tattooed

i didn't ever even look at what ink saturated your skin.

now, upon closer inspection,

it seems you were a

distraction

to your art.

boring.

boring.

boring.

i feel like i've

seen you a thousand times

since way

back

when...

ink is such a temporary relief

to the reality of skin.

~k.

sweets

"they" say that smell is the one most important key to memory.

okay, "they", i might agree.

the smell of someone's skin,
a t-shirt,
a sandal.


a beach bag, you say? well,

her name was lindsay.

your cupcakes
and your breath
and your
real-estate-

are sunny-side-up
to me

you

expensive

thing.

smiling
through my teeth
without spaces.

~k.

states and capitols

towns. states.
all these pronouns for the
people i like
a lot.
maybe
when someone says,
"my name is______"
i should just say
"hold on..."
and then
"is your name a
name
of a state or a capitol?"
and when they say
yes
i should politely
excuse myself to the bathroom
and leave
the building. states
and capitols
have no business
around me.

~k.

oh, smile

i could say
the things that make you smile
cause you know i'm thinking of you at
4:38 am.
i could say the things
that make you smile
cause you know i have 13 minutes
to smoke this cigarette.
i could say the things that make
you smile, cause
you know your smile
hasn't been around, i
could say
the things that make
you smile
cause they're the things
that make you smile,
but i won't, cause
discreetly,
you're smiling, and
i hate it.
you'll never know
my red satin sheets
and
you'll never know
my red satin smile
and you'll
never know my 13 minutes
cause you didn't want to.
and you most likely
didn't ever try.
so draw my face
and write your words
and live your life
without me.
cause
i will never
be that
big
ass
heart
you'd ever love.

~k.

ooops.

i'm so
relieved.
thank
you.
~k.

ghost words

it's like
i never
even
wrote them.

~k.

minute words

so pretty,
paying word for
word...
the meter maid got
a little tired.

~k.

charlotte

sing, sing,
sing...
spotlight dwells on your
nose, your
little mole
perching on your lip;
sing, sing,
sing...
make yourself known,
cause the silence
leads to nothing,
and the solitude leads to
gold;
sing, sing,
sing...
don't forget the
tonka-tots
that pushed you
to the top,
the plastic faces
and boring spaces
made better by
a lop-sided
city view, sparkling
windows and
exposed brick walls
are better dreams than
none, i guess.

sing, sing,
sing,
cause the dance fell
short of the dress.

~k.

the cork

dance and love and hot and friends... and all the while, you're still not here. push and pull and stretch and thin... even a two doesn't fit me anymore. these words and calls past sleeping walls... it's all a fake, a puppet trade; of yours to mine and to compare our share of "heartbreak".

i write about you when i'm drunk.

how does that make you feel?

cause if it's one-fifth of how you make me feel, then, well...

we'll be even on wednesday.




i, my friends, am an idiot.

~k.

on hamsters and healing

i wish there were enough words in the english language to describe how i feel sometimes. like right now sometimes. this is why i make up words, and this is why those words make total and utter sense.

when i was a kid, i had two hamsters, hammy and ophelia. besides the ridiculous shakespeare reference, they were awesome. granted, i almost killed ophelia when i decided it would be a good idea to put her in a fedora and take her out to our pool so she could "lay out" (i was absolutely certain that hamsters led human lives as soon as we walked out of the room when i was young).
she "got out" of the hat and "almost drowned" in our neighbors' pool gutter. good thing a white hamster looks nothing like a rat, or i might have been arrested for accomplice to hamster murder.

so, my mom told me not to touch the 13 (!) babies she had when she gave birth to hammy's offspring. "but why?" i asked. "well, because they will get eaten by the mother," she said.

okay. i have heard ridiculous horror stories from new mothers, and the gross things that happen when kids get sick... but a mother eATiNG her kids? c'monnnnnn. get outtttt. that is totally made up, and i was too smart for her little "stories". and let's face it, there is something retardedly cute about a teeny blind rodent. they're so soft, and teeny...

she totally ate them. all 13. down the hatch, no sauces.

i.

was.

devastated.

of course, it was my own fault, as my mother reminded me at least once a month every year afterwards (i didn't like doing dishes). but i was so tempted by their amaurotic adorableness that i had to go there... and it ended in death.

and so, i wish that webster's had a fucking word for this story, cause it's exactly how i feel at this very moment, and i can't fucking describe it without writing a god. damn. essay.

meh.

~k.

the busy signal

singing in the studio is like faking an orgasm.

it's always perfecter when it's remixed, right?

hmmm.

~k.

firecrackers

oh, burn
you silly little flames,
give me
momentary leave
from your seriousness
"but i have
a cigarette"
just gives me time to
NOT
understand you, it's
all your smoky
mirrors that convince me
to smile this way, an
that...

you can give me
your number
but it doesn't mean
you have to pick up.

shame on me,
cause i came back for seconds.

~k.

grains

i miss you, ocean.
i miss your temperate touch
on my legs, where you
lay your head when
you're sleepy.
i miss you, and
you know i do, it's
why i came back
and why you told me
to.
i miss your embrace
against my back,
eyes closed, nose
filled with your smell-
i only pretended
to nap, i
didn't want to miss
the minutes i had you in
my arms.
i miss your lapping laughs
and your tides washing
over my thighs, and
even though you didn't
say it, i know
you thought my ass
looked great bobbing
in your waves...
i miss you ocean, and
i've known i always have,
and even though i'm
chasing these pavements
i'm still with you, and
i still want to come back
for sunsets and windy
kisses.

~k.

oh, girl

oh.
i hope you're not
TOO disappointed.
i am not
this girl that makes pretty things.
i am not
this girl that
tells you to "
look at my art"
i am not this'
girl
that tells you pretty things
you believe
til your heart
ends
sss
oh gosh
i'm just a girl
that wishes.
that's all
just, wishes. open
heart, open
palms.

~k.

upswing, downswing

i think i have a major issue with boot envy.

walking home today, mind as heavy as the dusty brown clodhoppers i wear all the time, i saw at least six pairs of boots i wished were gracing my feet instead of their owners. all down havemyer i got distracted from my current distractions and lusted after the sexiness that boots are.

a tall camel-colored pair of flats, high-calf length. slim but not dainty, flat but not bottomed-out. ankle cut cowboy boots, black, snakeskin. buckled black fryes, just under the base of the calf.

so, so sexy.

and each time i would see a pair i liked, i would look at my own and see the broken leather ankle strap, the margarita spills on the toes, the worn-down heel. i bought them vintage, granted. but i beat them up, bloody and bruised.

it was a grey day today, cool and slightly damp. the kind of damp that settles down in your joints and gets in between your ears. i have felt lucid these past couple of days, like my life is buzzing all around me and i'm standing still, watching it. every once in awhile, i participate in the conversation or am brought back by a slight touch of a friend's hand, but observing is where i need to be. it was no different this morning than it was from going out last night. the bars were busy and i was tired of being in the middle of so many people. my friends were scanning for men and i was admiring the decor of the new-ish bar on lorimer.

i made the decision i needed more mirrors in my life. they were everywhere in that place, and it gave such spectacular views for the people watching.

i didn't talk to anyone really, just watched everything happen and chat to my girlfriends who i was there with. commented on men who grew the early-90s rapist mustaches, and why they would think it actually was acceptable to wear out. pushed our way through loud hipsters to our vodka sodas, put erin in a cab when it was a good idea to go home. slept it off.

i woke up grey, started cleaning. talked to a good, old friend. something about laughing about the past relationship lessons i learned with him makes the new ones i'm learning a little more bearable.

so anyway, fast forward from dropping off drum cymbals to my now-ex (after all, it says so on facebook), walking home.

boot envy. rwowr. meow.

i get to the underpass, again staring at the dilapidated jalopies i call boots and wishing i could fix the strap, but i don't have a leather-sewing tool, i got distracted, for the 1,548th time, by the sound of laughter. i was by the playground, and there were two parents swinging with their children, pushing them higher and higher as the kids literally squealed with delight. it stopped me in my tracks.

so, i swung. i chucked my heavy boots in the air and used their momentum backward to push myself almost parallel to the ground on the backswing. as i started downward again i threw my chest forward and drove my feet into the air, chunky black soles framed in grey skies and highway overpass. the cold damp air rushed into my lungs like water in a cess pool at high tide, and with every fall back down from the sky got sucked out of me as if there were hands inside my ribcage pulling it out. eventually, after the children had left and my fingers were numb from the metal chains, i let my body slow down, relax, and feel the tide of the motion.

my feet dragged back and forth, tipping forward on the toe and falling back to the heel. the boots looked so beat up against the patterned playground matting, so worn in.

and it was with that thought that i fell in love with them again. they're a little busted, but they look great on me. they're perfect for what i do and who i am. they're surviving, and have done great work.

i hopped up off the swing, smoothed out my jacket, and grabbed my purse. my feet, just like my head, had suddenly become a little lighter.

~k.

oh, conflict

directions are so hard.
am i supposed
to count them
on an abacus?
all these you's, with
your pretty lines
and empty flights;
these you's
who
push me through
and let me singe
at your heels...
you should never read
my paper words
cause those are the
ones
that burn the fastest.

~k.

i AM LuCY

she didn't fade, she's
inked on my skin,
like you wrote to me
that time, even
though you didn't
care enough to stick around.
no, lucy is STiLL
here and lucy is STiLL
angry, and mad
for life, the
way she was once
mad for you...
i wonder if LuCY
pops up in everyday
conversation
the way
you do, and don't;
so i am still LuCY
but i think you may be too -

fuck you, LuCY for leaving me.
fuck you, LuCY for not needing me.
i wanna say FuCK YOu
because i still LOVE YOu
no i'm not okay
and i don't know what to do

ugh.
life would be easier
if i could just
wipe the slate
clean.

~k.

gah

SHUT UP!!!!

just...
shut up.
i can't take you
in my head
anymore.
these ghosts
are too pretty, too
paralyzing.

~k.

why tonight?

ever notice how things seem bigger than they really are?

like, i'm standing in my kitchen, right, and the table and the stove and the fridge look CRAZY big. and then i thought, is it just that i'm really small right now? like alice in wonderland small?

but then i realized i wasn't small, and the fridge was normal, and it just happened to be my life had suddenly and unexpectedly been inflated.

i know now it was just the stars exploding like roman candles across the sky.

k.

blizzard

it's a simple this, a
sleepy little town
somewhere in north carolina,
somewhere under the
pounds of snow, melting
into ice, fingers
playing hooky from
our gloves under coats;
an unexpected this, a
this that can make the
breastbone warp a little, make
it feel wrapped in worn
wool and warmed between
paper-thin walls...
a this that shows
the cracks in the
foundation, but
doesn't itch to be healed
or plead to be saved; it's
getting lost and leaving
light behind, blazing
trails and burning snow
behind us, border to
border, palm
to palm, minute by
minute, taking the
bus to town and
leaving the luggage in
motels, the only
weight, some
change in our pockets.

k.