one of those moods

I can taste it now. Vinegary but not too strong (it got too intense the farther east we went,) a light hint of mustard, perfectly cooked and delicious… so strong it was almost cool in your mouth… mmmmm. If you stop in Memphis, Tops BarBQ has some of the best barbecue ever. Highly recommended.

Sometimes my random food cravings take over. In such cases, when there is no way to eat the desired food, one must blog about it or risk exploding with unexpressed barbecue wanting.

Also, it feels very strange to have two blog posts in a row that are not poetry. But I can not write today. So I won’t frustrate myself.

That is all I have to say.

things that are making me smile

• getting a short funny letter from a hilarious friend, and a long letter from a very, very close friend begging me to come out back east to get away from the craziness here in the desert, which was very thoughtful even though I can not afford to fly all the way to Kentucky and back again. It’s always good to know there is a family that is not your own but loves you enough to keep their house open for you when you need them.
• finally accepting the fact that not all endings are neat and tidy and clear cut. Sometimes they are messy, or not as final as I would like them to be, or unexpected or confusing. But the point is, they are endings making way for beginnings. Maybe not a new series, but at least a beginning to a sequel. :)
• this song (actually, pretty much anything by A Fine Frenzy.)
• being mature when speaking to the person who helped make the last four months of my life completely suckish.
• my happy mug. See blog header. The best gift my friend ever let her mom pick out for me and forgot about.
• flip flop tan lines.
• being told in all seriousness by my friend that the reason I am short may be because I don’t eat enough or the right foods. Really? You mean it couldn’t have to do with the fact that EVERYONE on my mom’s side of the family is short? I’m actually taller than the average woman on the awesome side. And we eat food whenever we feel like it.
• looking in mirrors. The fact that this makes me smile is quite a big deal to me.
• red-headedness
• this website. My particular favorites are this dress and this one. Oh, and this is one of the prettiest things I have ever wanted. Oh, and I would wear this everysingleday.

being erased

it’s kind of funny,
in the way a roadrunner is funny
when it’s lying dead in the middle of the street
because even its own name wasn’t able to save it.

dandeliars

i wish for the same thing on everysingle puff of air.
knowing it will never come true,
i keep pulling up green, sticky stems by their roots anyway,
blowing until every feather is gone and i’m out of breath.
now i stop breathing on the weeds.
i bite their downy heads off and swallow them instead,
fluffy clouds being crammed down my throat,
drier than cinnamon and less sweet,
a dull cottony flavor caught in my heavy, angry teeth,
wishes choking me and being forced down into my belly,
as if i need to hide anything else inside of me.
i bite and chew and swallow until i can’t breathe,
or wish for anything else,
or do anything except grow dandelion trees
until their branches climb out of my mouth and nose and ears
and reflect in my eyes.

maybe you’ve seen her

she’s the sort of person that bleeds chocolate milk when she gets hurt,
her blood sweet and syrupy out of pure spite.

she has a pet hummingbird,
the kind with ridiculously long tail feathers that can barely keep aflight
for more than a few thousand wingbeats at a time,
and when she swims he perches on her head,
his long plumes making two rivers behind her ears in the water.
sometimes i see them asleep in haunted alleys,
the kind where danger and beauty breed,
and she wears shoes with spines for heels.

he sleeps against her neck,
his vibrant blues and her moon-bleached, knotted hair tangled in the dark,
the bird dreaming of flutes and folklore,
the girl dreaming of a dry, desert mountain
where she could find a million bones to weave armor out of,
something with enough magic to protect them
in their drugged comas
and keep her heart from sparking too violently
and burning him down to scorching snow in the night.

i really hate the sound of breathing

i want one of those bicycles,
you know, the bubblegum-pink retro ones with fat wheels
that you only find at excellent garage sales.

i would get the loudest horn i could find
and attach it to my handlebars
and drive to some coastal city where there are lots of people,

where there would be enough noise on the streets
that i couldn’t hear the sounds of people breathing,
and i would stop wondering who they were,
and why they breathe like that,
inhaling and sighing like the rush of waves
sleeping inside their chests.

i could just ride,
and there would be no doors
in the place where the water drowned out the sounds of footsteps
so that they were just a patter-patter-patter
instead of a dull sound outside my bedroom.

there would be no heavy footfalls, back and forth and echoing,
no sounds of shallow breathing, in and out and infuriating.

there would be only me and waves of a thousand anybodies,
drifting along bridges and slightly afloat in cool humidity.

the art of drinking tea

pick your favorite mug,
maybe the one with seventy faces smiling up at you,
then sift through a box of samples,
smelling each to decide what will taste the best.
set your water to boiling,
take a moment to perch on the counter and close your eyes as the water starts to sizzle,
breathe long and soft, thinking of your day
and going back to a few lovelier memories.
pour the water over your teabag,
add a pinch of white sugar, a few drops of cream,
swirl about gently as it begins to steep and darken.
burn your fingers as you squeeze a stream of tea from your bag,
wishing you’d bought the kind
with a string to wrap around your spoon instead.

walk up the stairs, lie down on your unmade bed,
toes snuggling under soft sheets,
and open your favorite book,
enjoying the scent as old pages mingle with chamomile.
raise the warm glass mug to your pursed lips,
blow hard enough to chase away a layer of steam
but not enough to splatter hot liquid onto your tongue,
let your eyelids sink down and rest as you take a sip and let the heat clear your sinuses
and finally relax with your favorite sleepytime blend.

questions

some people say i’m outspoken, that i am not afraid to say what i believe. they say i never take credit for what i do, that i refuse to admit what i do is worthwhile. they think the extent of my sin is frustration with annoying siblings, that i don’t know how to yell or swear or want beyond reason. they call me cute, optimistic, funny.

they think modesty is the reason i rarely believe in my talent, that i get along perfectly with everyone in my family, that i adore the girl with liquid eyes to the point of disgust, that no one could dislike me. some days they say what i write and play is expressive, honest, biting. we pretend i’m crazy, play at being unique like it’s a competition worth dying for, that my tastes are special. they pretend they don’t see my faults for my sake, as if they think i want to be perfect, not real.

i wonder what would happen if they were forced to see the truth, the hidden, important moments of each day. what would happen if they knew i only opened my mouth a quarter of the time i have something to say, too terrified to let the rest out. if they knew the arrogance and pride i fight every day and indulge in too often, the ever-present anger that is often seen but constantly under my skin. i wonder what they would say if they knew i was the person who doesn’t need vocal cords to shout, the one who kept up a continual string of swearing and tears for five hours straight with her best friend and who might never know if she was the reason it all fell apart.

would i still be the person they say i am if they knew that i could barely see the optimism that they do? if they knew it was not modesty keeping me humble, but jealousy that usually keeps me fighting to push farther ahead with my talent? would i still be me if they could see that the girl just a third of my age is the reason i try not to leave my bedroom and can’t take the headphones out of my ears? if everyone understood my best friends are the people i am most afraid of being left by? if they knew that when i write my best pieces, they are so “profound” i can’t understand a word of them because they’re too real?
i wonder, if they knew that some days i used to think i really was going mad, would being unique ever be a good thing again? if dying for individuality was a real fear, would it be such a cause for real conversation?

if they knew how predominant ugliness was, would it dim the beautiful parts or enhance them?

some nights are too nice to sleep through

she’s curled up on the left side of my bed,
breathing heavily and finally still,
not scared by thoughts of things lurking in dark bathrooms.
i wonder who she is;
i don’t know, not really.
maybe someday.
for now it’s novelty enough that i could replace a parent for one night,
that it’s my bed she crawled into instead of theirs,
that at least in the dark i’m good enough.
sometimes i wonder if i would know her
if there were only the two of us.

melted butter sun

we stand in the summer heat,
melted butter sun trickling over our bodies,
black and polka dotted swim suits clinging to our skin-
hers dark and shining,
mine pale and turning light gold
at the edges.
we spray each other with the hose,
a snake spewing warm venom
that mixes with the heat
and makes our eyelids heavy beneath our wet bangs
and eyelashes,
coaxing us to close our eyes and
fall into a deep afternoon sleep.

instead
we turn the water on the porch,
splattering against concrete
and washing away the dirt for a day or two,
missing once in a while
and soaking each other in the face.

in the evening,
it cools down to a shady purple
as we walk through the grass
to sit on the swings.
she pumps as hard as she can,
toes brushing tree branches,
and i sway back and forth slowly
as i listen to her shrieks of laughter
mingling with dog barks and
fading to silence
as the sky goes from indigo to dark grey.