2019-06-21 22:44
lie that it’s the longest
day
the moon won’t
shift for hours
& someone has left tulle
torn on the sidewalk
where we lived: a pretty
house, so close to being
t-boned at this l… Read More
Blog Directory > Arts & Entertainment Blogs > JDG – scrapbook diary arts-and-entertainment Blog >
2019-04-21 20:01
from “the attack on attachment” by andrea richards
this essay is about children, parenthood, and pushing radical love out into the world for all children. and community, really… Read More
2019-04-02 13:51
quiet, it’s april,
and you have folded
me between the covers
of books we’re
sending
to prisons
to feel better
about keeping
the
books we
still
want to keep
and when they
are gone… Read More
2017-06-27 18:03
you’re allowed so many hours
to lie on the floor of your office
in tears
per week
if you keep
the door closed
so many days off
per year
to fake sick and to
cry for the failures
we&rsqu&hell…Read More
2017-06-26 23:21
i closed my bedroom door & sat on the outside of it, touching the cleanliness of its plain painted detailing, its blank nothingness, my fingers smeared with mascara stains and their own… Read More
2017-06-20 03:43
one day without
noticing in ink in
journals i began
to replace
every
& with +
and now it’s +
everywhere, every
note of you as you
attached yourself to
me is +
and i wonder
when we… Read More
2017-06-17 17:05
Filed under: poems Tagged: beautiful, divorce, home, learning, letting go, marriage, poem, poetry, progress Read More
2017-06-11 19:56
i wrote you a list:
each crisis of
conscience, identity
each haircut
each man
each gatorade phase
each time
i tried
to quit smoking
each secret
each memory
each set of sheets i ever had
to d… Read More
2017-05-22 18:53
ur under ur
little umbrella on
the corner
i hope u
get wet i hope
u drown like
a rat i hope
u seep below
the streets
and nobody
finds u
i want to fight
with you
again and again and
again abo… Read More
2017-05-18 23:49
i fell in love first
with the back of your neck
snaked my hands
over the skin, shedding
your
dead cells
into my lap to
dust later
i found first
a spiral,
enveloped, a
place formed around me… Read More
2017-05-01 03:59
under the
wire you hang
upside down
by your
little clawed
feet
the rain comes
i wish you
good luckFiled under: NPM, poems Tagged: birds, calm, happy, luck, moving on, poem, poetry, wire Read More
2017-04-30 02:24
remember
like smoke rings
like i do
your envy
hard
like the burn in my throat
let go
like a dead match
a scent that will fade
a heat you’ll do
nothing
but see
meet the skyFiled under:… Read More
2017-04-28 13:08
reputation
caught up and
surpassed
you,
your only
talent
chasing it
down, losing
to ducks
on the shore
line who bite at
the tall grass and
disappear, reappear,
pop up and
down
and throw
back… Read More
2017-04-28 03:19
i
don’t remove
my jacket, sleeves
you slid your
hands
inside,
spun
fabric to
feel safe in;
i’m
lost in overbrook
again,
no cover
or direction:
cement cracks
underneath
my canvas… Read More
2017-04-27 01:01
mine is a strong
word:
a flat grey
that hovers,
a space
left
otherwise
empty,
a space
between
fog & the clouds;
i’m bored,
you are boring,
i’m happy
you’re boring,
i&rs&hell…Read More
2017-04-26 01:38
you came in
from the west
i text you and
somewhere my
number and address
are flagged
my full name
floats out of my reach
a signal to
space
a blip on a screen
no one watches, i
hope
no one
wa… Read More
2017-04-25 01:33
i used to know
blemishes well, pock
marks
in skin
i once knew
the taste of,
dents
left to fill
nothing
is smoother
than sheets
on my side
of the bed
nothing
left marked
now, swollen or
swell… Read More
2017-04-23 18:46
i split drinks
with you
now
connect our paths, cleared, those
ten years spent drinking alone
down another
together
we have two children
by now, nine and eleven,
but rarely
i bet
would we
mee… Read More
2017-04-23 02:18
for the size
of your grave i just
need dimensions
of you,
exact, every
part of you
i ever touched but
never felt
warmth from,
every skin and bone
scrap
you won’t
need
anymore
for yours… Read More
2017-04-22 03:19
in the eleventh grade
we cozied up
to the bathtub
breaking porcelain
together
today is your
birthday and i’m sailing
past snow geese whose home
is an overflowed creek they think
is a l… Read More
2017-04-20 21:55
the panic
comes quickly
(comes slowly,
like this:
so slowly
so sweetly)
unnoticed
until it’s too
late
how impossibly high we’d
have had to have been
to have found ourselves
somep… Read More
2017-04-19 22:28
the bus is late and
when i arrive
home my
coffee pot
will be leaking
again and my hardwood
floors will show fresh
scratch marks
can somebody
clean this
mess up
my door is locked and
my key i… Read More
2017-04-18 12:49
spent a sick day
recovering beneath
the covers, a bouquet
of flowers,
waiting for the
sun to crawl its way
up the blue painted wall
i’m not sick
anymore but am
sickened just about
twen… Read More
2017-04-17 13:05
while falling
asleep,
just like
counting,
i taught
myself
wanting,
forgetting
the spaces
between us:
silences filled
with your tongue,
dreams
interrupted by
terrified eyes
overhead,
a hand
o… Read More
2017-04-16 20:24
evelyn coos,
curls both fists
beneath my chin
grips my fingers
with her fingers
i don’t live here
but i live here
she cries on and off
with the news
she’s a fighter
i think, and… Read More
2017-04-15 16:33
the walk to the curb
feels longer with
a full bin of
trash
& a rainfall
i think of strange hands
doing this for me
i think of fresh sheets
hanging in the yard on a
clothesline too heavy… Read More
2017-04-14 22:48
if this is it
it maybe
wouldn’t
be enough
my
head
swells
i’ve stopped asking
what enough isFiled under: NPM, poems Tagged: adulthood, bravery, commitment, courage, future, poem… Read More
2017-04-13 16:56
tell me again
how your heart can’t
take it,
take it all
on your own,
tear every piece of skin off
with bandages you
wrapped,
wash blood clean from
your knife
to keep my kitchen
floor c… Read More
2017-04-12 17:43
i won’t
respond to sirens
the sound of falling
scaffolds
trucks rolling through
red lights
& it’s okay that
you’re not there
to tug each muscle, take me
places i should… Read More
2017-04-12 02:48
i lived out
of a trash bag
for three
days for you
not washing
clothes
or teeth
or hair or face
i’m cold and i am screaming
screaming screaming
but for you
won’t wear long
sleeve… Read More
2017-04-11 00:56
you were born
beneath two clocks
beneath two hands
beneath my eyes
and i’m as young as you
are now
have taken
fewer breaths
know only rest
know only
how your
eyelids lift and fall
and… Read More
2017-04-09 21:03
i guess you’d think it
takes a lot
to tear
down a whole
marriage but it
really
doesn’t have to
things really end in
moments and
in moments
they are over
and
a marriage is no diff… Read More
2017-04-09 00:49
if you were a street
you’d be the one
that collapsed
on its
self
appeared in the news
you
swallowed the
whole world whole
for a dayFiled under: NPM, poems Tagged: engineering, home, ot… Read More
2017-04-08 00:22
near the corner of main
street about a block from
immaculata and another
from where a recent arrest
did not inspire my mother
this time to call and check
on me there is your name
in the ceme… Read More
2017-04-06 16:56
i cleared spaces for you
in the april snow
before i knew
may
before i knew
winter
face forward this
year, the
same shields, shields
that clear nothing,
want nothing
collected still
less
in a… Read More
2017-04-05 16:50
they call this road
an arterial main street
if i cross it
i go home
if i don’t cross it
i do not
if i walk a straight line
down the center
blood dripping from my
coat sleeves
where wil… Read More
2017-04-04 17:38
supermarket aisle songs
are not as
muted as the screams
sent to my hard flat bed each night
those trigger me now too
(the songs i mean
the screams are fine)
if
triggered is
okay for me
to fe… Read More
2017-04-03 16:19
in your dreams you are a heron
majestic over waters
i have never seen
but where i was
you really are
(still pick
at fish and
bones
and
trash
your
solace in)
beachgoers throwing
bread at youF… Read More
2017-04-03 01:19
first & second posts.
………..
as a kid she’d always kept a stack of books beside her bed. as a kid all her reading was for pleasure; books that carried with them… Read More
2017-04-02 17:35
i didn’t break it
in half
or to
pieces
it shattered itself in the sink
attempting to float in old water
our dishes lose balance
leave nothing for me
to destroyFiled under: NPM, poems T… Read More
2017-04-01 17:41
when the sun comes
you enter alone
place both feet to the tile
beside the edge
of the unmade bed
where it’s still cold from
the unseen soil
beneath you
i gift you a history
a notebook… Read More
2017-04-01 01:31
i had this dream again, it was five years ago again, five years ago though when i woke up then it still felt like something was starting, something was beginning. i didn’t know myself… Read More
2017-03-24 01:02
read the first post here.
………..
the house was built before any of this ever happened. on the north side of the rideau river a construction crew poured a foundation… Read More
2017-03-17 23:54
you went sculpting,
just like fishing,
trying for a soul
a body cased in ice to warm
when no one would warm yours
shaping like the hole that shows the
life still in the water
(auger wider,
t… Read More
2017-03-13 18:23
hallo! am starting something of a blog series, just for funsies, which i expect to be about 12-15 posts over the next several weeks. for now it’s called origin stories. this is the fir… Read More
2017-03-04 15:28
there was a year
i willed maps built around me
followed with faith:
something like scars
something like love lines
something like toes dragging sand
borders invisible until you had
crossed t… Read More
2017-02-24 01:05
these days i surround myself
in clippings from the paper,
silhouette of
you in every back
ground
where
you changed the way i felt my whole
entire body, every nook and every
bead of sweat
eve… Read More
2017-02-19 15:40
i love the way you:
wouldn’t even recognize me
(, want me,) now
that i am happyFiled under: poems Tagged: forward, fuck you, future, growth, happy, love, poem, poetry, self Read More
2017-02-15 03:09
(or: i wrote a love poem because it’s valentine’s day)
climb up here on top of me
like we were back in dark rooms
apart not like we are, and stand
atop my shoulders like you
let… Read More
2017-02-04 19:09
(i miss
days lying on
the floor of your
mother’s house
arms to
the ceiling to read
cool books from bilbo)
everything was simple then: black or white
you believe or you don’t, in… Read More
2017-01-28 17:19
(we used to march on may day, serve)
and when spring came there were no
blossoms or birds, no blooming
branches climbing from
fences in backyards
we meant to call home
(and what is your home… Read More
2017-01-25 15:41
things that are different now, following reconnection.
the car rides have shortened but the conversations are longer. sometimes we talk about things i wish i could put into wo… Read More
2017-01-25 04:46
once upon a time i grew my hair out
like rapunzel to suit rules i had
no power to reset
like the violence of the day i brought
an open pair of scissors to myself
and snipped them closed
on t… Read More
2017-01-22 05:54
behind my new house
the 417 hugs the
edges
of a parking lot i have no
other use for besides taking
the garbage out once
every
two weeks
like clockwork! he says,
and we laugh
and stir cream… Read More
2017-01-20 05:39
many years ago now i went camping. with family, mostly, and a guy i barely knew. we all shared a tent. on the first or second night, i can’t remember which, he and i unrolled our sleep… Read More
2017-01-18 13:11
i originally took this selfie in october so i could remember that it was okay to not be okay sometimes.
every time i see it i remember how strong i was, even back then, & how far… Read More
2017-01-15 23:21
a list for myself, not a season.
(october 2016)
1. do you remember that time in the butterfly garden?
2. the bright prospect of starting a divorce journal.
3. the canal will be cold but at l… Read More
2017-01-12 17:34
i bought $25 lipstick the same shade
as my lips to bury and forget
inside my purse
will have to switch to
red on february
first
late blooming
resolution
the streets have been washed cle… Read More
2017-01-06 06:04
it’s been five years! i love when it’s been five years. five years really feels like something. i’m not going to say chapter because that’s stupid, right? but it feel… Read More
2017-01-05 05:09
airplanes, and the way those cute little wheels come out as they prepare a landing
beneath the soft drifting dreaminess that later i’d watch against the backdrop of the most beautiful… Read More
2016-12-31 19:27
this is difficult enough without the wind pushing the falling snowflakes into the room, so i close your bedroom window without asking first. as i turn back to you my elbow sends your desk la… Read More
2016-12-23 16:25
i still keep remembering the morning, the only morning. in the morning the room was hot, stale, an almost violent hotness; the room was hands on my throat while i struggled for breath.
(i go… Read More
2016-12-08 15:44
may 2016.
i wish my life looked slightly simpler
like fresh blooms
in antique vases other
women seem to find
other women: i’ve never
even bothered to consider
since when was i a woman… Read More
2016-11-05 13:36
one day i promise i will plant a garden.
i’ll pick seeds from all the places that i promised we would walk, carry seeds inside my pockets until i’ve taught myself to garden.
i wo… Read More
2016-10-15 05:20
when i found out i no
longer knew how to grieve
the paper bent back where
someone had shattered the glass
even my mother could not mother me:
i heard in her voice her attempt, first and
fina… Read More
2016-07-13 00:50
i drew a map with
border lines i borrowed
a ring around a sun,
around a planet i had dreamt
once we called home
predict where pieces of the fences
would be fractured, sudden stops, where we… Read More
2016-06-28 01:55
the overhead camera is blinking
like i am, my eyes to the sky
instead of the street. i capture the opposite:
nothing; every
move still recorded
for someone.
lacking the privacy needed to gri… Read More
2016-06-08 02:09
when i’m hiding it’s
only from rain, from the
scent of it later, a scent we
call rain though we all
know better
by now
june’s june again,
a promised spring late,
promising… Read More
2016-06-02 12:16
the white sky whitens further
the pale comfort of it holds me with
a pause for every breath my body shares
each flat thing rests beneath
my awkward bones inside their skin
each crescent… Read More
2016-05-28 16:43
this is cold cement, where i grew up,
i learned to crawl, not catch
my fingers in the rocking horse a
second time
not eat insects
off the floor or run
toward the highway,
(they later one day… Read More
2016-05-24 01:52
there are fire
works outside my window
i thought i would need to say goodbye forever to the sounds & sights of fireworks outside my windows when i bought a house outside downtown.
but wh… Read More
2016-05-21 02:56
i have freckles in the summer
if you get close
enough to see them
leave the house
enough and
walk along the
river’s edge with me
along the rideau where it’s gentler
where no
boat… Read More
2016-05-11 02:06
2016-05-04 22:35
you write “rejection” without
skipping a beat: your biggest fear;
mine of fires & spiders & being buried
alive (i may not be there yet).
we start in the sun and fragment… Read More
2016-05-01 14:56
we used to march on may day, serve
soup and warm coffee to strangers
cruelty was reserved (for those i didn’t
know until i knew you) and now
i align myself with the men with
the weapon… Read More
2016-05-01 01:39
eventually come to a calm place,
this constructed pond stocked
with these ducks:
something like real life, even at twilight.
in bars and in memories, dreams,
i haven’t been able to rea… Read More
2016-04-29 18:34
(so there was that time on the rooftop
in the butterfly garden)
the circles have all become
patterns, or already were,
enough anyway that i lie, say
i knew them before they
came back,
&… Read More
2016-04-28 18:28
my hands have yet to stop bleeding
and every
day these women tend to me again,
trying to care for the flimsy body
i can’t or won’t care
for myself
this room opens as arms do
and… Read More
2016-04-27 22:35
this crocus has pushed its way through
the rough shell of the earth
know better than to stand here,
to pluck them, to hide them from rain
this stretch of this road reveals
pieces of you in e… Read More
2016-04-26 21:37
(or: personal)
(or: chores, maybe?)
vacuum up
all the little ants
scavenging in the doorway
take a nap in the sun in
the guest room that
nobody stays in
measure cruelty, weigh
intent versus… Read More
2016-04-25 19:53
i can’t talk about vomit with
out my throat closing in
the pads of your fingers have
drawn out the worst
(holding me
down,
press flooring back in
with my feet)
down
the hall there&rsqu&hell…Read More
2016-04-25 00:20
the planning to plan
is far more comforting
than the planning itself
each minute rolls over onto the next
and i am still here, immobile,
a string held out waiting
to catch
i have taken more… Read More
2016-04-23 17:53
(or: a six step process to replace the physical act of obtaining that which is otherwise unobtainable)
assign a descriptor that only you
and your recipient will recognize (in the
event you n… Read More
2016-04-23 02:25
a false spring comes
around and around again,
that metallic taste
of blood still in my mouth
from cutting my gums
on my own teeth,
the dream i
keep having
where i claw through
a mattress in… Read More
2016-04-22 00:47
a line has been drawn, a
full moon in scorpio
strangers who passed in the street
remember me now, too late
to form recognition
our hands fumbling over
our hands fumbling
over a string held b… Read More
2016-04-20 22:50
alone in the weather, alone to
debate which outcomes are better
(for sickness,
myself)
that time you were high
and you wanted
papers
you couldn’t know that red eyes and dry
skin show o… Read More
2016-04-19 19:59
the slow setting delirium of a fever
pushing oil from my skin
as breaths at night do
to mattresses by those we
love, let sleep
i lose grip constantly, slip
as normalcy continues:
cars pass a… Read More
2016-04-18 21:44
each page wraps
around itself
drop
a coin into the cone
& watch what it spits out Read More
2016-04-17 17:33
everybody unprepared
and digging lower
for the morning
to crest the middle of the
sleepless night, find silence,
us together
each stone in our collection
will one day weigh us down
clean sal… Read More
2016-04-16 17:35
wake up from and with a head cold, untarp the
air conditioner after winter
no one here values their privacy or hides
their cold grey skin from me anyway
we made a sensible decision for the l… Read More
2016-04-15 21:45
easily
understood: not much, a twenty dollar
bill inside a book jacket for later or
napping in a patch of sun
atop packets of seeds,
the calling of a late
long afternoon
and coffee
crash
bey… Read More
2016-04-15 01:16
i’m too drunk to write a poem
today, as predicted,
left to consider the simplest
things: ice cream cake and
your hand on my back again.
picking out the cheapest
options to protect us f… Read More
2016-04-13 16:24
ask me who’s
stalking who
something about my
eyes,
legs
too short for
you i guess
i don’t leave the room
to stand in the sun,
mix intentions
stirred with the scent
of your breath… Read More
2016-04-12 21:39
underneath the awning
pupils tell me what
i’ve yet to ask:
same story told twice
over only
the vocabulary broader,
softer lips
for words to fall from,
(i’ll select the cheapest d… Read More
2016-04-11 22:10
by tomorrow’s earliest
hour we are
at rest
the city
is hollowed &
waiting
in this part of town the streets
own their
histories alone
to stand here is not
really ours, is blinking… Read More
2016-04-11 03:17
our highway is so insular
one limp arm supporting the other
not carrying me to anyone
else’s city
across town they poured this
concrete off parkdale in 1966
sinking to earth for a cent… Read More
2016-04-09 17:13
when we’re asleep the
coffee’s getting cold already
our phones are blinking steady (a
message for tomorrow)
no one else is in here with us but
the headlights and my dreams
and ma… Read More
2016-04-09 02:38
if i do nothing
you can say nothing
as round as the O of your fingers
before holding
them over my head. (drops petals and
stems from the front yard down into my hair
so cautiously lifts me)… Read More
2016-04-08 15:01
rather come home to nothing:
the pale blue of the skin of the ocean
or a constant, the floor formed by rock
sponging our prints from the sand Read More
2016-04-08 00:19
it feels nice to be missed, in
return to miss nothing
her furniture’s mismatched,
too soft, worn in after years of us
kicking the cushions with socked
feet, fights over juice, over
whi… Read More
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