hello. just thought i'd include a preface:
i'm actually pretty happy these days. i've got exciting plans for the summer, i'm almost done working at this horrible crappy job, and lots of good changes are afoot. besides that, i'm totally falling for someone really fucking great, feeling confident about my body and my agency as an individual, and maintaining really great close friendships with wonderful, challenging, interesting people.
that said, it's new, this happiness, and delicate. i think that in my writing and even in my cartoons, a certain amount of the poison that's brought me down these past few months (the past YEAR, even?) is being drawn out. slowwwly and suuuurely. and i mean, come on. we can totally be really happy about our lives and still angry about the things that blight them, am i right?
i'd also like to say, in case the commenter on the previous entry hasn't noticed my response, that my anger in the previous entry was and is TOTALLY LEGITIMATE. if anyone feels differently, by all means, bring it on up with me. i will provide you with a list of books and resources first, gently explain things to you second, and then tell you to fuck right off third, if that becomes necessary.
and now onto another venemous piece of writing. you'll note that this one IS a poem, because it says it is. let's let things and people speak for themselves more often, can we? i'm just reading yes means yes! and it's really great about that... i wish the whole world was better about respecting individual agency and identity and bodies.
but i digress. the following is a poem about Peterborough. a place that i have loved more than any place i can think of. a place where i've met and fallen in love with so many wonderful people. a place that has given me so so much. but it is also a number of bad things. so here are those things, just in time for my departure. it is not that they've become more clear or that i've become more sick of the place. but it is definitely time for me to go, and these are some of the reasons why. it's also just because i need a change, i need a place with more jobs, etc. anyway, i digress...
this is a poem for peterborough in the early spring
with its river running fast and black and roiling
away from me
along with the ink i’ve spilt here these past years
this is a poem for the town i am leaving
with its shop keeps and culture whores
dancing mad like acid dreams of puppets
tangled together in one meaning
one that’s barely understood
i’m tied in too but
this is a poem for walking away
as much as i don’t want to be here anymore
i’m not sure about anywhere else
because this monotony has become a kind of heart beat
and i don’t know if my drum will still hum without
the sickly sweet air of quaker oats to fill its sound
but i’ve been around too long
built up wrinkles here the way spring garbage builds up
around construction fences that
don’t seem to be temporary
i don’t wanna be that orange and brown
i don’t wanna fit right in
and i can feel the syndromes of these streets moving aside to make room
for my own subtle set of symptoms
there’s a gentle shudder of tightly fitted objects shifting against each other
like bricks or teeth
i’ve written too many sets of words
scribbled diatribes
loving diaries
for the shape of this place
and so i will footnote them to say
there are the good things
but there comes a time when the corrupt in anything
is too clear to turn from
and there is corrupt in everything
so don’t hold this to be exempt
this is a poem for a bubble
an enclosure of ritual and comfort and repetition
this is a poem for a place that could act as a metaphor for bad sex
this is a poem for peterborough in the early spring
when everyone crowds the cobblestones and brown wood benches
rubbing up against each other like bee’s legs on closed buds
waiting for the time it takes for any old flower to open
cuz any old flower will do
this is a poem for imported taste and recycled relationships
for patience and boredom and playing out roles
for rebuilt historical buildings standing as populated tombs
bustling pointlessly, bristling self-righteously, indignant
even as these words fall from my leaving mouth
don’t worry
i still love you
and i’ll come back to the only
place where the river never changes
where shops and lovers shift around like a con man’s peas
and i’ll drink with those of you who stay behind
it’s not for all to leave
but it should be for all to see
we are wrapped in an embrace that suffocates
a bit of mangled suckface that swallows tongues and happy pills
we have a rhythm of words like prayers that say
we are too sensitive and immaculate for the world out there
out there where people fight and die
and starve and believe in things we don’t
and arrive on time for things
we feed ourselves this myth over fire
built on the bones of others
the ones we have burned for decades
to keep our comfort boiling
to warm our idle hands
this is a poem for laziness and fear
for dodging our implications
for burrowing below everyone’s expectations
this is a poem for how much more we could be
if we fought the stream
and stopped loving a dead thing
this is a poem for peterborough in the early spring
with its river running fast and black and roiling
away from me
along with the ink i’ve spilt here these past years
this is a poem for the town i am leaving
with its shop keeps and culture whores
dancing mad like acid dreams of puppets
tangled together in one meaning
one that’s barely understood
i’m tied in too but
this is a poem for walking away
as much as i don’t want to be here anymore
i’m not sure about anywhere else
because this monotony has become a kind of heart beat
and i don’t know if my drum will still hum without
the sickly sweet air of quaker oats to fill its sound
but i’ve been around too long
built up wrinkles here the way spring garbage builds up
around construction fences that
don’t seem to be temporary
i don’t wanna be that orange and brown
i don’t wanna fit right in
and i can feel the syndromes of these streets moving aside to make room
for my own subtle set of symptoms
there’s a gentle shudder of tightly fitted objects shifting against each other
like bricks or teeth
i’ve written too many sets of words
scribbled diatribes
loving diaries
for the shape of this place
and so i will footnote them to say
there are the good things
but there comes a time when the corrupt in anything
is too clear to turn from
and there is corrupt in everything
so don’t hold this to be exempt
this is a poem for a bubble
an enclosure of ritual and comfort and repetition
this is a poem for a place that could act as a metaphor for bad sex
this is a poem for peterborough in the early spring
when everyone crowds the cobblestones and brown wood benches
rubbing up against each other like bee’s legs on closed buds
waiting for the time it takes for any old flower to open
cuz any old flower will do
this is a poem for imported taste and recycled relationships
for patience and boredom and playing out roles
for rebuilt historical buildings standing as populated tombs
bustling pointlessly, bristling self-righteously, indignant
even as these words fall from my leaving mouth
don’t worry
i still love you
and i’ll come back to the only
place where the river never changes
where shops and lovers shift around like a con man’s peas
and i’ll drink with those of you who stay behind
it’s not for all to leave
but it should be for all to see
we are wrapped in an embrace that suffocates
a bit of mangled suckface that swallows tongues and happy pills
we have a rhythm of words like prayers that say
we are too sensitive and immaculate for the world out there
out there where people fight and die
and starve and believe in things we don’t
and arrive on time for things
we feed ourselves this myth over fire
built on the bones of others
the ones we have burned for decades
to keep our comfort boiling
to warm our idle hands
this is a poem for laziness and fear
for dodging our implications
for burrowing below everyone’s expectations
this is a poem for how much more we could be
if we fought the stream
and stopped loving a dead thing
this is a poem for peterborough in the early spring
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