bear necessities

everything feels different
these days
like
tattooed hips, goose bumps, you
make my skin ache
in a good way
that taking your hair down
from a pony tail way
or putting on sweats
or taking off too tight shoes
way
ill play the same song
on repeat
until you get it
that it would take broken axels and
wildfires to
quit these
wagon wheels
ive got nothing but time
on my side
sundays in livermore
its a heatwave, dancing with uncle jack, el
vato, el vato, the
violinist
too many pigs in a blanket
all the old ladies wear
purple clothes and
ask, girl, whyd you stay
far away
we try not to talk about my mother
no one asks about you
no one knows
you
like i do, you say
over indian food, your
tummy rumbles all through the night
and i have nightmares, stale
dreams, wake up
on my back
and youre not there
not really, anyway

things feel so
very different now
i never know if we were going
to the same place
and now were all phone chatty
and text messagy
about some party, some warehouse, some thing
that happened in oakland somewhere
its just distance but it is everything

its just a feeling, but its different,
your writing will explode, you tell me
pulling me close, the hardest
youve held me in weeks
and it doesnt take much, i think, it
doesnt take much

featured monsters

on sunday
we gnash and fight
smoke blunts with three girls
who dont really want to
share
sarah looks like death and
olivias mouths the words
to songs she doesnt know

i feel like im dancing
like ive got something to prove
my ears numb until i pass out
dream of you as a little boy
crawling into my
lap and sleeping, i scratch
your back and neck and kiss you until
youre purring, how
terribly accurate
and prophetic our little
mosters are

let me see your teeth

im searching for violets
among snow
tiny glitter anthems
and slop buckets
that boy is no monster
youre more precious
than an heirloom
grandma marion places
ceramic santas on mantles
and we shiver and shake
hands held under hanukkah dinner table

lets move, lets live next to
a bridge with open fields
play soul music and drink
40's on a monday
that night you
fire man carried my best friend through
the streets of the mission
you were it for me

i like kissing you over
room service heat and
dirty laundry
im looking for that clove smoking girl on the hill,
remember her?
you make me want to find
her, again

im tired of the ha ha
tired of the lols
you don't remember how it felt?
cigarettes and fruit punch snapple
kurt vonnegut, long toenails arent funny
just because I adore you -
doesnt mean i dont want to laugh

I'm tired of faking it

sunday night loft party you were the
guy with the attitude
high on house
and asking for pills
it gets less complicated with time
until were all just fiddlers
on fourth street
baring our teeth

too $hort tuesday

a little "blow the whistle" and "strip down" not to mention "money maker" and thats just talking about the latest stuff, sets me right on this gray tuesday. such a different perspective than yesterday. something bout hoes and tricks, bitches and pimps really gets me moving and as $hort dawg says, you got to want it to have it.



this song reminds me of driving drunk with jose through the city. yeah, ill call him out, we used to get DOWN to this song. she sets me right.



today is much better than yesterday. i keep myself busy, positive. my boy makes me feel better and too $hort makes me feel like a thug, a hustler, they both keep me in line. remind me i CAN do this. im in a much better mind set and dancin round the apartment, ready to take on the world.

i mean, seriously, this song is so tight. i remember this coming on in clubs when it first came out and kids would go fucking ape shit. ballistic. sweaty hair, chains flying, thiz face, biiiatch, shit was crazy. makes me proud to be from the bay. makes me think im crazy to think abut leaving it...i mean, no one does hyphy like we do.

and for my final act

tonight ill be reading some new pieces at Amnesia bar http://www.amnesiathebar.com/Amnesia/Amnesia_-_Home.html on Valencia.


should be some other great readers from 826 Valencia http://www.826valencia.org/events/2009_12 and cheap delicious beers and specialty cocktails served.

i hope hope hope of all hopes to see you there.


xo gkitten

day three

today is worse than yesteday despite it being sunny and slightly warmer. i wear a variation of what i wore yesterday, boots, jeans stuffed in, thick big scarf, i go through phases where im just wearing my night shirt out under my coat, i like the smell of slept in things, i pull my bangs back and only wear mascara, maybe a little lipgloss and PRESTO im 17 again and that brings up feelings old and new.

this morning i try to swipe some some color onto my cheeks and put a braid in my hair, try not to look so much of a mess, at least i showered last night, let the water take it all away, backed up into a corner all crying and sobbing, its pathetic really but it felt good and i walked out clean and red eyed, but feeling more like a person i guess, at least im feeling something even if its sad.

today i feel purposeless, i spend my morning looking through books and reading about agents, going over any and every writing job in the city before realizing i have to actually be writing something substantial for that to work. i feel like im not good at anything today, i cant even love you the way that i want to and that bums me out more than anything.

if i were to leave you, where would i go?
i cant seem to think of any other way to make this work, its wearing me down. i dont like this girl im becoming. san francisco, youre treating me bad, taking me for granted. i just wanted to love you, thats all, why you gotta make loving me back so hard?

i listen to the playlist i made you, a little over a year ago, you were sick, or feeling down and i wanted you to be better, i thought these songs could make you happy. i thought that i could make you smile again. its grey days and were cold and i dont know that everything will be alright either. but i listen to these songs and dream about you riding your bike, years from now, listening to them to and feel a little bit better. maybe they can help more than these words of my own.


a little depeche mode on a wednesday and its all good.

preachers daughter

day two of being unemployed is alright. its frigid freezing, mine and vitos noses drip icy cold as we walk 24th street. two men in their 40's buy bags of recycling off each other on folsom and vito and i weave in and out of the madness on this winter day, he noses all the fruit stands on mission and stares, head cocked to the side at homeless people pushing shopping carts, playing guitars with missing strings for change. at one point he stops dead in his tracks to watch two men converse in spanish, it is an easy story over cigarettes and coffee, a morning chat and vito stands at attention, almost listening. it happened so fast i keep thinking, winter did, without warning, and last night i have to rub my feet furiously together in bed to keep warm, adding more blankets and eying the heaters in your old apartment, unsure how to turn them on. this morning we find new ways to create heat until you say, breathlessly, im not cold anymore.

we walk along guerrero after a while, along san jose and i lift vito up onto a brick wall and he runs along in tiny white winter flowers that smell sweet and dirty, like urine all at once and i want to take a picture but ive got mittens on and the moments gone before i can think twice, he hops down, cars whiz by, sketchy boys walk past me and give me the creeps.

last night im going through my books to see if i can find this jonathan franzen book someone gave me, for a birthday? christmas? i cant remember, but years ago, and i had liked it, even though i hadnt wanted to. i was trying to find this quote i remembered from it and leafing through the pages turned to re-reading other books, books from people i remember better, from faces i think of more often, which turns to re-reading journals and dates and i keep telling myself this is a dangerous business, turn back now but i dont and find pages and pages that i have to type down to get them out again, old things rise up and i rip things up cut them up tape them up to the fridge. they are all a part of me, of my life but they are behind me now, in dated notebooks and files and i want to leave them there. most of it anyway. dont worry, i try not to write about the bad stuff so much. i find a page from when i was still at state that starts with "all i want is to..." and i think about lunch with lawrence last week and dinner with b last night and the conversations, the surprise at someone being able to answer the question that begs "forget money and obligations, in a perfect world, what would you do that would make you happy?" and if you find that, is that enough? and how do you know what it really is? and will it always keep you happy? and is your happiness benefiting from someone elses? and vice versa? and are you alone is all this lovely happiness or is someone floating around with you? and even if were some of those lucky people who know what it is that we really love, how do we put it into action? how do we make it fit our lives...or our lives fit it? maybe ive had it all wrong this whole time, trying to figure out how to fit writing into my life when i should have been fitting my life around it. cultivating a type of life that i love and everything else will be natural. i was intrigued. what had my younger self said...how had i answered the question. how different would it be from what i want now?

with so much free time these days and so so much going on in my head i am trying to KISS. keep it simple, silly. this city is such a heartbreak town, just fighting the current, trying to keep my head up. im trying to practice what i preach and i hate the idea of not following through. if in the end nothing amounts to anything, what will all this time have been worth? god knows, im learning things and beginning to understand, but when will things start making a little more sense? when will i get into a groove?

this week i will be practicing everything i wrote on my "all i want list..." years ago to see if my younger self had it right, if it makes me happier, if i can trust that it really was school and two jobs competing for my time and breaking my balls years ago...i know she talked a lot of big game and she sure did have a lot of fun but lets see if i can, as they say, practice what i preach.

good job, gucci

land of opportunity

my options for work now that im laid off are "Flash Action Jedi, Sr. Marketing Manager, Piano Teacher or Head Lice Technician". Its looking dismal and im feeling depressed.
wtf.