http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/index.php Copyright 2009, emily emily en-US SPHPBLOG 0.4.7.1 http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry080228-050112 sweet-lipped boy your wrists writhe positively serpentine
and somehow you find the light in me, i didn't - i forgot - i lost
the map to my god, my poetry - i lost the fucking guts in me
but watch out now, birds of prey coiling black feathers fanning
o u t and around my heart - a beautiful cancer

"In her happiest days, she was covered in paint. From her hair to feet, in punctuated drips and dollops. Those hours, life consisted of swollen poetry and words yearning to become true. The everpresent beating of a heart waiting to be born into being. (The thump of dreams hitting cement The tick of decency decidedly stepping aside The whack of realization that nothing is innocent or naive or pure.) We know what we're doing and we love it. We know, we know, we cry and pray and fuck harder than hungry whores. We watch the world pass in twisted eclipses and wonder if the sun is ever truly on our side. In her moments of bliss, she thought of this. Staggered breaths of a dragging age. The gaping abyss between here and anywhere. When life tasted like rock candy, and there were always kisses down the spine."]]> http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry080228-050112 emily Thu, 28 Feb 2008 13:01:12 GMT http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/comments.php?y=08&m=02&entry=entry080228-050112 http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry080205-141751 she relies too much on the weather.
the sky is black as burnt muslin, clumsily extinguished by rain.
today she is twenty-three. nothing momentous. but still.
it seems that it should feel different. special. marked.
but it is an audaciously ordinary, albeit exceptionally gray, day.
no midnight transformations. no radiantly new self with renewed spirit and gusto and all the spring flowers popping from the earth's crust and life feeling like it was always supposed to feel- like a motorcycle ride or an oceanic wave or the longest kiss of your life.
but life just feels like life. and we drink too much and cut our hair and ignore those who love us and . . yet, we survive. if the drinking or cutting or crying doesn't kill us, we endure.
rejoicing some of the time, sobbing some of the time, but living all the same.
it is her birthday, and lessons arrive in strange shapes and vessels.
]]> http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry080205-141751 emily Tue, 05 Feb 2008 22:17:51 GMT http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/comments.php?y=08&m=02&entry=entry080205-141751 http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry080128-181601
actually i have no idea what the wise ones say. if i did, surely, my head would feel better. my moments would fill will calm, and rest safely upon each other, like new leaves opening.

not this nagging unrest. a primitive village at civil war, inside the body of a person.
not to deny its thrills, which are both bloody and wonderful.

that's the heart of it though, i'm sure. sometimes shit just needs to be moved around. weather and geology and religion and cocktails and love. has to be shaken up a bit for optimal effect.
]]> http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry080128-181601 emily Tue, 29 Jan 2008 02:16:01 GMT http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/comments.php?y=08&m=01&entry=entry080128-181601 http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry080109-114244
can shake your firmest resolve.

will bring tears in a second
and it'll take years to figure out why.

there is nothing like the wind of the new year.

a beautiful whore with jagged teeth.

]]> http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry080109-114244 emily Wed, 09 Jan 2008 19:42:44 GMT http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/comments.php?y=08&m=01&entry=entry080109-114244 http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry080106-041443 when you think
she's out for a smoke.

down the block and across the rows
of persons lost, written.

in rhythms inhuman your heart discovers
that maybe, baby, you were not made
for this show .
and then the music is loud, and you're aware for that moment
wildly and a little bit
forever
(one hopes)
in colors that bleed like you can
never quite capture again
in slurred rain and
slow hand
it always begins again.

Let the rain come.
let it come.

for all the times i couldn't give a

goddamn

the problem is
that i already know the answer
and for once i
just want to be surprised.
]]> http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry080106-041443 emily Sun, 06 Jan 2008 12:14:43 GMT http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/comments.php?y=08&m=01&entry=entry080106-041443 http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry080102-042340 another morning, 2:24, can't sleep - the mind spins
nervous debauchery . . sonnets to sinning, and sinning again
occasionally i eye the lifestyle of tranquility, contented calm
but i wonder, would it really be worth it after all . . ?
tattoos and war wounds, heavy words and hard falls;
this is what i love, the soul and the balls..

there are things that can never be said,
and things that can never be said enough.
i often get the two confused.

we can never admit what we truly want.
why is the truth so constantly forbidden?
2:42 in the morning, memories spinning like sea birds :

i feel too fragile. the rough skin gives way -
a rare occurrence, a lucid dream . .
What, my dear, what can i say . ?

i actually cry too easily, pay no attention to time
but Time is a bitch that will grab you
fiercely, and fiercely make you mine (at the time)...

oh - strange lonely night . .
the wave will always crash
but crashing makes it final
and final, oh, at last . . .

piano chords rushing, solemn and slow
hinting at Springs we yearn to know

smacking of sorrow, we ponder tomorrow
oh God . . make it right and slow
let it be the carnival i wish to know
whatever it be, be it right and so . .]]> http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry080102-042340 emily Wed, 02 Jan 2008 12:23:40 GMT http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/comments.php?y=08&m=01&entry=entry080102-042340 http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry071229-162106
i am a ghost to myself. i cannot stand this light - this fucking 4 o'clock light that is so beautiful and morose, funereal and drunkenly blissful. this amber light that feels like words i never said, but always meant to. kisses never had. i weep hardest, at times, for the kisses never had.

sometimes you're in your lifeboat, and it feels like this strong, invisible hand will never let go - guiding you through the canals, easing you across the currents.

and sometimes you wake up, and the only one in the little boat is you. and it's the most terrifying thrill you've ever felt.

as hunter would say, Selah.
]]> http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry071229-162106 emily Sun, 30 Dec 2007 00:21:06 GMT http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/comments.php?y=07&m=12&entry=entry071229-162106 http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry071211-165437 and then you see every letter and word pressed against each other like lovers afraid of death
the tome is complete at one glance

and one thinks,
is this not how we all are?
if held to the right light at a certain time of evening
every word we've ever uttered:
stupidly, lustfully, proudly, innocently, blissfully
and every letter that will ever slip from our lips
pressed together and viewed in one glance
sad and complete.

we fuck up and break hearts
pollute the winds and waters with greed unparalleled
relegate those poorer, those darker-skinned, those hungry
to typeface in a book whose pages we can't be bothered to read.

we are all of the same fiber, printed in the same font
my eyes are tired. i hold myself up to the light
but my words are bleeding together.]]> http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry071211-165437 emily Wed, 12 Dec 2007 00:54:37 GMT http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/comments.php?y=07&m=12&entry=entry071211-165437 http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry071114-153838 the beautiful, the leggy, the forlorn boys
i loved the boys with crooked teeth
who never seemed to notice me
i loved them all . . and well
mine was never a stingy love
i kept not a bit for myself
the first boy who said he loved me
dripped wax over my skin
maybe cause he knew his mama
loved the bottle more than him
we always pay for others' sins

and we never do learn a goddamned thing.

i loved a girl before she went crazy
strawberry hair and already slightly mad
we smoked and read plays, recited - it seems
simpler now than it really was
that was a darker, sweeter love
fresh lavender before it is brown
before tongues knew how
to slice each other down

it has never been easy to survive.

how i loved the world and its broken players
before i realized i was one of them
adoring the jerky jumping of bodies
until i felt the wires in my own skin
my life the end result of a clumsy hand
rusty fault lines of lust and despair
now i see myself everywhere
and can barely be pulled to stand

but we go on loving.

and loving loving. loving losing. loving fucking. loving swearing. loving hating. loving leaving. loving shrinking. loving screaming. loving singing. loving sweating. loving kneeling. loving dying.
all we can do is love with all we are
because the alternative
is so tiny and sad.
]]> http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry071114-153838 emily Wed, 14 Nov 2007 23:38:38 GMT http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/comments.php?y=07&m=11&entry=entry071114-153838 http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry071112-132246 (if their life turned out in any way as they had imagined it?
if they're scared of dying, if they believe in god, if they could see one place anywhere in the world first, where would it be?
how they had the courage to struggle through it all this far?)
i'd buy them a cup of coffee and listen to their beautiful voice tinged gravelly with age.

sometimes i want to leave everything i know. everything safe and comfortable. every belonging and attachment. i'd hitchhike to the ocean and let the waves answer my desperate questions. the saltwater would be my family, the seabirds my companions.

i often feel that my birth was mismatched to this generation. i don't belong. i should've been a roving sea captain. my poetry would be the soft puffing of sails. my art would be the wind scarring my face. my song would be mirthful because whenever i felt the urge to move, i would simply pull up the anchor and... go.]]> http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry071112-132246 emily Mon, 12 Nov 2007 21:22:46 GMT http://emilycoxart.com/pblog/comments.php?y=07&m=11&entry=entry071112-132246