rainstorm

Solo travel somewhere

Have sex and enjoy it with someone I like

Say no to sexual things, just to prove I can

Travel somewhere with friends

Become a therapist

Get a bikini wax (did it myself)

Get a dog, and a cat

Get my own apartment (roommates?)

Have sex with a woman

Go clubbing

Get blackout drunk once

Roll a joint myself 

Have sex while high

Have sex while drunk

Redefine cool

Find a job I really love

Find someone I really love

Find my best friends.

Go to a nudist beach

Do more things alone

Do more things with others

Write a book. Of poetry, maybe

Go skydiving 

Rock climb in the wild 

Meet a big cat, face to face

Create a collection of jewelry I love

Get tattoos! Ones I love.

Love myself

Love the world, and never forget it.

graduate college, or not.

date someone

marry someone

have children

Tell someone I like them (didn't work out)

Skinny dip

Stand up for myself and tell people what I want

Never settle

the openness

of cooba on his roof

us doing the splits facing each other

and in that moment, i've never seen anybody look so beautiful.

cocked his head to the side

i said i was in the psych ward

he said i know, i can tell.

a little sadly.

he gestured to us. look at how we're sitting.

good lord, i was in love that morning.

the molly loosened my neediness

and all that lies in my heart is rejection and heartbreak and something--- a granule--- of wrongness. of strangeness. i cannot forget it. i will fall apart, soon, i know. to complete the cycle i must break once again and come together once more. i feel broken tonight. 

i was smoking a cigarette waiting for the sprinter train, looking haunted. wearing shorts and fishnet tights which no - one else is wearing. that's ok. a pretty man comes up to me and talks to me about jesus. he doesn't hear me when i tell him i'm not interested. that's ok. i thank him for spreading love and god-- which he isn't--- only sin and fear talk.

i had asked him why he approached me, and he said

god talks to him all the time. he felt called to the god in me. maybe i needed that, in that moment. i think he wanted to save me. 

in that moment i was tired and hurting and sad— but only from exhaustion, from not sleeping enough and moving much too fast. but he couldn’t know that, and only saw paining eyes.

i know i go about life as naked as a newborn, my feelings still nursing and needing, as they will always be. i think he felt a tug of intruige but knew i was sin and talked to me anyways.

on the metro i called to this cutie pie in my heart and he came and sat with me. nervous, soft energy. i forget to scan into the metro, find him again and slip out behind him into the cool night. 

i feel god, now. she comes to me when my body cannot resist the spirit anymore and my mind falters. my body

i hate being a woman because it's a performance and i don't want to perform all the time and it means more and less than that but i don't want to explain it all or i'll get furious.

I don’t know about you, 

but i am afraid.

i try to protect myself in the four walls of my mind

and submit myself to the drift of the universe.

whats the point in trying if so often i get hurt?

everything i do 

i find myself picking apart e v e r y t h   i  n g

i rip the crumbled tender paper of my soul methodically bit by bit into little shreds so the wind can take the evidence i have lived away i will destroy myself before you can i promise i am very good at it-

every word i write is thoroughly judged before my pen touches paper

every painted stroke deemed unsightly before the brush is picked up

i get bored pulling needle through cloth before i pick up my threads.

i do not want you to see what i have made. i

do not want you to see my

awkward corners of humanness

because it’s ugly uncomfortable awkward but

but-

look anyways, i urge you;

take my shaky prose,

my half finished metaphors.

prod my soft vulnerability, cradle my heart in your hands

i want you to see my attempts to be brave

to look at my eager offer to the world.

even if you do not take it

at least i have offered

and someone else will want it they will i have hope and that you cannot have.

I

I,

Persevere

I,

Am ok

I,

Will go on

An old man on the bus puts one bar of chocolate pulled from his backpack into each marked envelope on his lap.

Sending words and sweet chocolate to his loved ones

He wears a baseball cap

A suit, sneakers

His tie has little basketballs on it

He is coming from Trader Joes.

where he got said chocolate.

I don't know where he is going.

I am staring, misty eyed.

We make eye contact.

silence

a moment in bed

a few

living in the moment… means not thinking of precious things

i stare up and see

Myself staring back.

floating above my bed 

she has long hair that hangs down

and set eyes

expression hard.

i wonder where she has come from

i ask her if she’s lost weight

no, a shake of her head and the hair moves as if underwater.

she follows me up. out of bed 

into the kitchen

i wore a tampon all night and won’t take it out yet

because its not full yet.

my nose is stuffed from tobacco and weed smoke

coagulating in my cavities

covering my lungs in soot

i ask Myself if she can give me a cheatcode for life

she looks back, expression unreadable.

1:00 pm. being drawn to this solitude… I socialize, but i like the feeling of being alone. drifting in this strange new enviroment. strange, and i cannot figure out if this is for the better or for the worse. i meet someone new everyday. the watchings of the campus feel less and and less overwhelming, and my body settles into the quiet of watching from afar.

i am interested in the world- i engage with it, i am of.

i take big gulps of life. in, in, in. i cannot get enough. i must have more

i must dance in the rain and the sun and frolic in the meadows and 

feel

how lucky am i to have phases

how lucky am i to grow and change, always 

how lucky am i to be alive

i will survive this break up. i always do

i'll move on

i'll be content with quiet solitude. 

be ok with aloneness again.

i've forgotten

but i'll remember that it's ok to fail and fuck up 

the wind whips at your skin

but it’s not too bad;

you know

when your hands go numb and so does your nose and ears

and you don’t notice the weather so much anymore 

because you’re used to it,

and you’re outside, and of course

it’s cold, that’s life

but now

you’ve been inside too long. sat by the fire

let human warmth seep into your soul.

you felt good, and content. sometimes it got too hot inside

too crowded,

too much.

but it was nice

and you were warm.

then

you, by your own design

throw yourself outside

again.

it’s even colder than you remember.

you’ve forgotten.

now, not just your hands feet toes eyes nose lips ears head 

are cold

but maybe you forgot to zip your jacket and the chill

penetrates, deep inside. it has reached deeper than you felt possible.

so now

you’re so very cold 

and yearning to go in-

but in- is 5,457 miles away

and you must stay. 

remember how to

to knock on doors and ask to come inside

worn,

at the ankles and the bottoms and the corns of her feet

eats a pastry and dusts crumbs off her scarf.

the train is a wonderful place  

apart of the thrum, i watch.

sometimes, they stare back.

sometimes we smile

sometimes

not

both are fine,

and gazes slip past onto other things of interest

of different places and other people

rotterdam to den hague, the train stops at empty stations, little places. 

it’s bitingly cold to-day

much more so than yester-day.

the wind stings my face and seeps into my legs 

even through two pairs of pants. 

the unfarmiliarity of a new place scares me

the lack of routine makes me wary. 

there is nothing familiar 

only myself-

of course, i exaggerate. 

but nobody knows me here. 

it feels lonely. 

i am lonely. 

i’ll meet up with a new friend later. 

snot blocks passage of breath and so does a tickle in my throat.

last night, holy.

a shower nighttime routine. my yoga. solitaire, youtube video essays. a cup of tea with milk and sugar. comfort. 

i am afraid. i’ve pulled myself from my comfort zone. finally, life at home felt comfortable, easy, sociable- and i’ve left my boy. 

but i know

i will recede into corners of my mind unknown

learn something new, about life,

about myself

and this will be well worth it. time, it takes time. to settle. to breathe, into new spaces

i breathe sorrow, through my asthmatic lungs. it hurts.

and grief comes out in small puffs in the winter air,

chilling my lips. my nose drips.

or

i sit in my bed with my pants around my ankles and my stomach aches,

 it too, feels the sadness.

a small sparrow sits on my chest and calls, softly.

the silence envelopes me,

and i long to be licked by warm tongues and sent to far away places to become dirty and used,

and free

i heard of an analogy of living as being covered in mud

soft mud mica filled glittery rich soft gritty

like the hojicha and winter spices that become sediment in bottoms of bottles i wash at work, 

 i stick my fingers into them to feel-

nothing better than becoming dirty.

my hands dry as i wash them far too often

working hands, chipped nail polish

miscommunication and communions of purity soil my chances for beatiful plastic pretty ornamental hands

my peeling keratin will have to do

already my body breaks down and i wish for a flat stomach instead of angry little bumps on my face and

oh well.

i’ll sit beside my friend Loneliness and lounge in various states of undress, alone, without mind altering substances,

I have things to say.

I have goals and aspirations.

I want to be heard. I want to write. I want to be challenged by the world. I want to be something more, something greater than myself. This is not easy. I am not natural at this. Some things come easy, like words. other things are more difficult, like hard work, and people.

i have trouble saying what i want, knowing what i want. i have an easier time knowing what i don't want.

sit outside. I am sitting outside. my shoulders hurt. i haven't done yoga in a while. i've been playing video games. lots and lots of video games. i worry about many things.

i am human, like you.

we are all so lonely. so apart. how do we use technology to become better? can it be used to close the gap that opened so wide?

can you see my face across the chasm... hear my voice, touch my skin?

i've been sanded down by life but worry (one more) that it will pass me by far too quickly.

Because hair means everything and people treat you different and you internalize more than you think

6 months ago, I cut my beatiful layered hazelnut chest length hair into a pixie cut. I am sporting a quisi-mullet at the moment.

My hair was my protection. It had grown with me through the worst parts of my life. Every night I would admire it's length as I lovingly braided it down by back into a single plait.

When I was 18, trying to find my identity as a biracial tall woman and in India my friend told me to take my sunglasses off to confront the stares. I gave them away and felt free. My hair was my next protection. such a good one it is. whisk it off your shoulder if you don't want anything to do with someone. pull it back to get in the zone. hide your face behind those lovely strands, they don't have to look at you and you can't see them.

So on one hot summers night in Minnesota I decided that I would rid myself of it to see how I would fare.

Everyday I miss my long hair. My shield. And such a shield it was. i feel raw. naked. where is my immediate male attention, validation? Where is my justification for existence?

I don't know about you. But me, I see you and I see me from your eyes. I crave the male energy because we are told this is the ultimate gift. the prize. you get to be seen.

Take away my hair and I do not get this anymore. I am left with myself and my own power and I cannot hide behind a shield of hair no longer.

I am powerful. But I'm also decidedly there. I am responsible for my actions. Only me here now.

my living situation goes down the drain, and no-one is innocent but some people go about it in a batshit crazy way...

i can get used to this

i could live like this

but i deserve better.

for myself, i will advocate for more.

it's not fair to let this happen to me. i will advocate for more.

i'm so dissapointed in childhood friend roommate (C). the other one... she's crazy (B) and i'll stay far away.

They both accused me of doing things I didn't do, then lying about doing said thing. seperate times, both berating me in long text paragraphs. both accusing me of not respecting them.

I didn't do that shit. but no, I don't respect them at all. I respect their personhood, and their space. But themselves? No.

I'm dissapointed in C for having such poor taste in friends. I don't respect the way she lives her life. Her boyfriend is mean to her. And a total loser to boot. She lets everyone around her take advantage of her. I guess i'm the exception, and she stands up to me.

B- oohhhh, I don't even want to get close to that. she cray, her fam cray, aint nothin i can do about that one. I'm dissapointed in MYSELF that I saw her have a public meltdown/temper tantrum before we moved in together and that didn't raise any red flags for me. I'm sad I let people treat me like shit in the past.

this whole sitch- it's a long story. a lot of things have happened. I am not innocent here. I have done bad things, careless things, disrespectful things. But the one thing I don't do: lie and steal (from people. I've shoplifted). Being accused of both is... strange. Being scapegoated is a strange feeling.

But I've been reading the lease.

i have a lot of shit over their heads, and i'll drag them down with me.

Fuck do you think you can do to me? Oh, accuse me of shit over text no less cause you're too pussy to do it to my face?

shame-ladden is my soul

try the soup, it is bitter and salty.

never fully realized that we describe emotions using flavors! 

you’re sweet, she’s salty. bitter, are you? the old man is sour and the english written language has rich depth,,

describe yourself describe a meal