i’m ignoring the phone on purpose, you know

whatever it is  you see in me

(I could ask, but I would not dare)

there is no reciprocity.

when you speak and I smile back blankly.

your trivial story I cannot bear,

whatever it is. You see in me—

an  object  of  idolatry,

but I disregard your pitiful prayer.

there is no reciprocity.

the smile I wear is but a courtesy—

you know your voice composes my nightmares?

—whatever  it  is  you  see  in  me

and whatever you try to give to me

(I could  ask,  but  I  do  not care)

there is no reciprocity.

it’s all your one-dimensionality

that’s very plainly killing me—I swear

whatever it is you see in me;

there is no reciprocity.

Blah blah, copied from 750w

let's do this. what's on my mind, what am I thinking? do I want something familiar to people or do I want something personal and vague? what is it I'm obsessed about? I don't know that I'm obsessed so much as I am apathetic and just overall listless. I've been that way a lot lately and I don't know why. It's hard to explain and it just sort of happens out of nowhere (or at least I think it's out of nowhere) once in a while. I know by now that the feeling will pass and things will be fine, but that doesn't make going through that time period any easier for me. I'm frustrated with myself, I tear apart my every tiny flaw and I reject every idea I think to offer myself for hope. Why?


I suppose I just feel lonely at times. I know that I am not -- I'm always talking with someone and people are all around me and I have easily a dozen friends who would be there for me at a moment's notice (give or take, I suppose) and I go out and to class and all, but I still feel alienated and alone. Sitting there with my headphones in my ears staring out the window at nothing in particular and yet still searching for something, something perhaps beyond my eyes, beyond those ears, beyond the typical means of expressing emotion -- intuition, instinct, I search for you.


We are all social creatures. This is true in so many ways. And yet I fit that description to a fault and beyond -- I need people, I need attention, I need love and care and contact and recognition from people important to me. Hell, if there isn't anyone important to me then I'll create an importance in someone new. de Saint Expery's king has nothin' on me. I long for this, I thrive on this, this is what I live for essentially.

I can't understand how I keep managing to get myself into these long-distance relationships when I know how disgustingly difficult and painful it is for either party. Why can't you just find a nice boy here in Portland, Chel? Why can't you stay within a 50mi radius of your home like "normal" people?


I suppose I don't consider myself normal. I often wish I was -- to fade into anonymity, to become simply part of the mass. But it's not in my nature, it's not in my blood. I can try it and fake it pretty damn well, but I know how contradictory it is to who I am.


I like to listen instead of talk a lot. I'm a very aural person and find it easier to pay attention to something I hear than something I read or feel. I am a poet -- so I certainly have words to express my thoughts and feelings, but in reality, who is concerned about those? Humanity tends to have this view of the universe that is extremely individualized. Deaths are statistics until someone you know dies. Numbers are numbers until they hold significance for you. We just have this sort of innate selfishness that we can't shake -- in fact, we often encourage it and see those that foster it prosper. It seems silly to me. I think people need to stop and put things in perspective more often. Not too often, of course -- I know the consequences of this all too well -- but enough so that you can learn to drop these conceited habits and ideas and continue being just as the universe is.


I had mixed emotions about this quote over the years -- sometimes it would be depressing and sometimes it would be hopeful. Sometimes I agreed with it and sometimes it made me want to just scream. But I do think that it is true. Though that innate selfishness taints our species, we belong just as much as any other thing in the universe. Things are beyond our control, sadly -- or perhaps for the better. Have faith? Believe? Or be afraid? Defend? Who is to say? It's all such a big mess to me in my head that I can't talk about it anymore.

"You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should."

Sestina

I

lost you

somewhere

in the dreaming.

in the stars  and

every constellation  you can(‘t) name.

  oh ,  what’s  in  a  name  ?

a rose by any other name, I

think,      would smell as sweet    (and

probably look the same,too) don’t you

think    that every  weed  is dreaming

there is a garden for her somewhere?

Rambling in my notebook during class

"God, I hate war," Amela declared... "Hate it, hate it. What a waste of lives. A waste of the world...it's throwing diamonds into a ditch. It's throwing babies into a ditch, for all the good it's ever done."

"That's a good way of putting it," said Jackie slowly... "That's the poet's way," she added, with apparent admiration. Then her voice hardened. "The poet's way out. ... War is savage -- say that. You'll always have a poem. Say it's repulsive. You'll never be wrong."

(day) dreaming

Placeholder for

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I'm perpetually running late.

So I was late to class... kinda long story. Shitty. Usually not a big deal. But when I got there, everyone was broken up into little groups all around the room, since apparently that's how we were workshopping poems today. SURPRISE. Obviously, when the instructor said "we're going to take a break from workshopping next week and do some lecturing," she meant we needed to bring in poems for small group work.

Rant

Missed my bus stop and had to walk an extra six blocks. Why? Because I wasn't paying attention to tug the little stop request cord before we reached it and even when I jumped up and sprang to get off, the driver wasn't paying attention I didn't want to shout and bother him to open the back door to let me out. I decided to just get off at the next stop. Why? I don't know. Because I was embarrassed? Lazy? Ashamed? Felt guilty? I don't even fucking know. But when we finally got to the next stop—over half a dozen blocks away—and I got out, I had cut across some building and the highway onramp to run to class. It's pretty pathetic, I was almost in tears—I was so mad at myself and so frustrated and so upset and so Idon'teveknow. I was already going to be a few minutes late if I'd gotten to the bus stop when I was supposed to. How stupid could I be? How hard would it have been to speak up? Why did I decide it was worth adding an extra six blocks to the twelve I normally walk every damned day so that the driver didn't have to pull some extra lever?

God, I hate myself sometimes.

Ruh roh

I've been really bad about blogging and 750 words lately (failed May's challenge already, boo) but I've got scraps of things I've scribbled down all over the place.

In the Good News Department, I'm skipping Literature of Genocide right now and feeling great. I'd skip Shakespeare too, but I've got a paper I have to hand in and she takes attendance. FML.

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the neon lights beckon you home again and my letters still escape you, don't they?

& she's a pretty little thing, she is

her careful hands you hold are gloved in white

& she's a pretty little thing, she is

you're laced with  b r i l l i a n t  smiles tonight

defiled Motel 6 sign lets you know it

has  v a c a n c y  for you  (your new friend, too)

a dirty window— the dirty window—

it seems to say, "you see through me, don't you?"

a lipstick stain's all she leaves behind her

( it's crimson, a bouquet of dead roses )

  the  only  difference  here's  the  color

  of  the  powder on the women's noses

the  pretty words  you wanted  there  to be

tonight  are (always) still just out our reach

(scribbled on unlined paper in a hotel room)

         It was just as if Erato herself
burst  forth  from this  beating heart
to tug tightly  by  papillary muscles
all  of  my  worn
                        chordae tendineae

—shooting blood past tricuspid 

&blood past the mitral valves— 

she knocked breath from these lungs to shoot
up past my throat, without skipping my voice-

box,   just to tickle my tongue while my teeth
felt  vibrations  from the  rest  of my  skeleton
like she'd plucked at her  lyre's strings  from a
throne  atop my spine  but  my lips  could not
react fast enough  to the tumultuous anatomy
within this heart before my brain caught her spell on the tips of my lips and—

I almost said I love you.

but i              

(& Melpomene: we)

                                     know better.

I can sum things up very simply:

Iron Man 2 in IMAX: a-fucking-mazing.

Too..

Tired to write a legitimate blog entry, pissed off with technology freezing up, apathetic to bother with homework, excited for the weekend, obsessed with new pink socks.

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Dirty Thief

It was pretty funny how I was able to just bullshit some stuff during poetry class today when the instructor called on me. I think she likes me and that's both a blessing and a curse, I believe. Ehh. Whatever! I'd like to think that most people like me! I feel that I'm a pretty amiable person... or at least I come across as so, even if I know that I would personally hate myself if I knew me. That is, however, besides the point. I thrive on love and attention and must have it! Otherwise I get pretty depressed. I don't really know what to say today. To tell the truth, I don't even want to fucking write at all. I'm just doing this out of habit.

What had I been writing in my notebook in class before I was so rudely interrupted by having to participate in class? I think I was coming up with titles like she had asked us to do in our journals, but we had just started class... I know I had at least one other thing on my mind. Oh, it was about using lyrics from songs as poetry inspiration-- that's what I used to do all the time (it's pretty heavily Lifehouse-influenced now that I look back on it) but when other people read my work from then they can't tell a thing. I guess it's true, whoever that guy Hugo was quoting in Triggering Town-- was it T.S. Elliot? "Bad poets borrow. Good poets steal."

I can do stealing!

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"Too much green to feel blue!"

In a fantastic mood today! It feels soooo good to be done with midterms (except for Shakespeare-- Greenstadt redid her syllabus because she was gone for so long so we're having the midterms a bit later in the quarter). I know most universities are having finals right now... but Portland State does quarters (3 terms plus summer session) so everything's just weird. Registration for fall is like in two weeks I think? It feels like school's just going by so fast! English is definitely the right major for me. Speaking of, there's an advising fair for undergrad English majors tomorrow that I should go to, I guess. I think they have cookies... so I suppose it'll be worth it.

Can't wait for the weekend! It'll be a blast, I just know it.

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Silly poet ramblings

The feedback I got when I workshopped my chocolate chip pancakes poem in class last week was interesting—I must admit that I get a kick out of listening to other people's interpretations of my work when my intention or inspiration was something completely different.

They said something about feeling "sin" was too vague, too broad to work in the context of the poem. I can't find any better words to convey what I meant... well, no. That's a lie. I can't find a concise way to convey it. From my WR 213 notebook, scribbled in the margins:

Excerpt from 750 Words

I try so hard to hate you and I try so hard to let you go but you linger on my lips and in my ears and when I close my eyes I still see you, I still see you

I took down our frame of photos the other day. Covered it up with notes from Victorian Literature. Tucked it away in a little plastic drawer next to my desk. And all the little tickets and all the little things you gave me. I still wear the necklace... although I must admit that I am conflicted about it. I remove it before showering and sometimes just don't bother to put it back on again. It never ceases to make me think of you and sometimes I just simply cannot bear it. Sometimes, if I'm lucky, the thought of you is a mere fleeting moment that I can suppress for the time being.



Sometimes.

Hrmm.

Feeling a tad apathetic today. It's been hard to get my work done. I've finished the most pressing stuff, but with midterms this week I know there's still a fuckton of stuff left to do. Ehhh. Not exactly the way I wanted to start May, but I guess I still have the rest of the month to turn things up.

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":i say / that even after April / by God there is no excuse for May"

bad memories and broken hearts and nights spent in the ICU at the hospital and bad dreams and severe insomnia and depression and dropped courses and new pills to make me happy and mood swings and disappointment and wasted tears and relapsed anorexia and— you know,
they say that April showers bring May flowers.

I think that I would like to see them this year.

May Day (not to be confused with mayday!)

I'm glad May is finally here! I have a bad history with this month, but this time around I think I'm feeling lucky.

I took the April challenge on 750 Words and, quite to my surprise, stuck with it all month and completed it. Go me, goby! When you sign up for the challenge you have the opportunity to come up with a reward and a consequence for completing it or not, right? Apparently, I'd said that for my reward I'd go to the salon for some stuff. Since I didn't specify what I'd actually get done there -- my exact words were "I will... hit the salon!" -- that's sort of what I'm deciding on today. The problem with coming up with a reward for myself is that I don't exactly have the highest level of self-esteem around so it's quite possible I just won't go at all to save time and monies. That and I'm disgustingly indecisive in general.

I think the image the was in my head when I came up with the idea was just me sitting there being pampered at some salon? -- like I said, I didn't really expect to actually stick to the challenge. I dunno. I might go with a manicure or pedicure? Hell, maybe indulge and do both. ...okay, well, probably not. But I'm positive this week's going to drag by painfully slowly, so might be nice to start it off feeling pretty! We'll see what I decide on later I guess.

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