Evacuate Soul

Sally likes to run relapse around the track at the gym

There’s a shocking amount of comfort in going in circles

In moving constantly and getting nowhere at all

Sally is shirking at solid foods and solid convictions, and gags at either one

Sally sells herself down by the seashore in her daydreams

But in reality she is half-asleep on the bathroom floor trying to [not] make herself sick

Sally swallows electrolytes and lies just to make it through the day and stands

On stilettos and pedestals that the villagers build for her, she is tired of people

Worshipping her body, of sinking their teeth into her like some hard hollow chocolate bunny

Sally is in trouble and incoherent and is trying to practice self-love with her eyes

Closed and her hand between her legs but can only think of how dirty

His fingernails were and Sally watches sad movies because she has taught herself not to cry otherwise

Sally is as white as a polar bear and twice as aggressive

The color has gone out of her face and into her fucking language

It takes a lot for Sally to make puns or to make love now, and that’s probably for the best

December Whatever

I remember looking away
The way I am told to
Do when having blood drawn
It seems an appropriate response
To having something vital being taken
From one's body

No doesn't mean anything
When you weigh 96 pounds
Two ounces of screaming could have stopped it
Or if a door would have been flung open
Anything close to a cry would have made it
What it really was

I spent the entire last summer punching
Every male around me square in the jaw
It was half the drinking problem
And half making up for lost time

Chewing and Spitting

America the beautiful ugly

Habits die hard

A basket case study
In glitter
Glimmer
Glamour
Glutton

Obsession with getting things out
Of her body
Does anyone else think it's funny

This oral fixation or
Obsession with control

Veins
Always already penetrated
By every needle
From a broken record

Player winner loser
Low numbers just like golf
Just like a dance floor
The dizzier the better
She loves that

Feeling, almost near
Fainting
The feeling one gets when falling
In love

Je ne suis pas fatigué, j'ai beaucoup d'énergie

Translation: I'm not tired, I have lots of energy. FALSE. In fact, I feel depleted of any semblance of energy, but I once had a CD called "I Can Learn French: hip-hop edition", and this single line from said CD has been stuck in my head all week. My conscious is one sarcastic son of a bitch. The point is, lately, I hardly dress up anymore. Instead of putting thought into an outfit, and dressing like art, I've been in red plaid flannel and black leggings, and dressing like the hottie sweet-stache'd lumberjack that used to be on the front of the Bounty paper towel package.. And my only accessory? A constant black cup of coffee in a semi-shaky hand. This was perfect, this was my shit, last month when I was in Oregon. I was overjoyed and ecstatic to walk around everyday in skinny sweats and rain boots, with absolutely no makeup. I was on a farm then, and happy as can be. But I mean, I think I only looked in a mirror like, ONCE. (That day I took a long, hot shower). But here, back in Austin, it's all part of it. Part of waking up, getting ready for the day, and running around the city getting things done. But I'm lazy, I'm tired. Je suis fatigué, je n'ai pas d'énergie. I AM tired, I have NO energy. 

I'm generally a hard-worker sweating out at the grindstone. It's a Taurus thing allegedly, but mostly I think it's due to my middle-class, and then awesome single-mom household upbringing. But clothes? Outfits? Dressing up is fun, but that doesn't mean I have to prioritize it at all times. What else is fun? Tennis, and when's the last time I played tennis. EXACTLY. So when I'm grindin at everything else, I look for lazy shortcuts with the way that I dress. I'm not saying anything is wrong with wearing the same leggings everyday, but personally, you guys, I'm starting to get a little #peopleofwalmart over here. 

Here's how to counter that. First of all, heels heels heels. Even when I AM wearing a flannel and leggings (multiple days in a row), adding a pair of high heels always adds more visual value to this outfit. I mean add heels to slummin bum clothes, and really you just look like a celebrity on her day off. Heels just make me feel good, and when you feel good, you look good. I wore shorts and stockings with this plain T-shirt because I really am tired of leggings right now, but leggings would look cute, too. 

Also a word on T-shirts- if there's one thing I fancy, it should be clear by now, that I love shirts that say things. ESPECIALLY when I'm not reeeeally getting dressed. I want to make some joke about these being statement pieces, but that's not even funny to me, and I generally crack myself up. 

Growing up I always remember reading things about how to dress for your body, I.e., how to dress for the parts of your body that you don't love. In retrospect, I intensely wish instead that these articles could have been written about advice about how to LOVE your body, but that's a whole 'nother story. So yeah, I decided to write on how to dress for laziness. How to dress if you're losing your shit during finals, or if you're a busy mom, or if you're one of those people that gets hangovers. (Lucky you, party animal) This is how to dress for fatigue. Also, shirts that say things make it at least look like you put a little bit of thought into it, insofar as you probably at least READ the shirt. At one point in time anyway. Also, I thought this shirt really encapsulated the entire feeling behind this blog. Also, you should love your body. Every part of it. Kay thanks bye. Time for more coffee.

Bags Under my Eyes shirt: Saturday School shopsaturdayschool.com

Black patterned high waisted shorts: Forever 21, you betcha forever21.com

Public Perception

Oh BELIEVE me dear if I could smoke DIRT
Out of a crack pipe I so WOULD
And if I could be any less cartoonish I so so
Would consider that as well I consider your innocence
You don't regard me as a villain, I am narcissistic to think it so

I think therefore I am goddam exhausted
What's the word for the opposite
Of a surgeons precision or a dumpster dweller's paranoia
I know, I KNOW I don't have any redeeming qualities and that sucks
Unless you count the way the freckles on my knees show through my stockings?

No? Okay it's cool just thought I'd ask

Looks like it's déjà vu for dinner again
Yummmmmmm  pshhh who needs an honest opinion

She is Mostly Made of Paint

"Fall fashion" can't always be a thing. Right now is the season of fall-ish fashion. -Ish is a necessary suffix this time of year in Austin, Texas. It's sunny-ish, but cool-ish. I can still show a little leg, but my hands get freezing cold.This kind of indecisive weather seems to call for more clothes, but unfortunately I don't always have the money to buy new clothes as often as I would like. Then again, updating one's wardrobe doesn't come down to new clothes. DIY has always been a bit of a punk thing, but its a dazzling thing, up for grabs for anyone. This is especially true for anyone looking to excite and refresh his or her old clothes.

So here's a simple fashion DIY craft idea. It may take longer than the few simple clicks of buying a fancy new 'fit online, but its totally worth it, and waaaaay cheaper. Aside from whatever piece of clothing you want to paint, this only requires two materials, totaling somewhere around twenty dollars. My denim jacket is so last year. Literally, I bought it last year, and I bought it secondhand, so there's absolutely no telling when it was born. Awesomely, it was reborn last week when I slathered it in some easy art. Denim, because its so thick, makes the perfect canvas. I don't own jeans, but if you do, try painting the pockets with a cool design to change those up.

You're going to want a brush characterized as having stiff bristles, as this allows better control. Personally, I used a Winton brush with a small round tip meant for oil painting, and it worked like magic. Arguably, you could use any kind of paint for this, but the dudes at my art store helped me find some good shit that's specific for crafts like this. It's fabric paint, and works almost just like acrylic but sticks a lot better and is completely washable.

Whatever your canvas, make sure its stretched out and free of wrinkles, just like when you're really painting. You're going to want to look at your space and make sure you have enough room for your text or your design. Use a pencil, or do it in your head if you're crazy like me. The rest is pretty self-explanatory. Hold your denim down firmly with one hand and paint with the other. So so easy. Let it dry at least overnight. It's like new clothes. It is new clothes. And you just made a fuckin craft.

Wolfsuit: Grey wolf by Spirithoods https://www.spirithoods.com/?gclid=CO7rw479y7oCFUVp7AodgXcAGA
Skirt: UNIF at dollskill

Postcards from Purgatory, 1

It's almost too much
Hiss of a held breath a punchline hit hard square on a locked jaw
No doors unlocked for a painted face work
Of art such as this
And we all know art is hard and art is ravished with damage
Should have stayed in the shallows indeed
Did meaning ever exist
Well did it ever

Ever did I love it
Did I pedestal and skyscrape towards rain clouds and
Did what I used to do transcend the word
Party, China doll she did not eyeroll
At my existentialist rants
Or my insatiable desire to break the nearest heart where

Where is a heart that beats to the tune of my internal comedown
 Sugared serpent lick as always
As ever I am embers dulling
The smoke the mirrors the middle finger
Kiss my culture you dumb fuck
Hey it's ok to
Fragment the death sentences

To slink in a state of forever he who shall not be named

Once wrote, strung out and strung along 

Jacks hard drive indeed what the fuck kind of dream catcher was that

The bones and the bugs and the forever feeling

Of swallowing hair wish I could squeeze a tear out of my tetanus face 

This is awful ever have I flatlined sidewalks splattered with vomit disco

How do they do it the beige the bland the hip bones connected to the 

Ether and something expanded when it stopped I shone

I grope for a similar skeleton, and internal mess also on fire

Also laughing like mad and there is a serious lack

Of sleepless nights these days I was a fucking rock star 

No pun intended in the end it's all bullshit

Or was that the beginning [British accent]

I'm not dead I'm not!

I'm getting betta! 

There Will be Pomo

This is how you end up titling on the edge of your bathtub late at night
Smoking with one hand, a razor blade in the other
Blade stares at your feminist leg
You just missed the feeling of war and the scene
Needs dressing, you light a candle for ambiance and you think about
The sexual revolution and women looking at their vaginas in
The mirror you do this all the time and don't feel revolutionized at all

They were learning to love their vaginas
And to understand them and here
The speaker implies that the two are mutually exclusive you look at

Scars on your legs nobody knows your legs like you do and you just
After griping and wearing stockings and having to make up stories when people ask you what happened to your legs
Holy fuck speaker of the poem will you ever quit drinking you just
Like the idea of permanence now or actually
Loyalty it's rare and it's hard

To come by after work to feel slow again and to be conscious of your body you touch the place
Where your ribcage used to be you have tried so many things on
Your body your temple you think of Indiana Jones and doom you begin making

A list of things to do so that you don't do the thing
You could paint if you had canvas you could work
On being beautiful but that would require the thing
Because solitude and it's just a burning
That you missed your body was never a temple but an extended metaphor for a perpetual emptiness
You were in love with seeing your bones because you were in love with the architecture and the structure of things here
The speaker of the poem is trying to see how much bullshit she can
Get away with this

Is how you end up naked and googling
Are there calories in promethazine
What wine goes best with codeine and the speaker of the poem is trying not to rhyme and trying to excuse the habit of
Oh I once upon a time had a horrible cough and it's back and oh
I have a headache yeah
Right it's a really bad headache and thank you for the
Oh I just felt so full I was just so
Full a body is a body is a body is a body when you close your eyes
You are letting him you hang
Limp on a crucifix no sound comes out of your sleepy mouth your breathe gone from lashings
Out of your stomach comes the only noise you can make
That internal organ yelling at least
Your mouth salivates and you work on that list

Cinnamon and Speed

Vinyl records getting dizzy from giving
Me the run around drunk on portable clock machines
Love me forever promise and swear and curse like sailors
Read at night read in the morning
Sharing favorite authors and secrets and sharing sweat
Forever promise always I am getting too old
For this maybe but they don't put a representative number of candles on my birthday anymore
I'm sorry for chewing and spitting in front of you but at least it made you believe
When Nicole and I were little we used to stick
Pretzels into our sandwiches

Happy birthday darling we love you very very very very very much

What the shit is a reference I still can't
Leave the house every piece
Of clothing hurts my skin I just want to be underneath
Your Christmas tree when you wake up as a ten year old who is still excited
About life and has never been arrested for illegality or the way
You were arrested when my eyes met yours
On a sidewalk that once felt like it meant something

Shameful Doorway

Sally is sick again and her feelings towards doctors are causing a huge fuss at the hospital
Too many times she has been made to lie down and hold still
Sally is nauseatingly good at keeping secrets but cannot keep a journal or a boyfriend anymore

Paperweighted down by postcards from fugue states, blank scantrons with no black
Bubble-lead eyes hint that Sally has 99 problems and intimacy is 97 of them
It was backbreaking work, relearning how to just be present inside her own body

In a newspaper and toothpick tiara she waves and smiles neon vacancies like a pornstar
She would rather have memory loss than world peace
Sally startles incredibly easily but is not afraid of men, the way we all thought she would be

Vultures get doodled in the margins of her sunshine  and
She staples dew drops symbolizing drool to parking tickets
And is half asleep always and used to imagine naming things after witch hazel

Selling her soul to buy a vowel, to change her name to Gretel
Her definition of PTSD is too similar to her definition of nostalgia
Her insomnia to good use, she murdered any photograph of herself as a seventeen year old and swallows fingernails as a penance for everyone who the nights got taken out on

One Hell of a Drug

I am hardly lucid
And am trying to tell this pharmacist my date of
Birth understanding the politics of being human
Is trying to find a parking spot anywhere where
Nothing rhymes with six o clock

It took me two whole heart breaks to find my car
This is the tenth circle of hell
The damnation of those
Who lust too romantically
Or whose gravest sin is irrevocably poor
Time management skills


But patience is a virtue
My second-person silence is silver
I want someone to shut me up
Inside a cupboard forever
I auditioned for the role of the good china
Speechlessly I imagined the audience in their underwear
And got cast as the secondhand table
A chest full of secrets and not a leg to stand on

Explicit and unhealthy
Coughing along to British dramas
Shot reverse shot medium shot
This is how conversations are filmed
I still know the formula for everything

Tell a Trusted Adult

Fast track to escalated emptiness
Relapse of enlightenment
Old habits die hard because they feel good
Cycle of comfort and control
I can't TALK to Stonehenge


Any soft burning
Of familiarity
Premonition saliva excited

From eventual to hot and fast
And thick spit acid drips
Psychedelic esophagus
Totally better

Three winters worth of rhyme scheme
Wearing your old clothes
Scarecrow of a fleeting savior
Go through the pockets
Try to figure out where I lost myself

Point with a finger
Give a direction
Downward spiral staircase
It's all reruns and sequels
Vomit sequins

The acoustics of the bathroom floor
I thought you could hear me purging
From the other side of the highway
The way a twin can feel when the other one is in pain
I just wanted to feel you
Peel back the cheap foil stars
We had attached to my skin
Cooperation and completely secret
Anecdotes that I've grown too exhausted
To retell to strangers
We'll take it all the the grave with dimly lit
Eyes and names that don't match
I should apologize for every tear-filled heart
To heart that I untangled with my bleached claws

In one arch of a back
Hissing cat or a body bent with orgasm
Choking on an instrumental
The earth is not
Something inconsequential
Backwards map
Make it happen
Seahorse captain
A joke of a throat
Bleached bone skeletons
As bare and as shivering as undressed skin
The very first time

No Offense

I'm making a to-do list all I have so far
Buy rain boots
And I have a scarf in a suitcase
And a beat in my heart that I can hardly hear
Nothing catchy or glamorous
Aching
Soundtrack for my clean escape
The scene

Last night unbearable
Blockbuster horror
Monsters in uniforms
The same fucking stringy hair
City lights from far away
From a teenager make out cliff
Internal bone marrow scream
Bandits burnt out bulbs
Traitor-serpent eyes glaring jaundice

You are not stars


Keep my soul in the corner
Out of sight out of mind
Focus on the fact
That I came I saw I smoked three cigarettes
For no apparent reason lack of purpose clearly
Theming this party decorated
Vets were chilling me
Stone cold sober
Swallow sins
Disregard that I have ever been nostalgic
For a time in my life
In which I wasn't even happy

Escape artist Extraordinaire sudden sonnet Volta    

Wish you were here words now non-existent
These shivers couldn't fit in a paper cut
Shaky bloodshot phone call to a fogged bridge
Or a forest
In a bloodshot moment of desperation
Treating you as a doctor
Please give me your signature
And get me the hell out of this town
Begging politely
For the way you blanket me
With your skin of warm Sunday flannel
And I'm not sure if I want you
Or if I am just tired
Of hearing the same drugged stories tired
Of the garbage fashion show
Tired and wanting to breathe something clean
Sleeping beauty up the stairs
In the house you made of pine needles

Knee-high Knee-jerk-reaction

 My blog isn't letting me update the bottom of the entry. But the dress is by LIP SERVICE.

www.lip-service.com

Currently I'm watching an episode of Season 3 of The L Word, and the gang is in Canada for (2006 spoiler alert!!) Carmen and Shane's wedding where Shane leaves Carmen at the altar. In the scene immediately in front of me, Alice is zip-lining for the first time. I imagine it would feel exhilarating and frightening as hell (per all the most superlative things in life), but where I'm really going in my head... is I'm trying to imagine ice cold wind on my face again. Because that's totally a thing here. And I'm getting antsy waiting for it. I always do.

Winter is a romance I will always miss when it's not around. Maybe I miss it more when I'm sweating in a fever staring at a calendar, but I do miss it. Winter is the lover that was always there, even when taken for granted. There are little things one can still hold onto when living in the wrong season. I still wear stockings in the summer; it's a little secret nod to winter, to let winter know it'll always be my favorite season. A wink. A cryptic, messy, cursive love note.

I want to only ever wear sleek, feline black dresses. With opaque black tights that hardly protect me from any freeze. That's where I'm comfortable, locked inside three jackets, nothing able to get in, but still looking like the coolest.....

We always want what we can't have at the moment.... but is still in our grasp enough for it to salivate and meow over like feral alley-cats just starving for something that feels more visceral than any contrived emotion we made up in our heads over the past few months. Or is that just me? Stockings are sexy, and simple, and its exciting to wear something that isn't what it looks like. Garter stockings and garter leggings were given to us by nylon gods and now we have... faux knee highs. They don't slip. Ever. Tight, gripping and only kind of warm, they hold up. Because its just what they do. While pretending to enjoy the season.

Also, here's a fun article about how apparently faux-knee highs are "enraging" men:

http://en.rocketnews24.com/2013/04/23/fake-knee-high-stockings-enrage-men-of-the-internet/

Got mine from this site, which has a bunch of cheapies, but also mine were sent in from China, so they took about three weeks

TOTES WORTH IT;

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/group/Women-s-Stockiings/424242_250922011.html

Japanese sunrise dress, by Nikki Lipstick from Dolls Kill

http://www.dollskill.com/?gclid=CIGO08rCsrkCFUkS7AodLjQACA

http://nikkilipstick.bigcartel.com/

Knuckles Un-broken

I like you was a death
Sentence I like you
Was a pair of corpse-stiff jeans
That fit like someone's else parents
Offering me breakfast
But I bought anyway
Just to get the hell out

Of the store there is something
About speeding
Down pitch-street the windows
Down
My hair a blasphemous  scream-kite
The moonkissed orange turning blue
Wrapping itself around my bare

Shoulders like a sweater
Makes the music
Feel like Meaning
Violin guitar violin cymbals
Symbols crashing
Silhouette of one locked
Ivory and Body of goosebumps dividing

Fistfuls of reasons to revel
In the ether of middle
A denim gray area
Unruly splitting law
That flightless birds would never

Navigate witch-sweat passion
Is about finding
Someone who can dig their fingers into
My skeleton's patchwork overcoat of Tired
Grab vicious handfuls of my naked flesh
And tear apart my soul

A body of ice Pacific-borne water
Still sore and dusty-rose
Vintage pink, vintage aching
ICARUS SUNFLOWER
Craning a cricked neck towards
While simultaneously
Summering away from
Candlelit feelings
Trembling to be put out

Lovely When it Doesn't Hurt

End of Indian summer, non threatening love-making
In the first time in forever,
Laughing panting kind of way
That doesn't make me feel like I'm being robbed
From the inside out
That doesn't leave me

Feeling like sacrifice,
Thanksgiving turkey
Just some sizzling hot golden thing
With a hole at each end
Something dead, and dazzling
And put on a silver platter


I have been purging
The shark-tight grip
Of a literal twist of my young arm


No more voiceless nightmares
My body wasn't made for someone else
No more fistfuls of survivor lies
Survivor guilt
Self blame and self inflicted....
It's good to have consequences
Lie back and stare at a wall

Lie back and stare at a wall

My American dream

Has been touched and fucked and broken 

And the blackheart of it all

Is the straight faced normalcy 

That came with it 

Oh to thank a warm body

For giving me what I want

All I wanted was to be listened to

Closely, like the snap of a twig 

Among rustling leaves

In a forest that may be haunted 

Rarely have I ever been grateful in the fall

It's lovely when it doesn't hurt

Roller-Disco Romp

My life is a costume party. That's my steadfast response to the incessant question posed to yours truly. Believe it or not (you totally believe it), I get asked "is it a costume party?" pretty frequently.Whatever I', doing, I'm going to dress the part. All the world's a stage, is it not? 

My friends & I decided that we can't just get wasted for every single birthday, because that's something we could do on a Wednesday afternoon. Not that we do this. (Habitually) To mix it up, my babygirl MaLeah requested that we go rollerskating for her birthday. Challenge accepted. I thought about dressing up super retro seventies roller-rink party, & then just slyly opt for rollerblades instead of legitimate, four chunky square wheel roller skates. This is because, to my knowledge, I can't rollerskate. Turns out, my group of friends and I are going to represent the USA for rollerskating in the next Olympics.

Active-wear. That's a thing, right? I detest when anyone says they wear jeans because they're "easy to move in". The last time I hopped a fence (circa 3 am on December 17th of last year) I was wearing a skintight backless black American Apparel mini-dress, so for just skating around, you bet your ass I'm not trying to "move around" in jeans. If you're so inclined, you should always move around in short short short-shorts with opaque stockings underneath for some semblance of modesty. Don't want to offend anyone when you're just trying to have fun. Also if you're going to go short & tight on bottom, you're gonna wana balance that out with long & loose on top. Once again, bitches be getting offended easily. Modest is hottest. 

& by modest I mean totally see-through sheer and rhinestone-emblazoned chiffon high-low shirt with a brightly colored bandeau underneath. One last note: if you're not rockin rollerskates (which, sorry, cuz that sucks) wear cowboy boots, because stocking-clad legs inside of big boots always look sleek & sleeeeender. It's still summer for a few more weeks! Go play!

Shopping links & info:

Seafoam rhinestone high-low top by Nastygal: http://www.nastygal.com/

Disco shorts by American Apparel (duh) : http://www.americanapparel.net/

Black ballet stockings by Capezio: http://www.capezio.com/

Loving You

Is like taking amphetamines
And lying down
Immediately afterward

For I Have Sinned

I love a good Wednesday Addams dress. Personally, I love anything with a collar because it allows me to show this classy, demure and girly side that I must posses somewhere deep inside my crazy soul.  Also I'm really into with the stark contrast between the soft, sheer black body & stiff bright white collar. I'm reminded of  the crisp neatness of Catholic nuns, a regular sight for almost the first half of my life. Being raised Catholic got me really heavily into the iconography of things, the aesthetics, and rituals. My views on faith & religion have become all too similar to my views on fashion: you honestly can choose which rules to follow, which rules to break. There is no right or wrong when it comes to something so personal.  

This dress achieves the perfect amount of class by pairing long sleeves and a high collar with a hem that's.... not that long.  This makes the dress incredibly versatile as far as styling it goes. When I'm pretending that I'm a fancy dancy model, this pairs well with platform heels that help flex all the little leg muscles that this dress shows off, and nude heels with bare legs will always, ALWAYS make your legs look longer. Believe me. At a teeny 5'1", I know these things. If you don't need to look taller, then (I'm jealous &) you can pair this with black heels, preferably Mary Janes for a look of ironically fashionable innocence. For scurrying around campus in the fall, I'm styling this with thick black opaque tights and navy blue lace-up loafers.

I would suggest wearing your hair up in a tidy topknot to really accentuate the collar and make that particular detail pop. The main reason I'm wearing my hair down here is because I just washed it for the first time in days and I wana show my uncharacteristic locks off! & I may have this kinky affinity towards innocence, but seriously. A black bow with this would be amazing.

In addition: IF ANYONE TELLS YOU YOUR DRESS IS TOO SHORT, TELL HIM OR HER TO GO TO HELL. Praying for their soul is up to you. 

UNIF Confessions dress: Dolls Kill

http://www.dollskill.com/shop/unif.html

http://unifclothing.com/

Faux patent leather nude platform pumps: Target

http://www.target.com/c/heels-pumps-shoes-women/-/N-5xtcw

(suggested)

black opaque ballet stockings: Capezio

http://www.capezio.com/Tights/

Zara loafers:

http://www.zara.com/us/en/woman/shoes-c269191.html

Born to be Wild

When cellphone ringtones first became a thing, my family went all out. Whenever my parents called me, we would hear the foreboding haunt of Beethoven’s Fifth, and when I called my mom, she had scheduled “Born to Wild” to play. Which is sweet, in a way. Leopard print will never be out of style. Leopard print will never be out of style for leopards

. And a leopard never changes its spots.

Regression is an ugly bitch. I need to get back to being where I was earlier this year: wild and free. A toned-down, medicated, mid-twenty-something version of wild and free. Including but not limited to: wasting days off sitting around in my underwear cutting things out of magazines, trying to sort out my feelings with sharpies, construction paper, stickers, and scotch tape. It means bingeing without purging. Three pots of coffee, an entire jar of peanut butter, and celebrating the queering of mainstream entrainment by binge-watching Orange is the New Black. If you haven’t watched it yet, it’s poignant, giggly, and meeeow. “Meow” gets me back on track. Leopard print, black clothes, and bright lips. The easiest way to feel better is to stop dressing shyly, to stop dressing sad, and start dressing like a wild animal.

Zebra comes and goes and Dooney rocked giraffe print for a season but as far as I’m concerned, rockstar-esque leopard print never goes out of style… for leopards.

Hotmes beanie: by UNIF, from Dolls Kill

www.dollskill.com/UNIF

Leopard print shorts: by Joyrich, from Dolls Kill

joyrich.com/

School of Rock

I'd like to begin by saying that my hair is on fire. I'm not entirely too sure if you can turn ombre into a transitive by adding a gerund, but for the sake of of argument lets say you can. I finally got around to ombre-ing my hair. And let me tell you, it was magical. AND now my dark-red hair actually shows up against my black clothes. I need everyone to see how long my hair is, and it was kind of hard to tell because it was so dark red.

First world probz aside,  check out this super-sweet outfit. I just love looking haunted. I call this one.. haunted charm-school girl. Schoolgirl realness. This beaut of a top was a gift, but its a button up long-sleeved blouse, and I effing love buttoning these babies all the way up. It adds a bit of class to the fact that I'm wearing something totally see-through over a black lace bustier. The same darling best friend who bought me the top bought me the skirt as well. We met in elementary school. Catholic school. We've always been a little wary of the plaid trend whenever it rolls around, because we were rad plaid fashion victims until eight grade. However, this one is kinda punky and spunky with all the zippers and the buckles and the other little deets. I like it. I'm okay with it. I'd like to see UNIF partner up with some US Catholic schools and maybe these could be the new uniform skirts. School would suck A LOT LESS for those kiddos. 

Bustier, by Forever 21

http://www.forever21.com/Product/Main.aspx?br=f21

Plaid skirt by UNIF

http://unifclothing.com/

also available here:

http://www.dollskill.com/shop/unif.html

http://www.karmaloop.com/brands/Unif

Shoes, Payless Shoe Source, seriously. Fuck your money

http://www.payless.com/store/?cid=ps_121603

Rosie, the Riveting

Third wave feminism means that I don't have to wear pants if I don't want to. If you think about it. If you extrapolate it. I really don't wear pants. Ever. I only own one pair of jeans & actually, I stumbled upon them in a hazy moment of necessity. I have never worn them without heels. I don't wear them very often, but when I do, I feel very rough & tumble. I can't fix a car or fix my hair,  but when I wear my jeans I feel very YOU CAN DO IT!  Boyfriend jeans are perfect for summer because they're slouchy; they're easy and they won't stick to your sexy little legs when it's all hot & humid outside. 

The perfect compliment to masculine jeans is naturally a little white tank top. All the UNIF & Petals + Peacocks tanks I buy are muscle-cut, so sometimes I like to roll the tank sleeves into themselves, creating a thin strap verses a tank sleeve. It changes up the look a bit, & sometimes can be more flattering as well. 

As if they weren't in enough already, this outfit just screams headscarf!  Generally, I just fold a neck scarf in half & then twist it up. Sunglasses, heels, and red lipstick are the last couple accessories you'll want to ice this retro cake with, & then you're all ready to look like YOU CAN DO IT!

Shopping info & links:

Selfie tank: by Petals + Peacocks from Dolls Kill

http://www.petalsandpeacocks.com/

http://www.dollskill.com/?gclid=CKD6mbKntbgCFbDm7AodzmYA7A

Jeans:  men's Levi's 

http://us.levi.com/home/index.jsp?camp=DRSearch&camp=37490&K_AFFCODE=1089951

Scarf: Forever 21

http://www.forever21.com/Product/Main.aspx?br=f21

Wedge booties: Steve Madden

http://www.stevemadden.com/?omid=psgg&mkwid=s98UjwOMH&pcrid=21410400893&pdv=c&gclid=CNrw35uotbgCFWIV7AodAVoA8g

Let Them Eat Cake

Stale hands and shakey knees
There are too many wars. and not enough prizes
Sliced red velvet, worth its weight
In gold and I have no appetite
Lately I walk around
Broken chairs for legs
Domesticated plants choke out my throat
The view from here is beautiful
Of the alleyway
That is where my heart once was

Lately I pretend as if I know
How to do impressions of myself
I don't even know how I breathe
With all of these knives and magnets

I never asked to be so mannequin
I never asked to be hollowed out
Or bashed in
I am last year's pumpkin
Smiling empty, burning inside
Twisting into the wrong side of a nightmare

Robotic and delicate, vogue
Pose, open mouth sexy as hell
Freeze frame roadkill
If you had to choose
Oregon Denver Brooklyn
Breathing underwater taking in the fifty degrees
Of salt and octopus tears
The bump in the night that frightens is not monstrous
But is the everyday
The desire to break mirrors, to write letters
To burn all of the books,
And let them eat steak

Concerning Strangers

Hair like autumn leaves
The sanctity of clean slates
Whiskey'd Lamictal

Sinewy plaid grass
Carnivalesque future-space
Daydream at midnight

I'll Stop Wearing Black When They Make a Darker Color

I see a red dress and I want to paint it black. I don't know what it is. Everything is better black. Coffee. Cats. Presidents. I don't know what black says. I think black says a lot about nighttime. Simultaneously, I think black is tight-lipped silence, and doesn't actually make very much conversation at all. I like to wear all black and pretend I'm a bank robber, or anyone else threatening. Black is bad-ass, yet feline and feminine all at the same time.

Black makes me hot

and so I think its really best to stick to sheers and chiffons this time of year. This sheer black maxiskirt from American Apparel is perfect for looking hot and babely while keeping cool when your day involves sweating in Hell, like mine so often does. They also carry the skirt in about two hundred million (give or take) other colors and prints.

Shopping info & links;

Ballet leotard: Capezio http://www.capezio.com/?gclid=CMru-PeM7LcCFQ3l7AodrBYAOQ

Sheer maxiskirt: American Apparel http://store.americanapparel.net/

Suede peep-toe wedges: Steve Madden http://www.stevemadden.com/?omid=psgg&mkwid=sT1CU3NBQ&pcrid=20780079893&pdv=c&gclid=CP3jpa2N7LcCFe3m7Aod4hMAcQ

Slips

Intellectual
Mental love, darkness of mind
The most fun you'll have

Sticks and Stones

I was always that creepy kid who was way into The Nightmare Before Christmas and wished she had jet black hair. (In retrospect, thank God my mom never allowed me to dye it.) I was jealous of Rose McGowan when Rose McGowan got to date Marilyn Manson. These days, I couldn't be happier that skeletons and bones are totally a thing now. It's best not to pout when something you've always loved becomes a trend-it only means its going to be easier to find. Skeleton leggings are readily available now for those of us so inclined. As always there are going to be many different brands and stores scrambling and copycatting and capitalizing, but that's to be expected. Cool clothes are cool clothes, no matter where you found them or how much they cost ya.

My leggings: The Walking Tall leggings by See You Monday on MissKL.com
http://www.karmaloop.com/Browse.htm#VendorId=4499

For sweet leggings that won't break the bank, try http://www.loveculture.com/
For rich girls who need a nylon fix, http://blackmilkclothing.com/

Tank top: Forever 21, Heels: Steve Madden

The Book of Job

Peter Pan in a little black dress
I thought I could play with lost boys
And dazzling, half-naked mean mermaids
Forever, but downtown isn't Never Never Land
Of the free and home of the
Whiskey-bent and Hell-bound

So I traded the carnival and the rockstar carousel
For a breath of fresh hospital air
And my sanity, and some medicine
That makes me sick but makes me better
As far as being a person goes

Bile-yellow post-it notes sticky reminders
Come and go and this is just
An ekphrastic to a photograph of myself taken
Shortly after crying, wearing red lipstick
And everything was just so
And everyone wanted me and I just wanted
Someone to talk to

So I threw up all winter
And found solace in silence
And kept my thoughts and my hands to myself
For as long as I could bear
This cross that I never fucking asked for

Some days I am ready to die
And see what I come back as
I would love to be a dandelion
Or a thorny rose, or gecko
So adept at running away,
Or at least blending in

Seizure of Public Property

Today I want to die
Of tight-lipped melancholy,
Or static, or a killer
Craving for watermelon, or
Assumed innocence
I wanted to burn myself at the high stakes
I'm sorry I get excited about language
And you don't

You didn't seem to mind
My forked tongue against yours last night
Rape my journal, my thoughts
Public execution of an alleged whore
Let this all be a terrible lactic acid trip
Around the bullshit sunshine

I originally wanted to die
Of happiness, or hedonism
Really whichever came first
Started out as a thought I had
About death in the afternoon
Watching the X-files, hot with Texas sweat
And hungover with all the appropriateness of artists
After well whiskey binges and well,
Streetwise poverty-line decadence
And my lion-hearted rages at midnight or whenever
We were sprawled all over each other
And the second hand living room
A trashy litter of feral kittens
And I honestly thought
This is all I'll ever need

I don't need eyes I need people
Or an island, or a street fight,
A bubble bath, champagne dripping down my grin
I'd take either an anchor or a scarf
Tie a nuisance around my neck and
Hang around the bordello
Of the subconscious

Or the opera of the black spotlight on my heart
Limelight and the salt of the earth
I am public property
You simultaneously love and hate
Everything that is Marilyn Monroe
About me and I hate the girl in the mirror some days
And nights, she needs a cigarette
Or a new tattoo
Or a room of her own
Or a knothole in a tree
Some damn thing

Working Backward

The envelope was one of my favorite colors
And the violent word on the outside was
One of my favorite names
This was one of the last times I saw you
When you returned an expensive gold bracelet
That was once thrown off of me
In a breathless moment of whiskey,
Wine and desperation
Or maybe it was the nostalgia,
Or my crippling fear of sleep and dreams

I folded a crumpled Bukowski poem inside
A long-time favorite titled, Eat Your Heart Out
It reminded me of all the times
I told you I was leavin'
All of the nervous empty
Threats I screamed and worse,
All of the things I never told you

When I think of the most desperate moment of all
I almost hold my breath
I almost die
What good is a ghost
If he doesn't still give you chills,
Or at least nightmares and poetry?
Four years ago in an airport
Call it Stockholm syndrome
Or promethazine-induced romanticism
Or my unending death wish
My constant mental whispers,
Saying, destroy me destroy me
I was strung out and strung along
And I cut all my hair off
For the second time in my life
And maybe for the same reason
I have always confused love and hate
I almost missed my flight
Kissing the face of the pale sky
That tore a hole inside of me
That never healed

The skin of that monolithic sky
Was beginning to yellow
Nicotine and self-abuse
Because he did to me what he did to himself
What he did to everything
Deathwish deathwish deathwish, baby
Pink lips and skin that didn't want to be there
I kissed the invisible scars
And made promises without words
That breathed out of cracked ribs
Struggled for air

It's confusing to be alive
And young
It's confusing to be someone with potential
Someone with thighs
And long pretty hair
Someone with a death wish and plane tickets ad infinitum
I am always confusing waking life with infinity
I remember everything
Everything affects me
Everything fucks me up

Because I hated you when it would have taken
Less courage to love you
Or something like that, right?
We all had so much potential and
Coconut Cupid popped bubble pupils
Ironically we never learned
I ache for shackles fetters freckles bruises
Spreading yellow

Fuck Your Gold Medal

The day starts at 3 am when I wake up crying
I only speak in dreams &
I only dream in nightmares I only speak in tongues
Of fire and smoke and mirrors
At 3 I come to in a black hole crying
The black hole catches fire
With seventeen thousand lightly bleeding stars
And they are all shooting themselves

I wake up at 7 something, my fingers and palms aching
In the dream I was clutching a telephone, with the bones in my hand I was
Screaming. Screaming I wake up sweating
But silent, hand still with a death
Grip on something that is no longer there
The dreams are getting better
But the metaphors are getting exhausting,
Crushing I wake up at 7 something
Not wanting to be touched
That's the worst part

I dream that I am crawling,
And chained, thick iron
Chains around my bony throat
I wake up my skin is crawling
I used to dream of my vocal cords
Being ripped out from somewhere deep inside me
Not in a violent and black way,
In a way that was like a magician,
Slowly pulling out colored scarves,
Out of my body I could not stop him
It was bright and unending
And this black magic devil, pale and freckled
Was laughing in my face
Dirty fingernails scraping inside me
I am forever choking on my lack of voice
My vocal cords being torn out of
My always open mouth

Surrender to 29

Sally could not make good
Within and without her body or her mirror and her
Tea kettle screaming, handfuls of hair

Because this is a hymn for a funeral for a cigarette or for
The fact that she will never be
Twenty years old again,

Never will be making love
In the saddest, saddest of ways, empty
Meaning and art and books next to the fire place

And walking home from anywhere, from everywhere
This song tastes like old books, like dust of
All of the trapped moths, they meant well

The quality of VHS tapes and dog parks
She couldn't handle the truth of cheap beer and swing sets
And Sally got all hot and bothered by sincerity

So in love with sadness, in love with blacking out and daydreams
Of taking it on top of a black grand piano
Never have never been a cobweb, a screen door

ALWAYS INNOCENT, BUT ASSUMED TO BE OTHERWISE
Sally did not want to prove the worst
The thought of January, September, November stomach aches waking up

Eyes of red desert, she is sweating in Italian
In italics because neurosis is better left
Alone and apart from boldness and lines

Hoping, please still be breathing,
Hoping hearts and souls were still intact, or at least in the drawer
On the side of the bed with the Vicodin and ghastly hatchets

When I was Seventeen (I Lost It)

I am probably too young

To be this post-modern yet this old-

Fashioned a dress out of shyness, hot pink heart full of

Blindness in the sunlight

Reminisce on days when I really was

Too young

Back then, everyone wanted a piece

Of cake, to have, and to hold,

And they all wanted to eat it too

But the queen is dead

Long live the queen-

Sized bed that

You broke me in

Didn’t everyone want me then:

When my arms were tanned toothpicks

Back then when light-

Beer came out of my pores

And I was always smiling, and sucking

On limes and I would lie around

Metabolizing the day away

Swimming mermaid-like and topless

Through a sea of cigarette smoke and sweat

And a sweet smile softer than the summer

Radiant, wavy wild hair

Longer than God, longer than Time

Tangled as legs

At a time when I shaved them, but now I see that

Shaving your legs is

ASKING FOR IT

Thinking back on hunters and resulting horrors

Feels like hard candy

Falling out of my mouth covered in spit

Covered in slow motion

It hits the dirt and it sticks

There’s no going back

Everything is covered in ugly

And covered in germs that make me cringe

In my sleep the way you do when you touch

A greasy

Public door handle