calle

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 02:55:13 GMT

"He used to think that he wanted to be good, he wanted to be kind, he wanted to be brave and wise, but it was all pretty difficult. He wanted to be loved too, if he could fit that in."

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:53:42 GMT

maybe i'm jaded and bored
always looking for more
wait around for the next big fix
i know i'm a wreck, i'm a mess
but i couldn't care less
don't know what it would take to change me

everybody's so afraid to be different
please excuse me now ifi don't get it

i think sex is overrated
so is always getting wasted
designer drugs and dead end jobs
and classic rock is so outdated
i'm so sick of therapy
and all the things it's done to me
how can i be satisfied?
when everything is overrated

maybe the problem is me
but i won't make believe
and ican't take this mediocrity
what if this is a test?
and I deserve what i get?
will i wake up with all the answers?

everybody's too afraid to be different
please excuse me now if i don't listen

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:25:11 GMT

walked to the beach in flip flops and a grey hoodie, no longer bearing a childhood father-esque icon but now a prison embroidered with ivy vines and a notable name. notable. we walked lazily and regretted not bringing beers, leaning against each other and hiding our cigarette smoke in the echoes of our laughter. the ocean, choppy, not good enough for surf and the sky that cut itself in sharp black clouds, bleeding into an antithesis of what a beach should be. "i love this place, but hate it. i can't get far enough away, but it always brings me back," i looked off into the distance, seagulls screaming and razor sand whipping my face.

drank some tequila and reminisced, let our eyes memorize colors in the darkness of the porch. he said, "you'll leave me," and i shook my head. how can i leave if i was never really there at all? how can his cold fingertips make my warm skin shiver? how can i even be here, in this moment, typing these words, trapped in these memories? i feel lazy and standard and ruined. i feel empty, drained of feelings i once had. i love to love, love to be loved, but what does that even mean anymore?

cheap nights dressed in hard liquor and fruity perfume. a car ride home, a palm full of pills and the passion it creates. i'm not sure if any of this is really happening. sidewalks end in front of palm trees and street signs, replaced from when we tore them down, to keep them in the house, frozen forever in one minute or second or conversation or kiss. there were times i was truly happy. there still are. i cannot cry anymore without force, a quick pinch or a hard smack in the face. there were people that have become strangers who are strewn about. strangers who have become closer than those friends could ever get. i fall asleep in truck beds and leave enough room for my dog and two guitars.

i am hiding somewhere light and golden and breezy. i am forever working to get to this place. i am trying to find quick fixes, pyramid schemes, degrees and sticky lips. i do not know if it is working, or just slowing me down.

the sun is always in my eyes.

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 18:29:18 GMT

i am coming off in layers in bed sheets, body is weak, malnourished, too relaxed and jumpy. i peel the blue from my eyes with crisp twenty dollar bills, it comes off jagged, the lights in this town dim and blur and i am dizzy and passing out in the passenger seat.

i am addicted to understanding, in so many different ways.

sink a plastic ball in a red cup full of water and i am hugged and praised and fought over. i am being sabotaged always. i hide behind automatic windows and the top of my car, kneeling near the break pedals and painting white flags on my knuckles, i grasp the steering wheel and cry with my stereo. everything is fine. i am just scared of the dark.

weak smiles and people don't talk to me as much. i retreat into bedrooms and stare at myself upside down, a soft blue-green snow and i'm making angels with my nose. anything looks holy when you can't see light, or dark, close or far away. god is hidden everywhere i'm not looking, phone lines disconnect and that crunching beep beep beep beep beep beep. are you there? car won't start, bundle up in october cold, eyes are tired and lazy from smoke, i am not a child. am i?

am i? buckle your seat belt and pay your rent. get to work on time and do your homework. be honest and careful, and eat something. don't smoke cigarettes. don't drink too much liquor.

are you there? beep beep beep beep beep

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:34:56 GMT

finger burns make me scream "I HATE BURRITOS!" loudly, so that the whole campus can hear me, watch me slave, work, and i smell like rice and beans. i am not lost anymore, a large grandiose fountain explodes with chlorinated water, trickles down artificial rain through dense sunshine and stagnant trees. i am not lost, "WAIT, DO NOT CROSS" and i do wait, ten minutes sometimes, people stare and i don't give a fuck.

i collapse into a hundred beds, some move with me, on top of me, inside of me and sometimes i just float. ignored screaming mechanical devices make me curse, "shit, shit!", my least favorite curse word and i fall over cats, i forget my cigarettes.

i have not had a beer in over five days.

i smoke too much weed and i fall asleep on visitors. i blame them because i hate that body needs rest, needs the night hours where i could use them. i miss classes, skip towns and i am always running. text message beep beeps, and what, WHAT, What do you want? i shower three times a day. love notes look like money, trade them for gas and toll roads and cigarettes and weed. cash them in for blue pills i crush sloppily.

no money but i can still kiss all my friends. i can tell them 'i love you' and mean it, and i can laugh out loud at inside quiet jokes. go for rides that drag the day along, caught in trees and rivers and waves, the pink orange glow makes the asphalt look like gold. the leaves shiver around me and i break a sweat. i hold hands and lean against shoulders, i ask to be guided and i am taken away.

cashed a bowl and i'm late late late! but time moves so slowly here.
.

how can one person know so much truth? and i know none

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:56:42 GMT

if we were honest and both wrote a sonnet together
a sandwich with everything on it,
at least we would know that the sparks didn't glow
but we owe it to ourselves to try,
so we aim and ignite!
so often i call and i plead with you:

"give me a chance!"
it's not often that i understand
the ins and the outs of what's wrong and what's right
so don't think of tomorrow tonight.

oh, i know, it goes on, it gets old
but for now we're young, we smell good, we're alone...

you look for a legend,
i'm looking for common ground.
your heart isn't breaking,
and mine isn't making a sound.

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:08:47 GMT

a chilly night with a breeze sends me shooting back six years, and then ages me decades. i'm not sure what this means. or why a glittering gold sky painted quiet secrets above me, next to me and inside of me. and i can't hear them. not yet. but i hope i will know soon.

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 04:16:42 GMT

i ask for blue eyes mirrored in tablets as big as my pupils and for a cut straw. sink in a bed made of oceans and try to keep body balanced while mind plunges and emerges, up and down and curves around the room, vanilla light stemming from whipping candle flames. i ask for apple juice and a hug, praise yawei for a drink of wine. "it's on your lips, baby," and i wipe it away, not moved by words but melted by memories.

the only unrequited lover i ever had was a textbook squishing my brain at the foot of my bed. used to be i could play the game, play it well and still accomplish great works with my friends. now ignored essays gnaw at time, ticking softly in my ears, pounding me while i sleep in borrowed hours i never paid back. won't every pay back. i dream of seas and palm trees and men's oxford shirts and a bed on a boxspring. it's not high school, and it wasn't the real world. can't you see? there is no real world. people are real, their skin making fire between sheets and cocktail glasses, first glances frozen in a moment captured by the soul. the real world is a beer can on the sidewalk, bent and well-used. i pick it up and taste the breath of the streets, make love to traces of human existance. a woman walks by, stares. "can't you see? this is who we are!" her dog starts barking and i run until i don't see the asphalt, just yellow stripes leading anywhere.

i've been across the country with a plastic duck with a mustache, gotten trashed every single day for a year. been in love, been loved, smoked the greenest buds short of the carribean. failed and succeeded, both unexpectedly. slept in foreign and familiar beds, smells, lips, cars. been skinny and not. waited long hours, lived lifetimes in seconds and still, still, still, i am still at square one. so young and so old, still caught in masts of pirate ships, in pieces of sand frozen with faux november florida chill. in IM boxes and bev naps and the aloha system, dinner checks, wooden desks, essays, car seats and joints, pills, hallucinogens, chapped lips, laughter, lots of laughter, and your eyes when they're brimming with tears.

i've learned nothing and suffocated everything, and i'm shivering.

the overwhelming choice said
i'm just a girl inside a page
and if that's true, if that's true, if that's true,
then what the fuck have i been doing the last six years?
how did i end up here?
how did i find love and conquer all my fears?
see, i made it out.
out from under the sun.
and the truth is that i feel better because i've forgiven everyone.

depressing or enlightening?

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 22:45:04 GMT

i never thought this would be so sad.

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 01:31:19 GMT

icarus is not a tee shirt or a swan song, no
he is born again and it's not easy being me
but i can't promise i will mend or bend
when you believe that we are fixed now from our birth
and i've just fallen back to earth

please remember me, happily by the rosebush laughing with bruises on my chin,

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:18:39 GMT

in town briefly, not gone so long but the sea air trapezes in my formative years through aubrey's open top. i tell myself, this is one of the last nights driving by the ocean. and the fucking moon wasn't even out. i see cars parked on little sandy side streets, see the blue glow of a cd player and two bodies sitting next to each other but so far away. how many times have i done that? have we? i remember nights where i was held against will after curfew, fighting and crying and pounding the dashboard while the waves kissed the receding shore. an anniversary overlook and dancing to jimmy eat world. me, begging with him, fucking him, loving him more than i ever could love anyone anymore. i don't remember how i felt, but what it looked like. i look at old pictures, study old stupid journal entries, and that is not me. i watch memories like movies play over and over and over and after they're done, i feel sad but disconnected. what happened? not drugs or alcohol or sleeping with strangers. not growing up. what happened? i know now that i'll never know.

my roommate asks, "are you dead?" through text and i am so weak and tired that i feel like saying, "yes. please play the trapeze swinger at my funeral."

it feels good to be loved, but shitty not to love back. not in that way. how can so many people fall in love with a ghost? still be in love with a phantom? i am becoming more fleshed out with painkillers, books and wine and my friends. i am not addicted, but i've been suffering from withdrawal for years. can you not see me in your bed right next to you? below the posters, in front of the jolly roger. my soul is trapped in 2004. stuck in places that don't even exist, people i wouldn't recognize. i don't know.

i once wrote: "this town is the poison i never picked, and i want out. now."

i've been out. this world is poison. who would let that girl become so disillusioned? who would break her heart that was so open, eager, ravenous? who would leave her to fend for herself, be broken over and over and over, because she just loved too much? who would program thoughts of us against the world, then join the world and hit her in the cheap spots? over and over and over. and you wonder how i've acclamated. why i sleep next to a man who means nothing, why i snort powder off of text books and talk to people who may not be the most intellectual, but are certainly far more kind. i will never forgive you. i will never forget that night on the beach, or the day i lost everything. i will be heartbroken every time i think about you, about us and what we could have been. i left last, but you left first, and maybe you should have thought that through a little more. because you have given me the cornerstone and now i am just building up and crooked. and i am not sorry. i am sad. i am heartbroken. i tried. i gave it a shot. and nothing ever changed.

that man who tends bar, he was right. i am a fucking ghost.

but please remember me, my misery
and how it lost me all i wanted
those dogs that love the rain and chasing trains
the colored birds above there running

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 12:28:43 GMT

i've always really hated this time of year. what goes up, must come down.

now i believe the sun, it's like a symphony.

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 01:30:31 GMT

got really drunk on crown royal at this dive bar by my house. i have become the best at making playlists on the jukebox. wandered around seabreeze inebriated, was kind of kidnapped and dragged into every bar except that one i needed to be at. sorry, randy. sent a lot of drunken texts, maybe i shouldn't do that anymore. i haven't been able to breathe properly for days. my mother as been giving me loretabs and i have been buying other things. i can't stop sweating. i might be collapsing.

this is everything i've been trying to say for a year.

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:18:39 GMT

as i walk through the streets of my new city
my back feeling much better, i suppose
i've reclaimed the use of my imagination
for better or for worse, i've yet to know
but i always knew you'd be the one to understand me,
i guess that's why it took so long to get things right.
suddenly i'm lost
on my street
on my block

oh why, oh why
oh why haven't you been there for me?
can't you see, i'm losing my mind this time?
this time it's for real, i can see

all the treetops are turning red
the beggars near bodegas grin at me
i think they want something
i close my eyes, i tell myself to breathe

and be calm.
be calm.
i know you feel like you are breaking down.
i know that it gets so hard sometimes.
be calm.

i'm scared that everyone is out to get me.
"these days before you speak to me you pause."
"i always see you looking out your window."
"after all, you lost your band, you left your mom."
now every single crack, every penny that i pass,
says i should either leave or pick it up
but with every single buck i've made
i'm saddled with bad luck that came

the moment I was baptized
or when i found out one day i'm gonna die
if only i could find my people or my place in life
a when they come a'carolin'
so loud, so bright, the theremin
will lead us to a chorus
where we'll all rejoice and sing a song that goes:

be calm.

over and over and over and over.

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 19:22:12 GMT

i have the keys but not the bed. dreams of a big city where i never thought i would belong, some of my favorite boys kissing girls i haven't seen since middle school, a boy kissing me on benches outside of central park. a shabby apartment with wooden, broken shutters. nightmares about school. i'll miss my golden dog, i'll miss my parents and i'll always worry about them. am i doing something wrong? i believe i always am, but all the wrongs i've committed, all of the broken promises and white lies and the secrets i've kept from myself have to lead to something right. right? i got really drunk with those favorite boys and my best friend, woke up and puked all over my bed sheets. i'll miss the ocean driving next to me for the five miles it takes to get out of this burned out flowerchild village where i grew up. thinking about jackets makes me sick, the heat is overwhelming, suffocating, something i will always keep inside of me. this time last year we were in portland, we were eating thirty dollar pizza and having sex on a hotel room bed for the last time. now i hear voices. i hear voices that echo in my purple room full of boxes, boxes full of books and photographs and clothes and my life for the last twenty years. boxes full of the good stuff, or cheap imitations. my hair is short and growing. my body is changing, my stomach concaving, my eyes drooping and hollow and scared. i am scared. i am sad and lonely. i am ready. i am ready, though and it will feel like home. just a different sort that doesn't lull me to sleep with palmetto bugs whispering in my ear, or the smell of the sea stuck on the palm fronds waving outside of my window. but it'll be home.

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 23:15:42 GMT

-this will be my last summer off. i need to finish my degree as soon as possible.

-after i graduate, i plan on moving to NC with a friend of moriah's family, who has a little wood cabin in the mountains. i must begin writing letters to certain bands and musicians asking for their permission, for the novel. the novel will be finished by the fall (hopefully).

-i'm joining the peace corps for at least two years. i've always wanted to, but i never knew how broadly the organization branched. i could end up in jamaica or fiji, romania or micronesia, thailand or costa rica. plus, knock off at least half of my debt. plus plus i could actually make a difference in this world.

-after the peace corps, i plan on becoming a flight attendant. hopefully one who resides in the western part of the U.S. After a year or so of that, I want to move to LA and try to become an actress...i will be able to do this.

i can do this. i really, really can.

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:05:34 GMT

oh, and third eye blind's new music video is really cool. check it out.

keep it fresh

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:42:13 GMT

make sure that all that you write can burn whoever's in your way like vampires in the sunlight.

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:41:48 GMT

i'm becoming quite the hustler at darts.

this town drips in runny neon colors that coat the stars and make the sky split open. a studded night, aubrey works again and her top is down as i'm racing the firecrackers above me so no little comets plummet through me, so i don't get burned alive. moriah wants to cry and i'm already drinking. whatever, a song reminds me of everyone. i text keith to ask him what he's reading, joe beck texts me because he's falling in love and i just want it to fucking stop. i try to remember how it felt to be alive during these times , to string summer nights around your neck like pearls, pure and precious and unforgettable. junkies broke that chain a long time ago, fucking misery, i don't make sense anymore.

i see myself as a fifteen year old girl snorting xanax, collecting phone numbers, waiting tables and laughing too loudly. at sixteen i'm murderous and promiscuous, i am bouncing off of halucniogenic walls and rippling the sky with the smoke from my cigarette. at seventeen i am hairless, jobless, smaller in my skin more and more.

these are the secret vision quests i have that nobody knows. it's not that i'm lost, or begging into telephones, or that i wish i was an ocean. i just find it hard to believe that no one has ever gotten it. that this crazy i am has always been muffled, always been stashed away in the attics of friendships that maybe i don't deserve. i think like there is no time, everything is running running running and how can the sun go down and the moon come up and how can that be a day? how can i be up from ten in the morning until six the next and still nothing has changed? why is t.s. eliot such a fucking liar? the nights are not long, they are shorter, and sex has lost all meaning to me. i am sick of creating reality, i am sick of holding my heart out of my chest, hoping for someone to take a stab. hoping that maybe i'm not crazy, maybe i just get it.

there are glass buildings everywhere. i want my fingers to be made of glass. i want to feel the glass cut me and destroy bits of my skin, i want to see the glass melt, someone's dreams made into reality, someone's notion of what they need and we fucking sanctify it. none of this is real. we are playing house. we are being self-indulgent. we are sex-crazed and bored and greedy. we are lonely. we are wandering aimlessly, trying to find a well in the desert.

the oasis is what we have, and we are too far gone to realize that it was never really there at all.

we're just a million little gods causin' rain storms turnin' every good thing to rust

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:48:20 GMT

i'll guess we'll just have to adjust.

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:57:55 GMT

1. Can You Take Me
2. Don't Believe A Word
3. Bonfire
4. Sharp Knife
5. One In Ten
6. About To Break
7. Summer Town
8. Why Can't You Be
9. Water Landing
10. Dao Of St. Paul
11. Monotov's Private Opera
12. Carnival Barker (instrumental)

......there are simply no words. fuck yes.

this has always been what it's supposed to be.

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:57:23 GMT

this has honestly been the best summer of my life. if i tell you more than that, it will seem cheap and insignificant. but i don't think i've ever been as happy as i am now.

the prologue is almost finished.

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 01:14:46 GMT

i would like to tell you about my dad.

he was the youngest out of nine children, an accident by all accounts of the world. his parents were czechoslovakian implants, my grandfather, stephen, a butcher and my grandmother crazy from having so many kids.

he left home when he was 14, hid his long long long hair under a wig so he could be a bus boy. he slept on the beach or in the beds of girls he charmed almost instantly. he was a good friend, he was an honest boy, handsome and tall, likable and easily loved.

he joined the army during vietnam and there are pictures of him with his jaw clenched, his eyes narrowed, his back strong and healthy.

he was walking through a neighborhood once when some thugs asked him for his sweater. he was lifting it over his head, when one of them held it closed, while another beat him to a pulp with brass knuckles. he has almost no real teeth because of this.

he was engaged nineteen times. my mother bought his engagement party drinks when she happened to be in the same bar. she was number twenty, and though i may not understand it, he still loves her as much as he did when he married her twenty three years ago.

my mom said he was dangerous on dark liquor. he once lost a shoe at a local bar i now frequent because some guy was rude to my mom. he broke someone's nose on his wedding day when some kids were wolf whistling at my mother in her wedding dress.

my childhood was joyous and sweet and innocent, and this is because of my dad. he loved me so much. he held my hand every day when i went to school, helped me jump off jungle gyms and dream big. he got me a puppy. "good night, sweet pea, kitten muffin, baby..." he tucked me in and woke me singing songs with my brother climbing on top of his back. there were always brown paper bag lunches with palm tree drawings, secret notes, small surprise visits. as i matured academically, there were many teachers who knew my father, and always favored me because of this. they whispered "hello, sugar bear" in his ear and kissed him on the lips. they never asked about my mom. my last name earned me some sort of royalty with those teachers, who i now know loved him desperately. he was very easy to love.

everything changed when i was maybe eleven. he was on top of a roof and he fell. he never got up again. his spine had been slowly disintegrating, shards of bone dissapitating into his blood stream, never to be seen again. he had 8 surgeries in one year, he had coral, steel, snail venom, machines inserted in his body. he was once six foot three, now he bends over a wooden cane and is barely at my eye level. his feet deformed from blood clots, his belly bloated with those machines. he is sick, so sick sick sick and he reshingled our roof last summer. he rebuilt our kitchen, dug out our sewage system, mows the lawn.

he is an artist in every sense of the word, he listens to books on tape instead of the radio. he loves sci-fi and stephen king novels. he is funny and all of the cashiers at our grocery store love him and hug him when he goes in. he scares men, he is respected. he is the only man who understands me, who will talk to and council me, who will take me to burger king in deland when i am lonely and confused. he says i am an actress, he says "you will have a wonderful life". he cleaned my car on father's day. he has been at every single one of my plays, even if i never say a word.

he is so sick. he almost died this year. he has almost died a dozen times. i feel like my world will collapse when he dies. i love him more than anything. he is my hero, my only hero, the greatest person i will ever know. i love him so fucking much. every wish i've ever had is for him to get better. i stopped believing in god because of his refusal to help the best man in the world. to test and torture and continually hurt hurt hurt my father. i just want to scream. i just want to sit on his shoulders and watch the fireworks again. i want to be able to step on his shoes and dance. i just want him to go on roller coasters with me when everyone else in my family is too chicken. i just want him to be healthy. i want him to have everything he's ever wanted. i want the world to know him.

and me, i ran, i couldn't even look at him,
for fear i'd have to say goodbye,
and as i start to leave,
he grabs me by the shoulder and he tells me,
"what's left to lose? you've done enough,
and if you fail then you fail but not to us,
'cause these last ~~three~~ ten years,
i know they have been hard,
but now it's time to get out of the desert and into the sun,
even if it's alone."

fuck, he is the only thing worth crying for anymore. and he just smiles with those forests in his goddamn eyes.

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 06:33:24 GMT

just ate pot brownies for the first time, and i have to say i'm pretty fucked up. it's strange how my body reacts to drugs. lately i have been too honest, if there is such a thing. but now my eyes are shaking and my shoulders are burning, so i have to go to bed.

please forgive me.

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 05:46:37 GMT

there are certain moments that can never be re-captured, or remembered as vividly as we may want.

there is a boy smiling and a girl smiling and their lips are touching, but not closed. it is hot in the summer and they are in line for the girl's first music festival. they are in love, and it is young and tender.

there is a boy walking fast and a girl trailing behind, picking flowers and admiring the streetlights. an ambulance rushes past; they embrace and the world is trapped in twilight.

there is a group of adults disguised as children, lighting sparklers while the sky turns orange. their teeth are coated with old popcorn butters and their eyes are heavy with smoke.

there are a few of us, swimming in the cool, cool ocean, touching and scaring and lifting each other among waves caressed by the smallest moonlight. our thighs are sandy and our lungs taste like honey as we cough them up on our tongues.

a beautiful day, dropped off by the corner, and running towards him so i can feel his fingers make my skin shiver. i am hiding and sweating, and there are no clouds in the sky.

there is a boy pretending to do laundry, and a girl pretending to ask about music. there is a warm basement that smells like cotton and sweet sweat. there is a boy pressing a girl against a hot, vibrating machine as he kisses her and pretends that no one knows he is falling in love.

there is a bottle of wine and an indie movie on tv. he helps her up the flimsy cement stairs and the city by the beach is strung up upon telephone wires. a lot of talking, and no understanding, they know each other too well, and they won't give in. they never really have for years and years.

i see a boy smile at me over a kalaidescope of colored liquors, his eyes a dark, powerful smudge against the bright color scheme of the restaurant. i wonder if he is sincere or just charming, and order powerful drinks that taste like sour fruit so i don't have to wonder anymore. he keeps looking, and i just want to feel anything.

there is a pile of bricks, and her bare feet climbing them and bruising on stone. there are purple flowers in their hair, and the sun comes up and everything is so bright, so bright, so bright. they are alive briefly, but disintegrate into blacked out rooms and air mattresses, they fall asleep to bright eyes and try to keep theirs closed.

there is no roof on the car, a spliff crafted tightly but burns too quick. there is a lot going on, but the tires are smooth against the curvy pavement. good music and hand holding and fears being forgotten amongst the bows of trees that scrape at their outreached hands.

there are things in the world i wish weren't there, but the sky and trees and flowers and oceans remind me of the dues i have to pay.