Why you live in the bathroom
Where cupboard meets wall
Instead of the kitchen,
My bedroom or hall
I’m sure I can’t guess,
Because, I assume,
You still are not safe
From rags and vacuum.
Why not a corner
Or crevasse or crease
Where your web could last
For more than a week?
Out here in the open
The strands get torn down,
But there’s never a day
When you’re not around.
Whether over and over
You spin the same silk
Or are replaced by friends
Of similar ilk,
Still eight eyes watch me every day
Brush my teeth
And wash my face.
Fortuitous indeed
You should end up with me,
Who will not crush you
Or swat you or scream.
But don’t forget your place and all;
Please stay in the corner
Where cupboard meets wall.
.
I'd tell them, you know, if they wanted to know. I'd tell them all sorts of things.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Some Challenges of the Spoken Word
People say things, right? Isn’t that how people are supposed to interact, by speaking mouth-words? That’s the impression I get, anyway. And apparently one is expected to respond relatively quickly, without taking too much time to process. Conversations should be slower things, I think. Is it alright to say things that don’t necessarily need saying?
When I’m quiet, I do have things in my mind. Things I could say, I suppose; things I could make into words and push off of my tongue for other people to hear. But I ask certain questions of myself before saying things. Like Who Cares? Is what I am about to say genuinely relevant to the conversation and its participants? Will it make someone think? Will it make someone laugh? If the answer to all of those questions is “no”, my lips often refuse to move. But I’m never quite sure if that is the right decision, because I tend to experience many awkward silences and I can’t help but think that it’s my fault for not filling up the space with words.
On lugubrious days
I get the impression
That others may notice
My verbal recession.
Sometimes on desperate impulse I will regurgitate some vaguely-related phrase from my mind, whatever is floating closest to my mouth. How very spastic I must seem, stretches of silence awkwardly punctuated with puzzling interjections and broken responses. Then sometimes there is nothing floating nearby and I feel a solid white space behind my eyes, a catch in my throat.
I need to make
More words with my mouth,
Build them on my tongue
And then push them out.
I suppose it doesn’t matter very much anyway; everything I have to say has been said before, if not by me then by someone else. Any concept my little brain could possibly conceive has surely already been thoroughly wrung out by minds brighter than my own. Why bother saying what has been heard before? I’m only twenty-three; I don’t think I’ve lived long enough to say new things, or even to know very much about old things. Why bother saying something that is not new, or that is essentially unproductive?
Sometimes I feel like a ineffectual robot: inexpressive due to lack of data, then randomly activating in sudden bursts of short-circuiting gibberish.
I think I am better at the letter-format of communication, when I am able to contemplate my words. To edit them, to see them somewhere other than my head-space before they are announced. I make more sense that way. Why do you think I write so much?
I pronounce to the world
Some stuttering sounds.
They look at me strangely;
I’ll just write it down.
.
When I’m quiet, I do have things in my mind. Things I could say, I suppose; things I could make into words and push off of my tongue for other people to hear. But I ask certain questions of myself before saying things. Like Who Cares? Is what I am about to say genuinely relevant to the conversation and its participants? Will it make someone think? Will it make someone laugh? If the answer to all of those questions is “no”, my lips often refuse to move. But I’m never quite sure if that is the right decision, because I tend to experience many awkward silences and I can’t help but think that it’s my fault for not filling up the space with words.
On lugubrious days
I get the impression
That others may notice
My verbal recession.
Sometimes on desperate impulse I will regurgitate some vaguely-related phrase from my mind, whatever is floating closest to my mouth. How very spastic I must seem, stretches of silence awkwardly punctuated with puzzling interjections and broken responses. Then sometimes there is nothing floating nearby and I feel a solid white space behind my eyes, a catch in my throat.
I need to make
More words with my mouth,
Build them on my tongue
And then push them out.
I suppose it doesn’t matter very much anyway; everything I have to say has been said before, if not by me then by someone else. Any concept my little brain could possibly conceive has surely already been thoroughly wrung out by minds brighter than my own. Why bother saying what has been heard before? I’m only twenty-three; I don’t think I’ve lived long enough to say new things, or even to know very much about old things. Why bother saying something that is not new, or that is essentially unproductive?
Sometimes I feel like a ineffectual robot: inexpressive due to lack of data, then randomly activating in sudden bursts of short-circuiting gibberish.
I think I am better at the letter-format of communication, when I am able to contemplate my words. To edit them, to see them somewhere other than my head-space before they are announced. I make more sense that way. Why do you think I write so much?
I pronounce to the world
Some stuttering sounds.
They look at me strangely;
I’ll just write it down.
.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Young Woman, Old Things
Lately I’ve been making new things out of old things. Re-twisting bobby pins, cutting up my brother’s old t-shirts. I can’t say they are turning out very well, but I’m making them nonetheless. I’m a resourceful person, I think. My end product might have bare joints and exposed seams and duct tape showing through cracks in the surface. It may appear a slovenly structure, but the things I make are as stubborn as I am and they will hold unless deliberately disassembled. They will be sturdy. Impractical, perhaps, and maybe there was an easier way, but this was my way and it worked, despite all the detours. You can’t tell me it didn’t; disheveled as I am you can’t tell me I didn’t show up on time. You can’t tell me it didn’t turn out ok.
I know, it was supposed to turn out so much better than "ok". It was supposed to do so much more than simply “function”, a mere meeting of requirements. But I have such a hard time letting go of the messes I’ve created because, in their own ways, they work for me. Maybe not as well as something else might, but my clunky old things seem so much safer than all these new things, gleaming with the lustrous chrome of possibility. How very intimidating.
There is a new break in the fence around my neighbor’s pasture. It’s a good place to look for old things; the house there was built before the first world war. When I find reels of rusty wire or old pots and pans all corroded and full of holes in the woods a ways from the house, I like to think they were left behind by the farmer that was called to fight, or by his grieving wife who could no longer bear to remain in the home she shared with her only love now passed.
Today is a surreal day here in the woods; strange things balancing precariously on the tips of the branches. I reach up to pull my head back onto my shoulders but it is so light it cleverly evades my grasp and continues its floating about, wandering aimlessly. It is looking for the Strange Things. Then we see one, my head and I. It has leapt down from its branch and scattered itself all over the ground in the form of white, hard things. We move closer and my heart leaves my body to join my head above. They are bones. I wonder if they are human and I venture closer. They are rib bones; humans have ribs. There are vertebrae; humans have those, too. My heart flutters in my throat, imagining excitedly the crime scene tape and uniforms that will cover the area once I have made sure of my discovery and called someone. 911? City Hall? My dad? I don’t know, and vaguely it occurs to me that perhaps I have been watching too much Criminal Minds.
I pick my way around the bones and finally see The Skull, half-hidden in the grass. Pretty purple, yellow, and white flowers are springing through the eye sockets and out from between the grinning teeth, life and death careening into one another, the wreckage cumulating in this eerily cheerful display. My heart settles back into my body, though, as I approach and see an ivory snout poking out into the grass. They are cow bones, probably a calf dragged here by the current resident to be disposed of by coyotes. Poor little calf. No more crime scene tape fantasies or intrigue; just something dead. Do the bones smell strange, or is it just the lofty imagination of my hovering mind? It must be my imagination, because these bones are clearly Old Things, half-buried and sun-bleached. When I realize the age of the bones suddenly they seem more peaceful, as if quietly laid to rest in this sun-dappled forest by the brook; as if the little calf has long-since forgiven the coyotes for desecrating its remains. Death is coexisting serenely with the life around it, and I sit nearby to listen to the water and watch the skull-flowers rustle in the subtle breeze.
Old Things are safe things, my floating head tells me.
But New Things are exciting, in a frightening sort of way. I just wish I didn’t have to let go of the safety of the Old Things in order to experience the adventure of the New.
Because I do so love adventures.
Take me on adventures but make me feel safe, too. That’s probably too much to ask of you, but I figured it was worth a try.
.
I know, it was supposed to turn out so much better than "ok". It was supposed to do so much more than simply “function”, a mere meeting of requirements. But I have such a hard time letting go of the messes I’ve created because, in their own ways, they work for me. Maybe not as well as something else might, but my clunky old things seem so much safer than all these new things, gleaming with the lustrous chrome of possibility. How very intimidating.
There is a new break in the fence around my neighbor’s pasture. It’s a good place to look for old things; the house there was built before the first world war. When I find reels of rusty wire or old pots and pans all corroded and full of holes in the woods a ways from the house, I like to think they were left behind by the farmer that was called to fight, or by his grieving wife who could no longer bear to remain in the home she shared with her only love now passed.
Today is a surreal day here in the woods; strange things balancing precariously on the tips of the branches. I reach up to pull my head back onto my shoulders but it is so light it cleverly evades my grasp and continues its floating about, wandering aimlessly. It is looking for the Strange Things. Then we see one, my head and I. It has leapt down from its branch and scattered itself all over the ground in the form of white, hard things. We move closer and my heart leaves my body to join my head above. They are bones. I wonder if they are human and I venture closer. They are rib bones; humans have ribs. There are vertebrae; humans have those, too. My heart flutters in my throat, imagining excitedly the crime scene tape and uniforms that will cover the area once I have made sure of my discovery and called someone. 911? City Hall? My dad? I don’t know, and vaguely it occurs to me that perhaps I have been watching too much Criminal Minds.
I pick my way around the bones and finally see The Skull, half-hidden in the grass. Pretty purple, yellow, and white flowers are springing through the eye sockets and out from between the grinning teeth, life and death careening into one another, the wreckage cumulating in this eerily cheerful display. My heart settles back into my body, though, as I approach and see an ivory snout poking out into the grass. They are cow bones, probably a calf dragged here by the current resident to be disposed of by coyotes. Poor little calf. No more crime scene tape fantasies or intrigue; just something dead. Do the bones smell strange, or is it just the lofty imagination of my hovering mind? It must be my imagination, because these bones are clearly Old Things, half-buried and sun-bleached. When I realize the age of the bones suddenly they seem more peaceful, as if quietly laid to rest in this sun-dappled forest by the brook; as if the little calf has long-since forgiven the coyotes for desecrating its remains. Death is coexisting serenely with the life around it, and I sit nearby to listen to the water and watch the skull-flowers rustle in the subtle breeze.
Old Things are safe things, my floating head tells me.
But New Things are exciting, in a frightening sort of way. I just wish I didn’t have to let go of the safety of the Old Things in order to experience the adventure of the New.
Because I do so love adventures.
Take me on adventures but make me feel safe, too. That’s probably too much to ask of you, but I figured it was worth a try.
.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Another Year I Claim
Today is my birthday. I love my birthday, chiefly because it is a wonderful excuse to go to the zoo. I love my birthday, but I hate getting older. With every year the expectations rise, and sometimes I’m just not sure I can do it. Time forces me to change when I don’t feel ready, and it changes other people and I’m not ready for them to change either.
Can everybody just freeze, just stay the same for a second? Just let me stay the same? Just let me stay the same, and stay the same with me. My heart is tired, and yours must be too; you’ve told me how heavy it is. Why do you want to lay upon it yet another burden? Let’s just stay the same. Or at least don’t look at me like that, when you change and I don’t. Please don’t expect me to keep promises I never made.
It’s difficult to live passionately without bumping into anyone else. At times I seem to careen from wall to wall, crashing into everything in my spastic path. Other times I seem to be paralyzed, existing directly in the way of the rest of the world but unable to move. I seem to be incapable of feeling anything halfway; full motion or dead stop.
For all my passion, sometimes I feel like I’ve already said everything I have to say. I’m a glass bottle poured out of fresh words, every one dribbled out and absorbed into an earth thirsty to suck up everything I have to give. Leaving me, at times, an empty vessel. I very much like having things to say, even if no one hears them.
I think Jesus likes passionate people. People who are passionate in stoic, quiet ways, and in ways that are loud and full of bright colors and mistakes. I think even passion misdirected might make Him smile somehow, because therein lies potential. At least, I hope.
I think Jesus would get a drink with me, and I don’t think He minds too much when I curse. I think Jesus would sneak the dogs scraps under the table and be snarky and get pissed at mean people, and show it. After all, Jesus is a passionate person Himself.
Jesus’ ministry didn’t start until He was thirty; maybe it’s ok that at twenty-three I haven’t done very much with my life yet, despite being a passionate person. But every birthday, I feel like the clock is ticking.
Tick-tock, Grad-u-ate. Tick-tock, start-ca-reer. Tick-toc, a-part-ment. Tick-tock…oops-too-slow.
But tomorrow I will wake twenty-three-and-one-day, unable to live any more quickly than I do; tomorrow I will wake just the same. Tomorrow I will wake and my socks will not match any more than they do today, and my hair will be only marginally longer. Change seems to take so long, yet it is so hard to keep up with.
But for the moment I’ll just try to keep up with the animals at the zoo; with the first fireflies of the season. I’ll keep up with a book, with a conversation, with some chocolates, with an art project and a glass of wine.
After all, it’s my birthday. I can do what I want.
.
Can everybody just freeze, just stay the same for a second? Just let me stay the same? Just let me stay the same, and stay the same with me. My heart is tired, and yours must be too; you’ve told me how heavy it is. Why do you want to lay upon it yet another burden? Let’s just stay the same. Or at least don’t look at me like that, when you change and I don’t. Please don’t expect me to keep promises I never made.
It’s difficult to live passionately without bumping into anyone else. At times I seem to careen from wall to wall, crashing into everything in my spastic path. Other times I seem to be paralyzed, existing directly in the way of the rest of the world but unable to move. I seem to be incapable of feeling anything halfway; full motion or dead stop.
For all my passion, sometimes I feel like I’ve already said everything I have to say. I’m a glass bottle poured out of fresh words, every one dribbled out and absorbed into an earth thirsty to suck up everything I have to give. Leaving me, at times, an empty vessel. I very much like having things to say, even if no one hears them.
I think Jesus likes passionate people. People who are passionate in stoic, quiet ways, and in ways that are loud and full of bright colors and mistakes. I think even passion misdirected might make Him smile somehow, because therein lies potential. At least, I hope.
I think Jesus would get a drink with me, and I don’t think He minds too much when I curse. I think Jesus would sneak the dogs scraps under the table and be snarky and get pissed at mean people, and show it. After all, Jesus is a passionate person Himself.
Jesus’ ministry didn’t start until He was thirty; maybe it’s ok that at twenty-three I haven’t done very much with my life yet, despite being a passionate person. But every birthday, I feel like the clock is ticking.
Tick-tock, Grad-u-ate. Tick-tock, start-ca-reer. Tick-toc, a-part-ment. Tick-tock…oops-too-slow.
But tomorrow I will wake twenty-three-and-one-day, unable to live any more quickly than I do; tomorrow I will wake just the same. Tomorrow I will wake and my socks will not match any more than they do today, and my hair will be only marginally longer. Change seems to take so long, yet it is so hard to keep up with.
But for the moment I’ll just try to keep up with the animals at the zoo; with the first fireflies of the season. I’ll keep up with a book, with a conversation, with some chocolates, with an art project and a glass of wine.
After all, it’s my birthday. I can do what I want.
.
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Just Saying.
I’m not saying
I’m perfect,
Or even good at this
At all.
I’m just saying
That when I write a name
In a heart
In the steam
On my bathroom mirror,
It’s Yours.
.
I’m perfect,
Or even good at this
At all.
I’m just saying
That when I write a name
In a heart
In the steam
On my bathroom mirror,
It’s Yours.
.
Sunday, June 9, 2013
I Like
The light breeze stirs my hair, the ends of the wispy strands lightly probing my face like the feelers of a hundred curious insects. I put down my book. It’s too hot out for Faulkner today; the weight of his words combined with the weight of the heat makes me tired. The brightness is too intense for such dark philosophies of the world, though I must admit I believe them even when the sun is shining. Still, just because something is true does not mean one must be constantly aware of it, right? Some things should be forgotten if they cannot be immediately resolved.
But then I suppose there are times when something must be thought about constantly until a resolution occurs. They might as well all be those times, though, because I can’t seem to stop thinking about anything that could be perceived as a problem.
Happythoughts. I try to have happythoughts.
I like it when I paint or draw all day, without realizing the day has passed. Upstairs as natural light fades to lamplight, my skin being continually smudged by acrylics or watercolors or charcoal.
I like it when I finish something.
I like to hear small things and listen to the silence around the sound, the big soft blank that is the vessel for the floating bits of audio.
I like octopi. I really do; they are adorable and amazing creatures.
I like things I should probably have grown out of by now; things like glitter nail polish, stuffed animals and rainbow things. They are in my Secret Stash of Things I Like, though, things I don’t generally like to admit. They keep company with Lady Gaga and Bud Light and getting pretty new things. Don’t tell anyone I told you that, though; it'll be Our Little Secret.
I like art. I aspire to be an artist one day, and enjoy most things that could be put in the category of “art”. Artists can be a lot of things. Artists can be flaky, artists can be mentally and emotionally troubled, artists can blur lines others might not—in life and on paper. My brother aspires to be a lawyer, and is well on his way. He tends to enjoy things of a more political or scientific nature, and I tend to enjoy things of edgy creativity in the arts. However, art and science often overlap, I’ve realized, as do my interests and my brother’s. We both enjoy music, and the making of it; we both feel a need for facts and logic in order to be persuaded of anything. However, he is a serene pool of rational waters, rippling occasionally, splashing briefly at the deliberate throw of a stone, while I am an icy river: a crust of cold, hard logic, with sensitivities and emotions and romance rushing wildly—dangerously—right beneath. The river leaks through the inevitable cracks in the crust, and if the crust is broken the flood will come rushing forth, refusing to be contained. But always, always the crust of rationalism seeks to contain the use of emotions as motive.
I like reading and writing; I like poetry and ceremonies.
I like new pens, sharp shadows, and textures. But not all textures; some make my skin crawl for no particular reason.
I like love stories, though I generally don’t believe them. At least not as commonplace. Logically it is just not likely that most people will experience an absolutely wonderful one, no matter what all the romantic comedies say. Though I do enjoy those with a bowl of ice cream on an exasperated evening.
And I like William Faulkner, even on hot days.
But then I suppose there are times when something must be thought about constantly until a resolution occurs. They might as well all be those times, though, because I can’t seem to stop thinking about anything that could be perceived as a problem.
Happythoughts. I try to have happythoughts.
I like it when I paint or draw all day, without realizing the day has passed. Upstairs as natural light fades to lamplight, my skin being continually smudged by acrylics or watercolors or charcoal.
I like it when I finish something.
I like to hear small things and listen to the silence around the sound, the big soft blank that is the vessel for the floating bits of audio.
I like octopi. I really do; they are adorable and amazing creatures.
I like things I should probably have grown out of by now; things like glitter nail polish, stuffed animals and rainbow things. They are in my Secret Stash of Things I Like, though, things I don’t generally like to admit. They keep company with Lady Gaga and Bud Light and getting pretty new things. Don’t tell anyone I told you that, though; it'll be Our Little Secret.
I like art. I aspire to be an artist one day, and enjoy most things that could be put in the category of “art”. Artists can be a lot of things. Artists can be flaky, artists can be mentally and emotionally troubled, artists can blur lines others might not—in life and on paper. My brother aspires to be a lawyer, and is well on his way. He tends to enjoy things of a more political or scientific nature, and I tend to enjoy things of edgy creativity in the arts. However, art and science often overlap, I’ve realized, as do my interests and my brother’s. We both enjoy music, and the making of it; we both feel a need for facts and logic in order to be persuaded of anything. However, he is a serene pool of rational waters, rippling occasionally, splashing briefly at the deliberate throw of a stone, while I am an icy river: a crust of cold, hard logic, with sensitivities and emotions and romance rushing wildly—dangerously—right beneath. The river leaks through the inevitable cracks in the crust, and if the crust is broken the flood will come rushing forth, refusing to be contained. But always, always the crust of rationalism seeks to contain the use of emotions as motive.
I like reading and writing; I like poetry and ceremonies.
I like new pens, sharp shadows, and textures. But not all textures; some make my skin crawl for no particular reason.
I like love stories, though I generally don’t believe them. At least not as commonplace. Logically it is just not likely that most people will experience an absolutely wonderful one, no matter what all the romantic comedies say. Though I do enjoy those with a bowl of ice cream on an exasperated evening.
And I like William Faulkner, even on hot days.
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