oh, it's too late
to say anything productive...
except i'm sorry
you had to fend through me,
my empty stomach,
hands, and fists,
fighting you
and whats within
i quiet all the shit inside
so time can heal my wounds,
and ignite the cost, of what i owe
to you, to me until....
theres nothing left, there's
nothing more,
a piss into the wind,
oh, angry now,
forever more,
the line i've crossed
in sin.

k.

second place girl

(original post: september 9, 2007)

carcinegoeous hands,
you have,
infecting all my
hard-earned walls,
strong, so strong
they break my cement,
my foundation,
and so knowingly.
you pushed last night,
tugged the line
a little too far.
you win.
you win,
cause i'm too tired
to tug
anymore.
you knew
i knew
and she knew
i knew
she knew,
so we were all studying
the same subject
unspoken, but
mutual.
i knew i had lost,
i saw it in her eyes
on you, your eyes
on her,
and i don't want
to care
anymore.
your hands,
eyes,
rough beard on my
sweet skin,
it's enough...
too much.
you were silent
because you had no
argument, i know.
i don't want
to fight
for something
so shallow
when depth
is what i seek, and
what you most
avoid.
goodbye, for now,
allow
the time to plaster
the regrets upon the wall,
cause i'm too tired
and you,
too unwilling to change,
and this is goodbye,
without
the hard edges.

k.

sick, sick, sick

(original post: september 16, 2007)

foreign flesh
rears
it's ugly head
in my stomach
and under my
skin, the
ultimate
sin,
which now
is all i ever think about.
let me go
back
to not knowing.

k.

blur the edge

(original post: september 20, 2007)

ust a drop,
blood red dew
on my wrist,
from the lip
of the bottle
to the tip
of my middle finger,
i watched it fall
to it's demise,
splash upon
my softened bones...
what my tongue
didn't pick up
my pores absorped,
reeling with ferment
and aching sobriety...
my blood has forgotten
this drug, this
fire-fruit
that enables me
to forget,
that softens the blow
and blurs this golden
glow so these hard edges
don't cut as deep
until morning, until
i have to crave
you again.
i crave you again.
but it's too early
to drink.

k.

it's been said before

(original post: september 24, 2007)

what's in those words...

that makes one so warm, or so angry, or jealous... there has to be something inside those three small words that propels someone to want to hear them more. and what does it mean if you used to hear them but now... now they are maybe a figment of your imagination.

do they mean anything at all? i guess nothing we say means anything at all, especially if you're too weak to back any of that up. i could say, 'i am king," and tomorrow i would still wake up a bastard daughter of a peasant.

words are such a juxtaposition of themselves... how can something mean nothing and everything all at once? you can have actions without words and then the word becomes arbitrary anyway, so i guess the phrase has nothing to do with the meaning. it's a cop out... a cover up.

you can walk away from those three insignificant words and let them wash over their reciever, let your meaning become theirs without so much an explanation... they soften stone hearts or ignite some sort of flame inside, written to somebody else they can drop the stomach at one swift blow.

it's all moot. i'm sick of words. they've shown less and less evidence of proof over the years. i see nothing inside them but beautiful ways to lie, to ensure a fuck at the end of the day. they are the puppet master, the dead scroll, the oz of emotions.

things are never what they seem. those three words will never be honest to me, ever again. they've fucked with me too much.

and for those of you who are reading my beautiful lies right now, in case you're wondering, the phrase is not " i love you."

how cliche.

k.

lincoln just turned in his grave, mr. salmon...

(original post: september 29, 2007)

if you build yourself up into an image, you must be able to back all of that up. you can't tell everyone you are one way, and then expect to be recieved jovially as another.

if you're going to be a hardass, then be a hardass to everyone. don't go 99% of the way and then wonder why i think you could be condsidered an asshole. it doesn't work like that.

i met this guy last night, probably the only straight guy in all of wet bar, who found it necessary to talk himself up, as if that would be the final decision for me to accept his hand in marriage (and he did propose to me last night, on one knee and everything, in front of all the gay men in atlanta who were screaming at the top of their lungs - everythings a production, even my proposal). what was funny was that he was acting all hard, despite the fact that he was a property funding accountant dressed in a salmon button down (With the collar popped up!) and tapered khakis. he was telling me how he didn't let anyone talk shit to him and that he was raised basically (from what i could gather) by himself or by a pack of wolves. it was loud.

but anyway, he ranted and ranted and ranted and finally, his friend who was sitting next to him watching him talk to me and say all this shit to me turned to him and said, "bitch, we went to school together and i happen to know that you pissed the bed until you were thirteen." oh. my. god.

i don't think i've ever laughed as hard as i did. and i felt bad, too, because he was a nice guy. he just got caught in a facade. but shit, the timing was beautiful. it was on a break in the music, too, so a couple other people around me heard the burn. sick fucking burn, it was.

but this is the deal. you have the option of presenting yourself to people. you can be smart, slutty, shy, or shady. it doesn't matter. i think it was abraham lincoln that said, "you can be anything you want to... just be it well." hm, or something like that. not the point. however you decide to act, then back that shit up. period. don't tell people you are one way and get angry if they don't believe you're really another.

i'm all for people having multiple layers. that's not what i'm saying. i just think it's important that you aren't a two dimensional image of yourself, and when it comes down to it, that gansta ass would rather run for the exit instead of bashing in someone's head that slapped my ass. mr. salmon would have run for the door and let me do my own defending, which is fine with me. i'm not a damsel in distress. but don't make me think you would be the one doing the bashing.

i am a white-bread (haha it's just my race plus a food), middle-class, subservient lady from a yuppie town outside of orlando. while i wish i could say i grew up on the "streets", or that i am "gangsta" and "hard as nails", i'm not. it would be a lie. i'm not a rock star, cause i'm gravely scared of alot of people at one time... i prefer to spend quiet nights at home watching my tv and talking to my cats. i don't have good street cred. and even though some people may say that's what my image portrays, to be honest, i just like piercings and black hair and tattoos. it has nothing to do with me being "hard", and everything to do with the way i like myself to look.

but i don't tell people differently. i don't make them think i am this gangstaa bitch from the streets. i dont talk like that nor do i act that way, and it would be ridiculous if i tried. some of you who read this may remember the disastrous TI commercial starring your friend kathryne... i think that is proof enough that i'm not very with it. but no matter. i like who i am and i don't think i have to be any other way. if people don't like me, they can suck it.

as for poor mr. salmon, well, we're not getting married. he kind of faded away into the crowd after that, and my prince in salmon armor was no more. it's alright. marriage doesn't seem to be something that wants me anyway. but that's a whole 'nother essay.

inside the drum

(original post: september 30, 2007)

so fervently, you,
a wonderful question
inside such soft skin -
did you think
those sweet nothings
were just that?
no, no...
nothing can be
everything
to someone who doesn't have
anything, and
underneath my
new curtains
and package of
wife beaters
there is a vastness
untouchable by
even the sahara.
your nothings left me
eager, but
so, so cold,
and in this frigid
hole i wonder
when i can have
nothing again.
lovely, these bones,
these solid words
that pour
over your lips,
into my ears,
and down
my spine.

k.

going home tonight...

(original post: october 6, 2007)

i want
underlit trees,
glowing in the dusk's
dim light...
this quiet block
with dark windows
and outlines of
potted plants,
this moment of suspension
in time...
gliding past
i create my kitchen,
brick and steel;
and my bathroom,
deep blue and auqua tilings
as far
as the eye
can see;
my bedroom,
the wind from the open
white french doors
singing softly
to the drawn back sheets...
i have a
home
and a family
and two cats and a dog,
and its
safe, here,
under the shadows
dreaming of twilight stars,
until the stop sign
pulls me back
to the smoky leather
of my car,
making a left
to go back
to my box, alone,
and write this poem,
of what will
one day,
be.

k.

something borrowed, something blue

(original post: october 12, 2007)

i see this sad
in your eyes, flecks
of grey and tired...
you still smell as sweet,
your spiced skin
underneath
a hard candy shell...
you, elusive you,
make me hard
of breath, of
strength,
and i can't help
but collapse
under your steel hand
and saccharine silence...
borrow this blanket
of mine, soft
and safe;
i will make you
disappear
from yourself,
forget the scent
of different pastures...
the taste of iron,
of blood,
of whatever love
may be,
in me,
owning me...
unlocking this tragedy
skin to skin, absolving
nothing
but absence and
regret for time
not so wisely spent...
is it nothing
until something is made
of it?


k.

mine forever

(original post: october 5, 2007)

i forgive you
but not because of who you are
i love
who you are, this
fucked ruby gem
in an avalanche of
benign diamonds, boring
and listless and
normal, like
flowers on a first date.
you are brilliantly
fucked up,
beautifully
fucked up,
and life isn't as funny
without you in it.
these tears
are filled with static
as my body
lay on the ground,
one hand
clutching the empty bottle of
little white dolls,
the other the handle
of an empty bottle
of whiskey,
my eyes open, unmoving
as the cleaning lady
screams out dios mio, runs
to call the ambulance.
the doctors don't know
fuck, i
should have their jobs,
and i sit
and think of how
i'm gonna tell her...
you have never left me.
i promise i will never leave you.
i forgive you
for yourself.
will you be mine forever?

k.

life is temporary. the thought of losing someone is almost as bad as it happening. i am sick of losing things. over the last couple of months, i've lost an apartment, a future, a family, my trust, and a really great pair of adidas sneakers. if i lost my best friend... i'm devastated about thinking about it. i forgive you. i forgive you, now just don't leave...

truth be told

(original post: october 19, 2007)

mirror, mirror,
take my fall,
sheild my eyes
from inside
out,
obsessed with limbs
and lines
and bones, jut
from angles
all unnatural,
deformed.
i wish
i wish
i wish
for blindness
to overcome what
i can't be;
and hope for
now, forever more
release detest
of how i see
my arms, my
legs, my collarbones
hanging loose but
framed in stone,
hope for now,
forever more
that blind
will simply
let me be.

k.

i know it rhymes. but it works for today. the mirror is my foe, my greatest enemy, one that i have fought so long it weakens me. my image is brutally honest, dancing before me every morning, taunting me turn after turn. it's funny that sometimes, most times perhaps, ourselves are the one greatest enemy we will ever have; as there is no dishonesty when we look ourselves in the eye. it is what it is, and you can't ever change it, without the help of knives and money and self-deciet.

denial only makes us liars. acceptance is the truest form of honesty.

call it what you will

(original post: november 5, 2007)

i am sitting in los angeles, waiting.

what a whirlwind, this all has been. i am not sure what to think of it all, or myself for agreeing to do it.

i flew in yesterday. the flight was alright, a little rocky but good nonetheless. i was sitting at the back of the plane, ruing georgia law that you cannot drink before 12:30, wanting to get rid of my flight anxiety by just a small bottle of vodka. but no. i had to wait during the takeoff AND the climb to 40,000 feet. we were going to rest at 30,000 miles of death but there was eveidently choppy air in the sky with an animosity for large flying objects.
40,000 it was.

i was on the aisle. there was an asian lady to my immediate left that had an obvious obsession with the armrests. and to my far left was a man who either had problems with his sinuses or was really into deep meditative breathing. either way, he had a very loud exhale, to the point where i wanted him to exfixiate himself so that i could go back to concentrating on what point in the flight we were all going to die.

so i was waiting for the vodka. beverage service, whatever. mr. heavy sinuses loudly offered us free cocktail tickets, and free alcohol is always of higher quality to me, so i accepted dutifully. i didn't even have to use it though, because the steward ended up liking me to the point where i got vip for everything; free bloody marys, peanuts and biscotti, and the sunchips from first class. he called me baroness, a female version of the man who coached football whose favorite hat was evidently alot like mine. we both found this funny; him because he knew who the fuck he was talking about, and me because i had no royal idea who the bear was. and the vodka probably had something to do with it.

oh. and if you've never seen the movie the evening... don't. it's a waste of two hours of my life i will never ever get back.

so we landed safely, of course, as i always don't think we will, and i then waited for an hour in the drive of the airport for bravo to pick me up. they said that i would have approximately an hour before they would call me to come and audition the choreography, and fifteen minutes later, i was ushered down to the lobby to start stretching. i guess hours are actually quarter hours real time. the choreography was fun, i did best at the technique with turns and leaps, and fucked up my solo cause i had no music. on a scale of 1 -10, i found it about a 3 all in all. but... whatever. i did what i did and that's all i could do. we'll see how it turns out.

so now, i am sequestered in my hotel room, smoking cigarettes in the bathroom shower so i won't have to be chaperoned to the front of the building every hour. i gave my production interview at 930 this morning, and ordered room service while i filled out a 567 question psychological survey called the MMPI-2 ( the minnesota multiphasic personality inventory-2 whatever the fuck that is). i'm bored and i'm pretty sure i'm not going to be the one that bravo picks, because i'm non-competitive and i get along with pretty much everyone.

but. i'll see everyone on weds. i get in at 1130 tomorrow night. keep your fingers crossed...

k.

thumb wars

(original post: november 15, 2007)

palms down,
60 mph in the speeding
rain,
sunset long since gone,
sunk,
behind the car...
it's quiet
but for the trucks
that pass and
the water pelting
the windshield...
and in this chaotic
dark
there's a war
of skin to skin,
fighting
to the death,
fighting for relent,
giving hope
for the next day's debt.

k.

thanksgiving for rent

(original post: november 23, 2007)

my hands were numb
at first, eventually
warming under the growing
fire, blowing
in front of me,
sparks and ash
waltzing,
swirling,
set free
into the stars.
the embers underneath
glowed angry
with fire, sad
white skeletons settling,
replacing
live brown bark,
squeezing the water out
hiss after hiss.
i didn't mean to stare,
you see.
but this beauty
of giving warmth
inside death,
life
to my frigid hands...
thanksgiving never
tasted so true.

i was unsure of how to approach the holidays this year. the last year has been filled with so many conflicting feelings that it didn't seem right just to paste on a smile and fill my head with air and prozac so that things are "ok".
things aren't really "ok." they're not so bad, but i definately have taken some serious blows, financially and physically, that are taking me a minute to recover from.
so i knew that thanksgiving was going to be interesting. i didn't want to ruin my real family's. i knew it was going to happen in some form or fashion. our relationships are stronger in my absence. if they can't see me, then i'm a bobblehead daughter with a voice. but i'm always smiling. and i look great on a car dash.
anyway.
i'm not going to lie. it was hard to hear them in the background when i called home, chaos in the kitchen behind my older brother... my eccentric french grandmother, who has never let us call her that, yelling at my father, telling him the turkey is going to be overcooked, my older brother going on about his dissertation and all his brains i never got, her husband geneously pouring some J&B into another crystal glass...
it was thanksgiving, at the van assche house. everyone was drunk. everyone was yelling. everyone, but me, and i was forced to remind myself that i was the one who made this decision.
i was passed on from my older brother to danielle, bonjour... comment ca va... and handed to robert, whom i don't know very well, so... awkward star... then to my younger brother, which was the point in the conversation where a lump started to build up in my throat. he knew. he knows me, and he could hear it in my voice.
then, my mother motioned to him in the background to hand off to my father.
i haven't talked to my father since he kicked me out. with voices. i got a couple badly named emails and i hand wrote him some which i sent actually using the post office... but nothing otherwise, and i was caught with my pants down, unprepared for an explanation.
i didn't say much. "i'm good." "yeah. yes..." "mmhmm." i left it simple, and figured that would make me less prone to actually spontaniously combust into tears. and it did. and he said happy thanksgiving, and handed the phone off to my mother, drunk, upset i wasn't there, and sad that i was without a family on such an american holiday.
we talked for a couple minutes, and again, it was mostly her, because i was trying to conceal choking on my refusal to spend thanksgiving with my family...
and then i was alone, after goodbyes and i love yous and i miss yous. it was strange, sitting in the cold, mad at myself for breaking our tradition but proud because i stuck to my guns and stood up for myself...
conflict. it's the new "it" feeling. totally 2008. totally.
but i had thanksgiving with people who love me. and though it was not the same as my family does it, it was beautiful to be included in someone elses tradition. like the chaotic kitchen back home, there are certain things that are done certain ways and not everyone is given the chance to be invited into that. i was blessed in much conflict this holiday.
i am thankful for the nothings in my life. they are what have given me my everythings.
we went to a bonfire last night, after everyone went to bed, and i watched the fire go from barely lit to my eyebrows burning.
we drank wild turkey and guiness, and talked about dinosaurs in the bible and the elusive giant squid. it was the beginning of a new tradition that i could foresee in the future for a very long time.

thank you to all that added to my thanksgiving. it was the hardest and best one yet.

k.

frigid thoughts on a hot chocolate day

(original post: december 5, 2007)

thinking about it
is as fruitless
as a barren apple tree,
gets me
nowhere and in circles
i can't be
a perfect this, no,
not even a
good this,
instead regurgitating
and formulating
what's already been done.
the days are so short
and vacant,
cold,
and i'd rather
forget under the covers
than purge
what i can't be.
what a slippery shadow
the sun offers, slight
in it's own warmth
and golden
with lies. who's
promise was this
to begin with
anyway,
i've managed okay
until this point,
but barren with
winter,
my mind is anorexic
once again,
refusing to gain
the weight of success.
stupid mind.
you never let me
rest.

k.

sometimes, i know he's right. everything is bad all the time. winter stays with us through thick and thin.

the problems with cargo khakis

(original post: december 11, 2007)

i dated someone for a hot minute some summers ago, a guy with good intentions and a big heart. we didn't work out long before we stopped talking, because i was insistent that i didn't want a boyfriend and because his insistence that he was in love with me. i just wanted a distraction, someone to laugh with and hang out. i think he wanted to live with me.

we did not have much in common, obviously.

anyway, he contacted me after we had blown the fuse with the whole relationship thing and he told me he was moving to california, probably within the next week, to begin work on a huge big money movie with famous actors and hefty paychecks. and he said he wanted to take me out to dinner to hang out one last time.

"like a date?" i asked, implying the dress up/down notch on the bedpost.
"like a date date." he said. "we've never gone out on a nice date."

so that means to dress up a little, agreed? a "date date" is the double dog dare of a "date", and he used the adjective "nice" so that means put a little elbow grease in it. push up the girls, splash some red across your lips, etc...

and i looked damned good. heels, a skirt, a shirt not from a plastic bagged set of four. i answered the door to him in cargo khaki's, converse, and a stained white work shirt. he worked at a gay bar. logo all over the shirt.

i didn't know what to say. I was embarrassed that i had gotten dressed up for him, like i just wasted my precious time brooding over what would make me look good. thinking that i had thought too much into it, i mumbled someting about being overdressed, and quickly went back to my closet. i changed into jeans and a wife beater, wiped the red off my lips, and sullenly walked out the door in silence. we ended up going to a bar and eating fried onion rings and french fries, getting drunk in awkwardness and stella, until he confessed to me that he had purposely dressed down. he said he knew that i was going to dress up and he wanted to act like it wasn't going to be a big deal that he was going to see me, maybe ever again.

he wore khaki's to be cool? he wore khakis to be mother fucking COOL?!? i mean, i had figured that anyway, but if you're gonna do something as childish as pretending not to care about something you actually really do, at least you could have gone with some other form of pants. maybe go plaid, or rip your jeans. don't insult me with khaki fucking cargos...

but why even do that in the first place? why come to my door, and foreclose a possibly wonderful time? there's no fucking point in sabotaging something that has already been sabotaged. we weren't going to go home together and fuck. we weren't even going to fucking make-out a little, so why try and be an even bigger douche? you do realize that this will be the way i think of you for the rest of my life... as the guy who didn't care enough about me just so that he would make himself look good.

it's bullshit.

if you like something, say so. if you want me, have me. but don't dress in khakis when you wish you would have worn jeans. it makes you look bad and the other person feel bad. i was so disappointed in the whole evening, and when i think of him randomly i am always brought back to the fact that he was too cool to be affected by me. insignifigance is not bliss.

i recently talked to him for the first time in about a year and a half. he's doing well, i think he's been dating someone out there for a while now. i hope he dresses up for dates now. she'd probably appreciate that.

k.

atlanta is young

(original post: december 13, 2007)

depressing things, like
that song that all the leaves
are fading (or something like that),
and thinking last night
driving into stacks of tinted windows
and glittery bulbs
adorning their atmosphere,
draping the city in stars,
how atlanta
really isn't that "old"...
in city terms,
that is...
not like manhattan,
with it's fancy crown moldings
and personal drivers...
or los angeles,
glamour dripping
from the weathered and cracked
hollywood sign...
miami,
retirees vying
for a stab
at it's beauty,
bronzing the beaches
in visors and socks...

no,
atlanta is young
and growing,
forming it's character
from dogwood trees
and city lights the same.

the lights buzzed past,
scortching the sky,
drifted behind
at 45 miles per hour,
atlanta is young
and so am i
full up,
with naivete.

i like it this way, though.


k.

the goth girl in buckhead

(original post: january 27, 2008)

i had an interesting night last night.

i went into buckhead (eeew) to see lisa, who has been really busy and sick and unable to do anything but work and school as of late, so i figured if i got her at work we could (relatively) hang out.

within ten minutes of being in lola, a new and pretentiously overpriced and good looking modern style bar slash restaurant, i was handed a glass of wine by a man in his mid fifties. i didn't say anything to him, as i had just walked up to lisa's section and was desperately trying to flag her down, but he leaned over and asked me what kind of wine i drank. i said sauvignon blanc, and like magic, it appeared in my hands. we had about three minutes of conversation after that, and i excused myself to use the restroom, graciously thanking him for my first glass of the night.

this happened four more times over the course of the night. there was even a man that followed me outside as i was smoking a cigarette, an iranian financial somethingorother named abe, just so he could see what i was all about. he also bought me another glass, right before i decided that was enough to ensure a dui on the way home. he didn't smoke, which he declared upon his arrival on the patio, but he had seen me across the bar and wanted to know if i was interested in sitting down with him.

i wasn't. but he bought me a glass anyway, in hopes i would change my mind. i didn't, but, i graciously thanked him and excused myself to the bathroom again. it wasn't because he wasn't nice, or cute, or whatever (although i will say this man was waaaaay out of his league and i give him kudos for having the balls to try)... i just prefer being alone in that setting. it gives me a chance to think about things, to write about things, and to get away from myself. i get to be involved in people's conversations without ever having to explain what i do, where i'm from, and most importantly, why i'm alone.

but this is the turn. i go to bars by myself because i enjoy the people watching, but i seem to always end up becoming one of the watched. i almost feel invisible in the setting, so i almost forget that people could be doing to me what i do to them. my bartender friends shake their heads and laugh as they put drink after drink in front of me, mumbling gently about how they don't know how i do it. i just shrug my shoulders and nod my smile at the buyer, cheers them, and go about sitting there quietly, staring off into space.

i don't think it's because i'm pretty. and it can't be the fact that i'm funny, because most times the drink is bought before i ever open my mouth. i guess they could buy it because they like my style of dress, although often my body is hidden behind the bar and without x-ray vision it's impossible to see what i'm wearing. no, no... i think it goes deeper.

people are always surprised after asking me who i'm here with and my response is, "you're looking at it." they raise their eyebrows with a concerned look, peer over my shoulder as if i were lying, uncomfortably laugh a little as i were joking... they wonder to themselves but more often out loud, why? as if they can't fathom someone just going out by themselves. it's alien to most. but it's comfortable for me, and that makes them uncomfortable, and i guess, intrigued.

going out by yourself is a little like living by yourself. it's quiet when you want it to be, you can make conversation and inside jokes to the only person that knows what's going on, you can invite people in or tell them to go away when they knock on your door... it's designed on your own terms, and you can play by your own rules. you don't have to anser to anyone, you never have to leave if someone else wants to go, you don't have to babysit if he or she gets sick. its. just. you.

it goes without saying that ladies will be hit on by men in bars, and i guess reading into it is pointless (as i'm doing right now). these men could be buying me drinks just to see if they have a shot in my pants, although we both know what my answer will be. it a game of cat and dead mouse. my answer is no before the ever shell out the 10 for my glass of wine. especially, in buckhead.

last time i was at lola, there was a man who was sitting three spaces down from me at the bar, in a suit and tie with that matching kerchief that sticks out of the pocket. he reeked of money and cockiness, and the entire night he was watching me from his periferal, as if he thought i was being sly. you can ask my students this... i dont miss much that is going on around me. i catch glances, i hear whispers, and i pretty much know where every exit in the place is so i can get out first in an emergency. he was not sly enough. maybe he wasn't trying to be.

after about two scotches to my three whiskeys, he got up enough nerve to talk to me, telling me he liked my style and that he wanted to buy me a drink. i agreed, and switched to wine, knowing i wasn't going to finish it but i like making my bartender friends money. he started off the conversation by telling me that he used to be "goth". as if i was supposed to be impressed that a man in a suit and a pink tie was really telling me that he shopped at hot topic and wore jenkos for a month before his parents threw out his marilyn manson t-shirt and made him wear pleated khakis again.

i looked around at the rest of the people in the bar. who was he talking about, goth? nobody in buckhead fits the sullen teenager persona, and i realized he was getting me confused with something else. i gently tried to explain to him that i'm not goth, that i never have been one to wear the platform lace up army boots and white out my skin behind my black hair. i just had black hair. that was the only thing that i could think of that me and goth have in common. but he just kept on going, about how he thinks goth girls like me are hot cause we're so dark and blah blah blah blah blah, until i stopped him, told him i was going to smoke a cigarette, and got up to leave.

thinking i had washed my hands of him, i sat on the patio and exhaled, raising my eyebrows when he came outside to join me. he asked me for my number, which at this point, was laughable, and instead i gave him my card. "i'll give you my email, will that do?" i just wanted him to go away.

i began writing it down on the back, and he started sketching out, looking over his shoulder and saying, "do it discreetly, make it fast..." i stopped writing and looked at him in disbelief, and then a woman poked her head out the door and said (glaring me down, as i were the one who was being skeezy), "c'mon honey, the car is here. hurry the fuck up. darling."

i put the card back in my purse, thanked him for the glass of wine, and got up to go back to the door. he was still trying to persuade me on my way back in, and finally i looked at him and said, "i will cut off your balls and feed them to you on our first date. betcha didn't know goth girls were into cannabalism..." he paid his tab and walked out.

it's stories like this that i go to bars for. the one hope that humin interaction will spritz out to me and give me something i couldn't write with my own imagination. i swear i don't make this shit up. i'm not that creative. im going to continue to go to bars and get my stories. they're fun, and it gets me drunk for free.

plus, the ladies in buckhead hate me for that reason, and that's reason enough for me.

k.

a windy twilight

raindrops on the window's edges,
sliding, sinking, pushed
to their death
under the whirr of rubber tires
and oil slicks
too much haze
to look
to far ahead;
semi's trudging forth, yelling
"get out my way" as
the wheel careened back
and forth
through my shaking hands
how perfect life has been,
these last few weeks despite
eveything it has not offered me,
i thought,
envisioning my car
bouncing off another, glass
slipping down my cheeks
through ruby rivulets of blood,
the surgeons sighing, picking
shards out of my eyes
under contacts melted in my iris,
an inconvienience and hassle
to their busy lives;

and under the gentle
hush of my shower voice
i slowed down the moment,
my face, frozen indicision -
was it
speed up or
slow down in a fishtail -
as my car lost it's grip
on the road and reality,
me, sitting zero, it spinning 120 mph,
and silence,
the lights and scalpels
and the beeping of the
machines, cold
on my lifeless chest.

until i pulled off my exit,
parked in my lot,
and opened my front door.
funny the things
we think of in the rain.

k.


though i think there is such beauty in passing, i tend to forget the human in everyone, and that the tangible connection you felt to the person is lost forever. i just wanted you to know that i am sorry for your loss, even though you will probably never read this, and if you did, you may never care i wrote it. but. i hope you will find the beauty he left behind, and find strength you never knew you had.

what do you tell a bitch with two black eyes?

you looked into her eyes,
the color of
frozen grapes
washing over you
as tears spill out
the sides,
softly telling her, lovingly,
that she wasn't
needed anymore,
watched as she shook
with fear and
hatred and
depravity, thinking
about wherever else
it was
you wanted to be,
but here.
it's not her,
it's you.
you,
you,
you.
the way
it's always been,
not a pebble lost
on your great wall of you.
you cheated her,
the same way he
cheated me,
or she cheated him...
this is not
just about you, and
your waning grip
on your life,
you fucking idiot.
you will never find
another freckle-faced
grace kelley that
sings showtoons in the shower
or kisses your cheeks
as you sleep.
it's too bad
your life is so hard
and your will is so weak.
you should go cry with
the vegans.

k.


i've been thinking alot about relationships recently, as there are different situations arising and failing all around me, while i sit in a stalemate, quietly observing. my best friends moron of a boyfriend took two years of her life and then recently decided he wanted nothing to do with her and the life they built, the dog they adopted, and the car they shared. he said that he needed time to figure out want he wants in life, time to grow into the man he know he needs to be to be with her, and blah, blah, fucking blah...

there's a million things i told her, from my past experiences with men who said the exact same things to me. there must be a manual out there floating around, with correct responses to specific questions. you can find it right next to the "exact things to say to ensure she feels like it's her fault" digest. and i told her some things that made me feel better when i was abandoned, like getting a glass of wine by herself or scratching the eyes out on old photos of them... but there was one thing i didn't tell her, that i am going to explain right now.

no matter if you are male or female, crazy or subdued, blonde or fucking brunette... you take a knife out of the drawer and cut your skin, and you're gonna bleed. we are fucking human, with the same sets of rational thinking, walking in the same metaphorical shoes as the generation before us. we eat, sleep, shit, laugh, run all using the same genetic guide, which is why being a human separates us from all the other animals in the food chain.

point being? GROW THE FUCK UP. if you want to be with someone, do it. if you can't handle a relationship, don't get inside of one. don't cheat on that person with another one because you're too much of a pussy to tell them you're unhappy. don't throw them under a bus because you're too goddamn selfish to understand that you are responsible not just for the way you feel, but the way they feel, too. i've watched this happen to everyone around me, and i've had it happen to me, hell, i've done it to some unlucky men back in the day.

relationships are not about you. if they were, they would not be relationships, they would be selfiships.you, being involved with you. as humans we strive for companionship and comfort but in my experience, lack the ability to be honest enough for communication to work. the most important thing about them from what i've come to understand, is having a working respect for the other party involved, which entails everything from flowers on a first date to making a decision to raise a child together.

i watched my parents in an unloving relationship for years. they fought and split and threatened divorce and talked shit about eachother to me. and for the most part i would sit outside on the balcony, listening to the screams down the hall, hoping for the silence in the days to follow would happen right then, and wish, wish, wish that one day, i would find someone that could give me the respect i deserved. now, after bitter splits and hostile argument with lawyers, watching my mother take off her wedding band in front of me and my firends on her celebratory divorce trip to the beach, feeling my father's tears on my neck as he was leaving the house... now, there is this genuine comraderie betwixt them. i can see it, the change. my father realized how much he needed my mother's strength, and my mother can look past and let go of the mistakes he made in the past. they're not perfect, but there is substance to their relationship now that was never there before.

a relationship is a matchpoint of respect, which grows it's own garden as it deepens. people too often take for granted the person underneath, and let pride and silence and fear fog up the window.

i wanted to drive to charleston just to give nat a hug, and let her shudder in my arms instead of wishing she was in his, and somehow infuse in her that she is one of the most incredible people i have ever met. shit, she has saved me from myself on numerous occasions, whether it be starving my body or loving people undeserving too hard... she is an amazing singer, hitting notes that draw tears; she is a dreamer of unlimitable proportions; she's exotic and intelligent and driven and beautiful...

she is everything that no one else will ever be, and she should be given the respect of a man that isn't a pussy ass little bitch that can't make up his mind about his "life." man up, you fuckin' idiot. you just lost the only thing you had going for you, and now, you're just a pretty face like all the rest of the douche's out there. it's such a shame that you think your life will be more fulfilled without her. and you will never get what you had back. it changed the minute you opened your mouth. pissant.

as for me, well... i should take my own advice on most occasions. i don't really know what i am to others now. all i know is that people continuously surprise me, good and bad, and that plans are really just a loose framework of the future. i guess ive taught myself to take nothing as seriously as you're told, because you will usually be dis-a-fuckin-pointed. and it's been working out great. without the promise of forever, you already have your explanation, and you are never disappointed.

unless it's in yourself, for thinking that way. but, fuck it. all i need is my ipod and a pair of point shoes, and i've got pretty much all i need to survive. i'll figure out the future when i come to it.

don't lose me, now...

what was it
that you said, again,
i lost it along
the way, the
jems
of fleeting promises
trapped in virulent
undertow...

the beauty that
was in your words,
the gently placed
security, now
negated secretly,
in a life
hidden so carefully...

if you think
that this is in the bag,
that i am
dispensible and
soldier on, well,
i wish you’d speak
up now, for soon
i’ll be lost just
like the rest.

i was told the other day that i was like the last page of a book you haven’t been able to put down for days. i haven’t been told anything like that for a long time, heard or seen anything like that on paper for what i presume to be, too long. and it’s funny, the person who told me, doesn’t even live in this state, much less come home with me every night.

we get so distracted, so easily, from things that we should know introspectively, and lose sight of what we have accomplished and who we are. and while i’m happy that i’m a more humble breed, because i truly feel there is no need to advertise your greatness, that i should probably accept compliments a little more readily, and then try my hardest to believe them.

i may be a cinic, but i believe in truth. whether it be love, or just simple words on paper, it’s out there and it’s right in front of our eyes. and it’s hard and cold and real, but if not for that, then what do we have but a fantasyland of cartooney bobble heads and fluorescent birds that sing? i think i have lived there too long, tried to create a world that everything harmonizes as they drink their morning coffee.

i don’t know if i will ever get to the point where my cinicism doesn’t jade my daily thinking, and i don’t even necessarily know if i want to. but one day i have to get to a point where i can look at myself in the mirror, and believe i am a bottle of sparkling water that has been handled to much, and understand that’s a very beautiful thing.

thank you to the author of these words. they are the things that clarify my boring murky tap water.

k.

route 66

(original post: july 30, 2007)

i wonder
how it would be,
just him and me,
fighting against the world,
breaking the fences,
outsmarting our senses,
and laughing into the wind,
with no one to lean on
or ask definitions,
and build our own
roman world,
with daylight and
dusk
riding our taillights,
alone
but alone together,
unfurled.

k.

sometimes i wonder if the truth is possible, if its as strong as it screams. i find it hard to believe that someone could love me the way they speak, the way i want. i'm a siren of sorts, but maybe only to myself, whispering redemption under uneven tides. the full moon must be tired of my merchant heart...

all who wander are not lost. but if you are, that's cool too.

(original post: august 8, 2007)

tomorrow will be my last full day in san francisco. when i wake up on friday, i leave for orlando. and thus ends the california chapter of my life.

and what's wierd, is that even though the last four weeks have been riddled with obstacles and things that were less than fortuitous (understatement), i have had an amazing time. not to say that it couldn't have been better, you know, if i didn't get a stomach bug, sprain my shit, scratch my eye (again), etc etc etc... but for what it's worth, i can say that this city is amazing.

i went to the top of nob hill last week. the hills were so big that i was literally walking at a forty-five degree angle. my quads and calfs screamed the entire way, but it was so worth it. i looked down on top of the harbor, and the white boats swaying inside of the waves, and chills ran up and down my spine from the wind, wipping through the sleeves of my hoodie. gulls screamed in the background and dove into the surface of the water fishing for whatever they could find. the fog rolled up and over me. really, i watched it, felt it cover me, as if it was breath from someone in the sky. the golden gate bridge disappears every night when it rolls in, as do the rooftops of the cliff houses and the island of alcatraz.

for a day i was one of the only white girls in chinatown, playing with pink paper parasols, debating on which one i should buy. i realized i couldn't because i have no room in my bag anymore. i bought nunchucks and sesame candy, and tried on crazy plaid pocket dresses that were almost too small in an XL. i was also one of the tallest people there. no surprises, i usually always am regardless. i looked at a caligrapher digilently working on tourists names, painting them on rice paper as they posed for pictures around him.

i met international bums and squatters, chatting with them as i smoked a cigarette outside of a bar, every bar, cause they're everywhere... a young kid of maybe seventeen drew me a picture of a rose with my name in it, detailed and ornate, with grubby hands that pass heroin through their veins. i saw crackheads lying on the street, some with nothing, some who owned a couple dogs or cats, and lent cigarettes to some punks with neon lit hair and barbells through the top of the bridge of their nose.

i rode the bus with everyone, from businessmen in power suits to a woman who kept telling me to look at the pretty tree. i went everywhere i could, to nob hill and russian hill, back to the haight, to union square and the marina, up to japan town and back to the tenderloin. the neighborhoods flew by right in front of my eyes, the neatly stacked townhouses with contrast crown molding and laid brick. it took me to golden gate park where kids frolicked under their parents supervision, as the dealers hit you up as they passed.

i stayed in jyouth hostels, which are fascinating to me, because theyre so inexpensive for everything that you get... free breakfast in the morning and free internet? i'm there. the first was in the middle of the tenderloin, the shady area that everyone tells you to stay away from. i liked it. i thought it was more or less of an adventure. the second was in union square, and it looked like the hostel from the movie hostel. it was super creepy and co-ed, which i don't have qualms about if it's not super creepy. but it was super creepy. good breakfast though. i love english muffins. the one that i'm at right now is actually way cool, right in the middle of union square and clean and not creepy at all. there are people from all over that stay here. europeans backpack through california the way we backpack around europe. i don't know why that seems so strange to me, it makes perfect sense, i guess.

i played pool in a couple bars by myself and got challenged to some games, most of which i lost, but two that i won! yay. i had super burritos and real italian pizza, and a couple nights ago i had bacon wrapped scallops that would have been delectable had i been able to tast them. i'm deathly ill right now so they tasted the same as, say, a subway sandwich. but they looked amazing, anyway.

there's been so much this month that i've seen, it kind of takes the edge off of everything else. granted, this dreamland is over tomorrow, but, i still have one more day. i knew that only being here for a month was going to be impossible to get everything i wanted to do, done. so i will have to come back. settled, when everything gets a little less crazy.

it was fun to be lost. i like the fact that i'm just like everyone else here. i feel like i just might be from a foreign country, cause i know so little about everything out here. there's so much to be seen, to be tasted. and under different circumstances, i might have actually gotten to experience all those things in the forthcoming year. but, it also gives me the mindset that there is something to explore everywhere, including where i'm coming back to. there is so much i haven't done in atlanta. i guess now i don't want to ignore it, now that i realize wandering is the only way to find where you're going.

what a great metaphor for life that is. the best way to find out where you are is to get lost. and lost, i am. so i guess im gonna keep on keepin on until i figure out what it is that i need to get done.

goodbye for now, san francisco.

k.

nicotine and love: an undying relationship

(original post: september 15, 2007)

people don't change unless they want to. it's like quitting smoking. you can't do it until you really really want to. because otherwise, even though you know it's bad for you, even though you know lighting something and inhaling it into the only organ that we have that makes us breathe couldn't possibly be a sound way to ensure it will still do so sometime down the road, you won't quit until you are absolutely ready.

my father smoked for thirty-five years. he smoked a full pack, and sometimes two packs of camel wides for the last ten years he smoked. he would cough and weeze and mumble about how he needed to quit and how every cigarette was going to be his last. until the next one, and the one after that. i never thought that man would ever stop his beloved habit.

but, like all beautiful romances, this one too bit the dust. after going to see his doctor who told him that if he didn't quit smoking he was not going to live to see sixty. he was fifty-four at the time. i guess a six year death sentence was enough for him to drop the reigns. he quit, about two weeks before our annual christmas trekk to the mountains.

that was an amazing road trip. three dogs, one with a vengeful stomach problem, my two brothers, my brother's girlfriend who is allergic to everything, my bitter french catholic grandmother who had just gotten married and divorced all in under three months, my mother's stop and go driving skills, my father going through nicotine withdrawls, and me, crammed in the backseat with presents and luggage and groceries. all in one big expedition.

all i wanted to do, was smoke a fucking fag. but my arents still didn't know i smoked, or rather, denied that i did, so i couldn't.

i'll tell you, if that's not a fucking slice of heaven, i don't know what is.

but dad did it. he smokes cigars now, which, to me, kind of cancels the whole triumphant quitting thing out. but shit. i guess if you're gonna go, you should go out with style. it's havana time.

now, me, on the other hand, i don't know when i'm going to quit. i know i have to, i know i shouldn't do it because of the career i'm in, and blah blah blah. listen, smoking is not something that has ever been branded as the "goody two shoes" habit. it wasn't sandra dee who started the trend. james dean, marilyn monroe, tommy lee, most of the bad guys in movies, and teenagers full of angst and revolt... it's not a happy coincidence that they all smoke.

smoking is rebellion. rebellion of the body and what it was meant to be used for. inhaling is like telling everyone "i don't fucking care" and doing it with a certain... je ne sais quoi... penchant for masochism, maybe?

smoking is the habit of habits, the queen of hearts, if i may. i say this because we all know what type of people they are. smokers will befriend other smokers because there is a common ground they share. and many non-smokers do that whole coughing thing and wave their hand in front of their face as if there were carcinigeous bees flying all around them. my favorite non-smoker line is "did you know that's bad for you?"

gee. thanks. did you know that you're ugly? at least i can quit.

so, here we have this attitude and now a habit that runs through our blood and makes us crave more. how is this any different than quitting a person?

it occured to me the other day that quitting a cancerous love is alot like quitting smoking. especially if it's something you don't really want to stop. if you cheat, only with one little cigarette, it sets you back to day one, and you have to restart all over again. your heart still craves the nicotine no matter what your head tells it.

love has the same effects that ciggies do, quickening the heart and temporarily releasing tension in the muscles. it puts us in a better mood and makes us forget that there are things out there that are bothering us. love is a longer version of a cigarette break, then.

but when something goes wrong, when you know there is something that has poisoned your heart, a cancerous sort of love... when you know that the only thing that's right is the one thing you don't want to do... quitting smoking is harder than beginning the habit. it's always harder to stop.

you get mad at yourself when you slip up. when you cheat. you were doing so well. you were making progress, getting stronger without the need for nicotine. you didn't crave one as much after a hard day, nor did you think to buy a pack when you stopped to get gas. you are on the path to washing your hands of a bad habit.

but then, one night, you find one single cigarette lying on the floor of your car. you put it to your mouth, taste the sweet musk of the tobacco, and delight that the paper filter still fits perfectly betwixt your lips... there is a lighter you never through away, and it ignites easily under your thumb as you watch the flint spark in front of your eyes. your heart is racing... it's been too long since you felt the fire in your chest, and as you inhale, you feel it run through your veins, under your skin, the length of your body... the smoke ropes up and into your nose from your mouth and you are reminded of the memories you and the cigarette have had in the past... lying on beach blankets and shivering under the cold mountain sky, singing in the car, or coffee in the morning. it is an old friend, who has been there for a long tme, and without ever reaizing it, you had fallen in love.

cigarettes give you cancer. lovers can too. both kill you in some form or fashion. both betray the relationship you never intended on being so strong, that you never knew you had depended on so heavily. and both, you miss when you quit.

one of my favorite quotes of all time is from the writer oscar wilde. he states, "the only temptation i resist, is to resist temptation." i believe oscar wilde died of complications due to alcohol and opium abuse, sometime in his thirties. as far as it pertains to me, i'm hoping that my resistance to resist temptations will eventually make me understand that i am responsible for my health, regardless if it's mental or physical. i'm the one who doesn't want to quit smoking, because smoking is so damn enjoyable, and therefore if i continue to do so i will perish underneath a nicotine hand.

i think oscar wilde was right, though. hey. at least he was honest with himself.

(original post: august 20, 2007)

your words
inked upon my heart,
scarred into my forearms
have left me
nothing but empty smiles...
i see the lies
behind your lips
i taste the salt
and burning iron
of your blood soaked
martyred eulogy
i'm not your forever
i see it, i get it, i feel it
on top of your
hestitant palms
and retracting fingertips
your kisses are bland
and dull, thoughts
of someone else's
pretty eyes invade your mind
as my presence wastes away
inside your heart, an
anorexic
masochistic
love.
aphrodite
would be appalled
to know
the secrets you hide
from me, locked
without the key
i gave to you,
now collecting dust
on your bedstand
as you cavort
and distort
what little
i had left.
i wish
i wish
i wish
you perilous stars...
you have failed me
for the first time,
maybe my last.
what words you spoke
in beauty,
in vain,
that i believed
to be so pure,
but the wolf
wants more
than this little red hood,
not knowing
more is often
disguised as less.
less like me.
less like my speedy heart.
i feel like vomiting.
i feel like fainting.
i feel like i should be
anywhere else
but where i am.
i can't stand
life without you
but my life with you in it
makes my stomach writhe
in pain,
this is what
it has come to,
the lies,
the half-truths,
all of it.
it is my destiny
to be alone,
to die,
just as it is yours
to wear the sheeps
clothing
as you hunt
for another
hurt.

k.

superheroes and their masks

(original post: august 26, 2007)

what a searchlight
ha, what a metaphor...
we all search
for that light, that
second of epiphany,
sweet reality,
when things don't feel
real,
when it hasn't yet
set in,
so that new
will remain new,
not having to delve
too deep to care
is this the way it will always be?
shallow wading ponds
of heart,
not enough to dive
i'm alive
and breathing in a city
that's choking me to death
well, maybe
it's my own city
that's killing me
but how do you move out
from your own skin?
optimism
is the hardest elixur
to swallow
during rainy days
like this...

k.

my thoughts today... it's not what you are that defines you. it's what you do.

i watched batman begins last night. and, even though i am quoting from a marvel comic, it made me think. is the only thing that defines you what you do? is the only thing i am a ballet dancer with a propensity for wine? that's it. a drunken ballerina.

or is what you do defined by who you are? everything i've ever done, i've done it because it's come from a deeper desire inside of me. who i am. if i hated teaching i probably would be something like a vet. or a suit, ugh. i wouldn't do it every day and accept a lifestyle that was as underpaid. i could have sold my soul a long time ago for the money, and i'm happy i didn't.

we all wear masks. that was another big thing in the movie. of course, batman has a mask, so that people won't know who he is underneath. i thought it was ironic though, because everyone was so scared of him, in all of his capey-maskness. even though he was the one who was saving everyone. they were still adamantly fighting him as he fought for them. hmmm.... metphor alert: nobody really wants to be saved? i don't know, i'm going out on a limb here.

but anyway. there was another villian who wore a scarecrow-ish mask which, with the help of some ancient gaseous cloud, brought out everyone's worst fears when they looked at him. and when he did that, they were projecting their worst fears onto it and they were paralized with terror, of a figment from their own minds.

are our masks manifested from what we don't want people to really know about us? do we project our fears onto other people so that they can't reach us, find what breaks us down? these masks, that scare others away, that conceal what we don't want understood... aren't they easier to see through than having no mask at all?

batman is bruce wayne, the billionaire orphan who fights crime in retribution for his parents death. he wears a suit during the day and kills bad guys at night, saving others from the same lonely fate he was assigned to at such an early age. he masks his identity with a black suit, a cape, and nights shadows. and people are so scared of him. they don't thank him for his kindness, for risking his own life in saving theirs, but instead reel back in terror. i guess you can't really regard a man in a black suit and a cape as anything but unusual, but shit, people, he's fucking saving you. at least give him a head nod or something.

what point am i getting to? katie holmes looked at her old friend bruce wayne in the movie and said that line to him, which was ironic, cause she didn't know that he would be saving her pretentious ass a little later from death. not just once, but he saved the bitch like three or four times from her impending death. so, in reality, who he was underneath the mask and what he did while he was in it saved her from her last breath.

so she was wrong. i'm right. what batman does, fighting crime... what he is is not defined by what he does. what he does is defined by who he is underneath the mask, and what he went through to get there is what determined that.

so our masks, we should wear them with pride, because what they hide is everything we are inside. nobody should force the mask off of you, because then they've ripped off of you everything you are, and thrown it away. i don't think it's a bad thing for the vulnerable stuff to show through every once and awhile. but i don't think it's necessary to have to be maskless your entire life.

anonaminity is the key to privacy sometimes. just look at bruce wayne. although he shouldn't have told that dumb bitch his secret. she's going to be his downfall. i really don't like katie holmes. can you tell?

thanks to matt maher for this closing... he said his favorite superhero is batman because batman is human. he wakes up, puts on his suit, and works during the day; when night falls he puts on a superhero costume and fights crime in gotham city.
when superman wakes up, he has to put his human suit on and live a false life of a mortal.
but that's a whole 'nother essay.

another half hour of the same day

(original post: august 29, 2007)

ghostly, your voice,
old friend,
ripped apart
by distance
and wires,
but still acute, so
stabbing
new as the
first time we talked
almost five years
ago,
you still had that laugh
almost a growl,
one that ditance
couldn't touch...
what once was
running across
rooftops, and
proofreading essays
has succomed
to time, and
people, and
oceans apart;
old friend,
you know me
and my pen
too well,
can read the words
before blank pages
feast upon them,
can speak them
as they tumble
out my lips...
and as you sleep, now,
i wonder if you dream
about which ones
out of the millions
of bulbs lit
on the kyoto strip,
are burnt out,
or the flowers
that fell in the wind
leaving the gnarled branches
to fend for themselves
in their bare-barked beauty;
maybe you dream
of putting words
in student's mouths,
the language so foreign
to them, but
our saving grace
over the years...
or portland's beers,
tallahassee sunsets,
philly traffic...
or maybe,
glass walled
conversations,
clear as kyoto's
night sky.
old friend,
i miss your smile
and the years
you put into it,
the life it took
to live it
is what makes
your grin growl.

k.

still life romance

(original post: september 3, 2007)

such smiles,
in your heads,
painted underneath
dropping suns
and ocean
foam at your feet.
smiles splashed
from ear to ear,
against your skull
and down your spine.
it's lovely, there,
in memories and dusk,
with smiles and
skin
and fake kodak settings,
hurt forgotton
in the panorama
of the picture,
and it's beautiful, it's
so easy
to fall back inside,
to let the bad things
slide
and forget
the chaos behind the
smiles.
no,
you'll be happy
there,
amongst the silence
in the 5x8 walls,
living in
a picture-perfect
glossy
and heads so full
of smile and lies.
enjoy
your soulless nights
and careless hearts,
the ocean waves
nipping at your feet
cold,
but fake even now.

k.


i had this boyfriend once who told me that he had fallen in love with me from a picture. before i had ever even met him, he had come over to our house and he had seen me inside a picture frame with my two best friends and knew that he wanted me from that moment on.
at first, i found this romantic, a love at first sight kind of notion, and we dated, for just under a year. until he went psycho on me, and went to rehab for a coke addiction i don't really know if he had. there was a shrine and a dui involved too, but that's another story for another day.
anyway, he said that to me at the very beginning of our relationship, and it slowly started to eat away at me as things went on. how do you fall in love with a picture? what does that mean? what does that say about how well he knows me, falling complacent with a two dimentional glossy from a time he never even knew about...
i slowly began to realize he fell in love not with the girl who trips over air, snorts when she laughs, has a generally messy repretoire with spaghetti and red wine, eats with her fingers, has pummeled ballet hobbit feet...
but rather he fell in love with the idea of what i could be. what i was in that foreign moment that happened to be capured in time and displayed on our coffee table in the living room. he fell in love with the idea of me, two dimentional and blonde, sticking my tongue out at the camera.
him saying that to me should've been the selling point for me to throw a red flag penalty and say, whoa, mister, you are way out of line.
but of course, i didn't, and it was an obstacle laden relationship from that point on. who woulda thunk it? man, was he crazy. i mean, bat-shit, balls to the wall nuts. corn nuts. that's some serious shit. but really good writing.
so we broke up when he decided to abandon me and go to rehab that his work was paying for, for an addiction that he never really had, and i moved in with those same two girls that have never failed to save me. the same picture was up on the living room table, and i had to look at it every day when i sat down on the couches, thinking about the same thing...
how could i be so dumb? i knew when he said he fell in love with me from a picture that it bothered me, in the back of my mind, and i pushed it out. because the blinders were on, because i wanted to believe i loved him too. but that wasn't true love. he fell in love with a two dimentional kathryne, without flaws and insecurities and idiocincracies... which, i have to say, is not who i am.
living up to that one picture was the hardest thing to do for me in that relationship, ironically enough. most girls get in a relationship and are intimidated by another girl who is friends with the significant other. i was intimidated by a inanimate framed picture of myself. i'm so wierd.
but for just cause. i could never be what that picture was to him. never, not in a million years, cause me in that picture was not who i was in real life. we all have these images of ourselves that are tangible, that lay in frames and photo albums, of our good sides and funny faces and aspects of our personalities that are captured in a single milisecond of time, to be for forever. but that's all they are - an aspect of who we are. one thing out of many that create everything who we are.
you can love a picture all you want. this is my best side, loo how cute we were that night, this was so funny it made me piss my pants after we took this picture... that's all fine. but when it's done and said, there are things that a picture can't tell. i don't think erick knew that the picture he fell in love with, behind all those smiles, was a girl who had just relapsed in bulimia and vomited everything she ate back up. that picture was taken at one of the lowest points in my life, but i plastered a smile on my face and posed for the camera anyway. he fell in love with a lie.
so, pictures, to me... well, that's all they are. they aren't a window to the past. they are a posed rendition of a moment. and you can't fall in love with one, because it's not real. it will never manifest, become something that is true, ever again. you can't get those good old times back.
you can only create newer ones.
unless of course, you go to rehab for cocaine. that pretty much stops time in general. look at erick, and lindsay lohan... but they probably deserve eachother anyway. they would make great picture babies.

pat benetar said it best...

i'm sorry, to
the soldiers i've lost,
who've fought
to keep me alive, and
well...
who've tried
to break this shell but
found the binds
too strong.
heard the words
"i'm just a hole",
and laughed, at
all the meanings,
but really, i guess
that's what i am,
empty and less-than-
purposeful.
i thought
i would open my eyes
and things would
be different,
things would be
steady and true...
the field littered
with blood and bodies
behind me, by my own hands,
seeping through armour,
taste of iron on
my bitter tongue.
i'm winning this war
but no battles on
my bedpost
could save them
from destruction, and
instead, i sit
in silence spitting
blood under the table,
away from you.

k.

i feel like i am fighting to survive, fighting everything i have known over the last three years. the high points have been phenomenal, sand in my shoes and the whirr of hot tub jets on my back... and the lows, sauturated in silence and saline... well, i just haven't been able to beat them. maybe i should move, because in many ways, atlanta is telling me to; even though i hang on to hope that there is a reason (other than the specific few i chose) that i came back. that everything will come around. that my strength will rear it's awesome ugly head, and things will for once be positive.

ugh. how emo of me and my black hair. will you guys hang on a second? i'm gonna go cry with the vegans.

the queen and i

i'm taken aback
by the fact
you gave those words away,
the words
you never said
or could say
to me,
just as easy, there
they were,
for her, my lines,
the only things
you have to keep
me going in your silent-soddered
world.
no matter how many times
i remind
myself, i keep forgetting
how easy paper words
burn bridges like it's nothing,
up in flames,
up in smoke,
against my fragile-framed
mirrors,
cracking my edges,
dodging the bullets...
you gave away
the only thing i loved the most
about your silence,
and what, now?
anger running through my veins
in vain, fruitlessly,
your promises
are empty and shallow,
pretty words and melodies
a distraction
to my waning belief.

k.

i'm frustrated, with my life and with everything revolving around it. i'm tired of the omittance of certain details, that don't have to be avoided, that somehow just never get said. i'm tired of trying to push for the truth, instead, i've retreated back into this hole, allowing myself to be lied to and furthermore, allowing myself to believe that everything's okay. everything has the ability to be okay. perfection is a funny thing. we strive for this truth, this perfection in ourselves and somebody else, but what i've come to concede is that not only is it impossible, it's fucking lie. if something seems to good to be true, it is. not probably or maybe there's something that's rotten underneath, there is surely a glitch in the system.

when is it okay to speak up? did i do this to me? and beyond that, what did i do to deserve this amount of coverage? i'm not fragile, and i'm certaintly not dramatic, so why then, is it too hard to say the things you want to? are we that stuck, that far in... i guess so. because otherwise i wouldn't be writing this, and i wouldn't be wondering where i'm going to be tomorrow with this situation. because all i know is, i wouldn't mind a little heartache if that was truly what i was meant to have, and then at least i would know, what we are and what i mean.

whatever. those were my songs. at least, they used to be. i haven't been sung to for awhile now, and it makes me wonder... did the lyrics fade so fast that i never gave myself the chance to get new ones written for me?