like the pine trees lining the winding road

There are serene moments in life that don't make sense. Laying flat on my back watching the stars fall right the fuck out of the sky, like love, while the cicadas sing until their membranes are raw with vulnerability.

Covered in soot, the fireman telling me that my dad's ate up corpse was found near the kitchen door, leading to the mudroom. Calmness like fog, calmness like fucking fog.

Once, I stood on the lip of a canyon and brought iron into my lungs.

Things, some things anyhow, make my skull break apart, make my blood a mudslide.

You've got to wait for it

Please, if you must know, Yes! Of course, I've been sad lately. That's a silly question. The answer to your questions lay in wait in my belly, the mystics of my body. Crazy shit happens in that cavity. My colon, for instance, can tell you. It somehow, in the last few years, got fused to the left wall of my abdominal cavity. And that shit ain't right. I know this because of a laparoscopic surgery I had on Valentine's Day to scrape my insides of endometriosis. Delightful, is it not? Anyhow, things are fixed and that colon is back to it's rightful place. This should be cause for celebration - and I suppose, it is. But, as is par for the course, I just feel nuts about it.

I could tell you, but you already know.

Maybe you don't, so here's the summary: issues with control and trust and paralyzing anxiety (complete with fat tears) because said ailments in psyche. Afraid of, but grounded by, mortality. Et cetera, et cetera. I blame my mother, who, by the way, hasn't even called me. I get it, it was a small surgery, but god damn it, it was surgery. So, that's where I am. Reduced to the same issues revolving around a different circumstance. Ain't that life?

And tonight, I sat in my bar - my throat tight like dried leather, holding back the good weeping I deserve because of poetry. A book of poetry to be exact. And, as we all know, so much more.

I made a mistake tonight. I wanted whiskey, but I chose tea.

causing trouble in the dark

I want to tell you guys everything. Everything. Poetry news, school news, friend news, gossips, wine times, dancing and fights. I want to tell you about how I lose hope in all of those things at least 3 times a day, but somehow regain it back. I also want to tell you that I'm in love with Ke$ha in a way I can't understand or describe.

Also, I need to start running again. I'm not balanced at all - but I can't find it in me to run before work and I'm so slain after work, so what do I do? Don't answer that.

Did I tell you that 2013 is going to be the best year yet? I have good feelings for it. There is only one little hiccup and that's surgery. On valentine's day. But after that, no speed bumps. Smooth sailing. Only a little bit of sadness, but an appropriate amount. okay?

you have been gone too long.

I heard the very last words my dad ever said. And just a few short hours after he said those words, I heard the last sounds my dad ever made.

Five houses down, banging bruises on my fleshy palms, trying to wake my grandparents in the still of the morning, I watched my childhood home burn down. I noticed the flag tear itself away from the pole and float with flames to the summer grass. I watched electrical lines bounce in front of the house with an ironic pep. And, probably 35 seconds before my beautiful papa opened the door to a world of grief, to his shock stricken granddaughter and his dead son, I heard a window break and my dad scream.

My dad's last breath was panicked and rushed and probably full of excruciating pain. I heard it all.

Remembering is funny. Some nights, like right now, everything is at my fingertips. When it plays through my mind, some parts are in fast forward, other things are caught in a silky breeze, slowed and luxuriously articulate. And, my brain will grab random memories and toss them in haphazardly - and I mean, random shit.

Once my dad had a friend over, I think his name was Gary, who tried his hardest to impress me. It almost worked until he broke an egg over our kitchen table trying to do an experiment I'm sure he saw in high school. It doesn't matter, what matters is: he broke the egg over the table in front of my dad who died in that kitchen near that table.

That memory means nothing. And everything.

If you're wondering, I was in the house. I crawled out the back door and ran five houses down.

The last words he said (the ones before the scream):

"I don't know what I'd do without you and your brother."

I'll be goddamned if he'll ever have to find out.

pull me out from inside

I can't get Jeffrey Dahmer out of my head.

There. I said it.

I'm not in love with him. I don't like him, I don't forgive him, but I just can't stop thinking about him. How lonely, you know? In addition to the devastatingly sick desires he couldn't smother, he was lonely. But fuck him.

In this mess of being surrounded in my thoughts about this killer, I wonder, if he knew, like he claimed he knew that these longings were straight from hell, why didn't he just kill himself. And is that fair to even say? And it's not like this is a gray area, but he was a person, so where does that leave me as a person? But where does that leave the families of his innocent victims as people?

And that poor baby, the one who almost got away: Konerak Sinthasomphone. You know, he'd be 35 years old if those assholes in Milwaukee did their jobs. But, should I blame them? And the women, the mary and martha, who comforted the poor baby who was bleeding from his rectum, nude in the street, do they weep and drink wine in the mornings because they almost saved his life?

And then he cut off his head. And his arms. His 14 year old arms.

There's one thing I keep coming back to: What if the baby I have and love and raise and cry over and discipline and teach and cuddle and nurse.. what if my baby grows up and becomes a murdering lunatic who eats organs in his spare time?

It's scary shit.

take everything away

Everyone knows a writer.

Don't tell me that doesn't make you feel overwhelmed. Because I know how it makes me feel. All void-y and let down and like maybe, just maybe, somehow I got short changed. Don't worry, I'm well aware that this whole post (up until now and probably on and on and on) is a snug Woe Is Me sweater. I get it. And tomorrow I'll be fine.

And if we're honest, I'm fine right now.

Kind of.

the time for sleep is now

I've been at a loss for words for days and days. I've been a hollowed out and brittle lump of human these past few weeks. I've been longing to do. Just do, you know? Can't really even describe what it is about the NOT doing that kills me in horrific ways. But I can't make myself do the doing. Do you even know what I mean?

So, I wanted to make a list of life changing/shattering events in chronological order, but decided against it. For a few reasons, really. No. 1. You already know if you read my posts. No. 2. It'd make me sad. Steering away from unnecessary sadness might be a good choice. But then, I think, is it unnecessary? I don't know. You guys don't either. Or maybe you do, but chances are, I won't listen.

This year will be great, I mean, I don't want to put a lot of pressure on 2013 - but I'm holding on to a weird hope that a new number in my dates will turn it all around. I shouldn't. Our millennium is just a teenager. And if I remember correctly, 13 was terrible for me. Acne and boys being mean and braces. Damn it. But, maybe this 13 year old, this beautiful, brand new teenager, will be a middle schooler who stands up for the bullied. And maybe he'll get voted captain of his intramural basketball team. He might be the kind of 13 year old who helps his grandma carry her groceries. You know? You just can never tell.

I'm here, guys. I'm here hoping for the best year yet.