The girl you should have said goodnight to…

I am an angry girl,
A lonely girl,
The girl you’ll wish you hadn’t said no to
I am a sad girl,
A rhyming girl,
A pretty girl,
Just a pretty girl.
I am an underestimated girl,
An overestimated girl,
A confused girl,
A friendless girl.
I refuse to call myself a woman
I am a slave girl,
The slave girl,
The girl you’ll wish was your slave girl
When you see what I can do.
I am a young girl,
An older girl,
A younger-older-younger girl,
I am a Grecian girl,
A Hellenized girl,
A girl fluent in the romance languages
I am a tired girl,
Not your tired girl.
I am a chocolate-covered candy apple girl
I am a nightingale girl,
I am a girl that only sings to herself.
I am that Aztec girl,
That witch girl,
That bitch girl,
That Etymology of Femina girl,
The Milk girl,
The lunch girl,
The stranger-than-strange-stranger girl,
I am a mermaid girl,
Without a merman girl
I’m a sex girl, a rose girl, a flower girl?
I’m a flowerless flower girl.
I’m a renaissance-man girl
I’m a chew me up and spit me out girl
I’m a disappointed girl
I’m a disappointing girl
I’m a lot less than anybody else’s girl
I’m a bendable girl, a flexible girl, a malleable girl
A girl without long curly curls girl
I am a portrait girl
Not a portrait-worthy girl
I’m a sad girl or a bad girl or a fad girl
But mostly just a mad girl
I’m the girl you should have said goodnight to
I’m a topsy-turvy girl
An Athena-like girl
An Athena-wannabe girl
A white dress in summer girl
I’m a power suit girl
Or a girl suited for power
Or a powerless girl
I’m your powerless girl
How does this girl taste?
I’m a wasteful girl or a wasted girl
I’m a wasting and waning wishing girl
I’m a lighthouse girl,
The lighthouse girl,
The come-home-to-me-on-angry-nights-but-go-out-when-it’s-sunny girl.
I’m a service girl,
I’m a servile girl,
A service-yielding-servile girl.
I’m a cunt girl
Out on the hunt girl
A for what girl?
I couldn’t tell you.

Note: So I was sitting on the beach today… Doing some reading… And two older men walked by and one of them said the other, “well, what sort of girl are you looking for?” In true Carina fashion I then made like a loser and went home to write a poem about it… Anyway, it sounds a lot better when read aloud.

Fever

I was sick. The type of sick that comes with hot heads, cold hands and hazy minds. The room didn’t seem that succinct or specific. The world was tired, I was tired, so I slowly sank into the background and forced myself to focus on the tiny details: The shaggy orange carpet sleeping under my heels, earrings dangling from a cork board, the sound of Bright Eyes seeping from my speakers. Life could be simple if only I could have taken comfort in the way paint cracks and the smell of just-sharpened pencils.

Feminist Sentiments

There’s such an aesthetic to the female silhouette; the lines of our bodies swerve together, our figures roll, we’re chiseled for capture, sculpted for surrender. Men are stalky, plain, an ill-aesthetic, square. Maybe that’s why they thrive on oppression: they have to compensate for their figure-envy.

Fireworks and Cauldrons…

Note: I wrote this my sophomore year. I found it when I was looking for old pieces I had written on my Yahoo! Account. I used to send all my writing to myself. I can’t remember why… I’m sure there was a good enough reason. It made sense at the time. The piece made me think and over-think about who I was five years ago. Jesus. Five? I was so sad that year. So miserable… And even though this is a shitty piece of writing I think that comes through well-enough… How heavy it feels to be alive when you’re depressed and fifteen. I don’t know. I think I’m being over-dramatic. Probably. But anyway, I couldn’t decide whether or not to post this. When I was reading it I felt like I was invading my own privacy. Like I walked in on a naked fifteen-year-old me. But obviously I decided to post it so… I don’t know… It’s been a long day… So here goes:

“Asleep in perfect blue buildings, by the green apple sea.”

I’m listening to the lyrics, letting them rush through me.

Counting Crows always sounds like the ocean.

I’m thinking about how I tucked her in. Tightly.

How I squeezed the blanket around and under. Cocooning her into something–

Something that was supposed to look safe. Or feel safe. For me or for her.

I can’t write like I used to. It doesn’t bang out like it’s supposed to. Like it was meant to.

Not writing is like not breathing.

They tell you not to invest yourself completely in one thing.

That you shouldn’t pour yourself into one cauldron.

Because it could tip or the spell could spin and then

Then what would you have?

I never listened to “they”

Whoever the hell “they” are

I poured myself thick

Because that’s the only way I feel like the Ocean

And that’s the only way it’s worth it.

I’m the ocean when I write.

Maybe that doesn’t make sense.

But I am.

I’m heavy and light and calming and tumultuous and angry and peaceful.

But I can’t write like I used to.

People used to ask me how I wrote the way I did

And I didn’t know.

I still don’t know.

How could I have?

But I can’t anymore

And I’m not sure if the world has changed or if it’s just me

And I’m not sure which answer would make me more comfortable

I should have listened

When they told me not to over-invest.

But I think it’s the only way to live

To live big

To live like fireworks

But the fireworks are gone

And I don’t remember how to write.

Faith…

My grandmother believed in vegetable gardens. She found God in the bursting forth of her zucchini plants and heaven in the smell of her herb patches. She found faith in the dirt under her fingernails and the trinity in the precision with which she planted each seed. She prayed at the altar of freshly dug potatoes and repented by attacking lanky weeds.

B is for Body Image…

More from my (hopefully) book…

Read the post, “Book,” for the details…

Anyway…

B is for Body Image

It was the night of the freshman dance. I invited all my friends over. We traded clothes and helped each other find the perfect outfit. We put on way too much makeup and gossiped about all the dreamy guys in our class. Once we were primped in our push-up bras and red lipstick, we gathered in front of the mirror to examine our final product. Then the ritual began. Battling to see who could degrade themselves the most. Thunder thighs. Cankles. Big nose. Yellow teeth. Non-symmetrical face. Flat chest. Frizzy hair. Limp Hair. Fat ass. No ass. Thin lips. Ugly feet. Short legs. Gross moles. Freckle face. Acne. Bacne. Too short. Too tall. Too pale. Beady eyes. Big ears. Weird hairline. We’ve heard all of them. I’ve accused myself of being many of them. I think most of us have.
Some people call it “fishing for compliments” but I’m pretty sure it’s morphed into a much bigger demon. Of course it’s nice when your friends reassure you that “you really have very nicely toned thighs,” but eventually it gets old for all concerned parties. So why do we do this to ourselves? Somewhere in the history of girl culture we mixed up the idea of “confidence” with that of “self-indulgence.” So we rip ourselves apart, all in an attempt to look humble. While boys are supposed to boast, girls are supposed to be oblivious to their attributes. Unfortunately, in trying to be oblivious to our attributes, we start to only see our flaws, or our perceived flaws. We get on our knees and worship the goddesses of botox and silicone. We fall in love with air-brushed celebs and all the make-up that promises to make us that way.
Our moms tell us to love our bodies while they pursue a new diet craze. Magazines tell us to love our bodies amidst a mess of ads showing us what we’ll never look like. It seems that everyone’s a critic or a hypocrite. So here’s my question: how the hell am I supposed to love my body when it’s constantly changing? If I actually fell head over heals for my small-ass rack, how am I supposed to get over it when my breasts explode into 34C’s? I learn to love my freckles and then they fade away? I learn to love my boy figure and then I get hips? What the hell should I do now?
When looking at your body feels like a game of musical chairs, loving everything about it seems more and more ridiculous. So here’s my “revolutionary” reality: DON’T love everything about your body, just learn to accept it for what it is… accentuate the things you like about it, deal with the rest… And of course, realize that the imperfections you obsess over, are probably not even noticeable to everyone else. Like when your friend talks about that huge-ass pimple on her face that you can’t even see, well the same goes for you. In a couple of years, you’re probably going to look a hell of a lot different anyway.
So for now, own your flaws. Marilyn Monroe had a huge ass mole on her face and she rocked it. It became a symbol of beauty, an image of imperfect perfection. That doesn’t mean that when she was fifteen, she didn’t desperately want to cover it up. The point is she exuded confidence despite it and that made her hot as hell, the poster girl for beauty.

(Obviously not finished yet…)

Knocked Up Lullaby

I hate rhyming poems… I always feel that they’re more of a game than an art… But whatever… It was an assignment…

It’s hardly three but the earth still sizzles

While dusty puppets move antique visions

Behind whit light hiding sleeping missiles

Boys: they spit and say “shit” and ram keys into fault ignitions

Trucks raised, girls knocked, men smoke, the smell of wet children lump

Bomb shelters sneak under our while picket cores

Men grow straight but girls grow bump and bump and bump

So we push babies and paint scarlet the whores

And some old man charged with ferment starts to yell

“Who the fuck? Do you know who the fuck? Shut your mouth.”

The cheese cloth could carry us all the way to hell

And so we dropped the shell down in America’s South

Mouths they open, legs they open, doors they shut

They shut, they shut, they shut hard.

Book…

Alright, as some of you know, for the past couple of months I’ve been chatting with a publisher about writing a book of life advice for teen girls… I’ve kind of had writers block when it came to this but I think I’m starting to get into a rhythm… The difficulty for me was in finding a format but after much thought I’ve decided that I really love the idea of an alphabet book… (The ABC’s of the Self-Sufficient Girl) …Terrible title… any ideas would be awesome… So I’ve just finished a shorter version of the introduction letter. A (duh.) So if you have any ideas, suggestions, bashes, critiques or ANYTHING, please tell me. I can use all the help I can get.

A is for ABSOLUTE.

Nothing is written in stone, everything is scribbled in sand. How you choose to navigate you life (and this book) is entirely up to you. Don’t take any advice that doesn’t fit into the grand scope of your affair with the world. Don’t buy into anything that offends your experience.

I’ve always found it simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying when I face the reality that I am the writer of my own life, the artist of my own existence… When confronted with such responsibility our primal instincts kick in: flight of fight as psychology calls it. For me it’s more of a kick out or own it sort of deal.

But I think we should own it. I think we should splatter it across a canvas and wave it like a flag from the rooftops. I think we should kick ass and take names. Never in the history of the world have women held such possibility, had such potential, owned themselves and their destiny.

So lets define ourselves, defy statistic, override expectations, break beyond boundaries and ABSOLUTELY shatter the absolutes.

Ten minute sprint evoking Gertrude Stein…

Note: I feel like this was a failed assignment… Who in their right mind tries to emulate Gertrude Stein? Might I add that the particular author was not my choice… I may be in love with Gertrude Stein but I’m not deluded enough to believe she can be imitated… Imitated well, that is.

This is the story of a stranger.

An unimportant stranger who crept around the shadows quite like a spider wanders around his web.

Then again, I suppose spiders don’t wander, they’re far too meticulous for such thoughtlessness.

But that is quite besides the point and a point is a hard thing to come by.

(Especially when the point maker is aimlessly spewing thought around the target)

This is an important story about a stranger who lives in a painting which is pinned (lopsided) to my wall.

She stares at me all night long and waits patiently throughout the day for my unpredictable return.

And it occurred to me several evenings ago, as I was twisting in my sheets, that it is rather strange to spend so much time with a stranger.

After all, I know nothing about her. I don’t even know her name. Though she seems like a person who would have to be nameless, no name I can think of would suit her.

Because I like to sprint when I can’t breath.

“The world is hard to hold onto,” she said. My hands start losing their grip. And I wonder what it would be like if I just let go. Let the sky hold me for once instead of the other way around. And I start to wonder if I’d be good at flying or if my wings would be too heavy. If they’d be dirty and covered with flies or muddy and covered with soot from all the fires I’ve lit and put out. I wonder why God made crows and why did God make bad and mistakes and goodbye? Why was the snake and the tree in the garden? Why did he brew the perfect disaster? Why couldn’t he have let his flawed masterpiece be?