New Poem

So I've started classes for my master's degree, and it's so amazing! I really love it. In my poetry workshop, I wrote a poem I feel really strongly about. It's got a lot of energy, and I'm excited to post it.

As usual, I can't come up with a title. So this one makes me laugh.



Let the Bodies Hit the

What do we do with the body, do we
couple it in front seats of Volkswagens with a
gear shift beer gut dick suck?
Do we starve it out, fold it up, cut it skin from bone
and marvel at the crumpled mess we've left
hungry on the bathroom floor?
What do you do with the body, do you
lay it heavy down on other bodies, press together
the warmer parts and heave and breathe
and laugh when you're done? I laugh. I take my body like a juniper tree
and twist my branches heady round in hurricane delight until
this body upthreads its roots. I stir it frenzied.
I find the point the body cracks its spine and shed it like a locust,
emerging slimy and cobalt blue, and completely unprepared
for the other bodies in this world.

Song Project

So Matt Kelley is doing a kind of cool series on his facebook called a 30 Song Challenge, where certain associations are chosen, and you pick a song to go with it... He's seven days into the challenge, so I'm going to catch up!

1. My favorite song.. Bjork, "Unravel"

2. My least favorite song... Pearl Jam, "Last Kiss."  Hate that song.

3. A song that makes me happy.. The Beatles, "Here Comes the Sun"

4. A song that makes me sad... Cat Power, "Good Woman"

5. A song that reminds me of somebody... Finch, "Letters to You," reminds me of Patrick Keefer, my first love.  Finch was our shit- we were little screamo kids.

6. A song that reminds me of somewhere... Jimmy Buffett, "Fins," reminds me of Holden Beach, North Carolina, where my family would vacation when I was younger.  We were such parrotheads that when someone asked to pass the salt, the whole family would shout "SALT, SALT, SALT" the way they do when Buffett performs "Margaritaville."

7. A song that reminds me of a specific event...Pennywise, "Stand By Me" reminds me of my grandmother's funeral.  Weird, but completely true.  I can't hear the punk version of this song without thinking of my dead grandmother.

The Fourth of July always makes me nostalgic. It reminds me of, I don't know, The Sandlot and Colin leaving for Arizona, and playing kickball in the alley behind Sakura, and my family, and how fireworks are never as magical as they should be. I mean, they're already pretty magical, but I guess I just want them to live up to their movie-quality effect, and I'm never impressed.

Yesterday was a good day, I had a good night at work, I had a great time being with my wonderful family, and still, when I got home, I started unraveling. I always thought I was pretty healthy in my head, but now I'm starting to wonder if maybe a whisper of depression could be curling its way around my brain. But what is healthy and normal anyway?

from FlicksNews

I'm starting my Woody Allen project this week.  I will watch every Woody Allen movie starting with Take the Money and Run (What's Up Tiger Lily? is just too oddball- I've seen it, but didn't really like it) and I'm going to write about my experiences watching each movie. If you know me, you know Woody Allen is my Lord and Savior, and watching his filmography is the best way I can think of to spend my time until school starts.

Also, I've found the man I'm going to marry.

 

 There's a great article about him here. 

He's a junior agent at the literary agency Writer's House. Which is where I'm going to work someday. And he's got a killer sense of humor- I read his profile on Publisher's Marketplace, and he's adorable. 

I've decided I want to become an agent, because I love working with publishers, but I also love working with authors. I mean, I can't wait to get this chapbook idea with Jon Gavazzi and Julianna Dzierwa going, because I want to design and publish their work together- I know we could market it. And I feel like I was meant to do this for a living, I just need to prove myself.

So I made a friend last night at Turp's. His name is Garrett, and he says he has something like four manuscripts that he's trying to get published. I'm going to read them and figure something out. I swear, if it means making up a prestigious-sounding agency name and bullshitting my way, I will work my ass off to prove myself.

So I'm a little bit all over the place this week.  But that's okay.

from buzznet

From Dionysus Restaurant and Bar

He walked me home last night
barely making it to the first secluded spot
before pulling down my pants
and asking if he could
come on my face.
Two days ago I stripped

the ghosts of Colin's pencil drawing
from the wardrobe my father wants to burn
the pieces coming
off like bits of pulled pork--
I ruined what I was trying to preserve.
Painted fragments of my history,
and all I cared about was Colin's contribution.

Last night Scott let me turn
the sweaty pages of his journal
and I marveled at the phrases scribbled
in his panicked hand--
You reckon I could kiss you?
Tuck me in.
The pain is now visible.
He waited as I scribbled
the notes in my own journal-- I wonder
if he knows what it means to share
something like that with someone like me,
naked thoughts slung
recklessly from one mind to the next
shameful, fevered writing
Faster
Just a minute
I'm finishing now, there
Sorry,
My quivering pen over his page.

My thoughts slide to is torso
mighty shoulders quaking
as she tucked him in
feeling over them tight as words

rhythm, intention, heavy effort--

his journal sexed me up more than that
fucker yanking down my jeans in the
potted plants outside the Monumental Life Building.
Hank says I have a problem and I hate him
for his snide remarks about things
that do not concern him.  He only hates

that he doesn't have stories about
fucking me in the dirt, or in public, or anywhere
more interesting than a bed,
I think.

But nothing occurred to me last night
as I jiggled around the flower bed.
I was and was not myself.  The only
words I knew were yes and cool,
some happy, hyper-sexualized product
of a crowded home and loving parents.
I refrain from using Last Night's name.
But when he finished
on my shirt,
he zipped up and walked down
the terrace steps and waited
for me to redress.
Did I see him wait for me?
 He was gone when I got there.

And he never even walked me to my door.
It was with relief that I found my front door locked
and my phone and wallet still in my purse
and other sundry clues that I was not
made a victim last night.  In fact
to an outsider, last night looked cool,
spontaneous youth
blossoming-the-fuck together,

but I hate that my hands smell like him
and I can feel him under my clothes tonguing
over me still
and there's mulch in my hair
and I hate that he left to go back to the bar
and I,
just screwed,
barely clothed or shoed,
went back to my empty, half-heaped bed.

You reckon I could kiss you?
Tuck me in.
OxyClean my soul.

I told Scott "I want to live in your beard."

So I know how these are supposed to be all about my single life, livin it up, partyin, et cetera, but all I seem to do is reaffirm my intentions to be single and happy about it.

Because for the most part, I'm not happy about it.

I believe I have a gift for nurturing, and a nurturer with no one to nurture is like a rapist with no one to rape, or a bus driver with no bus. I have no direction, no motivation, and certainly no warm bodies beside me in bed.

Though this is a recent subtraction. These absent bodies heretofore occupied my bed pretty steadily. There was sweet adorable charming Chuck, a regular at Turp's and the bookstore, law student, sweetheart, hilarious guy who reminds me a lot of Patrick Keefer, though nowhere near as neurotic. He's stayed over a few times, and I've stayed over his place (feather top mattress = cloud dreams) but the connection is more friendly than romantic.

So then I started seeing Fred, the cute scientist I met at my friend Jon's show in Arbutus. We had an instant vibe for each other, and never before have I scanned a room, thought "I want him," and then had him come up and start chatting with me. I have always been the predator, not the prey.  So I liked that Fred took the initiative and when I said "well, my friends and I aren't sticking around after this set," he said "well then I'll stay and talk with you a little longer."

I dig it.

And also, did I mention he's a SCIENTIST? He conducts research and collects data samples for the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, and lives on SERC property, and we had a pretty romantic date walking around his fucking back yard. He's not perfect, and he's a terrible dancer, but it was pretty fun bringing him to Turp's to celebrate Taylor's birthday.

The problem is I can totally see myself dating Fred, and sticking around with him for months, and then thinking I would marry him, and giving up job opportunities to stay close to him, and all that retarded bullshit I do when I'm in relationships. WHY do I sacrifice my goals and needs to make things easier on the guys I date? True, I'm a pretty high-maintenance girlfriend- I need attention, and quality time, and the illusion that we are growing together. I invest myself in the illusion of permanence when I am with someone. But what the fuck do I care about staying in Carroll County when the whole wide world of publishing is outside of it, Josh? What the fuck do I care about your self-destructing busy schedule when I could be carousing and writing with my best friends instead of reading design blogs in your bed, Stephan? And WHO CARES about Jersey, Chuck?

So sorry, sweet Chuck. Sorry, cute Fred. Sorry, thoughtful guy with the rock-climbing knee injury who was reading Jack Kerouac in booth 234 yesterday. This girl is seriously off the market. This girl is learning how to be her own man. And I'm gonna nurture the hell outta myself.





Also, Scott and I will have cute babies.

lascivious

So I've been a bit of a whore lately.





That's okay though. I haven't done anything I regretted later, and I've got some pretty astounding stories to tell to people who wouldn't connect names to faces, in a controlled and private setting, preempted with pinky-sworn secrecy. Like... stories NEVER to tell my grandchildren.

But I did have a weird daydream the other day at Turp's. The restaurant was slow, and I was thinking about how I don't consider myself as having sex appeal, but how I still manage to meet guys who like me, and I imagined that one day, I would be surrounded with the [relatively few] people that I have had sex with but for whom I don't have any strong feelings anymore, and in a scene reminiscent of the 1932 cult classic, Freaks, I would be consumed by how wildly and completely wrong for me they were. I don't think I imagined it as an assault; rather it was self-inflicted mutilation resultant from the realization that confronting my former flames leaves no ashes smoldering. Those days and relationships are over. Now I insist that I do not regret the people I've slept with recently. But some names and faces from the past float up to the surface of my brain and I hate to say it, but I cringe at the thought of some of my high school antics. I think that is the best wake-up call I could have: I shared something intimate and special with people I don't even respect anymore.

So I'm striking them from the list. This is it. The big goodbye. No more will I cringe or feel shame at the thought of 2005. Every moment we live, we are compiling a bigger and bigger load of baggage: memories that we try to recreate or avoid, situations that influence us in the present. I believe Milan Kundera would say we weigh ourselves down with the past, and I have a particularly good memory. But I'm done being so guilt-ridden and careful. Try and be light for a little while. Maybe that will open me up to a little more self-knowledge and wisdom.

I also think about my family. As I write this, I imagine what my Aunt Janie would say to this post. You know, I'm named for her? I got the "Sara" part of my name from "Sarah Jane." I wonder if she has any baggage that weighs her down. She must. We all do, and she is a widow, so there must be all sorts of emotions crashing through her that I couldn't even begin to understand because of the sudden and irrevocable loss of her husband. I can't imagine all of the implications of the term 'husband', let alone the loss of one. What is lightness to her? What secrets does she have that make her smile to herself when she's alone but which she'd never tell a living soul? It electrifies me thinking that every person has a secret, "every single one's got a story to tell," and it takes me out of myself for a moment to consider what I couldn't possibly have the knowledge to consider...

Who knows, maybe Aunt Janie was a bit of a whore, too.