29 November 2010

anticipate distress

hands shake,
head quakes,
teeth twitch,
palms itch.

leaves drop turning brown,
crunch underfoot and swirl around.
skies grey threaten snow,
stormfronts coming slow.

hands sweat,
mouth is dry,
teeth grind,
where who why...

stomach knots,
cold becomes hot,
people stare,
or we imagine staring there...

unstability,
nothing is certain,
insanity,
ready to run hurtling,

direction doesn't matter,
nobody hears beads of sweat like doubt,
driving is impossible,
you want to walk run shout....

can't think in patterns,
daylight blinds your fragile orbs,
can't help being scattered,
there's no knob on the door.

how then do we get out?

22 November 2010

Stuffing on the Brain

Though not sure what I will end up doing this week, I do realize I have to face up to Thanksgiving. Ironically, it's the first one I'm having in a new location and I don't really want to have it at all. I hear half-hearted comments and see the eye rolls of familial dread from coworkers and acquaintances who regardless of location or relationship status always have a huge family table to go to. I appreciate the attempts of good friends to invite me to their own huge family tables in an effort to lessen the thoughts assaulting me about where I will be on Thursday. I know what small family I have means well when attempting to offer "something fun" to do even though we haven't done holidays on our own in over ten years because whats the point...but really, all I've been is pissed off.

Not that I am not grateful for the attempts at consolation. Not that I don't appreciate that there are others who care about how many hours a day I spend plowing through Kleenex like a harvest of salty regret gone wrong. Not that I don't think there are those who genuinely would enjoy an extra person at the table, whether it be as a buffer for in laws or as a good deed for the occasion. Not that I don't have mental thanks to give for those who have helped me stay in existence and ...well; sane's a strong word, but you see what I mean...for the past three months. But all I really feel is pissed off.

Being from a separated and disjointed family who really doesn't merge much unless someone dies; and then only selectively, I can actually stand outside of the Seinfeld-like episodes that are holidays and days that seem to feel like I'm being Punked. Detachment used to be my inborn talent. Now it seems it may have slipped away a bit. I feel the urge to take a fully cooked and dressed bird and hurtle it through a window as a hungry family looks on. That would be something that would make me feel better these days. I could imagine laughing maniacally as in an effort to diffuse the rage someone would say "pass the peas" or "how about those ______ (insert sports team name here) and maybe I would feel a little less pissed off...maybe not.

I know I'm at a point of unreasonable emotion where I never know whether I will laugh in an inappropriate manner somewhere somber, or break into sobs at a fast food restaurant and be unable to drive for the rest of the day because my eyes have swollen to a mammoth size with mail slot slits begging to be closed. Quite inconvenient when you have a few more miles to get home and at least one person with you to drop off before you go. Unreasonable emotion that makes me wonder things like:
  • Why do we even need to eat a turkey? Isn't there something else that takes less effort and is equally tasty?
  • Why did I ever choose to spend this year in the place I grew up? Comfort does not lie in seeing other people's spouses children residing in  a two family Brooklyn style house with one or more sets of relatives attached...does it?
  • How long will it take me to finish a book about all this because really, the fall has given me so much ammo I think there may be a series in the making?
  • Is it supposed to hurt so much when it was me who decided to uproot everything that was familiar and comfortable to start again at 34 in a place that I spent most of my previous years fleeing?
  • Why would anyone think I even want to commune with others in the unpredictable state my grey matter exists in and would I extend the same courtesies to someone so unstable?
Just some thoughts that keep dancing through my head. Just a few of the ones I can actually make public without severing ties further. Just some...stuffing that fills my head like bread up the turkey's metaphorical ass. And if I couldn't write these down...Turkey Flies through Living Room Window Onto Busy Street, Killing Two, Injuring Seven ...

Or we could just all choose to stay home. The possibilities are endless.

19 November 2010

Broken Autumn

You think you are OK.
You drive through a place that makes your eyes well up.
You think it will pass.
It doesn't pass.

They say it will hurt less to walk in the park,
But the radio assaults you with songs of other people's strife and joy,
Both stab with the same vengeance,
They say to play CDs and you find one that is safe.

People think you are insane,
Because Green Day loops 24/7 on your car stereo,
You can't risk FM anymore,
You don't bother with mascara.

Fall turns red and yellow,
Trees color your vision like a murder,
Stains of gold orange red that burn holes in your corneas,
You can't look at foliage because you used to love leaf peeping.

Scents of raked leaves and pumpkins on window sills,
Sweaters and hockey season throttle you like kicks to the stomach,
Kids trick or treat and you pull up the covers,
Friends pick apples and you just go numb.

The thought of a turkey has you dropping five more pounds without even trying,
The thought of creating family where there is a hole equates bile and throbbing head,
One suggestion to travel asks for cringing at the thought of other people's joy,
But you want to run: that's a constant.

As leaves turn darker and the colors start to fade,
You wonder what you will do with a whole winter.
Dark when you leave for work,
Dark when you get home at night.

Dark despite the lights that are supposed to dispel the specters from corners,
Dark despite candles that are supposed to keep you hopeful but only smell like what used to be home,
Dark despite half-hearted encouragement shrouded by doubt,
Dark despite the idea that new beginnings are supposed to be light.

Where does darkness lie though?
Is it in your heart or really just the season that hurts,
stabs like knives,
wrenches like sickles and sews your eyes.

When the source is revealed,
It should be shared with someone who hides from the smells and sights and breezes of autumn,
Because it only gets darker,
As Winter drags on.

10 November 2010

Various Observations by Location

After watching The Basketball Diaries with my classes this week, I notice even more differences between people based on their location. It makes me think:

When I went to college one of the only native New Yorkers in New York,
One roommate asked where my accent came from,
One asked if I knew the Wu Tang Clan,
One didn't speak to me because she was mad that 3 of 5 of us were white in such small quarters,
One was date-raped and fled back down south mid-semester.

If I had the chance to get college for free, or my worst worry was that I couldn't get financial aid because mommy and daddy made too much money,
Would I have waited so long to get my own voice heard?
Would I have kept quieter than I have about my own fucked up life?
Would I ever be able to be shocked by anything at all?
Would I have made it to the other side of the desk?

There are so many divisions among them and there really are only two paths:
Success.
and
Failure.

In the city of wooden bridges
they stare at each other like pieces of steak,
Rampant sexuality springing from football fields,
cheering squads,
and my first Honda.
Not lacking for anything at all,
not knowing what it is to go hungry or broke.
Not wondering how they would feel without a winter coat or
brand new UGGs.

In the city of broken bricks
they are lucky they landed in a classroom,
rather than under a freeway or on a corner.
Stumbling in late,
high,
strung,
exhausted from:
homelessness,
babies crying not satiated by WIC and Family First.

In the upper counties they drive cars that I never will,
despite being an MA or down the road
something else.
They have hair extensions and brand new UGGs under miniskirts.
Makeup addled faces imported and looking for a man,
who drives a better car than they do.
Guys hair gelled and spiked,
girls on the prowl for a husband to buy them an acre,
or a rock.

In the urbana down the hill,
they wait for the Go Bus or
they walk thirty minutes to get to class.
They face: homelessness, gangs, addictions,
families that abandon them.
They dorm because it's their only option,
treat their hep-C and emerge
28 year old college freshmen who truly learn something.
How not to die.

Not only are there variations in them but I see a lot of variations I need to make in me.
I can't just go unready for the sixty year old interruptor
and kids with speedy ADD questions
because their phones buzz to pick up that ounce
before they get back to the neighborhood.
Nor can I flip on the kid who calls me by my first name
because he never was taught respect,
for teachers or employers,
especially not for women,
especially not when they're white.

I can't expect them all to get that there is a reason we have a syllabus,
a plan,
some semblance of a schedule to follow.
Yeah the plan is changing daily and the calendar flies by too quick.
Yeah they vary place to place,
but so do I because it's necessary.
Nobody is forcing them to be there?
That is the biggest untruth.
The state pays,
parents pay,
loans don't count right now.
Anything is better than:
homelessness,
giving up custody,
living with a wife-beater,
living on a street corner,
never having chances,
having too many chances cloaked in green times two.
Whether smoking it or spedning it they lose themselves just a little everyday.
Just like I did.
Some recover,
some go home,
some have no home and make a new one.
Some find answers.
I never did.

I don't claim to have solutions,
but the knowledge I claim is harsh.
Burning knowledge that scars and leaves you wondering:
What the fuck just happened?
Did I really make it to where I sit now?
Am I really looking down on myself from a higher plane?
Or is it that I feel different because the truth ran away from me
for so long
and
now
again.

All I can do is plan one day in advance whether it be
jeans to the bricks,
skirt to the burbs,
occasional unnassuming donuts for the hungry,
an ear to the fed up and ready to quit;
or learning to feign surprise that
what was once my 40s and blunts
has become their meth and oxys.

Claiming ignorance gets you nowhere,
but trying to help can get you worse:
attached.

So we do the best we can.
We ask for things like courage and serenity,
because the otherside is too vast
and we are scared of what else lives there.
Rightly so,
but once you get there,
you may just want to return and not have a reset button to press.
You may just want to swim back
but your arms are weighed down
and your legs hurt
and your brain
is exhausted.

Fuck it.
To each his own.
See you on the other side.

09 November 2010

Re-Launch

This week is blog re-launch week for me, so feel free to leave feedback & let me know what you think.

As you may know, I have recently moved and HOLY SHIT has it been a journey worth writing about...so I am. A new book is in the works and it will chronicle this insane year of my life. So stay tuned for snippits and updates as I delve into the mix of life in the ...well, we will get to that!

Much love,
Keri
xoxo

p.s.: get inspired: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bOjc70f4p8