#skellyteeth

the city often attempts to immitate the ocean. always twisting and turning, pushing and pulling, going and coming but nothing really happens, nothing at all. it's just a city with people squirming around en mass, wriggling and flittering, screaming and wailing and yet, not making much sound at all. but the city is not the ocean. it is heat and iron and it is the dust that coats your fingers and the linings of your eyes and nose, it is the gasp of your cough and the strange smells nestled in your hair. it is as smoothing as the ocean, so much so that you might lose your shape, for the city makes you soft like a globe, until you can no longer tremble and you are of perfect operation, dulcet and mild but thoughtless and casual and you made nothing by it all. you become tired, being relentlessly battered so, and you might let go and let it tumble over you with sweet tastes and tingling sensations that let you forget what the real ocean is like

I often write bad haiku when I'm alone on long bus journeys. Here are a few I've saved up:

Guy in front of me Your coat smells like piss and mold But your heart is full

Hello father John Recite that verse again and I will kill myself

Tomorrow comes soon But I stare at sights unseen Never soon enough

I turned my cheek I moved my direction south My lips are itching

Where are all the stars? Do they hide from jaded girls? Are stars lonely too?

Your beard is tangles Your eyes are wide with laughter Your hands are withered

One more Saturday This is my favorite song But there's no sun out

BUT YOU KNOW WHAT

GOING DOWN THE PRETTY PATH WITH RAINBOWS AND DEER AND SHITHEADED MOTHERFUCKERS AIN'T GONNA GET YOU NOWHERE IN LIFE. YOU GO DOWN THAT PATH AND YOU THINK "well, that was nice" and you're EXACTLY THE FUCKING SAME AS YOU WERE WHEN YOU WENT IN YOU GO DOWN THE FUCKED UP PATH AND YOU COME OUT A MOTHERFUCKING MUSCLEY **BEAST** WHO EATS ROCKS AND FALCONS FOR BREAKFAST

YO

YOU MAKE THE CHOICE DUDES IT'S YOUR LIFE MOTHERFUCKERS

Nope. No. Uh-uh. No. Too much rain and passing trains Floating here alone

Solace, dripping. One two, three. Again and again I sing; hear voices

Singing dark window Turn your gaze this way for once Lightened praying voice

Fresh air, open fling voices about, strange tides move into the shadows

The cold night drips in My bones are wet and slipping sockets, mouths, fingers

Washington summers Blueberry, raspberry lime cold mist and soft winds

Because not every woman is pure. Many women don’t have the ability to reproduce, one in every five women have PCOS, many woman don’t WANT to be seen as something that reproduces. Some women are tainted, some women are drained, tired, broken, and some really don’t want to be beautiful all the time. All women bleed.

To be called pure is to imply that life does not touch, that they are pure simply because they were formed in the gender of woman. This is not true. Life touches us all in one way or another, and it is NOT gentle, even when it is kind.

To me, that’s what makes something, someONE brilliant, because they have the right to be all of those things, a choice, in addition to being beautiful.

The definition of art is “an expression or application of human creative skill and imagination”. A body is not created out of skill and imagination. It is literally formed and weaved by cells, which is distinctly outside of the realm of creative, if you ask me. The way a person creates themselves, however, is art. In my opinion, a body is not art without the person attached.

Give me the space, give me the time, treat me how you would treat any stranger, regardless of gender, race, cultural significance, whatever. That is literally all I want from a stranger on the street. Just a passing, simple, mutual respect. A smile wouldn't hurt either, if they could manage it. We could even share one together, and in that brief moment we could understand each other.