She left pieces

"Fifteen ways to stay alive" by Daphne Gottlieb

Fifteen ways to stay alive
by Daphne Gottlieb


1. Offer the wolves your arm only from the elbow down. Leave tourniquet space. Do not offer them your calves. Do not offer them your side. Do not let them near your femoral artery, your jugular. Give them only your arm.

2. Wear chapstick when kissing the bomb.

3. Pretend you don’t know English.

4. Pretend you never met her.

5. Offer the bomb to the wolves. Offer the wolves to the zombies.

6. Only insert a clean knife into your chest. Rusty ones will cause tetanus. Or infection.

7. Don’t inhale.

8. Realize that this love was not your trainwreck, was not the truck that flattened you, was not your Waterloo, did not cause massive hemorrhaging from a rusty knife. That love is still to come.

9. Use a rusty knife to cut through most of the noose in a strategic place so that it breaks when your weight is on it.

10. Practice desperate pleas for attention, louder calls for help. Learn them in English, French, Spanish: May Day, Aidez-Moi, Ayúdame.

11. Don’t kiss trainwrecks. Don’t kiss knives. Don’t kiss.

12. Pretend you made up the zombies, and only superheroes exist.

13. Pretend there is no kryptonite.

14. Pretend there was no love so sweet that you would have died for it, pretend that it does not belong to someone else now, pretend like your heart depends on it because it does. Pretend there is no wreck — you watched the train go by and felt the air brush your face and that was it. Another train passing. You do not need trains. You can fly. You are a superhero. And there is no kryptonite.

15. Forget her name.

Sarah Kay's "If I Should Have a Daughter"

Sarah Kay at TED: Spoken word "If I Should Have a Daughter"

Click on the above link to see a video of Kay's amazing spoken word poetry. The text of the first poem, "If I Should Have a Daughter" is below.

If I should have a daughter, instead of Mom, she's gonna call me Point B, because that way she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. And I'm going to paint solar systems on the backs of her hands, so she has to learn the entire universe before she can say, "Oh, I know that like the back of my hand." And she's going to learn that this life will hit you hard in the face, wait for you to get back up just so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air. There is hurt here that cannot be fixed by Band-Aids or poetry. So the first time she realizes that Wonder Woman isn't coming, I'll make sure she knows she doesn't have to wear the cape all by herself. Because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I've tried. "And, baby," I'll tell her, don't keep your nose up in the air like that. I know that trick; I've done it a million times. You're just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back to a burning house, so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him. Or else find the boy who lit the fire in the first place, to see if you can change him." But I know she will anyway, so instead I'll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boots nearby, because there is no heartbreak that chocolate can't fix. Okay, there's a few heartbreaks that chocolate can't fix. But that's what the rain boots are for. Because rain will wash away everything, if you let it. I want her to look at the world through the underside of a glass-bottom boat, to look through a microscope at the galaxies that exist on the pinpoint of a human mind, because that's the way my mom taught me. That there'll be days like this. ♫ There'll be days like this, my momma said. ♫ When you open your hands to catch and wind up with only blisters and bruises; when you step out of the phone booth and try to fly and the very people you want to save are the ones standing on your cape; when your boots will fill with rain, and you'll be up to your knees in disappointment. And those are the very days you have all the more reason to say thank you. Because there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it's swept away. You will put the wind in winsome, lose some. You will put the star in starting over, and over. And no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute, be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life. And yes, on a scale from one to over-trusting, I am pretty damn naive. But I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily, but don't be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it. "Baby," I'll tell her, "remember, your momma is a worrier, and your poppa is a warrior, and you are the girl with small hands and big eyes who never stops asking for more." Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things. And always apologize when you've done something wrong. But don't you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining. Your voice is small, but don't ever stop singing. And when they finally hand you heartache, when they slip war and hatred under your door and offer you handouts on street-corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.

Through A Window of Indecision

Written 4/15/2010 as a revision of a previous poem. Look, I can do postmodern poetry! Short line free verse.

Through A Window of Indecision

you see
unexpectedly
pass by without
hitch in step
presumably awkward
exchanges avoid
a void
unintentional
eye contact

look away then
back make sure
you face a face you
recognize
the one you
said those
words to
but someone else
does it now

breath caught
in chest
heart beats
irregular, you stop
passing
halting

stop.

formspring.me

Ask me anything http://formspring.me/dogeatconcrete

Streamers

It's been so long since I've been home. I've been gone..I've been gone for way too long..

Streamers
by sofiadventure

Today I have all the blinds angled open
In the hope
That the wonder outside
Will shine its light
Into the cracks of my heart
That just can't close today

I guess that my dreams
Broke all the stitches
As it swelled to this mound in my chest
Full of hope
And it's so hard to convince myself to keep eating
When my insides are facing the wide open seams
Of this muscle

Like the dishes in the kitchen
Fill my sink with the stink
Of being left to wait too long
And I'm listening hard to know I'm still breathing
Through the cracks in my heart
That drape my lungs like the streamers
Of my fourth grade birthday party
Where I said I wouldn't play
Because I knew that I would lose
Because my heart was hanging heavy and loose
The words which set the pace for every game
I haven't played since that day
I have been trying to tell myself
It's not too late
To learn that I don't want to race
Because I can't bear the tears
In my heart strings
That come
From leaving somebody behind

And I remember when I was 5 years old
Standing on a chair to reach the kitchen stove
And burning the skin of my elbow
As I tried to fry
Breakfast for my mother
While she lay sick in bed with
The voices in her head
Telling her she wasn't enough

And I remember filling that cup
With cordial straight from the bottle
Because I didn't know that we could be too sweet
unless we watered down what we gave

And I didn't know that the foundation of my faith
Was based
On my mother watching Jesus
Helping her to dry the dishes
And that when I measured the weight of that diagnosis
My prayers would turn to wishes
Floating like dried up dandelions
Away from me

And I was eight years old when I realized
that maybe my friends didn't fear
the same look
in their mothers eyes
when they went behind themselves and shined
with the reflection of the tears
of fear in my eyes
because I knew that she could hear
all of her own voices
But not mine.

The letter challenge

Try some of these out, they may result in some interesting writings. Post some for your friends to see if you dare. I challenge everyone to try this with at least one subject, perhaps your friends will appreciate your openness and getting to know you better!

Day 01 → Something you hate about yourself.
Day 02 → Something you love about yourself.
Day 03 → Something you have to forgive yourself for.
Day 04 → Something you have to forgive someone for.
Day 05 → Something you hope to do in your life.
Day 06 → Something you hope you never have to do.
Day 07 → Someone who has made your life worth living for.
Day 08 → Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.
Day 09 → Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
Day 10 → Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
Day 11 → Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Day 12 → Something you never get compliments on.
Day 13 → A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days. (write a letter.)
Day 14 → A hero that has let you down. (letter)
Day 15 → Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
Day 16 → Someone or something you definitely could live without.
Day 17 → A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.
Day 18 → Your views on gay marriage.
Day 19 → What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?
Day 20 → Your views on drugs and alcohol.
Day 21 → (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?
Day 22 → Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.
Day 23 → Something you wish you had done in your life.
Day 24 → Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)
Day 25 → The reason you believe you’re still alive today.
Day 26 → Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
Day 27 → What’s the best thing going for you right now?
Day 28 → What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?
Day 29 → Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.
Day 30 → A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself.