a stubblescratch on my cheek, nose,
the accidental bumps of teeth
the salt of his mouth making
my mouth water, making indiscriminate
soft noises of pleasure and forgotten
loneliness, if even just for a few moments
before the pullaway.

i want closer, i want the cling.
not this leftbehind back of the fridge
leftover monday morning feeling;
a perpetual alarm blare at the base
of the skull like dull tingling and
every little sidetrack distraction
a snooze button five minutes too short.

a quick wit nick of the finger
enough to pull red from the recesses,
and remind me how easy it is
to love every little thing so entirely,
and then smother it with neuroses
and all the wrong answers and
regret and hope and longing
and rejection and obsession.

i get addicted to whole red holes.
the deep color draw of you so
damn disarming, and i need you
to need me to fix something,
so i can feel like you need me
for everything.

to make the brown hair
and brown eyes more solid
and less sad, less of a cryover
on a 4am sleepless mourning.

ray bradbury

"some people turn sad awfully young. no special reason, it seems, but they seem almost to be born that way. they bruise easier, tire faster, cry quicker, remember longer and, as i say, get sadder younger than anyone else in the world. i know, for i'm one of them."

drawn

draw you in dark lines
in the dark,
my pen unraveling
the thready knots
of then and now.

you sit on the other side
of the paper.
laugh as i trace
the contour of all
your outside edges,
snare my distraction
in light lines of
conversation, important

to keep my focus
from reaching max
capacity. from becoming
too intent, or intense
for you to cling to,
for you to know how
to handle.

either way, if you
reached now it
would be too late.

the space is refilled
no longer reserved,
and i, i have turned
thought and pen toward
other things.