The Velveteen Rabbit

here's how I'm looking at things...

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

Welcome to Taking Lessons from Toys!
Let's talk about the things that matter to a nineteen (and counting) year old: poetry, music, amazing places, and food...

A Place for Poetry...

half of me on land

[sitting in front of the ocean: 8.02.09; 7:35 am]

i’m imaginary while stationary

next to the woman who wakes the gods that I do not believe in

the gods in the haze, the swell

before noon, the little girl in me

breezed away, swept over,

overlooked, the little girl in me

only under my toe, only thicker

than the froth, the washed up

entities, my self, my fears:

the wars, whatever I am crying about

i ask the sun saluter

to my right to intercess, maybe it’ll

mean something more when she

reaches up

it just might within the slight

dusting of light and grain beneath

me, I may cry forever and

never cry again and I myself

may gently salute the sun

Friday, March 18, 2011

My Favorite Poetic Narrative I've Ever Written!

Just uncovered this beauty...it's called...

Ancestry

I come from deep trenches and hollow street vents.  I come from an incinerated people, a history lesson.  they have all become to me what I am to them, a legacy, a continuation, a fulfillment.  I come from their soft bones and budding voices.  My hands are fresh too, and freckled; they have worked the same struggle, touched the same fence, clasped the same bread.  I come from sweeping winds which lower the highest trees.  I've bloomed from poison, discrimination, destiny, death, and love's many trials.  The refuse beneath my finger nails comes from their grounds, their origins.  The rings around my eyes are centuries old, as are the marks upon my skin.  I bruise when they call to me and cry when I find no purpose.  I come from bar stools and smoky air.  I belong to faulty love spells and the smell of smoke.  The voice of hope within a glassy room is my music.  The small, lingering song is my identity; it is my anthem.  I come from business scams and broken promises, from threats and punishments.  I come from a clean heart, a pristine gentleman.  I come from a cynic, and a traveler, a lifter of many grave items.
I belong in a woman's arms.  I am her fulfillment.  She is my freckled forearm.  She is my pure enamel.  I belong to her embrace, her earnings, and her compassion.  I belong to crime, to struggle, to money, abuse, purity, adultery, faith, pleads, and hopes.  The scandal is on my shoulders. The unfaithfulness shares my once tainted name.  But, the cleanliness and the soothing melody of the rocking chair make me bold.  The arms make me walk on far from hollow grounds.  And I have chosen to scrape the enamel.  I want to be taught, to sing.  I come from a hollow substance which promises something deeper.
I am a part of the smoke and filfthy air.  I sit on my bar stool and realize that I am only an apparition.  I am only who the me that sits on upholstery may become.  I am the improper division of fear by empowerment.  I am scum and I am light.
The laughter which echoes from behind the car comes not from my own voice, but from the superfluous and abrupt voice which claims to be mine.  My weight may be measured half in emotion, in beauty, and some in strength; my other half, in sin.  Yet, I seem to tip the metaphorical scale every minute, every hour, as the light in me piles higher.  I am a rebel, a lover, a peacemaker, a con artist, and a sister.  The identity is too strong.  I rant and rave but do not stand still.  I cry and fall, but still admire the sparks on angled stone which make me who I am.
I come from a rather regional family of fault and failure.  I have sprung up from a hot tray ok cookies and a bed of hyacinths.  I am from love and rage, but can only feel so many at once.  The blood I own is mainly borrowed, and I will not keep it all for myself.  I will lend it to another parcel in the air, another freckled finger, another piece of tomorrow.

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