a part of each day

i look at your photo and it makes me want to puke

because you're

feeling a sickness in my bones 

see i was never one to shy away from the art

of making a mistake

because i'd never come across anything that made me look back

that made me really look back

with this tiny seed called regret, a sickness that starts in the deepest, oldest corner of my brain and branches out starting with my tendons and legaments

slow reactions to fast past dramas

how could i ever say your name again without first wanting the affection that came before the stunted replay versions of the passion that

 stupid coffee dates where we speak over a canopy of half memories, that the sunlight never penetrates

pillowtalk

ruin it before you get caught wanting it.......why do i ever take advice from myself ? 

I'm here

im not here to inherit the opinions of those who came before me or to talk softly.

im here to gently set the world on fire and find friends to sit next to and watch the flames eventually make anew. im here not to see it as it could have been or as it is. im here not to see it at all, but to simply create and breath vibrancy until the end.

it does not matter when the end comes because death isn't the hands that circle the clock in chronological order, when it stops, it stops.   

1 to 10

Have you drank more than four alcoholic drinks within 2 hours? yes

Have you had a significant life event in the past few years that has changed your mood or how you do things? yes

have you seen a councilor? yes

if you were to rate your mood recently on a scale of 1-10, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest… 5

these were the answers to the questions which that the lady from my insurance company who was on the other end of the telephone used  categorized me as "chronically depressed"

i thought that was funnier than anything else. 

Chronically depressed, have you ever been in love i asked her?

i am married she said. 

thats not what i asked, i asked, have you ever been in love?

Well… yes, she says after a pause that could have filled a small gravy tray to pour over a thanksgiving turkey

when? what was it like,

i, don't, well, this isn't part of your health screening feedback, she said

what better feedback could you give me, i say…

I was 22, she said. he was 25. we broke up and got back together 3 times. but we never quite got there, she said. we never could quite make it work. there's a wisdom that comes with getting older. maybe some of us have it when we're 22, but there wasn't anyone or anything that was going to get me the wisdom i needed to hold onto him. 

how much did it hurt, 1 being none, and 10 being broken bones? a 10, she said. a 10. 

How much did you love him 1 being a -- she cuts me off --

A 10, she said. A 10. 

----

tear, tear, tear, tear, tear, tear

In order to preserve the delicate scenes and scenarios she built with months of careless loveless deep indisposed calculation, it was quite clear now.

By doing this, she ensured no one really knew her. Only she held in the pit of her being the ugliness she created. No one else. And that's what was best for her. Or at least, that's what slowly felt best. Over and over and over and over, the ending credits played but the film never wrapped up. She directed it forcefully pulling it back, reel after reel, until the only ending was when it, tug after tug, ripped from the other frames.

Delayed, she waited for the rest of the film. But it was suddenly gone. She knew she was there, but she could not stop it from happening. Just as before as she was the only player to pawns in a linear stroke, she could not stop it from happening. She could not realize it. Only after beating it through her body did she take a breath back to the silence. Back to the ground. Back and forth was now just forth. And she couldn't call it by any other name.

 And that was the terror that sliced through her at any quiet time of the day. Terror of the story closing without her hand guiding the trail. Bewilderment and unrest, she'd seek something new to make her's and to tear, tear, tear, tear, tear, tear, tear

RIP

Everything you wanted to know 5 minutes late

[ Everyone eats for free when we want them to because when we're taking, we treating. Are you seeing? These seams split?

When summer calls your name you answer. Now it's cold and dark and your thoughts are sick with you, not the other way around. Pick up, Get up, Get up, to get down?

The ruin vs. the ruins. one is terrible, one is great. That's not exactly fair for people like me, now is it?

Girl friends are one step away from cat.s

my teeth got sharper, the more dicks i put in my mouth

And that. Is a lot. But it's OK, because "everything is practice."

Mistakes are silver and heresy is gold. Take the tablet, darling. Baby, snap your fingers three times.

Bent down, table top. Tangle. STOP. ]

BoyGirl is dead.

Walk on

walk on these broken legs and call them growing pains, because some people were taught they aren't worth fixing

hot-mouthed little bitch / medical

hot-mouthed little bitch

sits

awaiting a throne she's owned

since the seeds were sown

because how do you knock someone down

who can't even believe it all worked out

just how she wanted it to

BUT some sweet successes are regressive

when all that glitters isn't quite bitter enough

to taste on the tip of the tounge she uses 

to abuse the sick little thoughts they've got

but cant unlock without her, the catalyst they cannot resist

they push the buttons on their favorite game controllers

but she IS levels 1-4

How is it Mario's World if the princess is the only reason they're in it

letting them unlock secret levels

she let's them play

---

better await the medical bills

then to pay for something your body needs

alcohol kills politicians at the capitol

but no one asks for their last two months of bank statements

just to be able to pay for

broken bones

let them hang from our bodies!

let them hang from our bodies

we only mend those worth mending

and if you're salary is below $30,000 a year

but above $20,000 

then FUCK YOU

seriously, fuck you for not going into "the hard sciences"

because no one's gonna say it but 

art's a flaccid thing when no one's there to fluff the pillows

The ocean has no walls

remember when second life came out and everyone one was like whats this all about, you create a character with a name and it's another you just not the same.

like a computer program that simulates another real life, ouch, girls who do it must get no husband, and guys no wife, but years later we sit here with our fingers ripe to upload each post, hashtag and photo, like something that was once a social no-no is now normal.

 oblivious that we're not supplementing our connections but replacing them with pixelated affections, reflections of a society dying to make individuals a hot commodity.

so we no longer want to sit and enjoy each other but only follow from a far and employ our own safe judgements, wasn't it supposed to make us closer this social media ocean.

like the far atlantic, we're starting oil spills cuz we can't handle it's perfect serenity,  i blocked my grandma on facebook so she couldn't see my scantly clad selfies and i am i ashasmed of the way we live now where we call and leave a message and at best a text is all we get back in these broken connections -- we've got a ton of them everywhere we go,

but i sent 3,000 texts last month when all i really wanted was one phone call and the back and forth of an old friend. i cannot pretend i don't miss it... that is,the joy of not knowing what they're going to say in that one call. cuz you see, i already read it the day before, on your wall.

i have an old phone saved with your texts. it's a flip phone. and it can't take photos, but...

by Hal Lasko

ill never marry you 

but when my own boy grows up

i might be as proud as your own mother

to have a son who loves me

perfectly

despite his path, unsteady

ill never marry you

but i see you every now and again

and it's sorry, like when we leave marks we didn't know we could

but they disappear like a breath on a mirror

and we can repeat that action

but how many times can it be done until we know

it just won't stick

it won't ever stick

years, probably, we'll go on

but the years aren't really anything but our skin showing the dirt of our experiences

and maybe you breathed the most dirt on me,

but it was only because i needed that reminder

convenience is making me cold

sucking down the abstract

wrecking the body and mind i felt the fire

because saying crap like that just makes it sound better than

chugging bourbon, blacking out and being a fucking mess

because saying it like that

just makes you want to leave a legacy that Bukowski already did

and it's not the 60s and we don't represent the poor, lost soul anymore

because we can Google our futures and Instagram our progress

because well

and we went to college

and we have cellphone bills to pay 

so not having a job

and sitting in an apartment-sized Pretoria dish growing this bacteria 

these oozing musings

this sick little experiment called being an artist

has too many variables

see, we can't risk it, now

but having a plan B, is a lot like having no dream, at all

Teach me how to want something purely;

the distractions are the only bacteria that manifest long enough in me

am i product of sucking down the succulent abstract

and pissing away the concrete.

whiskey,

honey whiskey, i left at your house

just in case you miss me

and when you're drunk you text me

'i am the liquor, baby'

yeah, you my whiskey, honey

I was raised to be a good girl

i was raised to be a good girl

and i know the exact moment that flurried away 

in a haze of cliche teenage haste

my best friend and I flashed the main group of

"skater boys" at our high school.

we were instantly in.

remembering it 10 years later, boggles my mind how terribly teen-movie that sounds. 

The rest of my life I'd show flashes of myself to men,

but never as candidly as that fateful night. 

I had nothing to lose; everything to gain. 

What did I gain? 

A taste for the underaged

under matured

under achieved.

Thank you high school self. 

The thing is, you did have your shit together ... too together. 

Now, I walk the line through a burning ring of failure

fighting between the delightful complexes I beat into my cerebellum 

with high school then college then post-college blackouts

and tirelessly feeding impulse after impulse

falling apart without that sick sensation of almost losing it all but then ... keeping it. 

See the "keeping it" -- that's what we all crave. 

But some to perhaps most of us work on keeping "it" through safe, ego-perserving practices. 

because that actually make sense.

but the other lot of us, we want destruction.

 No, we crave it under conflicting cries of wanting to "finally not get fucked over" by other people. when we deliberately eat fuckups for breafast and puke them out for a second meal. 

how do we sort through such complexes to sift down to the bottom of what we actually want?

You see, i was raised as a good girl with good grades and good intentions.

the feeling of being bad is like eating dessert. 

We do the good stuff. Now, we don't even really want, we deserve, the bad. 

How truly fucked is that?

But, i think the trick might be finding someone else who's willing to be good, too, but bad with only you, together. because when we're bad, we're most vulnerable, fresh, raw, actual, 

and all of that, you see,

that's good.

I HAVE SEEN THE FACE OF THE FUTURE

I HAVE SEEN THE FACE OF THE FUTURE

and it is the fresh smile of a Mac Genius kid who was hired JUST a month ago and works at the West Towne Mall store. Despite the drab setting, hoards of baby boomers desperately trying to fit in by going to iPhone tutorials and general "dweebity" of the idea that a kid in a blue shirt who gets paid $11 an hour is some how a genius:

This kid was smart, likable, efficient, personable, and said "I think it's just my generation."

Well, done. Kid. Well, Done.

no, it wasn't this kid, heh

Values

a long day with little reward, i wait for you to get off work. sad because i knew i wanted you. happy because i had some small fraction of you. and a fraction, that's all i wanted. because i dont trust myself to handle much more than that.

you pick me up and ask if everything is OK. yeah, i coo, lightly, relatively.

we go to the brewery, where i step in a puddle and the fills my entire shoe. i take off my sock, in winter, and you offer me yours. this is after i gave you a paper token of my affection.

your affectionate gesture came in text form that day, and was light hearted. it usually bothers me, the lightheartedness of things i consider somewhat serious, but it didn't bother me. i smiled at my desk and read it, probably, 10 times.

it's late for a work night, we step into the brewery. new land. have two different beers.

you pay for them.
that probably indicates it's a date; but indicators are too fresh for us right now. neither of us like to admit things. kind of like a contest.

they close. we leave. back to your house. we sit. sip some insanely strong whiskey. i try to get drunk to be... unaware. it's not really working. we watch a Netflix show, that you like. I get into it. A power couple is displayed, and i get into it. but 2 a.m. rolls around and we're in bed.

and i think we had sex.
and i think it was good.
and i remember thinking, this is what sex is like sober with you?
yup, i had sex with you on valentine's day.
walked home the next morning in a skirt.
it was fucking cold. and the light was nice to my eyes.
and i wrote about you while sitting on the bed in my second story apartment.
and it was painless. but then again, when it gets painless, that's when I panic.

Let's just try to reset here.

i see him separately
under the pills

he forces an emotion for each situation
like picking an assorted candy at Halloween
each comes with a mask, masked

cuz if she were to ask, asked
he'd run out of packedged emotions
and for this one
the paints have spilled
the colors mix
like the itch to really say it
to really one day say it

cuz she's a fucking cunt
he'd much otherwise forget
in compartments, he keeps each part of her sepearte
cuz it's when they come together,
well
he remembers it from their first conversation:
ruin it before you get caught wanting it.

there isn't happy
there's only it's noun
cuz we think too fast to know what it is,
where it gurgled up from
until after the fact
and our brain confirms what we cannot bare
that was happiness
but there is never happy.

moment crushed

she thought

love's been so normalized

how can we expect the exception

something

isn't 

right

love doesn't follow suit

in wedding plans

and posed photos

love's a lifelong pursuit

we come close

and then it ends

but really what's the difference

between almost 

and

the end

.

i am not scared of dying alone

Summer of Love

i am not scared of

dying alone:

i'm scared of living until i'm 97 watching everyone else around me float away like the sun dipping below the horizon, the bright lights quieted, and each day i fall further through a constant darkness like alice falling through the rabbit hole, clocks with backward time guiding my way


im not scared of losing what i have

well, yes, i am

but im also scared of not getting it
what's it?

it ....might be everything. it.... might be nothing.

im scared of missing one thing x100 things -7 things to the third power.

i laughable equation but never the less.


i am scared of

reality

but i either do have it or i dont have it, but usually its mine to encapsulate and buidling it with something as brittle as an ego;



i am scared of staying in one place at one time and wanting people who aren't mine

im scared i can't complete a thought without an interjection

i am scared of missing one single possibility because someone said no, because a sign said dont, because of someone else's arbitrary rule.

Zap

lost in a world of my own makings

i 

am

still

here

Morchax, blood work

it's simpler, and it doesn't sound good:

Photo Credit: Joy Kowald

it's simpler
and it doesn't sound good:
people close to you die
and then youre dead, too
except
youre still expected to do all the trivial items someone alive does

put on underwear
obey stop lights
crack jokes at appropriate times

pretend table clothes are necessary
follow dead-end office protocols
agree, to get by
agree, to get through
agree, to make due
be ontime
be uptempo
be up
be on
be.

what defines the outlines of "a life"
was cracked open
and the lava flows freely
quick to burn & harden over

what defines me
suddenly gone
and it'd be great to make that into a simile
but it isn't "like" anything

i've been writing since i can remember
horizontal blue lines, 3 hole punches and a red vertical stripe down the side define my childhood
so why can't i write something for him
why cant i hit my head against the wall until my eyes bleed out a pathos
to pen some pitiful masterpiece

WHY AM I NOT SADDER
why does it only come out in spells of disillusionment, that this is not a joke or a dream or a made-for-tv series

i realize how i cannot realize it.
 that this is mine
but like any true fear
i've not owned, i've not admitted it is part of me,
i view it as a floating body lodged inside my lungs, now
but circulating from body part to body part

there is no difference anymore
there's nothing between me and consequence

no other consequence could ruin me this well
take residence inside me, eating my thoughts and belching out my sanity

everyone mistakes destruction for charm
when they're looking to be saved from the thick mediocrity of decency.

drunk off the day i drink it through my skin and puke it out in conversations

drunk off the day i drink it through my skin and puke it out in conversations, sleep off the overdoses ready for more, its not our ability to survive but our ability to live with the disease

--

Whenever i'm a lone

with you

lines like love strokes, i awoke 

chocked with the pencil's end

--

most people are born normal

but like toast for breakfast

you choose it

--

the only people for me are the ones so overcome with their thoughts they stop in the middle of a sentence and 

--

the type of sadness that swells up in my belly

robust 

it bloats the body

and starves the soul

the type of sadness empathy can't rationalize

a type only numbness can pacify

because there aren't days like this

how could there be

in the best country on earth

when the best is beating our souls to death

we minimalize 

we accept

a shooting spree

like a hurricane

its science

out of our hands.

--

i overdosed on meaning and that's that feeling

where the introspect becomes life or death

is this my life

is this my life

this is my life

keep saying it till the words blur out

till the background becomes foreground to the whitest, most middle-class saddest story

sitting in the car my mom gave me, a station wagon, but fuckin never the less

forehead pressed to the steering wheel like it's going to push me the right way -- like there are only two ways to veer

eyes closed -- they say silence is golden but that shit is a tarnished silver collecting dust in the cabinet 

sometimes we take it out when we're at nice dinners, contemplating sex and what's next in undertones of polite conversation

What I've learned as a Journalist. Part 1.

Weirdly enough, I've worked at a weekly newspaper for about 5 years now.

To makeup for the extremely low $ compensation, I thought, why not compile the intangibles... At the very least, it'll be a good mental exercise and, well, other people can learn from what I've learned, too.

Credentials

About 3 years with my college paper.

About 4 years with two different area newspaper groups in Southern Wisconsin.

My current job I started before I graduated college in spring 2010 -- I had a low class load, and I started at 29 hrs per week (Basically so they didn't have to give me health insurance :) )

I was hired on as a proofer/ web person/ reporter, in that order. Today, I get to be a Page designer/ repoter / web person / photographer, in no order. And, ta boot, I get to be 35 hours a week -- allowing for vacations, sick leave and insurance. Thus, making me in a much better place than when I started.

Now that the boring (yet neccessary) parts are out there; let's begin.

What I've learned as a journalist (Part 1)

1. If you tell someone you're a journalist at a newspaper they:

• Can't believe that profession still exists
• Assume you should know every "big word" all the time, even in colloquial language, which, by the way, that's a "big word," but trying to use "big words" is some leftover bullshit from high school english class. The whole point of journalism is to communicate information in an efficient and concise manner. So, instead of saying "There's a lot of cats," and saying "There's a myriad of cats," you've just made an asshole of yourself. But really, even using the term "a lot" means exceedingly less to me than acutally doing some investigating and quantifying things. "There's more than 100 cats." Boom. Better info. = you're not a fucking asshole. Now, you're actually smart, not simply trying to be.
• Of course, there's room for style and eloquence in jounalism (and all things) but only a fool uses two words when one will do. (Thomas Jefferson quote, paraphrased, I believe.)

2. People are amazing, but they're also amazingly horrible. 

• Amazing
• I've met more people than I can count who I admire to this day for having the courage to share their story and for just what they've accomplished/edured/ or  done. Or simply just because they've really got something to say. 
• Like the woman who quit her high-paying job at Epic and is now running a nonprofit for kids triathlons that also benefits local schools. Talk about an amazing way to raise and distribute money to something that matters. Check it out at tri4schools.org.
• Or the woman I met who literally walked form Arizona to Michigan. I repeat. She walked cross-country, capturing her journey on a camera attached to her head where people could follow her journey 24/7. Why'd she do it? Partially because it was for an art contest, but also to show the generosity of people and the myth that it so dangerous out there. During her journey, she was taken in by people, given free housing and meals, and she never came across any one who tried to mug her. Mind you, she also had a macbook pro strapped to her. Weird. I know. But true.
• A 6 year old with juvenile diabetes who didn't cry about it but kept positive. 
• A woman who raised more than $8,000 in two years for juvenile research
• A family who adopted 5 orphans from Russia and Ukrane
• Several pastors who gave me a new perspective on religion that's easy to be sarcastic about. It's not so easy anymore, though, sometimes it slips through ;)
• Two local kids -- Kyle and Keem --  who had a hit on the radio when they were barely 18. When asked what it's all for: They're moms, they both said.
• A woman who literally was dying from a degenerative disease yet was one of the most positive people I've met
• The list goes on and on and on, for me.
• Amazingly horrible; I think you guys already know enough about this, huh?

3. Everyone's grammar sucks sometimes.

• About 9 times out of 10 people (mostly in Facebook arguments) who comment that someone is stupid because they've used incorrect grammar, I can find something grammatically incorrect in the sentence they used to comment on this. 
• It's quite laughable... again. Don't be a dick. Everyone slips up here and there, uses the wrong your or whatever. People who act like they don't have bigger problems than grammar. 
• That opens up a bigger point that, there's always, always, always going to be someone out there who:
• is smater 
• found out about it before you did
• is more willing to spend a ridiculous amount of time just to put themselves in a position where they're "right"
• Here's a secret: We don't have knowledge to hold it over someone elses head or to use it as an ego equalizer. 
• We have knowledge so it can be shared. So be happy you have some to share, and stop being so goddamn condescending.  

4. If you want something; ask for it. 

5. Assume nothing. 

• Assume nothing. (Just about the only thing worth repeating, because it's that important.)

6. Nothing is certain; so don't promise something you can't deliver. 

• That's nothing new; but still stands as a good reminder. 

7. People will almost always give you want you want, you just...

• Have to know how AND when to ask for it. 
• Learn how to carry on a conversation that makes someone feel like they want to help you not because your minuplating them, but because you genuinely are communicating with them on all levels. 
• Have to know when to choose your battles.

 

affinity for the pure

there's a certain sacredness to when i first meet someone that rarely ever leaves my mind.

this is mostly only when it's a good experience in meeting them; a handshake, a laugh, something to be shared.

but it's when i first meet someone who holds my interest, that my perceptions want them to stay exactly as they were in that moment.

all of it has to do with looks; yet not with looks at all.
i dont know why.
it has nothing to do with the attractiveness of the person; because when i remember, recall someone fondly, their exact look is what becomes most beautiful.

even if they get skinner or prettier or sassier or "better"; i'll almost always look at them and wish they were how i remember them, because, simply, they couldn't get better. they cant get better through looks. they were already there, to me. so when they've changed, it feels like i've been cheated.

that someone is going to look at them and not see exactly what i saw -- but more so, that i'm going to look at them and  not see exactly what i saw. it's selfish, really, but maybe also flattering.

i have an affinity for the pure; one i can't seem to hold myself, yet find endearing in others.

Well...

Mania Symptoms

Mania symptoms may include excessive happiness, excitement, irritability, restlessness, increased energy, less need for sleep, racing thoughts, high sex drive, and a tendency to make grand and unattainable plans.

Depression Symptoms

Depression symptoms may include sadness, anxiety, irritability, loss of energy, uncontrollable crying, change in appetite causing weight loss or gain, increased need for sleep, difficulty making decisions, and thoughts of death or suicide.

What have you learned today?

i am obsessed with myself in a way that
a cat paws a mouse, injuring it, but always letting it live.
derailed and under the influence
franticly safe until killed finally feels better than the scramble.

Prey and be preyed on.
Take and be taken.
a constant pull,
i watch my own actions
after i make them
while i make them
downplaying consequence for invincibility
accepting invincibility as indifference
until emotions are no longer the Gods inside me
battling while the mortals take cover.

Never get up before noon

"WHEN YOU LEAVE YOUR TYPEWRITER YOU LEAVE YOUR MACHINE GUN AND THE RATS COME POURING THROUGH."

CHARLES BUKOWSKI, Notes of a Dirty Old Man

when this is your ideal man and you're 14 yrs old, you dont expect to grow up to marry an accountant or anyone, really…

Spring texted me. It said, "A/S/L?"

hours-old rain speckles the outside of the window

droplets glisten like self-contained secrets but are

stale with the scent of a spring who wont

let us fondle her supple branches

and her superior outline becomes a mirage in the city streets

found in lamp posts, soggy boulevards and empty porches.

she operates with a certain callous protocol

disingenuously convincing her admirers while they turn victim.

and she succeeds, with an amount of effort it takes to pull back a mouse trap

set it on the kitchen floor

and wait

we leap for the cheese

i mean, we are from wisconsin

and suddenly, there's hope in the destination

moments made with broken bones usually get a bad wrap but...

with april showers come may…

come what?

the promise of something else.

and

our bones turn brittle with the realization that we can't let her go,

or drift away like 

winter and summer somehow stuck a deal

when a blizzard pushed its way right into

a humidly hellish day in July

and did away with this anxiety-inducing bitch

who couldn't pick her poison 

or set a date

or send a save the date 

or be on time or even late

she doesn't take her time, she makes her own.

so

we cant take her seriously 

but still watch for a chance to

approach her at a bar

petrified

of her windsplitting curves like

she moves with the fluidity of

white, whipping sails across bows of

ships we'd never set sail with

she wraps her best up with her worst 

and that's what's so addictively angering about this sexy season

the worst dangerously transitions into her best

splattering her pleasures across the earth in such a fashion even jackson pollock 

would wonder if he stole her style, cock his head and…

well he couldn't say much really

except do his best not to fuck up a befitting bukowski quote,

revealing

 "i hated you when it would have taken less courage to love."

cuz when we're

waiting this long

for her 

loveless caresses drenching the surface, porous and willing,

her ill effects pooling up, still swirling with intentions of growth, warmth, renewal.

pursing her lips, she lays in bed, with her legs spread and

lets us love her

because she knows, she knows she'll never have to stay.