it must have been the roses

2008-11-28T15:21:00.002-05:00

run,
run
rudolph
cuz i'm reelin'
like a merry
go 'round

was lost in

2008-08-25T03:11:00.000-04:00

8.25.2008

the inescapable thirst for water
a sigur ros buildup
and a new wall with someone elses thumbtack holes

yes, i've been gone awhile.
but then again
i'm not sure how long i'll be home this time either

the anxiety hasn't left me for almost a month
and tomorrow starts the first day of my senior year of college.

today i drove home from new jersey with daria and we drove around in circles and smoked a bowl and ate munchkins and talked about the cycles that were always stuck in and the friends we wish we could save and the parents that need to be needed and all i could think of was how bright the flash is going to be the moment it all finally comes to an end.

evas swollen-shut sucker-punch blackberried eyeball
and the closing ceremony at the beijing olympics
are two examples of why we are reaching our evolutionary peak as humans

i want to feel comfortable in my skin again
i want someone to kiss me before i reach the bottom of this lip balm
i want to stop feeling guilty for laughing

i want to choose love

i want to believe there is hope for us

i want to stop wanting
start doing
stop thinking so much
start feeling
stop worrying so much
start bursting beautiful cherry blossom trees kid because day lights savings times ridin' the back of that wind and he ain't gonna wait around for you to start believing in yourself.

potentially, we could fix all this broken shit
our fist to cheekbone
disco ball mosaics

let us run away together
so that we may forget the
hardening of our soft spot

(so that we may remember
we decided to name
our children kite strings)

i miss the ways in which
we never quite were
but alas,
reminisce with me

and we love to take a bath

2008-07-25T14:18:00.003-04:00

give me a few more moments to process this journey
and i'll get back to you when my brain re-solidifies

(my heart on the other hand, i'm not so sure)

dream log 1

2008-06-27T17:23:00.001-04:00

Apocalypse

To dream of the apocalypse, signifies an emotional and dramatic change taken place within. The dream may also indicate the end of one kind of lifestyle and the beginning of another.

Tornados

To see a tornado in your dream, suggests that you are experiencing some extreme emotional outbursts and temper tantrums. Is there a situation or relationship in your life that may be potentially destructive? To see several tornadoes in your dream, represent people around you who are prone to violent outbursts and shifting mood swings. It may also symbolize a volatile situation or relationship.

Dog

To see a dog in your dream, indicate a skill that you have ignored or forgotten, but needs to be activated. Alternatively, dogs may symbolize intuition, loyalty, generosity, protection, and fidelity. Your own values and intentions will enable you to go forward in the world and succeed. If the dog is vicious and/or growling, then it signifies some inner conflict within yourself. It may indicate betrayal and untrustworthiness.?If the dog is dead or dying, then it indicates a loss of a good friend. Alternatively, it represents a deterioration of your instincts. Also consider common notions associated with the word dog, such as loyalty ("man's best friend") and to be "treated like a dog".

Fireworks

To see fireworks in your dream, symbolizes enthusiasm, creativity, and talent. It may also indicate that you are showing off and making a spectacle of yourself.

Airport

To see a busy airport in your dream, signifies the desire for freedom, high ideals, ambition, and hopes. It is an indication that you are approaching a new departure in your life. Some new idea is taking off or is ready to take off. You may be experiencing a new relationship, new career path or new adventure.

Bug

To see a bug in your dream, suggests that you are worried about something. It is symbolic of your anxieties and/or fears. What is literally bugging you? Consider also the popular phrase "bitten by the bug" to imply your strong emotional ties or involvement to some activity/interest/hobby. Alternatively, the bug may be representative of your sexual thoughts.

Green

Signifies a positive change, good health, growth, healing, hope, vigor, vitality, peace, and serenity. Green is also symbolic of your strive to gain recognition and establish your independence. Money, wealth and jealousy are often associated with this color.

full moon, minus one

2008-06-17T14:31:00.001-04:00

6.16.08

i wonder how i will
explain these days
to my kids

how we did our share of
glow in the darkstar
lightning bug drugs
just to see the stuff
they said made up
our insides

how we saw god
in every lightning
storm one summer
and trusted not one
cuz we knew autumn
would break our
promises one day

how we flew
(oh, how we really did flew)
far far and away from this place
more times than we could have afforded

(more times than we had wished to remember)

but broke toes
on those shaky
landings
none the less
coming back
just to save
the ones
still left sleeping

at this very moment,
we are indebted to
none but ourselves

be not mistaken,
it is no coincidence
us having found eachother
the way that we did
(like the cheekbones of an
indigoed sunset waiting
to unleash itself
in the smile of our chests)

the way we
can smell truth
like our mother did
(out of the back of our heads)

how we did our share of
out of body experiencing
isolating our skins
from connection
so we forget where we come from

something about
praying for hailstorms
(the majority of which never would come)
to break open this glass ceiling of a heat wave
we've got runnin' down our backs
before the government
or the middle aged investment bankers
or whoever makes that thunder sound
clap
two three mississippi
CLAP CLAP!
(storms a comin')
eight nine mississippi
wayyyyyyyyyyy up there
that bearded dude
and all of his manifestations,
may he forgive our trespasses
and break this arc of a dream
into a bedframe
worth sleeping in

noah tells me about hopelessness
(he whispers into my ear
while i'm 4 am and wide eyed
somehing about being boatless)

he asks me why
mama ain't gonna
fix those problems
for him no more

how shes not gonna phone him
in sick to school no more
(something about a math test he can't miss)

the sky,
oh how it stares at us
all green eyed
and cumulonimbus

will my daughter
know the thirsting
of holy water?

will she feel hunger
known only to the insomniac stomachs
of epileptic blood hounds
who cry the call of
titan's three sirens

(the ones asleep in the belly of an
inflatible swimming pool
that ruined my front lawn
just a week ago)

oh,
the books we burned
trying to roast marshmellows

oh how innocent
we never once were

what kind of ring is that?

2008-06-04T02:18:00.001-04:00

6.3.08

i laughed until i cried until i laughed until
until i cried because i realized that we were so young
so ripe so dumb so close to realizing the answers to
everything so on the cusp of connection. please dont let
me pretend to turn my head away from you the way that i
do because its only because im scared. please dont take
it personally. ive never been one to trust in the creases
between lip lines. don't leave me here. don't make me spill my guts infront of the entire class. don't make me pink cheeks. don't make me feel things so heavy like i do all the time. don't make me forget subconsiously. repress my memories like you promised you would. please.

of these things i am sure

2008-06-01T11:18:00.002-04:00

1. i am a thing called alive

a letter to my father

2008-05-28T11:40:00.002-04:00

5.21.08

Hi Fasha,

I was just thinkin about you and thought I'd say hi. How are you doing? I'm doing pretty well...enjoying the start of the summer, relaxing and reading and such. I've been spending alot of time online using this browser application called StumbleUpon. You basically add a toolbar to Firefox that you can save preferences (anything that interests you- art, film, sports, food, politics, etc.) and you "stumble" the internet for things that match your interest. Then you can either give the site a thumbs up or down and it begins to make the stumbled sites more specific. I've happened to come across this movie that I just finished watching. I'll leave the link at the end of the email. I would like you to watch it when you have some time to devote your attention to it without distraction. I am not asking for you to agree with it, just to have an open mind and heart. I would like to know how it makes you feel. What does it make you think? Please share it with whoever you wish.

I feel like alot of the things I have been learning/coming across are slowly starting to make sense, in regard to the world we are living in/current
situations physically/mentally/emotionally/spiritually. You had said to me, "We don't talk about spirituality, we don't talk about spirituality." Well, this is what has been tugging at me for a good amount of time- though now I feel it more than ever. We can all feel the chaos, the electricity in the air. Its all a matter of what we choose to believe. I personally, attempt to seek truth as it shall set you free. Education of the self is so important- yet we neglect to acknowledge how important it is. Most of us are glued to the television. Everyone is distracted. And those that know too much are called crazy. So what do you chose? In the words of my friend and fellow poet Edy, "If ignorance is bliss, then bliss must be dancing on a sinking ship...because if you know what Coca Cola did to Columbia, maybe you'd try to do something about it."

But we don't want to do something about it because we're scared of what we might find. There are secrets ingrained in us so evil, I believe it will bring and end to us all. But are we that weak? Niave perhaps. But hope is all we can do. I believe in the power of love, and the power a people can have to change things. I know I may not be perfect. But I was put here for a reason, and it was not to be kept silent. Any revolutionary, any artist, had first the power to believe in the power of their THOUGHTS- then to manifest them into action. I know these things may be difficult to hear because their associations could conjure some fear inducing image- like ghandi, lennon, malcolm, martin, jfk- anyone questioning the Right- getting killed for their beliefs and erased from history. They are just another myth. Another story to be passed on as if history was not a lessoned to be learned.

And I guess I'm saying all this is because I love you. I could not possess knowledge of the utmost importance without sharing it with people closest to me. Call me crazy, call me what you will, but something tells that I am not alone in these occasional conspiracy theories. Mom always said, "trust no one." I hope she would trust her own daughter if she shed a bit of light on something no one wants to acknowledge. But we must always stick together as a family, because in the end it is all we have. And the beginning to that end may not be too far off.

So if all of this is true, it leave us with a more than grim future. 2012 anticipates the arrival of Planet X, (do some research, see what you find) which
has been predicted by countless religions (the movie will explain this), and the Mayan calendar, causing catastrophic natural disasters. We're already
beginning to see effects of what is to come- the tsunami in Sri Lanka, Katrina, Myanmar, and the quake in China are just previews. We just believe that if something of catastrophic proportions occurred in the future, we would be in good hands. But how could government won't be able to save us all. Ofcourse they are planning for the survival of the elite few. They've already built the concentration camps in Indiana. (google FEMA death camps) equipt with gas incinerators. It's funny because we don't think another Holocaust could happen because we live in America. Nothing like that could happen HERE...but sadly, this isn't the case. And none of us will see it coming. But then again, it could all just be...coincidence. So, these are all things that you can choose to acknowledge, further research, and perpetuate self knowledge.

I understand that these things are scary, and it is a huge step to take to acknowledge things as truth because its difficult to grasp at once that everything we hold true and real is not as it seems. But reality is, infact an illusion. It's all manifestations of our own perceptions. But the more we inform ourselves, the better prepared we can be for the future. History exists for a reason. The pieces of the puzzle do not give the illusion that they fit for a reason. Another thing is not thinking that you are crazy for believing these things, if you do believe in them. Its those in power that want to make you think that you are crazy. Drug you up on perscription pills and distract you with television.

It's funny, I was watching a video (stumbled to me) on this mind control experiment called MK-ULTRA. I immediately had a flashback to you telling me stories about how when you worked the night shift for the city you would get phone calls of "crazy people" telling you that they had wrapped themselves in tinfoil to deflect the microwave radiation beams. Are they all really crazy? Or are the pieces just pretending to fit?

I guess all I am saying is, I can not just sit around and not share my feelings with those I love the most. I know that you and I are like minded, and
hopefully you will be able to see where I am coming from without judgement. I feel like if anyone could understand me, it would be you. You're my dad and I love you, as much as we haven't really talk much anymore. I just feel like there is an urgency now more than ever to find truth. If your instinct pulls you in one direction but logics tells you otherwise, give your gut a second chance. And if this all turns out to be one big hoax, one big joke- then I'll admit that I was wrong. But if I am wrong, then so are all the Ghandis, the Marleys, the Malcolms, the poets, the prophets, the activists, the mothers, the lovers, the philosophers, and finally all us regular run of the mill day dreamers. The ones that can't sit still in class because they're imagining all the worlds they have yet to breathe into existence. I cannot live my life just quietly accepting things as gospel. None of us should. Quesiton everything for we cannot afford not to. It is our duty as a people to spread positivity and hope, not perpetuate fear and hate. The universe is complicated and beautiful, and we must understand before we attempt to control it. We must study the stars before we make Gods of them, right?

As far as furthering your own quest for knowledge, that is all up to you. You can chose to seek everything that is already out there. The internet is a great tool, and for as long as we are able to access it, it is a great mode of communication. I've left a few videos of thing's I've come across in recent days. I'd like to know what you think, and hopefully we can get some sort of dialogue going.

As for me, I'm happy and healthy and the sun is shining. I just downloaded all 7 Eddie Izzard shows and am about to watch a Bill Hicks' Legendary One Night Stand. I'm eating knock-off Cheerios called Honey Nut Scooters (they come in a huge bag for 2 bucks) and am listening to Andrew Bird's first cd (it's called Music of Hair, you should download it on torrentz). I think i'm going on a bike ride later with my friends on the Rail Trail..you can ride it for a good 5-10 miles in each direction. It's really beautiful and scenic...you should come visit during the summer and bring your bike and we can ride to Rosendale.

And if you are worried
please, don't be, I'm just fine.
I'm not going on any quest to save the world.
I'm just trying to save us, one mind at a time.

Love Always,
Alyssa

inhale.

2008-05-26T01:34:00.003-04:00

we dragged our
feet in barefoot pebbles,
dipped in puddles under the lazy
swings. we talked about sisters and our
unborn babies and how you felt like pluto, far and
small enough to not matter. we were humans in a forgotten
zoo, bound in a small green book telling us cotton tales. we
may have felt too big too close to pay attention to. inhale and
laugh out of your eyes because summer is about to take a
dump on us and flood through november.

essential

2008-05-24T09:54:00.004-04:00

all our base are belong to them

2008-05-22T08:58:00.002-04:00

5.22.08

i think we are all in for quite an awakening

our collective amnesia
has kept us apart long enough
made us forget about instinct
and the things that sit heavy within us
like guilt

the clocks
we leave hanging from our eyelids
must be broken with the bridges we'll burn
just to get the fuck outta this place

there is a reason
we give birth to full moons
every 28 days
yet we pray to the titanium
slain dormant upon our forarms

(the beauty marks on my neck
align orions brown belt
and i'm certain
there's a sea turtle swimming inside of me)

perhaps there is a reason
i've never been one to wear a watch
just keep one eye on the tide
and my third on the horizon
so as never to lose track of it

(time does not equal money
it equals art)

sometimes i eat
magic mushrooms
in silence
so i can hear
other peoples
minds
more clearly

telepathy directs synchronicity

the human species is the only one who's telepathy
is not fully functioning
like we just don't have enough
time
for shit like that

so the deja vu's
the deja vu's
dejavu's will continue
to flower out from inside of us like lilac
and we'll claim it all coincidence
like we one day will the changing of the seasons

(you are wind,
child
speak to the mountains
like you mean it)

tell the weeping willow that this time,
you're the one
whose gonna keep the coastline company
because there are sonatas to be written in wavespeak
and something tells me
the moon is listening

the sea,
oh how it speaks to me

too bad i'm too busy
trying to break the sound barrier
with my fist

but, cyclones and
smoke rings they always seem to
forgive me

the truth.

2008-05-21T12:22:00.000-04:00

fearless superheros pt.1

2008-05-18T16:44:00.000-04:00

(w)eight.

2008-05-12T14:12:00.000-04:00

5.12.08

i wonder who will read these after they've killed me?

will they think to themselves,
"without question,
she was c
razy."

or will they find these leather bound interwebbed books
cardboard attic wrapped in something so blackened in secret
so infinite in their infidelity
not even anne frank could have told you
she told you so

they will find us
no matter how thick the floorboards are

in who's ear do you whisper your revolutions to
when every spiral staircase eardrum
is wiretapped to the sound of your pulse

you're a ticking timebomb kid
quit learning so much

quit scanning the skys for signs of extraterrestrials
running over pedestrians
that shadow that follows you when you've forgotten to close the door of your closet completely
isn't who he says he is

read my forewords carefully
my mania forwards
then insomniac back for their prophetic urgency

dear mr. supercomputer,
does your heart beat like mine does?
what does the internet smell like?
does it rain there?

how can you speak to something without
a set of teeth to break?

how do you avoid erasing truth
if everything you've ever left behind you
was in outlined in chalk?

quit regretting the things you have said
backspaces don't exist in nature

yes, the storm is coming
we can all see the way the wind breaks our windows
while we sleep

we'd just rather be watching television

but who can blame us for wanting a sweatshirt to feel home in?
a pullout couch and a rainstorm
to make us feel young again

i don't think i can honestly say what i believe in anymore,
but could you blame me?

how can i pray to a god that
keeps widening the wrinkles
in the laugh lines
of my mother?

how can i make my grandmother cry?

and yes,
"laughing and crying are alot alike"
she said.
two refrigerator magnets we swallow
only to reconnect in our bellies
whenever we need reminding
what it feels like
to be human

to have something heavy and metal sit in your gut
like a secret
to have something
try to kill you while you sleep
with its weight

one

2008-04-30T23:33:00.000-04:00

deep fried crabmeat
creamcheese

a vo c a d o
and
s picy may
o

salt and pepper springtime
and a forest gospel

i wonder if we'll remember

this

1) remember to tell your children that their eyes are no less oceans than we are spaceships 2) the static you hear is the afterburn
3) the more time you spend on earth kid
the les s moon boots
space food
sun roots you get to dream up

there's an arrow
it knows not what it breaks open
too many apples
not enough hearts
the ginger of it all
the lemon zest dry mouth

if only there was a way to avoid these speeding tickets

didn't leave nobody but the baby

2008-04-14T23:27:00.003-04:00

miles and i made hot toddy-ish drinks for us to consume in our bathrobes and slippers because we are old women, but she decided to talk on the phone instead.

i have bug bites all over my ankles?

i also don't know how i'm going to afford studying abroad next semester.
i want to go to california
i want to start painting more
i have to start exercising
i want to stop having to make to-do lists
i miss new mexico
i miss poets

i also miss james brown.

side note: i understand that photoshop doesn't make you a good photographer
but it fucking helps
damn you digital nazis, damn you.

a knuckle down nosebleed

2008-04-10T01:25:00.005-04:00

run lola run
madrid, new mexico
i want you- erykah badu
spinach dip and 80's dating shows

yes we can

2008-03-23T20:25:00.003-04:00

rice, vegetarian chili, avocado and brie because its all thats left in the house to eat
derek- the animal collective
attempting to tie up loose ends i've been avoiding
my excuse is that i'm human

i have to stop making excuses

i wonder how much longer before the last person wakes up enough to change something?

ocean

2008-03-12T13:48:00.002-04:00

this may be one of the most beautiful things i have ever heard in my life

apes, it's a deal

2008-03-11T23:26:00.003-04:00

cercopithicoidea
hominoidae
hominidae
homininae

i know this, i will pass this.
human evolution, here i come

is synthesized happiness what makes ignorance bliss?
buddhapesto and garlic hummus
the sun is setting later and these days are getting warmer
spring, lets do this

her only friend the moon

2008-03-09T13:45:00.002-04:00

m.ward- "flaming heart"
eggplant parm pizza
oh, and this:

i think im going to start updating this regularly.
i need to connect with something beyond the bone of my forehead

2008-02-18T15:14:00.003-05:00

a fool for you, ray charles

2008-02-10T16:35:00.000-05:00

a snowstorm just blew through
and left like nothing had even happened

i miss that last day of school feeling
those moments of anticipation before two months of pure unadulterated childhood
our days were long
we smelled like rust
and we never got tired

i miss that feeling
that timeless feeling

i know i am mortal
but please don't take me just yet
i wish for these days to stretch
like they did back then

fuck.
what am i doing with my life?

goin' to acapulco, jim james and calexico

2008-01-22T17:15:00.000-05:00

um, so i just finished watching neil gainman's mirrormask?

what???????

if someone can help me out on this, i'd appreciate it.

also, i'm starting to make stencils. i'm really excited about tagging my shit around all the place's i've graced. i've also decided i want to make more personal art. i want it to be rooted someplace real.

- the @rtist formally known as prints.

natural born soul shakers

2008-01-06T15:35:00.000-05:00

I received this in response to sending my video "memories of movements" to the band who's song i used (the books)

Hey Alyssa,

Thanks very much for your video. it's wonderful and warm. i like the way
your eyes are working, it's a fulfilling way to be. this may sound a bit
cheesy but a friend told me this once and it stuck with me so now i'll
pass it on to you.

'i was walking down a darkened street one evening when i saw a man under a
streetlight, hunching over, apparently looking for something. i asked him
what he was looking for and he said he had dropped his keys. we both
started searching for them under the street light. some time passed with
no luck, and i asked him if he could remember exactly where he had dropped
them. he said that he had dropped them about 1/4 mile down the street.
so, of course i asked why he was looking for them here, and he said
'because this is where the light is.'

anyway, happy new year,
nick

i responded with:

You're welcome, and thank you for the response.

It may just be me, but i feel as if we are on the cusp of something big. As a people i think the only way we are going to save ourselves (save can be used as loosely as you wish) is by collectively creating and sharing and creating once more. At 20 years old, I may be slightly apocalyptic with a side of optimism, but its all i know. I see in photographs, hear in music and it's wonderfully refreshing to find others with similar "eyes" so to speak. And when everything crumbles we'll be standing with our swords and our canvases saying "i told you so."

I guess it's our job then to paint the way it should have been. And it'll be two headed and technicolor and beautifully wretched and half of us won't understand it. But the other half will laugh because they knew they were apart of something greater than themselves, and will inherit our paintbrushes and guitar strings like a stories our grandfathers tell us over and over again because they can't remember whether they had so before or not. So we won't forget what it was like back then.

Here's to a year of resolved resolutions,

Alyssa

yeah, i think that's it.

a game of horseshoes

2007-12-23T22:40:00.001-05:00

it goes brooklyn, from the seven.one.eight.

2007-12-22T23:14:00.000-05:00

alicia and i are starting a band tentatively named, the weekend (and friday)

its going to be 80s hip hop infused technoish with funkadelic bass beats and night of the living dead sound bites. we're going to play all the audio through a rediculous throwback boombox (think, do the right thing) and we're going to wear spandex and gold chains and wrap around geriatric sunglasses.

watch out for us
we're comin.

2007-11-27T11:20:00.000-05:00

sometimes i forget about her
and what she did to my insides

i must always remember the girl with the pearl earring, and how she moved in me

like county fair jawbreakers

2007-10-22T00:09:00.000-04:00

underage acid queens with
lidless eyes sockets finger painted
on their lower backs ask me,
what’s my story?
their skin rendered sticky and purple by
middle aged men with twisted metal
through their septums
they ask me if I see what everyone’s been talking about
electric blue hair dye running down their faces
staining their baby cheeks
they ask if I’ve heard we could burn
every bridge between our lungs
and still not remember how we got past the ribcage in the first place
and how everything’s just dandelions and cellos
in the end

I have no poems for this
just the smell of nickel to stain your fingers like I was metal
make you remember the way you held me like spare change
leftover in your palms from broken paper
try to scrub the taste of copper from your mouth
I’ll make your tongue bleed
like county fair jawbreakers
you’ll wont even make it to the middle
before I tree-bark carve my initials
into your front teeth with sugar
a poison so sweet
you’d be crazy not to

see this is where my story drowns
under the pull of homeless high school dropouts
with oversized peace signs painted on their kneecaps
they fuck like hummingbirds
in the middle of baseball fields
like dawn wont come if they didn’t do so
pants torn down around their shoulders
bodies crashing like rounds of applause
they pray to raise the sun
with the sounds their bones could make
if they only understood silence was love spelled in reverse
they’d hear the moon whispering its will
in the echo of their chest
telling them

be still child,
be still

there is time for you yet

yeah, that's the one.

2007-10-14T18:56:00.000-04:00

who breaks a butterfly on a wheel

2007-09-25T23:10:00.000-04:00

I remember we painted once
the time in between seasons
we painted midnight basements
fingertipped brushstroke
firecracker paintings
and it felt like piles of leaves at the end of a driveway
burnt orange and
waiting to be jumped on by angels sleeping in the corners of our smiles
the ones that only come out when we forget what it feels like to have been children
to feel October beneath our skin
pumpkins and bruised sunsets
when the wind has to remind us what were made of
and that moons can move through us easier than we think

a four year old once cradled my cheekbones in his origami hands
and told me God can hear us even when we whisper
like this
like just how he can make the sun brighter if you ask nicely enough
the boy with the innocence in his wrists told me this once
sitting on my lap
fingers resting on my temples
like a broken down steam engine
folded like a paper fan
he made me remember the impossibles
like she did
like you do every time you open your eyes

so take me someplace warm
someplace familiar
squeeze my hand harder than you think you should
make blood collect in my fingertips like marbles
feel my heart beat everywhere

I remember we painted once
bleeding and bulbous like pomegranate
we let pigment drip from inside of us
so things wouldn’t be so faded anymore
but I fear I am beginning to hollow
fighting termites in the shape of minute hands
as they try to eat away at my light
make me shadow
make me wax my full moon daydreams down to dinner scraps
so there is no magic to believe in anymore

i have visions of the apocalypse riding shotgun with imagination
and they play russian roulette with god each time they start the engine
because there are things that haunt us in their translucence
silkened cocoons silhouetted by candlelight
with wings that beat feverishly in anticipation
of their arrival
there are quieted minds rocking themselves into darkened corners
waiting for the moment
when the earth is quiet enough to hear them
over the sounds of our egos
because the voice of a child can silence the stars

I know we would end this world with all the love we could make
if we just let go of our gravity
we could reverse big bang ourselves to the point of conception
and start all over again
just to say it was beautiful from both ends
so we could watch ourselves rise victorious
over the horizon we have always been
laugh at the way we dip down in the distance
unafraid to kiss the sky with dirty lips
like we did when we were children

don’t tell me we cant stay like this forever

like we cant braid ourselves into rainbows
and birth beauty every time it rains
like we can’t both share the first breath after this coma
and compare the way god tastes

so lets throw our sneakers over the telephone line
and not care how long the walk home is
I promise I won’t let go if you tell me not to

tell me not to

the time between seasons

2007-05-22T09:58:00.001-04:00

goodbye to those who know

2007-05-15T23:14:00.000-04:00

there was a time where i thought i would miss you when you left
and that there would be something
missing with the lack of your presence
but i've shed you with spring
caked on wet clay to my skin
dried cracking and elephant grey
and dusted you off
with the wind

you were never meant to be anything more than a moment

it's been awhile

2007-04-27T10:38:00.000-04:00

I once wrote an epic
but lost it
lost it beneath my fingernails
someplace between here and Michigan
I wrote about how I had
poems wrapped around my fingers
like rings my mother gave me
swelled and sticky like summer but
some things are just never meant to see paper
things that we leave behind us
the moment we fall asleep
pray our dreams will do beauty justice
things that attach themselves to the inside of a smile
and curl away in the wake of the wind
yet we spend every inch of our pens trying to keep them
trying to write a home for memories
to feel safe enough in the future
because forgetting is as scary as the image of an empty bathtub
carved hollow just waiting
to take the shape of a body
no warmth
just porcelain
cold
full of shadows
full of things that once were
after images and dirt
imprints of skin pressed to the insides of its basin
scooped empty like half crescent moon carvings
scraping away at the sun’s memory
a little more each night
till there’s nothing

I once wrote an epic
about how I could never write an epic
just pretend there’s a whole in my chest
large enough for all of this
incase I need to remind myself what it felt like in the future
like how the seasons folded into each other
like origami
keeping November tucked neatly beneath spring
beneath cherry blossoms blooming
and campfire in our hair till morning
beneath smoking at the foot of my window
and watching the world go by beyond us
laughing in places that needed draining
and using our silence as measure for things once empty
now filled
like we all just climbed in
bare footed and dirty
streaking the insides of a bathtub
big enough for every inch of us
for snow globes and chocolate and subways
central park and finger paintings
for playing dress up well into our twenties
milkweeds and road trips
for things I rub into my skin like flower petals
hoping the scent will catch my pigment like kindling
for hoping we will all be able to grow old together
but knowing time will wash that away
knowing all of this beauty
this tactile 3D right here beauty
will fold two dimensional
slipping silently into a sketchbook
that i’ll open one morning by accident
I’ll have kids then
will tell them of a place
that still burns behind my eyelids
and they’ll see that
how I speak of people in a way that glows yellow
in the corners of my mouth
memories sticking to the bottom of my tongue like peppermint
and the poems
never epic
just everything
wrapped around my fingers
like rings my mother gave me

soul shakers

2007-03-02T14:57:00.000-05:00

we were born to do this

the music never stopped

2007-02-28T11:34:00.000-05:00

for my sculpture class
a work in progress

pure life

breathless

2007-02-12T13:40:00.000-05:00

i dont think i have ever seen anything more beautiful

2007-02-04T14:24:00.000-05:00

i've got nothing to do today but smile

adventures

2007-01-29T23:41:00.000-05:00

went back to the place of beginning
where the weather might forget to dress itself accordingly
but in that moment
you cant ask for anything more beautiful than rain
because everything is perfect
and breathing
and music knows correctly
no notes make mistakes
this place makes hands appreciate their function entirely
where the act of producing makes more sense to me
than ever before
we were children again
laughing till our face broke into a million picassoed pieces
rearranging smiles
to how they were back then

for real

2007-01-29T19:12:00.000-05:00

i

just

want

to

dance

2007-01-27T13:39:00.001-05:00

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-01-19T23:35:00.000-05:00

i just found out i got the summer job i applied for as a photography instructor/counselor at the fresh air fund's camp mariah (mariah carey's camp). i had some doubts about getting the position because i have little experience teaching, but i guess my enthusiasm made up for it in the application process. words cannot express how excited and grateful i am to be given this opportunity. this is going to be learning experience on all fronts. i know i am going to have my work cut out for me, and this is going to be one of the hardest jobs of my life, but i am up for the challenge. this is the first step in helping people through photography. if i can give just one child the opportunity to express him or herself through images, then i will have done my job. i know i am going to learn more from these kids than i could ever teach them, and i am looking forward to growing and changing with them. i can feel it. this is going to be where everything begins.

sunrise

2007-01-18T20:18:00.000-05:00

my home
smells
like burnt honey
and electric heating pads
and we know just when
to hide our selves by the sound
of footsteps
on creaking staircases
when it’s time to fold our shadows
like origami
back into their boxes
to be kept under our beds
until next year

this morning i smelled winter
through the crack in my bedroom window
and cried because it had taken so long

like it was caught in the whispers of wind
tangled in her spider web embrace
trying to find its center
as if winter is just some point between
autumn and this moment
and could willingly unraveling itself back
to when everything was
damp and winged
and died as a sacrifice to poetry

and i don’t know how much more i can take
without breaking
before my eye sockets
collapse under the weight of seeing
e v e r y t h i n g
for as beautiful as it could be
for my willingness to help materialize it’s potential
and for my inability to appreciate it
without it’s death

there is no beauty in this
just a weak attempt to reflect the eyes of creation

i
just
want
to
breathe
without
thinking
in
poems
and
images
and
what
ifs

and
im just

tired

someone once told me
we spend our entire lives trying to capture beauty
and we end up paralyzing it with fact
i fear i’ve left far too many moments
for dead
turned sunsets paraplegic
and smiles into caskets
but i don’t know how to live any other way
i don’t know if i want to live any other way
i dont know
if i know
anything
anymore

we must return to history to exhale eternity in a world of action

2007-01-14T13:43:00.000-05:00

"In the mind of this young engineer, 'science and industry' is one word and human progress is a sales chart in a corporation board room in which history is reduced to a single line that begins with the wheel and ends with the bomb. To see history in this way we have to close our eyes to anything that would disturb our pre-eminence, but since we are trained to dismiss history as irrevelant to man's new power, this blindness is part of our new way of looking at things. And yet, if we can learn anything from the ruins of Stonehenge and Yucatan, it is that technologies are too vastly different and complex to be compared with one another one a simple linear scale by which we judge others with our own values. The acoustical engineering at the Ball Court at Chichen Itza is superior to that of M.I.T.'s Kresge Auditorium, or any other building in America. And the mathematical and astronomical sophistication of the stone computers at Stonehenge and the Caracole at Chichen Itza belie anything resembling primitiveness. But because they are not industrial civilizations, we tend to dismiss their fantastic accomplishments as the products of slaves laboring under the misguided fantasis of high class priests. We never stop to consider what a future civilization might make of the engineers and workers at Ford who labor to put more sex appeal into the new Mustang. History is not a line but a dial. If you stand at the center of the dial and face towards six o'clock, you have to turn your back on midnight. At midnight is the music, mathematics, and spirituality of the science of Pythagoras, science we no longer understand; at six o'clock is the industrial technology in which we live. But now as the hand sweeps around, it is growing later and later, and once again we are having to face our opposite to look toward dark midnight. Each technology activates certain human possibilities and pays the price for ignoring their opposites- the unique excellence and the tragic flaw are one and inseperable."

-Thompson, At The Edge of History, 1971

childhood memory

2007-01-13T23:54:00.000-05:00

we used to take long drives upstate to visit my cousins. i would spend most of the trip counting cars on the opposite side of the highway. i would try to make it to a thousand without messing up. if i was lucky, and it was raining, i would spent the entire two hour ride staring at the drops falling down the window. i would make games out of their falling pattens, and would watch them race. i would pick a droplet and watch it navigate it's way down the pane, eating up other droplets on the way, avoiding enemy ones that were ascending. the satisfaction i felt when the drop made its way down unharmed, was indescribable. if it didnt make, i would mourn it like any other loss.

sometimes i catch myself in the passenger seat on a rainy day, staring out the window, returning to old habits. there is something so meditative, and unsettling at the same time about it all. i get worried they wont make it out alive. they wont always make it down the pane untouched. i think what scared me when i was a kid, even more that im grown, is that i understand somewhere that they're me. im just trying to get out alive, fighting the force of gravity and mother nature. i think, "if this one makes it, so will i". sometimes it rolls down the pane, full bodied and wet and full of everything and everyone. othertimes, it just collides with another droplet and loses it's identity. how easy it is to lose yourself in everything. to become just a product of your surrounding...who they want you to be. i could never live with myself if i looked back on my life and knew that was me. i was the droplet that was swallowed alive by her environment. or her friends. or her job. or herself.

next time its raining, find yourself a window, and take your pick. your life depends on it.

farmingdale to penn

2007-01-09T00:14:00.000-05:00

its not the people here that are broken
its just this town that they live in
where they're lucky if they live until fifty
and there is nothing to pray for except rain
but they give their children names like Chrysalis and Autumn
because they believe they can give birth to change
they see hope in their existence
even if sleep rests on floor of a gutted train
where there is nothing to breath except dust
and they don’t have anything but an old newspaper
to rest their lungs
but if they stand on the corner of 143^rd and Archer
and the sun hits their pupils just right
their dreams can cost less than a dollar

ambitious

2007-01-05T12:01:00.000-05:00

resolutions for 2007.

eat healthy
exercise
take more photographs
develop substantial relationships
let go-be loved
seek adventure
help others
meditate/yoga
fill all current sketchbooks
reconnect with past
stop waiting around
stay organized
research family tree/heritage
save $ $ $
overcome current OCD's
seek truth
read more
assume leadership roles
write best poems
see live music
drink more wine
learn an instrument (cello/guitar)
learn a new language
stay active w/ spanish
expand english vocabulary
watch less shit
eat less shit
take less shit from people
worry less
laugh more
breathe deeper
love longer
live

a priceless new year

2007-01-01T21:44:00.000-05:00

pepto bismal and immodium for stomach virus: $17 dollars
tequila: $31 dollars (did nothing to aid the stomach virus)
winnings from the sweetest poker hand i have ever had: $320 dollars
this video of my parents: priceless

when you cut word lines the future leaks out

2006-12-22T22:59:00.000-05:00

it's the second time i came across t.s. eliot's poem little gidding in a single day
im learning to pay closer attention to Fate

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

this is it

2006-12-20T12:50:00.000-05:00

this is what i can't let photography become

the blowers daughter

2006-12-19T17:07:00.000-05:00

i havent been able to make a real post because i forgot how to formulate real thoughts
ive been consumed by every emotion possible these past few weeks. days. moments

death has been chasing me
but ive been busy with her sister

ive cried
and laughed
and truly felt spirituality in my being for the first time in my life
and im not really sure what to make of all of this

but all i know is that,

this is living

i remember having a conversation with a pOette a while back about life. she said how lucky we should feel, to be one of the ones that made it. we are the winners- the products concieved from a [not so] random act of fate.

maybe its this weather
this nostalgia
this feeling that i was born for a reason
that is leaving me feeling slightly insane

but what if every illusion in life is reality
what if insanity is just genius inverted?

melanie said to me "i think im the only person in our family that understands you"
i dont think i have heard her say anything more honest

i'm nineteen
at the crux of something
some land between here and the mountains
and im not sure what to make of it
but all i know, is that im happy

everything is happening so fucking fast
yes, people are changing
yes, people are leaving
but that is what makes this all so b e a u t i f u l
we may be a thousand miles apart
but we'll always have the sunset

ive have the urge to run
and scream
and laugh
and cry
and tell you everthing

there is so much to be done

there are worlds to be written
words to be conquered
hearts to be loved
unfolded
held
beating
and bleeding
and everything
is just
beautiful

i want to warm you in my hands
tell you that tomorrow will be different

there is far too much hate in this world
for us to truly sleep peacefully
i guess its why i keep dreaming succintly
in moments and images
undulating in jolts of silence
sometimes i have hold a mirror to my mouth
to make sure im still breathing

we must learn to love ourselves
before they make it illegal

compassion
is essential
if our lives
ever want to extend
beyond our wing spans

keep breathing
and loving
and smiling
and remember me
as in the dream
we had as rug-burned babies
among the fallen trees
and fast asleep
aside the lions and the ladies
that called you what you like
and even might
give a gift for your behavior
a fleeting chance to see
a trapeze
swing as high
as any savior

the hate that hate keeps fucking producing

2006-12-18T23:31:00.000-05:00

i think im going to vomit

im not your eve

2006-12-14T11:25:00.000-05:00

I bleed puddles at my feet
so once I leave,
you know a woman once walked here.

brought here on
legs split
asymmetrically
my hips roadmaps of generations before
these broken coastlines of innocence
create continents of my history
of Pangea’s struggle to stay connected
like umbilical cords severed too soon
ive erected temples in my stomach
and painted altars in my womb
I could break promises
like religions
like the sun turning her back
on the moon

but I believe in birthing apologies
so I spit sorrys through speakers in my cervix
wrap futures around the heads of women to breathe after me
that will be taken prematurely
named incorrectly
claimed they are everything the end of the alphabet wants them to be

we are byproducts of broken equations
of XY disproportions
we have become that poem

and i am nothing more than an artifact
a memory of places been
the inside of my skin dusty with the footprint
of men who mistook me for scripture
for eyes that saw Bibles beneath my skirt
and salvation between my legs
I have been walked upon like Bering Straights
like bodies used for bridges
linking womanhood and some name

and I keep tasting blood
from times i swallowed my tongue
spoke silence instead of saying I didn’t like it
that your liquored breath on my neck was uninvited
baby, where you been all my life?

I was with my mother
you said we looked like sisters
and that you were into that sort of thing
so if we were interested you could show us a good time
and I was silent
because I knew if I spoke
I would swallow the sun on the inhale
I knew if I spoke I would burn her
birth worlds of hatred for men like you in her presence
so I kept my composure
the first time

the second breath was warmer
you moved closer bent
your head in the crook of my neck and said:
you wish you could be so lucky
and that’s when I exhaled
the silence and blood
the hatred and tongue
I spit my submission as the woman you thought me to
back into you mouth
so you could taste mistaken manhood
marinate in your ignorance
you thought
I would
be silent

but the pools have gathered at my feet
and the sharks are starting to circle
he thought I would turn and smile
like all the other women he’s infected
giggle like I liked it
like I enjoyed being the stretched canvas for his finger paints
I turned and told him he mistook me for the wrong masterpiece
and that he should find his inspiration elsewhere
but turns out he’s illiterate
couldn’t read my body language
so I had to spell it out for him

grab me one more time and I swear to fucking god
I will reassemble each bone in your face
so they would think I was trying to rewrite your history in fractures

because you’re broken
and lifeless
and have nothing to call home but a hole in your chest
you mistake as storage space for my sex
but I cant help but forgive you for your hollow
spit the piece of sun I had been saving between my teeth
and pray this warmth gets the bloody fist you have
for a heart beating again
so maybe then you will learn
that you were given hands to write worlds
not for misspelling the word men

but we must attain, me to us

2006-12-07T18:57:00.000-05:00

Date

To ______________

Here's where I signed other's yearbooks

Best wishes,

Dennis

I found a bunch of old high school yearbooks at the used book sale. They were from the late sixties and they all belonged to the same person named Dennis. I decided to take them. Something drew me to them and I took them. I went home and started to read his life from freshman year until senior year. The first three years didnt contain any writing, just the same signature of the owner on the first page. 1969 saw a change with his graduating class. He wrote in green pen "My Comments, June 24th, 1969 (2 days after graduation)" on the cover page. He wrote on practically every page, marking pictures with comments and memories- classes he was in with the people in the picture, bits their personalities, and random memories. He commented on teachers, some were "not very good" others "the best he has ever had." Some friends were "a little weird," others "quite radical, but still a great guy". The entire book is marked with green penned memories. He added the names of people whose pictures didnt make it into the yearbook. I started to form this image of Dennis I had in my head. He was attentive and caring. Quiet and nerdy. I had decided I wasnt going to look at his actual picture. It would make him too real.

I made my way past newspaper clippings and antecdotes about friends and teachers. Underlined names and circles around faces. I reached him. I didnt want lose his immortality...his elusiveness, but I looked. And then I started to cry harder than I have in a very long time.

I saw the face and started crying. It was Dennis O'Keefe from the library. The eternally friendly man that worked at the reference desk. I remember hearing he passed away this summer. He was fifty five. And now he is seventeen, sitting on my lap, speaking memories in my head.

Gary Selvaggio- Good friend, but havent spoken to him in ages

Here was a man, I had imagined talking to every time I checked out books but could never spit words past my tongue, as a hopeful kid who underlined the names of kids he wanted to remember

Richard Galante- Smart, but didnt apply himself. Didn't graduate
Scott Cannold- Sat next to me in Physics, great guy

Seventeen and sitting on my lap in a book filled with all that is left of him. He was mapping out his memories so he could keep them forever. Fifty five and gone and theyre sitting on my bed for my enjoyment

exploiting

I dont deserve these thoughts.
I didnt think he deserved mine when he was alive
so why should i deserve his now that hes dead.

I convulsed crying with seventeen on my lap and wrote him a letter in his yearbook. No one else had signed it

I apologized for not writing to him sooner
was sorry they left his life between a tattered copy of the communist manifesto and an english to spanish dictionary.

but i have him for a reason
his green pen and memories
still seventeen and dreaming

im sorry i didnt find you sooner

what do you fear?

2006-11-30T01:38:00.000-05:00

legacy

2006-11-28T00:46:00.000-05:00

There is a field. It’s settled down South someplace, possibly Georgia. It has four, maybe five hundred acres. Vast and open. Breathable. The air is sticky and sweet and you can taste the ocean. Wind carries the salty breath of rolling waves on it’s back. It’s always a comfortable 78 degrees and sunny. A few clouds here and there. Ten percent change of precipitation. My Omowale.

This field has rows upon rows of seedlings. Some of them have sprouted from their tiny green casings and have poked through the earth ever so gracefully. Others are two or three feet high. Others have grown into the trees they were born to be. Redwoods, White Birches, Maples; Every variety of tree species that you could dream of. There are a few apple trees, one or two peach trees, and in some far off corner probably a mango tree that got lost among its Amerikanized friends. There are a variety of vegetables scattered among the fruit, and herbs among the vegetables. Sage, and parsley and probably some peppermint and lemon balm. And then there are the flowers. The petals, and thorns, and pollen. The field smells of a thousand memories. Of moments planted during my life.

In the center of this field, I stand. My bark is corkscrewed and gray. Every inch of my trunk, every single spiral, holds my spirit. My laughter and absolute selflessness. My fear of intimacy and love of fine cheeses. Every nuance existing in my oak, and yet I extend beyond my body and into this field. Every seed that I have watered with my presence, every growth that I have assisted with, will thrive along with my Omowale.

And all of us in this field are just products of truth. Of honest attempts to live our lives the best that we can. To effect as many minds, hearts, and souls as possible, and at the end of the day be able to say, “I did something.” This field that I have cultivated will provide as sustenance for generations to come. The soil, rich with my poetry, images, and actions will build minds strong enough to withstand the evils of our society. They say we could be on the brink of a revolution if we want it bad enough. My children will say their mother wanted it bad enough.

In the warm comfort of a Georgian summer night, my field will be screaming. Branches rustling, leaves singing their symphonies. They will speak of a life that was never silent. They will speak of a tree whose roots stretched across continents and ocean floors with the scripture of my life extending like fingers. My roots will be read like Braile. You have to be willing to use your hands. Get dirty in my history. Let all of my strengths and weaknesses absorb into your pores so you will receive the ultimate balance of humanity. I am not perfect. But I’m honest. If I can give anyone anything, let it be that. For those that come after me, become part of my field. Grow along with my spirit and allow yourself to get lost in its truth- in all this soil has to teach us.

if you want to know

2006-11-25T16:03:00.000-05:00

listen to ray lamontagne's 'jolene'
and you will feel everything i have been feeling for the past 8-10 days
get lost in it
it will be in your best interest

im sorry i can't birth spring sooner

2006-11-20T18:09:00.000-05:00

truth

2006-11-14T11:51:00.000-05:00

-----Email Message-----
Sent: Sunday, November 12, 2006 3:22 AM
Subject: the only time i feel beautiful is when i dance

i am currently drenched in sweat from a night of dancing and even though i am not half as good as my friends, its one of the few times i feel anonymous enough to be beautiful

i was half drunk that night when i sent it, but meant it with all my heart

set...for now

2006-11-11T15:11:00.000-05:00

after over an hour of bathrobed insanity
i think i figured it out

im going to get my BFA in photography
and double minor in journalism and black studies

that was seriously exhausting
i tried to work anthropology in there but it just doesnt seem feasible

anyway, i'm happy

(g)rape

2006-11-09T07:59:00.000-05:00

i had another one of those dreams
except i was a rhino this time
and they wanted me for my ivory

chills

2006-11-09T00:42:00.000-05:00

Mrs. Surratt was executed by hanging on July 7, 1865.
She wore a black dress and black veil.
Her last words on the scaffold were

"Don't let me fall."

don't forget

2006-11-02T00:55:00.000-05:00

while
we slept
she stood ripening
leaves bleeding like watercolors
painting the mountains with autumn
we found waterfalls in her caverns
and spit smiles from muddy river feet
I didn’t mind that those shoes got ruined
I said that they needed to witness this splendor
even at the bottom of a dumpster, they’ll remember

a song for our fathers

2006-10-30T01:21:00.000-05:00

i
will never
learn to forgive
the permanence of ink
for the way
it stained
him

wonder around a tree

2006-10-22T12:47:00.000-04:00

its been awhile
i guess ive been marinating in beauty

i swear to god every inch of my body is sore

i havent smiled this much in a long time

its like someone opened up a a dusty fairy tale book and painted us right into the story

everything is just....

perfect

i swear, i haven't forgotten you

2006-10-11T12:53:00.000-04:00

ive just been busy burning holes in our history

to better see the spine of our future

please, forgive me

till the sun turns black

2006-10-08T02:29:00.000-04:00

at this very moment
in the quiet dawn of a new day
was not the earth giddy with crime and distress?
had one single element of man's nature been altered
vitally
fundamentally altered
by the incessant march of history?
by what he calls the better part of his nature
of his spiritual being man finds himself again naked as a savage
when he finds god
as it were
he has been picked clean
he is a skeleton
one must burrow into life again
in order to put on flesh
the word must become flesh

the soul thirsts

on whatever crumb my eye fastens
i will pouce and devour
if to live is the paramount thing
then i will live
even if i must become a cannibal

-henry miller, tropic of cancer

once i feel in love

2006-10-03T10:29:00.000-04:00

with the man who sells spiced pistachios
the echoing pulse of stilettos
on the cobblestone streets
and the claret and streams that
churned and swirled
up to lick the lips of a glass

my mind is steamy and fogged
with sonnets and ballads
of walking
arms linked
flushed with wine through a tunnel of
luminous gold to the ancient jade marble
of churches
and the fervent strokes of masters paint

i can taste the sweet smolder
of limoncello and bread
deep and dripping with olive oil

today
i think i might
rub my pores with garlic
and kiss and orange until my
mouth is stained from its blood
click my heels three times
and repeat

bella bella bella

-s.c.

2006-09-27T13:33:00.000-04:00

im starting to speak beginnings

but i know i will never be as perfect as she

2006-09-22T10:46:00.000-04:00

international day of peace

could we possibly make an extension like overdue homework into an international week of peace?
how about month of peace because i cant seem to get the assignment in on time? or maybe im gonna backpack through europe so i need some more time and have a year of peace? why dont we go for the gold and have a lifetime of peace. yeah, that one sounds right...

the UN was filled with seven-twelve year olds who couldnt really care less about who was speaking or what they were speaking about. not because they didnt physically care...but because of their short attention spans and disaffection due to this world we live in. they were excited about their field trip, and the day they would be spending outside of class. but i dont blame them, but thats exactly how i felt when i went to the UN in fourth grade. it was merely an excuse to pack the most amazing bag lunch ever. period.

i found it funny, yet wasnt suprised for a second, that the rapper they brought out named "Q" recieved more applause than jane goodall. he preformed his little diddy about world peace and all the kids bopped along to the beat. its a shame that the only way we can attract the attention of a young audience is to flash them images of MTV and pray they actually listen to the lyrics.

i dont know, it was all so....plastic. i guess after reading what chavez said about the UN really changed my perspective on its purpose. and it really serves as nothing more than a place to meet once a year and chat about bullshit. people walked around from room to room wearing suits and important grimaces and we were supposed to understand our inferiority. its just the way things are meant to be. i had trouble accepting everything and everyone inside to be for the betterment of this planet when they walked with such puffed out chests. it was so disheartening. i felt that the last ounce of hope i had in our system had drained from my tear ducts.

so this is where we come in. we rebuild. start from the ground up... grass roots type shit, and just go from there. i can see it happening and i feel it in my bones. we're on the brink of a revolution and im not just saying it for poetic effect. we are seriously on the edge of an uprising if things keep going the way they are going, and i have a feeling we will be more successful than the 60's.

but this will only be successful, and i stress only to x power, if we reach out to these children. there is something seriously seriously wrong here and i saw it with my very eyes yesterday. when we were handing out flyers for the "party for peace" in union square, the first thing out of everyone's mouth was "is daddy yankee going to be there?" when i said no, they threw the flyer into the wind, and didnt want to hear a word of it. so this brings me here:

if daddy yankee tells these kids to rise up for revolution, to question everything- it will happen.

but wait, hes telling them about la gasolina, (and other important issues) instilling in them the notion, that this is what its all about. social change has dissipated into music videos and sneakers my friend. and its a fucking shame because these kids are SO IMPRESSIONABLE! if daddy yankee went on BET and said, "We need to change the world!" i think kids might say, "we'll if he says we should...."

but world peace wont ever get you a gold record so its never gonna happen
i guess we just keep battling
fighting for our freedom

FUCK
i'm angry

it still smells of sulfur

2006-09-20T20:48:00.000-04:00

tomorrow i'm going to the UN for the international day of peace.
how fitting that chavez addressed them today and proposed a reconstruction of it's foundation
what an amazing amazing amazing speaker
i highly suggest reading every single word this man had to say

"What we now have to do is define the future of the world. Dawn is breaking out all over."

seven times beauty

2006-09-17T17:49:00.000-04:00

this weekend planted itself in the ground as
dancing and embraces
and sprouted funerals and sunflowers
by morning

it was beautiful in its rawness, yet its fragility made it all the more heartbreaking
there were countless times where i didnt know whether to smile or cry; do both or none at all
i think that within these past few days, i have tasted more tears than anticipated- laughing and sobbing

i wish you could feel this. right now. this very second. its a swirling cloud in my chest and its making it hard to breathe. every juxtaposed emotion experienced simultaneously. can you imagine it? can you feel it?

the end of this has brought a feeling of appreciation and loathing for the cards i have been dealt. dont get me wrong, i am not complaining. i know "things could be worse" and i would never trade this hand in for the world, but i am still learning how to gamble without losing everything i own.

there was a point, where there came a moment of confusion so intense, a hollowness so complete that i remembered what a defecit of compassion felt like. i had given so much this past weekend and recieved less than enough to make up for it. my heart was (and still is) dehydrated and im aching for something- anything. i dont want sympathy- it always ends up half-hearted and a chore anyway.

i just need to be held.

humpty dumpty aint got shit on this

2006-09-15T13:43:00.000-04:00

i can see the ending to our story

our youngest sun has died
and we are living
in anticipation of first darkness

so we gaze upon hilltops
fragile like eggshells
cracking at the mere thought of the moon

but this isn’t breaking news
its been painted on the outside of our faces for ages
so we learn to fear mirrors a reflection too soon

it’s only a matter of time
before conspiracy theories
and rising sea levels

have us summoning gravitational forces
and all the king’s pens
to write reason for us to begin again

because we’re being cooked
night side up
face down

productions

2006-09-12T19:41:00.000-04:00

.inhale

remember when she was pregnant with us?
fetuses in a mother named universe
we were twins then
two artists intertwined
pressed up against her spine
staring at the inside of her star scattered belly
we traced her constellated oblivion
like a planetarium ceiling
and if we listened real closely
we could hear her mapping our newly constructed reality

corkscrewing upward from our navels
we connected umbilical milky ways and rationality
spoke truth between our tongues
and licked love into the atmosphere
we understood that our pupils
had grown to swallow galaxies whole
so like women pre-delivery about to experience a cosmic shakti
we dilated
both in preparation of our newly discovered femininity
and anticipation of the beauty we would soon cradle
in our stretched and swollen embrace

spirals were spoken in
and a lifetime’s worth of lies were regurgitated, again
and again
and again
we rooted ourselves continuous
dug deeper into the dampness
and sunk into her dew kissed canvas
we were once blank
now painted in awareness and dirt

we imbedded ourselves in her earth
learned to birth bedrock from inside her
that spoke fluently in wind gusts
from the friction of our bones and her galaxy,
we bound moon glow and womb dust
into an amniotic like substance
we baptized our senses in
and in those cleansing meditations
I found myself home again

so from re-teaching ourselves that there’s hope in new beginnings
sparked from after births of endings
we will forever keep twisting
dancing on the edges of tomorrow
till there is nothing left to do but start over

exhale.

WHAT?!

2006-09-06T00:28:00.000-04:00

CRAZY FUCKING BEAUTIFUL

reaching for a hand

2006-09-02T12:04:00.000-04:00

we were talking one second, and the next
i saw the car run into her

it was going 35-40 and hit her as she bolted into the steet. i saw her body turn into a rag doll and toss in the air before hitting the ground. the silence that preceded a sonic boom of an impact was so deafening. it was like a dream. i didnt know what to do. meg helped her up and chris called 911. i guess we were the only ones left sober enough to realize what had really happened. her friends were all still giggling and smiling, some didnt even turn their heads.

she was conscious, thank god. the car that hit her stopped, got out of the car and made sure she was alive and ran back in their cars to speed off. i saw this and ryan, chris, and i ran after the car to get the plate number and description of the car. i was in too much shock to pay attention to the passangers or the type of car. i couldnt fucking believe someone would hit a human being and not stay to make sure everything is okay. the odds are, they were drinking and i dont think they like the image of metal bars as a home so i guess they were using the "fight or flight" instinct, and flew.

the ambulance came with their brigade, and the cops with their newbies- perfect practice. the people around are still laughing and carrying on the conversations, the cops are asking eachother "are you high? because i'm not!" (referring to the majority of the people around)...the firemen are getting thrown beads from apartment windows like its fucking mardi-gras. i started crying.

she didnt want to go in the ambulance because she couldnt afford it. 800 dollars for an ambulance ride that isnt covered by insurance. this is a new paltz townie, shes got no money. they took her off anyway and everyone carried on like nothing had happened. i, on the other hand needed to go home. it wasnt just the fact that she was hit by a car that upset me....it was everything. the lack of concern, the hit and run, the beaded firemen. it was one of those shocks back to reality and a reminder of the world we live in. its a standard example of how the majority of this country only cares about themselves.

it got me thinking how katrina's a year old now and the baby's started talking. reminding us with her little shaking body how we didnt give a shit. we didnt give a shit. we just let our brothers and sisters die without a second glance, because hey, we've got better things to do.

this is how we are writing our history. our stories of existence written in blood and sketched in flesh. we are giving our children reason to scream GIVE ME SOMETHING TO CELEBRATE! because there will be nothing. nothing unless we do something about it.

prof. moss is right, we are creating our own apocolypse. and it arrived yesterday

((as a side note, i just remembered last night i had a dream i was at this persons house out in the country. everyone was having a good time and it started flooding. we went out to our cars and the streets became flowing rivers so we decided to swim instead of drive. there were people everywhere laughing but all of a sudden it turned to winter and snow covered everything...and people started freezing to death. something told me no one would help us so i turned to the gods and prayed for warmth. and you know what, she answered back. she said she couldnt help because "last time" we forgot about her and it was our turn to help ourselves. i guess some things should always be left up to nature... before she feels neglected and turns her back on us))

set your soul at ease

2006-08-28T14:09:00.000-04:00

the sound
of One Lung
filling with water
drowned out by wave after wave
of a million buzzing locusts
an invisible chorus
that only knows how to sing
the last letter of the alphabet

-jimmy corrigan
the smartest kid on earth

sc at t er e d

2006-08-28T12:27:00.000-04:00

home is a delicate palm that reads fortunate gentleness
with skin that forgets its responsibility to muscle
and bone that sets itself free from form
starting with the fingertips

freedom from within changes bone structures, so we can stand up better

2006-08-21T23:26:00.000-04:00

i love reading the pages of my sketchbook. its the most personal vouyerism that can be achieved. i sometimes forget the thoughts that scamper around my head, and it is like peering into the deepest depths of a strangers soul. i see bits of poems and sketches when they were just thoughts... fragmented ideas that had no intention of growing up. i can travel back to the exact moment i gave birth to that idea, and its the craziest feeling.

i can see myself bolting out of the shower, shampoo still caked on my head to write down a single line. i can see the dried water marks on the page next to hastily scribbled handwriting. i can see the editing- the additions and subtractions creating an entire poem out of a fleeting thought.

i see the world in poetry.

i take mental photographs and write cerebral poems with sidewalk chalk on the back of my skull because i never want to forget the beauty hidden in this world. it is second nature to me to pull out my camera or pen because i know moments are organic and destined to perish. some may say this will keep me from really living, but trust me, i that is the last thing i want to do. i know when to drop the pen and let my heart do all the writing. i know when to leave the camera and let my eyes to all the photographing. but there are moments that need surrogate mothers. it is your duty to use your weapon of choice- paintbrush, pen, camera-whatever it may be-to give birth to intention and induce inspiration.

we may never rid ourselves of war in this lifetime, or the next... but we can give hope to future generations through our words and images, hands and hearts. each of us was put here on earth for a reason.

you we're given a tongue for a reason: SPEAK UP
you we're given legs for a reason: STAND UP
you we're given a life for a reason: LIVE IT UP

use your body as a vessel in the short time you have it rented to roam this earth- barefooted. feel the naked soil beneath you as you preach the gospel of poetry to the predestined skeletons of cultures soon to be forgotten. use love tactics to instill freedom in the heart of every man, woman, and child- they will thank you later. and when the sun finally sets, sit back and look at the pages of your sketchbook. you will be amazed at what you will find

become your dream

2006-08-20T08:44:00.000-04:00

im working on my karma
and its taking a toll on my wallet

i dont have much money, but i know that one day i am probably going be in a similar situation as these people...counting on others to believe in my work enough to help me out. i know that these deeds are going to come back to me ten fold in the future if i need it.

i helped out two artists in the city by purchasing a piece of their work. i bought a photograph mounted to a section of a pabst blue ribbon 30 pack on bedford ave (classy), and an independent film starring and filmed by the man who sold it to me. the face of man who's photograph i purchased lit up like a christmas tree in august. one of the few smiling faces i saw around me all day

i was thinking about buying something from james de la vega. emily and i came across his store on st. marks after i got my nose re-peirced...but his work was upwards of 400 dollars, and i think my atm card would have shattered my hand. plus, i think these men on the street needed my help a little bit more.

im in the process of unpacking. yes, unpacking. i never really unpacked (other than clothes and books) from leaving new paltz for the summer because i knew i would just be putting the same stuff back in their bins. turns out, i have no clue what the hell is in these bins, so im gonna have to sort through everything. i am ecstatic to be finally getting ready to go back. my mind may have been here but my heart stayed in new paltz. something in my soul forks in two directions. one points here, overlooking shopping malls...and and the other overlooks the mountains. its been a long summer, and i am more than ready to go back to the place i belong.

"...and that is revolution, rebuild foundation, and be the solution"

2006-08-16T00:01:00.000-04:00

her name is ruth...i think

she is beautifully fragile, probably in her mid-late 70's, and works in the cafeteria at my office. she (wo)mans the register like a soldier with too much trust in her eyes. you could easily walk past her without her noticing the muffin in your pocket or water bottle in your hands...but something keeps my five fingers to myself. trust me, i have no qualms about screwing over big business one highlighter at a time...but something keeps me from slipping past her with an over priced cranberry juice. i feel like if i did, i wouldnt be pulling a fast one on the man, but i would be hurting her.

i have barely said two words to her aside from commenting on the beautiful weather. i go downstairs to get food sometimes just to see her. she has a picture of her oversized, possibly irish family on the register. they gather around her in the photograph like a fallen hero. she stands in the center, hunched, smiling slightly. her face reads of a woman who has created her surroundings with brittle hands that smell like metal, or soap

there is something about her that makes me forget i am employed by corporate america...something so real. she has a motherly presence about her that prevails through the evils in the air that makes me feel safe. she lets you slide if you are short on money because she trusts you are good for it. she tells you to watch out for the wet floor, and apologizes for the lack of cinnamon raisin bagels. she figures the change in her head, and never makes a mistake. she counts the change with so much care and tenderness its like the coins are seem heavier with love. i swear they indent my palm when she places them, hands shaking, in mine.

more than anything, i think about her dying. my recent obsession with growing older, mainly from my grandfathers memory loss has induced a spiral of images swirling around my head whenever i see her. i imagine her shakes becoming more apparent... her fumbling with the money... not being able to figure out the correct change without a calculator. i think about her huge family. will they put her in a nursing home? will the people from the office notice she is gone?

i would imagine it being like the tree in your neighbors yard that you only notice was cut down three weeks later.

all of this and i have never even introduced myself to her. i have developed this unspoken relationship with her in my head and she isnt even aware of it. i am leaving work friday and i am determined to talk with her. get to know anything about her in the short time that i (we) have

::edit::

she has thirteen grandchildren and six children. there were four boys and three girls but she had to bear witness to her oldest son's burial. so now there are three of each. she says "nice and even" with a longing so deep it seems her heart would do anything to hold an odd number again

its the year of the silkworm

2006-08-11T11:51:00.000-04:00

W e the American working population
hate the fact that eight hours a day
is wasted on chasing the dream of someone that isn't us
and we may not hate our jobs
but we hate jobs in general
that don't have to do with fighting our own causes
we the American working population
hate the nine to five day-in day-out
but we'd rather be supporting ourselves
by being paid to perfect the pasttimes
that we have harbored based solely on the fact
that it makes us smile if it sounds dope

- aesop rock

if your still free, start running away (because we're coming for you)

2006-08-07T20:32:00.000-04:00

my grandfather is finally forgetting

the human encyclopedia is losing his pages
and i cant help but fear for the future

i was lying in bed last night, wondering what it would feel like if i woke up one morning, unable to recognize the person lying next to me. i can picture searching the basement of my mind for dusty memories hidden in the cracks of my skull like old vinyl records. and after countless mistaken names and faces, i would find them- warped and unplayable

these things tend to only get worse
and i cant bear to see him lose his memory

i starting writing down random memories of people close to my heart in my sketchbook.
i found an old picture of my grandmother and i. she passed away when i was in fourth grade and i realize how little i remember about her. though i will always have her image, i have lost her nuances. did she have an infectious laugh? did she hug with her whole body, or just her arms?

from the picture, i think she hugged with her entire being

i just need to know, that if i wake up one morning years from now without any recollection of my past life or the people in it...i will have something to help me find my way. i need to remember the way my sister would chase me up the stairs or the way my mothers face always looked older in the rearview mirror. i need to remember my dads love of flying dreams and his even greater love of sharing them with me.

perhaps someone will love me enough to read me my story before bed
in the hopes that i will wake up with records restored enough
to hear the music i have always adored

i am leaving the breadcrumbs to lead me back home

thanks for doin the damn thing

2006-08-06T20:11:00.000-04:00

I celebrated my birth on the hottest day of the year

Was greeted in the office by balloons and streamers
Had ice cream Sundays with my co-workers
Made a deliciously carb-filled dinner with Emily
And did the one thing ever friendship must go through at least once in their lives…

We watched Beaches

And cried

I know its cliché but honestly, if I didn’t know that move was made when we were only a year old, I would say that there have been movie producers infiltrating our lives and using it as material for a sappy movie where you will always cry at the end. We are beaches…its sick. Bette middler’s character is a clone of my personality in every way, and Barbara Hershey is Emily to a T. we saying throughout the movie “yep, that’s you..” and “yep, that’s me.” we would even get mad at each other for things that the character did.

I personally got upset when she up and died on me. We are supposed to grow old together and go at the same time in that Notebook-esque embrace. Ofcourse, we would have to work out the “receiving of the last breath” situation at a later date because I see problems arising.

But no fucking joke, Beaches …our lives

As sappy as that can be

Its true

And I wouldn’t change it for the world

(except the ”dying and leaving me alone having to care for your daughter and cat part”)

On a more uplifting note,

Im going to the Friday night slam at the Nuyo with Emily, Janine, and Sandra (jenny’s café included, of course)
I couldn’t think of anything else that would make me happier, than hearing some good new’ fashioned poetry with the people I love the most.

So its three weeks till I head home, and I couldn’t be more thrilled
I am looking forward to school with every ounce of my being…while still enjoying being here

i'm enjoying just being

2006-07-30T18:08:00.000-04:00

walk out

2006-07-25T23:25:00.000-04:00

I paint life sepia
to soften the eyes of this world

give it a timeless
archaic beauty
that only photographs with fading edges can possess

and under tear stained wartime letters
with bodies creased into thirds
we lie hidden
at the bottom of an old shoe box

eternally preserved
we survive on blanketing our image
in an olfactory so elusive
it jostles the spine of every dictionary

its an enigmatic memory
like the scent of new born skin
a feeling that cannot be materialized in poetry

but just the act of attempting to catch these winged words in our nets
leads us a foot in each direction
one step further from perfection
the other, seconds from home

oh sailors, lets go down

2006-07-24T21:08:00.000-04:00

i would just like to start out saying,
that lisa hannigan has
the
most
exquisitely
perfect
voice

if you have never heard her sing (if you listen to damien rice, she sings with him on some songs)
i highly sugguest you do so immediately
she sings an acapella version of 'silent night'
and it is just
so
_______________

perfect
just perfect

there are some songs that were meant to fall from the sky like angels and i cant be more grateful for have found them...and then there are the pieces of shit played on mtv that i cant even believe the FDA approved.

its like an epidemic
today music is so extremely under appreciated
just another trend set by one hit wonders to be taken for granted by teenie bopping, ass shaking 12 year olds that wouldnt know real music if it hit them in the face
but i guess i dont blame them, because we all were them once

my GOD lisa hannigan is not human
how can someone be blessed with a voice like that???????????????????????????????

you need to download something right now
before its too late

i would write more about my views on music but it will have to be put on until later because i need to give my full attention to her

goodnight

incubus

2006-07-21T18:00:00.000-04:00

i ended my night feeling really good
i had a great conversation with carmen before bed
and i for some reason
i asked whatever is out there
to send me a sign in my dreams-
anything to tell me that we really do have control of this reality

before i knew it,
i was having another night terror

it has been about two months since i have had once
and i have never felt more terrible

i have so much trouble explaining to people what it is

the most i can verbalize is,

i am lying in bed, feeling awake
but not really sure if its a dream or not
i try to move and my body is paralyzed
my head feels extremely heavy
i try to sit up but i feel something really heavy pushing me down
and the more i fight it, the more i start to convulse
my whole body thrashes like i am having a siezure and i start to panic
i try to scream but the sound only stays in my head
like its bouncing off the walls of my skull
my legs and arms jerk out of control, yet i am still paralyzed
i feel disoriented and dizzy
like something is trying to keep me restrained
like i am going to die

and then its over

i wish i could explain to you how terrified i am the moment its over
and its not the feeling you get after a nightmare
its the feeling that death was just sitting on your chest

at work today i was looking at things online and from what i found, its a hallucinogenic sleep paralysis, and there is really nothing that can be done.

i find it funny how i asked "tell me something so i know i can control this reality" and i found myself having no control over a reality i am not even sure exists. i dont know what i am going to do if this keeps happening. someone help me

please

.

2006-07-20T22:03:00.000-04:00

LuvlyMu6: Life is a terminal
LuvlyMu6: When's your next flight?
playcrakkthesky: hopefully soon
playcrakkthesky: im ready to fly

the red pill

2006-07-17T21:35:00.000-04:00

we are architects
trying to create something so cosmically designed
that our predestined sketches have mapped out our demise
because perfectly crooked lines
running parallel to perfectly crooked lies
can lead only to one place

and when mosquitos search longingly for flesh
to find themselves
lips pressed against metal
this river
has run dry

but it was ours to take
our mandate of heaven
this earth was given to us for our using
and we have abused her
blindfolded bettings
we risked her oak without caution
pawned her rings to pay off debts

we have conned our own mothers
siphoned amniotic promises from her belly
post-uterus and hoped no one would notice greasy fingers

but oil

always

stains

and long as we keep living our lives
beer battered and deep fried
the water flowing through these roots
will never
reach the surface

hypnotized

2006-07-16T21:44:00.000-04:00

i have so many thoughts floating around my head but im having trouble getting anything to make sense. i am in this pergatory-like extistence where i cant tell if i am really here nor there. the pages of the daily planner on my desk at work are being ripped out quicker than i can grasp and i am having trouble really grounding myself. time is speeding itself up after 2 slow months into the summer, and after praying for it, im retracting my wishes reluctantly. i want to be able to make the best of my time here at "home." this past week i have spent quality time with both my mom and my dad, which i haven't done enough of since i have been home. i went to a bob weir concert with my mom and we both danced around like timeless hippies on thursday. wednesday i danced with my dad in the rain. unforgettable.

i know you think i am insecure, that i think people forget about me
that i am being paranoid

but its not about being forgotten
its a fear that the time you remember
it will be too late

i go through moments of insight where i get the intense rush of "you could die tomorrow" and i want to go run and do something spontaneous while there is still time
for a very long time, i needed to know someone would be up for it
someone would be there with me for the ride
but odds are, not many people are going to abandon their cookie cutter lives to trade it in for the mystery grab bag prize
consistency is comfort and people need to know their 2.4 kids and golden retriver are going to be standing on the front porch with the sunday newspaper folded crisply on the stoop when they get home from the office
i doubt there are going to be many people that will call their spouse and say "tell lupe to work overtime, i'm going to somalia for the weekened"

so im re-learning to spell the word alone
i have always been an independent person but like many have said, "you cant count on anyone for anything"
and for once in my life, i'm certain about one thing
uncertainty

i am so uncertain about so many things, it scares me
but right now, this very moment
that is okay

its okay if im scared photography will lead me no where
its okay if im scared we are going to end up killing ourselves off very shortly
its okay if im scared you have me completely wrong

im scared
you have me completely wrong

but i'm okay

reprieve

2006-07-14T21:20:00.000-04:00

i have seen consistency
etched into book bindings
like fingerprints
ripped cover pages blessed with a handwriting unwavering
branded with the ink of a grandmother

"let this book guide you as it has me”
cursive lettering intertwining ever so elegantly
smooth black arches contorting like ballerinas
graceful and silent
stream-lined and perfect

these letters contain a history
that seeps deep into dusty parchment
and it smells like dried rose petals
and pearl necklaces
it smells like love

I look for old books in abandoned alley ways
in the hopes I will find the forgotten
the messages lying comatose between book jackets
shivering in their sleep

because i lay awake
wondering what induced their fall from literary grace
I imagine nostalgic old women clutching quill pens
betweens their wrinkled fingertips

eyes glazed with a longing that can only be measured in dandelion wishes
as they carefully drag the tip across a crisp white page
each letter’s personality identical to the last
there are no surprises in this story

I find myself estimating the moments between ink and saliva
the moment between an overlooked wish
and a forgotten kiss
where a heartfelt gesture came to call a dumpster home

lying midway between
a half eaten cheeseburger
and a torn up photo
black curves slice through last week’s garbage like samurai swords

“let it guide you”

I find myself
lying in bed
false dreaming of finding the hands
that birthed infinitely dancing bodies
a REM cycle forgery

this is the story of the hurricane...

2006-07-12T17:49:00.000-04:00

were splitting infinity among ourselves like some irrational life-fraction
sub-dividing moments
in the hopes that we can trade heartbeats for memories
and still have enough dignity left over

but this rotting fruit cannot be preserved
still we raise the dead with our pens if It could give us just a few more minutes away from reality
spend days thinking about how it would be
if this gold finish never faded

but as we spend our lives denying it's oxidation
clocks stand before us rusting
disappointment morphing their expressionless faces
into something we cant bear to look at

hands that have seen far too many fortunes
eat away at newly perforated life lines
and seconds that wonder when we will grow bold enough
to leave ourselves out in the rain

we ran out in the down-pour
and it was beautiful

i dont know what i would do without my dad

i really dont

harvest

2006-07-11T22:50:00.000-04:00

the moon
is the most beautiful
i have ever seen it

it is huge and low in the sky
burnt orange

i raced home so i could take my dad to go look at it
i knew he would appreciate it

tonight i had dinner with sandra, janine, and emily
i guess i have spent so much time alone i forgot how nice company is sometimes
we talked about going to the sirens festival at coney island this saturday
i went last year and it was such an amazing time
and its free
so my wallet gives a thumbs up to that

i am swimming in books right now
im looking at my window sill by my bed and i have...10 books stacked up
i cant seem to keep reading the same one so im jumping around between poetry, tom wolfe, and augusten burroughs
i started wolfe's "the kandy-kolored tangerine-flake streamline baby" and the entire first page contains only the word hernia.
yeah, he's interesting

my birthday is in 3 weeks
part of me is excited, the other not so much
birthdays are always the worst days
except i drink water when im thirstay
because i like to stay hydrated
but i birthdays usually end in tears
for one reason or another

here is my birthday "i'm-never-gonna-get-any-of-these-things" wish list incase any one of you fine folks decides you love me

1) a canon 20d digital slr
2) a car ((my parents are getting me a bike...yeah))
3) enough money to do my study abroad in africa
4) a plane ticket to austin for the poetry slam nationals
5) a stripper
6) just kidding
7) except im not

you can make all checks out to alyssa levy
i also accept visa or mastercard
paypal preferred (levy78@newpaltz.edu)

thanks

--{ }--

2006-07-10T22:59:00.000-04:00

i think i have been the victim of mis-applied love
and i forgive you
for trying to keep me ignorant

i may not have sent it in...

2006-07-09T19:08:00.000-04:00

but this was mine

part of me wants to know what they had first
under "let down"
i think it was failed
but using that word leaves no room for improvement

i'm hopeful
there is still time
to change

dig it?

2006-07-06T23:01:00.000-04:00

just some thoughts

we rode the shoulders of revolutions birthed like premature children

piggy backed through picket lines clutching the necks of our fore mothers

choking life into their tongues

before we even knew how to spell solidarity

it was a game to us

peace signs painted on the insides of our bellies

sucking our trigger fingers to ease the ache

we stuck wilting flowers down the barrels of guns

and prayed the gunpowder would be wise enough to help them grow

needed them to fly where we couldn’t reach

so we beat our wings like war drums

turned newborn cheeks to the right

and answered to nothing less than the sun

the words “by any means necessary” etched into the backs of our rib cages

so our lungs would never forget what it meant to breathe change

see, we need something to scrape the numb off our newly polished hides

something to remind us that you need to match the rhythm

of your heart with the rhythm

of the wind before you can really

claim you are alive

if you c(d)are

2006-07-04T22:31:00.000-04:00

for those of you celebrating the independence of this country
i give you a good three more seconds to enjoy this facade
now sit back and let the cold reality of the world we live in settle inside your bones

incase any of you havent been up on the news
(which i think 99.9 percent of it is a load of crap by the way
i only trust the BBC)
north korea is testing a few long range missiles
and something tells me, this isnt just for fun

i hate to say "we have had this coming"
becuase i think we are a bunch of big headed
caffine addicted
ego tripping
assholes

but....

i just spend a good 4 minutes trying to type something
to make america seem docile and place us in a
"why should anyone ever harm us?" situation

i came up with nothing

it kills me that we are raising our children-
we are raising ourselves
in a world that loves the taste of blood
i wish i could wake up tomorrow
give the peace sign
and know that the force of my fingers could stop any missile

oh, and fireworks sound too much like gunshots
for me to enjoy them

happy 4th

.

2006-07-04T14:28:00.000-04:00

as i was trying to fall asleep
this kept re-playing itself over in my head

beat your wings like war drums

fly towards freedom

into the sun

feel the burn of wisdom on your back

a heat induced fusion

become one

its princess pink with snow white in the middle

2006-07-02T21:12:00.002-04:00

my stomach started hurting after dinner
i took some pepcid and went to bed around 8
around 10 i woke up, shaking and in pretty bad pain
so i laid in bed till 12:30 drifting in and out of consciousness, trying to control the chills

about 1 i went into my parents room, where they were watching tv about to go to sleep
it was the first time in a long time i did the whole "mommy i dont feel well, can i lay with you" bit

my dad concocted his miracle solution of milk and ginger ale, which i forced myself to drink hoping it would help
getting through the thick curdled foam was a bit difficult
20 minutes and a few dry heaves later, im still shaking in the fetal position
i was in so much pain i couldnt even speak
i would have cried, but it hurt too much

something in my head said "alyssa, you need to go to the hospital"
even though it felt really similar to heart burn, just 100x worse, i knew something was wrong
on my way out the door, i thought about staying home and riding it out
i puked all over and decided that might not be the best idea

i got to the ER around 1:30 and by 3 i was hooked up to some delicious morphine
that stuff worked wonders
they took way too much blood and the guy said i had a high white blood cell count, and wanted to do a CAT scan just incase

holy jesus crisps, i had to drink the most foul solution ever..like 60 ounces of it no less before the CAT scab
i was contemplating sucking up the pain for the sake of saving myself from this shit
but i did it and was zapped with more radiation than a nagasaki girl

around 7 am the doctor comes in and says "yep, you have appendicitus, we have to remove it"

WHAT?????

a few hours later im naked and unconcious, and they're removing my appendix, laprascopically
yeah, so, i have this thing with my belly button
i think its a very sacred, sensitive...the source of life in the womb
i never got it pierced mainly because i think its just...not meant for metal
when the surgeon said he would be removing it through my navel, i was like HAYYYLL NOOO
but it was either that and almost zero scarring or the old fashioned way and a huge scar.
i sacrificed the umbilical basin

i woke up in a room next to the most obnoxious woman in the world
she talked for 8 hours straight, and i was contemplating stabbing her with my plastic fork...which by the way, i couldnt use becuase i could only eat liquids
not so smart hospital staff

they usually keep you overnight but i needed to get out of there, so i'm home 12 hours later
bed ridden and drugged up

i guess i'm just relieved i caught it before it got serious, or before it burst
now i dont have to spend the rest of my life worrying if a pain on my right side is appendicitus

adjshakhs its been 36 hours w/o sleep
im gonna pass the fuck out

p.s. i spent some time listening to music, and i listened to the slam team cd carmen gave me
familiar voices kept my mind off the pain, and put a smile on my face
i cant wait to see you beautiful people again