Ode

I only stay here because of you,
you’re all that ties me to this wicked little town.
With you around even sandpaper skin becomes smooth again,
like it used to be.
His words seem more tender, finding some secret dignity
unearthed from beneath the cacophonous crashes,
the remains of the small flighty vases we threw
once again just piles of broken glass.
When you’re with me
every pointed silence and accusation is gone
and I remember him how he was before the bombs,
I remember how to love a stone.
I remember sitting and whispering in hushed tones
side by side on wide empty beds.
I remember connection.
I remember staring out the bedroom windows
and when you’re around I see the other side as it once was,
nothing has changed except new flourishes of colour and birds.
You've brought me these secrets and whispered them in my ears,
reminded me what I've known all along.
I've come to see that when you leave me again,
every tender remnant of what was will be gone
and in its place, only what is.
That is why I need to go out tonight
and dance barefoot through the square’s neon light
because I know come morning you’ll have left me again,
hopelessly isolated by the absence of distance.

Not the first time vampires have been posted about on here..but perhaps the last?

She wanted to transform her identity much like the way one becomes a vampire.
"Just secretly at night when you feel like hunting, piercing, and sucking."
I remember when I too wanted to transform myself into a vampire; back when tissues were too thin to weigh me down,when hearts weren't cushioned and could not be hidden from sharpened elbows, when the only symbolism blood held was vitality, and all that could expel it were rough jutting edges and thirsty teeth. When veins lay out in the open waiting to be pierced.I never truly lost the hunger, but much like our transition into weakness, it became obsolete. My starvation was hidden within layers of vessels embedded somewhere deep in my chest.My chest was where my heart lay. It was the same place that once pushed me to seek foreign bodies for my redemption from thirst, but their blood was doped with chivalry and mine nearly became poisoned by default. My search for that invigorative solution has since stayed there in my chest, buried beneath capillaries and mammary. Since then,I've tried to remain shielded, covered and held up by my woven fibres,stretched cloths,and bent wires. However they've done nothing for protection, as six years ago I began running with stakes. I've tripped and stumbled countlessly, and until today when you informed me of the drunks down the hall who mistook you for a night-wandering-blood-sucking-rogue, I hadn't realized how much I've enjoyed falling onto the stake, and I'm curious as to when splinters began to quench my blood lust.

All of a Sudden, I Miss Everyone

By the courses that our ships are on,
there is no future where our paths will cross.
We may pass briefly under midnight's ignorant gaze,
a mighty gust causing the mast to wave like a tall pine,
allowing our sails to blindly embrace;
a tangle of fragile white sheets and rigging feverishly shaking.
Cloth on cloth wracked with spasms by an abrasive Pacific wind.
By the time the daylight cracks the sky,
My sail will no better remember yours,
than yours will remember mine.
It is already far too late for a change of course,
the winds have blown us too steadily beyond our passing point.
Soon the waves will knock clumsily against new gunnels
coaxing new ships close enough for blushing,
while we sleep indifferently within their walls.
Only a few months from this night I will be home,
having returned from my final season on the sea;
where I slept through our passing, obliviously.

Bill Keane enjoys making fun of children who are trying to improve their literacy

Yeah...and your jokes are hilarious, bill.

What an asshole.

A Less Polite Winter

I sometimes look forward to the future where I have grown old too young.
I will still be little more than a sapling; not even grown to half of my potential,
but my boughs will already be taut and still, held by a thin glaze of hoarfrost.
My face will be dour and I will wear dark glasses even on overcast days.
I will have deathly pale arms, withered by time and the chill of Eastern winters,
and my skin will be pallid and pulled taught by unwarranted dolor.
I’ll be no more than rattling bones with skinny, spry fingers that scratch and tap furiously;
scribbling letters to distant friends and an unfamiliar family.
I’ll tell them about the weather and the poplars,
the wide-eyed girls and the soft-skinned boys,
and I will smile, knowing that they’re unaware they’re talking to a ghost.

She stumbled on a well worn path

This was the second time in the past week she had walked these empty hallways aching of memory. Whispers and screams echoed in her ears, clicking and scratching at her mind. She took her time, each step slow to the beat. Her hips stuck forward too much when she walked, but there was little she could do to correct this. She had photographic evidence of friends making fun of her for this, but she threw those away.
She walked free of these barren hallways, and out into the cold and the sun. Tales of murders were being sung to her, and she payed more attention to them than they were due. The cold nipped at her, and the sun shone in her eyes, but she remained on her slow strut and stumble down the street. She looked to the ground and in the snow were scratches. It looked like someone had dug their fingers into the snow and been dragged away, leaving nothing but scratch marks along the snow that would eventually melt, leaving no other trace of their abduction. She found this an odd thing to consider, and she looked up and walked away.
She took the same route she took three days earlier, and that she had taken many other times. Cars criss-crossed in front of her, doing that ballet they always do. She wondered how many times she had escaped being hit by a car, and then she walked on. She entered the same building she enters every week and ordered the same thing she orders every time. She left immediately, with a free muffin in her purse, and when taking a sip of her drink she had a ridiculous thought. "Chai Tea reminds me of gay men," she mumbled to herself, then laughed at her own ridiculousness.
She walked 10 feet in the wrong direction, then turned around, as she often does. She crossed the street, and when she got to the other side, a man in a parked car facing the opposite direction of her honked his horn loudly and looked at her. She took two steps towards his car, then realized she had no reason to, and kept walking towards her home.
As she walked over the short hills and through the snow she thought that maybe this was the man's poor attempt at an abduction. She wondered that if it was, how many times he had actually gotten a girl to come to his car by continuously honking at her, and if he had ever managed to take any of the girls away. She wondered if he had a farm with the bodies of all his victims buried in fields. It seemed to be the trend these days. Then she wondered how many people had ever thought about taking her away and chopping her up into little bits. She hoped none, or very few, but her lack of faith in humanity told her it was otherwise, and she felt lucky to be alive.

8 eyes

Closing the Gap

“That’s the worst word in the English language, you know?” You said, your weary, bright eyes still squinted to block out the little beads of light that slid through; between the leaves and boughs of the great pine overhead. “Promise me you’ll never say it again?”
“I promise.” I laughed, “If I asked would you shout at me; to motivate me?” Your lips curled and your brow furrowed.
“Get off your fucking ass and start living in the now!” Your voice echoed a little bit in the park, but not loudly enough for anyone else to hear it, not over the crunch of the leaves beneath their feet anyways.
You kicked up a bunch of leaves with each step, they were carried off on the steady wind coming from the sea. Your toes were showing through the ends of your boots. The top of your boots were warped, bubbled like the crust of a pie that’s full to burst with strawberries or peaches. The bottoms were thick and hard like the shell of a painted turtle, and both told great stories of the life of a vagrant in the blue. Every nick and scar on your boot was the postcard of some tussle with a barn-owl haunting an abandoned loft or a long-faced card shark from the city. Every piece of gum a postcard from Dryden or Camden or Sweden. The feet beneath your boots have seen more earth than most people know exists. To your feet the soil and silt is akin to a long-forgotten love; a warm surprise on a cold lonely night.
You’d told me all the stories of your travels over long fireside teas and short impassioned lunches with friends. Sometimes we’d be joined by a duke or a count, sometimes a man you’d refer to as the “Thirsty Ghost” because of his tiny frame and his ravenous approach to tea and coffee. Your tales were always dynamic, shifting and changing to suit the audience. Sometimes you’d shout and laugh your way through a jaunty tale about a drowned pirate crew, other times you’d speak of the lonely old woman whose only son had plunged off the cliffs near her home. The common bindings in all your stories being the sea, the death of someone once loved and the natural occurring beauty you managed to find at every corner of the earth.
I was taken aback by your shout, despite the fact that I had commissioned it. I paused mid-step and stumbled slightly, but you continued walking. I blinked forcefully and let your command sink in adequately before I hurried my pace slightly to close the gap between us.
“Well I didn’t actually ask. . .” I trailed off. You laughed without turning then spread your arms wide and let go of two heaping handfuls of leaves you’d collected at some point. They contentedly floated to the ground, settling with a satisfying rustle.

Terrapin

Writing poetry is to me
what swimming is to turtles.
I love to walk on the land
and leave a clear trail in the familiar earth,
to lead others to a chosen point
in the most direct, clear way possible.
Swimming holds a different joy.
I must use the same language as I would on the land;
my legs are still what propels me forward,
but when in the water
they aren’t meant to leave a clear trail.
I take pleasure in leaving only modest ripples
behind my clumsy body,
a trail nearly impossible to find
and harder to follow.
I feel happy knowing that when I swim
only those who care enough to look;
to follow the secret trail of whispers I left behind,
will be able to find me.

Planning Class Journal Entry for December 18, 2006: Travis Cannon Complains about the Gambling Presentation

Today was the day that we had the guest-speaker from the gambling addiction help center. I found her presence ridiculous considering that we’re a class of sixteen and seventeen year-olds who technically can’t gamble yet. I don’t mean to imply that I think gambling is a smart way to pass the time, and the presentation may prove useful for some people, but I could feel my life gradually wasting away with each word she spoke. I might have retained some of the information from the presentation better had I not already filled my disdain quota for the day; I’d already sat through an inane presentation in Psychology prior to Planning.
The part about that class that I felt was particularly idiotic was the group participation segment where we were lined up at the front of the class and asked to order a variety of events in the order of likelihood. According to her statistics the odds of seeing a UFO are 1 : 3 000 000 and the odds of winning the lottery are 1 : 14 000 000. Maybe I’m just being difficult, but those statistics seem pretty ridiculous to me. Not the numbers as much as the fact that, according to her, seeing a UFO is more likely than winning the lottery. I’d like to be the first to congratulate her on ranking an event that hasn’t ever been actually witnessed above an event which has happened. Sure, maybe her definition of UFO is different then mine (an alien aircraft,) but honestly I think that the activity was pretty stupid to begin with. Honestly, who couldn’t tell that winning the lottery was going to come out in last-place? It’s not like she was there to talk about the perils of drowning in the bathtub; which considering the average level of productivity in Planning class, doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.

zombo

brains, silence, brains.

This is what the new year brings

She sits in the room of her best friend, next to an empty glass, an empty juice can, and a bright light pointing in the wrong direction. She looks in his direction and scrunches up her face, wondering if he had managed to kill what he was after.
Several nights prior to this was a different year. She spent it curled up on another friend's bed drinking weak alcohol that she could not stomach, while others downed bottle after bottle of whatever they could find. Feathers were torn out of aging fabric sacks, and she rolled in them. She held them above her head and dropped them like snow, and pretended she was alone.
Going outside left her coat covered in feathers, her head covered in rain, and her pants covered in mud. Still, she made the adventure. Hands extended out to her, and pulled her to the ground; a familiar body on top of her. Screaming and laughter followed, and then she was alone again.
The wind and the rain kept on well into the night, but she made good company for others as they made a trek home, so she stayed and braved the elements. She felt she had to anyway, this was not her usual territory. She is merely a guest.
Voices call out and bodies run, and her head cracks against the slick black pavement. Arms interlock like a tangle of vines on a rarely traveled jungle path. She is challenged. Bodies run off again only to return with tears and blood and hateful words.
She clings to him in the rain pleading and crying.
He pulls from her, and runs again.
She's not in the mood to keep up.
New vehicles full of intoxicated passengers speed past, missing him by only moments. Each time, she says something close to a prayer.
The next two days are spent cleaning up the feathers and the blood and the mud.
This is what the new year brings to her.

Autumn Sweater

It was cold outside, but all the snow had melted weeks before. There was still some of the dirt speckled slush produced by cars, but it was more ice than snow and existed only in the sparse squares of untraveled land between houses and behind fences. It was unappealing and it reminded me of cities and the underside of cars, so I stepped over it and pushed the small wooden gate between the road and the house. I forgot to hold it open for the people behind me, but they didn't seem to mind. Even if they did they wouldn't have said anything about it. They aren't the type to unnecessarily stir shit up, I love them for that.
It occurs to me once I'm standing on the neatly placed wood slats of the house's deck that I don't know what I'm doing or why I'm there. I can't even begin to speculate as to what I'd thought I was getting into when I'd agreed to come, or what I'd been thinking when I asked if I should. I blame my sense of adventure and an insatiable lust for life, despite the fact that I possess neither of those traits. In all honesty, I do know why I went, but the reasons are too pathetic and teenage to be discussed.
It was loud when we entered the house. The kind of loud produced by old-friends reuniting and the anticipation of what would become of the night (though I'm sure the presence of free wine helped.) I take off my jacket and place it onto the pile with all the rest. I don't care that my cell-phone and wallet are sitting in the pockets, I never use my cell-phone and I only brought my debit card for money. I feel out of place with my coat off. The labels of my brand-name clothes are now exposed, like bright green lesions indicating some foul disease of the mind. I do my best to keep them covered when I'm meeting people, leaving them as a surprise for later. I shake hands with people I've never seen before and then take my place behind the people I came with, on the stairs which divide the house in half.
All the furniture has been cleared out of the main entertaining-room, and there are low, bright candles lining the walls. It's pretty, but I can't shake the feeling that it looks as though an angel has thrown-up all over the walls. There's no religious paraphernalia adorning the walls, but it seems like there was at some point. It wouldn't be unusual for someone to remove all evidence of faith from their walls prior to a gathering of friends. Expressing belief has become immensely unpopular.
A drunk girl with a wide mouth and tall hair is laughing across the room from me. I recognize her as Renee, and she recognizes me as Tyler Cannon's younger; too young, brother. I don't care though, I've acquired a general feeling of apathy when it comes to other people's attitude towards me. She thinks she knows what I'm about, and at one point she would have been right, but time and sobriety have given me a new perspective.
Music is played, but I don't remember any of it. I'm too busy trying to articulate my thoughts and decide who to talk to and what to say. Before long, everything has settles into clay. The candles are all out and everything is in it's right place, myself excluded. The more time I spend around these beautiful people, the more I realize how much I don't belong. I'm surrounded by pretty freaks, and I'm just not one of them. More than anything I just want to flee. I want to run from this insanity and beauty and escape, but I don't. Instead I stare it in the face and feel nothing, and it stares into me and feels nothing in return.

blasphemy

JT is my JC