All Right

I swear Seoul, South Korea is the safest place on the entire planet.  Where else can you walk through an alleyway in a miniskirt at 4 AM and receive ZERO catcalls?  I've gotten catcalls in Fargo wearing nothing more revealing than jeans and a t-shirt.

Kinda destroys your whole "her clothes were provoking him" argument.  There appears to be no rape culture here. It's very freaking relaxing.

What isn't very relaxing is feeling like I always have to be dressed like a fashionable human being.  I can no longer dress like a complete slob.  I felt way too out of place today on the subway.   Then again, I also feel much too fat to dress like the average woman here...  Tomorrow I'm going to the rich people district (The one Psy sang about in Gangnam Style).

This song is the most relaxing thing I've ever heard, and that's about enough hyperbole for the day. Goodnight.

soul

I am in Seoul, South Korea! Just ate some octopus with my old roommate and her mom! I am so tired.

 gorgeous sunrise when I was about to fly out

I need some white out to fix this... but it's a gift for my host here.  I made it the night before I flew out and finished it on the flights today. (or yesterday with the time change.)

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

Make no mistake I intend to kill the past with the bright sword of the here and now.  It has become very clear that I am the only priest capable of exorcising that bitter-hearted demon.

When considering alcohol, I look to Jesus

There are so few people who have ever seen me drink, (it's sort of my "thing," sobriety) but some nights with that cheap five dollar wine, I do.  Sometimes there are people worth getting dizzy for.  I believe that.  I wonder if any women were allowed to drink with Jesus.

My head feels heavy enough to let me fall asleep effortlessly.  In less than thirty hours I'll be on an airplane.

good good good.  Cooked some awesome quinoa burgers with beautiful people.  Fun fact: Yellowtail Moscato is only 5 dollars a bottle and it is FLAT OUT DELICIOUS.   Hence why I am not completely sober right now.


good thoughts, all over the place, goodnight.

all limbs and love, absurd

you can’t make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that
and if he wants to leave
then let him leave
you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love.

-Warsan Shire

In less than three days I'll be in Seoul Korea, with one of my favorite ladies on this planet...

I spent my afternoon biting back obscenities if you must know.

President Obama: makes a joke about killing the Jonas Brothers with drones.

Here's a nice quote too:

"TBIJ reports that from June 2004 through mid-September 2012, available data indicate that drone strikes killed 2,562 - 3,325 people in Pakistan, of whom 474 - 881 were civilians, including 176 children. TBIJ reports that these strikes also injured an additional 1,228 - 1,362 individuals," according to the Stanford/NYU study.

Based on interviews with witnesses, victims and experts, the report accuses the CIA of "double-striking" a target, moments after the initial hit, thereby killing first responders.

Read the whole article Here.

This is why I voted Ron Paul.  This is why when I travel abroad this summer, I refuse to wear the camouflage National Guard backpack my dad offered to me for a carry-on.  The word America is no longer beautiful the way I believed it was when my kindergarten class faced the flag with "I pledge allegiance..."  I am not proud of our government.  I am not proud of what we are doing to other countries.

Yes, "we".  The American public who elected this monster a second time...

I haven't been into politics since "that thing which happened" (read: personal issues).  Man.  I forgot how much anger I used to carry to this.  I've been sitting at home listening to music and looking at random nonsense for the past year and a half.  I nearly forgot about our crappy government.

Midnight Run

THIS SONG

There are people who find the the truth boring.

Me,  I caught honesty like an addiction to the rarest of drugs.  I've been frequenting alleyways looking for a fellow junkie since my first night doing lines of sincerity with you in the back corner when we were still strangers.  Clear eyes, clean hearts.  The crash back into reality, to deceitfulness and calculated smiles nearly killed me.

I've been living in the withdrawals.

----

I like drug metaphors but I don't know that much about drugs so (cliches).  oh well.

Rain mixed with sunrise.

Here's the thing about gossip and why I don't like it. It's like I was out dancing in the rain for three hours and you're telling everyone I broke into the pool to swim when (let's get real here) I haven't been near a public swimming facility in years. I'm ashamed that misplaced verbosity can make me feel anything, even anger.

Even if I could separate out the ruthless from the ones who just don't care, I'd still be left wondering whether there was any fundamental difference between the two.

It's raining and I wish I was outside wandering the streets of Fargo for an unbiased shoulder to rant to instead of sitting on the kitchen floor trying to write things.


----

oh mannn tonight killed my writer's block. good.  I don't care about pain and betrayal if it gives me something to pour into the ink.

good.

(wrote this at 5-6 AM but forgot to post it so posting it now)

doing it right.

Friday night means dancing.  Can't be mad about Fargo's sub-par dancing scene because in Iran dancing is illegal.  You gotta lock your doors for that business.

I no longer believe in spontaneous combustion. You want your world on fire, gotta strike that match yourself.  This is the summer of gasoline.

also this video. IS. my favorite. that is all.

it's not too late, we have the rest of our lives

The places we escape to
eventually become
the places we escape
from

you told me
I will be the same person
wherever I go,
my soul caged up
in the same body
regardless of
which constellations light up my
eyes

clipped wings
still
dreaming of

flight

and here it is.  When “thank you” trips over “I’m sorry”, I think I finally learned the concept of trust, but it seems to be too late.  I want to beg you to forget the last 3 hours.  I don’t know anything.  I know too much.  I wish I could get back some naivety, something to make me less scared of missteps.  To be able to say “I didn't know” and mean it, and have that be a good enough excuse.  A pat on the head and a dismissal to the treehouse.  please stop pretending I am an adult.

I want you to know that I appreciate your efforts to make it all better for me.

There is one person on this entire planet that I'm not "cool" with.  I wish I could change that.   All the time, all the time, all the time.  I hate to see him.    The most stressful thing in my life.  Why can't we just be chill?

Scratch that, Where is my apology.

Then, maybe.  We could be chill.

I am unhappy tonight.  Shadows.

yeh.

Conversation at work with an old man

Him:  How old do you think I am?
Me: I don't know... 25?
Him: (laughs)  I'm ninety eight
Me: WOW, well then you're doing pretty good!
Him:  Yup, my wife and I have been married for sixty-nine years.
Me:  ... how old do you think I am?
Him:  (stares me up and down) Twenties?
Me:  Yup I'm 21.
Him:  So you're not married hmm?
Me: Heck no.  I call that 'The Trap'
Him:  (laughs delightedly)


---------

so decided to take a 2 AM trip to Detroit Lakes with  my friend... but ten minutes out of Fargo he says, "hey have you ever been to Buffalo State Park?"  and I was thinking the stars would  be amazing so I begged him to take me there instead.

And I was right, the stars were phenomenal to the point where I could not stop smiling.  The weather was perfect.  No wind, very few mosquitoes, and warm enough with the blanket I brought.  Glad I didn't just go to bed like I had intended.
---
“In fact, I am aware of the fake entities in my life.
I know that I can clear
them if I wanted to in a moment …
But all this hollowness needs my sincerity.”

-Rumi

Communion

Refusing to dance is like a bird refusing to fly.  Never understood why you feel the need to pretend you are a penguin instead of a falcon, but this is Respect Your Feet 101 and tonight you are going to realize why the word “move” was invented in the first place.  Don’t let your wings regress to shoulderblades, dormancy (from the Latin root dormire, meaning to sleep) is the one thing you must never accept from yourself. Wake up.  Lose sleep, lose your inhibitions, but never lose your rhythm.  All horizontal surfaces are renamed dance floors until further notice.   I swear I fall half in love every time the bass kicks in.

The dance floor is my temple, the DJ is my priest, and this?

This is my altar call so don’t make me beg you.

Bust it.

----

Wanna be my chammak challo?  

I was dancing some Bhangra moves downtown (at a club that does not play Hindi music, I might add) last night, and some random dude says to my back, "Zumba!"

I turn around and say, "naw man.. Indians!"

I realize now that he was probably confused.   hashtag don't care. hashtag dancing completely sober.  hashtag born drunk so have no need for alcohol.

Grab my hand, play this song, DJ save my life, COME ON

WARNING THIS SONG HAS SWEARS

but ohmgsh.  perfect.

We fall so hard

Now we gotta get back what we lost

I thought you’d go

But you were with me all along

Macklemore babe. love.

need live music so bad right now.  I'd even be cool with country, I just need to be up there closing my eyes, face tipped towards the stage, drinking in the sounds from people loving what they do. always always always, it's the sunshine.  It's the yellow bird liberation, phoenix or canary I learned to dance before I could fly, before I could walk.  It's the uncaged and believe me, every single vein has me flying from the past, flying from the grudges I've been trying to escape.   Love love love baby.  can't put it any other way, I've got so much happy there is no chance I'd be able to hold it all myself.     Bitterness is the heaviest element. Let. It. Go.

map

one night when I asked you where you wanted to go, you said “everywhere”.  I remember that always.  For me, it’s the same. Sometimes I hope the world will be small enough to spill us back together.   Sometimes I know it won’t be.  When goodnight is finally goodbye, I will wish you with all my heart,

safe journeys.

"do you remember the night I told you
I’ve never seen anything more perfect
than snow falling in the glow of a street light
electricity bowing to nature
mind bowing to heartbeat
this is gonna hurt bowing to I love you
I still love you like moons love the planets they circle around
like children love recess bells
I still hear the sound of you
and think of playgrounds
where outcasts who stutter
beneath braces and bruises and acne
are finally learning that their rich handsome bullies
are never gonna grow up to be happy
I think of happy when I think of you

so wherever you are I hope you’re happy
I really do
I hope the stars are kissing your cheeks tonight
I hope you finally found a way to quit smoking
I hope your lungs are open and breathing your life
I hope there’s a kite in your hand
that’s flying all the way up to Orion
and you still got a thousand yards of string to let out
I hope you’re smiling
like god is pulling at the corners of your mouth
cause I might be naked and lonely
shaking branches for bones
but I’m still time zones away
from who I was the day before we met
you were the first mile
where my heart broke a sweat
and I wish you were here
I wish you’d never left
but mostly I wish you well
I wish you my very very best”

-Andrea Gibson (excerpt, Photograph)

head in the clouds, but my gravity's centered

well I turned 21 yesterday.  Sang some terrible karaoke (because I think that is the only thing that goes on downtown on a monday night).  Didn't really drink, at least, I'm not hungover so I assume I wasn't very drunk (isn't that how it's supposed to work?)
the bottom line is, Fargo's bars give you free popcorn.   WHY have I never heard about this?  I could have just bought a fake id and been LIVING ON FREE POPCORN for the past 3 years!  I guess they figure you will buy enough alcohol to offset the cost.  nope.  I guarantee to you, if I go downtown again, I am going with no money.  And I am going to feast on popcorn and peanuts. 

Some guy at Rooter's was like "I was going to buy her a drink but she doesn't look like she needs it." and I just turn to him with "dude, this is what I look like sober.  You wanna see me drunk you'll have to spike the water."

The best was singing along when someone did Hey Jude on Karaoke.  And Champagne Supernova.  annnnnnnnnd again at the end of the night when I made everyone listen to Sweater Weather, and Yannick digs it as much as I do so I didn't even feel bad for the way I force people to hear it all the time. 

The people I love, the people I trust, almost all of them were there last night.  The best ones of the best ones.  I can't believe how lucky I am to have friends like this. 

Last year I didn't even celebrate my birthday.  Things have changed so much, so fast since then..

I am right where I need to be.  The here and now is beautiful and the future looks even better.  Thank you.

Says he's gonna teach me just what fast is

I feel like there was a time in my life when I tried to get into Lana Del Rey but (maybe that was Bat for Lashes?)

Anyways this thing just goes round and round in  my head.

round and round and round...
---
you know usually
I can forget men,
I can forget them
fast, express-mailed
amnesia, neither snow nor
sleet

for every natural disaster that
began with a sunrise
there is a deep calm where I
keep myself
after

spidercaught in my headweb

you are either better
than the rest, or far, far
worse.

(and you'd better be alone)

Why does this song relax me so much?   why why why why why (kyu).
This is the kind of stuff I used to listen to.

 I need more.

When I meet someone and they ask me what kind of music I like, I find it very hard to answer.  It's like being psychoanalyzed, everyone is going to think they know you.

NO ONE CAN KNOW YOU. It's impossible. Even if you tried to give them yourself, your essence will slip through the cracks.  I don't even think we are equipped as humans to understand and dig into everything that makes up another person.  It's hard enough to even understand yourself.  All else is arrogance.

It bothers me that people get me wrong.  It bothers me when people tell me what decisions to make, how each one will affect my life.  Do not presume to fortune tell with me. Do not presume that you are being helpful.  I am open to mistakes.  Let me make my own.

This was disjointed.   I more or less apologize (*less).

---------------------------
THE COLOR OF LOW SELF ESTEEM

what i never
learned
from my mother
was that
just because someone desires you
does
not mean they value you.
desire is the kind of thing that
eats you
and
leaves you starving.

-miguu

away

Minor things keep annoying me... Maybe all this impending stress is getting to me.  Soon I will be moving out, which is even more stressful because I don't know where I am going to put all my stuff when I am homeless (i.e. crashing on my brother's sofa).

I will be traveling to Korea and Thailand, going out of the country for the first time alone, going on a plane alone for the first time, AND I can't even relax in Thailand because I'll have classes every weekday, all day.


This is what I need though.  I need to go somewhere, by myself, be thrust into something new.  I need to be anonymous.



I have an easy life, I just need to chill out and read books and deactivate my facebook account (in the midst of working crazy amounts to obtain travelgreen) Then I will be less :LSKJG:LKJGwOEGJ. you know.

p.s. travelgreen means money.

It doesn't happen every day

new daft punk tunes coming out soon...

This is amazing. In case the link gets broken this is Instant Crush by Daft Punk

also:

daze

some people are frightened by
things bright enough
to blind them

and you,
with the radioactive
smile

when you greet someone
at five in the afternoon

let the stunned
“good morning” of a reply
remind you

how it feels to be
mistaken for the
dawn

---

I don't like the title, I may change it later.

Bachata

I cannot get enough of this song ermagerdd

I am ready, now.

Come at me world.

PREACH

"If owning a gun and knowing how to use it worked, the military would be the safest place for a woman. It’s not.

If women covering up their bodies worked, Afghanistan would have a lower rate of sexual assault than Polynesia. It doesn’t.

If not drinking alcohol worked, children would not be raped. They are.

If your advice to a woman to avoid rape is to be the most modestly dressed, soberest and first to go home, you may as well add “so the rapist will choose someone else”.

If your response to hearing a woman has been raped is “she didn’t have to go to that bar/nightclub/party” you are saying that you want bars, nightclubs and parties to have no women in them. Unless you want the women to show up, but wear kaftans and drink orange juice. Good luck selling either of those options to your friends.

Or you could just be honest and say that you don’t want less rape, you want (even) less prosecution of rapists.

When people scoff at the message that we need to teach people not to rape they make the assumption that the lesson goes: “Rape is bad. Don’t do it.” That is not what the lesson looks like. The lesson, once it is adopted, will be that every single person out there, regardless of any defining personal characteristics, is a human being of value, and with a right to make their own decisions about what bodily contact to have with others. There is nothing a person can do that makes them less deserving of that right. Violating any person’s right to control the when, what and who with of their sexual interactions is wrong. Do it and you will be punished, and you will deserve it."

-from A Short Post on Rape Prevention

como

watching you change your skin for different people, people who are not me, is interesting and horrifying the way I assume a close-up of a spider eating a fly would be.  

Either you are a professional or this is Instincts defined. I would believe you if you told me you were born for this but perhaps it just takes practice.  Fast food chains market differently in various countries.  Beef is not a hot commodity in India but arrogance might be. Would you tell me if I guessed correctly?  What are you selling?

I wonder at your shine.  Is this a facet of your personality, or the entire diamond?  Twist in the light, show us something ugly.

___________________________________________


You are not an actor. This is your life.
___________


I am trying to let go of mistrust, the grudges I still hold, and the hate.  It is hard. People frighten me. People who are hiding themselves, and giving you and everyone else only bits and pieces of whatever they think you want to see. I need to do this though. It is exhausting to dislike people that you have to see fairly often. How do I let go of this?

zoobi doobi zoobi doobi pum para

I have a final exam today, and I am not prepared.  I care more about working as much as I possibly can than school.  School is unimportant.  I figured out the other day that if I work full time for 8 months (at my current job and pay-rate) I can travel for four months.  I can do this every single year.  For the rest of my life.

The only problem is I don't really want a full time job... I want a job where I get to work whenever I want to, and I can stop working whenever I want to.

Basically I need two jobs.  Then I can work PRN for both of them and still get enough hours.

I JUST WANT TO TRAVEL EVERYWHERE.

AND I DON'T WANT TO END UP STUCK IN NORTH DAKOTA POPPING OUT BABIES EVERY COUPLE OF YEARS.


Sometimes I do want to find someone... but then again I don't want my wanderlust cured.  I don't want to depend on someone else for my happiness. I'm fine depending on myself and the future.

and then there's that heartbeat of lonely lonely lonely in the back of my head saying maybe I can't do this forever.

screw you heartbeat, maybe I can.

It's hard for me to do someone a favor without feeling like they owe me something.  I'm always on some "What have you ever done for me?  What will you do for me in the future?" running through my head.  It's sort of a bad mentality.  The people who do me favors All The Time never ask for anything in return.

If you knew Karma was fake, and what you did would never come back to haunt you or to help you, would the way you live change?

I hate to spend money, that's the thing.  Time, you can take all you want.  I guess I get that from my father.  I remember begging him for money to go to the movies way back in the day... Getting a pack of gum for multiple birthdays in a row.  Don't get me wrong, I love my parents, and I am glad they raised me this way.

But I guard my money like a cat guards her offspring.



(Less hissing and spitting though.)


Love you all
pretty much,
Amy

everything

i can be
alone by myself
i was
lonely alone
now i’m lonely
with you
something is wrong
there are flies
everywhere
i go

-Alone, Nikki Giovanni


The first poetry I ever really got into was hers.  Also I will be performing at a poetry reading tonight.  Me and my manly voice up onstage just doesn't seem like a recipe for a good time.  It's one of those things you do just so you can say you did it.


ALSO! I am working on a painting for my brother.

wwooooh exciting.

Peace/Shanti

Will you feel better?

I wish that youtube had music with no videos sometimes.  That's the way I like to consume it.

In other news, this is devastatingly relevant.  

----

Oh HEY I got accepted into the Northern Eclecta, which is a journal NDSU puts out every year with creative submissions... I am happy.  This next poem isn't the one that got accepted.  I just wrote this today actually.  

Paring

would you cut out

the rotting parts of your

past as if it were a slightly-too-old

vegetable?

there have been times

when I wished for

forgetfulness

still, decay is good for the ink

in a way that easy-to-consume

isn’t

so I leave myself inelegant I leave myself

whole

another year of tangled half-brilliance

another year of enough imperfection

to blind someone

caution tape

hey please don't fall for me, just don't.

I'm sorry in advance for not having the courage to give you the warning you need out loud.  I'm sorry because impulses take precedence over what I know I shouldn't do, most nights.  I live with my eyes wide open.  I stay sober so I don't even have that excuse.  I can't expect you to walk the fine line of detachedness with me.  If I could I wouldn't be alone on my couch right now.  

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

I've been thinking about Sufism.  And how maybe Judaism isn't the root of Christianity or Islam the root of Sufism, maybe its just that they needed to keep what they had been taught originally, but the end result is still Love.  

organized religion, hmph.  

I love Rumi.  I don't wanna call it Christianity or Sufism, can we just talk about how love is pretty much the only thing worth worshipping? The only quality I would allow you to attribute to God?  

and I'm tired, not making all that much sense, but I've been writing beautiful things.  That always comes to me as the nicest surprise.  

365

things are capable of changing

ice to water to smoke

over the course of a year

my heart has unfolded

the way a garden worships

spring

rebuilding itself from multiple

warzones of

a winter that has

gone on far too long

I can’t think where my

demons have gotten to

perhaps swatted dead

like flies while I’ve

slept

somehow

it took

less than twelve months

to finally be able to awaken

feverless

into a dark blue that is

only deepening with

stars

-----

time traveler. The past is looking more and more surreal every day.

you ever find yourself crying on an examination table to a doctor who insists you're only sad because it's winter?

you ever find yourself unable to even disagree because your confidence level is zero and you have de-evolved to something almost unrecognizable to anyone who knew you before?
----------------

Submit to love without thinking,
as the sun this morning rose recklessly
extinguishing our star-candle minds.

-Rumi