day 161

2011 in a nutshell

   I am in love         with self worth

Finding my soul after
drowning
time and time again, I know how
to swim to safety now.

I just don't know if I will always
reach out to save myself.
                             Learning

    being lost is beautiful.
    I can't say I'm completely
    found
    I can't say that I will
    ever be.

I can say that I am beautiful.
   I am beautiful.       I am
    learning, blessed to
    attend life's workshops. Teaching
    me that beauty is
    attainable.


That I can spread growth, like
     cancer. Like the plague.

     That growth can be spread either which way.
Sweet like the fresh sap of honeybee love     or
dangerous like I want to drown sometimes.

     Who are you, today?
     Who will you be?



Proud.

day 160

Does gravity exist underwater?


      You love like a mermaid.
 Falling effortlessly. Sink into your
 lover's arm like
 gravity isn't heavy enough
 this time.

       desperation always makes a comeback.

 Mermaid lover,
 love me like
       I have lungs of steel. I can
 carry heavy jugs of water
 with the dead weight arms of a past lover's
 regret.

 How heavy is love? How hard are you

falling?

day 159

back to pen and paper vol 5:


I am seeking
answers that make sense and
   sense that is not
so common

I am finding      words
that pierce the fingertips of

creation. Thoughts sting
like I can't stay patient

around
nonsense
buzzing.    There is a home inside these lungs.

I will someday breathe growth
onto mossy caves. Stone me
like concave memories. We close our eyes and make

waterfalls.

They're fucking beautiful. We are lost.
Sometimes

We are finding things other than
ourselves.

I am here
  found
  in a language
  I haven't learned
  to love


yet.

day 158

back to pen and paper vol 4:


   They are building me a river path to you.
    Construct love out of broken
rafts. Someday, love,
we'll be floating on gently.

Along
together.

day 157

Read my body language

Run your fingers over these goosebumps
   confuse them for braille.
Love is blind       anyway.
Explore new languages with
   no translations. Get lost in me.
With me.
Without me, see me,
feel it. It feels warm. That is knowledge.
   She loves you, man.
   She loves you.      Man.

day 156

Jewels and gems
and ear rings, serpent slithering thin
through perfect ear lobes, Let
   me love you with my tongue.
   The strongest muscle of our
   bodies. Put together. Lay
with me

aimlessly.

Is this what love feels like




Is this how lust captures
   its prey

like a quiet serpent
slithering thin through perfect
gardens.

She is where the grass is greener.
   Grow a lover out of me, Let
    me love you with my hands.

day 155

Five hour nap

You call it sleeping

I am not dreaming

with eyes shut, blind. Playing

ignorance to blossoming

   dreams.

Goals.

Aspirations.

Where do you want to be in a day,

month,

five hours?

Sleeping.

Welcoming dreams into my soul's

    heart.

day 154

I won't be gone forever

forevermore,
I am smelling daisies in a freshly bought
home.

There is a garden.

And innocent garden snakes. They won't
bite, won't bother,
allow them to slither in between
crops and flowers. Green skin matching
green thumb,
You are creating something beautiful.

Creating airways for
oxygen
to creep through and blossom into
new born lungs. It's like
I love myself for the very first time.
Being born again. This light
is weightless.

day 153

Dream a little dream of me


Half past two
   these clouds are reserved
two seat booth
with the fancy table center.


Doilies under daisies


Delicate


That is how love is supposed to feel. Not
that rough shit. More of that
I want to imagine how soft your lips
can sing, murmur dreams on my
ear lobes. I am listening.
I am listening.

day 152

Growing up:

Money doesn't buy you happiness. You get
what you get. You love what you are
able to love.

Fast forward 18 years:

Money doesn't buy me happiness. Or gas
in my tank. I can't fill my car up with love. I
need to be where I need to be. I don't know
where
I want to be.

Fast forward 18 years and 1 day:

A $12,000 scholarship means that I did
something right.

I still don't know where I want to be.
But things are getting better.

Growing up:

Things are only uphill from here.

day 151

One minute to myself.
Peace

day 150

Tomorrow is my boyfriend's birthday.

Today is Wednesday.

Nothing is relevant to anything.

I want a tattoo of elephants
on the inside of my arm.
Three of them. A storm of elephants.
      (Irrelephance)

This isn't a funny poem.
This is a piece where I admit that
      I am actually lost.
 I don't know where I am
 or even where I want to be.
 What I want to do
 or how to start wanting to know.

Christmas is in a few days.
  Tomorrow is the first day of Winter,
supposedly.
I've always thought it was today.
The 21st. The 21st is always
the first of everything.

Tomorrow is the 22nd.
  It's always second best.

It will be in the 50 degree range
Tomorrow.

Winter.
It isn't as cold as it should be.
I'm not as warm as I should feel.

My boyfriend makes me exhausted.
Loving him is getting tiring. He loves me,
I know. But I can't seem to
believe him when he tells me that
he's in love with me.

And it's none of that stupid self-esteem shit.
I know that I am capable of being loved
and having someone fall in love with me.
But not him.
He's a character.

Holden Caulfield is still my dream guy.
   He's not even real.
   (Irrelevant)

I'm already dead. I already feel dead.
How much more dead can I
be alive to feel?

Today my brother told me that my mother
   doesn't mind if I go away for college.
   Part of the reason why I didn't apply for UW Madison is because

1) I fucked up in high school and my GPA clearly wouldn't be
    "good enough" to be accepted
2) I found home in my second home town
3) This house became warm to me

Nowadays I just feel lost in a city I know best.
I feel cold. Like -52 degree weather.
There is nothing that can keep me warm.
I don't mind freezing. Throw me a few
compliments to radiate my smile,
I'll be fine.

I don't know where I want to be anymore.
Who I want to be with, why I feel so lost.

I am no longer who I wanted to be.

I hardly have the energy to stay animated.
I miss myself.

I've been writing for 150 days straight.
That's a shitload of minutes,
hours, seconds I've been thinking.
The lightbulb is dim, love.
Princess.
The lightbulb is burning out.

Where is your passion?

    (Good question)
We all get lost.
I'm staying dizzy in this maze of emotions
until I amaze myself with discovery.

Soon, love, soon.
You can't allow someone to fall in love
with you,
if you can't fall in love with
yourself.
I am losing my beauty.

  (I now understand The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Two months after half-ass reading it.)

       (Irrelevant)

day 149

Because I want to undress your inner thoughts with
   just the touch of my eyes.
Let my lashes dance in the palm of your hands,
   palm tree sway in Southern weather.
I promise to be gentle,
chivalry  is best done by women.

Evening love,
you are candlelight cozy. Suede leather
sofa. Love seat caresses. I am
sitting on a cloud. I am loving you
like clouds. Light and passable,
   seeing shapes like sophomore
year geometry. Let us bend
tonight. Let us love.

day 148

open letter to the mail man


are you allowed to read open letters?
   do you deliver your own mail?
 how many times do dogs get the best of you?
do they howl?
do you howl?
what does your handwriting look like?
 is it always cursive,
always curvy
like a beautiful, healthy woman,
  apple pie baker,
  heart rich enough to buy a sailboat,
cursive like ocean curves?

do you get motion sickness?
  home sick?

day 147

For all I know

this could be the end of something beautiful

It gets hard loving someone

when you can't bring yourself

to believe that they

love you.

This is the worst part.

The part where you want to

believe,

but you can't.

The part when you realize

your brain and heart

are two useless figures.

Brain, playing nightmare

scenarios when you don't want to

see. Do you hear the

scratching of lonely tree branches

against your windowsill?

They are looking for a new lover.

I want to almost

scratch into you with

twig hands. Love your

blood, feel your heartbeat

through my skin.

I can taste a doubt

hidden behind

cloudy pulses.

It beats, yes.

Like

the military escort.

It's drumming

against ear drums

of lovers in

distant lands.

I am as distant as

distant is.

Sorry.

day 146

Bathing in my own sweat
  It is a swimming pool of nightmares
sometimes freezing when I'm awake

Can i just dream forever

day 145

back to pen and paper vol 3:


accomplishment


**
you accomplish as much as you
are meant to.
in one day,
one week,
one year.

***
i don't mean to enforce
predestination.
my land is settled in
broken acres.
seeding hope in
open spaces.

****
one day
everything
you do
in one week
will make sense.
one year,
you will look back
at your
accomplishments
and smile.
wonder,
how did i do that?
when did i do that?
I don't know, but
I'm glad it happened.

*****
you will learn that everything has a purpose.
be the reason why the world
is wonderful.

day 144

why i feel how i feel:

A small child

is learning how to grow

skin onto bad memories.

Healing.

I pick off scabs

like I'm 11 again.

When I pretended that

ugly scars didn't mean a thing

but they meant

two. They meant to

curse my growth with

ugliness.

Like I will somehow

mature into a beautiful

selfless

                            woman. Someday

these scars will haunt me.

Tonight they do.

They shine brighter than

a blue moon. Rare.

There are teenagers swimming

in flooded craters. They insist

love is just that. Seeing

everything blind.

And they glow. They glisten

the way scabs break

and blood boils.

You hear that broken blood

bubbling?

Tonight we will

pop.

Save an expecting woman

from bringing a lost soul into this universe.

Have you ever realized how many

stars there are? And how many

moments you are 

accounted for?

Mid day you will realize

that you will live

one day less. Nightmare.
Pops.
This is a daydream you
wasted five seconds
listening to. Pop.

Where was my father

when I needed to learn

about hidden beauty.

The kind of beauty

that sinks knee deep.

Skinny dipping under

blue moons except this beauty

is more frequent like we

all generate a surplus of

red blood cells. I can't

wet the bed with my own

liberty in a city

that doesn't give a fuck. Send me another

mother fuck you.

we share these same

mother fucks. This is a sea

only meant for sailors. I am filled

with regrets of the man's ocean.
See. We are all blind
in sea men's regret.
Ghost waves and dead
sharks. They swim around me.
Surrounding me with hungry
dog eyes. I'm blue and I'm

drowning in it, like

I expected to play some underwater
honey trombone.

I will hold my breath with

dignity. I will watch my

blood boil in warm

hometown fountains

until my own

lungs

explode. Pop.

Bring me your knives,

your rockets, I am swallowing

oceans just to stab my guts

to find bravery.

TO ALL THE MOTHER FUCKERS

WHO WERE BORN

LOST.

This is my home.

See these scars?

These scales play piano---skin me

alive, I want a reason

to

pray. I want a reason

to sew rocket ships

onto my heart. I will explode

into ten million

stars and land on a raft.

it pretends that it doesn't care

about being ugly.

But it does..

It's ugly as fuck

and it knows it. Like somehow

it will grow into a beautiful

selfless

      woman. But it's only

made of wood.

And wood is flammable..

wood becomes swollen

like it expects only the worst.

Good luck comes

once every teenage skinny dip.

I am naked under these clothes

but can you handle the

naked truth?

Can you hold her,

with arms of clouds and hands warm

enough to call Church.

Kiss her belly button crevices.

Swim into her. You are only

wood. Flammable, yes. Burn

into her with fingertips of

fake passion. She feels your pulse

now.

She feels your pulse now.

That is how two becomes one

grabbing onto broken cliffs

like these shoulder blades

will sprout wings for you.

I WILL NOT FLY FOR YOU.

I refuse to become a

beautiful

selfless 

woman...

I am full of self

with dignity

and its swaying out of me

like incense sweating the fucking

prayers from my

skin.

Somehow

I will numb the taste buds of

wandering sailors.

Saving sea men from

picking scabs off their scales. They

swim towards boiling

blood like sharks.
And sharks are indecisive.
Take a bite out of me.
Let me bleed my rights.
Sink your teeth into my bones, they
are wooden. I wouldn't
let the taste appall you but I
promised to burn wondering
taste buds with
knee deep regret. Pop.
That's the sound of your legs
breaking. Too much running,
too much falling. Bruises
on sweet nectarine knee caps. You are
dislocated. A lost soul eaten
by ghost sharks in dead waves.

This is five seconds wasted
on one day less lived.
But you will pretend that
you don't care about the scars.
About the ugly.

day 143

Swollen lips part II
   I will listen to you like I understand
the liar's language. But in reality:
There are too many dialects I
will never learn.
   The liars twist eye contact with
   lie detecting heart beats. This is what
   they do. They fool you.
Kiss you with swollen lips.
  Lips swelled with excitement,
this is the first time he's kissed the girl of his
dreams. Like he was finally the hero
of some sick twisted love story.
   I will listen to him like I understand
the liar's language. But I don't.
   It sounds similar to
                    love. Sounding
way too familiar. I've heard the same
   tone on Route 3. Like sirens.
Ambulances, fire trucks, the police
doesn't care about stolen hearts anymore.
  Those robberies occur too often. It's
too familiar to them. Like sirens.
   Beautiful women I will never understand.
   She sings to me with lips of
swelled up secrets.
   This pitch is from past lover #45.
She is used to the truck stops on
Route 3 from
 soul searching on highway interstates.
For an answer.
   Like she sings for a purpose. This is the song cry
she shows off. Sounding almost..
                    ghostly. Sounding
way too familiar. Like the thunderstorm sirens
on a rainy 4th of July. Firework heartbreaks, dear.
FIREWORK HEARTBREAKS.
   THIS IS HOW A HEART BREAK FEELS, DEAR.
    WE WILL WORK FIRE INTO OUR SOULS.
                     FIRE. It feels almost
                     ghostly. Almost feeling like
                     love.


but it's not love.
I will never understand my lover's language. It sounds
too much like the liar's.

day 142

Swollen lips
  We speak to liars like it's a new language
  I understand all the words.
  It's easy for something to swell up
You can only go up from here.

day 141

There is an unsettling darkness in this home. It plays housewife to the frightened souls. Like some sort of reminder that things will eventually be warm. This darkness will seep through door cracks the way stove tops keep stomachs from aching. This is how we keep our dreams from straying: Hands free of recipe books. Add one-fourth fear and three-fourths determination into this mixing bowl you call a mind. Stir gently with good intentions. The darkness shakes between the breaths you take. It dances. Do you feel it? Do you sense the tension it leaves behind after stomaching your emptiness? No. This is why your dreams will remain one-fourth ahead. This is why you will remain three-fourths behind. This darkness is a brokenhearted woman in a river of soulful cries. She cannot swim to save you. She cannot even help herself. She is too busy playing waterfall to concave memoirs.
     What is a dream if you leave a dream untouched? It is nothing but a mere cloud. A memory left unnamed. How many dreams have you abandoned? Enough.
     The only way to defeat this poltergeist in your heavy heart is to chase it. Chase it until you get a grasp on its living soul. Eventually, the darkness dies out and you are left with warmth. This is how you become friends with courage. There is no recipe book required. Courage will shape companion in any way you desire. The only ingredient recommended is self-worth.
            You are worth all the dreams your eyes can draw within your cave-shaped eyelids. There is no limit to how many dreams you can create. Just remember that the darkness is constantly hungry. It is starving from stomaching your empty ambitions.

day 140

Growth

yearning to dig deeper than
  hearts have gone.
I want to be sewn together again.

day 139

Feeling apathetic.


What happens when the fountain of your motivation
dries out.
Tires out.
No wheels on these thoughts. They are going
    Nowhere
important.
What am I doing with my life.

day 138

back to pen and paper vol 2:


AND IT STRIKES HER
knife, knight in shining armor like tonight is the
night
where stabbing will break open
spines
to
produce more
time. More
power. More
discovery.
What are you made up of besides
bones.

   Midnight.

Strikingly beautiful, darlin, you are
strikingly
beautiful. Tonight you are
draped under the arm of a fine
gentleman. He practices
chivalry like he gets paid for it...

   Strikers go on strike tonight.
Midnight. More
gore. More
secrets
discovered.
There is a role of playing gentleman,
a role of being gentle, a role
of striking out.
Don't be afraid to
  return to bed.

day 137

KENTUCKY


she will become home to new lovers and familiar presences. this is where she will lay, with opportunity. it feels like immigration. deportation. the train deports in eight months. save one for a healthy child. with presents. you are a gift, love. topped off with pretty skin and a hearty smile. til we say goodbye. this is only a hello.

day 136

Working til death of exhaustion
  living til I work my bones to the ground
  dying til I feel alive again.


but I do.

day 135

5 minutes


four minutes to spare
We are here
     bearing
 these troubles.
Night tremors.
Trembling.
Treble clef,
   trembling, hanging
over a troubled cliff. Bears
and coyotes,
Tree house play homes for
sleepy owls. Ironic.
It is midnight.
    2 minutes.
A pair of seconds
   Help yourself with seconds.

You can't buy time,
      love.

Time together is
          priceless. One minute
   to spare.

day 134

Hhhhh ah.


Silently. Your eyelashes
cry out to me. Say,
  come dance. He's gentle. Without
thinking, this is me wrapping your soul in arms made of clouds
  Shhhhhh.
  It is cold to the touch.   Why?
Because I love you
with a blank canvas neck. I say.
Paint your passion
       on me. Today,
I am the creases on soaking wet
hands.
Hold me.
 Absorb this warmth. So
delicate. Like
I will become a sharp
shoulder blade
  the minute you turn your back on me.
But rest easy
knowing
that I want you as innocently
as I can.     You are blind
  in this darkness. Use
your hands
freely.
Your fingertips are fresh
paint brushes. Finger paint
emotions,
let them run all over the
mountains
of my body.
  Over hidden canyons
in glow in the dark
mattresses. Lay
here. This is where I lay.
Here.
With five senses
filled with wonder. I wonder how
   loving you barely feels.
   Feeling....
bare. I lay here
bare.
There is nothing building on me.
  I've built butterfly homes
between each bare
limb.
Feeling
flimsy
like black and white films, what is
   red here, is blue, is
you.
You are so
         gentle. Delicate.
We are not just meat with
skin and bones.
   We are tangled lovers.
Tangled between passion. We are
  softly entangled.

day 133

Relying on the
  internet to bring you words
seems awfully lame. 


And it is.


I have dreams of
  publishing
 of handing out my words
  with cups of
confetti
 on the streets of small bustling
    cities. They'll
have walls filled with
laughing
people. The kind of
humans
who
   know how to live. This
   is where I see myself in
a fast forwarded time span.


When paper becomes
  precious.


Just you wait.

day 132

It is still Autumn, love
  but Autumn is slowly dying.
   there is a cancer we've been
    exposed to,
it is taking over the homes
  in my veins.
Clogging the pathways to my
  heart.
Without this flow,
we have nothing.
We will all have nothing
  in the end.

Prepare to say goodbye to
  Autumn. She is
slowly sleeping. Preparing
herself for the beauty
  she's been giving out
mindlessly.

Have you ever thanked her?
No, I haven't.

day 131

Mood: hopeful

It's never really over.

Things are

just

beginning.

I am begging

you to

hold on,

I am here

when you've lost

all

faith.

day 130

Open letter to my mentor:

If one day

you should forget

who you are

and what you stand for,

remember,

that YOU

ARE

ANTHONY FEBO.

A for the amazing

lessons you drop in

clueless mail boxes.

You are

inspiration.

N for the never-ending

face aches

you bring to everyone.

The sound of your

laughter brings

joy to the muscles

in my cheekbones.

Forever

making me

love life.

T for times

you will

change the world.

H for heart.

Fickle, yes,

but warm and welcoming

also.

O for OH SHIT.

And that doesn't need an

explanation.

N for needle points

in hay stacks. They are

rare, hard to find. You

encounter them with pain.

This is what life brings you:

surprises.

Obstacles that

(Y for) You will overcome.

I love you.