mundane mystery

I'm an asshole
when I'm productive

I'm a drunk
to ward of the inevitable

I'm trying
to make you understand
I'm volatile, I'm an epiphany, I'm an asshole
and if your lucky

I care enough to forget your name,
to make you get bored of searching before you give up.
It's not interesting or even fair
but you've only lost something when you have to find it.

preparing to be miraculous

It's hours before
I'll meet this, child, the details
I know are skeptical and missing needed information
at best.

It's hours before
I'll meet this child
and his Mother all ready
believes I will get him to stop banging his
skull to the tiled bathroom floor, softly
accenting every fourth slam with exceptional
intensity.

It's hours before
I'll meet this child
and I prepare to be miraculous,

before transformation the cigarette burns
to a small, filthy nub between
my pointer finger and thumb
My lips quiver, I lick them rawer with my tongue

It's hours before
I'll meet this child,
my lips form words before I can acknowledge I may
not be talking to just myself, remember to breathe, please
Please god Give me this Gift One More Time.

Latest Assignment- write a poem about love

Being Forced

Being forced to write about love
is like being stuck in a basement,
while paralyzed, with a magnifying lens in hand-
as my first fresh, glass of whiskey spills and slips though a crack in the carpet.

It’s like only wanting to listen
to the eerie silence of a light, blue shadow
but being forced to uncover my ears
to a railroad spike cutting through sheet rock.

It is as if someone is holding my stretchy headband over my eyes
and isn’t letting me see the tiger.
When all I have ever really wanted-was to see a tiger.

Being forced to write about love
is like my sweaty, dirty palms grabbing the sharp edge of an ax
while tears and snot run down my snout
and then someone reminding me that:

all David ever gave me was a sweet potato for my birthday.

finding the trail

drugs are great
they open the eyes
i chew down on mushrooms so hard
i feel the liquid freshness roll down my tongue
piercing the center of the stem

i time myself
to know from what point i will slip to a
better view
I am marching, searching for the trail
the minutes are easy to count
at first
but nothing happens

Until i forget time,
and place, and me and I am
Pleasantly suprised
I live in this world I just don't
take much away from it until
I'm gone

I'm a little girl, again
and I won't come down the mountain to grow up,
like that.
so let the sky and the sea and the tide as their progeny
claim me as lost and I
will be found
whole and alive for the first time.

a wannabe

What do you do
when
you’ve met all the smokers
all the jokers,
all the wanna be cokers?
when
the new hot scene
is already cold and old?

Who do you turn to
when
the city beats you back,
beats you down
when you thought you were the one
with all the control
in the palm of your hand?
when
you miss feeling
larger than life during
those small victories,
that may, in the end,
be nothing?

Where do you go
when
you see that the rain cloud just gets darker and darker
above your head
while watching the soundless lightening storm
above the night sky line just exhausts you?
when
the glamorous dirt under your sink,
the dirt under your fingernails,
is the only sign left
that you once dug for your dreams?

What are you supposed to think
when
over and over again
you feel like crawling under anything
anything at all,
as long as it’s under and deep and far,
away
from where you are now.
when
you’ve been playing a part for so long,
so when the smoke finally lifts from the crowded dive,
so when the city street noise takes a minute to breath,
so when the need to have it all
dies down for just one brief moment,
and you finally, finally, finally
take a look in the mirror
you can hardly remember
when was the last time
you
played
you?

I know,
because sometimes
I think.
I think,
I know that
You wanna be loved.
Loved. And.
You wanna be.
And that’s it.

mismanagementspellingbee

To stay in the game I cover my mouth
to stay in the game I pretend to follow the rules
I strategize, compromise
Feign apathy when appropriate.
I can be this instrument, this well trained tool
I have been trained, bribed in small meek steps
Well,
when it comes to when they ask me
'What would you do if it was your child?'
like my advice is best because it's there,
I'd say, "You shouldn't have to ask if
you cared,"
But I don't I tell them this, I tell the good things
and they tell me lies and they only take him for a night a week
I feign apathy and they feign family
when they fill his head with lies
of vacations they will take him on
next time, and if they asked me what I would do I would
say I wouldn't need to try to act like
he is my son.
I would not hide him from the rest of my life like he is
some dirty affair
There are children hidden in pockets of buildings, in special rooms in schools
The lucky ones find an acceptable combination of medicines and rush to join the flock, march on.

humidity

the air beneath us wells up and rises sticky,
rising like a warning clinging onto our chests
the air beneath us makes our legs go weak
and we are pushed closer to make one and
it's time for good bye, dark the moon covered by
used up night rain clouds wasting in the moonlight
the air beneath us shifts as you spin on one foot
and turn to walk the other way
its your scent that remains that matters
its your scent in the air dressing me like armor
i can face the warning like a warrior
and turn around from this place, and like you
can walk away
ive been warned i may see you again

dry muse

In the future
I will have this all figured out
and I will have the time
to see how little it mattered

something sexy

something sexy
about remembering how well you write
and how well that did not change
something sexy
about feeling like an ass for treating you
like i was a coward
because i am brave, just
not at the right times in the way
that would make this all make sense
something sexy
about remembering the way your lips tensed and shook when
you waited for my response
it's in my head
it's in my mind
it's oblivious to logic
and when i wake, when i least expect
anything
it brings me to my knees

uninspired

For my birthday last year my roommate gave me
the gift that I asked for:
a word of the day calendar.
and i use it each day. and i read the word and
i tell myself I am going to use that word in a
conversation at some point during the day.
but i never do.
i mostly see the words as a kind of forshadowing
of what my day is going to be like.
today's word: solipsism.
meaning a theory holding that the self can
know nothing but its own modifications and
that the self is the only existent thing.
i didn't use that word in a sentence today.
i'm not sure i know what it means.
i can't know anything but myself as I change
and exist through time.
i haven't been able to write. but i am writing now.
I thank Bukowski. he inspires me. his poetry,
his alcoholism, his honesty. his death.
I was in the City this weekend. And all I had was one goal.
To find the Bethesda Fountain. It took me over an hour to find.
Its smack dab in the middle of Central Park.
I found Bethesda. (I speak like we are old friends)
and sat and sat. and watched and watched.
for over two hours. in the sun. and i listened and i didnt move.
and i tried to write. i wanted to write. so i did.
and i realize now how much i hate what i wrote. it might have
been good. but i know now it was uninspired.
Bukowski inspires me. Bethesda simply quiets me.
And I thank them both.

sophomore slump

Sophomore Slump
By Diana Lee LaBrecque

Maybe its because I am a romantic at heart
Hidden by a dark cloak of cynic bad dreams.

Maybe its because my mother is right and
All I need is a boyfriend…or maybe a job.

Maybe its because for some reason it’s still winter
And the groundhog likes to mess
With the seasonal depression in all of us.

Maybe all of a sudden everything feels like its
Too much to handle
Maybe all of a sudden everything feels like its
Not enough to fully hold.

Maybe I could just blame that boy that said he’d write.
Maybe I could just blame that bad mix of antidepressants.
Maybe I could just blame that lack of attention as a child.

But I’ve played those games before and
I’m still left with questions given as answers.

And that sudden rush of panicked emptiness
That needs to be filled with anything but lonely regret

Maybe its that damn fear that I’ll wake up tomorrow and
Want to be anything else than what I am trying
To be for the rest of my life

Maybe its that damn fear
that I should have woken up yesterday.
To shake myself from this slump

comment ramble on "Isaac's Dream"

meeting isaac's dream roomate of some one im waiting for
not like i go out and try to be seen but
you know people know you the best that know you the worst
and guitarists always say, hey jess, write me a title for this mess of words, hey jess, when you hear this do you get any ideas for a layout a life
a lyric a hit a pause i heard you can make a
symphony fit a collage?
and he tells me the story of isaac's dream
i repeat it like an idiot thinking it means anything
mortals die one death and artists die two
one for the body and
for what they never could do
so i hear a story of isaac's dream
so dark it inspires me scary i know
another story to repeat
at times
when people should know
what we all must know.

eyes extreme

(work in progress)

isaac's dream.
she said-with eyes extreme.
not some religious tale.
but a kid who drove cross country
in a dream.
and kissed its reality hard.
he met the life almost had.
but its too bad,
he was taught tragedy
with one eye open.

broken record 1st draft

by your side
ive lost
4 quarts of blood
60 gallons of sweat
and the type of tears you
could only see.

i had a dream where
i built the perfect friend
and when it came true
in life like always
i wasn't very good at it
(nothing to do with you)

dreams work only
in drugs and poetry
and this life is too vivid and im
too vague to set it right
thanks for the truth

coming from you
it's like an anchor.
no matter how bad
its lonely on this side of the dream
to think no one pays attention to you
and when they do it's like
my time to run away

thanks for the truth, man,
its an anchor for me
holding me up through my
weak waves of vague

thanks for paying attention

to what you can get
from me cause sometimes
all there is
blood
and sweat
and memories of a tear.

slow opening

Listen
I regard these feelings as the last of a dying breed, an
Exorbitant diamond, thrust into my hands from an unknown
Source It feels real, everything about it is so perfect and all at once.
I cannot afford to be mistaken again,
To hold a treasure so long with such love to
Find it never real, at all.
Astonished- by what I think feel do
As my prisons of day to day thought and behavior
Shut down one by one
And I am free,
With every inch you get closer I come closer to me.
Listen I will never have confidence again if I get hurt again
Blind, wandering back back in the shadowed retreats of this life
-I need it.
So I am taking this slow, very slow
I wanted you to know
I am loving it, though
These frontiers of lust and emotional di
I step on them only with you, and that means something.
I breathe this new world so slowly, with you and you
Mean a lot,. So listen, baby
I want you to know how much I am thinking of you
So much I space my encounters with you to see you all around me
Even far a part
Cause I don’t want to be the one to fuck
Up a beautiful, beautiful thing This Time.

me making fun of myself and my lonely singleness

TOP REASONS
WHY NOVEMBER FIRST
TO JANUARY SECOND
OFFICIALLY CREATE
CRAZY, ANGRY, YOUNG
LONELY AND SINGLE
ALCOHOLICS

A ballad by Diana Lee LaBrecque

Living in New England means constant freezing weather,
not enough cheap warm jackets for poor college students
to afford and calling my parents up for more Cosco hand warmers
because I am lonely and single during the holidays.

Random acts of kindness become ever more rare and more random
from parents when they send you a box of cookies and not hand
warmers and I never seem to get what I want in my stalking because
I am lonely and single during the holidays.

Festive lights are always turned on too early in the day, so they
aren’t seen at night because all the bulbs have burnt out by then,
and it never snows when it should because I am lonely and single
during the holidays.

Friends are never around when you need help writing angry letters to the
managers of whoever created light bulbs and they all have perfect
boyfriends whom I love to hate because I’m lonely and single during
the holidays.

Lack of incoming phone calls drives me to sketchy internet chat
rooms and I am reminded that the world is a scary, pedophile place
because I am lonely and single during the holidays.

Officially hating society reminds me that no bars in my town check
for a valid ID and a group of strangers saw me throw up my candy cane
dinner on my out of style earmuffs because I’m lonely and single
during the holidays.

Signing myself into rehab while giddy carolers sing Peace On Earth
in a continuous round that can only be heard in my head confirms that
I should have said yes to that date on November second and I need to
move to Mexico and become a mistress because I am lonely and
single during the holidays once again.

Undefined Damages

I am surrounded with smoke that
Quickly gets exhaled from
My undefined lungs.
They are caught
In between young and damaged.
I turn the band up louder.
Guys who know how to play their anger loud and hard
But don’t know how to hold their own instruments.
Their bass still agrees with me.
And I get yelled at.
From me. From you.And from all of them
But mostly me.And I know it.
I know I live my young life too hard,
A life too damaged by being too undefined.
I quickly take in more dark fatal smoke,
And laugh bitterly.
At my inner child for once protesting
All of this poison and these complex lyrics.
One time when my mind didn’t listen to all the yells.
Coming from me. And you and then all of them.
But it’s usually mostly me.
But it was still just noise.
White, simple little noise for me to dance in.
I created volume and light outside my small body
Wanting to wipe out all the confusion and fog I saw.
And I got a pat on the head for being little and full of good.
And I was that ray of sunshine for a moment more
Still too young to spell damaged.
Now I am too damaged from being too undefined.
Night after day I take what’s inside, and what’s too dark for others to see.
And I hold it in front of me.
Trying to define all that is damaged.
And I fill it with my own smoke and toxins.
And I’d rather breathe in the loud bass that I once protested,
So I can to spell the smoke and bass that defines
The damages of the anger and the yells,
That comes from me, from you, from the rest of them.
But mostly it comes from me. And I know it.

amsterdam mirrors

Hi this is my revised poem, "Amsterdam Mirrors" and some bio information:
Jess *&%

BIO: jess is a wanderer who is currently searching for intelligent life in boston. she is proud of this poem because she dosen''t bitch about her childhood in it. in her spare time she attempts to re define the word travel.

amsterdam mirrors
looking back
scanning images
amsterdam mirrors.
pause and surrender and allow
myself
to glimpse sharp edges of time drainers,
loud mind exhausters: architects of my every day.

amsterdam mirrors and there is no magic
just a mortal experiencing equator shift
Unabound to these weapons you call limbs

beaming inwardly in the low lights
the low ground the
sun is outstretched and mild day
and night bearing
prizms of light
subtly meet weaving lines of
waterway and shore

unabound to these weapons you call limbs
i gotta say
i look so much bigger
to that sad little life
measured in un checked e-mail
and the next best thing
thought fit so well
i see myself in the light, now.
i see myself taking my first steps all over again,
like ive never seen myself, before.

first draft "striped and bound"

give me the freedom of taste
leave me a moment of haste
i mean

frankly im intoxicated with worry
the streets stick to my souls
littered with dented scratch cards
weak matches that bundle in dampness
concrete forms harder under every breath
each blasted step

do you believe everything you hear well
hear this:
there is no peace in silence

express

well here it is