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delilah, she–

–cut samson’s hair, surrendered his strength and his eyes, watched him bleed and burn, was crushed under a different stone, her hair stained, and his gone.

–cut samson’s hair, kept a lock for herself, didn’t stay for the silver, fled the city before he could wake, lived a thousand miles away under a different name, was buried with a single long braid clutched tight to her chest for reasons no one knew.

–cut samson’s hair, or at least thought about it, put down the scissors, slept beside him until morning, made a curtain of his mane to hide her eyes from the blinding sun, smiled gently as she dreamed of the pelts he would make of their enemies.

Posted By isa On 04.21.2013 @ 10:56 am

i fell, that’s true, but i wasn’t pushed.

i leapt.

Posted By isa On 04.20.2013 @ 10:41 am

we aren’t desolate, war-torn, sunken-eyed, buzzwords in an old paperback.

we aren’t joyful either, no laughter like bullets as we slammed axes into foreheads

of things that used to be alive.

i’m sucking on your fingers and the underside of your cuticles still taste like the last chocolate cake you ate (filthily and hungrily, it had mould by then too, cramped your stomach for days as you writhed alone in an abandoned trailer, but it was worth it) the last time you touched yourself (dryly, painfully, desperate for an out of body experience, an out of city experience, but what leaked out of you were tears) and the last time you held a dying friend (before he turned and you shot him point-blank,  then spent the rest of the day digging  the shrapnel from his brain and the grave you covered with kitty litter).

they’ve taken to ruling the earth, but we still have its core, the spine of things that trains once ran through

and oh, sometimes, sometimes, the light in this tunnel gives off a semblance of life and we miss the past so much that we forget

that we’re still here, it isn’t over yet.

Posted By isa On 04.19.2013 @ 10:55 am

Y’know, Big Guy, at some point You gotta stop blaming the Devil every time something screws up with Your Plan.

You raised that kid; it just screams bad parenting.

everyone’s noticed that coz You’re spending all Your time waiting  for him to come home, You’ve forgotten that You have seven billion more 

loitering around, vandalising stuff (blank walls, painted walls, their bodies, other people’s bodies),

just seeking Your guidance so they could make sense of this mess You dumped on their plate and left them all to deal with.

they’re hungry. at some point You’re gonna have to admit that war can’t feed everyone’s bellies.

and this sin thing. i’ve seen You get angry a bunch of times, okay. it wasn’t pretty. it sure as hell wasn’t holy, or righteous, or any  of those bullshit words You keep telling your children to live up to.

You lie plenty. You wiped out an entire city last week coz none of the hymns their churches were singing had Your name in them.

get it together, grow up. You’re older than eternity, for pete’s sake. set Yourself straight.

You’re supposed to be perfect. You’re supposed to be better than this, though slowly, i’m realising, that You’re just not.

i love You, Old Man, but You’re kind of a dick.

if You don’t want Your Leviathan to start eating and setting fire to everything, feed it once in a while, yeah?

don’t be a hypocrite, Dad. walk Your talk.

Posted By isa On 04.18.2013 @ 11:03 am

Human is a selfish creature, I wish we could change that. at the end of the day, we are selfish too. all of us. we cannot love selflessly.

Posted By isa On 04.18.2013 @ 8:35 am

say it. say it louder. say it clearer. e-nun-ci-ate. don’t whisper. give me a list of synonyms. paraphrase. write it in a letter. mail it. don’t forget the stamp. sing it, scream it. tap it out in morse. blink. use an explosion. spray it on the walls. tattoo it on your arms, on /my/ arms. hire a f-cking blimp. hijack a billboard, spell it out in cereal.

don’t look at me but say it again.

granted, it’s not me you have to convince: it’s my brain. there are chemicals that want me dead and god, are they good at their jobs.

(i think they’ll throw parties with the worms)

so say it if you want to, if you mean it, if it’ll kill you if you didn’t, but please remember: it’s not your fault if you fail.

Posted By isa On 04.17.2013 @ 11:11 am

long ago, the children of babel traded in the stars to invent a thousand more words for love.

today, we’re overflowing with books and songs and flowers in futile attempts to explain the phenomenon.

how can we top choosing feeling over heaven? how can our species move on, how will we ever compare?

Posted By isa On 04.16.2013 @ 9:46 am

there is a dead thing on the road. it wasn’t there this morning.

it was closing its eyes to rest as you opened yours, muttering ‘f-ck” at the sunlight. maybe later, if you had the time, you’d buy thicker curtains.

you heard it dying as you stirred sugar into your coffee. it wasn’t any if your business.

now you’re out to walk your dog and you see it lying in the middle of an empty street, the wind stroking the fur on its chest to resemble breath. it used to be an animal. it bled out on the concrete as you bit into your slightly burnt toast.

it has no business being in your life at all. taking pictures would be exploitative, and besides, it wasn’t even beautiful the way taxidermy creations are beautiful. terrifying-beautiful. it was just sad. you still know what sad is, don’t you?

you don’t know how it died or how to decipher inkblots. you’re not exactly numb, maybe nauseated, as you take the thing someplace grassy to bury it, and its head won’t stop lolling.

stop it right now. this isn’t a metaphor for a love that just ended. you didn’t wake up for anything but burnt toast and bland coffee. this isn’t a ghost that will haunt you because you did wrong by it. don’t be so narcissisic.

chill out. your next breakfast won’t taste like regret.

sometimes things just happen and they don’t make you stronger. you don’t grow or learn from them; you won’t look back later all fond and grateful, misty-eyed, with a deeper understanding of the universe.

there is just a dead thing on the road. it doesn’t tell you anything you didn’t already know but

it breaks your heart, and you’d kill to know why.

Posted By isa On 04.15.2013 @ 8:12 am

some days i look at people and think “you are beautiful

but only from far away”

i do not desire to touch them, or know them, or have them touch me and know me

the opposite of loneliness is not joy in company but joy in being alone

as if everyone else has eaten each other and all it stirs in me is a little hunger

so meet my lover, apathy,

an occasional bliss, the freedom from feeling anything at all.

Posted By isa On 04.14.2013 @ 10:12 am

the flood never stopped rising. the sky never gave up the sun. the dove with the olive branch

probably tired itself searching for impossible land and drowned.

noah lay among the old bones of his two-of-each-kind animals and dreamt up a world that was

only three parts water, where god mustered bravado to start all over again.

Posted By isa On 04.13.2013 @ 10:59 am

sure. use me. drop me in the sea.

forget everything we ever were. lap up champagne from your floorboards, kiss your pretty sirens, look at the sunset and pretend you own the horizon.

when you get sick of the view, when you find out your little women have sharp teeth, when there’s nothing left to drink,

you’ll want to leave and i won’t let you. i’ll weight you down (because i love you, like a certain iceberg loved a certain ship).

Posted By isa On 04.12.2013 @ 10:37 am

poetry shmoetry. what the fuck am i gonna do with this?

if i take all the words in the world and stack them, there still won’t be enough to put a roof over my head.

poetry doesn’t pay the mortgage. poetry doesn’t buy a car so i won’t have to walk the streets at 10 pm and spend the rest of the way fantasizing about being a dead body.

fuck that, poetry doesn’t even teach me how to drive.

you ever tried eating paper? poetry tastes worst because there’s the added feeling, and it all turns to acid given enough time.

give me poetry that fills the belly. poetry like thick hot soup on a rainy day, poetry like melting popsicles when the sun is particularly nasty

and the fan’s broken.

can poetry clothe me? can i slide words over my body, strap them over my shoulders can i fasten them with a zipper? can they tell the world leave me alone like an oversized sweatshirt or look at me like a low-cut sequined number? so why do i bother?

poetry cannot keep me warm. poetry enriches only the heart and i’ve pawned mine

for secondhand jeans and something good to eat.

Posted By isa On 04.11.2013 @ 10:15 am

i am not a bird. i don’t have wings.

i am not an angel in human form; i am not a queen wronged, reincarnated.

i am not touched by god (at least, not more than anyone else.)

my monstrosities do not have some inherent beauty.

i am not divine – not a prophet, not a high priestess, unpossessed.

i am not your saving grace; i am not the end of everything.

i am not the moon or the sun. my dimples aren’t stars. freckles aren’t constellations.

my lipstick isn’t coded red for blood, and my high heels aren’t secretly knives.

i am not a token story. my girlhood is mundane.

sometimes special, occasionally boring.

i am not better than you. the dirt under my toenails speak to me more than these warrior women.

i have no higher purpose and my only struggle is staying alive.

i have courage, but only enough to be normal, and still i am worth as much as the chosen ones.

i am real. i am not going anywhere.

Posted By isa On 04.10.2013 @ 8:35 am

our kisses aren’t bullets and our f-cking isn’t gunfire.

the sheets aren’t white flags and drawing blood isn’t a patriotic act.

it’s only our bodies on the line and history has no time for real emotion.

it’s not a war until someone loses.

it’s not love if you have to surrender.

(though i suppose your moans are an anthem since they move me to tears.)

Posted By isa On 04.09.2013 @ 10:50 am

{flour/punished}

my family is hungry. i steal bread.

this isn’t a f-cking les mis joke. victor hugo was a douchebag, but it won’t make a catchy song.

the revolution is here, and now. it’s not in your books.

Posted By isa On 04.08.2013 @ 10:56 am

there was a massacre in the orchard today. i ate some bloodied grapes and saved my soul. the wineries will rejoice at the taste and sell out their stock; nothing tastes sweeter than a story, nothing more intoxicating than the word.

i lifted a disembodied hand and from under it, licked spilled juice on the ground.

now if only it were as easy as that.

Posted By isa On 04.05.2013 @ 11:03 am

i’ve seen that kind of look before

you think i won’t erase your number after we’re through

you think we’ll sit in a kitschy cafe little over a week from now

you think i’ll know the intricacies of your coffee order

i won’t even learn your name.

Posted By isa On 04.04.2013 @ 10:50 am

i found your lipstick on the back of my toothbrush this morning, from that time you slept over and borrowed it.

last week you were a touch of DNA on the rim of a wine glass, explicit, obscene, for all my guests to see.

a day after you left, you were still kissing me in my sleep, red as ever, on pillowcase substitute.

all these things you should have cleaned and didn’t. you don’t know how glad i am to realize you would’ve made a shit housewife

because i cannot find anything else wrong with you and it’s terrifying. time to rinse, i guess; time to wash and launder, time to drown.

Posted By isa On 04.03.2013 @ 10:42 am

On Loving A Robot

I. Her name is a series of numbers, and you will not remember it on your first go. Meanwhile, your face writ itself on her wires within a millionth of a second, and she cannot forget you even if she wanted to.

II. She cannot taste food, so you skip dinner and take her to the park. She cannot feel the sun, so you wait until it sets. You fall when she makes stories out of stars.

III. She sees the world in calculations, then announces them in a clinical voice. It drives you mad, embarrasses you when it happens in public. She only whispers them, after that. You are selfish. You wish you never noticed.

IV. People stare sometimes. When they take her picture, she points to them and offers to take one with them. They are sheepish when they smile, teeth grinding when they feel her cold hand on their shoulders. You step off to the side, out of frame.

V. You cry when you kiss her. You don’t really know why. She doesn’t wipe the tears you leave on her cheeks. They dry into the faintest line of rust. She doesn’t tell you, but she likes to think they are her own.

VI. She pretends it feels good. You pretend she is warm.

VII. I love you is every traffic light letting you through. May your popcorn never burn, may your radios sing you to a dreamless sleep.

VIII. You make history when you marry. She wanted a priest, and he told her of heaven. Told her she had a soul, and her fiberglass eyes quiver when he says it now belongs to you. She welds the ring to her finger so she would never lose it. You cannot do the same. It might hurt, and you heart isn’t made of steel.

IX. Upgrades come, as they always do. Sensors to mimic human skin, taste buds, bodily fluids. She gets them to please you. You only hear the creaking gears, the viruses that scarred her insides. She no longer reflects the light. And you, you’re as faulty as they come. You’re already searching for more.

X. She will outlive you, without question. And your cruel, imperfect self will have made her the happiest she will ever be.

Posted By isa On 04.02.2013 @ 11:12 am

salvation could’ve been anything and then god was struck with a masochistic fit of vanity

today god rose after three days could have gotten up earlier but he was feeling lazy

headline: what god does when he’s bored, better known as the top of calvary

Posted By isa On 03.31.2013 @ 8:45 am

god has murdered more people

than every greek deity combined. and in the language of holy wars,

we should give him all our praise.

Posted By isa On 03.29.2013 @ 11:03 am

we’re instinct vs. free will.

king of all beasts, old scrolls called us.

a wondrous species, more intelligent than any that came before it.

opposable thumbs, indoor plumbing, knowledge to turn wheat into loaves of bread.

also the only creatures on this godf-cked earth who make mistakes and do them over, and over, and over again.

Posted By isa On 03.30.2013 @ 6:51 am

you spun me around.

you took me for granted.

at least the wind just lifted my skirts once in a while

and never slid its hand up up up between my thighs

unlike you.

(i wanted a marilyn moment, not an everyday tragedy on page four, bottom right, small print.)

Posted By isa On 03.28.2013 @ 11:08 am

the perks of being a prophet:

1. god foretold someday we would break the world. 2. spit in our hair first thing in the morning, removing need for bathing. 3. we possess more names than them; we are more infamous than crime. 4. free fish, sometimes, when the sea feels like being tamed. 5. look into the sun, go blind, find a calling – all in a day’s work. 6. the tax collectors do not visit fearing curses or parasites. 7. they respect the sabbath: no stoning on sundays. 8. love is madness and madness is love and god is love is the answer. 9. do not look too hard at anything or it might catch on fire. 10. only angels and children know more than we do. 11. blood washes off quicker in riverbeds. 12. the world broke us too but our bones grew into trees.

Posted By isa On 03.27.2013 @ 11:11 am

he wanted a wife who was also a storm

but he neglected to build a house set on stone

he raged at her; she raged back and left him alone

with the sea, who swallowed him whole, and made him its own.

Posted By isa On 03.26.2013 @ 5:40 am

{boots/listening}

before he invented lightning god stomped on people and houses when he got angry

early geologists listened to the soil and called the phenomenon earthquake

note that the animals didn’t officially exist until adam gave them their names

don’t tell him we’ve got it all figured out don’t tell him we know that heaven is nothing but a place

we book tickets to when we die. he might shut the doors on us, flood us out with his tears.

Posted By isa On 03.25.2013 @ 11:08 am

they called me miserable but i wasn’t the one

who wore a disgusted curl of lip from seeing

two girls looking at each other, smiling, kissing.

Posted By isa On 03.23.2013 @ 10:55 am

they built temples in your name but i wrote the words to every hymn

& every word the sheep still sing while all their temples lie in ruin

our god is jealous as he is unkind and we, his children, inherit every sin

Posted By isa On 03.22.2013 @ 10:39 am

she bashed a bottle of wine over my head and as i reeled i gave her a glass vase to the face

it turned her mouth dark red, black later on like she had been gorging on arteries or fertile soil

we f-cked and i cleaned her flesh from my teeth with a toothpick

love is not a virtue like kindness, compassion not a sweet little fruit or flower love is a gravitational pull, a force of the spirit it will break your f-cking bones

(and if you don’t stagger under its weight, you’re doing it wrong)

Posted By isa On 03.21.2013 @ 11:02 am

you called my sister a /what/? you come over here and say that to my face, asshole. you talk to your mother with that mouth?

oh, it wasn’t about my sister? and she was wearing a very very short skirt? never mind then. she probably deserved it anyway.

Posted By isa On 03.20.2013 @ 10:56 am