character cameos

The smoke curls from her lips weaving through the air like an exotic dancer whose hips must cling to a hidden rhythm. The chair is sticking to her bare thighs, so she grabs the edge of the bar and shifts her weight to let the cool air reach the sticky heat of her legs.  Slowly, with one finger, she traces the condensation on the rim of the martini glass, absently nodding to her friend seated next to her. the woman's words hang in the air, briefly, waiting for recognition, then deftly fall to the floor. Because, the only thing that is real in this place is the feel of the smooth glass beneath her forefinger and the sweet staleness of the cigarette as she moistens her lips.   This night and this seat at the bar is nothing new.  It seems that escapism works best garnished with olives.  

Kate works days at a little restaurant down the street and spends most of her nights clinging to these vinyl seats and the slow burn of alcohol.  She gave up trying to be successful some time ago.  It became hard enough..to just be.  Beside her, Laura bursts into hysterical laughter at her own sordid story.  Something about waking up next to a man she didn't know.  Laura grows silent.  Kate realizes that she has taken too long to respond.  She has taken too long to verify the validity or hilarity of the story.   Seemingly unphased, Laura continues, her voice slowly fading into a could of smoke and throbbing music.  Kate takes a drag from the cigarette and wonders what kind of cancer will come first.  She has been playing chicken for a number of years, and no longer fears death.  She doesn't welcome it either.

"Why are we here?, Kate asks.

"Because the drinks are good and the lighting provides a certain amount of anonymity.

"No, I mean...why are we HERE...here, here.  Why is our existence at this precise moment important, if at all."

"Sweet Jesus.  Can we not do this tonight? Please?...Okay?  The last time you slipped into a philosophical rant, we both wound up sobbing on some sketchy curbside street corner and you threw up all over my shoes."

"It's not my fault that clarity comes most fervently when I drink, or that it is such a downer."

"True.  However it is your fault when you choose to bring it up and then bring me down with you."

Kate smirks.  "I suppose, but you are the one who willingly volunteered to spend an evening of anonymity with me...the downer...correct?"

"Shut up and drink your drink."

Laura moans for emphasis.  This is one noise Kate is quite used to.  It is a low guttural growl that lets her know that she has gone too far for Laura; that she has let too much of herself show.  That is what that sound means.

In an attempt to save the evening, Kate makes some comment about two of the men seated at the end of the bar.  Laura giggles, takes a sip from her drink eyeing them approvingly.  Kate analyzes Laura determining that the atmosphere has lost the strange tension that always arises when the performance falters.  She now seems to have chosen the right words, the right facial expression, the appropriate amount of life shining in her eyes--and so all is forgotten.  All the words which slipped precariously from her mouth are now dead on the floor.  Her teeth hurt from smiling.

manifesto

disarmed, i have nothing left to give.  unencumbered, i have nothing left to want.  this is where i find myself inside my head again.  this is where i no longer care if anyone finds me there.  i will sit in the din and the chaos until i can no longer hear.  until i can no longer see.  i build walls of books and words and blood until the ink and my flesh flow into one another.  i give in.

Ramblings...

called 

out of blurred motion

dizzy spinning

falling

i am burning up

scabs crack and bleed on my feet

i have been moving

 in this tar patch

for so long

my clothes are shreds

that sway and stagger

the door slam shuts

and 

i fall

 to the threshold

palms supplicating

watching my lifeline

crawl and fade into the cracks

hard silence like knives

and broken screams on the steps

are all i see

i feel

the desert encroaching

the sand beginning to cover my raw feet

deep 

are the wounds in my belly

vast

 the pain that claims me

you who are not here

you who do not hear

speak 

stumbling

falling forth from your lips

the imsorry that drips

like honey

down my thighs

like blood

from my mouth...EAC

Poetry/Prose/?

She breathes in air and exhales smoke wondering why everything burns and smolders. When was this impenetrable wall of sadness built, and is there anyone who can see her anymore behind the stone and mortar?  She could scream, but it wouldn't break the surface of anything.  It would just lie there like some almost-dead, trapped thing.  Festering.  Seething. Breeding self-loathing.  Coating itself in contempt.  Words fill the space where her heart used to be.  She tried killing them with lust and alcohol, but they just screamed louder under her skin.  She is tired and wishes the face looking back in the mirror would stop blinking long enough to feel safe.  No one tells her anymore that she belongs in this place.  So, she bounces from moment to moment, day to day,  hoping someone--some immovable object in her motion-breeding path--will stop her.  This all stopped feeling real when life became a caricature of some book, some move, some song, she can barely remember.  The characters all laugh too loud and stare too long.  She is just waiting for it all to break open and consume her--flesh to flesh, blood to blood.  She waits inside her head, inside this obelisk she has built for herself.  This way no one can see the scars on her body.  No one can see the words bubble up under the skin, stretching to break free.  However, morning always comes and she awkwardly fakes moving forward--knowing that forward doesn't mean anything.  Knowing that no one asks questions if you simply appear to be awake.  Smiling hurts and everything is predictable here.  She crouches to the ground waiting to hear some answer of why it is harder than before.  Waiting to hear how much longer she has to sleep walk in the sun.  Pulling her hands to her chest she prays for some sort of peace so her skin doesn't hurt anymore and her heart doesn't feel like it's trying to escape her body.  She builds altars to everyone and to no one, lighting candles until her fingertips are charred.  The silence is resounding and the words, they still...pound...pound...pound.

Confessions of an Insomniac

The crack in the ceiling is growing larger.  It snakes its way from the edge of the room to the light in the center, carefully avoiding my thoughts haphazardly stapled along the white surface.  At some places it flakes open like scales, exposing its smooth underbelly.  It is dark and blank.  I am dark and frenzied. Sometimes I wonder if it isn't a reflection, or some metaphysical transference, of what is going on inside my head.  I wonder if when it finally breaks open, will I break too?  I stare at it until it is some live thing; some angel, some demon, spreading itself out above me.  I struggle in the sheets.  I close my eyes and count to ten, to fifty, to a hundred, to a thousand.  The static in my head does not subside.  When I was little, I would lie awake in bed and think until my thoughts bled into some strange nightmare-dreamscape, from which I would wake up sweating and crying.  I would think about the fight that my parents had that night, or the fire that could start in the house and slowly consume us all, or the sickness that might grow in my mother and take her away from me, or the gunshots I had heard while on the playground at school that day, or the skating rink I couldn't go to anymore because someone had been killed in front of it...  Now my thoughts are sharper and have picked up speed, gathering momentum the more I become conscious of the world around me.  I think about the women in Juarez waiting for the bus in the dark, the flower workers in Bogota, the goldminers in Brazil covered in dust, the children with AIDS in Africa waiting for medicine that will never come, those being persecuted in Vietnam for their religious beliefs, the pigs in the factory farms who can't move and have never seen the sun shine, the dogs in the shelter waiting to die, those on death row waiting to die, those in the hospital hoping to live, those who are hungry, those who are abused, those who are scared, those who are ashamed, those who are depressed, those who live on the outside and can't buy their way in...I think until there are just words stretched out on to movie screens behind my eyelids.  I don't sleep waiting for an answer--waiting for the words to transform it all into something less painful, less surreal, less dystopic. Now the crack just mocks me.  I roll onto my stomach and bury my face in the pillow and count...to ten, to fifty, to a hundred, to a thousand...

More of the Same

i know...im still a nerd because i find these hilarious too...

Postmodern Humor

the fact that i find this funny speaks to how big of a nerd i am and how much i love 1) foucault, 2) postmodern theory, 3) critical theory

Randomness

I had found you once again--after years of not talking, years of letters started but thrown away, years of wondering if this was finally the end of knowing you.  I had found you...and realized that even standing before you, I had lost you.  There was something in your face, something that said you had stopped believing that life would change or get any better.  I could recall days when your face was the only thing that made me believe in the promise of some future where the wind tastes like salt and the stars stand stark in the sky.  Looking at you now, I couldn't find anything that was left of that past or that future. It was then that I had to give up on the idea that our lives would converge again in some cosmic way and all the regrets, the losses, the broken promises, and even the world would be righted once again.  And so, I left you that night...  

Black Paper

this is where the edges
burn and peel
a black ravine
of dead paper
this is where
i tread
like some
ezekiel prophet
talking in my head
the great beasts turn
their wheels
the air tastes like honey
it is when the edges
turn to flakes of dust
that i dance
some ancient dance
and dream
of dense jungles
where rocks speak
and the trees chatter
where my feet
tread whole on the earth
away from the edgework of the paper...EAC

Ah Memories...

Today, I stretched out on my carpet in the living room and played old mix CDs from "back in the day." I was looking for one song in particular that I had been thinking about for weeks but couldn't remember what CD I had burned it onto...after about three hours of flipping through songs, I heard the first opening chords and closed my eyes and smile....


I was wasted in the afternoon
Waiting on a train
I woke up in pieces
and Elisabeth had disappeared again
I wish you were inside of me
I hope that you're ok
I hope you're resting quietly
I just wanted to say
Good, Goodnight Elisabeth
Goodnight Elisabeth, Goodnight
We couldn't all be cowboys
So some of us are clowns
Some of us are dancers on the midway
We roam from town to town
I hope that everybody can find a little flame
Me, I say my prayers,
then I just light myself on fire
And I walk out on the wire once again
And I say
Good, Goodnight Elisabeth
Goodnight Elisabeth, Goodnight
I will wait for you in Baton Rouge
I'll miss you down in New Orleans
I'll wait for you while she slips in something comfortable
And I'll miss you when I'm slipping in between
If you wrap yourself in daffodils
I will wrap myself in pain
And if you're the queen of california
Baby I am the king of the rain
And I say
Good,Goodnight Elisabeth
Goodnight Elisabeth, Goodnight--Counting Crows