Don't You Break--I Will Not Let You

My Fingers Get in the Way

I hate you simply because you act like you don't care. And you don't talk to me anymore. But I miss you more than I hate you. And songs and moments like these make me miss you even more.

I guess in the end, everything is lonely, thus I must be my own bestfriend.

--replace you with myself--

People touch our lives--but I wish you hadn't left mine.

June 28, 2007

I'll Make Sure They Will Not Get You

The Words That Throw Me

“Come now,

come

and mourn me.

It’s so easy

now I’m gone.”

The rain has made the lawns like swaps
and has left my heart hoping for more.

Walking through the yard has become

like trudging through mud,
grass is ankle deep and growing
with the increase of precipitation.

The only things I want are
to feel more at home in this suburban wilderness
and to not have to shake mudded water from my feet.

I miss the smell of concrete and steam,
the sound of sirens past midnight,
the jolt of trains stopping and going,
moving across the tracks with rough sparks
and no hesitation.

I miss the people who made that city my home.

I miss their energy, their honesty,
the feeling that we were true friends—
despite all the [fake ones] we encountered.

And I miss being able to laugh without needing to,
without having to smile to keep my spirits lifted.

The coffee, the cold air, the coats, the strolls,
the train rides from no reason, the adventures

that were ours.

People think I am strong, because it’s raining
and I smile.

What they can’t see are my hollowed-out insides,
and that I am happy just to not be sad.

Other People's Conversations

Inside Looking In
© Rachel C

Some one once said to write what you know, someone also said to be objective when you look back, write what you see as if you weren’t there but are experiencing it as a stranger. I don’t know who said either, or if either were ever actually said, but I do know that they cannot go hand in hand, for what you know cannot be objective. I’ve not lived a very long life, and for most of it I have been unconscious to the world. But, from what I’ve seen, from what I’ve lived cognizant and eyes-wide open, I have a pretty good understanding of the impossibility of objectivity. It can’t happen. Because, if it could, how many people would revert to objectivity to escape the pains of life? Sure there would be fewer suicides, maybe fewer cutters and burners, drug addicts and drinkers, whores and the men who buy them. Maybe society would seep into a Utopian image, but it would only be seemingly peaceful. The peace would come of thought being forced into a vegetative state. No one would survive to have opinions, only to survive without being hurt. Pain would be obsolete, self infliction would be achieved by slumping back into one’s mind, clearing out one’s history, tucking away one’s emotional thought for a perspective without perception. And everything would fall into itself. There would be no reason to war, no reason to cry. Because, when horrible things happened, we would recluse our emotions and step back, look at the situation as if we don’t know ourselves. Look at the situation as if we are strangers, and the girl being raped, the man being beaten, the wife being cheated and played, they wouldn’t be us and we wouldn’t have to deal with who they were on the inside looking in. So, society would fall into internal chaos, simply unaware of the destructive nature of objectivity, simply closed to the trouble it was inflicting upon itself. Someday, somewhere, when men who have become children and women useless bodies, someone will stand up and realize that living without pain has left us all inhuman. Robots, we’ve become robots. How could we have never seen it coming?
So this is my opinion about objectivity: we can’t have it, unless we are truly objective. Unless we have walked in on the situation from the outside looking in, honestly unaware of the details, honestly unconscious. And, in that case, we cannot know how to write it until we can immerse ourselves, completely, become knowledgeable entirely, and once we have we lose our objectivity instantly. But, at least we have a story.
We have to know what we write, and write what we know.

June 23, 2007
Author's Note: I guess I'm questioning the power of being objective.

Never Without Something

No Boundary on Color

© Rachel C

Have you ever thought that maybe this is my book?
I know you wonder if this is my life, is this is who I am. If this day will remain that way I lived it in my memory, if I won’t skew the dialog or the images in my mind. If I will remember at least what he said, if not his name or why I loved him. But at least who he was in the moment he became it, who I was in the moment I opened my smile and let my walls break down.
I’m tired of writing poems about dolls protected in glass walls, metaphors for my heart in its case of crystal and ice. I am tired of reaching too deep for something I won’t feel once I bring it to the surface. Honestly, the dark, twisty pieces are dying out, there is hardly anything left to hold on to. I’m melting, peacefully, with my smile growing brighter like quarter-moons and Cheshire curves. I can see something below the layers; I can cross my fingers that I am not the only one.
Maybe I am still waiting, for someone to love, for something to spark that nostalgia that pangs in my stomach. Those things motivate me, but never as much as I can, when I walk into a conversation without meaning to, when I stumble onto a personality so unlike those I am familiar with.
I want to know him, but he’s not someone to love, at least not for me. Though, in this moment I can recall imagining seeing him again, and a lot like love I’ll smile and recall his name and why I spoke in the first place. Maybe I’ll take that painting with me, when I leave everything behind. Maybe I’ll take his memory, when I try to forget all others. I plan to write them down and leave them on paper for others to read, and I can forget these years. But, maybe I’ll remember him and his red monster, maybe I’ll remember that I can be iceless, familiar, and smile. I like to think that I can smile—for all of our sakes.
I’ll take some things, and leave the others, when I’m riding on trains I’ll remember what I’ve brought. But for now, my porcelain exterior must be cracked, the glass barrier broken down. I need to join the folks as they wander side streets, smell the toxic air if only to cough it up again. In that meantime, before trains leave stations and my three years are on paper, I’ll hold his red monster in the back of my mind; my soundtrack playing along, illustrating my story, my narrative following along. I’ll look back, to the depths of my mind, back where I remember days of rain and the smell of steam from city streets, and I will smile. I will draw myself out from the dark places.

June 17, 2007
Back to the Sun and the Square

Red Monster

While Musing Over Art on the Walls
© Rachel C

So, I can’t concentrate. Not on Islam, not on research papers, at least. I wish it were still raining. It has been raining for maybe months, and I can’t grow tired of it. I can’t, and I won’t. Times like this, sounding so cliché, I realize maybe I don’t want to venture back to Chicago. Maybe I want to try again, start again in Seattle. The rain, the buildings, the personality—I can’t deny I am drawn to the idea of the city. But, Chicago is so comfortable. I know it, I almost understand how it moves, I can almost feel it. The strangest things remind me of it. Moments I never living in Chicago instantly leave me with the smell of the streets and the feel of the air. I want to be back there, with people I know are my friends—and some I’m not so sure of anymore. I’d love to be back there, living my life again, like I am not living it here. I would love to feel that irresistible happiness again. And yet, could I find it, on greater scale, more realistically in Seattle? I don’t know if I will ever have that answer. If I will ever feel that surge of blindness, that overwhelming, body consuming happiness that surrounds me while I walk through city streets—buildings so tall I am both small and greater than I have ever been all at the same moment. So small that I have worth, I have meaning, I am someone and no one, no one surrounded by nobodies, and happy for it. I don’t know that I will ever have that answer. Maybe I should just concede, stop thinking and sip my coffee. Sip my coffee and wait for the rain.

June 17, 2007
There'd Be Nobody if We All Stayed Alone

In and Out

Boys Named Chad

© Rachel C

What is it about boys named Chad? Or, boys in general—studying human anatomy with their triple grande white mochas in the middle of a crowded Starbucks? What is it about young beards and short hair, wandering eyes behind metal rimmed glasses? My first though is med. student. But, after several glances his way, while I read about Islam and listen to popular girls drink their frappuccinos, I think he might be an artist, studying the shape of the silhouette. But, it could go either way. And I suppose I couldn’t care, as long as he glances my way every once in a while to watch my face as I write, draw inspiration. In that case I sit up straighter, hide my imperfections as because I can. I touch my chin, my lips thoughtfully, maybe he’s intrigued. Maybe his blue eyes will meet mine for a moment. Maybe we’ll share a moment, as he thinks and I break for a sit of coffee. But, he’ll go back to work, and I will try to keep my eyes on the page. We’ll look up—he at the girl saying goodbye, me to see who responds. And that will be the most, that will be as much as I share with boys named Chad. He will check his watch, grab his back, and even if he thinks I’m pretty, he’ll walk out of my life, the door bouncing on its hinges behind him.

June 17, 2007
It's About Words that Throw Me

You'll Be a Bitch Because You Can

Only Happy When It Rains

©Rachel C

Maybe I am just a bitch because I can. Have you ever thought of it that way? As if I have control over the way I treat you, as if I know I am doing it. Better yet, maybe I don’t. Maybe I know I can, maybe I know I can show you bitch, but I can’t turn it off. It never shuts off, and I am a bitch just because I can.
The room is burning, it’s hot and sticky and so much like summer. For a while I felt like God was trying to tell me something, trying to tell me He needed me in Oklahoma. It’s been pouring for weeks, everyday it rains. I joke, “who needs Seattle”, but I still do. Seattle, Chicago, somewhere far away and big, somewhere with a dark center and a bright exterior, somewhere I can feel small—and for the sake of it, feel purposeful. I still need to breathe city air, feel the rush as the train speeds through an underground maze, take trips to the airport just to have something to do, somewhere to be, someone to talk with as we watch the city disappear. I still need to leave, even if God refuses to let me go; eventually I have to win my own battle—it’s unfair to keep me in hell when I am trying so hard to prove myself worthy of heaven. I will refuse, push back, I will no longer battle with this karma or this destiny. I will keep moving forward.
But it’s raining still, the heat of the morning stunted by the depth of the clouds. Later today it will be too humid to bear, I’ll squirm when I walk to the car, standing outside will make me sweat. But for now it’s raining, and I am smiling, imagining I’m somewhere else. Somewhere colder, maybe even soggier. It seems to me that it never rains for long enough—it always passes over, taking the cool with it, the cover from the sun with the clouds dark and low. I smile when it’s raining, smile as I sing along to the radio, fighting the urge to shut off the music and listen to the putter against the windshield. I smile and I bet that I am not a bitch in those moments. I am not a bitch in most moments. And yet, someone always seems to think so, even in the rain. Maybe I am reverting to my internal struggle with this place. And, though I like the people, maybe I am taking it out on them—who I live with, who I work with. But, in the rain I am not a bitch, I am not thinking about being a bitch, I am just thinking about the rain, about the city, about you and why you’re not closer, more real. But when I am standing in the rush, being told I’ve done something wrong, not knowing better, I’m a bitch. I’m a bitch because I can, because you want me to be, because it justifies something for the both of us—why you should hate me, why I should be angry...why I should hate myself.
But I don’t hate myself in the rain. I only dream in the rain. Dream of who I am beneath the water, who I am beneath this skin. Dream of the days when I can travel, and roam, and catch the train and go anywhere but here. Dream of the days when I don’t have to be a bitch to justify myself, be a bitch to justify why I hate you. Because, I don’t hate you. I could never hate you, but I can’t ever seem to make you see that I am worth the time you spend bitching at me. Bitching because you can, bitching because you don’t want a reason to get along with me. I’m a bitch; what does that make you?

June 11, 2007
Author's Note: thinking about things, I suppose. Maybe I'm not feeling so blue.
Don't You Think We Oughta Know by Now?

Let Me Show You How Much I Care

I suppose I felt like updating my non-existant readers. Haven't heard back from Cranky yet, but they have three months from the time it's sent, so they still have a while. I hate waiting, and I hate wondering whether I should try sending something to another magazine in the meantime. The only problem with that is most magazines want work sent in with a SASE, and I don't really want to bother with printing everything off several times over, addressing an envelope, and mailing it. I mean, I know I should, and if I really want it, I should do it no matter how much it sucks. But, until I hear from Cranky, I'm not really going to want to do anything. Just waiting sucks, but it's pretty much all I can do--other than everything I just said I could.

In other news, I think my Comp II teacher doesn't think I can pass her class. Yeah, I was shocked. But, I am not going to drop this class, it's paid for. It's the same class I took at UIC, so the credits will line up when I transfer. I know I can get an A, I just don't think she thinks I can, which is super annoying. I told her I had a little trouble with a simple, three point thesis, because I haven't needed to write one in so long. Then, when I simplified everything, it felt like she wasn't enthusiastic about my topic choices or my ability to write about those topics. That's just a little annoying. But what can I do but prove her wrong?

Other than that, not a lot is going on. The news looks interesting--watch it.

Your Heart is Not Able

Sorrow Drips into Your Heart Through a Pin Hole

Distance Lost Its Cause; It Lost Meaning to Us Both
© Rachel C

Distance lost its concern for my well being.
The ocean was built and between us,
the land was flooded and filled
with raging waters, dark and deep for drowning.
Dreams come and dreams go
like the current and the tide, back and forth—
enough to make one sick of movement,
tossed on the waves and carried away.
But standing still makes us tired,
wears us down to bones and bare skin,
quarantines us—hearts from dreams.
We’re losing faith.
Hope spreads like a sickness, and kills
just as quick. Leaves us to burn
in our desire to change, and, faithless,
we’re barred from letting it in, from letting
the good idea take us over.
I am left to wade out into the waters,
thick with my desire to meet you once again.
We can wade in waist deep, the river of doubt
spanning the continent and all these miles.
I can no longer hear feet on the pavement,
the cars and the streets, but the warmth
of my body will flow with the water,
we come into contact without ever touching,
or breathing the same air.
And the distance seems greater
in the cold of the water, like a virus
spreading through the sea. And the ocean
is deeper with us in it.
It widens and deepens and swallows us whole,
murky waters leaving no room to touch,
another barrier, between souls.
The water is colder as you step from the deep;
you step back to life
and leave me buried under the gallons
where feet kick and arms flinch
but no words are spoken in the ocean.
I am behind, held down by the distance,
the ocean between us,
of which we created
as if it could give us something to believe in.

June 4, 2007
Author's Note: could be about a person, could be about all people, could be about a city and a girl wanting desperately to get back. Maybe it's a combination of all three.
It Slowly Rises, Your Love is Gonna Drown.