you're too far away

Did I get to sleep today?
didn’t i?
Is there enough light?
I can’t see
i’m tired or i’ve misplaced my glasses

I can’t sleep
it’s dark i think but
theres light inside my stomach
and it shines on the back of my eyelids
or else someones making noise
are you making noise?

No, you’re too far away
and any noise you make is irrelevent
or strange when it reaches me
or at least
i couldnt dream of responding
its too tight or narrow
it wasn’t built with someone of my size in mind
how about my size? everythings changing and i cant tell a nickel from a dime
How should I remember what it looked like?

You’re too far away and it feels like arrows
I’m not at home
I have no home.
Are you home?

I met a nice woman with a nice ass
She winked at me and not too many people wink
my hands hurt they’re covered in splinters
wrapped in gauze cut bandages and packing tape?
no
some blisters and some bleeding only
but they feels like im not there for you

where are you?
are you home? where should i put these beauty supplies?
you’re BEAUTIFUL
god damnit you’re so fucking BEAUTIFUL
theres no words i couldnt tell you
im slipping from the page
theres too much
i want to get fucked up and forget all about this but tomorrow these words will still be here

I’m the most important thing in the world to you
and to my body
its too late
its personified
its eating me away im rotting like meat
im meat like rotting

im too much concrete in too little space
and im starting to set

my chemicals are punchlines and it hurts my feelings
my punchlines hurt me
ow
FUCK
SHIT
UP
i wish i was drunk i wish i was stoned i wish i was fucked up i wish i was trashed i wish i was wasted i wish i pissed myself
my stomach is full of piss and my bladder is full of lead
Help me!
Call a doctor!

pens scratch itches
i have nothing to write down but
i think the sound of the pen against the paper is
keeping me from killing myself
so instead i use words
even though words and scratch pen noises
are entirely different things

I don’t know if the average person could tell the difference
even if their life depended on it
like mine does

I don’t want music
You’re too far away
I don’t want a cigarette
You’re too far away
I don’t want to eat fish
its flakey and it tastes like sedimentary rock
You’re too far away
I dont want to make toast
You’re too far away
I don’t want to put sandals on
You’re too far away
I don’t want to spend my money
I don’t want to save my money
You’re too far away
I don’t want to miss you
You’re too far away
I don’t want to do pull ups or shovel shit or split wood or drink coffee or smoke a cigarette or play guitar or laugh in your face
You’re too far away
I don’t want to have a cigarette
You’re too far away

You live like me I think
in boxes and in between walls
we’re human being insulation
insulating human being bones
my bones will not give my body up
it comes off in strips like boy jerky
kid fabric
waste product

metal is sick
the stainless steel is ill and
ceramic tiles are filled with disease when they get wet

Are you sick?
I miss you
come back
im sorry
im sorry
i cant believe im doing this to you

does this count as fabric? i still cant tell but
this time i still dont care
i mean
this time it seems like it might be glass
or plastic
or maybe it’s water or a cricket
or a stream or a peice of paper
loose leaf like autumn

why am i doing this?
it makes me feel cold
its cold in here and its not worth it
you’re too far away

When I read these words tomorrow
some of them will be good words
and some of them will be bad words
and none of them will be true
that’ll take years

It’ll take a year and a half for you to live with me.

in half a year it’ll take a year
and in a year it’ll take half a year
how many years is this going to take?
you’re too far away

now I’m starting to feel as if
I’ve brushed my teeth and I’m heading for bed
you’re still too far away
but if you arent here today
you might be tomorrow
I can’t prove otherwise
I’m going to brush my teeth
and take off my pants for you
roll a cigarette for you
close my eyes for you
all it takes is eyelids and the years arent even there
the miles arent even there
and its not too dark to see
or too bright to think
the music turns off and the lights go out
the animals all stop
and you’re too far away
the lights all go out
and you’re too far away
I love you and
you’re too far away

but at least you’re somewhere
i’m always losing important things
because i forget all about them
but i know where you are

-garbage juice

Havasupai Medicine Song

The land we were given
is right here,
right here.
Red rock
streaked with brown
shooting up high
all round our home.
Red rock
shooting up high
right here.
A spring will always be there
down at its foot.
From way back
it is ours.
Right down
the center of our land
a line moves,
bright blue-green.
This is what I'm thinking.
At the edge of the water
cattails appear,
bright blue-green,
all round the water.
This is what I'm thinking.
At the edge of the water
silt is being laid down
in ripples.
This is what I'm thinking.
Water skaters walk,
gliding, gliding.
This is what I'm thinking.
Water grasses growing,
bright blue-green
under the water,
waving, waving
This is what I'm thinking:
Under the water
tiny pebbles.
Flowing over them
the water we drink.
The water is gliding toward the north,
into the distance, beyond our sight.
This is what I'm thinking.
We have arrived here.
An illness.
I sit down,
I sing myself a song.
This is what I'm thinking:
A medicine spirit,
a healer,
I am the same.
An illness.
I sit down.
I sing myself a song.
The things I have named
I leave behind.
This is what I'm thinking.
We arrive there.
We are leaving the canyon.
Out on the rim
horses that are mine.
They roam there
at the junipers,
where the junipers are straight,
and low.
They are right there,
horses that are mine
are gathered there.
This is what I'm thinking.
Here we arrive, then
we swing back down,
moving back down the rocks,
white rocks streaked with brown.
Down at the foot
a spring will always be there,
a spring that heals,
it is right there.
My horses drink the water
that is there.
White rock streaked with brown
shooting up high
is right there.
There is my horses trail,
zigzagging right down the center,
the color of dust.
It leads to
the source.
It is right here.
That is what I'm thinking.
And now we arrive
down in the canyon,
red rocks,
down in the canyon,
they are right here,
down in the canyon,
red rocks, low down,
they are right here.
Here I walk,
I go alone.
This is what I'm thinking.
Red rocks, streaked with brown,
shooting up high.
It is right here,
down at the foot,
red rocks, boulders
streaked with brown.
They are right here.
My illness is absorbed,
right here.
I will this to be.
I will this to be.

Celebration

I want to fill my house with people
to drown out the silence and lonliness
to fill up the spaces and
ooze in the cracks
- pour food into their bodies
and fill their minds with loving music
and hug and laugh and cry
then sigh
when they leave

-Denise Coney

Hypnotized

So that's how you found me
Rain falling around me
Lookin down at a worm
With a long way to go
And the traffic was hissing by
And i was homesick
And i was high

I was surrounded by a language
In which i could say only hello
And thank you very much
But you spoke so i could understand
And i drew a treasure map on your hand

And you were no picnic
You were no prize
But you had just enough pathos
To keep me hypnotized
Hypnotized

The map led to an island
In a sea of store-bought dreams
Where soulless singers sang
Over beats built by machines

And lovely girls were hovering
Above my head like gulls
With their long slender necks
And their delicate skulls

And i was no picnic
I was no prize
But i had just enough sweetness
To keep you hypnotized
Hypnotized

So that's how you found me
Rain falling around me
Lookin down at a worm
With a long way to go

-Ani DiFranco

I believe

i believe misogyny and patriarchy are closet homo lovers
and they screw over their sisters cause they’re scared to screw each other.
i believe harriet tubman should be on the dollar bill
we’ve had our fill of white boy faces
time to change places.
i believe hilary, not bill, should have worn the crown
they could have learned from jack and jill
which one would break it and fall down.
i believe there are too many lonely lesbians looking for a lover
and if some would lift their cool masks maybe they would find each other.
i believe people and products both need less packaging
cause bullshit is still bullshit when you pull off all the wrapping.
i believe people are see-through
if you hold em up to the light
i believe people are enlightening
if you plug em in right.
i believe our system is a love affair between the up and upper classes
cause it’s easy to get screwed when you’re just raping all the masses
i believe diet coke is liquid steel
i believe too many women
drink their meal.
i believe in survival of the fittest--
if you’re ranking members of a gym
but if you’re talking about the human club, you gotta let everybody in.
i believe you should learn more than one language
you should learn to talk in tongues and lips
i believe in nipples and skin and toes and hips.
i believe in noise from teeth and throats
and cunts
the noise of poetry, music, laughter, after screaming cunnilingus.
i believe women are sexy
without makeup or clothes
i believe women are sexy
when they’re reciting prose
i don’t believe in horoscopes,
fortune, fate, luck, or chance
i believe sometimes shit works out
just cause of circumstance.
so i believe if you call the wrong number
you should talk for a while
you might like em more than
who you meant to dial.
i believe small talk is for small people
who have nothing much to say
if you really think it’s so nice out,
shut up and go enjoy the fucking day
i believe wall street invented
the criminal mentality
the easter bunny laid
mandatory heterosexuality
i believe mutual masturbation makes a lot of sense
i don’t believe in a white picket fence
i believe in picking fights and picketing riot dykes
i believe in loving in groups,
i believe in loving alone.
i believe in hardship, in travelling
through hard shit
then i believe in coming home.
i believe some wives find their husbands boring
and they picture women naked
while those boys are snoring
i believe men need to revolutionize
themselves or they’ll see
all those wives kissing jill sobule and me.
i believe there are more buttons
and more clever bumper stickers every day
and less and less sticking
to what they have to say
more recycling of garbage,
more recycling of cash
it all ends up in the same bin --
with all the white corporate trash.
i believe there are too many babies
and too many weddings and too many headings
that started with Monica
i believe post-gay is presumptious
just plain gay functions.
i don’t believe in ex-gay
i believe trent lott should be b.b. gun-shot
ex-punged from this term before
the thousand years he’s got left
i believe barbie should be used in anatomy class
as a perfect bag of bones
then taken to biogenetics
as an argument against clones.
i believe cell phone culture is ridiculous
imprisoning us in the cell of a social fetish
i believe baby dolls should have realistic clits.
so baby dykes can start getting used to it.
and i believed the guy i waited on today
who said i’m one hundred percent nice
i don’t bite
i said i believe you sir and i’ll take the beer
can you believe i’m one hundred percent queer
and i talk it and i teach it
and i poet and i preach it
and I hold it and I mold it
and I know it so I give it.
cause I’m sure that I believe
i’m still learning how to live it.

-Alix Olson