What was sixth grade like?
I can only remember countless frozen pizzas
and discovering eyeliner.
When I think really hard I remember Mom drinking cheap wine in the bathtub,
me spraying my hair with detangler because I didn't want to shower.
We slept in the same bed for almost a year
Did she cry at night? I don't know
But she did come home late
And two nights, I remember, not at all.
She tells me I was sick a lot
I threw up almost every day
I'm glad I don't remember that.
Who took care of me?
Who took care of Joe and Luke?
Where was Dad?
They told me he slept in a car for weeks-
Homeless.
We were all homeless.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Friday, June 13, 2008
Humbee and the Great Honeybee Revolution
Humbee is a honeybee. He lives in a great big hive with thousands of other bees who work all day everyday for the queen. Some bees are happy just working until they die, but not Humbee. He wants something more out of his little life than just what has always been. He tries to communicate this to his friends.
"You're crazy," dances Maebee, "The queen is our mother, why can't you just chill and pollinate and make honey?"
"Don't you see the queen is nothing without us? She can't even move she's so stuffed with eggs! We don't need her, we can start a brand new colony where everyone is equal and working means more than just doing whatever the queen tells us to do."
"Oh yeah, then how will we reproduce?"
"Maybe we shouldn't reproduce. How can we bring other young bees into the world and raise them when we don't even know ourselves. Who is Humbee? Who is Maebee?"
"Maebee is done with this ridiculous conversation," dances Maebee.
Humbee buzzes...he is alone. Alone. He goes about his regular routine, but doesn't even feel like dancing with anyone new. Usually he is as popular as a bouquet in May, but every bee now knows about his radical thinking.
One day a fuzzy, buzzy group of bees come up to Humbee.
"We believe in what you're dancing to. We want to help."
Together they make plans to overthrow the queen.
"Worker Bees Forever! We don't want your blood honey!" They organize huge protests where they dance and seal up loyal bees in wax. The revolution grows and soon over half the bees in the hive support a separation from the queen.
After a particularly nasty protest involving the dropping of eggs from the top of an oak tree, the queen finally asks to see Humbee. He buzzes into her chamber where she lays enormous and pulsating.
"Why have you done this, Humbee? The workers will not work, there is a shortage of honey, my babies are dying...have you forgotten that I am your mother too?"
"You are not my mother!" Humbee dances wildy, but then he starts to feel slightly guilty.
He looks up at the queen with her hundred little eyes staring into him, and in them he sees the immense anguish of being the queen bee.
"If this is what my children want then who am I to deny them?"
Humbee sits quietly.
"I never asked to be queen. I was born into this you see, just as you were born a worker bee. Do you not think that I lack satisfaction from my life? I am nothing but an egg-laying machine. I never get to feel flowers under my legs or spread my wings out and fly about all the beautiful things there are to see."
"I am ashamed," dances Humbee, "I never thought about what life is like for a queen bee."
"Then go tell the hive. Give my babies back to me."
Humbee goes out all everyone is anxious to see what the queen bee had to say.
"Did she threaten to kill you? Did you pop her belly with a thorn? You should eat her head!" They all buzzed about Humbee.
"Be still!"
The hive was dead silent.
"The queen is a bee just like you and me. I have realized this now and it was foolish to try and change things. We have a very good life being worker bees and it's time to go back to what we do best. Let's make some honey."
The hive was shocked.
"You've got to be kidding, Humbee! Look how far we've come! I can almost taste freedom!"
The others all buzzed in excitement.
"She tricked you!" danced a young bee. "You're just like her now. You want us all to be your minions and do your bidding. Well not me!"
The bees formed an angry mob around Humbee. They pulled off all his legs and antennae all the while dancing "Long live the REVOLUTION!"
They sealed what was left of Humbee in wax and then moved to attack the queen.
She had no time to even try to communicate with them. In an instant the queen was dead and so were all the future generations of honeybees.
A year later a human poet wrote on the mysterious vanishings of honeybees:
All
the honeybees
are dying.
Some day
Those plastic bears
will be displayed
like Fabergé eggs.
And so it was.
"You're crazy," dances Maebee, "The queen is our mother, why can't you just chill and pollinate and make honey?"
"Don't you see the queen is nothing without us? She can't even move she's so stuffed with eggs! We don't need her, we can start a brand new colony where everyone is equal and working means more than just doing whatever the queen tells us to do."
"Oh yeah, then how will we reproduce?"
"Maybe we shouldn't reproduce. How can we bring other young bees into the world and raise them when we don't even know ourselves. Who is Humbee? Who is Maebee?"
"Maebee is done with this ridiculous conversation," dances Maebee.
Humbee buzzes...he is alone. Alone. He goes about his regular routine, but doesn't even feel like dancing with anyone new. Usually he is as popular as a bouquet in May, but every bee now knows about his radical thinking.
One day a fuzzy, buzzy group of bees come up to Humbee.
"We believe in what you're dancing to. We want to help."
Together they make plans to overthrow the queen.
"Worker Bees Forever! We don't want your blood honey!" They organize huge protests where they dance and seal up loyal bees in wax. The revolution grows and soon over half the bees in the hive support a separation from the queen.
After a particularly nasty protest involving the dropping of eggs from the top of an oak tree, the queen finally asks to see Humbee. He buzzes into her chamber where she lays enormous and pulsating.
"Why have you done this, Humbee? The workers will not work, there is a shortage of honey, my babies are dying...have you forgotten that I am your mother too?"
"You are not my mother!" Humbee dances wildy, but then he starts to feel slightly guilty.
He looks up at the queen with her hundred little eyes staring into him, and in them he sees the immense anguish of being the queen bee.
"If this is what my children want then who am I to deny them?"
Humbee sits quietly.
"I never asked to be queen. I was born into this you see, just as you were born a worker bee. Do you not think that I lack satisfaction from my life? I am nothing but an egg-laying machine. I never get to feel flowers under my legs or spread my wings out and fly about all the beautiful things there are to see."
"I am ashamed," dances Humbee, "I never thought about what life is like for a queen bee."
"Then go tell the hive. Give my babies back to me."
Humbee goes out all everyone is anxious to see what the queen bee had to say.
"Did she threaten to kill you? Did you pop her belly with a thorn? You should eat her head!" They all buzzed about Humbee.
"Be still!"
The hive was dead silent.
"The queen is a bee just like you and me. I have realized this now and it was foolish to try and change things. We have a very good life being worker bees and it's time to go back to what we do best. Let's make some honey."
The hive was shocked.
"You've got to be kidding, Humbee! Look how far we've come! I can almost taste freedom!"
The others all buzzed in excitement.
"She tricked you!" danced a young bee. "You're just like her now. You want us all to be your minions and do your bidding. Well not me!"
The bees formed an angry mob around Humbee. They pulled off all his legs and antennae all the while dancing "Long live the REVOLUTION!"
They sealed what was left of Humbee in wax and then moved to attack the queen.
She had no time to even try to communicate with them. In an instant the queen was dead and so were all the future generations of honeybees.
A year later a human poet wrote on the mysterious vanishings of honeybees:
All
the honeybees
are dying.
Some day
Those plastic bears
will be displayed
like Fabergé eggs.
And so it was.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
A nice day
I collapse into myself again and again.
Like looped footage of the twin towers,
each time I try to tell it all.
I am too tall from your touch
too embarrassed to speak.
I don't have to wait, but I will.
I try to say this with my mouth
but I fail, I fall.
It is something I can't explain. No one's hair makes me happier.
No one holds me better.
Like looped footage of the twin towers,
each time I try to tell it all.
I am too tall from your touch
too embarrassed to speak.
I don't have to wait, but I will.
I try to say this with my mouth
but I fail, I fall.
It is something I can't explain. No one's hair makes me happier.
No one holds me better.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Hair
My hair is growing. It smells like fruit shampoo. I just washed it but tomorrow when I wake up it will stick to my face. I want your nose buried in it before then. Curled into you and sleeping like a cat. I want to get all my depression out through osmosis.
I would tell you that I loved you but that might be stupid. And I don't want to be stupid to you.
Today I am feeling like I want to crunch myself up into a pretty cake.
I would build you the most fantastic igloo if I had met you in Colorado winter 9 years ago.
I can't feel affectionate towards anyone without feeling desperate. I want everyone to want me and that is simple. A want every stupid teenage girl has until they're date raped or something. I keep telling myself that's not funny hahaha.
I tried replacing relationships with baking. I feel so proud of my work because I want everyone to see that I am doing something with myself and am not miserable. I am a functioning person who will not stab myself in the chest.
I shouldn't get attached to things. It's like I am ten years old again and we are moving to Florida. I remember being curled up in my flower blanket and not getting ready for school because I was too busy crying. I still have that blanket except now there is some IKEA cover over it. I don't even know what I was crying for. There was this girl named Katie who moved away not too long before I did and the last day she was at school all these kids were following her around and being nice to her. The last day I was on the playground expecting the same sort of treatment and no one even came up to me to play or anything. Didn't they know? I had no friends so I wasn't crying for them.
I would tell you that I loved you but that might be stupid. And I don't want to be stupid to you.
Today I am feeling like I want to crunch myself up into a pretty cake.
I would build you the most fantastic igloo if I had met you in Colorado winter 9 years ago.
I can't feel affectionate towards anyone without feeling desperate. I want everyone to want me and that is simple. A want every stupid teenage girl has until they're date raped or something. I keep telling myself that's not funny hahaha.
I tried replacing relationships with baking. I feel so proud of my work because I want everyone to see that I am doing something with myself and am not miserable. I am a functioning person who will not stab myself in the chest.
I shouldn't get attached to things. It's like I am ten years old again and we are moving to Florida. I remember being curled up in my flower blanket and not getting ready for school because I was too busy crying. I still have that blanket except now there is some IKEA cover over it. I don't even know what I was crying for. There was this girl named Katie who moved away not too long before I did and the last day she was at school all these kids were following her around and being nice to her. The last day I was on the playground expecting the same sort of treatment and no one even came up to me to play or anything. Didn't they know? I had no friends so I wasn't crying for them.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Writings
This is Ben. Ben goes to community college and failed a philosophy course. HAHAHA. Ben knows nothing and does even less. His only vice is the sweet tasting girl who bends over in front of her apartment window to feed her cat. He watches her daily, weeps in his soul when the blinds are closed. Ben, you perverted kid! He thinks in his head, "She will never see me. No, no."
But this day is different. This day she has a dark haired boy over on her couch. She brings him tea and Ben watches him watch her ass. A rage builds inside Ben. "How could she? My darling, my angel." Haha pathetic Ben!
He rushes across the street and knocks on her door. Too late he realizes what a stupid thing he has done. She opens the door, looks him up and down, and says, "Can I help you?"
"Uhhh...are you familiar with the Church of Jesus Christ Laterday Saints?"
She shuts the door.
Poor Ben goes back home. He sits on his bed and studies algebra.
Ben grows up to be a used tire salesman. No one ever watches him through any window. He doesn't even have a cat.
LO SIENTO
We were conjoined twins in our past lives. This is why it is so awkward for us to say goodbye. You see, we have only had to say it a handful of times;
It's hard to say because we aren't about to die.
I enjoy the change though. I can see your face. I can hold you with both arms.
Is it embarrassing to know that at a time our hearts pumped each other's blood? How stupid are we to think we could ever be that close again? I feel not only phantom limbs, but a phantom body, a phantom head. These things were once part of me. This is why we feel something is missing.
I have never known what it is like to have a birthday alone...
Think of how exciting it is for our skin to touch again! I can bearly stand feeling our shoulders disconnected. I'm so sorry...
I'm sure it was my idea. It's okay if you hate me. I know how resentful I would be if you had our shared flesh severed without warning. I'll tell them to put us together again next time, if you'll have me.
THIS GIRL
This girl does not want to be an American anymore.
So she learns French, moves to France, tells everyone her name is Jacqueline, and then she is French. After a few years she grows tired of her foreign love affair, eating strong cheeses, and talking politics with psuedo-intellectual men who stink. She decides that she wants to live a more simple life.
She learns Spanish in Spain, moves to Chile, tells everyone her name is Frida and hopes for a unibrow and a succession of doomed relationships so she can make beautiful art. After two years no beautiful art has been made. This girl is a failure! Her life is all lies! She spends too much time reading Sylvia Plath and not understanding most of it. She thinks, Me! Me! I can be poet laureate! So she writes and writes and writes and writes. She writes 10,000 poems and when she goes back to read them she realizes they are all typed on the same piece of paper. The paper is black.
This girl decides to go back to America. (She still thinks in English) There is no home to come home to so she rents an apartment in Denver. There she meets a boy with red hair. She has always wanted a baby with red hair. She thinks, maybe I should have a baby with this boy. Together they decide to build a house in the mountains.
She dies tragically when a sheet of dry wall smashes her head in. This girl's last words were, "Fucking shit."
This boy was ruined!
"Look at what has become of all my hopes and two-by-fours!" This girl knew no one would ever love her, but this boy loved her. He loved her- sans drywall, sans failure, sans French.
But this day is different. This day she has a dark haired boy over on her couch. She brings him tea and Ben watches him watch her ass. A rage builds inside Ben. "How could she? My darling, my angel." Haha pathetic Ben!
He rushes across the street and knocks on her door. Too late he realizes what a stupid thing he has done. She opens the door, looks him up and down, and says, "Can I help you?"
"Uhhh...are you familiar with the Church of Jesus Christ Laterday Saints?"
She shuts the door.
Poor Ben goes back home. He sits on his bed and studies algebra.
Ben grows up to be a used tire salesman. No one ever watches him through any window. He doesn't even have a cat.
LO SIENTO
We were conjoined twins in our past lives. This is why it is so awkward for us to say goodbye. You see, we have only had to say it a handful of times;
It's hard to say because we aren't about to die.
I enjoy the change though. I can see your face. I can hold you with both arms.
Is it embarrassing to know that at a time our hearts pumped each other's blood? How stupid are we to think we could ever be that close again? I feel not only phantom limbs, but a phantom body, a phantom head. These things were once part of me. This is why we feel something is missing.
I have never known what it is like to have a birthday alone...
Think of how exciting it is for our skin to touch again! I can bearly stand feeling our shoulders disconnected. I'm so sorry...
I'm sure it was my idea. It's okay if you hate me. I know how resentful I would be if you had our shared flesh severed without warning. I'll tell them to put us together again next time, if you'll have me.
THIS GIRL
This girl does not want to be an American anymore.
So she learns French, moves to France, tells everyone her name is Jacqueline, and then she is French. After a few years she grows tired of her foreign love affair, eating strong cheeses, and talking politics with psuedo-intellectual men who stink. She decides that she wants to live a more simple life.
She learns Spanish in Spain, moves to Chile, tells everyone her name is Frida and hopes for a unibrow and a succession of doomed relationships so she can make beautiful art. After two years no beautiful art has been made. This girl is a failure! Her life is all lies! She spends too much time reading Sylvia Plath and not understanding most of it. She thinks, Me! Me! I can be poet laureate! So she writes and writes and writes and writes. She writes 10,000 poems and when she goes back to read them she realizes they are all typed on the same piece of paper. The paper is black.
This girl decides to go back to America. (She still thinks in English) There is no home to come home to so she rents an apartment in Denver. There she meets a boy with red hair. She has always wanted a baby with red hair. She thinks, maybe I should have a baby with this boy. Together they decide to build a house in the mountains.
She dies tragically when a sheet of dry wall smashes her head in. This girl's last words were, "Fucking shit."
This boy was ruined!
"Look at what has become of all my hopes and two-by-fours!" This girl knew no one would ever love her, but this boy loved her. He loved her- sans drywall, sans failure, sans French.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Something to start with
This day I am feeling like I could be limousine on fire.
Here is the story of my life:
When the sperm met the egg that would soon develop into my lumpy little body it was mostly unaware that there was another sperm and another egg going about the same routine just a few centimeters away. This other ugly, round motherfucker was my fraternal twin brother. The ultrasounds showed us positioned in the womb like a fetus yin and yang. To this day I'm not sure which one of us is supposed to be the light one. Most people would think it was me, but I have plenty of reason to doubt.
We sucked out nutrients from our mother together for roughly 8 months, and when we were fat enough a doctor with a knife decided it was time for us to get born.
I was born in Valparaiso, Indiana-- Home of Orville Redenbacher's Famous Gourmet Popping Corn. I don't remember it. All my early memories are from Colorado.
Colorado is an insanely beautiful place. My parents built a small house up in the mountains where we all lived happily until small became too small and little brother Luke entered the stage. Everyone got biblical names except for me. Thank God.
My grandmother also lived with us. She might or might not be the main reason why I am spiritually retarded.
Every Sunday I would tag along with Grandma to church. I would get placed with other slimy kids in nice outfits and we would play games and listen to fantastic stories about Jesus and friends. Those stories! They were the reason I thought, in my first encounter with death, that Tina the stupid kitty cat could be dug up from the yard and somehow have magically forgotten that she had electrocuted herself by chewing on a wire behind the washer, staggered out to the bottom of the stairs, and died promptly in a puddle of her own piss. Grandma, who was on the phone at the time, seemed entirely annoyed by this notion and finally lost it when I started wiping my snot and tears on her skirt.
"Jacquie! Tina is dead! Tina is dead that means she is never coming back!"
I can never thank my grandmother enough for being so blunt.
Here is how I was saved.
There was a large gathering of children, butt-faced children, and we were all half-listening to what the pastor guy was saying and half-wondering about things to eat or play with. He said something about if we didn't accept Jesus Christ as our personal saviour we would be going to Hell. I remembered that Hell was a bad place and I didn't like bad places so I listened carefully to what he said next.
"It's so easy to accept Jesus into your heart! You just say this prayer and really mean it." He then urged us to say the prayer in our heads and after doing so those who were newly washed in Jesus' blood could come up to the front and receive a wooden nickel! The prayer in my head went something like this: "Hey God and uhm Jesus, I was just wondering if you would forgive me of my sins? You could be my personal savior and stuff. Wanna do that?"
I waited a few minutes for an answer. No answer. I decided to go get a wooden nickel anyway. You could buy prizes with the wooden nickels! I got a little plastic frog that jumped when you pressed down on it's butt.
After this my experiences with Jesus are very limited. The closest I've ever come to really believing in the Almighty is when a soda machine took my dollar and after I yelled GODDAMMIT, a good amount of change trinkled into the coin return.
More on Colorado in my next entry
keep the peace
Here is the story of my life:
When the sperm met the egg that would soon develop into my lumpy little body it was mostly unaware that there was another sperm and another egg going about the same routine just a few centimeters away. This other ugly, round motherfucker was my fraternal twin brother. The ultrasounds showed us positioned in the womb like a fetus yin and yang. To this day I'm not sure which one of us is supposed to be the light one. Most people would think it was me, but I have plenty of reason to doubt.
We sucked out nutrients from our mother together for roughly 8 months, and when we were fat enough a doctor with a knife decided it was time for us to get born.
I was born in Valparaiso, Indiana-- Home of Orville Redenbacher's Famous Gourmet Popping Corn. I don't remember it. All my early memories are from Colorado.
Colorado is an insanely beautiful place. My parents built a small house up in the mountains where we all lived happily until small became too small and little brother Luke entered the stage. Everyone got biblical names except for me. Thank God.
My grandmother also lived with us. She might or might not be the main reason why I am spiritually retarded.
Every Sunday I would tag along with Grandma to church. I would get placed with other slimy kids in nice outfits and we would play games and listen to fantastic stories about Jesus and friends. Those stories! They were the reason I thought, in my first encounter with death, that Tina the stupid kitty cat could be dug up from the yard and somehow have magically forgotten that she had electrocuted herself by chewing on a wire behind the washer, staggered out to the bottom of the stairs, and died promptly in a puddle of her own piss. Grandma, who was on the phone at the time, seemed entirely annoyed by this notion and finally lost it when I started wiping my snot and tears on her skirt.
"Jacquie! Tina is dead! Tina is dead that means she is never coming back!"
I can never thank my grandmother enough for being so blunt.
Here is how I was saved.
There was a large gathering of children, butt-faced children, and we were all half-listening to what the pastor guy was saying and half-wondering about things to eat or play with. He said something about if we didn't accept Jesus Christ as our personal saviour we would be going to Hell. I remembered that Hell was a bad place and I didn't like bad places so I listened carefully to what he said next.
"It's so easy to accept Jesus into your heart! You just say this prayer and really mean it." He then urged us to say the prayer in our heads and after doing so those who were newly washed in Jesus' blood could come up to the front and receive a wooden nickel! The prayer in my head went something like this: "Hey God and uhm Jesus, I was just wondering if you would forgive me of my sins? You could be my personal savior and stuff. Wanna do that?"
I waited a few minutes for an answer. No answer. I decided to go get a wooden nickel anyway. You could buy prizes with the wooden nickels! I got a little plastic frog that jumped when you pressed down on it's butt.
After this my experiences with Jesus are very limited. The closest I've ever come to really believing in the Almighty is when a soda machine took my dollar and after I yelled GODDAMMIT, a good amount of change trinkled into the coin return.
More on Colorado in my next entry
keep the peace
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