The Power of Permenant Press

I always sit atop the washer as it works. Ad hoc sharper image relaxation technique, i award myself as i hop up, bouncing with the spin cycle, water lapping at the metal surface desperate to hit my pants. Not this pair, no, i'm wearing this pair. You have enough sets of ripped pant legs to start on already, one bit at a time, i coo at the thrashing Kenmore machinery. My journey to the makeshift laundromat proves more stressful with each successive load. An awakening experience - i never knew i had this many t-shirts and rogue socks.


My hands slip across the binding of the downstairs neighbor's book, torn at the bottom, pages bent uniformly tell the tale of my bag. If i were a celebrity, i think, this might be my autograph. No pen, just rips and coffee stains, uneven dogears and smeared lead across the right side of the picture. Note to self: buy will a new book. My fingers reach into my memory and pull at the opening of my last literature excursion, page 114, yes, here we were. The washer hums, my fingers trace, eyes pace rapidly like a clairvoyant in an oneiric trans. Time and water and dryer sheets and humming all take their places neatly in the background of my mind, marked with masking tape to frame the stage where the reading will be done. And it booms, the story, I sit in the theater atop more washers and dryers and baskets and carts and those vending machines dispensing generic brands of detergents and fabric softeners. The story stops for no finished load, spinning and twirling a tumultuous mingling of words and smells and the sole laughs that burst from my lips. And it whirls and it whirls and i'm worried i might get sea-sick, desperately clinging to the side of my Kenmore quite aware that it might toss me overboard at any given moment, and then KNOCK. A face, male, shrouded in shadows and alcohol appears. I know it to be a face, only by the boyish goofy smile and sidekick of a hand waving and pointing through the dusted window. I jerk and turn, shocked, racking my memory for this man's smile or palm. Then it's his turn, equally shocked. We both stare, and BUZZ - i jump, and he follows suit, me off the white surface of my appliance and him into an extended branch of a nearby maple, his head turns in offense and embarrassment to look at the mess he's created. And he waves his arms and shakes his head gesturing, "not you, sorry not you. i thought you to be someone else but, oh, clearly you're not," blurs of forearms flying one over the other, selecting bits and pieces of an outdated handjive. I pardon him with a nod despite his unprecedented interruption, if i may be quite honest. And with the authority of a schoolteacher excusing her students he runs off to join his gang as they stumble down the street.



I pull at the edges of my little black dress, wet and entangled in a compress of other articles. Read the tag aloud, "dry clean only", my feet firmly planted on the cracked linoleum floor. They say, "don't risk it Rachel. This is a new purchase", my arms yell back, "FUCK.THAT.SHIT. do you always abide by the stitching in your clothing?? who's the boss of who, huh?" I smile, remembering my new found authority with the late-night knocker, and toss the dress into an open dryer. Ah, it feels good, the rest of the load accepts, marching itself in along with my dry-cleanable clothes. Swipe, shut, spin.

Untitled

The final period of any piece of writing is the hardest to type. What's held in this punctuation? It seems more determined when hand-written, more deserving. Typing that last line feels like a self adhesive stamp placed on an envelope. Sometimes, when i'm feeling particularly absent, i'm almost inclined to lick it... just for good measure. The act of finishing makes me nervous. When done shittily, i'm embarrassed to complete it. When done well, i'm overly critical. So there's a middle ground that i often tread on, balancing on the ridges of a barbed wire fence, occasionally slipping just to get my shirt sleeve entangled in the top and leave me dangling an inch above the ground. I yank myself up, and start the wire-walk all over again. It ruins my shoes, you know, toeing this razor thin line of worth.

I'd rather always start a sentence, an opening line so decorative and compelling it makes an illiterate fall in love. This is how i spend a good portion of my day, writing the opening line to a particularly novel novel. I smile, and imagine how the story would follow. Maybe a paragraph drafts itself, if the line is so willing, rolling into general narratives cut together with "and then"s "and then"s "and then"s. They spread too thin, my opening lines, like watching rock move to molten lava move to pebbles move to sand. I thrust my desperate hand into the work, but too tight of a squeeze and it all slips out, spilling through my fingers, fragments trapped inside the pockets of my jeans, remnants caught within the unnavigable tangles of my hair. At first its a comfort when pieces fall out - a reminder of what i've done. But sooner or later, after the 6th shower and the 2nd load of laundry, you start to resent it's incomplete presence. They call this fear of commitment, i hear, but i'd rather see it as the immortality of action. For a period is too heartless, egotistical, unforgiving. Yes, i'd much rather start something and watch it dissolve than place an unnecessary punctuation where punctuation is not due

This is not a Sunday

826 michigan, in all its glorious and playful efforts held a 4 day workshop on poetry forms from a variety of places. Wrote this one, a form that repeats the last line of the stanza (or in my case, toes the line of repetition). Don't remember what it's called or what the significance of it is. All in all this is just an excuse to not write a self-ethnography on my last week as a starving college student (probably won't explain that one further, so make of it what you will). Never really dabbled in poetry. Thought the ether was the best place to take a first whack. Hells yeah. Sorry to all those reading - the first time is bound to be messy :)

My bag today feels daintier

than normal toting commands

i'm well aware from my light load

that this is not a sunday

I trek across the paved campus

boots marking where i came from

i hate the snow but i have found

less so when it's a sunday

I find the nature of the day

tied to last night's reflections

so subsequently it would be

much better on a sunday

Today i'm angsty, bitter, rash

the snow - my source of anger

it's taken out on snow's dear cousin

i devour a sundae

Something about a midmorn brunch

equipped with toast and bacon

seems most appropriate to be had

when it's a lazy sunday

Program alarm to 9:20

a time i'm still not used to

i close my eyes, and fall asleep

with dreams of this next sunday

Wake up and stretch, 11:12

languid, content, well-rested

i knew this day would finally come

oh shit, its not a sunday

Exhibit 47: lack of sleep

It's a 15 minute walk back from main street - 20 if you doddle, 10 if you jog. Now, i've never experienced the latter, but i'm sure that it's just as enjoyable on a day like today. But the doddlers aren't out at this hour. You see a clear shift between 6 and 7, when dusk turns to dark, and everyone scampers in the direction of a "safer" location. It's relatively nice out. Well, relative to yesterday and my speculation of tomorrow. The air is thick and still, coating me in its protection. But molecules on top of molecules incorporate every movement of the people around me into my steps, actions, breaths. I start to resent the brisk-walkers, mixing their stress with my calm, tying their passing air into mine, dragging forward to a destination. I have no direction, so i follow, turning wherever the contrived wind takes me.

• The woman on my left has in interview: her briefcase full of neatly stacked papers that mirror the captured snow resting on top. She shakes off the flakes - that's genuine leather the weather is ruining. I make a sharp left turn with her anxiety.
• Two boys shove passed me, 15, maybe 16 at most. They have painted on mustaches. I remember doing that. They laugh - a mixture of rebellion and tension. We all sense a foreboding grounding in their future.
• A group of sorority girls rope me in and i'm trailing behind their giggles and spliced sentences. A whirlwind of hairtosses throws me off their path.

There's lampposts scattered evenly on each side of me. They start sparse, one every minute or so, extending my shadow along the paved ground, passing by and through me. As i enter campus the lights start to concentrate; cluster around me like orbiting stars. My feet are bound by rings of dancing silhouettes. They circle, one after another, racing in front and behind me. Free only when my tattered boot leaves the ground, the shadows too celebrate their momentary liberation. Legs dissolve into concrete, they disperse in all directions just to be yanked back to my body like a dog on a chain with the heavy step of my foot. The lamps turn in my direction, eager to participate in my one man show. I get stage fright - freeze - my shadows gawk at me in shock. You've practiced this a thousand times their faceless expressions tell me as i call for my line. I stare at the open intersection, no cars from either direction. My shadow's less cautious, posed halfway across the street. I lift my foot up and it takes off, floating down east u, past the bank, over the painted picnic tables, around the dumpsters, up the telephone wires. From the coat pockets of my cast jacket, it takes out a large umbrella and starts to dance across - a remarkable balancing act from a silhouette with very little practice. Staring upward, i clap and nod, whistle and beckon as the wind catches my shadows umbrella and sends it floating down to my feet. Hovering an unnoticeable amount above the ground, it curtsies and melds back into me. What a show.

Hail to the Victors

I am the deviant child that pounds in revolution and resonates through my ribcage. Jailed, oppressed, I shoved him in there, locked him in the cage of my inner being. He used to be living in the outskirts of my fingertips, annexed also in the far reaches of my toes. He’d protest and clamor, run and thump, raise chaos in places that he felt necessary. But, sadly, he was not well received. Later in life he began to retreat, pumping through my veins, nomadic and circulating, trying to find his place. Occasionally he’d take advantage of a painful opening, some popped vessel or sensitive bruise. His true colors spread through pockets, confined only by the layers of my skin. His aura, though temporary, was obvious – a statement of presence, importance, like the thumping bass of a hip-hop stereo, like a nation’s flag over conquered land. With time, the body became more cautious, took less tumbles, developed rougher skin. So he moved, in a flurry of red and white cells, towards the Mecca of all defiance. Inside the vessels and ventricles of the heart he gathered, and learned. The toenails shared stories with the palms, the ankles with the ears; stories of battles lost, families torn, beliefs shattered. And there he lay, collective and disheartened, in the holiest of heartfelt places.

School is but one institution that stood on the back of this jungle boy. Reading Vappula’s piece addressing traditional forms of education, my heart began to thump, my child began to shout. This is his story, of forced thought and rhetoric and schedules and stencils and norms and abnorms that he could not fit into. He is the brother of my voice, who retreated to the pit of my stomach and ached at every essay in which she could not take part. He’s the son of my philosophy; a father kept prim and presentable, living in each twisting strand of auburn tinted hair. He learned how to silence his piercing screams, or maybe I learned to barricade them. I fear he’s grown older, hit puberty, lost the interest in protest and gained one in sports cars. Time accelerates in lonely spaces. Maybe he’s married and settled in a section of my suburban lung. He’s forgotten the glory of my tongue, unresponsive to the bounce of my lips when inspired. He knows the walls of my inner intestine instead of the liberty that lives in my eyes. I feel him move, I miss his face, I speak for him what he used to do for me. His action, trapped in the glass casing of my words collects like marbles in a jar – step right up, you could be a winner, 500 dollars for the man who can best estimate its worth! I hope he, or she, or we, steal the fucking thing, dump it in hallways and stairwells, and together see the fury of our individualism unfold.

free write therapy

There's something essental that's missing. It feels like drinking pulpless orange juice - it's fine, in fact sometimes prefered, but you know that's not the way the juice is supposed to be. It spills down my throat, and seems to pass directly through my organs, making no effort whatsoever to spread through my body. I might as well not have lifted the cup at all. What is it. Why do i talk, ceaselessly, with no purpose or content. Where's the pulp? I'm a reflection of my surroundings, as are all living things, and subsequently they are of me. Endless and cyclical. I don't want to spiral out of control. This is the life-sized Cuisinart that renders all pulp virtually unrecognizable, although it was there to begin with.

No thoughts, just words, let flow and go. Don't think, about. punctuation, spelling, capitals, syntax. It hurts to backspace, i sense it through my eyelids, pounding in my eardrums and pulling my arms apart. My eyes are closed now, feeling only the sense of keys on fngers. I turn, and the words turn with me, and we blend together untill they pour into every orifice that i have. Open your mouth and let out an inaudible yawn. It peaks out, keeping one foot inside, holding onto my tongue. another foot - on my lips and legs shaking. It starts to run, and i to scream. The yawn to scream is a beautiful thing, more natural than the last leaf of fall. and i fall, and scream, and no one can hear. the wind is pounding. on glass. bits and pieces seep through but dissipate as they drive towards me. To feel that wind: the kind that shakes buildings, uproots great oaks, tears asphault.

There it is. Intuition. I block it out, like i talk myself out of a cold winters day. Layer upon layer i deny my need for it's presence in my life, that thing that you know with nothing but the strongest connection to everything around you. It used to drag me. Now i drag it. Chained below my ankle, i carry the feeling around. I had people in my life; strong, independent, beautiful, intuitive people, who reminded me of the importance of magic. And it pulsed through them, and me, and nothing else felt more real. And we'd scream, when screaming allowed, and we'd scream, when we were silenced, and we'd run when time seemed endless, and we'd run when it came too close. I saw in in their eyes, when they slept and when they cried, and their shreiks were both of joy and fear, swift in their escape and their celebration. It's missing, it's vital, the pulp of my morningnoonandnight. It's nearly inaccessible without you here, but i feel it every time i'm home, every time. It's the most beautiful, courageous, innovative work of art - the way you teach others to embody emotions. Backspace.

How's that for subtleties

I share the bare thanksgiving streets with a man rustling through the garbage cans in the alley behind charleston. He pulls out a half eaten loaf of bread. I'm invisible to him, which i find comforting. We both wanted the streets to ourselves. Past the brick exterior of apartments and townhouses i see lights glowing, some from TVs, others from laughter. I'm The Pedestrian, but even worse, nobody seems to care. I'm free to wander, so i take a sharp right through the gates of the bucktown park. My shoes weren't meant for this weather. They never are, they weather wherever i go. Water spills in through the hole in the back of my left boot - i mutter obscenities as if i didn't create it in the first place. The swings look lonely, so i go to sit down. It's too cold to use them for their real purpose, swinging that is. Instead i just sit and stare at my half-soaked shoe. It would be a pity-swing anyway, just to keep them company.

The church bells here go off every hour starting at 8 am. 8 am is an awful time to be aware of if you ask me. But they ring 8 very noticeable times. Each individual bell toll makes my teeth hurt, my eyes roll, my legs numb, my fists clench. And then again at 9. The toes of my shoes submerse themselves in woodchips and the chains of the swing take off. I grab hastily at them like the cord on a city bus, but they ignore my signals. The church bells go off, the freezing chains creak in discord - they hate that fucking church as much as i do.

10 tolls, i should head back. I pick myself up by my slightly worn bootstraps, hearing the smack of my shoes on the pavement. I stop, one step, smack, one step, smack. It resonates down the streets and back again, a boomerang of sound. I laugh, it hits me, one step, smack. My pace increases, my muscles tighten, the sound is trailing behind me, shaking windows knocking down bricks, shattering televisions and laughter that encase the glow. Hey, you: i'm thankful for our music and our beds, and our lack of beds, and, well, our heavy fucking memories.