when i miss you at night, between the ticks and tocks
i pretend i'm a house.
i feel my floor, made of wood and salt
i nudge my nooks and my corners into place
but i stay away from my ceiling,
i'm afraid of heights you see.
i worry over the furniture you've brought in, it's too heavy and your bed presses down especially hard.
my floor groans under the weight but i'll manage,
more worrying is the cat you've brought in.
i can't stand those things and look, your cat's stirred up my allergies.
my wallpaper's turned out spots and bumps
but i won't complain. i'd much rather you stay with your blasted cat then run away again.
i like myself as a house and wish you would stay.
but the cat's scratched my wallpaper and i'm bleeding out onto my floor, made of wood and salt.
Tuesday
Friday
the rib that adam ate
the smell of coffee lingers here
milk curdling in my throat
i swallow your mouth and pray your teeth won't bite on the way home
it really is too bad my dear, my indecision got the best of me
the door was there and i was leaving
but you talked as if you had all day, and i didn't have all day
i can only allow so much you know
so i plucked your head and coaxed it whole
i'm afraid your ears have gone down my trachea,
and your lips sit warm against my ribs
milk curdling in my throat
i swallow your mouth and pray your teeth won't bite on the way home
it really is too bad my dear, my indecision got the best of me
the door was there and i was leaving
but you talked as if you had all day, and i didn't have all day
i can only allow so much you know
so i plucked your head and coaxed it whole
i'm afraid your ears have gone down my trachea,
and your lips sit warm against my ribs
Tuesday
2011/1/18
Well, isn't this just exquisite? I've been reading through some older work of mine and I've come to an icky conclusion: I play favorites.
Yes, mine reader, it's true. I play favorites with words, terms, vocabulary, what have you. As a writerwannabe, I am dejected and debased by this revelation of relatively big parts. Like any graduate of classical American education, I've been through the ritualistic horrors of second grade spelling tests; then, why, why, I ask forlornly, haven't obscurer and dandier words lodged in my bits of grey cloud matter?
I mean, really, I am dreadfully afraid of a situation in which Milo is finally finished and printed into a million little clones of herself, but alas, I open the first page and realize with mounting panic I'd used "irrevocably" twice. On the dedication page alone.
Irrevocably, I will assuredly, most certainly need to stay away from my pet foibles. My house-trained peccadilloes, if you will. But recurring night terrors aside, I have lately incurred great pleasure in dissecting synonyms and their degree of relation to each other. For instance, dread and terror. Each is a synonym to the other, but whilst dread sulks and stalks the dark cavities of one's neuroses, terror is white noise spilling out from every sweat-choked pore, with nowhere to hide and nowhere to run.
Grievously, whenever I try to impart my little terminological results to my young cousins, they pooh at it and make nasty, disparaging remarks. Perhaps, instead of symmetry, metonymy will alter their opinions and open up their flea-ridden minds to the wonders of the Bard's rose-sweet language.
Or I could just shove their faces full of grammar worksheets.
On that note, some fun facts from dictionary.com:
Noun: Irrevocability, Irrevocableness
Adjective: Irrevocable
Adverb: Irrevocably
Indubitably.
Yes, mine reader, it's true. I play favorites with words, terms, vocabulary, what have you. As a writerwannabe, I am dejected and debased by this revelation of relatively big parts. Like any graduate of classical American education, I've been through the ritualistic horrors of second grade spelling tests; then, why, why, I ask forlornly, haven't obscurer and dandier words lodged in my bits of grey cloud matter?
I mean, really, I am dreadfully afraid of a situation in which Milo is finally finished and printed into a million little clones of herself, but alas, I open the first page and realize with mounting panic I'd used "irrevocably" twice. On the dedication page alone.
Irrevocably, I will assuredly, most certainly need to stay away from my pet foibles. My house-trained peccadilloes, if you will. But recurring night terrors aside, I have lately incurred great pleasure in dissecting synonyms and their degree of relation to each other. For instance, dread and terror. Each is a synonym to the other, but whilst dread sulks and stalks the dark cavities of one's neuroses, terror is white noise spilling out from every sweat-choked pore, with nowhere to hide and nowhere to run.
Grievously, whenever I try to impart my little terminological results to my young cousins, they pooh at it and make nasty, disparaging remarks. Perhaps, instead of symmetry, metonymy will alter their opinions and open up their flea-ridden minds to the wonders of the Bard's rose-sweet language.
Or I could just shove their faces full of grammar worksheets.
On that note, some fun facts from dictionary.com:
Noun: Irrevocability, Irrevocableness
Adjective: Irrevocable
Adverb: Irrevocably
Indubitably.
Thursday
2011/1/6
It's an interesting process the writer goes through when she is trying to create her villain, her antithesis, her baddie.
Should the baddie be completely bad, irrevocably so? Is the baddie so far gone off the dark end that sending a pet snake to do his nefarious deeds is only to be expected and tearing his soul apart into seven parts just so he can feel a little safer in his own skin is the icing on a marked down Christmas cake?
Is the baddie remorseful? Does his metaphorical heart grow thrice its size in response to the faint carols of the Who village? Were the real reasons for his night villainy, perhaps, loneliness and self-loathing rather than a true rejection of classic holiday binging?
Or is she a tortured baddie, the haunted rather than the haunter? Does she set out to destroy the one person she loves above all the rest and in doing so, destroys herself instead?
I love other people's baddies, I do. They are so deliciously twisted and messy; I can only hope my very own baddie lives up to her villainous creed and persecutes the goodies vigorously.
Should the baddie be completely bad, irrevocably so? Is the baddie so far gone off the dark end that sending a pet snake to do his nefarious deeds is only to be expected and tearing his soul apart into seven parts just so he can feel a little safer in his own skin is the icing on a marked down Christmas cake?
Is the baddie remorseful? Does his metaphorical heart grow thrice its size in response to the faint carols of the Who village? Were the real reasons for his night villainy, perhaps, loneliness and self-loathing rather than a true rejection of classic holiday binging?
Or is she a tortured baddie, the haunted rather than the haunter? Does she set out to destroy the one person she loves above all the rest and in doing so, destroys herself instead?
I love other people's baddies, I do. They are so deliciously twisted and messy; I can only hope my very own baddie lives up to her villainous creed and persecutes the goodies vigorously.
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