call us when you need to find out.

and when we're all cut up
and dangled out in spades
I'll wonder if you ever think of me
and everything you

is there no end to who I can't be?

if i was stronger i would tear you apart

never, never, never will I ever in all my endeavors encounter someone stronger than you

and i see the old men caterwaul and the young ones hold hands, smoking their first cigarettes. you are art, you know, the subtleties in rain and the fog smeared on window panes. I can see you in technicolor and crisp grey, and this will never be a song for you. (except that it is. expect an uproar.)

i wanna riot. I wanna rip up the streets and tear out your vicious words, kill you with kindness and softspoken affirmations. you wanted me to write you words you couldn't understand, so here you go. something to hold on to.

arent you proud of me? I've written something worth sharing and letting go.

family affair

the kid (Michael, as he has introduced himself for the fourth time in five minutes) is completely gone.

his legs wobble like the mint jello that your grandmother told you "not to touch, you little shit" when your mother's back was turned to concentrate on the red sauce. (well, that was my grandmother anyway.) the smell of beer soaks his shirt, mingling with his sweat as though they were old friends. my stomach seems to be rethinking the flat Lionshead I consumed an hour ago (keg beer isn't friendly anyway). his off white flat rim cap, incubus shirt, mesh shorts and dunks scream "bro," and I inch away from him to avoid boy germs. Then I remember he is one person ahead of me for beer pong. Oh, the politics of playing a stupid party game.

"Hey man, what's up?" I shout at him over the thump of techno in the basement. I'm maintaining my distance, a good balance of politeness and self-preservation.

"Nothing much! Just chillin', this party is bangin'! Am I right?" he says, with what he probably assumes is a playful backhanded thump on my chest.

I am not one of the boys; that hit hurt, but I let it slide. This isn't really about me, after all. I pretend to not have heard what he said, for the sake of continuing an otherwise dead conversation. "The music's real loud, can you say that last part again?"

"Yo, bra, I forgot," he says, with a loud guffaw that turns heads. "I've had, like, twenty beers. How many have you had?" Once again, there is a jab to my sternum; only this time, it's from a pointed finger! Even better.

"Just the one, keeping it safe tonight," I reply.

(There is some truth to this statement. Last night I got so wasted that I had to hold hands with a boy I had only met a few hours before, a boy who dragged me along when the cops nearly broke down the door of Alpha Tau Omega. My sweaty feet slipped around in bronze gladiator sandals as a redhead shook his head and a black haired kid just helped me along because he didn't want to be alone either.)

"Aw man, that sucks, designated driver, ha ha ha," he replies, not aware of what I was saying. His eyes widen for a moment, as glazed as a Krispy Creme doughnut in a Windexed shop window. "This party's off the hook! Am I right, am I right man?"

No, Michael. You are not right. Army parties suck by default, with muscled young men hide their fear of the middle east with vodka ice cubes and the sensation of a tight ass against their dicks. There is the bitterness of single women in not-dresses, stilettos wearing down their already flat feet. Boys devour the lips of girls they sit next to in anthropology, unhooking bras while caressing crunchy, gel soaked hair.

"Sure, it's awesome," I say. He looks away, and I slip in, prepping my ping pong ball and letting go.

sure as porcelain.

back to back, they talk, knowing the next phrase
wrists and hands in sync,
gliding along in strangely dank September air.
my feet press into worn soles, aching
as my jeans cling to my body like a scared child
I walk onward.

In passing, I think of you and your sturdy hands
not thne most important thing, but striking to me
as are your eyes, as is your smile and stature
and all I want is you to hold me
as your face whispers things into my neck
I walk onward.

I sit to waste time, delaying my needs
as I write bad thoughts onto glowing screens
jumbled and frayed, weary and incomplete
I can't say that I will ever feel the same
The gut to the knife is an everyday deal
I walk onward.

and even as you pass me by
a stolen glance, eyes pressed together
as young things rest their hands on mutual thighs
breathing in out in out
accepting each other as their own
I feel a hollowness deep in my chest.

I walk onward.

inaccurately named

i never said i wanted rubies or jewels
or anything else for that matter
all I said I wanted was the price of a good set of gloves,
ones to hide and look at every once in a while in the glove compartment

(because no one puts gloves in the glove compartment anymore --
were there ever gloves in it? why was it called that?)

and I get tired of the same lines,
but it keeps you going so I don't really mind

not june

every aspect of my life hurts

but I tip back my head and laugh because when everything hurts you know that deep down you are alive.  when it's sunny outside, I want rain, even though the overcast will also kill me anyway.

in my heart of hearts (if there is such a thing -- what's with all the metaphorical language?  if THAT'S even a word), I know it will pass but it's a matter of when and how.

away away i'm gonna wash it all away

what a drag

I still think about you all the time.  it hurts, it stings, and the fact that you don't care about my existence hurts even more.

I'm reading into your signals.  are you happy now?

the sun comes up -- I think about you

all I do is think of you

and I hate it so, so, so much.

just know -- 

you drive me crazy, with or without being there.

woman like a man (just like virginia woolf)

when I can't sleep (want to, but can't, will force myself not to) I write.  Go me.

I wonder what it would be like if I had been born a genderless human.  Or more androgynous than I am.  Because no matter what I wake up as, how I see myself in my mind and on paper, when I look in the mirror I see the face of a girl -- heart face and round eyes, blue ice and strange October features on a December baby.  "you are mine" (michaelson 10).   I hate waking up a boy because I feel it in my bones and skin.  I dont' have boy pants, so I wear whatever pants I find and band T-shirts with a high neckline, black with sleeves past the armpits so people don't see the lack of shaving.  I wear jean jackets and sneakers and feel my vocal range become husky and low.  I see girls in the street.  Today I was a person.  I wore a skirt and a band T-shirt.  I felt like a foreigner in my own body.  

I don't know why this is happening to me, but I'll go with it.  who knows?  it might shape me as a person.  every other fucked up thing has, after all.

when I see couples down the street, I walk on by.

I'm all I've got to hold onto.

And of course i'm scared.

i'm scared of losing everything because of my selfishness or my independence

of my flakiness and I'm not willing to change a thing



"I, I'm a mascot for what you've become" (wentz 7).



because baby, I can't fight it,

and you, you can't fix a thing.



when you think about taking yourself out just so you can stop thinking, thinking about it all the time

and I'm a coward so I don't try a thing.

updating in hallways.



"It's horrid to see you again, so bored of being... alive, alive, alive" (molko at some point).