Ingenue
i came to new york to become a writer. the desire for approval, comfort and the litany of the literary self-important steered me off track.
this blog is an exercise in release. to approach the world with innocent eyes. to do something for the purity of loving it. to write for the sake of words.
Always an era
If I could change my name
If I could change my name I would go by something that sounded like a last name. Like Sloan. I think I would like the way that sounded from your mouth. Spilling out, full of my name. I would be a girl from the upper east side. Very groomed, fingernails and legs always shinning, but just earthy enough for it to seem natural. Blonde hair that looks like it did when I was 8 and spent the summer on a river. One day I’ll come back to your place in the woods carrying coffee from the corner store and I’ll be telling you a story like I do; face lighting up. Mouth wide. Tearing open sugar packets and crumpling napkins so intently that I wont notice your face, your open boyish face looking at me, maybe looking into me. It will be fall and we’ll be wearing sweaters, mine nubby over a bathing suit top and white pants. I wont feel it. Your blue eyes will be soft when they meet mine. I’ll turn around to see your face and it scares me for a second. Then I’ll know. You say it at first as if you are scared, a threat in your voice as if you’ve been shot. You have. I wont hear the floorboards groan as you take creaking steps towards me, hiding a smile. I love you, you’ll say. As if you just thought of it. As if you’ve known it forever and only remembered to say it. I’ll be clutching a sugar packet, my back pressed against the old sink, a world of air hanging between us. I’ll say it too. I’ll mean it. Then you’ll take your time, handling my face, breathing me in, kissing me as if you knew me. As if you know me.
Then a winter with lights that blur on the glassy sidewalks. You, folding me into your arms, your bed. And pretending, pretending, pretending. Until it becomes real.
How Does One Become Bored?
A girl walks onto the subway and erupts with that sort of snobbish laughter that only slope-nosed girls are capable. Her sights are set on the Indian man to my left wearing traditional garb. What odd creatures we are. In the animal kingdom attraction falls upon the colorful plumes of rare birds Peacock plumes. Here praise is spent on the ordinary. Comfort. Boring.
saturdays
saturdays
corner coffee
new york post
curled toes under a down comforter
misspelled words
fingers through hair
a walk anywhere
chocolate
an explosion of phone
we’re free
an explosion of cuffs
sunlight slanting on wood floors
ripping out journal pages
taping back in
finger tapping
later; toe tapping
restless mind/wandering feet, eyes, heart
letters letters letters
white robe
hats
unwrapping a sandwhich
dance floors
glittery bridge to the city
glittery eyes home
A Spider Crawled Across the Lens
To You:
I am happy now. Happy in my own way. You know that way. Never understanding the need for hills and valleys. Sometimes Peaks. Last we spoke you said you’ll never meet another girl like me. A girl, you said. Wringing her hands with calculated knowledge. Ringing your ears with the mouth of a wide-eyed romantic. A little girl. An old soul.
I asked if these were good words. You had no answer. I asked how the world was, the world on the other side of my barb wired brain. I asked. I asked. I ask. Did you spend your days trying to bottle up lightning bugs? Did you sit by the shore to listen? Did you make love to another girl? Pretend it was me? Find an old shirt and breathe me in? Smoke a cigarette by an open window and exhale to forget? Did you do this in vain? In pleasure? In passing?
You said nothing. Looked at me with those vacant, picture window eyes.
You were never there. I was always leaving.
Your mute life on your knees. I could not hear over the sound of my field burnt brains. The sun has scorched the face. No memory of my old lover
