Mamihlapinatapai (sometimes spelled mamihlapinatapei) is a word from the Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego, listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as the "most succinct word", and is considered one of the hardest words to translate.[1]
It describes "a look shared by two people with each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but which neither one wants to start."
Sunday, July 25, 2010
New Cloud
New York under New
Amsterdam cloud
salt and musty sea of mica-
crusted skyscrapers,
the city a moment of grave portent
on the ocean, crests
and briny foam frozen,
peaks
into our needling towers.
New York under New Amsterdam
cloud,
your river-valley sweetness
plunging into sudden void,
impossibly steep,
and I see into you -- palm
the full lengthiness of 34th street
with my eyes
and discover the hazy ghosts of Brooklyn
drifting,
balletic in their purgatory
east of the river,
east of Eden.
New York under
New Amsterdam cloud,
a high
and mighty wassailer,
grand
and wide-hulled as a ship, you,
cloud mountain--
nimbly surmount these rolling hills
with the same marked gallantry
that mingles with the city
lights
and which transmits
through perforated density
the soft and slanting
beams of morning.
7.20.10
Amsterdam cloud
salt and musty sea of mica-
crusted skyscrapers,
the city a moment of grave portent
on the ocean, crests
and briny foam frozen,
peaks
into our needling towers.
New York under New Amsterdam
cloud,
your river-valley sweetness
plunging into sudden void,
impossibly steep,
and I see into you -- palm
the full lengthiness of 34th street
with my eyes
and discover the hazy ghosts of Brooklyn
drifting,
balletic in their purgatory
east of the river,
east of Eden.
New York under
New Amsterdam cloud,
a high
and mighty wassailer,
grand
and wide-hulled as a ship, you,
cloud mountain--
nimbly surmount these rolling hills
with the same marked gallantry
that mingles with the city
lights
and which transmits
through perforated density
the soft and slanting
beams of morning.
7.20.10
The Artist and the Healer
Today the sky fades perfectly from white mixed with crystalline
blue at the horizon
to a deep and pelagic cornflower at its highest peak.
O, how I long to live in the mountains.
But I am torn--am I an artist
or a healer?
Being an artist requires incredible devotion to the self,
solitude,
and a superabundance of beautiful and lighthearted surroundings
to quell and satiate the depressive melancholy that everyone creative suffers.
The artist must surround herself
with organic and resplendent comforts, must
create a safe place within which she can be sensitive and receptive without
being forced to absorb (via the sheer
and uncloseable openness of her heart)
bad energy.
The healer, on the other hand,
must dwell, by force of her profession,
around people.
She must be willing to absorb, and indeed take pleasure in empathizing
with pain, suffering, and existentialist ennui.
Unlike the artist,
who spends her days searching for and defining meaning,
the healer must have already found
or decided upon
her true concept of reality, and be ready
not only to impart this knowledge to others,
but also to infuse their very bodies with it--to use her perception
of the fixed and definite order of things
to re-regulate a broken heart.
To be both:
open and closed
solitary and social
depressive and stable
seems impossible.
It is true that the healer must be open, too--
she must be absorptive.
But at this point in my understanding it seems as though the healer cannot process
or retain all that she absorbs,
for what she takes in is not only alien, but lethal.
In order not to be taken down with the sinking
and mutinous ships of her ailing patients' bodies, the healer must possess an amount of detachment
and mindlessness
that the artist does not and cannot have.
//\\//\\////
Even the philosopher and the artist are different; I see this myself.
In all my efforts to create, I forgot
about the importance and the pleasure of processing
or analyzing, of pattern-seeking,
rather than simply making forms. I want to do both--
I want to do all.
7.18.10
blue at the horizon
to a deep and pelagic cornflower at its highest peak.
O, how I long to live in the mountains.
But I am torn--am I an artist
or a healer?
Being an artist requires incredible devotion to the self,
solitude,
and a superabundance of beautiful and lighthearted surroundings
to quell and satiate the depressive melancholy that everyone creative suffers.
The artist must surround herself
with organic and resplendent comforts, must
create a safe place within which she can be sensitive and receptive without
being forced to absorb (via the sheer
and uncloseable openness of her heart)
bad energy.
The healer, on the other hand,
must dwell, by force of her profession,
around people.
She must be willing to absorb, and indeed take pleasure in empathizing
with pain, suffering, and existentialist ennui.
Unlike the artist,
who spends her days searching for and defining meaning,
the healer must have already found
or decided upon
her true concept of reality, and be ready
not only to impart this knowledge to others,
but also to infuse their very bodies with it--to use her perception
of the fixed and definite order of things
to re-regulate a broken heart.
To be both:
open and closed
solitary and social
depressive and stable
seems impossible.
It is true that the healer must be open, too--
she must be absorptive.
But at this point in my understanding it seems as though the healer cannot process
or retain all that she absorbs,
for what she takes in is not only alien, but lethal.
In order not to be taken down with the sinking
and mutinous ships of her ailing patients' bodies, the healer must possess an amount of detachment
and mindlessness
that the artist does not and cannot have.
//\\//\\////
Even the philosopher and the artist are different; I see this myself.
In all my efforts to create, I forgot
about the importance and the pleasure of processing
or analyzing, of pattern-seeking,
rather than simply making forms. I want to do both--
I want to do all.
7.18.10
Ode to the Light in the Evening
The earth is an ordered body, just as we are ordered
beings
and she reflects and resonates
the same warm streams of electric, amber light
that every living creature feels coursing through their physical bodies,
connecting the mind and the heart,
and filling up that space between them (the chest cavity
that overlies our holiest organ and contains
the soul) with golden spaciousness.
This is why the light turns
all warm and glowing in the sun's preamble to its setting;
the sun, messenger between earth and sky,
is a visceral embodiment of these rays, and it grows
most intensely lovely
and magical in the moments before it finally settles into the bosom of the earth, and delivers
to her own glowing core (both iron, both like blood)
all the infinite wisdom
that it, the holy messenger sun, has gathered throughout its day
spent with the moon, and clouds,
and veiled but still existant stars.
7.18.10
beings
and she reflects and resonates
the same warm streams of electric, amber light
that every living creature feels coursing through their physical bodies,
connecting the mind and the heart,
and filling up that space between them (the chest cavity
that overlies our holiest organ and contains
the soul) with golden spaciousness.
This is why the light turns
all warm and glowing in the sun's preamble to its setting;
the sun, messenger between earth and sky,
is a visceral embodiment of these rays, and it grows
most intensely lovely
and magical in the moments before it finally settles into the bosom of the earth, and delivers
to her own glowing core (both iron, both like blood)
all the infinite wisdom
that it, the holy messenger sun, has gathered throughout its day
spent with the moon, and clouds,
and veiled but still existant stars.
7.18.10
Ode to the Sky and Her Clouds
Her formidable clouds obsess me
to the point that I fix my gaze constantly upon the blue bowl that contains them
and I become the circadian sunflower: my entire life
spent experiencing the sky.
These cloud giants
are what first allowed me to conceive of her,
the planet,
as magical.
Looking up at their whiteness,
their decidedly un-geometric and abstract beauty, I realized
that they existed
not in another realm of coldness
and sparse air,
but in the center of a vast vault,
our skin,
that connects this world
indefinitely to all the others.
The science of their bodies,
the ephemerality of their forms (a solid-seeming
thing made up of water)
is what revealed to me the true miracle of this world:
we are
from top to bottom
an open system,
and all parts cohere in a manner as precise and scientific as the laws that allow
our amazing clouds (just
simple wisps of gas) to form.
It was that dense condensation that opened my heart
to the regularity and perfection of nature.
7.18.10
to the point that I fix my gaze constantly upon the blue bowl that contains them
and I become the circadian sunflower: my entire life
spent experiencing the sky.
These cloud giants
are what first allowed me to conceive of her,
the planet,
as magical.
Looking up at their whiteness,
their decidedly un-geometric and abstract beauty, I realized
that they existed
not in another realm of coldness
and sparse air,
but in the center of a vast vault,
our skin,
that connects this world
indefinitely to all the others.
The science of their bodies,
the ephemerality of their forms (a solid-seeming
thing made up of water)
is what revealed to me the true miracle of this world:
we are
from top to bottom
an open system,
and all parts cohere in a manner as precise and scientific as the laws that allow
our amazing clouds (just
simple wisps of gas) to form.
It was that dense condensation that opened my heart
to the regularity and perfection of nature.
7.18.10
Ode to the Body of the Earth
God, this is a beautiful day, and I live to praise it.
I am so grateful that all this exists, that we are both here
and I meditate
on the thrumming gratitude that plays my heart
as I bury my cheek in the soil and the dusty grass
(strewn with pebbles, clover,
and anthills),
nuzzling and pressing in to
the warm shoulder of the earth
like a sweet and desirous woman: affectionate
and lusty.
As I lie over the bosom of the earth, I feel
completely grounded, calmed, and more--pulled
by an invisible force as strong as love,
but stronger, in its fixed way, like gravity,
from all the lively, spinning centers of myself.
My hot and liquid core, pulsating
and flowing with acrid, vital fluids
is drawn, irresistible,
to hers,
and our bodies lay upon each other like mirrors
and reflect an endless symmetry
until we blend into one another and are indistinguishable.
The earth is my god and my body,
and only when I think of her,
when I press myself, childlike, into her tumescent sphere,
wrap myself in her long grasses
(the first fibers to be woven into clothes) and her caressing winds,
and fill my ears with her self-bound stars,
the birds,
do I feel at peace,
and my heart opens
to encompass the entire sky.
6.30.10
I am so grateful that all this exists, that we are both here
and I meditate
on the thrumming gratitude that plays my heart
as I bury my cheek in the soil and the dusty grass
(strewn with pebbles, clover,
and anthills),
nuzzling and pressing in to
the warm shoulder of the earth
like a sweet and desirous woman: affectionate
and lusty.
As I lie over the bosom of the earth, I feel
completely grounded, calmed, and more--pulled
by an invisible force as strong as love,
but stronger, in its fixed way, like gravity,
from all the lively, spinning centers of myself.
My hot and liquid core, pulsating
and flowing with acrid, vital fluids
is drawn, irresistible,
to hers,
and our bodies lay upon each other like mirrors
and reflect an endless symmetry
until we blend into one another and are indistinguishable.
The earth is my god and my body,
and only when I think of her,
when I press myself, childlike, into her tumescent sphere,
wrap myself in her long grasses
(the first fibers to be woven into clothes) and her caressing winds,
and fill my ears with her self-bound stars,
the birds,
do I feel at peace,
and my heart opens
to encompass the entire sky.
6.30.10
The Ocean pt. II
As the glowing sky dims,
over water, over ocean-
floating pier,
men appear out of the bushes
and the drydock anchors, hushed thinkers
and fleeing criminals, all struggling
to pantomime the slow,
open and shut
motions of the hand of god
(God, who is fleshless,
God, who is the ethereal,
God the sublime).
It can only be for the sake of poetry that this
innumerable, unnameable presence
has limbs.
It can only be for the sake of my heart that this evening, Venus
shines brightly over the bay, pinkly radiating
with a blank and listless beneficence.
There can be no beatitude by the ocean. It is too weighty.
7.18.10
over water, over ocean-
floating pier,
men appear out of the bushes
and the drydock anchors, hushed thinkers
and fleeing criminals, all struggling
to pantomime the slow,
open and shut
motions of the hand of god
(God, who is fleshless,
God, who is the ethereal,
God the sublime).
It can only be for the sake of poetry that this
innumerable, unnameable presence
has limbs.
It can only be for the sake of my heart that this evening, Venus
shines brightly over the bay, pinkly radiating
with a blank and listless beneficence.
There can be no beatitude by the ocean. It is too weighty.
7.18.10
Alone in the Kissing Breeze
By myself, beside myself,
alone on the waterfront
tactile and sensory for the
first time, watching
like film glitches in a '40s film, rainbow
bridges and crystal globes
doubled and spinning, ringed
and familiar, like how
the halves of cut pearls
radiate
the same layered symmetry
as displayed in the miniature nymphs
that float hazily before
my eyes,
ballet-ing in and out
of the panorama I'm facing
and hanging, star-like,
from the shimmering pistils of my
blurred eyelashes.
For the first time in a year
and a half I am alone
in my silence
and quietly complacent in a self-imposed quarantine,
the nursery of all my latent
and brilliantest thoughts.
Grey-faced like a statue
of a saint,
I resolve to know the saints, to osmotically become
a manifestation of their devotion
through my understanding of their lives.
Pink and fleshy,
I shuttle my ankles closed together,
a skip-and-a-jump motion
that makes all my halfhearted attempts at modesty even more childlike;
to keep one's legs closed
and folded
on such a beautiful day
on this old pier
in this kissing breeze
will always be a halfhearted game
of hopscotch
with my impish and reluctant self.
7.18.10
alone on the waterfront
tactile and sensory for the
first time, watching
like film glitches in a '40s film, rainbow
bridges and crystal globes
doubled and spinning, ringed
and familiar, like how
the halves of cut pearls
radiate
the same layered symmetry
as displayed in the miniature nymphs
that float hazily before
my eyes,
ballet-ing in and out
of the panorama I'm facing
and hanging, star-like,
from the shimmering pistils of my
blurred eyelashes.
For the first time in a year
and a half I am alone
in my silence
and quietly complacent in a self-imposed quarantine,
the nursery of all my latent
and brilliantest thoughts.
Grey-faced like a statue
of a saint,
I resolve to know the saints, to osmotically become
a manifestation of their devotion
through my understanding of their lives.
Pink and fleshy,
I shuttle my ankles closed together,
a skip-and-a-jump motion
that makes all my halfhearted attempts at modesty even more childlike;
to keep one's legs closed
and folded
on such a beautiful day
on this old pier
in this kissing breeze
will always be a halfhearted game
of hopscotch
with my impish and reluctant self.
7.18.10
Found Some Old Poems (The Ocean)
you cry on to me on
the other side of an ocean
and i want to rock you in arms made
of tear-salty waves. the liquid
from my bleeding heart adds
to the distance between us; it dilutes
the purity of the ocean's amniotic
fluid and makes both our
sadnesses spill onto the shores we've
created with our different perspectives.
On mine can be found the futility of
rebellion; on yours the stale
taste of an ultimate freedom and we
both pour our bodies into different
vessels of murky water. Your eyes
shine brightly at all times speaking
of youth in its prime and your knowledge
of how to succeed in just living. You cry
slowly into your cup of beer while
my eyes glow dully with the trembling
flame of fear and the knowledge that
nothing will stay the same. I cry
into the ocean as the water adopts
my tears, and i bathe in myself.
8.2.09
the other side of an ocean
and i want to rock you in arms made
of tear-salty waves. the liquid
from my bleeding heart adds
to the distance between us; it dilutes
the purity of the ocean's amniotic
fluid and makes both our
sadnesses spill onto the shores we've
created with our different perspectives.
On mine can be found the futility of
rebellion; on yours the stale
taste of an ultimate freedom and we
both pour our bodies into different
vessels of murky water. Your eyes
shine brightly at all times speaking
of youth in its prime and your knowledge
of how to succeed in just living. You cry
slowly into your cup of beer while
my eyes glow dully with the trembling
flame of fear and the knowledge that
nothing will stay the same. I cry
into the ocean as the water adopts
my tears, and i bathe in myself.
8.2.09
Found Some Old Poems (Leaving)
on my left hand i wear my grandmother's
ring, symbolically wedded to you
so i won't cheat when we're forcibly
separated by nothing
other than fate and my drive
to succeed. i pleasure your
name and your lips and your hair i
drive myself crazy imagining how
i'll feel when we're both home but
in different states; i imagine
you'll be crying while i grimace
and grapple with so many
different desires.
you love me now but will you
still when i give in and wrap
myself around a stranger?
8.2.09
ring, symbolically wedded to you
so i won't cheat when we're forcibly
separated by nothing
other than fate and my drive
to succeed. i pleasure your
name and your lips and your hair i
drive myself crazy imagining how
i'll feel when we're both home but
in different states; i imagine
you'll be crying while i grimace
and grapple with so many
different desires.
you love me now but will you
still when i give in and wrap
myself around a stranger?
8.2.09
Found Some Old Poems (Details)
this one has a renewed relevance!:
your little bear's nose and your laughing
girl's lips all pinkened by liquor and kissing
a cigarette each make me crumble
and wither inside; their perfection
reminds me that all things are fleeting.
8.2.09
your little bear's nose and your laughing
girl's lips all pinkened by liquor and kissing
a cigarette each make me crumble
and wither inside; their perfection
reminds me that all things are fleeting.
8.2.09
Found Some Old Poems I
This one is actually the oldest of all. A poem?
"You know, although it would make me feel quite disloyal, self-sabotaging, and maybe even a bit inappropriate to ever be your friend, I like you."
9.8.08
"You know, although it would make me feel quite disloyal, self-sabotaging, and maybe even a bit inappropriate to ever be your friend, I like you."
9.8.08
Found Some Old Poems
I found some poems that I wrote about Felix, most from almost exactly a year ago. They seemed like 1 am rants at the time but upon reexamination I actually think some of them are pretty good. I'm going to post them separately. Here's the first; this is the poem that used used to be a secret:
As you stare at me
nakedly I wonder whether
I would love you
if you were a woman
and in a case of severe dramatic irony,
I often wake up
tragically next to you
from a dream of making love to a girl-
the same girl I've dreamt of
numerous times.
Once I kissed her, drunken sparked-orange
tongue lolling into her perfect Romanian mouth
on a sidewalk, and I remember how
she pulled away
upset despite months of subtle come-ons.
She is grating, turbulent,
petty
so this is not a love poem.
She haunts
me, grimly, a skinny blackhaired reminder
that I will always want something
more.
3.29.09
As you stare at me
nakedly I wonder whether
I would love you
if you were a woman
and in a case of severe dramatic irony,
I often wake up
tragically next to you
from a dream of making love to a girl-
the same girl I've dreamt of
numerous times.
Once I kissed her, drunken sparked-orange
tongue lolling into her perfect Romanian mouth
on a sidewalk, and I remember how
she pulled away
upset despite months of subtle come-ons.
She is grating, turbulent,
petty
so this is not a love poem.
She haunts
me, grimly, a skinny blackhaired reminder
that I will always want something
more.
3.29.09
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
This is the first time I have ever really told the Truth in my whole life (Admission)
The reason that I'm writing you tonight is to tell you something very important. It's something I've known for quite a long time but have been afraid to share with you. I believe in god. And magic. And spirits and energies, not as elegant metaphors, but as manifest realities. I believe in these things because I have experienced them firsthand. I never told you because I was afraid of you juding me and not holding my beliefs to be legitimate or sane. I projected this fear onto you because you are the lens through which I experience the world when not looking through my own eyes -- yours is the second opinion I seek. For a long time I was ambivalent about the validity or even the reality of these beliefs, and so I used my fear of being judged by you as an excuse to not fully admit them to myself. However, tonight on the way home from your house I finally was thinking about it clearly and I realized for the first time that you want me to be happy, and that the source of that happiness is immaterial to you so long as it exists. This was very huge for me. I'm sorry it took me so long -- I don't want you to feel offended. It's not you. After realizing that I had been raped (and most likely throughout the entire time leading up to that realization), my ability to trust anything was severely retarded and our development as intimate friends was undoubtedly delayed. Coincidentally, it was during one of these times (most seriously, when we weren't speaking) that my passion for mysticism and spirituality really bloomed. That made it easy for me to hide it from you.
But yes; ever since I went to Burning Man, and even before that, I have felt as though I have been on a spiritual journey of sorts, to reconnect to myself and to the Mother earth, the entire bountiful Universe, that I came from. It is very hard for me to write these words, perhaps because they portray a sentiment of vulnerability that I am most afraid of betraying. To say that one believes that the Universe is founded on love, harmony, and symmetry, as I do, is to not only open oneself up very wide in general, but to open oneself specifically to ridicule; when viewed at surface value the world hardly seems to reflect that, so believing in and devoting oneself to accessing all-present love definitely seems more than a little crazy. But I really do believe, and when I open up the shell that surrounds my heart, I feel it.
I hope that you can respect this. It is a very integral part of who I am and has been for years now. I deeply apologize for not telling you sooner. I have wanted to, and have been trying to for a long time, but unfortunately I only felt able to today, and we are no longer together for me to say it to your face. I'm going to leave out details because I do think we should talk about this -- after all, we have both got to both equally see through the mask, and this is the side of myself that I have been hiding from you. To succinctly define what I mean, I will leave it at this:
over the years, I have discovered that I am a reverential person, and am most happy when in the act of worshiping something. You probably know this from the way I used to worship you. However after a lot of thought and processing I realized that I cannot worship people in any form, but rather that all I feel comfortable revering is nature and the great, unknowable, cosmic/psychic/spiritual/physical forces that form and govern every aspect of our Universe. Pretty much, I love science, and especially quantum physics and geology (fuck it, I love em all, they're all inseparable) and am overwhelmed by the symmetry and organization I see present between and without all aspects of physical reality. What takes this home for me is the way that I feel these forces relating to me emotional being. I believe that all bodies are supersensible resonance chambers capable of being affected on the quantum level. Thus, we are all connected and every shift in motion of the breeze, earth, galaxy, and Universe can be felt within us if we pay close enough attention.
And that's what I'm trying to do with my life, among other things -- to pay attention to the cosmic rhythm and use what I feel to help others do the same, because it feels so good. So I worship the sky, love the clouds, kiss the trunks of the trees and embrace the hot earth that lies beneath everything. I do this alone, but it is truly this sentiment coming out when I call things beautiful. That's why it hurt me so much when you used to tease me for that -- it felt like you were catching me at prayer.
I hope that this does not make you feel different about me. If it does, consider this: all od these feeling and habits have been a very real and manifest part of me for years, and I know that you have still loved me. I don't doubt that love enough to think that this admission would be enough to drive it away; I don't doubt it at all actually, and that is why I am finally telling you this. I really want you to know me for all I am, for what I am most proud of, as you said. To close, I think that Joanna Newsom has a pretty good way with words, so I'll let her sum up how I feel about life:
"Squint skyward and listen, loving him, we move within his borders, just asterisms in the stars' set order. We could stand for a century, staring with our heads cocked in the broad daylight at this thing: Joy. Landlocked, in bodies that don't keep, dumbstruck with the sweetness of being, 'til we don't be."
So yeah. That's all. That's my side of the mask. Thank you for showing me yours.
Love,
Stella
But yes; ever since I went to Burning Man, and even before that, I have felt as though I have been on a spiritual journey of sorts, to reconnect to myself and to the Mother earth, the entire bountiful Universe, that I came from. It is very hard for me to write these words, perhaps because they portray a sentiment of vulnerability that I am most afraid of betraying. To say that one believes that the Universe is founded on love, harmony, and symmetry, as I do, is to not only open oneself up very wide in general, but to open oneself specifically to ridicule; when viewed at surface value the world hardly seems to reflect that, so believing in and devoting oneself to accessing all-present love definitely seems more than a little crazy. But I really do believe, and when I open up the shell that surrounds my heart, I feel it.
I hope that you can respect this. It is a very integral part of who I am and has been for years now. I deeply apologize for not telling you sooner. I have wanted to, and have been trying to for a long time, but unfortunately I only felt able to today, and we are no longer together for me to say it to your face. I'm going to leave out details because I do think we should talk about this -- after all, we have both got to both equally see through the mask, and this is the side of myself that I have been hiding from you. To succinctly define what I mean, I will leave it at this:
over the years, I have discovered that I am a reverential person, and am most happy when in the act of worshiping something. You probably know this from the way I used to worship you. However after a lot of thought and processing I realized that I cannot worship people in any form, but rather that all I feel comfortable revering is nature and the great, unknowable, cosmic/psychic/spiritual/
And that's what I'm trying to do with my life, among other things -- to pay attention to the cosmic rhythm and use what I feel to help others do the same, because it feels so good. So I worship the sky, love the clouds, kiss the trunks of the trees and embrace the hot earth that lies beneath everything. I do this alone, but it is truly this sentiment coming out when I call things beautiful. That's why it hurt me so much when you used to tease me for that -- it felt like you were catching me at prayer.
I hope that this does not make you feel different about me. If it does, consider this: all od these feeling and habits have been a very real and manifest part of me for years, and I know that you have still loved me. I don't doubt that love enough to think that this admission would be enough to drive it away; I don't doubt it at all actually, and that is why I am finally telling you this. I really want you to know me for all I am, for what I am most proud of, as you said. To close, I think that Joanna Newsom has a pretty good way with words, so I'll let her sum up how I feel about life:
"Squint skyward and listen, loving him, we move within his borders, just asterisms in the stars' set order. We could stand for a century, staring with our heads cocked in the broad daylight at this thing: Joy. Landlocked, in bodies that don't keep, dumbstruck with the sweetness of being, 'til we don't be."
So yeah. That's all. That's my side of the mask. Thank you for showing me yours.
Love,
Stella
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
The Same Hands
This entire year has been a re-run
of all the stupid shit I already
thought I'd said and done. And
you can break my heart
'til the dawn comes;
I'll just pick up all the parts
and stuff them down in my pockets
until you think that they're all gone
and you've erased my fear of love
made manifest
in that broken old organ.
And I have held the same hands
for what's suddenly become four
whole years, tracing
the bones
and
fondling the broad palms,
soft as lambs' ears.
But really I know
no time at all has passed
between us, because
everyone leaves for so long:
spring through fall, still
circling the sun's sphere.
And even more harshly, each
decides they were wrong
and they want to come home,
but they'll only love me if
I've completely reformed and developed
telepathy, so
they never have to show me
all their hopes and fears and weaknesses
and we can live together, happy and
blindly
and never have problems
if we don't feel like talking.
And through all this leaving and
reuniting, I can't
grasp why no one will trust me
when I told them softly,
lightly,
that my love is a constant
like gravity.
Yet we repulse
one another yearly, drawing so
close only to find
with great shock and surprise,
our magnetism's contrived,
so we spiral off
to a new network of stars.
And I have held the same hands
for what's suddenly become four
whole years, tracing
the bones
and
fondling the broad palms,
soft as lambs' ears.
But there's one pair of hands
I'll probably never tough again, unless
we're reunited
by that great mystery,
tragedy,
and I have to comfort him
because we've been thrown together
(against our will)
by that force
that can only form death
and beauty.
But considering
my only chance of holding him
in my arms again
would be if one of our friends died, I'd
rather lie alone and whisper
myself a lullaby
made of all the tears we cried
in the corner of my room
underneath the God's eye.
And you can break my heart
'til the dawn comes;
I'll just pick up all the parts
and stuff them down in my pockets
until you think that they're all gone
and you've erased my fear of love
made manifest
in that broken old organ.
You've destroyed my heart just to help me
grow a new one.
You're destroying my heart
just to help me grow a new one.
of all the stupid shit I already
thought I'd said and done. And
you can break my heart
'til the dawn comes;
I'll just pick up all the parts
and stuff them down in my pockets
until you think that they're all gone
and you've erased my fear of love
made manifest
in that broken old organ.
And I have held the same hands
for what's suddenly become four
whole years, tracing
the bones
and
fondling the broad palms,
soft as lambs' ears.
But really I know
no time at all has passed
between us, because
everyone leaves for so long:
spring through fall, still
circling the sun's sphere.
And even more harshly, each
decides they were wrong
and they want to come home,
but they'll only love me if
I've completely reformed and developed
telepathy, so
they never have to show me
all their hopes and fears and weaknesses
and we can live together, happy and
blindly
and never have problems
if we don't feel like talking.
And through all this leaving and
reuniting, I can't
grasp why no one will trust me
when I told them softly,
lightly,
that my love is a constant
like gravity.
Yet we repulse
one another yearly, drawing so
close only to find
with great shock and surprise,
our magnetism's contrived,
so we spiral off
to a new network of stars.
And I have held the same hands
for what's suddenly become four
whole years, tracing
the bones
and
fondling the broad palms,
soft as lambs' ears.
But there's one pair of hands
I'll probably never tough again, unless
we're reunited
by that great mystery,
tragedy,
and I have to comfort him
because we've been thrown together
(against our will)
by that force
that can only form death
and beauty.
But considering
my only chance of holding him
in my arms again
would be if one of our friends died, I'd
rather lie alone and whisper
myself a lullaby
made of all the tears we cried
in the corner of my room
underneath the God's eye.
And you can break my heart
'til the dawn comes;
I'll just pick up all the parts
and stuff them down in my pockets
until you think that they're all gone
and you've erased my fear of love
made manifest
in that broken old organ.
You've destroyed my heart just to help me
grow a new one.
You're destroying my heart
just to help me grow a new one.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Around Your Borders / Catlike / I Hope (100th Post!)
I hope that when
you break her heart
you are swift and honest,
and leave her doubtless
that you are gone
or else you'll be at fault
for the grief you've caused.
And she'll lay around your borders
all day-- she'll lay
around
your borders all day, mewling
and clawing, with catlike paws
at the door that just held all
that she loved,
until she collapses for almost seven
months, wondering
in her feverish sleep, what exactly
made you leave?
And she'll lay around
your borders all day--
she'll lay
around your borders
all day.
I hope that when you break
her heart, you
do it early
and do not leave her to linger on,
kitten-blind while you move
on.
Or else she'll lay around
your borders
all day-- she'll lay
around
your borders all day, mewling
and clawing, with catlike paws
at the door
that just had held all
that she loved,
ignoring, willfully,
the new pet you've begun to feed,
and she'll lay around
your borders all day--
she'll lay
around your borders
all day.
So I hope that when
you say you're gone,
you're gone,
and that she does
not hang around too long, skinny
and starving from the gifts
left on your lawn
that should have been her breakfast
every morning that she laid
around your borders all day,
laid around your borders
all day, mewling
and clawing with catlike paws
at the door she knew had just held
all that she loved.
you break her heart
you are swift and honest,
and leave her doubtless
that you are gone
or else you'll be at fault
for the grief you've caused.
And she'll lay around your borders
all day-- she'll lay
around
your borders all day, mewling
and clawing, with catlike paws
at the door that just held all
that she loved,
until she collapses for almost seven
months, wondering
in her feverish sleep, what exactly
made you leave?
And she'll lay around
your borders all day--
she'll lay
around your borders
all day.
I hope that when you break
her heart, you
do it early
and do not leave her to linger on,
kitten-blind while you move
on.
Or else she'll lay around
your borders
all day-- she'll lay
around
your borders all day, mewling
and clawing, with catlike paws
at the door
that just had held all
that she loved,
ignoring, willfully,
the new pet you've begun to feed,
and she'll lay around
your borders all day--
she'll lay
around your borders
all day.
So I hope that when
you say you're gone,
you're gone,
and that she does
not hang around too long, skinny
and starving from the gifts
left on your lawn
that should have been her breakfast
every morning that she laid
around your borders all day,
laid around your borders
all day, mewling
and clawing with catlike paws
at the door she knew had just held
all that she loved.
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