"To me, she's not even human, she's some kind of a germ." - Henry Rollins

To me, she’s not even human, she’s some kind of a germ. A concoc-

tion. She is neurotic, nasty and abusive. Pathetic is a word that

springs to mind. When she is loud and drunk, it’s torture being

around her. She treats marijuana like some life preserving drug. She

is most lively when she has a chance to get fucked up. Whenever

she’s spazzing out and drooling over pot, I think to myself, “coke

whore” but I change the word “coke” to pot. She doesn’t bathe much

and sometimes the stench can be quite noxious. I don’t like being

associated with her because I see how nasty she is with people who

I work with. When she comes into a room, I either leave or try to get

out of earshot of her. I hope she goes on her painful little way and

leaves my sight. Not a bone in me hates that girl. She has managed

to turn off everyone around her. She sure did it to me. I never set out

to feel like that, no way. Now it’s at the point where it’s totally

irreversible.

Do Not Make Things Too Easy - Martha Baird

Do not make things too easy.

There are rocks and abysses in the mind

As well as meadows.

There are things knotty and hard: intractable.

Do not talk to me of love and understanding.

I am sick of blandishments.

I want the rock to be met by a rock.

If I am vile, and behave hideously,

Do not tell me it was just a misunderstanding.

Debt - Sara Teasdale

What do I owe to you

     Who loved me deep and long?

You never gave my spirit wings

     Nor gave my heart a song.

But oh, to him I loved,

     Who loved me not at all,

I owe the little open gate

     That led through heaven’s wall.

you fit into me - Margaret Atwood

you fit into me

like a hook into an eye

a fish hook

an open eye

"In the desert" - Stephen Crane

In the desert

I saw a creature, naked, bestial,

Who, squatting upon the ground,

Held his heart in his hands,

And ate of it.

I said: “Is it good, friend?”

“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;

“But I like it

Because it is bitter,

And because it is my heart.”

THE FAIRY REEL - Neil Gaiman

If I were young as once I was, and dreams

     and death more distant then,

I wouldn't split my soul in two, and keep

     half in the world of men,

So half of me would stay at home, and

     strive for Faërie in vain,

While all the while my soul would stroll up

     narrow path, down crooked lane,

And there would meet a fairy lass and

     smile and bow with kisses three,

She'd pluck wild eagles from the air and

     nail me to a lightning tree

And if my heart would run from her or

     flee from her, be gone from her,

She’d wrap it in a nest of stars and then

     she'd take it on with her

Until one day she'd tire of it, all bored

     with it and done with it

She'd leave it by a burning brook, and off

     brown boys would run with it.

They'd take it and have fun with it and

     stretch it long and cruel and thin,

They'd slice it into four and then they'd

     string with it a violin.

And every day and every night they'd

     play upon my heart a song

So plaintive and so wild and strange that

     all who heard it danced along

And sang and whirled and sank and trod and

     skipped and slipped and reeled and rolled

Until, with eyes as bright as coals, they'd

     crumble into wheels of gold....

But I am young no longer now; for sixty

     years my heart's been gone

To play its dreadful music there, beyond

     the valley of the sun.

I watch with envious eyes and mind, the

     single–souled, who dare not feel

The wind that blows beyond the moon,

     who do not hear the Fairy Reel.

If you don't hear the Fairy Reel, they will

     not pause to steal your breath.

When I was young I was a fool. So wrap

     me up in dreams and death.