Sometimes the crowd changes.
Where's tori?
He left her.
Where's natasha?
She ran out of musicians to fuck.
Where's elizabeth?
I moved too far away.
So I'm drinking alone. And I feel like the only constant.

Overheard in the Girl's Bathroom
A.K.A. Tori's Gone Goth

Tori.
When'd you get so weird?
I mean,
when'd you get so
scary?
Might have been the
best thing
I've heard all night.

holiday
whomever came up with that word
didn't live with my family
i lay in bed at night
my old one
and look to the left
baby pictures of mimi
and poppa
and i can't sleep
i'm too busy arguing
and slugging it out with my mother
in my head
this angle
that angle
a little louder
more than a number on a scale
in a doctor's office
more than a calorie count
more than a degree
and an education
should've said
would've said
in my youth i would have stormed upstairs
at midnight
and told her what i thought
through gasps and tears
just so sleep would come
but now i lay still
and toss and turn
and realize its generational
a curse
her parents don't understand
but mostly she doesn't understand them
or me
and i have a feeling when i'm 47
and she's almost 70
she still won't
and i'll still be losing sleep

Summerlove/life
The Remix.


It was such a weird night set off by an incredibly fortunate and unsuspected succession of days-- this way we catch time and seal it in our grip and call it a week. I felt it in my bones hours before, that this would be different. I felt my neck getting red the way it always does when I forget to cover it. Blush, they call it. Across the room I see him standing alone. I mouth the words Let's get out of here.

The thunder was so loud. And when it stopped all I could think was how rhythmic his breath was and how it made my body move. His fingertips felt like feathers that only caressed the most revealed of places and still I shuddered. The rain kept time on the windows and we pressed it between us until we were ready to let go.

And then I did.
And then I did.

He curled in close behind me and soothed every fear that originated years and years ago with one calming touch of his right palm. And the tears came back. Fingers through my hair, legs intertwined, I love you. A kiss and more.

He cries when he leaves me.

Tis the season for more angst and poetry.

going home
they say you can't do it
but i will
just like i did that brown boy
when mom and dad said i couldn't
you people never learn

we'll sift through the smoke
at the bar and the
ashes of our thoughts
philosophies
sex lives
and figure out where we went wrong
and wonder why no one else
can get it right

the girl sitting on the end
will say
that's why i've loved you for three years
you're so raw
and honest
and i'll laugh at the girl
she used to know
and drunk dial the boy
who gets hard
at the mere thought of argument
with me
that's why he loves me

others will stare
others will snicker and say
oh god, she's back
they'll hand me another tall
double
and i'll smile
they don't know that for $9.25
i've just answered the
big question

i don't know why i expect it
to change
after these years
you say i just wanted to hear your voice
and as an afterthought
i'm having a baby girl
in february
he gets mad
and says like you give a
shit
he wants me to
i say you know it's more complicated
than that
and it's silent
i stand in this room
dark and surrounded
and when i'm next to him
i still feel like the beauty queen
runner up
stripped and defeated
for showing my tits
to some photographer
for a hundred bucks to pay the
light bill
secretly i smile though
i'm still prettier
smarter
and more than you'll let yourself have
so as to not be
outdone
and that's fine
the music is good
the liquor is cold
and that baby girl in february
will break your heart
just like
me

Ten bucks in gas station food.
that shit takes effort
and thats good. Because
i'm finding most things come easily
these days.

--

Mobile Email from a Cingular Wireless Customer http://www.cingular.com