I’ll apologize now for flaking on you or for taking a break from whatever we’re doing to jot some stuff down. (See the above note about not being able to help it.) If I’m in the mood to write, I have to take advantage of it, especially when I force myself to write for pay all the time. Hell, I wrote one of my best poems half drunk waiting on the train while fumbling to roll a cigarette in anger. You just never know when it’ll strike.

—

Things You Should Know Before You Date A Writer

HA!  C’est vrai, mes amies…

Today I met a girl

Who loves British stuff as much as I do.  It’s a bit different - she’s never been to the actual country - but she is a true anglophile, we can always tell the genuines from the ones who think it’s trendy.  She has two Harry Potter tattoos, but they aren’t pretentious.  Her Iphone cover has a photo of Big Ben on it, and she wants to go party with Prince Harry.

“Have you ever studied abroad?” I asked.

“No, but I really am hoping to do the student teaching in London,” she replied.

“You absolutely have to,” I said.  I don’t know why I was being so encouraging and enthusiastic.  We’d only just met. 

I think it’s because I want to live vicariously through her.

“I’m trying to convince my parents to take us all there for my 21st birthday,” she told me.

“Yes,” I replied.  “You definitely should go.  Please, do it.”

Go.  Just fucking go.

Origins by Caroline Davidson

I am thinking about how to make a more resilient leather. I think dyeing goatskin with sumac does this. You are thinking about how to construct ruins. Constantine’s foot, for example. Huge severed marble ankle on which to pose for pictures. Are we not allowed to sit. This postcard of a tiny cat resting on his big toe lets you reflect on expanse and ownership. Still, I worry the pigeons will find us and chip away at our limbs. You wonder how to make skin flame-retardant and I say to hell with the cat postcards but I love them I love them look how small.

This cathedral we are standing in front of might collapse and become an acorn pile. All of its statues might dissolve. Expanse and ownership. So should I steal Constantine’s toe. The toe is too heavy to transport in hands. Seems cannibal to transport in mouth. Why are you turning. Why is your chest collapsing. Maybe from those cinder chips we ate; we thought they were crackers of origin. We needed a center again. Could we agree it is good to have a landing spot. A body of bread. Plaster torsos split by light.

A poem written by a friend of mine from college, Miss Carrie D

Origins by Caroline Davidson

Grecian Isle

Sitting by the pool

I can hear jazz playing softly

As you knelt down beside me,

Your trousers matched the terra cotta tiles

Your eyes, green as wind-swept fields at night.

The sky was three different shades of blue above us

You asked me, have I loved before?

“No sir, I have never experienced love

Would you care to show me?”

And you pointed to the stars above,

Told me to pick one

And I did.

You kissed me,

Not once,

But twice

And said you’d kiss me again

For every star in the sky.

You said when you finished,

Your love for me would end as well

And I looked up,

Smiled to myself;

For this man beside me

Would love me forever…

(Circa 2004)

Winter Thoughts

The morning rain

Makes the sky a majestic blue

The smell of freshly-dewed earth

Lingers in the air,

Reminds me of summers past.

Like waking up for summer camp,

Making chalk drawings on the sidewalk

The kiddie pool that costs ten dollars -

This is summer.

Walking with your best friend

To the outskirts of town

Seeing just how far you’ll go

Until you turn back, with uncertainty.

Fourteen and still swinging on swings

Why not?

Let’s get ices instead…

The only time we can walk around barefoot

Outside

Until the sky turns orange.

Bubble-gum ices drip down your fingers

Makes your skin slightly pinker

And filmy, sticky,

As you walk home in the dark.

It’s still warm out -

Stars dot a cloudless sky…

This is summer.

Circa 2003

Makin' Out

Makin’ Out

Let’s make out,

Remember?

Like when we were kids,

When everything was new,

Everything electrifying.

Let’s make out,

Wanna sneak up to my room?

Silently intertwining,

Forgetting all the world,

Praying to God no one walks in.

Let’s make out,

Fully dressed,

Hips rubbing together,

Bodies hard-pressed,

Tongues tangled, hair messed.

Let’s make out,

I want to savor and devour,

Those full, supple lips,

I want to taste your flavor,

Hot, wet, in my mouth.

Let’s make out,

Climb on top of me,

Run your hands all over me,

Breathe my breath for me,

Pleasure and adore me.

Let’s make out,

Because I just want to be kids today,

It’s our last real chance,

Save the serious for tomorrow,

Right now, I just wanna make it out.

- Erin Matthews

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.
Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 a.m. clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

—

Rosemarie Urquico

(ps I am totally this girl)

She’ll Never Know This is for Her

ourtwistedrenaissance:

She spills her guts
all over her keyboard,
revealing all her
insecurities and
secret desires.
It can sometimes be
difficult to decide
when a girl is
craving attention
or just really
fucked up
and lonely,
but I feel like
I know her,
even though I don’t,
which might make me
a creep, I haven’t
decided.

(via myboxofchocolate)

(via dearprongs)

NIGHTNIGHT by DEDDY