the rest of them

here are the poems that came out of facebook, with the people and the words they chose:

chiara: fiasco, litany, ranch, klingon.

think about it next time

steps one and two are easy
deep down, the atrocity of your
litany to my generosity rebels against me
and i suffer, yet don't.
there is nothing inside me that prevents
actuality, the fiasco of my dreams
living on the ranch of your ill-gotten promises
dying on the lies at your lips.
imagine, imagine would you,
what it would be like to live among the stars
with me, with the klingons, with the free
spirits. aren't you jealous that through your
nimble and clumsy
unknowing fingers, that you
let me go. and here i am, basking
the glow of the sun on my peached cheeks
smiling; if only you knew.

yuki: spring, bottle, wind, marble.

she loves it more than you

chilled marble at her back, hair whisped away,
wind non-existant against her skin. and yet
goosebumps littered her flesh, raising it, curling
inches of skin into rocky terrain.
the emergence of spring kept her flat against the
smooth surface. the sun highlighting her
coke-bottle figure as it pressed tightly
dreaming of melting into the stone's very whole.
deep breath, deep deep breath, hold;
taste that cool breeze, take the wind harsh
into the lungs as it finds itself in the sky.
the marble eases her muscles, coolly refreshing
real, significance; her spring found in its
resonance on her spine. that bottle frame
crushed into a ball as the sun followed her skin
down to her toes, down to her horizon,
to its horizon.

rohan: ubiquitous, knight, macabre, superfluous. (had to be about a puppy, without mentioning the puppy at all)

do you think we'll ever really know?

he smiles. really he does.
and his entire body hums, ethereal.
the superfluous attempt at recreating
that look, that joy, that hype -
they very ubiqutious nature
wards every shimmering of
the night's and day's and
world's attempts at a
mediocre, macabre life.
he shines against the blades of grass
springs them to life, treads,
paws at the earth.
plumes of dust cloud around him
masking him from sight,
and he emerges, a bright knight,
the savior of the rainy days
whenever they may come.
he lives more in a moment
than i do in a lifetime; and
i've never more envied that about him.
perhaps someday,
sometime,
when i stop regretting the past
and instead accept the present,
i will benefit from the same
contagious, unbridled
happiness.

jamal: love, warfare, deodorant, baltimore.

and man i tell ya

it started in baltimore, late at night --
did i already tell you this? stop me if i did --
oh hey, let me get a light, man, let me just
get a light real quick.
so right, right, it started in baltimore, late at night,
and i was there. like, right there, man.
it was love at first sight of a double barrel.
seriously, cold steel and rounds still sizzling,
smoke still whisping away. what can i say?
i'm a bit of a romantic. and she was just
just fucking standing there.
and it's funny, you could tell. just by the,
the, the, the fucking scent of her.
she was all woman. all woman,
au natural, other than that necessary musk
of deodarant. yeah, i know, not too romantic,
right? but it's true. she was that light,
the light you see at the end of the tunnel.
and he was just hanging there, holding that gun,
watching it smoke, barely paying attention to her.
like she was some, some...
man, let me get that light again, it went out.
right. she was just some kind of prize,
the mysterious toy at the bottom of the cereal box.
but this wasn't a box, this was a warzone.
there were sparks flying offa her like she was
i don't know, electric or something.
loose wire.
man, he was getting stuck in her warfare
without even knowing it.
she was all about him and that gun
and it was still sizzling man, still smoking,
and he wasn't even paying attention,
and like i said, man, it was love at first sight
of the double barrel. she musta known him, i swear,
but in a split second she was on him,
on him like white on rice,
and he was gone, man. like.
gone. hole in his head, and then she was gone.
more gone.
like, the smoke wasn't even there.
hey man, let me get another cig? yeah, yeah, thanks man.
just let me get that light.
yeah, she was there man, then she was gone.
ever been in love? yeah, i was.
love at first sight, at the first sight of a double barrel.
man, you don't even know. you don't even know.

nico: enigma, fate, rune, president. (can't talk about us presidents)

escaping means staying

thirteen and a half windows.
three doors.
a closet, which was something like a fourth door.
but it only lead to a small dark space.
chipping pillars.
one big chair, with one big pink and blue cushion.
and just one breathing soul.
somewhat breathing that is.
a shadow loomed, hovered, sat
right on top of the chair;
an enigma, a figment, a vision
the remains of a conscious decision.
ominous in nature, invisible to the
empty vessels littering the crackled runes.
stubble of a floor, marble upheaved,
angry where it stood, unnerving in its
stagnet choice of life against
the breathing,
inoutinoutinoutinout.
stop, president of nothing,
president of all,
president of mind as it
crumbled down, the swirling pretend of
accidental fate in the holey floor.
thirteen and a half windows.
three doors.
a closet. the fourth door.
and yet nothing, no exit.
sitting there, breathing.
a tragedy solely by being in existence,
instead of among the bodies across the
broken marble floor.
clenched fists unrationally slammed,
skin peeled, anger seethed,
and that floating enigma of regret
slid over and around,
and the president of the state of mind
gave into to the empty escape
it no longer had, fate a reminder
that no matter what good is done,
bad is done, and sometimes,
sometimes,
you are at the end of the gun,
no matter how hard you try.

sean: rowdy, millimeters, fashioned, swedish.

just let the drummer kick

each drum hit shook dust off into the crowd,
thumps of feet and hands clapped away the
remnants of good times long since had.
he was pumping away, bass drum kicking,
knocking a rowdy mass of human bodies
into a writhing, sweaty swarm of
mindless, beat drones.
with an old-fashioned musician's smirk
and a crack of two sticks trying to ignite
the fever of music over their heads.
from miles to meters, to feet to millimeters,
from seconds away to milliseconds away,
to inhaling each note down into the rhythm of the hips,
watch them sway to the snare hit,
to the crash of that cymbal as it chimes away,
angry, then smooth.
'let's get swedish, tonight baby,
let's swim like fish, get all red,
let's get swedish,'
he sings, stamps out to each
synchronized bass stomp.
bop, bump, bomp.
and that mass, that rowdy crowd
that hall of drones as they dance
slaves to the music,
feel the comeback hit them and
sing along as if they'd never disappeared
to the land of dustmites and mistakes
all made at the bottom of the bottle.
that's right, each hit, each bass string
each guitar riff, each crack in the singer's voice
mesmerizes them into forgetting,
that they came from the plummeted ashes of
total downfall,
because guys, they're here, they're back.
'let's be swedish, tonight baby.'

chiara two: teddy bear, knife, richard simmons, garbage bag. (had to be star-trek related)

it's all only logical

it's abrupt, a disgruntling ringing sound.
but it isn't urgent; not really. just twining along the
last few threads of sleep,
hanging in the crust of his eyes as he imagines
it isn't that time of night again.
a whimpering noise, clinging to the monitor
and he stumbles, slowly, knowing she won't wake up;
it's his job, isn't it? isn't it now?

so he's up. feet knowing the way,
mind not quite supportive of the sudden jolted movements,
(this proves to be difficult miscommunication,
as he knocks over a lamp,
nearly splits his toe with the butter knife left on the nightstand,
which he'll confront her about later, because, let's be honest,
he isn't a maid around here;
it's his job, isn't it? isn't it now?)

short shirts, skimpy tanktop, the heat of the cabin
proving the necessity for richard simmons-style sleepwear,
and he's sitting at the side of the crib,
running a teddy bear from side to side against the edge,
and the crying stops, for a bit, as he hums away
"i want to rock and roll all night" until he's asleep again,
and that's when she asks for some water;
it's his job, isn't it? isn't it now?

he decides to clean up the kitchen,
drops remnants of dinner they didn't clean into a
full and overburdened garbage bag.
grumbling would be heard, if he allowed it, but he doesn't
he just fumbles for the light, prays nothing else whimpers
through the terrifyingly sleepless night he's had
and he crawls into bed and pulls uhura close, as all logical spock's do;
it's his job, isn't it? isn't it now?

strudel: pineapple, universe, hexagon, pigeon.

join me for tea in the andromeda galaxy

when was the last time you surfed around the universe?
no, not like that cheesy train song. none of that
"did-you-make-it-to-the-milky-way" silliness.
i mean really took a break from everything,
and got lost in the stars. last time i was there
i made a new constellation: this branched-out-topped
pineapple. i sat between the stems. evened them out,
pressed a few together on the sides, closer.
this was before they died, before anyone could see them.
warm balls, sizzling by my eyes and fingertips.
i never thought life would reach such a paramount of
all that was good, as i molded each star into place.
a hexagon of emotions stumbled around my stomach,
and the resulting feeling took butterflies away,
replaced on large, wing-flappingly obnoxious pigeon,
burrowing away at my gut.
i could barely touch the stars anymore, barely feel them
vibrating against my palm,
when suddenly i was awake, curled un my sheets.
a cool moonlight bathed my bed and i stared,
helplessly lost being back to gravity and humanity,
but smiled wide at yes.
the slim pineapple constellation.
so have you? just surfed around the universe?
try it sometime; you may wake up back here,
but you'll be more enriched for the experience.

josh: pigeon, pigeon, pigeon, pigeon.

i mean it, he was right

poo-too-weet, poo-too-weet
kurt vonnegut was right,
right to end his ways with a pigeon cooing.
poo-too-weet,
aren't you jealous, mr. pigeon?
i can coo better than you,
and we all know i smell better.
i'm sure mrs. pigeon isn't fond of
you fluttering your feathers for girls,
when she isn't around.
oh mr. pigeon.
envy me, envy my call,
poo-too-weet, poo-too-weet,
y'know, kurt vonnegut was right.

lara: orange, plastic, rump, antidisestablishmentarianism.

follow your dreams

she was a plastic dream,
i'm sure you've heard that though. all dolled up,
orange-skin, plump rump, she was everything;
everything he ever wanted in a
long-awaited one night stand.
he woos her with lawyer terms,
with promises of empowerment between the sheets,
colors her cheeks with a little more whiskey,
hidden in her martini. she'll never know.
she gets lulled to his bed,
words like superfluous and
antidisestablishmentarianism,
confusing her into thinking he's
calling her beautiful.
by morning he'll forget her name,
and she'll be walk-of-shaming her way
back downtown, passed the bar,
back to take-two of soulmate searching.
and he laughs, because he knows,
he knows what she wanted,
but let's admit it: who finds it in a bar.

steve: once, girl, nantucket, bucket.

the best i ever had

she was a dirty limerick, wrapped up in a haiku
she had promises of sestinas
and once in awhile, i can pretend that she was
a perfect girl, tied up in a towel. she always said
she was from nantucket, born in a
little shed off the backroads. i pretended to believe her
got lost in her luscious hair.
i still keep her blood in a bucket in the fridge.
she was a personal favorite.

veronica: twist, engage, flirt, maraud. (not allowed to use adjectives or adverbs.)

explain this too me, please make sense

i tend to fall in love when it's inopportune. how else would it happen?
i twist my feelings into a knot, tie them into a bow,
catch my heart beating against my ribs and question.
why do i let this happen? again?
he makes me flirt. makes me feel alive.
all he had to say was "engage", and he was my
jean-luc picard with hair and height.
he is the marauder of my heart, and yet
he hasn't the slightest clue. how do i tell him,
he's already got me where he needs me,
without telling him he can walk all over me?
i will simply never know.

kevin: cat, atrocity, omnipotent, pastafarianism.

why don't you people listen!

the flying spaghetti monster.
bow down, or suffer the consequences.
what are the consequences you say?
let me put down my sharpened scythe, because really
i'm so glad you asked.
no one ever asks. but most people don't even know
what pastafarianism is.
only your kids do. do you have kids?
no?
get some. they'll be able to roll their eyes at you
for not being all-knowing about the memes in the world.
memes? you don't even know what a meme is?
are you kidding me? lolcats, challenge accepted?
...goodness gracious. how do you live?
that's a down right atrocity if i ever heard one.
aren't people your age supposed to be all
omnipotent?
didn't you roam with dinosaurs?
you had to. look at those wrinkles.
maybe i'm not here for the spaghetti monster.
maybe i'm death at your door, 'cause man,
you look like you could use a lyin' down.
-- hey! no need to --
all right, all right. listen. the consequences,
to not following the spaghetti monster are --
ouch. man, why does everyone
and i do mean everyone
slam their door on my toes?
rude.

vignette four.

4.

There was something in me that seemed uneasy. Deep inside I always wished I was more of an impulsive person, someone who could take charge and go after what I really wanted, but my string of short-lived relationships, dynamite attempts at college that kept failing and epically failed battles against depression were just few of the things that littered my past as reminders of how pathetic I could often be. Gaining courage and desire to proceed as normal was hard enough some days, fighting to find the ability to facilitate abnormal and outrageous things was beyond my means. But I digress.

"Promise me you'll be careful?"

My sister stood just as nervous as I did, twitching almost at the edge of the stairs. Her grip on the end of the railing that stood directly facing our front door seemed fierce, the white of her knuckles piercing and harsh.

I grabbed my scarf, my hat, my sweater, my denim jacket and my fingerless gloves (I was in a phase where I wasn't sure what I thought was cool, so I wore layers in case one thing worked while another didn't. I also donned a lot of band t-shirts I'd skimped off on cheap prices of from ebay. Lots of alternative rock and classic rock bands, mostly, a few Jimi Hendrix and Bad Company, the occasional Bob Marley, and the very rare Dead Poetic t-shirt I'd managed to find. I liked bands, and I was in that phase for certain, and I didn't care what anyone else thought about it.)

"Promise me, Nona!"

Her voice quaked. I didn't blink.

"Of course, Tee." Short for Tegan, of course. My Mom thought it was nice. My sister hated it. Or at least, she would until she was nineteen and would meet a boy two years older that thought it was exotic. They both also smoked too much weed to remember each other's names half of the time, but that's neither here nor there.

"Of course." She muttered it just as I was closing the door, under her breath but loud enough for my ears.

Of course.

And I was. At first.

vignette three.

3.

"What'cha got there?" A new hire smacked her gum (which I was certain she wasn't meant to be chewing, especially not as obnoxiously as she was in my ear at that moment) as she leaned over the counter of dcs (downstairs customer service) and looked at the book I was clutching. Of course it was a planner, one I was far too interested in to not read.

"Nothing."

vignette two. all of these are on a whim, unedited. rambles.

2.

So much rain. Cold, hard, pitted against my button down shirt which was now matted to my skin. Shivering, shivering, shivering - I reached for the door handle to my truck, fingers slipping. Not sure if they were slipping because of the rain, how cold I was or the mere fact that I was dealing with my emotions shaking my core into an overload of catastrophic proportions.

"Nona!"

He called my name and all of whatever breath that had kept me standing was knocked from my ribcage and onto my rain pelted truck window. Every part of my body fell forward in a fluid motion of inner turmoil and the only reason I started to stand again was because I was in his arms, being held.

"Nona, stop, stop," he was cooing in my ear, pulling my drenched hair from my face, from my tear-stained eyes and cheeks. I melted into his equally cold body, seeking the warmth only his heart could offer. "Nona, stop," a now seemed to be added on without much actually being said. My body wouldn't stop shivering, I felt every inch and fiber of my being as I started to bring myself to a more level-grounded consciousness.

you just want his money, you just want everything, don't you, you fucking goddamn bint!

I'd never been yelled at by someone with a British accent, and now that I think about it, there was some comic relief found in it, but as I stood there (barely) shaking from top to toes, all I could think about was the pain I was forced to endure. Pain I didn't want, need or think possible.

"Nona, it's all going to be all right. I promise."

Even though I sort of knew he meant it, nothing in me wanted to believe him. At all.

vignette one, of a number i'm uncertain of. seriously first rough draft.

1.

Working in a bookstore meant a lot of things to me when I was younger. Mostly it meant books I wanted at cheaper prices, but there was the added bonus of meeting people who at least attempted to delve into literary minds. Well, some of them tried to delve into literary minds while others read drivel similar to the brain food equivalent of prune baby food. But I digress. Walking around a bookstore was more inviting to me than some people truly ever realized. See, when I was a child, I idolized Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Aside from this movie being genius in animated form, it created a standard I held for myself - where I was, whatever I was doing, I demanded it be surrounded by books.

So that never stuck so well, but I always wanted to think in the back of my mind that somehow I would continue to work around books until the day I died. Which in reality could be very monotonous. But I digress.

Subsequently, though I did manage to land a job in a bookstore at the ripe age of eighteen, I was planted in their cafe. Though appealing and quicker-paced in a smaller environment, I longed to wear clothes in shades other than black, gray, faded black and the occasional white if I dared. Apparently my lot in life was allotted under the category of "close, but no cigar", which now that I think of it, is not a term I often use. That's a shame.

But I digress.

Working in cafe had it's perks, though. All employees had specific discounts within the company, and considering the amount of business each cafe in the company received, our discount was fifty-percent. Though I often despised the idea of indulging in cupcakes and sandwiches drenched in oil that would probably entail an earlier death rate, the cafe area itself was fun. And whenever I was about to go on a break, I'd just ask them to start on whatever drink or food I was going to end up getting. Even though there was sometimes a line ahead of me when I eventually came to purchase, the fact that the beverage and food was already ready made it easier to anticipate the amount of time not wasted in the quick-finished half hour break I was given. Eight hour shifts, and all I got was a half hour and a fifteen. Criminal. Well, not really, but I often liked to seethe on anything that made it seem like I hated my job, because deep down inside all I ever wanted was to get paid enough to live off of that dumb job. But I digress.

One day I was sitting at work on my fifteen, up on the second level right in front of the kid's section. There's a railing, comes level to about the middle of my torso, and I even out at about 5'9" so I guess it was a decent sized fence. There were always two mini-mission or mission tables up there, against the railing. It's easy to spot those tables - they're all black, and some are about half the size of others. I was sitting between the two tables - there was a lengthy amount of space - when I heard a manager nearby tsking at something I saw in her hand.

"That's ridiculous."

"What is?"

She hadn't seen me, but didn't jump. My best friend and I had a tendency of sitting there to read on our breaks. Kept us out of cafe, but in the store incase we needed to jump into action somewhere. I'm aware I lived a sad life. I digress.

The manager held up a planner, the pages flapping madly as she twisted it at it's binding. "This planner, I just found it on the table and-"

"Oh, I love those planners. I get one every year." Another manager chimed in as she passed, wheeling a v-cart (these tall-ish black carts that carried books for particular sections on them. I loathed them in a way, because I was always too scared to bring them down the escalators in fear of spilling the contents of somehow maiming myself. Trust me, if anyone who knew me were telling this story, they'd mention how horrible my balance is - and in combination with how accident prone I've always been, the likelihood of a spill occurring up or down an escalator with a v-cart in hand was as good as it could get.

I'd actually fallen on the up escalator. Technically at the time it was temporary stairs, since we'd been closed and the escalator was turned off. I had literally tripped going up stairs. Sprained my ankle and was out of work for at least a month and a half. And all of this isn't even counting how often I feared stepping onto escalators out of sheer terror, solely because my over-active imagination pulsed with the idea that somehow I'd get stuck and then sucked in between the cracks and slowly tortured by the grainy lines on the metal steps. But I digress.)

"Me too, but this one is going to have to go into our damaged goods section." The first manager whipped through some of the pages and showed it to her colleague and I sat, cross-legged, curious as ever as to what it was they were looking at. But I was positively forgotten and I had no intention of interrupting.

"It's not the worst I've seen," the second manager, who was the older and wiser (in that, 'I've-worked-here-longer-and-seen-more-than-you' sort of way) nonchalantly waved her hand before walking off with the v-cart (seriously, they're scary and made of evil.)

The first manager laughed and shrugged before zipping passed me to the down escalator, and she was gone. I went back to my reading, the seemingly ruined planner taking a backseat to the horrid shoujo manga I was reveling in.

oh, nonsense.

"oh nonsense?" she says, dipping her honey-coated spoon into her tea. "nonsense. hmm."

disappointing triumph on honest lust

disappointing triumph on honest lust

cold as the knife in the back of the moment
tasting the cooling sensation of a bittersweet fear
can't it feel like it

wasn't

gone.

freeze that virus on that fingertip-tipping icy trails of
what was it called
that
that

that damn

heartbeat

beating heart

thumping of chilled veins, biting as if they were as
acerbic as toxic butterflies in my

shaking head

sophisticated as his head between her legs
on the glance of his glasses, rimmed by
anticipated desire like an
uninterested whore on an iceberg of

unsatisfied triumph.

mounted on the pike of the marrow of the useless
caressing the tendrils of a sun-kissed afterthought
"oh, yes, sir, it's all real"
suddenly not as tasking yet
suffering of fraudulent
perception.

no sir, it's not real
never could have been,
so do try again before the mask falls from her
breast
onto the throbbing disrespect
nestled between the curls
laughter.