I
love you
he sang
and the trees sighed
I’d
do anything for you
and the flowers
blushed
I’m in love
he cried
but the leaves only rustled
he threw his message
out to sea
and waited for a storm
to bring it back
Jack forgot to tell Jill that they were in a love story
June 29, 2011 at 10:42 pm (Uncategorized)
you are the very thing
October 31, 2010 at 9:27 am (Uncategorized)
i miss your Madrid eyes
and mermaid air
how you spill over yourself when you’re quiet
like when we walked through the burlesque snow
and a single snowflake kiss
lit up your smile
but blue moon veins run only further and farther
i smoke these shaking cigarettes and they smoke me
and ever since, these mornings bring no rest
to these heavy charcoal skies. i miss your eyes.
poem roll
June 27, 2010 at 7:34 pm (Uncategorized)
night is when i’m closest to you
these words should draw you closer but instead they draw me out
there are my entrails and these end rails and i know my heart stops here
i throw the words
(( overboard ))
and hope they will at least feed the whales
when sleep comes too slowly
i tell myself that tomorrow
we’ll be the same people
we’ll be the same
engraving
my heart stood in red
red is how you are in all its pictures
and while you were somewhere in the seamless sky
- lips kissing the air, your mermaid hair and your arms flying -
i wondered
if, on that day, i had taken a step towards you
would i have been close enough to give you my heart
and these pictures of red Read the rest of this entry »
Parched
April 7, 2010 at 11:16 pm (Uncategorized)
I wish these words would drop in for a chat
throngs of them through the door
and even those uninvited are brought in like old friends
that I seat in squashy couches and
fill with tea and cookies
who, upon finding themselves at home
put their feet up on the coffee table
Instead they elude me
and tease from beyond reach
it’s only the cobwebs
that tickle these cranium cracks
leaving me dumb and without speech
for I have much to say to you
at least these feelings insist I do
but I won’t know
until the words
[inked and fleshed]
make their drama
all suspense and teenage expression
there is nothing to see
[and for me, nothing to be]
until I become the words that I write
——————————————————–
I’m not as good at poems as I was back when we still had hotink : ( But I’ve been uncreative for too long. I’m going to work to get back into it!
Comments and criticism would help a lot! Thanks!
Stranger Again
April 14, 2009 at 9:19 pm (Writing)
Currently Reading
Heroes: A Novel
By Robert Cormier
I’m standing with Robert Cormier at the bus stop when the sound of a distant engine vibrates through my ears. I look up and witness as a great white plane leaps into the sky, its wings stretched out as proud as any eagle’s. I follow its unwavering path in the air, even as it disappears and resurfaces from behind the newly built highrises. The jealous buildings reach and stretch beyond their concrete foundations but they will never escape the ground. The airplane soared beyond, freeing itself from the censorship of apartments and the tyranny of gravity.
The plane is gone and I bring my thoughts back down to earth. My eyes follow and they meet with that of a man’s. He wears a long black coat and in his dominant hand is a wafting bag of grease and New York Fries. A second ago his face too, was lifted towards the great blue and we both realized that we had been having the same dream. Without our knowing, we had leapt into the air together and followed a great steel engine, not knowing or caring where it was going.
But where there could have been understanding there was instead embarrassment. We had not shared one another’s dreams – we had intruded on them. Our eyes met, but that was all, and now we looked down, away. Anything to hide what we both realized we realized.
Other planes are flying now, but we ignore them. He opens his bag of fried potato sticks and I retreat, I diminish, I back down into my book.
Cloning Process
November 14, 2008 at 12:10 am (Writing)
These poems are not you;
they do not yell or swear or let
me down
They don’t offend my parents or forget my birthday
abandon me in the wet
or play hard to get
But neither do they feel or cry
their lungs deny them breath deny
to lend your voice to words
you thought you’d never say
their glassy eyes stare and stare and stare and stare
asking me what went wrong
O I’ve tried everything!
they have your words, your smile, your sound
proper descriptions, proper nouns
They are the spitting image of 2 hour ferries and
something more than paper cuts
but they will not recognize me
These poems are not you;
they are all I have left of you
and I will have them drowned
before they resurface
to make another sound
November 11, 2008 at 4:04 pm (Writing)
| I like to think you still exist on the other side of me and if I still exist on the other I’ll |
All my life, I’ve spent on buses
November 8, 2008 at 7:42 pm (Writing)
I look up from Fight Club and see you sitting behind 5 heads in 3 rows of seats. You’re looking out from inside your headphones and the hair that tumbles down from your crown. Our eyes might have met, they might have not, but I look away too quick to think of it further. You’re a stranger, an unknown, a ghastly variable and something else I’ll never know. I retreat, I diminish, I back down into my book. The bus runs and halts; the doors open and close, and I don’t notice.
A second later I look up and you’re not there. I turn and see your brown tweed jacket against the seat’s blue, only I don’t and you’ve gone. I don’t know your name, I don’t know your mother, your high school grades, your Starbucks intake, your views on abortion, your girlfriend. And I don’t want to know but now I never will.
You took away the opportunity I never had and suddenly I’m what they would call lonely except I’m not because I don’t talk to, I don’t look at strangers on the bus and I retreat, I diminish, I back down into my book.
Enchanted Princess, Magazine Editor Assistant, and now a Sexy Spy Lady
September 27, 2008 at 9:48 pm (Uncategorized)
When I was in Hong Kong, I had the chance to see Get Smart. I did love the fact that Anne Hathaway was in it – I thought the Princess Diaries had been entertaining and anyone who has watched The Devil Wears Prada will attest that it was simply fantastic. Since Hathaway has come onto the Hollywood radar nothing but praise has come her way – she’s fresh, she’s young, she’s lovely! I once caught her on the David Letterman s
how. She was sweet and charming and I felt that she was someone that anyone could talk to. In magazines they called her “the girl next door – who just happened to be famous”. Everybody loves Anne!
I had seen the Get Smart promo posters around, but I hadn’t realized right away that it was Hathaway I was looking at. I understand that this was part of her new role, but for once, Anne wasn’t smiling, and the eye makeup she was sporting was way beyond her years. This was an Anne that the public has never seen; no longer was she a little-girl-in-a-big-world; these weren’t coming-of-age movies. I felt somewhat unsettled by her new image, but I brushed it off; Anne hasn’t yet made a disappointing movie.
So I didn’t understand the significance of her new look until I was in the theatre. We found an Anne that was confident, powerful, and intelligent; she was a Sexy Spy Lady. But at what cost? Did the movie industry reward her with a capable character and Steve Carell with the dumbass because they wanted to show their respect for Anne and women?
Au contraire. I couldn’t have found a more disgustingly sexist movie if I tried. Anne had shed her little girl role, but the industry took advantage of her in every way and she was more a little girl than ever. She was the only woman in the entire darn movie and the message couldn’t have been more clear: men make things happen; women are there only to be looked at. Anne’s lines sucked. Hathaway has proven to us again and again that she is an extremely competent actress, but in this movie her lines were functionary and cliché; her character had no personality whatsoever (as evidenced by her eventual fall for the unattractive Agent 86. I had to watch her kiss him – gross!). Its only role was to supplement Carell, to make Carell look good.
But wait! Your argument is flawed there kaiori! Carell couldn’t have looked more stupid next to Hathaway! Did you not see how forcefully Agent 99 swung that gun, how she fell 10 000 m from the sky and still managed to take down the bad guy? Surely this is a sign for the collective advancement of women!
And that is precisely it: why are we so fascinated by moving pictures that we let Hollywood brainwash us into what it wants us to believe? The movie industry is clever: it sets the bar high enough so that it can just escape the radar. If any crazy suffragette like me starts jumping up and down they can, at any moment, point at Hathaway and say, look, we made her powerful and capable while the man looked like an idiot – what’s your problem? That’s the only reason why they did it. Can you imagine the uproar that would result if the roles were reversed? Hollywood wouldn’t dare to challenge the progress of one of the biggest civil rights movements of the past century, but they can still put women in their place by more subtle methods. The more aware viewers will find women’s roles as derogatory as ever.
Take the above scene for example, which is the second appearance of Hathaway in the movie. She had barely been on the screen for thirty seconds when all the audience was presented with a purposeful screenshot of her breasts. Can you imagine the filming! Anne! What did I just say? You gotta squeeze those boobies a little more! No, no, no, you know what? That cleavage is no good – we gotta get more duct tape on those things. Can we get makeup and costume back in here?
They freaking had her crawling through a freaking ventilation system! All while Agent 86 got to walk on his two legs through the front door. Why, you ask? Because when Steve Carell crawls there isn’t any cleavage to look down! Truth to tell, I don’t remember exactly how much cleavage she was displaying in that scene, but my point remains; crawling women are supposed to
be erotic (And apparently all the more so when they do so through mud. Good job Shakira); crawling men are not.
And can somebody please explain why Agent 99 was so mortified at having revealed herself to 86 when she was, for all we know, stripping for all the passerbys of her hotel room window! Furthermore, it must be noted that this normally reflexive agent’s reaction to the interruption that was Max was first to turn completely so that she was properly displayed in all her fleshy goodness. Only after did she think oops; I should probably cover up. It’s as if some writer went: Hey guys, we need to be seeing more of Anne. I mean really seeing more. It won’t further the plot any more than anything else she’s done in this movie, but man, I just gotta see more of her girlies!
By the way, Anne, those heels don’t go with those panties. ‘Cause heels don’t go with panties.
When will Hollywood realize that we can love women for their personalities – and yes their beauty! These women are beautiful, and they are very much so without any excessive exposure of skin.
Anne, I thoroughly enjoyed your movie. All the audience had a good time; everyone left the theatre with smiles on their faces. I don’t even like action and I thought it was all well done. No, it wasn’t your movie that was disappointing – it was you. I admit I was never a devout fan, nor had I ever been especially proud of you before for your potent acting skills or for your previous purity, but now you’ve sold yourself out for the sake of men’s gratification and given me further reason to be disappointed in Hollywood women.
June 21, 2008 at 10:32 pm (School)
Evening gown – $80
Dress Alterations – $45
Ticket – $100
Limo – $34
Makeup – $50
————————————
Unforgettable night with friends -
NOT WORTH IT
I told everyone all this year that I wouldn’t be at prom. So I didn’t pay for my ticket. I thought I’d leave and graduate quietly.
Two weeks ago Mom thought it’d be funny to call me and go, “Hey Alex guess what? I know you said all year you didn’t want to go, but I just gave your school my credit card number and guess where you’re going!”
I do not mean to be ungrateful. The teachers take their own time to put prom together and chaperone it (nobody should ever have to watch teenagers going wild), the grade 11s volunteer to decorate the venue, and all my friends, wonderful and kind they are, have begged me to join them. My grandmother paid for my dress and my mother paid for my ticket. They did this, they do it for me, for us, because they care.
And we are not undeserving. We’ve worked hard all year. This is the last time we’ll ever be together as the class of 2008. Why shouldn’t we be spoiled a bit and have some fun?
But the festivities have gone quite overboard. There is no need to buy gowns that cost hundreds of dollars. I feel like a complete fool, all this dressing up for a one-night fairytale. Of course, I’ve imagined it all in my head, every time I flip through a magazine; I do see myself in that beautiful dress, made beautiful with professional makeup (Carmindy!<3). But that’s what magazines are designed to do. In the end, I know I’d feel just as empty. This is not how I pursue happiness.
The bottom line is, what right do we have to engage in this foolish, wasteful, expensive frolicking when there are people starving? There is not one dollar I’ve listed above that can be justified in the name of our fun.
Of course, you’ll say, oh hasn’t she’s got a great argument there. Why don’t you go and ask me to become a monk while you’re at it. I’ll just stay at home forever cause everything, everything in this world costs money. She’s probably no Mennonite herself. People are going to starve forever, why should that prevent me from living my life?
And I’ll say again: it’s not that we’re undeserving. We’re all nice, hardworking people. But then so is everyone – we are all deserving. Everyone should be allowed to live the fairytale.
But we don’t live in an ideal world. No, we’re not undeserving, we are unneeding. In the same way that there is no good reason for the existence of Mexx or Tommy Kids other than people have money they want to spend, there is no good reason for us to need to spend money in this way. Children don’t need to wear brand-name clothes, and we do not need to have fun by spending thousands of dollars.
It’s a matter of materialism, consumerism. I’m not against having fun. But do we have to have it in such unnecessary extravagance? After all, what do we need in order to have fun? Nothing – but a safe environment and then some you, some me.
I begged my mother not to send me to prom. “If I must spend the money, let me take Tiff and Cat out for lunch instead.” Let’s cut the crap; we are already beautiful we don’t need the makeup, the dress, the high ceiling, the fancy dinner cooked by chefs that we’ll never see. I only want what’s real; I just want my girls. I want us dressed the way we always do. I want to see their real faces, I want to talk to them without that god-awful “dance music” blaring behind us.
And what about anyone who isn’t Cat and Tiff? I’ve loved you all, but if we’re going to keep in touch, we will. We’ve had years to develop friendships, one more night will do nothing. If we really wanted to spend another day together as Grad 2008 why can’t we plan a more constructive activity? With a 200-person manpower imagine the good we can do. Wouldn’t that feel even better, the happiness last longer?
I admit it’s all wonderful. The food will dazzle, my friends will look beautiful and we’ll have fun. My dress is more gorgeous than I could’ve dreamed. Quantitively speaking, it’ll be worth my money. But not a dime of it will have been spent without guilt.
