i've just realized

here's a poem concerning the fact that it's been a year since the publication of 'if i am in a room full of people, i am not having any fun' --thank you to everyone who has read it and everyone who hasn't

this poem is directed at a lot of different people, they always are, i guess

which poem did me in

through attending school i have not learned much about myself
except that poetry is hard

i feel something happening to my hippocampus
and i don't know how i felt before
or if i ever wrote poems

i can feel something happening
and it means i can only communicate
through blinking i can only write poems
through not knowing if i can write poems

will i send miranda july my book today
it will have been a year

will you cut my hair very short this time
my doctor said something to support my belief
that passion and talent don't always coincide
and it makes me believe the world is shit

and if you wanted me to shave my head
i would
and i would be grinning

and if you ever invited me over
i might tell you something's
happening to my hippocampus

and you'll say, "oh, i remember that
but i don't"

this is my face

blended with winona ryder's face
there isn't much of a difference but i think my eyes are bigger

and how it is

there is one fly for every calculator button
there's no more math in this poem
as it doesn't belong here
or anywhere

this clock isn't going away
i peeled elmers glue off of my ankles this morning
and remembered how i used to stick my hand out the bus window

and how it is to let rain in the car
and how it isn't


...

today my school had a poetry reading for the 'literary magazine', i read a poem from my book called 'o'hara poem', but i changed it to 'ypsilanti poem'

someone said i didn't look nervous at all

i don't know what i'm saying most of the time

tomorrow i am doing an english presentation about sylvia plath and frida kahlo, comparing 'what the water gave me' to 'the bell jar'

i don't care about school much but i can't stop talking about it, these days i constantly feel i'm forgetting something and i can't wait to have a nervous breakdown and buy a singing saw and a holga camera and get a job and sleep a lot and write poems about "your impossibility" and "please close the door please"

i can't wait for poems

aren't you taking me out on a date soon

i'm drinking vitamin water and watching your face
are you trying too hard to be clever
did you know our bodies are a joke

i went walking the other night after you said things to me
i left the house after you implied some things about my character
there's always a shadow in front of my body
the shadow looks like it's filled

with squares? and what do i call these shapes
curves maybe, i don't know
i'd like to stay in this poem for awhile
until you have to leave
in the middle of a movie in the middle of a conversation
i told you i'm not fit for this sort of thing

and what does it mean again
i kept walking and i had two shadows walking beside each other
and i didn't feel lonely
and i didn't feel good

a page

have you ever smashed a windshield with a sledgehammer. have you wished the guitar string trenches would stay tucked into your fingertips. have you ever wondered about the word 'sledge' (your hand is over mine (we are not the rocks in our shoes


* * *

i keep thinking, "i can't"
i keep wishing i could turn those words into a poem

also, yesterday i tried le whif and enjoyed it

i'm drowing in the end of the year

to be seventeen is to be torn notebook paper

i will never answer the question "what are you doing with your life"

i am not taking a math course next year
instead i am taking the "career pathway" which means i can still go to college or art school
i can't do math anymore

i wrote in every page of my old moleskine notebook that i won from the heel press
it had my name printed on the front, "JILLIAN"

i bought a new moleskine on tuesday
at barnes and noble the cashier said, "are you a regular moleskine user"
and i said, "this is my second one, i have never paid for one before"
i hope he didn't think i stole the first moleskine
i actually won it
i don't win many things
apparently white people really like moleskine notebooks

here are some other things i'm doing:
i am working on two paintings
one is a self portrait but not really
it's me without hair or eyes but not really
one is a painting of beautiful people floating up over the street

will i sell these paintings
i don't know

i have been playing guitar a lot lately, there are guitar-string trenches tucked into my fingertips

answer this question if you have a moleskine: what do you keep in the pocket

this poem is science

rabbits are probably the nicest animals in the world
i just want them to move their noses at me
there is no spinach in my teeth
why is this sadness happening

you left a voice mail and said "where are you"
and "why is this sadness happening"

what is so hard about existing
it implies that you need to try
i am tired of your invisibility and your euphemisms
my body is tired of chasing you off of the edge of the planet
how it feels when swimming at night

i used to try so hard to bank my breath
i thought all the trees were polluting me

most days

i feel like this is the only "accurate" picture of myself that exists
when i'm old i'll destroy all the other pictures of me
'cos they're mine
fritz scholder did that with his paintings
this is a common scene

what

what if i said "just kidding i won't write about any of you"

i took an exam today and my brain and hands hurt a little

i don't want this day to go by too quickly

leah
how much time do you spend on ebay
i am worried about your face
everytime i use chapstick i think of your face

sara
you have probably had some pets die in your life
maybe you have had a cat die
i am saying this because my cat is sitting next to me and purring
and i was thinking i don't want her to die
i feel like a psychic more than a poet at times

1979
sometimes you smoke cigarettes
and sometimes you sleep in a bed of pudding just for fun

ryan manning
i think you are a photographer
i thought about you yesterday and i thought "his name sounds like the name of a football player"
i say "sports what's that"
i don't really care about football
so don't talk to me about football or sports or your name
but you can talk to me about other things

lilbent
isn't that funny
i guess the line was just in my head and it had to come out

little big man

i like to stare at my therapist until i start laughing
i always want to tell her "i wanted to see how long i could make it"
but saying that aloud is somehow worse than laughing

she actually looks at my face eyes
i accidentally wore all white today and i had a bracelet with saints on it and i felt like zelda fitzgerald or that woman from the lorrie moore story and it was an accident and i wondered if she noticed

i'm not ashamed
what does it mean to be conditioned to be ashamed
i don't really know much of anything
do you think i'm brave

i think your face looks like you forgot something
or you're missing something or both of these things
and sometimes you smoke cigarettes
and sometimes you sleep on the floor just for fun
and sometimes you say nice things to me

this wasn't going to be a poem but that's where it's headed
every poem i write ends with "what does that mean for me" lately
and do i even have to say it
i'll try something new, now

let me know if you wish this poem was about you and i'll write a poem about you

these things are breaking me (from notebook)

my body is tired

your impossibility

you flipping pages of my grandmother's book

you gave me your horse blanket


savage


we are a response to the ugliness of cities

he gave me a look like "you know i'm colin firth" and i gave him a look like "i know you're colin firth"

the devil and daniel johnston

i just finished watching the documentary, 'the devil and daniel johnston'. he reminded me of zelda fitzgerald in some ways -- the religious mania and wearing all white, also zelda suffered from severe untreated bipolar disorder, and daniel is bipolar.

i'd like to listen to more of his music
thanks jereme