and in that moment, i swear we were infinite

: miss_smachel; December 2nd, 17:13

You are Hugh's mistress
with her head high and arrogant and her poor
mimicless child crying silently on her hip.
She breathes in fumes of shadows that have grown
long and quiet and you shut your eyes

heavily, as if I have not lived with her for three years.
Her, Victoria, I might as well be her.
You are crying, "Edward, Edward!
take me back to Devon, I want to see Spain."
I have kept her alive, don't you see?

You were avoidable, he says oh, he knows you so well
with your pearls and your hair cut short.
Do you not see my heavy curls,
falling like damp velvet curtains in the room where I have lain.
You lay there now, with your sweet affair

like a musky scent of after love.
We've felt the same skin, though he forgets you.
A hurried attempt to mimic me mimic me mimic me
seize him, scream, cry breathlessly in the gasses.
The gasses are the scent of the two of you.

I could smell it on him,
the scent of your black-haired baby and I knew
this would never be the death of him
with his lively wrinkles set in deep with no thoughts
of who you think you are.

You are dead now.
And I am dead now, and he has lost the heaviness of us.
There is nothing between us, you see,
I have kept her alive.
She lives while you have killed your own daughter.

don't read this

: miss_smachel; November 29th, 23:43

to me, depression is being trapped in a dark corner, so i'm not depressed. i'm cold, like stongehenge and being sick like this is as ancient as the winds there. the winds are whistling past me, blowing into my orifices like i'm a flute they are learning to play. some days, the winds leave me winded, or wrung out like spring time, and i feel light and rather translucent. and it's nice. but their desire to learn beautiful music overcomes them, and they get so excited. they put their lips to me and whistle out a hollow, worthless tune and i sing with a small, hoarse voice. my eyes hurt in a dry, winter way and the tears fall like warm dish water down my china cheeks. i feel like an ugly doll with cracks down her spine and pieces chipped off where the tides were too high, and i feel heavy in this way. like i'm drowning, but there's no water. i stand and i wish that i could believe in singing, but when i part my chapped lips to sing her troubles, i crack and whisper and the tears overcome me like i'm choking on her lyrics. i could never write my own lyrics, though i already believe in words. maybe i could believe in cracks.

there was this crack in the sidewalk. it was inbetween my family's two-front war, and i spent a lot of time standing on it. it was a perfect middle, and it tore my glass body apart. somedays, while they were screaming, i would lay in bed and hate them. they broke before they could create something better than this. screaming and shutting doors too loudly, so that i would have to feed the cats. the winds rattled the windows in my room. i cried for my brother, because he would sleep in the bed above me. i hoped he was sleeping through it, because i never could. the cats chased and nipped at the little bits of leaves that blew in from outside. they would tear them apart and hide them behind dressers and tvs and nightstands. a door not open all night, and maybe i could believe in prayer.

i have been praying since my mom took me to church for the first time. i must have been eight. the pews were cold like stone and the winds swept the floor and tickled my ankles. the preacher moved his hands in front of him, like he was sweeping all of our sins away. i do not believe in sins. sins lay in dark corners, so i am not a sinner. but as he swept all our anxieties into his god-chosen hands, everyone around me bent their necks and closed their eyes. even my mom, with her tired, red eyes and her pale, fixing hands. she nudged me and i bent my neck, but i did not close my eyes. i watched my feet, and grew upset with how they wouldn't touch the floor like everyone elses'. i watched the dust dance with the old, wise winds. i watched as they knew everything i didn't. i watched until i started to listen. his voice was stern, but not in a way that i was afraid of. "dear lord god, we come to you today with anxious hearts and weary lives. we come here today to worship you and ask you to lift us up from where we are. i know that all of us here have done something horrible. we have sinned and we have been led astray, but we come here for forgiveness..." and my mom said 'amen', but i don't know why. "i want to pray for all of those here who do not know your love, and i pray that they will find you and open up to you and learn that you will forgive them nomatterwhat, god. i pray that you bless this lesson, and that you bless the fellowship and that people here will be moved by the love that is present within your kingdom, lord. most of all, god, i pray that you help with our anxieties and that you bring us to a place of happiness and contentment. i pray all of this in your son's name, jesus christ, amen." then everyone said "amen", so i whispered it to myself and the winds blew in a complete way that felt like all i could wish for will be wrapped up and sent away as soon as i said "amen".

some nights i say "amen" and i promise that i am sincere and i let the winds carry it out of my lips and through the trees and down the highways to wherever my god is. the ancient sickness in me wraps and whistles and blows and i lay in my bed that cradles my cracks and whisper, "dear god, please help me with my stomach and my head, i want them to stop hurting. please, god, help me get to sleep. be with everyone who's sad tonight, that i know. forgive me for making people upset or angry. forgive me for never listening, and forgive me for not doing my homework tonight. please, take me seriously, and help me with these winds. it's so cold and i'm so tired, and i just want to go to sleep. i pray this in your son's name, jesus christ..." and i shut my eyes and feel the cold, "amen".

burn at 5:30

: miss_smachel; November 12th, 18:45

I am sick inside and out,
and I wish to burn this disease.

I knew her skin and scars,
and I could count the colors in her eyes

but she let me burn.
And she knew how well I could burn,

and knew I knew of no other word:
burn, burn, burn.

I hear the bells ringing in the next room,
and see the red balloons float across

both of the upstairs windows.
Put my hair up and turn blue.

Her scars are skin-colored and miss-matched
and I burn, burn, burn.

Mom makes a fire, where the bright flames
lick and roll the tea kettle

she got for Christmas,
the year the smallest boy was born.

The water burns, and I bleed blue,
and the boiling steams makes us light.

I have freezer doors and bathroom floors,
the tiles, the tiles.

She knows how well I burn,
tolls the bell so I can learn.

my words wear me out (this isn't about you)

: miss_smachel; October 26th, 16:22

Current Mood:: sad

Current Music:: worried shoes

There are street signs telling us we can't drive
all the way through.
(I don't know about you,
but I'm through.)
There are pale lights we see through,
foggy and rain-speckled windows
that make us sick
like computer screens.
And the seats we sit on away from home
create tremors of hot flashes,
so I sit sweating with your letter in my back pocket.

I work on it when the chills come back.
I'm too hot and I'm too cold
at the same time.
Like that one time you let me sleep to your dial tone,
because the liquid medicine took affect too early.

It's cold outside, so I wear layers
that make my skin damp and clamy,
like fevers of a 103.
Can you keep me here?

These pale lights through the too clear windsheild,
with the wipers that push the rain out.
Push our fatigue out,
then sickily back in.
My hair sticks stiff to my forehead
prickled with little drops of Autumn rain
and my drab cloth shorts
ride up against the hot, summer leather,
like on a day in Florida.

I unpeel my letter to you from the closeness
of our words.
Everything of anything I meant to say to you,
spelled incorrectly, with improper grammar.
I'm assuming you'll know that I mean well.

When I used to love you,
but your words soaked in like humid air.
You knew I always loved the smell,
the way the Earth tilts just before a plunge.
Like the air is following me into death,
or a hole in the wall.

So you reached through your door of the mailbox,
and held your breath,
as every pale light of downtown
is sealed behind my old kiss,
"Dear . . ."

just this once

: miss_smachel; October 21st, 20:21

Current Music:: your first movement-zach

we keep our difficulties to ourselves,
grow older,
know wiser things.

she brings home friends that squeak and
sound like trumpets under water,
like the way we felt earthquakes under our beds.

the idea of being hung made you cry,
but you couldn't stop thinking about it.
lost in a ring around your neck,

anything circular turned you off.
had you known i was all round edges,
you would've moved away earlier.

the rings of coffee on the white table tops,
made you upset with the world we had.
the square edges of our bunk beds.

please repeat precisely what i say
under breaths we share,
and mock my lips with yours,

requires you to touch your lips with mine,
feel my cracks and words.
taste the poetry forced down my throat.

watch our shows through my eyes,
and i'll listen to your sounds through yours.
hear the yelled interjections as i hear them,

under water, bouncing through tiled walls.
the smoke left rings on the mirrors,
so you lay face down on the floor.

why couldn't i listen, this once?
she couldn't hear me, this once.
we couldn't see, those once times of before

we saw those black girls hung.
the movies, the movies, the movies
we watched, how difficult they were.

we kept them to ourselves,
and she brought home friends with movies
to watch,

watch the movie i want to watch,
just this once.
they were hung,

but they sung
so beautifully.
like trumpets underwater, in a tiled room.

Tidal Souls

: miss_smachel; September 8th, 23:43

Your sea glass eyes, and the sphere of the earth
wrapped in velvet, with little pin pricks against a blinding light.

You left your tendencies behind with the mountains
that stand tall and sturdy.

We swallow blue, like the ocean or the dramamine,
that makes the deep navy sky steady.

The noisy Pacific parallels the senses, and the horizon
runs deep and distant.

The smell of sweet sea spray surrounds us,
like a dipping overdose on ultramarine.

My sunny-day forest eyes, and the undertow that pulls away
all the rational fears.

We are left with delirium.
So we pretend the fierceness of our perfection is the Atlantic.

Calm and everlasting, rich in history,
and logical like the halves of our brains that we left submerged.

Murky like leaving us tripping.
And sometimes I can still smell chlorine on you.

Sometimes, I can still see where we used to live,
and how we used to be.

All the notebooks and pen caps are left in rubble,
and the stars grow into unimaginable limbs.

Eyes unlike ours, more eloquent and presice.
They infiltrated the East, we heard.

Here we are, and you're climbing ahead of me.
Forgotten is reason, behind us is the ability to write literary critism,

a scientific theory,
a planned out thesis.

Your sea eyes, and my forest eyes,
prove to them we are the true essence of this planet.

The gasoline eyes and the political souls only ask,
"Why are you here?"

But we took to the Pacific, to reach the Atlantic,
and reached up to the vivid apetured sky,

and their nebula colored eyes looked down on us as you asked,
"Can you save us?"

bad dreams

: miss_smachel; July 25th, 23:03

Current Music:: someday you will be loved

I saw a shooting star that chipped past my vision,
and I wish hurridly for this concept to mute out.
When loose hearts meet many minds,
it wishes to be seperate with those who wouldn't mind
listening to the commercials on television.
Though while some mind when we negotiate,
others are tuning to the channels that were
lost in space many decades ago.

baby, it's been a year

: miss_smachel; July 11th, 17:31

Current Music:: your new twin sized bed- death cab for cutie

I.
it's march and maybe i just got tired of listening to your noncommittal punk lyrics whining over your repetitive distortion. maybe i was just through with the holes in your gloves and the ripped binder paper littering your bedroom floor. i was sinking, and i guess you never really understood anyways, so it surprised you when you caught me treading and swimming back to shore. i don't know when i began drifting, but you were so crushed when you caught me sneaking an american spirit in the passenger seat of your purposefully dull '89 honda accord, listening to maroon 5 as if it wasn't your car. these weren't your speakers.

maybe i just had a knack for getting what i wanted.

II.
you almost liked the way i named that puppy immediately after hester prynne because you knew no one else who would right away think of that name. you hated the scarlet letter because of all the protesting your feminist mother did without success, but i loved the idea of gender equity, so you never thought to disagree. i guess in a way i admired you for that, but you didn't have to cradle me. with your callused fingertips pressed into my skin, you pulled me by my upper arm away from the smoldering tracks because they blistered my tough heels. you never listened to me when i told you i loved the feeling of being heat stroked. you locked me in your stand-up shower with the glass bubble door and told me to fill it up with cold water, heal myself. but i sat down and painted pictures in the dripping water on the tiles.

hester ran away a few days later. i guess she sensed the smothering before i did, and escaped while she could. i watched her skip across the hot pavement, and maybe i let her go. but you cried for me because you knew i was really starting to love her. i came over with a dusty face and an imprint in my palm from where i gripped the leash so hard for so long, walking all the way to your house while hester trotted off in the opposite direction. your tears left clean spots on my dirty face and i held onto the leash while you wrapped your arms around me. this wasn't like you.

while you were playing with your band the next day, i kept thinking about hester and how hot it was outside. the noise around me was stale and it never lingered, rather it bounced off the walls and slammed into my head, making it throb. it was thought disrupting and you kept ceasing the clatter to yell at the other band members. the window's curtains were sealed shut for better insulation or something, but i felt as if you were trying to shut me in. or more accurately, shut me out from the heat waves and the burning bridges.

that's the word; burn. i wanted to burn.

III.
after awhile i took to smoking my american spirits in the presence of those who could tell you for themselves. they never said much, but they looked down apologetically, as if they didn't want to turn around and tell you. or more likely, they were sorry they ever saw me lighting them up so close to my face.

you kept me in the entire summer, and fall was rounding the corner. i started staying up late and learning more in my classes. somehow, last year's education didn't seem so necessary, but lately i'd been craving a knowledge you'd never have. it would lodge itself into your brain for temporary use and then you'd discard it. but peers were starting to see us as one, so i kept showing up at your gigs with a cup of booze, trying to squeeze in through the obnoxious arms reaching out to take hold of you.

you told me, "baby, you know you my only and m'yours so you never have't worry." and you slurred through everyone one of your promises. i never told you that i didn't consider you mine, nor me yours. we let it settle unacknowledged and then we'd fumble to strip away our clothes before the sun rose. you kissed my smoke stained lips, unaware, and i covered your mouth before you could whisper the three scariest words in our combined vocabulary. i didn't want to let you dig a hole too deep.

on halloween, you had a gig at the rich kid's house up on bridge road. kids at school called it the bridge mansion, and you smiled as you asked if i could take your little brother trick or treating. in my peacoat, fingering my cigarettes, i shrugged and you told me to just walk around the block with him a few times, and then bring him up to bridge mansion for the end of your set. it seemed like a better use of my time so i agreed and while you left, i realized your little brother's face was bright red. his cheeks matched his spiderman costume and snot was dripping over his lips. without any regard to the fact that your little brother was abnormally red and watching us, you kissed me briefly and led your guitar case out the front door.

as soon as the door clicked shut, i picked up your little brother who told me his name was jeremy, and took him to your bathroom. i rummaged around for a thermometer, while feeling his forehead; he was burning up. i was mad at you for not realizing this, and if you had, i was mad that you left him this way. as jeremy's lips began to quiver, i found the thermometer and stuck it under his tongue. jeremy whined about wanted to get outside to trick or treat as he grasped his pillowcase and wiped at his running nose. i was silent as i tried to articulate in my head, a decent way of breaking the news but the thermometer read 98 degrees.

"jeremy, were you sitting in front of the heater or something?" i asked him, and jeremy nodded, while mumbling something about wanting to get outside to go trick or treating. i set my lips in a fine line and closed my eyes as i leaned against the bathroom counter, in front of jeremy. i could tell he didn't know what was wrong, but he put his one clean arm around my neck and pressed his left cheek into my right shoulder.

"can we go now?"

on the street, the moon was full and i thought about all the scary movies i watched when i was littler and wondered if jeremy watched them now. i smoked a cigarette, in disregard to the swarms of children tripping around me. jeremy held on to my hand and for whatever reason, i didn't mind that it was soaked in snot. i flicked away ashes as we approached a familiar front door. jeremy hastily knocked on the red painted wood as i stubbed out what was left of my cigarette into the fern hanging by the doorbell. i rang it since jeremy had a pithy knock and looked down at my ripped converse. the door opened and i could feel eyes staring at the top of my head, but i knew the mind behind those eyes wouldn't even think to try so i didn't look up until the door had shut.

i led jeremy up to bridge mansion where i found you drunk on stage, with your lips too close to the microphone and their hands too close to your hips and i watched for a few minutes while jeremy yawned and slipped closer to the floor. i picked him up and took him through the hallways of the mostly dark and empty house, but we could still hear you whining over your repetitive distortion; your noncommittal punk lyrics.

i found a tv room, and i asked your little brother if he had ever seen hocus pocus. when he told me he wasn't allowed to watch scary movies, i told him it was funny and turned on the tv and vcr. when the movie started, jeremy shared his candy with me and i started to become less and less interested in keeping up. so i sunk into the couch and let your little brother slowly become a lot less oblivious then you.
and you sung about interesting people to uninteresting people who all believed you were singing to them.

IV.
in my new-in-a-sense sedan, i watched the rain pelt down on the windshield and matched the sound of the drops to the rhythm of my finger tapping on the steering wheel. you had told me to meet you here and by now it's mid-january and you know i'm an abusive chain smoker. i admitted my problem as worse than it actually was, but now i can smoke even more than usual. but only around you, because i love to be dramatic.

you didn't surprise me when you slipped in suddenly and i turned the key as you clicked on your seat belt. "know what day it is?" you ask, a smirk playing on your lips. i shake my head, no. your face falls and you sit back sullenly. "really?" i shake my head again, i don't keep track of dates anymore. you try to look token aback but i somehow sense relief in your reaction. "baby, it's been a year."

"what's been a year?"

"it's been a year since we got together."

i sit in my running sedan with you staring at me through the dark and i think, only a year?

"is that so?"

V.
in my peacoat about a few houses down from yours, i smoke a cigarette at the entrance to a nice house with a red door. my hair is up because it's warm today, and i think back.

two marches back, you left my best friend to pursue your interest in music. the two of us had a falling out and by january you had asked me to go out with you. the entire process was reluctant but i agreed to get back at something, and i never did get my revenge. my ex-friend, i guess, started showing up at your gigs about a year later. you knew the entire time, and it was the only time you knew what you were doing. meanwhile, i was becoming more and more apathetic until i realized where you were on friday nights.

and now i'm thinking back to halloween and i watch as the red door opens. you stumble out with your disheveled hair and your casual strut. i didn't cry and i didn't scream, but i let you watch me smoke and shrug. "do you know what day it is?"

you look so token aback now, and you shake your head. you're acting as if you don't know what's going on. "baby, it's been a year."

(no subject)

: miss_smachel; July 8th, 20:40

This isn't about people, this place, and these sites aren't about how we're feeling, and I like that too much to leave it. And I understand this too much to stay. I only wish my clothes fit me well, and I wish my shoes had no holes in them. But mostly, I wish I were part of this ground as much as these trees were; are. I wish I were destructive enough as the fires are, and I wish I were as serene and easy-going as the water that slides and smooths its way through the crevaces. I wish my leg's muscles would pulse and throb harder and drill me deeper into this rock. Carve me into the face; whisper my name through the pine trees; paint my colors unto the awed faces with the setting sun.

untitled

: miss_smachel; July 1st, 15:15

"It feels good out here, doesn't it?"

I recall the red sky that night, and how bright the baseball field lights were; tall, white, and apparent. Erin was swinging next to me, and we were discussing how unneccesary Anna's beauty was, but how devotedly in love she was with her. I remember feeling heavily weighed down that night, yet light at the same time with my new short hair.

We could hear Peter, Vicki and Ryan shouting on the baseball feild across the parking lot, and I loved so dearly the way I felt. I felt as if these were my favorite people out of all of the people I've ever met so far in my life. Each one of them felt whole, real, and dynamic in a way that kept me stable. It was a mixture that felt rare and fateful, just as the lights against the summer fog felt. I wanted to feel the way I did that night forever, as if each one of us were just talking and falling into a botomless moment that had no end. I felt electric in such a sudden way, yet so dull against the vivid images presented.

Erin's freckles and distingusing red hair were disguised in the color of the summer air around us, and all I could make out of her, besides her silhouette, was her voice. Erin had the type of voice that was difficult to get frustrated with, it was always so stern and questioning at the same time. The type of questioning that leads anyone to believe that she simply just doesn't have everything quite figured out yet, though it's easy to see she's opinionated enough to attempt to fake it. It's a type of voice you couldn't imagine belonging to anyone else. That night, though, she was so simply unsure. She dragged her bare toes through the sand, as I did, and fought hard with herself to convince me she wasn't in love with Anna.

I was merely a witness, though, as Erin tore through her feelings and reasons to come up with the conclusion that she was, indeed, in love with Anna. I think that was the night Erin and I really became such close friends.

That night was the type of night where every event feels as if it's supposed to happen. Every deciscion, and every look, every touch, just feels correct and understood. No one ever seems to argue on these types of nights.

As Erin and I sat laughing at her giddy realization, Vicki and Peter came stumbling up to the tire swing, bumping into each other in a silly way and laughing in a very hushed and secret kind of way. I don't know about Erin, but the feeling was severe and it overwhelmed. This same feeling I keep talking about.

The smell of the freshly watered dirt under the grass, the red color of the sky, and the warm feeling on our arms when we weren't wearing sweaters. It was truely vived and thick and so deeply surreal that I couldn't bear to forget it.

That night, we all laid on the wet grass and talked about morals and kisses and people we'd never think to contact over summer. And Vicki sat close to Peter and Erin felt comfortable letting me be the one to know about Anna and nobody else, yet. Ryan brought up all of everyone's first times, and we all discussed our first moments and epiphanies. When we all realized what was really happening in those movies our parents watched.

And then we ran and skipped and walked and cartwheeled back to the parking lot to climb into Ryan's red Ford Sierra and rolled all the windows down. I was wearing a simple, white strap tank top with my light, cut off jean shorts and I felt so clean and ridden of everything in my life. And I never wanted it to end.

I sat near the window with Vicki on the other side and Erin in between us, the two boys were in the front. Ryan took the long way back to Vicki's house by going by the coast. We got to this one tourist stop, on a cliff, and stopped to look at the ocean. There were no stars that night, since the fog was so thick, and we were all starting to get cold by being so close to the waves and the orgins of the fog, but we all stood near the railings and let the night sort of soak. I don't think any of us were aware of how we left, or that we'd remember it so thoroughly later on, but I'm sure we were aware of how close we felt.

Which is why I can never forget what Vicki said at that moment,

"It feels good out here, doesn't it?" And we all nodded or agreed silently, because it really did feel good out there.

and in that moment, i swear we were infinite

: miss_smachel; June 15th, 20:11

Current Location:: forever

Current Mood:: about

be beautiful.
she chirps like the crickets
and blows smoke like the wildfires.
but the smoke is thick and sticks and runs deep,
as she runs far and she's so beyond the heights.
the loudest the swing can creak,
the farthest off the ground her feet are,
higher than the billows.
a scream as soft as pillows.
she is, she is, she is.

reach wider.
this route will change our lives,
and he swears no one believes him.
it's 14 hours later,
with a headache on his mind,
and a lighter in his pocket,
he burns, burns, burns,
until the worlds a flaming tire
running higher,
licking dryer.
he burns, he burns, he burns.

yosemite

: miss_smachel; April 1st, 19:56

Current Mood:: better

Current Music:: the postal service

an old poem i found from when i went insane last summer.

I'm sitting in this shower
With no water.
You're supposed to stand,
I ignore them.
Opposite me is a man,
Wide grin and white eyes.
He's tinted purple,
He drinks too much wine.
He sucks on a cigarette,
He coughs through a smile.
I pull my knees in closer to my chest.
He looks up and smiles to the cat,
Clawed to the cieling.
The tabby lets out a torchered meow
Before stiffening her tail.
The man tinted purple is blind.
He reads words with his ears
And he reasons with the cat on the cieling.
I watch these purple hands get closer to the faucet.
He tells me to leave,
Or I'll get soaked.
I nod.
I exit the shower, doors creaking angrily.
I step into a world where dandelions purr,
And cats blow away with imagination.
Grass wraps gently around my ankles,
Daisies twist up my arm and beg.
They beg, "Don't let us turn to dust."
The air whistles softly and the man,
Mirrored me,
Steps into a coat.
He places a hat on his head,
A tabby at his heels.
"To see is to listen," says the man.
The tabby whispers of a place,
Where dandelions purr
And we're all begging to fly away.
Let none of us turn to dust.

dear jenny, the world is pretty.

: miss_smachel; March 29th, 0:36

Current Mood:: sleep now

Current Music:: the dresden dolls

upside down, the colors are bleeding into the sky. so she sits up straight and stretches out her arms. here, now, the colors are skewed and dotted. blinking and faded, her sentences are short. the piano doesn't blend, but it's dominate so she listens and she wants to sing along but her voice isn't well enough. her sentences are short.

"hello. can you direct me to the closest carpeted closet?" and she meanders down the alleyways to kick at the loose brick. someone once told the officer, she was born this way. those familiar songs remind him of her dips of doubt. the feeling of fingertips on elbows remember the way the sky felt that day, so lifted. when the railings were crumbling and the concrete felt too warped. the heat was horrid, you must understand.

noon brought no promises, and the book was worn. "please, direct me to the closest half painted fence." so she could flatten her palm on one side to lick her lips and listen for the short of breath she missed. she remembers how low the clouds felt, if there were any. maybe they were make believe like the stories he told on saturday nights. alone together, tomorrow and the next day. these days are just hours in the year. she misses the sure sound of his voice, as he believed he wasn't lying. he was standing.

laying down next to her, he admitted he loved him. though he plays solitaire incorrectly and waits for tv shows. he still loves him. she enjoys the bass and drums that her classmate shuts out. she'd rather scream and wish for mama to come home. those hands that move up her sides and lift her off the contorted tiles. and lovey, hunny, will be okay one day. she was born this way, though her colors will skew back into place. though maybe they won't. she believed her eyelashes were like butterfly wings and her mind was dull as soon as they were damaged.

we were all born in the morning, she believed. these make believe stories of boys and sense. she blacks out the colors to see only white and her voice is dry from napping. and she turns her body so that she's skewed and warped and contorted. her head falls off the side and the wave of her hair spills onto the ground where she'd feel safer. he walks through easily and into her realm. he agrees and she watches her entire exsistence flip upside down and she watches the colors bleed into the sky. her sentences are getting longer.

i'm thinking of jumping.

: miss_smachel; January 10th, 19:06

i'm craving perfection but i taste of sleep and my eyes are heavy.
i want arms around me again, i want faces closer.
i need your voice on my actions.
she wants minds cleared
and we all want our hearts in sync.
but none of us are more important than the other,
we're all just soaring into words and definitions.
but i hide in smoke and smile, stretching my face that
shifted in my sleep.
i'm at home and the lights burn my eyes,
my lips were stained and my sweater
would stay warm throughout the night.

i want to look through a cold night,
and the moon is shining on my canvas,
burning out all my previous misunderstandings,
and melting all my truths to ashes.
she sees what these hands have created.
i see what i choose to destroy.

staring at our better selves,
he chooses to follow faeries and
she points in both directions.
if i were meant to follow her i would choose
up, and continue until i achieved perfection.

for our one second, we were breathless and careless.
magnificant and out of our minds.
we were together and alone and our minds would collide so perfectly.

my favorite color is purple

: miss_smachel; October 1st, 1993

My Favourite Colour is Purple

Her hair was fiery red, it out burnt the sun and tinted all this flat land a glowing amber. Her eyes woke up the clock of my dandelion, a quick intake of air and suddenly my seeds and minutes were blown away and swept up to twine with swaying sugarcane and still rays of dusk. She kept me alive while my mother struggled to fit in her pieces and he was preoccupied tying his noose. Her fingers were as soft as daisy petals, quick as a downpour, and pithy as that kitten she found; starving and holding out for heads on pillows.

We named our kitten Chaton Vive and she was exactly like her. I say she takes after her mother, though I could never figure out how she ever heard me, my words were so easily tied with the wind. She knew I wouldn't be here for much longer, I belonged to a higher authority, why would I even waste my capability here with the drowsy horses and heat stroked crows?

While my mother daydreamed of gunshots and fast paced highways, I was dimming away my memories in her quilted house full of ghost stories and broken records. She played skipped versions of Zeppelin that faded so easily, as simple as it was to blend me away with the oaks and purple skies; I was quickly content in being a background.

I remember she had just mouthed an apology, she strummed a repetitive melody so she could bob her head in time with what was her version of timing and beat. She mouthed something close to an acclaim and I could see Chaton shivering. My face was long and discontented, she noticed easily and ceased her strumming. For a second her house seemed to yawn and too suddenly it was fast asleep; abrupt silence and I could hear a rumble from farther down a dusty road. The wind whispered through the ajar window near her shoulder, is if coming in to comfort us; sent from somewhere further down. She had let me borrow her mother's adorned nightgown, made up of lace with red trimming. Despite that it was actually rather transparent, it was the prettiest piece of clothing I had ever worn, let alone held in my hands. Her mother had bought it in France. France, I wouldn't want to imagine speaking my name in French; "Je m'appelle Clare. Je suis content dans la France." If this storm coming closer was as I expected, I might as well start repeating my adjectives and verbs, memorizing how to ask questions and be the daughter I was raised to portray. I kept my gaze still, though; frozen exactly where I wanted to stay.

When I looked up I saw her porcelain face, framed with fiery red afternoons and delicately wasted dreams of dawn and sunsets. She out burned the sun, those heat stroked afternoons that seemed to melt my forehead. With those perfect hands of hers she sent cold shivers up my soaked arms, she connected my clammy palms with hers and she was as endless as the sugarcane and the rose tinted jet streaked clouds. She kept me feeling like a fever of a 106 degrees, she kept me shivering and in place.

Though now her eyes are wide with realization. Our cold showered two in the afternoons with Ramble On skipping over morning air was going to be replaced with delicately embroidered uniforms and careful words. My vibrant purples were going to be faded out and left to collect dust. I was going to live in lace and puddles, still bathtub water and daydreams of pianos playing. I was going to meet glassy eyes and stringy hair, ripped tights and scuffed Mary Janes, those deceitful eyes. He had picked up his domino and had sent us off to live in a city where one soft tug was all it took to send us plummeting.

With those thoughts storming in my head, as beautiful as her eyes, I watched as she turned her head to brush back the cobwebbed curtains, peaking out a stained window to watch my tragedy rumble closer and I'm sweating tears, this was the day we had always dreaded.

We heard a door close, a swift movement that left a sound so quickly it practically jumped into my eyes. It did not ring, it left us with silence again. The knocking didn't echo, they were one, two, three swift sounds that came and went and left me empty. She picked up her guitar again, she lifted her soft hands, and she tilted her chin up. So we were going through with the original plan?

La-di-la. Her eyes like coal. La-la-la-ah-la-ah-la-la. She was going to write me a letter. Hmhm-la-la-aah-la-la. I went to the door in her mother's light nightgown. De-de-de-de-da-la-le-da-la. She sung softly behind me and my mother's pieces were finally put together.
---

The world was tinted purple, engulfed in hues that seeped into the details rather than masking the poor creatures and objects. Her dusty road led to this highway that stretched into oblivion, this deathly pale yellow separated one side from the other and we walked down the length of our boundaries. At sunset, the air looked almost ghostly, with sepia stained paint strokes, the smell of damp pleasures; grass, sweeps of chills, and eyelashes. Her lips on mine, her voice taking charge and seeping into my own protest. We never owned each other, I was hers as much as she was mine but we were never dating. She grabbed a hold of my hand and twisted her fingers around mine, she pranced into our soft town this way; as proud as our local war heroes. But this wasn't my town, these pastel buildings from the 20^th century, this was all someone else's. I never belonged here even though my parents had met and fell in love on these loosely paved roads. I couldn't get into it. I really want to remember her name, but it's been long ago flushed out of my memory forcibly just as I forgot the opaque screen door and Chaton's dust layered paws. I tried so hard to erase it all and focus on her frail shoulders, her stringy hair, her pocketed eyes. I cleared away all the reflected ponds and teary pupils and I filled my mind with stale, grey tights and murky, dank puddles. Though stale and opaque, I found it magnificently beautiful.

---

Sitting cross legged on the hood of her ticking Volkswagen with me on my knees in the dirt; we're young and we're waiting. The motel lights, colored a dusty neon red, buzzed and flickered as the heat settled into the sidewalks and gravel. She was distinctly quiet as she stroked on her favorite red nail polish, this color matching this girl's hair and these lights and I'm still thinking of her. I'm wearing this same nightgown though I've slipped on a pair of ripped jeans underneath and a t-shirt that tells strangers I've been to Las Vegas. I'm holding this old carrying case of my father's, full of random post cards I stole from each steak restaurant we stopped at and bird feathers I found in the parking lots, on our way back to our car. We were on our way away from her pastel colored town of loose driveways and yawning porches; we were on our way to Arizona so we could take a flight from there to Paris.

All we had now was a few hours spent waiting in front of room A27, hoping he hadn't hung himself and we were outside of a dead man's motel room. Mother always said it'd be any day now, he was itching to break free from her stranglehold on him and she really wanted to leave here alone. She took me with her only because I was an automatic piece to her complicated puzzle, beautiful as it was utterly ridiculous.

I was obsessed with letters so I wrote them to heaven, this girl with red hair, and my father and then I stuck them into my carrying case. She breathed out still air and the sun descended behind a distant gas station, I picked myself up and let my denim knees buckle together as I shuffled through the rocky dirt and into mother's Volkswagen and this wasn't even her car. I'm thinking of her again, I'm thinking of wine stained bangs hiding doe like eyes, her porcelain face. I shut the door on the driver's side and it clunks heavily, enclosing me in silence as I can't hear the crickets or her sighing anymore. I grab a quilt from the back seat and this one doesn't smell of damp sunshine but I wrap it around my knitted shoulders anyway, I feel a need to look protected. I look up in time to see mother sashaying over to room A27 with her gold locket bouncing off her chest and her shirt half way tucked into her cotton shorts, she bends over to see through the peephole in the door before she knocks and I can't hear her knocking. She probably can't see through the peephole but knowing her, she tries anyway.

She knocks and I can see her yelling something at the peeling, red door. It's a red unlike the neon lights and my constant comparison to her bold, crimson hair. This is the red you see on your knee after you scrape it and fall onto dirty pavement, infected and filthy.

I didn't like this door, it appeared to be glued shut and it seemed too heavy to pull open, it reminded me of infected wounds, and I could feel something off when mother pulled out the other half of her paisley blouse from being tucked in at her hipbone. There was something in the way she set her cheekbones that made me tighten the quilt around my shoulders and I want to run back to her town of pastel colors. The air cooled down too suddenly and I was having flashbacks of angry words and broken pieces while mother kicked the back of her calf with her left toes and then stepped backward hesitantly and now I imagined my eyes as burning crystal clear. My mother called me crystal clear because my eyes too easily expressed my thoughts.

She mouthed out my name and I could read her through the windshield, she'd be right back. Don't worry Crystal, Daddy will be just fine. I sunk into the chair and as if I were being submerged underwater, I suddenly felt pressure weigh down my thighs; pressing heavily into the worn in seat. The horizon was a soothing purple, the stars already poking free in the middle of the sky but I couldn't see them as I was focusing on the thin clouds, ruby against violet and I was now waiting for mother to come back.
---

I've got this song stuck in my head and I'm watching you scream louder than an angry black bird without ever separating the fine line your lips have become. The patterns fade into a lighter color of the sun as they spin into your pupils, then shoot red veins into the corners of your eyes; and then you blink and it's as if the shades in the clouds have shadowed over everything. The lake just got deeper, as the sky became more vast, all within the eighth of second it took for you to blink.

With your favorite scarf around your neck, and then me being as close to tears as I always look- we are spectacular. I wouldn't want any pictures of this moment, I wouldn't even want to remember right here, right now, with you.
---
She mended together her knit apart gloves and raised her elbows to the sun. "Birds, take me now," she says and raises her comprehension. She takes awhile to find the ground before she dives and sinks, transparent purple, take her now. She has a camera, the places she'll go. She stays bu her side and I am grateful, I am always grateful. Her world, this is her world and this was never mind. If I had known of the wonders she'd see I would have long ago left her and she tries her hardest to keep her down. The settled one she was, she never knew how far she was flying, how fast she was falling. She was slipping as easily as she was grabbing her hand and settling her into the background, laying her down in dust.
Here, we're all dressed in white. Pure satin, draping the floors and masking her potential. If I had seen how restless the two of them were, I would've stayed with her a little longer. Does she see me as beautiful, do you think I could help her? She stays in a place where hands meet hands and lips kiss the floor, she stays locked down and heavy, dripping water. No matter where she goes, I see her panoramic world from higher than her mind and she needs the world to live as the world will figure out, it needs her beauty.
My daughter, she will see farther than earth alone and there is a difference between this planet and this world, a world in a world and she belongs here. Her mother, she belongs with Pluto in the depths of hell, stoking waves in her brain from the core of her control.
We were dying to hear what you have to say for yourself.
---

I wanted to feel my skin stretch over my vanilla bones, rubbing over every shattered piece of calcium soaked morrow and every oxygenated blood cell. I wanted to feel like stale bread, breaking my veins and letting out a hoarse scream that would split stained glass and wide eyes.

I wanted my hair to be matted down with my hot, sticky blood and the road's pale dirt, I wanted to be infected. I wanted to hear cries of panic and I wanted to see white. Blind, ultimate white on every single wall, ceiling, and floor. I wanted to stain porcelain skin with my red fingers, dripping on linoleum floors and well polished shoes that squeak as they run, trying to save my broken skin. Trying to save my pulsing skull. Trying to save my watering eyes.

I wanted to feel cold rush into my veins and cool over the hot spots in my knees, my neck, my brain, my wrists, my heart. I wanted to feel the ice twisting around my ribs and I wanted to feel it slowing down the white, the creamy hands and the freckled ceiling and the reflecting floors.

I wanted to hear my mother's shrill voice as it cut through the crowd around me, her pitch reaching an alarming peek. I wanted all eyes on me, this beautiful monster bleeding crystals and wine, flowing over ceramic bones that cracked like a cold china plate. When you look at me, I wanted you to think of an antique store post-earthquake and everyone is so devastated.

I wanted to hear silence with every dramatic pulse, like someone was shoving something in my ears over and over and over again. I wanted to hear only half of what she was yelling, I wanted to see only half of her facial expressions as my eye lids fell in time with my heartbeat. I wanted to see sorrow, misery, regret, guilt, worry, and most of all I want to see at least half of her love.

I wanted to feel numb and exposed all at once as I'm worried my heart will explode as my head does, sternum shattered and skull shattered with all my pitiless veins entangled in their creamy, vanilla hands. Smooth and flawless, polished and perfect.

I wanted to expect the impact but the cars refused to swerve and they sped up like expert race car drivers. The wind would pick up my hair and the blur of silver, blue, or red would glide around the corner to leave me alone in my purple chair, aligned perfectly with the yellow line in the center. And I knew that wherever you are, we're connected by this single yellow line.
---
She Had The World

I was watching the sky, it's matter an almost purple hue though my basic instinct told me otherwise. Impossible, waves are blue throughout your world, I needed to stop shifting. She was wearing her reddest, red nail polish; laced through my needle fingers that slipped through as if I were grasping water. The plaid wasn't cotton and my grey tights itched in the spot where my knees collided as I was dragged down a path of broken cement and faded scribbles.

She told me I was emerging into the rest of her life. Give her time and it'll be off with her head and goodnight and see you in heaven. She told me when the times comes, I'll know when to cry; I was only hoping I wouldn't start laughing. I'm thinking I miss her more now then ever, I'm always missing someone and I'm trying to think that I'm not important all the way in France. This wasn't a phrase, this wasn't a phase, this wasn't a stage; this was the rest of her life and soon I'll be back in flat country, home alone with my heart and her red hair. Maybe this was a year in my life, maybe this was a month, maybe she was tired of home and wanted to move back to unfamiliar rumors and dusty roads.

Here, I'm talking about two different girls. I have her red nails and her red hair but this isn't the same care for, this isn't my same heart here. If one beat was to fade, I'd have opposite reactions. There was this one girl at home, where I call home, she lived in a quilted house, the wind picked up leaves and swayed sugarcane and compared to the fiery tone of her make-a-statement cut and color, the sun was pale and faded out behind her.

miss_smachel

and in that moment, i swear we were infinite

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