Post pending

This post is pending as I work on my erotica pet project--I need those dollah' bills, ya feel? Instead, enjoy this poem by Robert Frost:

**I DID NOT WRITE THIS POEM**

The Road Not Taken
     --Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I'm a tauraus

"I'm a tauras" I say but I
Mean that personalities are
Nuanced and I happen to i-
Dentify with some traits often
Attributed to tauruses
Such as a desire to love
And nurture all living things
And a fundamental belief
That all life is sacred. "I'm a
Taurus" I say but I mean that
I want you to like me and I
Think it is likely that you buy
Into this astronomy bull-
I mean, maybe I don't believe
My destiny can be controlled
As easily as the pull of
Gravity on a bunch of orbs
Of gas uncontrollably on
Fire. "I'm a taurus" I say,
But I mean that I am more like
The stars in the elaborate
Constellation: that powerful
Sensation, that stuff that myths are
Based on. "I'm a taurus" I say,
But I mean that we're all made out
Of stardust but I'm trying to
Read the stories from veins of sky
Traced into skin, I'm pacing and
Restless in pursuit of endless
Nights of stories and a desire
To humanize those distant and
Fiery stars that compose the
Mighty bull, the very story
I refuse to let define me.
So I say instead: "I'm a taurus"

On missing you

"The opposite of love's indifference"
     --the Lumaniers in Stubborn Love

The opposite of this feeling of lying curled up next you you 
Is not being able to remember how it feels to be curled up next to you.
When I can no longer conjure the feeling of your hands on my skin.
When I've lost the taste of the nape of your neck somewhere to the unrelenting tide of memory.

You gave me a love poem
On a sheet of looseleaf paper
Crumpled from the worry of hands
Running over it again and again as you held it in your pocket.
And all I could say was "I think your meter is a little off."
But I put it in my glove compartment and saved it there alongside faded wildflowers.
It's still when I need reminding.

The opposite of the feeling of kissing you
Is the bitter wind in my face.
Stinging my eyes.

A story about her

An exercise in vanity:

The girl in the bar has dark hair like
Ripples of water and earth and joy.
Her lips are dark and pull up at the edges like a poorly kept secret.
Her eyes are covered in sparkles and wrinkle as she smiles at her friend.
They reflect the flashing multicolored club lights in chambered facets.

The girl in the club moves
In a way that is entierly in her body.
Her legs and arms hold barely contained power.
Like she could bust of her own skin in
A fit of sheer vitality at any second.
She throbs louder than the speakers and flashes brighter than the disco lights.

And in that moment she is perfect.

Learning Love

Written from the table of the physical therapists office:
My leg is tender.
Hurts to touch.
Hurts to soothe.
But today I walk and you can barely see my limp.
Soon I will run.
Soon I will dance.
The wide blue winter skies call me
They say "Fly with me!"
And soon I will be able to listen.

Not so great Gatsby

Soo I started the Great Gatsby. And so far I am absoloutely underwhelmed. I'm 79 pages through a less than 200 page book and so far almost nothing has happened. I understand that at some point Gatsby allegedly becomes a psychopathic murderer but if that's going to happen, F Scott motherfucking Fitzgerald better pick up the pace. This book is supposed to be about the roaring twenties? Right? Well, this glamorous imagery is lost on me as a citizen of the 21st century and it doesn't help that Fitzgerald writes as though he's trying to actively avoid a cohesive narritave. The big parties Gatsby throws sound like they involve more abused women than fun cocktails, Daisy Buccanan and Jordan I-don't-remember-her-last-name are flatter characters than the page they're written on and the narrator of the story reads as uncompelling and self-rigeous.
I think my dislike for the narrator is somewhat biased by the era and place I from where I hail. In the feminist part of the 21st century, a man introducing himself by preaching his virtues is not considered flattering. Especially when it's so obviously a crock of bullshit.
For those of you who haven't read the novel so widely taught across the country in high schools Nick spends about two pages bragging about how he and his father make it a policy not to judge anyone else. And they're better people than everyone else because their lack of judgement. Give it a second. Sit with that. Then, he procedes to judge Daisy, Tom, and Jordan in quick succession. He works in the stock market, goes to a few of Gatsby's ragers, gets involved in a middle school-esque plot of Gatsby likes Daisy and boom, there's act one.
I'm not saying good literature has to have a lot of goings on to classify as good.
But . . . If you don't have plot maybe you could have dialogue, which Fitzgerald actively avoids or at least vibrant writing. Fitzgerald's writing isn't bad, I'm sure, but so far the most decadent thing he's described in the book is a row of French windows . . . Which isn't incredibly sexy. There's been a lot of abuse towards women, people of color, and the lower class.
I'm sure as the book goes on I'll have more things to say but so far the Great Gatsby has been more like a great dissapointment.
Maybe we should occasionally reevaluate our classics and stop fetising this cis het white male version of what we know as the literary cannon. More to follow . . .

A self portrait in grays

A lists of my texts to you between three and four in the morning:
hey

u still up

probably not lol

i was just thinking
what was that movie we went to see in November?

u remember, it had that little boy who runs away with his grandad
or is it his uncle
the movie is filmed in New Zealand, i think
sometimes i want to run away to new Zealand

jk

but, like, i was also thinking about after the movie

u never said sorry

everyone in the theatre was looking at us
and then after u left they were all looking at me
crying

did i ever tell you that?
i did. i cried after u left.

for like a whole month, actually
but i don't think u knew
u never bothered to ask
u actually haven't talked to me since the movie

and, like i know it wasn't working for u
i keep going over in my head how i could've fixed it
maybe if i spent more time listening and less time talking
maybe if i spent less time with Justin and Dan
maybe if i had gone down in on u more
maybe if i had asked u to go down on me less

but u haven't even texted me ONCE since then

i don't know if i could have fixed it
i don't know if i would want to take u back
i dont know if i could say no if u asked for me back

do u want me back?

Things I sometimes stop myself from saying

If the door says pull,
Pushing is a silly thing to do

I don't owe you my time. Ever.

One on one conversations are a good way to affect personal change.

Telling people they're wrong only makes them think they're mire correct.

There's no such thing as reverse racism.

There's no such thing as reverse sexism.

All oak trees grow from a single acorn.

This too shall pass.

Being able to take a third party stance is a form of privilage.

Telling someone to calm down is a form of emotion policing.

You never know what someone's been through.

You don't owe anyone else your time or emotional energy.

Emotional work is still work and framing it as positive traits all women possess is a form of oppression.

Without explicit consent it's rape.

Benevolent sexism is still oppressive.

I'm not upset.

You're the defensive one.

Your masculinity is so fragile it might shatter if I breathed on it wrong.

FUCK YOU
I DON'T OWE YOU
ANYTHING

Missed connections

You were the cat curled in a geometric circle on the carpet next to still glowing of the woodstove.
I was the dog barking and straining her leash from the street outside.

You were that newspaper article on the table at my dentist's office with the dancing girls on the picture.
I was the goldfish trapped in the tank with my mouth hanging open.

You were the sweet and sticky smell of pine needles in the Adirondack summer.
I was the sun, stretching my rays towards you, slowing my path through the sky to spend just a few more minutes with you.

You were a single sparking grain of sand in the Sahara.
I was an innocent breeze turned hurricane, destroying villiages to find you.

Seasonal Depression

The sky gets dark at four and then night lingers on until seven
His greedy fingers grabbing at morning like the sunrise has promised him something.
The sun does not fight back.
Instead, the sun slinks across the sky,
Afraid of any unwanted attention
Hoping to go about her business unnoticed and make it home before dark.

The sun is distant, these days, and cold
She is afraid any heat, any semblance of warmth, might give the night the wrong idea.
The sun does not want anyone to think she was asking for it.
The sun is careful not to take up too much space in the winter time.

The night sprawls himself ever longer,
Reaching for space that never belonged to him.
Space that he assumes is his birthright
Because no one has ever told him it's not.
Because, hey, if it's not his, why does the sun give it up so easily?

The sun gives the night her space quietly,
Without a fight.
Wishing for spring.