Bittersweet.

Bittersweet days: highly anticipated before its arrival,
deeply resented upon its arrival.

Bittersweet tastes like those goodbye melodies that linger on our tongues,
the I'll-see-you-soons and good lucks,
Stinging

our tongues like the tears that run silently into our mouths,
our hearts like that sudden realization we all knew would arrive.

Because bittersweet means hard goodbyes
but at the same time
joy and deep gratefulness that we have people in our lives that are so hard to say goodbye to.
Bittersweet means facing the final arrival of an anticipated and planned day
but at the same time
meeting a new anticipation of many more unplanned days.

Bittersweet is the feeling of being finished and the feeling of just starting
of fear
and excitement
and deep sorrow
and grand elation
mingled together into one tumultuous tumble

of a day we won't forget.

Jezebel

They all knelt before you-
O Holy Queen, O righteous reign.
To the cloth that wrapped
your mottled feet,
Teach us, teach us,
they said. Take our sandy morals
and make them mud,
And then we'll pray
together.

Deliver us, daughter of Ethbaal,
show us how to sell our masks to the gods
where cedars line the road,
how to sing Ahab's songs to
the tarnished noblemen of the tap-house
where you taunted them with your dance
til the sun rose into a
sharp, black sky.

But where is God? Where is God?
Is he blind that he cannot see
just as Ahab could not, just as you could not,
Temptress of Jezreel.
Does he not have eyes left for the
dirt that clothes the naked land,
the naked backs and blind Samsons
crawling over the parched cracks
of your forsaken earth?

Who will save us now, O Jezebel?
Bring down your shrines of sculpted plaster
so if the Heavens close the filthy gates to
the lepers again
we can die together,
all wrapped in Sodom's rubies,
our bodies painted with
Gemorrah's molten silver.

Ozymandias's Truth

A sleep forsaken to awaken
Broken sheaths of crystal lakes
Fragmentations, undulations,
Sturdy holds, we longed to take.

To where, to whom, to what, and how-
The cloaked jury in the stands
Could not stop ancient Rome from sinking
Deeper into rugged sands.

A lighthouse light too dim to see,
A sea too dim- Medusa’s bed.
Her raft did only float the living
To consume the grateful dead.

A never-ending site- we’ll dig through
Rusted doctrines to appease
The black-cloaked monks of Tintern Abbey
Whispering through willow trees.

My Favorite Place (3)

There's a coffeeshop in the small town in which I currently reside.

People are all about Starbucks these days, the overpriced green logo that decorates a five-dollar cup of coffee, the new drive-through windows from which you can order your caramel macchiato or peppermint frappuccino or whatever the hell sugary, fruity, festive flavor draws the masses the most.

I'm not talking about that kind of coffeeshop, the kind that smells like coffee but feels like money. This one is nothing like that.

This one has a tiny stage, large enough to fit three performers standing up, at most, and a chess table in the back. This one has Christmas lights strung up, whether it's Christmas or not. This one has ripped couches, a broken typewriter on a shelf, an unused piano in the corner, still-life paintings on the wall, and books everywhere.

I've been to lots of cafes. Cafes in Paris outdoors, cafes in Germany overlooking the city. But still none can compare to this small coffeeshop out in the middle of nowhere, America.

I took my schoolbooks there, ordered a coffee-of-the-day with a side of espresso beans, and found a seat in the corner. A dressed-up couple was playing a pre-prom game of chess and being taught tips by a seven-year old.
Old people, young people, dates, friends, in, out, in, out. The place was alive with a sense of vigorous vitality, but at the same time, a woman sat silently in the corner typing out emails. The chocolate coated espresso beans. Bitter coffee and sugar. A balance that can only be experienced alone at night.

A small oasis amidst a violently sinking shoreline.

I'm not sure what it was, but somehow tonight, with the sound of grinding coffee beans over the indie music playing overhead and sitting on a cool chair in a warm room, it felt like summer.



Glamour doesn't only exist in a big city; you don't have to climb a mountain to see beauty. Class can be found outside the soirees of Paris and the stages of Broadway.


It was all there, sitting at my table on a high, wooden chair at the coffeeshop at ten at night.

F is for Friday

F is also for Failing tests, abandonment by
Friends,
Finding out that apparently this God they speak of spoke to me and now
Figuring out what he's trying to say.

F is for Fearing something, but not knowing what.
Frittering away time on
Facebook until I can come
Face to Face with that
Finicky monster.

Fighting these
Familiar urges to sleep because it's a
Friday, and
Fridays are supposed to be
For Fun and sleeping just wouldn't

Feel quite right.

Wake up, little girl.

"Let go", they say.
"Those silly ideals, those high hopes. You were brainwashed for so many years. Now you see how the world really is. It's wonderful here- we promise."

No. Nonononono.
Not right now.

What-ifs and regrets and those silly ideals and high hopes. Let me choke for a little while longer on them. I'm not ready to face a reality made of crisp, green paper and plastic faces yet. She didn't have to accept it. Nor did she.
I'm not old enough to find as much injustice as I have.


Maybe those were silly ideals and high hopes and great expectations.
Maybe they were beliefs founded on empty shells, on visions of romance, on prestige and infinite knowledge, on anticipations of nightlife in the city and a thriving youth,

on a desire to go far, far away from this tiny, smothering town in the middle of nowhere,
to go somewhere I could release my mind, finally.


But those silly ideals were still mine for 12 whole years.
I'm not that old, but even I know that
12 years holds a lot to let go of.

Lackluster

Glamor, they said you would get. Bright lights and noise
and sequins that reflected the stagelights all the way to the floor.

Tall buildings, you said you had always dreamed of. A brightly lit New York skyline,
wine in tall glasses on Tuesday nights at 3am. Taxis to take you home from work on rainy days back to your apartment, where men would wait to open doors for you.

You would get to travel the world like you always wanted. From San Francisco to Rome in Business Class, of course. They would serve you tiny dishes with utensils you had never seen, a spoonful of romance for dessert.

Cities of love, cities of lights, cities of life.




How long was it after you stepped out of that crowded bus after a sixteen-hour drive
before you realized that your lipstick smeared and the glitter from your dress fell off when you walked?
And the tall buildings still seemed so far away as you stumbled, drunken and alone, down the street at 3 am back to your apartment, your small, white shoes blackening in the sludge,
to shove a frozen dinner haphazardly into the microwave while you washed the makeup off your face in the sink

grimly waiting for the morning when you'd do it all over again

except with a hangover this time.

Hippocampus Rift

"I bet your shirt will shrink in the wash"
was the first thing to cross my mind.

All 100% of that cotton under my palms was what I was aware of the most.


The brain shuts off certain sensations and focuses specifically on certain others at one time.
It's an intentional mechanism, built in ingeniously to avoid an otherwise overwhelming flooding of the senses that would prevent us from functioning.


Perhaps that's what my brain was doing,
shutting off the sound of the trees that rustled in the pre-summer atmosphere, the feel of those airy tendrils that swept around my shins.

Perhaps it was just trying to shut out the feeling of fingers in my tangled hair that were not my own, trying to shut out the sense of gripping familiarity that locked me in its arms

while the scent of a warm front and trees and rum and laundry detergent filled my lungs and threatened to drown me


so that all I did sense were the soft, white threads
of a stranger's cotton shirt against a blurry darkness.