Going Home
My years slip by in suitcases I've had since I was nine,
But I don't have much to carry as I cross this borderline.
My life's been in transition; I'm not used to being mine,
But now I think it's time for movin' on.
So I sit here in this terminal as the seconds trickle down.
The departure board clicks softly as it turns my life around.
Though doubt roars through my body, I can hardly make a sound
I exhale soon I'll be long gone.
So farewell my autumn mountains and friends I'll long to see.
Your love will last in photographs I'll cherish tenderly,
And if home is where the heart is, then my home will follow me,
But
You're the first to call me lovely
And the last to call me yours.
Keep saying that you love me
Safe behind your bolted doors.
And baby when you kiss me
It's like Fourth of July,
But you don't say that you miss me
And you're always on the fly.
It's fireworks baby, ooh,
That brief burst of color
Fades out too soon.
What began with a whimper's
Gotta end with a boom
But they're gone before morning
Oh, just like you.
They're just like you babe.
You're like a broken faucet
Always runnin' hot and cold.
Bought a ring but then you lost it
That's the story that you told.
And now I'm growin' weary
Of your firecracker spa
May walks softly in ballerina's shoes,
she's a morning-glow goddess with nothing to lose,
and she's got a secret, but she can't sing the blues,
so she comes and she goes
and I wanna know what she knows.
I wanna know what she knows.
Saw her lying last night in a sliver of moon,
scent of white wine and honey and jasmine perfume
she asked me "why are the good things always over so soon?"
'cause she comes and she goes
I wanna know what she knows!
I wanna know what she knows!
I said "May, what's this secret you've been holdin' so close,
curled up in your fingers like the bud of a rose?
Your eyes burn like cinders the
Heavy humidity presses her bone-thin limbs into patient, breathing soil
filling her footprints with earth-soaked scent.
Surrounded by wind pregnant with round, young droplets
so similar to the dull crimson rush of false fertility that streams from her,
She wonders if she is not so different from the rain
that threatens to split the seams of the billowing black,
waiting,
wanting to be born.
Grass-stained kneecaps and dirty fingernails:
she, in her innocence,
catches the chorused murmurs of an ocean of cerulean
weed-blossoms and fulfills their deepest desire,
remembering.
I adore your dental occlusives,
your gentle vowels
your whirling, liquid r's.
My mouth pines for the softness of your phonemes,
the clarity of your graphemes,
the distinct lack of muted schwas.
Oh, I could suck you down like agua de vida,
cleansing my tongue of nasals and uvulars.
Te amo para siempre, español.
Forever. I promise.
But first I must learn German.
Once,
my tongue hummed with the music of discourse;
phonemes babbled from my cavernous mouth
a sumptuous river of succulent sound.
I was queen of poetic smiles
and mistress of linguistic foreplay,
your match, your equal, always, (always)
Miss Emily Elizabeth Bennett,
arch, inelegant, blindingly, blossomingly brilliant.
And I am still.
Except--
now
we speak the language of erasure,
conversing through the painfully present absences,
striking subtext for the sake of the commonest courtesies.
But invisible words still throb beneath the cacophony of silence,
crippling me with their indelible weight:
inflexib
"He could see Bonzo's anger growing hot. Hot anger was bad. Ender's anger was cold, and he could use it. Bonzo's was hot, and so it used him."
~ Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
Her anger does not burn;
it builds, but does not blaze,
volcanic, bubbling from a bottled-up eruption.
No,
her anger frosts warm-blooded limbs
and freezes empathy mid-sentence,
a measured swell toward mechanical indifference.
Yes,
her anger sinks its vicious fangs into her brain
and turns her ruthless, sets her free
to use those collections of cells how she chooses,
until
an explosion of passion bursts a hole
in her icy, logical veneer and it all escape
Some days, I picture myself beautiful.
Here is how I fix myself:
First, I must shade myself starving,
penciling each protruding rib poking out
beneath my blemishless skin.
Next, I paint myself invisible,
slathering my limbs with artificial melanin,
softening the sharp facial curves,
smearing cupid's-bow lips with "natural" shades,
lengthening insufficient lashes,
debasing my too-transparent imperfections from existence.
Now! I plastic myself desirable,
trading my smallness for towering splendor,
recasting my rack so no part will be small
(except for my ego, my cunning, my speech).
Behold! I am glory in my naked, rewri
Going Home
My years slip by in suitcases I've had since I was nine,
But I don't have much to carry as I cross this borderline.
My life's been in transition; I'm not used to being mine,
But now I think it's time for movin' on.
So I sit here in this terminal as the seconds trickle down.
The departure board clicks softly as it turns my life around.
Though doubt roars through my body, I can hardly make a sound
I exhale soon I'll be long gone.
So farewell my autumn mountains and friends I'll long to see.
Your love will last in photographs I'll cherish tenderly,
And if home is where the heart is, then my home will follow me,
But
You're the first to call me lovely
And the last to call me yours.
Keep saying that you love me
Safe behind your bolted doors.
And baby when you kiss me
It's like Fourth of July,
But you don't say that you miss me
And you're always on the fly.
It's fireworks baby, ooh,
That brief burst of color
Fades out too soon.
What began with a whimper's
Gotta end with a boom
But they're gone before morning
Oh, just like you.
They're just like you babe.
You're like a broken faucet
Always runnin' hot and cold.
Bought a ring but then you lost it
That's the story that you told.
And now I'm growin' weary
Of your firecracker spa
May walks softly in ballerina's shoes,
she's a morning-glow goddess with nothing to lose,
and she's got a secret, but she can't sing the blues,
so she comes and she goes
and I wanna know what she knows.
I wanna know what she knows.
Saw her lying last night in a sliver of moon,
scent of white wine and honey and jasmine perfume
she asked me "why are the good things always over so soon?"
'cause she comes and she goes
I wanna know what she knows!
I wanna know what she knows!
I said "May, what's this secret you've been holdin' so close,
curled up in your fingers like the bud of a rose?
Your eyes burn like cinders the
Heavy humidity presses her bone-thin limbs into patient, breathing soil
filling her footprints with earth-soaked scent.
Surrounded by wind pregnant with round, young droplets
so similar to the dull crimson rush of false fertility that streams from her,
She wonders if she is not so different from the rain
that threatens to split the seams of the billowing black,
waiting,
wanting to be born.
Grass-stained kneecaps and dirty fingernails:
she, in her innocence,
catches the chorused murmurs of an ocean of cerulean
weed-blossoms and fulfills their deepest desire,
remembering.
I adore your dental occlusives,
your gentle vowels
your whirling, liquid r's.
My mouth pines for the softness of your phonemes,
the clarity of your graphemes,
the distinct lack of muted schwas.
Oh, I could suck you down like agua de vida,
cleansing my tongue of nasals and uvulars.
Te amo para siempre, español.
Forever. I promise.
But first I must learn German.
Once,
my tongue hummed with the music of discourse;
phonemes babbled from my cavernous mouth
a sumptuous river of succulent sound.
I was queen of poetic smiles
and mistress of linguistic foreplay,
your match, your equal, always, (always)
Miss Emily Elizabeth Bennett,
arch, inelegant, blindingly, blossomingly brilliant.
And I am still.
Except--
now
we speak the language of erasure,
conversing through the painfully present absences,
striking subtext for the sake of the commonest courtesies.
But invisible words still throb beneath the cacophony of silence,
crippling me with their indelible weight:
inflexib
"He could see Bonzo's anger growing hot. Hot anger was bad. Ender's anger was cold, and he could use it. Bonzo's was hot, and so it used him."
~ Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
Her anger does not burn;
it builds, but does not blaze,
volcanic, bubbling from a bottled-up eruption.
No,
her anger frosts warm-blooded limbs
and freezes empathy mid-sentence,
a measured swell toward mechanical indifference.
Yes,
her anger sinks its vicious fangs into her brain
and turns her ruthless, sets her free
to use those collections of cells how she chooses,
until
an explosion of passion bursts a hole
in her icy, logical veneer and it all escape
Some days, I picture myself beautiful.
Here is how I fix myself:
First, I must shade myself starving,
penciling each protruding rib poking out
beneath my blemishless skin.
Next, I paint myself invisible,
slathering my limbs with artificial melanin,
softening the sharp facial curves,
smearing cupid's-bow lips with "natural" shades,
lengthening insufficient lashes,
debasing my too-transparent imperfections from existence.
Now! I plastic myself desirable,
trading my smallness for towering splendor,
recasting my rack so no part will be small
(except for my ego, my cunning, my speech).
Behold! I am glory in my naked, rewri
May walks softly in ballerina's shoes,
she's a morning-glow goddess with nothing to lose,
and she's got a secret, but she can't sing the blues,
so she comes and she goes
and I wanna know what she knows.
I wanna know what she knows.
Saw her lying last night in a sliver of moon,
scent of white wine and honey and jasmine perfume
she asked me "why are the good things always over so soon?"
'cause she comes and she goes
I wanna know what she knows!
I wanna know what she knows!
I said "May, what's this secret you've been holdin' so close,
curled up in your fingers like the bud of a rose?
Your eyes burn like cinders the
You're the first to call me lovely
And the last to call me yours.
Keep saying that you love me
Safe behind your bolted doors.
And baby when you kiss me
It's like Fourth of July,
But you don't say that you miss me
And you're always on the fly.
It's fireworks baby, ooh,
That brief burst of color
Fades out too soon.
What began with a whimper's
Gotta end with a boom
But they're gone before morning
Oh, just like you.
They're just like you babe.
You're like a broken faucet
Always runnin' hot and cold.
Bought a ring but then you lost it
That's the story that you told.
And now I'm growin' weary
Of your firecracker spa
Current Residence: Mansfield Favourite genre of music: Celtic, Folk, Classical, Choral MP3 player of choice: iPod Shell of choice: None Favourite cartoon character: Cheetara - Thundercats Personal Quote: Life is trying, so I'll try
Hey all! I haven't logged in here in years, but I wanted to let y'all know that I just finished up an Masters of Fine Arts in poetry thanks, in part, to my time on this website <3 This has been such a wonderful community for me. You can find some of ...
I completely apologize for being so absent lately. A lot as been going on in my life and for whatever reason the poetry has just... not being coming. Which is a very sad state of affairs but I'm having some trouble fixing it. I am, however, working on another little project which is channeling my creativity, the first installment of which can be found here: I would put this up in my account but I haven't figured out how yet.
I will (hopefully) be back into full swing soon!
~ Emily
So in keeping with my apparent tradition of writing a journal entry on my birthday, here's yet another birthday entry. This birthday was probably the most uneventful I've ever had, despite its being my 21st. It's okay though; it's to be expected, since I just got back from a huge conference and have therefore spent most of the day making up work.
I do, however, have some resolutions for my 21st year. And even if I can't keep them all, if I can have them stick around for even a few weeks or months, I'm sure they'll be helpful. They are annoyingly vague, but my sleep-deprived brain can't come up with anything better at the moment. They are:
-
Hi Emily! Your birthday's coming up and believe it or not I scored some duplicate books for my birthday last year and you're the only person I "know" who would appreciate them.
When you pop back in feel free to send me a private message, I'd love to post them to you.
Oh that would be fantastic! (I'm sorry it took me so long to respond; as usual I've been off an on this site, although I AM still writing poetry! I just haven't posted it in a long time because I'm toying with the idea of trying to publish some of it, and I'm not sure if posting it up on dA will render it unpublishable.) What are you up to, by the way?
The majority of places do only publish original pieces, that is, those that haven't appeared on the Internet or anywhere else before. However I've been submitting to journals and anthologies that do publish the previously published. I just have to sort through and find them. That and I'm doing what you're doing, keeping some of the newer ones offline to increase my options.
I just need to figure out which ones to keep offline and which to put up. I'm actually editing some of my old work and since the older drafts are already up here anyway, it probably wouldn't hurt to stick them back up.
You know what we should do? We should have a little writing group, email-style. That way we can look over things without falling victim to the "you published this one the internet" BS.