he was a highway.
stuck one place never able to move on
his journey had ended though the road was endless
he sat day in and day out as people came into his life only to leave instantaneously
leaving him with nothing but a vast emptiness and a heart as black as asphalt
s.a.
Tag Archives: am writing
Deported – Alexandra Mayer
I heard bodies and sledge hammers slap the cold concrete
bodies climbed over each other
and bodies flooded out
to blue jeans and radio.
“Tear down this wall Gorbachev…
Freedom is the victor!”
And I wanted to run away too
to microwaves.
I was greedy.
Yesterday’s ghosts trashed our streets.
The old bakery crumbled under eulogies.
Bottles scattered the park, where my sister stole the lips of her first love
Life was decaying.
The woman offered me $500 a month
How could I have thought–
Her hands weren’t like ours.
They were soft and white.
Soon, mine would be too.
She told me I’d be a waitress.
He told me to bend over.
His eyes were cigarettes, put out on my thigh.
“This hurts!”
“What are you doing? I’m here to serve!”
“You’ll be serving alright.”
I wanted to die.
Months in peeling walls
staring down the balcony
while he clasps his meaty hands around my neck
and he shoves his gaunt fingers into my body
and he wants me to suck on his thumb.
My youngest client was 12
His father brought him.
My oldest was 82.
My body is the “unavoidable consequence of globalization.”
My body is the supply.
This is free trade. Unfettered capitalism.
I guess that makes me a business woman.
Not a victim– A business woman.
You can charge twice as much if you’re pregnant.
They like a nice glow
Hope makes a girl prettier, you know.
Months more in peeling walls
Thousands more hands
Sometimes sixty hands a day.
Staring down the balcony.
The man I was sold to ripped a hole in the mattress
shoved my stomach through
so their hands could be more comfortable.
It’s okay.
We’ll get out. We’ll get out.
I am not a victim.
We’ll get out.
I love you.
A man with cracked yellow hands started to pity me
It was his sixth visit when
he led me down the stairs and into the street.
It’d been two years since my feet touched the ground.
Three days later, falling into a hospital bed.
She’s more beautiful than the sun
dipping into the fields we toiled
than dirt stained sun dresses
than my sister’s laugh
than any young, and naive, and alive eyes I’d ever seen.
She’s beautiful and her hands are so small and so clean.
The man I was sold to hovers into the room
and over her.
I scream.
Two policemen rush in.
I recognize their hands
When they say to me:
“Get out you’re old
you’re minced meat.
We want a new body. Always a new body.
You can’t take her with you.
It’s the law.”
Worldly Pleasures – Karlee Sanders
She filled her life with worldly pleasures. She knew she was frequently disturbing the lives of cautious do-gooders, but she didn’t care. And although she didn’t care, she would send them letters purposely laced with the scent of her vodka telling just how “sorry she was for accidentally running over their mailbox” or how “she didn’t mean to slash their tires, she thought it was her ex’s truck, naturally anybody could make that mistake.” All in sarcasm, you could presume. She was carefree and having the time of her life even when everything seemed to be going wrong. Obviously, I knew her well. She was my best friend; and those were her glory years.
Now, I call her at work and she complains to me how her students are too “wild” and it makes me chuckle because all of that alcohol she indulged in just might have erased the memories of her crazy days. She was a teenager once.
Remember that your teachers were once the people you are now. They may seem like fuddy-duddies and old hags, but if you look in their eyes, you might just see the same teen spirit lurking in your eyes, in theirs. She filled her life with worldly pleasures. She knew she was frequently disturbing the lives of cautious do-gooders, but she didn’t care. And although she didn’t care, she would send them letters purposely laced with the scent of her vodka telling just how “sorry she was for accidentally running over their mailbox” or how “she didn’t mean to slash their tires, she thought it was her ex’s truck, naturally anybody could make that mistake.” All in sarcasm, you could presume. She was carefree and having the time of her life even when everything seemed to be going wrong. Obviously, I knew her well. She was my best friend; and those were her glory years.
Now, I call her at work and she complains to me how her students are too “wild” and it makes me chuckle because all of that alcohol she indulged in just might have erased the memories of her crazy days. She was a teenager once.
Remember that your teachers were once the people you are now. They may seem like fuddy-duddies and old hags, but if you look in their eyes, you might just see the same teen spirit lurking in your eyes, in theirs.
She filled her life with worldly pleasures. She knew she was frequently disturbing the lives of cautious do-gooders, but she didn’t care. And although she didn’t care, she would send them letters purposely laced with the scent of her vodka telling just how “sorry she was for accidentally running over their mailbox” or how “she didn’t mean to slash their tires, she thought it was her ex’s truck, naturally anybody could make that mistake.” All in sarcasm, you could presume. She was carefree and having the time of her life even when everything seemed to be going wrong. Obviously, I knew her well. She was my best friend; and those were her glory years. Now, I call her at work and she complains to me how her students are too “wild” and it makes me chuckle because all of that alcohol she indulged in just might have erased the memories of her crazy days. She was a teenager once. Remember that your teachers were once the people you are now. They may seem like fuddy-duddies and old hags, but if you look in their eyes, you might just see the same teen spirit lurking in your eyes, in theirs.
Three Quotes to Live By – Alex Esterline
Springtime, for me, is a time of renewal and self-improvement. I get this newfound motivation from watching the snow melt. Much like the flowers that will begin budding on the trees, I find myself attempting to plant seeds in myself. One way I’ve been doing that is by picking out some important quotes to keep in my mind. The three I’ve picked are the three I try and live by at all times. I’ll be sharing them with you and I hope they’ll help you sort some things out or reach for something higher:
“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”
-A.A. Milne
Written by the author of a childhood classic, this Winnie-The-Pooh author writes a beautiful quote. I have a tendency to look back too much and wish for things that won’t ever come back. I regularly fall in love with places and feelings that I might not get to re-visit. At first glance, this quote reminds me to be grateful for having experienced these moments and feelings at all. But it’s become such a big part of my life that it actually reminds me to take in every moment from now on in great detail- so that I can one day look back and marvel at how hard it was to say goodbye. I hope it does the same for you, Reader.
“Cause a little trouble. It’s good for you.”
-Angelina Jolie
I’d first like to take a moment to thank Angelina Jolie for existing. I’d also like to thank her for her recent quote at the Kids’ Choice Awards. Her quote focuses on something that I have yet to accomplish- living far outside my comfort zone. You see, my idea of “trouble” is staying on Tumblr for 4+ hours. I’m going to try and use this quote to remind myself to not overthink every single decision I make. The best part about this quote is how much everyone could use it. We’re constantly being confined and sheltered to the point where our lives are sometimes so unexciting. Maybe next time, I won’t stay up until three in the morning doing homework, only to get no sleep. Beyond just worrying about good grades (which do not define a person), I am generally compliant with things that I do not necessarily agree with. This quote will serve as inspiration to speak up and act for things that I believe in.
“Don’t count the days, make the days count”
-Muhammad Ali
A professional boxer, Ali shines light on one of the hardest obstacles to deal with in life- Time. This quote seems to remind me of my fleeting youth and the oftentimes overwhelming desire for something to happen. I tend to lack patience (something I’m working on), and regularly “count the days”. I realize now, that I should be focusing that same energy on cherishing those days that I’m counting. I firmly believe, now, that if you count the days- you’ll miss each and every one of them. I urge you to take every opportunity that comes your way, and start making the rest of your life count.
I hope you take these words of wisdom and apply them to yourself. Happy spring!
I Reside Explicitly on Jackson Square – Matt Grydzuk
In the seventh grade I didn’t know I could like boys yet.
So when everyone else started dating
I spent my time idly liking this girl.
I asked her to dance once.
She was much taller than me and this altercation
dangled the notion of beauty overhead in every way like shitty dime store streamers scotch taped around the sistine chapel.
I stared into her eyes as the night fell apart and I was petrified to marble
Because there was pity in their dark recesses and in contrast
I was like
A monumental statue
Designed to fill
the negative space
in the worst possible way.
For the first time I felt ugly.
You never get called fat to your face anymore
it’s just particles of pollution
like acid rain eroding a statue.
So I am less afraid of being fat and more paranoid
because you cannot dodge glances and you cannot dodge concrete floors and statues don’t float
Thus I am not afraid of swimming, but I am afraid of the social implications of swimming pools.
What happened
To the era where “skinny” and “beautiful” were not synonyms
Where people like me were dashing and handsome and
Were depicted as
Grand marble statues that
reached up toward the sky in an air of grandeur
People have always implied
That I should take up less space but there is nothing authentic about me that
is not large and loud and in your face.
My body is no temple
It is a cathedral
Much too large for its initial purpose but it occupies the space it is given and it
extends infinitely toward the sky and
when people gaze upon it they are in awe of its beauty within and without
it occupies
the space
it
is
given.
I am constructed from stained glass and concrete and the bottoms of empty cartons of ice cream.
I don’t know what it’s like to not be fat.
But I do know what it’s like to be beautiful.
Home Alone – Haley Ingram
Home is were the heart is.
Veins and arteries interlocked
Stronger than the hands you used to make me think twice.
Looking every direction
Never quite understanding why
And never questioning the use of the word
love.
Because questions were just another way of getting your deigning breath into my system;
Recognizing the sound as if it was a morning’s alarm.
As if every failed attempt of pronouncing our name deafened you to anything that sounded like a cry for help.
So I’d run and hide.
You didn’t quite like that.
You didn’t like the idea of your words being so loosely held,
So you shortened the chain
and I shortened my veins.
Every time.
I ended up with an empty muscle and a pathetic travesty of emotion.
So I’d run.
I didn’t hide, I drank and drank
The rain hoping to forget the hand that fed me
Because it pushed me from dancing.
I ran in the street that I never learned my lessons in because I was taught by the book
The book you never wrote
But followed so vaguely until you decided to add a page
from the bark our tree,
To write accommodations for the mistakes you refuse to have made.
So you slice a sheer and process your final say.
But your words are not strong enough to resist gravity-
You never recalled the impossible regeneration of deadweight.
But it’s okay now!
I didn’t die at my own hand and I
SUPPOSE
Letting go is a natural cause
So I can still make it to heaven-
I am a fallen branch.
And darling,
You cannot recycle broken limbs.
There is no hospital for a broken home.
This home is too perfect to be broken,
So I understand your frustration when my skin didn’t cut the way you intended me to.
Maybe it’s because of the countless rejections of becoming closer to you.
When I was afraid at night.
When I drove myself to be near you
But was shoved in the positioning
Of our portraits.
Maybe it’s because when I touch the grass you fear me growing too fast. Is that why you’re allergic to weeds?
Perhaps all of your spoken success I will never feel in your memory.
When my life(or lack thereof) started to weigh you down you grafted me back onto to your hip claiming me to be a loved one
And marking me number 4 in your 99 cent pen.
A chain gang of-
Love.
Family.
The sweat from your grip is enough to wipe off the labels you give me.
I can slip from your eyes- your ball and chain eyes-
And the world I offer this disregarded muscle
Will never be as dangerous to you,
As the home metastasizing to it.
One On My Mind – Brooke Safferman
Dancing into the twilight,
Stars ablaze, much like your wide-open heart
Twirling into oblivion, you are the only
One on my mind
Gold and red and silver and bronze
Fistfuls of thick hair that I’m always so honored to
Touch
In the morning light, By the fireside, with the hot chocolate and the blueberry pancakes
We’re all slightly overcooked but without a flaw, all the same, you are the only
One on my mind
Curled up in Paradise on a couch,
books are the only sand and sun we need
we pay no matter to the clocks on the wall
the only ticking is the sound of our heart beating
one heart, we are two of the same and you are the only
One on my mind
And the bliss is never-ending.
You respect me on the days when I don’t even want to look at myself, and
You know about things I never would have dreamed of:
Palindromes and the perfect angel food cake; crossword puzzles and blanket forts
But even with all of this newfound knowledge, well, you are the only
One on my mind.
Vagabond – Alexandra Mayer
His voice reminds me of Botticelli.
You know… pastel angels, naked and soft.
The sun:
A bleeding grapefruit–
Its scarlet juices seeping into wisps of yellow, violet and blue.
I love him. I love her too.
Home–there are just so many of you.
The road rushes back.
My memories are watercolors.
These years drip into each other.
Nothing but hazy hues.
Stretches of Sand.
My lips in the rearview mirror.
Unphased, shedding layers like a python.
Sometimes they strike without warning even me.
Jeep paters to a stop.
Barefeet burning.
Black pavement.
The stench of bonfires and summer.
He calls me over,
with eyes like wildflowers,
and points to the flickering embers that litter the shore.
They’re pulled away by white knuckles
dragging light back to sea.
And Time slips out the back
because we won’t pay enough attention to her.
Search for Equilibrium – Haley Ingram
Keep calm.
Remain vigilant.
The throbbing in your lungs means nothing
To the gasping breath
Of your heart.
Each cracked burn on your
undead fingertips
Kiss the surface of heated glass
Inflaming your throat
Neck bent at exactly 45 degrees
You cringe and smile.
Your teeth eroded from the love I thought you carried in every undefined
Empty space in your body.
The acid creeping up the outside of your veins.
Vexation and tribulation scratching, crying, screaming, kicking.
Providing you with enough fluidity to drown,
But they are just holding hands.
Just as we used to when we were content with confinement.
When we were young. Foolish. We grew like the grass we whispered our dreams into and the dandelions I caressed against my cheeks to show you how gentle life can be.
And the kisses we’d exchanged like a currency of requited endearment meant nothing by the time I was meant to be maintained while you,
You just never grew.
You haven’t grown anything since the day I gave you the seed
I planted it in your heart,
See, its just for you please let my
Blooms nip at the disease you clog
Their stems with.
You hopeless tyrant.
You water them with the distaste of alcohol.
Keep calm.
Remain vigilant.
Our hands may have branched off
But my lungs never stopped beating for you
And every exhale my heart takes
Prepares me for an inhale of you captivation.
Petals may shatter like the shards of glass
You insist on gardening with
But you’ve never had the greenest thumbs
In fact you’re irately purple
Go outside
Take a moment
Breathe.
Lift your hands to the clouds reach for the time escaping us at every given second-
I can’t comprehend never being there on time
To hold you.
Pill popping may be just as sweet as the innocence you once had or the sanity I protected but that was stolen from us
And you’ve never felt more violated
From me grabbing your hips,
Or Tasting your body.
Because I don’t even have a tongue to say the words I’ve never thought.
Mouth sewn shut
Remain vexed
Calm keepings
You molested my smile and gave it a new name
You called it beauty.
You dismantled the arbitrary seclusion
Of my sanity
Your cold lifeless hands
Choking me
Oxygen is a privilege
To my skin
And you try to hold my hand
But I just can’t give this trepidation
A fair shot.
I kiss my own hands better than anyone
Who has ever held them
I’m rotting at your touch
The abyss of your fingerprints
You burn my flesh
You stunt my growth
I drown in ignorance
So blissful
I tend to my flowers with broken glass
Cut the stems
Force the alcohol into their system
The bitter taste on my lips are not the words I’ve never said
Rather than the words I regret to have ever spoken
Pills sprout a new flower they help me
I am slitting my airways and drowning my veins.
Keep calm.
Remain vigilant.
Heart is Divided – Ugonma Ubani-Ebere
My heart is divided
No longer can I hide it,
My love is a puzzle piece, and I can’t find peace.
Too scared to let my love lines decease.
So I equally give my time
Getting drunk off my quality wine.
Each one holds a special part
If one goes I will break apart.
What is a person to do
When more than one holds the glue
I could tell you that I have not the slightest clue.
The caress of one
The other is fun
Another is aggressive
And another feels as if they’ve already won
I cry at night from my confusion
A heart wrenching, sordid, ploy of revolutions
As I laugh through my delusions
And I come to the conclusion.
That in spite of my affliction
All of them are a depiction
Of something my heart transpires
Something my soul desires
But I know the consequences are dire
Because you always get burned when you play with fire
But like a moth to a flame.
I am entranced all the same.
A wild heart that can never be tamed.
A free soul that refuses to be chained.
I know I will never win in this game.
When you play with matters of the heart
Wounds will be inflicted
Hurt feelings will not be restricted
Words full of bitterness and malice will not be constricted.
My heart is divided,
Only one can make me and it whole
Only one can win me over and mend my beautifully, dark, twisted, and delicious soul.
My heart is divided,
Someone stop me, and pull on my brakes
Because my heart is divided
Only one can win
The other hearts must break.
Inkling 