i never learned to ride a bike
my middle name is Jelly Roll (as in Jelly Roll Morton the jazz musician)
i had a perfect score on my SATs
i'm a published writer
i once convinced myself and my friends for a long period of time that i was allergic to potato chips and couldn't eat them
i'm a genetic mutant
i don't own or drive a car
my height varies drastically
i like the smell of onions
people sometimes accuse me of smelling like the frosting on cinnamon rolls
i had the 3rd highest GPA of my graduating class at university
i've crossed the equator
sometime my unkempt pinky nails get so long and out of control that they actually start to curl
my eyes occasionally change color
my hair has been almost every color of the lucky charms rainbow (and then some)
i can write backwards (but i can't spell words without first writing them down)
i despise cold coffee

any guesses?

as we click the lines, closed. and i put on that song you sent me a week ago that i've neglected to download and queue and stop the god damned world for approximately 5 minutes to, actually, listen. i fall into a memory of falling into your arms somewhere i can't quite place, now, in the maps of our life after you moved from the apartment you accidentally called ours. once. over the phone. some asphalt late on the way home from nowhere special when you were angry with me for being stupid and i was angry with you for wanting me to be less so. children. we were. both. holding hands and swinging on the way to the market. day lights fading and whiskey on our minds. just like children. stuck together with the realization of something bigger than themselves. ready and not yet ready. soon. soon. ready to grow.

under the bed. bruised and confused. full of turpentine and rope burns. i shudder. awake. cry for help. but he's already gone.

going to be late for work again this morning.

i'm listening to too much bjork and dot allison. and reading ancient egyptian poetry about human geography. and it's all getting mixed up in my mind. when i sleep. i hear allison moaning about pomegranates and the sound of your voice and being forgiven.

the other night, i turned into an alien. and threw all the pictures of you out the window and into the parking lot. and laughed like someone had just set fire to the president. cool like. and satisfied. i screamed like a woman who knows what it feels like to have meat between her teeth. and imagined all those reproductions of you meant something. to someone. more than confetti dreams and the consequence of circumstance and damn good fucking sex.

with a little courage. in time. you might forgive me.

Fuck that. No. Don't forgive me. Seriously. Buy the cd and a box of tissues and write me a letter 9 months too late about all the reasons you think I'm a rotten excuse for a human being.

I've got to go find some birds to sing to.

Hero.

dear maslow,

we need you.

Hochachtungsvoll,

imogen

i drown myself in your ligaments. suck sinews for oxygen. face to skin suffocation. grasp limbs for air like fists nights fighting sheets. sleep regrets and the things that only disappear. from vision without enough light. in your regret. i steep foolish and longing. for windpipes and the exhalation that makes sounds into words that would disappear if you weren't there. to hear. with or without the light.

seeker of visions

what does this mean.
to see walking men
wrapped in the color of death,
to hear from their tongue
such difficult syllables?
are they the spirits
of our hope
or the pale ghosts of our future?
who will believe the red road
will not run on forever?
who will believe
a tribe of ice might live
and we might not?

--Lucille Clifton

it's snowing

there's that thing, she says, that thing that makes bats fly sideways and that makes train whistles blow late into the night. things that make the world seem less like swimming through a constant stream of turpentine and the memory of shark's fins against toe nails. i've spent the night with a butterfly in the stomach of a great white making daisy chains. tapping out songs on soft insides of a belly wall. this won't be the last time i outline the shape of your face with fire against the side of an abandoned building. or scream your name from the 9th street bridge. to the tune of the trains running on rails and the flash of the flame when it's hot. that thing, she says, slowly audible like the am radio station in your adolescent parent's car, something about a horse with no name, that thing. she wants to scream. above the wheels against iron and the infinite abyss. but even if she scrambled and fell. that thing. that thing. would around your ears soundless fall. to crack and strain like a voice full up on sickness. you couldn't ever see.

There's something about the presence of good friends. Like putting on a favorite movie when you're sick or the world feels too complicated and you don't have to think because you know the plot and the lines. You can forget about all the hard stuff and get lost in the familiarity. The safety. The laughter of it all. And you don't have to worry about suddenly losing it. Because even at your worst tired moments alone, you can put it back on all over again. And everything really will be okay.

Thanks PLG.

28 days gone. Window pane cool. Hot skin. Nights. Tick the sound of the clock. Tap. Wet aftermath fingers. Collide the rain into glass.

The Snapper
An Everlasting Piece
Mad Hot Ballroom
Born Romantic
Almost Famous
Last Life in the Universe
Millions
The Killer Inside Me
Following
Primer
Oldboy
Layer Cake
November
Aeon Flux: Animated Collection: Disc 1
Aeon Flux: Animated Collection: Disc 2
Aeon Flux: Animated Collection: Disc 3
The Handmaid's Tale
Brazil
True Romance
Sliding Doors
Corpse Bride
Existenz
Serenity
Shaun of the Dead
Firefly: Disc 1
Firefly: Disc 2
Firefly: Disc 3
Firefly: Disc 4
Kontroll
2046
Knowing Me Knowing You: Complete Series

that, in some weird convoluted way, the premise of my dissertation serves mostly to justify the existence of batman

and for that, i am not at all sorry

is that, then, a contradiction in action? and can one create and experience an action contradiction? i've promised myself that i'll start posting something everyday. mostly because i've grown exceedingly depressed and have the hope that the accomplishment of typing text into this box and pushing the orange 'Publish Post' button might give my dismal and disgusting life some kind of meaning. sad, really. especially since most smart people stop themselves from posting when they become this redundant -- this totally unnecessary. i'm like a string of expletives after everyone already knows just exactly how pissed off you are. like the extra radio station you keep dialed into your car because you know it will always be playing something of which you can make fun.

i'm not canadian, but i use the construction grade 4 rather than 4th grade.
i'm not british, but i think people should obviously wear paper crowns at christmas and that words like aubergine and courgette just sound better.
i'm not very smart, but i'm currently in the final stages of a phd program that i've realized i'll never be smart enough to finish.

i hate grammar and answering email and answer phone message from my father. even though it's just gone half 10, i've opened a bottle of red wine. my second one going this week. i figure one of my friends in some time zone or another would justify the endeavor. probably, however, not my mother who is likely just drinking coffee and having a bit of toast and jam for brekkers.

i keep dreaming about flying away from here and never looking back. and wondering if it's a silly fantasy to think that a year from now my life might look incredibly different. that it might have hope in it again, for a future that holds loveliness and kindness and friendship and adoration. that even cold winter fingertips waiting for buses will have something valuable to curl lips into smiles and lasting to say.

i'm not pregnant again. but i'm fairly certain you knew already when we were standing jagged under the broken bulb in the hallway and you made that joke about my swollen breasts. now, i'm just vaguely depressed. and i keep replaying old conversations we've had throughout the past year in my head. like taking sleeping pills for nightmares. every time the story gets stuck like a twisted tongue where you say the thing about trust. and i'm too afraid to write anything down, anymore, because i can't stand the thought of ripping memories of you out of my life with a razor blade again.