crumbs in the bed.

there is some kindness in the way
the earth is suspended on gravity’s back.
how it
rotates on it’s axis,
bound by the sacred trust
that space won’t bottom out &
shake us all from the earth
like crumbs in the bed.

there is little kindness in the way
the earth is suspended
in war, in turmoil;
with handguns & machine guns
& bombs strapped to civilians-
tied to the greater majority
with the intentions of a few.

there is little kindness
in fighting fire with fire-
when our own backyards are burning
&
our neighbors are to blame.

there is little kindness in the fear
of what lies beneath a burka,
a niqab,
a turban-
a police uniform,
a trench coat
or a white robe
&
a
pointed
white
hood.

there is little kindness in the terror
that sleeps in the backs of our minds,
that sets up shop in our beds
& lays dormant for awhile.

and all the while

we condemn the third world-
the local news just confirms
and confirms
and confirms-
we were killing each other first.

there is little kindness in seeing humanity
as this side of the border
or that.
the world is more of a revolving door
that spins you dizzily
& spits you back out.

there is some kindness in the way
gravity still holds the earth
like some sick, sad science fair project;
like some shitty consolation prize.

humanity is
a bed of crumbs
clinging
thanklessly
to
sheets.

heaven is made of islands.

a lil’ something i wrote for my writing course 🙂

 

summer time in the city.

NICKELBATH.

epiphanies have a mind of their own & can strike absolutely anywhere at any time. in the blink of an eye, a new perspective is born & you decidedly, unwaveringly know in your heart of hearts that you fucking HATE people who rollerblade. or douchebags who bike with no hands. or how if you ever saw chad kroeger from nickelback in real life, you’d be compelled to punch him in his stupid goatee. or the way cilantro ruins an otherwise delicious plate. or the way cotton balls sound when you rub them between your thumb and index finger (WHAT?!).

it seems to much easier to get behind our ever-growing lists of dislikes when we’re called out on them than it does to talk about the things that don’t drive up our blood pressure, you know- the ones that actually make us happy? and while in the bathtub last night- that was just the epiphany i had.

…during a nickelback song. 

so i was contemplating standing up & soaking the bathroom floor to change the radio station when one of their newer songs came on, but instead i sat there and asked myself ‘what the hell is so wretched about this band that would drive me to get out of the bathtub just to switch this song out for a different mediocre one on another mediocre station?’ which spawned into ‘why do other people like nickelback so much?’ ‘why is chad kroeger a world-renowned douchebag who also happens to be far richer than all of his haters combined (“HAHA!”– chad kroeger)?’ but moreover- ‘why do i spend so much time hating shit instead of loving it?’ ‘what is the recipe for dislike?’ ‘what makes me so uncomfortable about the things i hate?’ ‘WHY DO I HATE NICKELBACK?!’ 

…’WHY DO I LIKE ANYTHING?!‘ 

shit got incredibly real and i decided i want to start delving into my feelings; not the mushy gushy ones that nobody else wants to hear about, but the horribly uncomfortable ones that would be hilarious to really reflect on, starting with nickelback, and eventually branching off into anything i mentioned in the very first paragraph. it’s pretty easy to discredit something and add it to the ever-growing stockpile of stuff you hate, but harder to find the good in it through unbiased observation. i am hoping that this will be an offbeat way to practice positivity & self-reflection/understanding.

i want to learn to understand why other people like stuff instead of deciding that i don’t, basically.

and here it is, my first dip into the cool pool of discomfort-

NICKELBACK

first- his voice. not awful, really. i am sure i enjoy bands who work with less. i’d call it pretty unremarkable, myself.. there’s nothing that outstanding about it, but nothing i found particularly intolerable, either. i tried to imagine him singing something in a style i like but drew a blank because i am not a fucking wizard, okay? with a legit fear of being lynched for saying this- i feel like he sings like a girly james hetfield, who i also don’t really care for. they have that same kind of growly thing going on- albeit very different styles- i truly believe that ex metal mothers could be nickelbacks target market once they have a few kids & get soft, yanno? i imagine this dude could hold a note while playing live, too. and he probably wouldn’t get wasted and forget his lyrics at one of his shows like marilyn manson did when i saw him a few years ago. i’ll give him a solid 7/10 in this department.

second- the band (like, NOT chad kroeger. or maybe WITH him, if he plays an instrument, which i think he might.) so the quality of the music they play is decent. i don’t claim to be a musician by any stretch, so i don’t know if my opinion means much when i say that it doesn’t sound like shit to me. i mean, blink 182 just plays 4 chords really, really fast & they made all of us lose our teenage minds, so fuck off with your high horse. it’s nothing super complicated, there aren’t any real epic solos or fancy breakdowns (thank god) but the quality is there and they obviously put some of their zillions of dollars towards studio time at places that make zillion dollar sound for moms to take their tops off to.

third- the lyrics. they suck. they’re super simple, every-man rhyming couplets that get turned into inspirational quote pictures on tumblr. these kind of lyrics drive me BONKERS & are probably the root cause of my dislike for this band. but i understand the appeal of being a band who writes shitty poetry to music and profits off of mass idiocy. not everybody appreciates or cares for “deep”, some people like simplicity because it really speaks to them. i think my disdain in this department is entirely personal, i can’t hate them just because he writes about stuff that boring people relate to and has gotten filthy rich doing it. in fact, i should probably take a note from the book of chad kroeger and start writing songs to line your litter box to. however, if you’re looking for something that doesn’t sound like entries from dr seuss’ prepubescent diary- i’d suggest looking elsewhere.

forth- chad kroeger AS nickelback AKA nickelback starring chad kroeger. i admittedly had an OG hate for avril lavigne that started in highschool. it was already enough to be the weird punk kid in a small town, it was a totally different evil to have a manufactured facsimile hit the radio & spawn a legion of deviant, tie wearing preps who suddenly loved ‘sk8er bois’ & suddenly had everything in common with you! EVERYBODY KNOWS SHE WAS A COUNTRY SINGER- CAMMAN!

but that scar is neither here nor there, the bottom line still remains that chad kroeger MARRIED avril lavigne AFTER she broke up with the lead singer of sum 41 (who always looked like a garden gnome, imho). i feel like if they ever had a baby, it would be the canadian antichrist. the fact that the two of them entered into a union of unparalleled mediocrity probably blew a maple leaf shaped hole into the ozone layer over manitoba or saskatchewan. their pairing undoubtedly made me hate chad kroeger even more, but in reality- they’re kind of well suited for each other. i’d say they’re on par talent wise, and this inspirational tumblr picture will illustrate it-

just because he looks like he’s 45 years older than her & seeing the two of them together is uncomfortable doesn’t mean their love is any weirder than any of ours. canadians are notorious for our strange couples- take celine dion and her dad, for instance.

i think that as a group, they are doing good things for us nationally, but more important are the things they are doing for our humble little country internationally– people all over the world LOVE them. wikipedia had this to say:

“Nickelback is one of the most commercially successful Canadian groups, having sold more than 50 million albums worldwide^[2] and ranking as the eleventh best-selling music act, and the second best-selling foreign act in the U.S. of the 2000s, behind The Beatles.^[3][4] Billboard ranks them the top rock group of the decade, and their hit song “How You Remind Me” was listed as the top rock song of the decade and the fourth song of the decade. They were listed number seven on the Billboard top artist of the decade, with four albums listed on the Billboard top albums of the decade.^[5]“

so the bottom line is this: nickelback doesn’t suck logistically & i can’t argue with proven numbers. the band is not just made up of chad kroeger, and i can’t discredit their music as a whole because i find their singers wavy mushroom cut irritating. would i stop using the word hate or dislike when describing them? yes, i would- i don’t HATE nickelback, i just don’t care for them. i wish chavril the best of luck with their bright future together, but i will continue to pray they never procreate.

ps- i am also fairly certain chad kroeger was inspired by zaphod beeblebrox from the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, no?

she sells seashells by the lakeshore

FEELS.

 

this past year has been a pretty pivotal one for exploring the 8 or so feelings i once thought i possessed. as it turns out the 8 was actually an infinite sign standing up, probably giving me the middle finger.

the truth is that my brain never stops. it’s my absolute worst enemy. really. nobody needs to really do or say anything to sabotage me or hurt my feelings because my scum bag brain has already seen me through every possible scenario. part of this past year has been learning to try to understand the complexities of my feelings and trying to sort out which ones are my own, and which are residual baggage left behind by other people. my findings? the two are often really difficult, sometimes nearly impossible to separate.

RELATIONSHIPS AND LOVE MAKE YOU SCHITZOPHRENIC (you’re really not, though- so don’t worry!)

those voices i’m hearing telling me that i’m never going to be enough for another person sound an awful lot like the voices of my exes! not so funny the way that works… but part of my healing process has been trying to learn to give up the need for control, to let things take their course. my desire to have a clear cut definition of the relationships in my life comes from a lack of that in the past, and i recognize this. and while i know that i am entitled to know where i stand, part of this process has been learning to just be myself and PRAY TO THE ALMIGHTY that maybe (just maybe!) this time, i’ll be enough. because lets face it, i haven’t been once or twice and instead of chalking it up to experience and realizing that YEAH, THAT PERSON WASN’T RIGHT FOR ME, EITHER– i beat myself up instead, like it was all my shortcomings that made him want to have sex with every consenting vagina he met.

and i know that everybody feels the exact same fucking way from time to time.

this is scary, all of ‘this’… being vulnerable is scary. saying no for YOURSELF when you feel conditioned to say yes for someone else is also scary. the thought of having whats left of your banged up and bandaged feelings stepped on and ground into a bloody pulp is fucking TERRIFYING (and painful!). so you smile when you want to scream, and you laugh when you want to cry, and you say it’s alright when it’s really not and FUCK that person for even having to ask.

and at the root of all of this wargarbl is an acute fear of rejection, that i’m gunna put myself out there again and all the bullshit ive already endured will repeat itself, because quite frankly, history often does. we’re only human, we’re creatures of habit and fall into the same traps time and time again. and these voices scream in your head like warning sirens whenever someone doesn’t return your calls- it’s you, it’s always you. you’re boring. you’re shitty in bed. there’s someone else with a smaller ass and long, pretty hair and her clothes probably aren’t covered in dog hair and she is probably taller and cooler and has a college education and a normal fucking past or [fill in the blank with your own variations!]

and you shrink inside yourself because the world is full of bigger and shinier prospects than broken, pathetic you with your laundry list of flaws and your closet full of skeletons. because at the end of the day, who is going to remember someone as forgettable as yourself?

ouch.

but i’ve been soldiering through the terror and i can tell you that as long as you’re honest with yourself, the voices begin to lull and the world gets a bit quieter. i’ve began to treat every one of my experiences as an opportunity to learn something- be it sexual or emotional or mental, it’s all the same- the broken pieces are starting to fit back together in a way that they never have before and i’m gaining confidence in that.

because you know what else i’ve learned is SUPER, SUPER true!?

EVERYBODY IS JUST AS FUCKED UP AS YOU ARE, AS WE ARE. we’re all victims. we’re all insecure when we take off our clothes and when we say something stupid in front of somebody we like.  we’re just weird, awkward bodies and varying degrees of damage & searching intertwining for nights and weeks and lifetimes, sometimes. we’re complex & afraid. we’re afraid of the complexities in ourselves, let alone in others. we’re all hiding how we feel and we’re doing the best we can to avoid scraped knees, i guess. and you can’t blame other people for feeling however the fuck they feel, you can only be honest with your own feelings and hope that when the day ends, you can find some solace in that- and trust me, it’s possible. because really, relationships are the most self-centered experience you can share with another person, that’s the honest to goodness truth. learning to coexist with another person is an exercise in the willpower it takes not to take the nearest door out of there before the other person beats you to it.

so how do i really, REALLY feel and what have i REALLY learned? i feel prettier then a year ago, though i am still rarely the prettiest in the room. i feel sexually desirable but i’m still working on how to be more than just that. i’m learning to be honest. i am beginning to understand the spaces that separate what i do from what others do and from what others do to me, and i’m exploring the scary/exciting place where they all correlate. i’m gaining a better understanding of other people. i’m funny. i’m really fucking sensitive. i’m kinder and more forgiving than i gave myself credit for. i’m learning to think before i leap, to listen before i go, to ask before i assume. i am not what other people have done to me- they are.

but most importantly, i understand myself a little bit better and i promise you this-  it’s been fucking exhilarating.

so go ahead and ask for what you want. ask kindly. ask honestly. and if you don’t get it, quietly ask yourself why. then go. or stay. care honestly. if you don’t get it back, quietly ask yourself why. then go. or stay. be kind with other people’s feelings. be honest with your own. be afraid of the two, that’s okay, too.

and don’t ever, EVER forget that you’re unforgettable, baby. <3.

god & the devil.

 

1.

Her feet are perfectly squared in the center of a friendly welcome matt, only from her side of the door the matt displayed ‘emoclew’ instead of welcome. Her legs are still stiff and achy from all the driving she’d just done; she endured nine hundred and some odd miles without any pit stops so she’d arrive at her destination before sun set. Mile marker over mile marker, the route was still committed to her memory.

After countless years spent imagining what to expect when she knocked on the devils door, she’d finally found herself there. Once mighty, her tiny fists grew weary with every one of her summons that went unanswered, her sense of purpose suddenly felt thin and her iron spine grew weak. paper-tiger fist fell loosely to her side- defeated, bloodied, and deeply sorry for ever having come that far.

Where do you go after you knock at the devils door and the devil doesn’t answer? Hell suddenly felt like the taste in the back of her throat, the ache in her bones & the sound of teeth grinding themselves into chalky, white dust. Hell was nine hundred and some odd miles to vindication left unanswered. Hell was being angry at god but finding the devil had nothing to say to you, either. there was nothing left to believe in but the fire she set to the large, wooden house. she sat on the hood of her car and watched flames lick the foundation of the house clean until nothing remained but the charred skeleton of her best intentions. Her worst intentions. She tried, she really, really did.

Nobody got out of the house alive.

2.

Now, in these parts, intentionally reversing a welcome mat at your front door is the june clever version of burning crosses out front of your house to scare away anyone who didn’t previously think you were a devil worshipper or clansman. God runs this here town, and he’s about the only local I reckon I wouldn’t greet on my doorstep with a shotgun and friendly smile.

Traditionally, a welcome mat is used to invite friends, family and good spirits into your home as your house guests. The reversed outside someone’s door, though.. Well- lets just say that emoclew is traditionally laid when somebody is trying to keep people/spirits out of the home.

I suggest you just mind your business and don’t go nosing around too much, and if you come across a reversed matt, you high tail it out of there like your britches was on fire. If you need to borrow a cup of sugar, or if you want to ask a question, I suggest you pick up extra sugar next time you‘re out shopping. and as for the question you wanted to ask, well you dog gone wasted it when you asked for that cup of sugar. Figure it out, because I’m tired of spelling everything out for you. you just be sure to mind them manners, boy.

3.

The town survives on tin can phone calls and rural mail delivery service once a week, on meticulously manicured lawns and nails and the clockwork consistency of the towns empty carpool lane. Gods good testament can be heard echoing in the absence of conversation, his sermon never spoken by swollen tongues or a mind preoccupied by idle thoughts. He speaks through key holes and curtain pulls and the moment a blind eye knows it must turn to look the other way. god has taught us that to love our neighbour, we have to love ourselves.

4.

Death notice of Buddy O’Reilly & his town hall- 1938-1975.

Once upon a time, a gentleman named Buddy O’Reilly decided to construct a town hall as grand as he believed the town itself to be;
a place where all residents could gather as a community to discuss anything-and-everything town related.
And so he did.

Now DESPITE the admirable ambition of mr o’reilly himself-
the town had no affairs to conduct as a community to start with.
therefore the town hall sat empty,
And therefore there was no one there to notice when it began to rot.-
and so it did.
Holes tore through the roof like open sores
and the decay soon spread into the buildings marrow
Until eventually,
one
by
one-
the tired walls collapsed under the weight of neglect.

Some time later, mr o’reillys remains were found in much the same condition;
left to quietly decompose
until someone had some business with him
& found something disconcerting
about the pile of newspapers that had accumulated outside his front door.
The coroner stood over the bloated body
and declared the man had died from a lethal combination
of weakened seams
and
a
very,
very
badly
broken
heart.

5.

Eventually the birds began to see some good in the skeletal remains of the town hall and made their homes inside the cracks left in the towns good name and the drawers of the mayors desk. they wove intricate paper castles from the public records; laid their tiny, freckled eggs among the histories of townsfolk that had been torn into anonymity and rendered useless for anything other than to protect fragile bodies until the earth couldn‘t hold them anymore.
and one day their tiny bird lungs will puff up, full of song…
and instead- history repeats itself as the life and death of a silent town come pouring from it’s beak- flames engulfing the paper kingdom as the broken little wings flap hard against the night.

vultures.

the wind eventually made its way in to pick what it could from the bones of the not-yet-dead; soon they’d become one in the same and it doesn‘t matter a wink to the bystanders if you’re still alive. We’re just a planet covered in scavengers waiting to lick your bones clean, to tear your vital organs to shreds and your flesh from your bones, to swoop down from the sky and steal your still-beating heart from your open chest, to take your valuables, your organs, your wallet. Time is a carnivorous beast, an oily, black vulture picking brittle bones dry from inside a heart that’s lost its mind.

time is sanity’s shadow.

september was long. some days i swore the clocks all stopped and everybody mowed their lawns or pushed snotty nosed kids on swings for just a few minutes longer but these slips in time went unnoticed by everybody except  for those of us who had no place to be. my dad always preached the importance of being a productive member of society and taught us well trodden adages like ‘time is of the essence, it is money and it is ticking.’ time became a bomb, made me anxious, made me afraid of  what was coming after the moment the ticking stopped. my dad died on september 13th, but i could still feel his presence when my shadow was still stuck to my feet at half past eight.  i showed up to his funeral two hours late, i looked in his casket at his gray face and i felt like hundreds of tiny atom bombs were exploding inside my body and time suddenly felt so fucking real and infititely short because it had sold him out even though he gave his entire life to it. i am not stupid, i know that nobody can live forever but i just don’t ever want to die. september was a sobering 30 days where i fought with the realization that 30 days don’t mean shit, that my dad was going to spend the rest of eternity in the ground with the worms and one day i’d join them. suddently everything around me had an expiry date from the heat of the sun to a trees hold on its leaves and my sanity began to wither away when they covered my fathers casket with black soil. time is the holes in my shoes and the lines on my face and pictures of dead people hanging on walls.

nowhere, really.

‘where do you go? ‘what do you mean, where do i go?’ ‘i mean where do you go when you’re not with me?’ ‘i don’t know… nowhere really.’ ‘that’s impossible. you must go somewhere.’ ‘jesus christ, bethany… i don’t know. sometimes i go to the grocery store and i pick through bins of rotting produce and i put the oldest stuff at the top where people will have to touch to get to the good stuff.’ ‘why would you do that?’ ‘because nobody wants it. that’s why.’ ‘that’s stupid.’ ‘i know. you wanted to know.’ ‘where else do you go?’ ‘nowhere interesting.’ ‘but i’m interested. i want you to tell me where you are when you leave where i am.’ ‘i go home to my apartment and i scrub the city off of my bare legs and my arms and my face and i scream until my throat is raw and the neighbours are banging on the wall and then i go to sleep on a bare mattress and i sleep all night and i don’t know if i dream because when i wake up i can’t remember a goddamn thing.’ ‘is it me?’ ‘no, it’s not you. it’s a void, it’s nothingness.’ ‘that’s impossible, it must be something’ ”it can’t be something if it can’t be named.’‘but even nothingness has been defined, given borders and parameters and definitive answers to predictible equations. your mistress is a disappointment.’ ‘well then, where do you go when you’re not right here where we are right now?’ ‘i go to sleep and i dream about math questions on lined paper and i carry the ones and the fives until i find you tangled up in sums of zero. nothing. zilch.’ ‘so i’m somewhere?’ ‘ you’re lost.’ ‘but you found me.’ ‘in nothingness. it could not be named. i cannot show my work.’  ‘where else do i go?’ ‘nowhere interesting. the supermarket, i think.’