Defiant Angel

Who are you to define this feeling?
To bottle me up like a drug
Telling me who I am
And what's wrong with me
My diagnosis
It'll all be solved if I grind my way
Through the system

Hat's off to your majesty
Your words are almighty
The sheets of paper
That decide my life
Circle around
Telling me who I am
Who I'm supposed to be

Once, I forgot a detail
Once, I forgot a smile
And the way back uphill
Wasn't worth my while
Call me bipolar
Call me a lie
I'll still be in exile
Trying to hide

I'm not a rebel, anymore
No defiant angel
It's easier to swallow your drugs
And walze through your system
Through all the tunnels you dug
For your trains

Glory, your majesty
I bow to you,
I'm on my knees
For making me realize
My own disease
Medicate me
Have me sedated
Take away my pain


Once, I forgot a detail
Once, I forgot a smile
And the way back uphill
Wasn't worth my while
Call me bipolar
Call me a lie
You found me, in exile
Trying to hide

POET in the JAR

Cardboard Boxes

A shard of my old life
In a cardboard box
A splinter of my life
In a cardboard box
And a photograph
I'd forgotten I had

A cup of coffee in the morning
To wake me from my sleep
But there's still vacuum
In my dreams

A shard of my new life
Living day by day
Oh, one by one
I took all the boxes
To a different place
And a scribbled note
By your shaking hands

A cup of coffee in the morning
To wake me from my sleep
But there's still vacuum
In my dreams

As if it hadn't been
As if I hadn't been there
They erased all reminders
That kept my stare

They said you'd died
It's easier like that
With you dead
That I'd forget
And clear my mind
With you dead

But there's still vacuum
There's still vacuum
There's still vacuum
In my dreams

Rainfall Bay

It's never silent in Silent City
No other place is as loud
The name is misplaced
And withers away
As if they had thought they could change

It's never quiet inside my mind
Even when I rest
When I sleep at night
My thoughts are too many
They wither away
As if I had thought I could change

This lane goes straight through me
Straight through the tunnel you drilled
And life runs me over, over again
Reliving the times I was killed

It never rains by Rainfall Bay
Maybe your tears could wash it away
The lighthouse by the sea
Bewildering me
As if you had thought I could change

This lane goes straight through me
Straight through the tunnel you drilled
And life runs me over, over again
Reliving the times I was killed

As if I had thought you could change

POET IN THE JAR

Face Punches

Why is it always that when things seem to work out pretty nicely something simply HAS to come around and punch you in the face? Or stomach? Or any other appropriate place where a punch would feel appropriate. There was a reason I left this place, I'm not blaming anyone cause really it's nobody's fault and I know this. But somehow still it's just easy to see all the bad and not the good, see all the drama and all the bullshit rather than all the other stuff... though I haven't been away from here any more than like, two weeks, this city feels totally alien, it's just not me anymore. My new life and heart is in Skövde and that's where I'll stay, like honestly, after Midsummer's, if I'm going home I am going home to the countryside and not to this city. It's just full of people that I well have either a bad history with or they make me associate with bad history (yes I'm aware I'm a difficult person but yeah that's just who I am). Queen said the other day that I don't have the exclusive right to be depressed, and that I've been depressed since birth, ha. I was feeling pretty good, I am feeling pretty good, every  second that I'm in my new city and not here, every second that I'm there I'm just fine. Getting my own room is going to be simply awesome I can tell. My place is not here, my place is not there either probably, it's someplace either where I can well allow myself to be myself and just grow and well just be without all the bad shit that comes along with its wake.

Today I was packing out the last stuff in my old apartment, stumbled on some scribbles from my ex and totally broke down, I feel like a widow, I'm acting just the way a widow would and as if he had died rather than decided to walk out of my life and well nothing more to that. But he did die, part of me died, I guess something must have died in order to give life to this, my new life, my new situation? Something had to be really really bad in order to be good, and I really mean it was bad. You wouldn't know how far it went even if I told you.

Anyway waiting for my friends to come over into this borrowed apartment cause they missed their bus home, better get ready and make room for them. Tomorrow I'll be attending Pier Pressure for the first time since last time haha, well since 2007 or something, possibly 2008? Either way I don't care, tomorrow will be 2010 and that's all I really care about. So see you tomorrow among all the beers and awesome bands and the beautiful, wonderful James.

POET IN THE JAR

Cancer Growth

I am the voice of your whisper
The words on your broken lips
Lips turning into butterflies
Fluttering their wings
Into the ashes you sing

I'm the skin on your fingers
Between you and the world
Your shield, your illusion
Protection against
Everything

You're silent, these days
You don't speak
Even in whispers
No one that listens

You lost your touch
Your way with things
And all your grace
All these days

I'm here, waiting
For a word to be spoken
I'm here, broken

Cancer, dark poison, spreads
Shadows, visual echoes
Of the dead

Det döda i din röst
Det döda i dina ögon
I dina fingrar

Du finns ännu
Och du lever

Men jag, som är del av dig
Fick ge efter och dö
För din överlevnad

I'm waiting, broken
All unspoken
You broke me
To survive

You're cancer now
And you thrive

____________________________________

This is another hybrid piece with elements of both English and Swedish. It's simply the way it turned out as I wrote it off my head at 1 AM in the morning. The part in Swedish translates as follows.

"The dead in your voice
The dead in your eyes
In your fingers

You still exist
And you're alive

But I, who am part of you
Had to give in and die
For your survival"

POET in the JAR

Settling In

Moving always gives you some perspective on life, good or bad. When you're driving out of your old city, you suddenly remember everything that happened there, every loss you had, every kiss you had, every friend you had, everything. Every place you lived. Everything you did. A couple years of your life chucked on the garbage pile labelling it "Baggage".
The new place won't be much different. It'll have the same kind of drama and the same kind of everyday commotion. But it will be new to you, because you have never seen it before, and you see it with different eyes.
I'm seeing things with different eyes and everything here seems just better than before. I don't think it has anything to do really with the city, though this city indeed is pretty cozy; I think it has to do with this. Suddenly I have school and I find it so interesting that I long to go to school. It's five minutes away by bike, I live in a dorm hall where everyone is being social with eachother and making me feel welcome. And I don't have to spend my hours of my days going to a job that was supposed to be temporary and that I never really wanted to have.
I'm listening to Simon & Garfunkel, my mother's favorite artist, such beautiful songs, and writing this just as a little update for you guys. Though both sad and uplifting as it is I believe I will really come to love it here. Part of me already does. I will love it even more when I have my own room to decorate.
POET in the JAR

Throne Of Gold

Throne of gold
Would be yours
You'd climb the world
Turning your back on everything
All the needles
Every sin

You told me we'd scream
Empty our lungs
To all the world
I believed you, and your dreams
We could be great
Make our names

I was climbing the world
The highest mountain there was
Pursuing every hope I was denied
Because of your promises
But you lied

You're not going for the sky
You're not building that ladder
If that hope wasn't true for you
Were those dreams unreal
For me too?

Throne of gold
Won't be yours
You won't chase it
I'm all alone

With my dreams

Puppet, Doll

My sleep is calm,
And undisturbed
I don't look back
At your attacks
When I was hurt

This my cocoon, now
This the safest place, of all
Curtains closing, puppet
Curtains closing, doll
Come sleep here

That innocence I lost
So many times
Stabbing my heart
Raping my mind
I look away, puppet

I look away, doll

And I sleep

Calm and undisturbed

Imprints

These eyes, they're dead eyes
This smile's a dead smile
And I'm empty inside
A window pane
With the imprint

Of your hand

It shows in my eyes
When I slant my head
And repeat myself
With every spoken word
You can tell
With every whisper
From my hell

The rebel spark in me, is dying
The voice in my head is lying
I can't be anything
Can't have it all
That's the illusion
They built for my fall

These hands, are frozen hands
This knot, a rusted rope
And I'm empty inside
A window in rain
With the imprint

Of your fingers

My Bloody Hands

At first you had my pardon
While you were in shock, I pitied you
I was sorry for your loss
For disturbing you
With bloody hands

My wild collided with your calm
Ruining everything you knew
Stirring winds and storms
In your sky, so clear, so blue
Your innocence, doll, your smile
I run it down, as we collide

At first, I felt for you
The broken china, repairing you
I wanted to glue us together
I was healing you
With bloody hands

My wild collided with your calm
Ruining everything you knew
Stirring winds and storms
In your sky, so clear, so blue
Your innocence, doll, your smile
I run it down, as we collide

By now I fear for you
For everything you seek into
It was my blood, on my hands
You didn't see
My selfless hands

My wild collided with your calm
Ruining everything you knew
Stirring winds and storms
In your sky, so clear, so blue
Your innocence, doll, your smile
I run it down, as we collide

By now, you're in debt to me
Even while scared you should care for me
And be sorry for my scars
The devil applied
On my bloody hands

My wild collided with your calm
Taking away safe, replacing with harm
Stirring whirlwinds, and hurricanes
And burning the barn
Your innocence, doll, your smile
I run it down, as we collide...

Bricks & Pillars

Oh, you felt guilty for everything
That's weighed you down
And you have felt like the tower
Now crashing to the ground
I don't blame you for your love
I don't blame you for what was

Come closer, I can pass my love to you
What little I got left, we could split in two
Come closer, I can give you my hand
Lead your way, through your day

And I'll help you build
Your golden bricks, and silver pillars
And I will lift you up
Don't give up, yet
Don't give in, my friend
Though I know this feels like the end
I know this feels like the end

I know you feel selfish, for mourning
All that you were given
And you have felt like a dying stream
I don't blame you for your love
I just won't let you drown,
let you down

Come closer, I can pass some love to you
What little I got left, we could split in two
Come closer, little angel made of dust
Don't stay there in the rain,
I won't let you rust

Now we build your golden bricks
and silver pillars
And I will lift you up
Don't give up, yet
Don't give in, my friend
Though I know this feels like the end
I know this feels like the end

Of us

____________________________

A song meant for my Karoliina Piispa.
Hang in there.
POET IN THE JAR

Idiocy - I'll Be Truthful

Just a few weeks left and I can leave this place, seems like so many of the people here, even friends, are total idiots! Everyone is either hurting everyone else, making nothing out of big deals, and making big deals out of nothing. Everywhere you look it's just complicated and hurtful, even among your friends, among people you knew; everyone carries dark secrets with them that you don't see by first glance. Why do you always happen to get in the way of idiots when there's so many good and trustworthy people? I don't understand, and I don't understand some of the things that people can actually allow themselves to do to eachother.
I could just sit by quietly and watch all of it, and shut the fuck up about it, but that wouldn't be me. It would go against everything I've ever encouraged others to do, everything that I stand for. I will hold back slightly, out of respect to my friend. I will mention no one by name, I will not go into exact detail out of respect to my own integrity, but I'm going to tell you what happened.
This weekend I had too much to drink and ended up being approached by my friend's partner in a very inappropriate way, while I was sleeping. It stuns me that someone would cross that line. I'm angry and disappointed, and worried about my friend, and how she's taking it. I told her what happened, I think she already knew it, but it doesn't matter. What friend would I be if I didn't tell? I hope she understands that I have no reason to lie. I've been her friend for a few years now. I don't want her to be angry with me, don't want to lose her. I don't know how to patch things together, I feel like it's my fault even though it isn't, and it makes me angry too, I'm supposed to be a strong person and no one has that right, to cross that border. You just don't cross it. No matter if you're drunk, you should be able to think, you should be able to think somewhere deep inside that this is not okay, this is taking it too far.
I wish I'd been more sober myself and I would have left as soon as it happened, but I could barely even lift my head up without the room spinning. This just sucks! And what an end to an otherwise perfectly nice night? I don't get it... it's not fair!
Phew. There I got it out of me. Those of you who haven't heard about it already, now you know, at least shallowly and that's a good thing. Because no one tells me to shut up. No one tells me what to say or not to say, what to write or not to write. No one tells me who I am - and no one, absolutely no one - has that right.
POET in the JAR

Hunt That Word Flow!

The idea is spinning uncontrollably in my head and I can't breathe, every waking second it's on my mind, it's in my blood, racing. The story is telling itself inside my head, sometimes in slow motion, other times in ultra rapid speed, always altering, always revising, always coming up with better ways. It ties itself together as it spins through my subconscious, when I least expect the solutions to appear is when they pop out and seem... obvious. I wonder why I never thought of it before.
My fingers are itching to act out on this, to type, to turn this imagery and world inside my head into letters on a page so that someone other than me can see it. Can grasp how beautiful, how sorrowful, it is; even though my ways of describing it in words will never be quite enough to mediate what it's really like.
Alarm clocks go off inside my head telling me I have the previous novel to revise, a poem collection to finish, an apartment to clean out, course books to read, cats to feed, a tattoo machine to fix and a painting to make but I put them on snooze, shutting out those that aren't immediately important in favor for those that can possibly afford 10 minutes more of snoozing... because the idea is fleeting, the world is fleeting, and I have to grasp it while I can. These flows don't happen often. Not even during Nanowrimo, when all you do is write, putting less crucial things such as personal hygiene aside; do you often see them. They hit you sometimes in the madness around 3 AM on a week night when you can't sleep, or when you're nowhere near your word processor and you have to jot it all down on a coffee machine filter for the time being; but this is a flow, and a major flow, and I have to catch it until something dams it up and blocks it off entirely. Like a beaver (I am convinced this will amuse a certain someone) building a dam across the river bed stopping the water from running wild and free.
Patience dears, I'm getting there eventually, but for now Jake & Maddy need me,
and I have to catch that flow.
Hunt that flow!
POET IN THE INSANELY PRODUCTIVE; EFFICIENT AND SLEEPLESS JAR

Chasing Ella

Jake and Maddy are two brothers accidentally ending up in a fight with a couple of older boys. The situation is half salvaged by the old man Ellis walking in on the fight. When paying their respects to the man months later, at his funeral, something strange happens involving the graveyard's gravedigger, and the brothers find themselves in a completely new and sinister world. Ella's world. With the idea of finding Ella weighing on Jake's mind he continously zones away from reality and retreats into himself - counting on Maddy to keep them both out of the worst trouble.

Maddy is the narrator in this Alice-inspired tale, landing you in the middle of a dark dream world as far from any children's story as you can get.

Alice & The Caterpillar

A slanting sign post
Slanting arrows
Which to follow?
Which to trust?

She's a little girl in a blue little dress
A question mark, a game of chess
She's Cheshire, she's Lancelot
The giant mushroom,
in the parking lot

She wanders on, sign says Here
The other sign points her Over There
Maybe she should take neither,
and just walk across the grass
Some of Caterpillar's grass

I'm Caterpillar, in my cocoon,
I'm everything from sun to moon
I'm a man of riddles, a man of smoke
She senses my fumes
I make her choke

I will stroke your hair, Alice
Your dark blue curls
Blow little smoke rings,
Over your head
Then leave you with the mushroom, instead
And the slanting signs
The cookies in the glass jar
And the Drink Me wine

I have to go now, Alice
Leaving my cocoon
Hate to leave you guideless
And lost, so soon

But follow those signs, Alice
They'll lead you the way
Anywhere they take you will be
Some other where than here
And some other where than here
Will be some other place than now
Some other time or no time at all
Tea time, doubly so!
Now hurry on,
You never know

Keep your hat on, Alice, and bow
To yourself
And to no one else

Bow to no one else

Tea

I don't want to be
your bitter flavored tea.
I want to be the lemon slice,
all the sugar, all the spice,
the scent of safety
behind the void.
Stir me like you stir your tea,
have me like you wanted me,
good and pure,
and then destroyed.
I'll be bitter,
I'll be sweet,
all of what you want from me.
But you will choke on me.
You will choke on me.

Gunsmoke

Where is your desire
The fire in your eyes
Your lust, your greed
Your bullet time,
Slow motion speed
A heart by hire
All you need

You build a world of mirrors
Never look in the glass
And follow the train tracks
Without looking back
You never stop,
You never breathe
Never to take time for me

Where is your desire
The fire in your eyes
Your lust, your greed
Your bullet time,
Slow motion speed
A heart by hire
All you need

You lost your hope in the funhouse
Lost among the aisles
Chasing your demons,
Chasing your vial
You never cease
Glass from lips
Always have that wine

At ready

Where is your desire
The fire in your eyes
Your lust, your greed
Your bullet time,
Slow motion speed
A heart by hire
All you need

I'm not the heart by hire
I'm gunsmoke, burnt out fire
I can see it in your shallow eyes
You rule out fire for cold ice
I'm not what you're looking for
Don't you realize?
I'm not your replica
Not your copy
Not your lie

Where is your desire
The fire in your eyes
Your lust, your greed
Your bullet time,
Slow motion speed
A heart by hire
All you need

You've done your work with me
Leave me in my bed, go home,
Fall asleep
In your own sheets,
With your own scent
With your own replica
Paying your rent

Where is your desire
Where is your greed?
Ignore connections,
And attraction
Heart by hire
All you need

A heart you're leasing
might not bleed

Magic, Cynic

Could it for once be something... more? Something that wasn't entirely schemed, planned out and calculated from every direction? Couldn't there be that look across the room, across the road, the sound of her light steps on the floor, on the pavement? Could there be an honest smile? Could there be gentle eyes? Wiping away every inch of me that is cynic and tough. Wiping it away with the magic.

I'm not a romantic in person. Not in the way of pink glouds (yes, glouds), glitter and a big fancy marriage in a church, or getting so attached to your other half that that's exactly what you become - half a person. Two people joined together as one, losing all identity and touch. Not in the way of believing that love is something that gets stronger over the years, rather than losing all of its introductory charm. I know that what you feel for someone can be strengthened by the day. I was there, I've felt it, I know it. And it was different from other things I known. But the deep part of me, the one deep inside that doesn't act like me, speak like me, think like me; that part didn't disappear. There were still feelings of being chained to the ground. It was because I hadn't found the right one. I had found someone I let very close, someone who it hurt to love. But it wasn't the one. Couldn't been.

If there is such a thing as a soulmate, how does it work? Can you really just find one person that is that mirror of yourself, without becoming your replica; and if it doesn't work out that's it? We've blown it? I doubt it, it just doesn't feel right, but when did life feel right? When was life fair, last time I checked? And if there are indeed odds that we will find that one person who's completely right for us, the odds that it will last seem to shrink beside it, in comparison.

I'm not looking for something perfect, something magical, or something that was meant to be. I just wish I wasn't looking at all. And if indeed I wasn't, I'd accidentally stumble upon something small, that was real. Something that was not calculations made on a match making site, an assumption of attraction only based on our sexual identities, something that wasn't a random and shallow encounter in some bar just to be left the day after. Maybe I'm just not cut out for it. I make it out to be as though I was left and hurt while friends of mine don't find it odd at all to be thrown away like a useless rag after use. Some call it casual, that we all have needs, that it's all done on equal demands.

But is it?

We're shallow people, we've lost our faith in romance. I don't remember what it's like to cast a look across a room and meet a pair of eyes and you just instantly know that there's a connection. I don't remember what it's like to kiss someone sober, in a magical moment, a first kiss full of anticipation and desire. I don't know what it's like to have someone close to you that doesn't feel like a burden, that gives you energy rather than taking it away.

Why am I up at this hour, why am I like this again, will things never turn back to normal? I want to be the person I used to be, I want to believe, I want to feel there is something out there for me, someone, someone with those pretty shoes. Someone witty and smart, and reassuringly odd, an Alice, a little girl. I don't wanna be up at 4.11 AM on a Saturday night staring at a screen at words that feel dead to my eyes even as I type them. I don't want to feel like I'm dead, like I'm dying away from everything that's worth living.

I don't wanna wait. I don't wanna wait for everything to work out eventually. I want things now and I want them good, I want it all, I'm done with substitutes, which everything that's trivial and doesn't matter. I want this month to race by because in a new city I can have a new start and a new life and who knows maybe just a grain of something that resembles love.

Something that's real.

Just a look. With those sparkling eyes.
I want to know when I will find you.
When I will find her.
So I know if it'll be worth my wait.

POET IN THE JAR

Your Hour Glass

I see your hour glass
With time that's running out
Time is running out for me
With all the seconds passed
I'm still the same as I used to be
Caught in all my old routines

Pour your sand over me
I'll still be your reflection
Take your hand off your creation
I haven't changed at all
As you can see

Use your open eyes to convey me
And try to face the different light
With all that's left of your dishonesty
You've built your life on a lie

Pour your sand over me
I'll still be your reflection
Take your hand off your creation
You are the one who's been changing me

You have been blinded by the grains
While you've been busy counting time
And every wound that you've inflicted on me
Takes the same form in your mind

Pour your sand over me
I'll still be your reflection
Take your hand off your creation
I haven't changed at all
You've made me

Starting with nothing
You gave me all
From empty pockets
To a heavy heart
Starting with nothing
You made me fall
From empty eyes
I'm now sore

Compared to nothing,
Pain is more

Pour your sand over me
I'll still be your reflection
Take your hand off your creation
Look what you have made, of me
A doll of pure desperation
Stitching eyes to see

Pour your sand over me...

Low

Hitting a low, wasn't going to take my pills for today but in the end I found myself in the bathroom scrambling up some anyway. Listening to Abney Park to try and take some of the edge away. It's working alright. His voice usually soothes me.
Today I had a strange idea about writing a kid's book about UFO's. Maybe I'll do that sometime. Meanwhile I'll just have to spend tomorrow on the poem collection, my deadline for that is on Saturday. I got today off so no worries.
Sigh Robert's voice really helps.
Now maybe for an episode or so of Red Dwarf before bed so I can die away laughing.
POET in the JAR