Nobody Knows You're My Plastic,

Fantastic Lover.

Today explains my:
curls, personality, ability to reason (or lack thereof), love of life, anger, passion, inability to manage money... everything.

I
AM

IRISH.

And today is the one day, for me. For my father. For his biological parents. For their parents. And so on.

So I'm wearing green. And a celtic knotwork necklace. My hair is wild. My eyes are green. And I'm not drunk. But the Guinness Cake is warm and mom is working on the Donegal Pie as we speak.

I would really appreciate $20 to treat all my friends to coffee.


----
The woman across the street is pregnant. She talks to no one in our neighborhood. For the longest time I thought she was an exotic dancer or a car saleswoman. She wears large shades, oversized sweatshirts and her hair long (with blonde highlights). Why do I know she's pregnant?

She has an eighteen year old son. And a plaid stroller on the front porch. He doesn't need the stroller.

She's single. Or so it seems.
She's always been a mystery. Comes and goes at uncanny hours: four in the morning, nine at night.

I've never talked to her. She's looked at me a few times... when I've gotten in the car and slammed my head in the door, swore loudly; she looked. Only those shocking, strange times, though.

Enough.

Divinely yours,
BETH

Just Like A Woman.


We're staying.
I'll buy a car and run,
But not too far.
I always want to come back.

This girl had a Dylan shirt on today. I don't know about her, but I thank god that we are still a youth that desires Dylan's music. What will happen when we decide we're too good for that?

I rolled around on a cart.

I am watching my dog's tongue lick his lips again
And again,
And again... there might be
Sugar in his mustache

Compared to anger,
I'm not nearly as afraid of Nuclear Warfare
At least when it's drops, cracks open, explodes,
it's done.
But anger lasts... a deep burn,
Being scrubbed twice a day with a wire brush...
Scrubbing raw...
At least a nuclear bomb isn't anger
Sitting next to you in the car
On a Wednesday night.

There is something about eggs,
and packs of cigarettes,
The shapes amuse me.


Divinely yours,
BETH

Wrinkles In Socks.

I know that I am stressed because my neck won't budge. But there are days like yesterday and today that put a mental block on noticing the stress. And I thank Hannah, Shelly and my sister, Jen, for that.

Also, mother earth for the sun. And the wind.

The wind.

Why is the wind so profound and important to me?
It's in most of my poetry on my mind constantly.
I bet,
Somewhere I was lost in a wind storm.

So yesterday Shelly and I spent a while convincing Hannah to ditch school work because, "Are you going to be alive in the next five minutes?" and "Screw those people trying to give us grades, trying to tell us whether or not our parents will accept us this time around." It worked.

We spent yesterday around, in the sun.
Then some old man took a picture of us.
Thanked us.
We didn't know he took a picture of us.
And it is creepy. But I'll ignore that.

Today, I slept in until 11:40 (oh lord, yes.) and then I woke up and Jen and I went out. Again, downtown. For tea, then across the square for coffee and conversation about: men, marriage, managing money, fury, family, finances, babies, bandages, bags, bones, sex, swearing, simple things, traitors, telephones, tarantulas, learning, lack-there-of, laughter and life.

That pretty much covers that.

School work tonight. I took an evening nap. That was nice. Listened to Joni Mitchell, that was nice. Partially finished a lot of stuff... that was nice. My hand went numb, that was nice.
Thought about, thought about
The possibilities,
That was typical.
Lit a candle and choked on smoke,
That was atypical.
Closed the door to focus on Macbeth,
That was grueling.
Abandoned my work to write my thoughts,
That was ...

Hey man, thoughts.
Let's talk about thoughts.
And what I'm thinking right now.
Right now I wonder what a family is for,
And why I can have a family like the other people.
The other people who's family is so united,
that their siblings wouldn't miss a beat.
And then there's mine,
And we're lost, wandering across
A continent, a country, a state,
But no where close to one another,
Because we might feel too oppressed ...
BY WHO?
Not me, not me.
What's this all about and I've finally found
my answer: that I give up.
And I will never try for them.
Try to be a sister for them.
Try my hardest to adapt my behavior,
So I'm not so
obnoxious to them.
And that is my first
D I V O R C E.

Divinely yours,
BETH

The Main Question Is...

(The first time I wrote this entry, it was sad and angry. I put the lap top on the foot stool and looked at what I had typed and realized... why? It just doesn't have to be like that.)

You know, I don't know how much of a "city" person I am. But I enjoy being versatile. Because I know that I can go from Ashland, Ohio to Muncie, Indiana to Harrisonburg and finally to Fort Wayne, Indiana... and I've survived.

I guess as I've gotten older (hah. 18, so old?) the 800 mile drives are not as exhausting as before.

Saturday morning we drove through the mountains of West Virginia. Oh Lord was that beautiful. You know, I think I'll always remember Mom and Dad listening to John Denver at the top of that mountain. To my left was the drop... so clear, I could see the shadows and highlights on the mountains. To my right, the mountain with it's frozen water falls and herds of deer. (Yes, herds.)

Ohio is an interesting state. Generally, as a Midwestern state, it would be flat. Not so. As you move from south east Ohio to the western side, the mountains slowly flatten to a gentle roll.

The Ohio country side is unique. The barns are completely different from the barns in Indiana. And it's sad to say that this is the first time in years that I've traveled through Ohio during the winter. There has been flooding in the past week and then the water froze on the fields. It was literally a large sheet of glass. I remembered it immediately and was glad that I was able to see it again.

Indiana country side is serious business. Agriculture is one of the biggest economic factors. The fields are "up to snuff". There is not on tractor anywhere. The farm houses and barns are tidy. The fields are tidy. The cows have sporadic tufts of fur, but even the COWS are tidy in their small herds. (Yes, herds.)

But do not be fooled. Other than Lansing, Detroit and Chicago... Indiana cities are some of the dirtiest places I've ever been. Fort Wayne is disgusting. There are beer bottles in trees and sacks stuck on street lights and on flag poles. Trash was every where. The must hate the earth.

Will I ever fit in there?

There are a lot of stores. The liquor stores or gigantic. You know those ABC stores around the corner? I saw a liquor store the size of Kroger. There were more where that came from.

Then there was the Coliseum. Nothing, by far, like the real Coliseum. It had an airplane on the front lawn.

This trip wasn't about having a lot of fun.
Nothing too fun happened.
At one point, I was bored to tears. Literally. First there were tears, then laughter, then nausea. So I stood in the shower for a while. That didn't help. I sat outside the hotel door for a while hoping for someone to walk by. There were only two other people at the hotel that night. (Seriously, dad found that out from the chick at the desk.) So I walked around.

I mean really THINK about ME without anything to do. It's NOT a good situation to be in. I paced... and paced... and paced. Nada.

So we left Fort Wayne this morning at 8. I said goodbye as we drove towards Ohio.

Some things I saw today:
-Nuclear power plant. The same one I've seen every time we go through Ohio. It's a friend now. And today, the steam coming from the stack was beautiful against the sky.

-A man riding his bicycle on the road below us. He wore a red plaid coat and yellow beanie. A long beard. I wondered where he was going because there's nothing on that road. He must've been traveling.

-The man at the gas station who flirted with my mom. She dug it like crazy. He dug HER like crazy.

-The woman at Subway that I scared and made her cry/laugh.

-The geese around the gas wells.

-The tops of factories in Mansfield.

I don't know what's wrong with me, but I love industrial cities in Ohio. I guess it's because I grew up in one.

The rail roads. The sound of trains.

What's funny is that I really connected with Bob Dylan in his book The Chronicles Volume One when he said, "There's something familiar about the sound of train whistles." He continued to say that it made him feel close to home. And it was strange that after being in Ohio all day, I realized that I feel comfortable when I hear train whistles. And conductors seem to be friendly.

So we're in Marietta, Ohio tonight. This hotel is weird. It's nice but at the same time it's not. It has nice beds and clean sheets. But the toilet doesn't flush very well and Mom just touched the handle of the coffee carafe and it shattered.

I like the heater.

It's freezing in Indiana. Freezing across western/central Ohio. Cold in South Eastern Ohio. What's it like in Virginia?

Well,
It takes seven hours to cross Ohio (stopping twice to go to the bathroom and once to eat lunch.)

Uh, blah blah blah. I'll be home tomorrow.
Blah blah blah... I want to eat dinner.

Divinely yours,
BETH

Oh, What Now?
What am I supposed to do, now?
I've worked so hard,
To avoid the old-fashioned crushes...
The ones that make me weak in the knees--
Like I've been drinking burning liquor,
Trying to keep it straight when I drive,
The yellow lines and the side walk,
So chaotic and out of control,
The wheel jerking left and right--
The windsheild cracking into a million peices
And when I'm ready to scream,
I sober up...
I sober up,
And I see him again,
His green? blue? eyes, it doesn't matter--
I see him again:
I'm drunk.
What am I supposed to do, now?

-----
(Shelly. I love you... but it's strange. I hate you too. And we'll just mark another guy off the list.)
-----

Divinely yours,
BETH

Fin De Semana

Mom and I sat in the church van and talked about my restlessness.

She told me to leave with a group of girls or one man.

We both know what I'll chose.

I just need out.
And I can't leave.
One more semester of high school.
Four classes, can't miss any.
Can't be absent.
Can't skip class.
Can't breath.
And when I start to walk again,
My muscles will be liquid
From the deprevation of life.

And will I walk again some day?


Divinely yours,
BETH

Literally Waking Up.

My sunday afternoon nap: four hours and dreams of my family. My real family. Not the family I know now that is spread across america.

I dreamt about my brothers and sister and I sneaking out to drive to Las Vegas.

Simple.

Never happened and never will. It just doesn't work like that.

But I guess everyone is shaped by something.

I'm shaped:
Pastor's kid.

I'm shaped:
Poor, wealthy, poor, poor, poverty.

I'm shaped:
My children, all of them, who have parents in prison.

I'm shaped:
Violent cities, seeing people shot in the chest for nothing.

I'm shaped:
Small towns, I was six, I slept at the park on summer nights.

I'm shaped:
Literature, my love for it, my love for all of it.

I'm shaped:
Janis Joplin. Jimi Hendrix. There are no words.

I'm shaped:
My mother. My mother who never quit being a flower child. Liberal, dancing in the back yard, haikus in the rain, people gathering mother.

I'm shaped:
My father. Staunch republican. Pastor. Irish. With the irish temperment.

And so... what's shaped You?

-----

Okay, so here's the truth:
I could really go for some taco dip.

Divinely yours,
BETH

Confined To Geometric Spaces

I hear, "Are you shivering again?" And I know that it's getting worse.

And it doesn't surprise me when my memory shoots to a time when the very sick man lived on our couch.

The very sick man.

The very sick man with the very taboo-ed disease.

The very sick man with AIDs.

And I can see clearly his long, pale, doughy feet sticking from underneath the soft quilt.

His feet were almost always crossed: his left over his right.

The very sick man had very clean feet. Almost holy in appearance.

"Are you shivering again? Do you need another blanket?" It was asked in July. When the temperature reached a shocking 104 before three in the afternoon.

Everything was unnatural.

Like solid ice cubes in hot tea (the tea increasingly hotter, the ice cubes growing colder yet.)

Everything was unnatural.

He didn't breathe when he slept. I never wanted to take in his medicines... I never wanted to be the one to find him dead.

And isn't it funny that my mother never wanted to either, and so she sent me in.

And isn't it funny that my father never wanted to find him dead FIRST, so he sent my mother, who sent me.

And before my father? No one.

I never found him dead. He was a very convincing liar. I never found him dead. But I remember hearing the low sobbing of his father... when his father found him dead.

I couldn't escape it.

And yet I still can not escape it.

The door in the hallway wheezes open and my mother walks into the closet, to our rickety wardrobe and pulls out a quilt. She approaches my father and asks, "Are you shivering? I brought this blanket."


----------------%

Divinely yours,
BETH

Personal Observations.


I can see the moon peeking throught the narrow spaces between the shades.

His voice is like coffee re-warmed in the summer sunlight.

Memories from Ashland are golden pills.

LSD/Acid.

Lonely children and their vulnerability.

Hare Krishna, Dean of Admissions, I found you near my material possessions.

And are trees really that unknowing?

I'd scream, I'd scream, I'd let them know what you'd done.

Car doors don't open by themselves.

The broken bridge across the creek on my grandfather's property.

Billie Holiday in Maya's living room, on Maya's couch, speaking with Maya's son.

The art of knowing one's self completely.

The art of ignoring one's self completely.

The art of having no compassion.

Bathing infront of others.

Melting skin.

Sincerely, thank you.

The teacher who told me I wasn't a lady didn't realize that meant nothing. I was a freshman... what he said had little impact. Though I remember vividly his white reebok tennis shoes and his hatred for young men wearing shirts that revealed their arm muscles. Only after he died a year later did I remember the tiny quirks that he brought along.

My hair: a goddess unto itself.

Free love is not about sex anymore. Free love is about the openness, the variety, the breaking of society's standards on relationships. Broadening our scope. Don't ruin a good thing.

If you speak with an angle, you'll never live your life correctly. You'll always hear destructive criticism, you'll never open up to the public.

Gather your crops. The snow will come early this year. And we need the money.

Please, consider the situation. Realize that we aren't anything but superficial gasps and angelic moans.

The seals have come to shore.

Welcome our boys home.

They spat on the vetrens in airports.

How do we idealize what we don't know? What we didn't live through?

How do you call yourself poetic?

It's superficial poetry.

And it's blasphemous.

------------------%

Divinely yours,
BETH

Senior, Senior Blues.

I can't believe how exhausted I am, and honestly... I haven't done much lately.

I shifted my physics grade: A--D--C.

Thanksgiving is tomorrow. How quickly the year has gone! It seems like it should be mid-october. I wonder what the rush is.

Alex has given me a link to a site with information on VCU. It sounds like a possible school after two years at the community college. Though I feel tethered to my home and content with it, I have no idea how I'll feel about moving out when I'm a junior. Right now it's a scarey thought, though I consider it when I'm frustrated.

I wrote a lot tonight. Mostly while I was on the phone with my brother. Then I wrote a poem about black holes.
"You're silly! You can't write poetry about black holes!" Shelly says.

I'll show her. I did show her. Heh.

I don't need a job. I don't need a life. I want to live in a cardboard box that falls over after a downpour. I love smelling like mildew and wet creatures. I have no need for education. What is knowledge, anyway? I think there is some confusion here, -- the point is that I'm done.

No more physics and bottomless black holes.

Divinely yours,
BETH