a poem that shouldn't be written but I'm writing it anyway, in what I'd like to think is a moment of bold honesty, but probably is more like embarrassing stupidity

i.

I want to fuck you
like the dirty fucking whore
I once was
/ still am, but
not practising, like a bad catholic who's
skipping church

I want to
open my mouth
wider over yours, and take giant gulps of you
run my tongue along your teeth
and smash my jaw on your edges

and even though I get off
every time with you, without fail, and even
almost always
more than once, I just...

feel complacent in my climax
coz it's just so
goddamn easy

I want the performance back.

I want to dress up in thigh-high socks
and short skirts
and still be wearing them
when you come inside me
(my top off,
but in my bra)

I want to find you in a gutter at 4am
and lick drugs from your sticky palms
I want to wake up on your floor
with broken wine bottles everywhere
and stains in the carpet
that aren't from the wine

I want to smell myself on you
when I walk back into your room
after pissing in the morning
and walking back through your lounge
your conventionally good-looking flatmate
half glaring, half gawking

I want you to smack me across my face
I want you to dig your nails into my spine
I want you to chuck me around your living room and break a
very expensive heirloom

and tell your girlfriend all about it

and write poems about it

I want things that grate entirely
with my actual
ideologies

I want the sordid satisfaction
of you thinking I'm something I'm not
and knowing you can't comprehend
human duality

(or you know it entirely, and
that's why
you're here)

I want the pleasure of having power
over giving you an alter-ego
like, fuck yes this same
binge drinking, cock-sucking slut
also votes green, shuts down the patriarchy and
recycles correctly

and sure you can take me home
if you buy me a vegan burger first
coz I'm a dirty little hippy
with zero dollars to her name
but you're gonna buy me breakfast -
not because you're the male
but because you fucking owe me,
because you already want to see me again
and it's only
the morning after

and I'll answer your 10pm texts
coz it feels like summer,
and we all want that

I'll walk through the park at night for you
I'll risk my life to open my legs
I'll play the right song
and postpone sleep

just to feel in control
just to feel like the mad seductress
just to bear the weight of your form
and hear the aliveness of your breath

and conquer
and know
and decipher
one by one


ii.

here's what I don't want to do:

I don't want to go back to your windowless apartment
I don't want to hold your soft, spineless back
I don't want to pretend I'm enjoying it
I don't want you to shove yourself inside of me
I don't want to eat your fucking pumpkin seeds
you sad excuse for a vegetarian
I don't want to
go fucking slowly
I don't want to be fucked the way you want to fuck me
I don't want to wear a short skirt because you told me to,
I want to wear it because I fucking want to wear it
I don't want you to tell me to be quiet
I don't want you to be such an ugly, pathetic excuse for a man
I don't want you to
have me

I don't want to cry on your bed afterwards
and try to politely, kindly
explain why i feel revolted,
disgusted,
sick to my stomach
in a way i can't even comprehend, yet
and tell you sweet little lies
about not being attracted to you
when really the truth is

you fucking shoved yourself inside of me
after I literally said no
what the fuck was that ?
what the fuck was that

the time I stepped outside of myself
the time I played the game but no longer for the game's sake
the time I put myself in danger
the only time i wish i hadn't


iii.

I want them to enact my nostalgia

I imagine them sneaking across the hallway
at unholy hours of the night
mis-matched lovemakers
sharing rooms within a shared home
existing between the spaces of the house's other inhabitants

I imagine them indulging in the easy tension of holding a secret in the kitchen
the morning ritual of opening the fridge
and boiling the jug
the sterile intimacy
the stoic lust of taboo
the heroic triumph of doing the forbidden thing

sometimes the only way to appreciate someone you don't get along with
is to put yourself inside of them,
let them wear your skin
and shower together afterwards

too many beginnings and
too many ends,
as usual

containe(d)

burying myself
in the sound of you, despite
having matched my shy eyes
with yours infrequently

... delivered by love and rain
to five years earlier
(I've already moved with you
in yellow) - I'd like to be longer, now,
stretching languidly across time-
and maybe that's why

my shoulder blades featured
in tonight's videoic brainstorm
(I like to notice coincidences
like that, and
make mountains of them)

and the bending of my neck also:
(I suggested imaging my skin;
he suggested tying a skeleton around it)
not just in art, but in totality of ecstasy

heading into water
with someone I barely know -
as I did at the moment
last year became
this one:

wading through that tiny river
until we arrived in the sea
(though this time, by myself,
'til I master sending stones)

and don't worry,
I know he knows - I know
how transparent I am:
I'm in my own head
wearing my own skin
hearing my own mumbles
I feel my own gauche halo circling every inch of me

what is it with me

that I can never rebirth my courage
in the moments that matter to me?
I'm only brave
when I've nothing
to gain

dolls house

I was a little
drunk tonight, at work
and it was both
stupid and great

- like that time
Mike convinced me
to smoke a joint with him and his girlfriend
when I lived in
Grafton's shittest flat
(I only agreed
because he'd fucked me
four nights earlier

and I could still feel
his tall torso looming over me
and over
the blood-stained sheets -

and even as I write this poem
I see the habits
unravelling

my life's not really as badass
as it sometimes
sounds
on here

it's just that the badass bits
are sometimes the only bits
worth mentioning
sometimes they're the bits
that feel most alive
most raw and therefore
most honest

most like me.

banter / ted-y bear

"...and then I started watching TED talks instead of having sex," she explains to me. "So in the end, it was fine. I became educated." The corners of her mouth stretch horizontal. She picks up her coffee cup. "And really, that's what men prefer anyway. Someone who knows things about the world, you know?"

Jesus, I think.

"Yeah probably," I say.

She places the coffee cup back into its saucer and sneaks one - nope, two - sugar packets out of the glass in the centre of the table.

"You know, I've been reading a lot about all those artificial sweeteners," she carries on, "and I think-- they're actually much worse for you than just real sugar. I mean, sugar is a plant -- right? It's a plant. Why on earth would you choose a chemical over a plant? That's just--"

"Well, I suppose--"

"Ridiculous."

"Well... Well I don't know, really."

"Neither did I until a few weeks ago. Seriously, I thought that I was being really healthy. You know, cutting out all my sugar. But it turns out -- I read this online, on this nutrition blog that I follow -- it turns out that actually sugar isn't as bad for you as aspartame--"

"As what?"

"Aspartame -- and yet, most of those diet soft drinks are chocka full of the stuff. It's really, really bad for you. Really bad. Like, it could kill a cat. A small kitten. You know?"

"Chihuahua cat."

"Exactly! So there's all these women -- well, men too, I suppose -- men and women... Sorry, women and men." She pauses. "People. There's all these people wandering around-- well, they're-- anyway they're going through their lives, truly believing that they're doing a good thing. But actually, they're more or less putting poison into their bodies."

"Do you miss the sex, though?" I ask her.

She places her spoon down parallel to the table edge.

"What?"

"Pardon," I correct her. "Do you miss the sex?" My spine moves back into the chair slightly.

"I... Well yeah, of course." She looks down at her coffee. "But good things have come out of it, you know? I mean, a year is a long time doing the same thing. The same person. Sorry that came out wrong. You know what I mean. Anyway. It's a long time. Well, not at our age, I know. Well I suppose not in general, really -- but it's still a long time. In terms of doing something you're not fully into."

Her eyes follow a guy to the till. He looks a mature twenty.

"The thing is, Natalie." Her eyes return back to me and she looks me very squarely in the eyes. She puts her elbows and palms down flat so that her forearms are running in my direction across the table. "I am a better person now. I am my own person. Now, I am ready for a proper relationship. I wasn't before. That is why it didn't work out."

She reclines back into her chair, point made.

"Well it worked for a year..." I offer.

"It worked for a year. But I want more than 'worked'. I want-- I want..." Her eyes search the ceiling: "--all kinds of things. Maybe some of them are a little unrealistic. But I have high ideals now. Ideals that could only have come from this break up." Hands groping the coffee cup again. Groping. Groping.

I tell her, "You're groping your cup."

"What?"

"Pardon."

"What am I doing?"

"Pardon you. You're groping the coffee cup," I say.

"What do you mean, groping?"

"I mean you're groping the mug. Like, the way you're holding it. That's not normal. Most people don't hold their cups like that; that's why it's got a handle."

She looks down at her grip. Back at me. Tips her head down slightly.

"I think you're over-analysing this."

"I'm not, I promise."

"You are definitely over-analysing this."

"I really don't think I am," I assert. "I'm not. I don't over-analyse!"

This is probably not true. I feel a little bit bad.

"Hey, sorry. I didn't even say anything. Like, I'm not telling you that you groping your coffee cup means something particular or anything like that. I'm just saying: you're groping your coffee cup and most people don't do that."

She squints her eyes, shakes her slowly head side to side and squeezes the words out of her mouth. "You -- are -- such -- a -- shit," she says.

I shift in my chair. "Oh honestly, Cassie, don't talk to me like that."

"Like what?!"

I look at her, straight on. "Don't call me a shit."

"Well you are." She shuffles in her chair now, lengthens her back. "You're being a shit."

I tip my head sideways. "Well thanks."

Then there's temporary silence. I turn my eyes to follow the direction of my head, profile to her; I see out of my peripheral Cassie turns her gaze the opposite way.

After a moment I ask her, "Who are you looking at?"

"I'm not looking at anyone."

"You are. I can tell."

"I'm not."

"Is it a guy? Who are you looking at?"

"Look, Natalie--"

"No, who are you looking at..."

"I don't have to be looking at someone, okay? Maybe I'm just... thinking."

"Oh yeah? About what?"

"I'm just thinking, ok? Not that I can, when you keep friggen scrutinizing how I'm holding my goddamn coffee."

She levels her head back to face me across the table.

"I told you, men like women who think about the world." More of that awful shuffle-shuffle-lengthen-spine. "I'm thinking about the world."

"Oh. Sure."

She just shakes her head at me.

"Such a shit."

"Yup. Got it."

We have a miniature staring competition. Neither of us wins. Or loses.

"So what are you doing with the rest of your day?" she asks my pupils.

"Nothing," they tell her.

"That's pretty fucking boring."

"I'm a pretty boring person."

"Mm, don't know why I bother actually."

"Bother what? Bother informing me about the dangers of sugar?"

"It's--"

"Ranting about your sex life."

"Natalie--"

"I feel a bit voyeuristic with you sitting there groping your cup, actually.."

"Natalie!"

"What?"

"Pardon," she corrects me.

"Touche," I shrug. "What, though?"

She looks down at her gropey fingers.

"Man. We both really need to get laid, huh."

"Yeah." I lower my eyes to bury my secrets into the floor. Cassie thinks.

"But only with the right person though. For me, I mean - you can do what you like. But I'm not settling for anyone who doesn't match at least six of my ten basic relationship sensitivities list--"

"Your what, now...?"

"That's the absolute minimum. Maybe if he was really hot... No. No, six. At least six."

"You are crazy Cassie."

"Hah! At least I'm not a shit."

I shrug again.

"I don't think I'm a shit."

"You are."

"Ok."

"But not in a bad way."

"Sure."

"I still love you."

"Great, thanks for that."

"I do. I really love you, Natalie. Even though you are a shit."

"My god girl, mixed messages--!"

"That's possible! It's possible. I loved Mark, even though he was pretty awful sometimes. Even though he could be a shit, he was worth loving. For the most part."

"If you say so."

"I do say so. For the most part, his good outweighed his bad."

"Ah, but yes, see: There's the catch. For the most part. For the most part is not enough, is it? What did you say before-- '...more than just working...'". 

"Yeah, well that's why we--"

"I know. I know. But how do you know where that point is? The point where you say, 'TED talks are going to be more beneficial to me than you. I would rather watch a funny looking old man on my computer screen tell me things than have a nice looking young man in front of my face.'"

Cassie thinks for a moment.

"It's the point where you look at the person in front of you," she says, "but in you're head you're actually watching the TED talk."

"So instead of wondering about that person, you're wondering about the world."

"I think so," says Cassie. "Something like that."

avalon

Avalon's name is haunting me
the road home
the shitty corner bakery
(named after the road home)

her body...
she's still sleeping on my fold-out couch
tipping ash all over the front porch
dangling her smooth legs over the rotting wooden rails
cleaning up the bathroom vanity to a perfect polished white

I'd have her back, though
if her hands were clasping those small, expensive cylinders

planar

Body in my bed
makes starts.
There's a whole gap free next to him
but it's not mine
That's where I used to sleep
when I wouldn't let in
didn't want life interrupted
by equidistant genders
and their conducive etiquette

So I moved to the wall
and you replaced me on edge.

pre-show nightmare

I never have nightmares about 'real life' things (some people have stress-mares about upcoming exams, public speaking etc.) BUT last night I had my first pre-show nightmare.

1. There were HEAPS more people than expected at opening night. This was good.
2. It was all downhill from here.
3. After the first section, about 1/3 the people let. I thought, they must be in the wrong theatre (there are two theatres in the complex we're performing in in Auckland and this occasionally happens).
4. I realised ... WE were in the wrong theatre. The stage was too huge for us and the space felt empty.
5. I realised we hadn't rehearsed. Why hadn't we rehearsed? I mean, we'd done this show before in September but that was four and a half months ago.. why hadn't we rehearsed again?
6. Nothing is happening. A whole bunch of pathetic, low energy emptiness.
7. Arguing with my dancers. Onstage. Semi-audibly.
8. I know exactly what I am doing most of the time but can't remember any partnering. I try to lift Sarah in an improvised moment. Sofia sniggers.
9. There are a lot of Pacific Islander kids and they are getting restless because it's too "alternative"/"pretty"/"not hip-hop". (I'm ashamed at my sleeping racism but there you go.)
10. My lighting designer/operator is not the person I thought and he is lighting everything WAY too brightly and openly, top lights and house lights that are exposing even further the emptiness of the huge stage.
11. It gets marginally better as it goes on but by this stage people are too far gone.
12. We forget the order. I whisper in Sarah's ear: " hair into blanket, duet." We argue.
13. We don't finish at the finish.
14. I don't remember a curtain call.
15. There are lots of really important people in the audience milling around afterwards and they frankly tell me what they think. Mainly concerning the lighting.

I am grateful for this dream as I have woken up super productive and am watching the video to review & develop the piece - something I have been procrastinating for a while in favour of production.

I wrote words about you
like shortening my name and
on couch, on couch

did you get my attention on purpose?

there's a whole picking over this burning vinyl
but I
have thought 'no'
every time

I want to invite the neighbours over

maybe you can come say hello?
I have friendly sheets
the colour of your jersey
the season is...

your eyes are sleepy and
I could
but
and
I just
wasn't
there isn't
we can't--
endings,
and

you seem older
numbers have
and I
could we
we just
hello, and
and--

did you put me in
the middle
on purpose?
I just..
I can't--

what's the difference between
nice
and
ordinary
?

bpm

I'm pretty certain that I could stop time around this darker hour, if I wanted to. Like, I could just think about slowing the world down and it would comply. Like the boy who slowed his heartbeat: "I can make my heart beat slower," he said. I put my ear underneath his collarbone, to document the evidence. And he did. He made his heart beat slower.

"Take the day off work", he said.

"I can't," said I.

I didn't.

"I hope you're not doing anything naughty," joked my boss the day before Labour Day. You wouldn't understand, I thought. Culture clash. Then I went and committed the one act I regret.

"You look a lot better than I do", he yawned from his catafalque of a mattress. He smelt vaguely of whiskey as I pressed my nose into his scapula. "Yes," I said, "I had a shower." And I'm wearing make-up. Oh, and I used your soap. I hope that's ok.

"I wish we could have breakfast," confessed the back of his blonde head to the almost-empty room. I picked up underwear up off the floor and laughed at myself. I've never been one to like blonde boys. Not before and not since. This is ridiculous. 

My 'mature' self would scold my coming-of-age foolishness. Live a little more recklessly, she would say. No, she would say: If you're going to be reckless, do it with full commitment. Don't chicken out in the morning. 

Oh yes, I would rather betray the people I love than the part time job I don't even need. I had four grand in the bank, that year. Spot on, teacher - I am so accommodating. Fitting where it doesn't count and resisting all goodness til the end. Resisting sleep and welcoming bursting stomachs. Lack of sleep leads to an early demise, my mother threatened. Fuck off, I said. Fuck off.

Then I threw a plate through the window. Did I prove my point?

I slept with the weather spitting at me for two nights and then I invested in some masking tape. On the fifth day I emptied my savings account. With resent. Picked out an aesthetically pleasing piece of sharp and tried to dig it into my right thigh. But I really hate pain. I do. I didn't get very far. I probably scratched out two layers of seven skins. What a joke.

Laughing at myself, collecting the night before off his floor.

So I paid twice, in the end.

I paid to drive the winding hills of some place I couldn't pronounce. I listened to my favourite songs in alphabetical order. I resisted sleep and substituted it for make up. I substituted sense for a fleeting Hollywood score.

What's the score, dear Nathaniel? Dear Nathalia? My dear, my dear. Oh dear...

The rain gave me a fright when it finally came. I swear it put the house in motion. It ushered the car across the white lines (briefly). It snaked its way onto my bedsheets through the masked hole. Clutching my little transparent triangle, there sat I. Whispering, go slower. Go slower. Go slower. 

fill in

maybe what I can do
is just fill in all my gaps and then
there will be so much of me
occupied
that it will feel quite similar to emptiness. Because I will
just be kind of forced to submit to the overload.
Maybe that is actually what I am subconsciously
trying to do. 'Cause emptying is so
hard. I like to be
occupied, only, on my terms
which,
of course,
doesn't actually
work. So I need to try a new approach.
Yes, maybe filling
up will help. And
just as soon as I
have said, "I need to
empty." See, occupation
is the
fear reflex.
Fear becomes a nervous twitch. I'm not a nervous person. So rushed
I am writing, rolling my toes over. Certain people elicit this in
me. Usually
they are not even trying to. I have to hold
my own power. I hold my own power. I hold my own
power. No-one else can take mine
from me (is that backwards?). I am holding my own power.
There is no submission. There is submission in resisting
submission: there is submission to trust.
I submit to
trust, I retain power.
I submit to myself, I retain myself.
I submit to trust; I retain power.
I submit to myself; I retain myself.
Or maybe this is emptying.



stream of consciousness sitting outside Plum in Wellington, 01.02.12, upside down in Footnote journal, in between the lines of "I am a creature"

things from you*

Things I have learned from you:

Break habits.
Call in sick.
If you have something good, hold onto it.
Laughter and collarbones are really the only things that matter.
A jack of all trades is a master of none.
You need to be gentle with people.
Go to it, not away from it.
Freckles are good.


Things I have learned because of you:

Take a phone with you.
Put your phone on silent.
I can't multitask.
You play by the leader's terms.
Names aren't as important as silent dialogue.
It ends when you say you're not sticking around.
The space before defines the night.
I know.
I am knowing.
Always suggest going for a walk.
Kisses are just isolated hugs.
Away places are still with consequence.
Some pills have lactose in them.
There is going to be physical evidence.
Find satisfaction in foreign things.
Everything is ok, in context.
People aren't often gentle.
Just be like when you're dancing.
Most of my tension is held in my legs.
The important body is often neglected.
There is no half way.
People are not entities but experiences.




*you as a collective term

bravery/stupidity?

natasha
joel
josh
caitlyn
chris
todd
natalie
saraid
alice
you
jamie

baby don't break me

A list of my injuries since at Unitec.

1st year:
Left knee - medial ligament strain.
Right knee - strange joint things happening (suspected chondromalacia, probably a muscle imbalance).

2nd year:
None that I can remember. But pretty sure I had eight split toes at one time.


3rd year:
Left wrist - stressed joints.
Right arm - partial tear of medial ligament.
Right achilles - fluid sitting around the tendon.
Left foot - dropped metatarsal head.


My initial reaction to injuries is frustration and anger.
Probs crying.
Then I kind of absorb them and they become part of how I dance and things I know about my body.

Each new injury seems linked to a past one.
At first realising that has the same feeling as realising you've made the same mistake twice.
Like a bit stupid/foolish and angry at yourself for not having more foresight.
But then it's kind of nice also to realise that you're one complete thing; you are not lots of tiny little scattered parts but actually one whole functioning organism that is interconnected and works as an entirety.
That's quite reasurring.

tidy

When I was still living at home and bad things happened between people I would start doing the dishes and cleaning up the lounge. It seemed like a practical way to show support without dwelling on or intruding upon the people involved with the problem (when I am publicly upset I like to be left alone so I can pull myself together because if anyone shows any concern or love I won't have any hope of controlling myself and then people will think I am selfish or attention-seeking or dramatic (which I am a bit (which is probably why I don't want them to think this))). So I guess doing practical chores in the face of adversity seemed like a good way to help without sending the person over the edge with personally compassionate gestures. Also a good way to avoid getting stuck in the middle of the situation and thus suddenly and unexpectedly becoming a part of the problem.

I still do this (undertaking practical tasks) sometimes but not as much because while at home I was quite closed off and disconnected from the situation happening around me and had plenty of school work and extra-curricular activities to distract me. I had friends with homes in different towns and a car I could drive wherever and whenever I liked to physically remove myself. In my last year of high school I was hardly ever at home. No matter where home is or how fond of it I am, I have always liked not being home. When I was home and sometimes even when I was not it felt like I was a pillar of sanity and objectiveness amongst illogical turmoil. Nothing affected me and I didn't see why it should. I was probably actually what people call 'cold', sometimes.

Then one time, I think maybe at the end of first year (2009) I went home one time (rare occurrence) and suddenly realised the enormity of the situation and balled my eyes out. Everyone else was over it (in that coping way, not actually over it) and felt incredibly strange and sad.

The next day I woke up and felt small. I always feel small in Cambridge. And quiet. I flew out to Sydney for 2 months and resumed a semi-nomadic lifestyle quite disconnected from 'home' and felt very at home away from home and thinking a lot of my new home in Auckland and maybe future homes. That was a good section of life.

Now that I am in places I actually want to be in I am super connected to the people and spaces I encounter everyday. And it's much more confronting then when I lived at home. I still try to cram my life with other things but not for distraction from others, more for a distraction from the possibility of failure. There is always the hope that a semi-perfect utopia will emerge from the existing goodness. Goodness feels stagnant and complacent. So practical tasks are a good way to occupy otherwise-bare moments. Like taking a stack of chairs back to where they came from at the end of a long day, at the end of a long week, in a languid gap that wasn't meant to be and then was and then wasn't.

Chairs and a table. That's what this post was meant to be about.

no noodles natalie

Pretty proud of the fact that in all my two and a half years and two weeks and four days as a student I have not ONCE ever resorted to two minute noodles for lunch.

Claasssaaayyyyyy.

why why why

I don't care that you "liked it".
I want to know why you liked it.
Tell me why you liked it.

weird/funny

Weird thing #1:
Some people thought I was gay with my straight friend.

Weird thing #2:
Some people thought I was straight with my gay friend.

fifteen or maybe sixteen

Once I showed my friend a story and said, "look, this is the first story I've ever really written."
(Up until then everything was more like poems or thoughts.)

And she said, "It's not a story. Nothing happens in it."

That is how she defined a story: There must be an event. Something must 'happen'.

opposite ends of the room

The other day I bought a cheap Asian wireless FM transmitter off TradeMe to play my iPod in my new car because it doesn't have a tape deck or AUX port. It's really cheap and crap. Makes all my music sound like real underground, home-recorded adolescent tears. Cool.

Today I was waiting at a red light playing some angsty, crackly music pretty loud with my window down and a very frail-looking elderly couple walked past. I felt really guilty all of a sudden -- I don't know why -- so I turned it down. They didn't even seem to hear it. Probably were deaf. I still felt guilty though. Got moody really fast and turned it off completely.

Then I felt too quiet, so I plugged the iPod back in. But I couldn't find the right connection and my iPod was angrily going kCHHHHHHHkkkkCHHHHkkkkssshhhkkkkkkktttfffffggggvvvkkk at me. Like fifty thousand primary school kids ripping open their plastic chip packets in quick succession. Irritating but in that "whatever/used to it/can't be bothered anyway" way.

Last week our choreographer Sarah said, "I'm going to play some really irritating music now." Then she played, in reverse, one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard.