flashback
In the silence, you wait for me.
My mind wanders to nighttime in a town I've long since left behind
to a room I've long since locked.
You touch me
lightly
electroplating gold onto a lesser metal.
All I see in the silence is the contrast of your hand on my arm
a black-and-white picture of lightning at night.
My eyes, humid with the weight of exhaustion and memory
like autumn leaves settling on an empty lake--
I want you to know my stories before they sink.
I rest in your arms like a hammock.
You are strong as a hemlock
regal as an oak
proud as a cedar.
For a moment, I let myself feel safe.
Because
you are good.
You are so good that my friends are jealous.
You are handsome
a gentleman
smart
and
            different when we close the door.
In the darkness,
my memories hover between us like a one-way mirror
so clean, you haven't yet realized it's there.
Will you start your interrogation soon
or wait out a confession?
Which parts of my life do you want to know?
I can give it to you in photographs
keep an album in my chest for just such cases.
Here is the first man I loved
(I still haven't stopped thinking about him).
Here is the man who assaulted me when I was trying to forget.
Your fingers are shaped like his when you stand too close,
and I keep hearing his voice in your words.
In your ultimatums and pressing and moving to fast
you can ask all the questions you want
though you hear only guilt even as I scream my innocence.
But you are good
handsome
a gentleman
smart
so surely you would understand what happened
when I tell you my stories are sinking?
Once
long ago
at nighttime in a town I've long since left behind
in a room that I've long since locked
a man hovered above me like a hot air balloon
and my fire wasn't strong enough to keep him from coming down.
I've been washing the memories out of my hair for years.
But tonight
I smell it again in your sweat,
feel it in your grip as you forget what you asked me
forget how I answered
and I shudder as your smile takes me back.
I am trapped in your arms like a kite string.
you are poisonous as a hemlock
strong as an oak
eerie as a cedar.
For a moment, I am lost.
floating away on an empty lake
in a canoe of fallen memories
that you will never know.
3 notes
¡
View notes
The Secret Keeper
I am the keeper of secrets.
Between my ears, folded
sleeping cicadas. The drone
of the swarm
is just a nightmare, darling. I
am the maker of marionettes. Puppets. Playthings.
Let strings run loose to fly. I
am the whisper of mosquito
whisked past in the wind,
the hum of hurricane
lifting weather balloons. Look:
we were never meant
for such smallness as lies. Your body
bends back from the blows, I know,
so Iâve learned to stow them away. Tucked
between my lips like sugarcubes, sweet.
I am the safeguard of cicadas
the soil in which they sleep
I am dirt
dirty
deep
below ground they breathe
on the air pockets formed
in the space of decay. Youâve made me this way.
 Iâve made me this way. I
am a nuisance, a noose
the weather balloon rising says
thereâs still time to choose
whether you evacuate
or stay. Either way,
 the cicadas wonât stop their slumber.
The marionette strings tied to their wings
wonât move. The humming you hear
is no coming hurricane. The weathervane
was pointed east today
and darkness doesnât rise
where the sun comes from.
 I wish
your eyes were open to your own lightness.
I wish youâd swallow your sugarcubes
instead of setting syrup traps like this. Learn
that we were not built to live
blowing away. Iâm better than you
this way.
These cicada wings
donât blow me astray. I
am a keeper of secrets
a marionette mistress
making hurricanes into playthings. These strings
donât have you by the throat.
Thereâs no noose on which to choke.
So if you want to go,
go.
 But if you want to stay,
stay. I hear
thereâs a sunset playing on the horizon today.
We can settle in
watch
as the cicadas fly away.
0 notes
Im not usually one to brag, but I feel like I can on here because there are really only two people that might read it. So here goes. Friday night, I went to a NBA playoff game. Saturday, gave my number to a guy and salsa danced until I couldn't feel my feet anymore. Sunday, I had mezcal margaritas for Cinco. Today, the boy texted me and asked me to go to a concert with him Thursday, which meant I had to confirm my plans to see Ironman with my girl Wednesday night instead. The boy is also so in awe of my tomboy girly girl slam poet sports nut self that he's calling me Miss Ruthless and says he's in shock. This weekend is gonna be perfect hiking weather, and the tall, dark, handsome, funny, perfect summer fling moves to the city on Tuesday. I have 11 weeks left in the city. Damn am I gonna miss it. Except for the cicadas - did you hear about that craziness?!?
1 note
¡
View note
At the Mississippi #twincities #stpaul #mississippi
1 note
¡
View note
The article stumbles a bit in effectively avoiding misandry - I mean, I well know that a group of girls all together endlessly is as likely to talk viciously about others as a group of boys, and that would have been worth a mention. But I love what one person said in response:
"The concern is with rape because it is a heinous act with no possible purpose or justification for existing. It is logical for one to wonder why something so senseless yet so inhumane even exists...
To simply call these rapists "bad eggs" dismisses the action. It makes it passive. Rape is not passive. It is a decision to participate in a heinously unjustifiable act, and anyone who wants to examine the thought processes behind these disgustingly purposeless decisions is 100% justified in doing so."
0 notes
1K notes
¡
View notes
Here's what happens when you're working from home because of a snowstorm:
*Work work work*
*Boring call*
*Surf internet in background on personal computer during boring call*
*Take 30 minutes to read 1 paragraph on the internet because it's making you laugh so hard that you're crying and literally can't see the page*
I love reddit so, so much for introducing me to these things.
2 notes
¡
View notes
Hotel room pictures: 1949 Badger homecoming football game.
0 notes
Ready for the mid-spring Midwest sweeps. #midwest #midbest
1 note
¡
View note
can't wait to say this to one person.
2 notes
¡
View notes
I can't even describe how excited I'm getting about moving to Minneapolis.
That is, in the moments that I'm not freaking out over leaving Boston.
1 note
¡
View note
WOWPS 2013 - Carrie Rudzinski - âThe Prayerâ
âMy god, for months I felt like dirty sheets you slept in with someone else.â
Our first video from the 2013 Women of the World Poetry Slam! More to come over the next few weeks.
455 notes
¡
View notes
#buddywakefield at Diesel. Giant Saint Everything. #
12 notes
¡
View notes
one of the coolest exibits i've seen in a while - and that's saying something. "spin" and "blown away" were unbelievable.
âBlue-and-white ceramics seem to be a source of endless fascination, from early Asian and Islamic examples to contemporary remixes of traditional forms and social and cultural commentary. âNew Blue and White,â an exhibition that opens on Feb. 20 at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, demonstrates the ways in which todayâs artists and designers, working in a variety of media, are making blue-and-white modern.
The works on display range from the abstract, like Harumi Nakashimaâs undulating, dot-glazed sculpture, or Min Jeong Songâs groups of glass objects, to the more representational, including a dress and a pair of shoes by the fashion label Rodarte. And there are plenty of conceptual pieces, like Steven Leeâs âVase With Landscape and Butterflies,â which is at once exquisite and âdamagedâ; Robert Dawsonâs âSpin,â a series of plates in which the traditional Blue Willow pattern is spun into a blur; or âBlow Away,â a vase by Front Design that appears to be bending with the wind. The exhibition continues through July 14.â
via T Magazine | The New York Times
4 notes
¡
View notes
The fear of being found
8K notes
¡
View notes
1K notes
¡
View notes