duels.

believe in the gnarled pieces of metal blown into the bodies of soldiers...

i believe we all carry our own shrapnel in one way or another...



let's fight this war of words with long drawn out phrases like "emotionally unavailable" and "fear of the unknown" and "it's not you, it's me"

let's challenge each other to a duel with swords drawn and engraved in the solid steel are the words "prophetic" and "microscopic" and "feeble" and "coward"...

let's pretend this house...is a battlefield, and we're standing on the front lines and we've both got arrows pointed at the other's heart...and on the tips of each arrow are announcements such as "i'm letting go" and "i have to hold on"...

let's make sure our blood spills in pools and spells out the lines in the paragraphs of the story that forms when we are all broken open...

for fear of each other...for love of one another...

because we do not know...what we can't feel...

and we can't feel what we won't let ourselves...

a duel to damn me...

a duel to perhaps save us all...

a duel, because scars can only be corrected when you rip the wound wide open and sew it up again...

the right way...

whats wrong.

being scorned and saved and slipping down the monotone tunnel all in the same breath...because i'm the poor man's princess...i'm the ice storm version of lady madonna...

i haven't got wrought iron fences around me, you just don't know how to work the latch...

i'm hanging on by a cable that's connected to nothing...

and everything...

procure this

when gentle angels become notches in bedposts and operettas become lyrical monstrosities...

bert's unibrow like the caterpillar who metamorphosises into the butterfly i wish i could become...

screaming my mothers name through a net of spittle...to come out sounding like a baby babbling blah blah ma...

i'm sparing those false idols i yearn to slide my time card into...punch the holes and mark the time so that i know how long i've yet to suffer...

how long until i'm spared...

felating the drunken dreams of making children with men who don't love women...and are more broken than i can speak of...

we're damned...

you and i will always be the same...made up of the same stuff no matter where we are...

and i want to be the hero of children who don't yet have conscious thought...

if only i were influence...

if only you were under the influence...

if only you and i didn't mix like oil and vinegar...

tasting great together, but we'll end up separating...we can't hide inside each other...

when the chamber finally breaks us down...only then...will we become the carbons and hydrogens and oxygens...

and we can finally see what we're made of...

piece of a letter.

I read Sedaris to make myself smile. And most of the time, I feel like hurting myself. Yanking a cuticle off sometimes doesn't do the job. And I don't smoke anymore. I find myself wanting to get lost in empty unfulfilling relationships, just so I have someone to tell my life's story to. The only problem, I'd probably have to hear theirs.

Selfish? A bit.

I itch from the inside of my skin. Have since I was a kid. The worst itch is the one that you can reach, and need a chainsaw to scratch.

I want to be the next Sally Ride.

I wish I could let loose on the mic the way my heart speaks in beats and measures and I wish my middle name didn't sound like serial killers slicing through muscle. NICOLE - rip - tear - slice -

I wish life were like a Woody Allen movie, and I want the soundtrack to be the music two people make when they fall deeply in love. I wish love really did conquer all. I wish doves were exposed for what they really are. White pigeons. I wish I didn't bruise so easily. I wish for black eyes that I earned and one's that I did not. People think the sum of one and one is two. But it's me and you. And that's one too many.

I once taught tennis to a 3 or maybe 4 year old named Luca...who had curly blonde hair and a laugh that threw all caution to the wind. I thought "that's what angels look like". But he never saved me. He just smiled. And laughed. And ran wildly as a breeze formed in his curly hair.

Then again...maybe he did save me.

B.

the shoe is ugly as hell...but it sure fits well.

i'm going to stop pardoning myself for my flaws.

i need to laugh more and sulk less often...

i need to branch out.

share the wealth.

take care of someone else because i've already got my own act together.

okay, maybe not now.


but soon.

A.

A.
i woke up this morning, and knew things.

mysteries my heart had yet to unearth...

were finally showing themselves.

and the things i still don't know, i'd like to.

but it doesn't bother me as much anymore.

a thought.

like a shard of glass, i'll capture and reflect the most beautiful light.

but only if held a certain way.