oh bid me well goodnight. i have found a corner of dust and secrets to call my own, hollowed out from the damp earth under boards rotten and worn being too long trod upon. bid me i pray, goodnight, to burrow my head among the sandy-eyed beetles and ripple skinned grubs that wake with nights dark tide. i pray, kiss my eyelids soft and gently, let not my lashes linger on your lips, and if one strays, make a wish for my waking. i pray you as i hold your ankles tight and grip your strong calves planted firmly in your worn boots, pry my pulsing fingers from your safe warmth and bid me goodnight. tuck me in amongst the moths and and mossy blankets of the earth. i pray you, bid me goodnight and let me slumber with the cobwebs and musty dank where i belong, where i belong. look not upon my ashen puffy face in this veil of night, but let your roots grow deep, your boots mix deep into my borrow of dirt. for even though i bid you goodnight, i pray that my limp lichen soul becomes one with the deep that when light finds my corner, i may be a speck of soil upon your boot that walks across the earth and in your deep path, nurture flowers that arise and bloom.
but now darling, bid me well goodnight
Friday, August 29, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
nooks and crannies to hide my secret notes and crumpled gum wrappers
it's much cozier here now, is it not? i'd like to think so. cozy is such a languid word, it makes me want winter so badly--wearing my pumpkin hat and peeling layer upon layer of clothes off once i get inside to a warm, cozy, cider-smelling home.
these days i don't really know what to do with my time. i shouldn't waste it, but i'd waste it even more if i just sat here thinking about what to do rather than just doing whatever comes to mind. i'm afraid to go into a coffee shop on smith street. really, i swear i've walked by it at least 5 different times and told myself to go in and then my legs just keep up the bouncy pace that have propelled them thus far and i keep walking, looking back, wishing i had gone in, but being whip-lashed forward by the pace of my swift steps.
the neighborhood is lovely these days. i have to keep reminding myself to slow down when i'm walking, especially when i have nowhere to go and no one to be with. it's that simple--why can't i stop hurrying through life. i become antsy, agitated when i slow down and allow the gaze of strangers to see me slowly sauntering down the uneven sidewalks. walking past stoops of perching old women i smile gently and quickly look down if their gaze catches mine without returning a painted on smile. i'm afraid i'm being judged, a swift brush of my hair out of my face and a hurried jolt of energy into my step should reassure them that their unreturned looks meant nothing to me. but that's all a lie.
it's funny being up here pretty much alone. it's not lonely, it's a displaced, unsettling feeling that hooks deep down in my core and shakes me when i'm least expecting it. this life feels so much like plaster sometimes, so crumbly and replicative of something more alive, more urgent, hotter, lovelier, more enchanting. hrm. the things i think when i sit in my bed at night and just let my mind go. it's weird. i miss the promenade, maybe i'll saunter down there tomorrow and go out of my way to crunch the first leaves that have fallen from the trees along the little brownstone streets.
these days i don't really know what to do with my time. i shouldn't waste it, but i'd waste it even more if i just sat here thinking about what to do rather than just doing whatever comes to mind. i'm afraid to go into a coffee shop on smith street. really, i swear i've walked by it at least 5 different times and told myself to go in and then my legs just keep up the bouncy pace that have propelled them thus far and i keep walking, looking back, wishing i had gone in, but being whip-lashed forward by the pace of my swift steps.
the neighborhood is lovely these days. i have to keep reminding myself to slow down when i'm walking, especially when i have nowhere to go and no one to be with. it's that simple--why can't i stop hurrying through life. i become antsy, agitated when i slow down and allow the gaze of strangers to see me slowly sauntering down the uneven sidewalks. walking past stoops of perching old women i smile gently and quickly look down if their gaze catches mine without returning a painted on smile. i'm afraid i'm being judged, a swift brush of my hair out of my face and a hurried jolt of energy into my step should reassure them that their unreturned looks meant nothing to me. but that's all a lie.
it's funny being up here pretty much alone. it's not lonely, it's a displaced, unsettling feeling that hooks deep down in my core and shakes me when i'm least expecting it. this life feels so much like plaster sometimes, so crumbly and replicative of something more alive, more urgent, hotter, lovelier, more enchanting. hrm. the things i think when i sit in my bed at night and just let my mind go. it's weird. i miss the promenade, maybe i'll saunter down there tomorrow and go out of my way to crunch the first leaves that have fallen from the trees along the little brownstone streets.
Monday, August 25, 2008
greasy fingerprints
every time that i write something on this dad-gum thing i always title it with whatever is coming into my head at the time. thats a lie. i don't. but tonight i did so let's let all that lie be a truth for just tonight.
i just want to molt. i have this skin-crinkling, itching, metamorphic desire to reach down and peel away all the ashy, sticky film that has accumulated on my body and soul in the last few years. or really since i was born. not that i can remember that far. by the way i think that it's silly if people say that they can remember the moment they were born, i think that they are lying. nobody can remember that. anyways. i do. i have this utterly inexplicable desire to just burst, to erupt--but in the most delicate, beautiful, chrysalis-exploding kind of way. but i don't know what im going to become or what's going to happen when i do burst out of my cocoon, when i shed this dirty, melted plastic from my body and wiggle out. and even worse, i don't know what the old skin looks like--sometimes i do--i can see the tendencies, the jealousy, the self-consciousness, the quick anger, the anvil on my chest, but other days it just blends in and decides to melt itself into some sort of invisible presence that clings to my body and can't be seen--it's almost parasitic.
i swear i'm not doing drugs in new york. it's just. i don't know. i have this picture of who i want to become in my head--of who i wish i was--who i can be. i still can't figure out if that's wrong. i mean, i want to be this radiating woman, content in who she is and how she is, braving every day with a vigor and a fire that's so ethereal and eternal and otherworldly--i want to be free. and yet, i hold myself back. i can't go outside without wearing a tanktop underneath my shirt. i have to have layers. kym tried to make me go without it and i couldn't. there is no way. and i don't know why. i can't do it. i can't bear to feel the fabric wrinkling and rubbing up against my skin. i can't feel protected if i don't have my under-armor on guarding whatever figure's underneath against the judgement of passerbys. i can't bear to look and see the indention of my belly button against my shirt or the fear of my less than toned mid-section making its way to be seen through dresses or sneaking into wrinkles when i sit down. this has to stop. i have to stop this nonsensical mindset and behavior. i keep asking myself--how does a woman become beautiful? is she born that way--some, yes and i find myself wanting--which is such a lie that satan puts in my head. does it come from a woman finding that she herself is a beauty, is indeed full of beauty and made from it and in that sense wshe can be nothing but beautiful? do beautiful women hold their heads high on a street next to woman with 20 inch weists and 6inch pumps and clinging dresses? yes. i think so. there is something to be seen in a woman who knows who she is and doesn't have to apply a dab of makeup or jewelry in order to be beautiful. not just to herself, but in radiation. does that make sense? maybe. i just don't know what this beauty is, i know the source, but for some reason it still eludes me.
give it up jessika. there are so may more beautiful and complex and lovely and delightful things to be thinking about than clothes, or weight, or male attention, or masks of beauty.
look at flowers, look at crooked baby teeth wandering around inside a child's gurgling mouth. look at old couples, look at exhausted mothers of three. look at the people who choose to walk slowly and see and smell everything around them. look at the women who sit on their stoop in their nightgowns. look for those that are sleeping in public. look at eyes, irises, pupils. there is beauty. there it is. even if just a momentary glimpse.
i just want to molt. i have this skin-crinkling, itching, metamorphic desire to reach down and peel away all the ashy, sticky film that has accumulated on my body and soul in the last few years. or really since i was born. not that i can remember that far. by the way i think that it's silly if people say that they can remember the moment they were born, i think that they are lying. nobody can remember that. anyways. i do. i have this utterly inexplicable desire to just burst, to erupt--but in the most delicate, beautiful, chrysalis-exploding kind of way. but i don't know what im going to become or what's going to happen when i do burst out of my cocoon, when i shed this dirty, melted plastic from my body and wiggle out. and even worse, i don't know what the old skin looks like--sometimes i do--i can see the tendencies, the jealousy, the self-consciousness, the quick anger, the anvil on my chest, but other days it just blends in and decides to melt itself into some sort of invisible presence that clings to my body and can't be seen--it's almost parasitic.
i swear i'm not doing drugs in new york. it's just. i don't know. i have this picture of who i want to become in my head--of who i wish i was--who i can be. i still can't figure out if that's wrong. i mean, i want to be this radiating woman, content in who she is and how she is, braving every day with a vigor and a fire that's so ethereal and eternal and otherworldly--i want to be free. and yet, i hold myself back. i can't go outside without wearing a tanktop underneath my shirt. i have to have layers. kym tried to make me go without it and i couldn't. there is no way. and i don't know why. i can't do it. i can't bear to feel the fabric wrinkling and rubbing up against my skin. i can't feel protected if i don't have my under-armor on guarding whatever figure's underneath against the judgement of passerbys. i can't bear to look and see the indention of my belly button against my shirt or the fear of my less than toned mid-section making its way to be seen through dresses or sneaking into wrinkles when i sit down. this has to stop. i have to stop this nonsensical mindset and behavior. i keep asking myself--how does a woman become beautiful? is she born that way--some, yes and i find myself wanting--which is such a lie that satan puts in my head. does it come from a woman finding that she herself is a beauty, is indeed full of beauty and made from it and in that sense wshe can be nothing but beautiful? do beautiful women hold their heads high on a street next to woman with 20 inch weists and 6inch pumps and clinging dresses? yes. i think so. there is something to be seen in a woman who knows who she is and doesn't have to apply a dab of makeup or jewelry in order to be beautiful. not just to herself, but in radiation. does that make sense? maybe. i just don't know what this beauty is, i know the source, but for some reason it still eludes me.
give it up jessika. there are so may more beautiful and complex and lovely and delightful things to be thinking about than clothes, or weight, or male attention, or masks of beauty.
look at flowers, look at crooked baby teeth wandering around inside a child's gurgling mouth. look at old couples, look at exhausted mothers of three. look at the people who choose to walk slowly and see and smell everything around them. look at the women who sit on their stoop in their nightgowns. look for those that are sleeping in public. look at eyes, irises, pupils. there is beauty. there it is. even if just a momentary glimpse.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
lovelies, im coming home
lovely lovely day.
i'm sittin gin the floor of my peeling paint apartment, listening to the hum of the air conditioning and the sounds of cars yelling and exhaling in puffs of black soot as they make their way into manhattan. today i leave. more and more i figure out i have no idea where home is anymore. i feel home here, but i feel home when im hugged by my friends and family back in nashville. more and more i'm beginning to realize that 'home' isn't at all the walls of family photos or the bedroom where all your stuffed animals still lay positioned to play, collecting dust bunnies and fading in the sunlight of an open window--home is really wherever you choose it to be. and i know it has more to do with people than place--weirdly enough. i'm ready to go back--just for a little while to the people back in nashville--to my best friends, my mom my dad and my sister, the faces i know, i hug, the faces that i put up on my bulletin board to remind me of home. i miss coffee at a shop where i can actually sit and talk for hours and feel like i belong. i miss sitting up until midnight eating milkshakes at sonic. i miss going on random adventures with my sister. i miss bear hugs and people who say they're sorry when they bump into you even though they don't have to at all. i love new york. or really--i love brooklyn. manhattan--it's for the dogs. i really can't think clearly right now and so my writing is jumbled and i'm starting to be self-conscious of it. blech. i'll be home on thursday. i'll bear hug you if i see you. hold on tightly, please.
i'm sittin gin the floor of my peeling paint apartment, listening to the hum of the air conditioning and the sounds of cars yelling and exhaling in puffs of black soot as they make their way into manhattan. today i leave. more and more i figure out i have no idea where home is anymore. i feel home here, but i feel home when im hugged by my friends and family back in nashville. more and more i'm beginning to realize that 'home' isn't at all the walls of family photos or the bedroom where all your stuffed animals still lay positioned to play, collecting dust bunnies and fading in the sunlight of an open window--home is really wherever you choose it to be. and i know it has more to do with people than place--weirdly enough. i'm ready to go back--just for a little while to the people back in nashville--to my best friends, my mom my dad and my sister, the faces i know, i hug, the faces that i put up on my bulletin board to remind me of home. i miss coffee at a shop where i can actually sit and talk for hours and feel like i belong. i miss sitting up until midnight eating milkshakes at sonic. i miss going on random adventures with my sister. i miss bear hugs and people who say they're sorry when they bump into you even though they don't have to at all. i love new york. or really--i love brooklyn. manhattan--it's for the dogs. i really can't think clearly right now and so my writing is jumbled and i'm starting to be self-conscious of it. blech. i'll be home on thursday. i'll bear hug you if i see you. hold on tightly, please.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
