You (A Story About Me) - A Poem

hey kiddo
---------------------------------------

You (A Story About Me)

and there can be magic

late at night

as you lie on your side

in bed

but it's not always good

not always light

as it pounds and screams

and tears at your head

and there will be those

who will ask you

why you don't just

turn it off

but it's not easy

not something you can do

as you shudder and sob and try

to remember that you're ninety-three percent star stuff

and you will answer

with a half-tried smile

with a mantra you've been repeating

inside of your head

with something you haven't

believed for quite a while

but most will agree with you

even though they were lies that you said

and you will eventually find

the courage for honesty

some won't like that

some will call it a bluff

but even if you find

your confession is a soliloquy

don't worry, don't fret

you're ninety-three percent star stuff

An Observational Statement About the Tedious Circumstance of Being Alive from the Viewpoint of a Household Cat - A Poem

Sometimes I write things with unnecessarily long titles, and sometimes I write things with necessarily long titles.  This is an example of the latter.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

An Observational Statement About the Tedious Circumstance of Being Alive from the Viewpoint of a Household Cat

i am

a cat

i am not

a human

i do not have

carefully laid plans

nor

a voice in

the world

and that should

bother me

perhaps make me

upset

but aside from

the institutionalized ennui

of my

current existence

i find

i am

content

with taking

your chair

and getting fur

on your best suit

five minutes before

you leave

for an important meeting

*FERVENTLY TAPS THE MICROPHONE*

HELLO YES

LOOK WHAT JUST ARRIVED

MY ENTIRE LIFE HAS BEEN LEADING UP TO THIS MOMENT

Look at how goddamn gorgeous this cover is.

Neil Gaiman signed this book.  Neil Gaiman.  Signed.  This.  Book.

Neil Gaiman

signed

this

book.

Someday I'll write a thing about what Neil Gaiman means to me/why he and his books mean so much to me.*  But for today I'm just going to say please please please read his books.  Read this one.  Read any of them.  Just...read them.  They are so so beautiful.

*To give perspective, Derek Landy has caused many good things in my life and means a lot to me, but Neil Gaiman means about 60x that or more.

*taps microphone*

Um hello yes

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman comes out tomorrow (June 18, which at time of posting, is in 55 minutes for me)

and

I have been wailing this song at the top of my lungs all day

Thank you for your time goodbye

What Art Has Taught Me - A Poem

Copy change of What My Mother Taught Me by Melody Lacina.

It's late and I wrote this in approximately ten minutes and it's bad and I'm too tired to be thinking in flowy language.  At least it's honest I guess.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What Art Has Taught Me

On sheafs of snowy college rule paper,

the little red line shows where notes end

and doodles begin.

Take pictures when you see

or think

of something beautiful.

Don’t be afraid to feel things sometimes.

It’s okay if your tears blur the pen ink

and it’s better to tear up paper than to tear up yourself.

Be aware of the world around you and pay attention to little things,

like orange rivers spilling out into a cat’s yellow irises,

or the way the light is hitting the elderly couple in the café corner.

Care too much about everything.

It hurts your heart a lot

but at least you can say you tried.

Carry some sort of notebook everywhere.

Immortalize the world around you in quick sketches

and half smeared pencil lines.

C'est la vie, c'est la mort.

This I Believe - A Poem

Boop.
------------------------------------------------------------------

This I Believe

I believe in logic and reason and fairytales.

I believe that princesses are capable of rescuing themselves,

thank you very much,

and the best princes are the ones who look

like they were raised in a library, not a castle.

I believe that knowledge is the air I breathe but that I would still

be a Gryffindor if my Hogwarts letter ever arrives.

I believe that Thomas Edison was an idiot and a conman, and that

the utter lack of Nikola Tesla in the books we use

to teach our kids about the past is obscene.

I believe in strength comes in different flavors -

Queen Elizabeth I of England was just as fantastic

and daring dangerous as Ching Shih.

Julie d’Aubigny would have been one of Shakespeare’s muses.

I believe in taking lessons from the past but not pretending

that the past is over,

because I believe the past has already happened,

is still happening,

and will happen all our lives -

that time is happening all at once and if we just had a force strong enough,

we could break through and see what really happened

and what’s in store.

But mostly, I believe that history is an unforgiving mistress.

I believe that the quantum theory is correct

and nothing tangible exists until it is observed,

and so the same must be true of the intangible -

of love and trust and human resilience.

I believe that music is the one language that everyone speaks

and that it will never die out.

I believe in a god who doesn’t exist anymore

and a god who only exists when I want her to

and that there will be no pearly gates at the end.

The afterlife is what we decide it to be

and some people don’t want to live again -

they just want to go to sleep

for a long, long time.

I believe that H.P. Lovecraft told it like it is,

that W.B. Yeats was a master wordsmith,

that J.K. Rowling is the cornerstone of my childhood,

and so it must be true that people who go by two initials

have a better sense of the world than most everyone else.

And of course, J.R.R. Tolkien had the good sense to go by three

instead of two, and that’s why he spent time talking to the trees -

because he knew they knew what we did not.

And I believe that this world is a senseless and random

repeating pattern of elaborate nonsense that only makes sense

when looks at in pieces and not as a whole.

And those pieces will never fit together.

I believe in rainy days and rubber boots

and lazy summer afternoons spent sleeping under the bookshelf.

I believe in folk songs mixed with alternative rock, punctuated

every now and again by Bach or jazz or the Beatles,

in ancient mythologies moving alongside detective thrillers.

I believe that if I don’t drink coffee I’ll never grow up,

and in drinking hot tea all year long.

I believe in the possible and impossible,

the probable and the improbable.

I never believed in Santa but always in Peter Pan.

I believe in good TV and bad TV and that

Steven Moffat really needs to leave Doctor Who already.

I believe that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

would hate every single one of us and I hope whoever built his coffin

had enough sense to add in space for the all turning

he’d be doing.

I believe the sunsets really were brighter and the trees taller when I was little.

I believe the sunsets are fiercer and the trees wiser now that I’ve grown some.

I believe that the only thing that smells better than old books

is the interior of a car that’s been sitting out in the sun for hours.

At the end, though, I believe I only believe a lot of things when I have to think about it

and that in general

I just believe in semicolons

and ampersands.