how i write books

close this,
open that.
"write, please."--'--
          pull back.

torch that
torch this
wet nails
dry lips

breathe in,
slash lines.
breathe out,
"next time."--'--

breathe in,
hold...

...

-rae

a-void

Please make it quick, boys.

Make it painless if you're gonna go.

But go ahead and go

to Cities with lights and

Parties with drinks and

People with something to offer.

[Make it] about someone else-

----anything else.

[Make it] any other way.

Just please make it quick.

The Secret Keeper

I was told a lot of secrets tonight.
And though
I'll make myself forget them by tomorrow,
I just have to find
                          enough
peace
of mind
to
fall asleep;

They are what keeps me up at night.
Those are my demons.

-rae

for Chris

porcelain and oak

I'm getting so frustrated with how obsessed we all are with what comes after this.
After "this"...

A zit flares up on my forehead and I see how my beauty will never last
and my mortality is shoved in my face whenever I cut my leg shaving.
        My phone screen shatters and I have an existential crisis.

But this morning, I came to the conclusion (that I hope will last) that
--just our luck--
that's what "this" is about. This "this" at least. This life.

I don't think we're supposed to get hung up on all the details of what happens 30 or 50
or, for some unlucky few,
1
year from now.
I think we're suppose to pay attention to how easily we get torn up and spit on and shrunken from how painful it is to be breathe and be alive sometimes.
And then notice how good it feels to touch things and love someone and use your feet to get from point A to point B.
Recognize all of that, and adjust your mood accordingly.
Who has time and thought to spare then?

It's a good day,
let myself be happy with what I have right now instead of trying to figure out how undeserving and fickle I might be.
How fragile.

And then, maybe [hopefully]
in the next life, we'll all be a little less breakable and human. We'll be resilient against wind and heartache and loneliness. emptiness--------
Resilient even to the hands of whoever we have to thank for making us this way.

Magnificent and tall and sturdy,
like trees.

        Wouldn't it be gorgeous if we were all trees?

-rae

Here's hoping you'll forget to ask:

I was told that
it does have a name...
--by
someone who
[un]fortunately possesses the same quality.
that...goddamn 
ITCH.

Even being one of the cursed,
I have committed
the same wrongs that were
done
to me.
I have fallen
for those...exquisite 
few and far
between...
others--

By the very person who told me the name,
I'm guilty:I have never been more ashamed
for merely
   ...watching. I was so filled with wonder,
waiting for his next big words
or his next       big shock
(the next big thing!)
That I forgot to be there and love him.

He,
like me,
like she--
--WE can't...have
more
                WATCHERS
because they just scratch and
scratchand
   scra
      tch------------'''-' until
they see that
the itch is
not so easy to relieve.

And they         [re]
leave me
raw
.

The desire
and the curiosity--it can be sated for a moment,
but...by it's nature,
it will always
come back

when no one else will.

-rae

to those lovely two
and
(more bitterly)
to those who fell in love, "wised up", and left.

bored at the café on a slow monday night

It felt like somewhere else

for a moment,

glancing out the front door to see the

police sirens

            flashing

reminded me of neon lights and advertisements

flashing across a

massive wall of billboards—

New York City was good to me:

with the attractive and superior students

on campus at Columbia…

with the hipsters in Brooklyn,

hustling along and

dodging

each other

             as if they were

raindrops

across the window of a

   moving car…

as if none of these people were

in love with their own neighborhood

like I was.

And I was in love.

Even with the cool kids walking in front of me

puffing from their cigarettes

and blowing into my face,

coating my clothes and hair with

a layer of stink,

I was still in love.

            The next moment,

I turned the corner and was blinded by

Times Square.

My eyes already exhausted

and stinging

from the second-hand smoke,

it was too much for them to take in all the

the neon lights and advertisements

flashing across a

massive wall of billboards,

telling me what I need

and what I want.

And how could they know—?

            I recall all of this,

sitting outside the restaurant

on the curb,

the cold throbbing in my fingers

and my ears,

relieved to find that the

            flashing

police sirens were fading away.

I guess the lights hurt my eyes.

But maybe Manhattan’s billboards

have a better idea of what I need

and what I want

than I do myself.

-rae

New AMS {vs} 40 Creek

On her 5th drink,
And all she can think
is,
"Pour me another--"
Keep it together.

Make this one stiff,
She'll knock it back quick,
saying,
"Pour me another--"
Keep it together.

Keep it together...
If only it'd let her.

-rae

world famous

If you could but

catch a glimpse of this 

[_________]

this------tragedy!!

___'---____________________________________________'______

"i'm trying" she explained

"but you're the first thing i thought about that morning--"

he'll shake his head

"--and every 

[morning] 

since."

[hell] shake his head and
tear* up
the wrapping.

-rae

stagnant

"I trade books with the devil sometimes," she says.
"He enjoys Oscar Wilde(of course)and
his favorite form is essays, funnily enough.
Me too.
We don't talk much.
...
anyways--
--'Rage after convenience' was the name of...this one."
Adding, "This dream."
(Only in context
and not even then!
does it make any sense for an outsider.)
"Don't take that personally."

______________'''_-'


She yells, "I loved you through it all!"
and he stops.
''Sign the wire with love,''         ---(hemingway)
     he smirks.
''or with Washington Irving's name,''         ---(catchtwenty2)
     again.
''or with any of the other books you're so into these days!"

-rae

cheating and watching:

creating and watching:

(give me just a second)
i love all the time we've spent trying to make something of an emotion that we all have
we all have it but when we can't be normal like the rest
we need these problems to
se[e]-[t] us apart.
set me a   p         a                  r                                       t. please!!!!!!
the feeling a
nd
the turmoil--theyre inside and if icouldbut touch the rim the edge the fringe the BORDER of the brink!!--..
   
             
                       lo[o]sing
was never so sweet
as when i was
Dragging my feet and Hitting myself.
when i was
breathing in
and out
and IIIIIN!
Where it may fog up and sweeten me,
Like it's all I ever needed for my.

(give me just a minute)
and then when i'm breathing out,
it embeds itself into the rest of the fabric of
"it all."

-rae

tastfull

DAMNED be my folly!
and TO HELL with those expectations!

The other day, I turned the devil away
like a friend I didn't know how to take care of anymore
or an old lover that stopped taking care of me.
He got mean and I could feel it
inside.

In the arms of my parents--
In the arms of the most real love I've known--
I saw the meanest
and
saddest
and mostpathetic
thing look at me
into my eyes-----------------
in some darkness that I've made
home

it [he] looked at me
and left
--'''___without a fight_-"-- which
worries me
more than anything else.

I could be done with my roving.
With my rOving, wAndering, and wOndering
for noW.

I just need someone to cut me some slackkk k     k             k?

-rae

signed...

"you're out of your mind,"
he says.

he says, "you may be out of your mind,
but there is a
guy who
is looking for a girl
with green eyes and a sad mouth and a pretty body
who cares too much
about her shoes
who admits to not appreciating
the gross or heavy books she reads...
            and is crazy.
and you'll
forget about me once you find each other.
i'm not worried."

     i'm not worried.

she stands up
walks him to the door
and says,
"i'm sorry,"

"thanks,"
he says
and lets her kiss him because
he loves her
and because he thinks it might be the last time he gets the chance to.

she watches him disappear down the hallway,
then she takes a gross book from her
bookshelf
and carefully begins          cutting out the pages
so she can
fold them into
roses and cranes.

-rae

Caatacomes

These tastes in my mouth. Very.             Quite.

Quick.

What I say I leave 

awful remnants--all awful tastes in my mouth 

and all awful feelings.         .

I am not mean not 

shallow

I would not believe I were selfish. Infact

fact

, , I'm this & that & accepting & compassionate and

                        careless 

so perhaps that could b---

perhaps That's The Problem.

o maybejustmaybe!!!just I forgot how it feels 

being b  b      b

                                                  l

                                                                u

                                                 

                    e.

-Miss Anthropy

peace

i feel it in my bones

in my throat like a dryswallowed pill without ache

it just has mass
you know?

some substance

accomplishment

i could even deserve it

youre as vain of a bitch as I am a son of a bitch      he said

and thats ok

because

i feel peace

where its like waltzing

-rae

[ Hello ][ Goodbye ]

...-------------A mere coincidence

?--------------Purposefully

?!-------------To unravel a carefully collected composure

!!!-------------Torment

||__-||_______________________________________________________________||__-||

A reminder that someone is still thinking about me.

A reminder that someone hasn't forgotten about me.

An assurance that you certainly haven't forgotten about me.

||__-||_______________________________________________________________||__-||

A common affinity for a classic American poet? 1923 I--IX--II--III

What you will, 'Miss Anthrop[e][y]

Forever,

-rae

I'd like to--

There are too many souls out there that I will never meet.

I don't fret over the ones I will probably never see again.

Instead of e x  p   a    n     d      i       n        g, I condense.

I rid myself of

clothes

- - - -pictures

- - - - - '-souvenirs

       but never books.
And I miss my love.

I wake up in the middle of the night to write down the last details of a dream and when I read it the next morning, it says, "The acts have not yet come down from where the dogs have placed them."

My wrist is in some serious pain and I wonder if it's because I push myself off my bed--off the floor--so often now.

I sleep in now and it's uncomfortable and time consuming, but I'm just. so. exhaus...

_________--_-_______________'.'.?

I wonder if and when happiness and simplicity became overrated.

What a waste.

-rae

Like Crows

I love the future.
I love technology.
I love that I can see my best friend's face who is in another continent.
I love that I can call my mom for help when I'm lost in the mall.
I love that I can find out what movie I heard that song from.
I love Google and Wikipedia and Twitter and IMDB.
          Except for the blasted Kindles that essentially killed my beloved bookstore, I just love it all.
But please, let the kids always have a lemonade stand.

-rae

waity

i missed my turn on the way home

and i kept driving

until i knew that i was getting too lost

i want to be deep and think of a

pretty way to say thats symbolic

of

exactly where my life is

heading now

but i cant

just like

i

can't

say

any thing

else.

-rae

The wine of error

It's this taste that makes me lose my appetite.

It's this room that makes me dance in August.

It's this book that makes me guilty.

It's this color that takes me to the ocean.

It's this time of night that makes me disintegrate.

It's my mind that I can't take anymore.

But it's the cold that disquiets me.

-rae

Put a BIRD on it!

My mom is really into holiday decorations:

I'm really into this game on my iPod called Word Warp:

Yes. They do live.

-rae