Coming Up
our father who art in a penthouse
sits in his 37th floor suite
and swivels to gaze down
at the city he made me in
he allows me to stand and
sollicit graffiti until
he needs the land I stand on
I in my darkened threshold
am pawing through my pockets
the receipts, the bus schedules
the matchbook phone numbers
the urgent napkin poems
all of which laundering has rendered
pulpy and strange
loose change and a key
ask me
go ahead, ask me if I care
I got the answer here
I wrote it down somewhere
I just gotta find it
I just gotta find it
somebody and their spraypaint got too close
somebody came on too heavy
now look at me made ugly
by the drooling letters
I was better off alone
ain't that the way it is
they don't know the first thing
but you don't know that
until they take the first swing
my fingers are red and swollen from the cold
I'm getting bold in my old age
so go ahead, try the door
it doesn't matter anymore
I know the weakhearted are strongwilled
and we are being kept alive
until we're killed
he's up there the ice
is clinking in his glass
he sends his little pieces of paper
I don't ask
I just empty my pockets and wait
it's not fate
it's just circumstance
I don't fool myself with romance
I just live
phone number to phone number
dusting them against my thighs
in the warmth of my pockets
which whisper history incessantly
asking me
where were you
I lower my eyes
wishing I could cry more
and care less,
yes it's true,
I was trying to love someone again,
I was caught caring,
bearing weight
but I love this city, this state
this country is too large
and whoever's in charge up there
had better take the elevator down
and put more than change in our cup
or else we
are coming
up
-Ani Difranco
the angry girl is back. and i admit, sometimes i wanted to be a pretty girl, but i never was- you can't be pretty and passionate at the same time.and every time they thought i was cute and small and helpless, there was always some inner drive, frustration, anger, resentfulness, that made me hit back, mademe push them away, made me try to get them to understand, that i can't act my life, that i can't pretend, that i can't be what they want; that i am not a pretty girl.
So. i didn't do it, dumbass. It has nothing to do with me, little man. I don't care anymore, You. You. So hard, not to let go, but to admit there's nothing left i want to hold on to... and yet, every time i talk to you (because you don't talk, you're merely a facilitator for my ends), i wish it back, the laughter, the love, the intense, intense emotion... that's one thing none of you can ever say. you can't say i didn't affect you. if not as a girlfriend, then as a best friend. you can't say i didn't change you, at least for a while. i will not do things half-assedly. double or nothing. but i'm tired of affecting, tired of changing, tired of impacting. [how egocentric of me.] i just want to be, hassle-free.
so anyway, as of now, i draw a line. if it's not on my terms, i don't want it. no more mercy-ANYTHING. i don't want it. cuz it always seems like as soon as you're done, any of you, in the vast myriad of ways in which that phrase can be taken, then you lose interest. and i can't afford to waste my time anymore. as i seem to remember recently, "I'll be your friend, I'll be here for you, but I am not here to absorb your abuse. I am not here to be used." It works both ways, Cheri.
Readin'
Listenin' to
Thinkin' about
Most recently I was 
