indent

my head :

I had to indent it
to stop the Fury from rising,
had to roll my knuckles 'round the back of my skull
to avoid repeating fifteen -

(plate intersecting window;
she made me pay for it -
despite my first two orbits dizzy inside their fighting)

- supposedly its better
to damage one's self over material property

the Fury
surges
a current through me
wants to explode
                            OUT
but I push it down,
I push it down,
it boils in my abdomen
and rots my insides
and wrings my organs

the tumorous energy seeps slowly upwards
and clogs my throat, forehead, eyes

so far from flowing / or
giving without exhaustion
never hurting
always beautiful

always open
and radiant, abundant

instead -
I feel heavy
bruises forming inside me
lesions of agitation
scab my cheeks and chin

my world is insular
I forget everything outside of me

I'm well off the path
before I realise
I'm lost ...

head, meet ground
meet fists
meet shower wall

heels, meet floor
meet bed legs
meet air

forearms,
meet pile of blankets
meet thighs
meet ears

I can't hear
I can't feel
I can't feel
if I can't hear

hEART

heart is dancing

heart doesn't know how but

it still / moves 

it's supposed to keep rhythm

but it's out of time

it's growing old so early

and refusing to grow up

it's stuck in the centre of the spine

green but not with envy

it's breaking its host body

refusing to mimic regularity

its swinging blood around this miniature world

but it doesn't work towards a life

it permits organs of sadness

and cells of confusion,

atoms of melancholy

to float around, meandering

it desperately needs coffee

it knows it's not good for it but

it wants to fuck itself up

it wants to lie on the floor

it wants to feel allowed to fail

it wants to stay at the bottom --

why must it climb 

to sit so high on the spine ?

it feels embarrassed about being a heart

it hurts to beat

it throws itself at others, not out of need

but out of a desire to touch, to connect, to feel..

that's different, it insists :

a heart needs a ribcage to sit within,

it needs a pulse to follow

it needs hands to hold it

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

in the first line of a poem

in the first line of a poem
there's so much
pressure
              \
                anxiety
to grab you, reader --
especially after
eight hundred
and
     no one
                even
                       reads them
                             
     anyway.

i.
sometimes all it takes
to feel powerful again
(read: normal)
is boots and a denim jacket
a short puff on a small blunt
and walking in to a dimly-lit, music-less bedroom --
alone --
while the rain hits the veranda

and I wonder how I could
ever
not be
good


ii.
when I was getting high
and writing foreign poems
late at night
every night
about the night
and didn't have steel pins in me
and didn't mind getting caffeine\drunk

then I felt like an artist
then I felt like I's creating things

then I felt
like a
human being


iii.
I feel like i'm on the precipice
of being 18 again
thick in the hea(r)t of it
melting into regular epiphany
bordering on genius,
all the while complaining
about being 18 again --

but here's the trick:
I knew more then than I know now,
but I didn't know it

get bigger

oh, there's a poem 

in this irony

that I'm dressing up in silver 

and gold glints 

each night

and feeling like 

the biggest fraud

feeling weak

feeling dull in my eyes 

soft of voice

barely able to cope with the day itself

shedding tears before breakfast

like I'm a child back at Uni

crying my way

through my un-favorite thing 

failing only because

I think that I'm failing

my body always betrays me

it won't let me lie

I can put on a face

but my body will yell the truth

until everyone is listening

and me -

reveling in my humiliation. 

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

how's this for irony

I asked a question
hoping to avoid the situation
that came as a result
of asking the question.

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.

There's this little ache living in me,

and it is A Fraid. 

The Fraid is burrowing into my insides,

sending its electro wave signals 

into my extra eye-whatsit,

pulsing it's little tentacles into my veins and

latching on to my pulse.

The Fraid is very cosy and warm, and it is

difficult to persuade him to live

elsewhere. 

The Fraid especially likes to live in my

ovaries during summer, and

grips on to my femaleness

so tightly with his many legs that

tears leak out of me while I am

waiting for the bus.

I feel some chronic kind of beautiful

but there is no-one there to witness it,

except myself and the Fraid -

but I have no mirror and he is

hiding in the dark.

bite

if I could just un-sting myself,
pull that little
vex out of my forehead
to see a bit
clearer..

but the obtuse remark
sits firmly into the night,
inhibits the words
that were meant to go out and off

so that they must be unveiled
tomorrow, instead --
and then tomorrow instead
will come
on Saturday
on your day
and then I will feel guilty
about feeling guilty

Saturday night's stain sits on the inside of my left wrist. Two days later. It refuses to wash off, mimicking the colour of my unoxygenated veins running underneath the blurred stain and up to the base of my hand. The mark that should have married old nights and new feet. 

Instead, I declined a durry for conscience, left a full drink at the bar for urgency, paid for two kebabs I could barely afford. Sat. Waited. Listened. There I was, playing Mother again. Suiting it so well, they say. Like a condescending complement from your know-it-all teenager. It's not malice, I know. Just quietly confident naivety. 

Yes. When it's someone else sinking into the river, it suits me. When I'm counting above my eight. 

undo it and find knowledge

leave it ornament and remain ignorant

or undo it and also know how to reconstruct it

NB

and had you opened?
Then what.

Like the time I said
(almost) --
you are testing me
and what had I?
What had I? then, he
would have likely withdrawn sooner.

No excerpt for patience
No finale for grandest performance
audience eyes always penetrate the unconvinced
and all the acts a de ja vu

because
all the world's a stage.

eighth/first

It was fine to feel my back scritching against the ground. Clothed. Tolerable ... unlike your poor bare knees. That's the advantage of wearing a dress: you don't have to take it all off.

Your patellae were making little dents in the dirt; the stones and pine needles making small dents in your skin. You pointed them out later as if they weren't worth the trade-off.

No, you didn't mean that. I know. I know.

Let's play a game, as we wandered outside. How much time can we waste? I knew I'd have to instigate. I almost always do. People - New Zealanders, especially - are so bloody polite. It really kills me. Especially when it starts leeching into my own manners like some contagious etiquette-borne dis-ease. I hate that tentative feeling curling around my skeleton.

Pull me down, I urged with my wanted telepathy. Bet you won't. Go on. And then, to myself: That's not fair Natalie, to set someone up for failure. And then; My GOD just DO IT just -- ! Stop sitting with safety!

No, you stop, Natalie. Grow. Up.

I played this solo waiting game for an impatient ten minutes: hand on the tree, diligently observing its knots; How was your week? etcetera. Feigning concern that some drunk had followed us (I couldn't really care if they had; good on them).

And then I did the same thing I always do. I acted on my impatience, discipline-less. I followed through with the course of action I'd already decided. Resenting that I'd decided. Oh, pragmatism.

So much safety in the world.

I could have been fourteen again. Nestled in the edges of Ohope sand dunes, leaving human-sized holes in the beach. My hair in the same bobby-pinned coiffe. The alcoholic scene in the background. The pines looming over us in the dark. Only this time, I find myself thinking, eight others behind me. My hand guiding us forward (or backwards, to the ground).

Afterwards, a quick sweep of hand over back of hair. But, half-heartedly. Everyone knows. People aren't stupid ... when it comes to things like that. Thanks and I'll just go over here (alone) and Oh my, I'm bored as fuck now. Dance dance. "Bored as fuck". That's an unfortunate term, isn't it?

With eight behind me (in life, not just in love), having a small part inevitably then wants for it all. The walls and the tinnitus and the horizontal and the glitter; the burning eyes and nose and throat (from various self-afflictions); the handstands up against cars. Leaping over bonfires. The broken mirrors that bring lucky bleeding nails; the lace blouses... The whole frantic chaos of Chevalier-Parkfield-Cross.

Wanting all of this. I looked around. And the world seemed slow. Neutral -- most on two feet, vertical. Drink in hand, compliantly. The music a background -- non-diegetic -- effect. Costumes now redundant (and ridiculous, hilarious).

There's no point in leaving sober when their 'drunk' is your fallow. I'm a fan of stillness, I am. I am. But not of mundanity.

Let's go back to fourteen, my little head beckons. Let's go back to people. Let's go back to worn-out Wellington.

solution

This room is public property
My door frame: the porch

The town's conversations are
leaking into my
bed sheets
I will get into bed tonight and
they will be
damp
with
small talk

I can't even shut my door
because
That requires interaction
Or at the very least,
Eye contact --
Nah uh, no way

I thought...
I assumed, that amongst these people
I'd feel
I'd feel, or
I'd feel
asylum

But as I
keep realizing
All people are the
same.
Always,
All where:
Boring, and boring.
Too interesting to approach
and so unique that it is dull.

They're all different to me
Because I'm as
isolated as them
And therefore boring
And depressing
And stuff

They're all talking about each other
And only listening to themselves
They're all listening to each other talking about each other to themselves

So I pretend that I'm boring
instead of appearing bored
I'm so sad I don't drink
I just think, and then I think--

I just want to cry all over everyone
And kiss up my tears
from their beautiful faces
to dampen my beautiful fears.

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.

Kings at 23

I envy the boy's confidence
I envy dancing in the square
body articulate with majority
I envy the sport-literate, vodka-born blonde
not for her head but her
knowledge
I envy the summer radiating out of his knees
I envy the capacity within their faces
and their counting backwards
ten at the top to
zero
I envy his small smirk
and especially that it
holds only benevolence
I envy youth as if I were old
even though those born today
envy me

elegantly

I am more concerned about my stoicism than my tears
I want all of my flesh to fall off me
in big chunky flaps
I want my finger knuckles to be apart of my wrists
I'd like to freeze to death, I think.

call time

gonna play dress ups just coz
wear hearts on my wrist
channel the tutu without
with-actually-in
gonna sit outside some theatrical joint
sip coffee
inhale secondhand smoke
and cark a dramatic
yet entertaining
death