lyrics

You can make a plan
Carve it into stone
Like a feather falling
That is still unknown

Until the clock speaks up
Says it’s time to go
You can choose the high
Or the lower road

You might clench your fist
You might fork your tongue
As you curse or praise
All the things you’ve done

And the faders move
And the music dies
As we pass over
On the arc of time

So you’ll nurse your love
like a wounded dove
in the covered cage of night
Every star is crossed
by phrenetic thoughts
they separate and then collide
and they twist like sheets
‘til you fall asleep
and they finally unwind
it’s a black balloon,
it’s a dream you’ll soon
deny

I hear if you make friends
With Jesus Christ
You’ll get right up
From that chalk outline

And then you'll get dolled up
And you'll dress in white
All to take your place
In his chorus line

And then in you’ll come
With those marching drums
In a saintly compromise
No more whiskey slurs
No more blonde hair girls
For your whole eternal life
And you’ll do the dance
That was choreographed
At the very dawn of time
Singing “I told you son,
The day would come,
You would die, you die, you die, you die…”

To the deepest part
Of the human heart
The fear of death expands
‘til we crack the code,
we’ve always known
But could never understand
On a circuit board
We’ll soon be born
Again, again, again, again…


These lyrics are proving important to me. I'm big on the idea that, as Death Cab has said, "every plan is a tiny prayer to father time."
Lately my plans haven't been coming out exactly like I've expected.

facebook

I'm posting this here because this is one of the few things that remains visible on my facebook.

Yes, I shut down the majority of my facebook today. You (whoever you are, reading this) are unable to view pictures, videos, boxes, and any other similar information. You are also unable to post information on my wall. You will still be able to message, if you so choose. I believe notes are still viewable, and so I'm posting this here too.

I shut it down because on and off I've been playing with the idea of deleting my facebook. I haven't gone to that step because I think some people might worry about me and some people might believe I had defriended them, which is obviously not the case - after all, with 170 friends on facebook, if you're my friend, it's pretty much for a reason. I actually know you.

I also shut it down because it's unnecessary. Facebook takes up far too much of my time and moreover it allows me to stalk people unhealthily. Facebook holds a lot of memories, both mine and others, that neither I nor you need to be able to access. I understand that I could choose to delete my facebook or simply not navigate to it as much; I'm going to attempt that as well. Its accessibility and easy distraction, especially when I am procrastinating, are the problem there.

Finally, there's some shit going on in my life that I'm tired of dealing with right now. Opening up to people is tiresome and has proven to be disappointing as of late. Therefore, I've closed off one more part of myself. It's an outward manifestation of an inner action and attempt.

On to other things.
My schedule, over the next week and a half:
Tuesday: busy until five
Wednesday: busy until 6ish
Thursday: free til 11, free after six
Friday: free til 10, free after six
Saturday: free before noon and after four
Sunday: theoretically free all day, will probably be going home
Monday: free before noon and after five
Tuesday: free after six
Wednesday: free after six
Thursday: free all day
Friday: free before one, after four
Saturday: free before ten and after five
From then on out, my summer starts and I will be free most of the time.

I am posting this here because if I have any friends that are interested in getting together, hanging out, etc, I'd prefer to schedule them in, especially ahead of time. Currently I have no other engagements on my schedule. Feel free to start vying for time. There are a few people I would especially like to see; they are tagged. (Shayla: Brewed? I get paid this Friday.)

I am looking forward to this summer; there are several things that I will be able to clear up in my life after graduation and moreover it looks like a lazy, enjoyable time for me. There will be LARP - hoorah! - and beach trips, possibly a class (but only one, a miracle!) and when I return to school, my batteries will be refreshed and it will be my final year here.

I hope to see you all around. Pax.

27

you

are ignoring me right now but that's
okay
because after all i have been getting the feeling
that i did not turn out to be all you wanted
and maybe i am a little bit of a
disappointment

except that can't hardly be true because
after all we hardly knew know will know
each other

but i do get this feeling
that i am not everything you wished for
perhaps i am about half
or maybe even three quarters percent
but i am not everything

and i must struggle and push and wonder
if i should let you go
if i should turn around some day soon with a heartbreaking smile on
and say
come back to me when you're serious
or don't come back to me at all
or please please just love me.

i don't need you to love me.
i could walk away from this now with only
a modicum
of hurt because i have managed to keep you away enough
or you have managed to stay away enough
that my life will resume with only ripples
and a feeling of emptiness and or possibly loss
without a total self destruct

and yes i would miss you
and yes i would cry
and yes i would accuse myself
of pushing away or pulling away
but i don't want to lie up nights waiting
to see if i'll hear from you

or not.

26

response to philip larkin

You fuck them up, your mom and dad
You may not mean to, but you do.
You blame them for the faults you have
Between the sheets - your lovers few.

And you fuck them up in every turn
away from them you take,
while you pretend you want to learn
to not be them, make their mistakes.

You hand your misery to them
by blaming genes, not love and hate.
It helps you shield yourself again
when you say you fail because of fate.

25

list poem (six months ago)

Six months ago there were lots of things I had.
I had three grandparents,
over a thousand dollars in savings,
and a boyfriend who would play with his computer instead of me.
I had a 3.516 gpa,
a grad school all ready to go,
and no fun in college.
I had taken nine English courses,
memorized Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven,"
and never read Kurt Vonnegut.
I had clean clothes all the time,
a sense of duty, responsibility, and appreciation,
and a disdain for my jail-bound brother.
six months ago I had a plan for the future,
a wedding on my mind,
and a future in domesticity.
I had old, fading scars,
my wisdom teeth,
and an alarming propensity to cry during The Office.
You should have seen me in the theaters when we watched Wall-E.
Six months ago my parents knew nothing and felt no need to cry.
my boyfriend's mom encouraged me to call her mom,
and I liked to listen to the Killers and Death Cab for Cutie.
Six months ago I had something that I called stability,
as well as something I called direction,
and something else I called motivation.
I had something else I never paused to identify,
a niggling feeling that ate at the back of my brain
when I was falling asleep. I wanted to fit into
the stereotype but the stereotype was suffocating me
whenever I stopped to draw a breath -
which was not often.
Six months ago i thought I had everything that I needed for my life to be complete.
I thought I had no worries.
It turns out that I had plenty of those,
and just not much experience to go with.
Some of these things I still have.
Most of these I do not.
But I'll tell you what.
I no longer watch The Office,
and the last time I did,
my eyes were dry.

24

List poem

I Want

I want to be with you, cute you
and I want us to be in facebook pictures together
that show us in our perfect summer
and I want to be young again
although I am not old,
I want to be young again the way I used to be.
I want to be less tired and I want to sleep less,
I want to spend my nights raging, loving, drinking, smoking, partying,
and I want to spend my days brilliantly.
I want every day to be golden,
and I want every horse to have a spirally white horn.
I want you to drive a white mustang,
and I want everyone to be happy,
including and especially me.
I want to go back in time and steal me-who-I-was
and make her change places with me-who-I-am
so that I can pretend these ideals will happen.
I want to believe that we will have that golden perfect summer
and I want to pretend, no, believe, no, experience me
being unbroken.
I want to cherish the idealism I once had
and I want to hold on to the fearlessness
that has faded because of pain.
I want to rewind time and meet you three years ago,
both of us three years ago,
and that's when I want us to fall in love.
Not here, and not now.
I want that to happen, because I think things could have been perfect then.
I want for things to have been perfect then.

Lyrics

People you love will turn their backs on you
You'll lose your hair, your teeth
Your knife will fall out of its sheath
But you still don't like to leave before the end of the movie

People you hate will get their hooks into you
They'll get you down, you'll frown
They'll tar you and drag you through town
But you still don't like to leave before the end of the movie
No, you still don't like to leave before the end of the show

So true.

23

How To

How To Descend

you start by breaking up with your boyfriend, your best friend
who might have been the only person keeping you sane
(but you didn't know it then)
and you fuck around.

You burn that bridge with idle sarcastic lies
that your boyfriend, your best friend, believes
(which just shows that he didn't know you too well after all, not after four years anyway)
and you find yourself alone.

You fuck around with people you shouldn't fuck around
but they're there, and they'll take you
(and at this point you're desperate to be taken)
and your self-image slips.

Then you tell your remaining friends that you have priorities,
that they're not number one, that this stranger is
(this stranger they don't approve of and who treats you like shit but mmmm, the sex is good, isn't it?)
and you wake up one morning alone.

You get very drunk a lot, vodka becomes your boyfriend, your best friend,
and on one of those nights
(those very drunk, half-remembered nights)
you let more strangers into you.

That's how you lose the guy who treats you like shit,
whose only redeeming quality was that he treated you like shit on a regular basis
(and mmm the sex was good, wasn't it?)
and you start taking walks.

These are not regular walks, the ones you take, they are ones
that start at midnight or one or two in the morning, and as you walk
(in the coldest nights, if you can arrange that)
you smoke cigarettes and fight back hysterical sobs.

And then you remember you have pills left over
from a long-ago surgery, that didn't hurt as much as it should have
(that surgery was another life ago, a happy and held-together life ago)
and they start to look deliciously good.

You realize you have a problem or two problems or at the very least some problems
which you think is a sign that you're getting better
(it always was a sign before)
and so you don't ask for help.

In fact you refuse to ask for help, which is when you start to really fall down
because you start to expect the health and happiness to come back
(because you've kidded yourself for so long about this one, haven't you?)
and you insist - you thrust your fists against the posts and still insist you see the light.

You start to "date" people and your eighth-grade mentality comes back
the mentality that never understood love
(and especially never understood anyone who said they liked you)
and you find yourself fucking for things.

You find yourself becoming a low-grade, college-level, materialistic whore
and you convince yourself it's all right.
(Doesn't everyone have a price?)
Finally you assert some ethics and quit it.

Then you just find yourself alone again,
because even if it was the worst sex of your life, someone was there
(and the nights weren't so cold and the walks weren't so long)
and they knew how to hold you, even if it was badly.

While you're alone you drink some more and you cry a lot,
and you cut yourself at home and at work
(no one is ever very observant, no one is ever observant enough)
and you relish the blood while sucking it away so that there are no obvious scabs.

Of a sudden you wake up and find you're dating three people at once,
which is every man's dream until he or she realizes it
(because when you have any sort of soul or humanity polygamy only tears it down)
and you hate yourself even more, ever more.

You wean away. You wake up to life a little. You break it off,
one by one, and finally you're only seeing one person
(one person who might be good for you)
and because you have fallen so far you think about breaking it off again.

If you break it off, you will be an island again, and no one will be able to hurt you.
You will be able to fix the people who you have hurt, because you have become familiar with the sound of settling.
(If you break it off you will be a hollow shell again, and no one will notice, and no one will care)
and you start to weigh the dangers of being hurt against the pain that goes with hurting.

Here is your decision.
Will you settle, and make your other lover happy?
No one will hear your soft sobs at night and no one will see your midnight walks recommence.
No one will be watching for you, and no one will catch you this time.
(Do you want to be caught?)
But if you open up,
and you let the possibility of pain grow
(if you let him try to fix you, and if you let you love him)
you may be fixed.
You also may be broken again,
at the end of this ordeal,
like a china plate which can be broken over and over again
into ever-smaller pieces
(into dust, and dust comes from dust, and dust unto dust forever and ever)
until you cannot move any more.

Here is your choice.
Do you break yourself,
or do you let someone else take you,
to be broken at some future point?