Miss Erin

2012-01-17T10:16:00.001-08:00

I really like being extraordinarily happy for other people.

I really like that feeling.

Last of '11

2012-01-11T23:48:00.000-08:00

bubbles, at first. coming from nowhere, but all over the sky and falling on the sand on me on my book.

craters, stretching onward.

a lone girl, happy in puddles, patting and shaping and splashing. she had something of a sea maiden about her.

and then the sun began to slip;
this world turns so quickly.

the phooosh sound things make when they come and go

2012-01-07T17:10:00.000-08:00

The National is playing and they are making me sleepy, and there is the somehow-fitting cigarette smoke odor coming from God-knows-where, and the tree is in pieces around the livingroom because it's too heavy to put away on my own, even though I managed to get it out and put it up on my own. There's a little peach-grey left in the sky, but the trees are black silhouettes. An empty beer bottle stands next to this laptop on one side; a birthday package and card on the other.

There are people and places I have been, and people and places I want to see about, and then there is the current me in a t-shirt I've had half a dozen years and a skirt almost as long and the words on my arms have become to-do lists instead of poetry but the ink is still a comfort. I sit here in another temporary home with a fresh haircut, the new me, All homes are temporary (Reminder), the requisite helicopter flies over, I am getting rid of so much, I need to get rid of more, this time the sorting is in both brain and apartment, the things to keep, reminding myself what is important to keep, why it is important to keep, things are things, thoughts are thoughts, I could live out of my car if it comes to that.

Is the only thing keeping me from running away all these years lack of resources? I do wonder. But - perhaps -
she made me unafraid of failure.

Well, I owe those letters. The trick is in letting them think it's their idea and decision when really it's you all along. Directing, acting; lines blur. Persuasiveness minus pushiness. Major, minor. But I am fooling myself: it is still up to them. But/however/(Reminder): you have not striven for a secure life, rin.

new year

2011-12-30T13:32:00.001-08:00

a playlist of songs for your new beginning, from me.
h a p p y n e w y e a r !

Pretty

2011-12-28T23:12:00.000-08:00

Walking behind me on the way back to the car park through the sand—

"You are so pretty, honey," said an older woman to her [daughter? granddaughter?]

"No I'm not," the girl said.

"Why would you say that?" the woman tsked; offended, almost.

The girl just shrugged. "I just think a lot of other girls are prettier than I am," she said, as if that explained it.

I hung back, walking slower, waiting for the woman's reply.

"Well yes, that's true, there are always going to be prettier people," she nodded.

Nearly five weeks ago

2011-12-28T23:11:00.000-08:00

Tonight a boy from class walked me to my car because it was dark and because it was santa monica boulevard, and when I pointed it out and walked on without him he was still waiting for me to unlock it and get in before he waved and turned to go and I thought that was nice. I don't always know if it's a sad thing or a good thing that little gestures like that can get to me so much.

bukowski, again

2011-12-19T13:44:00.000-08:00

2011-12-16T21:46:00.000-08:00

Alone, and happy at last.
A bed and an open sky, smells
of dirt and alfalfa,
stretched bare toes
in the buzzing summer air.

It was like Iowa, or Oz,
or any number of Midwestern
fairy tales. Small-town kids
find magic, and so do
British wartime children,
but rarely me.

Breathing is easier here,
as is being, as is belonging.

Witches can wait, for now
it's
sky and plants, sky and plants

_____
copyright Miss Erin McIntosh, 2011
please do not reprint without permission

I have not yet given up, she said.

2011-12-01T13:52:00.000-08:00

thanksgiving

2011-11-24T23:59:00.000-08:00

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

- e.e. cummings

I am thankful this day and this night for really beautiful, creative, loving friends to share food and music and laughter and conversation and happiness and love with.

2011-11-21T22:42:00.000-08:00

when reading my own poetry
or the poetry of others

I am filled with the enormity of
the significance and insignificance
of my own life
and the lives of others

Jane.

2011-11-18T18:53:00.000-08:00

Twelve-year-olds are nearly always peculiar, but this particular Jane was more peculiar than most. She had a pet rabbit that she intended to roast, and a collection of spices that had arrived in the post. She loathed rhymes and only wore white stockings and had a habit of kicking walls when bored or nervous or confused or happy. Her father had been Greek, but nobody who knew Jane had known him, other than her mother, but even that might be a stretch, unless when you say "know" you mean in the Biblical sense. She liked to drive cars but was never allowed, which made her incredibly frustrated, which she vented by kicking walls. The walls of her home were covered in scuff marks and mud and even dents here and there, because although Jane was small she was quite strong when she wanted to be. She hated the color grey but her mother made here wear it to school because it was sensible and would keep her warm and also because it was the school's uniform dress code. Jane thought the idea of a dress code was sensible, but that the color grey had been a poor judgment on the part of the school board. Jane had decided a few years ago that she was probably going to be an insurance lender when she was grown up, or else own a fish market, or, if the world was vegan by then, a seaweed market.

one-ninth

2011-11-09T21:16:00.000-08:00

I asked myself, why were we
so careful with each other, and

it was because we were young
and everything was infinitely
important
to
us

, including the poetry we wrote.

I put, in parenthesis,
(If I am going to be honest,)
because
that has become a disclaimer.

Two years ago,
you were beautiful
and I was focused.
Our places may be
reversed—

2011-11-05T11:49:00.000-07:00

halloween eve, wilshire.

beetlejuice and brides.

copper animal heads.

my dress glowed in the luminescent nursery.

pastel inspiration.

tattered capes and cloaks!

Outside, it's cold in LA

2011-10-27T11:54:00.001-07:00

So, I'm driving down Ventura, right? And it's getting late, I mean, not even six o'clock, but it's started to get dark. And the sky's, like, that cool in-between color: not a sunset or anything yet, but it's that blue that's getting darkened and it's all splashed around like watercolor and maybe there's a star but either way you can see the moon so brightly, it's always just set up there really obviously, but when you're driving down Ventura it's even more obvious, or when you walk out of my apartment building. And there are these palm trees—super tall, like, the tallest ones there are—lining either side of the boulevard, reaching up toward the moon, and sort of framing it, in an off, uncentered way, and maybe Tom Petty's playing on the radio and maybe he's not but that's kind of, you know, that's when I know that I'm home.

Welcome home

2011-09-11T19:39:00.000-07:00

thinking of suitcases and peculiar children
of the right summer heat and the certain kind of fall
of ancestry and the thing that ties me to the place I've only briefly visited
and how my favorite things are those not easily defined

A Smile To Remember

2011-08-16T12:14:00.001-07:00

we had goldfish and they circled around and around
in the bowl on the table near the heavy drapes
covering the picture window and
my mother, always smiling, wanting us all
to be happy, told me, 'be happy Henry!'
and she was right: it's better to be happy if you
can
but my father continued to beat her and me several times a week while
raging inside his 6-foot-two frame because he couldn't
understand what was attacking him from within.

my mother, poor fish,
wanting to be happy, beaten two or three times a
week, telling me to be happy: 'Henry, smile!
why don't you ever smile?'

and then she would smile, to show me how, and it was the
saddest smile I ever saw

one day the goldfish died, all five of them,
they floated on the water, on their sides, their
eyes still open,
and when my father got home he threw them to the cat
there on the kitchen floor and we watched as my mother
smiled

by Charles Bukowski

love letters, III

2011-05-29T23:54:00.000-07:00

april archives.

from a play called "The Woods" by David Mamet

2011-05-18T23:54:00.000-07:00

NICK: I'll call you.

RUTH: Yeah. Don't.

(Pause.)

I'm sorry.

NICK: Alright.

RUTH: You know. It gets cold.

NICK: Mm.

RUTH: We put clothes on.

NICK: Uh-huh.

RUTH: Yes. I've got to tell you: We put on clothes, we can not make out what we look like.

(Pause.)

We make mistakes. We all get guarded.

(Pause.)

It's very lonely, and we all get desperate to be warm.
We have to find our lovers when it's warm.
We look at people and we see the things they are.
When they are on the Beach, or when they're happy.

(Pause.)

Some things that look like maybe they'd be good for us.

(Pause.)

It gets real cold up here until the fog burns out.

NICK: Mmm.

RUTH: You need insulation.

NICK: Well, we're right up on the Lake.

(Pause.)

RUTH: Yes.

(Pause.)

NICK: We had talked about it at one time.

RUTH: The thing about fish, they stay down there, it makes no difference to them.

NICK: Waves don't make a difference.

RUTH: What?

NICK: The waves don't make a difference.

(Pause.)

They're on the surface, but they don't affect the water underneath.

RUTH: They don't?

NICK: No.

RUTH: Currents, only, right?

(Pause.)

I don't know. I don't know.
Everything gets over.

(Pause.)

You know?
We all try to be very brave. What do you call it when you try not to show anything?

NICK: I don't know.

(Pause.)

RUTH: We all try to be warriors. Or pirates, something. They all used to go to sea and rape the cabin boys. The Vikings.

(Pause.)

The worst part, maybe, is just learning little things.
The things about each other. Other people.

(Pause.)

Like if they play the piano.
Until you have taken care of them when they are sick.
The way their sweat tastes.

(Pause.)

Those are the worst things.

NICK: We could call each other up.

RUTH: Oh, you're so sorry sometimes.

2011-05-05T01:35:00.001-07:00

"It is the witching hour!" I cried as we pulled out of the parking garage. It wasn't, but it felt like it, so I said it. My heart and thoughts twirled wildly in me like Peter Pan or one of Shakespeare's faeries.

Sitting on the grass, we spoke through the unlit night of God and looking at waves. There were bugs, but harmless ones, and I didn't mind. On each side of us, studios.

Later, I found myself in a car with three strangers, and I controlled myself not to cry. I was surprised by the way my voice shook and I was glad for the dark and bowed heads as I ran my hands underneath my bottom lashes.

On the way home, I stuck my fingers out of the sun roof in a peace sign to the night. I laughed and crowed.

love letters, II

2011-04-08T11:31:00.000-07:00

I walked all the way to West Hollywood to meet you under the awning of the cafe where you said "they have the best sushi,"
but you never showed up.

I would like to know why, because
when I see you my lips tingle my fingertips tingle my heart wants.

There was a boy there with a blue cap and from the back it could've been you.
Your doppelgänger.
I almost shouted out, but right then he turned,
and saw me with my mouth open wide, staring in his direction.
He gave me a polite smile and I looked away, embarrassed.

I imagine smiling back. I imagine him walking towards me. Striking up a conversation. Exchanging phone numbers.
I imagine you never calling again, and crying alone in my shitty apartment, and my phone vibrates, and it's this other boy this other you.

I imagine making plans to meet him at the same cafe, only this time I'm the one
who doesn't show up.

He sees a girl with two long, dark braids, from behind. He opens his mouth,
as if to shout -
but just in time, she turns, and he realizes it is not me.

Because of one caress / My world was overturned / At the very start

2011-03-11T20:11:00.000-08:00

We Americans are interested only in the consumption of our products. We have no interest in how they are produced, or what happens to them once we discard them, once we throw them away.
Keep thinking. You can hear our brains rattling around inside us, like the littler Russian dolls.The natural world is so adaptable...So adaptable you wonder what's natural.

[all quotes from feed by m.t. anderson; all images from the film never let me go, sources: 1, 2]

3/8

2011-03-08T22:34:00.000-08:00

Today we drove past a cemetery and my window was rolled down and the smell of fresh grass hit me like wham and I closed my eyes and was just gulping air in, as deep and full of breaths as I could, for the entirety of the long block that took us by it. I almost cried; it was such a beautiful scent and I hadn't smelled it in so long.

2011-02-28T23:26:00.000-08:00

I am a fabulous girl
in my fabulous green-and-yellow room
with my fantastic red sofa and

the sign that says "IN DEFENSE OF HUMOR"
which, I'm not sure what it means,
but at the same time, I get it, and

the pleasure is in not having to explain

Red lipstick and curls and a wide, wide mouth:
the kind of mouth that you never know what will come out of it
A song and dance number on the Hollywood Boulevard?
A shouting at the pigeons to scare them away from our lunch?
A grin sudden and bright at the prospect of hot dogs as we pass the dance studio no one seems to enter?

I wear green, all the time,
and I argue with you, all the time,
and I bang my fists on tables
and I do not like the way you shrug
and I laugh when anybody tries to explain Life
because only sane people try to do something as silly as that

Everything is TOO EXCITING
Tomorrow you might not be here!
Or you might kiss a homeless person!
Or you might buy that really sleek set of headphones you've been eying in that shop window for weeks!
Or you might open the door and find a note and follow it to a bridge where there will be another message and you will follow that to a tower and there will be another message and you will spend the rest of your life trying to get to the bottom of this never ending adventure!

So you see, children—

I'm laughing because you thought
I was going to give a hidden meaning, a sweet succinct summary,
but instead I am laughing alone in my orange knit hat
as I listen to rap music and open my windows to cold Los Angeles air.

❤ valentine mix ❤

2011-02-14T12:33:00.000-08:00

I made a mix! Just for you!
Heart songs for this St. Valentine's Day.
a happy day, and lots of love, to you all! XO

(image via)

2011-02-10T18:25:00.000-08:00

again by heart

reach backwards
slowly rotate
at all angles
reflected,
recorded,
fluctuation,

every morning in the mirror
in the window

looking past looking through
never at
unfocused

stretch arms upwards
like a dance, like a ballet
unfinished
undetermined

nineteen
or seventy-nine

some times
some days
there is no
difference

the white stripes

2011-02-05T18:07:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite—one of the best—rock and roll bands, The White Stripes, disbanded this week. I wanted to say something eloquent but I can't, and anyway, their music making is far better than my words about it could be.

"Jack White once claimed that he had three fathers: his biological dad, God and Bob Dylan."

_______________________________________________
___________________________________________
_______________________________________________

"This is possession pure and simple. Jack White sang like he had hell hounds on his trail, baying in endless anguish. He inhabits the song like a funeral mask. This is one of the saddest songs ever recorded. It's the sort of thing you never want to be in the mood to hear, but when you need it, there's nothing stronger."

Both quotes from the "Five great White Stripes covers: Dylan, Beefheart, Son House and more" article in the LA Times by Jeff Weiss

2011-01-31T12:37:00.000-08:00

I died for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.

...He questioned softly why I failed?
'For beauty,' I replied.
'And I for truth,-the two are one;
We brethren are,' he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.

Emily Dickinson

"if seeing is believing / I believe we have lost our eyes"

2011-01-20T01:11:00.000-08:00

lindsey.

2011-01-14T14:05:00.000-08:00

2011-01-11T17:23:00.000-08:00

black-stockinged feet fall
off the edge of a bed reflected
in the mirror that lines
one wall

thoughts
are redundant, since
the time I turned fourteen,
I haven't stopped
once

earlier
I practiced pirouettes and
chaine turns without enough
room

I imagined
stuffing everything inside the
old, clumsy suitcase:
a sweater, a hundred dollar bill,
and leaving in
the night

I don't know anything, but
things aren't

always propelled by other things.

_____
copyright Miss Erin McIntosh, 2011
please do not reprint without permission

2011-01-10T16:37:00.000-08:00

When my great grandmother was a young girl, she danced once with a boy and fell in love with him. Falling in love was easier back then, she tells me now. He took her the next weekend to get sundaes and on Tuesday they went rowing out at the lake near her mother's old farmhouse. When they were married he was nervous and she was calm. On their first anniversary, he gave her a necklace of brown pearls and a velvet bow, and she gave him their first child, a boy.

She says now that I don't know enough about falling in love because once people try and explain it to you it's a lost cause. People talk too much in my generation, she says. Once you think there can be an explanation and rules about what age you ought to be and where you ought to meet and what he ought to say when he takes you to meet his folks is all irrelevant. She waves her hand mildly in the air to make her point.

Did you ever wonder if he was your soulmate, I mean? - this is what I try to ask her. She peers at me like I am younger than she'd remembered. He asked me to dance, she persists. And then he called, and we - and she's begun the story over again, pausing for emphasis at her favorite parts.

emily.

2011-01-09T22:46:00.000-08:00

twenty from my twentieth

2011-01-08T20:54:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas to you all~

2010-12-22T13:57:00.000-08:00

this is my heartsong this winter month.

God bless, xo

So it goes. But then—

2010-12-19T23:12:00.000-08:00

paris in november

2010-12-04T20:40:00.000-08:00

books, twenty-eleven

2010-11-30T06:45:00.000-08:00

I've been looking at lists of upcoming 2011 book releases and there are SO MANY to be excited for. I thought I would share some of the titles I'm most looking forward to, in order to spread the anticipation!

Bigger Than a Breadbox by Laurel Snyder
The author and I have practically identical taste when it comes to children books, and her forthcoming novel sounds perfect for me and my life in a way I can't even put into words. I am holding my breath for it.
The book is a book for children, about seagulls and the midatlantic and divorce and magic and poetry, and a breadbox, and Bruce Springsteen songs. (source)

Return To Me by Justina Chen
A new novel from one of my favorite authors of one of my favorite YA books, who also happens to be one of my biggest inspirations.
Tells of a teenage girl (the first girl born in her father’s family in 132 years) who must overcome the pain of her parents’ divorce and her father’s disapproval, and learn how to embrace her own gift of sixth sense. (source)

The Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor (October)
I recently read Lips Touch: Three Times and was blown away by it. The writing was stunning. I SO enjoyed it, and I await her next YA fantasy eagerly.
The book is about a pair of star-crossed lovers kept apart by the fact that one's an angel and the other's a demon; also woven into the tale is the story of the devil's adopted daughter, a blue-haired art student in Prague. (source)

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore
This is a companion to the author's previous novels, Graceling and Fire, the latter of which is one of my favorite books I read last year, and one of my favorite fantasy novels I've ever read, period.

Family by Micol Ostow (May)
I don't need to know anything more than the fascinating premise:
A verse novel loosely based on the Manson murders of 1969.

Don't Breathe a Word by Holly Cupala (October)
Holly is a friend and inspiration to me, and on top of that she's a wonderful writer. Her first novel, Tell Me a Secret, was a terrific debut, and I can't wait to read her next work.
The story of a girl who runs away from her suburban home for secret reasons to join a band of homeless teens on the streets of Seattle—there's grit, there's romance…and an amazing boy. It’s about what it means to love. (source)

Small Town Sinners by Melissa Walker (July)
Things I like: Melissa, her books, and coming of age stories that involve questions and ideas about faith.
The story of Lacey Anne Byers, a small town girl who is excited to star in Hell House, her church's annual haunted house of sin, until a childhood friend reappears and makes her question her faith. (source)

The Lost Crown: A Novel of Romanov Russia by Sarah Miller (July)
I adored Sarah Miller's first book Miss Spitfire a ton. When she commits to a project, she commits—whether that mean teaching herself Braille or immersing herself in Russian literature. I'm certain this will be another beautiful and impressive historical fiction offering from her.
Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia. Like the fingers on a hand--first headstrong Olga; thenTatiana, the tallest; Maria the most hopeful for a ring; and Anastasia, the smallest. These are the daughters of Tsar Nicholas II, grand dutchesses living a life steeped in tradition abd priviledge. They are each on the brink of starting their own lives, at the mercy of royal matchmakers. The summer of 1914 is that precious last wink of time when they can still be sisters together--sisters that link arms and laugh, sisters that share their dreams and worries, and flirt with the officers of their imperial yacht. But in a gunshot the future changes — for these sisters and for Russia. As World War I ignites across Europe, political unrest sweeps Russia. First dissent, then disorder, mutiny — and revolution. For Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia, the end of their girlhood together is colliding with the end of more than they ever imagined. (read the rest of the description)

What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen (May)
Sarah Dessen's books can be a bit hit-and-miss for me, but the premise of this sounds like something I will love.
About a high school senior who, after her parents’ divorce, has taken up the practice of assuming a new identity in each of the four towns she’s lived in. (source)

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray (May)
If you've had the pleasure of meeting Libba Bray and/or hearing her speak, you will know that she is, in a word, hilarious. Her next book sounds funny, wacky, a little dark, and generally awesome, not unlike herself.
The story of a plane of beauty pageant contestants that crashes on a desert island. Teen beauty queens. A Lost-like island. Mysteries and dangers. No access to email. And the spirit of fierce, feral competition that lives underground in girls, a savage brutality that can only be revealed by a journey into the heart of non-exfoliated darkness. Oh, the horror, the horror! Only funnier. With evening gowns. And a body count. (source)

Under the Light by Laura Whitcomb
A sequel to A Certain Slant of Light, about Jenny and Billy. I had mixed feelings about Slant—loved the writing, strongly disliked the ending—but the pros outweigh the cons in regards to wanting to read a sequel.

The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson
A sequel to 13 Little Blue Envelopes, a novel whose premise I often wish would happen to me.

Uncommon Criminals by Ally Carter
A sequel to Heist Society. I am a sucker for books to do with spies/con-artists/thieves/etc., especially if the criminals happen to be teenagers.

The Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusack
It's Markus Zusack. Enough said.
It's about a boy.
His name is Clay.
He's building a bridge.
And he wants that bridge to be something truly great and miraculous. (source)

The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson (October)
London + boarding school + Jack the Ripper = ahhhhh.
A modern-day thriller about Rory, an American high-school student who enrolls at a London boarding school for her junior year. Soon after her arrival, a series of murders begins to take place across the city—on the exact dates and in the exact style of Jack the Ripper. Rory’s ties to the killer bring her in contact with a secret paranormal branch of the British police, as they attempt to stop the mysterious killer. (source)

The first book in a new trilogy by Jaclyn Moriarty
One of my favorite authors. A new book from her is one of the best things.
I am working on a trilogy for young adults set partly in our world and partly in the Kingdom of Cello. (source)

{Looking ahead yet another year}

The Diviners by Libba Bray (2012)
The first in a supernatural fantasy series set in Manhattan during the 1920s that follows a teen heroine reminiscent of two of the era's most famous literary women—Zelda Fitzgerald and Dorothy Parker. The story will be a wild new ride full of dames and dapper dons, jazz babies and Prohibition-defying parties, conspiracy and prophecy—and all manner of things that go bump in the neon-drenched night. (source)

Lemony Snicket's new series (2012)
I will read anything this man writes.
A new series for older children that is about more experiences from my own life; it takes place at a time before the Baudelaire children were born. (source)

So. much. goodness.

What books are you looking forward to?

What YA Bloggers Want

2010-11-29T08:54:00.001-08:00

Holly Cupala was kind enough to ask me to be a part of the current series she's hosting on her blog, What YA Bloggers Want. The guest post I contributed is up on her blog today, and if you comment you have a chance to win books!

roads go ever ever on

2010-11-23T18:35:00.000-08:00

less than a year since I moved from forests to desert, and I'm roaming once more, this time from desert to ocean. . . .

although 'roaming' doesn't seem to fit quite, as it implies wandering without objective or focus. but the ring of it is in my ears, even so.
a trade: my favorite sky for my favorite waters and a place I've always dreamed of being. this seems a more than fair exchange to me—!

It was a beautiful day, sun beat down.
I had the radio on, I was drivin'
Trees went by, Me and Del were singing
little Runaway, I was flyin'

I felt so good, like anything was possible.
Hit the cruise control, rubbed my eyes.
The last three days the rain was unstoppable.
I was always cold, no sunshine.

As I rolled on, the sky grew dark.
I put the pedal down, to make some time.
There's somethin' good, waiting down this road.
I'm pickin' up whatever's mine.

-tom petty.

the lights went out. (I remember this night more than I'd wish to.)

2010-11-17T11:38:00.000-08:00

rabbit, rabbit, white rabbit

2010-11-01T23:01:00.000-07:00

{source}

it's like when I say I believe in ghosts and everybody peers at me strangely. the look in their eyes is an uneven mix of doubt, curiosity, wonderment, and separation.

someone gave me a bottle of pink perfume for my birthday, swaddled in thick white tissue paper. I put it in a drawer and forgot about it until the day my pet rabbit died, and when we buried him in a hole in the ground I made a moat around the fragile wooden box and poured every drop of that scented liquid into the dirt. there will be more bunnies, there are more bunnies, but not another like he.

an actress said she was most fond of playing "sluts, nuts, and lost girls." so she likes playing human beings, i thought. remembering past break-throughs—the night I spent whispering words out my window, or the truth I heard a man say, that everything is about love—getting it or giving it or wanting it.

all hallow's eve, she dressed as herself and didn't look out of place. i was born in black and white—

listen & listen & read & read.

october thirtieth

2010-10-30T22:41:00.000-07:00

This is how my day went, dear non-diary.

I wore a new dress; it happens to be lovely. (I think of her saying only two nights ago, "Sweaters are to me as dresses are to you.") I showered and my nose bled, only at separate times. I received a text from my father inviting me to some Halloween shebang but I didn't go because there is so much work to do. I forgot to respond until it was over, anyway. I did mostly computer work but also box sorting in the garage with my mother's music playing loudly. It went like this: unpack, sort into "save" and "sell" piles, then take the saved and re-sort into "store" and "take" piles, then repack everything into appropriate boxes. There was reminiscing and just a small bit of crying over the most heartbreaking letter I've ever read and all that was happening back then and all that has happened now and the way we see things. Our tangled lives. Also what a really remarkable, fantastic child I was, which is not bragging because you should've seen the things I did. I was a real go-getter, man. Mum says I still am one, and I hope so, but that's a different day so let's get back to this one. There was a break to dance on the driveway to the song American Idiot. And also to sing King of the Road in my best sultry-jazzy voice. More computer work. A fiercely bad headache. The usual joking and arguing and good fun with mum and brother. Throw in some things read, some things watched, some things thought, some hits blocked, and there you are.

X

favorite thing #6: making music

2010-10-14T20:11:00.000-07:00

i'm on the east coast (for the first time ever) right now, visiting friends, and last night, a lovely and talented girl named emily pate and i were having fun and we threw this together. the song is "three rounds and a sound" by blind pilot.

They're playing our song
They're playing our song
Can you see the lights
Can you hear the hum

Of our song
I hope they get it right
I hope we dance tonight
Before we get it wrong

And the seasons
Will change us new
Be the best I've known
And you know me
I could not be stuck on you
If it were true

I was swimming
My eyes were dark
Til you woke me
And told me that opening
Is just the start
It was...

Now I see you, til kingdom come
You're the one I want
To see me
For all the stupid things I've done

Soil and six feet under
Killed just like we were
Before you knew you'd know me
And you know me

Blooming up from the ground
Three rounds and a sound
Like whispering you know me
You know me

So this was our song
This was our song
I still see the lights
I can see them

And the criss cross
Of what is true
Won't get to us
Cause you know me
I could not give up on you

And the fog of what is right
Won't cover us
Cause you know me
I could not give up a fight

Soil and six feet under
Killed just like we were
Before you knew you'd know me
And you know me

Blooming up from the ground
Three rounds and a sound
Like whispering you know me
You know me

2010-10-11T09:04:00.000-07:00

When I get like this, I can never recall
if it was the fault of alcohol or if that's
the exact thing I need to clear my head.
And so I keep drinking.
(Breathing and curses muddle.)

In the mornings you never wake me
before you leave. If you hadn't given
up on me last year, maybe you would
have the decency of confrontation.

Maybe if we'd taken more photos,
scrap booked like normal people,
it'd be easier to remember the whys.

You accuse me of using that word
too much: maybe. You say love is loving
all of somebody, even their faults. So I want
to know, whose fault is this?
Somehow I don't believe the answer
has to do with love.

It's only your own faults you want
forgiven, anyway. E.g. maybe
my infatuation with "maybe"
shouldn't piss you off so much.

knees and needs

2010-10-05T16:10:00.000-07:00

i'm trying to compose a love letter, and whisper to the tiled walls,
if it's really love, why is this trying so difficult?
tossing aside truths, i tell him that i want to hold his jaw between my palms, dance barefoot with him in the ocean, and never speak of the past.

(i cannot tell you how many of these letters i've written and never sent.) i believe life is too short not to say the things we want to, but the thing is, i don't know if i want you to know what i want.

the soap has all but dissipated in this cold bath. i'm sitting in my own dirt now, and the edges of water lapping at my skin are a funny gray color. toes wrinkly and rough. i trace the grooves in my fingertips. everything is still.

(except my heart. beat-beating anxiously. it dwells on you even when i don't.)

later, i'm encased in a stolen hotel robe in front of a flickering tv. the picture won't come in clearly. (like a metaphor of my thoughts.) there's a little boy and he's desperately cheery, please will you buy this, please, they won't let me play with the other children if you don't. . . ! he's a modern day oliver, begging for more, pretending satisfaction, but i can see through him. i can always see sadness, if it's there.

dear love,
i begin again, this time with a pencil.
i don't think we should speak anymore.
no, that's not what i want. (to say.)
i tear the page with the roughness of using an eraser.
somedays i don't think of you, even once.
that's better.
and if i do, it's only because you are. . . . you are. . . .

an hour passes and that's still as far as i've gotten. the tv still flickers, though the desperate boy has long since disappeared into the static. i feel my consciousness start to slip.

Only one of the best things I've ever seen

2010-10-04T23:25:00.000-07:00

"Choreographed hand dancing":

it's all about the exposure, the lens, I told her

2010-09-30T21:31:00.000-07:00

You need to be strong to do that job, to have an actor's life.

And you need to be fragile.

-Melanie Laurent

(i spend my days as carefully as i spend my coins)

2010-09-24T22:38:00.000-07:00

i've been called an odd bird more times in my life than i care to count (i've always disliked mathematics, you see). i've often thought that was the loveliest thing anybody's ever said about me. it signifies rarity and difference and a sort of unusual beauty. my wide, black eyes and hair dark and shiny like a raven's feathers. and God didn't make birds to be pets.

winged creatures
bold as brass, sweet as the sea, free as the four winds
traveling south for the winter to the tropics in boats and vessels,
vessels like veins, pumping blood and exhaust,
working at being alive.

i come often to the docks to sit with my pale, bare feet soaking in the salty calm. in an oversized t-shirt, one sleeve slips off a shoulder. a sailor walking past looks over and it's one of those stolen glances, probably meaningless to him but enough to keep me going for days. i open my mouth a little, about to whistle, but a motor starts up and steals the silence right out of me. after a pause, i try again—but instead of a nursery lullaby filled with ache and wanderlust, a sharp, uncontrolled noise fills my breath. the sound is unsettling: the opposite of novocaine or the vacuous aesthetics of communism. it's a lone bird wailing to itself as it flaps about yesterday's nesting home, broken now on the ground, spilled yolk and unlived life among the dirt and tree roots.

my grandmother's hat threatens to flap off my head; i grab my crown with white fingers and release a little sigh, unheard by everything except the gold whistle my mouth absently chews. my lips suck on it, a replacement for the lollipops of my younger days. i'm thinking (nearly ever) on places i haven't been.

significance in a flash

2010-09-15T12:30:00.000-07:00

He was twenty-two, I was just turned fourteen, and he changed the way I see.

The day I met him it was chilly and wet outside, one of those times where it's rainy, only nobody seems to see it actually rain. My legs ached with the chill, like an elderly person or a cat. I wanted to spend an hour or two in my favorite bookstore—it's on main street downtown, this cramped little place with crooked shelves and old, old books. I wanted to touch all of the treasures there, because each of them was magical and revealing; you could tell it by their spines. A set of faded green tomes with scaly covers and gold block lettering, a fat pinkish-red novel with black embossed palm trees, yellow and black criss-crossing, and lavendar, and numbered sets. My fingertips drifted over their dusty shells and I pulled a random one off the shelf. Opened to a random page, and read

There it was again - ! the music she was hearing, the sound of warring bells. Frantically, she looked about - left! right! - and cried out. Her feet caught on something and she fell, her knees banging hard on the unrelenting floorboards. A low, ominious noise crept through the air -

And then I heard the click, the snap, the whir of a camera and a bright, brief light. My first sight of his face was an apologetic smile, sparkling eyes that seemed to match the sweet darkness of the furthest corners, and words explaining that if he'd asked to take my picture, it wouldn't have turned out so well, and he hoped I didn't mind. Seizing moments and all that.

If I'd known what would happen later, if I'd realize then the mark this boy - no, this man - would leave on me, would I still have followed him out into the cloudy afternoon? Would I have reached for his hand, those weeks later? Would I have stared out my window as the first snow fell and wondered how it would feel to touch his lips with mine?

I.

2010-09-13T21:48:00.000-07:00

II.

2010-09-13T21:46:00.000-07:00

III.

2010-09-13T21:44:00.000-07:00

IV.

2010-09-13T21:42:00.000-07:00

V.

2010-09-13T21:40:00.000-07:00

VI.

2010-09-13T21:38:00.000-07:00

VII.

2010-09-13T21:34:00.001-07:00

VIII.

2010-09-13T21:32:00.000-07:00

IX.

2010-09-13T21:29:00.000-07:00

X.

2010-09-13T21:25:00.000-07:00

The Story Of Three

2010-08-31T18:31:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time there were three sisters. The eldest's name was Dawn, and she wanted to be Robin Hood when she grew up. The middle child's name was Mimi, and she wanted to be righteously angry. The youngest was Nan, and she didn't want to be anything or anyone at all. (When Nan entered school for the first time and the other children asked what her name was, she always replied, "I haven't got one," and stared at them somberly until they laughed or spit and ran away. Nan had a habit of never looking someone in the eye unless they deserved it. Otherwise she would focus on the bridge of their nose if she was required to speak at them.) These girls had the sort of parents the children in fantasy books do, which is to say, the absent yet loving kind. Which was precisely the kind suited to these particular sisters.

Dawn was the sort of girl who could've been queen someday if she had been born in a country of princesses and monarchies. She was the wisest girl anybody who met her had ever met. Sometimes that scared her, until she remembered her dreams, and that made her alright again. She grew up to be a con artist, and she was good at it. In fact, she was perfect at it, for no target ever even questioned that they were being conned. She became a benefactress and built houses for lost children and taught them the important things. Dawn was one of those once-in-a-century people, except like most once-in-a-century people, she didn't realize her specialness and neither did half of the people around her.

People liked to call Mimi the "troubled child," which made her laugh and stick knives into her bedroom walls. She taught herself knife-throwing and how to throw a punch when she was three years old, and when she was four she killed a crow with her BB gun the first time she ever aimed and fired. She was the only one of the sisters to ever fall in love, but she was only eight at the time and even though he asked her to marry him (the offer of a woven grass ring underneath the roof of the backyard fort) she declined, saying a broken heart would get her further in life than a man on one arm. Not many people ever understood Mimi, but then, she wasn't a very understandable girl. The only people she was ever not fierce to were old men and sailors, because she admired them. Old sailors were like gods to Mimi.

Nan was the least pretty of her sisters, but that wasn't the thing people remembered her as. When she was young, There's something wrong with Nan was a phrase that became as repeated as baseballs in a batting cage, mostly by teachers and neighbors. She was a rare sort of person; she didn't believe in being afraid and she didn't believe in existence. She liked mice and when career day came along during her later years of education, she wrote down old lady in a house overtaken by white and gray mice with closets filled with cross stitch and mothballs on the form when it asked what she wanted to do with her life. That is probably what happened to her, too, because these sisters weren't the types to not accomplish what they set out to do. It's hard to say, though, as she disappeared officially when she was 24 and hasn't been heard from since. Although there is a good possibility Dawn and Mimi are keeping information to themselves - loyalty was always the best trait of any of them.

2010-08-23T21:37:00.000-07:00

Staring toward the location where the skin
stretches over the poking bones—
so tightly like plastic-wrap
over a bowl of yesterday's tuna—
feeling thin and skeletal.
I'm afraid you can see past it
to sense my erotic dampness,
lips curling when my breath hints at death.

Place me on a stage and I will fall.
Make out of me a light and I will flicker.
Call me an angel and my demons will arise.
Kiss my cheekbones and you will taste tears.
Sling a jewel round my neck and I will choke and bleed
as a gray fish longing for water's safe oxygen
on a salty white dock in November's frost.

I belong here, shameless in my visage.
Nose running. Braids torn. Ashes
in the shape of an X across my eyelids.
You may leave now, memorizing no guilt.
The reach of my breast does not extend
to your chest, its gaping cavity.

Everything in me is neither black, nor white,
but only cream and shadows.

_____
copyright Miss Erin McIntosh, 2010
please do not reprint without permission

2010-08-20T21:20:00.001-07:00

Did you hear? About the girl?

They say she wanted to be Mary Poppins.

They say she was obsessed.

Only 23, so young.

They found her in her nightgown, I think it was aquamarine-colored? I read that somewhere.

No, it was, I saw the photo.

There's a photo?

Yeah, it was pretty sketch.

Damn.

I know, right?

I didn't even know it was possible to climb an evergreen, did you?

Ouch. That would hurt, wouldn't it? I wouldn't do it.

Ha, I know, she must've been kind of whacked in the head, if you know what I mean....

My mom said that's the only explanation. Who else would think an umbrella would actually make for a good flying floating whatever device?

The cloth part of it was all gone. I read about it. There was just metal frame left. Like a skeleton.

Woah, that's kind of...I mean, metaphorical, right? You know?

What'd they say her name was?

I don't know. It started with an E, maybe? Or an R? Something like that.

Was she from around here?

I can't remember. Somewhere by the lake area, I think, but I can't remember now.

Huh. Well that's really sad.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So... did you hear about Emmie's boyfriend?

Oh my God, yes! They said he actually spit on the cop!

I KNOW! Can you believe it? What a badass.

Seriously. He's kind of hot, too.

Except his nose is kind of crooked.

Well, yeah. But compared to most of the other guys here.

Oh, I know. The guys here are total jokes.

I know, right, I mean seriously.

these are the things I imagine

2010-08-18T21:06:00.000-07:00

Think for a moment what it would be like, if every time you left the house, you wondered about that stranger there, the one on the street corner, the one obscured beneath the black umbrella. Every time you had to wonder, what if you were to see her face and she were to have your eyes? And if they were green like yours, and if you found out this woman was your mother, what would you say then?

"I noticed the way you only seem to ask questions," I said to him.
He opened his mouth. And stopped. And said,
"Did you really think you were going to trick me into saying an answer?"
I forgave him because of his smile.

from a book by peter cameron

2010-08-14T21:14:00.000-07:00

--someday this pain will be useful to you by peter cameron

piano and a dutch singer's voice in my ears

2010-08-08T23:19:00.000-07:00

When you reach the place where you don't give a damn. It's nighttime, and you're making awful noises, and tears drop consistently from your eyes by the tens and twenties instead of singly. It's mostly anger and not knowing which way to call.

I'm really just in the mood to watch Girl, Interrupted again or go to the National Gallery or Kensington Gardens, or be someplace cold outside so I could have hot tea in bed and warm fresh sheets and just having showered and flannel pajamas and sweet dreams and buttered toast.

She cared, on the other side of the globe, and there's one thing that matters.

I'd give anything to be at one girl's house, on her rooftop, looking at stars and speaking. Said the kindred rebel, "I have a terrible sense of time." And I agreed, "Everything's so long ago, so short ago, so soon, so far away, so slow, so fast. Everything."

And as I talked with her,
the moment passed, and
things grew bearable again.

The Mooring: official trailer

2010-08-07T20:27:00.000-07:00

The full-length trailer for the movie I'm in, The Mooring, was posted online today! Visit the official website to see the trailer as well as some photos.

I am so excited and happy. I started shaking the first time I watched it through.

2010-08-06T10:30:00.000-07:00

i will not tell a lie.

written in chalk on
a squeaky black board
a rough cement parkway
wrinkled knees

if i repeat it enough,
it has to be true.

i will only speak the truth.

even when you squeeze
my throat for assurance
i used to give; blessings
i used to pour through
your hair

i cannot tell you lies.

_____
copyright Miss Erin McIntosh, 2010
please do not reprint without permission
Poetry Friday roundup at Author Amok

Holly Cupala: Blog Tour Finale!

2010-08-02T01:06:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, Holly Cupala stopped by to answer some of my questions, as a part of her Tell Me a Secret blog tour. Today is the grand finale of that tour, and I'm here to share a couple of treats with you!

First of all, we have the book trailer for Tell Me a Secret:

Next, we have Party Prizes! Here’s what people can win:

Signed TMAS books! TMAS t-shirts! Fan-made bracelets by Hannah S! Music that inspired the book! Sneak Previews! Bookmarks and Handmade Magnets!

and...

A Tell Me a Secret handmade necklace made by Gypsy Wings!

HOW TO WIN? Share the Trailer Love!
1. Click here to go to YouTube, then click the Share button to send to your Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, or blog! 5 pts each
2. Click here to tell us where you posted and enter to win!

________

Plus Holly will be featured at readergirlz for the entire month of August, with a live Twitter chat coming up! Hope you enjoy the trailer, and thank you so much for being part of the virtual tour and party!

a sea of rabbits and miniature tigers

2010-07-25T19:41:00.000-07:00

there's a room in the back of the house that smells like fresh, buttered popcorn. whereas the front of the house only ever smells like onions. i prefer to eat onions over popcorn if it means staying true. you know? don't stress, it doesn't matter if it doesn't.

inspiration packets sound like a nice idea, I think I'll bundle some off and take them to the post office. he told us the story of the car wreck and his cousin's severed head, "go to a closed casket funeral, you'll know what I'm talking about," he said.

I can't find a pencil anywhere, I don't think we own any, it's the most frustrating thing, I'm in such a mind to draw.

British stuff is just filled with aspartame, she said, it's disgusting, it really is, and I would live there in a heartbeat.

I'm tired of the feeling of having the need to censor myself.

2010-07-24T20:12:00.000-07:00

If you find the secret message, send a smoke signal across the water.

Spotlight On Holly Cupala

2010-07-19T22:20:00.000-07:00

Tell Me a Secret, the debut novel from author Holly Cupala, was released into the world recently. It's a beautiful story that follows the main character, Rand, as she tries to navigate and make sense of the secrets and labyrinths that her life is filled with and defined by.

Holly is one of the loveliest people I know, and I'm so honored that she took the time to stop by during her busy blog tour schedule to talk a little bit about the themes in the book.

One of my favorite lines in the book is "It's the grit that makes the pearl." What does this mean to you, and what do you think it means specifically for Rand?

I love that line, too—such a central idea in life as well as in this story. Iron sharpens iron, so to speak. Beauty comes out of hardship. Specifically, that line came from one of the wonderful women in my writing group, Dawn Knight (author of MISCHIEF, MAD MARY, AND ME from Greenwillow). She said it during a discussion of the last chapter of TELL ME A SECRET, and I knew it was exactly what Nik would say. So I stole it! (With permission, of course.)

For Miranda, I think it signifies the difficulties she has faced but which have made her stronger, more beautiful. At one point her mother accuses her of taking beautiful things and making them ugly (when she draws the stained glass Jesus as a spidery network of shards). Nik’s statement directly counteracts that belief Miranda has about herself in the beginning. I didn’t even realize it until you asked this question, Erin!

Without giving anything significant away, there's a point in the book where one character says to our heroine that if it weren't for something very difficult happening to her, she wouldn't be where she was at that time and place. Everything happens for a reason, even if it doesn't look like it at this exact moment. "Faith manages." Can you talk a bit about the role faith plays in Rand's story? What do you think the importance of themes like faith and hope have in fiction?

“Faith manages” is a recurring theme in the book, introduced early on and which threads through the whole story. Here’s a secret: it’s a reference to one of our favorite sci-fi shows, Babylon 5! For the show, it encompassed the spirit of overcoming hardships with a kind of fierce hope, and that idea carries through TMAS. (Incidentally there are many, many sci-fi references…I fully admit to being a sci-fi geek and could write a whole post on just the Easter Eggs!)

The big idea for me in writing the novel was that that the reasons for difficult events might not be in the past—they may actually be in the future, for how we respond and what we do with those experiences. As you know, the inspiration for this story came out of a personal tragedy. While we were dealing with the aftermath of our loss, a woman I love and admire said this to me—that we might not even realize how the threads of our lives will come together until we can see the full tapestry down the road—and it was absolutely revolutionary. It gave me hope in such a dark, dark time. It is my hope that experience has meaning, and will be meaningful to others.

TELL ME A SECRET is so much about continuums—the sacred and the profane, the extremes of beliefs, past and future. Miranda navigates them as the navigates the labyrinth, and her frame of reference shifts significantly as she gets to the heart of each secret. Faith is a subtle undercurrent. In fiction and in life, faith and hope keep us moving forward, seeking how all of these threads will come together. Hope gives us purpose.

Thank you so much, Erin, for inviting me to your blog! It’s an honor to be here.

Thank you for your exquisite answers, Holly. I wish you and your book all the very best success!

2010-07-17T22:58:00.000-07:00

someday is a long time coming;
some days can be so long.

hear my words saying so long;
long for the day when you'll hear my words.

my words have no affect to you;
to you I wish nothing but to find affection.

nothing has different meanings in different minds;
differences carry such weight, now.

now is a time that stretches on;
on my eyelids in an ongoing march.

I want to say thank you

2010-07-15T21:22:00.000-07:00

cause it makes me that much stronger
makes me work a little bit harder
it makes me that much wiser
so thanks for making me a fighter
made me learn a little bit faster
made my skin a little bit thicker
makes me that much smarter
so, thanks for making me a fighter

-'fighter' by christina aguilera

this is a message for the girl with the brand new cowboy boots

2010-07-14T16:02:00.000-07:00

(via)

becoming who you're meant to be is damn hard, I know, but it's going to be so worth it, I promise

and

I can predict days where you will do nothing but smile and love and your shoulders and feet will be free

and

never forget that you have already won

and

if I ever become rich I will buy you any horse you want.

2010-07-10T23:07:00.000-07:00

let me go eat some salmon

why are there coke cans in the river

what if i wore a bullet proof vest during hunting season

i’m a bear; i walk in the forest and look at the river and the river is cold

i saw campers today and they ran away and i was alone and i destroyed their tent

let me go scratch my paw on a tree

let me go eat a salmon

last night i cried onto my salmon

the salmon was sad but it still wanted to live

it wanted to swim and be sad and i ate it under moonlight

i saw a moose scream the other day

it screamed quietly under a tree

i felt embarrassed and sad and i thought, ‘oh, no; oh god, oh my god’

sometimes i climb a tree and sit there and sing very quietly

sometimes i want to go to a shopping mall and chase the humans and claw them

i’ll ride the moose into the shopping mall and ram the humans

the moose and i will ride the escalator and i will hug the moose and the moose and i will cry

i will eat the moose

i don’t care

i will scream and throw the bubblegum machine from the second floor to the first floor

i felt compassion for the salmon and now i don’t care anymore

i’ll walk into a parking lot and chase a large human and hug the human and cry

i’ll walk into a house at night and push the humans off the bed

i’ll stare at the bed and i’ll feel fake

*
A Bear Poem by Tao Lin

only because it reminded me of something

2010-07-04T17:31:00.000-07:00

She used to copy Audrey Hepburn all the time. She even bought a pet fawn and it looked like the one curled at your feet in the dripping forest that one day. I told her she was being ridiculous, or I tried to, but she was so in love with the thing. She used to have these enormous arrangements of flowers delivered to her rooms everyday, except Mondays, because Mondays (she said) aren't classy. That was another thing, she loved the word arrange. "I've made arrangements to dine," she'd let slip (on purpose), or, "I arranged for the package to go out on Thursday instead of today; those mailmen are so sweet." It's only ever looked like a funny misspelling of orange, to me, but that's just me. When people told her she looked like Audrey, or even Katherine, she would adore them forever, or at least until she told them goodbye. Once when I was angry and we got into a fight, I yelled that she looked most like Michael Jackson. She didn't speak to me for weeks after that one.

I still don't understand why she did it. Why somebody would try so hard to be somebody else, when making something new is so appealing. But again, perhaps that's just me.

2010-06-11T22:33:00.000-07:00

today was sitting on a chair in the sky, beginning a book by someone who inspires me, throwing notes into stranger's laps, drawing ugly pictures, pretending to see windows, being a wild thing, calling a dog, discovering a terebithia, my own seeing reed, perfection in magic, shooting an airsoft gun (for the first time) with a nine year old boy who also showed me his hermit crabs ("Skittles" is the name of the biggest) and lego creations and shelves of books, weightlessness, laughter with my cool friend, and now, excitement for the morrow.

"someday this pain will be useful to you"

2010-06-07T18:17:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to think maybe Ovid was a liar.

She sent me a message, the patron saint of hopeless causes.

Dear God, please let this past month or so be the hardest time of my life, because I don't think I can handle anything more than this ever.

I told her the gratefulness is pushing all the bitterness out of my soul.

This anger is so heavy.

I sat on the curb near midnight and feared three things: despair, desperation, and decline.

It hurts like cactus spines sticking into my side, my hand

2010-06-01T13:44:00.000-07:00

you're already starting to fade.
in out in out like the tide. every time a little further out.
you're not simply the-person-I've-known-my-whole-life anymore;
you've taken on another dimension.
from words, actions, realizations.
memories and photographs are taking a back seat, now there's only now.
I have favorite photos of you. I have favorite traits of yours. I own things and I love you.
But the waves are taking us different places and I wonder if we'll ever stand on the same shore, side-by-side, once more. I like to imagine someday.

I can cry and exaggerate and dramatize this all too much. Or I can be still and observe and not touch you anymore.

there are more than two sides to every story. remember that.

where to begin

2010-05-28T19:51:00.000-07:00

I look at the wallpaper you always put up specially at Christmas time, and then have torn down again by Easter, always the same pattern, red and green flowers against white, but it's the kind of white only old people like.

I suppose your shoulders were square once instead of rounded, and your arms were strong and sinewy. I suppose you sat on docks with your girlfriends and gossiped about that sweet boy and how he looked coming out of the water, smiling his white grin at you, the kind of white young girls like so much.

Did you wear one of those funny protective hair coverings when you swam? Did you feel something grab your leg and you panicked, splashing wildly for a moment, until you stood in the sand and saw it was just him. You spluttered lake water out of your mouth but before you could yell he touched your face and the sunlight then was the kind of white everybody likes.

Was it cold and did both pairs of arms have goosebumps on them and was water hanging above your lips as they met?

the sounds mouths make in chicago

2010-05-25T22:35:00.000-07:00

red lipstick! red lipstick! it's what's on my mind tonight. almost-black hair and round, dark eyes. and red lips. the word lips even sounds red. lips lips sip slip silk kiss. straw strawberry shake shape nape neck lick lip lips lips sip.... I'm writing a list in my notebook, 21 before 21, and I've got a year and seven months to cross each item off. some are silly and random and some are big and hard and thrilling and some are in the middle. all things I very much want to do and want to make a point to do. a little over one a month and I'll make it, right-ho, let's go out and seize the days, folks! cherry lips cherry tongue dark like wet blood. coca-cola cafe crunch slurp ahhhh.

goodnight stars. xxx

I wonder

2010-05-23T20:14:00.000-07:00

if I still had that brown leather purse I used to wear everywhere on the farm, carrying around anything an adventurer might need,
if then, would I still have the courage to explore, to not worry about being discovered and not think about rescue boats or didtheyknowwheretheplanewentdown but instead climb over rocks and through forests and blow through conch shells and choose leaders and watch it all burn?
barefeet and warm ponds and coral reefs and sweet, tasty freedom - no adults!
we might need to wear orange so the hunters won't get us, but really it's only to placate mom. you with your shotgun, and we've got one whole can of soda, this is really living. piles of huge dead trees, a cement city, a clay pit, haystacks and unsafe rooftops, a secret reserve of mud peninsulas and indian magic, two rachels and a summer. these are the things.

I don't really mind that it's starting to get to me

2010-05-18T20:29:00.000-07:00

"I don't think I'm any deeper than her. I might be more articulate, or more sure of who I am, but deeper? No, I don't think so."

Muttering to myself in a British accent hour after hour, all these sidewalk squares to step on, geometrical imperfections on and on and on into the dark blue sky.

Getting over you has been hell, but I'm trying to let it go. I recall a thousand voices and a thousand raised fists, shouting out loud, MORE THAN YOU MORE THAN YOU KNOW. And I cheered just as loudly as the rest. I'm okay having you inside me, as long as I don't look back. I make it a strict policy never to regret anything. Not to say it doesn't take effort.

I've been dreaming of a rooftop in London. The air is chilly and the breath of four people fills the air. My pulse rushes like mad, I swear, and the other three look at me like I'm some wild thing they're unsure of. He sits on my head before I can jump and I'm just screaming profanities, until I realize maybe we can be something. I get all these ideas.

that feeling

2010-05-16T15:00:00.001-07:00

I am so glad I will be back on set in less than a month; I don't think I can breath much longer without that feeling.

we've got some bad news, sir

2010-05-13T22:54:00.000-07:00

"No one laughs at God on the day they realize
That the last sight they’ll ever see is a pair of hateful eyes
No one’s laughing at God when they’re saying their goodbyes"

-regina spektor-

"paparazzi"

2010-05-12T17:57:00.000-07:00

This kid is incredible incredible incredible.

terribly worried

2010-05-11T13:17:00.001-07:00

"We're terribly worried about you."

She took a drag on the thin cigar she held in her hands. (She only liked the thin kind. But she detested cigarettes. They're bad for your health, she liked to say.)

The boy didn't say anything back. He rarely did. It was rather as if his mind was someplace else entirely.

She stared at him awhile, and he stared at the wall, and it could have gone on for awhile like this. (It generally did.)

A bird flew into the window just then, probably a mourning dove, because of the thickish noise it made when it whammed against the glass.

The woman and the boy were both staring at the window, now, almost as if they couldn't quite process such a quick thing happening.

"It'll be alright," the woman said vaguely. Whether she was speaking of the bird or the situation at hand, it was difficult to tell.

The end.

Alternate ending (to be inserted BEFORE and IN PLACE OF the bird entering the scene):

BUT THEN a miracle happened and everything changed and they were all happy as faeries and nothing bad ever happened to them again.

The end.

bruised knees

2010-05-01T20:23:00.000-07:00

everything's alright it's alright it's alright it's alright

let's just stay.

(here.)

old hopes

2010-04-30T21:40:00.000-07:00

there are dog droppings
and dead birds
and this conversation suddenly
becomes about racism.

I thought it was pretty at the time.

darling, you take the rock
out of rock & roll.

buy me some seven-up and
we'll road trip to a lake,
telling raunchy jokes and
falling sick with too much laughing.

Now, you do nothing for me.

your anger lends to hurt,
same as my tears. stuff we don't
care to show but never fails to
spill out.

Looking poised is not the same as being.

hard songs of nails and blood,
drench my fingers in livid notes,
I can close my eyes and sing along.
you want me with your mouth

_____
copyright Miss Erin McIntosh, 2010
please do not reprint without permission
Poetry Friday roundup at Great Kids Books

it's you and me and all of the people

2010-04-29T22:01:00.000-07:00

As great as it feels to be an individual, to know without a doubt that there is no one exactly like you in the whole universe, unity can feel pretty marvelous, too.

We're all standing, really alive, singing these words, it's you and me, and the lights light up our hearts, all beating in sync, you can see it on our faces tonight, we're invulnerable.

2010-04-24T12:06:00.000-07:00

here's what you must do: drive your favorite car into the wild. (the orange one; not that old beetle.) park it somewhere inconvenient. don't think about it, only obey. you'll hesitate as you step out, holding the door open a little while longer, but it's okay. you'll do fine. if you look up. away from gasoline, metal, grease, shine, dollar bills. see white bark, green-grey leaves, sea of plants. see life outside the metropolis of your mind, and see what it might be. if you take a step. letting go, leaving behind, a mental goodbye, because all you need is this.

you arrive, but too late, and now you're stepping back in, the leather seat sighs a false welcome, you're trapped now, heading backwards.

I don't mean to close the door, but for the record my heart is sore.

2010-04-22T20:12:00.000-07:00

I'm lying on my back. In not-quite-pure darkness.

My ears are filled with miniature lakes from the double waterfalls, one on each cheek, these steady rushes down either side.

Now I want to ask, because this is what you are always saying. How is this for honesty?

it is not said i always know

2010-04-19T21:55:00.000-07:00

(these words are lyrics by amanda seyfried)

i love this place
but it's haunted without you
my tired heart
is beating so slowour hearts sing less
than we wanted
we wanted
our hearts sing 'cause
we do not know
we do not knowto light the night
to help us grow
to help us grow
it is not said
i always know
you can catch me
don't you run
don't you run
if you live another day
in this happy little house
the fire's here to stay
to light the night
to help us grow
to help us grow
it is not said
i always knowplease don't make a fuss
it won't go away
the wonder of it all
the wonder that I made
i am here to stay
i am here to stay

stay

____________________________

music and tumblr help my heart to keep beating.

image credits: makeshift phones, mischelle evan broy, sam-king, hello hand, alison scarpulla

Top 100 Children's Books

2010-04-16T10:30:00.000-07:00

I've only read 71%, but almost all the others are ones I plan to read in the future....

100. The Egypt Game - Snyder (1967)
99. The Indian in the Cupboard - Banks (1980)
98. Children of Green Knowe - Boston (1954)
97. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane - DiCamillo (2006)
96. The Witches - Dahl (1983)
95. Pippi Longstocking - Lindgren (1950)
94. Swallows and Amazons - Ransome (1930)
93. Caddie Woodlawn - Brink (1935)
92. Ella Enchanted - Levine (1997)
91. Sideways Stories from Wayside School - Sachar (1978)

90. Sarah, Plain and Tall - MacLachlan (1985)
89. Ramona and Her Father - Cleary (1977)
88. The High King - Alexander (1968)
87. The View from Saturday - Konigsburg (1996)
86. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - Rowling (1999)
85. On the Banks of Plum Creek - Wilder (1937)
84. The Little White Horse - Goudge (1946)
83. The Thief - Turner (1997)
82. The Book of Three - Alexander (1964)
81. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon - Lin (2009)

80. The Graveyard Book - Gaiman (2008)
79. All-of-a-Kind-Family - Taylor (1951)
78. Johnny Tremain - Forbes (1943)
77. The City of Ember - DuPrau (2003)
76. Out of the Dust - Hesse (1997)
75. Love That Dog - Creech (2001)
74. The Borrowers - Norton (1953)
73. My Side of the Mountain - George (1959)
72. My Father's Dragon - Gannett (1948)
71. The Bad Beginning - Snicket (1999)

70. Betsy-Tacy - Lovelae (1940)
69. The Mysterious Benedict Society - Stewart ( 2007)
68. Walk Two Moons - Creech (1994)
67. Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher - Coville (1991)
66. Henry Huggins - Cleary (1950)
65. Ballet Shoes - Stratfeild (1936)
64. A Long Way from Chicago - Peck (1998)
63. Gone-Away Lake - Enright (1957)
62. The Secret of the Old Clock - Keene (1959)
61. Stargirl - Spinelli (2000)

60. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle - Avi (1990)
59. Inkheart - Funke (2003)
58. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase - Aiken (1962)
57. Ramona Quimby, Age 8 - Cleary (1981)
56. Number the Stars - Lowry (1989)
55. The Great Gilly Hopkins - Paterson (1978)
54. The BFG - Dahl (1982)
53. Wind in the Willows - Grahame (1908)
52. The Invention of Hugo Cabret (2007)
51. The Saturdays - Enright (1941)

50. Island of the Blue Dolphins - O'Dell (1960)
49. Frindle - Clements (1996)
48. The Penderwicks - Birdsall (2005)
47. Bud, Not Buddy - Curtis (1999)
46. Where the Red Fern Grows - Rawls (1961)
45. The Golden Compass - Pullman (1995)
44. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing - Blume (1972)
43. Ramona the Pest - Cleary (1968)
42. Little House on the Prairie - Wilder (1935)
41. The Witch of Blackbird Pond - Speare (1958)

40. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - Baum (1900)
39. When You Reach Me - Stead (2009)
38. HP and the Order of the Phoenix - Rowling (2003)
37. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry - Taylor (1976)
36. Are You there, God? It's Me, Margaret - Blume (1970)
35. HP and the Goblet of Fire - Rowling (2000)
34. The Watson's Go to Birmingham - Curtis (1995)
33. James and the Giant Peach - Dahl (1961)
32. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH - O'Brian (1971)
31. Half Magic - Eager (1954)

30. Winnie-the-Pooh - Milne (1926)
29. The Dark Is Rising - Cooper (1973)
28. A Little Princess - Burnett (1905)
27. Alice I and II - Carroll (1865/72)
26. Hatchet - Paulsen (1989)
25. Little Women - Alcott (1868/9)
24. HP and the Deathly Hallows - Rowling (2007)
23. Little House in the Big Woods - Wilder (1932)
22. The Tale of Despereaux - DiCamillo (2003)
21. The Lightening Thief - Riordan (2005)

20. Tuck Everlasting - Babbitt (1975)
19. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Dahl (1964)
18. Matilda - Dahl (1988)
17. Maniac Magee - Spinelli (1990)
16. Harriet the Spy - Fitzhugh (1964)
15. Because of Winn-Dixie - DiCamillo (2000)
14. HP and the Prisoner of Azkaban - Rowling (1999)
13. Bridge to Terabithia - Paterson (1977)
12. The Hobbit - Tolkien (1938)
11. The Westing Game - Raskin (1978)

10. The Phantom Tollbooth - Juster (1961)
9. Anne of Green Gables - Montgomery (1908)
8. The Secret Garden - Burnett (1911)
7. The Giver -Lowry (1993)
6. Holes - Sachar (1998)
5. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler - Koningsburg (1967)
4. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - Lewis (1950)
3. Harry Potter #1 - Rowling (1997)
2. A Wrinkle in Time - L'Engle (1962)
1. Charlotte's Web - White (1952)

2010-04-12T17:06:00.000-07:00

today i saw the ocean for the first time in almost a year, and there is magic in that. "on a clear day she could see forever," i whispered. my mother told me i looked like a movie star, and i smiled so real. i was in a bookstore and i saw a shelf of "franny and zooey" paperbacks and i wanted to buy all of their copies and send them to people i love, only i hadn't any money, so i couldn't. when we came home (how freely i use that word, interchangeably, like who i'm becoming) we were greeted by smashed little pug faces; they have the softest ears you know.

april readergirlz: Deb Caletti + Operation TBD + more!

2010-04-10T19:25:00.001-07:00

This month, readergirlz is honored to feature author Deb Caletti, whose latest book The Secret Life of Prince Charming we've been discussing.

Read the April issue of readergirlz. There's a playlist for the book, plus book guide questions and party ideas.
Drop by the readergirlz blog to discuss the book with other readers, ALL MONTH LONG!

There will be a LIVE! chat with Deb on Wednesday, April 21st, at 6PM Pacific/9PM Eastern.

Also on the agenda for the month:

Are you ready to Rock the Drop?

Operation Teen Book Drop is April 15. We can’t wait! Here’s what’s happening:

We’re delivering 10,000 new books to teens on Native reservations and tribal lands.

More than 100 awesome YA authors are dropping off their books around the country. Will you be one of the lucky finders?

You can play along, too. Drop a book in a public spot and you’re done. (You can dress it up with a bookplate if you’d like: http://www.readergirlz.com/tbd.html)

You can also go to Powells.com after April 7 and donate books yourself. There are two wish lists of hundreds of books that will fill the shelves of two tribal school libraries in need.

We’re having a huge virtual party at our blog. It’s at 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern.

Our partners in all this excitement are GuysLitWire, Young Adult Library Services Association, and If I Can Read, I Can Do Anything, along with a long list of generous publishers you can check out on our video.

Mark your calendar

On April 12, we’re hosting a release party for Diane Duane’s A WIZARD OF MARS. It’s at 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern.

And on May 3, we’re celebrating the launch of THE UNWRITTEN RULE by our author-in-residence, Elizabeth Scott. She’s holding fun contests and giving away stuff at her blog, so check it out here: http://blog.elizabethwrites.com/

what does perfection mean to you?

2010-04-07T14:06:00.001-07:00

her skin is so defined. nails shiny, red. she only dresses in white. always spotless.

it's like, she's not wendy darling, but she could be if she wanted. do you know what i mean?

somegirl who holds all the magic, yet not the gritty kind. baby stuff.

she's an allusion to me, a movie star statue on the sidewalk next to downtown's pigeon-home cinema. i'll bet if she bled we wouldn't see it. the blackcrimsonred melody going unnoticed.

i stare and stare. my eyes demand the inspiration i lack. wanting to soak in pureness by osmosis.

i feel nothing of what i felt the first time. all my feeling now comes through listening.

2010-04-01T18:02:00.000-07:00

i hate the color pink
i hate the way you used it against me, the way you wrapped me in its shroud and i felt like a corpse, bones and fading flesh the color of pale pink pearls or the gums above a baby's teeth when it lets out its first fairy-birthing laugh

i hate medicine and i wish you wouldn't make me drink it, it makes me shrink down down down to the size of entering wonderland except there's no door to find my way in and even if there was, there's no key in sight

i hate the day you took me to sea world and the dolphins were smug with smiling and they would've been beautiful if you hadn't been there and i hate that you ruined dolphins for me

i hate that i let you ruin dolphins for me.

i hate that i can't feel silk or smell roses or taste sugar or hear her voice or see the color pink without gagging at the thought of you.

it started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this?

2010-03-21T12:52:00.000-07:00

this day, i'm astonished, still, at the ability of conversing with a beautiful-minded friend on the opposite side of the globe and brilliant rage meeting through signals in the air.