Announcement!

Just found out that a revised copy of "Plate Tectonic Theory" is going to be published in Willard & Maple literary magazine!

I'm going to be printed in something other than the internet and newsprint!

XOXO

So Sweet, So Tender

I have a slight obsession with the concept of poets (usually male,) reading poems about their girlfriends, significant others, or wives to audiences in which their girlfriends, significant others, or wives are a part of. So many times we imagine a female poet being the one who writes about her personal life and the romantic, personal persons in it (guilty as charged), but there's something so sweet and incredibly tender and endearing about how when a man reads a poem about his girlfriend/S.O/wife, he never looks at her, never acknowledges her, never puts her on the spot, and yet, you can see the understanding pass silently between the two.

These two poems come from two different poetry readings I sat in on. The first one comes from a reading given by Galway Kinnell at the Burlington Book Festival, and the second was a reading by one of my professors at Champlain College, Warren Baker. Both were poems about their wives when they were younger, and I'll admit to watching their wives like hawks after I realized who the poems being read were about. Like seasoned poker players, neither woman had any sort of tell that they felt any sort of way about it.

I think I would dance on my seat.

The Pulitzer and His Prize

She sits like any other member of the audience,

Periodically fidgeting to get more comfortable in the folding theater seat,

As his voice slides over her,

Touching everyone else as well,

And she shares him equally.

Unlike other audience members,

She never looks at her watch.

Later,

As they walk through the dark,

Arm-in-arm,

She leans into him and sighs.

"I've always loved

When you read the one

About me."

Literary Couples

She sits,

Front row,

As he reads

Aloud

About watching her sleep.

So intimate,

So sweet;

What it's like

For all these strangers

To hear how he feels about her,

I always wonder about.

She sits,

Front row,

Silently,

Not moving,

And I can't help but wonder,

With longing

If I will ever sit,

Front row,

Silently,

Maybe moving,

But just a little bit,

And listen to a man

Speak about what it's like

To watch me sleep.

XOXO

The Morning After

Your underwear

Are always the first thing to go missing,

Hiding under the bed,

Or tossed into some far corner.

He usually will get up first,

To make coffee, or go to the bathroom,

That is, if you aren't ashamed enough

To have snuck out during the early dawn light

First.

You will have roughly 15 minutes

To regain some semblance of the well-pressed self-control

You had the night before,

Sans brush, and sans mirror.

His roommates will be moving noisily around,

With no clue or no care

That you might still be there.

They talk about eggs as you try to find all your rings,

Loose, like how you're feeling about your morals.

You hold your forehead,

Sneaking glances at him in Ray Bans and a Sox hat,

From in between your fingers

As he drives you home.

You wonder if he'll call again.

XOXO

Inexplicable

The heat

And sweet drinks

Have made us crazy.

You call me back,

And I return.

Infinite bliss,

But at what price?

I slap you more than 3 times,

And you decide you like it.

We've decided

To re-intangle,

See if

What used to be

Cosmic

Still is

Inexplicable.

XOXO

Assumption Eats Away At You Like Consumption.

I am an idiot.

Sometimes.

And assuming really does make an ass,

But mostly out of me.

So much energy spent,

Misplaced.

I am so glad

I have not spent this past week

Kicking her car every time I walk by.

(Twice a day.)

I take it back.

Not all.

But most.

XOXO

With Rings On

She

Fell asleep with her rings on,

Fell asleep with her guard down,

Fell asleep with her voice gone.

She

Never told you what you needed her to say,

Never said things would be better this way,

Never promised what she couldn't keep.

She

Dreamed of Christmas morning,

Dreamed she drank the ocean through,

Dreamed the dog came back to stay;

...She dreamed of you.

XOXO

Something So Small

The kitten

Has to make up to me

Before he sleeps.

I want to know

What he knows,

And you still don't.

XOXO

Fall Slides In

Our floors creak in the weather changes,

Like the bones of an old, protesting woman

Who has seen too much

And lived enough

To have filled up every page of her diaries,

And sigh at the first sign of fall.

XOXO

It's Only Smoke And Ashes, Babe.

There are some mornings when I wake up, and it's as if no time has passed at all.

Still fuzzy

Still dazed

Still noncommittal

To anything

But the next breath,

Still hesitant even on that option.

I wonder sometimes if what I'm doing now will fuck up the rest of my life for me.

The hard part if figuring out if I really want it to, or not.

I have no idea

How I got

Half these bruises.

I have no idea

And

At the same time,

All too good of an idea

How I got

Here.

XOXO

A Literary Playground

Last night,

My parents took me out,

And bought me beer.

Tonight,

I keep quiet,

And hold poetry near.

Life cannot be lived at Mach 6;

When it's going too fast,

You'd be better off dead.

Like Scheherazade, I've told 1,001 tales.

The trick is not in the telling,

But in knowing which ones you've already said.

A limerick will pass the time,

But it can never hold the attention,

Of a fully-weighted rhyme.

Then, the short story.

Next the novel.

Electronic words have not yet found their place,

Just like me.

In 9 months, newly embarking

On the next chapter.

The epilogue to college.

The preamble to life.

What came first,

The writer, or the page?

Script, syllable, or phrase?

Twist the words,

And shout.

XOXO

Nicholai la Citta, aged 3 months.

The kitten sits
In the chair
At the head of the table,
For all in the world
Like an expectant child.
It’s fitting,
As I say to him
At least every week,
“It’s you and me,
Kid,
For the next
Fifteen
To
Eighteen
Years of your life.”
He burbles back happily,
As if he understands,
And in that moment,
Listening absentmindedly to his chatter,
I catch a glimpse of what I would be like
As a mother,
If the unlikely were to ever occur:
Over-protective,
Impatient,
And devastatingly in love.

XOXO

Disappointment Comes With the Territory

If I were to ask you which hand I smoke with,

Left or Right,
I have a feeling that we would both be disappointed.
You,

For getting it wrong,
And me,

For realizing you don’t know me

As much as I wish you did.

XOXO

The Last Time

The last time,
Our eyes caught

In the early morning haze,
And locked,
A gray-blue and a bright green,
As you touched me,
Deliberate.
For an instant,
One drawing in of both our breaths,
One moment of stillness,
One last time you saw me,

For real.

The spell broken,
As I looked down
And closed mine,
Out of shame.

XOXO

Firenze Sempre

Those were
(Quelli erano)
The golden days.
(I giorni d'oro.)
The mornings where sunlight
(Il mattino dove la luce solare)
Looked like dust filtering through stagnant air
(Considerata come la polvere che filtra attraverso l'aria stagnante)
And
(E)
The heavy weight of jewels.
(Il peso pesante di gioielli.)
The evenings on the coast when warm breezes
(Le serate sulla costa quando brezze termiche)
Carried
(Eseguita)
The clean smell of
(L'odore di pulito)
Cacti
(Cacti)
And
(E)
Sea salt
(Sale marino)
On them.
(Su di essi.)
Monuments
(Monumenti)
Rose like memories in the piazzas,
(Crescere come ricordi nelle piazze,)
And
(E)
Buildings
(Edifici)
Loomed as tangible as the passing of time around them.
(Profilò tangibili come il passare del tempo intorno a loro.)
A back alley in Firenze
(Un vicolo in Firenze)
--Only the Italian names for places—
(-- Solo i nomi italiani per i posti--)
Via dello Studio.
(Via dello Studio.)
I am late on my way to a friend’s apartment,
(Sono in ritardo sul mio modo di appartamento di una amica,)
But walk
(Ma a piedi)
Slowly,
(Lentamente,)
Rewarded for my patience when,
(Premiato per la mia pazienza quando,)
Above me,
(Sopra di me,)
Piano
(Pianoforte)
And
(E)
A woman singing opera
(Una donna di canto lirico)
Erupt from open windows.
(Scoppiare dalle finestre aperte.)
I stop
(Mi fermo)
On the cobblestones
(Sul selciato)
And listen,
(E ascolta,)
Knowing this is a moment I will remember fondly
(Sapere questo è un momento mi ricorderò con affetto)
For the rest of my life.
(Per il resto della mia vita.)
Nothing has changed here
(Nulla è cambiato qui)
Since 1482.
(Dal 1482.)
I hope nothing changes
(Spero che non cambia nulla)
Upon my return—
(Al mio ritorno--)
A 20 year old shadow of me,
(A venti anni ombra vecchio di me,)
Left wandering the streets here,
(Sinistra per le strade qui,)

Forever,

(Sempre,)

With
(Con)
Part of my heart
(Parte del mio cuore.)

XOXO

Helen Keller

You told me I never told you how I felt.
It's true--
-----------I didn't.
I kept my feelings tight,
Under
Lock
-----------&
----------------------Key,
And when I felt like I'd lose control of them
And let them go flying
-----------Out
Into that great unknown void between
My lips
-----------And
----------------------Your ears and mind,
I wrapped myself tighter in them,
Like how I wrapped myself up in your sheet one night so tight,
I was like Burrito Girl,
And struggled in a
Silent,
-----------Full-blown
----------------------Panic
About being trapped for 5 minutes,
At 5 AM,
While you slept beside me,
Completely unaware
What was happening right beside you.
I was too used to forced independence
To even think or consider waking you up,
And asking you to help me out of
-----------All of it.
Completely unaware.
I neglected both myself
-----------&
----------------------You.
Like a dumb mute,
I kept things from you.
For fear of losing myself,
I lost you
-----------In silence.
I never laid a "thank you" next to your ear-drum,
For the things that meant
So much
-----------To me,
Like your vocabulary
And the fact we could discuss literature
Like semi-civilized human beings,
The 2 AM phone calls
When you knew I'd still be awake,
Even the
Bad puns,
Though
It was one
Constant
-----------Repeating
----------------------Refrain
In my mind.
I never told you, "I like being with you,"
Though
I never had the heart to squirm away from you
In the middle of the night,
When you were far too warm,
Even for me,
Because I would have rather been
-----------Tucked
Next to you and too warm,
Than beside anyone else and comfortable.
(Plus,
-----------You always followed me if I moved.)
I never said "I miss you,"
Though at times,
It felt like that feeling you get
When you're leaving for a trip,
And,
-----------As you walk out the front door,
You get that vague
-----------Yet specific
Feeling that you're forgetting something,
But you can't put your finger on it;
Until you've driven just far enough
That you can't justify turning back,
-----------When it hits you like a falling piano,
And all you can do is sit there,
And say,
"Well,
-----------Damn."
That is how I missed you.
And while I was missing you,
I was
Completely unaware.
I told you,
When the words finally came,
-----------Too late,
That the only person you can control
Is yourself.
Lies.
You can't even control yourself,
Some of the time,
As I proved,
By what I was too
Hesitant
-----------&
----------------------Too afraid
To say,
And as you proved to me.
I never asked for more because
-----------It was enough.
I thought I had learned,
That fear of rocking the boat,
Never got the crew anywhere.
Now I see,
Lessons remain to be learned.

XOXO

The Secret Lies Inbetween The Lines

I would not call myself a poet. Instead, I am she of the glib social commentary on men and women and the wry personal remarks on societal views. More "Cosmo" than "The New Yorker." Carrie Bradshaw to, say, Anais Nin. A gossip columnist; a shoe mongerer; an advice-giver. No great shakes to change the literary world. The level just ain't there yet, but I have time.

I am not discounting what I do well. Far from the case. I am living a dream that many never get the chance to even encounter: at a (relatively) young age, I have first found my niche, then found my voice, then found some way to get it out there. I am read, which is the most powerful thing that can happen for a writer, even more so then getting paid. There is validation in reader's comments; not in dollars and cents. As I am finding out, "what I do" pays far better, with more regularity, and has a much larger target audience who is actually interested in reading than what it is I do here on "Jux". However, this doesn't mean I should give up on "Jux," just days old. This doesn't mean I should quit my moonlighting job. This doesn't mean that what I do here has any less value than what I do on SATCG. If anything, if SATCG is my fun and my bread and butter, "Jux" is my release. "Jux" is where I get to showcase the human me: the me that struggles. The me sans bravado. The me who is still cautious of reading in public. The me who won't bare all. The me I am behind closed doors when I can shut my SATCG persona off. It's a me you may never see. Or maybe you do. One side isn't "better" than the other-- you must have two halves to make a whole, after all. Mine just happen to be deeply disparate.

But as is the case with anything you don't know much about or can't claim to be yourself, poetry fascinates me.

I love poetry because you'll never know what it's really about, even if you think you do. It's like looking at shadows and trying to guess form-- just a suggestion, buried and hidden under simile, metaphor, line breaks, and verse.

By all accounts, a secret, that only the writer knows.

Whitman and Yeats and Shakespeare and William Blake and Frost and Maya Angelou and Ntozake Shange and Ginsberg and Basho and Rumi. Rumi!

Rumi!
"The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
How blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along.

Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absentminded.
Someone sober will worry about things go badly.

Rule-keepers run on foot along the surface.
Lovers move like lightning and wind.
No contest."

Rumi who wrote,
"When the ocean comes to you as a lover,
Marry, at once, quickly,
For God's sake!

Don't postpone it!
Existence has no better gift.

No amount of searching
Will find this.

A perfect falcon, for no reason,
Has landed on your shoulder,
And become yours."

Rumi who said, "All the learning in books stays put, on the shelf. Poetry, the dear-- words and images of song, comes down over me like mountain water."

Now, there was a man who understood.

Who do you think understands it that way?

XOXO

Nike of Vermontplace

"I wonder if,
When you have your arms around me,
You can feel me
-----------------Shifting
----------------------------------&
---------------------------------------------------Stretching
Beneath your hands,
And that is why
You try to hold on.
I wonder if,
In those moments,
In the
--------------Dark
--------------------------------&
-------------------------------------------------Silent,
You know that those tremors
That rock your skin,
The
-------------Shakes
-------------------------------&
------------------------------------------------Quakes,
Are actually the silent,
Unfeeling
Landslides occurring within me,
As pieces
---------------Fall
Into place,
Like so many shards of broken china,
Or
Plate tectonics,
Becoming
-----------------Whole
----------------------------------Again.
I wonder if,
When laying flat in your bed,
The silence stretches between us,
Like a tight-wire
Made out of nothing,
But the air that surrounds it,
You know what I am silently saying,
Over
-----------------&
----------------------------------Over
---------------------------------------------------&
--------------------------------------------------------------------Over again,
An unbroken hallelujah of
“Thank you,
-----------------Thank you,
----------------------------------Thank you!”
And
“Where did you come from,
-----------------------------And why?”
And
“Finally,
-----------------Finally,
----------------------------------FINALLY!"
Whole books could be written on how
I
-------------Have/Am
----------------------------------Changing.
Whole books I could write on what I want to say.
Whole books could be written on how
It is best to
-----------------Speak them,
----------------------------------Or not
---------------------------------------------------To speak them;
But
I am whole in the words I am not saying,
And that is the only thing that counts.

-------------------------------------------- …But time comes.

Time comes,
Like a truck bearing down,
Like a ton of bricks,
And you
-----------------Have no legs.
Time comes,
Like a thief in the night,
Like a heartless bitch,
And I
-----------------Have got no fight.
Quick!
Throw your arms around me
And hold on tight,
So that when I take flight
From your bed,
I take you with me,
And I can keep this silence,
This
--------------Silent
----------------------------------Revelry
As you keep your
-----------------Hands
On my
-----------------Arms,
----------------------------------Shoulders,
---------------------------------------------------Waist,
--------------------------------------------------------------------Hips,
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Ass,
Just careful;
Mind the wings."

XOXO

Snapshots.

The User and the Used

"I’m glassy-eyed in the mirror; that same vacant, pretty, coping stare Legs used to have.

My mind stutters on these thoughts, catching rays of sunlight and dust particles glinting in the air. My fingers cramp and release, heavy like my eyelids as I type on the black and white, trying to get the words down, depressing ‘backspace’ more and more as I realize letters are missing…
Overhead, planes fly people to their heart’s location.

My heart thumps heavily in the cage of my chest, bone and skin. The air is thick and smells like funk. I puff, puff, drag, feet resting on my windowsill, blowing the smoke out the window with the aid of a fan. My lighter sparks and catches, sparks and catches, and I wonder if this was how Legs did it, if that’s how he found his escape, like I am doing now. I buy, and de-seed and stem, and pack, and roll, and light, and inhale, and let the smoke trickle from my open lips like smoke monsters in the dark air, and I miss him, terribly, heart-wrenchingly, despondently, all at once.

It’s late, and I know I should put the laptop down, stop allowing myself free access into the confused sore that is my heart and laying it, splat, across the page, but it’s a masochistic exercise in life-lessons: you fall in love and let that person walk out of your life, and this is what happens. So you cry about it. You rationalize it. You get angry about it. You work at it. You smoke to avoid it at first, and then you smoke to embrace it. You mold it into something you can work with. You apply it. You find something that you can live with. You get happy about this, at least, and then you smoke more to continue. It’s a circle of use, misuse, and being used.

...The words tumble from fingertips that are dry and unfeeling on the keyboard, and I don’t even try to stop them. I can’t even stop my mind. Blink, there’s another memory I haven’t remembered since it happened. Flash, and I’m sweaty and I have a dry mouth and can feel everything around me in minute detail. Click, and I’m all the way gone on the sweet side effects of a love that doesn’t know better and a habit that shouldn’t have been allowed to grow. Snap, I’m back to square one."

(In)Pulse
Roused from my sleep,
I clutch pen
& grit teeth.
I cannot help when the words come
Anymore than you can help your addictions,
Already deep-seeded,
Or the singer can control her song
Or the bird his flight.
It is an impulse,
My scratch of pen on paper,
The snort of powder up your nose,
Much
Harsher
&
Methodical
As you cut lines,


Prepare your straw, ---Close one nostril, ---And make that
---------strange ---------snuffling ---------noise


That makes me cringe,
Though my back is turned to you,
Like it always is when I see you start your ritual.
The rise and fall of notes, much sweeter than this candy.
The feeling of air under a bird’s wing, much more free.
You are not sweet,
& you are not free.
But neither am I, chasing this trail of papers,
Always hoping the next one will be better.
You and I,
We aren’t so much un-alike,
Both of us with our willingness to fall prey,
To the things that gnaw on the insides of us.
It is to say,
“Because I can,”
& to do so.
It is to say,
“Who I am,”
& not resist it.

I tell you to stop using.
You tell me to shut the light off,
& go to bed.

Cold

"I’m warmest in sunlight. Not at night when you’re lying next to me, radiating body heat and safety and comfort, but when I’m walking in the cold air and the sunlight touches my face with rays gentler than your gentlest brush of fingertips. I think I have a gold-and-cream complexion (my nice way of saying what some call “pale” in tones reminiscent of disease and social awkwardness,) because I’m a sun-baby—my hair reflects it and my skin soaks it in, becoming almost luminescent. (Again with the “pale.”) I was born in June for a reason.

Your heat doesn’t stay long, just like your body—come the next morning, we part to go our separate ways and I’m cold until the next time you nuzzle your body beside mine, nook into nook, limb over limb, some strange sort of human pick-up-stick pile of us. The sun only leaves me at night, leaving me in your care, your heat, your warmth, knowing that you can never really replace it, even though you will try, and you will like to think that you’re the true center of my personal universe. But I say everything still revolves around one sun, and you, with your thin wrists and your love for sarcasm, are far too human. You are human, and you are cold.

Winter wind still blows even though the sun is in full shine mode. I tilt my face up at it through the smudged windows of the bus and close my eyes, seeing a disco ball pattern on the insides of my eyelids that dance like the free-love generation did on LSD. I’ve forgotten my coat at home, lulled by the sunshine into thinking that it’s warmer than it actually is, and you offer me yours.

The ancient Greeks’ sun-god was named Helios. The Romans called him Apollo. I call him warmth-bringer, light-maker, shadow-chaser. You call me sun-worshipper, heat-seeker, desert-baby. I call you mine, but I lie through my teeth when I say it. You are not mine, and I am not yours, not any more than I can claim to own the sun.

In the age of solar panels, people harness sunlight and bend it to suit their needs—heat, energy, power. I am just as much to blame, yoking you to my proverbial harness to suit my basic needs—companionship, entertainment, and because it’s convenient. You, I suspect, have done the same to me. We do it because it’s easy; because it’s what people expect of us. When you need, you need. It’s human to need, too human, and I have never been good at denying myself, the byproduct of a spoiled childhood. Although I have a hard time telling people out-loud what it is we’re playing at, I find it equally hard to be utterly blasé about it and say, “I keep him around for the sex.” What I don’t have a hard time telling them is what it isn’t. It isn’t forever. It isn’t immortal. It isn’t stationary, or reliable, or even planned. Just like the sun rises from the East every morning, it is predictable and we take it for granted. Once, you called me a frigid bitch. I didn’t deny it. I, just like you, am cold. That’s why I believe more in sunlight than I do in love."

Christmas, Tough-Love Style

"What do you think? Does it look good?"

"It could do without some of the more tacky ones."

"Like which?"

"Like that one, to the left of the middle. The lumpy red and green one that looks like a wreath."

"That is a wreath. I made it for you in Advent Workshop years ago."

"Oh. What about that white Styrofoam one?"

"That one, too. It's supposed to be a snowflake."

"The clothespin reindeer."

"Basically, anything you consider tacky, I made for you and Mom as a child."

Wounding people is so easy, we stride right on afterwards without even a second thought. We all do it.

There will always be that awkward tension between parent and child in the constant search for parental approval. Tides change-- though I will never feel quite up-to-snuff for my father, my mother now looks to me for my approval. I am off-guard and awkward, and don't know when and how to give it. This softens the dynamic of my father a bit, however.

But, then again, who am I to judge?

Choosing Sides

"Wall or nightstand side?" he always asks, even though the answer always remains the same. It's just the kind of guy he is.

He's already tucked in next to the nightstand. Half of me wonders what would happen if I asked for that side. Half of me chastises the other half for trying to make trouble when everything is exactly how I want it to be in the first place. Half of me sighs. All of me crawls up the bed instead.

"Wall," I answer. "Of course. That's where I always end up, anyway." Always between cool wall and warm body. I modulate temperature like a flesh thermostat. Always on his right-hand side. Just like how he always pushes me back down in his sleep to his arm and shoulder in the place of a pillow.

Whoever needed cotton and filling when you have a hot-blooded male, anyway?

After the third night, I wised up. If Manhammoud won't let you go to the pillow-mountain, you bring the pillow to you.

Drip-Drop

Part One:

Writers: Black depressions, over-active imaginations, mental illnesses, and substance abuse. We are an under-whelmingly cheery lot.

Bathtub and beer. Bathtub and half-bottle of wine. Bathtub and a vodka concoction. It's all the same to me.

I think writers have an affinity for bathtubs because there's always the possibility of drowning oneself if the mood so strikes you. I'm sure some author must have tried holding their breath a minute too long after an unfavorable review. (Note to Self: Research this.)

I lounge in the convex shallows of the tub, one knee propped up under the facet, regulating water temperature by feel, my right kneecap bright red because I like it scalding hot. (Might as well live if you're going to be alive.) I'm reading Abbey's "The Fool's Progress" and feeling quite foolish myself, feeding this writer's malaise of mine so indulgently. Later, I will try sticking my toes in the jets, reverse whack-a-mole.

Part Two:

I turn the radio on, but leave the lights off. The moment I step into the shower and close the door behind me, my hair instantly and decidedly curls up in the trapped humidity. (Fact: I have naturally wavy hair. You will probably never see it.) The Presidents of the United States of America remind me in "Peaches" (Fact: Meant to give that CD back...) that the acoustics of the shower are the best I've ever found for singing (Fact,) but these glass walls won't hear my voice today. Soap in silence. Shampoo in solitude. Condition in consternation. (Fact: Alliteration is one of my many writer's vices. Along with verbosity and cliches.)

"Must stop playing hermit," I tell myself. "That's a direct order. Cheer the fuck up."

Circa Bankruptcy

Christmas night. The dog is napping in the backseat, taking up the entire bench, and it's nearly midnight; not Christmas any more. I'm driving and smoking at the same time, because that's one of the things I do know how to do in full multi-tasking glory. I've got the windows cracked because, silly to admit, I am scared of harming an innocent animal's lungs. Mine are already damned. So my nose is cold so his lungs can remain free from any more second-hand smoke. Silly. But the windows are still down.

It's nearly dead downtown. I'm tempted to make a silent joke about the graveyard shift, but it would be almost too easy. I don't know what called me here, but I needed to fill my eyes with it. The sight of a sheriff's cruiser lingering at a red light reminds me I still haven't replaced a front headlight that's out. I skulk past and hope Christmas spirit is enough to get me out of a ticket. I don't have the time, money, or desire to pay for either a new bulb or a ticket. I'd rather just take Plan A and flee the country. Har har.

The streetlights that rise up around me are festooned in white Christmas lights that wind around them and wreaths. The old, retro buildings, once freshly painted and proud, slouch into their foundations. Half of the storefronts are empty; "For Sale" and "For Rent" signs are the only things that occupy windows. The city of my childhood is gone. Instead, hardscrabble has taken hold.

At seven, I used to walk the four blocks down the hill from the public library to my dad's shop. At twenty, I lock my car doors as I come to a stop outside the building that used to be my father's. No lights. No gold glistening from overhead lighting in the display cases in the windows. Everything is quiet; not even the whisper of falling snow to make white-noise. I'm caught half-in and half-out of the past and the present, the crossroads of What Used To Be and The Cold, Hard Truth. Somewhere in the last twelve years, I missed this all changing. You come home, an almost-adult, and you suddenly see it all. It's alarming. It makes you wonder where it went wrong; if there was something you could do; what signs you missed and how. And if a city can change like this, unnoticed until it's over, what else can?

The dog lets out a snore. Suddenly tired, I take a last long draw and then stub my cigarette out on my side-view mirror, the plastic burned and crusted from doing it so many times in the same place before. I pull a U-ey and head for home as the clock ticks in a new day.

"And miles to go, before I sleep, and miles to go, before I sleep," I remember as I roll up the windows and rub the feeling back into my nose.

Implosion

"I'm done with being looked through. When you look at me, it's almost enough to make me believe I could catch fire. Spontaneously combust in being someone."

---

Excuse me for just thrusting you into that, but one of my professors, a very wise man who is pretty much the reason I came to Champlain, once said that there is a time and a place for disclaimers, and in front of your writing is neither the time, nor the place. So I guessed I was wise to heed him-- his advice hasn't done me wrong yet.

The one good thing about being home and broke is that it's giving me lots of time to write. And write. And write some more. The above are some pieces of writing I've been busy resurrecting and breathing new life and words into for awhile (the first piece was an excerpt from a longer work from Creative Non-Fiction; (In)Pulse and Cold are both pieces I read recently at a gathering that went over well, and since people asked for copies, decided to put them here so I don't have to individually email. Laziness is a vice I posses.), as well as some short snippets that have come to me recently, as always, in the most awkward of places. (Mostly, the shower. In the shower, hands sudsy, not a pen or piece of dry paper in sight, is where I get all my best ideas. I have learned to play them on repeat like a broken cassette tape between my brain and my lips to remember them until I get out and run, dripping, for a flat surface and something to write with.) Muses be damned. They always come at the worst times.

XOXO

The Poetry Chronicles, Part I

We interrupt this previous prose programming to bring you some poetry, because due to the multiple readings I've been attending for classes and other events, that's what's been coming out of me lately. It only happens about three times a year, and only for a few days, like the guest appearance of a cosmic spirit, so I'm beseeching you to indulge me, briefly, for these are only brief snippets of full, raging, triumphant, un-humble, unfinished works. Ellipses mark where content is missing, for one reason, or the other. Or none. The first two are part of set poems. For all purposes, what I consider "done." The third is a complete and utter mish-mash of sayings and thoughts and advice and songs and lots and lots and lots of random things. It has something for everyone-- childhood memories, sage wisdom, simile and metaphor, decorating advice. It is my Chaos at the moment. Everyone needs a little. I'm entering Finals Week of school. I have a lot.

"...Because night is when I get
--------Real soft,
And in the dark,
If you look at me
--------Real close
----------------Like you do
And don’t blink,
You can see the cosmos in my eyes when I’m talking to you,
Not just one or two
--------Tiny
----------------Insignificant
------------------------Guttering
--------------------------------Stars,
But the whole damn thing,
& I have no words for this feeling,
The death-knell of my trade,
But it’s like
--------Holding your palm
----------------Up to the flame of a lighter
------------------------On the coldest winter day
--------------------------------Right before you light that cigarette..."

"...I want to see when you close your eyes,
Because I know, sometimes it’s just
--------Too much
To look at,
All of it at once, spread out before your eyes,
Like a feast, and you
--------Just ate.
I want to see when your lips open,
And your tongue
--------Darts out,
To lick the same dry lips that you use,
Faithful sinner,
To worship.
I want to see you completely open in front of me,
--------A book to read,
----------------A story over skin,
------------------------A tale that won’t lie.
Give me your mind!
At these moments, when there is literally nothing between us,
But these un-naked thought-things,
These
--------Looks
----------------&
----------------Sounds
------------------------&
------------------------Feels.
I want a light, like a blinding ray of truth,
Because,
I want to see you, as you are,
Not, as you want to be,
With
--------Layers
----------------&
----------------Secrets
------------------------&
------------------------Questions.
I want to see you, in that moment when you give in,
To know what I have,
And what you are,
And what that
--------Makes me."

"...You’ve got to call me to you,
Because sometimes, like a cat, I won’t
--------Listen,

To the meaning behind the command,

Instead, focusing on tone and context,

And not really
--------Getting it.
But still, sweetie,
You’ve got to keep tryin’,
Because what’s worth it in this life,
--------It isn’t free,
And it sure as hell
--------Ain’t easy.
Because I,
I don’t play with the things I say,
--------Like some do.
Getting me to admit
--------Is like moving a mountain.
Are you strong enough for that?
Make me
--------Shock
----------------&
------------------------Awe
At your conviction.
Make me want to burst into song,
You have never heard
--------From this mouth.
So you know, I like to kiss to both sweet songs of
--------“Hello”
----------------&
------------------------“Goodbye.”

So you know, I like to stay up late, and sleep until sometime,
And I am always,
--------Always
Down for some lovin’.
So you know, your room,
--------Windows,
----------------Walls,
------------------------Door,
--------------------------------Desk,
----------------------------------------Bed,
Are in the same exact places mine are at home,
And it knocked me into silence,

Like coming home, only to find someone else living there.
So you know, I only ever ask to come over,
Every third time I want to,

Because there's this thing called

--------Space,

And there's a difference between "want" and "want,"

& I am always trying to find the fine line between the three.
But I will wake up early,
Just to be there and know it
Like I knew it when I was five,
And was the child
Who was never told that she wouldn’t find
--------What she was looking for.
Responsible people never learned how to fly.
I never learned
--------How to jump.
But here I am,
Toeing the edge of this cliff,
--------Anyway.
Hello, my name is Mediocre,
And I am striving for
--------Majestic
For you."

That's more or less it for now. I'm pretty much straight bleeding poetry at the moment like a love-junkie suicidal poet, so I'm skipping class in the morning to stay home and write. Because it's the writerly thing to do, and I really have no choice. Sometimes, when these things are outside of your hands, it's the most beautiful thing in the world. Scary, yet gorgeous.

You writers out there. Agree? What gets it flowing for you? Is it the first snowfall of the year? Fear? Love? Loathing? Inspiration from others? Sheer need and necessity? I'm curious. As always.

XOXO