stuff girls dream about

i want to walk down the aisle of a church in albany

soon, but not too soon

while 'jesus, bleibet meine freude' swells from the organ and floats up high

i want to glow and try not to cry while you glow and try not to cry

and your brown eyes reflect kindness and passion and the saints on the windows

we will be shocked by each other's beauty

as we promise father bradley that we will forsake all others

and i want you to know that

i relish your boyish grin

when you win scratch offs or you kiss me

it reminds me of twizzlers at hockey games

and the cigarettes i'll make you quit

soon, but not too soon

"sic transit gloria mundi"

thus passes the glory of the world

the quiet in this room hurts

i don't know what to do

you're absent, and i summon to my thoughts

times when our feet were on the stoop, eyes in the stars

when the glory was our camaraderie, reckless and unshakable

a remembered fraction of your joy

to take and rest my worried hands on

i mull over our stupid happiness

weightless hours, fled on the wings of youth

rare but it came often

prior to the wretched migration of the good

beer and cheese fries and ignored naivete

laid heavy on our tongues, our limbs unnaturally light

we would float down the streets

weave through the trees

mischievous ghosts meaning no harm but to ourselves

and we saw everything like it was stripped

so we were only aware of the beautiful skeletons

L E D orange showed us the spectacular

we were spectacular, too

reality is a porcelain plate, or the foundation of a house

chips and cracks move furious through the cement or the glossy white

when we glance away distracted

too soon we can't use that plate

can't live in that house anymore

in this room i sit and sigh about the past glory of the world

uncut and springing up from the core of you

without your shaking laugh and mannerisms

i don't know what to do

we're still children

Venus of 215th street

I finally understand why women are so enchanting.

I was on the one train this afternoon, listening to Diana Ross and The Supremes, tapping my foot and chewing my lip. I was thoroughly lost in a daydream where I was baking pecan pie in an  adorable mint green apron, dancing around the kitchen of the quaintest little house set in some southern state in 1969. At 215th street I was jolted out of my domestic vision when across from me sat the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. The kitschy cabinets faded and my fantasy pie was replaced with the kind of girl that can flirt with a smirk and kill with a kiss. She looked exactly like princess Jasmine, only she wore a gold puffy coat with fur lining rather than green satin slippers and a tiara. I  could not help but glance twice at her face. Never have I seen a visage so perfect, there was almost a holiness to her. I was taken aback by the sight of her sitting in front of the window, so warm and contrasting with such a frigid backdrop, December sky the color of wet toilet paper. Her eyes were deep hazel, darkly outlined, her dark chocolate brown hair was thick and straight, with an ethereal sheen, the kind I've always wanted. Her complexion was flawless, she had such an easy hold on that fantastically dark beauty that only blesses mediterranean or middle eastern women. Her nose and lips were of the most delicate formation, the shape of her jaw was just rounded enough to make her cute as well as gorgeous. This is the kind of girl that inspires sonnets, men have struggled to depict the likes of her features in iambic pentameter and alternating rhyme scheme. During our startling second of accidental eye contact, she smiled the most beguiling smile. This struck me as so strange, because such communication is avoided as a rule without exception in these situations, and I was left with a wistful jealousy. An unshakable curiosity. Even after she got off at 116th street, that smile remained in my mind's eye. 

I am and have always been solely attracted to boys. I'm a sucker for lean muscle and prominent noses, big hands and embraces of protection. Until today I never understood why women were so worshipped by the world for their physical features, I always agreed halfheartedly to that kind of reverent admiration. Now I understand it. I fully get it. Scarlett Johannson? Nah. Megan Fox? Nah. This insight is purely platonic, memorable nonetheless. Goddess on the one train. Why can't I forget about this girl? I think she was trying to tell me something, like a big sister giving advice, a teacher, leading by example. She was demonstrating the power of a smile, how to take the world with a simple smile, a languid, striking breathlessness. I can only dream that I could someday harness this type of power, have the men of the world on their knees, take and hold and squeeze them until they choke, while they gaze dumbly in glazed over adoration. Venus of 215th street. 

hate

nights like this

I need to sink my teeth into your pain

gnaw until my jaw hurts 

watch your face fall like mine did 

all those times

so good so good

like macaroni and cheese when you're drunk

or cardboard wine when you want to be

cheap 

undeniably satisfying

evil

I don't like how

you hold a blacklight above my soul

Dziadzi

sometimes I go down to the cellar

and I am awed

by the cold and dusty domain of mason jars fur coats plastic bouquets.

they sit on shelves with sad anticipation, dormant as forever through the mild months of May and June 

when I would pick agrest and bring the berries to the turquoise kitchen.

Dziadzi would notice the pink of pride in my eight year old cheeks, smile and wink one of his watery blue eyes.

of course then I could not understand the depth of their patience and pain

all I saw was the love of a grandfather 

when his granddaughter brought gifts from the gooseberry bush.

I remember when he made me that "Belle's room" sign. I was five.

It was shiny like a mirror. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

he hung it on the door of the room where I slept, and I promptly was a princess.

I think on the dusty haze of afternoons he spent making birdhouses and shelves, 

his brow furrowed in precision and love as he cut and hammered.

and I am awed.

they stand scattered like sacred statues around that house, 

silent and noble as he was, the wooden vestiges of his honor. 

they are quiet as his suffering.

sometimes I am startled by their presence,they speak thousands of words he never did.

as he aged his big rough hands grew clumsy, rings loose around his shaky fingers.

and then he couldn't build anymore.

sometimes I sit in the Belle room and contemplate how his lips, with their rare grin

never issued complaint.

and I am awed. 

if I let myself I can still hear the sound of his unsure step heavy across the morning

as he woke to make coffee, sometimes cream of wheat.

if I let myself I miss his rolled up sleeves and his laugh through gritted teeth,how he used to drive with his knees and the beautiful purity of the stoic affection that he bestowed on our family.

each day he unflinchingly took the blows of life with a carpenter's wisdom.

my Dziadzi

Things I wish I didn't have to write about.

I'm on the 12:05 to Penn Station and the woman sitting next to me keeps clearing her throat. I'm jealous.

I wish there was a way to eradicate the mucus that accumulates in my head. I want freedom from the mindsludge resultant of 19 long years of exposure to daytime television and thinly veiled motives that I choose to ignore. They call it 'angel dust'.

Now the narcotics fairy- gaunt and sallow, with her wax paper wings and needle wand, has sprinkled her soul possessing dust on the noses of a few that I love, shrinking pupils and fogging realities, snatching from throats the lump of humane empathy and in them lodging crazed and insatiable want. 

I long for a mystical godmother of my own, blessed destroyer of the nihilistic tendencies that now pervade, to take and wrap me in her soft cloak of blue calico. She would be timely and majestic, summoned at the second that a sigh of resignation leaves my chest or a twitch of fear takes to my jaw. In her beautiful violet eyes would be the shine of immediate recognition and understanding. As she appeared she would step surely with her golden boots towards the lurking enemy,shaking her beautiful head with pity and menace. She would slowly stretch an intimidating arm toward the hovering fiend..

God, this lady is still at it. 

Her name is probably Ellen. She sports high waisted slacks and a crew cut. Her glasses frames and a facial expression suggest with little doubt that she has the radio of her forest green saab dead set to the classical music station, and complains in each and every one of the town board meetings where she is famous for her spite and religious attendance. The obnoxious noises of this 50 something trying in vain to de-slime her vocal chords become to me the glorious grunts of exertion during the battle between the junk fairy and my super-powered sobriety advocate..

My godmother would fight with the brutality of honesty, screaming the loud and painful truths I can't. She would show the dope fairy no mercy, and snap the evil wand in two and shred the paper wings. A twelve step program encompassed in the wrath of a disney character. Nine feet tall would she stand with constant gleaming composure, like the moon's liquid glow. My godmother would stare eye to eye with the struggling drug fairy, with calm strong fingers clenched around the barely pulsing neck. She would hold and choke with an unrelenting grip, her power would derive from the grief of the witnesses of all addiction. As the sleet begins to fall, cleansing and silver, she would release her benevolent grasp. With her golden boots she would stomp on the withered and lifeless countenance as I weep and smile..

And the woman is still clearing her throat. I want to tell her that her halls menthol lozenges aren't working, instead I look out the window and bite my nails, contemplating the approach of the Tappan Zee Bridge. 

I just want everyone to be ok. 

Kitschy Ice Cream Treats vs. Unwanted Backpacks; the good outweighs the bad.

I hate the impossible satchel called a conscience-

the unmistakable tin of the things we fabricate to avoid its burden

I love the unnatural ease of living at 4a.m, the sound of the highway trucks-

how they always evoke for some reason the pure stream of nostalgia that I curse/cherish

I hate the pale reluctance of the morning after-

sweet cloudy oblivion wrecked by the cruel alarm, and the unholy pitch of its death beep

I love you and the contradictory-

how the strength of your fingers makes manifest the softness of your brown eyes

I hate simultaneously the fears of certainty/the unknown-

the choice between the resignation of doom or the paranoia of confusion

I love the hot chemical smell of tar in the summer-

how it reminds me of walking that block, albany, childhood, push up pops, and the wild beauty of life

Escapism on the Q.

It's so easy for me to believe that you are that one simple, shining solution. The flashlight in the room when the power's out, illuminating all of my inadequacies with blinding precision and then burning them away, if just for a while. 

I'm on a train. 

I'm a mole, because underground is where I feel most myself, I crave the anonymity, I so dig being a reflection on a window and a stolen glance. A pair of boots and nothing else.  

Maybe I'm just subversive. Maybe I'm just sub-everything. Always less and lacking.

(I wonder if I could crawl the gross span of these depths, deep and directly under all those little asian foods stores with their pallor and supernatural quality. Bars and churches. Vodka and holy water. I'm sure my eyes would adjust to the darkness as I scaled the rotting tracks of the Q. A girl phantom, content in my search of confusion. I would live off donations of pretzels and orangina from kindly vendors of vague middle eastern origin. Every little while I would lift my tired neck upwards, and peer with always thinning hope through the slats that allow bits of dusty light and the odor of burning meat to seep down, and the hellish steam to rise up to the street like a repressed memory or an unwanted thought. Looking up I would no doubt see the frantic platform gait of a scared prostitute on 7th avenue. Or the tired limp of a shoeless bum on 43rd street. I would be glad for my safety)

This place so bereft of joy is for me a mine of creative thought. 

I can see the ghosts of the trillions who have sat in the plastic seats across from me, their spirits are infinite in the sickly reflections of florescence. 

It's transportation, it's magic.

Sometimes I get lost in the beauty of the graffiti, I try in vain to make sense of the window scratches. When we halt between stops, I hold my own breath until the train starts breathing again, and I know we'll move soon. 

If I let go, I'm positive that we'll all explode. 

The voices of the conductors sound so tired, calloused with  years of experience. The crackle of their announcements brings me back to reality. 

And I always feel

I always have felt

That I'm on the cusp of the revelation of some secret, something of grand and extreme urgency.

marlboro reds and old spice. 

"sensitive to fate not denial"

i miss your smell so much it hurts

i hate this school when you're around

Six

i would like to lay with you on a beach at night, all purple and salt, with the comfortable smell of fast food and the screeching of train cars as the city's reminder.

to be bathed in blue light shining from the streetlights of the promenade. ethereal.

i would like to slowly rub cold lotion on your chest.

to feel my hands on your pale skin as you breathe and shiver, and grin. my rings catch shine from the apartments. we write plays in our heads about their inhabitants.

i would like to admire each other, our whispers louder than the low roar of highway traffic,

to behold you with it back in your eyes, silver and ancient and liquid.

i would like to lay exhausted with you in sheets of green flannel. 

tousled boy and his wide-eyed princess.

I would like to count the freckles on your shoulder, six. 

to kneel on the dirty carpet, industrial dorm, while you read the lines in my hand and i'd watch your lips form words.

i want to find the finest bakery and buy you a cupcake, and sit with you under a tree and tell stories until my throat hurts.

White Pavement

Everyone tells you that being alone holds some kind of glorious freedom. I know what I need but I really don't want it. All I really crave is closeness. It's not about a fear of dying single, or the prospect of being a spinster, or the lack of a personal identity, it's a physical need. Have you ever had that impossibly uncomfortable feeling where you can't see the future, as if you're wearing glasses that block any kind of light, and six months from now looks like white pavement? Scarily blank. I hate that feeling. When all I see is white pavement I just want to be hugged until I explode. I think the only cure for white-pavement vision is crushing embrace. My problem is that I'm a silly little girl. I throw all of myself into something in complete confidence with a breathless "this is it"-ness. Of course it never is. As lame as this sounds, I miss being an object of affection. I miss kissing under covers and the promise of a hand to hold and boy smelling arms. I miss tangled hair and crooked grins. What I hate most is being literally almost always on the verge of tears. It's so unnatural because I've never been a crier. 

ramblez

I'm scared to death of failure. This weekend is a blur, I danced to mod reggae under the yellow light of the jasper stoop. Nobody should ever go barefoot on the floor of a college dorm, almost positive that I stepped in vomit. My first year of college is ending. I'm scared to death of failure. I love nights the best, and I'm concerned for a friend. My heart is racing as a result of prescribed amphetamines. I should stop reading craigslist. 

Babe-raham Lincoln: a poem.

Oh to be in the presence of your eyes

so free and sweetly.

"Honest Abe", you resemble the old president.

Stark Features, but without the honor. 

Like the weight of the Union is held in your tight set jaw

as if your eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord. 

The passing of time has revealed you to me

and now I want to shoot you in the head.

You made me believe you partook only of pure northern streams

and chose poison all the while. 

I guess the beckoning murk of southern swamps was too strong.

Traitor, traitor, traitor, traitor, traitor.

Oh to be beneath you again, in the literal sense. 

In our little log cabin, how you would fall closer and draw away!

Giving, taking.

Taking, giving.

Breathing iloveyou three times over.

Please don't be my ruination.

Oh to see your face in happiness

as it used to often be, even caught in the throes of the everyday. 

Back then the weight of the Union didn't draw down your smile.

I always liked the way your nostrils, like my hopes for us, 

got big when you laughed. 

But this is the truth to your lies:

your taking grin betrayed my giving lips.

And now I have seceded from you.

Slumber Party? How About Party Slumber?

I fell asleep at a party in the west Bronx last night. In a room full of rowdy, none too sober people. I was sitting on a couch with my half empty cup of pale pink jungle juice at my feet, which hurt so bad from the ridiculous heels I was wearing. I just leaned my (only slightly spinning) head on Sean's shoulder and passed the fuck out. How does someone fall asleep at a social gathering? As my good friend vomited into a nearby garbage can I remained unconscious, sweetly oblivious. Apparently a few people approached me to see if I was alright. I guess I was snoring. So weird. 

candy bananas

i'm in library room 418 listening to neil young with the brightly deranged scent of yellow candy bananas in my nose. last night the entire kingsbridge area smelled like cinnamon sugar. it was so wonderful, i was like a little girl in my flip flops and skirt, gayly skipping past rape bar, also known as pauline's cabaret. life is good. 

Thursday

i am so sick of disappointing myself and everyone around me.

the kind of loathing that comes from the center of your chest and radiates outward until it pools in your fingertips. It stops in your knees,those little white dots of cruel energy that make you want to scratch a hole in your stomach, letting the better part of yourself escape, having a chance to be seperate from the weakly hued brown slime that you feel like, the color of the spit from tobacco, the filthy mouths of baseball players, all prone to lewd speech and plaque that plagues crooked teeth. you are in pain, and overwhelmed with the driving urge to literally climb out of your own repulsive visceral mass, getting caught in forests of flesh, slipping on logs of bone and swimming through rivers of hateful blood. 

i just want the aftershock of the fall. when you can't feel anything yet but the vibrations of the thud, limbs wobbling from the dive you've taken half a second ago and you know the relief of pain will be monumental, freeing in its stark red,in the stars that it makes you see. you know you won't have to live in crushing anticipation anymore because you've at last gotten what was coming to you, every single searing hurt that you deserve. your dad was right when he said you don't care about life. he was correct when he said you don't care about anything. so then why did you cry when he wouldn't stop yelling at you? why did your knees buckle and your vision fog when he drove away an hour into your first parent's weekend?

i am so sick of disappointing myself and everyone around me. 

where did it go?

Sometimes I know that I want what I can't have. When I'm riding the subway, all I can think about is the lives of my fellow passengers, and I wish that I was doing the best in my own. Sometimes I hate myself. Sitting in those plastic yellow and orange seats that have seen a world of filth and pain somehow conects me to the millions that have sat there before me. Being underground makes me want to listen to Simon and Garfunkel. I secretly feel like I'm a part of this club, a cult comprised of the teeming mass of New Yorkers, stoic yet vulnerably soft inside their puffy northface jackets. All trying to get somewhere, all unhappy with their own personal here and now. That's what the whole city was based upon, change and getting ahead, so I guess it makes sense. Sometimes I feel like my life is a series of mental blocks. I just want to be in the presence of those eyes, in those arms, that make all the tears, the blood, the fear, the slow crushing emptiness of 4:13 a.m. turn into nothing. I want to laugh in the face if my failures, roll away from the fast coming train of my future, chrome and steel, the inevitably cold metal and death bearing crunch with the subsequent loss of consciousness. He doesn't make my world spin or inspire me to write, bend my thoughts into spirals that sparkle in the sunshine turn an entire month into a gold cloaked vacation, dreamy squares on paper blurring into each other. I want so bad to be enveloped in that kind of warmth again.

thousand mile stare

Im staring at you from across the table. Not across, but diagonally. The fading edge of the Bronx is reflected in your eyes. You have the "thousand mile stare", apparently. That's what my father said about you. Addict's eyes. The funny thing is that I've begun to crave you, and the sins that I've tried to bury in hell rise like steam from the subway line, or water that's been boiling to make chamomile tea, yeah right, like dried leaves in hot water can make anyone feel less like shit. The sinister vapor comes up from the cracks in pavement into this little world of catholic education. Upstanding and all brick. Signs in green and white are so prim, regulations as an attempt to preserve the desperate image as a " fine LaSallian institution" are so blatant, but so was, I'm sure, the way that we fucked like rabbits in your room. I know that they could see it in the tousle of my hair, in your tired eyes. Do they know you're walking around with thousands of secrets, all those truths, the negatives to the positively thousands of lies you spew so readily from that boyish mouth? The mouth that I pressed my own to so many (too many) times. And now my addiction is solidified from every time we would lie on your sheets of innocent blue, now defiled by our actions, with the moon seeping through the slats of the cheap dorm blinds, plastically insipid and making a pattern on your named chest.