[x]

throwing rocks.so i want to grow up and get a job and make happy, make money, make forget. i can't though, i'm too concerned with windchimes. i mean, fuck windchimes, right? i lie awake at night and listen to rigs on the rumble strip and the windchimes, (mostly the trucks), but damn, the tinkling is enough to keep me awake all night. but sometimes not, and then i dream i drown or maybe i marry a serial killer who props up corpses in rocking chairs or sometimes i dream about my ex-boyfriend's little sister because why not. then i wake up and it's taxes and credit cards and grades and people dying and shit.

and windchimes.

i don't know what is wrong with me

Fourth of September.1.

I am writing a poem about my birthday and candles and alcohol and dead people.
And how I have a really good imagination and every time I walk by that stop sign I see the car slamming into her and spreading her across the asphalt and every time the lights flicker I imagine his brain swelling against the confines of his skull and every time I walk in the front door I am reminded that my baby brother is dead.

And balloons.
I am writing a poem about balloons and dead people.

2.

It is the fourth of September and I am full of longing. I want bare knees and raw elbows, untied shoes, green grass that bites into the tender palms of my hands.

the soccer game.the thing is, i need
the deer to mean something.

-

i go to the soccer game and smile
and nod while something furious
inside of me is screaming.
a deer appears while the sun
is setting and it's like a scene
from a movie: green grass and gold rays
that spread out, tingeing our feet
with one last bit of wednesday.
everyone watches the deer and makes
noises of appreciation and i look
around and i think to myself
"okay, this is it, i am happy."

-

the deer is watching me and i try
to decide if it's a metaphor.
i want the deer to be death, see,
to represent fucking or blacking
out or apathy or loneliness.

someone does something

encephalitis.she asks, "is it weird to have one day where you really intensely, for no good reason, think of a dead person?"

-

the intercom was the one to announce that his body had finally given up. i don't remember what i was wearing that day, or how my hair looked, or what noises fell out of my mouth. death has dulled the sharp edges within me. this is what i do know: some people burst into tears and some people sat frozen and pale and some people simply got up and left the room.

"are you okay?" someone asked me, and i found that i was lying on the floor, though i couldn't understand how i'd gotten there. the overhead lights were buzzing and humming

Thank You, Slater.I used to go to the nearby campus coffee shop in the early evenings, armed with a pen, a blank notebook, and writer's block. The sense of loneliness was unspoken but well accounted for.

I always shared coffee-counterspace with the same boy, who never smiled or talked and who had a penchant for bedhead and argyle sweaters. He liked to lean back on his stool, balancing precariously as he read novels, and I liked to pretend I wasn't watching him watch me. We coexisted in quiet companionship, thrived quietly under fluorescent lighting which sometimes caught his thick-framed glasses.

His novels changed while my notebook remained the same; his do

waiting.he has been there for so long that the girl sometimes wonders if he is part of the beach, if the seaweed and shells fuse themselves to his ankles at night and grow over his browned legs like ivy. he is always still, so still, eyes focused on something distant in the waves that the girl can't quite see, though she tries. the man has a face like a creased paper bag and she finds herself wishing that she could see inside his head.

she watches him all day from the corner of her eye but no one ever joins him in his vigil. he is alone in casting shadows that grow longer and longer as the sun sets. the girl wonders what it is like to be so alone an

stop ruining autumn.listen:

fall makes me think of leaving and of apple cider, though i never liked apple cider.
but i liked the idea of it.

listen:

two years ago i met a boy as fragile as dead leaves, who called me his little spring girl. (i'd always liked autumn the best.) he kissed the two soft dimples on the small of my back and told me helikedme helovedme hewantedme.

and oh, by the way, "everything good must come to an end."

listen:

on our one year anniversary we picked out two pumpkins and i drew elephants on them for us to carve. he cut his out so aggressively that it lost its shape.
lopped off tusks and broken trunks became just a large, jagged

serbian mermaid.in five years i want to move to georgia
or serbia or atlantis and start a family,
name my children after odd numbers
and teach them russian lullabies and
the art of manipulating those you love.

in five years i want to marry you, but
i don't know if you like odd numbers,
or even if you like me all that much.
maybe you'd like me if i tell you
that i'm a mermaid, but i'm not
and you can always tell when i am lying.

in five years i want to be seventeen,
but wishes don't work like that.
i tried.

in five years i want to be on a plane
and i want the plane to crash
into the ocean and i want everyone
to be okay except me, but if i w

march 24th, 2008.there is a chinese proverb that says your teeth will fall out if you tell lies.

i used to always dream my teeth would crumble from my mouth and lay glittering on the street like coins. i used to dream that the slightest touch jarred them loose, knocked them from my jaw leaving only swells of broken tissue behind. i used to dream of rivulets of blood streaming from the corners of my mouth, of thirty two pieces of myself lying naked on the ground, thirty two tooth fairies that would never come. i used to dream of screaming.

"you know," said my psychology TA, "to dream of losing one's teeth is very common. it typically means that you're concer

fog.have you ever driven through
a fog so thick that you can part it
with your fingers? a fog so dense
that you stick your hand through
the car window and watch it disappear?

these special fogs press
heavy on your eyes and ears,
fill the dips of your collarbone,
quiet the murmurs living
inside your throat.

before i drove through this mountain
and through this fog there were bills
to pay and children to teach, people
i hated and people i loved. there were mental
disorders and electrocardiograms. fears.

now there is only the positioning
of my hands. a steering wheel. a whisper
in my ear that says "drive carefully."
a cliff a

the perfect strangershe misses colin the most at night, when, waking from nightmares, her hand reaches out into the darkness for someone who is no longer there.

-

an unexpected message flares briefly on her screen, long enough for her heart to drop into her stomach in surprise—her ex-boyfriend's little sister's ex-boyfriend? sighing, she types a hello and strains her memory to recall what she knows of this boy from their one brief meeting. his name is aaron. tall. shaggy bed-head hair. sleepy hazel eyes. she lightly touches the keyboard, entertaining the notion that other people might feel as lonely at night as she does.

"tell me a secret," she types to

being in love.it's like when you were five, when your pet rabbit died
and you learned that nothing good lasts.

it's like the time you dropped him off at his house to watch tv
before you drove yourself to the emergency room, sobbing.

it's like the first time you saw your kindergarten teacher cry.

it's like ring around the rosie, a pocket full of posies, ashes. ashes.

it's like when he went too far, and he said, "is this okay?"
and you said, "no," but it didn't matter.

it's like when he said, "but i want you."

it's like the number seven, or rubies.

it's like when you almost drowned in the pool in north carolina
and when you looked up through the

sticks and stones.broken people like to write poems about how they are broken.
they like to turn people into words because no one's heart
has ever been punctured by parentheses, but by god it's not
for lack of trying. in a poem, broken people can have hangnails
and they never have to brush their hair because the tangles
symbolize the time they lost their virginity and there are no mirrors
unless they write about one and force themselves to look into it.

-

broken people also like to use cliche metaphors
but that is okay because when you are broken
sometimes cliche metaphors are all you have left.

"i am a rose and you think i'm beautiful so you

heart crossed.

"who's that kid?" i ask, pointing at the boy whose hair cannot decide if it is red or gold. he holds a basketball in his small hands, bouncing it, once, twice, before putting it through the hoop in a perfect arc.

"james," the counselor responds, and leans closer. "he's a foster kid, you know."

i don't know.

the boy turns at that moment and catches me watching him. unthinkingly i form my thumbs and index fingers into a heart and flash it at him. he nods to his teammates and leaves the court, climbing the bleachers to where i sit.

"did you see my shot?" he asks.

"yes." pause. "i'm kelsey."

"i know," he says, and runs back to his game.

at

NPR three minute story submission She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door. That low rumble had been Tom's temperamental engine; she was sure of it. The sound had tattooed itself on the inside of Anna's ears ages ago. Maybe he was sitting in the front seat of his car, trying to work up the courage to knock. Maybe his brows would knit together and his mouth would quirk and he would say, "I missed you, Sunshine," though he had never once called her by that nickname. Maybe she could apologize, and he would kiss the insides of her wrists, the back of her neck, her eyelids.
Yes, she could hear a car door opening. If she listened

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thirteen ways of looking at--

by ~estallidos, Dec 17, 2010, 7:16:24 PM
Literature / Poetry / Romantic / General / Free Verse

one crow sorrow
two crows joy
three crows a wedding
four crows a boy
five crows silver
six crows gold
seven crows a secret
that has never been told.

---

i suppose my secret is that i never told him that he is a blackbird.

he is all sleep-crooked eyelashes, dark and glossy, and his wingspan
is over seven feet long which seems big enough to pull down the sky.
i could tell him about birds as cliche symbols but his mouth is forceful,
his body is warm and needy and there is no room for literature in bed.
my hands flutter needlessly against his shoulders and i hope
i am a bird of paradise but in truth i am no bird at all.
i guess my secret could also be that i want to marry him
and bind his jagged elbows tight and teach him about earthly things
like poetry and not making me cry. he will fuck up, i know this.
he has before. when it happens again i will sob about useless symbolism
and nursery rhymes and maybe he will remind me "two crows joy."
this is supposed to be where i write about loving things and setting
them free but he isn't a dove and i am not a selfless person.
i am harsh and needy and it is never enough.

blackbirds are supposed to be intelligent but i'm pretty sure
they still fall in love with useless girls who are no good for them.
they clutter my backyard even when i scream
at them to go, that i have nothing left to give them.

the leaves have fallen and the pretty things are beginning to fly south
but he is still here folded into me, a blackbird on a naked bough.

i cling to him fearfully and wonder when instinct
will tell him to fly away. he cannot brave this cold.

thirteen ways of looking at--by ~estallidos

Literature / Poetry / Romantic / General / Free Verse

wallace stevens wrote a poem called "thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird" and i wanted to write my own. i wrote this before aaron proposed.

the intro (one crow sorrow) is an old folk/nursery rhyme.

my book is out!

-buy a personalized paperback here: [link]
-see a preview and buy a normal paperback or ebook here: [link]

<3

love 2 2

joy 1 1

~~wow 0 0~~

~~mad 0 0~~

sad 1 1

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

~FriendsWithSpiders May 4, 2012 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

I think this one so far is my favorite. <3

~estallidos May 4, 2012 Professional Writer

i like this one too, but as the author i am rather biased.

~7outerelements Feb 11, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

"Thirteen ways" is a beautiful set of poems. One of the first I read and truly enjoyed. It's all the better for having helped inspire this.

~lances-wings Jan 10, 2012 Hobbyist

"his mouth is forceful, his body is warm and needy and there is no room for literature in bed."... This is so true. This phrase has stuck with me ever since I read this 6 months ago.

~estallidos Jan 21, 2012 Professional Writer

thank you for this comment. i'm so glad that i can write things that stay with people, as that's my goal for everything i do.

~whenyoumessup Nov 24, 2011

the name Jonas means dove.
knowing that, this piece makes more sense to me than you know.
thank you.

~AVolatileCalm Aug 12, 2011

Really love this part:
"this is supposed to be where i write about loving things and setting
them free but he isn't a dove and i am not a selfless person.
i am harsh and needy and it is never enough."

and the ending is just brilliant.
very heartfelt, with a sad touch - but not enough to weigh heavy.
I like it

~Mythologique Jun 29, 2011

thank you for verbalizing something i've been trying to explain to my love for ages. i sent it to him and he understood right away.

~mjtfreeze Jun 5, 2011 Professional General Artist

The last stanza about his instinct and ur fear of him leaving...is pure gold.

~the-left-out-penguin Jun 1, 2011

you always find a way to make me cry

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