Tavi Gevinson by Petra Collins (from Petra’s instagram)
I shudder to imagine working
at a pet store and having to scoop
out whichever little goldfish
my tiny customer and matching parents
decided to fall in love with.
I picture the claw machine-like game
where I chase the bugger around
with a flimsy net as all his friends
scatter in a flurry, preventing
his death sentence capture.
My spectators watch
as if it were the television in their living room—
only without the beers or wings,
those aren’t allowed in the store—
and cheer on the net, or inform me
of my poor technique.
When I fish one out, the child
will cry that it is not the right one—
I wanted the one
with fins and orange scales—
in a key that tears a note
from my last nerve string.
Instead, child, you take the net,
because when I first fell in love,
I chased that goldfish around all by myself
and I want you to know what it’s like
to miss.
I was going to
go out. Instead I stayed in
and covered the Cure.
So there’s this girl and she is perfect
but she doesn’t exist.
She tells me what I need to hear
when my ringing ears persist.
she is high above me on another level,
we are both equal, think about bass and treble.
My occupation is to know her but her business is intrinsic
she’s a mystery she confounds me and astrophysics.
My time is hers to spend as she so pleases
but when I ask for hers she retreats and teases.
Will I ever find her? Send a search party to see
where I need to go just to be in her company.
Her mind, body, soul I’ve got to grab a hold
cruise control test drive making diamonds from coal.
she’s just like my mind when it starts to blur
straying from facts when railroad tracks are heard.
No jacks or pacts ever allowed to disturb
her peace of mind is blue sky, I am the bird.
Spy glass, ship’s mast, crow’s nest searching
open sea, land mass for paradise perching.
The prize is translucent or not there at all
I’m getting desperate, writing digits on bathroom walls.
For a good time call me and I’ll rock your world
But I can guarantee I won’t write poems about it, girl.
My patience is waning and I’m growing tired of waiting
for someone whose interest isn’t constantly fading.
All the others parading what they’re habitually trading
when they can’t even tell if they are mating or dating.
With a mind like fusion and a trampoline for a bed
this girl got me doing back flips without landing on my head.
No worries, for her I’d take a even bigger risk
just to read the info she stores on her floppy disc.
Zip up my hoodie and return the wind and cold
back to the search for something worth its weight in gold.
I will find it one day, it has been foretold
I accept no substitutions I will stay strong and never fold.
I like redemption. Redemption is good, right? Repairing what was destroyed is always good, right? But I also like new things. New things are fun and exciting and shiny. Sure, you need to read the manual all over again, but that has a certain mystery to it and I kind of like that too. Although, new things come with a lot of unknowns; unknowns that require specific combinations to decipher; its easy to miss something, to misinterpret something. Before you know it you’re back to contemplating redemption vs. forward motion. But is that where I have come to? A fear of the unknown? That doesn’t make sense, seeing how I set off with my adventurer pants on. Back then I wasn’t afraid of the jungle. I had my machete and I had my boots laced tight and I was ready to blaze a trail right into the demon’s maw.
That was before, this is now. Now I look into the labyrinth of trees and feel insecurity flooding over me. I always walk right up to the precipice, ready to venture back in, before I sense the cold air of a gun pointed directly at my chest. There is someone there, I know it. They are hiding in the brush ready to pounce and slash at my scars with red hot irons.
Sometimes I can manage to keep that paranoid, little monkey off my back long enough to plunge head long into the void I was once so familiar with. I stay as long as I can but every time a point is reached where I focus solely on exposing the dangers and pitfalls that inevitably live there. Over there! That tiger has vicious teeth and camouflaging stripes! I run back the way I came, passing the beautiful flowers and scenic waterfalls that infatuated me before the beast appeared. I almost stop again to enjoy them once more. Their essence could easily wash away the gooey fear and doubt that caused me to flee, but I end up telling myself that they are poisonous despite their beauty and just as dangerous as the teeth laden, death machine that was most definitely chasing behind me. It was still chasing me, right? Was it ever chasing me? No time to stop and think about it now, I’m still being chased.
I reach the clearing. I am back home. Everything is exactly where I left it, safe and far away from deceiving beauty and gnashing teeth. There is an addition, though, something that was not there before my trek. Its
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we shared a beach together, the first sand of the season caught between the spaces of our toes. pebbles of the river small and many, knowing the sea to forget it in the same breath. we spent the hour tossing and relocating them off of the pier.
the sky was oppressive, and the clouds almost groaned with their movements, as we stood under it all and called ourselves True Romantics. There was a lot of sighing. The river laughed.
True romanticism knows sadness- a vague and shapeless sadness, written and lost in the heat of the Summertime, over and over again.
I have gone to the extremes and back
on a search for definition.
My mission, my vision is to shed light on the apparition
The ghost of lies-past.
Everyday, I see the shadows growing
Leaving everyone assuming and never knowing
Whether good is prevailing or if evil is cloning.
Listen to the man who has painted his house white
Because if you don’t he will steal all of your birth rights.
But, if that man should stumble and you happen to see it,
He will play it off cool and say that he didn’t mean it
as he pulls out a tray of water colors
and paints the Mona Lisa over top of the gutters.
His minions and descendents further his independence,
which worsens our dependence on our friends and foes.
In a world where we come to blows rather than solve our woes
It would be nice to know where the rabbit hole goes, or
where it ends.
Because this is definitely not what the doctor recommends.
Where are the people not pressed about gain and spend,
but with goodwill towards all men?
Everyday the truth is left bashed, bruised, and bleeding
and then covered by words designed to be misleading
just to keep big wallets from seeping and demons’ asses from freezing.
There is always someone scheming and skewing the meaning
to make it look like the destruction is cleaning.
Read the fine print and listen to tracks backwards
so you can see how the swoosh went in off the backboard.
Keep watchful eyes open and beware of the fiends
who try to get the best of you and hide the message in between.
First we cleared rocks
from the pit
because apparently
someone tried to put out
the last fire with them.
Then we packed two full loads
of sticks and brush,
hopefully dried out
since the last rain,
into the green trailer of a green lawnmower.
When we needed something
to start the flame
I went inside and grabbed
the 2009-2010 yellow pages.
No one really needs this, right?
We stuffed the pages filled
with actual phone numbers
into the wood and lit them–
all the little people–
into a bright funeral pyre.
All the little people wailed
and the pages turned black
and when we flipped the wood
the burnt papers rose from the pyre
and flew across the yard,
filling the air with a swarm
of black pests, who were presumably
all those charred people reborn,
furious at having had
such an untimely death.
They almost made it to the house
where I imagine they’d wreak havoc
before they settled on the lawn,
now a swamp of black and green,
their final resting place.
We’re in the trees; we’re in the trees.
From the ground you point and laugh.
You cast our sticks and throw your stones
But we remain unchanged.
From the ground you point and laugh.
You try and knock us from our branch.
But still we remain unchanged.
So mock and make jokes they cannot reach us.
You try and knock us from our branch,
But our stance is strong and we like the view.
So mock and make jokes; we see what you don’t.
We are different; we’re not like you.
Our stance is strong and we like our view.
You cast your sticks and throw your stones.
We are different; we’re not like you.
We’re in the trees; we’re in the trees.
saint peter held his hands like a cross, trembling with waves of nervous energy that broke at his groin.
the martyr hung himself grinning between two women, a sleepy snow moon the only witness.
the forest lit up like a living room last night, its inhabitants bathed nude in the ice of a yesteryear .
Come up soft
to the stop sign
and brake but not
because the law
says so
but because there are
cars coming from
both directions
And now I’m waiting
to turn left
It’s fine
in the meantime
I’ll just listen to music
air drum and tap my fingers
on the wheel
dwell on some thoughts
and let them sift through
the filter between my mind
and mouth
because I’m waiting
to turn left
and what the hell else is there to do
It’s fine though
I’m in no rush
I mean I’d like to get
to where I’m going
but it’s not an emergency
but I’m about done
with thinking about things
my mind is only really interesting
for about five minutes at a time before I start
remembering horrible truths about everything
and oh my god I just remembered
that I’m still waiting to turn left
where the hell are these cars coming from
and where do they really need to go this bad
seriously though
you are all just wasting gas
and time and listening to awful shit
that is rotting your mind
and you’re all stupid enough
to turn the radio on anyway
I am not making generalizations
because I know this is what you are doing
especially that asshole with the Bush sticker
on his bumper who probably believes
that the trickle-down effect is effective
and he’s probably listening to rich white men
talk about how black people smell funny
I am not making generalizations
I’m probably right
especially about that asshole
driving the Hummer
whose sole purpose in life
is to make sure his kids
don’t grow up to be queers
and makes them play sports
they don’t want to
and tells them to “man up”
and “quit being little bitches”
because clearly
crying is what women do
not men
and oh my god
I can turn left now
yes
This was created by friend Silas because he fucking hates facebook