Beached.

This is just it.

That I can no longer sleep;

sandy eyed and gritty mouthed.

It’s this far off distant land

of a dream that I once had

between you and me

that’s so compelling .

I try to tell myself that it’s dead,

that it’s the grains that I hold in my hand

that move my fleet forward.

But my mind doesn’t want to understand

because it’s my heart that holds the captain’s wheel

as it steers my body ship

into these coral shoals.

Maybe I’ll just wash up,

slowly leaking saline in the haze of the sun.

Or maybe your native body will be standing on the shoreline

singing that same siren song.

But it’s too late to tie my soul to the mast

because I already ran it to the highest point.

It’s my astrolabe.

My compass.

My golden Orient star.

Maybe I’m only destined

to love you from afar.

-Sarah Murphy

Bright idea.


1) Wander around your neighborhood and look for things of beauty and interest, or things that are unique.
2) Write about these things on a piece of paper. ‘Notice the single tree to your right,’ or ‘Notice the purple curtains on the third floor,’
3) Post the notices for people to read.

Sometimes it is the hardest to forgive ourselves

I don’t know when to love.

And I don’t know when to fight.

You needed me and I was always gone.

I didn’t know how to come back.

I still don’t, to be honest.

I am sorry I was so sad for so long.

And that I still am.

I can’t remember not ever being sad.

I can’t remember ever saying the right thing.

Or being the right person.

and I can’t remember a time when I didn’t wish that I could love you better.

-Liz Swain 

We crossed the countryside.

I felt your hot blood in my veins lighting a fire

and your breath in my half dead cigarette lungs as we raced to bury our souls. 

“DON’T PREACH TO ME” we shouted at the leaves. 

As they twisted and braced for the storm, showing their soft underbellies.

So naked. So unguarded.

We learned from their mistakes.

The best way to live is to not be alive.

On the side of the road we ripped off our scabs, these wounds will never disappear-

Our scars will tell our stories instead.

With the crows as our witnesses we vowed to avenge all that we stood for.

Even stone crumbles. Even mountains fall.

But we would never go without a fight.

Entropy was our god and we paid our homage as we danced the devils dance through fields of corn.

When the sun fell to the mountains we cut out our beating hearts.

We carved new ones from the strongest oak and shoved them between our ribs.

As our lives played out under the moon we didn’t notice as our strong oak hearts grew into strong oak trees.

And when the storm approached, our leaves turned their soft underbellies. 

-Liz Swain

All my life I’ve been made to believe in fairy tales.

Good things come to those who wait.

The hero always wins.

There is life after death.

And I believe them all, I really do.

Mostly because I hope some magic will fall on me.

And mostly because there isn’t much else to believe in. 

-Liz Swain

1 Notes

1AM Virginia Blend

These marlboros aren’t too bad, she thought, finishing a drag, she felt she knew a little something about him now that she’d heard his music and was smoking his brand his  brand, suddenly she realized she was on one of her therapeutic late night drives, smoking another man’s label, much like those nights in high school, when falling in love with a big, dark haired, heartbroken boy, she’d sneak out of her house at 2am and he’d drive her around, droning over ambient and shoegaze.  When she smoked a pack of his cigarettes and swigged a screwdriver from a plastic waterbottle, and when he trying to control himself simply put his hand on her knee, when she put her legs through the sunroof and took pictures of him upside down.  Him, so solid and aloof, in his black wool jacket unzipped, so cool, so still, and god damn unreachable.  Here she was, five years later, driving herself around in a beat up old sedan again in a beat up old sedan again! on it’s last mile, her car her friend, just like the first time smoking his brand of cigarettes.  She thought if she really wished to be nostalgic she’d pick up a pack of Lucky Strikes, or unfiltered Spirits, or drive to the park where they danced with his stereo set down in the street and the snow falling down on their hair and his shoulders and her arms and the wires of the telephone poles and naked trees the trees the gutter and curb.  And here she was tonight, again, late and the only one on the road.  Another drag, another assault of the lungs and the heart, she wondered about this spontaneous, illogical drive to kill herself, to switch it off or come closer to, to what?

But then, but then I really don’t, I don’t want to die mama, sometimes I wish I’d never been born!  She pouted and flicked her cigarette in mock disdain.  But what an ugly thought, what an ugly ugly little venomous monster.  

Deflated riffs glided tired, dying, through the car radio (BIG 101.3! CD changer broken, tape deck broken).  She cracked a dry smile.  God, those old 80s hits, old, old, old in so many ways and then!  then she was giggling maniacally, her hair thrown back like a little girl, grinning, filled with life madness, an unstoppable idiot glee that lit every cell in her body.  The sunroof was open, she lit another cigarette and rolled her window down.  She turned the volume up and moved, feeling how new she was, how new she would always be, how small she was and how everyone was small and wanted only to feel alright, they wanted her to feel alright, they only wanted to feel alright.

-Natalie

not a finished product by any means