SNOWING IN FLORIDA

From the archives. 2011.

went to a clinic down in florida

went to a doctor who examined me naked

stood outside the hospital doors just standing

stopped asking questions because I'm just so sick of talking.

he: touched my stomach my chest my feet my thighs my mouth my ribs my knees my my hips my fingers my toes my legs my arms my face my head my ears my back my heart my shins my spine 

he: went through the entire physical without looking me in the eyes.

examination room was freezing cold

waiting room was crowded with anxiety bad smells common people it was also:

freezing cold.

noticing:

people were here to die,just dying

(i kept looking around desperate for someone clinging on to life the way i was)

some people out there just give up on living all together

you realize there is no pill you can swallow no song you can sing no vacation you can take no mouth you can kiss no fling you can have -no dress you can wear no smell that will distract no film that will make you laugh nothing you can bear to eat not one book you can read not a good nights sleep you can get- not a car you can drive no eastern remedy nor western plan you can be no art you can see no words you can speak no ship no sea just nothing nothing can help you sometimes and with this discovery most people I've seen just give up on living because the pain is just too strong its all just too much when everything goes totally wrong,real bad people just freeze up curl up and die on the side of the rode but

i was thinking : well...well..you see I'm already hurting so how about a little bit of self made shock therapy.

You see no one asked me if my heart was broken 

in hospitals they only check the beat.

You see i have felt responsible for ALL of this and then suddenly one day someone comes along with a PhD and tells me that its not all my fault,and then suddenly,suddenly...im free (er) than usual.

THIS WHOLE TIME: you were sick,and now i feel it and im so sorry i didn't feel your sickness for you. im so sorry i didn't hold you longer and cry harder. do you even remember me? do you realize what this distance has done for the bad and good of both of our lives?

THE DOCTOR ASKED ME WHY I WAS SO SAD-I SHOOK MY HEAD.

IT WAS SNOWING IN FLORIDA,IT WAS SNOWING AND I WAS DRAWING A BLANK

TALL PALE SLENDER TALL PALE SLENDER FEMALE FRENCH JEW CHRISTIAN

BLANK.

Rabbit foot memory

From the archives. 2007.

I was reminding myself

to stop looking at my watch

my hair was halfway up,quite dark

I kept spelling out the sen-tance

"get up,get up"

have I mentioned

I have remained.

yes,remained

quite,white.

avoiding the dark hallways

that host games

all through the night.

take yourself back to

summers

and hearts

that leaped

so willingly

take yourself back

to airports

and waiting to board

and leaving

and coming

and always leaving

and gingerale

and my phone is dead.

shoot.

and my phone..is.

now look at my face

have I not grown all these seeds myself?

now look down at your feet

you have been idle.

your hands your nose your heart your feet your face your hands your hair your ways.

now now now now.

look at my face

have you not known that I have only waited for you?

all these years and all these days.

ships rot,and shirts have lost their stiffness

around their colllar

around your face.

have you not known

I have only

ONLY.

‘07

Lola 

 As long as it takes
for my heart to find it's song

I’m too sad to tell you

and i get real accountable when i'm alone

he is my portion

I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.

Lamentations 3:19-26 

stains

the gospel,

it stains us...

with blood you can't scrub off.

and trust me

the devil himself has taken a cloth

and tried to remove it from me himself

foolishly he's frantic
 and his loop has never changed
he will try to cover your eyes
with a blindfold a
welcome to your idolatry\welcome to the wandering

the carnal nature of lust
producing shame
always showing up is rage

that unholy trinity

uh

this is holy blood

wash away my sin,again.

The blooming

The west coast used to be steady

jan 25. the lunar new moon makes everyone feel manic/it's not just u
the bzzzzing you can't drown out is omnipresent.

Remember when moving Out West was the Ultimate teen dream fantasy?

Fast forward to the neon lights that you can’t outlast

Buzzing from the Mezcal and echos of empty drive-by shootings of encouragement

We're all doing great!!! Thanks!

Yeah, it glows.

The lonesome lows meet there new meaning

This kid is complaining there’s no room service in his motel he’s been living in since he arrived here in December

Pretty sure he’s Russian and that’s a thing there? Surly. He must not know? He moved out here to model which was honestly a good idea in theory. California is seductive to like, a lot of people. But his soul is too fragile for this place. He needs more home before he can become his own home. His heart is too fragile for these people who love new faces and fight to drain your purity and use it for their skincare routine. “Omg Samuel!” A monotone masculine leaning voice shrieks through the office “have you not tried this new serum?! Its black market Russian. So u know it’s good! it’s literally everything!

Burns at first. You’ll get used to it.”

Samuel shifts his energy all the way into himself

“You get used to it”

 He whispers under his breath

Just like everything.

The burning lasts forever

But you’ll get used to it.

“I closed the box and put it in a closet.

There is no real way 

to deal with everything we lose.”- Joan Didion

Isaiah 61:3 /
A crown of 

beauty for ashes, 

the oil of joy 

for mourning, 

The garment of praise

in place of

the spirit of despair

         

They will be called 

oaks of righteousness, 

the planting of the LORD,

that he might be glorified.

My shame is aged,moldy,heavy and it smells like an emergency 

the library flooded in 2003

the books have turned gangrene

Sadness I’m your girl 

Depression:

You are the fire I will walk through daily-and the flames will disfigure me but it will never kill me

As long as my heart beats-

This ceremony of extremes

On repeat you settle in:the dusty sun set, may allergies floating // breathe in grief 

The fear and the fire ok ok breathe 

I was 3 when fear grabbed me by the neck. It came at. night. The sunset was the terror.i fought with all my might.

I missed falling asleep.

Inside my seashell of psalm 23 

The hope that keeps us alive 

Is the belief that you will be free.

Steady and constant is the fear.Faithful and forever is the miracle.

The fire 

Walking out of the furnace

Smell is:sandalwood and Amber

LOVE ME TENDER

sometimes a man gets so sad he can hardly feel it 

anymore.

there were the years you waited for love-

aching 

and now you hardly think of it anymore.

sometimes you get so alone that it just makes sense.

in the past:

i needed you to feel

my loneliness 

for me

with me

just for right now

because the weight is too heavy

and its crushing me second by second

some men take it

and hand it back

some men feel it deeply

and hate me for it.

sick recognizes sick

hurt recognizes hurt

love me tender

love me, quick.

Is that why you stay gone?

I taught  my heart to do more 

than miss him

Trained it to beat 

a less desperate rhythm

Now my heart has gone rogue,

it prefers longing

So, I'll sit here and pretend 

that you're close to me

Is that why you stay gone, 

you don't want me to stress?

But you're blissing me, 

you're blissing me

He reminds me of the love in me

I'm celebrating on a vibrancy

Sending each other MP3s

Falling in love to a song, song

Maggie Rogers - Fallingwater

"i never loved you, fully- in the way i could.."

beauty for ashes

praise for heaviness

joy for mourning

CALVARY LOVE.

your words declare you love me.

the tone is:
abandoned carnival
one last clown. standing 
in the smoke-
alone.

holding a bottle of jack,
a balloon giraffe
oh and that cynical
dollar store smile and laugh

the setting is dark
the elephants are dead
the freaks are free now
the cotton candy is gone

And the Ferris wheel's closed now that lila's dead.

And you utter again
i love you.

and i know the truth
your words: are just noise summoned by empty passion
romance you thought you learned
from a porno you saw once when you were young

if this is love. get the hell away from me.

i will love myself and mean it
i will hold myself and not break my own bones
i will forgive myself forever,

look myself dead in the eyes
and say:
Self, i love you.
purely and forever.


if you will not touch me now-

i will hold my own hand.


i fell in love with you years ago
and now that i've confessed 
my affection

the empty feeling looms
and you leave me again

alone with myself and my own love.


holding my own hand forever 

for better or worse

i will show you how to be good, how to be faithful
by being good to myself-faithful and true to my spirit.

i have hidden the word of of the lord deep down in my heart

you lack the ability
to love me properly
and you forget that i am made of dust and bone

i stand before you sustained
strong
alone.

nun hearted

dark forest

holy ghost heartbeat.

Calvary love.

watch the crimson hits the sand.

If You left the grave behind you so will I

If the stars were made to worship so will I
If the mountains bow in reverence so will I
If the oceans roar Your greatness so will I
For if everything exists to lift You high so will I
If the wind goes where You send it so will I
If the rocks cry out in silence so will I
If the sum of all our praises still falls shy
Then we’ll sing again a hundred billion times

52 Cities Deep / And His Big Weep.

oh 
my 
gosh

THE RISE AND THE FALL!
of THE chase-
the chase of all chases
the surrendering way,
you throw your hands up-

away from me.


i sway into the truth

you cover your ears
rejecting the news.

enough is enough

you chased my love
19 months

and when i say stop
you take it to heart.

The New York Post slides 
under my hotel room door
front page is your face-just for today
headline reads:
*bold font*
"the big star" with talent but in the end his pride ruins it all"
headline is:
"charming cliche of a man
chases a lovely woman 
catches her
tricks her
only to run away!
 after his tour extended past may.
(tour sales down despite  radio plays)

headline says:
" majority of charismatic men are all sad at night-
no matter how many fans they have!
the price of extroversion:
is pain!
the price of the lead role is:
loneliness 
and no one to call
when you feel like
dying 
like, for real this time"


the rise and fall of
whatever the hell that was
just late night calls and
static, so much static.

flash forward to you leaving
for a new pair of eyes
lips
hair
hands
words.

52 cities deep:
you will find a version of me,
In her.

A fever dream fantasy
you will seek

Flash forward to 2am
The south, about to enter REM

picture those haunted hallways 
where a woman's intuition
and her subconscious meet
(repeat repeat repeat)

I don't miss him because you can't miss a person who 
never really knew you
only the fantasy of you
that they crafted
based on what?
a cartoon?

i don't dream of him, ever.

i dream of heath ledger wearing a fisherman sweater on a pale beach
and the little mermaid when she gets her new feet.

9 cities later:
back to my replacement

Crystal ball says its a girl with a common middle name
a girl who is younger than me
with less sorrowing  in her eyes 
less words in her vocabulary
never left the Midwest
hasn't heard of Budapest 
you speak and she cheers
you ignore her and she
feels she's done something wrong
you're her sun
and she needs you now
to function
she's too young to know
that the cycle starts
with the chase
ends with the escape
the silence
the amnesia 
skip to 2 years later 
December in Ohio
"don't i know you from somewhere"
and he is honestly asking you this
because he is the sun
self appointed but
the sun

move on to the far east
its late spring
she's a college girl
less fight in her swing
less pain. fewer memories
fewer lives
fewer mistakes
maybe a girl who has a sister that's not dead
ans haunting her family
maybe her story is less heartbreak
less weeping
more singing
Wednesday night testimony girl
in a jean skirt
pretty face
big flirt

the winter you flew to Europe 
the winter you stopped calling your father
middle of nowhere on a train headed to Paris
you see her
and she is close to resembling me
just a little bit.

you open your mouth
to begin the game
the cycle is spinning
and she laughs in your face
she walks
away
and the daily mail
has given you a nickname now
one that you hate
headline says:
"you're looking weak"
they interview a nutritionist who speculates on your shrinking frame
"hollow eyes
lack of smile
pale complexion"   

headline reads:
"ALIVE but mostly dead"

And the women sitting outside of a cafe the morning of the headlines
you refuse to read from today
feel sorry for you.
feel happy they have boyfriends who love them 
in the purest way.
love without a timeline, without the seduction of fame

that's the thing about good women
we were born wearing our crowns
wisdom is our best friend
discernment is engraved in the bones of our bodies
our skin is made of prophetic cells
our hearts are homes for the holy spirit
and the love for babies and pale oceans

you write me to tell me
"i miss you. I'm lonely"
i read this and feel nothing.

i reply with the sunglass emoji.

you cursing the day we began
is how that conversation came to an end.


sometimes, i miss the wolves that used to chase me
but for the most part, I don't.

i know they will be back
for more heartbreak
a sad woman is worth more than a million happy ones
the currency of pain: to feel anything in a country so numb
is a delicacy
just a gram of her sadness
will cost you a piece of your soul but my god
it's worth it a thousand time over
like crack cocaine
they beg me for romance
knowing the high won’t stay
the comedown is coming
the sun is rising with the throbbing craving
for more
addicted to this second hand ache
with
still born stories of hope
laced in hate
a future we can’t hold
we can barley create
in the corners of the town that neither of us claim
curating heartbreak
calling it fate.