confidence mustard

christmas 2013

I did the same thing they do, how many years, teens in the street, thin merino wool caps and northface jackets, shiny pillow coats filled with weightless goosefur. gray earlynight light, bald trees and trees few in leaves, silhouetted always, for daily we're twilighting. the dog moans, the house is empty save for us. all of the windows seem uncurtained, meaning there are curtains but they're heavy, and folded or shoved away, impossible curtains. I'm leaving Idaho in the morning.

get in the zone

on this first day I woke up like a new girl on a 366th day of the year, skylight above me roasting me, white thigh from out of the blanket, flannel sweating stuck at skin, breathing around, where am I? we got in too late to see abundance of gardens and trees and coloradoness. I just changed out of my clothes & into my better dress, the good dress from 2008, the always dress which is now the always dress of summer 2013. I woke up differently from me now. now I am coffeed and cooled and thinking of autozone. but I came out from the house and I am dreaming of my new house in new orleans, walking around it in my mind.

2:49 am voicelog

the even like you
fleshbrain
sketch my feet in the sand
wait for me I'm on the salon
laying here legs outstretched feet taking
a little diff in the forever from forever ago
I wanted to read you but then I remembered
that I don't even like you anymore
but if we're still on there, that, I like me more
everybody knows I like me more what's not to like me more
so I'll try
with my voice with my feet in the sand
I'm out so its legs pointed toward the river
to the dark water and the swish of it and the glow from the streetlight
in the dark of everything in front of me from the trees below to me
waiting for someone to show up so I'm not around here
anymore
surprise me forever for the middle of nowhere
come at me in the dark of the water
learn me learning tell me
your whole thing to me stories
we're at the gas station what are you going to get
I'm going to pick up some beer and some condoms
do you need anything
no I think I'll be fine thank you
its 1:42 a.m.
I'm standing in the light at the Maverick
I'm watching our bikes
I'm watching that easy cab
listening in the lights the gas pumps, right musics
deal homeless in the cars with a truck
  fun sounds on
its 1:43 a.m. and I'm still standing in front of the matter
what you get at me now
your pain in the grass
I'm sitting at your picnic table in your yard
at the stars come out
we'll have a beer and the end of it
what's going to bed now
you and I
the morning jinx me
good time on that long
long night with you
I don't cry dude
dude I'm a dude
I wouldn't say anything in front of you
Evernote
music notices me hiding
let me stand, boy
I'm to end
catching
me, you never will

it's humid

it used to fuel, it is letting itself go, look at it
all shab, all grub
it's avoiding the mirror lately
it hasn't any pets anymore
everyone's in a flat great fucking mood
puddles are lying
reflections of trees
like our CITY OF TREES tattoos we're getting
it rained very early this morning
I want to know how to barometer
how to measure the letting-yourself-go
in length of body hair?
in width of copper chain stain on dirt neck?
in amount of bodyodor emanating?
in a caliper of fatroll?
I just googled the word WHATEVER
but I haven't checked the results
it's 70 degrees, 53% humidity in boise
it's 97 degrees, and only 47% humidity in new orleans
I know how to do this in the wet
so let's get it ONNNNN

hurt my feelings

okay so I've been talking to the universe, and

  I think

  I think

it's trying to tell me that Idaho is my beautiful home

  what, something about the countryside

    because I spend time there, in the sagebrush

and I love it when my hands are so dirty

  I look tan,

    cinnamon

and then my car stops working

  because I'm blogging in it while it's raining

   listening to the radio, it's all really good

    smoking 1,000 smokes

and how will we ever get out of here, now?

 that sort of thing.

But of course, I just needed to get jumped

Nickey & I found a secret clubhouse

  in the foothills, it overlooks all of Boise

  in a way that makes it seem

  like it really is a city for trees

one can't see the buildings

it looks like it did when those frenchcanadian people showed up in their beaverskin caps.

why am I so angry

why am I surprised

when people don't like me,

don't want to be my friend.

I want to say a lot of very cruel, inconsequential things

  I want to hurt someone's feelings

   more than mine could ever be

because that's what big men do 

they break one another down

I guess, so I hear

I'm not a pick-on-you

 I'm not a hurter 

  I'm not even a hurtee

like I was, once.

I am thick, I know

 but I still have these knives in me

  and I know they can be good for the stabbing

but I am out of the habit-of-cruel

 and it doesn't come naturally

so I should probably just go to the clubhouse, now

  and be sweet & good

   and forget that love-sadness-regret-anger-hatred cycle

    that I've been riding.

This is a Diary entry

  for no one at all

I just don't know how to write a diary, anymore

  like I don't know how to walk or run

   I just know how to memorize

    and to look hard

     and to feel hard

      

     and I'm forgetting how

to wish

  which is the only good thing I've learned to forget

jerk

so I think the universe
  is trying to get something out
I think the universe
  is becoming an excuse
this is why a bar's a bar
  bc it gives me every drunk reason
    to blame
     the universe
poor innocent little universe! how small & helpless,
  what powers have you?
I'm a jerk
a terrible friend
a bad kid
kick me to the curb.
  I'm apparently waaaay too date to care
  too date to drive
  too date to be attentionful
someone else.
someone, somewhere else
  tall
  tall
  ugly
open the window
get me a glass of water
open up the compliments
get me those compliments
  you're just so well spoken & eloquent
    I like your face
      I like your smart
         I like your have-a-heart-that-feels
  I like your body.   give it here
  will you marry me? let's just kiss-away each other
  under the waxmoon
  by the river.
I used to love to watch the trees sway from my window
I don't really do that, anymore
  let's clear the room.
  tell me what you're trying for.
  tell me how instinct this is
  tell me how incest this has become.
someone else
someone
  else, tell me more
    blame me
      I'm a guilt
  tell me I'm cold
bc I'm a stonegirl
without all of the arms to hold your bones from shivering
  get impressed & sleep silent pretty
    and shock, then
           shock at my
    jerk

office motto

I really do think the temperature has changed

this is my office, now

officer stoddard

in a hoodie that has the little mini zip

beneath where the hoodsides meet

I really don't like it, too much a polyblend for my taste

and also I don't know about a hoodie, messes yer hair

not if you have cop hair

it feels like a summer storm, but it's spring, still.

the sky is a breeze gray & the dead n alive trees up in my office

they sway

in a wanting to be in a storm kindof way

so will I, then

Queen of Sacramento, Lady of Nebraska

the palm trees, the claustrophobic planes

the spelling of plains correctly

I keep the ideas of me you have

they suck into me & become me even more me

more I than I thought

I am

whatever you say I am

if I wasn't

then why would I say I am

eminem, the great fucking plains?

at least a valley you can get out of

mountains you can climb up

rivers you can get under

but we can have the plains

the regulars

the simple

the nothing-fancy-abt-that

the unchanging landscape

a field, a tree, here & there a copse

and you,

a livable corpse, a loveable corps

lovable corpse, covesick 

covestuck coeur. Get in yer crevice, baby.

Climb in the corn, crawl on the fours

spin round, divot it

dig out a little place, make a valley from your rich plentiful midwestern soil

bury your body there, make mountains around you

a seething grave

for the unchanging 

make less your monotonous burial scene

what's the difference

between you and a chair

I would say I'm average tall

not short tall or tall short but sometimes someone 

just needs a chair

to stand on

I can't stand on shoulders, but yesterday I got a leg up

she made a basket step with hands so I could look over the cement wall

my friend bought a new house, and maybe it's my new house so we went to creep around the outsides of it, and it has these thick levolor blinds. a fireplace, carpet city

I like to live in curtain city

sometimes, 

but it's like the I have a choice kind of sometimes
& in a carpet city, we're choiceless

so one has to buy an expensive vacuum, which reminds me of

one of the differences 

between you 

& a chair

a chair can't buy an expensive vacuum

and you just won't

I can & have stood on shoulders, but 

I don't really need to

I live with a tall tall woman 

who can reach everything in the house.

& she puts things way up high sometimes

because that's where she sees

and I, I'm thinking

I'm thinking from way down here

I'm thinking how I don't have an arm like that

or a legs

like those

& I don't have a way to get up

or stay up.

so I ask for help sometimes

sometimes

if it's not inconveniencing anyone, I'll ask for a hand out

or an arm's reach

or a leg up

& then if I have to wait 20 days for

a handout or an armsreach or a leggup

I am begrudged

& I pull out a chair & climb on up

Some differences

both have legs, you have only two

both can have arms, but you have to

you have hair

a sad mouth

cornereyes

words

sweat

a chair has wood

a chair has upholstery

a chair doesn't spell it out

a chair is silent 

a chair don't talk back

a chair gets what it deserves.

I'm actually going to try to sell all of these chairs, how many chairs are there in this house? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 inside

& more outside, but I like it out there, I think you & the chairs both like it out there so we'll just stay in wait for the next 20 days. It's sort of hard to give them up but I think it's right, the deck is wet, the trees die & get wet & get up again, and I wonder how hard it would be to use you as one or a tree as one, and then I know immediately that it would be the easiest thing in the world

in the middle to explain what I'll do

prettylittle 19 - 21

In the middle, I spied him. How I do, & does everyone, remember us at an early morning escape, ascending from all between & this that in the dark. Driving that night, in from the drunk-stench, wearing black knits. But now as always... aphonia. Your father’s long journey home with a poolstick as prop. I suppose this loss of voice, I think of it as explanation. The only song is organic, & so we were. I feel like I recognized him. He looked on my nerves, as functional disturbance. Driving down, that’s worse than staying nervously around, wondering symbolic. The vocal organs, late at night. About this, persuade me from the feigned passionate speechlessness. 

It was in January, simple. Having to enter, that sadness expressed by muteness. Days after we met, staying nights. Loss and apoplexy, and I, sitting over there. Of course he used longing as his sudden loss. In the passenger seat, be tempted, and see someone, relate to the song. Body function turquoise if he comes. She has since asked him never to. To all the impunity we were listening; we asked him to leave, return, and he agreed. Nothing but things I doubt presently. I know, knowing it. I’ll throw approbation. 

Before now I’m hungry for it, all terrible habitations. I’m serious this time, approving, and we both want sex badly. He wore black when I announced that formally, officially; we looked over to the left at the same exact moment. Sex loneliness at the risk of a tune. Praise the empty, even. Maybe I won’t as I don’t believe, I had the arboreal lot. Any sex that’s pleasure, chiefly empty (it was usually empty). Maybe the desire will be what they were. Right now animals caught our eyes, overwhelmingly. Not altogether uncute. I have made it, living in trees, empty, but filled platonic. He looked quietly in my trees; hundreds of you are thinking unimpressive. This was less arcanum, tiny, I suppose, still very pretty. But should one need a secret, a mystery lines up in rows to explain what I’ll do.

poem(s) for yellow

from crepuscular orations

with little squares of yellow light, like the background of a play.
lesser yellowlegs
yellowthroat
greater yellowlegs
yellow ribbon lichen,
yellow ribbon lichen.
a yellow corona tee-shirt with cutoff sleeves.
he wore a yellow
to Yellowstone at freezing temps,
folded delicately between the now yellowed pages.
The blue yellow gray between the shades fades.
his beautiful yellow labrador;
kicks the yellow dog out of the way and exits the building.
To him, my butteryellow bandana.
yellow trees,
yellow slowmotion leaves falling.

from momentos preciosas

green and yellow peppers
yellow winter remaining

when the seasons are falling in love

the pink reasons falling in love

My head explodes and mine mouth burns. Here, in the kitchen at checkerclothed table I sit trying, typical typing. The dog collapses beneath, only a crimped & done-up tail to see. The remote sounds of jazz, the behind-me tweet of a housefinch no doubt swaying on the windblown line just outside my attic window. They fight, the finches, and the red breasted nuthatch swoops in with its little tubular stone of a body, beak apoint like a needle, to chip away at the black oil sunflower seeds. I hear the wind in the trees & the sun is hot on my bare neck, just visible over the horizon of window. The pink rose from another day still perfect in brown medicine bottle- still insane in its perfume, enough do disbelieve a smell like could be a natural one! and if it wasn't we'd shake our heads in revulsion at such a saccharin scent.

The dog woofs low and emits habitual growls. They're like hiccups, they can't be helped. The yerba maté chai + peppermint still warm and thoroughly enthurmosed. My ankles and cheeks & everything inbetween, enthurmosed.

such the joys from out of its

Isn't until I've thought of it, thought it through, but how strange to have all the trees be pink! I'm liking the views of seeming fronds, seemingly leafed in pink as if not by fluffs. My fingers can barely contain the letters about it.

ringlets dripped down of wind

& the hot spicy tastes lingering awhile down my throat. This morning was looking too good could be true, I saw through dizzy fogged eyes out a window and through a fan, the orangeyellow leaves fluffed out a bit now, not drooping sad in the view. The sky a perfect ocean wash; I could see the tides breaking from where I sat squinting. Like a to be hot day on the coast, but during that time of pre-heat, (though in truth I think proves perfect out, and oh such fall. Autumnal in all its obviousness. I will never close these parentheses. My hair has little knots at its ends. I let the fan blow no matter the temperament of day. I like the slow accordion sound. I like the spicy herbs, dandilion leaves. I like the cold ankles, the anticipatory shower, & poems written for you, & the little documentations of love, & the secret smile at corners of my mouth (in regard), And those trees everblowing more and more orange everyday! Like to change the seasons, already! And the full hunter's moon, tonight, which is why then I stopped to bleed, which is why I urge vocally in silence for you to return to me, this subtle soft sour I have for you, to glean in these bright fields, to roam among my fattened deer. & something about the excitement, feeling heartbroken when hearing a peice of music or reading something tantalizing, and falling in love & dying in the same moment at the fear awe of something so bewildering, so great; and this all of this is a bit like that but without the right words to describe. Every minute & then again every week-end. But my moon is bright and my deer are fat. And my arms stay open late.