these are words

Those Lullabies

it was hard to remember
that i’d nearly forgotten her.
all those sing-song blues,
and instrumental reds.
ebbs and tides of her tears
flowing between her every mood.
anger and hopelessness her rocks
in that very sea of obsidian disdain.

well in youth she cascaded down
every fall of fortune
that her tentative existence could muster.
how the clouds, ominous,
shadowed a world of noise.
reverberating within her jaded alto
was a hole that never quite was filled.

monsters only breed monsters.

the way the breeze wrapped
around her melodic disposition,
only a shred of doubt evolving within.
but days so thickly laden with contrast
make our darkest hours seem ghastly,
make our doubt become our addiction.

and now her tunes are carried
by an arrow of spite,
with
feedback too impossible to handle,
too difficult to transform that sapphire
into shades of aquamarine.
oh and i missed her lullabies,
whereupon dark she kissed her worries a viridian goodnight.

now only monsters can breed monsters.

just a note of resentment flavors her face,
faded until eyes of green became eyes of gray.
when little girls are angels incarnate,
only devils can make them monsters.
you are the one who forged you,
and for this i pity her and her crimson tenor tones
that only let her glow at all
because she was alone and milking
her perpetually bleeding wounds.

it was hard to remember.
but blues and reds echo in another dream,
where her only foreground is violet,
a new pedestal for emotions sought long before her time,
it was hard to remember
every note of her old song.
but only a monster could take that away,
and i fear you’ve molded me well…

Woes of Feminimity

We coveted them,
the others.
Those with stick straight bodies
and coordinating hair -
tan and flat.
We covered ourselves,
all our insecurities,
the tummies every man
claimed to love
until they found something younger,
blonder,
thinner.
No matter who you are
there’s always someone
younger,
blonder,
thinner.

We were never good enough.
We cried in bathroom stalls on first dates.
We cried while making love
because these men loved us
for who we were,
loved our scars,
our spread,
our cellulite and
freckles.
They swore they loved us
and all the while we wondered,
"Why couldn’t I have chosen someone with higher standards?"
and instantaneously hated him.
It’s never that our partners couldn’t stand
us
but that they couldn’t stand
our expectations for ourselves.

We fought our mothers -
their crow’s feet consuming our faces,
how our fathers
were disgusted at watching us eat.
We fought his abuse,
his touching,
his drunkenness.
We hid our bodies to hide from him,

or some version of him.
We attacked ourselves
because its what we were accustomed to.

We believed
that being beautiful
meant being good.
And that being good
was all there was for girls like us.
We believed
that leading
blonde bland middle-class republican lives
was the best we could hope for.
We believed
that being able to count our ribs
was a status symbol
and that having men objectify us
meant we’d arrived.
We were earning our keep.

We believed it
because we were too afraid of being bad,
of being flawed,
of being human.
Perfection seemed attainable.
If only we were

younger,
blonder,
thinner.
Then someone could love us enough
to make us love ourselves.

We coveted them -
the others,
their confidence
in their underdeveloped bodies.
We coveted them
because they didn’t have the burdens
of being a woman,
because they had not yet had
the experience of finding someone
younger,
blonder,
thinner.

No one will ever love us enough
to make us love ourselves.
We will never be done.
We will never be enough.
We will never be good
until we are good to ourselves.

Typographical Errors

I hated typos, mistakes, misspellings -
blatant ones that rest on
important pieces of paper
that seem to scream
"I’m too stupid to know proper English," or
"This wasn’t important enough for me to proof."
In which case, why should I make it important,
why should this mean anything to me?
I hated those who weren’t linguists.
they didn’t have the gift of language,
weren’t well read,
couldn’t spell a word they’d only seen once.
Oh, those linear thinkers,
logical bastards
who misspelled the word “angel” in 4
different ways.
They never took it as an art form -
the ability to articulate one’s self.
I hated those thoughts,
the bigot in me, the elitist so free,
truly believing she’s better.
But the worst yet,
I hated
the unrelated thoughts
that swirled and consumed me
separate from
grammatical errors.
Maybe being trivial,
maybe finding errors
helps me drown out the other thoughts.

I hated being myself.
I hated my past.
I hated hating myself.
I hate hating my past.
I hate typos.
I love hating typos.

Eve

Twilight pooled around me like a curtain,
a sheet of soft, diaphanous muslin
with which to veil the landscape.

The lavender dusk
hung onto the air far longer than I’d thought possible,
the world humbly illuminated,
bathed in a world of sweet, dim light
just a bit longer.

Sloughs

stretching skin as he’s snaking down my body
supple in the somber slivers of moonshine
seeking spots where few seldom go
the slippery slope he sweetened so
with determined dexterity arisen
from such damning desires.

he lacks, your lover as a liar,
his living laced only with lust
so you strain the secrets out
to maintain a modicum of trust,
stymieing a semblance of self
with the knowledge that for this, you must.

now at the café,
all carcinogenic
you meet at your table
to start a conversation
that’s less of a chat
and more of a fable
could we be in love
or are we both fundamentally unable?

Carrion

anchored before me
with iron, guilty talons
all blood, no gore
all need, nothing more
than the rasp of a battle cry
or a weakened wisp of a sigh
to hook in the talons
in unsuspecting flesh.
ownership, she claims,
possession via pain.

carrying me
from grace to disgrace,
skin taught on the line
waiting for my final embrace.
she’s been a good guide
for losing your mind,
a good counselor
for the deliriously confined
and all the other things
in you that you’ve denied.

and guilt, it's like that
the way it sinks right in,
tearing the salty skin,
milking scars so thin
small they will be
but forever sore
from the person who took everything
and always wanted more.

from the person who gave everything
and always gave more.

and guilt, it’s like that,
your soul left like carrion
heart blue, all gnawed at
dimensionless in her gravity
a body left lying flat
trying to be the protector
a sorry one at that.

anchored before me,
eyes eerily aglow
it’s time for release
it’s time for her to let go
I struggle beneath her solid wings
with the weight of all she let me know.

Catechism

a fresh glow arising from atrium tiles,
no cries to flow between these columns.
awaiting my redemption,
would I be allowed in?
would I be chosen?

to be bathed in the blood of the lamb,
I’ve slayed my share.
to be bathed in the blood of the lamb,
could I dare?

amber haired and raven eyed,
she pricked the sinewy arms of men
just for a taste of life,
gushing in a simple pulse over her lips.
tangled in their sin,
she absorbed their evil into her cells,
wanted to know the flaws
that made them human.
they lay as loved, they lay as victims.

did she read between the lines
etched upon her palm?
awaiting
judgement of the final kind.
would she be chosen?
oh heathen, oh beast, oh priestess,
could you forgive your own ignorance?

balduchins arch into a heaven
never meant for me.
I, a beggar among gods,
hiding beneath saint peter’s robe,
the face etched in stone,
a tearful virgin among the hellions.
but no innocent am I.

only the innocent enter here,
bloodied and righteous,
only the innocent
are redeemed.
I say, save redemption for those of us who need it.

awaiting
will I be chosen
or will I be turned away?
will I be the victim
of the fiend inside me?
will I remain the tearful victim
of a god I created in my own image?
will I keep sobbing
for my own redemption?
will I keep perpetrating
my self rejection?

would I not be chosen?
or would I turn myself away?

Tragic Little Girls

starry eyed
staring out windows
adorned with crystal droplets
left to magnify the emerald fields that much more
a foreign town, a fairy tale
for tragic little girls like us.

immersed in ink, charcoal smears
darkly laden thoughts
impermeable to a world so unlike this
to a world so real compared to Zion.
lost ourselves in bayou bridges and
forgetful Tallulah timetables
drowned were the ideas
mediocrity had spun with our innocence
but we didn’t flail,
only thrived in the murky waters.

lovely then,
so different than we are now.
they stopped us in cobblestone streets
pretty ladies
oh beautiful girls
such sweet southern belles are rare nowadays
Georgia peach.
they stopped us
only for our shy smiles to intrigue them
accents thick as the swamp
trying to catch a glimpse
of tragic little girls like us.

never more so like children
and maybe we were
never more so like god
and maybe we were
nevermore so tragic
than bright eyed whispers.

with tears suited only
for the ebb and tide
an ocean’s blue contained us
in its unfathomable depths we drowned
flaxen haired and amber eyed
earth mother dying to possess us,
as she never had before.
succumbing we drowned
every inch of inspiration
in the depths of such inky waters.
so that Zion could remain sacred.
forever remembered as
pretty ladies
taken in by the moon’s thickening grip.
forever forgotten
as tragic little girls.

Benediction

a sense of hope I never knew.
as the rays of day
pull back the lid of oblivion,
resurrection arises
from its reluctant slumber.
and all of my blessings,
and all of my demons,
crawl out of the earth,
searching for me again.
I want to hide from them,
in between the secret of morning
and the eerie shelter of night,
but there is no safety for me.

Maelstrom

flitting through the weather,
a tornado’s fingertips unraveling
the questions so frayed
the threads cannot sustain the pressure
my atmosphere has induced.

knotting, tangling the layers of
tresses to shield my brain stem
from the heat of its graces.
blinding, the synapses blast,
degree by degree of my own calefaction.

cadence so estranged, its syllables
punish my ears, the canals so
timid, so they convulse,
rupturing like the splinters
of my words, decibels too great.

polluted, the veins reek
stymied in the mire of only
my own intellect’s adulteration
of the elation and forlornness, leaving
the fragrance of sacrifice to be decay.

pink silk, those flashes,
flesh that doesn’t even say good bye,
searching for the pin to pull,
to free the serene ministry from this annihilation
but I was erased long before this, doll found dead.

marked but not listed,
these confessions palpitate still,
words that were never my own
gawk through their finality but wither sage
with their faulty resolve.

a world looming, diminishing the flickers
of sun my quivering hand collected,
the violets trailing downstream.
trees, so tense with their talons,
fall down around me.

depicted as language indecipherable
to the culture beyond my woe,
walls, nude, with exceptions
narrate the scripture my matter has disposed,
questions atrophied with the atmosphere.

Daydream

noise,
cacophony to be exact
destruction running rampant.

and I'm hoping
she burned down the house
in her fits of curiosity.
maybe the whole place is in flames,
wouldn’t that be fitting?
after all, we are damned.
and I'm thinking
maybe I could make it seem like an accident
blame it on the child.
she played with the lighter
I …
managed to save her,
but we …
lost the dog.
I'm sorry
but we
lost the dog.

cacophony.

and I'm thinking
she jumped through the window
some intruder stole her in the middle of the day
they left no word.
no word at all.
such a sick daydream
such a sick person.

Le Printemps

I hate spring,
I hate the world so ebullient,
the morning light so frothy like
well-whipped lemon juice.

I prefer the winter,
where the world is bathed in shades of gray.
Where the wind carries sentiments,
not suggestions.

Where the clouds carry themselves
with the girth and depth of prideful hefty old mothers,
not with the slow wistfulness of foolish foppish girls grazing into a summer swath.

Diaphaniety

so opaque to shield sensibilities
from the peeking rays of daybreak.
tried to be more protective
but my nature is perpetually diaphanous.
an open book,
open to all the obvious pages.

so dark, don’t you know
how the deep earth of night
confuses?
so dark, might even miss you.
needing to be admitted, but
my tongue refuses the form.

wishing i could tell you
but thoughts are just echoes
in the vast chasm between
two weary hearts.
perhaps its only two weary minds.
wishing i could tell you
what this is,
how this goes,
what i do and how i haven’t the strength to change it,
yet.
wishing to say you’ve
been the only one who never gave up,
who came back.
something brought you back.

but will i be enough to bring you back?
will i alone be enough
this time?

so thickly opaque
to keep the vibrant hues away.
occasionally sheer
to convey honesty, reality.
but i am all i could ever be.

The Game

"do you want someone to sigh

at the way the sun rays set your eyes aglow,

unabashed admiration?

is that even real? do you really know?"

but the stain between his front teeth,

permanent, like his naivety,

disturbed my thoughts like an interrupting child,

his one flaw visible, holding its own gravity.

lips pursed, his smoke inseminates the air

"you’ve a severe elegance to you" he said

mercurial smile hiding my haughty hurts

all as my fragile vanity bled

a lemony sky laps at my wounds.

it’s my turn, but we’d stopped keeping score.

always thought i wasn’t good enough,

but it was he who was the bore.

his platitudes - mere cosmic ejaculate,

his ideals die in the face of practicality,

while i wear my jaded effects with pride,

i sustain some tentative ties with reality.

crossing his “faith" with my “strength"

with night swooping in, i laid down my word.

98 points but it held no weight,

a reminder of affections deferred.

bed creaking as his body collapses

for all the weight his indifference did spawn

esteem leaking as i make the finally tally,

"doesn’t matter", he said, but i had won.

wolf/dogs

This is Jet, my sister's dog. Someone dumped him out of a car window when he was a puppy. He's a German Shepard and something else, but no one could really tell you what that "something else" even is. He has one brown eye and one blue. Everyone always thinks he's blind in one eye. The blue one, they think. Maybe he's part wolf, they say. Maybe.

"Maybe its what's wrong with you that makes you special," she'd said. "You will forever be a girl with long, dark, tangled tresses. With kohl all smudged around the eyes. Always a little too late or much too early - timing never quite right. With a laugh so high it bore pain in its fading reverberation. A girl with scars and marred with memories the rest of us couldn't bear." She sighed, her makeup-less face fresh and serene. "You will never be perfect like they are. You are perfect like you. Imperfect. Tangled and sullied, it is your beauty. Your beauty lies in your vulnerability. It's that which kills you and that which sets you apart."

"I wish I could do something for you. Or perhaps things are better now? I met a wolf in a bar. A domesticated wolf. I stayed with him for about an hour. After a few beers I began to realize something about him. His owner told me he was dying. He had cancer. He had two months to live. His name was Danno and he understood Italian. Danno in Italian means "damage". I thought of you. It was a very distinct moment in my life. And there, in the middle of Manchester bar, a little drunk, with 3 of my friends and a model from New York who I'd been fucking... I began to cry. The Smiths were playing, I was crying, and Danno was dying." - C. Hernandez

in the time of santa anas

I didn’t know who was more mired in the tangle, her or me. The game of survivalism I had been embarking on led me to wonder where I came into this all. What did it have to do with me? It’s a question I never asked before, a string of words that had never crossed my mind in that configuration. Out of necessity, I forced myself to ask it. In truth, I didn’t expect her to care, I had only hoped she would. I had hoped that some sultry June evening I might come home to her starting a soup in the kitchen, music on, her calloused feet lightly thudding against the floor with her delicate steps, her voice lilting with laughter. That she might be dressed to the nines again. That the house wouldn’t smell sour with stale cigarettes and burned meals, too many pets. That she might care about me again. That she might ask what I had been doing. That is what I had hoped. But I knew better, knew not to give in to childish desires. The adult in me forced me to take notice. She did not ask me what I had done, how my day was, what was going on in my life, how the drive was. She didn’t care. I didn’t cross her mind. Not that I blamed her. Perhaps I wouldn’t either. I didn’t know. All that I knew was that it hurt.

"I thought clay must feel happy in the good potter's hands." - Janet Fitch

It is not summer.

I repeat: It is not summer. It's winter, to be exact. All of a sudden, I live in Seattle and can't escape the miserable cold rain. But this isn't what bothers me; no, its the imbeciles in t-shirts and running shorts who disturb me. It's Texas. We get eight months out of the year to wear shorts and t-shirts. And even then, that's too much clothing. It's a little thing, really, but it just reminds me how much I've outgrown this city. I delight in vintage clothes and fresh books, steaming cups of coffee under rain-drenched awnings.
Lack of sun doesn't depress me - heat and eternal sunshine do. This isn't to say I hate the sun, but I do detest the Texas sun, that dessicating source of such malaise that transforms all the green into dead, beige husks of fields. I hate the death that the sun brings, how everything withers, how impossible it is to go out in it. It's just as isolating as the extreme cold. I feel like a bug in a bell jar.
It's not just the weather. The false sense of optimism and pseudo-intellectuals in this place shed light on how jaded and at the same time, realistic I have become. I want to be somewhere new. Out of this naive college town.

"Death is: dwelling on the past and staying in one place too long." - Mrs. Flax

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