For whom, I can't remember yet

If you come to LA, I will show you
I will tell you what is otherness
If you come to LA, I will bestow
upon you
Love, Inclusion, and Freedom
from that stereotypical emptiness
That glaring sun,
which burns a hole in each poor victim's likeness
In the Valley,
thinking,
This is it
I'm here
What's next?
When you come to LA
I will lavish upon you
Kisses, Romance, and
Sex
The scent of the Sunset Strip--
All that I know of my existence,
Which is not yet suppressed.
I will give you
Sweet, Salty and Wet
I will give you the beach,
my beach
and the Boardwalk
And my time,
which is nothing much yet
When you arrive in Los Angeles,
all fresh and new and pink
and wet
I will give you my past loves,
and with you,
I will share my new flames
(I know you don't want them yet)
But when you come to LA,
My eyes won't shed a tear
because I am not that deep yet
No doubt, you will see me cry
And I will vet your love,
But as of yet,
I am alone
And the Santa Anas have
desiccated my tearducts.
And when you come to LA,
I will tell you everything,
but I am not there yet

Working Title

They say when it rains it pours
And that the warmth is boring
But fuck a cliché
And a tall-tale story
I am the embodiment
Of a West Side story
Grew up in Venice Beach
First generation of a West Coast family
Yes, my family hails from the East
and I'm the inaugural class
My friends are first-generation American
and I'm half-WASP

I was never equipped for winter weather
Nor the tall-tale boasting
The young men with Mediterranean skin
And an interest in clothing
Sure, I'll take a guy who knows his shit
Who can really teach me something
But if his tactics are corny
Then you can count on me ignoring

I've got no tolerance for bullshit
No will to be duped
I'd rather porch-sit even
Than be taken by cab to my stoop

Fuck a tall-tale teller
And a short story seller
I've got better things to do
Than fabricate lies to the fellas
I'll take it or leave it
I make my own decisions
I act with precision when I take into account
The type of men who approach me in this city

They say when it rains it pours
And he said I meet a lot of guys
But I can't imagine taking my clothes off
For a wink, a smile, a hello or a hi

Yeah, so shit hits the fan sometimes
And sometimes I consent to take it
But even with the recent volume of guys in my life
I could never really fake it
Take it or leave it
Sure, I'll have a conversation with you in the club
But I'm not looking for play
I am hoping for love

I felt it yesterday
in a moment of passion
And only when I released
did I realize this moment was drastic

Stop me if I say too much
or if you think I'm taking love for granted
But I can't help feeling as if
my feelings have been surplanted
...All of a sudden in love again
And now I'm getting guys attention?
Forgive me if I dare to think
the two are connected
Maybe they can read it on my face
Or else the story's in my eyes
I would have surmised that things would be different
if I had anticipated falling in love with two different guys

Like rapid fire succession
And a total recall of the heart
I transferred over feelings
before I ever felt the dearth
I never knew the loss of the first
Only the joy of moving on
The ease of transition
Like turning the dial to another song

Radio radio
I never lost transmission

No, I just glided along a two-step to a smooth transition

So no wonder now they come
After the void that filled my life before
Knowing they recognize the fullness now
I am an attention whore

Where once I gave up on affection
Now I'm a hot commodity
with the possibility of being loved
The kind of woman that I'd be jealous of if I were all my former me's

No, I don't want for love
And I don't pine in vain
I'm never desperate anymore and
I've got no complaints

Easy come, easy go,
Like rainfall on the West Coast
And now I'm relishing the downpour
'cause I'm a tall-tale teller
And a veritable attention whore

1-17-09
finished
early
a.m.

Incredible Frustration with Life in a Matter of Hours and the Inability to Act Powerfully in One Night

Going from one wonderful afternoon into the early evening. We depart the house and decide to eat at the vegan Ethiopian restaurant on Fairfax. We arrive after 7 p.m. My dance class starts at 8. I've known all along that something was going to get in the way of doing this class. I've already declined to attend the Actor's Lounge with Sanyu. Though I don't care much for struggling actors and their 5-minute allotments for performance, I know that the night would be fun. Adam would be there, and now I know that Joshua is going too. He is performing actually. With Joe, my old mentor, the one who Joshua wouldn't tell the last time that he and I dated. He was keeping me a secret. I'm a kept woman, or I was, at 19. Now, at 21, my status is still unclear.
What is clear is that I am going to miss this class. Joshua lets me know the time at 7:45 p.m. I get a box for my food, which has arrived only minutes earlier. It is hot and still smelling good once I get into the car. First I give Joshua a kiss goodbye and, puzzled, suggest meeting up tomorrow. What is this new relationship? I don't know. Today, Joshua told me it would be "fun to fall in love with [me]," or something to that extent. He is open with his thoughts, sharing them like a favorite book. Read me! Here, you don't have to, I'll just read it for you!
So I get to the car, knowing full well that I will not be making the class on time. I have a 5-minute debate with myself as to whether taking the freeway would be more economical time-wise than driving all the way back on Venice Blvd. I end up taking Venice, cursing every few or so lights. I am frustrated. And the food smells good.
After the endless trek is finally done, I park and proceed to change in my car. Reversing my seat back, I shimmy out of my jeans and put on my old thin Scripps College sweatpants in red. Then my socks, then my sneakers, laced, and I am out. To the door, and what do I find? It's locked. The door to the dance studio is locked and there are people inside warming up. But no one is at the front desk. It is as if Katnap has given the keys to the dance teacher just to open up for this particular spot. I believe that is the truth. There aren't many classes at this studio anyways. Alas, the warm-up actually looks hard. Women in yoga pants are stretching their legs back in an arabesque. I do a double take. Is this really hip hop?
Eventually, I give up. It was only half-way through my ride home that I realized I should turn back. What should have happened is that, I, wanting to spend more time with friends, more time with Joshua, and more of my precious free-time doing fun stuff now that I have to think about studying for the LSAT this break (WHAT?), well I should have stayed put at dinner. Eaten my delicious vegan Ethiopian food that, instead, steamed up my passenger seat on the futile ride to the dance studio. Made an entrance at the Actor's Lounge. Seen Joe, who I barely see these days. See if Joe noticed anything between Joshua and I (haha). And had a pleasant time like I always do. And maybe have gone home with Joshua. Alas...

side note: As I wrote this post last night, sitting in my red Scripps sweatpants and a bright yellow pullover, feeling a little uncomfortable in my body and thinking I should just go to the gym, I thought I lost the post. When I clicked the 'PUBLISH POST' button, the website turned into one of those lost domains where URLs that don't really exist take you. The kind that's not a real website, because you just typed in something like wwwlfacebook.co. or some shit like that. So, infuriated and laughing at the minute personal injustices of my evening, I went to bed. Lo and behold, this morning I awoke, checked on my blog drafts to see if this one might have possibly been saved, and it was! Hurrah! I'm still mad, though, because I lost the end of the blog, which was good. And, I woke up this morning at some ungodly hour like 8:38 a.m. dreaming a dream of frustration, depicted in a very uncomfortable way.

Aaaaand we're back!

My first poem of the New Year:

Ours was wanderlust from the start
crazy committed perfection
And then, wanderlust
Rife with wondering
How something so seemingly perfect,
something comfortable and seamless
Could be lost
A fragment so minute
As to be perceived as insignificant
The faintest flood
As if quieted thoughts
Could be ignored
I dared not acknowledge
what I bore
What I said
I could not bear to say to him
My story was for everyone else and
Only my flickering love for him,
The rest given to the air

1-4-09

Going to Chicago

All anyone ever wants to talk about is the cold.
As if I am entering forbidden territory
A labyrinth
Or an Evangelical Church.
Chicago, eh?
they say
You ever been to Chicago in the wintertime?
No.
I was in New York once in January,
But it was 70 degrees.
Must have brought the Santa Ana’s
in my suitcase.
I’ll take the cold please.
The challenge,
The shock,
To cut through all my former me’s.
The she who wouldn’t leave home
So she ended up enrolling in purgatory
Some forbidden land outside of LA
Where life became Depressing and
Oppressive
like the heat.
The me who hated sweaters as a baby
and cursed the gods every time it rained.
I scoff at the audacity,
The gall to pass myself off as weak
so early.
No, not so.
I was a woman of twenty
Who went to the Midwest
On the eve of her birthday
Who turned 21
On Midnight
When it was below freezing.
I took a picture of the thermometer
As if to say,
Look at me now, bitches!
I battled the beast.
And when it first snowed
I became giddy.
Awoke in my bed next to my sleeping lover,
Took a look out the window and…
GASP
Hoo-wee!
Git a look at that thar snow honey!
Looks like somethin’ from a movie.
See, this is what I always think of when I see snowdrifts on shrubbery:
Wal-Mart
Cheap plastic trees
Covered in the snow my dad disdained so.
As if our desiccated California pine
Had any place in our bright dusty living room
On Christmas mornings.
Now I know what “real snow” looks like.
And,
Yes, I have experienced the cold.
I even saw it drop into the ‘teens
So, I say,
When people ask about the weather,
It is freezing,
Not windy yet.
No,
I’m making it out of here before it gets the best of me.
But I have experienced the cold.
Each successive day,
My. Coldest. One. Ever.
And I relish it,
Thinking,
Ha!
I can do this
(As long as I’ve got that down jacket Elly lent me)
I can do anything.

Borrowing my melancholy from Sandra Cisneros

SO, I felt melancholy earlier, but with good reason. I have a new favorite poet:

"Once Again I Prove the Theory of Relativity"


If
you came back
I'd treat you
like a lost Matisse
couch you like a Pasha
dance a Sevillana
leap and backflip like a Taiwanese diva
bang cymbals like a Chinese opera
roar like a Fellini soundtrack
and laugh like the little dog that
watched the cow jump over the moon

I'd be your clown
I'd tell you funny stories and
paint clouds on the walls of my house
dress the bed in its best linen
And while you slept
I'd hold my breath and watch
you move like a sunflower

How beautiful you are
like the color inside an ear
like a conch shell
like a Modigliani nude

I'll cut a bit of your hair this time
so that you'll never leave me
Ah, the softest hair
Ah, the softest

If
you came back
I'd give you parrot tulips and papayas
laugh at your stories
Or I wouldn't say a word which,
as you know, is hard for me

I know when you grew tired
off you'd go to Patagonia
Cairo Istanbul
Katmandu
Laredo

Meanwhile
I'll have savored you like an oyster
memorized you
held you under my tongue
learned you by heart
So that when you leave
I'll write poems

Me Myself and I

Being surrounded by all of them is like having my mind swathed in men. I swim in it. The thoughts, the repetition of thought and feeling, feeling unsure of what I'm feeling, and then reconsidering it all over again. The closer I get to something definite, the less I am comfortable with myself. The more I distance myself from chaos, the more I want to dive in. This head trip is maddening and exhilirating. I love the idea, the possibilities, and loathe the guilt, the doubt and the despair (sometimes). I am treading solid ground feeling as if its me that's crumbling. I truly have lost a grasp on what I value, what I desire, and what is in store for me. When I was fourteen, I wanted a tan boy and an elected position in Student Government. Now I want sex, sex, money, independent success, spontaneity, caprice, love, stability, a comfortable lover at home and one with wanderlust, another with no regrets and no regard for courtesy. I must be crazy to think I will be an ardent environmentalist, a greener fundamentalist than thou, when even my thought patterns are unsustainable, much less my desires and then my actions too... Who knows what is in store for me, and for them. I am eager, anticipating taking flight, and postponing the descent