you are sleeping, you do not want to believe.

somehow i don't think any of us do. believe that we are crazy and fucked up and beautiful and psycho and depressed and high and manic and laughable and smoking and drinking and ENJOYING OURSELVES OCCASIONALLY and smiling and going home and crying our fucking eyes out and cutting and smacking and bruising and bleeding and loving and acting and singing and dancing and laughing and being sarcastic wankers to each other and eating chips for lunch and counting calories and worrying about going to visit your sister and reading and writing and thinking and thinking and we never stop thinking.

birthdays make me sad. i AM the sad clown. the sad clown story pretty much sums up my life pretty fucking well. for those don't know the sad clown story:

there was once a man, and he went to his doctor. he said, "doctor, i just feel so sad all of the time, i don't know what to do about it, because i just feel so sad." the doctor could tell he was upset, so he told him, "there's a clown in town, who's absolutely hilarious, everyone who goes to him laughs until they cry and they always feel better." the man replied," thing is, doctor. i am that clown."

i would put the sad clown picture she sent me in a message that nearly broke my heart but i can't open it in fear of letting my craziness wash over me.

i.
am.
strange.

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This is my first post in absolutely ages.

I went through my old diary the other day, the amazing, leaf one Aine got me. Well, it wasn't so much as a diary as a book I wrote depressing things in. It was weirddd as hell. Reading some of the stuff in it. From a year ago. If even that. I just constantly wrote about being suicidal, and how trains and ropes and razors occupied my head every single minute of every single day. I can't believe they let me go so far without medication, they're fucking idiots, to tell you the truth. If a 15 year old girl is telling you that sort of stuff.. you can't just leave it. Unless they know what it's like, they have NO fucking clue how difficult it is, never mind the fact that the illness I'd been hiding for 5 years only came out 11 months ago.

WOAH.

Depressing, Aisling.

I think I'm going to make myself stop before I say something I will regret.

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“Long Distance II”
Tony Harrison

Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.

You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone.
He'd put you off an hour to give him time
to clear away her things and look alone
as though his still raw love were such a crime.

He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief
though sure that very soon he'd hear her key
scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.
He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.

I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,
in my new black leather phone book there's your name
and the disconnected number I still call.

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"Resignation"
Nikki Giovanni

I love you
 because the earth turns round the sun
 because the North wind blows north
   sometimes
 because the Pope is Catholic
   and most Rabbis Jewish
 because winters flow into springs
   and the air clears after a storm
 because only my love for you
   despite the charms of gravity
   keeps me from falling off this Earth
   into another dimension
I love you
 because it is the natural order of things

I love you
 like the habit I picked up in college
   of sleeping through lectures
   or saying I'm sorry
   when I get stopped for speeding
 because I drink a glass of water
   in the morning
   and chain-smoke cigarettes
   all through the day
 because I take my coffee Black
   and my milk with chocolate
 because you keep my feet warm
   though my life a mess
I love you
 because I don't want it
   any other way.

I am helpless
 in my love for you
It makes me so happy
 to hear you call my name
I am amazed you can resist
 locking me in an echo chamber
 where your voice reverberates
 through the four walls
 sending me into spasmatic ecstasy
I love you
 because it's been so good
 for so long
 that if I didn't love you
 I'd have to be born again
 and that is not a theological statement
I am pitiful in my love for you

The Dells tell me Love
 is so simple
 the thought though of you
 sends indescribably delicious multitudinous
 thrills throughout and through-in my body
I love you
 because no two snowflakes are alike
 and it is possible
 if you stand tippy-toe
 to walk between the raindrops
I love you
 because I am afraid of the dark
   and can't sleep in the light
 because I rub my eyes
   when I wake up in the morning
   and find you there
 because you with all your magic powers were
   determined that
I should love you
 because there was nothing for you but that
I would love you

I love you
 because you made me
   want to love you
 more than I love my privacy
   my freedom   my commitments
     and responsibilities
I love you 'cause I changed my life
 to love you
 because you saw me one friday
   afternoon and decided that I would
love you
I love you I love you I love you

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“Belfast Tune”
Joseph Brodsky

Here’s a girl from a dangerous town.
    She crops her dark hair short
so that less of her has to frown
    when someone gets hurt.

She folds her memories like a parachute.
    Dropped, she collects the peat
and cooks her veggies at home: they shoot
    here where they eat.

Ah, there’s more sky in these parts than, say,
    ground. Hence her voice’s pitch,
and her stare stains your retina like a gray
    bulb when you switch

hemispheres, and her knee-length quilt
    skirt’s cut to catch the squall.
I dream of her either loved or killed
    because the town’s too small.


as you can see, i clearly haven't been on exceptindreams for a while, hence all the poems being posted so soon after each other :)

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"Eating Together"
Kim Addonizio

I know my friend is going,
though she still sits there
across from me in the restaurant,
and leans over the table to dip
her bread in the oil on my plate; I know
how thick her hair used to be,
and what it takes for her to discard
her man's cap partway through our meal,
to look straight at the young waiter
and smile when he asks
how we are liking it. She eats
as though starving—chicken, dolmata,
the buttery flakes of filo—
and what's killing her
eats, too. I watch her lift
a glistening black olive and peel
the meat from the pit, watch
her fine long fingers, and her face,
puffy from medication. She lowers
her eyes to the food, pretending
not to know what I know. She's going.
And we go on eating.

exceptindreams is an amazing poetry journal (it's where i found every poem i've posted here). so yeah. go see it :D

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"The Snowy Day"
Elizabeth Spires

The last time I saw you, we met for coffee on a snowy day.
Outside the window of the coffee shop, the snow fell silently

& heavily, the traffic on Coldspring Lane blurred & vague,
each car a cumbersome dream vehicle plowing comically into eternity.

But there you were, real as day, drinking a real cup of coffee.
You were back from India, you had slept for two days, the coffee

tasted wonderful, you said. You had flown to a mountain monastery
to find in prayer & silence what you could not find in the everyday,

taking only a few books, a change of clothes, because for too long you
had carried your life like two suitcases heavy enough to kill you.

When it snows, everything is light & dark at the same time. Black coffee
in a white cup, the hours leaked away, until our cups were empty,

the afternoon gone. Then a kiss on the cheek, a door opening out
into the cold, & I was walking away, up a slippery snowy hill
nothing at all

like your mountain & so little to hold onto. That night the snow fell
& fell & fell, erasing every landmark, quieting the world for a while.

Later, after you died, I had a dream. The phone was ringing.
It was you, your voice, on the other end of the line, laughing

as you said, "Beth, it's Greg. I'm in the hospital. I'm not dead."

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i am scared. i want to go to sleep and never wake up.

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i miss walking round the antrim road in the rain for hours. i miss endless trips up cavehill. i miss getting letters everyday. i miss going to botanic and getting drunk and flirting and thinking everything was gonna be sweet cos the vodka went to your head and you couldn't think straight. i miss kissing people on the cheek and asking michael if he liked me. i miss the new kind of excitement you get when you tell someone a secret. i miss becoming great friends. i miss patsy. i miss our conversation we had at city hall that day, i wish it had never ended. i miss getting up everyday and going to rehersals. i miss the summer. i miss not worrying about school. i miss the days when i didn't need medication to make me feel alright. i miss monica and that night we had where we just talked for hours. i miss lizzy and cigarette breaks. i miss laura during the week. i miss switching off. i miss being able to write something worth reading. i miss loving piano. i miss actually caring about stuff for once. i miss me.

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