Daily Read

I just lied.

I'm sitting with my arms around my chest, wishing I hadn't given in. He looked so happy, so pretty, not a minute ago; what went wrong? I must've said something, must've triggered the explosion, why else would he raise these bruises on my face? On my back? My mask probably slipped, this isn't like him. But I told him I was fine. I told him he was forgiven. I told him all these things and he turned around, he said he couldn't look at me anymore.

I lied this morning, too.

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.

Up here
On the top of the world
There’s nowhere to go
But down
The blood pounds
The light drowns
And all I can hear
Is you
And your heavenly
Sounds
Way up here
On the tippy top
Where all I can see
Is below
Where the feelings grow
Where the words flow
Where all I have
I bestow
On you
And when I’m above
When I’m here on top
All I can do
Is be
No more mediocrity
Or satisfactory
Because for you
I decree
To be better
Up in the sky
Way over my worth
I see more
And know more
And feel more
It heats
My core
You are
My lure
And I can tell
I can tell
What you have

What is the difference between us?
It's not our skin color.
It's not our hair.
It's not where were from,
or who are friends are or how many we have.
It's not the labels on our cloes,
or your grades.
The difference
is the way we think, feel, and speak.
The way we are,
is not who we arent.
Which is sometimes portrayed.

Hey, you–
yes, you,
quiet girl sitting in the back hiding behind
your hair–
I just wanted to say
(I’m sorry)
I’ve forgotten your
name, but I’ve never really
forgotten
you–
you with your green eyes like rainforests,
you with your cascading blonde hair and
porcelain skin–
(I’m sorry)
I’ve never paid you much attention,
but
you intrigue me,
you know–
there’s something
different
about you.
(& I’m sorry that)
I don’t really
know you.
But I could.
So, girl sitting in the back hiding behind
your hair,
intriguing girl whose name I’ve
forgotten
(& really, I’m sorry

Because still there are traces of you in On the Ground--that one record always spinning, dizzying this marvelous circus-piano-hand mindset into the lashes of that boy's dark eyes. You told me he sang lullabies to his own perfect ears to put himself to sleep, and you were entirely, wholly enthralled, in love with the idea of it. So was I.

(Just putting thought to paper and seeing what came of it! Feedback always appreciated~)

i. Your soul is made of clay,
while you yourself
are crayons and cellular walls.

Whose thoughts have colored time~

ii. Your paint reserves a private canopy,
of quiet explosions reflecting
fragmented implosions.

Yet they never wracked the world in quite the same way~

iii. Your toes curled ‘round
that dreamers edge,
and took flight
from that crumbling ledge.

And I savor every word upon your lips~

iv. Your precious bones and lyrical ways

Hate.
Why do we immediately
expect someone to
be a certain kind
because they are
darker than us.
Misinformed Americans
checking their change
five times after
buying groceries
from people
"who hop borders"
-who are alien
-who live a harder life
than any of us
born with the right
to be free.

When did we decide that
becoming married is
just a phase in life
not an everlasting
commitment before God?
The federal court
asking children
to choose between
mommy's and daddy's
houses.
Uneducated children
learning only from
sex filled teen magazines

Heat
Surrounds me
Envelops me
The summer sun glares down
And mercilessly beats me down
With blazing rays of light
And before me
Lies a vast land
Covered by shimmering
Glistening
Blue
It taunts me
Waves to me
To come in and join
I nod my head
And jump
Into a world of
Cold
Moist
Blue
I kick to the surface
As the sun smiles
Upon me

i.
I can see you,
Perched in the darkest corner
Of the room.
Only a slice of sunlight
Reaches your dark brown
Eyes.
Animal.
Beast.
Lover.
All names you’ve been called…
The monikers are burned into your mind,
With fire
Anger
And hate.

ii.
I reach my hand out
To you,
Reaching for the creature
Who you’ve become.
‘help’ your mind screams…
But your mouth is sewn shut.
Love me,
Hate me…
I’m here to help you.

iii.
You are fighting a battle,
In your mind
And in your heart.
You want to love,
But how could anybody ever
Love someone…
Like you?
Finally,

There is something calming about the night, something peaceful.

There is so much I could be doing right now, so much that I should be doing right now.

Homework and studying and preparing myself for things that I don't care all that much about.

Sometimes I enjoy the assignments. But not when it's late at night and the house is quiet. Not when I start thinking like this and writing. Especially not when I start writing.

i.

It's that gross, rotting feeling inside your chest
That feels like something is throbbing away at you
Making you want to shut your eyes and sleep
But the angst fills up within me and
the ugly filtered sunshine awakens me to the ugliest of days.

ii.

breakfast tastes worse. cartoons are not what they used to be.
And now as the hours move closer to afternoon, I can feel the happiness of the weekend slipping through my fingers into the Monday's black hole.

iii.

The Two Girls Laugh.
(Get)
The Sound Irreplaceable. Like Daggers.
(Me)
The Two Boys Watch. And Flip Their Hair.
(Out)
The Teacher Teaches. Oblivious.
(Of)
And I Wonder.
(Here)
When Does It End?

You think,
therefore... You are.

I think,
therefore... I am
an anomaly.
Abnormality.
Unsolidified.
Unrequited.
Unprovable.
Unreal.

A bump in the grain, removable
by any means
you
deem
necessary.

therefore... I am
hunting,
seeking,
searching.

For proof. For solid, sanctified, sonorous signs
seemingly simple yet so slightly serpentine,
sliding sinuously past my senses.
Prove to you.

I see them but you cannot. They are taunting proof,
daunting proof,
themselves unprovable,
by extension,
myself.

Therefore... I am
frustrated,
liltingly
enraged,

I wonder if you'd hate us all. 

Honestly, who are we to care
in the past-tense. 
We cannot help you now. 
And you're so far gone that your shadow
is now undistinguishable from the
liquid dark coagulating in the corners
of my room. Would you hate us because
we did not know you 
and are trying so uselessly to understand 
so that it won't just happen again
(but it will)? And
would you really take so much time
to meet us all in our dreams and
chase clouds with us and hand us made-up memories
so we don't feel so bad about 
not being the ones who could save you?

I live to be in your life.

the sweet snow envelopes you
and I long to as well.

it falls so carefully
with gentle hands it grabs you and
leads you to another world.

I long to be there with you.

maybe I will learn eventually
for what you walkthisearth.

and I will learn the shape of your face
and make a map with my eyes
and remember forever for
whyilovedyouso.

and I will wrap a rope around your heart
to hold you tight and
never let go
because
you will wander with the sun
and the snow will lead you away
for to make a different shape of
your heart

Through the powers of wizardry (and by reducing the size of the image to LESS than the size of the state of Vermont) gg has been able to upload Usagi's wonderful window to her mind.)The image upload function doesn't work at the moment, so I used my good friend drop.io, who had better bloody not fail on me. It's been 'preparing' the file for a good five minutes now. Preparing for what?

Behold: Arrowchart, or, What Usagi Does With Her Time.

Link: "http://voices.washingtonpost.com">/44/2010/01/obama-continues-to-assail-supr.html?wprss=44

President Obama continued to assail the Supreme Court decision striking down limits on corporate spending in political campaigns, saying Saturday that the ruling "strikes at our democracy itself.” Washington Post

President Obama said on Monday, "I'd rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president."

Amen. Now go do it.

Personally, I wanted Barack Obama to win. I sat there on election night biting my nails and hoping that America would fight through boundaries of change. He was a powerful, intelligent man with the voice of an angel. I thought that surely he would be the wake-up call we needed and that he would put us back on our feet. A year has gone by, and few of his promises have actually come true.

I do not know who you wrote those cartas for
and I think it doesn't matter
right?--I think there's a bloody lot
that doesn't matter
but even so I sipped on the anonymity
that laced the letters' bodies, the secret
stolen notes you hid among the
corpses of words we all used to speak

(not corpses though
since they are alive
so alive and breathing even when you
pressed your palms atop their chests and
you whispered I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
and they reminded you of
augustnights and aprilmornings
when you couldn't sleep)

we all used to etch them in hopes

& we are suspended in a place with no doors
& no time and we cannot rewind & we are
running out . of . time . & we are
ampers&s in the s& and we will wash away quietly when we
all fall down because we . are . children and children
accept their fates because Mommy told us that
we will be safe & it's better this way if
Daddy just sleeps in the basement for . a . while . &
we welcome this sigh-lence. & welcome this
sigh - lence.

Please be qui-et. For . a . while . because
Mommy's got a headache & she . can't . think with your noise, you silly girls and boy-oy-oys.

i. My middle name will not carry you someplace far across the universe, will not extend your horizons to impossible landscapes left unimaginable, fanciful to the mind.

ii. My eyes will shatter when you pierce them too quickly, spider cracks splintering against the thick icy blue with which you’ve so suddenly become entranced.

iii. My words will not heal the scratches & dents I’ve left upon your heart, my handwriting scrawled haphazardly against the cool heat of your skin.

i.
There is innocence in childhood.
It shades reality.
Blends it with pastels and fur.
And underneath its barrier, there is warmth.

Underneath there is no death,
tears are only of joy and the smallest scrapes,
Mothers wrap you in blankets
and smother you with kisses.

There is ignorance in childhood.

ii.
Daddy and I
were best friends
He used to let my twist his golden wedding band
around and around
his thick fingers.
I used to color his fingernails
with markers,
and trace
the contorted creases of his palm.

He would watch me play,
his hand my favorite doll.

We're all just wishes,
pinned beneath a lazy midnight sky.

Beneath the galaxy swirls and the fiery halo of the moon, and the forever-changing ambience of light, we are merely just diffractions of ourselves, penumbras, caught below the drowning night.

The cyanide eyes with lowered gaze look trapped, fixedly watching the pool before them, leering, penetrating the gauzy reflection into the milky world below. Behind, their turning mind is watching the reflected gleam,

waiting to see just how deep the stars will dive.

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 crossed 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.

In that instant before you step onto the stage, you pause, and your heartbeat stops for a moment. It’s silly, perhaps; you’ve done this so many times before, you know the drill, it’s no longer a big deal– but your heart stops for that one instant anyway.
Then you take a deep breath and you step out and that moment is instantly forgotten. The music whirls up from the depths of the oceans and carries you away on its velvet tide. Your blood is made of musical notes, and the bass drum is your heartbeat. If you have ever felt alive, it is here, now, in this moment.

When she was three, she was a prima ballerina, sashaying in a circle, her magic wand held high. Her pink skirt floated around her as she twirled around and around. She watched the older girls dancing with grace and prestige. One day she wanted to be just like them, but she danced just for the thrill. She didn't care about her future, she didn't care about her past. She lived life to the fullest everyday.

I wish I had that
comfort
of knowing
that I could be
whomever I wanted
to be
without
getting those looks
in the hallways.

I wish I was a true
500-winger
and that I didn't
need to appeal
and appease
conflicting
friend groups
as well as my own
vanity.

Because
I'm tired of
being stared
at and seeing
through the flimsy
compliments.
It seems
that the people who
say that they
like my skirt the most
are always the
ones who will
trash me later
on the bus.

I just wish
that I didn't
have to smother
myself for
everyone.

Today everything starts with an i
I don't know when or why
But when iFindout
I'll give an iShout
I'm certain it won't be an iLie!