Misanthrope: [Noun]: A Hater of Humankind.

I went and won an award.  A big one.  It’ll be a while until I feel like posting the story that won, if I ever do.  Here is a poem in the mean time.

Body Parts,

or why i stopped writing poetry,

or why you should be happy,

because you’re different than most

mason jars hold organs,

spray bottles pumping life

into the slow growing hearts—

lungs flutter in and out,

stretching tissue like butterflies’ wings

stomachs leech grasses,

livers push soil through muscle,

intestines inch along the greenhouse floor.

deer chew on the edges of torsos,

rabbits bite at breasts,

worms burrow into bellies,

roots grow deep

anchoring bodies

into land bought with blood.

the farmers pick wild tendons

that slither up trees,

and they sew them with muscles,

crafting masterpieces

next to disasters.

hairs fall over retinas,

pupils poke through fertilizer,

ears crowd noses crowding lips—

with teeth falling next to leaves,

littering the ground with ivory.

farmers grow limbs

in tiny green houses

inhabited by sprites,

tending to fingers and toes.

they harvest the extremities

and place them into sockets

popping them into position

setting the new owner free.

bones grow down,

digging into the soil,

marrow seeping into each crevice.

farmers grow them in pots

of brown and yellow and white.

and they pull them from their wombs,

sliding them into skin,

giving life to the customer.

skin stretches over garden ornaments,

creeping across the ground,

veins burrowing into the loam,

arteries reaching toward sunlight.

farmers grow them next to their houses,

letting them climb up siding to roofs

where they’re disconnected

and laid onto bodies.

but amid the chaos

the farmers grew you alone,

threading your parts together,

then—

when you had grown,

plucking each piece of you,

replanting them to be recycled

into another.

I wrote this a little while back for class.  Enjoy.

For My Mother

            There’s nothing wrong with me.  That was the first lie.  The second was this: I do not know what’s happening.  And the third: Yes, I would tell you if something was wrong.  My lies began when the dreams did.  I lay in bed, in the hopes I could convince myself what I just witnessed was not the truth.  The covers would inch their way over my face, guided by my shaking fingers, until the darkness ate me.  Then I would cry, my eyes bloodshot and my nose stuffy.

Their faces stayed glued to the back of my eyelids; claws ripped at my cornea and I ran from my own mind in desperation.  I sought a home for my conscious where I could exist and think in peace.  Such a place never came and the nightmares persisted.  When I stopped crying, I looked down and on my thigh lay the marks of a beast: three shallow gashes.  I unleashed a scream and my mother barreled in.  She embraced me until I calmed down.

Everything was not fine.  I kept having dreams with creatures whose disfigured faces snarled at me and their sharp, thin claws racked across my body.  I was left helpless, immobile in my reoccurring nightmare.  I feared sleep, but could not escape it.  It ravaged my psyche.  Only when the marks appeared, did I take action.  The idea of death did not please me.

I sought a priest, and he said confession would heal my inner turmoil.  I spent six hours pouring over my life’s mistakes, and that night the fire came.  The monsters burned me with their tongues, touching my skin with their taste buds.  I woke up to find burns running down my forearm.

My mother called a psychic.  She doused me in jasmine and sage.  The dreams did not happen that night, but they came back soon after with a vengeance—six claw marks down my back.  I was admitted to the psych ward.

The drugs made it so I couldn’t vividly remember the dreams, but I remembered the fear and the pain.  There, I met Jim, a former veteran suffering from PTSD and a mild form of schizophrenia.  We ate our meals together and spoke on philosophy, one of the many things he had missed while in the army—safe, easy, intelligent conversation.  We were one in the same, Jim and I.  Each night we experienced Hell, awoke worse for it, and were forced to keep going so that we could face the same pain the next night.

More cuts appeared and scars took the place of older ones.  I developed clinical depression, and received more meds, which quickly numbed any sensation I could care to feel.  And every night I would awake, injured or not, screaming to the high god above.  Never would he answer my cry.

My sleep patterns were mapped and studied, and a man by the name of Gregory Brown treated my “delusions”, (or as he referred to them, “incidents”) as if I couldn’t handle the fact I was psychotic.  I’ll admit it troubled me at first, but the realization that there was a reason for the torment I received—well, it made life easier.

They labeled me as “psychotic”; my grandmother said I was “unnatural.”  My family, extended and so on, I could tell hated me.  I was a disgrace to the family and I had done nothing but tarnish the reputation they had built in a small southern town.  Forever we would be known as “those Meadow’s.”  And people would whisper, “Did you hear their daughter went crazy?”

Jim never turned his scarred back on me, though.  Even when my wounds broke on my flesh, and the nurses refused to bandage me, he would hold pressure on the wound and wrap it in an old t-shirt.  He would yell for someone to get him a damn helicopter and to stop being such pansies.  When they put me into intense therapy and gave me too many drugs, he would help me to feel happy and experience what little hope the world had to give.

Life in the psych ward with Jim was okay.  We watched movies on Thursdays and always had chicken on Tuesdays.  There I was able to settle into a routine, but each day my body became more battered and covered in cuts, bruises, and burns.  The monsters devastated my physical health and my mental health, all without a second thought.  I often wondered, aloud in group sessions, why this had happened to me.  There was no history of mental illness in my family, and I had been fairly sane beforehand.

Dr. Brown, or Greg, as I call him, told me he thought there may have been a precursor to the attacks, something that set them off.  I kept telling him I hadn’t felt any different before than I ever had, nothing new had happened in my life and there hadn’t been any great source of stress.  He would always sigh in a puzzled way and look at his clipboard.

He put me on an intensive recovery program that involved an hour with him every other day, me keeping a journal of all of my thoughts and ideas, and attendance to some of the groups that met in the afternoons.  Monday was depression club, Wednesday was time with the psychotics, and Fridays/Sundays were mixed group sessions, where anyone with problems was allowed to come.  I got to see Jim on those days during sessions, and we always sat together.

He was quite fond of telling me old war stories, and often he would go into his own world, in which the nurse would restrain him.  He had already attempted to strangle three other patients, and knife one of the nurses.  But he never laid a hand on me, unless it was to throw me out of the way of a gunner, or to use himself as a shield against a grenade.  More than once he laid down on the ground and made me follow him around until my knees turned purple on the linoleum and my nose itched from the dust I had inhaled.

Jim never left the war; he brought it to the institute with him, and with the war came anxiety and night terrors.  His delusions pushed the two of us together.  We were both suspended in a state of psychosis and we couldn’t find our way out.  Other than Jim, the patrons of the hospital were less than interesting, and I found little pleasure talking to them.  Margaret, a young mother of two, diagnosed with panic attacks, came in frequently for the day to get special medications and a rest from her kids and husband.  Sal, an older gentleman who had been in too many wars to count, often spoke to Jim about the wars—Sal had developed severe PTSD that had put his family at risk.

Connor, a young guy was a full-time patient at the hospital.  He roomed with Jim, and often said hello and sat with us at lunch.  I never figured out what mental illness he had, but he twitched and seemed socially awkward.  Besides those minor flaws, he was an intelligent person who had, at one time, had aspirations of being a college professor.  He had even gotten halfway through a master’s degree in philosophy before he was admitted for “uncharacteristic and uncommon behavior,” as he described it.

The patients didn’t seem to mind that they were in a mental hospital, rather they seemed content with their situation.  I grew comfortable in the situation as well and learned the ways of the facility.  Jim and I made friends and although our conditions did not improve, per se, life did become a lot more bearable.

My mother visited every week, on Thursdays, thirteen minutes after dinner.  She was always on time, and I knew she would walk through the door, give me a hug and say, “How are you this week darling?”  I would always reply, “Better, always better, mother.”  Then she would proceed to kiss my cheeks in an odd fashion reminiscent of European greetings.

Once a month she would bring someone with her, usually the second Thursday of the month.  When my grandmother came she would mutter, and give me home made brownies that were supposedly good for my health.  She believed I was of the devil, but I was her granddaughter and there was nothing she could do to fix it.  I found out she had come to terms with it one night after speaking to her preacher, who promised to pray for me.  Her congregation kept me on the prayer list for over three years, and I became a household name among the prayer warriors.  Some battles can’t be fought with words, I suppose.

My father did not come, because he was dead, but my mother would bring stories of him along with her.  She would tuck them away in the rolls she made me and spread them lightly on each one, as if they were butter.  Quietly, she would recount the years they had spent in Love, as if it were some fictional planet where only they existed.  She did this every third Thursday.

This routine became my life, each second already planned out.  I knew I would sleep, and awake more dead than the night before.  Yet, somehow in the psych ward at the Johnson Memorial Hospital, I began to live my life.  The nightmares never abated, and I still receive cuts that cover my innumerable scars, but I’m alive.  And every Thursday I visit my mother and Jim, side by side beneath a red maple behind the North Baptist Church.

It’s been an emotional weekend.  I thought I’d post some poetry I wrote.  That’s all.  Oh, and my novel’s going well; I’m ahead as of now.

“It’s the call of milk and honey from the afterlife… It’s another bag of bones for the gods to sort.”

-Kevin Devine

let’s indulge my anxiety

with thoughts of our deaths.

why don’t we muse about the end?

of what?

of everything,

of you, of me, of us.

when the buildings turn to dust,

and the streets crumble into nothing.

but where are we?

beneath the ground, returning

to the dust where we were born.

and the living?

none will be alive,

and nothing shall remain

but scattered atoms.

but why?

humanity is doomed,

doomed to return to the dirt,

doomed to exterminate one another,

doomed to rot in Hell.

can it be stopped?

we are hopeless

(I don’t remember writing this, but it sounds nice.)

Within You

Let’s trade the secrets beneath our sheets;

we’ll exchange the wishes that extend beyond the ceiling.

Sleep tight; don’t let the bed bugs bite.

I watched you leave me forever.

I wish you would have bartered for my love.

And I asked: Hand over a bit of you?

You said: There isn’t enough.

Look where it’s gotten you,

thrown onto the streets.

Alone.

I have begun to dream about you

I wander my consciousness, searching for your ghost.

I look in every crevice

for any sign of your haunting face.

Yet, all I find is the remnants of broken promises.

You’ve left me a scarred woman.

Go to Hell.

Through the nights your voice has persisted, seeking out my bleeding ears;

my soul had yearned for its highs and lows, its accent laced with intention.

You have become the wanderer in my nightmares, the antagonist.

The characters shy away from your presence and seek cleaner ground.

Despite the pain you’ve left me with, the cuts you helped me make,

I harbored love in the mooring of my weary, sea-sick heart.

Until Death did we part.

(I don’t feel like taking the time to edit this right now, so this isn’t the final copy, but I don’t care enough to change it at the moment.  Bah.)

Attention Whore, Attention Whore

There’s a cloud of misery

that clings, desperately to your shoulders

and eerily calling to you in a voice of ice.

It’s the whir of the wind,

and the everlasting call of the drug attention,

worrisome and mettlesome,

tap the needle to get one more fix,

let the elixir of life drown you in bliss.

Drop change into the hands of the motionless,

wide-eyed patrons of street corners,

in exchange for a lick of the nectar

that drips from the tongue of the common man.

Father and mother abandoned your cause

when the Earth was once colder,

and you still had dignity wrapped

around your waist, but now—

now, the tyranny thickens and incessantly

you heap upon those near you

the burden of your disease and the stench

of your exploits soaks your skin.

I had a friend once who told me that the worst mistake that you can make is to think that you are alive.  When really you’re asleep in life’s waiting room.

-Don’t Wake Up

                                Revolving Door

I feel as if I’m too old for

words, scrambling out of

a memory-vat,

drowning in the nostalgia.

It’s within this dream I find

myself as a child, wondering if

I will ever awaken from this state.

This child knows more than I ever will,

but she hides it behind her malicious teeth.

Her wisdom glints in her pupils, igniting

envy in my heart.

Within me grows a seed of hatred

for the child; she has made me who I am.

In this nightmare I relive

the moments I regret the most.

I must gaze into the eye of the past

and face the mistakes that haunt me.

And we’ll end with some prose poetry… I know I’ve posted a lot, but get over it.

Conceit

After W.D. Snodgrass

Pale and proper and rootless—sit pretentious trees in forests. Envious branches extend beyond their thin trunks—birds dare not sing beneath their shadows, for fear of the growl of Night.  He stalks the ground, free to roam unfettered beneath the thick shade of the towering trees.  This is my home, he declares to no one in particular, I rule this forest.  His words do not fall upon deaf ears—the trees sigh; they rustle their tiny roots at him, erupting from the shallow soil.

Who are you to claim this land of ours, dark one?  They sing in the wind to him.  Night calls on the moon, his lover, to help.  The moon blots out the sun, the trees do not wither, for they feed on fear of those near, not on the fickle sun nor the pounding rain.  Night thrashes and howls to the moon, who can only wax and wane in sorrow.  The trees call the sun, who hates Night, to abolish the creature that lives beneath them.  They spread their branches, and Day vanquishes Night.

Hey there guys, I haven’t posted anything really since art school started – mostly ’cause I’ve been lazy.  But also because I’m looking at my work very differently.  I don’t really scribble stories anymore.  I write a lot of poetry  (although its not very good)  and I do a lot of thinking.  I’m going to post a few pieces of my work every now and then, since I’ve got it on my mind.  So check back and I’ll have the rest up eventually…

This poem is about my own, personal purgatory that I feel like I’m currently occupying.  I feel like the majority of people understand what I’m going through, because they themselves have gone through it.  And, even though some may say different, art is much more liked when people can relate to it.  So go ahead, relate.

Purgatory

I am seeking the ability to merely

exist -

I am perfecting the art of living

in between the here and now,

between the place I am

and the place I want to be.

I want to be anywhere but here;

anywhere but the place I used to call home.

To live in a state of dormancy –

with only my breath as company.

If the world would stop turning,

letting those in it drop dead in sleep –

perhaps I would achieve the peace I seek.

Sleep, though, eludes me –

I am not an insomniac,

simply a woman between the sheets

with little comfort or warmth.

I awake more tired than before

and it seems the act of sleeping

is far more tiring than anything else.

My dreams – or, rather, nightmares –

are what haunt me beneath my comforter.

Images of the past hang like ghosts

above my resting head, taunting me.

And so I wish to escape my nightmares,

waking or not –

I hope to find an existence that is kinder

that the one I inhabit.

Now, this next poem I got a lot of feedback for… Mostly negative.  I have a problem with being cliche in my poems, (this doesn’t arise as much in my prose) and it really makes me mad, because I don’t often catch it and people call me out for it at the editing table.  (Which I appreciate)  It just makes me feel all sullen and down.  D:  That’s my face when I see that I’ve said something cliche. D:<  That’s my face when I find out I’ve done something that doesn’t make any sense.  (That is what my face is usually like…  My poetry makes no sense)  Anyway, this poem is from my point of view, talking about how horrible humanity is, portrayed through your life.  Congratulations.

Stranger to the Eyes of a Child-Man 

There is a man, who, during his life, will seldom find peace;

the daunting eye of his past will haunt him.

He will edge his foot over the precipice of sanity,

and taunt the authorities of fate.

Vortexes will never cease

to disturb him in the corners.

Never find a find a safe haven, a home.

Life will soar above his reach

with experiences he will plead to have,

places he’d kill to visit.

Other men may wander down the road of life,

may sleep with whomever, whenever –

yet his guilt traps him,

torture him in a cave of helplessness.

Stop watch – time bomb – of mental illness.

that will decimate his life,

or lack thereof.

His wife looks down upon,

and away in disappointment

and her father, as one who expected more,

will stagger in self-pity, paralyzed.

Never will he appreciate the taste

of a home cooked meal,

or the crackle of a wood-burning fire.

Life’s amenities mock his poor soul,

with no remorse for passing men by.

He is expendable.

This man – this excuse for a human being –

is you.  Stumbling down cobblestone roads

with a bottle of whiskey in one hand,

and a sack of self-loathing in the other.