the hungry ghost behind the crunch sound

Jess on November 15, 2007

this is just another bad poem from a mediocre author
who finds peace in life by meditating on the sound
of the clack clack clack of keys on whatever new toy
shes purchased to sedate the melancholy of another winter
and its not so bad because i have seen other poets steal
from the crunch sounds of leaves in the fall
watching their feet as they walk just to remind themselves
we are all above the earth, this death is all below us
and we are taught to survive–to live on like death
is escapable, as though we are but sailors and
the fata morgana of tomorrow is not an illusion at all.
rather, life is worth more than you knew when you took it,
or life is worth nothing more than what existence is worth
what your essence is defined by —
that hole you put in the left side of your skull
and the pieces of your brain that we cleaned from the walls;

so today i stole some parking from a city nearby cos i had no change and
then i borrowed the physical presence of a stranger
cos i need not feel lonely about this anymore and
while we waited for some food i kept the stories to myself
because i’m terrified to buy into the new myth
that we are not dying but surviving, that every sad phone call
is just a dormant cycle in a season much larger than us
comprised of our death and our life which are only figments
of an annal which is much larger than one annual incarnation

but you will not be reincarnated, and just in case
everything i’ve ever believed in turns out to be wrong, again,
i leave carnations in that ugly vase by your grave
so when you wake you have something to salivate for

, guess i should have heard of that from you.

Jess on November 15, 2007

last night i slept with an eye mask on as is sometimes my custom, esp when i have a migraine which i started to get last night. i really enjoy sleeping with eye masks because it reminds me of great memories with cara but also because i sleep much more soundly as there is really no light changes throughout the night.  and i don’t wake up at 7 a.m. and just lay there for an hour only to fall back asleep at 8 and be really exhausted and unrefreshed by the time that 8:40 rolls around and my alarm goes off.  (that doesn’t happen till 8 and by 8 it’s fine cos there is really no time to fall back to sleep).  funny part, i dreamt i slept until 1:12 p.m.  Oh yes.  I fully had a dream that I woke up and was like “what time is it?” and looked at my clock and it said 1:12.  So then I was like “well that sort of sucks. but i guess everything can be okay. i can get this and this and this all done now.”  then i realized that perhaps the time thing was all a farce.  so i moved my eye mask and looked at the clock again, for real this time, to discover that i was still perfectly on track for a responsible day.  what a nice surprise.

my presentation at washburn went well last night.  there was some discussion generated which was good.  and now i just need to get my grad school applications done.  oh my my.  i need to write about why i’d be a diverse addition to the minnesota student body or else i just need to edit my purpose statement.  i don’t feel very diverse. or at the very least i feel like this is some bullshitty administrative crap that i shouldn’t even bother applying for because they don’t actually want to encourage diversity. agh.

An ear for baby if you need it

Jess on November 5, 2007

So I’ve had like five migraines in six weeks and I’m not even sure why.  The thing about it all is that a year ago I was far, far more stressed out than I am now.  And right now I actually feel pretty relaxed about everything, classes are going well.  Interpersonal relationships are good.  I’m getting along with my parents, seeing more of my brother than before and better than all of that they’re all getting along with each other.  So why, then, does that spot behind my eye feel like it’s going to explode 1/7th of the time.  I’m not sure, but I have a hunch that it could be distant stressors.  Things like grad school coming, a relationship being taken to the next level for the first time.  Weird stuff.  I’m not sure what it is but it’s something different.  At least I finally have a decentish medicine that works 75% of the time to keep me functioning.

Kyle’s been in town all weekend which is nice.  He’s been right that it’s fixed things.  I just wish that he was around like all the time.  Because I’ve never really had a boyfriend that I’ve just liked this much.  And I’m glad that I finally do.  I wish I had someone around for lunch dates or back rubs or movie nights or even just someone to curl up next to when the day is over.  But I don’t, and I think that’s probably okay too.  I remember last semester I really appreciated having the time to get to know myself.  I’d write about how even though Kyle was far away when I wanted him here, it was nice to get to spend time with friends and not have that daunting issue of boys and girls and dating kind of looming over every conversation.  I should just try to look at it that way still.  Cos it’s nice to have this life that’s just full of friends and good times without much concern about dating.

i've been learning to write different poetry

Jess on November 3, 2007

i’ve been dancing in the streets
to songs you don’t know
with hair too crazy to be kept
under any sort of hats
and a neck just perfect
to wear the longest scarves,

i’ve been looking for you
in places i know you won’t be
and i’m learning to let myself be
happy a word i heard
from a tongue so foreign
though not unlike your own

Playing house

Jess on October 31, 2007

I just found a shopping list of kyle’s while looking for a pen so i could enhance my studying. I miss my boyfriend soooo much.

In the last chapter of the first volume

Jess on October 28, 2007

Today was my cousin’s baby’s birthday so my mom and dad and I trucked it to Rossville to spend some time at the party.  Any loyal follower knows one thing about me… I love my family especially in all of its extended wonderfulness.  I love it which means that I’m pretty damn excited to get to spend some time with them.  It’s also awesome now that there’s little kids around.  I think the last three holidays I haven’t put little Nate down.  And today, I was bummed that he’s walk/scooting around so he gets fussy when he’s held for too long.  But he’s at a cute age where he likes to play with trucks and other badass toys for little boys that my cousin uses to force hegemonic masculinity on him and his brother 🙂 right.  So there’s all kinds of cute stories I could relay… like the “ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha” faked laughs of a one year old on his birthday, or how he clapped for every gift that he liked and how he clapped through the cake eating after stuffing his mouth with a huge piece of cake, it was simply adorable… but this is more about a realization that I had  about this being basically the last random holiday that i’ll be around for.

It’s weird and sort of sad that next year I might not even make it home for Thanksgiving and certainly not for a second birthday.  It’s strange to watch all of these chapters in my life come slowly to a close and me left completely unsure of what the next chapter will hold.. or even what the setting is.  This is like a choose-your-own-adventure book where the control I have over the plot only seems to be of my choosing.  Really, I’m antsy because i want to know where I’ll get into grad school, where I’ll get money, and where Kyle and I will end up in a year.  So frustrating not to know.  I’m going to be the weird academic in my family who moved away, the one who waited to start a family, the one with a doctorate.  i’ve always been fairly different from these people but i mean, you can tell that they’re just a little weirded out by what i plan to do.  ahh.  it’s strange.  I’m excited to go wherever my plans take me this time though.  Unlike this same process in high school, I’m so happy that my life is going to go somewhere awesome.  I’m excited for the next step.  And I’m not even paralyzingly afraid of change.

That that don't kill me

Jess on October 28, 2007

I’m done with the protected posts for at least another few hours. Everything is fine, I just needed to rant a little bit over that thing where Kyle doesn’t like to talk on the phone (a truth that only emerges when he’s been bad about talking on the phone). Then, I needed to post a follow up which involves about the sweeteset e-mail I’ve gotten in a while. Now, I’m mentally reflecting on whether or not a “And they lived happily ever after” at the end of Romantic Comedies might teach boys that we really mean for them to act like our knight in shining armor even after they get some play. But everytime I try to word it, it hurts the feminist in me. I guess, I just think that the funeral for romance is the harbringer of death in a relationship. I know that things get hard… and I’m fine with that, I think it makes the romance more sweet. I just also know that everyone observing it from the outside knows Joe and I broke up because there was no romance between us. On either side. And I don’t want that to happen with Kyle. He’s about the most like my dad that I’ve ever met. And I know for a fact that my mom still gets flowers just because sometimes and that my dad still tells her she’s beautiful and all of these other things. I made the decision a year ago that I wasn’t going to settle for a friendship in the form of a relationship.

I want a million roses and a marching band.

Distance has no way of making love understandable

Jess on October 26, 2007

I hate being this far away from Kyle.  We’ve both been really busy this week, or mostly since Wednesday, he’s been really busy this week and I feel like I hardly get to speak to him.  The worst part is that because we live seven hours away that whole talking-on-the-phone thing is extremely important to keeping our relationship well-oiled.  I hate being lonely when I have a boyfriend.  So that’s my opinion on that, basically.  Just that I wish that we could just make regular time for each other, so I’d have something to look forward to instead of having to go out to fill the time in which we would usually be talking to each other. Our relationship has also hit that point where it’s now a little bit hard. 

On the phone the other night we had a very tense discussion about a lot of things including travel and finances.  It’s frustrating for me because I wasn’t planning on having to plan my life around someone else at age 21.  But, I love him, and I love him now, so it’s alright that I have to.  There’s things that I’ve ruled out because of him as far as moving away goes and there’s certainly a disadvantage to trying to live by ourselves next year because it’s going to be so expensive no matter where we’re going.  He says a lot that it’ll be really expensive to move these places and I know that he’s right but I don’t think he understands how discouraging that is for me.  My parents said that to me over and over during my undergraduate school-picking process and as a result I ended up at Washburn on the promise to myself that I’d put whatever money I needed to into my graduate degree.  And I’m really afraid that he’s going to talk me out of it because of money.  Mostly, when he brings it up, I just get really bizarrely defensive about it because I want to go where I can get the best degree or the best major professor or whatever.  I want the best education I can, and I’m not willing to let someone come in the way of that but I know how I feel about him and I know that my heart really would let him come in the way of that.  I guess I just leave the ball in his court and hope that he won’t pull that card.

It’s also difficult cos I’m not willing to be away from him for another year.  Especially if I move somewhere really far away like Boston.  I’m not opposed to the idea of taking a year off so that one or more of us can work and I can live in Kansas City for a while and maybe we could save up and have a wedding… but that’s sort of a bad option for him cos what would he end up doing after that, plus I’d lose my mom and dad’s insurance so it would sort of force a wedding, assuming he had insurance at whatever job he got if i didn’t at mine.

 When it comes down to it, I’m so excited to have him to take with me.  It’s just hard to adjust to this having some reason to not be selfish about major life decisions.  I think that’s the kind of selfishness that we’re allowed… we go where’s best for us in hopes of finding other people who have the same interests as us and hopefully they’ll be whats best for us.  But I already know he’s best for me.  I already know that even though its hard now and we fight a little more when we’re together because we want it to be easier to be apart that I want it to be hard with him only.  Cos it would be hard with anyone, right?  And there’s just not a single other person in the world that compares to how he treats me.  I believe that.  I feel like I’ve grown up a lot in the last year, and realistically, I have.  But I’m pretty sure we’re also still twenty-one and invincible.