Outlive Us

http://www.abominable.cc/

That's What She Said

I'm finding it hard... to write. I think those little writing exercises like "write about how you think regret tastes" or "write a short story in 55 words or less" are trite. I mean, I can see how that would spur you to write, but that's not the writing I want to do.

I've noticed that a lot of what I write has a pseudo-posh tone - like I use "rather" too much or I use huge generalizations to further my analysis. It means I don't have to put much effort into my writing. I'm going to stop doing that. Right now.

So here's my more honest voice. It's less flowery and superfluous. I think it's better.

Hello New Year

I'm ready for the new year and what it's bringing my way. I don't think the world is going to end any time soon. I mean, I don't know, but I don't think it will. At least, I hope it won't.

I've been sitting here at the yarn store, writing out the odd knitting blog article thing, and helping around the store all with a sense that I'm not doing all I can.

I'm not writing enough. I'm not studying enough. I'm not finishing my projects enough. And I'm not creating anything new.

Things need to change around here.

So, without further ado, here are my new year's resolutions for all the things I'm allowed to put on the internet with fear of being stalked:

1. More writing - more poetry, more short stories, more articles, more journal deliberations, more

2. More posting on my own blog

3. More hiding of said writing unless it's to be published in something (i.e. unless it's good)

4. More exploring new places to sit around and write without fear of being seen

5. More adventure

6. Less idolizing other people

7. More time being affectionate to the people I'm coming to love and to those I've loved a long time

8. More time being good to myself

9. More time changing the things that don't work and accepting the things that do despite all my best efforts

In Too Deep

And I'm trying to keep up above in my head, instead of going under.

Blegh, so I just realized something - I'm doing lots and lots of writing (well, sorta), for Brown Girl, for Nine Rubies, for UCLAradio, but like nothing for myself or my writing projects. I barely write in my journal. I rarely add to my short stories. I haven't written a poem in forever. BLEGH, I say.

It's very strange maintaining a writing blog because there's so much I want to talk about that I feel like I have to keep it to literature. How weird. Maybe that's self-imposed. I should stop doing that. I should also stop talking like I'm living inside my head.

Weekend Update

Happy Independence Day, readers! It's lovely today in central-north California and it's nice to have the feel of keyboard keys under my fingers again. I've started working on a few short stories and hopefully they'll be completed at some point. Hopefully.

Home is Wherever I'm With You

Hello, you. How are you? Good, I hope.

Me? Oh, me, I'm home.

I'm not sure what that means for this blog, but let's see.

ShitShitShit

It's been almost a month! Ohmahgawd, I'm sorry. But here's a sestina and a pantoum for you. Just for you.

A Sestina on Teacups, Marathons, and Overdone Cultural Clashes

The Breakfast Club resolved to meet every Sunday morning.

During their allotted time and in their allotted space they would discuss the news:

Troubling dreams, sabzi recipes, fashion, and what their children

Weren’t doing with their lives. Tapping their teacups

With the soft part of the spoon, clicking their tongues,

And nodding concernedly, they would tuck their saris around themselves for the rerun

Of the fifty-year old Indian woman’s harsh reality. All the club members would run

Behind her, simpering at her hysterics and aware of the nuances of mourning.

They would catch each tear with outstretched hands and spooned tongues.

The Sunday news was passed around ritually, but it was never new.

Each story was a retelling of the same; old tears, yellowing teacups.

The porcelain cracked silently with each sighing spoon tap for the children.

The children had no idea what they were doing. None at all. These new-age children.

Without a backwards glance, they dropped their culture and ran

After this ungrazi, gordai idea. It wasn’t theirs to forget, the teacups

Broke subtly, just as Sundays were God’s made morning.

Each dismissed pooja and every blond girlfriend brought home stabbed anew

The Indian mother’s wound of a heart. The forgotten mother tongues

And the preponderance of short skirts made them fear how tongues

Would wag at the next club meeting. They shook their heads at their children –

If they had no culture, they had no anchor. The members remembered their newborns.

And I often imagined my mother’s mouth running

In circles about how I no longer take time in the morning

To do breathing exercises, enjoy my food, or think of God, as she refills teacups.

I am not invited to these meetings. I only put away the teacups

After. I rinse off the brown lipstick and try not to think about the quick tongues

That lapped up my mother’s chai and crocodile tears each Sunday morning.

I wonder if every generation was the same – the mother’s cried because of the children

And the children tried to live despite the sadness. Were they always running,

Since the beginning? I’ve heard this story before, I’m sure. Not newfangled.

My mother was from before all this, from old New Delhi,

And she was carried to the new world in marriage. She only brought the teacups

Her mother gave her. She left with tears, but I wonder if she was also on the run.

She brought her idols and ideals with her, but did tongues

Lash in her absence? Did they berate her for her soon-to-be children?

They would grow up with out paranthas for breakfast every morning.

So, did she run too, from her mother? Was she unable to renew

The cycle? The breakfast club meets every Sunday morning, and they sip from teacups,

Wagging their tongues, remembering their own mothers, and shaking their heads for their children.

Pantoum Loosely Based on the Iliad

And the god who loves lightening never missed a word

Of what was whispered under the clashing of spears

And over the clanging of thunder, he heard everything

In the breath of fallen men.

Of what was whispered under the clashing of spears,

Few could make out the meaning, historians argued

Over the breath of the fallen men

Ready to ascribe sentiment to the long dead.

Few could make out the meaning, and historians argued

About why that battle was fought

Ready to ascribe sentiment to the long dead,

The story fell headfirst into romantic tomes.

Why was that battle fought

Atop the deep green of a well-loved land?

This story fell headfirst into romantic tomes

And the bloodshed lay forgotten among the rosy tones.

Atop the deep green of that well-loved land

Waves of men surged against each other,

The bloodshed lay forgotten among those who retold it,

But the lightening god looked on knowingly.

Waves of men surged against each other,

Ready to die and ready to fight on,

The lightening god watched knowingly,

Prepared to pluck up the dead and gone.

Ready to die and ready to fight on,

The men yelled and screamed and cried,

Prepared to pluck up the dead and gone,

Rememberers chose their meanings carefully.

The men yelled and screamed and cried,

And the god who loves lightening never missed a word

Rememberers chose their meanings carefully

But over the clanging of thunder, the lightening god heard everything.

Look at me, being all published

http://browngirlmagazine.com/2011/04/we_live_in_aged_times/

That's a poem.

I have other articles on this website, if you're so inclined. I don't recommend them, though, they're really rough.

It Would Be Great

If you thought my lack of updates was because I have a wild and roaring social life. That'd be swell. So, keep on thinking that.

Quarter-Life Crisis

The shitty thing about being an English major is I am constantly confronted by poets and writers and characters that have achieved more in their short, hedonistic lives than I
probably ever could in twice as many years. You know that dumb phrase "more in his little finger..."? It's like that. It feels horrible.

I realize it's a little outrageous to try to compare myself to such great people as Byron or Keats, but I'm mad right now. I mean, just look (to the left) at that suave, tuberculosis-suffering devil. He totally knows he's got it going on.

It feels so silly to sit in school learning about them rather than being out in the world, writing on napkins in dingy bars or traveling through South America while keeping a photo/doodle/poetry journal. I am literally staring out the window AT the glorious LA sun rather than running around in it and getting grass stains on my diary pages. That is the peak of privleged-suburban helplessness, I swear. It's like facing the fact that you will never amount to much of anything.

We talk constantly in class about the "script for happiness" that disillusioned writers spend so much time talking about. And we bring in examples from our own lives about how it's like we are all trying to attain the unattainable model of happiness and success. But I don't think for a second that any of us really lets it sink and settle in the dark places of our

hearts. I mean, I totally want to write or do something ground-breaking, life-changing, movie-making (see to the left (Ben Whishaw, you sexy sexy man)),* or limit-traversing instead of sitting inside discussing those that have already done so. At the same time, though, I can feel my own extremely disenchanting lack of talent or drive. I want it, yeah, but I can't even tell you convincingly if I have the ability to ever achieve it, let alone before I'm 21.

When I was about 12-14, I found this horrible Vampire Fiction book (pictured here)

about this girl who follows a dangerous-looking, shady man back to his mansion in the mountain. And the next thing she knows, HE'S A VAMPIRE (marginally better than Twilight, fer shoor). She then becomes his blood bank and house servant. Eventually she kills him because she's a vampire slayer. Anyway, the point of bringing up this badly written book is because the author, Amelia Atwater-Rhodes (also pictured somewhere below (doesn't she look just like Willow from BtvS?)),* apparently wrote her first novel at the age of 14. You know what I was doing when I was 14? I was reading Meg Cabot, mooning over fictional boys, and rocking Docs, Hot Topic witticism shirts, and glasses. I had no publishing aspirations. I was TYPICAL. Well, I was typical for my misfit-type. But I wanted to be wonderful. So, I sat down at my desk, with my legal pad and pencil. And I strained and strained and strained for a story idea. None came instantly to me so I decided I had no writing talent, and I went to go watch Inyuasha. How pathetic is that? What a sheer sign of my lack of drive, talent, and movie-worthy ability. Even at a young age I knew I was doomed for nothing but fashion awkwardness. Awesome

Well, I think about now I'm getting to stuck in my self-pity, so I will leave it here. My main point is that I need to write more. Now that I have a better grip on what I can say and how I say it (and I've also lost the Hot Topic shit), I think I'm more able to try to achieve something. It's all about the pursuit, right? I doubt I'll create anything publishable (we all know this blog is a wash), but I should probably try before I lose this animas. *sigh* I guess I should go try to actually write now. Woe is I, that I can sit around all day and TRY to write. Obvs I am Keats incarnate. And we have cures for TB now, so I'm not worried.

* I apologize for my use of double parentheses (it's usually because I just have so much to say (and I don't know how to grammatically do so))

Quick Explanation

I realize I never really got around to explaining my blog's title/ url. This is mostly because when I picked it I thought it sounded crazy-poetic with its reminiscent nod at 90s female singer/song-writer music. I am very ashamed of this. Very very ashamed.

While I Wait

I'm waiting to hear back from a professor about whether I got into his poetry workshop or not. I'm also waiting for sleep. It's all very tiring.

But I figured since I'm waiting, and since you're waiting by extension, that I should give you something while you sit with me. This is a very very old poem. And at the time I was in love with it because I could use it for a bunch of things (which meant I didn't have to write a new poem). It seemed to go over well with others #kanyeshrug. Consider it a token of our friendship:

Cloudy Walking

There are clouds outside,

Obviously,

That are pushed across the sky

by wind, maybe

but it's almost like I could run through a

meadow

Throw up my trusty grappling hook

and latch onto a cloud for the ride.

The sky could be blinding blue

or not ~ it could storm

it doesn't matter to me, really at all

just that my face was numb with water vapor

and intangible fluff,

Just that I was high up, above all of it,

lying down on the edge of the field,

and not falling into a valley,

That the world could stretch out underneath

like the bottom of a glass-bottom boat

and trees became easy to believe I am stepping on them.

I want to cloudily walk above it all

on the glass of my glass-bottom boat

so I can rest my grappling hook and

pull out my captain's hat and

take the wheel of my cloud.

So it could float, lonely if it likes,

above it all and into everything more,

Daffodils to morning glories to moonwort,

I would commandeer it through the night and day

Until it fell apart around me

and let me rise down to my meadow.

Set down on my back

under nothing and it all

stars for eyes and a moon,

the sky can fall above me.

I'll follow my cloud,

cloudily walking through the stalks and around the flowers,

following that cloud through the black and the gray, until my meadow finished,

cloudy walking out to morning.

As you can see, it's very awkward and dull. I feel like this is me showing you embarrassing baby photos of myself.

Look At My Fucking Clichés

A Sestina on Religion, Smoking, and Winter Wind

“I like this place because it’s empty and wild”

she said while taking a long breath out of her fag

pulling the smoke in deep to hold within her throat

like an internal necklace fingered for warmth and solace,

glittering, as she considered the immaculate conception.

It fell apart as she decided virginity was a human error

Which she figured, to think of was also an error

for it was not meant to be questioned within the wild

glades of the man-made religion, within the conception

of our own purity and innocence. She thumbed out the fag

on the concrete railing. “Is religion something to seek solace

in?” she posed to me, “Or should the prayers stay in our throats

To keep them warm?” her scarf fell from her throat

revealing the sensual weakness that was the God-made error

of all humanity. She continually sought her solace,

this girl, within the bizarre intelligence of Wilde

or within the trailing smoke of a poetic fag,

and with the belief in human conception

Being, at its base, fallible. It began with conception,

when the fetus feels out life in the echoes of its throat,

reverberating inside the womb. She pulled out another fag

and struck the match against the rail. It was her error

believing this world, outside her, was wild

yet so easily dismantled for her so that she may find solace

Among her own thoughts and the breakdown of this world. Solace

is not so easily found when sought and she strayed back to the immaculate conception

that everyone was in their own tidy box, while the cold air made her heart beat wild

in her throat

and suddenly she was aware of her error

as she flicked that fag.

At one time she had used the word fag

lightly as she sought solace

in the everyday use of labels, degrading the world into a train of error

breaking it down into the simple conception

that everyone and everything was detestable. She caught her scarf back to her throat

and the smoke flickered on the air and the wild

Of the moment. And as she pulled out another fag, repeating the same action and rethinking the conception

that all humans desire is solace, the icy wind caught her thoughts by the throat

and she felt the error of the world disappear, and it become again empty and wild.

Untitled 1

It's always strange when you reach that point in daily life where going through the motions has replaced actual living - it's like you've been zoning out for so long, you're doing it professionally, all the time, without realizing. It's stranger still when you look around your room or the places you walk and see that you're not seeing the details, the contours or the colors anymore. And it's not like you can shock yourself out of it or that you can simply throw yourself deeper and better into your works and passions. I think, what it takes, is the witnessing of a moment - a piece of good writing, a gorgeous picture, careful words from a friend, a universal configuration, a sign - to get you back to where you need to go. This place isn't point B, it's where you were speeding and raging to previously, before you forgot yourself.

Then again, I could just be full of shit and this only applies to me.

Professing

I spoke to my poetry class professor today about my "strengths and weaknesses" when it comes to poetry writing. I still think this is a funny concept - breaking down poetry, which is essentially the cheesy art I do in my room, by myself, with the door locked, into a series of improvable situations. I mean, I know how to do that with dance, like if your arm is limp you straighten it, if you're not on beat you better get on beat fast, etc. Poetry always seemed, and still slightly seems, to be untouchable and basically dredged up subconscious thrown on a page. Am I completely wrong?

Within Without

What next, I said

What next for us in the huge wide world

Out past the highways of this country, over the oceans, and through all the loves this universe could muster up to trip us

What next.

We’ve conquered nothing

Here

But it’s been picked over

By far defter, daintier hands than ours

Torn unintentionally by those who came before

We should pick up and go

We can claim the dark parts in our souls later

While we bum our hazy shady way through the

Byways of this world

We’ll find ourselves, I’m sure.

Within us or without, we’re there

Ready to be found later

When the time is right

When there’s less to be seen because so much

Has been explored

When we’re sitting in front of the TV,

So ready to let go of those memories and that

Animas that made us run

Will we realize the unsayable truth of our souls.

That there is no lesson of life besides this one:

We eventually forgot to look for the significance.

Brave New World

So, Libya. AM I RIGHT?!

I mean, holy fuck, this is an actual revolution happening half-way around the world. This is a textbook revolution with an overly-oppresive, egomaniacal tyrant who's unleashing five inch-long bullets on his people, whom he's deemed "backwards" and drug-addled. We don't know how many have died or what's happened to those who are missing. We don't know when Tripoli will fall or when Gaddafi will step down and/or be assassinated. I am at a loss as to how to even describe all of this completely insane shit in a single blog post. Or even multiple blog posts. I feel so dumb trying to encapsulate any of this with my ridiculous writing.

Oh jeez. I'm with you, Libya. Do your thang, I'm with you.

On Banksy, Word Art, and Texas

I'm in Texas! Also, I've given up on the lack of capitalization - I'm not e.e. cummings, and I can accept that.

So, before I launch into this whole thing on Banksy, a disclaimer: I am not nearly edgy enough or well-known enough to assume for a second that I can get away with sharing my opinion on Banksy and have it mean something. But, with that, here's my take on this thing: As you may or may not know, Banksy art (graf? art? who even cares?) has appeared in Westwood, LA, about three blocks from where I live and on the back of an Urban Outfitters (RIGHT?!). And because I basically go to school with a bunch of hipsters, this is a really big deal. I have, in my own time (WAY BEFORE YOU, duh) appreciated Banksy work and my favorite "piece" or whatever is the two male cops going at it (I do not feign to be deep or complicated - I've also included it for the like-minded readers out there).

I also enjoyed the subversiveness of his graf because who can claim they don't like punk rock dissent against globalization and consumerism? So, with all that in mind, I'm SURE you're wondering what my feelings are on this. And here it is: I'm glad Banksy has expanded into LA, because Angelinos could definitely use a dose of global issues (at least to say that we know there are some). I'm also extremely happy that it's on the back of an Urban Outfitters because this whole thing with the UO (same company as Free People and Anthropologie) trying to form a lawsuit against Banksy for vandalizing one of their stores is laughable - they've made so much money off his art work (with the wall decals and the shirts and the shit) that I'm pretty sure he's ousted Che as a t-shirt hero. So, bravo, Banksy, you cultured devil you. And, again, fuck the machine.

Oh, also, as a side note, the facebook group or whatever that's trying to petition to keep Banksy up just because it's Banksy - get the fuck over yourselves. Graffiti is temporary art meant to be subversive and destructive to the status quo. If it wasn't in danger of getting erased, it'd lose a good chunk of its power.

Moving right along, I'm having increasing difficulty reading writing (poetry, mostly) and finding value in it. My own work aside (since I'd be completely oblivious if I considered it any good), why is it that literature now just falls into constant exaggeration? Why is this considered at all acceptable? I've been sticking to tumblr as my source of poetry. Not ONLY the dumb little hipster, hyper-saturated photographs with song lyrics on top, but, like, the few comments people make here and there that I allow myself to misread and understand. Is this even allowed? Not art. Definitely not art. Just a sign that I need to go to bed at a proper time.

Finally, I guess, on Texas. I've literally been either traveling, sleeping, eating, or watching movies today with constant overlap between these activities. Texas makes me feel useless and I'm not sure if I like it because there's no guilt to it. On a happier note, there is so much Indian food being put in front of me with no hope of cessation. I contain multitudes (of curry, naan, and subjhi). More on this later (because, honestly, formatting those dumb pictures has taken more time than writing this post and I have dumb homework to get to).

Hustle and flow flow flow against the dying of this night.

i have a poem due in like 15 or so hours. well, it's not due due, like a homework assignment, but i have this reading thing that i said i'd be a part of happening tonight. i mean, it's not like they SPECIALLY REQUESTED me or some shit (that would've been rad, *sigh* i miss that part of high school) buuuuuuut, i'm doing it anyway?

it's supposed to be about alter-egos. and, of course, the only thing i could think about was comic books. for the longest time i was staring at this computer screen thinking about mystique and cyclops and the fact that jean grey had no awesome mutant name until she died and became the MOTHERFUCKING MARVEL PHOENIX. but, i mean, besides that she was pretty lame to me - so, you can probably see what my problem's been as far as writing goes. i mean, i have like a page and a half of slightly readable, but completely horrible, slam poetry, but my mind is firmly on x-men (first class looks like a hot mess) and this poem isn't going anywhere.

this post has no elegance to it, and look! it even has cussing. well, shit.

Hello, Again

it's been a long while since an update, and i wish i had a better excuse than having nothing to write. i've had loads to write, i guess, because i guess every writer has stuff they can talk about. i just never really think there's an audience for the things that go on in my mind or to me.

about 20 minutes ago i was reading a book of poetry (my index of slightly horrifying knowedge by paul guest, if you were interested) for my workshop. apparently english professors think that by reading poetry we can learn the theory behind poetry (and this honestly just sounds to me like a fifth year defense against the dark arts class with umbridge). they also believe, to my further surprise, that by mimicking poets we like we can develop our own voices and our own poetic styles - funny story, after sharing a poem in class (comic book genius, which i may post later) the professor asked what poets i was reading, i told him i didn't read poetry, i read comic books. whatever. anyway, what i wanted to get at, was during my reading i couldn't shake, kick, or impale the growing fear that this is all completely useless. i don't mean reading other poetry for the sake of learning poetry, i already have issue with that, but more like what makes a good poem? why is this classified as good poetry? i can see the writer using poetic devices like alliteration and anaphora because he's enjoying the flow of language but everything is bunched up and hogtied together in a somewhat awkward melée of diary-entry style poetry. i'm not sure i like it.

i think the main problem i have with it is that i'm supposed to hold it up as a model for publishable poetry but all i see is the poet doing the exact thing i do - haphazardly playing with poetic devices and pretty language without actually doing anything great with it. i maintain that in order to write a great poem, a writer has to, at once, embrace the poetic tradition she or he is emulating as well as rewrite it - there is no way to strike readers unless the words are unique and vital on their own and gift-wrapped in what's already been done to soften the blow. does that make any sense? it's 2:22 AM here and i will play the sleep deprivation card with this posting.