Bailyraee's blog

What to do with my body when I die

I want the heart cut out of my body.

I want my heart buried on Duffy Road, a scenic road behind my house I use to run away to when I was little. I used to circle the silo at the end of street ranting to myself about whatever I was running away for. I would watch the sunset mimic my anger cooling. I want my heart buried in front of the farm with the one white horse. My heart is always feeling back to Duffy road.

I want my head to be cut off my body.

I can be patient.
I can be patient.

My heart will be
camel-backed,
with a love-laden abscess
between the shoulders.
Gently cradling
small doses I can sip safety from
every few miles,
so I don’t run out
of you.

I can be patient;
with concrete
cracked in toasts to age
under my feet.
Acting like
desert sand,
and I’ll be damned
down to
the fiery pits
of what leaving you resembles
if I don’t make it across.
If one fraction of a drop
is evaporated or lost.

But I can be patient.
I can be patient,
and I have confidence
In the air’s understanding.

It’s the quintessential longing,
leaving hands occupied
lacing
fingers with fingers
and pens.
And you silly dreamers,
getting lost on lawns again
where grass is greener
where you’re going
or where you’ve been..

But my blades are flashing
emerald like envy baby.
This patch is promising
root-deep stability and
the surprise that still generates
every time my foot hesitates
to touch down
on such a forgiving ground that
rises up every time
to meet me.
Causing earthquakes so sweetly.

It’s that quintessential detail.
When your fingers
become frames,
when your chest

What I’m preying for
Is that my abnormalities
will be
my savior.
My attention deficit
is just a prerequisite
to the temporary,
to the bipolar constants,
to you-
As consistent as a hot July rain,
or the reasoning of the insane.
Or the existence of god,
the kind that’s resurrected through lightening rods.
Brought back to a new fresh apocalypse.
Pulling out the stops
so it’s easy to get caught up in this
time line base line.
He’ll be handing out your subliminal signs,
listing sins and your hard time.

Yes I’m preying for this protestant
A returning churning

You'll find me pushing pollen
and planted problems
in summer breezes
that forecast an autumn
that comes every year
but manages to keep
that element
of surprise.
You'll find me in solid skies
In nagging questions
and I wonder why's
that pull at your hello happenings
and frame your gracious goodbyes.

You'll find me steeping in hot water
bleeding shades of the lessons I'm learning
in perfect placed steam
that leaves the air churning
in an overcast dream.
Always suspecting rain
you'll find me on the paper's plane.
Dancing in lines that draw up
my angle.

I sit and fidget
with the last three mistakes
I have made.
And think about a bedroom,
and how it can turn into a cave
that can swallow you whole
and still manage
to leave you in pieces.
And think about your smile
that turned from padded lips
to overlapping creases,
that can curve
but never laugh
like they do
before they meet glass.
It's a trap.
It's a trap.
I sit and fidget
with the clattering of dishes
As the clink of wine glasses
send symphonies absently
of vacant possibilities.
Pulling sirens down from cupboard shelves
to fill with problems that know

There are no stitches between
my thoughts on you
and my thoughts on love.
They flow out seamless
in thin sheets
rolled out over reality
so my sorry sleep stays dreamless.
It's about time
my eyes were open
to see you.
Because I need someone
to sing backwards
to reiterate the reasons
I dance forward
to the beat of the seasons.
So I understand
why I stand
where I do.
I move to stay balanced with you.
Across teeter totter high ways
and roads that undo
the insides of eyelids
or popcorn ceilings.
Because they are not the appropriate venues
for the feelings I am feeling.

Airplane

Flying above the ocean
I dreamt of my life
exactly the same.
Except someone had ransacked my brain
left it simple to explain
exactly where I was
and why.
Left me with a goal to get to before I die,
My life purpose in piles
I could sift through.
My meaning was in the ice cubes
I could sip through.
As the flight attendant
refilled my presence
So I stayed grounded.
Wouldn’t want
heaven to be found if
we were already so close.
Cloud swept wing tips
could bring many things if
you really wanted to go up
you just had to go down.
But my dream was destroyed

In the time it takes for me to soak in every slick droplet of your substance that could
find someway
to develop
a sense of absorbency

I lose my capacity to hold that much water
and crucial parts of your
soul and
heart and
smile

are lost and
dropped from my shaking hands as I
struggle to scrape every parcel
from the undeserving earth.

But then the air turns water,
and my sponge-like consistency is overwhelmed
as the pool of your
thoughts and
beliefs and
eyes
escape like wisps of smoke,
like framed prisoners,
that had lost their
faulty sentence

Prickles under the skin
spike predicaments that begin
with restrictions and ways to win
if you are willing to cheat
And bask in the heat
of a feeling that wasn't earned
The scorch of love
without the burn

like the one pulsing under my ribs
as a disease calls dibs
on nerve endings
and the time I'm spending
nursing them back
to my side.

Around the wounds I have to hide
the way your conscience has to hide
when it called mercy before you gave in
and found itself outside the binge
you consumed
until it had no room
to slink back
into your chest.

What I need is rest

I was running down the interstate again.
The trail of red lights promised me there was places to go and I followed, star-struck by their greater presence. Vehicles so threatening I mistook them for god. I was breathing in their exhaust to sanctify my soul when when was hit.
Somebody get this girl an ambulance!
Dangerous habit chasing traffic, look what its done to her.
Chasing cars s'got nothin' to do with it boys.

Sometimes
when I talk I just want to make noise.
And when I walk
I don't have to be anywhere.

And when I want to cry
I think about little boys
that never seem
to care like I care.

And when I cry and want to stop
I think about you a lot.
You are the puddle
that I jump
when I'm six years old.

The stories I was told
the milk and cookies
that shook me
from present problems
peeling purity
out of my palms

You are my tiara
that wouldn't stay on.

My dot
of a red balloon
on a clear night sky.

And the fact that I lost you
wasn't the reason I would cry

My Biggest fear
is that when looked at too closely
everything
will lose its value.

And we will all be going along and you will find people you love and you will be happy and there in your life and you will think the world is beautiful from the perspective you have achieved.
And then he will place his gentle hand on the small of your back-
apply pressure,
whisper,
“Now this is all nice and grand but we really should be moving along now. Places to go.”

Places to go.

Road. Snow. Air. Tree.
Slap in the face.
What the hell?
I believe after this point I was in a daze. Staring at my ripped open steering wheel. The deflated air bag coated me like a thick heavy blanket, one that could only be considered comfortable in this situation.
I was dumbfounded by the quiet. Taken by surprise by the contrast between the serene view of the mountains and the sickening panic that was taking over my brain.
Gas off. Seat belt off. Door pushed once, twice, three times before cracking enough for me to crawl out of my injured jeep.

Our plastic bottles carry all that we stand for,
lining the interstate five lanes wide
without a soul to see
but catch it and its free.
And you can stick it inside,
or put it in your TV
to watch other people be
and other people live.
With their houses they couldn't build
and their money they wouldn't give

to the sad sap singing them highway blues
with a fuzzy kind of truth
stuck somewhere in his throat.
We don't need some kind of savior
we need a scapegoat
because our towers of people
and our towers of trash
will give us all plastic bottles
to drink down our backlash

Our passion wasn't animalistic.
It was artistic.
We weren't trying to escape morality
just reality.

He wasn't giving me closure
just keeping my composer
wedged into the crowded cracks in the lonely lives
the walks to the car, the silent drives

the dabbles of his presence scattered without pattern
no absence
the length
of the one
before.

Circling me like a tiger or the rings of Saturn
touching down
when I decided
I didn't want anymore.

I realize I'm a hobby.
Not a habit
or fixation.
words slipped
a lost kiss
when their should have been
hesitation.

It's perfect outside.
I can't see my breathe but the chill keeps my spine strait. Keeps my alive and present as I wind down the mountain roads that lead me home. The roads that are lined with a snow that is acceptable, glittering in the fields, unable to chill my feet, safe in my almost-warm car.
It's perfect outside.

But only in February is this okay.

I trip over the reasons that keep me caring
As I'm stuck staring
At my reflection-turned-painting-turned-death-sentence
My warnings-turned-past-tense
turned roses that wilt
turned into love that's turned into guilt

Since everything turns into another something
and the consistency brings
skeletons in closets
--and mirrors
and things
that cause friction
when rubbed against skin too soft
finding things that were lost
--under pieces of you that were lost
so it equals out.
Oh, the things you can live without
before you realize that there's something you're missing.

The news is awful lately. If they’re not talking about Martin Luther whatever Day, It’s the Haitians. It’s making my ears bleed.
My mother winced at her dinner plate. I sat in a thick silence as I reminded myself why I was where I was. Sitting a cross from the legend herself, I was on a mission of discovery. An opportunity for a thorough analysis. This weekend was a microscope lens; the organism under observation, my grandmother's wrath.
The choice of my grandmother’s conversation starters made about as much sense to me as her plaid tube top. As it wrinkled and folded her chest into its polyester confinements, it clashed relentlessly with her faux-leather vest. But all was not lost, the deep shade of magenta managed to accent the color of her bloody marry quite nicely, along with the hue of my cheeks as I blushed, embarrassed by the ignorance I had descended from.
And I said 'Tips? You're getting paid by the restaurant! You want my hard earned money too?' Cheep scam artists.
We were quite the threesome, my mother, dearest grandma and I. Myself, letting my eye brows rise and fall with every slur uttered about every minority I've been taught to respect. My mom, sipping her wine from her coffee mug, in some twisted form of denial that I might not know what shes drinking. And the saint herself, letting out every evil thought that's been birthed somewhere deep in the bowels of her corrupted mind.
But that abstruse head of hers was the reason I had agreed to this three-day weekend visit in the first place. It was not because I had taken up a sudden interest in gaudy knick-knacks. I had not acquired a new taste for lumpy milk as I watched a gourmet meal being prepared for her dog. I had not temporarily lost my sanity, deciding for a split moment that it was perfectly justifiable to keep the inside of a cabin in northern Vermont around two degrees warmer than the outside. Laying in bed, I watched my breath float up to the ceiling in clouds as I reminded myself of my original motivation.
Heating bills aren’t worth my time, and a cold house protects from mold, you know, so smarten up.
In reality, I was curious. My grandmother made her living as a live-in nurse for all of her life. She cared for cancer patients. With a career that required a heart of gold, her demeanor and reputation contradicted all that one would assume of a live-in nurse. Stories growing up between my mother and her siblings had hinted at wickedness I had grown an intense desire to witness first hand. Abandonment, abuse, absence—offenses that led to the resentment of her children that led to the isolation of her grandchildren that lead to the nagging curiosity I needed fed by these three freezing days. Where was this magnificent heart? Was I at fault for being incapable of picking up on this compassion? All I could sense was an unmistakable negativity, and she knew I could sense it, as she clicked her thick acrylics on the counter-top, but I wasn’t so sure she knew that I was aware of the pain she inflicted on my mom and aunts and uncles. Even if I hadn't heard of her wickedness, She did herself no favors.

And I looked at him, and I could just tell he was one of those, those homos, just by the way he stood there.

How on earth she could be so judgmental, after all the mistakes she had made? After all the suffering she had caused without so much as an apology? I could tell by the remarks she made she was insecure. How she sucked down those long skinny cigarettes. How every room in the house was filled with cheap clothes. How her sink filled up with celery stalks and tall red-rimmed glasses. Her mistakes had eaten her alive. She was alone in her big, cold house. And I, in my vengeful adolescent spirit, felt a kind of righteous satisfaction because of it. This was why I was here. I wanted to see the source of my mother’s tragic soul, the inspiration behind her empty wine bottles. I wanted to make sure that inspiration was in pain. I was just as bad as my grandmother.

Well I think that Michelle Obama is a floozy! I mean, just look at Tiger Woods!
--Maybe not just as bad. In fact, I scared her a little. I took comfort in that fact as she shuffled around my obvious predicaments. I was glad she couldn’t feel comfortable enough to offer support or advice, anything to widen the space between generations. I offered small hints that I was quite aware there was a battle I was fighting in my childhood, and watched them twist into her recollections of the pain she caused her children. I was evil, hanging this aged woman from her ankles and torturing her like a spiteful tyrant. I had had enough.
The air stood thick, when I finally stopped pretending to laugh along with my mother at grandma's cute little rants. Not without digression of my disgust did I excuse myself from the room and went off to bed, coughing loudly at the cigarette smoke. Satisfaction rose up inside of me as I heard the brief but substantial-and only- pause in my grandmother's complaining the entire night. My door shut loudly and her voice grew muffled, but I could make out the inquiring tone, and my mothers attempt to explain my sudden self-removal from the cheery era triplets.

Hmmm so that one has a temper on her hm? Must take after her Grandpa..
This woman would live with cancer patients, carrying them through the last of their days, while providing comfort for their families. My mother was always jealous of the love grandma showed these strangers. They thought she was a godsend, a sweet old woman with a spit-fire sense of humor. She worked and slaved for these people she didn’t know until they were gone. Maybe it was the lack of commitment. Maybe the expiration date on the receivers of her love was what made it okay for her to give it. I think that was the most flawed thought pattern my grandmother had. Beyond her homophobic, racist, cheap mindset, she couldn’t show affection if it meant long term, and in an end result, it shook her family two generations deep. I suppose she was afraid of being hurt. Her coldness was a defense tactic, within her home and her heart. I refuse to accept such a fate. No matter how many times my heart is broken, my trust taken advantage of, or my back-stabbed, I will keep my heart open and accepting. Those three days provided insight and a life goal. I am determined that loneliness will skip my generation.

Dedicated to an inspiration across the country

You were running down the interstate again.
The trail of red lights promised you there were places to go and you followed, star-struck by their greater presence.
Vehicles so threatening you mistook them for god.
You were breathing in their exhaust to sanctify your soul when when you were hit.

And I awoke again
choked by scalding sheets
sneakers still tied to my feet,
reminding me
where they've never been.
Reciting routes around the dusty floors
of your epidemic mind,
kicking at the doors
of the walls I hide behind.

I was 12 years old when I first met the farm at the end of Duffy Road. Since then we fell in love, and it has saved my life on numerous occasions.

It was Easter morning four years ago. The haze that I see when I picture it now probably wasn't actually there -- I've never seen that kind of fog outside my dreams and distant memories -- but it gives the setting a mythical quality I must have subconsciously created for dramatic effect, to honor the significance, the importance of the moment.

After the seventeenth time I heard you tell that joke, I swung my locker door as hard as I could into your beautiful face.
No I didn't. But I wanted to more than I ever wanted to hear you say that you loved me.

First crack at prose. Suggestions appreciated.
I'm not putting in an honest effort.
I'm embarrassed and eternally grateful at the same time for your exertion. As you pick up the scraps of my halfhearted mumbles, trying your hardest to manipulate them into meaningful conversation, I study my fingernails. Waiting for forgiveness to grow out of my cuticles and wondering how someone who seemed so good could make me hate them so much. The tension seems to sink to the heavier side of the car, and you choke on it along with all the other baggage you always seem to be drowning in.

They'll leave us alone.

We'll be filling things that are hollow
like the earth like our bones.
Fabricating fevers to melt our snow.
Freezing our fetuses and making them glow.
So later they can grow
into a savior we'll never know
in my head he's declaring we're dead
some kind of born-again cynic

Wielding a stun gun
that's making me sick.
Begging for an escort
to the caved-in-snow-fort
h1n1 clinic
that's melting under the
automatic doors
of the theoretical thrift stores.
So I can't get in.

And selling soulless satisfaction
Is such a deadly distraction.

Coffee-run show-times of my retinas provide
a view of the inside
overcast with purple bags
that will last the morning
and just long enough for you to see.
Yes this is what you to do me.
With the deprivation
of a solid sanctity
despite my life worth sleeping.
I can't forget where I've been.
Despite my mind worth keeping
I have misplaced it again.
And it always contrasts
with your logical love songs
that never last
longer than an echo that retracts
to the back
row seat of my microscope glass
biopsy
So you can see
Yes this is what you do to me

My accuracy is appalling,
and I laugh in spite of myself
as I hit the barricades set up to
protect my personal health.
Head on.
Dead wrong.
The outer rings of the bulls eye
becoming the circles I trace,
stumbling around your feet
trying to dance through an air
that's being twisted by the heat.

And there's a river crossed the road.
But only at this angle;
when we lay together it's a waterfall.
And I can't dance when my feet dangle,
so my target is gone..
But my aim was off anyway.
And if I just go to sleep
I can wake up and swim sideways

Freshly painted
finely pressed
clean-cut
well-dressed
horrible lover
that loved me best.
Who gave me sticks and stones to build my home
and words that will never desert me.
Whose trance-like trains
of thought trickle from my tainted brain
and they got prickles
prancing up my spine
cleaning out my cluttered mind
tarnishing my silver lines
that are tracing
the dream clouds encasing
the images of memories
I waste so much energy erasing.
Somehow they still find some way
to sink into my unconscious state.
Making reality go up for debate

Freshly painted
finely pressed
clean-cut
well-dressed
horrible lover
that loved me best.

sugar-hearted
candy coated
higher authority
freshly demoted
to the artificial taste
i used to sweeten bitter days
just to dissolve away
it would never linger
on pursed lips
waiting for more
than a fake taste bud trip
that just leaves my throat sore.

And you should know
he left me withered and warn
to the edges of my physical form.
with nothing left untouched
except the growing brush
in my head
pleading forgiveness
and a path to be trotted down

It's amazing.

How small a sample I was slipped
could be dubbed intangible by its insignificance
But with a pungeant persistance
a flavor that travels distance
it had an after-taste
i could almost trace
with my finger
one ment to linger
through hardened hearts and weather changes
letting me lead the graces
at a table where i was thankful for the strangest
variety of things

like words meant to sing
like cell phone coverage and empty lofts

that turn over tendencies
I never realized i forgot

like that a heart can be a stone
and then learn to feel soft

Trance-like trains
of thought trickle from my tainted brain
and they got prickles
trampling up my spine
cleaning out my cluttered mind
tarnishing my silver lines
that are tracing
the dream clouds encasing
the images of memories
I waste so much energy erasing
because somehow they find some subliminal way
to sink into my unconscious state
to remind me of the things I hate
because I love them so
no I haven't let you go
you can't blame me though
when every night there's nothing to stir me
from the images that have such intended fury
I stay under, without a hope