Monday, Dec. 10, 2001

Perfection

I got up too late this morning and didn’t get to go for my walk. My alarm clock wasn’t set and I woke up on my own just in time. I hate that. My legs feel strangely sore, like I ran a thousand miles. I think I’m going to hit the mall at lunchtime and run around like madly and get em all loosened up. Why do they hurt more when I don’t exercise? Odd. My arms…well I won’t even go there. Too much typing last night. When I try to type in that chat window and type my book at the same time…argh it’s wicked on my forearms. I wonder if I’ll end up with carpal. Wonder if there’s a way to avoid that? A way that doesn’t include not typing and is more of an exercise thing.

I am still corresponding with Tod Goldberg and it’s really cool. A published author of a book finding it interesting to speak to me? Nifty. I can’t help but grin when I see his name back in my email. I’m trying not to be an Internet stalker fan. It’s hard. I even got up the nerve to share one of my poems with him. He said this about it….

“I liked your poem in that it contained more of an abstract sense of time and space and emotion and allowed me to apply it to whatever I choose.” – Tod

Kewl to get a critique from someone I admire.

I shared one wicked poem with Tod. This is the poem….. I wrote this on April 17, 2001 and just to clarify it has nothing to do with “him”. Society presses girls to be "perfect" be the girl on the magazine, but perfect is a relative term, as is beauty. The girl in this poem becomes a centerfold poster hanging on the door while her new suitor stands on the other side knocking on the door. Rather gruesome. Sometimes I don’t know where this stuff comes from within me. I know that I struggle with my weight, my body. For me it has recently changed. It’s now about being healthy, happy, and physically and mentally strong. Somehow if you improve your shell it has a direct reflection on your inner soul. I know…my shell is improving and my soul is smiling about it. This is truly about me, not anyone else. It’s my struggle to improve for me. I would never die for perfection. My poetry is not a direct reflection of my feelings all the time. Some of it is subjective and left up to the creative process.

“Hanging Dead from a Door”

Every time

I open my door

And let someone in

I watch them step

Across my welcome gingerly

They enter into my house

I never paint the walls brighter

To welcome their arrival

I never bake a cake

To sit awhile

If I were to ever paint a picture of who I am

They’d see it hanging crooked

On my dingy wall

Perhaps they would know

The true me within

And never come back at all

I hear the tapping

Upon my door

I’m standing on the other side

My head leaning on the wood

The draft of the outside

Dancing around my ankles

This time I’ll bake a cake

This time I’ll be perfect

This time I’ll be a perfect picture

This time I’ll straighten even the bright yellow walls

I’ll wear a size 6 dress

Even if I have to cut it down the center back

Across the back and hold it together

With large paperclips

I’ll be her

I’ll be that picture

If I have to smash my shoes into ugly feet

If I have to color all of my skin with makeup

The perfect hue

I’ll do anything anything anything

Almost anything yes me me me anything

To be loved by you


And now the tapping

Is louder

Louder

Deafening

And I’m crying

Prouder and prouder


And and I’m drowning down

Into a puddle on the floor

I want to open for you

But I swore never anymore


shhhhhhhh watch me...


I’m cutting F U C K

Pretty pretty....pretty to be best

Into my thick thigh

And Y O U into

My confused chest

And I’m crying blood

Quick like my red lie


Let me slide liquidly who I am

Under the crack of the space

The one I can’t fit under

The sunshine line on the floor

Look hard at my face

I’m no one no one no one

Nothing to no one

Anyway

And damn it to you

Who stands cracking my door

No more knocking at my soul

Forever for no more


I’m hanging on the door

drip

drip

drip

drip

drip

drip

drip into the last of my poetry he

Achin’ for a pretty poster….

PoeticaL

louise is the girl with the perfect skin

she says turn on the light, otherwise it can't be seen

she's got cheekbones like geometry and eyes like sin

and she's sexually enlightened by cosmopolitan and


when she smiles my way

my eyes go out in vain

for her perfect skin

yeah that's perfect skin

- Lloyd Cole

poetical at 10:29 a.m.

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