New York City

Manx cat

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 04:41:41 GMT

This is the girl who walked behind me
As I reached out and touched
A hanging branch
This is the room
Where things are kept
This is the knowledge
Of a thousand reflections
This is the knowledge
Of a legion known by my name
Of a girl with my face inversed
Following me in the dark
I confuse myself with her
These are the x-rays
Where my bones stay
This is the teaspoon with
My reflection upside down
This is the imposter
Seeming impossible

That is the rabbit
Folding her clothes
That is the geranium
Feeling in the dark
That is the possum
About to answer the phone

This is the girl
I reached out and touched
This is the girl
Who might've been a branch
This is the face I hollowed
With a common kitchen knife
This is the knowledge I desire
The black and terrible thing
Between bed and floor
Closet and door, at night
This is the pillow where I lay to rest
Where I hope to die
This is the delicate balcony
Between air and death
This is the last time
I will confuse myself with her
Because she will be the only one left
This is the mirror where we met
And the last time I will see you

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 01:23:20 GMT

I am perfect and it does not come as a surprise.
We were meant to be, and you are handsome
I am beautiful
The death you waited for
Will never come
I am out of breath
Close your mouth.

On being a girl.

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:46:33 GMT

Sexual frustration is a way of life. Don't knock it.

Now it begins

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 20:26:20 GMT

I am separating again, all the oil in me and all the water, rising up and sinking under. I am separating again, and if only I could die.

I am not enough, I am not enough.

I hate writing about anything

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 04:52:37 GMT

I'm not willing to compete with anyone anymore. I don't really have to be beautiful, do I? Nor intelligent or funny. I have never been competitive, and I've always hated how people that are expect you to be, knowing they'll win just because they give a shit. In the end, they make you feel worthless for losing something you never even wanted. But I don't want to do it anymore. I have no need, no greed, no guts. I prefer to continue refusing any chance I have at becoming anything because I really don't want to be anything at this point. I'm so sick of being something. We have all of our little definitions together but when we're apart I lose touch of reality. I start to rethink everything, all that has happened, and it is painful, and I don't want to think about it any longer. I don't want to belong to you or anyone or myself. I don't want someone to look at me and know what I am defined by because that means I have to start competing again. So I really don't want to be anything. Not a thing. You can all go ahead and play your games, compliment one another, seeth, smile or grow old. I only want to stay alive for all the breathing that's in store.

more than this?

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 01:29:10 GMT

my mother is insistent on giving me useful advice i will always remember too late. i am overly confident in the most ordinary things imaginable: i believe i dress well, i find myself interesting, i am convinced there will be talent there when i need it. however far these imaginary gifts may take me, it will not compare to the progress of those who have but one thing-- simple discipline. this i do not have and never had in the past-- a mistake i made long ago and one i will continue believing will never be reversed. good conversation has always been the only thing i have held in high regard, and every other proof of character has only been ignored beside this method of pretending. i am too tired, too exhausted, and much too lazy to make myself a better person. i have been spoiled by the stupidity i see in others so that i waste myself in defiance. i have grown less productive and more proud the longer i stay happy with gabriel. how awful my writing style has become, withered by self-contentment and a comfortable cushion. the things i convince myself i am brilliant for only push me further down the slope of mediocrity until i find myself, suddenly ugly, at the bottom of the hill. i vomit a little and continue down my fat path to summer days where nothing gets done and nobody knows me.

i have no motivation and no philosophy. therefore i am capable of any destruction and only minor progression. tenents are meant to be destroyed, but, having none, i can only slowly reduce myself to someone i no longer recognize. the fastidious eleven year old bella had much to think about everything and a million hypotheses to bring her closer to herself. whereas today, bloated bella believes only blasphemy. how am i to love anyone in this trite fashion, where all is up or down according to my most current mood? where are the morals that gabriel presses me to? i only answer in hopes of security, but in reality i am so confused by these concepts that i am suddenly terrified with the following questions: when was it that i began to regress, and how much damage has been done?

i am completely unwilling to work towards anything and still think that things will always work out for themselves. i stay a child protected by well-meaning adults, and although their mistakes may affect me for the worst, i am content if they are the ones to take the blame. and i will be perfectly happy to ignore all these problems as soon as i've articulated them once and without much editing. i will never make anything out of myself because i am too happy pretending something may happen one day without my effort so that i may laugh at those who did try. i have always been left alone by parents and teachers to dabble in whatever i could find interesting without constriction, and this has somehow left me impotent and greedy. however, i have always maintained that any efforts to direct me otherwise only pushed me farther to the vacant corners of my delectable ego.

these days i have nothing to say to no one that i know will not be immediately charming, therefore relieving me of any nagging questions as to the true value of my character. but there is no use in pleasing people, and there is less in pleasing myself. i do not know where to begin, or how to understand. i am prepared only to destroy without conscience and sulk daintily without depth. i am not ready for anything more than this.

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 19:26:22 GMT

I descend the cline from tense attention to vertigo
Ascension again, from my unctuous brow to the dolorous clouds
As cascading rain dribbles onto my portico.

And I have seen those that stand above a dimmer glimmer than
All the angels quivering softly upon slimmer pins
Than my proverbial eggshells.

But madness craves the depraved and I am tired.
Beside my end-table, a book I keep
Remembers all the woes this has sired.
But I remain here, nolens volens
Until retired.

The carmine of afternoon thickens across my balcony
As an ambuscading array of rain swells
Then leaves me again to plan another attack
Or to dine on a light repast, or for any old task
Because I am completely capable of making my own self sad.

The storms may come and go,
Standing upon my portico
And I'll resist the urge to learn,
Standing still and taciturn.

I may flash past contempt to simple spite, to somnolence
Where the aureate mask of gilded impotence requires me
Time to time, clouding me entirely.

I imagine myself beholden to a chariot pushing along the sun
A Sisyphean Apollo, or perhaps a palomino
An immortal moth pressing further for all that is not had, undone
Standing still upon my portico.

But I, a million years old, must ossify;
Or die, and press against the sky in hope of heaven
Or descend to ghastly hell again, or sing a sad song
About all the fools I have been.

I am fond of cumin, parsley and salt
But it is only my fault that even love cannot raise me above a slug
I dream of bows and dimples and jasmine
But I should have been cast as the shed skin of vermin,
The ravaged echo of a skeleton.

And as the storms come and go,
I shiver still with vertigo, rising and falling into solitude
Past any vicissitude, back onto my portico,
Passing by a multitude, a crowd of droplets in the sky
Watching me as I die.

I should go inside instead of standing on the threshold here
But Time and I must stand side by side, martyred by indecision--
By the pettiness of life and the inadequacy of feeling--
And the refusal to have striven--
You have watched me as I died.

why don't you be a man about it?

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 03:08:11 GMT

i am decrepit and out of touch. daily dreads linger as nausea on my tongue, but i can sense my left arm extending slowly towards a brighter contentment. i find it difficult to speak easily with anyone other than my gabriel. when he spends his nights working it is a constant struggle to remain motionless so as to avoid becoming depressed. i do as the vegetable, and i find unflinching time in my moist mattress.

i am palpably more incoherent by the day.

my face is a nuisance because i find it hard to tell whether or not i am capable of human expression when in the presence of other humans. similarly, i forget which shoe goes on which foot.

but i am hard pressed for time, so let us invent an ending: i am happy, and i am full. i have learned to damn the rest of you. conscience is without creation, and furthermore i dislike ambiguity. i have my period.

apologies and apples

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 22:00:52 GMT

i used to approach time gently, with prepubescent hands imitating shadowed silhouettes, and i mused so darling in journals i now grow weary of keeping. i had a great premonition that i was amounting to something, waiting carefully. i spent years idle at time's discretion. i reread the same juvenile books over and over, convinced that i could not venture further because i had not possessed that hoary knowledge yet (even now do i feel sightless and voiceless breathing heavily over books written and read by men i know are smarter than i, fiercely afraid that i am missing crucial and sad information, the emotions of the intellectual, a world i cannot dream of).

i pressed silently against time at fourteen when i begged to write something complete (i petitioned so long for that one story); however, after much nonsense and fantasy, deliberation and daydreaming, i find myself again crushed against a wall i cannot pass. i find myself too stupid, too soon.

it was plain and preposterous for me to dream as i did. i have no talent because talent is harsh; i will now, with a swift thrust of a pointed finger, touch the tender plush of my useless abdomen. here i am, a soft and ordinary girl, hardly eighteen and fearing nineteen. my skull is dense and heavy with mud. i mean to whisper and can only manage to mutter incoherent complaints of a dry throat, an empty eye, and i am filled with despair as i realize the impossibility of eloquence.

there is not enough time for me to become great. i have decided instead to follow through with pity and establish myself as pathetic. i have learned the terror of mediocrity! i have seen my life pass before my eyes! insects crawl recklessly near my ear to be smashed dead by my moribund hands. i await an exhausted fate.

now i only wish to ambulate again to heaven, to hope afresh of faithful clouds for just a moment, to see that flittering arch of birds above my head as an arrow released upwards into the sky, amassed and splintering apart, then drifting together again; that phantasmagoria of ardor with the strength of lust for a fantasy of consciousness; and the arch swoops again above me, and i tremble and throb with life as if it were a dream, and with one final wiggle, i am released from the womb into the treacherous air.

Thu, 04 Jan 2007 03:51:01 GMT

giant supine buddha

Wed, 13 Dec 2006 03:36:15 GMT

the digression of sex and the distraction of love have become the foundations on which i have built the premises of my character. in brief spurts of spittle, i have rejected it, but i cannot imagine the severity of destroying this base in favor of personal dignity. as an introverted child i thought often about what made me who i was, and i grew to find satisfaction in the idea that i possessed a substantial and palpable personality, apart and completely separate from other humans. i still find that these tendencies have lingered in a body who finds them so obsolete, but it is the magic of this hesitation that allows the deflection of love to lead so long a life. yet i find it dangerous and the confidence i once had as a child has faded. the perspiration of late adolesence is thick above my brow and i cannot find a muse to answer. o breathlessness, please abide by so small a path. i am in the world a desperate and small creature. i no longer have the means for strength for time has passed this stop already. all i pray for is the gift of stability.

a story slightly true.

Tue, 14 Nov 2006 20:58:29 GMT

today i was hunted by a viking who noticed me on the trolley. his hair was light blonde and stringy with filth. his nails were jagged and jaundiced, a detail noticed by their incredible closeness to my nose as we stood side by side at the trolley exit, his hand grasping the wall at my head and his face pointed with magnetic fury at my conspicuous coat. he had earlier assumed i wanted to get off at 36th street and almost stepped off before realizing i remained on our vehicle, but he was positive i was about to leave at 43rd. after walking a block with his rifle pointed at my back, i turned quickly, entered a cafe i work at and ducked behind the counter. having successfully escaped the scent of the beast, i returned home soon after with a cup of coffee. at the door, i encountered my calico cat named after a famous Hispanic spicey sauce. i clutched her mewing body with hunger and cast the coffee into a neighboring yard. i was unable to stop myself from devouring her head before stepping inside.

Happy Birthday.

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 22:04:19 GMT

Lolita was a nihilist.

when you're gone (how can i even try to go on?)

Sat, 23 Sep 2006 20:28:06 GMT

this one is called "Nature," probably:

The gravid ravine lunges
A deeper impetus than the
Vainglorious stormy petrel
Hovering violently,
Suggesting

The evergreen valley
Furtively curves beneath the
Ephemeral clouds
Perplexing sub-rosa
Above

A veiled nest hushes
Watches, unrevealed to the
Unkindness of ravens, gathered
Cloak-and-dagger,
Divining

Vines riveting about a tree
With invidious contrast
To menial weeds
Surveying, in veins, the bark
Slowly

A vigil of frogs
Swallow the night
Vaguely gaze, infected by
Virulent insects, venomous shadow
Consumed

Invisible brutes sneak
With vulpine cunning, devious,
In the clandestine chasm, alone
Undaunted, they await vindication;
Plotting.

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 01:11:23 GMT

Under the stars, their faces pointed towards God.
Lint slipped off His shoulder in the form of a shooting star.
Alex elbowed Thomas and pointed at the shooting star.
He said, "God's lint," and Thomas spit off the roof.
Alex, ten, and Thomas, eleven, dangled baby legs off the roof.
Thomas said, "Then what are we?" and Alex almost fell onto the ground.
The constellations sunk above them and almost fell onto the ground.
Together, Thomas and Alex watched them sinking in the summer air.
Thomas and Alex pointed at the stars, and were best friends, in the summer air.
The young boys thought of God as Poseidon with a trident and a beard.
They stood and pushed out their chests as if they had a trident and a beard.
Under the stars, the young boys imitated God.

short poems written on public transportation when my feet were numb

Mon, 09 Jan 2006 17:00:59 GMT

on the el
i went the right way
for too long
$2
i come back

the heat is on
but i feel a draft.

i read what you wrote
but think only of her.
above me, there she is
underneath your
shut eyes.

Sean's band plays
but they look only
at their instruments and
each other. Gaby is beside
me, stoned.
like an object, a
broomstick or
hat, she blinks

your old girlfriend
exists right
here. she is
5'1". she is
dead.

elevation, don't go to my head

Tue, 25 Oct 2005 19:39:51 GMT

later you made it seem as if i had forced you, but this is not true. you were too frail for me to force you; the only way you could have done such a thing would be for you to have fallen. you don't want to think that you had fallen, and that this was made by you, too. but you fell and i followed; it was you who took my hand first as we looked out into the gray fog and thought about the things we were to do that morning. i was quiet, but i always am. you looked so dim and soft, like the gray around us. i remember when we began walking and the sun started coming up i almost went back, but you looked so far away-- and i knew if i didn't follow that i would never see you again, that you would fade into the hot sunlight like the fog. so i went with you, the little gray child, and even your eyes were silent. they neither moved or blinked, they didn't even quiver.

we climbed down the little mountain and up to the little hut. it looked so guilty, the hut, it looked at us and remembered who we were. that is when i took your hand and you looked back at me, not blinking, but i think you saw me. your little white paw, and i was so afriad, oh your little white paw, and it was never mine! you, the little gray child, continued walking, tripping slightly, and i followed as you went. it was you who knocked with that hand i had held, but it was i who pulled the trigger when he answered. before i pulled out the gun, he knew-- he looked at us, and the frame of his door, and he remembered like the hut had remembered, and then he was tired-- and then i had killed him.

my heart hurt with love for you, with terror and power and weakness. for you moved naught. you touched a drop of blood above your lip, but your eyes did not blink. i threw my gun into the stream and pulled you down the hut's steps-- the only time i would ever have dared to pull you any where, my darling-- and we made love at the bottom of the hill. you had your little eyes closed below me, and your little arms wrapped around me, but it was the last time. and i knew. please, know that i knew. i knew like he did, that you had to kill me too. it was the only way. you fell, i followed, and soon enough you killed me too.

above

Sun, 23 Oct 2005 01:28:01 GMT

squeezed
between my relaxing fingers

sticky, you are smooth
sighing, i am wasted

bellows the tower clock
below, it is raining

mush bleeds between my fingers
out onto my knuckles

stone made of layers
wraps you in a blanket

enraptured, you are led
while i have fallen under

tooth is the weight
you have placed upon me

you burgeon below the belly
i belong beneath

flesh uncovered, after all

Tue, 27 Sep 2005 22:26:21 GMT

i see us together, for no reason at all. waiting in the hall, we stare at our lumpen reflections.

waiting in the hall,
the mirror makes a hole in the wall.

with our coats on, we wait in the hall, teeth against teeth.

with teeth against teeth, we stare at the hole in the wall, waiting.

for no reason at all, we wait with our eyes in the hole, the reflecting pool.

together, teeth against teeth, in the mirror, we wait.

written in March inside my sushi notebook

Mon, 16 May 2005 04:26:13 GMT

I didn't cry, I contended
then I opened up my mouth
and moaned when I lost.

the greatest

Tue, 10 May 2005 22:23:17 GMT

cranberry juice and cigarettes had made her slimy throat sore
but she didn't decline when he asked her to--
her little apple cheeks tingled with redness as she remembered
leaning on her elbows, sitting at a desk, she blinked it away.

girl

Thu, 07 Aug 2003 20:19:45 GMT

wearing a mini skirt, looking at my legs, giggle, i'm happy

well last night

Sun, 09 Mar 2003 04:19:07 GMT

i'm tired, tired tired
i've got ice down my throat like a drop of blood round my mouth
i've got Saturday afternoons full of sun and chill
i've got March, i've got kodak, i've got see here now
i've got writer's block, i've got me and nobody else.