Monday, May 31, 2010

a fair trade

and indeed there will be time, he says,
for a hundred decisions and indecisions.
decisions and positions; incisions,
precisions, inflictions,
parades of opinions.
leers and jeers from the powers that be
to turn my "beauty" back around on me.
turning my capabilities into my oppression,
and insecurities in my obsession.
fight or flight; unfathomable plight.
i wonder what it's like to fear that the people
i dominate might actually be better and not inferior.
women are the victims, but we've never played that part.
we've been blamed for our own rape and brushed
off heartache and hate.
we've been trained to think we're weak,
to take what we can get because we just
might be too powerful if we accept anything but defeat.
when nora slammed the door we shut out
domesticity and in return gained our own image
as a commodity. i traded my corset for an eating disorder,
my heart for brains, and we started living our lives in fear.
carrying my most vital organ out in the open air, every
day my self esteem is targeted because my
looks is thing upon which is most important for others to care.*
i am decided upon before i speak,
and that is why i have been silenced,
and that is why i have been weak.
and that is why these things take so much time.
and time running out for beauty will fade,
living in fear of old age.
a hundred decisions and indecisions,
and the words of my beloved poet
stare back at me,
all my indecisions crippling me.
all this time i've wasted, and tasted
only barely the sweetness of coming out on top.
in a cage of double - triple - quadruple standards,
i'm simply told to "try harder."
in a society with a giant wage gap no wonder
women feel worth less.
but i am going to continue functioning as a breathing,
digesting, blood pumping human whether i'm here or there,
whether i'm rich or poor,
whether its fair or unfair,
and whether i like it or not.
and whether or not a standard of beauty is placed upon
me by others or myself.
and no one can help me because you can't get self-confidence
from someone else.
you can't get pretty from a bottle.
you're not even guaranteed happiness from a partner.
you don't become more of a lady by wearing perfume,
and you don't become more of a man by wearing boxers.
try harder but stop trying too hard.
happiness might come when i've learned to
stop worrying and stop controlling unnecessary things
in my life and perhaps
when i can open my arms to the sky and say,
"yes, i can feel you, i hold half of you up!"

*from naomi wolf's the beauty myth

rocklin list/playlist

*roll on, dntel
*cosmic dancer, trex
*brass in pocket, the pretenders
*anything bobdylan
*with arms outstretched, rilo kiley
*all of abbey road
*empty, ray lamontagne
*feelin' alright, traffic
*lazy, daniel johnston
*i'd have you anytime, george harrison
*night moves, bob seger
*me and bobby mcgee, janis joplin
*tire swing, kimya dawson
*diamonds and gold, langhorne slim
*out on the weekend, neil young
*sweet virginia, the rolling stones

Friday, May 28, 2010

lost journal

there are a lot of missed chances; missed things and plans we never do and its how live carrying on and not doing the things we want but still loving life and reveling in the company of friends.

-september 2, 2008

friday morning

i took a walk to
the market
this morning.
this felt like
a hurdle.
a good one.
i put my
produce in my
backpack
and
took the long
way home.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

being me


lately all i want to do is read heather busse's blog and wish i wrote the things she did. i suppose lately, all i want is to be other people. feeling uncomfortable in my own skin. the way i look, the job i have, the activities i participate in, the activities i don't. what i've accomplished, or more importantly, what i haven't. and i don't want to be this person. who's obsessed with success, who feels inferior because of the money i make, who feels she doesn't deserve good things. the girl who has voices in her head telling her she's ugly and pitiful and stupid and not good enough. the girl who doesn't let herself have fun or have dreams because she feels she doesn't deserve it and i wonder how i got this way. this is not how i was raised, but maybe its how i've been influenced in my beginning adult years. i sense that as children we are told to have big dreams, the world is at our fingertips. and somewhere between 20 years old and 24, all previous inspirational words become moot. following your dreams and paying off your school loans are no longer synonymous in this world. it's all overwhelming and in the process i think i've forgotten how to be me.

i read books. which i believe is truly my only real self-indulgent thing that is for me and only me.

otherwise, i'm at a friend's house trying to drink too much wine so that i'm fun. or i'm using all my free time applying for some new and "better" job but only by the definition that it makes more money. or i'm picking myself apart, i'm tanning or fixing my hair so that i look like the indie dream girls of los angeles, and less like me. even when it comes to the things i'm looking forward to in the near future, the main reason i'm excited about it has to do with the fact that my boyfriend is a part of it. which isn't bad, but none of it is for me. and me only. i think i'm so far gone from myself i don't even know where to look anymore.

when i took that photo, i was alone. and it was only for me.
i was brave once.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

wednesday

) sallie
) rosebud
) bungalow
) henrik
) bazaar
) jimmy page
) barcelona

Friday, May 21, 2010

difference

this is my friend robbie delong
he is playing with the denouement on sunday at the silverlake jubilee

Thursday, May 20, 2010

a list for goodbyes

*interim by millay
*kristen
* zucchini
*red riding hood
*photograph
*oregon
*6 days
*adieu

bend

things like
looking long and
hard at a photograph
and
sayin' things like
"i'll see you tomorrow"
waking up to notes of
i'm already on the road
and goodbye.
sweet sounds of
buddhist monks
in the parking lot of
my mind.
equal chances monotony
or escape.
"c'etait un autre epoque"
i told them last week.
it was another time.
i welcome the end
of an era, lonely in
my room. and
wonder how will i
fit all my books in those
boxes.
how will i finish the quilt
meant for my
friends?
how will i stop hating
appearances and love
myself again?
what will become of my
adult summers and
baseball in the street?
how many stamped
letters traveling north and
spoken promises
of visits and hospitality i'm
looking change in the
mirror, moving to
sleeping on couches
and none of my own
photographs and
forgetting things i told
people. dark, sugary
skin, and waiting to come
home again.
oh, heaven.
oh, lies.
oh, spinsecret.
oh, heads rested here and there.
oh, dear ones...goodbye.

Monday, May 3, 2010

oslo


*oslo
*hours
*wien's law
*notebooks
*lost journal
*black ink
*quantum leap!
*composition
*the beginning


Saturday, May 1, 2010

and freckles

hunched at the
sticky kitchen table
my back hurts.
i'm hunching and
scratching lines,
separating my hair
at inopportune places
twisting the back of
my scalp and feeling
my mouth, hard and dry.
my back is hurting
a long work day,
loud voices, louder
thrusting music
in beats with human
hearts, apparently.
old lady lace curtains
and neon paintings
with heidi as signed
my friends are somewhere
amidst the mist of
hollow smoke and
stumbly drunk wet
feelings, peelings
and cursed eyelashes
spending their
intelligence on an
unimportant conversation.
elation and inflation,
inflate your mind,
half drunken cheap
bottles and the people
outside puffing something
important, talk of time
and god and someone near
me wants doritos.
still fiddling in my
dirty hair i'm the girl at
the party writing a poem
at a table; everyone wants
to know what i'll say.
no one wants to talk to me.
feeling strange and vain
and plagued, comparison
killing, never shedding,
always exposing, always
vulnerable, always hiding
this body, this face
and filtering ideas and
rhymes and glittering
chimes in the doorway
doors opening and drafting
and being out of place,
insecure and prettily
putting the hair
behind my ear its
my charmful thing
being known
to flee thinking
about him and me
thinking about people
i don't know and the
boy with the blue lights
coming from his
fingertips and
the girl with bright hair
and fair skin and
freckles little kisses and
his kisses, my pencil
getting flatter and
duller the dancing
getting bigger and
stronger. little girl faces
entranced at the
movement, their stillness.
all this motion and i don't
really fit in here.
i move fast, my hand,
writing because if i don't,
it will all get lost and all these
moments never happened
except in a faded
drunken nostalgia
of someone's spoken
memory on a porch
over an afternoon
cigarette, always coming,
always going.
and with these moments,
my scribbles, her memories,
so much happily lost
among the world
that lives in the night, that
we barely remember, that
holds the strangest sweet
spot in our hearts we will
sadly and fondly look
back on vaguely tasting
of a thing you tell your
children
not beautiful;
but there.