the sky has teeth marks

All complexity gleaming just beyond the panes,

all ache hovering just above the bones.

The sun thudding on the naked ground,

loud as a rainstorm.

Two bleached lips forever coming together,

then coming apart, having forgotten
the moistness of words.

All alone in a cramped casing of flesh: stand.

Stand, stand with an iron taste ravishing the tongue.

Teeth marks bitten around the edges

of the heart, of the sky.

Birdsongs that taste unfamiliar,

yet eerily recall the ghosts of birches once known.

A wasteland. That is what this is called,

I believe. It is the only belief I let stay:
lodged securely in my windpipe.

-------------------------------------------

This poem was written (for the most part) a few months ago whilst I was listening to Patti Smith.  It's the latest in a long series of attempts to write something ugly. Well... not ugly, exactly. I just get fed up sometimes when my words feel too glib and pretty and I want to tear them up and leave them lying around with the sharp edges pointing upwards.

I don't know how I'm feeling, so I canna tell you. I'm still here, though I am still often overcome with the desire to disappear.


I've been uncharacteristically busy, which is actually awful because it puts me in the mindset on my non-busy days that I deserve to laze around and make an inordinate number of GIFs. That's my new hobby, you see. That and scanning things. If you follow me on tumblr, you might have noticed. Not that I've been obnoxious about it, or anything.....

My scanning-obsession all started with me deciding to scan a W.S. Merwin poem. I discovered how easy it was, and how much fun, and since then I've just been scanning anything that catches my fancy in a book.

I don't want to post my GIFs on here, but I will post a few of my favourite scans!

The W.S. Merwin poem that started it all.

Julia Strachey "cogitating".

Dorothy Gish and Elmer Clifton, 1916

Marjorie Hart (author of Summer At Tiffany) and her friend
Marty at the beach in 1945.

The Beatles in Elizabethan Costume, 1964

Ant McPartlin, 9 months

Declan Donnelly, 3 years

 (As you can see I saved best for last - little Ant and Dec, awww.)

(And it is really hard to format pictures with the new blogger, so pardon my wonky spacing. >_<)


This is rather a patchwork post - two unrelated things sewn together. It feels like the old days! This is nice. For me, at least. ;)

"And it hurts to be here..."

As much as I may wish it, life cannot simply put on hold for those days, weeks, months, (years?) I can't get a grip. I must carry on, all the while feeling that everything is slipping past and my mind is stuffed with cotton. I see everything through a trance, but that trance is godsent, for when it clears that is when the guilt and sadness set in. It always seems to clear at night.


The past month or three, more nights than not have found me lying on my bed, wanting to disappear. Wanting it so hard, it aches.


"And it hurts to be here
I don't want to be here
And it hurts to be here
Tonight..."
-Polly Scattergood, Untitled 27




Though a bad idea, I've done my best to put life on hold, but (unsurprisingly) it's fallen on top of me, and I'm suffocating.
 
It's just gotten really difficult, not knowing what I want, and not having the self-discipline to pull myself together.

I don't know what to say. I have no words.

(And Marjorie, my inner muse, has been giving me the cold shoulder. But since I wasn't even noticing, she decided to give me two stories in one day [really crappy stories, mind] to make me realize that she had essentially deserted me. That vixen!)

My days...

My days have been full of...

Going to the library, and getting more books than I have the time or inclination to read,

cleaning (which is, I confess, enjoyable),

listening to Polly Scattergood,

and trying to beat the record for amount of Byker Grove episodes watched in one day.

(I started watching the show because it features a certain pair [see below] as young 'uns. But I'm really enjoying the show in its own right too. I'm actually kind of obsessed with The Grove and its occupants... The whole series is currently on dailymotion.com, since it's not on DVD, annoyingly enough.)

Actually, Byker Grove is the show Ant and Dec met on!!! And the rest is history...

This past week, I actually thought things were starting to get better.

In some ways, they have. Two certain fab girls have brought so much light and joy to my life recently. Life is beautiful, life is hilarious with them on the other side of the screen. ♥

I want to get out of the place I'm in, but I don't know how. I am so weak. I've never been this weak before, not even when I was harming myself.

I don't know, I just don't know. I am sorry.

(Just know, I love you all. I don't know how I got so lucky to have such wonderful people in my life.)

Perhaps I will post something less pathetic in the week(s) to come.



{First picture is "Jove decadent" by Ramon Casas, and second picture was probably found here.}

This year's passions.

I've just finished a glorious week, which was spent alone. Or as close to alone as I'm going to get. My parents and brothers were several states away from April 25--May 5, and since my sister has school and a social life she was in and out. I was actually going to do a post about "living alone", but I don't know - on Friday I was sort of overcome by my intermittent ennui/depression and I suddenly didn't feel like posting anything I had been considering posting.

So, on Friday I started pondering what to post about, for I knew I did want to post. The problem was, I wanted to be positive, but I'm kind of struggling with happy thoughts these days. It doesn't help that my birthday is on the 7th. Tomorrow, that is. I am going to be 19 and that sort of makes me feel sick.
Then I realized... this time last year, four things that are extremely important to me right now, were hardly on my radar, if at all. So this past year--the year I spent being 17--has been, if nothing else, crucial to my inner collection of things that lie extremely close to my heart. I thought, "Why not post about these things?" The answer was a surprisingly excited, "Okay!"

A photo representation of these four things which I am now going to talk about:

(Pictured: Season four of Gilmore Girls; Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim; a vinyl of Laura Nyro's album Christmas and the Beads of Sweat; and Ant & Dec's autobiography, Ooh! What a Lovely Pair.)

If you are easily bored, now might be a good time to leave. ;)





1. Gilmore Girls

 

 This show originally aired from 2000-2007, but I first started watching it at the end of May last year when I had my wisdom teeth out. By August, my mother and I had finished all seven seasons. (Many props to my sister for convincing me to watch it, even though I was initially reluctant!)

What makes this show so amazing? I don't know. It centers around the close relationship of single mother Lorelai Gilmore and her daughter Rory. Lorelai's banter and Rory's bookwormish-ness makes for two awesome characters. Also, the show is filled with wit, pop-culture references, and most importantly, a quirky cast of characters who are (for the most part) incredibly lovable. This is one of my top five favourite TV shows of all time. (Don't ask what the others are, because I haven't decided yet. :P)

2. Elizabeth von Arnim

Elizabeth von Arnim had been on my list of authors to-read for a while, but my county library had none of her books. They only had a movie adaption of Enchanted April, which I also watched when I had my wisdom teeth out. It was very good, but not as good as the book, which in June I discovered I was able to read on Project Gutenberg. But even better, in September I joined the city library. This library is amazing and has a plethora of old, hard-to-find books. Thanks to my new library, I've read Elizabeth and Her German Garden, The Solitary Summer, and The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rugen.
Elizabeth and Her German Garden is my favourite, but all of them are incredible books. (The library copies were all over 100 years old, too!)

Elizabeth von Arnim is one of my favourite authors now. I don't know what it is about her books I love. They are at least slightly autobiographical, I believe. She loves nature, she dreams and cherishes her solitude, but she is able to laugh at the absurdities in herself and other people. I like to think of her as a kindred spirit.






3. Laura Nyro

A few of you might remember me waxing eloquent about Laura Nyro back in November. She was practically all I listened to in that month. Though I'd know about her for a few years, it was not until this past year I grew to adore her innovative and passionate style of music. I've discovered a lot of great new music this year, but her music has been my most constant and desired accompaniment.






4. Ant and Dec

(They usually stand in alphabetical order, but in this picture it's Dec on the left and Ant on the right.)

Oh, Ant and Dec - my biggest obsession since my Beatlemania started in 2007. Those of you who follow me on tumblr might have noticed I am quite a fan of these two. This infatuation also started in November, when my darling friend Tilly indirectly introduced me to SM:TV Live, a children's show they presented in the 90s with Cat Deeley. (They are quite well known in Britain, but most Americans don't seem to know who they are, unless they watch Britain's Got Talent.)
Though Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly mostly just present now, they've done a little of everything in their long careers together.  I, personally, find Ant and Dec hilarious in all they do. This could partially be because they feel like old friends; I love their personalities and the way they interact with each other. Their genuinely close friendship on and off screen is beautiful, and--ridiculous as this may sound--I honestly can't imagine my life without knowing who these two are.


I'm actually really glad I took time to focus on these things. Looking at this makes me think life is pretty great. Sure these things are trivial, but hey - trivial things are important to me. They're what make life bearable, really.

And despite of how I sounded in the beginning of this post, I am not dreading my birthday; I just... am not ready to accept a full year has already passed since I turned 18. I did so little this year. *sigh*

(P.S. As you can see, I've updated my blog layout, so it looks a bit different now. But still essentially the same. I'm not savvy enough [or willing, really] to give it a bigger makeover.)



(First photo by me, of course, Second from here, third, fourth, fifth.)