Day 1

His fingernails were torn, ragged. A nail file would do something of a job to right them but the trouble was deeper than that, and he knew it strongly. His mind was elsewhere- but wasn't it always? He hummed softly, letting his body rock in rhythm, and he stretched his arms backward, taking in the late afternoon sun. From his right he could smell jasmine, just opening up for nighttime, and he squinted his eyes against the sunlight. The sunscreen sprayed onto his arms and legs was sticky, and he rubbed his fingers along his thighs, feeling somewhat uncomfortable. The concrete was hard and unyielding beneath his spine. 

Toby heard a strange noise off in the distance, and he opened his eyes, rolling up onto his elbows. The far side of his backyard looked somehow dimmer, and yet a certain light had caught the leaves of his elm tree and the various particles floating in space and illuminated them softly in the setting sun. Curious, Toby rolled up onto his knees, his hands unconsciously rolling down his jeans. Was it his imagination, or did the flowers in that portion of the garden look brighter, more lively than they had minutes ago? And larger, too... Toby reached for the peach tree on his left and used it to come to his feet, rubbing his eyes all the while. 

As he approached the garden, Toby felt something like electricity in the air, and raised his eyes above the ground, momentarily getting lost in the mysterious haze. The smell of sunscreen seemed to be fading into the distance, and the flowers became almost overpowering... but in a subtle, gentle way that only such blossoms could induce. And there was something else- something he, living all his life in the middle of the country, couldn't quite place, and so he tucked into the back of his mind for later inspection. When he reached the garden, he had to steady himself, for what he saw next bemused and intrigued him to levels he had rarely experienced before. 

There was, directly before him, a simple wooden gate, its latch black and rusted, a gate that Toby had never seen before. It led on into a path lined with trees and crossed with vines, so thickly that it was difficult to distinguish through to the sky. Toby paused, his heart thumping madly in his chest, and then took the decisive steps forward to the gate. He undid the latch clumsily and stepped onto the path, looking around him with wonder. 

Svetlana sucks lemons across from me

Why was it that poor Ranna had to share a waiting room with such a sour-tempered girl? A girl who insisted on criticizing every article of his clothing, down from the red scarf tied tightly around his neck to the rain deer-decorated socks that peaked out from between his snow boots and too-short jeans? But Ranna knew she must be putting on airs. A girl like her, try as she might to conceal it, wouldn't go to a doctor like this if she had any sort of money. 

And I am progressing abominably

Dr. Kolokowski promised they would have covered more ground by the third week, but Ranna was seriously doubting his methods, though he wouldn't say so to either of his parents. His father paid well for his sessions, little though they had left to spend after Ranna's private school tuition- a fair 70% of his father's earnings went toward his education, as Ranna was reminded at every possible opportunity. 

And I do not know my own way to the sea

How many times before had he gone lost, trying to find his way home? His dad didn't really like him for that, but then, Ranna hadn't given him many reasons to forgive him for acting like an elderly man with an addled mind. How many nights Ranna had opened his bedroom window to frozen winds, sat out on the sill with his legs dangling over the edge and his bedroom door closed to keep out unwanted questions, and imagined he could feel the sea air on his face? 

But the saltiest sea knows its own way to me

Yes... A blue his eyes could get lost in for hours, days. Cliffs so scraggily no one would want to climb, white as his own face and dangerous and cold. Wind that clung to his face, droplets that stayed and dried as bits of salt, black tar on his feet. Then, beyond the clouds hanging low and the birds, mournful and hungry, he would see something, and it was like a truth, an unformed truth in his mouth. That was the point Dr. Kolokowski liked to so often focus on, because for one reason or another, he knew Ranna was hiding something. 

Every morning begins like this for me: I get up from my bed, groggy and stretching, and start to peel off my clothes. Over my head goes the sweatshirt, down go the pants. When I get down to grubby ankle socks and boxers, I start reaching for the back of my neck. My fingers sink down until they find a hold, and I start unraveling layers of skin like an onion. This is a lengthy process; I can't just unwind the skin in one great sheath like some folks can do with an orange peel. It would certainly be easier if I could, but I've done it this way forever and I don't want to screw things up.


When I get down to the muscle and bone I start to fold up my shapeless skin and drop it into the laundry basket by my door. I'm extra careful when I pick up the basket and push open the door, because I'd rather not wake my roommate, Kristina. I don't think she'd really care if she saw me like this, but she absolutely hates waking up before nine on a weekend. 

The washing room is across the hall from the bathroom, which works out pretty well for me. It's a tiny dingy room with a washer and dryer and not much else. I peered into the washing machine, then dumped my socks and boxers into the depth below. I look at the baggy folds of skin in my laundry basket; these are clearly hand-wash only.

I push open the door across the hall and start to run a bath. As the water gets bubbling at the sides of the tub, my fingers get to work, unhooking organs and dropping them in. In goes my skin, and I'm scrubbing at it with the potato brush. The water hisses with steam.

My fingers dug into the clay
Loud scent of soil clinging to my ears
I hold my hand to the light
to the loss of potential there
I imagine the hills behind your house
are drying, yellow
Like a pockmarked face
I held my hand palm up
and you put a tiny pepper seed there

Dog Owners Please Pick Up Your Dog's Shit

I was walking home from the bookstore today
Tiny nebula forming in my chest
Smell of dark, deep soil all around me
My feet kicking up dust where all I go

Tight yellow fence particles moving around me
Fingers gripping and holding till the tiny metal bits cut
Leaves falling far and in between

Femmecore

Thinking about my own gender identity is nothing new to me. I've always wondered about my own femaleness-and-or-maleness, and how it fits into the queer community in general. But with a Women's Studies class I've started to take this fall at my cc (which seems to emphasize femme empowerment) and Femme 2010: No Restrictions, a conference put on by The Femme Collective, I've been thinking about it a whole lot lately.

I love femmes. I love the idea of redefining the feminine identity into something that is powerful and sexy. I love that feminists and women all over are taking the traits traditionally described as "weak" or "inferior" to their masculine counterparts and giving them new credibility and importance. Still, the more I think about it, the more I realize: I am not a femme.

Am I in any way particularly masculine, I wonder? No, not really. I like going out on madcap adventures as much as the next stupid kid, but I also like to stay in and crochet a hat, or a read a good book. I don't think of my body as radiating sexuality and confidence; if I wear short skirts and lipstick, I'm more likely to do it in order to achieve an aesthetic effect than to attract anyone.

I don't feel like a femme in relationships, either. I feel itchy and uncomfortable when someone holds the door open for me, covers the dinner check, tells me I'm "beautiful", or in any way treats me "like a girl". But I can't see myself taking on a particularly masculine role in a relationship, either; the idea of protecting a girl with a display of overt masculinity just seems silly to me (not that I wouldn't try and find other ways of protecting her). Where does that put me?

I remember going to a queer conference a few years ago, and attending a workshop on femme empowerment. One of the exercises involved us writing on sticky notes what we loved best and hated least about being a femme in culture, and sticking them on two separate sides of the room. Many of the girls stated that they loved wearing dresses, doing their hair, and wearing makeup as reasons to love being femme. It bothered me because these reasons seemed shockingly superficial. 

I'm hoping I'll learn more about how gender-ambiguous people fit into the feminist schema, and how we "gender-queers" find confidence in being both masculine and feminine.

Fall 2010 (?)

It was so hazy. Oh, my head, so hazy. I felt like my atoms were melting off a me, little bits in a trickle like sand. I couldn't think, at least not properly; weird fragments, words and such, kept bubbling up in front of my head, keeping me from focusing on anything, not een them. "Life in the time of cholera," they said. "Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie." Why her? Where is all this coming from? Neurons, probably. You know, random firings of synapses in my brain, electricity going from neuron to dendrite to neuron then axon and back again. Madness. But evolutionarily favored madness.

I'd like to walk around in your mind someday

I'm finishing a cup of coffee and my mind drifts elsewhere, to days where my thoughts were more easily etched on the dashboard in front of me. I'm remembering her hands, soft and almost formless, insects spread flat in a bowl of milk. My lips like butterfly wings on her forehead, dark curls falling across my face. Her breath quiet at my ear. I can feel her fingernails on my side, can see the line of her leg, pointed foot, trace runes in the sky. Have I ever known stars this bright? Her tears fall like shadows on my unmoving back, and she is the moon to my sun. Eyes closed, we feel our bodies tilt apart. My days of endless forgiving are over, and like a spider you wind your way onward.





"Sun and Moon Love" by Laura Pelick

The Scaffolding Above My Bed

My bed is surrounded by a web of scaffolding, metal branches twisting this way and that toward a wooden ceiling. It is mountain water in my mouth, rich with minerals and frigid from melting snow. It claps like thunder on a misty, damp day, the asphalt on the pavement mixing with rain. The school bus rolls over it, scooch, pebbles and odd bits of sand scatter. Bike tires roll over it, leaving behind the sticky scent of rubber. Feet roll over it, crunch; they’re my feet, and these shoes are so worn I can stick my toe out the sides. 

I dangle upside-down from the scaffolding, my legs curved over the sharply cold metal, calves turning white with the strain. My head goes crimson as my brain fills with a storm of sticky stringy thoughts that stretch like taffy, the metal splintering them and supporting them simultaneously. At bedtime it holds me close like a cage. It scrapes and clunks and echoes. Its voice reverberates hollow and tense, my fingertips strumming methodically on its spine. It does not rest at night when I do.

"Mary", pt. 1

 I was sitting in Mary’s basement apartment, slumped on the couch there, the old maroon squishy smells like dog one. She handed me a cup of coffee and I accepted, feeling the quiet, restless nature of the room. There were windows, narrow things that peered over just the top of the room and didn’t let a lot of light in. Outside of these windows was grass, just a little, patchy and yellow because it cost too much for the manager to water them during the summer. 

Mary was in the kitchen, which was just a tiny bit apart from the rest of the room, distinguishable by the postage stamp of counter and the dark white refrigerator, covered with photographs and souvenir magnets depicting things like cacti and sunsets. 

Did she look like she belonged in the kitchen? I don't know. On one hand, her fingers flicked nimbly through the recipes in a large post-it-marked cookbook; on the other hand that was her mom's cookbook and she had only just pulled it off a shelf where it looked like dust had been piling like dandruff on its shoulders. 

My legs were crossed on the couch, pulled up underneath me. I held the cup in two hands, not drinking, just letting the steam drift up around my head. I always preferred the smell of coffee to its taste. I heard Mary put down the cookbook in defeat and pad back into the living room, bare feet on throw rugs. She sunk down next to me, smiling in a faraway way. 

"How are you doing?" she asked me, pulling dark hair back behind an ear. What a question.

"Better, I think. Well, not exactly better, just... You know," I paused, taking a long time to sip my coffee. I felt the warmth spread throughout my body, which comforted me a bit "Thanks."

Johanna

Black wings, stretched taut
eyes blazing fire, wounded shoulder
old hawk

Tender, tentative tendrils long body
little purple orange wildflower
so lost

Sad pepper tree, tall pepper tree
Leaves like webbed fingers and tiny red fruit
The small burning gift in your pocket
sky a dusty, dusty blue

Milkweed white
Splash of yellow, cream
And honey, smooth and calm

Seaweed tongue touches blossom lips
Holds between them gummy peach ring of candy
Sprinkled with sugar, bought on a whim
Just the one

Scottish moorland
Rambling hills and lavender sky
Cold stone walls, dust of years
Taste the chalky and the old
The jagged creamy crescent moon

Two palms face up, your basin, man-made and narrow
surrounded by trees and boots, little flowers and grass
the earth took you back, she now cradles you like a river

standing tall and ruffled, hands like clam shells
lips pursed white, eyes fill of sand
tucked gently into my bookshelf
Fingers intertwined

Tea shop, the room is filled with delicate beauty
Up a narrow flight of stairs,
wooden banister rough on soft hands
the tarnished porcelain door handle to a room
marked 'employees only'

Faded blue ribbon, the young girl wearing you with
Her shoes kicked off and toes
Dipped into clean cold ocean water
Pads rested on smooth pebbles
She would argue your importance over her pretty brocade dress
Her petticoats, tangled blonde hair

Girl

At one point, I sat back here with a girl. A girl and a pair of jeans. I wrote our names on the inside pockets with a red ballpoint pen and a small paragraph underneath that I didn't show her. Since then I've cut these jeans at the knee and washed them many times, so the red pen is all gone. At least, I can't find it. 

When we were here, we wrote stuff. Strange, disconnected stuff. I kept feeling like the girl in the book I was about to buy, or maybe that's me looking back on it now, associating the two when I wasn't actually there yet myself.

There are places in this bookstore i can't go anymore. There's a cubby hole in the back where we sat and drew pictures and didn't look at each other. We found an orange peel with "i hate oranges" written onto the milky inside skin of the peel tucked behind a fake plant. And it's not like I hadn't sat there with other girls before her, but it's her chewed down fingernails and the notebook with the taj mahal on the front that I never saw again that make it stick in my head. 

She was so cold back then. Physically cold, her brain malleable, but tired. I didn't know what to do with it, our potential. I saw lines spiraling out like road maps from our temples but each line I tried to travel ended abruptly in zero space. It was an immensely frustrating process. 

My head hurts. I can't just keep sitting here like this, imagining myself talking to you. Fighting, pushing, screaming for an answer. I want a way out of this but not in the way that you think, and you probably didn't love me in the first place but I know you felt something, something strong and visceral and as close to touching as atoms or thoughts could ever be. I want to lay my head down in my hands and tear out my hair and skin, leave nothing but bone because my fingers can't break into bone, or at least I've never tried. Will I have pulled off enough of my humanity by then to cease to feel? To sympathize with the waves with the rivers and the tumultuous molten lava flowing, flowing. But you're just a glove now I glove I stole and used to keep one hand warm, two hands, yours and mine. A glove we spilled coffee on coffee that the blonde boy served us, Joe was his name, whatever happened to him? Joseph. 

Fall 2009

New (ish) Poem

Ample heart
Mine is like a crystal
A knot tightening
All parts of me are in alignment
Tell me you'll address this lack
of proportion around me
Individual universes
This hardwood table looks back
out at me
It says nothing
and I'm looking for a face
a face to match mine
And though I am ugly there is a
sharpness you might miss