Somebody's Everything

Mike’s been out of town for the last four days so I’ve been parenting Zephyr alone, and it’s actually been a lovely and magical time for most of it, but this evening was awful. After three and a half days of being sweet, enthusiastic, helpful, and cooperative, my angelic and precocious chatterbox became whiny and obnoxious. I have been low on sleep, and my patience wore out, and his response to my attempt to set some boundaries was desperate and clingy and I gave in when I shouldn’t have and ended up resenting him after bedtime took an extra hour (which hasn’t happened since August; lately bedtime has been like clockwork, smooth and fast, so this took me by surprise.) Tonight I finally went in to his room at the end of many tears, wiped his nose, snuggled him for a few minutes. I asked him, when I left this time, to please let me go and not call me back. He wrapped his arms around my arm and said quietly, tearfully, “but I really love you.” I said, “I really love you too, more than anything!” And he said, “Mama, I’m a jewel for you. Am I your jewel?” I didn’t even know he knew that word.

It’s hard to be

somebody’s everything.

Especially somebody who I am biologically programmed to believe is the most wonderful person, whose needs seem simple and few and I am a total heel to disregard them or prioritize my own.

I know not every day can be perfect

I’m still mad this one wasn’t

Grumpy, resentful, guilty, embarrassed (in a group house there are always witnesses to one’s parenting errors.)

Mike gets home in a few minutes. My poem time is shot. Y’all, this is what I got for you tonight. Wish I had something joyful instead.

I'm making a comic book out of what is one of my favorite songs. I'm learning some photoshop while I'm at it. Basically the entire thing will probably be produced by manipulating photographs other people took; though, it might incorporate some original art. It's going to be dark, because the world is dark and I don't want to forget that, but it's going to have redemption, because I believe in redemption.

Redemption is what the song is about to me, even if Simon or Benji or their official music video disagree, and a bunch of other people think it's pop bs. That's what great about art - you get to interpret it however you want to. 

I would've preferred to do a comic version of Train, but I wouldn't want to fuck it up, so I'm doing this first:

​

(For those of you interested it's a superposition of the Baltimore PD in riot gear over syrian wreckage, heavily proccessed)

Blankaday test

This is from a few weeks ago so it doesn't count :)

Ok. Alright. I'm already cheating because I wrote this poem years ago. It was okay. It's much better now, in fact it's been polished until it glistens. I'm putting it here because I worked on it this morning while the sun came up, and I need to prove to myself that I'm capable of putting the best words in their best order.

This poem is called Identity Crisis.

I have friends who are straight,
Who grew up (and still live) in Brighton and Clayton, and

Aspire to coherent narratives

And children.

I have friends who are queer,
They're splitting rent and cable in Fawkner and Sunshine, and
Ignore hypothetical imperatives

With abandon.

Some of my best friends are guys
With beards and bluffs and disguises

Pissing in streets and scratching themselves.

Some of my best friends are girls
With hearts or throats still unfurling

Weeping off makeup touched up through the day.

One of my gay friends from Northcote
Acts straight behind fences while pissing south
Into drains running east towards Westgarth.

One of my girlfriends from Kooyong
Dreamed of fucking in Westgarth while planning her wedding
In alleys and love while out of control.

Some of my drunk friends are dancers
Who scratch souls when fucking
Those hard girls proposing
To drainpipes and pickets
The tough guys take
Pictures and pills to diminish
An evening spent with a
Man in an alley

Sham pain dripped away
On the south side of Northcote
Revealing a genderfucked queer
Who'd forgotten to cry
After night after night
Spent in urine soaked drains.

Some of my best friends
Sold and controlled
Lost their bodies on back streets
While freeing their hearts
To wander through suburbs
Of dreamers and dancers
Who've all at one time
Cried off the face they were wearing that day.

Love Dance, a poem 

By Laura Bender

Bodies, minds reaching

For what they desire

When we are alone

When we're together

Swirling among what we require.

I have always drawn on paper using pens and pencils, but just recently I have started drawing digitally and finding it really fun. Here are a couple drawings from the past week or so. I am so excited to share and to draw more! 

Oh hello, dusty blog! Here is a draft of some song lyrics I wrote for some music my dad is composing. It occurred to me that I write more when I think people are watching, so I'm posting it. Maybe I'll start posting more again. Maybe not.

Will You Please Just Let Me Have My Despair For A Minute

My teacher says I try too hard, but

I need to try harder.

I can’t relax and try to float

I’m drowning in this water

Birds sing and soar to demonstrate

And cry ‘just be yourself!’

But they don’t seem to understand

Myself’s not good enough

You can fly, sure—you’ve got wings.

I’m standing in a trough.

These crazy people watching me

Expect me to take off

I guess when wings were handed out

I was just off somewhere

And now nobody seems to get

Why I’m not in the air

I don’t have any excuses

I’m smart, I’m strong, so true

But I’m really tired of hearing

“We all believe in you!”

My teacher reassures me, but

I don’t know on what grounds

I can’t relax into my “voice”

I don’t know how it sounds

I know it’s temporary

Life has up and down years

but before proclaiming my glory
please let me have these tears.

-Alissa Mortenson Tyka

Easter research

White Elephant

 My contribution to a punny white elephant gift exchange.

My Tomorrow Self

My tomorrow self will take care

of that email I should write.

Those thank-you notes, too,

she’ll totally send those.

My tomorrow self has resources

and understanding that I do not.

She has slept better.

My tomorrow self knows just what to do

re: that thorny question

I can’t decide about.

This project? I’m not sure how to start it.

It’s okay, though,

my tomorrow self’s got it covered.

I’ll just surf the internet

and wait for her to show up

with the answers.

My tomorrow self never snoozes the alarm

and always goes for her morning run.

Tomorrow self does the dishes, too,

and doesn’t mind them.

She likes doing all the things

that I just can’t face.

Yesterday self, though—

what a jerk.

She left a big mess

for me to clean up.

Thank goodness

my tomorrow self

will handle that for me.