I Crawled Out of the Sewer to Write This Chapbook
-
Upload
annabelle-goll -
Category
Documents
-
view
215 -
download
0
Transcript of I Crawled Out of the Sewer to Write This Chapbook
-
7/27/2019 I Crawled Out of the Sewer to Write This Chapbook
1/15
I Crawled Out of the
Sewer to Write thisChapbook
some poems by Annabelle Goll
-
7/27/2019 I Crawled Out of the Sewer to Write This Chapbook
2/15
THIS WORK IS LICENSED UNDER THE CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION-NODERIVS 3.0 UNPORTED LICENSE. TO VIEW A COPY OF THIS LICENSE, VISIT
HTTP://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/LICENSES/BY-ND/3.0/ OR SEND A LETTER TOCREATIVE COMMONS, 444 CASTRO STREET, SUITE 900, MOUNTAIN VIEW,
CALIFORNIA, 94041, USA.
Dedicated to anyone reading this.
I love you all.
-
7/27/2019 I Crawled Out of the Sewer to Write This Chapbook
3/15
TIMESTAMP
7:15 I got out of bed howcould you ask me foranything else
7:30 my shadow wont leaveme alone and its really startingto piss me off7:33 I am dreaming of crawlingout of drainage ditches to eatyour entire family7:36 off the wall and onto the ceilingas you sleep, Im looking downat you Im watching you dream&;#& I am the ghost thatall of those forward emailswarned you about in the
fifth grade
-
7/27/2019 I Crawled Out of the Sewer to Write This Chapbook
4/15
REALITY TV MAKES ME FORGET I EXIST
news flash.a bug repeatedly slams its body against aflickering light. it reminds me of me
and you. the nightis redder than my fingernails i painted today,inhaling the fumes pretending like idever try and kill myself that way.
ive been watching the tendons inyour hand as your fingersmove. we carvedinto those grooves in the barkour names, meand youbut they cutthat tree down to build a house or something elseless important than love.
who cares, i guess.
news flash.
the sky actually is falling andno one is going crazy anymore.they took this as their cue to leave,so it turned to autumn,weve raked up piles ofdead souls and now were jumping in
like children. we must justbe children. news flash:were all just children.
-
7/27/2019 I Crawled Out of the Sewer to Write This Chapbook
5/15
AM I DAYDREAMING OR ARE YOU REALLY HERE
imagine that your eyes are the moon and weare breathing muddied waterthere is an empty hourglass mounted onmy wall because i really dont givea shit what time meansthink: the fog is trying to suffocateyou, the rain is tryingto tell you somethingimagine that your mouth is the sun
and we are hanging by our necks betweentwo telephone poles, swayingin the breezepleasei just need five more minutes
NOTES
1. She has an infatuation with dying slowly and she calls it being in love with life.2. It is cold. I am cold. You are cold. We are very cold.3. I am tired of being sad and tired.4. I fucking hate lists.5. Numbers arent even solid enough to hold on to anymore.6. Write poems for yourself and not for him.7. Notice the places where your skin is raised and dont be afraid.8. Notice the way the trees are framed by the light in the sky.9. There is indeed light in the sky.
10. There is a beating in your chest. Grab it. Hold on. Dont let go.
-
7/27/2019 I Crawled Out of the Sewer to Write This Chapbook
6/15
in my head i constellate the things you said to me and try my best to make sense of it all i stall like anengine in the dead of january amidst the falling snow and snow was like swans if they were migrating
geese at least tell me if you remember that winter how we went outside just to throw things and feel
our arms move in the air we didnt even have a pond to throw into to watch the ripp les watch the
ripples of my stare i see you flinch when i look at you and you drop your head like a child who
knows theyve disappointed their mother
you never disappointed me I swear you never disappointed me
-
7/27/2019 I Crawled Out of the Sewer to Write This Chapbook
7/15
SUMMER NIGHT
bite into the summer night like itsan orange, wrap the peelaround your fist and
punch the moonone time i jumped so high ihit my head on a zeppelinone time i cried so hard iwent blindone time i cut so deep ibled out all the madnessscream into the summer night likeyoure being chased by something otherthan your imaginationsilence the voices, for just five secondsexorcise the feeling that youre
being watched, stopswallow the summer night likeits just another pill
JUNE
june came like a frost in the night
which is terribly ironic, and if I were less of aterrible person I might paint my fingernails withthe sun or bathe myself in the shade but insteadIll stick my head in the freezer until my cheeksare redder than sunset
if I died laughing it would be wonderfullyironic, because what a way to go, with a smilefrozen like frost like june like my head inthe freezer, Id have my nails painted in red andmy hair tied in a bow, Id die with irony before
Id ever let you go
-
7/27/2019 I Crawled Out of the Sewer to Write This Chapbook
8/15
1.
I cant remember waking up most mornings
I put a fork in the microwave and now everything is so tangibly broken
and that feels good to meI painted a picture of a girl ripping her chest open and
it was semi-self-representative, accidentally of course
I keep forgetting what being whole feels like so
when things come together it is like sticking a finger into
a frowning electrical socket
I am snapping my fingers in half one by one
and its like music only even more beautiful
2.
you are eating goldfish whilegoogling the symptoms of PTSDand biting your fingernailsflashback to when you were sitting on the roofwith someone elses shadowflashforward to when you cant rememberwhat time it is anymoreyoure lying on the floor ponderingthe implications of the ceiling fansrepetitive motion
right now it is 3:33 and you areslipping into a dream about being completeyou are a puzzle before anyone has eventhought about taking you out of the box
3.
if i cooked you dinner would you sit and talk
to me about the way the light looks
when it filters through the surface of
a chlorinated pool or maybe how
when i sleep for too long i get migraines orhow too many prescription drugs make you feel full
of warmth?
-
7/27/2019 I Crawled Out of the Sewer to Write This Chapbook
9/15
IM NOT SAYING HIDE BUT IM NOT SAYING SEEK, EITHER
if you dont want peopleasking questions just brandyour diagnosis across
your forehead, justfucking do it,god
watch me standat the top of a crows nestand scream I ALMOSTKILLED MYSELF TWO TIMESand then laugh til myhead literally falls off
let me just post a screen shot ofa screen shot of a pictureof someones broken wrist taggedwith soft grunge and gore
oh yeah, exploit me morethats just SUCH a turn on
i will paint my depression all overmy face like its a carnival andall these washed-up washed-outoutcasts arent just running away
from their problems
i will wait and i will wait and i willwrap my wrists in headbands and then whenyou make a list ofyour mental illnesses and put it in your blogdescription i will literally fuckingkill you
-
7/27/2019 I Crawled Out of the Sewer to Write This Chapbook
10/15
YOU MUST HAVE HEARD ME WRONG
you bite down on my heart but think its just an apple.
juice trickles out the corner of your mouth like
it owns you, like youre the greatest thing
to ever happen to it.
youre so reluctant to change
even when the sky is crashing like the end screen
of a silent film, and its the apocalypse, i say, but
you assume you heard me wrong.
i bite down on my tongue like its yours
and were in love, were making love under the stars
but thats just my imagination acting up again.
you dont really notice how i look at you, do you?
youre so absorbed in yourself
that you dont notice me biting down on
your shoulder, you dont hear me scream that youre
the greatest thing to ever happen to me
you dont notice as i rewind the tape and
you dont realize that none of this happens
in real time, you dont notice that the rain
isnt still falling.
-
7/27/2019 I Crawled Out of the Sewer to Write This Chapbook
11/15
shut up
you are going to keep existing after
you're dead, so suicide is not
really a viable option
goddamn, the sun is so bright
goddamn, the night is so fullgoddamn the sun the night
i was right
when i said that i wouldn't survive
as it was but things have
changed, look in the mirror and
bite your lip some more
you'll wish you could ever feel sexy
goddamn, people can be so beautiful
but not youright
you are going to keep existing even after
you're dead so like i said
suicide is not a viable option
have a conversation with your reflection
in the water in the toilet as you try
to keep from getting sick
have a conversation with yourself over
a bottle of pills that youre not too scared
to take, but you wont take them
stick out your tongue to catch the rain and
look at that goddamn sky
so shut up
you're so fucking beautiful
-
7/27/2019 I Crawled Out of the Sewer to Write This Chapbook
12/15
SKIN
the lights were too bright to think clearly
but i could see my own breath as it hit the skin of the sky
i didnt feel that cold but i guess that was just a trick of the mind
the clouds were just goosebumps
werent they, just raised cotton pimples that the atmosphere
rejected as ugly. i fell in line with their movements because i felt ugly, too
you sat next to me on the bleachers
and cheered as the team in blue and green made the first down
and you threw your head back to laugh, and laugh, and laugh with everyone else
i felt the brush of your skin as
we returned to our seats. it was different than
the skys, different than the earths, different than mine
sometimes i feel the fingers of
a different hand, i find myself in the palm of some
being too great, i can never quite see his face, but only an arm
stretching up, like the notes
at the end of a song, hitting just right, not flat
not sharp. you dont ever seem to share the same visions anymore
the team scores again
you rise with the crowd like you dont havethe discipline to do anything else, like you dont have the nerve
i remain seated in the sky
alongside the ugly and the arms of great beings
reaching out for us, skin like the wind, the lights are blinding
-
7/27/2019 I Crawled Out of the Sewer to Write This Chapbook
13/15
I REALLY WANT TO BE OKAY
think of the sky singing sunsetsoff-key, id laugh at them, probably
id take my mirror and smash itinto pieces, seven years bad luck butits not like the past seven years havent been bad enough
seven years ago i was about to startthe fifth gradeseven years ago i started to have consistentmigrainesseven years from now ill be out of collegeif i make it through withoutkilling myself
i want to draw you a picture of howwell be in the future
i want to scratch the words iam alive" into the side of a carand see what happenswill they call it vandalismi think i know the answerbut truth has never been morebeautiful than when it was dripping
onto the bathroom floor
i love everyone
i love the way that when you lay on the groundand look at the trees sidewaysyou feel like youre standing inthe sky, still sighing, dancingon the moon i say this doesntfeel like home anymore"but thats okay
because home is always changingand i am changing for the better,i hope
-
7/27/2019 I Crawled Out of the Sewer to Write This Chapbook
14/15
WORDS THAT TASTE BETTER THAN COFFEE
i see your hopelessness and raise you
a hand, to grab a hair off your black jacket
you once stopped me cold with your stare
so unblinkingly like a blanket of snow in
the dead of winter
for the life of you you cant remember
its bitter but you like it
its old but youve never seen it like this before
im old but ive never seen you so beautiful
we link arms, tilt heads back, swallow something
that burns our throats and makes us build
campfires in the pits of our stomachs
lets have smores to make ourselves feel better
-
7/27/2019 I Crawled Out of the Sewer to Write This Chapbook
15/15