The L Word (disconnected)

The wail echoes loneliness
(for loneliness is not my own
or yours--despite how deeply
in penetrates our souls).

Flirt

I'm an addict.
I didn't know if I could come up here and say these words.
I'm addicted to flirting.

Rambling.

I was feeling inspired (and that cup of coffee and possibly even that tea). I created and performed three beautiful, meaningful, complete poems for Chelsi. The words, usually which swim from brain to mouth to pen, simply dived off my lips. I was never a strong swimmer, and I couldn't catch the words and place them where they belong. On paper. On here. Preserved for re-enactments. Then again, look at Thanksgiving Day and July 4th--built on bloodshed, America thinks these celebrations never tasted so good.

This is for you. Whoever you happen to be. Maybe you're me.

I made it nine days without smoking. A semester of probably appearing as a nonsmoker to certain friends and acquaintances. Much more without thinking nostalgic thoughts about a silly, irrelevant girl named Alanna. Nineteen years without screaming gay to my family. I wrote down my fears, dried out tears like parchment.

Spoken Word

Thereherethereheretherehere

Can you see me?
Over here.
Right here.

But for you,
it is there.

And nothing matters
but here.

(I hear in my mind all of this music, and it breaks my heart)

You're dreaming my life
or maybe it's just
living my dream

But if God exists,
I'd just be a figment
of her imagination

What else is reality
but a stream of words?
Representations
of thoughts, of meaning

(If God exists)
She spake, thought,
brought us into
existence
we're all probably
burrowed up in her brain

Her eyes stare through
Casiopia's brow
because heaven
surely doesn't lie
through Orion's belt
if God is a woman.

Then again,
if God were a woman
and she was dreaming my life
and your life
and the lives
of humanity

Well, someone surely
should wake her
from that awful
nightmare.

Tiny Hands

There are hands caressing me
Shouts of ecstasy
Like a thousand
Quiet symbols
Breaking the silence
And I scream
My voice joining the chorus
Of a million other women
Feeling this same feeling
Feeling like this moment
Will last a lifetime

Because it does.
And oh god those hands
Cause me to pause
I’ve heard that when you take a lover
What’s mine is yours
But I know his hands will never be mine
But neither will mine—can I call them that?

I remember when the promise of a sparkling city
drove the dust of a childhood hometown
out of my eyes
and my future was clean, bright,
until the day I arrived
and met it.

See they told me in the city I’d find a wonderful job
With money falling from the sky
I could send it home to my parents
Who needed food more than
They needed one more daughter.

At first the work was torture
because I refused to cave
electric shocks
traveling my body
until I gave up
gave up my body

and then I met the men
some days it’s only 25
that touch me
fuck me
and some days its 40

and everyday they are old
but I am older
with words
that begin with nostalgia

“back in my day life was beautiful”

Except, back when I was six years old
And my presentday-owners were planning
On which little ones to
Steal, cajole, convince or simply purchase
Life was not beautiful
Because these rooms were already filled
with Nepalis girl
Just like me.

Sometimes I wonder what could happen
If I owned my own hands
What sort of difference I could make

But I am just another twelve-year-old sex slave.
These body parts do not belong to me.
I do not belong to me.

I stop feeling
When I realize nobody
knows I exist
Or cares.
Why do they study slavery in history when it still exists?
When it’s not the south in America, it’s the entire world
But India is not
And I am just one of millions

Today melds with tomorrow
Like his hands on my body
Caressing me,
Each touch more violent than the last.

I have tiny hands
But not as small
As the seven year old who
May replace me
When disease has stolen my body
Away from my owners
And thirty is the age on the tombstone
Nobody will erect.
Because it erects itself
He is my tombstone
But can’t you understand
That when you watch
With apathetic eyes
Each moment you’re hands
Lay passively at their sides
You throw more dirt on my grave

And when you make no effort
to release me from the cage I am kept in--a literal cage
with bars I’ve learned to breath through

You are the difference between saving
One girl at a time
And slaving one girl at a time

But it’s not just one girl
It’s me.
My name is Asha.
I have name.
And it is the only thing that is mine.

_____________________________

To learn more, visit the website of Tiny Hands International (a Lincoln-based organization dedicated to stopping human trafficking--one girl at a time)

title goes here (but you do not)

(for me: perhaps five
for them: perhaps five.

does that make everything
five by five?
No, it just makes it all a lie.)

I am not a poet
or a muse

yet I wonder at amusement
and the way our bodies serve
to park or drive
ambition

and what would happen if
libido disappeared
before it was conceived;
would any of us have
been?

to the top of heaven
in a golden chariot
made from sallow, starved flesh
(if only for touch
if only for hope)
of another human being
we found lovely in the waning light

Do lovers ever realize?
I've read words
scribed between the inches of skin
exposed like eyes

against the burst of winter winds

Or maybe
just a Writers Cafe
that remains static
like our friendship
(if only that word
existed outside of our vocabulary
because then it wouldn't exist,
he moaned)
or maybe just Facebook messages
about creeping into dreams.

Do lovers ever realize?
I've written words too.
Yet--
none of us
(I could say neither but I speak
for you too)
none of us
are muses,
except perhaps


Unfulfilled Desire
(I hear she's dreadfully inspiring)

meaningless.

Your eyes are white
Round drops of snow
Like I drop her name
In casual conversation
Because I hate the way you
Ask
“Are you going to banquet?”
As if it means
“Do you have a boyfriend?
And I wonder if the whiteness
Is really blindness
(no, my facebook relationship status is not a joke mr.—fill in the blank—)
But then he asks
And I tell
And the vice president of student services
(don’t I pay your bills?)
Wants me to know that
She knows gasp
That I’m gay
so I pull out my
anger
backtalk
piece
peace
nod and say
“Yes, ma-am—-we won't act like a couple in public.
No, we won't sit too close.
Of course sex should be kept for marriage”
But I wonder if she realizes that’ll take a move to Iowa
And well
Union College
Isn’t in Iowa.
And I bet
Even in Iowa
the whites of their eyes
Would still be showing.

Spoken Word

How many steps do I need to take till I touch you?
Till you and I are on the same page,
reading the same novel about a girl and a girl,
or a boy and a girl
or a boy and a boy?

Alice tells me we’re all connected,
six straight lines pulling taut the names of would-be strangers.
Facebook groups claim
there are six acquaintances between me and the president.
Alfred, dear Kinsey, described six degrees of sexuality lying between me
and Billy Graham.
But who can say for certain that we're so different?

And who can say anyone else is a stranger? We could share a mother, somewhere along the line—even if it’s not ours.

But we sit far apart in wooden chairs,
opposite sides of the same room.

Your eyes are closed.
Not noticing colorful auras not in contact with your own
Not noticing disease drifting in through broken windows—
until it climbs, harsh and quiet, into the dark cavern
of your cousin’s lungs.

Your best friend died last week.
But I didn’t know her.
I don’t know you.
I am resting in the world, the rest of humanity
Tell me why should I care?

Why shouldn't I exclaim,

“That retarded, gay, lame test just raped me. It was a massacre.”

How can a test be mentally challenged, homosexual, disabled?

Please explain how a piece of paper can strip me of my freedom, put the mace in my bag, lock my doors, lock my legs, lock my heart, break the barrier held up against horror.

Tell me how an examination can murder—not be the motivation, but actually hold in its non-existent hand a gun to my twenty-year-old head.

Tell me how a series of questions for a college level course can do the damage of Hitler. Tell my grandmother, who fled before Jewish Germany became Nazi Germany. Before millions invisible and unknown became millions dead.

Yes, we say, that test was brutal.

And these are just terms, slang, no real slurs. There is no malicious intent. No one I know can be hurt by them.

No one I know.
And I don’t know you.

You're not in my world,
the tiny realities each of us are trapped in.

Tell me how many stories, details about your life must be told
before I begin to care.

How far away from me do I need to get till I can love you, a stranger?

Tell me, how many steps do I need to take till I touch you?

I//
I hear it’s just six.

Written weeks ago

I lie in a bed of pages, texts, and fiction
overlapping to create a pillow.
In this fortress of solitude, I touch the lives
of a thousand heroes
of a thousand victims
finding refuge in type writers,
keyboards, and pens.
Surrounded by sturdy walls created
by strangers' displaced passion,
I am safe from love.
Your words cannot reach me.

"I have learned kindess from the unkind"

I've learned that the truth spoken does not always mean honesty.

I've learned that the person said to be the most jealous can be the one with the most decency.

I've learned "we talked" does not always mean "communicate with words."

I've learned allowing myself to like someone when warning flags flare is still a bad idea.

I've learned bathroom stalls paint pictures like heartbruises.

I've learned it doesn't really matter.

Last night, I walked in on the girl I was seeing screwing around with someone else in the bathroom--after a week (and night) of convincing me she "likes me way more than her." Way to go miss "Oh yeah, I'm definitely a one-girl kind of girl." You should have been named Gabby Deveoux.

On a positive note, the person she was messing around with (who supposedly disliked me) came to talk to me, apologized, etc. Major (to use a sexist term for lack of a better one) balls. Have to say I respect her more than the girl I actually liked/trusted.

Now that it's morning and I've gotten sleep, I'm not distraught about it...well, as distraught anyway.

Paint me a picture with hollowed out bones
dripping with blue, mimicking tears left
untouched in my eyes.
Ask me what I love about you,
ask me.
I can hear only the silence
whispering like muffled kisses.
Zip.
I wonder why Silence has pants
and what she's doing with legs
twisted 'round yours
in a lonesome bathroom stall.
Lies can put on such a prettier smile,
too bad you broke the mirage in my eyes.
Too bad you left your lips in another girl's pocket.

Surprises

I met someone... AT UNION COLLEGE. Yeah, I didn't expect it either. We had briefly met the beginning of the year, but a mutual friend did us a huge favor and coordinated a re-introduction. I'm all giddy, because...well a) she's awesome and b) she goes to Union.

Enter, my hesitation (stage left).

Are we attracted to each other simply because of the setting (aka, nobody else at Union we could be interested in)? If we met randomly downtown, would we still be as interested? Even if we would not have naturally gravitated towards each other elsewhere, is that necessarily bad? Does this mean a potentially successful relationship is doomed?

I'm not sure, but I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually. I need stop over thinking this (and life in general) and just say que se ra, se ra--whatever will be, will be.

Despite my mild confusion and questions, I got sidetracked during Rhetoric class with thoughts of her.

Lips. Smile.
Flashes of identical white stones
polished to a sterling gleam
Do you clean them with purity
found in an open mind?
I never saw vices that looked
so much like virtues
as we sit on the box
our souls used to sleep in.
My fingers are pieces of tangled rope
drawing conclusions from the tilt
of your head.
What does it mean to be
the only apples on a tree?
The names and offenses screamed
by whispering leaves
leave bruises on our skin.
We find shelter in the unlikeliest of places
watching smoke drift like
possibilities through
our parted lips.

?

I wish my future grew like tree leaves in late spring, spread across the blue sky in a blanket so vast that only the stars escape jealousy.

I wish my future was a series of numbers jotted down on a napkin or cave wall from some feeble existence or in the mind of an astrophysicist who will never ever let them fall forgotten.

I wish the path wasn't created from tangled curls trapping the grime and doubt at the nape of my neck in the ridiculous hope that I can brush it all aside.

I wish the path was full of Zach's stumbles that masquerade as beautiful pirouettes in a fading sun that has never seen rape, that has never felt fear, that has never wondered

what do I do next?

____________________________________________


::sigh::
what do I do about this year's summer housing situation? Somehow spitting out words that don't make sense to anyone else hasn't really helped.

(in case anyone becomes alarmed, the rape references is not a reference to anything that's happened to me so far.)

Decay

I wonder why I've been so focused on a humanitarian path. Humanity sucks. Why do I love humanity when the individuals in my life make me question global worth? Everyone disappoints, hurts, lies, drowns each other in apathy, etc. Maybe each person doesn't do it all the time, yet every second the world is filled with these actions and behaviors. And tonight, my small section of the world is certainly receiving its fair share.

If I was an alien peering into the lives of our so called "evolved/progressed" specie, I would laugh and cry at how pathetic we are.

What causes us to such lengths of patheticness? What causes people to change, or our perceptions of them, or worse--an awful combination of both?

Death dictates our lives. It's not always fear of our own lives being lost, but the death of things like relationships, memories, places, jobs, families, perceptions, and happiness alter our existances in the most profound and far reaching way.

And I can feel Death on my skin.
She is breathing rancid breath
down
down
penetrating every orifice
with her wretched poisen
spreading through my body
stop
stop
destroying everything beautiful
from the sparkling eyes
staring back at me
to the passion of the people
She eliminates the love
of nations
and replaces humanity's
nature with pure apathy
as shattered rose-colored glasses
line the streets and people begin
to recognize
ugly Death inside of eachother
I hide, but cannot hide the
from broken bits of
battered souls
left by friendships
She's torn apart
Perhaps the Dark Witch is
gone
gone
but I can still
feel Her on my skin

www.fmylife.com

I will never dazzle like a hundred thousand stars.
An aura borealis will engulf our lonely bodies
and blind the ocean of your eyes.
I'll become invisible as the colors cavort
like belly-dancers in the sky.









_______________________________
Emptiness touches the cold crevices of of my soul
As fire flows down and fills my lungs
Why is it loneliest when you lie beside me?
________________________________










Sometimes left over chocolate and silent teddy bears just don't cut it.
Ha, so I just re-read the last line of the last stupid poem-thing (whatever those two tangle of words happen to be). That was pretty much my relationship with Kalvin. Maybe I just get stuck in ruts, or get comfortable with feeling unwanted. I am a Taurus, after all.

i wonder which road a mountain would choose

She sat high above an ocean, looking down at me. A boulder, firm against my cheek, left tiny drops of moister on my skin. I imagined she was speaking (were those silent tears?), in her own moutain-esque way.

Tourists came to gawk at her smooth curves and jagged edges. Deep rumblings constantly shattered the serene atmosphere as vehicles--from planes to boats to motorbikes--disturbed the tiny island.

I overheard several park rangers bemoaning the fact they couldn't move from the States to this newfound paradise. It was everything they'd ever dreamed of--she was their very own Mona Lisa (if the ML had been found instead of created).

Frigid walls made from natural formations were all that met their musings. I wandered farther from the crowds. A man sat among springtime grasses, his demeanor everything a tourist wasn't. The air itself was different. Could it be the ice mountain actually showing some warmth? I must be daft.

"I name you," he announced, charming smile a daring bait, "Beauty and Pleasure." A compliment, I'm sure. But why then, did the skies begin to darken? A raindrop landed on my nose.

The mountain was crying. I glanced up, taking in the beautiful sight her mere presence created--feeling pleasure as my eyes explored each crevice and corner. Perhaps Beauty and Pleasure is all you'll ever be, I whispered.






Years later I heard the impossible had been accomplished, a mountain had been moved. My mountain. No one knows who did it, or where she's gone. Perhaps a new tourist came, swept her from a supposed paradise and renamed her something enchanting like Te Amo. Or perhaps she still plays at Beauty and Pleasure for a different group of self-involved tourists.



Or maybe there never was a mountain on that tiny island anyway.




(I think we're all just a bunch of fucking mountains anyway. Or is it mountains just get fucked over anyway? I haven't quite figured it out. )

holiday?

i try first for gold, but don’t know where to dig. so i go out searching…searching…

the sound nearly slices ears from my head. the lack of sound. silence. stillness. but it’s so loud, yesterday’s ruckus seem to drop from the skies—dammit I can hear their cries.

can you see it twist? battered gray chains touch onto tattered canvas, creating a new space for artwork. where did those crayons go?

the emptiness crushes me and i can’t keep my ribs from exhaling—i’m exploding. if white were blood, this place’d be full of it.

the covered ground stares up at me, startled there’s a witness. a table’s weathered bark is sanded to perfection. i hate perfection and curl fists around frozen air.

my lips push out words silently, cracked and pained with each syllable. “you chased the children away, with their laughter and their tears.”

stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it.

glares are directed toward the angry clouds, sunshine their miserable prisoner. i take it all in…take in death disguised as a playground. take in winter disguised as death.

take it and give it to you. spring would have made a much better present.