Third In Line

This sonnet was somewhat inspired by Rosanne Cash's "Seven Year Ache". Accordingly, I gave my poem the same name.

Seven Year Ache

Night takes to you like you never left town,
touches your cheek, forgives the small bad things.
I guess you're a dog in a wedding gown:
awkward and can't remember what to sing.

Someone taught you how to apologize,
but not how to stop stepping in the cake.
A little girl-person couldn't realize
the self-sufficiency we're s'posed to make.

Walk down the aisle; you're barking through your veil.
Night waits, arrayed in too many lapels.
Guests are half-certain this marriage will fail,
but you stay convinced it'll all go well.

I've lost the instructions; done it again.
Remember when you took off, way back when?

Full & Grey

I remember baking bread with my mom as a little kid. She would tell me to punch down the dough, but I was never able to hit it hard enough. It was too fluffy and firm and determined. The dough would stick to my knuckles and hurt my fist, but wouldn't let me pummel the air out of it. Depression is like that too. It rises insistently inside of me, no matter what I do to try and stave it off. I am helpless, as if fleeing from a monster in a dream. My feet won't move.

When depression arrives, full and grey and wholly present, then suddenly that's all there is. Everything else that I thought I had--words, pictures, projects--is immaterial. No, that's not right. Now those things are nothing but material, piles of heavy stuff that I can't bear to touch, like a horrible damp carpet folded up endlessly.

I want to be interested. I want to be enthusiastic. I want to be energetic and happy. I'm not so far removed that I don't remember those better states of being. But I can't break into them. I can't even take a step toward doing that.

Express The Surface

Dramatic outtakes from my Halloween costume shoot. One photo crisp; one photo soft.

On a totally unrelated note, it's time for sonnet #2 in my sonnet-per-day-during-November project. This one came out unexpectedly, and it's more, uh, gruesome than I would prefer. Consider this a content warning for light gore, body horror, and general anatomical grossness.

Subcutaneous

I have an attachment to my fingers,
the pearl joints and the rough-edged scratching squares.
Nails press into thighs; impressions linger.
If only I could have no skin or hair.

Imagine me as bare-bald as a wound,
all sides sealed up by sticky white cotton.
Very raw, even lashes and lips pruned,
all my girlish pains all but forgotten.

Yet my body stays contained by this sack
of elastic pores, deep follicle roots.
It grows and flakes, expands and stretches back.
I stay special in my new human suit.

This arrangement of too-much disguised flesh
makes my infection harder to refresh.

A Month In Verse

I don't have it in me to fully participate in National Novel Writing Month. What's the quota, like 1,500 words per day? That's not happening. But I want to do some kind of writing project for November, and this is the idea I've settled on: 30 days of sonnets. I wrote my first one this afternoon.

Rabbit Relations

Stooped apple tree and silent rabbit mouths
accompany the thrum of early heart.
The tree's been cut away to just one bough.
Rabbit pounces on leaves; tears them apart.

Two lonely buns thoroughly clean their fur.
I briefly wish that they could speak, could say.
But their quiet panic does them better
than if a lexicon got in the way.

The tree drops half-yellow leaves to fracture
as they hit, cracking soft against the ground.
Three rabbits pursuing one another:
feet and fear and hot eyes but never sound.

My breath comes caffeine-quick and perfectly.
Morning melts and fades beneath the tree.

Fashionably Late

[I posted this on my fashion blog a month or so ago, but I've since deleted the post. Now it will be here instead.]

I'm still coming to terms with the idea of dressing for myself. I've spent basically my whole life dressing as a performance, trying to appeal to boys and "accentuate my body" or whatever. Because that's what girls are trained to do. Now, at nineteen, I'm finally selecting my clothes and outfits with my own aesthetic pleasure in mind. I want to dress in a way that makes me feel good! It's actually kinda hard to figure out what that looks like.

It used to be that I would follow a bunch of societal style rules in order to try and look "sexy". Often, my own natural homeyness would come through, and I would feel like I had failed. Now that I want to express my own taste, it's strangely difficult. I find myself second-guessing what I like. Maybe it's because I'm still trying to dress for other people--but instead of men, now I have other women in mind. I'll look in the mirror and wonder if I look fashionable, like, "Is this actually cute, or am I just fooling myself into thinking that?" I guess I have to learn to let go and trust my intuition completely. If I like it, then it must be cool, right? Because I like it, and I am cool! (Ha. Haha. Hahaha.)

Babies

I'm at my favorite cafe. On the drive over here, I stopped at a red light while this adorable little kid and a guy about my age were crossing the street hand-in-hand. I assumed that the man was the kid's father, although he could have been a much-older brother or a cousin or something. He was quite handsome, with his backwards snapback, braided black hair, and slouchy jeans. Anyway, the little guy was looking at me in that wide-eyed solemn way that young kids do. So I smiled and waved. At first he didn't respond, but after I repeated my greeting, he turned to wave at me a couple times before he and his gentleman escort finished crossing the street. The whole thing made my heart swell up. We also got a few adorable trick-or-treaters last night--my favorites were a polite ladybug and a confused penguin.

Thank you, Lady, for the sweetness of small children. Amen.

Eyes Cast Down

Nothing to say about this one. Just sharing it.