Goodbye poems

 These are for people I won't see again.

1. This is about a boy who was a dinosaur who I loved with every fiber of my being.

There is a boy, gone from this place, who means a
great deal to me. He was that rare friend who
needed nothing. I remember the hardwood floor,
unyielding and creaky, underneath my back on
those nights (my parents would say "mornings") when
we talked and dreamed and pondered. The way the
line made a scratchy noise in the abyss of my
ear; the way we both prepared for the inevitable
exhaustion of my phone battery. I knew he was
leaving, because it was what people did and I had
learned to expect it. But impending separation brought
us closer. There was nothing to lose that wouldn't be
lost eventually, anyway.

2. This is about a girl who made me laugh so hard, with bangs like pretty late-night magic.

His watery eyes, the veins bursting their blue-blood,
And he doesn't resemble his daughter. Blinking,
Bright-eyed, she bounds to unlatch the gate. Wander in.
Watch as she leads me down stairs I've known. Big
Empty space, fill with our voices as she piles cloth-
Scrap after cloth-scrap into billowing recess of plastic,
Wonder at handsome stubble friend eyeing me from
Corner. Oh, do come out and play, won't you, won't
You, oh lurking friend of beauty? She is still
Yours. Magic sweater can't change some things. I'm
Not in all that I'm pretending, watch me disappear.

3. This is about the last person that I wanted so badly I knew it was already over.

Goodbye to feeling my tongue become cotton in my mouth when I see you.
Goodbye to your red glasses.
Goodbye to the way you said my name so deliberately.
Goodbye to your hair.
Goodbye to baking you cupcakes.
Goodbye to the possibly dirty joke you made.
Goodbye passing windows trying to catch a glimpse of you.
Goodbye to the night with the knife.
Goodbye to four shots.
Goodbye to hopeless fantasy.
Goodbye to your name.
Goodbye to writing about you.
Goodbye, grrl.

4. This one is about my last boyfriend forever, the one I will never share an apartment high above the dirty city with.

you were my perfect love best friend brother
who ate my naked legs
and laughed when i kissed your ear
you were something magic i couldn't do without
when everything was wrong
and i wanted to pretend to be someone else
you were my perfect-est love
with your pale skin and your bony ribs
and i don't want anyone else to be you.

notification

I lost my cell phone.

I'm very unhappy.

A song I can sing

 Current Music: She and Him- You Really Got a Hold on Me

I don't think I've entirely figured LJ out yet. I mostly use it to post (usually) bad poetry, and lists of things I've done/want to do/books I've read. I guess it's supposed to be something like a diary accessible to others, so here goes.

I guess I'm making this entry since I'm in such a good place in my life, and I want to have some sort of memento from it. Everything's just genuinely so chill right now. I've figured out where I want to go next fall: New College of Florida. I think I'm going to send in my deposit sometime in the next few weeks. This morning I woke up, went to school, and talked about India for all of first hour. My ex is spending two months there this summer, which is going to be incredible. Then, I sat on one of the verrry comfy couches and read some more of Brother Karamazov, which is a pretty good book so far. I think, if this isn't too pretentious, that I understand some of the things especially Alyosha is going through. And Fyodor just makes me laugh. My best friend came to pick me up, and I gave her one of my delicious vegan mint chocolate chip cupcakes I baked last night. They are so good! They almost look too pretty to eat, they have green mint frosting and chocolate ganache on top and I love them. (If you're looking for a cookbook, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World is my new fave.) The rest of school was alright, I had a test in Macro that was sort of difficult, but then I spent the rest of the next period just chatting with my Environmental Science teacher, who is easily one of my favorite people ever. She told us about working in a hospital in the seventies while she was in college, which was cool. Then after school, we had a dance meeting and that was fun. I went to Ritual and had delicious tea and some good times with my junior friends. I'm going to miss them. It's always hard when I realize too late that I've squandered the time I could have spent getting to know really amazing kids, but I guess that's life for you. And that was my day.

I haven't written anything creatively for awhile, partly out of boycott against my creative writing sponsor and partly because I haven't had that much to say. I feel like that might be changing soon, though...

::sigh:: Everything's just so beautiful right now. I wouldn't even know how to begin to ask for anything better.

Restaurants

WEST DES MOINES
Gateway Market and Cafe
Fresh Cafe

GRAND
Tandoor

ROOSEVELT
La Mie

DRAKE
Mars Cafe
Frank's Pizza

INGERSOLL
Black Cat
Zanzibar's

LOCUST
Ritual Cafe
Centro

SHERMAN HILL
Gateway Market
A Dong

DOWNTOWN
Funky Pickle

EAST VILLAGE
Noodle Zoo
Taste of Thailand
Gong Fu Tea

A list

 Songs for Senior Recital

-Bach Prelude in E minor
-Bach Prelude in C major
-Chopin Prelude in E minor
-Pachelbel Canon
-Bach Sonata

+ more Chopin ? more from Book IV ?

to be continued...

Books Read in 2009

1. Off the Map by Hibickina and Kika

2. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
3. Red Bird by Mary Oliver
4. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
5. Gender Outlaw by Kate Bornstein
6. Valencia by Michelle Tea
7. I Saw You...: Comics Inspired by Real-Life Missed Connections by Julia Wertz
8. Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

Forest

 Tonight will take forever to end.

You can tell because the jangly guitars of her car music are blending into the darkening sky, because our laughter is the best feeling in the world and all we need, because when I'm staring at the diners and thrift stores flying by I can sense her taking me in and I know she likes it.

Tonight we'll have adventures too vivid to be real.

    We pull into the curving entrance to the lake and I know we're not supposed to be here. It's late- or early morning- and no one, we're told so often, is up to any good at those hours. Probably there's a law against us being here because probably the government thinks we'll come here to partake of illegal narcotics. This is, I promise, not the case.
We're both quiet as the car idles. I want to tell her that I'd be happy staying in this moment with her forever, that I don't need whatever big things are going to happen when she leaves. But those are the kinds of things I can never get out.        
    "Are you ready?" she whispers. "I'm kind of nervous."
    "Let's just do it."
    Layer by layer we peel away our clothes. I think it's easier for me because I've stopped feeling obliged to wear undergarments. In the moonlight, I catch a glimpse of her breasts. They are as large and beautiful as I knew they'd be.
    We open the car doors and feel the night surround our skin in a cool blast of summer and fleeting opportunity. We don't need words, anymore. I'm first to take off and I hear her started giggle behind me. She sprints to catch up, and we stare into each others' eyes, acknowledging the challenge. We race toward the moon, the horizon, and whoops and laughter emanate from us, unbidden. The noise makes a great echoing, and I know the land is voicing its agreement.
    We run until we're out of breath and we fall down because it's all we can do. I look up into the stars, into the big gaps between the stars, and wonder if any of them know that I need them to be there to look at.
    I look at her, and her hair is spilling all over her. I inch my body closer to hers until I can hear her shallow breaths, one, then the next in quick succession. I take her hand and can't believe how warm it is. Then, I stop pretending not to want her.
    I move my body over her and spread my legs around her little waist. Her breasts are still there. I am not ready for her to know my intentions with them. I lower my head and in the quiet we find each others' mouths. It is like, and not like, every other kiss: gentle at first, then more urgent. I catch her lower lip between my teeth, feel her tongue prowling about in my mouth. Everything in me is singing and feels taut like a string waiting to be plucked. With one hand, I begin to rub her breasts and she moans into my mouth like a guttural lament. My other hand is waiting to be deployed and as I feel it make its course down her torso to the place where she, too, is waiting, I know we are both ready. I am in love with my naked vixen and know no other desire.

    Afterward, we lie a long time in the grass. I feel like the sun might rise, soon; I feel like the sun will never rise again. I am trapped, as before, in the body of someone I don't know. But I have made love to a girl, to the entire world, and this brings me peace.