There was a meteor shower last night. While I saw a number of meteors - long ones that streaked across the sky and small ones that fell across the edges of my vision - there was one that stood out to me. It was sometime after 12 and I was laying on my back. Alisha was asleep; Conny heading there. At the bottom of the bowl, who knows? It had been quiet for some time, just me and my thoughts, when a meteor shot across the sky. The trail behind it was blue on the edges, white on the inside and yellow in between. Behind it, there was a crackling tearing sound, like a cloth being ripped up.

It was the sound of that one meteor that got to me. It was a beautiful sight, but as it disappeared, I imagined the sky being torn in two in its wake. A small rip in the sky where I thought that stars wouldn't grow again. I imagined it like a patch of salted earth for some reason, the stars like sprouted seeds. I raised both hands above my body, outstretched, open. I didn't lower them for sometime, instead I twisted them back and forth, moved them a bit like a swimmer using short strokes.

Sleep-befuddled, I thought that if I reached far enough, I could grasp the edges. It would feel like a cool, age-softened cloth I decided. I was either going to close the gap or pull myself though, but I can't remember which. Suddenly, my arms fell back to fold on my chest. I closed my eyes in something that wasn't a blink, but also wasn't a concession to sleep.

When I opened them again, the meteors were flying across the sky with more frequency. I watched until the lights reached a small peak, after which I fell asleep for good.

Alright, I'm just wondering here, but who else would like to see a Werewolf Detective Agency? I mean, c'mon, there's a lot of potential there. I can just picture the first episode:

I hadn't even had time to sit and have a cup of coffee before the door swung open. A thin man stood framed in the dim light from the hall. Angrily, he stalked to my desk, slamming a pale hand down. "I want you to find out who killed me!"

Great. A zombie. Well, at least I don't have to worry about anyone dying on my first case.

And another episode:

She was...wow. She was just my type. Tall, dark and beautiful. Her pretty eyes were filling up with tears as she looked across the desk at me. "My husband's been missing for the past few days," she started, "And I was wondering...you're the only detective in our price range..." She trailed off as a well of tears began. My mind was racing. A husband, huh? Well, if he was dead, I might be able to still make a move. Pillar of support and all that...

Wordlessly, she pulled a photo out of her purse and handed it to me. "Jack." she whispered. The moment I looked at the picture, I knew this was going to be a sour deal. I knew the fellow. More to the point, I'd eaten him last full moon.

(Evidently this is a bit of a film noir...)

But couldn't you see it? An all-night detective agency in the middle of a big, unnamed city, dealing in the mundane and the supernatural? A normal crime here, solved by simply using a keen sense of smell, another here solved by infiltrating a small, but deadly werewolf pack. Then trying to balance a normal life in there somewhere. Friends that cross species, pack wars, species wars, police entanglements, romance...

Why hasn't anyone done this? I remember one sort of like it for vampires, but it sucked so massively hardcore I wouldn't even watch it for the lulz. Is it because no one likes the werewolves?

Please, werewolves all the way. Vampires are over-loved anyways, and, hello? Remus Lupin anyone?

Hooray for favorite characters being minor ones!

I'm not much of the hating sort. Sure, I'll say that I hate something, but at most I really dislike it.

However, when it comes to the Linganore High School guidance department: HATE.

Really. I just found out that they lost my final transcript form and I can't come in tomorrow to fix it because students aren't allowed in after today. But I'm not a student anymore. I'm done with high school. Aargh.


On the bright side, I've found this old disney movie with a singing Christian Bale. It's odd and insane and awesome all at the same time...

It's all these slow days and nights
that make me feel as though
time has melted into a thick pool.
I never know anymore when
tomorrow becomes today or yesterday
or even the day before.

I don't believe that there's anything
outside of myself anymore.
I believe that there is nothing left
but a dark haze outside of my window.

But inside, inside you are here with me.
Inside my mind and body there is nothing
but life and sunshine and
you and I stretched languidly forever.


Meh. Trying to get out of a slump. I need to write some more. I don't particularly like this, but I feel I should keep it in case I get something from it later.

I don't mind sunburn. At all.

It's the blisters that are on my shoulders that I mind.

Curse you white skin. Curse you.

So I'm working on my entry for the Sheetz poetry contest, and here's as far as I've gotten:

driving down a 3AM
stretch of moonlight
when it seems like the sun will
never kiss the horizon again
and there's no one for company
except the thieves and the sandman

and the world feels like
the loneliest place on Earth,

your dreams begin to whisper
your name and beckon you closer,

there's nothing to wake you up
like the dark velvet taste
of just brewed coffee,
steaming and keeping
the sleep at bay


It's not done and I hate the last stanza, but I wanted to type it out to see what it looked like and to work out some of the spacing...

Sometimes, I really really really hate my dad. Today is one of those sometimes, without a doubt. After coming home from Sarah's house, I took a three hour nap, no biggie, and then when I woke up I did some chores. After that, I was supposed to go upstairs and fill out some forms we had just gotten from college/take the foreign language exam online.

Between the chores and the forms, me and him were cooking some cheap Hot Pockets knock offs (which, incidentally, tasted better). Right as they were done cooking, my mom came home, and my dad decided that it was a good time to get angry because she hadn't done any housework yet. As he was yelling, he told me to get out of the dining room/living room if I wanted to eat at all. So, I ran off to my room to eat as unobtrusively as possible.

A few minutes after I was done with the food, I was told to come upstairs to do the forms. I sat on the computer and tried to get started, but he was looking over my shoulder. No matter what I'm doing, be it typing, soccer, swimming, speaking, using the remote, driving, I do it 1,ooo,ooo times worse with him watching me, because no matter what I do when he watches me, it's wrong and dumb anyway. Now, because he was mad, I was trying to keep my distance because being close to him when he's mad just makes him madder.

Well, that didn't work because when he asked why I kept backing off, I decided to tell him. That made him pissed off at me rather than at my mom, so he decided to basically tell me that every finical problem this family was going to have in the next five years is my fault because I picked a school that costs a year pretty much what my dad makes.

Well, I suppose that it's a good thing that with all the finical aid I'm getting, we need to pay about 6,ooo-8,ooo dollars (I can't get the math exact.)

But that brings me to the points of interest 1) We never talked about this. He never mentioned this to me. Maybe if we had talked about the money situation besides letting me assume we are on the high side of poor, maybe something better would have come. 2) I begged him in April to let me apply Spring semester Maryland and forget about Washington, but he didn't. Finally, 3) I applied to two more colleges that he knows about (for some reason, everything in my house is furtive.) and they were fairly cheap. However, I didn't get into them. I don't know why. I've got fine grades, a participate in a load of stuff, a lead 2 clubs...

So, needless to say, I started crying. It doesn't help that he used the tone of voice that always makes me cry, no matter if he's yelling at me or my mom. After crying in my room for a little bit, he tells me to come upstairs and we'll finish. I was a red eyed, still crying mess, but I guess he didn't notice. About five minutes into everything, I ask if I can take the foreign language placement test later because I didn't think I could really concentrate in that state. In response, he tells me to get away from him and basically makes fun of me for crying, and then yells at me for it as I'm stumbling down the stairs, trying to apologize.

So now I'm in my room really hoping that he doesn't try to talk to me again today. I want him to leave me alone.

Today was really fun, not gonna lie. I spent the whole day out with a friend trying to flirt with some guy she likes over texts. It wasn't working out so well (he was sending mixed messages to her) so we called out Big Sis (A teacher named Mr. Egan) for aid. After he hung up though, his wife called back to give much more sage advice.

"Sweetie, sweetie, just kick him to the curb if he's going to treat you like that."

I adore Mrs. Egan. I wish she was a guidance counselor at our school. Man, I'd have gotten her as mine too! She does Middleton's A-H (I think).

And in between it all we watched Sweeney Todd. I still haven't seen the last 20 minutes of that movie...

And we ate some really delicious Pakistani food. It was soooo good. I felt a little out of place, though, because everyone was speaking Urdu. It wasn't a big deal, I'm just very nosey and like to know what people are talking about.

I'd make a good planetarium!

Or not, because I can't keep most secrets.

Aah well.

I remember how to swim.

I remember learning
deep in the womb,
back when everything
was the color of sunsets.
The networking of veins were
pulsing like the currents of the ocean,
softly telling me what to do
when water touched my skin
and slowly rose above my head.

I remember how to swim.

On Deceiving Gravity

When one is attempting
to run down a sheer cliff,
one must know
that it is simpler
than one might think.

There is one thing
that one must do,
and it is quite easy

(once one gets
the hang of it,
of course).

One must,
in effect,
simply go faster
than gravity.

If one can out run that,
why then, running
down a straight drop
without falling to a certain doom
becomes easier and easier.

And once one has
mastered this particular
little talent,
one can start learning

how to run up.


Egg

There was an egg,
small and perfectly formed,
in the lake today.

It had a beigeish
speckely color
to it, and it
fit in the palm
of my hand
with room to spare.

And I don't think
I've ever held something
so cold.

I don't know what I
was expecting.

A burst of warmth,
perhaps.
Or maybe a sudden
twitch, like
a nearly drowned swimmer
about to expel
everything in his lungs.

In the end,
I simply let the
cold thing slip back in.

After all,
floating in the water,
I've found,
is the closest thing
we've got here

to flying.

Better Run For Your Life

I was gliding down
a dark road last night,
the pavement like liquid,
on my boat made of stars.

The figurehead of a
half naked woman
held a lantern out.
In it, I could see the moon,
held up by the thin
arms of grasshoppers,
but only when I looked
sideways and sidelong.

It lit nothing.
The moon was not
full that night.

The dirge of the sails
and the keening of the ropes
could bring tears
to your eyes
if only you could have
understood them
the way I do.

"If only you could have
even bothered to learn
how to cry,"
Matthew says as he
still faces the ways we came.
He never says who
he is looking for.
(Forgive me, I didn't know
we weren't alone,
you and I).

The silver bead eyes
of the dolphin figurehead
reflected nothing
(was it something before?
I cannot recall.).

You're crying.
No. I'm crying
while Matthew watches
and you watch him.
He offers me a feather,
never taking his eyes
off the way we came.

You offered me nothing,
but there's nothing here.
Nothing here is yours.

A man steps onboard
and finally Matthew looks up.
Wordlessly, the two of them
step off the boat
made of crow feathers
and hollow bones
(was it something before?
I cannot recall.).

We watch them
run across the water
like men running for their lives.

"We are," Matthew says,
"You should try it."

Now we are alone,
on this boat gliding down
a river that looks like
wet pavement on an
early spring night.

My legs are tired
but I want to run.

An Everything Sailor

I think sometimes,
we have a lot of everything
inside of us
just piddling around
looking for something to do.

My grandfather once
told me
I've got shipbuilding
in my bones,
and the ocean
for my blood.
And that it's not
for me to decide
what I'm going to do
or who I am-
It's all in the family.

And sometimes,
that everything can
manifest itself
in ways we never
thought much about.

My fingers are clumsy
with the tools of the trade,
my attention wandering
and there are only so many
bandages one can put
on their smashed fingers.

I mean, when
you think about it,
everything can do anything,
right?

Someday, I tell myself
in the mornings,
I'll get out of here
and find something I'm
good at, not something
that's just tradition.
But then I have to wake up
and smell the sawdust.
I pick up the sand paper
and get back on the job.

And if that's true,
then sometimes everything
can't do anything at all.

I've always wanted to sail
on the boats we build.
Sometimes I think
that it's not shipbuilding
in my bones,
but the ship itself,
all gunwales and rigging
hoisting up the great
sail of my skin.
My blood is still the ocean,
however.

But I figure
it's only a matter of time
before the everything comes out,
because everything is
just too much to hold
in one lone body.

Unto the salt seas
I am bound for to go
~
Last two lines are from "Farewell Nancy" sung by Ed Harcourt on the Rouge's Gallery CD.

Beat Mimicry

I can hear your heartbeat mimed
in the insects' cadence
outside my window,
lulling me to sleep
with perfectly
subdued voices.

And I can hear it
when I press my ear
to the ground 'neath my feet-
but only in spring,
and only when I am alone.

It thrums out loudly,
matching the throbbing
of my temples

and the feeling
of the waves
racing to beat out
tides and the moon
and everything
that's happened before
in an ocean miles away.

Do you want to know something annoying? Most people in high school that write poetry believe that what they write is great. And I suppose it's true. If you replace the word "great" with the words "black like my heart and life."

I guess it's mean of me, but I'm getting really sick of teens and their emo-writings. Okay, your boyfriend left you. That's unfortunate, but doesn't leave you with gulfs of unanswered feelings, waves of loneliness and rivers of tears every night that lap at your misery.

And, really kiddies, you aren't that alone.

Cut my wrists and black my eyes.

And you know, I'm not the best writer I could be yet, but I feel entirely justified critiquing these wankers because, in all honesty, I am pretty good at what I do, and I have a minor sense of what is good and what just sucks.

Or maybe I should just stop looking for sites to post my poetry. I've got DevArt and a few other sources, so I should leave it at that.

Reading things from all-teen sites generally just makes me feel depressed for the future of poetry.

Cherche-moi
dans l'eau,
les mains comme
une priere-
ensemble,
séparé,
ensemble,
séparé.

Là, où je trouve
le bruit hypnotique
de les ondulations
a le même de
fend le coeur
frappe de le coeur
de les étoiles
à minuit,
avant ils tombent.

Look for me
in the water,
my hands like
a prayer-
together,
apart,
together,
apart.

There, where I find
the hypnotic sound
of the waves
the same as
the heartbreaking
heartbeat
of the stars
at midnight,
before they fall.

Rainy Day

Let me enter a world
where nothing rhymes

with you.

Where it's just you and me
and the rain scattering across the roof
and splashing against
our skin as we lie together

in the emptiness of my room
with all the windows in the house
open to the floods as they come

as we lie there
making up words
that lie quick
on our tongues.

~~~~

Following the Breadcrumbs

the whorls
of thousands of river's
eddies

seem to shape our
footprints
as we meander along
here this stretch of life,

moving as we do,
so haphazardly hapless
leaving little stones
of Ritalin to line
our paths home in
the dark-

only to find,
after we've woken, that
all along
they were simply
breadcrumbs