Tuesday, December 16, 2008

fantastical fame

i thought for a very long time, was absolutely sure of the fact that i was destined to be famous. there was no doubt in my mind, this was what was going to happen to me. it wasn't even something that i was going to set out looking for. it was just going to fall in my lap. i wasn't really sure what exactly it was going to be for, either. i just knew that all the time i spent alone in my room pretending i was something i wasn't was going to add up. one day people wouldn't notice that i had no matrices of what could be considered 'constant intelligence"; rather, hiccups of good decisions that allowed me to live from one day to the next virtually unharmed. well, in one piece. i haven't made a stupid enough decision yet to die or even get an amputation, so i figure my chances get better every day i'm alive.

and, i realized at a young age that my lack of natural intelligence and book smarts was going to hurt my chances of becoming someone of elevated status (=elevated schooling=more years of being forced to do things i thought were useless=no), so i knew for me to get rich it would have to be through me getting famous for something i could do more naturally. like being a dancer. or a singer, like tiffany or milli vanilli. or a model like linda evangelista. and while my parents encouraged me with an apathetic "sure you will, honey." i thought about what it was i wanted to be put on the map for.

i secretly wished it would be singing but i dared not tell anyone that for fear that they would tell me exactly what i didn't want to hear; that i sucked. and i thought it may be for acting, until i realized that acting in your bathroom mirror is not and actual skill; it's just a great game of pretend. it didn't really mean you are an 'actor', it just meant that you are a child. of course, i would be famous for ballet, and i was pretty confident in that one. but so far i have danced for twenty-two years and my biggest credit in dance is unfortunately Larry the Cable Guy's Christmas Extravaganza. not quite the recognition i desired for my artistry when my eleven year old students are asking their mothers (who then tell me, which doesn't make me feel guilty at all about cursing in front of their children or wearing low cut shirts to their performances) if miss kathryne is a stripper for extra money.

twenty-two years of classical ballet and an ungodly devotion to the contortion of my body and i amount inevitably to a stripper. my parents are even more proud than when i corrected their habitual referral to my career as my "hobby".

i digress. i was happy enough daydreaming about being published in magazines and being interviewed by letterman and having rave reviews written about my amazing portrayal of blanch du bois as a tortured yet subtly coquettish soul on broadway's production of a streetcar named desire. this sort of life made sense to me, and i expected the fame as well as the paycheck to have been coming at any point in my adolescence.

at any point. annnny day now. it. will. be. soon...

as you can see, the four of you who are reading this blog (i'm feeling overzealous today) i haven't exactly gotten the recognition i felt i deserved all these years. instead, i'm sitting in a coffee shop, in atlanta, waiting for tomorrow to come. it turned out that i am as bad at planning as i am at singing, and as far as i'm concerned, the days that my superficial beauty can carry me on to the next project of my life are not only few and far between, but they are also waning. the curse of a career in the entertainment industry: age.

not too long ago i was dancing at opera on a 'celebrity appearance' night. Chris Brown and Rhianna were to be showing up and also doing an 'impromtu' performance.
*note: i can't wait until i can get to a point in my life where an 'impromtu' performance will let me walk away with 30,000 dollars of someone else's money.
so they came in around 12:45 and went straight to a VIP booth above our heads. i was amazed at how many people were falling over themselves to get a picture of the two. they were cheering and flashing and crowding and looking in one direction- fame. i was amazed at the reaction of the crowd - utter awe and excitement - but most of all, at myself. as i danced on the box i realized a) how lucky i was to be standing five feet higher than everyone else so i could get a better view and/or chance of rhianna pulling her manager aside and telling him to come down to me on my break and tell me "Ms. Rhianna wanted me to come down and get you, as she would like to employ you to do all the choreography for her next world tour and also be a backup singer and sometimes sing for her when she gets tired. here's my card. we'll send a driver tomorrow morning." ; and b) that i had just become one of the douchbags vying to get a piece of the action, of the fame.

the truth is, i was just a dancer on a box getting paid what one of rhianna's pedicures are worth in a nightclub too big for the town it resided in. i drifted off to sleep that night, starting work on the tour i was to choreograph for her, and from what i remember it looks really great.

but that's just the thing. it's just an image. a facade. rhianna is beautiful and talented and was in the right place at the right time with her talent... and now, she is a representation of herself. a marketable item. she's no longer rhianna, the girl who sang in the shower and got excited about the prospect of singing the national anthem for the city's little league playoffs. she was RHIANNA the superpower, on lunchboxes and schoolfolders and teeny bopper posters... surely she must be disappointed in the fact that her image has gotten bigger than the original. it would piss me off to have to fend off photographers and think before speaking and remember all the words to songs... and i knew, that kind of fame, is not for me.

not too long ago someone told me i'm the most famous person they knew, and my head swelled with compliment. all my flashbacks of being on set or being in the makeup chair swirled back in my head, loving being the center of attention and having people tell you how talented and beautiful you are... and then i remember, those people get paid to tell you that shit. the bigger you believe your image is, the more other people believe it.

and it is with that, that i confess. i don't think i'm famous, nor do i think i'm exceptionally talented. so in direct parallel, know that you shouldn't either. a person's worth isn't based on how many other people value them. otherwise, we'd all turn out to be britney spears, even though she did make a bitch of a comeback. all i know is, my days of wishing for fame are gone. instead, what i wish for is it's paycheck, and when i figure out how to get one without the other, i swear i'll let some of you know. so keep reading. one of these days, the secret will be your reward for making it through.

k.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

bringing home the bacon

"his name," she said with a slight curl in her voice,"is jeremiah bacon."

how oddly fitting, i thought, considering his line of work. i was googling the name of the man who is nat's latest interest, who also happened to be the executive chef at the new restaurant she'll be working with. in an effort to save money for our newfound desire to conquer new york city, the restaurant industry was once again the only sure bet for a good payout at the end of the day. it's funny, she has a degree from one of the biggest universitys of the south and a new certificate as an estetician, and she is still going back to serving. which is equivalent to what i'm doing, which is making a living off of go go dancing in clubs. this is what our lives have come to.

ugh. back to the bacon. i was presented with a picture of a man surrounded by a halo of pots, with "don'f fuck with me or i'll cleaver your skull" eyes, looking into the camera lens with not so much as a gleam of interest in what the viewer thinks of him. very intense. and very familiar. "you make sure he's not a virgo yet?" i asked.

"not yet. but if he is, there's no way in hell." if you like crazy, you'd like a chef. if you like crazy with a side of neurosis, you would LOVE a virgo chef. *ding* orders up!

i had a series of virgo chefs in my past. the first one, and most integral, was one i'll call the 4th. he was the catalyst of the chefs that would follow... portland, the best friend, mohawk, mooseface. all culinary artists; all virgos. i was sixteen when i met (well, re-met, but that's a different story) the 4th, a line cook at (ironically enough) the same restaurant i met mooseface at six years and one state later. it was my very first job as a hostess and he was perfection to me... quiet, brooding, and beautiful... and being sixteen, i thought it would last forever. "forever" lasted on and off over the following six years, until it finally occurred to me that he was extremely possessive slash controlling, not to mention BAT-SHIT CRAZY. i blame not knowing this important observation on the fact that we were long-distance the entire relationship, not my fukkin thick-ass head.


i digress. during those six years, during the off seasons of our long tirade, i met and wooed all the rest. no one really stuck, because as it turns out, they were all either possessive or not that interested. with the exception of mooseface.

mooseface was everything that my boyfriend before him was not. he was tall and hadsome and he made money. he made a lot of money, actually, and at twenty-one i was working five jobs to support the unpaid ballet company i was working for in south atlanta; i wasn't aware of the concept of having money in excess to spend. before that, i had dated a guy who treated me horribly and fucked with my mind so that i thought he treated me fair. he should have been in school for law, if it wouldn't have interrupted his plans to be a schmuck dropout pothead. so coming off this relationship, money and nice dinners and gifts were all the more attractive, as one could imagine. mooseface expressed his attraction to me as a friend first, but soon the friendly glasses of wine turned into flowers and romantical dinners.

this is the catch. he was sleeping with natalie, and i knew that she liked him. we found out later that he was also sleeping or had slept with the other half of the attractive female servers at or around that time, so it makes me feel a little better, but i was still a dick and karma has since never stopped reminding me. long story short, she eventually gave us her consent, and mooseface and i embarked on a year long journey that i like to refer to as, my medevial period.

mooseface and i had things in common. we both liked to smoke pot and drink wine. we both liked good food and pretending like we were wealthy. what else...hmmm... we both liked sex. that's five things in common. what else should i have looked for? what he lacked in conversation he made up for in dick, and i was okay with that. i was a rebound for him, and he was a rebound for me. we decided after much deliberation that i would move in with him the following year, and at that point is when things really started to sour. he was depressed with his life, and he had gotten back into doing cocaine, and gotten me to start doing it more that what i condider to be a healthy vice, even now. you know, given the warning signs... the unpredictable mood swings, the restless nights in bed, the frequent nose bleeds... i should have probably guessed that he was doing something that was detrimental to his health. but la la la i just went about my life, wrapped up in how i was going to make it as a ballet dancer, how i wanted to be thinner, how i wanted to get famous so i could have money to spend instead of just pretending like i had all the money in the world, that i really had no idea that he was coked out of his mind every day.

note to self: two selfish people in a relationship will never work out.

we fought constantly. if we weren't fighting, we were in silence. i would get so bored next to him. it turned out that everything i initially liked about him i hated towards the end. i hated how he chewed his food. i hated how he shaved his body hair. how he laughed, how his mouth opened up wide with his tongue hanging out. how he belittled me in front of other people. on that last morning of us living together, it was not even ten o'clock before the fights began. and i told him i wanted out. i packed a bag and my cat and left down the street to live with sarah and natalie, my ever saving graces. that's right. nat took me in after i stole her thunder. i was a total douche and she acted as if it were all his fault for fukkin me up. that's a true friend.

a week later i got a text from mooseface thanking me, that i had showed him that he had a substance abuse problem. i had no idea what he was talking about. when i called him he confessed that he was dealing with an addiction to cocaine and that he had told the restaurant, and that they were paying his way for a thirty day stint in rehab. the substance abuse center was located in miami, and he would be leaving in four days to recover from what he called his "last chance at sobriety". he asked me to stay with him, as i was the only thing that would get him through, that i was his guiding light and the single thing in his life that he felt he had done right... and of course, i did what any girlfriend with a heart would do.

i said i absolutely would not be there for him, and for him to go fukk himself.

i was pissed. i couldn't belieive he didn't tell me about his problem. and still, because i never really noticed for whatever reason, i'm not quite conviced he ever had one. i have this theory in the back of my mind that it was an elaborate ploy for me to stay with him. it was all too convenient; the move out, the impending break up, the habit that i never saw. like rehab was the only dire circumstance that would judge how much i loved him and was willing to fight for the relationship's survival. but really, for a couple who's relationship is based on little more than how you want to decorate your future kitchen and different sexual positions a female partner can climax in, it was probably pushing it to say i was going to stand by him due to the strength and nature of our love.

i felt foolish and naive. how could i have trusted this was going to work out again? none of the virgo chefs beforehand ever did. the 4th was all over the map, moving from possessive to cold in under 60 seconds, and then there was portland, who wanted me to move to oregon to be with him, and the best friend, with whom i had no desire to begin a relationship though he called me for about a month in hopes thats where things would go... it was a rise and fall with the virgos, like the tides. it's funny, i have always prided myself on the ability to look at someone and feel whether or not they are good for me as a friend. well, i either am severely disillusioned, or that ability only extends to plain friends, because my history of men has been way over par.

we get lost in projection, i think it's a problem that we all have a tendency towards. the person that you choose to be with has been that person their entire lives. of course, the beginning of a relationship does bring about change in both people. but it's mostly temporary and once it dissipates a little, begins to manifest projection. this is where the phrase, "i don't even know you anymore" comes from. what you actually mean is, "this is totally not who i thought you were and it's your fault for making me think you were the way i wanted you to be". think about it, especially if you have ever said that before or had it said to you. it's infuriating... if you say it, you feel as if you had been fooled. if it's being said to you, it's a direct blow to your character and/or personality.

the human mind will complete certain things if they are missing. there were a whole series of tests we had to do in one of my psych classes in college in which we looked at cards and said a word that was on the card. in most instances, we would say the word and upon closer evaluation, would realize half of the lines on the letters were missing. it was an excercise in understanding that the mind projects what the image really should be so that it's host won't become confused and disoriented with the patchy information the mind is receiving. like this:


Olny  srmat poelpe can raed tihs.
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod  aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of  the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde  Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a  wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat  ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and  you can sitll raed it wouthit a  porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef,  but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot  slpeling was ipmorantt!
  

this paragraph defines what i've done in every single relationship i have ever been in.

the truth is, if i find something i want, something i have wanted for years with ALMOST all the parameters necessary to be a "dream come true", i complete the lines so that it fits inside nice and neat, even if the framework is loose and slack-strung. it seems that if i believe hard enough, things actually are what i want them to be, even though in the end, it is not something i ever would have desired. i have been left with a trail of disappointment, a string of lovers that i believed were everything i wanted in life, and only because i wanted that life so bad i could taste success in the food they fed me.

sometimes, the only thing we have is desire, and sometimes, that desire overcomes our reality. it's about as healthy as gourmet food every night for dinner, and that kind of gluttony is only useful if you want one thing; to be fat.

and so it was. natalie called me a few days after working with jeremiah bacon and told me it was over. "he's a total douchebag. his name isn't even jeremiah; it's jerry martin bacon. i fell for a man who uses a stage name in the kitchen because his isn't 'marketable' enough. how could i ever be so stupid?" and all i could do, was lower my head in shame.

i know how she did it. i fell in love with my chefs like that too. and even though mine didn't use a stage name like old jerry martin, they didn't ever have to. i might as well have made up one for them. they were never real to begin with anyway.


k.

Friday, December 5, 2008

what's it's like to only count to eight

circles, all
inside of me,
leading me,
kneading my muscles
into orbs of distinct
pronunciation;
like balls bouncing
through my arms,
shot
out my sternum
making divots down
my spine,
winding up
up
up into hands
afloat with air
underneath, a
supportive nothingness
to my boneless
frame.
circles in, out
and through my skin,
into the green
of my eyes, slowing
as they float
down two thighs stretched,
as if in water, languid,
and slow.
they lead to be
submissive and
lead me again,
answering questions
inside me, all
around me...

k.

questions. i have always played follow the leader with my questions, allowing myself to run in circles instead of creating them for myself. it's a difficult notion, being submissive to the questions themselves. questions have a tendency to consume me, to allow myself to be jaded into thinking one way, thinking that there aren't any other ways of answering them.

all my life, i have had a hate-hate relationship with math. i see numbers and immediately begin to tense up, beginning with my eyes, moving down to my throat and into my stomach, this feeling of dread. complete and absolute fear of having to add them, divide, or god forbid do anything more complicated such as finding the square root of, or throwing in a positive or negative somewhere along the lines. i have always been like this, and wondered in amazement how the people around me could solve these problems in less than fifteen or twenty minutes.

we had this competition in the third grade called top banana. we all had to decorate our banana and then we would have weekly multiplication contests to see who society thought was more valuable to the system. though my banana was adorned in intricate designs and ornate lettering for my name, it was the only one who moved only one space forwar. everyone else's bananas left mine in the dust to rot and fester like the artist it was on the inside.

i couldn't seem to pull ahead. i would look at the test and freeze. well, i guess really, i would lose any concept of anything i had been taught from any math class, ever. there was a literal hole in my mind. and forget the questions. in math, there was only ever one way to do anything. i hated it more in my later years when i realized that not only did you have to come to the correct answer, but you also had to show the way you got it, and were graded on sticking exactly to the plan.

just stick exactly to the plan. that's all you had to do. learn the way you were taught it and do it in the exact same manner every time you did it. the probem was, on the rare occasion i would actually remember the pattern in which to do the problem, i would usually get the answer wrong. so i was fucked either way. and this was, and has since been, my math career and i.

the problem is, it has extended into other aspect of my life, aspect that i began because i enjoyed them. laurie was talking about the path to the problem today. it's not about being there, at the right answer. it's finding your way to it, finding the possibility that exists within the path. because unlike math, movement has capability that exists out of anything. there is not one right way of doing something, there is every right way. the answer doesn't even have to be the same every time. it's asking the questions like these and interpreting different ways of answering them is what works with me. there's not a sould in the world that can take those options from me.

unless, you're a math teacher, and you are giving out top banana's in the class. in that case, i'm as fucked as i was when i started that journey. thank you thank you thank you... that dancers only ever have to count to 8.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

the third day passes

finding the possibility in everything. is it possible to find possibility in anything that you do? to take something so fixed and stagnant and make it into something pliable and synonymous? it's amazing what can happen when you have options... what freedom exists inside a notion that has otherwise never allowed any kind of porousness.

when you work the way you have always wanted to, happiness comes from a place that is underneath your feet, organically. it moves inside your core to manifest into something more than you can make up. the simple joy of movement is the basis for that to exist, which is what i am enveloping myself in, now.

i have felt so trapped, for so long. i know my boundaries. i am friends with them, and with some of them, too good of friends. i have held on to these white taped off lines for too long, let them consume me silently for years. in order for me to be different, i have to be able to release the boundaries hands and let whatever it is inside me, be.

organic thinking. almost as good as sea-salted edamame. yummy.

k.

Monday, December 1, 2008

getting away

and again, i say
goodbye, goodbye,
more or less
whispered under my breath,
it's hard enough
trying to find safety
through disarming pretenses...
different, now,
the past six days,
languid with family
and lucid
with beating hearts;
i grew into a
definition here,
textbook and blonde
and safe,
revisiting is never
kind to my reeling
mind
but this time, no,
this time
my past came to me
with open arms and
i, in my 'big city' visions
and high expectations
was quieted by
the best part of my youth,
one of the only parts
that made me feel.

k.

thank you. i have never said that about coming home before, ever. this coincidence is too coincidental to be coincidence.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

pointing fingers

i don't like you
cause you're everything
i cant stand about myself...
the contrived way you speak,
how you act
brand new and shiny and
sweet,
when underneath
you have been a
slut and a liar and a
thief...
i look at pictures of you
and my skin crawls
from remembering the way
you slept with my boyfriend
and smiled at me after,
with those long eyelashes
shrugging their shoulders, asking,
"me? i did nothing."
i hate how i never
cross your mind like you do me,
because i never did
anything awful to you
besides point out
that you were
-and still are-
a terrible writer,
and occasionally
point out the style
you choose to swathe in,
if that's what you want to call it.
i hate watching your
videos, even though i do
all the way through,
cause it fascinates me
how you can't even tell
that you're such a bad person,
so you've obviously done well
in your profession,
which is not all that
impressive.
i hate this part of me
for hating you for so long,
cause i know you may
not be the things i have
made you into,
and i know i did
that to make me
a better person while i
lamented
someone else's choices
made on your skin...
i hate how i said this
and how i still think it's true...
i have to admit, i'm
an awful lot
like you.

k.


it sucks when we have to understand why we don't like certain people. and most of the time, having to understand that the person represents everything you hate about yourself. they're usually not bad all the time, they just happened to do bad things to you. and i can't say i'm sorry, even if i wanted to, cause the rift is too long and benign now that there would be no point anyway. if it were up to me, she and i would have never met in the first place, so all this competition in my head would never have started.

oh well. my mind is as crazy as some of her outfits. we both should look in the mirror sometime.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

hangover headaches

headaches, these
little twists of fate
behind tepid eyes,
faded from age and
whiskey,
saline smearing black
trails down
pale and lifeless
cheeks.
can't live with,
can't live without,
can't live inside
this forever, wounds
bursting at the seams
sewn a bit ago.

k.

i have had a headache for a little while now, and it has everything to do with my own head fighting with my heart. i hate both right now, cause they're not helping matters with my stomach at all. a big, huge, meh.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

blowing bubbles

it's a small this,
a sprouting seed
inside my bubble world
floats, cuts through
the sky radiant
with trails of iridescence,
ribbons running
behind my head
into the clouds,
high as hell,
looking down on
red shingled rooftops
and chimneys burning with
winter,
the snow falling all around
my bubble,
almost imaginary
i concede just as well
to ride it out, glide
until my steel-soap walls
burst in
anticipation
and a fall, fall,
fall back into
reality.

k.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

opinions are like assholes...

i just read something so incredulous i almost couldn't laugh. i did, but it was the fact that i almost could not that made me angry, because i'm pretty sure the author of these words believes them.

this is coming from a young girl, not even yet out of her teens, or college, or who has transpired into adulthood. she has never lived anywhere in the world besides a rural north georgia and although she is sweet, she could also be classified that way because of her innate and untouched naivete. this is not the first time she has written something like this, but it is the first time i almost dropped my tea after reading it myself; and i am not someone who is extracurricularly political. in fact, in the past i have tended to keep my mouth shut during political temperence because as good as i am at feigning intellect, the game of politics has never failed to disclose openly my stupidity on the subject.

with that being said, i will move on to this. one of the reasons this country is so wonderful is because we all have the right to voice our opinion. as stupid or brilliant or moving or whatever they may be, we all retain the right of free speech. much like my blog of rambling desires, repetitive jousts on love and being hurt, and my sycophantical poetry, everyone has the right to a stupid opinion. this one, however, was such a ludicrous suggestion, a blatant piece of shit opinion, that i felt i must do a small psa about it.

"Have you ever thoug​ht you could​ do a bette​r job at being​ presi​dent?​​
well,​ i doubt​ it
i could​ proba​bly do a bette​r job than obama​ thoug​h"

that happened. a nineteen year old from north georgia who also wrote this a couple lines before that - Are you liste​ning to music​ right​ now? yea, my favor​ite song from hocus​ pocus​ =] - thinks she can do a better job than a man who was born into a multiracial family and who has been lobbying in washington for the length of her less than significant life. a girl who states her favorite song is from a movie about witches and the paranormal (as well as ending the sentence in a smiley face) believes herself to be a fit candidate to govern the united states of america domestically AND globally? really?

really.

i have no problems if you want mc cain/ palin to win. i will think you're a moron, and possibly argue that a man who allowed his vice presidential candidate to be dressed and made over in 150,000 dollars of the taxpayers money during staunch economic crises should not really be the best choice to govern our treasury... but you're entitled to it the same way i'm entitled to think barak obama is a good and decent man, who genuinely wants to save america from it's unending corruption in washington, who prides himself on honesty and loyalty and a good sense of being a man and not a pussy. but hey, the republican party has sexy sarah, a woman who drinks beers and shoots large animals and winks at you when she talks (excessively at that, i wonder if she's been checked for parkinsons yet)... what more could you want from a vp? no, the young'n is probably right. we should probably just surpass the two candidates on target for the presidency and elect her, a self-proclaimed "doormat", who's family all lives in georgia, who probably knows less of politics than i do (which is not a great place to be making assumptions such as the one she made)... she is definitely the one for the job.

listen people... i don't give a shit if you like certain things that i think are horrid. like black licorice, or anal sex. but really... i stand so firmly by this... please think before you make assumptions that are so absurd, so blatantly farcical they could never be brought to fruition. especially when you are announcing it to all the world on public display. it just makes you look immature and slightly thick... not that it doesn't parallel the image you have already created for yourself. i mean, who wouldn't trust a woman who loves bette midler's classic performance as 'winifred sanderson', a lightheaded but snappy witch who loves to sing... that screams "lead me!!! lead me into domestic prosperity and economic security, oh wise one... show me moral capacity and homeland aegis in one clean sweep...

and please, shut your fukking mouth.

k.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

to my grandmother, with love

in and
out
of dreams, last night,
thinking of you
and your skin
like weathered
watercolor paper, how
it so much
sounded like your voice,
frail, worn, and thin;
i could hear
how you smiled
at my happiness, but
with tears
rising from your throat,
through your eyes...
we don't have much
time
you told me last night,
lucidity seeping
from my skin,
as you lifted your shirt
to show me
where the strawberry patch
of scar tissue formed
over the wires
whitecoats inserted
to beat your weak heart.
and my hand to
your chest, you
looked at me
with tired eyes
and said you loved me,
that you always had,
no matter what
color my hair
or steel in my face,
and it was done,
you in your mountains
and me in a darkened,
frigid hotel room,
miles apart but
closer than ever.


i never knew my grandparents until about two years ago. they were always around but what i thought, in my selfishness, as generic. you know, the grandmother that bakes cookies and makes clothing, the grandfather that retired from war so long ago. it wasn't until i broke from my path of classicality that i understood they had loved me all along, that they were, in fact, some of my biggest fans.

my grandmother went in to the hospital four weeks ago because her pulse dropped to around 40 beats resting, and she was barely strong enough to walk to the kitchen from the living room, a mere 10 feet. we had talked earlier that day, and she had sounded so happy, so full of life. it never occurred to me she was faking, the same way i had before i let them know who i really was. what pretty pictures we paint, with colors crayola has never heard of.

i waited until she was strong enough to talk, which happened to be yesterday. i told her about the drive from cleveland to maryland, how the hills of virginia and pennsylvania looked like a beautiful painting with the colors of fall. and when she said goodbye, i could hear her voice swell with emotion as she said she was happy for me, that i was able to see all of the things that my grandfather and her have experienced three times over in my lifetime. her smile was pushed through her tears, and i could hear her pacemaker fuzzing through her chest into the phone. and when all was said and done and she said goodbye, i could do nothing but cry, because of how long i have waited to get to know her, and how soon it all may end.

love appears to us in different ways. i never thought my grandparents understood me and what i wanted to do with my life and my art, until i had nothing to show for myself but who i was. they stood by me when i was stripped of everything, even my immediate family. and still they have been the ones that seem most interested in what i do and who i am. they remind me that i will forever be a part of them, as they have always been a part of me. my dreams last night scared me, pushed me to a truth that i don't want to recognize... this life is frail and fragile, much like the love we find inside it.

value that, above anything else, because when we go, we're gone. there are no more chances to understand firsthand what shaped you before you were lurched into existence.

k.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

a tribute to grey

i listen to the lyrics and dwell underneath them... grey. in love with everything grey, in love with everything my own way... 'i smoke and i drink and every time i blink i have a tiny dream... but as bad as i am i'm proud of the fact i'm worse than i seem...' it's a ittle flash, a little paparazzi bulb going off in my head, this painful reminder of who i really am compared to who i want to be, but she cleans up real nice; she never looks a mess and talks like she knows what she's doing. i have more than i thought i would but crave the taste on my tongue as if it were foreign and not inside my palms, and everyday this little pink heart sinks further inside it's cage, feathers wilting, bags under it's eyes... and ticking on like a bomb inside my head, this metronome to my sanity like the turn of the grey tides, my mind is caught and set free, fraying neurons left and right, short circuiting, like water on a socket, those flashes, short bright short bright headaches! oh, grey headaches... you are not enough, too much sometimes; and back and forth the badminton goes...
i'm sick of you but i can't get enough in my veins. running grey.
why me?
why this now?
why this way?
walking walking. always wandering. meandering, hah. will a kept key be returned, to me? stumble up on it, between my toes? hm, silly girl... definition of insanity doing it the same way over and over and expecting different results ... sweep in, sweep out and wash grey over me, wash me off the shore, grey in, grey out... in, out...

le sigh.

k.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

polarity

there's something
about these towns, a spark
lit small
on the avenues,
dressed up
in a bigger city's
clothing...
i walk knowing
nothing, but,
familiarity
is webbed
all around,
vague wisps hang
in the air
suspended,
like lava in it's lamp;
each city i despise
on my way in,
and wave goodbye
on the outs,
exchanging smiles
like secrets between
old friends...
peripheral rolls by,
faster as we go,
the velvet ropes
like licorice
swaying and swirling
the edges
of this lucid
five day happy hour.

k.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

re-evolution



these are my first year contemporary students. they may not be as clean as the older girls but they are certainly just as beautiful and heartfelt. enjoy.

k.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

the end : my first venture into short storydom after a very long recess

there is such hope in her voice, small on the other end, a little bewildered to the fact that after all these months thinking she wasn't wanted, wasn't needed... and with one fell swoop she felt lifted again. underneath the brown of her eyes was a gold that pulsed, warmed her all the way into her core. the other end of the phone fell silent once more, and it flipped shut, like a period at the end of a sentence. well, an ellipses. it's a to be continued, she thought, as she gathered her things and went inside to get prepared for the end of the story.

she was wanted.
she was needed.

she took a shower, washed the days' pollution off her skin, thought about the end of the story. the water was hot and at times, too hot, scalding her delicacies as she shaved. she liked the shower better than the bath. it felt more alive and real, and she would always imagine all her iniquities wash down the drain to a place where no one, not even she, knew they existed. stepping out she opened the bathroom door and wiped the condensation from the mirror. it was a clear circle of her face surrounded by a frosted reflection. this was how she felt every day of her life.

she reapplied her makeup, her eyes had smudged with mascara from the steam. she liked it, it was mysterious. she made faces in the mirror, fish faces and sexy faces and innocent faces, thinking about the end of the story. she dressed in her new tank top and dabbed shalimar by guerlin behind her ears and in between her breasts. shalimar by geurlin was her grandmothers favorite, and it reminded her of growing up and watching nanette cook in the kitchen; her heels clicking against the shellacked wood floors, and her seamed pantyhose extending up into her high waisted dress. she couldn't ever see more of nanette, because she was always in the playpen, until nanette picked her up and let her taste the beef bourgenoiuse sauce or the sweet nutmeg cream for the crepes, and she would be nestled in between nanettes chest, shalimar and beef and nutmeg all around her. when nanette died she put a vial of shalimar in her rigor mortise hand in the casket. she certainly would not have wanted to smell bad in heaven.

she walked across the street to have dinner with her friends, and they laughed and drank wine and made fun of men, even though she was thinking about the end of her story. she gave hugs and kisses and went back to her house, where it was quiet and intrusive as she finished off a bottle of sauvignon blanc, creating a beautiful end to her story. she would answer the phone and be told to walk to her door, and upon opening it would discover a big box. but she would realize that as she opened it there were only smaller and smaller boxes packed inside until she got to the last one, which had instead, an envelope. in the envelope would be a plane ticket to a big city, to a place where she could finish the story she had started writing so long ago, and send it off and have it published and win whatever sort of prize there is to win for a well written short story and she would wear shalimar and fall in love with herself and someone else and be golden, just like the center of her eyes.

but she woke the next morning at her table, still clutching her phone in one hand with the empty wine bottle not too far away from the other. between the pounding of her head and her aching back she could hear birds chirping outside, announcing the day as if it were a blessing. a blessing, she thought, grabbing ibuprofen from the medicine cabinet. a blessing is a pleasant surprise, a good return on taxes... this is just another morning, on another day, of another page, of someone else's book.

k.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

death by glitter

Upon walking into the hotel the other night in a town right outside of minneapolis, we were accosted by a cop in full gear, yelling at us to stay where we were and to keep our hands where he could see them. And you know it is sad when this is the pinnacle of your tour so far: a bored and power-hungry cop at an extended stay screaming at four young girls about to pull a gun, and you get excited because it's the most action you have gotten in the last three weeks. this is my life on tour.

the company i'm working for has a tremendous amount of money, which we only see a little of each week. so in effect, we end up staying in extended stay hotels on the outskirts of town. the amenities include a half kitchenette and running water, alongside coin operated washer/dryers (ratio of 3:6). before this venue, the dancers didn't have a car, and so were forced to bum rides off the other girls who could drive the company car. but our agent broke down and rented us one so we would quit bitching, which we did. and even though it wasn't a very nice car, we were polite and held our tongues, because we didn't want to appear greedy even though we are.

the venue that we worked was a club that puts on m musical acts, so it had a nice stage with no low flying light rafters on top of it, and was in the downtown area of minneapois. both of these facts were great, considering at alot of the venues the boxes are either put in corners with no music or people to be heard or seen, or on a stage that, combined with the three foot tall boxes, smash our heads into the show lights. the venue two days before this one may have some serious damages to it's lights and wiring from my hands, which are now bruised and sore and burned from hitting them and pulling down connector cables.

now there are two different dj's on the tour, both very famous and with thick resumes. i will call the first one dj badass, who is very pleasant to be around, and very nice, very funny, and all around congenial to the girls on the tour. the sencond dj, hereafter dj too cool for school, doesn't talk to us and above that won't let the dancers be within fifty feet of him performing. this means that our boxes get shoved to the back of the club in the opposite direction, and we therefore dance to music we dont like with no body watching. sounds enticing, hm? you know you want my job...

so we got in our own car after the 'show' was over and went home to the hotel, only to be greeted with flashing blue lights in the parking lot. which happened to be there because of a brawl on the third floor, coincidentally enough on rachel's floor. evidently, there was a situation involving a party there where a young blonde boy got jumped and beaten. his face was red and puffy, but i couldn't tell if it was from the beatdown or the fact that (aw, so sad) he was crying. not only was he crying, but his voice was incredibly high and distraught, like a kitten whining. poor thing. the cop was even half hugging him. it's a shitty day when you not only cry in front of four girls, but also when you look to a police officer you dont know for emotional support and physical comfort.

sad.

the situation was funny because of two reasons. first, we were coming home from work, ragged and sweaty, with our dance bags slung over our shoulders, completely sober and dressed like we just got back from the gym. and even though people offer us shots all the time when we work, we are under strict policy not to accept them, otherwise we will be terminated from our contracts. it should really be the other way around, because it may actually look as if we were having a good time if we were inebriated. really. second, all of us were doused in glitter, which is probably the last thing i would look for in a violent personality. the infamous drag queen maurauders we were. we seek out the pixies of the world and torture them to death, leaving behind a glitter residue that doesn't come off without oven cleaner and ajax.

really? i thought, as the cop came barreling towards us in his misinterpreted confusion. did we really look as if we would have jumped a seventeen year old boy and beaten him to a bloody pulp? is that how things are done in minneapolis? one of the residents (yes, people live in the extended stay, some have full on decorations and/or pets that they keep in their home) cleared our names though, and corrected his mistake. we walked unsettled to rachels room in silence, past the bloodstain on the carpet (now i understand why the patterns are hideous, you really had to look for the stain... the color and design of the carpet concealed it rather nicely) and into her room, silently understanding that the next tour we go on, we will push for an upgrade in hotels. having a refridgerator is convenient, having my life is necessity.

i slept very uneasy that night, and as a precaution i checked under the bed, behind the curtains, and in the tub before i swing- and pad-locked my door and windows shut. i also woke every hour, which only ensured to calm my nerves until the next hour, all during the night. i was no spring chicken the next day.

the other girls who had to stay longer to finish some reports that no one looks at came back with a story the next day too; evidently, there was a riot downtown minneapolis. where are we? i thought, amused at the idea that the midwest could be so unruly and violent. atlanta's not even that bad in midtown, and it's ghetto as hell. the other girls said that there was a groupl of four girls that ended up attacking a cop there, after exchanging profanities and jeering at the officer as they walked down the road. there was no backup for the officer, so the girls were able to have a quick beatdown and quick exit, and the cop was left lying on the sidewalk outside of the bars in her useless bulletproof vest.

i wanted to know if the girls were covered in glitter. if they were, some shit will go down between gangs here pretty soon.

k.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

the space between the synapses



someone in the audience said it was like an acid trip. that pretty much sums up my mind and my choreography. enjoy.

k.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

bad acting



kathryne + ad libbing = bad acting. see, i am good at math.

k.

Friday, September 5, 2008

soundtrack to life

topic of conversation.

movie moments. ones that seem as if to be directed solely for you, that have applied elements like the perfect song or set lighting. beautiful moments, crisp ones, ones that don't have any room for imperfection... that bring tears to your eyes just for the sheer beauty of the nature of the moment.

martha's wedding. on the beach, a little place on the coast of queens, at the very bottom. a little nook called breezy pointe. i was the tallest (how strange...), and i walked with my escort first. only close relatives and friends came to the ceremony, which was about fifteen feet from the water and set up like a beach ampitheatre, with a speaking pedestal in the middle of the aisle and an archway wrapped in a flowing tulle material. the walk from the limo was long and the sand sunk underneath my feet, settling in between my toes and underneath my nails. as i stood and watched my dear friend make her walk of a lifetime, in her beautiful white and platinum corseted dress, hair curled perfectly in a bouquet on top of her head, i couldn't stop thinking to myself that someone had painted this day into existence. the wind, which evidently from the name of the town was usually much more violent, was a whisper on my skin, wrapping me in a gentle, invisible embrace. the sky was clear, the color of blueberry jello, and as the sun sank below the inlet it gave the impression that someone was melting cotton candy over all our heads. there was no sound except for her cousin speaking and the soft lapping of waves upon the banks.

as martha and ralph kissed their union into being, bells chimed in the distance, slow and sweet, perfectly timed.

i was alone then, but i was very content. i made circles in the sand with my toes and kicked the water into the city skyline behind us, and thought about the days when martha and i would smoke pot on her living room floor, wrapped in comforters and watching the muppets take manhattan. it was perfect, and it wasn't even my wedding.

or, san francisco. i had gone to a show in soma and met a boy that drove a velo, because it was cheaper and easier to maneuver than a car. he took me to a place called russian hill, just over chinatown, close to the harbor. it seemed like we walked forever, as he was assuring me it was almost over and that i wouldn't be disappointed in where we were going. but when we got there, he got a phone call from his girlfriend and walked away to talk to her, leaving me in a hidden garden in between several houses. kind of like a garden cul de sac, overlooking the island of alcatraz. it was 5:30 and beginning to get cold, and i wrapped my useless hoodie around me, hugging myself.

and then this moment of brilliance, in the middle of silence. the fog that rolled in over the city every night was creeping around me, like dry ice out of the couldrons your elementary teachers would serve punch from at halloween parties.

i was alone then, but i was very content. i watched alcatraz disappear, then the rooftops, and finally, my hands in front of my face. i thought about how maybe the fog would make me disappear with it, and with it as well, all my conflict in my head.

and i cant forget this past christmas. my mother and my two brothers were in the front yard of our mountain house, walking their dogs in the cold. and out of nowhere, snow. it was light at first, a few flakes peppered across the pine trees. it fell heavier and heavier, until the ground became white and crunchy under our feet, and flecked our faces with tiny pricks of chill. i couldn't take my eyes off the sky though, and i remained outside after all the rest grew tired of the novelty. it caught on my eyelashes and hair, and i opened my mouth to taste the newness of the sky falling all around me. it was clean. it was pure. it was everything i felt i didn't have at that moment. the silence was a different kind of silence, where you knew you were alone but could feel all of the life surviving around you, breathing with you, letting you know that this too will pass.

i was alone then, but i was very content. i watched my parents curled in a blanket by the fire, still together after all the potholes over the course of 30 years. my brother and his fiancee, a new chapter in their lives slowly being molded, as they sipped hot tea from steaming mugs, and laughing at my younger brother who was messing with the dogs. i thought about what newness i wanted in my life from that point on, and how i could get my heart mended from the bruised and scarred place it had been before that.

it seems my best movie moments are those that no one else can ever touch. i have been alone for most of my life, waiting for the day that someone else can help me share what i consider to be perfection.

i am alone in missouri right now, not very content. it's missouri, how could i be? but you never know. it could fool me too, for i thought that alone was all i ever wanted in life. i'm starting to think differently.

k.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

even steven

done
and undone, just like that
snap
on
snap
off, your silly little
puppet strings
what makes no difference to you
surely grates
my skin and
bones underneath,
sliced clean
to the marrow
for you to chew
while i watch
don't act like
your words
are gentile giants,
soft and innocuous
across the page,
please.
you're smarter than that
and sometimes
so am i. so
don't be my
quote-unquote
friend
you're not
and i hate
everything
about it.


you're a smart kid. figure it out, and stop punishing me for it. fighting battles with the only thing that means anything at all to me isn't fair or nice or anything else a friend would do and so therefore, i'm not your friend.

friends don't piss downwind from eachother.
friends don't intentionally burn one another.
and friends don't act the way my mind is making me, so...

i'm sure you have many more that you didn't treat like me to call friends. go tell them your exciting news of labor and love. all it does is make me feel more of a fool than i did before last we talked. i don't want that friendship, where i go to sleep restless and uneasy and insecure. my masochism doesn't extend that far, thank you very much. if that was your effort for a friendship i fear for who you call of them your best.

i don't like it when people play dumb the same way you don't like people to lie to you. and so there, we're even.

k.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

i like barreling

go past the art of warmth
and barrel wildly into burn


...this is my new anthem.

k.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

SAGITTARIUS - The Happy-Go-Lucky One (Nov 22 - Dec 21)
Good-natured optimist. Doesn't want to grow up (Peter Pan Syndrome). Indulges self. Boastful. Likes luxuries and gambling. Social and outgoing.. Doesn't like responsibilities. Often fantasizes. Impatient. Fun to be around. Having lots of friends. Flirtatious. Doesn't like rules. Sometimes hypocritical. Dislikes being confined - tight spaces or even tight clothes. Doesn't like being doubted. Beautiful inside and out.

if this doesn't describe me i wasn't born on the 13 of december.

i am a good-natured optimist. i like to think that even though i have bad luck ALL THE TIME something will pan out in my favor. something has to. lil bow wow has an escalade and a mansion. there has to be something good out there for me, you know?

i don't want to grow up, i hate it. i like being able to drink legally and i would probably like things like voting if i was political... but besides drinking i really don't like not being in my teens.

i indulge. if there's one thing i know how to do very well, it's that. give me an inch, and we'll be on the riviera on a yacht.

boastful. i'm actually humble, but it's because i know i'm good at what i do. there, that about covered it.

i don't gamble with money, because i don't have any. but i would like the luxury of someone giving me money and then gambling with it, just so long as it's not mine that i lose.

social and outgoing. it's what i do for work. what can i say, i'm a great networker. -boastful-

i hate responsibilities. well, i hate them having to do with being an adult, which is covered under 'peter pan syndrome'.

i fantasize about everything, all the time. it's what i'm best at, and if i could find a way to get paid for it i would do it for money.

i'm impatient only with things that waste my precious time, which in turn is almost everything. almost.

i'm fun. just ask my friends, i have lots of them.

flirtatious is just an adjective to describe how i network. and i'm good at it, too.

my hypocrasy knows no bounds. i like to think that's called being human.

hate small spaces. i'm a big girl. i only like tight clothes if they happen to be a leotard and tights and i haven't eaten for awhile. then i don't mind, cause my body looks streamlined.

don't doubt me, cause inevitably i am always right.

i'm beautiful inside and out. cause i can fess up to anything that you ask me, even if it's something ugly.

see? i'm a true sagittarius. period. it's what i'm good at, for sure.

k.

Friday, August 15, 2008

too much to know what to do with

dust, everywhere
on these relics
of me, some
myriad of identity
all in boxes, all
in vain.
toothy grins and
best angles and
artsy shots...
all shoved in shoe boxes
to return at
a later date.
i'm boxing the past
with fist and masking tape,
shedding a skin
created in the dark, a
shell, a shield.
dust all around
like ash,
like snow,
and i'm done here,
done biding my time
in the scene, in the show.



packing, packing, packing. if you are feeling like you have nothing in this world to call your own, and you have nothing to show and no money or no friends...

pack up your place. whether it be a room or and apartment or a house... you have more shit than you think you do, and you are luckier than most people to have it. unless you don't want it, like me. i wish i could take what little i thought i had. but there is no room in a suitcase for a giant collection of fans, a plethora of 200 books, and the assorted housewares and picture frames that i have condensed down to three boxes.

my wardrobe - gone, down to what i can pack and some coats for my parents winter house in north carolina. my kitchenware, furniture, and miscellaneous i can't take - salvation army. there is change all around... i even took out my lip ring. i want to know if i shed this life that i've created once again, except this time, for real... i want to know if i can do the things i've always wanted to do. and i don't even know what they are yet, or where i'm going to find them. but they have to be somewhere, right?

i've always had a sneaking suspicion that i'm not that good at dancing. that maybe it has been, up until this year, a love-child of circumstance and devotion. well, i want to know. i want to know if i have changed enough over the past year to support how i will work in the future. i guess i'll see over time, but for now...

now i must pack what life i had into stale cardboard boxes. all the smiles, all the comfort, and all the stability of all this stuff... it needs to go away and let me see if i can do it on my own. it's hard, because i love all of it. but better now than thirty with a kid on the way to getting a divorce, right?

right.

k.

Saturday, August 9, 2008

dusted off (literally)

i write empty
i write angry
i scream devistation
i look pretty
i talk pure
i fool
you.

k., original post: 21 jan 07

it doesn't matter
how much you drink
you will still
be you
tomorrow.

k., original post: 21 jan 07

i wanna
kick stones today,
maybe into a garage
or a tin pail
so they make noise
and pound
against thin walls
resound
resound
not skipping a beat
granite against solid
against silence
i wanna kick rocks
today
boot them
so that they feel
kicked in
just
like me...
one after another
after another
after another
like coins
tossed
in a bucket of coins.

k., original post: 1 feb 07

haha
silence sucks
but absence is worse -
silence without presence
is the best
revenge.

k., original post: 7 feb 07

"we are all liars in our own right. but perhaps the best liars of all are artists, for they create worlds that seem real to everyone, even those that don't believe in them." -nietzsche


just found these cleaning. i stow writing as if it were paper dollars during the depression. enjoy.

k.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

my lasagna days are over

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Monday, August 4, 2008

for you, for me

my world is filled
with apologies and
a reserve of skeletons
in my locked closets
no matter how hard
i try, or
how hard i am,
my pores are seeping
dark on my bones,
like ink in water,
or red wine on white linen
and no matter
what decision i decide
it's never right, it's
never whole, but
as bad as i am
i'm proud of the fact
that i'm worse,
than i seem.

k.

the red dog incident

when i was five years old, i stole gum from the checkout line after grocery shopping with my mom. when she noticed that i had it and asked me about it, i lied to her and told her i had found it.

i have seriously never seen my mother so angry with me. she marched my happy ass back in there and made me give it back, and apologize to the store manager. she then gave me an ass whoopin and shoved me back in the car. i cried the whole way home and felt guilty for weeks afterward. over gum! the kind that had the sweet liquid on the inside, that sugary, bright pink mess that exploded candy wonderful in my mouth... it was so worth it. i may have apologized to the manager through tears feigning apologies, but i was inevitably more pissed that my gum, which i had so calculatingly taken when no one was looking, was no longer in my posession but in someone's hands less worthy of my own.

i never was the smoothest of individuals, until i figured out that i could lie my ass off about anything and get away with it. it took several years from that intitial brush with kleptomania to perfect how to do it, but once i realized how to get the stories i created out of my head and manifest them into actuality there was no stopping me.

when i was sixteen my parents went out of town and unwisely put me under the charge of my friends twenty-one year old sister who didn't really give a shit about following the strict guidelines my mother and father laid out in their absence. it was a blast; no curfew, no stipulations, just me having a weeklong break from the man. on one of the last days we had a barbeque and bought a case of red dog beer, which i never ended up drinking all the way through because it happened to be disgusting. i bought it becuse i love bulldogs, the mascot gracing the label and the box all over. this made sense to me and kind of still does. when i buy wine now and i don't know anything about the wine itself i'll pick it for the packaging, which i also have a tendency to do with bottled water and movies in the discount box. it's hit or miss really, but in the end i'd rather have a cool looking bottle than a great glass of wine, i guess.

anyway. several months later my dad was walking around my car outside, smoking a cigarette, and felt compelled to go into my car and poke around. *note to parents: if you can't control your anger when you find things that are age-inappropriate in your child's personal space, wait a few days to talk to them so you won't fly off the handle. it works. trust me on that. and poke he did. he first found a silver cigarette case that my friend lindsay had given me, and upon going into my trunk he found two (out of the ten i had drank two months before) warm red dogs that had been rolling around across random papers and pointe shoes over the course of a couple weeks. i watched the whole thing happen. i was talking to my friend melissa and looking at him from my brother's room which stood two stories above where he was in our driveway. i ran down the stairs and flew into the kitchen saying "it's not what you think! it's not what you think!!!" and waving my hands around like a madman.

my father (who subsequently LIVES for shit like this to happen and who, on multiple occasions have i said this, should be graced with his own theme music for effect and dramatic pauses when he gets angry) had already laid the objects out on the counter in a manner that an attourney would with evidence. in retrospect i'm a little surprised they weren't labeled objects A, B, and C, and supported with graphs and flow charts for the jury to make their decision. he looked at me from his place next to them, and with a raised eyebrow in his best clint eastwood-esque voice said, "oh really. then, katie, might i ask... what are these items? please, do tell..." it was the quickest and most elaborate story i could come up with. one that was epic in itself, not because i think the lie was perfect in essence and delivery, but because of how it all unfolded.

those beers, you see, were not from the barbeque i had prior to that date. i couldn't even go into that, because that would have been admission that i had not only drank the other beer before stowing the final two in my car, it would have also meant i would've gotten in trouble about the party during the summer and i just couldn't have that. instead, the beer was given to me and vanessa (my counterpart in everything that i did, even though i don't even think she was there at the party) in the parking lot of TGIFridays by two unnamed boys in my grade that i didn't know very well. i had already figured out prior to this day that if i blamed something on peer pressure it was a whole lot easier for me to get out of, because in that case it wasn't entirely my fault; i was growing up and felt the pressure of adolescence and adulthood crashing together in my head. so my MO for this one was just that... we weren't going to drink the beer, we just wanted to be accepted by our peers and had every intention of throwing the beer out but had just forgotton on the ride home. i accepted ownership of the cigarette tin, but he couldn't really say anything about that because he had smoked all my life and it was a little bit his fault that i had idolized him and therefore held him partially responsible for introducing me to smoking. but that was less the issue than the beer itself, and what happened next was simply a mix of great fortune and quick thinking on my part.

there's nothing worse than being confronted with one of your own lies, especially when the odds are no longer in your favor. as soon as he heard me say vanessa, he told me to go to my room, and that he would be inviting her over to the house to see if her story had matched mine. my heart sank hearing those words, although i couldn't show it in my face that i knew it was all over. i was determined to prove my lie as truth. i turned around and walked out of the kitchen, letting the swinging door that usually remained open wave shut behind me. directly to my right in our dining room there was a buffet that my mother always kept her purse on, and as luck would have it, her cell phone was sitting right on top. i grabbed it and ran like hell upstairs and into my closet, where i frantically called vanessa who had just recieved the phone call from my parents requesting her presence in my kitchen to look over the evidence from our fictional night together. i told her exactly what she needed to know and crept back down to return the phone, as if it had never left it's cradle in my mother's purse.

i think my parents were more angry with me for actually getting away with it than having the beer in my posession, and i got grounded anyway just for the principle of it. i was fine with it. i had gotten away with a lie of epic proportions and therefore, scot-free. i never really felt guilty about it, because in all honesty, they never let me do anything and my curfew was set at 11 the entire four years of highschool, so i figured in a way, i was repaying myself the debt they held over my head. it was totally worth those three weeks of groundation to get away with that one little lie, which wasn't really a big deal to begin with.

since then i haven't really had to lie like that. well, not to the same effect and not as frequently, i should say. i don't have anyone to answer to and on the most part, i've stopped caring so much about what other people think is right or wrong. and, throughout the years since the red dog incident, i have also realized that everyone lies. even the most honest person you have ever met has feigned sickness instead of admitting one too many tequilas at the bar the night before to his boss, or downplaying a crush to a significant other. it doesn't matter whether it's gum or sex... a lie is still a lie, no matter the caibur, no matter the backstory. and we all do it.

i think now it's less a question of for what reason, and more a question of why. if there's no reason, then why still feel compelled to twist the truth around the pinkie finger? and that, i can blame myself for. there are times when i opt not to tell the truth, because i still feel this insane propulsion to protect other people from what i am, from what they may percieve me as, even though as an adult i no longer need that form of acceptance. and juvenile as it may be, it's also habitual, and that is the hardest innate thing to break.

lying can get us anything we want in the world. but what i've come to find out, that the emotional repercussions of the parties involved has everything to do with whether or not you want to risk it. maybe it's time i get a new habit. i think i may take up knitting, or bocce ball. but most likely, that's a lie, and like most things that people say nowadays, can't be trusted.

k.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

stunning



this inspires me and depresses me in the same breath, makes me want to dance and also feel like a failure... but either way, it's brilliant.

k.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

just trust me.

gimme
gimme
gimme, this
monster i have become,
it was better
in the days
i'd starve my bones
to be alone and
selfish to no one else
but my bittered
frame...
you don't understand
what you see,
can't you just
trust me
on that,
i'm a vision in white,
a wolf under
the shears, poison
in my veins,
coursing
like waves on a beach,
over sand
black with burn;
my diamonds
cut deeper
than coal but,
fuel this inferno
inside, this
ugly this...
i have a shield
for a reason.
and i'm sorry.

k.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

the underdog

theres something to be said,
for beautiful days,
ones that are crisp and
clear of the settled city haze,
and still, so still
of a quiet this, a languid this,
unpurposeful;
a chelsea shoreline of casino boats
and hypothetical dead bodies,
the wind whipping
my hair into my mouth;
a poolside lounge, oil
crisping my skin brown;
an hour in my bed,
alone and lonely now,
filling the void
of words once so sweetly
said;
this is put to rest, this
enigma of wandering
proportions, of
chaos and kinetics
inside my mind,
i don't like it's grin
any more than i
lend myself to it, which
in turn, is none...
and again, i
read my myths, my
saccharine lies
and see again,
how vacant i've left
myself.



it was pretty today, and i did nothing but lay by the pool and rehash the past.

it seems however much i have learned about the game, i have never engaged myself full up inside it, and this, i see now, is what leads to my eventual demise.

a dreamer, a visionary, a threefold romantic... hah. all just titles. when it comes down to it, i truly believe i just may be an idiot for love, a believer in things less than worthy of my time. i wish for things that won't be, because even though i feel i know who the underdog is, i am the underdog.... if you know how things will end up, it's never surprising when they end. but still i root for them, the same way i wish they would keep up their end of the bargain, with this never ending hope that they will someday prove me right.

the problem is, i don't want to believe there is bad in people, people who i love. people who i want to know more of, people who just don't want me in their life. i can't climb any more walls. i'm tired of giving you all my cards. i just want you to let me be, and go on without me rooting for you any more.

i'm not in the best sorts, right now. i wish... hah. i wish, i wish, i wish.

i wish i would stop wishing for once. the same way you did a while ago.

k.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

let's be honest, gurl...

Monday, June 16, 2008

light bulb

-snap-
on
-snap-
off
-snap-
on
-snap-
off just as easy as that
so easy, too
easy, you
and my room
gets dark with day, and
frowns upon
my bewildering behavior, this
"stupid girl" and
"maybe next time" kind
of light
is toxic and
poison to my veins;
throw me a bone, a
line, that
lets me know
where you are,
even though i'll never know
for sure
if that's where you are
until i am
where you are...
i'm good.
thanks for asking.

k.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

again, again, again...

oh
so late, this
enigmatic
this
and i think about you
as
my fingers wave across
the keyboard
you
you question
you
pulse, i
dont even know what
to say anymore,
a fractured thought
to my systematic
mind
do you care?
do you think of what
it does to me, this
separation, this
boundary???
i guess i may
never know...

k,

Monday, June 9, 2008

cliche

hm. only time will
tell, i guess,
that age-old adage
working it's way back
into my life,
lke a splinter, this
thorn in my foot (i
would say
side
but how cliche)
this, whatever this
mya be, is
spinning me
without spotting my head,
dizzy,
feels like untouchable
looks like unworkable
tastes like the
untasteable, like
colors on my tongue...
new things.
what have
i done?

k.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

full throttle

Friday, June 6, 2008

amazing.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

you meddling muddlers, you

it's heavy, in
memory,
dripping off my
shoulders like
wet concrete, sitting
on my chest, and
pushing
out my breath...
i'm quite the
cynic but, now -
now.
now,
now.

now what?
my head is spinning,
swirling,
a highball of jameson
between nervous
palms... and
so collected, you
seem, undisheveled
at all...

i'm burning, from
inside out,
imploding under
a concrete mess
of memory,
gasping
from surprise and
desire and
thinking... thinking
maybe i've allowed
my cynicism
jade me.



it's funny the things that happen when you least expect it. when you least want anything else to be muddled into your daily life, like mint in a mojito. but what if your mojito doesn't have mint? and what if you thought you may only like mint on reservation for gum? but then you get a mojito that not only has mint muddled into it, but sprigs that decorate it? and you taste it and understand that wow, you really do enjoy drinking minty mojitos... that they're not only pretty but pretty fukkin awesome. and then someone comes and knocks the mojito out of your hand and it smashes to the floor, and the next bars you go to don't even make mint flavored drinks. and then all you're doing after that initial mojito is picturing it in your head and hoping that there may be a chance that when you go back to that bar, another can be made that is the exact same, and you can enjoy it as fully and wholly as you did the first time around...

le sigh. i don't even know what i'm talking about. i don't drink mojitos. i should have used dirty martinis in the analogy. but you don't muddle olives into it, so it wouldn't work. whatever. my head never lets my heart rest.

k.

Monday, May 26, 2008

a cinderella trainwreck kind of love

it wasn't perfect,
wrapped in gold with
a pretty black satin bow,
shining in the dusklit
restaurant, candles
beginning their shadowdances
on a bistro brick wall.
it was a cinderella trainwreck
of clusterfukk, head
and heels spinning
out of control, reeling
as my feet hit the pavement
in the city,
melodies between my ears,
wondering,
when it all would
slide downhill forever.
praying not. but
knowing better.
there were holes
in the patchwork
and saddened eyes
and overwhelming thoughts
of loss...
but it was mine.
it's how it happens,
to me,
and i'm beginning
to fall in love
with imperfect, more
than i could ever
with flawless.
flawless is a
boring this,
clean edges and
straight lines
crowding my shortcomings
and pointing perfect
manicures
at my unpolished
body.
i would never give
up, this
imperfect, as
i've come to understand
it's who i am, and
what i do.
i love both,
about me.


new york was fascinating. it was a trip of epic proportions for me, knocking me on my ass and picking me back up again like an abusive relationship. but this abusive relationship, it will turn into something that i know will be great. it has been an altering experience for me to be here, in this imperfect perfection, for the last seven days. of which i could never forget. there's more to come when i have a constant stream of internet, cause i keep getting knocked off, but i will leave you with this...

thank you.
to new york, and the people that have moved me while i have been here. there are no apologies necessary, cause i'm not sorry. how could i be? i'm okay with the cinderella trainwreck i've come to know myself as.

k.

Friday, May 23, 2008

a lack of faith and bitterness towards... you guessed it... love

i'm an idiot.

i'm a fool, and an idiot, and i can't believe in anything anymore. people are promises i don't want to keep, closed books i care not to read, and most of all, i have been hurt by so many that inevitably, have all been me. what a fukking enigma this stupid game is, and how to play it, and worst of all, asking directions to get to the field in the first place is embarrasing.

this game, is not my game. all i know how to do is be unconditional, even though it's like my drunken pedophile stepfather after a bottle of whiskey and internet porn: it hurts me in the end.

i'm sick of making an effort. i want someone to do it for me, to make me understand what it is to really be open and recieving to someone else. i'm so cold sometimes it surprises me, in ways that i could never explain, and further yet, will never try. i don't want to try anymore. i want to be the helen of troy, for wars to be fought for the glory of my genes.

le sigh. that was a little dramatic, i know. but i feel stupid, for being a little girl, and ugly, because i can't see how i could have ever thought i could win this fight. it's all bullshit, and my faith lies now under the covers. that's all i have ever been.

k.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Amazing

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

sappho is cool

you burn me


you came and i was crazy for you
and you cooled my mind that burned with longing

i don't know what to do
two states of mind in me


for the man who is beautiful is beautiful to see
but the good man will at once also beautiful be.


stars around the beautiful moon
hide back their luminous form
whenever all full she shines
on the earth


silvery

sappho speaks to me
the way that most men
allow themselves to me
dont be fooled
i am a midas girl
and the gold that i give
comes at
a price.

k.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

build me the moon

"build me the moon"
charlotte sometimes

give me a moment
give me a cloak
tell me anything
as long as its
tru

give me heartache
that's what you do
tell me you want me
i'm sick of being used

i send my heart
to you
but you never care
you never do

so build me your bridges
build me the moon
tell me you love me
tell me you love me soon

you didn't know
that i cried
in my room
every night

maybe it's not
cause of you
but it'd be easier
if you needed me too

i send my heart
to you
but you never care
you never do

so build me your bridges
build me the moon
tell me you love me
tell me you love me, soon

i can not stop
i can not smile

i know we were'nt meant to be
but i want you here
with me

so build me your bridges
build me the moon
tell me you love me
tell me you love me
tell me you'll love me soon



i stumbled upon this song last night, and i was so moved by it that i bought it off of itunes, right then and there. she's right on key, as if she stole the words from my mouth.

what's funny is, i've been on both sides of this song. i've been sung to, and sung it myself. what moves us so completely by someone else that it instills an energy that can't be forgotton? i have wished so many times that i could wash my hands of it, of the capability to be hurt and vulnerable, not necissarily in that order...

i am a broken soul. i'm not saying i'm special, because i personally believe almost everyone is. but i've been burned so much. let myself be burned, therefore assuming the responsibilty of the first aid. and i can tell you, i am no nurse. i think my form of doctoring is more or less of a masochistic genre. whatever hurts me more will make that other hurt seem like nothing. push it away. bottle it up. smile. tell people what they want to hear. avoid. avoid. avoid. don't give in to the number pad on your phone. drink. sleep, to dream.

punishment. it's all punishment, reflecting the hurt back on me. how emo of me, i know. but after awhile, it goes away, and all i'm left with is a couple of pictures and two or three notes scrawled on computer paper, mostly of lies. that's what it comes down to with me. memories, fading fast and hard. forced to fade by everything i have.

since i was a little girl, i have believed in the promise of love. even now, even through my bitter lips and scathing words, i can sit here and tell you i believe in it. in loving someone else til you wake up craving them. in allowing truth to seep through the cracks, of things you've never uttered to anyone else in the world, and not be afraid you'll lose them to it. i believe that someones out there who knows just what i need and manifests it, wether it be candles by winelight, or a kiss on the back of my neck.

my optimism eludes me at most times in my life. i like it, because when i feel it i can smile, and feel like everything is going to happen just the way it was meant to. heartache and happiness alike. i will wake up one day to someone who wrote me a note on the pillow next to me just to feel my smile when i read it. hows that for optimism? don't let the appearance fool you. forget diamonds and fancy vacations. i'm a softie for the stupid shit; notes and smiling through silence, and everything else you can file under 'romantical'.

it's out there. it has to be.

k.

jumpy

the rain fell,
slight, on my skin,
the smell of wet
all around me,
pavement,
wood, hair...
arms dewy with
unavoidable pieces
of clouds,
wet cotton t-shirt
holding me close, kissing
the space
between my shoulderblades

such a lovely
kind
of silence, a busy
silence, wind
tickling my eardrums,
grazing my nipples...
it's intimacy
startling
timid, shy
skin.


the moon hung low,
settled in its bed,
my fingers luminous,
stretched out to touch it,
lasso it,
taste it's incandesent
lips, on mine...
yellow with wisdom,
his face changing with
each phase,
watching over me
the last 25 years,
content with my
surrounding stars.

pants soaked in puddle,
i jumped
and jumped
and jumped,
watching the water crown
and fall with each
splash,
my teeth were wet
with smiles, with
letting go, fear
and indecision
and remorse
sliding off my skin
with each
little
drop...

k.