November Playlist

Answering Machine- Matt Nathanson
24-25- Kings of Convenience
8- Lovedrug
Ever the Same- Rob Thomas
The Verb- The Swell Season
Led to the Sea- Jenny Owen Youngs
Half of My Heart- John Mayer
The Man Who Can't Be Moved- The Script
War of my Life- John Mayer
Small Blue Thing- Suzanne Vega
Swans- Unkle Bob
I'm About to Come Alive- Train
Men of Snow- Ingrid Michaelson
Falling Away with You- Muse
Kathleen- David Gray
All We Ever Do is Say Goodbye- John Mayer
Marchin On- OneRepublic
Shine- David Gray
Be Here Now- Ray LaMontagne

Panic

My heartbeat pounding in my ears is far too loud for my own personal taste. Despite the assurance that it's keeping the blood pumping through my limbs, more than anything the beating seems to have hollow resonance. My nerve endings are blunted and as I blindly search within my mind for something to hold on to to steady myself I come up empty handed. And drowning. Despite all attempt to keep my head above water the ridiculous weight of air presses down, down, down until I'm so deep underwater, all I hear is my heartbeat.

Dirty Cinderella

Dirty Cindy,
with her ringlets greased by motor oil
her fingers adorned with nuts and bolts.
The layers of tulle get caught under the heels
of her motorcycle boots
and they fly in the wind behind
making this odd crackling sound.
Dirty Cindy is tired of being monotonous.
But you can't put expensive shades
and a nice face
on a crime.
Dirty Cindy,
ain't so pretty anymore.

Drum Time

Ya da ba bum it's drum time with my dizzy feet and toes
dancing circles in mustard drenched linoleum that you neglected
to mop the other day.
Your hands to occupied with the sappy ends of pussy willows
you know the part towards the end of the stick?

Ya da ba bum it's drum time, it's fall time, it's heart time, hard time.
Your ex lover died at drum time.
You should have seen it coming
but you were too distracted by the chemistry equations
you found hidden in the creases of your magazine.
You thought they were an equation for that perfect shade
of lipstick.

Ya da ba bum go the pal bearers steel tipped boots
crashing through stained glass leaves and pipes filled with wine
intended to induce global relaxation.
A terrorist attack.
It's drum time.
Don't you hear the drums?
Ya da ba bum?

The Art of Growing Up

The breeze tickles her androgyny as she stands on top of a mountain, overlooking the grass scattered with picnic blankets, occupied with people who have forgotten their ham sandwiches half way to their mouths as they look to the crazy girl with boy hair standing on top of the hill. Her clothes smell like crisp fall and deep smoke and they see her take a whiff of her sleeve. They watch, as her peculiarity increases. She surveys her kingdom before declaring disdain and running back down the slope, a drapey black sweater and large silver earrings following in her wake like a tail.

She clambers into a car, disappointed at the deceiving mountain. She's offended by it's minimality. However, she's quickly distracted by the lightness of her limbs. She rambles about metaphors to private school and the government as she lets a lonely finger float out the window. Stunned by it's freedom, the top half of her body follows. From the waist up she lolls out the window like some kind of rebellious flag.

She is a contradiction. Always striving to be more that she should be, she declares "Youth! It's youth I've found! It is wind and smoke and sugar!" Maybe in time she will coat herself in Crisco and pure cocoa powder, declare herself a confection for life to feast upon. There is an art to growing up.

"Look! Raise your arms! See how light you feel?"

settling

For a while now, I've been trying to forgive. With all my efforts in vain, my frustrations rose. My incapability to let it go was an insult to my character. But recently, I've dawned upon a new thought. Not only must I forgive the one who scorned me, but more importantly, I have to forgive myself. This is not a get out of jail free card for him, he will never be a jail bird, one with wings. God knows I clipped his wings long ago. But it does buy him time to come to terms with transgressions, it does give him time to realize that maybe he did do something wrong.

I've always considered myself strong, steadfast, a force. So therefore, when our end came and I reflected upon those eleven months anger rose not only for that man but at myself. In the end, it wasn't just the way we ended that was torturous. It was the entire journey. The things I let myself be subjected to were actions I said I would never endure. I always thought I was a strong woman, that no man could beat me down. But love truly is completely blind.

So, as I walked my way through tragic day blending into tragic song, I sank into denial. I denied the fact that I had failed myself. I had not been strong enough to put an end to my own suffering. The scars I wore externally were a metaphor for what was happening inside my mind. At the time I thought them more superfluous than that, but now as I've come to know myself, and my addictions, and my weaknesses, I realize that for the second time in my life, I chose to hurt myself in an attempt to protect a man.

Like I said, it's not an excuse for his behavior. There are things I look back on that really were horrible. Screaming matches, jealousy, teary phone calls, seeking revenge when it wasn't meant to be sought. I never intended to fall in love with him, it was never the plan. At the time when he first approached me, my heart was with another. That he never knew. It would've killed him. It wasn't until three months in that I let the other one go and gave myself fully to him.

That was the mistake; the complete and utter surrender of myself. I was so infatuated with golden light and poetry that I let myself live a life accompanied by someone who in essence, wasn't what I needed. I needed confidence and security. I needed to be nurtured.

My resentment towards him was immeasurable. This man, no this boy, had caused me to completely contradict everything I stood for. Strength, will, feminism, it all took a backseat to trying to hold onto something I should have let free such a long time ago. But I never would have. No matter how many times I threatened, no matter how many times I almost did, no matter how many times I told myself you have to end this, and be assured there were plenty of moments, and they existed not only in the end of our story, but the middle and beginning as well. But I never would. The ignorant love held me moored to his dock, fighting the waves pounding against my helm.

The reason we fell in love and the reason we fell apart are one in the same. There is a difference between similarity of interest and similarity of soul. On the exterior, we seemed perfect for each other. The way our mouths and hands moved, both on paper and over each other, the things we held important, the way we both always fell so hard. But the integral things, the things that define personality, those were always opposing. Religion, politics, marriage, family, religion, friendship, loyalty, religion, religion, religion, our values were different. We were both so stubborn that neither one would change and why should we? It's much to great a sacrifice to change the very construction of yourself in order to appease another. I knew this from the start, really, truly, I did. But once again. Love. Is. Blind. I think he knew it to. We both always knew that our promises to each other were tempting the God he worshiped and I denied. His simplistic approach to conflict and my dramatic rashness were never going to meet on common ground. But we were in love with the poetry of each other. Not the idea of each other, because it was not an idea, it was reality, but it was the exterior. We fell in love with what, in our books we fell such victim to, would have been an ideal match. But this is not a story nor can it be manipulated by pen and paper. There are no edits and rewrites. It is truth. It is reality. Every poem has an end. And by the transitive property, so did ours.

I awoke this morning in tangled linen, realizing that I could never belong to him. I could never belong to anybody if I did not belong to myself. In order to give myself to anybody, I have to pay myself the same courtesy. In order to fall in love, I must fall in love with myself. Every flaw, every curve, every word, every scar.

I awoke this morning in tangled linen, my skin still smelling of the one that had left just hours before. I reflected on those moments. How as he left from my doorstep just before the sun, his kiss lingered on my lips long after he had driven away. The words of "I love you" echoed through my ears as I drifted into slumber. I awakened still basking in the rosy glow, my skin salty with dried salt, my muscles aching, but blissfully happy.

It's a different kind of happy. It's a different kind of love. Everything is in reverse from last time. He doesn't speak eloquently and it's taken time for me to adjust to his simplicity instead of the world of verbal royalty I came from. But what he doesn't say with his words he says with his heart. He knows me- the small, the superfluous, the random, the profound. Whether bringing me vintage books when I've had a rough week, holding me when I'm sick, or sitting talking with me till the early hours of the morning, our heads clouded by smoke and weariness, he cares for me. He nurtures. There's such a simplicity in it. He adores me, but not for my talents or quirks, but for who I am. The talents and quirks don't go unnoticed however. He said something to me a few weeks ago that stole my heart. He said "I'm proud of you. I'm always proud of you. You blow me away." He's proud of me. I had never thought about it before, but it's something I had never heard before. It's that simplicity that makes me love him. It's the simplicity that makes me look at our relationship with realistic eyes as opposed to the tinted ones I had before.

As to you my blue eyed wonder, I do not forgive you. Not yet. I don't think I can ever fully forgive you because I don't fully understand. I understand why you were the one to finally end us. I understand that. What I don't understand is why you did what you did, the way that you did. I will never understand your cruelty. I know you're not evil and therefore, I know you feel the intensity of the pain you've caused me, but still you are silent. No remorse passes from your lips. That is what I cannot forgive as of now. But alas I am trying. Everyday I am trying to forgive you. And I'm growing closer every moment. With every day that I forgive myself a little bit more, I move closer to forgiving you. Every time I tell myself that I am not weak, that I am not a fool for allowing love to trump abuse, I move closer to being at rest with you. You are not a bad man. You are wonderful, but not wonderful for me, nor am I for you. In essence, you had the strength to do what I always said I would. Maybe you loved me enough to see you were not what I needed. You loved me enough to let me go, maybe you knew what I needed before I did. That image of you is what I try to cling to.

I will never forget. I will someday forgive. And I will always love you. Once you fall in love you never really fall out of it. The love may change color, shape, form, it may rearrange itself to fit a different tune, but it will always be there. And that is not a sin. That is a gift. So for now, my love for you lays deep and thick in the bottom of my heart. Dormant and at rest, it is on it's way to contentment and acceptance. It is merely out of sorts from it's recent relocation. All will be well in time. For today, I love another, and I love him deeply. Today, the storm begins to calm. The furnishings thrown about the room have found new residence, the cracked glass panes reflect new life, and the dust, begins to settle.

Generation Z- Scott Kulicke

I've never put up a piece by anybody other than myself, but Scott's definitely worthy of being the first. I loveeeeee you Scottimus Prime.

Generation Z
Scott Kulicke

I’m scared of the world I’m going to have to live in, because I know it won’t know me. Go to any airport, and take a minute to think about how long your life has been. The world inside your head, the endless road of memories and emotions that have comprised every minute you’ve been awake, is too much. Perniciously it starts to eat away at your senses, until you’re forced by the complexity of your own experience to turn your thoughts elsewhere (weirdly enough, away from your own thoughts). Then look around you. There are people everywhere. Blank eyed, quiet people. You never noticed any of them until now, because they were just the people walking past you. But the minute you stop walking and you start looking, it becomes clear that they are also people. Most of them older than you, they’ve all had lives too. Every little memory of everything you’ve done, they’ve done too. They’ve all had feelings, and they’ve all had experiences. They are all as complicated as you are.
And none of them look happy.

It may just be the natural expression of their faces, faces that look tired in the corners of their eyes, faces attached to bodies that lean in on themselves like they’re lonely. At what point did everyone become so unhappy?
I then ask myself what constitutes happy. Maybe everyone just hates travel. You get up earlier than you’d like to take off more clothing than you’d like to get through security (and you really don’t look like you have a bomb anyway). But it seems like more. You walk through the city, and everyone has that look. You sit on the train, and you look out at the gray world outside, at the boarded up houses that are flaking away into abandoned lots. Every adult I see looks unfulfilled, and dying.
What am I supposed to think of the world I’m going into? No one anywhere looks happy. How hard can I try to break out of this? I’m going to run away from the place I’ve grown up in, and the people that have watched me grow. I’m going to shun everything I’ve done so far, and try it all over again. But if I haven’t already, when am I going to?
My parent’s parents were, having emerged from the great depression and World War II, hard working, strong people. Their children, my parents, grew up listening to their parents talk about how hard they had worked so my parents would never have to face such hardships again. But they didn’t recognize that my parents would then turn around and look at the racism and sexism that pervaded their lives, and decide that my grandparents were hypocrites and liars. They shunned the lessons they had been taught; they had been raised under the cold rules of liars, and needed to break out of them. The hippies emerged. They preached freedom, and understanding. But they didn’t preach responsibility, or hard work. My parent’s generation became a generation of excesses, both physical and emotional. This left them fundamentally unequipped to be adults, and run the world that was handed to them.
We are the first generation to be left with a world worse off than it was for our parents. We’ve been raised by people who have had so much trouble raising themselves, and we’ve thus been left with the responsibility of teaching ourselves moderation, responsibility, and the ability to change the world into what it needs to be. No matter how hard I concentrate on piecing together the world around me, and figuring out why every person does everything they do, I can’t put it all together for myself. I, like everyone else that I’m growing up with, faces tremendously low odds of making ourselves happy. We’ve defined happy as the ability to be satisfied and free doing what we’re doing, but we never accounted for the work that had to go into it, and were never taught how to work that hard without killing the beauty of the process.
The most I’ve been able to do is look at all those people walking through the airport and growing increasingly paranoid of ending up that way. I won’t let myself walk from one unhappy place to another. I won’t be my parents, unable to raise their children into adults because they’re still learning how to do it themselves. By the time I enter the world, by the time I leave the nest my parents have put me in, I will be able to move freely, making myself into what I need to be. I won’t be that man who had his chance.

The Finch and the Daisy (A Riddle)

Caught me with hook of your melody's lines but I'm no punchline,
crack me up see what you find.
Anthropology mixes with insanity resulting in philanthropy
it's comedic to say the least.
There's a buttonhole to my soul made of a typewriter's ink, boy, what do you think are you an. Author can you make the best of me, best of, best of me.

I'll write you another riddle concerning the finch and the daisy.
We'll live in a house of glass walls that shatter when the light falls from room to room.
And despite it all a finch is gonna sing and a daisy's gonna bloom.

What would you say to living deliberately, or like blind poetry would you rather know or rather seek.
Hear the stars sing of old spars, how they fought great wars amongst themselves lofted above the rolling sea.

I'll write you another riddle concerning the finch and the daisy.
We'll live in a house of glass walls that shatter when the light falls from room to room.
And despite it all a finch is gonna sing and a daisy's gonna bloom.

Find me on the rails with mosquito bites leaking lust into my veins,
and as the influences change, I'll accept that I have failed.
This is an admirals ghost and he's holding my will,
all hands on deck it's just a shriveled eye and a soul.

I'll write you another riddle concerning the finch and the daisy.
We'll live in a house of glass walls that shatter when the light falls from room to room.
And despite it all a finch is gonna sing and a daisy's gonna bloom.