and once we start, the meter clicks

.

.

"i'll be so quiet for you..."

.

.

born to die

.

over and over and over


.

i pretended to hold your hand

.

at the edge of the world with my jeans rolled to the knee, i thought of you as i walked along that cold, beautiful line of surf and sand.  i looked out across the expanse of the pacific to where the water meets the sky and thought of Germany, thought of you; your young, bright self bouncing across cobblestone and drinking beer.  i played the morrissey song "everyday is like sunday" over and over again as i walked from the pier to the cliffs.  i smiled against the wind and thought, "where'd you get off to, woman?  you should be here."

and then a week later, a box arrives at my front door.  i look at the return address and see its from my ex-stepfather.  i push the box against the wall in the kitchen and walk away.  i knew what the box contained...  something i've been waiting for for well over a year, something i cried over the last time i held it in my hands the day after you died:  the photo album of your high school graduation, mama, your days as a young GI in Hannover, and the early days of your marriage to my father.

i went to my room with a cup of coffee and wrote for awhile but the gravity of your arrival pulled me back to the kitchen.  i grabbed a knife out of the drawer and cut the packing tape in a clean, careful slice.  i needed to know if this treasure had truly arrived, if i'd finally received something i've been waiting for for so long.  i folded back the edge of the cardboard box and brushed away foam peanuts to find your painting and another small box.  i lifted the small box out, set it on the kitchen table, and looked inside.

i couldn't look for long before i felt the sting of tears in my eyes and throat.  i bore the pain dryly, just long enough to photograph my treasure and to pay honor to the arrival of such a beloved and long-awaited piece of my disheveled family history.

young and fresh and beautiful at 19 years old, that's my mama on the lower right.

such a beauty.

where'd you get off to, woman?  you should be here.



.

yeah, i said it

.


tonight, i think "fuck grad school"...

tomorrow i'll probabaly think different.

and next week i'll be in anguish.

because how fucking long am i gonna hem and haw over this shit?

how many weeks/months/years

because before i know it i'll be 50

and before i know it i'll be 60...

or at least, i fucking HOPE i'll be 60...

you know my mother died a week before her 56th birthday, right?  it's gonna feel really fucking weird when i turn 56.  if i am so lucky.  because i assure you, all youzzz who are over 55 and are reading this are LUCKY.  it's true.  so isn't it totally stupid that at the age of 33 i'm worried that i'm somehow passed my "prime".  fucking stupid. because i assure anyone that may need assurance, i live on the edge of my prime.  my feet are hardly wet.  i love this place where i stand.  how is it that inadequacy finds me?  how is it i ever feel unsure?  how is it i look at my eyes in the mirror and search for the crow's feet???

AS IF THAT SHIT MEANS A FUCKING THING!

i will tell you right now, crow's feet don't make a shit bit of difference when we're talking about ANYTHING that actually matters and is worth discussion.  a wrinkle don't mean a thing when we're talking about art and it don't mean a thing when you're bleeding out (or over, or on) a poem (writer or reader).  a fucking wrinkle won't get in the way of any type of real beauty, not for a second, and it sure as shit won't make me look any less magical, any less spectacular, any less worthy of idols fashioned in my likeness when i'm sucking your cock.  just saying.  and if that's crude, if that's distasteful, i really don't give a shit.  i truly don't care.  because anyone who's got a cock i should be sucking wouldn't be offended by anything i've just said at all.  in fact, they'd get hard.  and for more than the obvious reason.  i let some twisted ass suburban version of spirituality pervert my view of Self for far too long and i've been listening to britney spears and drinking vodka all night.  just a regular sunday night.  i've been getting my hands dirty with graphite and thanking my lucky stars that i'm not trapped in the life that was (once upon a time) laid out for me. some life of bitching at each other...  some life of being told what to do and how to be.  come on now.  i ain't my mama.  i don't get told what to do.  i loved that woman, be sure, but she wasn't perfect.  and all us girls are allowed, at a certain point, to critique our mothers (dead or not), to see them as women, and to determine for ourselves who we will be despite the crazy shit they taught us.  it doesn't make me love my mother any less and it surely doesn't make me miss her any less to tell you that she fucked me up.  she did.  so did my dad.  that's what parents do.  i am not minimizing ANYTHING.  because the truth is that some parents fucked their kids up way more than others.  *cough cough*

but this isn't about blame.  it's about singularity and how to bare it.  how to walk with one's head held high amidst the onslaught of judgement flooding forth from the most unsupposed places and people. it's about fear;  the horrible nagging fear that maybe your best just plain sucks.  it's about the strain and stress of looking at one's own life and wondering what the fuck avenue to cruise down next.

don't you know i just want to run to you, curl up against you, feel that tremendously beautiful heat that i cannot provide myself regardless of how hard i try, and spin in that beautiful ache of pleasure and pain and need.  don't you know that your face in my hands is the only image i actually think sacred?  don't you know that when you slapped my face, i found completion, and all i want is to curl at your feet and whisper all my secrets across your toes.  i'll scratch your back and play your favorite song on repeat...

or at least, i would...

if i were as brave as i try to be.


tonight i think "fuck it all".

tonight i think, "just tell everyone you love that you love them".



and really, who gives a shit if you've got a line at the corner of your eye.  girl, keep smiling.  you've got every reason.  it makes you more beautiful anyway.  that's what i've been telling myself all day.  even though my life has been what it's been, i've got every reason to smile, the least of which  is that it makes other humans want to be around me and i really like hugs and scritches.
 

curl up with me.  let me scratch your back.  come watch me draw pictures.  come drink my vodka.  come help me practice my german and french.  come dance.

.

pepper

.

so there

.

the entirety of any and all beauty i may contain or present is beholden to the fact that i am keenly aware of my own mortality and it is allowed to rest plainly upon my surface.

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in you i taste god

.

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"...this machine will not communicate these thoughts and the strain i am under..."

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the tightening in my chest.  the ache that finds my angles, all my spectacular corners, so pink, so unexpectedly soft.  in my private moments i like to give these spaces a name and i name them Ugly.  i name them Inept.  i name them Not Good Enough.

my friend wants to slap my face for speaking this way and so i cough up all my vain confessions.  i pour the vodka in to the empty pocket where my heartache has bored a hole.   i look at my face in the mirror and try to see yours.

i look at my face and wish i was looking at yours.



and maybe i'm not trying to build anything lasting, after all?  maybe it's just all this hunger we've been taught to hold, taught to cultivate, when really my exaltation is as dependent upon my destruction as it is these rare moments of pleasure in which my spirit soars, in which my spirit is reborn...

in so much spit!  in so much sweat!  and the man screams "immerse your soul in love!"  if this is not religion, i do not know what is.  if this is not religion, let all religions fall.



.
 

we ain't goin' to the town. we're going to the city.

.

.

this love

when i think of what came before

nothing seems real.


i stretch my legs in front of me
and i try to see my legs as a i once did:
my appendages as Infant, as child-like
rather than womanly

i stretch my legs in front of me and think of my childhood
my Child-Self.
i try to identify.



i feel a kinship but not a symbiosis.



my Self is not mirrored back.



i think of my child-self and know that i have grown
i think of your eyes
how they reach
how they exceed.

they exceed the best of me.



i will never be as beautiful as you.
i will never be
as smart.





look in to me.
watch me stretch my legs.
put your hands on me
like a willing tithe
like a seashell
the rolling ocean, welcoming
all we cannot utter.
bang your conscience against me
like an otter does
the captured shell against the rock
and speak to me as a prophet might


if my legs were stretched wide enough.



.

regardless of the weather...

.

...i come equipped with clouds of my very own.  force of fucking nature.  ;)


the fracturing of The Sublime.


.

cure my heartache, boy.

let me lay a little judgement down, let me cast my questions out

don't write for the public, just write.  

don't write for the public, just write.  

don't write for the public, just write.  

don't write for the public, just write.  

don't write for the public, just write.  

don't write for the public, just write.  

don't write for the public, just write. 

don't write for the public, just write. 

don't write for the public, just write.

don't write for the public, just write. 

write as if no one is watching.  

especially your mother's family.

this is what i tell myself tonight as my fingers reach for the keys.  i tell myself: please do not try for eloquence or an even keel.  do not reach toward that horrible expectation to be fucking fair and unbiased and full of benevolence.  i am not a god and don't want the responsibility of one.  though as far as i can tell, gods are really just dead-beats who somehow managed to turn the abuse of neglect in to "mystery".   maybe being a god is the freest thing an entity can be?  still, i prefer the heat of my flesh to the cold skin of aloof perfection.  i turn back through the pages of my ravaged and bent diary and find so many insights to cling to.  and not simply of my own either.  i've recorded the things friends have said to me.  beautiful, intelligent, talented, cultured women who i am stunned by and proud to know. i thankfully had the good sense to write down the advice they gave me and the assessments they made.  whether it be a day ago or a year ago, their words are a balm and a warm hug.  just like everyone else i possess a tremendous talent for convincing myself that i'm Right.  :)  luckily, i am a diarist and can prove to myself otherwise.  my wet and trembling eyes skate hungrily across the thin blue lines that carry my handwriting.  i read page after page.  the ink functions as a mirror.  at times my script becomes wild and loopy as my emotions build and gather steam.  other times, i am controlled.  my script is measured and small, sure of the curve of an N and the beautiful slant of a T.  in the diary i write in cursive so that i can write as fast as possible.  

i will never be able to write fast enough.

what i wanted to talk about tonight is that marriage seems largely like a bunch of bullshit but doesn't that make me sound bitter? does it make me sound envious?  i assure you i am not envious of married people and if any married person wants to know why that might be, i suggest you take a moment and look at how YOU speak about marriage.  y'all don't exactly seem to be a fount of five star reviews.  just sayin.  y'all speak ATROCIOUSLY about what marriage entails.  you use the worst language imaginable to speak about your spouse.  it's sickening.  it really is.  not to mention totally offensive.  WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU STILL MARRIED IF THAT'S HOW YOU REALLY FEEL?  seriously???  why are you married?  and please don't give me that "for the kids" crap.  we are all so beyond that degraded, abusive, deformed logic.  the desire to have children itself is, in our time and place, a pretty thin reason in and of itself to wed.  i myself do not intend to procreate.  i have absolutely no desire to be a mother.  i do not want to bear children.  in fact, i am doing my best to ensure that my particular bloodline has the least chance of survival possible (and if you met some of my family members, you'd understand why).  aside from that glaring bit of judgement, i simply do not find babies to be at all compelling.  i never have.  i have more to offer this planet and humanity than my biological capabilities.  i do not think that raising children would be a worthwhile way to spend my time.  not at all.  and why does everyone seem to throw logic out the fucking window when it comes to this topic???  as if EVERYONE needs to have a baby???  for all you know, i might end up being the WORST MOTHER IN THE WORLD!  but i suppose it's the same dumbass glitch that makes us all believe that, upon someone's death, even the monsters among us go to heaven.  because i'm not talking about the waiters, artists, and chefs i frequently hang out with, i'm talking about regular people in the suburbs.  all the so-called Christians who esteem the institution of marriage.  y'all should hear how your respective mate speaks about you when you aren't in the room.  better yet, maybe you should go to your room and think about how you speak about your mate.  use it as a mirror.  look at how ugly you've become.  look at what an ugly proposition you've presented marriage to be.  think about all the things you deny your counterpart.  think about all the rules you've wrapped around them and your association with one another.  all the little signals you expect to see as PROOF that he or she really loves you.  i am becoming convinced that it isn't love that most people want, it's protection of their fabulously tiny egos.  as i move forward i realize more and more that i am simply uninterested in a conventional life.  i am not interested in being involved in what others have termed a "real" relationship.  if the utter shit y'all are describing is a "real" relationship, i prefer to play house, thank you.

i know 3 couples, maybe, who seem to truly love and respect each other.  their love is an encouragement to me that maybe something different from what i've known exists.  i don't want to be embittered or smug.  of course i want to believe that i belong somewhere and that at some point in my life i will be appreciated.  why do i need it to be "forever"?  nothing is forever.  we all march toward our demise.  death is not a fiction.  we age every day.  we will all find  another white hair in the mirror tomorrow.  while i'm here and while i am able, i want to create as much joy and passion as possible.  i don't need someone to promise the rest of their life to me in order to appreciate the absolutely stunning beauty of their humanity.  the rest of a person's life is a huge thing.  who am i to dictate the terms of it or feel entitled to make rules regarding it?  love is not subject to scarcity.  there is not a limit to how much love a person can feel.  there is not a limit to how much beauty a person can behold and appreciate.  and pain will come regardless so let's just get over our egos and let people be who they are.  if anything, that's what i want.  i want to be myself.  i want you to be yourself. i don't want to be a parent.  i don't want to suppress another human being.  i want a man that i might love to come back to me freely at night.  i don't want a man to lay next to me out of a sense of obligation or pathetic fear.  i've had that and it is torture.  it is torture to lay next to the sleeping body of someone and know, for a fact, that they are only there because it has become expected, because it has become comfortable.  i would rather risk my heart being broken over and over than ever suffer that shit again.  why should anyone think my heart too fragile to withstand the risk?  i'm an orphan, guys.  we're tough. and like most tough motherfuckers, we are capable of tremendous love.  we are capable of ushering forth tremendous compassion, beauty, understanding, patience, and appreciation for the hardships and horrors inherent to humanity.  what i am no longer capable of (and i hope my siblings aren't either) is allowing another person or social expectation to limit the amount of pleasure, beauty, and love that exists in my life.  if someone loves me for a day or a year or 10 years, it is a gift so long as we are both being ourselves.  i don't need an ordination to know it or a tradition to approve it.  my mother would high-five me and kiss my forehead and hug me so tight and say, "little girl, you better suck every bit of joy you can out of this experience".  i know because she said it to me often enough when she was alive.  she knew my heart.  she knew how soft it is, how eager to please and comfort.  she worried that it would be taken advantage of.  it has been, in horrible ways, but i am not afraid of testing other waters.  i know how to be myself.  i know my own death will find me.  i am afraid of it finding me too soon.  i am afraid of it finding me in the midst of some unreasonable fear or expectation that prevents me from knowing the world in all it's sorrowful glory. i am afraid of it finding me before i kiss the weary eyes of another human being who has also been subject to the wrath of this world's winds and retributions.

fin.

and again

.

telegraph ave, oakland ca


.

MANDATORY

.





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i found this on the street in san rafael, california

yesterday. i read it aloud to my friend, her brother and mother, and shivered over the words, below the touch of facts, the music of pain and hope. i folded it up and put it in my back pocket and took it home.





.

something beautiful and curious

have you seen these photographs of frances bean cobain?

beauty

it is a grey and drizzly morning here but i will not be stopped. soon, i will head off to the city and open the doors of the gallery. freya managed to wrangle one last magical week for us. do come by if you're able. it's been such an amazing, unexpected, joyful experience and the more people i can share it with, the better. besides, the space itself is just so gorgeous. it's been awesome to have a room of our own this way. the white cube is a crazy, wonderful place. to have had one extended to us so generously is a gift beyond compare. i know that it has saved me these passed few months. it really has. and i know that one day when i look back on this moment, i will see just how well-timed it all was. if not for this... who knows where i might have slid off to. i'm glad to have had such a beautiful anchor. or crutch. or stilt. or cathedral.

(when i'm alone in the space, i sing. the acoustics are fantastic. it makes me sound beautiful. i can't describe the massive wave of happy pain that finds me. is it Exaltation? or Honesty? either way, a gorgeous sensation. tears in my eyes. maybe it's just good ol' Freedom.)

today i'll be there from 2-6pm, crocheting another sweater and studying my German and reading Bataille like a good girl. ha! and sunday will be our last day. there will be cheese and wine and ME and freya and launa. come by and collect some hugs.

LOVELY!

received these AMAZING images from my friend jose today. 19th century tribesmen from tierra del fuego. absolutely beautiful! bask in the gorgeousness!!!!