You Are Just A Coat

You are just a coat.

      Sitting in some sweaty overcast,

      Calling out 911 through sad eyes
                                                     like it were a name you knew

You got your pockets in your hands

                Like a bucket of cool whip,
                            Sulking.    Drying out,    Hardened. Mess

               Eating the paint off your nails,
The taste of pure cancer

Somebody with "a lot of potential"     just        not         going anywhere
                       
                             like last years prom memories.

People keep looking at me like a bump on the road

        I am just a coat
                        Layered cake. and coated.

You parted the clouds and the sun shone     for just one second

On my legs.
On damp grass.

But disappointment,

         It sticks on you like a grass stain,
                               
                                  like a sore throat in the crevasses

"The Invitation" By Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dreams
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life's betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
for fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your
fingers and toes
without cautioning us to
be careful
be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true
I want to know if you can disappoint another
to be true to yourself.

If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day
And if you can source your own life
from its presence

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand on the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
"yes."

It doesn't interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have
I want to know if you can get up
after a night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know
or how you came to be here
I want to know if you will stand in the center of fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied
I want to know what sustains you from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

I Surrender

I surrender,
               
            I surrender,    I say

Hands raised high   like  a   popsicle stick

I am juiceless,
 
        and   only  surrounded by my

imperfections   and     a leaking heart.

Call to arms
and calling to you

calling out      and    between fingers, please

I am waving,   but

all you can see

is the space between  bended bone

Part of You Is Spilling

She has the face of an ice cream.
the cone,  my hand      beneath it,  cupped for the scoop

Part of you is spilling,   I say
all over me..          stop it.

My finger tips are not mountain ridges
but holes,  I tell you.   Holes.

You belong in a bowl,
                              now go.

Embrace The Piñata

I don’t know much about children, but at the same time they intimidate the crap out of me. I’m standing in a store, let’s just say I’m buying a snickers bar and the lady next to me’s child is eyeing me from floor to ceiling. This little girl probably has a bright pink tutu on that I probably think is rad. Which brings me to this thought: children really know how to stare into your soul. You could call it art. They look at all the little trinkets hanging off of your body; that thing in your hair, your puffy skirt and sparkle shoes. They stare, and you know exactly what they’re thinking. They have no censorship, they say what they want and speak how they feel. They look at you; they actually look into your eyes. Remember eye contact? Well children still believe in it. And if they feel like jumping off of a car, they do it while simultaneously screaming something barbaric. Children are my idols, okay? They’re super cool. And they represent and stand for something that I can’t necessarily have anymore, or at least it was taken away from me-maybe just as my braces came off, or maybe it was when Angela Sosa threw that frozen snickers bar at my head for not saving her the sugar twisted donut. It was my 8^th birthday, and it should have been something magical. As you grow, you begin to realize that all birthdays aren’t bulletproof. I still hate this fact. I’m naïve, I know, and I’m okay with that.

Children are straight up. They speak the truth; they bring the good and the bad news. They are imaginative, they make believe and they aren’t afraid of what you think or how you feel. They are inconsiderate, they are rude, but they are awesome about it. You know when you can and can’t count on them to do something. They embrace the silly, they embrace the creature, they embrace the ability to make sound affects, they laugh so hard and so loud, they lack fear and they trust strangers. They have so much hope and faith in everything and in everyone, and they see you for you.

A lot of the time I feel like my biggest competitors are children- is that weird? It feels weird. I’m a bit envious of them, yes. I’ve always been, probably always will, but definitely not in that nasty “I’m a grown woman living through you,” sad way. None of that. This is going to be more like an appreciation. From afar. A feeling like as long as someone can represent all the good that childhood was, I’ll be okay being elderly in a giant fluff chair baking cookies for someone.

It turns out that right now, I’m 21 and a half- not elderly, and I don’t own a fluff chair yet, so if it’s okay with you, I’m going to represent all the good that childhood was while it’s not too late, and in this case, it’s going to start with embracing the piñata. The love I have for the Piñata goes along with my love for hot air balloons and unicorn. Along with my strange fascinations with rollercoaster’s and creatures, He-Man and She-Ra, and with making movies in my head that I forget aren’t real. It’s hard to put everything in my head into words, but I know that every action I make comes from who I am, every artistic decision included. Can I call these decisions an impulse? Can I call it Knowledge? Can I just call it Me? The Piñata, and all these things, play with my memories. Every memory, for me, comes with a feeling attached, or a smell- something so distinct and clear that it brings me back in ways other things can’t.

The times of my childhood and through my growing years were the times when I felt the most connected with myself. These were the times when I felt the most vulnerable, the most honest and the most real. I learn that the more that I know (about the world, about the people I love, and about my surroundings,) the more I get away from that vulnerability and innocence. It is a change that I can feel inside of me and out. If I can’t stay being one thing, or one person- if I can’t stay in a happy place and if I need to move on- then is it okay if I bring something with me to hold? Can that be an image, can it be an object, can it just be a feeling?  That is the piñata and the unicorn, and the creature for me, it is a type of relationship; it is a close connection.

We as human beings- in a generalized phrase- feel the need to grow so fast. People want to do everything before the time has come. I don’t know why but it happens and it appears to be normal and natural and a part of life. But in ways, we all miss what we grew past and we go back in little ways. Looking at photographs, or telling stories, I feel, are small gestures of this. Maybe when I reminisce, I reminisce hard. Maybe I just never fully grew past these things. Everything is still in question but regardless, someone has to bring people “back to earth,” as I see it: “back to the times when things were good.” These things make people happy, it awakens some, and maybe acts like a refresh button for others. If I can bring smiles, make things temporarily lighthearted for all, and if I have to do it with glitter and sprinkles, then I’m going to do it all the better.

näˈstaljə

Little baby girl,   little mind,


Little heart holding onto things that speak

Short term memory loss, but not for things that were good

Stood out like fire inside

Caress the warmth, it’s cool, I’ll do it

I've got tumors in my chest full of little trinkets and crumpets

Bittersweet like chocolate chips

Feelings are only good for after dinner suppertime

Pre-child, Post death.   I can’t do that,   so step aside

I know what I know what I know and that is all I don’t know but me

Don’t want to get away from what I am

Don’t want to get lost in these new worlds full of things

That we hide under, rocks and cloth and computer keys and such


The more I’m lost in a mess, the more I’m gripping onto this chest

The only thing I know that knows me

And I know it right back


Ive got a lot of talk and big ears for you,

Some nostalgic naivety and stubborn eyes for the world around me,

But I am happy with my smiles and with my whatevers


I know that I already know this

And in that case I know I'll be ok

Excavations.

My work is an explosion of all the junk inside of me.

This may not be something that you can see and feel

                          but my heart,        it leaps and knows what it knows when it sees it. 

Most of the time        my organs feel like balloon animals,  drifting about inside

this playpen

  for playtime.  

                         my head, is a slushy of hues.

holding shapes in my eye corner’s crease,    glitter in my wrinkles   and most of the time    I don’t care about you-    the audience-    and what you want to think of this.

                                                                           
                        I have to just be me if that’s okay

   and I need these things, these colors and shapes and lines   to burst out of me and in your face,

on walls,

and through eyes      and into my work.

I can’t help what others won’t love    but I have to know that I’m doing the best at loving what I do

     

and if that means coloring the whole goddamn world,   then I’m going to do it

      despite what you think of this word “art.”

                 Despite what you think of this word “people” and the words "as artists"

and despite this “success” that everybody is talking about.

Process, like life, is moving hands and itchy fingers.     Nails are chipping with the paint chipped walls.

                        If I can’t get lost then I can’t claim that I’ve been.

I need to feel its pain before I can love it. 

                            Pattern galore gore,  puking everywhere,           as usual.

Everything I love is a symbol for how I feel.

It’s really nowhere near complex,

                                                     I work off my sleeve

          and most of my life and work is what it is.

I have no problem telling you what my day is like    and what part of the brain my art comes from.

  I can’t help what I love   and I love so much.

All I know is that
            My ugly will overtake all your ideas of pretty polished artwork

     I am the sole believer in ugly colors,  and all colors,  and I would like to let them breathe. All over
Everywhere

I will overwhelm you with my textile marshmallow fluff

                                                                                         So get ready and boa up

           I'm going to open up what is still in me,     and play with it,

let it loose         and keep it around until it feels right           

Nothing, really, should be thrown away, 

      especially the years when we were made to fly   and felt the most free

Things In Jars

In terms of glass bottles,

  

Things in jars,

I think of myself,

                Just always wanting to fill it up.

Want the city feel among other things,         I want your stories.

I'm always wanting things that are never for me

  but include the word i. 

something’s wrong. 

"I need this because I love her so much."      How can that ever be?

Some people don’t get it right with me.

                                Cant cry about it.     Cant throw sticks and fists       or puff my chest like blocks of ice.

Put it in a jar
and leave.

                                        I will collect you up until I feel good about it.

So, shake your head,

Stop and shake.    Stop     and lift the lid,       get in       and twist it shut.

                                       When I think about the fog,  blinding alley ways,

                                                                                                                                     I think about power.

Wrap around me. 

   Move between my feet.

                 Eat the ground like you do best.

 Give me a little ugly brown and red I wait for each year.      Get in my head and dye it.

            Don’t care how long it takes, im going to be someone beautiful

Filling my jars along the way   

                          Need the feeling of things,    even if they aren’t there

Need my jars,  need my people,  

                                                     You people.     Doing Sunday things.

 I need you for Sunday,   My Sunday things.  

                                                                            For my jars and things.

My Thoughts Are Rubbish At 3AM

it's subjective,

so just tell me you hate it

i'm not feeling heavy hearted, i'm just feeling elderly

white picket fence syndrome,
autobahn society,
dictionary dialogue,

i will only be successful at cussing you out on a sunday afternoon

i will only make children that know how to love and not how to swim

a shut down nut case, ever heard?

i'm going to put my insecurities on a side dish to make some room for the chocolate pudding.

a waitress has the saddest story painted on her forehead

my thoughts are rubbish, not gold.

while i was at lunch with a friend, i secretly wanted to be with another friend

i am a cheating friend cheating on you

the messiah complex,

the oedipus complex,

the never good enough complex

this is between you and me

and them

The Third

tattoo talking,
he talks like he knows me
everyone is someone,
i'd rather be a something

thunderstorm,
early pour,
sewage drainage
doesn't make things easy
therapy
poetry

it is my life

Wall Hanging

you are a walking waste
you are wasting away on me,
i am just a picture, i am the child, i am the left behind kind
a different kind, not worth it kind, too kind
im talking a puzzle piece beneath our knees.
heart bending, the hurting kind.
everythings a murder scene.
im talking ok cause youre ok, with it all.
all bunched up like a wave break, wrinkled nose
the ocean is wrinkled wide enough for waste to push aside
just another girl in a red hat

it hangs, it's always hanging off to the side,

im talking piggy back ride past a park bench, speaking in code kind

Im talking numbers, im talking mirror imaged faces, straight lines and walls.

im talking walls too high for another side

im talking scared maybe. i am scared maybe. maybe i am scared.

Movie Moment

she only knows how to hold a balloon,

how to hold it behind her back. tuck it up and cover it

string peeping between her knees. momma can't see it there, she doesn't care anyway

it's like crossed fingers again. knuckle games,

footsies in a trailer park, bike route behind mountains you found her

you were a walking sand filled breeze.

you clog my throat with stones.

your words are too big for me to look at. 

stand against the chicken fence, let me take a picture

of your shiny shoes and sun burnt silhouette.

her tights have never once, matched her dress.

she was born a mess. every thing's a color in code

kodak knows how to fuck with you, they never let anything go

they shoot you with a camera, shooting guns. focusing focusing in on you

no one wants another mess made tangible, left over,

spaghetti sauce that up. for the birds in the backyard.

her covers aren't covering anything anymore.

she's got them all twisted and tortured upon a sheet-less bed,

attempted layers for the landfill, the dry spell

i've been listening to too much rap lately

now my mind thinks in shards of glass. let me clean that up for you

picking up picking up your body parts in clusters

i never meant to sing you a song,

to spill over my thoughts on a dark wooden bench

where people sit with dogs and dinners for two

bridesmaids are beaten with the image of a bird made broken

spaghetti sauced lungs in a corner store, heart sore from the heaviness

some windows were made for staying in,

children bury faces in pillows, the cold side up, sinking in creases, pillow clumps

i'm riding bikes towards pot holes for the pot luck, her work reflects her words, who cares.

i've got the night sky telling me time, these days are a different story

counting steps, counting on my soul to do the dirty work for me

quick sand quickened my thoughts about fear,

i'm not on training wheels riding west anymore, i'm a disaster in a suitcase

left behind by a business man with a cold shoulder

t.v. dinners are a high school drama made homey for the lonely ones,

macaroni and cheese in a plastic package, brownie points for the brave

let me scribble words on a placemat from a trash can, divie up what's left of it inside of a mini van,

you can count the splinters in vain from a fence wooded grain

but it's when you think you've got something good,

that you learn to throw it away

T.V. Dinner

Blood hands for dye

Stained between crease

Disappointment.             you are             a let down

Breathe in headache and discipline

I am the wrong way

I am the not to

I am the no and no and no           

The wrinkles and the waste

The left over

I sing the same song

But you make it feel better

When it shouldn’t

Windows

Everything’s falling out of my windows

Keep closing the doors cause the bad is coming in

Like a Chinese sea,

like the stickers we sweep off of dad and moms lawn

Grow grass tall grass into shapes that we kids pile on to lie flat

Flat grass go grass grow cause the kids are waiting

What a sucker for the green you are

Take me back to the swings

It always feels shorter on the way back

Can't be what you want

It always feels shorter, I am shorter than shorter

I always pick the tall ones, why?

Keep closing doors cause the bad is coming in

Under the cracks, under the shoes, my soles, you know?

I am not the girl with the lips

I’m the one that’s heart sewn into eyes

I don’t care about my lips,

I just want my heart home.

Pressure feeling fondling me

Until I don’t love any of it anymore

Everything’s one big heart attack

A snack time for the heavens

Dream time for the relief rhyme

Just done

2010

What Do Ya Know

she writes a lot of child time cinema

talk a speech, speeching heart

too many homes to take it to go

leave it in a cardboard box,

pretty pre-packaged, pay up and leave me, it seems
you live behind trees, they're not nearly as naked as you are

balcony bliss, rooftops rough enough to breathe

i am a friend of a friend who doesn't want anything to do with you

hotel beds leave me heartless,

toenail painted shades of green,

two on either side, back ache, mathematical hangover

carpet tessellating too much, you're wrong. you're wrong,

you know this

finger tipped fevers

tired of words that come in O's

we are supposed to be god, bearing children

capture me capture you in a dress,

that touches ground for gold

high heeled harsh skies, grey and gross. stop

wish you could bear soul like you bare heart

the way you talk in the shower like its a microphone

blackened berries, your dark nights are darker in the daylight

your face is cold, fever fucked, sorry I said it.

gifted girls come in packaged deals,

they're ready to run fully heeled into vehicles

paper plates and heartaches left aside to dry in due time

we are soul-bearing, holding hot handed homes in paper cups,
ready to be given out like children's lemonade games
a cinematic disaster's mastering sinister,
in handfuls for the homeless,
they don't want your sinful moments hovering over them

our wrinkles are running design free, these aren't made up.
finger nails and kids fall into bushes thorned with hell,
band aids and blisters leave for disasters in a parking lot
beneath grey skies and ice cream cones to go,
we realize, it's just a slideshow for the animal,
what do ya know

Head Thunk

you is such a heavy word. please. i can't.
the you's are too much to hold sometimes, i get tired like those other people do too
and it's never the mental kind. i want to be mentally tired. thoughts, hi, hi, you're here too aren't you?
you. all of you. you and you and.
i signed the papers today. bye.
i got your email. bye.
phone message, phone call, texting is my name, who are you? texting, who are you?
texting faceless my face hurts, useless features, phone funk
what's wrong with a postcard?
what's wrong with the words? letters. you spoke, not wrote. i wish.
happy and open you said. you, are happy. you are. again good. i like that.
                                                 I've been thinking about our days. we're all in the same day. we're sharing children, kindergarten in a crate and barrel. what? you don't read me? i need to simplify sometimes, you know. you don't need to understand, you don't need to do anything. i love the things that weigh tons. harsh and blunt and poking my every bone, searching, to get in. inside, i get it. this isn't sad. please don't take it there. off days put into words does not make it worse than yours. heavy music makes the heaviness lift. i don't care if you don't like violins, or wind chimes. you'll see what you want to see. and hear.
                                      I've been feeling like a number. It's making me sick, I get the excitement, I know i know i know i know why. But if it doesn't matter to me, it shouldn't to you. hi, hi, hi, I am me. we are not. me.
Ready to shut it down, mouths, arms, and thoughts, just tired. Don't like my words that stumble, I am stubborn for sleep. literally mad. that i can't. we can't. I want to think, but I also wish you would stop. I could use a head start. head rush, head first, first place, first chance, hands. night, no. Those people with their dogs have it so easy. when everyone thinks we are the ones that play with paste. i get it you don't get it, i don't expect. just keep the you's to yourself.
                          

Uplift Me, Bright Eyes

"Don't forget what you've learned, that all you give is returned. and if life seems absurd, what you need is some laughter, and a season to sleep and a place to get clean. maybe los angeles, somewhere no one's expecting"

HandMade Happiness

My first semi-decent screen print of the semester. I'm pretty happy about it but want more from it still. This is just part one of the assignment. I still need to steam wash this, burn another stencil onto my screen, and re-print the repeat registration, and then paint lye on top to add texture and complexity. All I've ever wanted to be was a pattern maker and here I am doing what I love. I hope things will never change, because this one feels right.

The screen where the hand drawn image is burned onto in order to print

Everything Hand drawn and repeated, Dye blended and hand mixed 2011

A Feeling, But It's No Finger Painting

Studio visits until 3:45am.

These have been some real beautiful days all cooped up with friends in a building that feels like yours.

This department, yes, lacks so much, but man do the people make up for it all.

How hard it is to not feel good when you're doing something you love and know with bare hands.

The warmth from the sun has been missed, sure, but lying on this hardwood floor looking out of this wall-wide window has been the most satisfying.

It's hard to find an all blue sky.

And these hills make a view like none you've ever seen, like it's not even trying and this is just the way it is now. This can't all be for me.

I don't deserve it.

This need in me to run around like a child, to play with the wind has been so prominent to my days.

The cemetery is my new park, I picnic there, good talks with good friends, sleep, draw, write,

who could've known the cemetery could heal all? Or heal me?

And there's something about the city that gives you quiet nights when needed. No cars, just trees all lined up in rows like walls, and you walk in the center where the lights don't hit.

Sometimes they flicker character. In and out like life.

If you can't do your dreams, live in the dreamy city and feel it out.

Like a sister, it's close enough.

I've got good books to read, and some hard heeled days for roaming streets,

there are too many lakes to keep up with. Too many stories that the strangers will tell, too many soon to be mothers, and child smiles.

The candy stores haunt me just as much as the time it takes for the leaves to change their colors.

Everyone is striving for something here, you can sense it. A hunger for brothers deep within, beyond lashes, to hold on to what counts.

There is no reliance on the outside world, what you've got is what you have and there's nothing coming for you. Not even a package.

Maybe that's it, it's not what others are looking for that matters, but the fight for it.

There's fight. Unpublished, untelevised fight found behind buildings in corners with worn out cobblestones.

It's hard to stay down when you have so much.

I have too much. I need to give these things away, myself away

Become the self-giving city that's brought the last bit of me up

I've been raised by strangers, raised like buildings, wild like wolves.

I am a part of something when I want to be and I do, and I am, and that's really all it takes

It's just an opening for the sore who want something more

Homesick

Michelle + Michael Graziano Pennsylvania 2010

It's easy to miss a house that isn't yours. I miss the people inside of it more, and the heart that pours from them. Every house, a different colored shutter. These were grey-blue, like sky. My family. I miss my family quite a lot, learning about my culture, the Italian parts in me finally getting to play. That trip really gave me a lot that I still hold on to. But I always leave wanting more.