Adventures in Barnes & Nobles

was at barnes and nobles grading papers on saturday for 4-ish hours. which...in a perfect world means that i was completely productive and all my grading is done...but in this world means that i drank a lot of starbucks and did some journaling.

here's a piece of all that.
---
nowhere near the halfway point of grading, and already i want to tear my hair out with the effort of it..."no babies," i want to say, "'because they look like it' - is nto an acceptable reasoning for congruence. where have you been all week?"

this morning, the ex i'm always writing love poems about sent me a text asking if i was sorry. "no," i say. "there was nothing false about me saying i was suffocating and your greeting this mornign proves it."

i started writing a poem about jeffrey dahmer. it's going to be a love poem i think.

speaking of which...

actually we're not talking about it. if i talk too much i might talk myself out of it. and i've done that once before. twice, depending on how you look at it, but we don't ahve time for that.

what do we have tiem for? let's see:

we have time for daydreams always. here we go:

in a perfect world, me and my closest friends would be at a bonfire on a beach in fiji. there would be poets (because there are always poets) and all the activists whose causes have been won, because why else would we have time for relaxing? no one would have jobs, but it wouldn't matter, because we finally will have tapped into the power of our words, and everything we needed we would make manifest by speaking, or with practice, by thinking. leah would play the guitar. it would remind me of why i believein lvoe at first sight, and i would have learned by then to be frearless. "galumph these nuts" would be an inside joke we'd shout at each other across the flames. my baby sister would love to be alive. our tether to the earth would not be so paper thin and there would be no more need of recklessness. ultimate uno would be the sport of choice, adn i would win 37% of all games. the others, a toss up among the guests.

alright. back to grading.

Adventures with Kholi

...because they write awesome things.
asked her to do something with the ditty i started a few days ago, and she turned it into something awesome. i hope she's not opposed to me posting...but it made me yell out loud in class when i read it...so...it needed to be shared with the rest of the world...or at least the 3 people that read my blog.

As soon as she names it, I will tell you what it is called.

I know the sound a heart
Makes before it knows
It can be broken.
i pay attention.
Listen well. Before it breaks
There is some calm-
A waiting out.
And I know these steps
Seem small to you,
All my ways to rain.

"If you cyan't heah, you will feel," warned my mother.

Remember.

I once cracked space and sky
With smile like thunder
All my laughter erupting
Spilling over into sun and
Down to some valley
Hoping
You might notice
Dreaming
Up the most perfect arching rainbows
Backs bent double-over splitting
Gorging their dreams
Bolstering forth a horizon
Untouched
Less conquered.

I bow at the waist
And neck
And knees
Still.
Pray from a churning gut.
Harness up heaven
And hell
Around each wrist.
Sing so I can protect you
From my siren's song.
I pull as you push.
Think sturdy.
I wink in and spit
To the wind.

I make movement of all that is
With a thing some see as ease.
I swear I do
This
For you.
I sunshine
Crooked smiles above
Cloud cover
Carve jagged lightning out from dark.
I love
Hard.
Need harder.
I am no brilliant pot of something
Ready
To be taken.

I move the storm because
I make it.
You don't hear it coming?
Wait
for it.
The weighted snap.
The inversion.
I love
Hard.
I love
Unfathomable
Like a diamond unfolding
wanting needing
allowing someone else to
push past the coal.

Adventures in Post Traumatic Stress [again]

do not let the softness fool you
clouds cannot hold us up
there are no angels dangling their feet in the air
and i still want to fly
i've seen it done
teeth to the wind
the suspension of skeleton in a tissue-thin sky
there has never been such a crash landing
such a sound
as the dull thudding of hope leaving a body
finally getting all that it wanted
there is a word for this
a desperation
a tenor of static in the pit of a stomach
a cry that will never be tears enough
and there is no goodbye
no angel
no one perched in waiting at the edge of the atmosphere
waiting to carry us home

Peace Be