what a spoiled girl

love is not for me.

dinners made, in the morning ella fitzgerald, soft words

and still it was not enough for me. 

i have been a muse. i have been inspired. 

"i will change,"

no. no, thank you. 

i didn't pack any bags. 

i live out of a car, which i am afraid to drive at the moment. 

a planner can't save me this time.

and i've buried a lot of dreams. for petty fights. clinging desperately for 

a piece of me. 

Chanting on the inside

I'm breathing into and out to the ether. Calmly, I meet my deadlines and somehow never measure to be good enough, despite giving all I have to a place that does not care for my health. Does not care for my hardships. Does not mind my time nor my abilities.

What's going to happen when I die? The falling of each letter will bury me deeper in the ground as I take my experiences with me, all the years of words quietly into my bones, disintegrating for a place on earth that does not care. 

Clinking of teeth,
What is kissing supposed to be like anyway? Wet slop and high emotions, can you do it for hours? Until my septum falls off. 

Laura and I have graduated to a relationship of tolerance. Everyday there is a sink full of dishes. She has scratched the bottom of my only good pan by cutting whatever leftovers she was heating up from her Mothers' with my own knife, probably.

I take so many pictures I never intend on looking for them. When I was younger, I loved hearing the phrase, "you are wise beyond your years," directed at me. I'm finally turning 30 this year. In about a mouth. It's funny how everyone convinced me until I became obsessed with wisdom-- crippled at the slightest childish act but my sister wrote and sent me a card recently, explaining; "you can't escape your fate. Love, Adnana" So here is playful Arijana. The child in the family who never quite finished. Didn't need any toys in the sandbox, but desperately needed to know of their existence. I feel so stupid so often.

I want to draw and if I can't then I want to cry. 

Are you supposed to sleep with your muse?

Between a state
of disappointment,
convinced
I've done it all
wrong
By the images of others' lives:
travels and brunches
in parenthesis I notice I don't have thick skin after all.

On a note I've scribbled, "you are capeable," I put on my cape. Is there any one out there, trying to able alone, too? You plucked yourself over & over from your family tree: did you break the branches blindly and heartily push them down your throat? Have you had to say, "you don't want me," without tears? Break hearts to protect yours, and anyway; rejection letters  don't feel as personal anymore. "You're able! You're able!" I know they visit when you're gone. They, too, get ownership-- for it's in their photo of that spot you used to love to get tea nearby. But you can't get mad, you're still  discovering, too.

You live in an orange house,
in burning walls, you've lost hope and had to pick each piece up yourself,
You haven't crushed a glass here yet.
In this quiet room, you've called out for love.
And you're loved, despite your kitchen and poor means.

Sometimes my mom and dad have advised me to be cautious. But my foundation is built on being daring because of how they faced the world while we were watching. "Show your teeth, Arijana. Bare them." Regardless of how little currency was in the bank account in various moments of my life, my belly never felt empty. They ensured to instill a different kind of hunger in me. Who cares if you lose it all. Lose it all, then! It's like being thrown in to the air-- high, high, higher, and having the courage not to look back so that when the blanket catches you, you feel the soft cotton and appreciate gravity for bringing you down one more time for the chance to look up, and convince yourself that you were flying.

I water my flowers

I don't think I've any addictions, but tonight I might've relapsed. 

i button and unbutton you,

ha ha ha, i push yours--

you find my M-spot and I curl back, how do you say; i died laughing. 

i make sounds.

then carry me! care me care me so good, put a toothbrush in my mouth, i know you're saying words but i hear your echo "The best way to think of Basil, is like a flower," and oh my god, i'm into it. 

weep,

Working for employment

People, they mightn't have the patient space, much like nature's temper doesn't seek to understand the hardships you've gone through. I'm not sure, I think there's something to be said about this strange year. A tropical escape can either be a luxe vacation or wet air so hard to swallow. I'm always battling that insecurity. I want to be understood.

we all have scars

every day, i try so hard.

I wonder how many times you have to hate, before being liberated because did you realize that even out in love is still being held captive against your own will. What kind of asshole leaves you in attentive absence? A dicktator. 

Trickling brain drops soft spots

Quick, call flora,
crybabies and cry ladies.
an amused muse for flowers
bloom every season
regardless of rain or shine.

calm this calf. calm my halves. My haves
and my loves me, loves me nots.
Petal by petal. As rose as my cheeks.

I want to ride my bicycle. I want to ride my bike.

oh my god, i just read below and it dawned on me all i did was paraphrase "sweet dreams," 

so there's that. 

loves a pressure

there are sides to every story, sometimes you're never the same. its about borrowing things never to be returned again. its about going down a path  without your gps guiding your lefts from your rights. I've left you're right. i write about theft. and where do you take your collected sorrows for a cash in, a lump sum in my throat of pieces i won't give away. 

artifacts found along the way,

never have i ever

been so scared, i shut down
thicker than the berlin wall,
never have i ever
would you rathers, counted
"time is an illusion,"
but i feel it. i really fucking feel it.

que paso, ari? what now? where to?
hypnotized by, "one day at a time,"
I'm lucky to be alive, aren't i?

love is cruel. when i broke
in front of my mother,
she gave me
an unrecognizable look, "and where is your eternal optimist? where have
you lost her"

oh my god, how you pronounce the word "through," and i don't know what I'm imagining, but i feel you saying "true"-- it's like singing to drake, "come through, girl; you deserve rounds tonight," but hearing "come true"

i thought once to grow my hair because of this condition to aspire for a gown of the life long kind, societal negotiation of supply & demand of the fairy tale kind. a good bride has a good braid. when my first love hurt me, i cut my hair in the bathroom. i tamed to grow it. only to find the little girl inside my body, snipping chunks of her fine baby hair to my jaw line alone in the bathroom again. i cut my silk every time i want to weep. it is the only thing you have, to shed & sever, and it always comes back to you. 

My drive home
from an unsteady heart
gives me time
to think after my work is done
who will wash my dead body?

This thought makes me cry
from the belly, but I can't
lose sight of the road