Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass Read online

  Thank you for downloading this Simon & Schuster ebook.

  Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.

  CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

  Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.

  Dedicated to whomever’s worn, warm afternoon hands come upon these pages—wherever you may find them—and that you may remember that the world is conspiring for you and to act in a manner as such.

  Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass

  I went to a party

  I came in hot

  made decisions beforehand

  my mind made up

  things that would make me happy

  to do them or not

  each option weighed quietly

  a plan for each thought

  But then i walked through the door

  past the open concept

  and saw Violet

  bent backwards over the grass

  7 years old with dandelions grasped

  tightly in her hands

  arched like a bridge in a fallen handstand

  grinning wildly like a madman

  with the exuberance that only doing nothing can bring

  waiting for the fireworks to begin

  and in that moment

  i decided to do nothing about everything

  forever.

  Bare feet on linoleum

  Stay on your path Sylvia Plath

  don’t fall away like all the others

  Don’t take all your secrets alone to your watery grave about

  lovers and mother

  The secrets you keep will keep you in deep like father and Amy

  and brother

  And all of the people you meet on the street will reiterate lies

  that she uttered

  Leave me in peace I cry

  late at night on a slow boat bound for Catalina for no reason

  tiny beads of sweat dot my forehead

  could be mistaken for dewdrops if this were photo season.

  But alas this is a real life - and it’s been a real fight just to

  keep my mind from committing treason.

  Why you ask?

  Because she told the townspeople I was crazy and the lies they

  started to believe them

  But anyway - I’ve moved on now

  And now that I’ve gone scorched-earth

  I’m left wondering where to go from here.

  To Sonoma where the fires have just left?

  South Dakota?

  Would standing in front of Mount Rushmore feel like the Great

  American homecoming I never had?

  Would the magnitude of the scale of the sculpture take the place

  of the warm embrace I’ve never known?

  Or should I just be here now

  In the kitchen

  Bare feet on linoleum

  Bored - but not unhappy

  Cutting vegetables over boiling water that I will later turn

  into stew.

  What happened when I left you

  Perfect petals punctuate the fabrics yellow blue

  silver platters with strawberries strewn across the room

  In Zimmerman with sandals on one summer dress to choose

  Three girls

  eyes rolled

  loud laughter

  dust specks lit by afternoon

  My life is sweet like lemonade now there’s no bitter fruit

  eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

  no thought of you

  My thoughts have changed

  my voice is higher

  now i’m over u

  No flickering in my head movies

  projected in Bellevue

  Because I captured the mood of my wish fulfilled

  and sailed to Xanadu

  The grief that came in waves that rolled I navigated through

  The fire from my wish as wind to a future trip to Malibu

  now everything I have is perfect

  nothing much to do

  just perfect florals

  green embroidered chairs

  one dress to choose

  LA Who am I to Love You?

  LA, I’m from nowhere who am I to love you

  LA, I’ve got nothing who am I to love you

  when I’m feeling this way

  and I’ve got nothing to offer

  LA

  not quite the city that never sleeps

  not quite the city that wakes

  But the city that dreams for sure

  if by dreams you mean nightmares.

  LA

  I’m a dreamer but

  I’m from nowhere who am I to dream

  LA

  I’m upset!

  I have complaints!

  Listen to me

  They say I come from money and I didn’t and I didn’t even have

  love and it’s unfair

  LA

  I sold my life rights for a big check

  but now I can’t sleep at night and I don’t know why

  plus I love Saks so why did I do that when I know

  it won’t last

  LA

  I picked San Francisco because the man who doesn’t love me

  lives there

  LA!

  I’m pathetic

  but so are you

  can I come home now?

  Daughter to no one

  table for one

  party of thousands of people I don’t know at Delilah

  where my ex-husband works

  I’m so sick of this

  But

  Can I come home now?

  Mother to no one

  private jet for one

  back home to the Tudor house that borne a thousand murder

  plots

  Hancock Park treated me very badly I’m resentful.

  The witch on the corner

  the neighbor nobody wanted

  the reason for Garcetti’s extra security.

  LA!

  I know I’m bad but I have nowhere else to go can I come

  home now?

  I never had a mother

  will you let me make the sun my own now

  and the ocean my son

  I’m quite good at tending to things despite my upbringing

  Can I raise your mountains?

  I promise to keep them greener make them my daughters

  teach them about fires warn them about water

  I’m lonely LA

  can I come home now?

  I left my city for San Francisco

  I’m writing from the golden gate bridge but it’s not going

  as planned

  I took a free ride off a billionaire and brought my

  typewriter and promised myself I would stay

  but

  it’s just not going the way I thought

  it’s not that I feel different

  and I don’t mind that it’s not hot

  it’s just that I belong to no one, which means

  there’s only one place for me

  the city not quite awake

  the city not quite asleep

  the city that’s something else- something in between

  the city that’s still deciding

  how good it should be

  and also

  I can’t sleep without you

  No one’s ever really held me like you

  not quite tightly


  but certainly I feel your body next to me

  smoking next to me

  vaping lightly next to me

  and I love that you love the neon lights

  like me

  Orange

  in the distance. We both love that and I love that we have

  that in common.

  Also neither one of us can go back to New York.

  For you, are unmoving.

  As for me, it won’t be my city again until I’m dead.

  Fuck the New York Post!

  LAAAAA!

  Who am I to need you when I’ve needed so much

  asked for so much

  what i’ve been given I’m not yet sure I may never know that either

  until I’m dead.

  For now though

  what I do know is that I don’t deserve you-

  not you at your best, in your splendor with towering

  eucalyptus trees that sway in my dominion

  Not you at your worst-

  totally on fire, unlivable unbreathable.

  I don’t deserve you at all

  You see- You have a mother

  A continental shelf

  a larger piece of land from you came

  And I am an orphan

  a little seashell that rests upon your native shores

  one of many that’s for sure but because of that

  I surely must love you closely to the most out of anyone.

  For that reason-

  Let me love you

  don’t mind my desperation

  let me hold you not just for vacation but for real and forever

  Make it real life, let me be a real wife to you.

  Girlfriend, lover, mother, friend.

  I adore you

  Don’t be put off by my quick-wordedness

  I’m generally quite quiet, quite a meditator

  actually I’ll do very well down by Paramahansa Yogananda’s

  Realization center I’m sure.

  I promise you’ll barely even notice me

  unless you want to notice me

  unless you prefer a rambunctious child

  in which case I can turn it on too!

  I’m good on the stage as you may know, you may have heard of me?

  So either way I’ll fit in just fine

  so just love me by doing nothing

  except for perhaps by not shaking the county line.

  I’m yours if you’ll have me

  quietly or loudly

  sincerely your daughter

  regardless

  you’re mine.

  i measure time by the days i’ve spent away from you

  that thought occurred to me

  as i watched the sky go dark from blue

  The Land of 1000 fires

  Two blue steel trains run through the tunnels of your

  cool blue steel eyes

  Vernon

  Rock quarry

  The vastness of which has nothing on my beautiful mind

  Dylan

  i hear Dylan when i look at you

  i can see it on my arm in invisible ink like a tattoo

  The yin to my yang

  the toughness to my unending softness

  A striking example of masculinity

  firm in your verticality

  sure in your confrontation against all elements

  and duality

  The sun to my wilting daisy

  The earth to the wildflower that doesn’t care where it grows

  Vernon

  everything’s burnt here

  there’s no escaping it

  the air is fried and on fire

  I’ve never really fallen in love

  but whatever this feeling is

  i wish everyone could experience it

  this place feels like a person

  familiar

  like someone i’ve stood next to before

  but never while i was standing next to you

  Thank you

  for being here

  for bearing witness to my vastness

  Through the years I’ve called you in and out of my orbit

  You, in your madness

  the satellite that’s constellating my World

  mimicking the inner chaos that i’ve disowned

  a mirror to my past life retribution

  a reflection of my sadness

  If i’m going to keep on living the way that i’m living

  i can’t do it without you.

  My feet aren’t on the ground

  i need your body to stand on

  your name to define me

  on top of being a woman

  i am scared

  and

  ethereal

  and

  there are seven worlds in my eyes

  i’m accessing all of them at once

  one to draw my words from and my muses

  another one i try and harness late at night that lies somewhere

  off of the right of Jupiter

  and then of course there’s this one i live in

  the land of 1,000 fires

  that’s where you come in

  You

  Vernon

  Dylan

  Two blue steel trains

  running through the tunnels of your

  cool blue steel eyes

  to guide me far from the world of my early days

  that i can’t quite make out clearly

  that beckon me toward high sea cliffs

  on long car rides

  toward a future place

  a world unknown to me

  made up of something surreal and dripping

  Flowers in solar systems Oversized

  You Vernon Dylan

  no words needed to sponge up the

  dark nights

  no explanation for the globes in my eyes

  shoulder to shoulder in the factory light

  letting me be who i would have been

  if everything had turned out alright

  3 alternative endings

  course through my blood on ice

  i thrive because i say i do

  and because it’s what i write

  But honestly if you weren’t here

  i don’t know what things would look like

  That’s why no matter what world i’m in

  i navigate by satellite

  Vernon

  Dylan

  and you in your madness

  two trains running

  through your cool blue eyes

  Never to Heaven

  May my eyes always stay level to the horizon

  may they never gaze as high as heaven

  to ask why

  The whys in this lifetime i’ve found

  are inconsequential compared to the magic of the nowness

  which is the solution to most questions

  there are no reasons

  and if there are, i’m wrong.

  But at least i won’t have spent my life waiting

  looking for god in the clouds of the dawn

  listening out for otherworldly contact

  30 billion light years on

  No I’ll let the others do the pondering

  and while they do i’ll be on my lawn

  reading something unsubstantial with the television on

  i’ll be up early to rise though of course-

  but only to make you a pot of coffee

  That’s what i was thinking this morning Joe-

  that it’s times like this

  as the marine layer lifts

  off the sea from the view of our favorite restaurant

  that i pray that i may always keep my eyes level to your

  eye line

  never downcast at the table cloth

  too nervous to share my innermost thoughts

  with you

  You see Joe

  it’s times like this as the marine layer lifts

  off the sea on t
he dock where we’re standing

  that i think to myself

  there’s things you still don’t know about me

  like sometimes i’m afraid my sadness is too big

  and that one day you might have to help me handle it

  but until then-

  May i always keep my eyes level to this skyline

  assessing the glittering new development

  off the coast of Long Beach

  never to heaven

  Because i have faith in man as strange as that seems

  in times like these

  and it’s not just because of the warmth i’ve found in your

  brown eyes-

  it’s because I believe in the goodness in me

  that it’s firm enough to plant a flag in

  or a rosebud

  or to build a new life.

  Never to Heaven

  May my eyes always stay level to the horizon

  may they never gaze as high as heaven

  to ask why

  May I never go where angels fear to tread

  so as to have to ask for answers in the sky

  The whys in this lifetime i’ve found are inconsequential

  compared to the magic of the nowness- the solution to most

  questions

  there are no reasons.

  and if there are- i’m wrong

  but at least i won’t have spent my life waiting

  looking for God in the clouds of the dawn

  or listening out for otherworldly contact

  30 billion light years on

  No. i’ll let the others do the pondering

  while i’ll be sitting on the lawn

  reading something unsubstantial

  with the television on

  I’ll be up early to rise though of course-

  but only to make you a pot of coffee

  That’s what i was thinking this morning Joe

  that it’s times like this as the marine layer lifts

  off the sea from the view of our favorite restaurant

  that i pray that i may

  always keep my eyes level to your eyeline

  never downcast at the tablecloth

  Yes Joe

  it’s times like this as the marine layer lifts

  off the sea on the dock with the candle lit

  that i think to myself

  there are things you still don’t know about me

  like sometimes i’m afraid my sadness is too big

  and that one day you might have to help me handle it

  but until then

  may i always keep my eyes level to this skyline

  assessing the glittering new development

  off of the coast of Long Beach

  never to heaven or revenant

  Because i have faith in man as strange as that seems