Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out

By Richard Siken. For the exact line breaks go here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=177722

Also you should buy his book. I did, and everyone should be like me, amirite?

Every morning the maple leaves.

Every morning another chapter where the hero shifts

from one foot to the other. Every morning the same big

and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling out

You will be alone always and then you will die.

So maybe I wanted to give you something more than a catalog

of non-definitive acts,

something other than the desperation.

Dear So-and-So, I'm sorry I couldn't come to your party.

Dear So-and-So, I'm sorry I came to your party

and seduced you

and left you bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing.

Your want a better story. Who wouldn't?

A forest, then. Beautiful trees. And a lady singing.

Love on the water, love underwater, love, love and so on.

What a sweet lady. Sing lady, sing! Of course, she wakes the dragon.

Love always wakes the dragon and suddenly

flames everywhere.

I can tell already you think I'm the dragon,

that would be so like me, but I'm not. I'm not the dragon.

I'm not the princess either.

Who am I? I'm just a writer. I write things down.

I walk through your dreams and invent the future. Sure,

I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. And yes, I swallow

glass, but that comes later.

And the part where I push you

flush against the wall and every part of your body rubs against the bricks,

shut up

I'm getting to it.

For a while I thought I was the dragon.

I guess I can tell you that now. And, for a while, I thought I was

the princess,

cotton candy pink, sitting there in my room, in the tower of the castle,

young and beautiful and in love and waiting for you with

confidence

but the princess looks into her mirror and only sees the princess,

while I'm out here, slogging through the mud, breathing fire,

and getting stabbed to death.

Okay, so I'm the dragon. Bid deal.

You still get to be the hero.

You get the magic gloves! A fish that talks! You get eyes like flashlights!

What more do you want?

I make you pancakes, I take you hunting, I talk to you as if you're

really there.

Are you there, sweetheart? Do you know me? Is this microphone live?

Let me do it right for once,

for the record, let me make a thing of cream and stars that becomes,

you know the story, simply heaven.

Inside your head you hear a phone ringing

and when you open your eyes

only a clearing with deer in it. Hello deer.

Inside your head the sound of glass,

a car crash sound as the trucks roll over and explode in slow motion.

Hello darling, sorry about that.

Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we

lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell

and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud.

Especially that, but I should have known.

You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together

to make a creature that will do what I say

or love me back.

I'm not really sure why I do it, but in this version you are not

feeding yourself to a bad man

against a black sky prickled with small lights.

I take it back.

The wooden halls likes caskets. These terms from the lower depths.

I take them back.

Here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed.

Crossed out.

Clumsy hands in a dark room. Crossed out. There is something

underneath the floorboards.

Crossed out. And here is the tabernacle

reconstructed.

Here is the part where everyone was happy all the time and we were all

forgiven,

even though we didn't deserve it.

Inside your head you hear

a phone ringing, and when you open your eyes you're washing up

in a stranger's bathroom,

standing by the window in a yellow towel, only twenty minutes away

from the dirtiest thing you know.

All the rooms of the castle except this one, says someone, and suddenly

darkness,

suddenly only darkness.

In the living room, in the broken yard,

in the back of the car as the lights go by. In the airport

bathroom's gurgle and flush, bathed in a pharmacy of

unnatural light,

my hands looking weird, my face weird, my feet too far away.

And the the airplane, the window seat over the wing with a view

of the wing and a little foil bag of peanuts.

I arrived in the city and you met me at the station,

smiling in a way

that made me frightened. Down the alley, around the arcade,

up the stairs of the building

to the little room with the broken faucets, your drawings, all your things,

I looked out the window and said

This doesn't look that much different from home,

because it didn't,

but then I noticed the black sky and all those lights.

We walked through the house to the elevated train.

All these buildings, all that glass and the shiny beautiful

mechanical wind.

We were inside the train car when I started to cry. You were crying too,

smiling and crying in a way that made me

even more hysterical. You said I could have anything I wanted, but I

just couldn't say it out loud.

Actually, you said Love, for you,

is larger than the usual romantic love. It's like a religion. It's

terrifying. No one

will ever want to sleep with you.

Okay, if you're so great, you do it—

here's the pencil, make it work . . .

If the window is on your right, you are in your own bed. If the window

is over your heart, and it is painted shut, then we are breathing

river water.

Build me a city and call it Jerusalem. Build me another and call it

Jerusalem.

We have come back from Jerusalem where we found not

what we sought, so do it over, give me another version,

a different room, another hallway, the kitchen painted over

and over,

another bowl of soup.

The entire history of human desire takes about seventy minutes to tell.

Unfortunately, we don't have that kind of time.

Forget the dragon,

leave the gun on the table, this has nothing to do with happiness.

Let's jump ahead to the moment of epiphany,

in gold light, as the camera pans to where

the action is,

lakeside and backlit, and it all falls into frame, close enough to see

the blue rings of my eyes as I say

something ugly.

I never liked that ending either. More love streaming out the wrong way,

and I don't want to be the kind that says the wrong way.

But it doesn't work, these erasures, this constant refolding of the pleats.

There were some nice parts, sure,

all lemondrop and mellonball, laughing in silk pajamas

and the grains of sugar

on the toast, love love or whatever, take a number. I'm sorry

it's such a lousy story.

Dear Forgiveness, you know that recently

we have had our difficulties and there are many things

I want to ask you.

I tried that one time, high school, second lunch, and then again,

years later, in the chlorinated pool.

I am still talking to you about help. I still do not have

these luxuries.

I have told you where I'm coming from, so put it together.

We clutch our bellies and roll on the floor . . .

When I say this, it should mean laughter,

not poison.

I want more applesauce. I want more seats reserved for heroes.

Dear Forgiveness, I saved a plate for you.

Quit milling around the yard and come inside.

PLAIN FACE

Didi: Stu, what are you doing?

Stu: Making chocolate pudding.

Didi: It’s four o’clock in the morning! Why on earth are you making chocolate pudding?

Stu: Because I’ve lost control of my life.

This is so legit right now, I cannot even tell you. Except I'm not making pudding.

Ok, I've just lost control of my life. Get it?

No? Whatever, you're an anal cock. Get it?

:|

My only rainbows are oil slicks

Iiiiiii don't want to do my homework. I just got in from work and walking in the freezing rain, had veggie soup and am so ready for a nap. Junior year is serious business. But I would rather just galavant around.

So instead of doing homework this weekend I have gone to a couple parties and walked around Davis Square. It's one of my favorite areas of Boston-- lots of vintage shops and handmade things, plus cupcakes and an old theater. Ok, travel blog done. Tonight I am going to Grasshopper. I don't even mind the hour long trip in this weather. The No Name is amazing.

This is my first horse, Pebbles (isn't she pretty?!). I randomly found her picture on some girl's facebook. Not too many people know that I used to ride and show. I used Pebbles for games (like barrel racing). Sometimes I miss riding, but it's complicated.

According to Vonnegut, my parents must want to disown me

Where the Wild Things Are tents: see the rest here: http://www.booooooom.com/2009/10/10/wild-things-forts-iii-booooooom-com-weloveyouso-com/

Let's Hope it Lasts.

This weekend I:

Went to the ICA, watched Away We Go, had a breakfast in Beacon Hill, wrote a story in a cafe, saw a drag queen show, danced at a rooftop party, shopped in Harvard Square, ate at Veggie Planet, and played board games. Tonight I am going to a horror movie, then a small party. Tomorrow I'm going to enjoy the changing leaves and autumn air in the gardens and esplanade, then go to Bodega for the first time. So, basically, this long weekend was amaaaazing.

This website makes my ovaries (or whatever it is that makes bitches think about weddings...the heart?) ache. And that girl's dress is my ideal. http://www.oncewed.com/

PS my best friend is GORGEOUS and I miss her. She's blogging from France here: http://americainparis.blogspot.com/

How to Become a Writer by Loorie Moore

First, try to be something, anything, else. A movie star/astronaut. A movie star/missionary. A movie star/kindergarten teacher. President of the World. Fail miserably. It is best if you fail at an early age--say, fourteen. Early, critical disillusionment is necessary so that at so that at fifteen you can write long haiku sequences about thwarted desire. It is a pond, a cherry blossom, a wind brushing against sparrow wing leaving for mountain. Count the syllables. Show it to your mom. She is tough and practical. She has a son in Vietnam and a husband who may be having an affair. She believes in wearing brown because it hides spots. She'll look briefly at your writing, then back up at you with a face blank as a donut. She'll say: "How about emptying the dishwasher?" Look away. Shove the forks in the fork drawer. Accidentally break one of the freebie gas station glasses. This is the required pain and suffering. This is only for starters.

Read the rest: http://www.bridgewater.edu/WritingCenter/Resources/102in-class11.htm

My favorite thing to have happened on my wall.

Sarah Hanley Lol hope ur havin a good day and a cup of coffie / if that's ur fancy lol class till 6 today hit the cell in or any other u know to get ahold of me heh :)

September 30 at 5:41pm · Comment · Like · See Wall-to-Wall

Sarah Hanley likes this.

Sarah Hanley

:)

September 30 at 5:42pm · Delete

The Breakfast

*So Green Beans flew but didn't soar. That's fine. We can't always have our D S'd in workshops. However the conversation was mostly abstract so I don't know how to fix what I know needs fixing. One boy who used the sentence "I found Sam curled up in a ball of alcohol, pills, pain and death" in his own story, wrote "Dumb!" and "Dude it's [a description of] fruit loops, restrain" and "there are few characters if any who can get away with what happens on page 11." I was like, haha K thanx, kid who's whole arm is bandaged.

SO ANYWAYS, the following is a story the professor jizzed himself over. Is it a lot like The Hours? Yes. NOTHING IS ORIGINAL ANYMORE. Yes, I'm bitter, but in a funny way. *

1/20/10 Update: This'll be in Stork.

The last time I saw Fin, four years ago, he was getting sicker. He wouldn’t say anything about it, but it hung there like a heavy overcoat in June, pervading what would have been a pleasant breakfast. It was all I could think of—his vaguely medical smell, sort of like mint, but heavier, and his skin so pale I could see the roadmap of his veins.

“Fin, how are you feeling?” I hoped he could only hear half of the meaning in my question. I was lucky to get him out of his apartment at all. Since the first round of treatments hadn’t worked he was taking no calls. By chance I ran into Fin’s boyfriend, Paul, in the supermarket and told him I would not let another month go past without seeing my old friend. Paul looked rather flustered, but when doesn’t he, and said that Fin was still under the weather. I told him that I understood; of course I did, but that it would be good for him to see his friends. Paul had melting ice cream in his cart so he had to dash but promised me he would talk to Fin.

Back in college, when Fin first found Paul (at a discotheque, of course) I wasn’t sure about him. He seemed like just another boy with stars in his eyes that would enchant Fin for a while before moving on to the next thing. But he stuck around. They got an apartment together in the springtime and filled it with potted plants and chipped teacups. Every night they rolled up the living room rug to dance, and they spent each Sunday in bed, reading the newspaper. I remember it was rainy that year, and their fingers became stained in violet from the soggy paper they bought from a woman on the corner. She smiled so sweetly, was just so compelling, selling newspapers in a downpour, that they bought them even though could never read a word of it. I still pass her today. On rainy days her wet, inky fingers remind me of Fin, but I still don’t buy a paper.

After they moved in together, I was lonely for a while. I had no one to talk to, no one to tell everything to late in the night, like I used to with Fin. I’ve seen Fin now and then throughout these past twenty years, at reunions and parties. We’ve traded off interest in each other’s lives, always disappearing when there was nothing new to tell, anything to save ourselves from a boring phone call. I suppose it’s taught me that there is no one out there who wants to hear everything I have to say.

“Oh, I’m fine. Just a little worn out I guess,” he said. Sitting across from me, picking at his sunny-side-up eggs, I see that so much of what I adored about him has melted away. His golden hair is duller, his lips chapped, his green eyes are darker, somehow, and hollow.

“You’re not very talkative,” I said and shifted in my chair.

He laughed and looked out the window. It was Halloween-time and raining. Our coffees steamed in curls and wet orange leave smacked the café’s windows from time to time. “I haven’t been a chatterbox in years.”

“That’s not true,” I purred. “I saw you at Molly’s party, what was it, a few Christmases ago, and you were the life of it. Everybody’s friend.”

“Well, those days are over. I’m happy to be a little quieter.”

“Has it been like that since…well you, know, you got sick?”

“Mallory, can we talk about anything else, please? How’s your husband doing?” Fin said.

“Oh he’s fine, same as always. But please Fin, satisfy my curiosity. No, that’s the wrong word. I’m sorry, you know me, always saying the wrong thing. I just—I just want you to know I care.” The waitress came by with the check. When she left I whispered to him, “Does Paul have it too?”

“Of course he does. What would make you think he doesn’t? God, Mallory.”

“I’ve upset you. I’m sorry.”

“You’ve never understood anything,” he said. “But you think you understand everything.” I watched him pick a piece of lint off his argyle sweater. I watched it fall the rustic wooden floor. He folded his arms and waited for me to speak.

“No I don’t. I thought I understood you. I still think I can if you’ll let me.”

“You can’t just come back into my life when you hear something went wrong. It’s not fair. You have to stop doing that.” He rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses and sighed. I bit my lip and tried to think of something else we could talk about. But all I could think of was hospitals and blood work and what would happen to both of them. So I told him I had a busy day ahead of me.

We settled the check and I hugged him before for getting on the train. I had the feeling, even then, that we would not see each other again.

Last week I found out Fin outlived Paul by three years. I never would have guessed.

This.

100

An amusing, hip movie about an abortion!

Obvious Child from Gillian Robespierre on Vimeo.

FRIDA KAHLO TO MARTY MCCONNELL

leaving is not enough; you must
stay gone. train your heart
like a dog. change the locks
even on the house he’s never
visited. you lucky, lucky girl.
you have an apartment
just your size. a bathtub
full of tea. a heart the size
of Arizona, but not nearly
so arid. don’t wish away
your cracked past, your
crooked toes, your problems
are papier mache puppets
you made or bought because the vendor
at the market was so compelling you just
had to have them. you had to have him.
and you did. and now you pull down
the bridge between your houses,
you make him call before
he visits, you take a lover
for granted, you take
a lover who looks at you
like maybe you are magic. make
the first bottle you consume
in this place a relic. place it
on whatever altar you fashion
with a knife and five cranberries.
don’t lose too much weight.
stupid girls are always trying
to disappear as revenge. and you
are not stupid. you loved a man
with more hands than a parade
of beggars, and here you stand. heart
like a four-poster bed. heart like a canvas.
heart leaking something so strong
they can smell it in the street.

— marty mcconnell

“Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud. Especially that, but I should have known. You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together to make a creature that will do what I say or love me back.”

— Richard Siken