Word association*

 Atlas: directions and drawings of sea-monsters. Looking at it she wonders if the boats left by some dead cartographer’s hand ever urged those paper waves on, sails singing Move, move, please move.

Blouse: Don’t bring too many clothes, said the voice of her aunt hailing from across the pacific. We have enough waiting for you here.

Cat: all 5 kilograms condemned to remain in the house for the weeks comprising the trip. Left to the mercy of the much-isolated middle sister.

Duck: dead for the past 18 years or so. Deep grave dug in front of the house. Makeshift casket made from medicine box. The first pet owned. See: “Child’s first experience of death and/or loss”.

Elephants: They never forget, do they? Halfway across the world, its bones shiver. The continent creases a part of its face to acknowledge this. The sea ruffles the waves on its hair in agreement. Something told her it would be safer to travel via aeroplane.

The muse who put the “used” in amused-

Useless List* of “Muses”. Sort of.

• 01: Name resembles a shade of the water. Was a childhood friend from church. Twice my age, then (so what?) Owned a store selling soup. Grew apart (what these things are for).
• 03: Skeletal. One of the smartest people I knew. Thin fingers and a piano. Umbrellas, books, and framed glasses.
• 02 & 04: Forgettable – save for the fact how both were destructive (one more so than the other). One returned as a friend, following a long period of misfired revenge plots and attempts to engage vultures, etc. The other, out of sight, has his bones breaking from too much effort, or some other reason (last I heard from a friend of a friend).
• 05: Uninteresting, eventually. A failure (the person, and perhaps the relationship as well) by choice. Quite civil, no longer chummy.
• 05.5: Whom I know not to go to when the world turns bleak.
• 06: The Quietest Boy.
• 06.5: Weak. Also: What a waste those weeks were.
• 07: The Boy Most Likely (to: a.) burn a building, b.) kill himself, c.) kill someone else, d.) set everything on fire, e.) disappear)
• 08: Smiles bright as the sun, feels sad only if out of food. Assessment so far: Strange.

Currently: Keeping a safe distance for my own good.

*Save for 05.5, all have names made of two syllables. Hmm.

Life-related: I haven’t really been ~writing~ since a.) I’ve been working on some illustration deadlines (yay, art!) and, b.) I’ve mostly been busy attending to this little fiend named Scaramouche (I call her Mumu for short):

 

I love this Fattybutt monster to bits.

Also: the most interesting thing I’ve read all day. Be warned though, it’s got some heavy stuff. One secret grossed me out real bad (well, my fault for reading it while eating dinner). And I’m the type of girl who can eat a sandwich beside a cadaver. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Pop Quiz

Directions: Write F if true and T if false.
No erasures allowed.

________ 1. You set the date in smoke, the details on the dried skin of a leaf, so nothing could be held.

________ 2. His name had two syllables and you kept it in the cave of your mouth for the longest time, leaving it to float while you waited for the most opportune moment.

________ 3. The solution was simple: disclose everything, revealing nothing.

________ 4. You were horrible with secrets so you constructed a box receptive only to the sound of your voice and told it everything you ever thought anyone could use.

________ 5. Following the statement of “You’re not going to tell this to anyone, right?” person X, Y, and Z told you the entire story without waiting for any reply.

________ 6. The problem was: Anything you say can and will be used against you.

________ 7. The problem was: Anything you say can and will be used.

________ 8. You’re not going to tell this to anyone, right?

Write:

 

Like how the sun shone through that solitary blind today, talk about the puddle of milk spilled on the table while serving yourself some breakfast, consider the color of your wallpaper, the absence of a wallpaper, whose voice sings in your head right now, and what words do you find your thoughts clinging to over and over and over, whose voice have you erased, and at which syllable did you start with; how many ghosts inhabit your house right now and how many of said supernatural forces are you willing to entertain? What do you want to be, what does this morning decide you will become? A fish, a fiend, a fallen wing off a clumsy angel mid-flight? Just right now you took a wrong left, so open your hands and show me: what else have you taken?

How long do you wait until another line arrives, and with what do you intend to welcome it?

—

Erasing my mistakes.

 

Rhyme time!

Which monster would you love
the most? The match-
stick, the gold-
fish, the ghost?

No need for a toast. Sit with me,
by the coast, come. Stay
with the monster
who loves you the most.

 

 

—

NaPoWriMo wankery. Har-dee-har-har.

Also because I was reading poetry to my 11-year-old sister the other day and she told me her teachers all tell her that poems should rhyme. Well. 5th grade. Ho-hum. Twiddle-dee et dum.

Test Post

Stop. Set tests to top pots,
pets, testes. See? Steep toes step
so poets, pests, spots stoop
to tote tots’ tooooooots.

—

Playing around.
This is the inverse of the monster I have to wrestle with every night. But slowly, reining it in.

O, Hearts:

1.

He heats her
heart, a sear
to her art.

2.

He rates her.
She hears- “Hot
as a star.”

3.

“A rash
so sore-” as he rots
in heat.

4.

Stare at the shore,
or sea: the tears
set to rest.

5.

Haste, oh hero:
to eat her
ash.

Necessary Losses [or, My Dumaguete Hangover]

Still we foster

The acquiescent shape

By our rejection,

Giving voice, blood, name

To the random breath;

Love is many and truth is just:

And so we are: Both

What we choose,

And we refuse.

- Edith L. Tiempo (Afternoon Of A Sea Faun)

You returned home yesterday.

You just finished fixing your closet, emptying the valise that contained the clothes. Some of them now rest in the hamper beside the dog, waiting to be picked by the house help (you note how her hands didn’t seem to change all those three weeks you were gone; still, they scrape and soak clothes, patiently without complaint). Your room is still a mess. Piles of books and envelopes and notes and pens litter your desk. Some of them managed to crawl their way to your bed, competing with your pillows. Dust lies sleeping on the shelves.

You woke up this morning to complete quiet.

You realize your mother has left with your youngest sister for that day trip they were talking about. You recall the conversation with your mother while she drove you from the airport. You both laughed at your mother’s updates of Life While You Were Away (your younger sister’s stone-like dance moves to endless repeats of Lady GaGa’s songs, how the cat spends all day asleep – lazily shifting through various positions, your youngest sister’s sudden weight gain, and so on). She tells you of the three or four movies the family has watched while you were being all “writerly” in the mountains of Valencia. You remember mustering enough strength to tell your mother of how you plan to take writing seriously this time. “It’s going to be difficult,” you remember the sound of your own voice, parsing some words “but I want to make this one work.” You remember her reply “Remember what your priorities are.” And you do, of course you do. You always have. You remembered telling someone in the workshop that our minds have the same containment area for fear and memory.

You look at your fingertips.

Reasons we won’t be friends

I keep to quiet people and quiet places despite the misleading volume of my voice. You bask in the company of hurricanes and fireworks. You brandish your heart in all the outward folds of your body: your sleeve on one day, your back pockets the next, and so on. Never at one place at one time but always somewhere where someone can see it. I left mine as a permanent fixture within my ribcage, protected by cobwebs and the skin of old letters. I keep to books of poetry and people made of paper while you keep to dim nights and the smell of beer. There are those able to reconcile this, but I am not one of them. I will keep to looking out into the many colors of the sky and you will stay cocooned in the warmth of everything within your reach.

On a newly-discovered species residing twenty miles outside the stratosphere

it was noted:

they would rather consume
(we safely assume).