Writing on the Bones @writingonthebones - Tumblr Blog

"How are you?"

What a strange greeting. What an exhausting courtesy. A simple "hello" would suffice. Because, to be frank, I don't care about your day or your ride to work or your cat's arthritis. And I'm pretty confident you don't care about my musings on societal norms.

Small talk pains me. Like an invisible chronic illness. Like goosebumps forming on the surface of my bones. I will announce my exit without segue because I cannot be bothered to learn the intricate dance of goodbye.

"I am going to walk away now." And that I do. "I am going to hang up now." And that I do. Sometimes prefaced with "I have to pee" to really drive home the urgency of my departure. Little do they know my bladder is empty! Haha. Hehe. I am so mischievous. I am so pleased with myself as I scurry away like a sewer rat into the darkness.

I have too many thoughts in my head. Too many ideas about one thing in particular. So I’ll write about today. My current state. It’s Saturday. Two days after Thanksgiving. I am going to a Friendsgiving tonight with people I haven’t seen in a long while. I’ve been trying to formulate a response to the inevitable questions of “how are you doing” and “what have you been up to?” I will fight against my nature and say something positive. Depression is not only exhausting to the one who experiences it. Today I will be thankful. For my physical health, albeit waning. For the memory of my dogs who I mourn every day. For the ability to suppress and drink and laugh and celebrate fleeting friendships. For the willingness of others to feign their support of a mukbang onlyfans during times of personal financial duress. Today I will set aside several hours to get ready. To look my best. To feel good about myself. Today I will make small talk and challenge political misgivings. Today I will drink myself into a quiet oblivion. As I do, inconsequentially, on many different occasions. It’s a quarter ‘til 3 and I’m wondering how and why I’ve adapted to this monumentally stupid way of saying 2:45. I feel tired, bloated, and alcoholic. I am smoking my third cigarette. I am, yet again, formulating ready responses to questions about my recent creative endeavors. So far, “I haven’t written shit” is my one and only answer. I can already picture the head tilts and looks of concern. Like a herd of confused dogs. Soon I will take a shower, blast music, and recount my money as if another $200 will magically appear for my landlord. I’ve done this several times within the last two days, like opening a fridge and expecting new and delicious food to magically surface. Tonight my anxieties will fall to the wayside. I will indulge in food and friendship, and solemnly nod my head in agreement when someone mentions the injustice of massacres and stolen land during a holiday of thanks. And tomorrow I will do it all over again in one way or another.

I think about my grandma a lot. Perhaps more than I should—but I don’t necessarily believe that. She is in most of my dreams. Consistently. And painfully, two years after her death. She is always healthy. In my dreams she is how I remember her. A fully formed person, cheeks flush with color. Nothing particular happens. We are at home. Not my home now, but where we used to live. Where I will always live in my dreams. We are not happy or sad. She is making breakfast. I am flying above skyscrapers. Or fleeing from assassins. Or watching adventures unfold from outside myself. She is my reality. She grounds me. Brings me back to earth in dreams where nothing else makes sense. She is sprightly. Walks steadily on two feet without wincing. She smiles, and I wake up. Sad, but relieved knowing I always choose to remember her that way. In my subconscious. Dreaming of her at her best. My source of comfort. It feels so real. The years before and after fade. They are less important. There she is. My abuela. Abby. There she will always be.

A response poem to “Frenzy” by Anne Sexton

I am lazy. I am on the opioid of the soul. I am, each day, typing out nonsensical garbage my iPad saves to the cloud. Very slow. Very dreary, like globby entrails left behind by slugs on their path to nowhere.

#Anne Sexton #poetry

I WANT TO BE

by Maia Mayor

I want to be well-read. I want to read Dostoevsky and Tolstoy and confidently pronounce their names. I want to read every book by every Russian author. I want to read all of the classics, the Pulitzer prize winners, the national bestsellers, the undiscovered contemporaries before their novels are turned into movies. Before they plaster the face of Blockbuster actors on every cover until I’d be too ashamed to buy it. I want to write notes in the margins of pages with thought-provoking insight, character motives, and plot devices. I want to read every single book on my bookshelf. I will stare at them all... until something happens. I will carefully trace the lines of every crease on every bind of every book, looking for a short cut, a way to read them all at once because I want to be well-read. I want to be smart. I want to know all of the things. I want my brain to be a complex work of art. I want to start now. I want to be well-rounded. I want to start playing violin again. I want it to sound beautiful and impressive and technically difficult. I want to re-learn how to read music and play Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 And I want to see your jaw hit the floor before I reach the grand finale, my fingers trembling, rough with calluses. But I don’t want calluses. I want soft, smooth hands to hold your hands after you fall in love with my undeniable musical talent. I want to be the first chair violinist in the LA Philharmonic. I will listen to youtube videos of classical violin until I am the first chair violinist in the LA Philharmonic. I want all of the knowledge sprouting from my fingertips, easy as the water drips when I let my arms hang like scarecrows in the shower. I want the power of now. I want to feel powerful. I want to be strong and healthy. I want a body that says I do 5 AM pilates every week day. I want to drink chia seeds and loose leaf green tea sweetened with agave nectar. I want to do bikram yoga and sweat out toxins in 105 degree heat. I wanna be hot. I wanna be hot and sexy. I will lay down in Savasana and sweat in 105 degree heat until I am hot and sexy. I will wear leg weights while I sleep until I wake up in peak physical condition, my body a temple made of concrete. Cause I want to be strong. I want to right my wrongs like poems. Find answers to life’s problems hidden in witty double entendres. I want to write witty double entendres that actually make sense so people can laugh at my ingenuity. I want to be funny. I want to be hilarious. I want to fill rooms with uproarious laughter that have guts busting faster than a Cracker Barrel feast. I want to be the little lad that loves berries and cream, berries and cream. I want to be David Sedaris reading Santa Land Diaries in a monotone stupor. I want to be Kylie Jenner realizing things and I want to be Nicholas Cage fighting bees in a legendary remake of The Wicker Man. I will emulate the entire history of pop culture until I am the funniest person in a 10 mile radius at any given time. Because I want to be hysterical. I want my personality to be incomparable and vast. I want to be boundless and uninhibited. Free from inertia and insecurity. I want to master the practice of self-acceptance and love. I want the confidence to be everything I never thought I was. I want to be everything I never thought I was. I want to be everything I never was.

#Spoken word poetry #slam poetry #Maia Mayor #poetry

Slugs

by Brian Swann

Who could have dreamed them up? At least snails have shells, but all these have is—nothing. Small black antennae like fat pins wave as if they could take in enough to get them through. Turn them over, they’re the soles of new shoes, pale and unmarked as babies. They flow, the soil itself learning how to move and, moving, almost staying still, their silver monorail the only evidence of where they’d been. And they die quiet, or at least (thankfully) out of the human ear’s range, between two stones, under heels, shriveling in salt or piss, at the tips of sharp sticks. Fight back, I hear myself say, do something. Don’t just take it. But they die as they had lived, exuding slime, like the smaller boys, who’d just stand there, miserable in short pants, school socks down to their ankles, school tie unknotted and askew, and flowing from noses slow cauls of snot that from time to time they’d lick or sniff back up part way, until it flowed again, coating the upper lip, falling into the mouth, mixing with tears before anything had been done, the fear itself enough, so even if we wanted we couldn’t let them off. Sometimes it was the knee “where you daren’t show your mother,” other times the kick in the shins, the stick over the head, the punch in the mouth, while they just stood there, or double up, gasping for breath, and we did it again.

#Brian Swann

Suicide Squad: A review you never asked for

Not gonna lie, I went into this movie two beers deep with no intention of watching it all the way through. We had been browsing HBO max for 45 minutes when someone decided SUICIDE SQUAD was the cat’s pajamas. The thing to watch. The chosen one. I like Marvel and DC and much as the next gal. Meaning, I’ve never seen any of them except Batman & Robin which was mercilessly shit on but was actually unequivocally the best superhero adaptation of all time (FIGHT ME). So to say I wasn’t a DC expert with a watchful, Roger Ebert eye would be....irrelevant.

This movie was trash. There’s no beating around the bush here. This movie was worse than I ever expected. Animal carcasses in Jeffrey Dahmer’s toolshed have stunk less. This movie was so bad I questioned all of my life choices that led to the moment I sat there, wide-eyed and oblivious like a newborn baby birthed into Trump’s America. And just like the actors probably thought on their endless Suicide Squad press tour — what a terrible time to be alive.

The movie starts off with a bang. Common walks into a club looking like an emo middle schooler dressed for Halloween (because that’s how they secretly wished to be seen). Jared Leto, in all his glory, instructs Common to have sex with his girlfriend for no discernible reason. He objects because he’s Common and—regardless of his campy garb—is too polite and respectful. The Joker then shoots him in the face because why NOT?!

I should also mention that Jared Leto has brazenly presented us with the worst Joker known to man. He’s normally a very talented actor which leads me to believe this is some sort of meta method technique on how to be your worst self. Idk.

Anyways, a lot of bullshit happens for the next hour and a half. An Australian slings his boomerang with a bogan Australian accent. “CRIKEY, MATE. LET’S THROW THIS WITCH ON THE BARBIE!” Viola Davis becomes evil and regrets her contract with Warner Bros. Cara Delevingne does a weird, sexual CGI dance while destroying the city with her hentai tentacles. And the crocodile man, who was given absolutely no character background or development, awkwardly crawls back into the flooded, swampy subway after delivering his one overtly racist line in AAVE. At the end of the movie Viola Davis sends everyone back to prison with meaningless perks. Harley Quinn shouts for an espresso machine followed by the crocodile man who literally requests “BET” and I am officially speechless. Let us also grieve for the sword-wielding Asian character whose name is Katana, whose sword is also a katana, whose husband is also her sword.

After an excruciating amount of time the credits roll and I can only assume the graphics, premise, and screenplay were developed by a teenage boy in his musty bedroom circa 2006. I feel less whole having watched it. I am disturbed by its success. May the lord have mercy on your souls.

And that concludes this review you never asked for. Good night.

#Suicide Squad

Stars

by Louise Glück

I’m awake; I am in the world — I expect no further assurance. No protection, no promise. Solace of the night sky, the hardly moving face of the clock. I’m alone — all my riches surround me. I have a bed, a room. I have a bed, a vase of flowers beside it. And a nightlight, a book. I’m awake; I am safe. The darkness like a shield, the dreams put off, maybe vanished forever. And the day — the unsatisfying morning that says I am your future, here is your cargo of sorrow: Do you reject me? Do you mean to send me away because I am not full, in your word, because you see the black shape already implicit? I will never be banished. I am the light, your personal anguish and humiliation. Do you dare send me away as though you were waiting for something better? There is no better. Only (for a short space) the night sky like a quarantine that sets you apart from your task. Only (softly, fiercely) the stars shining. Here, in the room, the bedroom. Saying I was brave, I resisted, I set myself on fire.

#Louise Glück

In a ziplock bag on the desk of my mother’s office I found my tooth And the heart-shaped Ariel ring I offered as a gift of thanks To the fairy who sent me half-dollar coins under my pillow.

One year I hoped to trick her — Found a broken trinket in the back Of my bathroom drawer resembling a tooth. But she could not be fooled. There it lay under my pillow the next morning.

She was too smart, that one.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

I want to be financially stable with a good credit score. I want to be sure that when I slide my card I won't have to pick and choose between fabric softener and avocados.

When I grow up, I want to be a tax payer and a sufficient home cook. I want to be an exerciser, who gets up early and runs toward nothing in particular because isn't that a beautiful concept?

It is Thanksgiving dinner — no it is a school reunion — no it is an initial meeting of my boyfriend’s parents where I am asked time and time again.

What are you doing? What do you want to pursue? Who do you want to be?

In kindergarten we were asked what we wanted to be, and had to dress accordingly. Lined across the stage were handcuffs, stethoscopes, glaring red helmets, and me in my halo and wings. I couldn't understand why everyone laughed when I said I wanted to be an angel.

“It’s hard to describe the feeling of fulfillment and emptiness being wrapped into one big blob of emotional instability. But that’s exactly how he makes me feel - at once loved and rejected in the same moment. And at all times.”

I don’t remember who I wrote this about. And I’m glad.

On letting go

It had been a year since I’d seen him. That morning I curled my hair, wore a new dress, shaved my legs for the first time in weeks knowing he wouldn’t touch them. Wanting still to look perfect. That morning I told myself I’d be fine. Sang songs in the shower. Rehearsed my lines for a play that occupied the rest of my life. Reminded myself that I still exist outside the realm of his daily thoughts. That I’d been my own person before and after I knew him. That I no longer knew him, that once I’d given him the last of his things we’d end the pleasantries and solidify our relationship as past tense. As distant memory. And that that was okay. We met at a rooftop bar that overlooked Los Angeles. I arrived early, ordered a $13 cocktail and nuzzled into a couch across a group of women sunbathing in their bikinis. I anticipated his judgement, his changed perspective on the lifestyle he’d left behind. Fortunately I no longer gave a shit about the pre-conceived notions that grew from greener pastures of Washington state. I felt the familiar warmth of sun beat down on my skin. I sipped my overpriced drink. I made no apologies. Our first interaction in a year was friendly and polite. A friendly, polite half-hug that you’d give to your second favorite co-worker. A “hi!” that meant, “I enjoy your company enough to be here.” I tried to remember our last interaction. How we said our goodbyes. If I knew it would be our last. What I was wearing. How he was feeling. If I was crying. A stale memory rendered insignificant by all accounts - now mirrored in our friendly, polite greeting. We sat across from each other with enough distance to feel awkward on a small couch in an intimate setting. He was wearing a beaded necklace from his six week trip to Nepal. His skin was ten shades darker than mine, after my triple layer application of self-tanner. I wondered how he managed to always find sun in a town that rained 85% of the time. He had grown back his facial hair and looked more like he did when we first met. I felt a tinge of sadness before a woman sitting near us interjected with questions about his trip to Nepal. I got up to use the bathroom, listening to his enthusiastic voice until it was far enough to blur into the background. I wanted to ask about his girlfriend. If they were happy. If they’d eventually get married. I wanted to ask him about his love life the way friends do. I wanted so badly to be his friend the way we promised we would after we broke up. I wanted to believe we’d still be in each other’s lives. That I’d still get drinks with his mom. That the most formative experiences of my young adult life would not amount to a casual wave hello and goodbye. Staring in the bathroom mirror for far too long, I wondered what turn of events had led me here. How meeting one person could change the direction of my life for years to come. The anomaly of chance, spotting a boy in a dog costume standing under a large, garish clown statue on Santa Monica Blvd among 500,000 other people on Halloween night. I laughed at the absurdity of fate and gathered my composure before heading back to join him. Once the night wore on, as he sipped the last of his one beer and I gulped down the rest of my third cocktail, we made our way to my car. As I reached for the last of his things I glanced at the wires sticking out of my passenger side door where the mirror once was. Where he knocked it off against a trash can driving down Laurel Canyon after a party. Where we laughed at our own reckless abandon before chucking it in the backseat and driving home. Where it still sat as I crouched over it to reach for his suitcase, peeking out from under the seat like an ironic symbol of my own self-destruction.

At last, we said our goodbyes, distant as the space that had grown between us, and once he’d turned the corner I sunk my head in my hands and cried until I had nothing left. I drove home, stripped off the tape and pins holding me together, smiled at the memories I had carried a long ways but had no use for anymore, and went to sleep knowing it was over. And that that was okay.

Bad Poetry Series: “Schooler Than You”

This was for an in-school campaign on high school graduation rates. My boss required me to find at least two other people to submit poem videos. So I wrote this in five minutes and made my friend record himself reading it. I’ve never laughed so hard. School was wack. I was under attack By a pack of wolves called textbooks. I smoked too much crack And lacked the brain cells to pass my tests. But I fought back with the help of my teachers. They smacked some sense into me and now I can read at a college level. I won sixth place at the school spelling bee, look at me I’m a winner can’t you see? My tuition is free with all these scholarships. I’m a baller. Feeling taller with all this confidence to keep my head up high. If I dropped out of school I would die. From too much crack. But crack is wack and my teachers have got my back. Now it’s ME who attacks textbooks. It’s ME who’s on top, dropping knowledge on fools who think they’re too cool for school. It’s a challenge every day but I’ll manage to graduate with straight A’s. And I have my teachers to thank for that.

#Bad Poetry Series #crack is wack

On being awkward

“Bless you,” I say to the woman holding open the door. I could’ve played it off as a polite gesture with good Christian intentions, but awkward people don’t think on their feet. They stumble over them with the dexterity of clumsy consumers in infomercials. If only there was an overpriced, useless kitchen gadget to rid me of my ineptitude. I’d buy it for four payments of $19.99 and whisk my way into frivolous small talk with ease. In the meantime my world exists entirely within the five seconds of awkward silence following a bad joke. I stammer, combine words into unintelligible gibberish, and snort suddenly and violently with the fervor of an uncontrollable fart. If social charisma were a muscle in the body, one you’d strengthen over time to hold conversation with, mine would be atrophied. A deteriorating slab of rotting tissue that fell from the bone like ash from a cigarette. I am only getting weaker. Unable to pull my weight in a game of witty repartee, I use hollow laughter as my only retort. I am a vacuous cave of echoed thought, dim and continuously dwindling in confidence. But what I lack in conversational skills, I gain tenfold in passive aggressive body language. For instance, an aloof chin tilt and slight turn of the shoulders would mean: “I am no longer interested in talking about the weather and will likely walk away soon.” This comes in handy when I find myself cornered by middle-aged extroverts at social engagements—e.g., weddings, reunions, thanksgiving dinners. Unfortunately, this does not work well on the phone. And if I’ve asked whomever is on the line to repeat themselves more than once, I will almost certainly pause and respond with “yes” or change the subject as if I’m not the slightest bit concerned with what they said. As I age, I am confronted by the fact that social skills are much like driving skills, in that they don’t noticeably improve with time. It’s as if we were born designated to a modicum of certain capabilities, fateful drawbacks chosen carefully by the gods: “here shall John always stumble; there shall Jane’s heart always break.” But by accepting my own limitations, my own awkwardness, (and perhaps my inability to parallel park) I am essentially admitting defeat, alienating myself from a rich and colorful world full of potential friendships, experiences, and parking spaces.

#Margaret Atwood

The Introduction of Fall

by Maia Mayor

The introduction of Fall brings with it an overwhelming sense of anxiety The sun sets much too quickly now And I feel like I am running out of time Out of breath Grasping at rays of sunlight sliding past the horizon Like hours were tangible Something I could hold between the palms of my hands and save like second chances

Next month will be my birthday I will wish on lidded blue flames for sunshine and lost time For summers’ past where I embedded broken sea shells in wet sand, Crafting temporary monuments of childhood frivolity until the shoreline cast them away

Now let us clap in congratulations for the twenty-four year old with nothing left to show us.

#poetry #spoken word

It seems only yesterday I used to believe there was nothing under my skin but light. If you cut me I could shine. But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life, I skin my knees. I bleed.”

— On Turning Ten, Billy Collins

#Billy Collins

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