Wednesday, November 30, 2011

some songs

"Hit and Run"
I got a funny feelin' tonight Lord
something's comin on and I don't have much time
there's a new darkness to this winding road
and something more behind these cold eyes
she left me waiting at her siter's house
she left meprayin to the bloody moon
I walked the floor, lit a smoke, and tried not to crumble
as the sound of sirens filled the silent room
well I thought my chest just might cave in
thought my hands would never be clean
there was soemthin goin on somewhere but I didn't notice
my brain jsut kept playin our last scene

that night our bedroom was a battleground
where all wars are only fought in vain
we took our twisted words and hurled them hard as we could
into eachothers hearts without refrain
my blood was burning at the thought of defeat
she took a breath and let her tears flow
we both stood there wounded in the unforgiving dusk
then I turned my back to keep from watchin her go
for three long hours Iblasted through the rain
jsut hit the gas and let her fly
last words I heard before my world was ripped open
were "he was drunk, it was a hit and run, and Louise just..."

I went out searchin, searchin 'til I was blind
with the devil chasin after me
there was a busted ford on the edge of town
and a busted man staring back at me
my heart hit the bone as I slammed on the brakes
and stepped out with fire in my veins
I caught him against the wet solid ground
and his blood mixed with the rain
I heard his screams, then nothin else
just a silence rollin hard and deep
I stood over his body and watche dhim fade away
into the void where the angels must weep

I drove past the town where my baby was born
past the land we called our home
well they say to everything there's a season
but who among us would ever really know
I got a funny feeling right now Lord
dawn's breakin and I don't ahve much time
I won't hang my head and ask for forgiveness
this sins are all I ahve left inside
since I made my baby cry

"Let Love Be"
Well I ain’t sleepin’ tonight, not in the mood for dreams
not when I still feel you so close to me
I like to think that a thin wall is all that’s standin between
me and you, babe, and all the love that could be

I know you’re sitting there all alone
I wonder if all these feelings will show
once morning comes with its sacred glow
if you ever wanted me, honey would you let me know

Well I hear a wolf howling in the night
howling for the tenderness he denied
Colorado wind’s blowing icy across the line
that divides faith from fact, and your heart from mine

I know I’ll see you tomorrow, I know I’ll yearn
for you to hold me again just like before
hold me so tight that this fire don’t burn
until you run too far away, it don’t even return

Honey do you know what you do to me
Sometimes I wanna shout, but don’t dare speak
for fear of discovering exactly what’s comin between
the worlds we inherit that won’t let love be
whatever it is, I wanna tear it down
and set this love free

"Lay Me Down"

Well sometimes I get tired of fighting
of bangin my fists against the wall
I’m comin home tonight Melinda
it’s better than just comin to a fall

Between all the bosses and late nights
I’ve gotten too weary to break free
I guess I ain’t exactly the strongest man
but I’m strong enough to admit when I’m weak

Chorus: So just stay up a little longer
and pretty soon I’ll come around
all I ask is that you greet me with your kiss
and sweet baby just lay me down

There’re so many people on the line
demanding everything we need
I’ve been slaving like a fool down here
wondering how many of us have to bleed

Well I don’t claim to provide any answers
darling I just know none have come
but right now the answers don’t matter much
right now all I care about is your sweet love

chorus

honey take your hands of sanctuary
and run them over this body of stone
sink with me into the light of our bed
and remind me how I found my home

'cause I come alive at the sound of your name
and in the blessed surrender and mercy
I don’t wanna run, I don’t wanna chase
I don’t want no shallow dream that’ll curse me

chorus

Maybe tomorrow I’ll rise again
and be ready for the world outside
that can take everything you believe
until you wish it had taken your life

but someday we’ll stand proud knowing
they could never tear us apart
but tonight, I ain’t lookin for victory
I’m just yearning for the beat of your heart

Thursday, October 27, 2011

It's been a while since I last posted...

...things always get a bit crazy for me these days. At the moment I'm taking a break from pounding away at a paper I have to write for Shambhala Meditation class to write whatever I feel like. I have a french press full of black coffee, a full pack of cigarettes, there's sludge in the streets, and snow in the trees and in beautiful patches of sparkling white on the ground outside my grimy apartment window. My roommate is asleep (no sharing a bowl tonight--For those who don't know, I'm referring to Colorado medical weed) and there are some people talking and chuckling in the parking lot. I have to get up nine to be in the recording studio by ten to work on some of my songs, mainly "Shake Shake Mamma" with a couple of friends on piano, guitar, and tambourine. I'm on vocals, guitar, and harmonica of course. I recently had two poems published in two different anthology books and one in Naropa's magazine The Sycamore.
I've been praised, ignored, passed out, eaten out, frozen, hungry, broke, unemployed, employed, asked out, lied to, fucked, pushed, carried, cried on, fallen on, stranded, found, supported, aborted, and on my knees for various reasons with or for various people. I've been searched by the police on a false claim I had coke, I've gotten stopped and IDed by the police for drunkenly making out with a stranger in an empty street at 3am, lost my keys, taken mushrooms three times this semester, and this weekend I plan to hippie-flip (take mushrooms and acid at the same time) for the first time whilst dressed as 1970s Bob Dylan. And how the holy hell am I doing such a good job in all my classes? The only answer I can think of is...I was just made for this. This is what I was born to be like someday. I work and work and then I lose my mind until I've had my fill, sleep it off in one night, then start working again. It's quite a perplexing yet deliriously entertaining system.
The best part is, if I died right now I could honestly say that I've lived a very eventful and full life, despite how short it has been. Of course I'm not planning any funerals any time soon (but just in case, if I do die in my sleep tonight or on some bus station bench this weekend, I want it known that there'd better be free unlimited Jack Daniels and hash for all at my funeral, along with bad-ass tshirts advertising the event).
Call me Boulder's Boy; living, breathing, occasionally hallucinating, and hopefully not destined for doom or death by over-indulgence. God help me. If only I wanted him to...

Friday, August 12, 2011

"Heart of Mine"

Well this time your alabaster stone don't make me wanna stay
and your crystal waters don't keep me at your bay
I just can't spend my life climbin' up your castle stairs
and anyway you wouldn't believe the odds those people gave to me back there
look and see the saints are just posing
and the graveyard gates are closing
on you and me and everything I'm leaving behind
ah honey babe anyone can have anything, but why'd you take this heart of mine

I see you got those turquiose eyes now you're lookin for your crutch
to do for you everything that you used to say would be too much
baby I would've walked 20 miles just for one smile from a friend
and now it seems you'd do anything to prove I never loved you then
But honestly don't we both know
it was never my idea to let us go
but one night I said hello and you left to run and hide
so honey babe these days I'd do anything to take back that heart of mine

Remember when I had seven hungry hounds at my heels
and a devil at my back saying none of it was real
now you come up to me like you never once fell
or told me stories you knew I'd believe were yours' to tell
when every night that I cried
you were sitting safe inside
thinking about your condition or depression or the meaning of life
honey babe but all the while you must've known all you did was take this heart of mine

So don't ever expect me to crack and crumble at your iron door
or break my heals on cold hard gravel following you no more
looks like my life is rolling somewhere further down the road
the one that once crossed your street but now wanders all alone
but don't you know it's okay
if you never saw the light of day
shining through the valley where you used to drive me outta my mind
cause honey babe I'm taking everything and more than that you're gonna lose this heart of mine

Sunday, August 7, 2011

This might be finished now...

Speak to me
I see
I see the grass and the herb
I see the ink and sun on the page
I feel the black naked trees sleeping
I hear the creek laughing below me and my friends
I hear you singing thru the white walls I covered in obscenities
I hear my nails scratching at your door
I feel the bars of iron growing cold
I saw a stray cat and I thought of me
I saw the ring around the moon and I thought of my longing for you
I see the rocks where we stood open in just our skin
I felt chest pains and hunger pangs and I wanted to climb up your hair
I saw me break before you
I heard you whisper
I heard you suffer
I heard your footsteps drifting up the stairs the night you walked away
I felt the dry skin of your open palm
and the chambers and the bones in your chest
I saw you sitting breathing still with your back straight against the frigid bark
I felt the wet earth under me when I fell and bruised my legs and arms
I saw you staring into me
I saw the hair on your shoulders
I heard the tears in your throat
you never heard me pray
but I prayed for you and waited

I've watched you disappear
I've watched you undrape
I've bowed my head and I've cursed your name
I've stayed up all night listening to Janis and wailing 'you don't know, no you don't know what it's like to love anybody the way I love you babe'
I was cruel to you because you made me feel like being cruel to you then I begged to come inside
I told you a lie
you didn't tell me everything you knew

I embraced the pounding of the desolate sea where martyrs are drowned until I needed a home
I sat at your feet but you still felt alone
I've watched you walk down the same streets I did and the same streets I didn't
I saw arms of light through the fiery trees before the smoke and the air took them away
I tried to leave you and I saw the cracks in the sidewalk and the faces in the cars
and the weeds and the wood and the dust on the street signs
I spat and lit another cigarette and ran
til I purged by a white picket fence
I kicked at the broken glass
when I came back you were gone
it was dawn
you were tired, I was burning
I was burning
I was burning

but I know I was dancing in that small cafe
and your shirt was open as the band played a rhythm I'd never known before
were we drowning, I don't know
sometimes I was flying
sometimes I wonder if you could feel me trying

I felt the bricks of the columns
I felt the heat and the winds from last summer's storm
I felt the thorns and saw the blood of 98 wounds running from our veins
I felt a goodbye that never really came
I felt the night and I watned to share it with you but only if you wanted to
I wanna hold you if you want me to, only if you want me to
please say you want me to
I'd do anything, but I don't wanna do just anything
Why do I follow you?

2
Why did I follow you to a desert out west in a machine filled with five unfinished souls
where I got sick in the snow of carson city and you couldn’t even hold me up much less let me lie down next to you
where you roamed while I trembled under sweat stained once white cotton sheets in a overcast afternoon cheap hotel room
why did I follow you
all the way to a bus station in Reno where you and all the rest left me with 40 bucks and a thousand tears and went on to your own california I would never see
as i was kicked onto the street jilted and at the point of dehumanization
sneeking into the Sands with strangers then standing at the window staring at the Circus Circus, this time the lights of the city did nothing for me and will never do anything for you

One night on the cold carpet and then a bus alone alone alone back to Boulder where I met you
and in Boulder I was angry
and in Boulder I was unbearably unstable and internally paralyzed
in Boulder my insides shattered and the glass I hurled shattered and my spirit shattered and tenderness for you shattered
so in Boulder I wept
and in Boulder I forced my hand in the fire
and in Boulder I crossed sentences with flesh and shadows of revelations never found
in Boulder where you once saw me cry in a summer soft lamplight hallway of death and brilliant life and goodbye
in Boulder where you once placed your hand on my stomach and told me to breathe when suffocation or hyperventilation seemed to make so much more sense
in Boulder you held me to the sun after a night of stolen whiskey and a seed that made me see fireflies that illuminated the path to you and your silence
in Boulder you pressed my tangled head to your chest and i could exist with you and feel with you the heart in me that in the end only scared you and scarred you and left me sighing into my bended bare knees in my lonely hangover sunrise bathtub
in Boulder you mourned your disposition and neurosis and loss of the want of love while my insides twisted with emptiness and begged for warm milk and a one night surrender
in Boulder I held your hand to no avail
in Boulder I swallowed more visions than you could take
in Boulder and everywhere else I recalled when you were angelic and didn’t mind if I got weary or shakey sometimes
in Boulder oh God I fell for you and yearned for your German torso and shy young hips and your cerulean patient eyes that had seen the cruelty of New York and the openness of me standing naked in the middle of so-and-so’s apartment amongst bootlegged jugs of Carlo Rassi and smoke where I performed a drama that continues to this day
but all I really wanted was for us to finally have eachother completely
finally earthly beings completely in a field of lightning and rain
in Boulder I ached for the light of your bed while I bled behind dumpsters and woke to find streaks of red across the heart of Dawn that never promised anything but another prophecy of Day
in Boulder I gave you a daisy
in Boulder your smell made me so painfully human
in Boulder I showed you my soul
and in Boulder I wanted you to tear my skin to pieces so I could weep your dreams and see us rise over cities of stone and ruin and dance like madness and make love like madness and fall asleep in eternity by the river where we died
and where I will die once again

3
But please hear me
I know the two of us just don't fit
you never told me where we stood...but I guess you never knew and neither did I until tonight.
you never really knew me and damn it all to hell if you ever let me finally know you.
You don't like the way I chain smoke on a sunny day or cold morning or after a couple shots of Jack and one long conversation that ends up meaning nothing.
You don't like it when you ask what's wrong and I tell you.
You don’t like the stories I have to tell and I’ve heard all of yours’ a million times and anyway you only have the one
You can't stand to see me kiss a stranger after a hard night of introspective terrors and leaving me with too many maybes and sighs
You regret that promise you made to me, the only one I ever believed in
You get scared whenever you see me hanging from a branch or howling my spirit away on some grimy stage all hurt and free.
You used to look at a busted car or a bruise and say it's beautiful, but when it came to me and you it was never about beauty or anything that would have brought the two of us any kind of release or salvation.
You used to walk with me
You used to stay…
You hate the way that you left me and you hated the way I stood on my hind legs when you came back to tell me things a stranger could’ve said
When you held me it was only because I seemed lost enough and tamed enough to make it safe for you to hold me.
You loved me only when I was your wounded sparrow or baby wolf gone astray.
I came on too strong and too willing
your apologies fell to the hard ground where they were easily trampled like neglected roses blown away from their home in a graveyard .

Now me. . .well, it was never about me was it? There was no me; there was only you, and the you that you saw in me.
I was never there.
I was never anywhere, no matter how hard I tried. Now for that, I would never blame you. That should make you happy, knowing how much you claimed to hate blame in any form.
What do I want from you? A month ago I would have wanted you to die.
But tonight. . .take your walk to the creek.
Watch it flow and tumble and wash over your hands; I remember how fond you were of metaphors. Just know I'm not gonna be the tramp sitting on the cold sturdy rocks by your feet anymore.
I will not set myself on fire for you anymore
I will not let you relate to my loneliness anymore
Neither of us is Mary or Christ and I will not call on any angels or send you any prayers over the ruins that I was hurled into anymore and I will not let you touch me where it hurts.
I'll get mine. After all, if you can stand all this so can I.
I would never even ask you to remember me, but God damn it all to hell if I should ever be able to forget you.

Friday, July 1, 2011

This book...

....is laborous as hell. My other two books were relatively easy to write. Ii just wrote shit down until it was done and there ya go. My first took about 6 months (I was 11 at the time) and my second took a month and a half. I just wrote constantly with very little effort. This one is much different. I only have 8 pages and I had to draw this complex diagram thingy to keep up with all the characters and places and avoid plot holes.
The form is much more traditional than what a have been doing for a while; it's like a grown-up version of my first book in that aspect. It's pretty violent too, but now that I think about it both of my books were violent. Whadyaknow.

Anyway, this thing is rough. Kinda reminds me of my TaeKwonDo tournament days...specifically the tournament where I had to spar my sister and ended up going four extra rounds and then nearly cracked a growplate in my wrist on a punch to the ground during my free-design form. Damn. Just damn.
I guess it's because it had so much of my recent aingsty heartbreak in it. Maybe if I didn't make the time and setting and a few characters and events fictional, I wouldn't be able to write it at all without losing it to some degree. Of course there's some dialogue straight out of real life nearly word for word.

WARNING TO EVERYONE: if you break my heart, I'm gonna write about every fight word for word and post it on the internet and/or read it in public in front of your friends. Seriously, don't fuck with me.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Let me tell you something. I'm not blind.

I know the two of us just don't fit. For one thing, you never told me where we stood...but I guess you never knew and neither did I until tonight. And for another, you never really knew me and damn it all to hell if you ever let me finally know you.

You don't like the way I chain smoke on a sunny day or cold morning or after a couple shots of Jack and one long conversation that ends up meaning nothing.
You don't like it when you ask what's wrong and I tell you.
You can't stand to see me kiss a stranger.
You regret that promise you made to me, the one you thought I couldn't believe in.
You get scared whenever you see me hanging from a branch or screaming my insides out on some grimy stage all hurt and free.
You know, it's funny how you could look at a busted car or a bruise and say it's beautiful, but when it came to me and you it was never about beauty or anything that would have brought the two of us any kind of release or salvation.
You hate the way that you left me and you hated the way I stood up for myself when you came back to tell me how hard life is for everyone.
When you held me it was only because I seemed low enough to make it safe for you to hold me.
I came on too strong and too willing and your apologies came too easily.
Now me. . .well, it was never about me was it? There was no me; there was only you, and the you that you saw in me. I was never there. I was never anywhere, no matter how hard I tried. Now for that, I would never blame you. That should make you happy, knowing how much you hated blame in any form.

What do I want from you? A month ago I would have wanted you to die. But tonight. . .take your walk to the creek. Watch it flow and tumble and wash over your hands; I remember how fond you were of metaphores. Just know I'm not gonna be the tramp sitting on the cold sturdy rocks by your feet anymore. I'll get mine. After all, if you can stand all this so can I. I'm not even gonna bother to ask you to remember me, but God damn it all to hell if I should ever be able to forget you.

Jesse

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Don't Ask

"Mmm...ok what now?" Michelle asked as she slid her fingers through the wax on Luke's back. He folded his arms underneath his chin and watched the red glow of the candle grow dimmer and then fade out with a smooth stream of silver smoke. The blue comforter they had laid on the living room floor for the occasion was covered in splotches of wax that soon dried into a white stain. Michelle grabbed some of her long red hair and started running it up and down his spine, then laid down on top of him. He smelled like cinnomon and pine and she liked the the way the oily wax felt between their naked skin.
"Well, I dunno about you, but I think I'm gonna make me some toast with jam."
"What? Really?"
"Yeah," they both sat up and Luke stepped into the kitchen, about five feet away in their small apartment, and turned the light on, "I feel like some toast with jam. We've got all night and we've had all day, I want a snack."
He grabbed a piece of wheat bread and stuck it in the toaster oven, then started rubbing his greasy arms. He was a pre-op transman, but still felt completely comfortable being naked in front of Michelle, and it showed in the way he moved. He did everything in the same soft, yet firm way, clothed or un-clothed. Michelle leaned back and watched every line and curve.
"All night? You mean it? really?" she replied in a childish voice, then smirked at him.
"Oh, like I've never gone all night before. Yes of course, that's the whole point of this. And by dawn," he began searching through the fridge for the jam, "you and I are gonna be rightfully fucked. I mean rightfully fucked"
"Well aren't you a romantic bastard."
"You know it. Anyway," he grabbed the strawberry jam and closed the fridge, "what I mean by rightfully fucked, I mean. . .like neither of us are doing shit tomorrow. Just ain't gonna happen. Everything from the waist down is gonna be shot to hell for at least a day after we're done with eachother. If the sun comes up and I'm not torn to pieces, I'm gonna consider this night a failure." He opened the jar and got the toast out of the toaster oven. While he was spreading the jam Michelle laid herself across the comforter and stuck her legs straight up, stretched, and then started slowly kicking her tiny feet through the air.
"Is that so? What if one of us wants to sleep?"
"I made coffee, remember?" Luke answered and took a bite of toast, "what time is it, midnight? I'm not tired. You don't look tired...wow you don't seem tired at all really...trust me, we ain't sleepin' tonight." He sauntered over and sat next to her, his back to the suede couch, and watched her toned legs go up and down.
"So what all are we going to do on this big night you apprently spent a whole five minutes planning?" she asked. She'd been with him long enough to know he liked being teased a little.
"Well uh...you could always shower me in hot wax again. That was pretty fuckin' awesome."
"Okay then, but what are you going to do with all this?" Michelle sat up with her shoulders back and looked Luke in the eyes, then casually ran her fingers down her dainty breasts and full hips.
"Whatever all that can handle my dear. You know I'll do anything just as long as you uh..." Michelle sat down between his legs and placed her feet on the edge of the couch behind his head
"You always want me to do ass-stuff. I don't understand why. I think you're secretly gay." Luke finished his last bite.
"Just because I like having my ass smacked every once in a while?"
"Just smacked and just every once in a while?"
"Ok fair enough then. You want me to prove that I'm not gay right now? Because i would, but I just ate a piece of toast and. . ."
"Oh, shut up!"

I'm gonna stop there for now....

Friday, June 17, 2011

New blog and a poem

I'm going to put my book on a different blog: www.jesse-childe.blogspot.com

here's a poem I just finished

"Child of Light"

Stormy sea and summer’s come
on wings of life, gave birth to the young
satin shore, tide is high,
tide is high, I heard you cry,
“Run to me, child of light
save your breath, save your mind,
run to me, child of light”

Rhelms undone and rehelms unearthed
entwined with rain and visions you cursed
on that day we were alive
so alive, I heard you cry,
“Run to me, child of light
save your breath, save your mind
run to me, child of light”

The rose was burning as I stood
before the sun, like we knew I would
I saw you turn, I saw me fly
you saw me fall, I heard you cry
“Run to me, child of light
save your breath, save your mind,
run to me, child of light”

Veins of heat and electric desire
cracked the heavens like crossed wires
with beating heart and naked spine
I drifted under then rose to the sky
on wings of life created by the swollen tide
by the swollen tide you watched me dive
from the hands of thunder I heard you cry,
“Run to me, child of light
save your breath, save your mind
the dream you have is no dream of mine
Run to me
Run to me....

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

I'm writing a book.

No title yet because I'm bad at titles. It's much more traditional than the fiction I usually write. Anyway, this is what I got so far.

“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I want it out. As in, I don’t want anything left there.”
“This is a permanent operation. it’s not like I can stick it back in if you change your. . .”
“I know that’s the whole point! Just rip the damn thing outta me!”
“Okay. Just making sure you realize what you’re doing.”

Danny laid his head back down on the Egyptian (or Indian, no one really knew) rug covering the warm damp earth and stared at the flawless seams of the tent. Marla sighed, tied up her auburn and gray hair, and started rummaging through her deerskin bag. It was after midnight and the cicadas were droning outside and the fireflies were floating through the humid Shawtowne air. Inside the tent Danny lied across the rug with his jaw clenched, surrounded by candles, bracelets, pictures, powders, small esoteric tools. . .he didn’t even bother to take a good look at any of them. Marla paused and looked down at the young man in front of her; his sunken cheeks were exaggerated by the candle lights and his eyes were watery. He was thin, pale, and his limbs were visibly vibrating. Marla reached in her bag, pulled out a small empty glass vile, and frowned.
“I’m so sorry, but you’ll have to be awake the whole time,” she said as she placed the vial back in her bag. Danny lifted his head and grimaced.
“What? Can’t you do some sort of spell or something? I mean, that’s what I came here for.”
“It doesn’t work that way. I can’t just perform a spell on my own, I need things. And what I need is not available right now. If you swallow a piece of this bark I have,” she reached in her bag, pulled out what looked like a twisted piece of wood, and broke off the end of it,”it will dull the pain some. But nothing I have can completely get rid of it. Do you still want to do this?”
Danny sat up, snatched the root, and stuck it in his mouth. It tasted like licorice and left his throat, chest, and stomach feeling fuzzy after he swallowed it. Marla pulled a knife from her belt and asked him to take his vest and shirt off. He felt a sudden jolt and saw a very brief flash of harsh light, but ignored it and complied. He sat there half naked, gradually breathing heavier as the thing he came here for became more and more tangible. He saw the orange glow of the candle flame against the cool knife and suddenly felt paralyzed.
“So, may I ask why you want this?”
Suddenly Danny snapped back into himself and flatly answered, “No.”
“Do you think maybe you should. . .”
“Listen lady, you got my thirty pons, now do your fucking job! I’m not here to make friends with you or tell my life story. I just want the damn thing out.”
“Fine then. Just lie back down and. . .um. . .here,” she grabbed a stick from the ground behind her, “bite down on this.”
Danny held the wood between his teeth but couldn’t understand why. The only feeling he had was in his fingertips; the rest of his body was numb and warm. He watched Marla inch her way next to him and take a deep breath. She placed her hand on the center of his chest and left it there for a moment with her eyes closed, then her eyes shot wide open. He tried not to think about what was happening and instead focused on the relief he was sure this would bring. No more. Done. Finally. That’s all I want.
Marla slid her hand from his chest to his shoulder, then gingerly ran the tip of the knife up, down, and across, about a centimeter above his bare wiry chest. She sat back, then straddled him. She raised the knife, bit her lip, then brought it down with a sordid crack and Danny saw the same flash again, followed by an obnoxious tearing and grinding sound. Everything was vibrating and the tent was shaking as Danny bit down on the twig until it broke and let out a scream before everything went black.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Vacation. Damnit.

I need one and I'm getting one. My sister, my grandparents, my uncle, and I are going to Destin for a week. I know it's not exactly a "cool" place and it's touristy and I'm with my conservative squeaky-clean grandparents, but I'm looking forward to it. It's a cahnce to get away from my dad and stepmom's craziness (which is the reason why my grandparents are doing this for us) and just swim in the ocean and play music with my sister. We started working on some of my songs a week ago, but then she went off to a church thing and I've missed it a lot.

My sister and I used to never be able to play together because we fought too much. We're really two really different people and very different musicians. She's incredibly talented and very thourough and knows more about theory than I probably ever will. I just wanna play a few chords with some blues riffs and whine out some Dylan or Springsteen-inspired lyrics. But the songs I wrote in Boulder seem to mesh pretty well with what Julie does and I'm just thrilled to be playing with someone. All I have to do is play what I want and then give her time alone to work out what she wants to do (which means a lot of coffee breaks for me) and then we get togther 20 minutes later. The only issue is that she has the attention span of a moth and I'd rather focus on the same thing until it's done, but I'm not gonna push anything and ruin this fragile dynamic we got going now.

So now we're gonna do this by the beach. All the people in Tuscaloosa that have been treating us like garbage can kiss our ass because we can make something they can't and never will.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Well then....

My mom just found out she got the job in Baltimore. She can't afford to move my sister and I and all our stuff moved there, so my sister and I will either stay here by ourselves or stay at our grandparents' house, depending on how long it will take for my mom to save up enough money.

I hope to God this works out. Alabama hasn't been kind to any of us. Seriously, there's nothing for us here. We just keep getting kicked around like rag dolls here. So I get to go to Baltimore, then back to lovely Boulder to start my sophomore year.

I may never have to come back to Alabama again. That would be awesome...coming back to Alabama only if I want to, not because I have to. Which may be never. If I do i wanna wait a few years, maybe 20. I also want to take the opportunity to express how glad and thankful I am to have gotten out of Alabama (for the most part) when I did. I'm very lucky Naropa accepted me and my mom always encouraged me to do what I want and GET OUT OF THIS DAMN PLACE, as she always put it. I'm also glad I went to college single; I've seen what happens to high school sweethearts when they go off to college (usually. Not everyone breaks up, I'm just pretty sure that's what would happen to me). Plus there's all the fun that comes with being single in college, and a liberal one at that. . .

Anyway, feelin pretty fine right now.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

"Meet Me in T-Town Tonight"

I spent my whole life hoping and praying with everything I had to get out of Alabama. I was born in Birmingham, then lived in Pelham, Jasper, then grew up in Tuscaloosa. I never felt like I belonged, and like many people who don't belong I left as soon as I could and vowed to never come back. Obviously, that was another plan that hasn't come to fruition.
In Boulder I met a golden-haired boy and unfortunately (or maybe not so unfortunately...someday...)fell in love. He was a friend of mine, and then he wasn't. Mistakes were made on both sides, but the point is two people lost a friend.

On April 27 a tornado destroyed my home town. A few weeks later, I came back for the summer.


silky rays of light find their way to land
and soon rest upon the ruins of man
trails of glass, boarded windows, rust and sand
are all that's left of the place where I made my stand

Your memory comes to me on an evening wind
and I dream of holding you in my arms again
as I walk these paths of innocence and sin
I unbutton my shirt and let it break my skin

chorus: is this goodbye my darling I don't know
but the love we gave still gives me life
if there's anything left to say before I let you go
meet me in T Town tonight

dark clouds rose and fell to the earth
and left their mark on the street of my birth
lights of small towns that i once cursed
flicker off and on a thousand miles from where we were

lonely nights give way to a summer's dawn
I rise witout a sound and then press on
well they tell me you can't save what don't belong
that's what's done is done and what's gone is gone

chorus

twisted metal and crosses cover the horizon line
as I think and dream of your strong blue eyes
I whisper my prayer to the unrelenting skies,
taste your name and into the cool muddy river I dive.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

another song about the same person

"Firefly"

Well I'm riding south with these walkin blues
that I used to know before I fell for you
and I pray that they carry me somewhere soon
cause one cloudy night in our mountain town
you looked in my eyes and ran from what you found
I guess it's best that I stoped coming around

chorus: cause you see yourself in everybody
and I don't see me in anybody
I guess it's just me and the moon tonight
i guess it's just me and the fireflies
dancin a dance taht I learned a long time ago
and even tho i want you so badly
I know I got to let you go
I'm just a firefly dancin on his own

Maybe we ran outta time or got caught up
in everything that was never enough
you learn a lot about people when times get rough
so take your secrets and toss them aside
I have no use for what you'd rather hide
you have my love but my soul is still mine

chorus

like a river without any name
or a broken heart with no one to blame
I'm standing here waitin for the rain
and ocne I thought I was nothing without you
but i can make it without you
though it hurts so much without you

chorus

It's just a stormy night and I'm gonna face it alone
I'm just a firefly and i gotta find my home

Sunday, May 22, 2011

I added to an earlier poem

still about the same person.

Speak to me
I see
i see the grass and the herb
I see the ink and sun on the page
I feel the black naked trees sleeping
I hear the creek laughing below me and my friends
I hear you singing thru the white walls covered in obscenities
I hear my nails scratching at your door
I feel the bars of iron growing cold
I saw a stray cat and I thought of me
I saw the ring around the moon and I thought of my longing for you
I see the rocks where we stood open in just our skin
I felt chest pains and hunger pangs and I wanted to climb up your hair
I saw me break before you
I heard you whisper
I heard you suffer
I heard your footsteps drifting up the stairs the night you walked away
I felt the dry skin of your open palm
and the chambers and the bones in your chest
I saw you sititng breathing still with your back straight against the frigid bark
I fel thte wet earth under me when I fell and bruised my legs and arms
I saw you staring into me
I saw the hair on your shoulders
I heard the tears in your throat
you never heard me pray
but I prayed for your touch and I'm still waiting

I've watched you dissapear
I've watched you undrape
I've bowed my head and I've cursed your name
I've staye dup all night listening to Janis and wailing 'you don't know, no you don't know what it's like to love anybody the way I love you babe'
I was cruel to you because you made me feel like being cruel to you then I begged to come inside
I told you a lie
you didn't tell me everything you knew

I embraced the pounding of the desolate sea where martyrs are drowned until I needed a home
I sat at your feet but you still felt alone
I've watche dyou walk down the same streets I did and the same streets I didn't
I saw arms of light through the fiery trees before the smoke and the air took them away
I tried to leave you and I saw the cracks in the sidewalk and the faces in the cars
and the weeds and the wood and the dust on the street signs
I spat and lit another cigarette and ran
til I purged by a white picket fence
I kicked at the broken glass
when I came back you were gone
it was dawn
you were tired, I was burning
I was burning
I was burning

but I know I was dancing in that small cafe
and your shirt was open as the band played a rhythm I'd never known before
were we drowning, I don't know
sometimes I was flying
sometimes I wonder if you can feel me trying

I felt the bricks of the columns
I felt the heat and the winds from last summer's storm
I felt the thorns and saw the blood of 98 wounds running from our veins
I felt a goodbye that never really came
I felt the night and I watned to share it with you but only if you wanted to
I wanna hold you if you want me to, only if you want me to
please say you want me to
I'd do anything, but I don't wanna do just anything
Why do I follow you?

II
Why did I follow you west in a machine filled with six unfinished souls
where I got sick in the snow of carson city and you couldn’t even hold me up much less let me lie down next to you
where you roamed while I trembled under sweat stained once white cotton sheets in a overcast afternoon cheap hotel room
why did I follow you
all the way to a bus station in Reno where you and all the rest left me with 40 bucks and a thousand tears and went on to your own california I would never see
as i was kicked onto the street jilted and at the point of dehumanization
sneeking into the Sands with strangers then standing at the window staring at the Circus Circus, this time the lights of the city did nothing for me and will never do anything for you
One night on the cold carpet and then a bus alone alone alone back to Boulder where I met you
and in Boulder I was angry
and in Boulder I was unbearably unstable and internally paralyzed
in Boulder my insides shattered and the glass I hurled shattered and my spirit shattered and tenderness for you shattered
so in Boulder I wept
and in Boulder I forced my hand in the fire
and in Boulder I crossed sentences with flesh and shadows of revelations never found
in Boulder where you once saw me cry in a summer soft lamplight hallway of death and brilliant life and goodbye
in Boulder where you once placed your hand on my stomach and told me to breathe when suffocation or hyperventilation seemed to make so much more sense
in Boulder you held me to the sun after a night of stolen whiskey and a seed that made me see fireflies that illuminated the path to you and your silence
in Boulder you pressed my tangled head to your chest and i could exist with you and feel with you the heart in me that in the end only scared you and scarred you and left me sighing into my bended bare knees in my lonely hangover sunrise bathtub
in Boulder you mourned your disposition and neurosis and loss of the want of love while my insides twisted with emptiness and begged for warm milk and a one night surrender
in Boulder I held your hand to no avail
in Boulder I swallowed more visions than you could take
in Boulder and everywhere else I recalled when you were angelic and didn’t mind if I got weary or shakey sometimes
in Boulder oh God I fell for you and yearned for your German torso and shy young hips and your cerulian patient eyes that had seen the cruelty of New York and the openness of me standing naked in the middle of so-and-so’s apartment amongst bootlegged jugs of Carlo Rosi and smoke where I performed a drama that continues to this day
but all I really want is for us to finally have eachother completely
finally earthly beings completely in a field of lightning and rain
in Boulder I ached for the light of your bed while I bled behind dumpsters and woke to find streaks of red across the heart of Dawn that never promised anything but another prophecy of Day
in Boulder I gave you a daisy
in Boulder your smell made me so painfully human
in Boulder I showed you my soul
and in Boulder I wanted you to tear my skin to pieces so I could weep your dreams and see us rise over cities of stone and ruin and dance like madness and make love like madness and fall asleep in eternity by the river where we died
and where I will die once again

Friday, May 13, 2011

Another song about the one who ripped my heart through my ass

"Life Itself"


We met on a ragged trail
of death and brilliant life
under the green groves of summer
you held me to your side
I thought I knew my story
but it carelessly re-wrote itself
darling you were just somebody close
and then you were life itself

you were life itself, you held me with your eyes
and life itself, rushing like the winds
that left me here with wounded arms
so wearily open to the void
that’s been breaking my heart

You had your storybook secrets
and then you had mine
all the lives that I once guarded
soon slipped away in time
I ran through fields of fire
despite my condition and health
with a promise of rain, a promise of virtue
and a promise of life itself

of life itself, cool water to my lips
and life itself, breaking who I used to be
carrying me from the other side of day
but there’s no promise just a phantom
in the home where you can’t stay

I wasn’t one for devotion
i hung my head and made that vow
deep in that canyon of cold harsh stone
but your spirit made it through somehow
tell me can i make it without you
without losing a part of myself
never thought I’d be a stranger to my heart
just searching for life itself

when you were life itself, rushing over me
and life itself, I gave you all of me
so willingly i surrendered my soul
God have mercy on the man
who doubts the only truth he holds

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Been a while

Got kinda crazy in Boulder...got some outstanding memories and some blurry memories from my first year of college now...Anyway I'm back in Alabama and all that's come to a screetching hault until I go back.

I fell in love with someone at Naropa who broke my heart (not going to go into details right now). Hardly a new experience for me, but it still hurts like hell.

I know you don't know what to say
I guess my love just took your certainty away
and left you scared
and left us alone
why couldn't you just wrap your arms around me
and I would've walked you home

Like a sparrow or a hoodlum's son
I'll keep singing long after your gone
this song of you
that left me bare-bones
oh you could've just wrapped yourself around me
and I would've walked you home

Tell me, do you think the angels laughed
on that night you turned down everything I had
oh but hearts beat on
even when they're cold
don't it hurt so much when all the while we know
I could've walked you home
I was ready to walk you home

I wonder if you realize someday
that someone is gonna take your place
someone strong enough
to just let go
and lie next to me under the tall pines
in the place we call our home

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Re-write of my angry-ass rant

Don't ask me how I'm doing cause I'm not gonna fucking tell you it's alright
I just got here from a land of dusty steeples and beer cans and daddy's aren't always around
and for the past few weeks I've been crawling like an escaped laboratory dog over the sidewalks covered in the grime of man with ash on my skin and smoke in my chest and nails in my hands as my heart hits the bone with such a sordid and delicious thud
lookin for her stairs
lookin for her stairs
lookin for Mercy's stairs
and falling every time she turned on her light to tell me I'd found a place that would hold me
remembering the toiling in T Town and how Alabama treated me so wrong and put poison in my veins and and scars on my girlfriends and holes in my eyes
blind to the sun and waiting for the dawn
waking only to find Queen Belladonna twisted and purging addies and jack into the dying weeds and cigarette embers while middle aged harpies and sons of moonshiners tried to save my poor starving soul
but my sins were my jewels becasue they belonged to me no matter how bitter the rust tasted in my bleeding throat
I remember choking on the rocks where the cotton wouldn't grow
I remember being tied at birth by neon wolves
I remember breaking free and then being dragged back by my long tangled hair wasted howling and born
and dreaming of a stranded life amongst sparks of emerald strewn across the desert land
just blasting away into the not quite infinite nothing where it's all gunpowder bliss and it's it's no not what I was after but I hope I still know what I'm after
as I spit into the void of silenced churchbells and toss my pearls to rabid junkies
who spread their seeds across scars left open for the night and surrendered to nothing but the electric sky where their skins break open and my pulse shatters in the rain
til I'm left strung out and malnourished on a Greyhound thirsty for one more whiskey river and one more dance with the lightning of the soul
and it can't kill
but my God it will
all becasue I left the turniquet undone
all because that jack knife lover is a long time gone
all because we know what we've become
all becasue I'm so god damn young
all because daddy never loved his son
it's not a battle lost or won it's just it's just
it's just a hard night falling down on Valley Street
it's just a dirty heat rising over you and me
I don't wanna believe in destiny, what is destiny
oh honey please if you wanna be cruel to me it's alright
so curse at your saviors and set your insides ablaze and
call all abandon
call all abandon
call all abandon
I was abondoned
I was abandoned
the light has come undone
I'm so god damn fucking young
daddy never loved his son