dissension.

[response to Walt Whitman's "Reconciliation," a love of mine]

your words come to him as air he cannot breathe
as he's caught eternally under the sky.
war is a word, and carnage--
but the dead man knows neither anymore.
beneath the earth, a man divine as yourself
knows neither death nor night,
nor does he touch his cold fingers to those of the sisters.
the white face in the coffin
cannot see you bend to him now,

cannot feel your lips
touch against him.

SPOTLIGHT.

ten-minute reading tomorrow at 1:40 pm.
The Goods student arts festival etc. etc. at TCNJ.

after seeing the whales.

in response to michael dickman's "seeing whales":

enclosed in the forest of thought
the skin is tickled by deep
sheets of thorned branch on pine.
made up of specks of dirt that
cluster to form blankets that warm--
hide, abandon.

and when the tent of reason appears
all the world can see
the camps huddled outside,
waiting for their tickets to enter,
they wait forever.
they wait for the
flowers to bloom.

social sciences building at sundown.

it was dark in the atrium
the night my finger slipped.

it was a pain i
hadn't known.

i was,
the night of the accident,

Brutus.

bosie.

there will never be
a synonym for
your face
BECAUSE--
it's created this
vernacular
of mine.

when the words begin
to copy themselves
you know
i have gone back
in time.

tumor.

they said too much thinking
could cause it.
they said they could tell from
the way she slept.
or didn't.
it was the lingering on things
the way her neck strained too long,
in consideration of one thing,
in watching

something stuck--
growing in a blob on the back
of her neck.
something on which
she could never focus her eyes.

june 4, 1925.

"Treat it romantically if you will, be as formless as you please, disregard chronology if you desire, weaving your story backwards and forward, but however you do it, I am certain not only that you can write a beautiful book, but also one that will sell."

--Carl Van Vechten, in a letter to Langston Hughes.

words, words, words.

the thoughts work like writing in the dark, turning on the lights to realize the pen was never on, the words came out invisible. and it's up to you to pin them down again.

you don't know home like i do.

like having a favorite song to which you can always come back when you're tired of new inspiration.

i can dissect the song and learn how it works but i'll never know the why of words that rest inside, coolly aloof.

there are so many things to like; i'll like you and maybe the moon.

two-dimensional comic book windows.

2087 854 1.

cut out your mind and it splattered blood on my eyes the way rain throws itself onto my window, begging for my mercy.


a couch at the end of the day. swallow my limbs and steal my mind through maroon velvet cushion. wait for the world to stop moving before i begin. i'm on a movie screen, i'm on your movie screen. a sofa at night when no one's looking or considering anymore. sink into plush arms, lose your mind to its blind head. soft as the dry, dusty taste of a storm beginning in your mouth. comforting as the waves that pull you. you don't need to force, exert. you don't need to push. do not push, it comes naturally and perfectly. the stuffing is absorbed at the lightest touch. let it take over now.
gothic.

subconscious.

meditation.

now that we're not connected anymore, we meet through glass as if you are the prisoner and i am the memory coming to visit now and then to taunt you until your sentence ends. until my sentence ends, i think it through to the last curve of the last letter.

current looooove.

T.S. Eliot -- "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

shakespearean slip.

from months and months ago.

1. Is it cute when guys kiss you on your forehead?it's like stepping out of a bathtub of rainbows.2. A big poofy dress or a short party dress?only if the short party dress is somewhat poofy.6. Are diamonds a girl's best friend?only if wack-wack is made out of diamonds.12. In your purse, what are your must haves?my barnes and noble planner, my notebooks, too much music to handle, my mobile phone, and probably lots of gunk.15. Do you text message a lot?only to one person. madame noaman disapproves of this. she sits behind me when we watch movies in class and eyes me because she's jealous.16. What would you do if you got pregnant?well, i'd start off with a lot of kegel exercises, eating a lot of tuna with jalepenos (which i guess i already do), and hire a good lawyer.17. What's your favorite color?i like all the colors, so i wrote a play about colorful dragons and magical kingdoms. that shit got mad performed.19. Did you ever cry during a romantic movie?only when i see leo start crying. that's depressing.21. Walmart or Target?target, for all my awkward flimsy smelly fashion needs22. Do you wear collared shirts?i like hiding in them.23. Do you like preppy boys?OMGHOT.24. Do you think lip gloss is the best!?am i that obvious!?!? well, actually, i think gay men are the absolute best!25. Do you own any big sunglasses?no, they detract from my big, sad eyes.26. How long does it take you to get ready in the morning?a really long time, considering i have to accurately smother my luscious locks in sweet-smelling soapy goodness and then wash my blemished face with alcoholic substances.27. Do you like to wear band-aids?i like putting them all over myself, especially the intriguing glow-in-the-dark spongebob ones.28. Do you like skater boys?only if they're really, really emotional and wear vans sneakers.29. Do you often wish there was something you could change?no! everything is absolutely perfect in every possible way, because everything is apparently an enigma, anyway.33. Do you dress up for the holidays?yeah, i sport elaborate costumewear as well when necessary and flaunt my wild party side in sequens and stilletos.35. On a scale of 1-10 how much do guys confuse you?what happens when you realize you're just a nihilist, obsessiving over a new idea of aestheticism, and they're all really just... an enigma?? well, in that case, a three maybe.36. In the last 48 hours have you hung out with a guy?i think i only hung out with a guy in the last 48 hours, except for right now because he made me do this foolish survey thing instead. as my dad says, hgib, baby.37. Would you date a guy shorter than you?no, then i could never wear my sexy stilletos and short shorts and look so cute every day according to eye-numbing-optomotrists38. Do you like to hold hands?yeah, because they're twice the size of mine so i just end up walking bewildered and looking down from time to time to make sure i'm not just some small person who ended up on an island of really big giantpeople who measure land in units of glonglungs.39. What is the youngest you would date?leo, when he was eight. that's as low as i go.40. What is the oldest you would date?oscar wilde's dead, rotting decaying filthy disgusting homoerotic corpse.41. What do you notice when you first meet a guy?his eyeliner and skinny jeans.47. Did you ever spend all day/night getting pretty for a guy?i spend my whole life doing it. it's a fine art.48. On a scale from 1-10 how fun is shopping?shopping is like trying to take a picture of oneself, and then realizing that one looks exactly like leo. and i also tend to steal people's clothes so i don't really need to buy anything anymore.49. Do you freak out if you miss your favorite show?no, because i'm a futuristic american with a recording device that would be so handy if i watched television.50. Do you yell a lot?only at the most inappropriate times, such as screaming "dingfong" repeatedly in choir whenever there is a pause in the lesson.51. Do you wear sweatpants/pajamas to school/work?no, that's only allowed in my dojo.52. Have you ever dressed unlike yourself to impress a guy?i don't really even know who i am so when i dress unlike myself, i'm dressing more and more like someone who may or may not be me, which may or may not be impressive.53. Do you write a lot of mushy love poems?yeah, in the fixed-form villanelle but usually free-verse. the boy provides the sonnet but they're not usually mushy enough.54. What makeup could you not live without?cover-up, obvi. for vampire scandals.55. Do you fall in love easily?not at all. but sometimes people just make it easy for me to do it.56. Do you have cramps?NO! WIN!57. Do you think you have the bestest friends ever?hahahahahaha no. not really. well...

why do i keep drawing these stupid flowers?

The fact that things were always just slightlyoff made me become more aware of little details, always searching for something slightly more accurate than everything else, and that's what began the mixing of the conscious world with my big, dreamy head. Perhaps I needed to be type-A, otherwise I would have gone off the deep end, since I couldn't find the boundaries.

more, unexpectedly.

"No great poet has ever been afraid of being himself."

"An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose."

"We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. ...We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves."

-Langston Hughes, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain"

don't look.

i never thought i could get into langston hughes, until...

Better.
Better in the quiet night
To sit and cry alone
Than rest my head on another's shoulder
After you have gone.

Better, in the brilliant day,
Filled with sun and noise,
To listen to no song at all
Than hear another voice.


Suicide's Note.
The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.


Ways.
A slash of the wrist,
A swallow of scalding acid,
The crash of a bullet through the brain--
And Death comes like a mother
To hold you in her arms.

- Langston Hughes.

the state of things.

When she got up that morning, it was no longer because of fear or threat. She was not worried about her robe, whether to wear the blue plush one or the simple yellow one. She could face a sun, twelve suns, a world of fire. There was no more loneliness because her heart was true and her head was right. Creation was pure, and she created thoughts of birds in blue skies. So she was solitary -- she left the house in a determined state, determined to live on. She knew what she wanted, and she wanted nothing. Her hands were cold and fumbled, but they were still perfect art, all hers to adore for once. Her mouth stretched out the word "amen" and it felt right to be alive and to know. The hurt, the pain, the loss all flipped over and she strangled them with significant force. She wanted to sink, but not into sadness; into peace with the world. It was alright, always had been, things just changed. She woke up to realize that she could never get a case of the yesterdays, that the reprise was the better version. She woke up to realize her love had died the day before.

transition.

Autumn trees, leak your leaves.
Quicken the equinox of knowing—
For something is growing
In the void where once my foot held firm—
Now my feet are chilled.
Rain golden teardrops down,
Litter a masterpiece of reds,
Could I but stick out my
Tongue to taste
Understanding and fate,
I would welcome the
Stripping of trees,
The disrobing of time.

All these images mingle – mindless
Is she who creates them,
Blames them,
Becomes them.

read this to your children.

there was a girl who could take off her head. when emotions overloaded between her ears she scooped it all up into a little ball in her brain and tossed it in the garbage. at first she didn't want anyone to know so she kept it from them and felt even more special because she had a secret. then one day she got lonely. she got lonelier and lonelier because everyone could cry but she didn't know how. she stopped removing her head because she wanted to fill it up with catastrophe but it wouldn't work. there were days that went by when she didn't know if she was happy or sad and her emotions began to dry up. one day, she went to a little white flower who say thinking by the lake. "little flower," asked she, "do you know what i am?" the flower responded with a little quiver but could not understand the girl so she walked away. then she went to a man on the street and asked him, "sir sire, do you know what i am?" the man stared for a moment at the slit in her neck and widened his blue-green eyes. a moment later he cried, "Epiphany!" and all the world went wild. for a time after that the world was in love with the girl, but "what happens after love?" she asked. the world had no response and seeing the matter helpless, left her to her sighs. that night she cried, and cried, and cried and felt the salty mess stick. "dear me," said she, and went back to her bed, "if this is all I have missed, I won't have it in my little world." and she quietly unplugged her eyes and removed again her head and drifted away to sleep.