drafts for poetry reading
Master of the Self-Sabotage
I throw rotting red fruit from the stands,
when the actress does poorly,
or when she does well.
I tell her go home,
get a life,
stop living through
elaborate masks,
old, worn, costumes,
everyone sees through her disguise.
And even when convinced,
I know she knows the truth.
I wrote to you,
friend,
sang to you,
I told you everything I thought
you'd need to know.
I laid out a history of
my own mistakes,
and you have no caution.
Dear, I tried to tell you,
and this is my greatest skill,
the only thing I've mastered, Love, is
procrastination and self-sabotage.
I'm great at it, you see,
The solution always seems,
remove the disguise,
the last second,
take the rose-tinted glasses from your eyes,
look at me in every dark and blinding tone,
assess me without shielding yourself
from the danger that you're in.
There are no UV-rays from me,
but it's been said, that
one may get burned when playing with fire.
Blazes get out of hand,
ravage the land that a
tiny match might touch,
and it might enter the theatre,
where the actress takes the center stage,
and it seems the ceiling opened up,
the gasoline she left on the rafters will fall,
and all will go up in flames.
Oh yes,
I see you in the front seats,
and you were watching her.
I'm sorry you got into this.
It seems we'll all get burned.
“selfcentricpersonalhistorydocumentarianemptyshallowmovealongnothingtoseehere”
some things don’t need to be remembered,
some things don’t need to be remembered,
some things don’t need to be remembered.
there are strangers in the world,
these long digital lines.
and mine, and oh god, mine.
dozens of websites, applications,
endless, endless, endless
“i am here, i am here i am here i am here”
i say too much to anyone who meets me for the first time,
and anyone who gets close enough,
will always know. will always know too much.
i cannot keep a single secret,
and if you were to dig, you’d find them all.
and the moment finally has come–
do i ask for this all of the time?
the narcissism isn’t an ailment of the place and time
i am a mass of static surrounding
and i hold all my history,
and it is all easy to see.
the mess, the massive mess
it’s all here, it’s all here
but what have i for anyone
i want to call myself shallow
what drives me to share, to share so, so, so much.
and i share what they’ve shared
and i look on in fascination,
at real life and groups of others
as if they were not just friends
but a human history soon to be discovered by others,
as if there are films and novels
to deconstruct these old habits of mine.
i do not need to keep every thing
i do not need to keep every thing
i do not need to keep every thing,
i do not need the poetry,
i do not need the blog posts,
i don’t need the old photographs
i don’t need this enhanced memory.
documentation has existed for long, long times,
and if these connections collapse,
for all these things to die,
than artifacts several thousands of years old.
i have it all, the catalogue
even the ones in the images
may not see it all so clearly,
and it is so easy to select them all
to remove all these traces;
i can track exact moments
i can track exact minutes.
—what did you even want to know?
“listening to Father John Misty often makes me remember these things” (2 parts)
1. “gender roles as drunk artists”
“He’s a genius”
he’s not a genius, he’s an asshole.
white hipster man with an ego,
acutely aware,
acutely aware of his shit but
putting it out there just so.
just so.
and if you’re a narcissist in a certain way,
people recognize you as an Artist ™.
in comparison, he’s probably not so bad,
not as bad as john lennon,
so far as being a man and a musician and a man involved with women
a man who hurt women. an abusive man.
not as bad as the famous men with their teenage girlfriends,
not as bad.
i guess i don’t know it all;
guarded misogyny with self-deprecation.
if only i could compose songs
if only i could write music,
i’d be up there with the best/worst of them.
and him.
him.
mostly his friends were sick of him that time,
but not enough–there was no criticism,
only his life
only the need to save that life again, again, again.
and his one friend told me that i fucked up,
that i took advantage of him;
and now that she knows better, she feels too awkward to look at me.
and i, i, i
i was in the search party.
i was there that night he came back to town,
i walked over stoned at our friend’s request,
suddenly paranoid,
i sat on the edge of that mattress
and our friend tried to sleep in the other room before his flight
and i tried to keep convincing him
all that i tried to convince him of
and it wasn’t over, it wasn’t over.
and me,
i was just as absorbed
i had just as much obsession,
just as much love,
just as much fear.
he was no monster
and who cared, no one really knew
and if anyone else questioned,
they kept it to their goddamn selves,
because i am Dysfunctional Woman,
I am apt to exaggerate, to lie (I actually never have in these terms), to manipulate.
my drunkeness is crawling into bed with friends,
my drunkeness is tears and shouting,
my drunkeness is your couch,
a running mouth.
my drunkeness is calling
to tell you I slept with your ex and I’m in love with you,
telling all my old friends that I’m cutting in the bathroom and I’m getting suicidal.
you telling me,
“Get real help and don’t put that on me!”
Dysfunctional Man,
“sensitive” man,
he can do it all alone,
and sing it for you later;
he gets your hand on his shoulder always.
he is excused.
both our self-pitying, our self-flagellation
frustrates others,
but mine is venomous,
mine is attention-seeking;
god-forbid i need someone to take me seriously;
both of us demand our pain be seen.
which leads to women’s rejection by her friends,
yelling matches with other femmes,
and men’s friends will keep on panicking,
will keep on trying
to tell him,
“You’ll be okay, goddamnit, get it done!”
we’ll keep you in the room upstairs if you can get clean within the month
but your fucking girlfriend’s not allowed here.
she’s trouble,
he’s troubled.
she’s hopeless,
he’s just gotta get his shit together,
he’s gotta get his shit together.
we are archetypes.
hysterical woman,
tragic man.
those teenage girls bear criticism,
women artists can’t go one day without a comment on their appearance,
judgment on sexuality;
and i saw our differences in one dark basement apartment one night,
and i saw how similar we were in that same dark basement apartment,
why didn’t i just leave the light on?
would it have made a difference?
i felt how he took power
with his hands, with his hands,
and how i take power,
with words and hands.
how he played guitar to make a point to girlfriends,
how i shot my poetry at my ex to make a point,
how he took power
how he took power with his hands
how i took power with mine,
thumbs on a keypad,
carefully-aimed self-destruction.
and before he said those devastating words
that made me cry the last time,
that motivated him to stop, to finally fucking stop,
i saw myself in him, i saw myself in him, i saw myself in him;
that morning after, i saw myself in him.
and he saw himself in me.
he saw himself in me,
he saw himself in me.
that’s why he called the first time.
and our friends can only see us
as one,
or the other.
and we are more similar
than anyone could understand,
and i planted myself in him
as much as he did me,
with my drunken phone calls
with my unloaded sadness,
he said that’s what he wanted originally;
he reached out to carry someone,
much like i may one day when i reach the point again.
and we hear each other more than anyone
could understand.
hysterical woman,
tragic man,
anima and animus.
we are symbols
and individuals.
and with many i’ve talked to
about recognizing humanity
in every human
and that is so;
we possess so much of the same.
we suffer so much of the same
of people who are like us
as much as we are individual
as much as we are separate.
we are shadow.
we are light.
and the crowds that hear my poetry
will hear it with me as a woman in their eyes,
even though my gender is not fully my assignment,
and the crowds that hear his music
will hear it with a man in their eyes.
i have shocked so many to silence,
and he has driven so many to tears
because we are Poets
and we have lyric gifts
we can use
to sow destruction or illustrate beauty,
and i will always be questioned by many;
he will always be adored,
by at least several.
for better or worse,
i will be one of them.
—-
2. “it is simpler and more complicated than that”
none of these words are fair,
none of them are complete
in this sequence,
but the stinging of abandonment
and the horror in flight
brings them forth from within to without.
we have both gotten lectured
for going out and doing what we felt was right
when we lived in family’s houses,
when we lost track of time.
we have felt limited
and fearful;
dysfunctional people.
moody and defensive,
and i fear,
i fear, i fear,
being discussed like someone whose siblings write memoirs about when they die.
the fear is so visceral
it makes me leave my body
question for days.
and it was that first transcendent voice that first time,
that makes me know.
shadow and light,
one side to another;
this is all i can say about binary gender.
i identify with girlfriends past in guitarmen’s songs
and with those men themselves.
i think those girlfriends are reduced,
never the three dimensions they are as humans in lyrics,
and the men are assholes,
but their obsessive pain is pain nonetheless.
and i am both.
and i know i have caused suffering but i don’t know it the way
those have suffered by me do,
but i know how i have suffered by me intimately.
and the people i write about
are never the three dimensions they are as humans
in my lyrics.
i am an asshole,
an emotional exhibitionist
and emotional voyeur.
and believe others deserve more compassion than i;
depressive narcissist.
and we are doing what we can to improve,
we are moving along a timeline,
dysfunctional people.
there is a darkness that wants to take us all,
and we cannot turn off the TV in the background that is the chatter of our sabotaging brains,
but we can stay on-task,
keep folding laundry, keep sweeping the kitchen,
ignore the urge to distract.
or ought we watch?
ought we see
what programming was so carefully crafted for our attention,
and the work of life is a denial?
Prayer to My Best Friend
“warmth”
we can’t lie and watch the l word anymore in that bed,
the spare hospital bed in your garage
because we get too close, we get too close, we get too close
but i need someone near me
who loves me, who cares about me, who gives me the truth about myself in all sorts of ways but
you have needs, too,
you do, too.
we made an agreement and
i said i wanted em to make an agreement with me, too,
but e is just too flaky
“I want different things at different times.”
i probably misinterpreted what e meant by that,
and now no reply no reply no reply for close to a day
but i refuse to overthink it
not today I won’t let my thoughts weave like a silk web,
gradually spinning until it engulfs me. not today.
but when i left your house,
before 6 this morning this time,
at two i turned the heat on in the car so I could remember warmth
for when i would come home and sleep alone again.
it’s been too long too eventful a year
i woke up anxious about money
my friend will pay me back sometime,
sometime but i need a budget and
you said we were family you, him, your little girl, me and
I pushed her stroller as the sun came out just at sunset,
illuminating the clouds in shades of tiger lilies,
Lining the greyest ones in cornflower blue and she babbled,
one tiny blonde head in the seat in front of me,
the wheels turning on the wooden bridge like the quietest train and
you, and him, behind us,
chatting and smiling and just as beautiful.
and the feeling of you around me,
i quiet the feeling of guilt in your tone in my head
and don’t allow it to peak in my own
because you are warm and you are light
and you are close, too close,
but I have to remember warmth, the deeper, the richer, the healthier sleep i get when I lie beside someone i am in sync with.
warmth. today I’ll think of you as my blanket last night,
and no threads of irrational terrorthought will suffocate me today.
i will think of warmth.
“energy”
(and i told you I’m working on myself and every defensive “but i am!” is true
but today I’ll do that, too
I’ll try my usual best not to live for others
but i won’t promise that when the day ends,
I’ll have been most comforted by you
by the people i haven’t lost in the energy vortex of my last several months.
thank you for what you gave me
thank you for all you give
you could rule a universe and
you do, you do, you rule yourself
you are not a hurricane,
you are a human being, a woman,
and you create and create
and energy cannot be destroyed
you create warmth because you are kinetic and
I need to move not to drown
thank you for being here, holding me, telling me.
i hope my aura is cleansing,
or complimentary to you,
not tarnishing to you,
thank you for being my warmth, the energy i needed.)
06-29-2015 poem
swimming
go out that far
feel it
the tension
rising and falling
for some reason, i wanted to sing a mountain goats song
so i sang it to myself, quietly
and you felt so many thoughts
and feelings passing
in your swim out there.
i remember rivers on church trips
walking out too far,
swimming too slow
hands reaching out to mine,
soaking my clothes
life flashing before my eyes just like they said
heart racing,
considering “is this the end?”
hiking on these mountains staring at the unstable trees seeing the height
wondering
“what happens if I fall?”
they say mdma helps with the end of life
they say it’s human and natural to stand on the edge and contemplate
but those times
the mountain rivers
the streams where the local children played to escape the heat
moving fast, moving fast, fast, fast, too fast
gripping rocks, gripping hands,
the water pulling pulling pulling just behind me
coming out in a gasp of air, thanking god for my life.
i kept asking you to save me from the river
i kept shrieking for your hand as i barely kept from getting swept away
and you gave me what you could but i didn’t realize you were in the water, too
bobbing up and down
cracking your jaw on the rocks
i kept relying on you
to keep me from drowning while you did the same
weights on your ankles
you would go deeper
you would go deeper
deeper, deeper, deeper
no one else can pull me out
no one else can pull you out
no one else can pull us out
you are facing more than I could ever know
i am the biggest threat to myself
i am still irritable and anxious and agitated
when my mom asks me what I’m going to do when i get home
to write a budget
and how can she and my dad help me?
i didn’t hear you so many times
i laid beside you overwhelmed
you stayed silent
you are quiet and stoic about the serious
“Crack a joke, post-stoicism”
do you remember the night we were both depressed, I cried, you turned off the light, I asked you to hold me
you had to ask me to leave all the time
drowning, drowning
you were weighted with a secret
i wasn’t letting myself carry what I had needed to carry alone the whole time
i was throwing stones at everyone
i was begging them to help me
but I wanted your hands the most
i wanted you to take those stones in your hand
caress them, observe them, know them
hold them for me and with me
guide me, center me,
reach into the river from above me and pull me out
but all i did was increase your weight
make your secrets more secret
you couldn’t pull me out
so when I pleaded for you
to get me out of the current
i was asking you to keep drowning.
it’s different now,
I’m out, and you tell me where you are.
but the edge of the river
is thin and it’s damp
and it’s always raining on this mountain
it’s hard to keep from falling in again
it’s hard to keep from slipping again
and you
you have more and more and more
and we don’t even know the enormity
quite yet
i want to be there
i want to be there
but i want to keep my hands free
i want to keep you from getting soaked
and if i fall in again, I want to be able
to get myself out again
I know I ought not to cry for you anymore
i just want to keep my hands free.
i just want
To be in peaceful waters with you
in the sunlight
silent,
content
i just want the open lake
children’s laughter
peaceful waters,
not too deep,
we can be on our knees with no threat of drowning
we can move if we want
or rest
in that infinite moment.
and the sun is no threat, but a comfort
i want us both to be free
all i want now is happiness for you and me,
you reached out a few times to me,
i stayed as open as I could.
i want to stay,
i want to,
no screaming, no waterfalls, no grasping at sticks and stones and other flailing arms,
i want to keep my hands free.
