introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K

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on a note from the rain king after months of silence.

1:29 a.m. - 2007-08-14

"into you i will glow."~neutral milk hotel

i don't know here to put this, really. i have to put it somewhere, though. its been awhile since i sat down and wrote something all at once and i don't know where to put it for safekeeping. here is as good a place as any. the chronicle continues, i suppose. xo, sj

no. no. no. no. no.
not now. no.
not when my dreams are
on mountains and moons
and in books
and not when i am
selling your things
and cleaning my space of you
once and for all,
burning it down,
burying embers in dark sands of sadness,
gathering up the shards of myself
from the ashes
and i'm convincing myself that
i'm finally over you
so now is no time
for your words to come seeping through
on text that is thick with your
syrupy voice that
i told myself i'd
no longer recognize
saying words that in my
most painful moments
i hope you could find in you
that you could say them, too.
instead,
months of disquieting quiet
left me numb and exposed and
i'm woody and hardening
like my jade cactus on the porch step
with new summer growth
and new strength and
you're more like a sunburn now
and i've learned to be aloe but
not out of any of my own desire.
no,
you forced me to be
who i've sought out to become now
what you told me
i couldn't know
and so i believed you and
cried as i watched you go.

and whats the use in pretending
that i'm now any stronger but
my logic is steadier
my heart is is heavier
with knowledge and wisdom
that i never wanted it to learn
you forced me to walk down that
dark road without you
and i followed you there as far
as you'd let me go
where you turned to me and then
sending me home alone
so i followed the breadcrumbs
i hadn't been dropping
to the ends of it all for you
to be sent back to the
center of everything
to face it by myself,
scared and alone and green again.
to forge new trails and
to rethink the map and
you're sending me postcards
from my dreamt up geographies
another name on the list that
i'm forced to cross off
now you're stealing my cities
while i'm applying for food stamps
and figuring out how to prove
to the man
that you never moved in
while you're walking the streets
of a town i dont know
and saying you're finding me
in places where i've never been
while i'm warning him that
i will cry over lyrics
i've got choices of concerts
or car payments
or water bills
but happier for it all...

and so send all your words to me
and they'll be met with silences
keep all your thoughts
as i've kept mine and my promises
i've buried these things
in a grave
fresh and shallow
your words are like shovels
unearthing the zombies.
get out of my cemetery,
leave me in pieces.
a ghost now that part of me
with no vein of reality
living examples of modern philosophy
the girl from those months ago
not the same as the girl
that i have become;
the girl that you left behind
alone at the airport
alone for christmas,
the girl who,
a day later
there by the reservoir
burned a hole in her jeans
with a cigarette
while lost in
the blankness inside of her,
hungover on sadness that stabbed
the insides of her.

i am antsy for motion
and sleepless in mornings
unable to hear you now
from here to eternity
no.
no.
no.
no.
no.
(thats a lie.)

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.what came before. - .what happened next.

a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017
baseball season to football season, abbreviated - 25 september 2017
the doodles - 11 july 2017
at arm's length - 4 july 2017
like a sea-mammal needs a bicycle - 30 may 2017