a small peace

so here's what i've learned: we are, you and me are, the lot of us, we are born with a gnawing inside us. and you know, when it uncurls, it's so big, so frightening that we can only try to plug it up - you push someone against a wall, i eat those little cola gummy bottles, we weave some small thing out of grass and flowers, or we drink. there's years of stuffing things into the hole, wet rags and french fries and fingers - like, we barely even notice. and then after a time, after embarrassing incidents at snowy bus stops, we start thinking about why it's there and if we can know why it's there, that we can stop it. and we feel the gnawing in our bedrooms and in class and at parties and we ask it why it's there. we give it different reasons, but that's just another kind of stuffing too. listen, i'm not saying some people can't find out. maybe they do, but it hasn't worked out for me. the gnawing is never going to stop happening, there's some gasp in my code that is still echoing through me, but it's there like my hairline or my weirdly tiny pinky toenail, by accident. it's just an echo, a live-in ghost. i'm not trying to explain it anymore because it doesn't mean anything about me.

april bleak

blech blech blech
i am tired of living alone
i have a sore throat
there is no one to date
which really means
working in an oppressive environment without people who love me and think i'm gorgeous just the way i am
sucks.

ugh, today i'm bleeding and biking and walking and crying.
and things like this: where do i come from?
what's up that i need to move around and one of the most comforting things to do
is work on making a family tree
back to the 1600's
maybe just a reminder that i am connected to things
real things
real people and bodies and histories
places, villages, houses, love affairs, deaths

my friends are having babies and cancer,
twisting their ankles,
laughing,
working on their new house.
cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer.
i'm still smoking cigarettes. it's true.
it's not how i want to die; that's true, too.

i made a big decision in moving here
that was a little about not following relationships as much
you know, staying in the bigger web, southern oregon,
the wooded edges of the beast's belly,
but after that somnolent sleepy lazy fallow summer at versailles, itchy hands, sharp mind,
i am here,
why do i have to learn by swinging from one side to another? extreme to extreme?
i guess it could be more extreme, true.

i guess, here's the questions.
one, how do we love ourselves. [with everything else that's true, too]
two, what are the effective points of intervention from the beast's belly we're living in.
three, how do you decide if something is just too hard, just too much?
four, and what of the grass? and the darkness? and love? and happiness? and stars?
five, i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you
six, if you pull out or imagine a picture of you as a tyke, 3 or 4, what would you say? apologize for? get them excited about? promise? undo?

then there's things like this:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1379336189055386/
and this:
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/lordeopenlettertomarydaly.html
and a cat at my calf
papers spread
goosebumps
shoulders hunched
let's dance, shall we?
let's dance
let's dance