blastedgoat

I am disappointed in my school and their decision to charge students a $100 surcharge when the nearest community college has found a way around a similar fee at their institution. This surcharge comes with additional increases in fees and tuition totaling over 6% for 2010-11!

“As a senior and a student employee (for most of my time at school) I have to ask you to not make us pay a surcharge. I read in the paper today that HCC students wouldn’t be charged a fee for their spring semester and they are suffering with the same cuts that we are. I have been following our school in the paper and am ashamed that students with sports scholarships are protected with a 2 million dollar donation to “preserve” only certain non-academic activities on a university campus when whole programs could get the axe. Shame on you for going ahead with all (even unnecessary) planned building projects plus the demolition of Baker hall (coincidentally the building my department is in.) I am under the burden of classes (which could be two weeks sorter with longer meeting times next semester) that are going to cost me more even when my bills are skyrocketing, the student loan companies are breathing down my neck and as a valued university employee I didn’t get my promised raise. I make a whopping 7.45 an hour, thirty cents less than I was making in food service. I understand that everyone is having difficulties but my point is that UNI should be a place for education, an environment where students can learn and work and not have to worry about footing the bill when departments and individuals insist on using more than their fair share. I just ask that my school do the right thing, before I am forced to leave it. I can not afford and REFUSE to pay for an education that has for the most part NOT BEEN WORTH THE MONEY OR EFFORT!”

pomegranate thoughts drip from

my mouth to the ears of a provolone-ly

moon-faced man with gaping

wisdom-tooth-sized-cavities

(with roots deep in impracticalities)

like the inevitable nature of  sleep,

and dreams. my pillow sours, a flushed

cheek turns cool wondering at the thing

(the monster lurking near the drinking

glass) a tinge of a dream that singed a lash

as it fluttered fully open…

i slid in the mud–voices on t.v. floated out the window, my owww

an unnoticed howel to the hungry hangnail-moon.

AIM yrs l8ter: OMG WTF EVER HAPPENED 2 BRIAN HALL?

but that night broken glass was embedded in my foot. a long deep cut,

bloody foot gushing on wet blades of grass…he chased me

around the house in circles, we rode out bikes with0ut touching handlebars.

we picked up broken window-shield glass, pretending the shards were priceless diamonds.

we pulled hairs from giant green men, single strands at a time or in chunks connected to roots

and dirt. once i broke a branch off a tiny tree his dad had just planted, i grabbed it

and put my full 60lbs into a swing, landing hand in hand with wrinkled leaf and bending limb.

i am envious of the lens that saw him moments before he died–

he smiled. kids rolled down hills, their screams were the things of dreams…

i tumble and feel wet grass, growing around his gravestone, a place that marks

the letter sealed inside. words eaten long ago by worms–scorched on a sidewalk,

split in half for the world to see what’s inside him and inside me.

nothing feels right

until i watch this tape.

i can’t be sure how many times i have been half expecting to see him

turn a corner.

instead he floats further down river…

i never saw him, i wasn’t there when they pulled him from underneath a bridge

after days of searching and seeing dated photographs

on the channel 7 news. i didn’t see his smile, we never kissed at all…

a picture someone gave me after your funeral makes my fiance jealous,

jealous of bones and a seven-year-old-conversation late in to the night

one summer i spent the night at home alone.

trees bend and wave, flowers remind me of running

through bushes with purple bunches, floral and lush until

the snap–a swing-set unmovable-cemented haphazardly

in the backyard with all its knobby trees and rotten leaves.

apple-core eyes are smokey and coiling under an invisible

chain-link fence for dogs, cutting the bandit’s neck staining

bare feet like crab-apples–ghostly presence in the long

shady patches of lawn… a black cat crosses a toe-headed boy.

he stretches his stubby fat fingers and yawns as a woodpile

splinters, sparks, and burns to the ground.

there were girls standing all around me in a clearing, there was a huge fire.

it felt like the ending of a film, just before the isle lights flicker on.

they sing a theme-song that haunts me in the moments between

lights-out and first light. a haze is cast over an emptying stadium.

fluttering patterns are really blackened-blue fireflies trampled by sneakers.

i keep on walking. howling at the moon, i feel close to my home tonight…

lying still in the morning before the other girls wake up,

i stair at a sleeping friend, admire her freckled nose.

she remains unaware that, while spending summers

sharing rooms with me most mornings were spent exactly like this…

locked in a fog of confusing boundaries between

your hairbrush

my comforter

your perfume

my shoes

your diary

my stuffed animals…

I pondered existence–wished for a stray car to POP over the curb,
taking me out in several seconds. 3, 2, 1 dots arranged on a sidewalk,
shot like a loaded gun. Roulette amid little daisies and chalk outlines
of hand-traced turkeys. It’s not a sidewalk really, more of a shitty little
footpath next to University Ave.

We climbed muddy tire treads avoiding cappuccino puddles,
I looked into his and knew everything was going to be alright.

Maybe we’ll get lucky and we’ll both live again
Well I don’t know, I don’t know…

The best things in life are black & white:
chessboards, old movies, piano keys,
chocolate & vanilla ice cream twist cones
from 4 Queens, the dice you found on
the sidewalk, even the King of Pop.

“Who knew when they made that Simpsons
episode that Jack-o would turn into a white
guy if you kept him out past midnight.

Speaking of the Simpsons and pedophiliacs,
I’ve seen episodes older than you are.

I would be a hypocrite for telling you I never
slept with anyone eight years older than me.

At least now I sleep at night knowing they found my
dead boyfriend’s body after only a few days of looking.

That summer I put off reading the next Harry Potter, I didn’t
want to associate the two but it turned out I do anyway.

DON’T WAKE UP he’s running into the house to grab her jacket.
She examines ruby-red mary-janes and flashes green eyes in the mirror
He returns to her, engine purring, she’s old fashioned, crisp as candied
apples. His foot drifts off the pedal…the convertible takes a hard corner.

Bright are the stars that shine,
dark is the sky, i know
this love of mine will never die…

Tall trees pulse with jagged scars
against a grey and static sky. She snaps
a picture as they begin to spin,
a flashcube exposes tangled necks
hanging from the rear-view mirror.

i am sitting in our hotel room. what a shit hole. luckily we will be moving into a house *cross your fingers* and then we shall have a huge housewarming party! i also go back to school tomorrow after having a much needed but ill utilized break. spring break to be specific. it’s not like i haven’t tried to catch up on all my homework i have just been so busy with other things and worried about where we will live next month which is rapidly approaching. i hope we can afford $950 x 2 for rent and a deposit… we will be living with other people but one is in California (will be out of the Marines in June) and the other is trying to find a job as we speak. i am not worried, they are good friends it is just a lot of money, more than i have ever been responsible for coming up with. we also don’t have a car at the moment so that makes things much more difficult. i ride the bus to work and starting tomorrow back to school again. i have never gotten below a B in college and don’t want to let myself and my family down. luckily my finance knows how hard i work and tells me everything will be alright. i just know i will be happier once we are in a place of our own… well a place for us and our friends to live and our families and friends to visit. oh, also a place that my cat can live because i just couldn’t live without my cat!

I am sitting on a spearmint green metal folding chair in front of my nearly new computer.
I have no couch, in its place there is a bed, there is no bed in the bedroom, we sleep in the living room.
Do you like my logic? I watch food network before falling asleep, this produces lucid dreams.
My fiance would like to slice my fingers off so I can’t sleepily flip through channels not paying attention to what’s on
or worse, watching the t.v. guide channel from dawn to dusk…

In the morning before the alarm buzzes I have been up several times
waiting, watching, resetting.

When we finally wake my fiance grabs the remote and hides it…
I swear he hides it, I can never find it…