sierralaurinparsons

[sierralaurinparsons]

Maybe it’s the caffeine, but when you speak to me, you look  into my eyes  and I notice.

You point out the sky, say there’s a storm brewing. At first, I think  I am the storm— but when I drive home, the lightning strikes, and all I want to do is call you and say, come find me.

I fall in love  everyday, but not like this.

Not like this.

————————————–

Sierra Laurin Parsons called us from Los Angeles, CA.

More about Sierra Laurin Parsons.

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[sierralaurinparsons]

pearl st.

maybe it’s the caffeine,

but when you speak

to me, you’re looking

into my eyes and i

am noticing.

you point out the sky,

say there’s a storm

brewing, and at first i think

i am the storm

but when i drive home

the lightning strikes

and all i want to do

is call you and say,

come find me.

i fall in love

everyday but

not like this.

not like this.

[sierralaurinparsons]

3/30 light and healing

Q. If the wound is where the light enters you, how do you heal?

A. In a forest fire, Giant Sequoias remain virtually unscathed by flames. Heat generated by a fire opens their pinecones, releasing their seeds and clearing the earth for germination; entire groves dependent upon recurring fire for new growth. 

[sierralaurinparsons]

2/30 childhood secrets

Where did our secrets go?

The ones we kept as children,

now that we are grown up?

Our tender little hearts making

countless pinkie promises, and

under-the-covers- whispers 

by flashlight at slumber parties. 

The needles-in-eyes and hope-

to-dies—so much at stake for

the playground confidants. 

I don’t remember what

I promised to keep. Do

secrets die once forgotten?

Maybe they’re just dormant,

folded into the bracelets

I braided, a pledge of allegiance

to the friendships of my youth.

[sierralaurinparsons]

1/30 Ode to My Heart

What if you said your heart

was tucked behind brick

walls and padlocked gates

for all these years?

But no, what you mean is

actually—my heart is soft

ripe fruit in the palm 

of my hand. Take it, eat;

show me your scars.

I am tired of pretending

there were any locks

in the first place.

[sierralaurinparsons]

Greeting

If breath is as good as language—breathe

into me, let me hear your sweet sighs

of the morning, when light, as pale as churned

buttercream, pours through cracked blinds;

feel your waking slumber, warm on my skin,

and I will know your good morning as if it

were the word of God, a greeting as clear as day. 

[sierralaurinparsons]

El Capitan

It’s all good: John’s catchphrase.

His voice like melted butter on grilled

fish, or sea salt high winds

on a sail at full mast—

It always was all good:

Tie-dye shirts, cheek-aching

belly laughter, Jerry Garcia, 

Tequila, Firecrackers at dusk

on the Fourth, Mary Jane one-hitters,

stories of Mexico: tropical fish, cerveza

turquoise waters...

How to encompass a man

in a feeling, a phrase?

My father’s best friend—

July sunshine warmth on skin...

Father, brother, captain, friend, 

As in life, I hope, in death—

it’s all good.  

[sierralaurinparsons]

[sierralaurinparsons]

Verisimilitude

After a few bong rips,

we made love with all the lights on—

Black Sabbath pumping through

a little iPhone speaker.

Later, he asked me to move

to Oregon with him.

“Let’s escape the madness

of Los Angeles,” he said,

“before it’s too late.”

I felt my heart throw itself

against my rib cage.

Would he change his mind

in the morning, once the sweet

veil of marijuana smoke had vanished?

That burn in my throat—

The belief in an empty promise.

“Yes, let’s build a home together,” I said,

“It’s only twelve hours to Bend.”

[sierralaurinparsons]

The Santa Cruz  Blondes are Home Again

[sierralaurinparsons]

Stone

I feel like I remember everything—

the way your shoulder felt 

against my lips,smooth skin against my teeth. 

Later, I counted the freckles along your spine,and for a split second thought about them turning cancerous. 

And especially the way you pulled your hand across my bare chest when I stood up out of bed—as if to say, go gently.

Remember that time I accidentally hit your face while we were limbs in the dark,then pulled you closer- kissed your eyelids in apology?

Is this what surrender feels like-

to watch you kiss her with an open mouth?

[sierralaurinparsons]

twenty-three jacarandas

[sierralaurinparsons]

3/30

adulthood is so fucking weird

I feel like I’m spiraling 

and I am so afraid of everything

every breath I take is another existential crisis

I don’t recognize myself

I remember being seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty twentyone twentytwo

I remember the feeling of being SO GODDAMN ALIVE

I miss college. 

the feeling of sun on my skin

his breath on my lips

the magic of Santa Cruz and the people there

and now

I work and sleep and cry all the fucking time

especially in traffic on the 405 

(I mean I’ve always cried but somehow this is different)

or in the way the flowers outside my window are the same as the ones that bloomed outside my window in Santa Cruz, and that in Santa Cruz they would remind of Los Angeles, but now in Los Angeles, they remind me of Santa Cruz, and I wonder what this could mean 

I wonder

if I will ever be the same again

Will I glimpse my reflection in a car window and see

myself

[sierralaurinparsons]

2/30

(Note: Playing catch up! I’m literally just word dumping to get back into the ~writing~ flow so know these 1st six will not be my best work )

These days the only way I remember that I’m alive is when I drive with every window rolled down and the music turned all the way up. I let my thoughts pour out between the notes in the baseline and then wonder why I haven’t written anything in months. I try to remember the time when I was a poet. I try to remember that feeling—how could I have let myself forget? 

I let the words fall onto the asphalt of Washington Blvd, and convince myself its okay to imagine them quenching the palm trees along the center divide, like that first glass of water after an afternoon in the California sun. 

I am a gardener, and soon I will cultivate words, too.

[sierralaurinparsons]

1/30

We smoke bud & give each other head

on the balcony. I savor the gravel

in his throat & the way his forehead wrinkles—

I can’t tell if it’s in pleasure or pain. As he falls asleep,

he tells me I’m sweet.  I think it could be nice to love him,

but instead I slip out the door & drive home with the heater

on full blast. I fall asleep in my own bed.

I don’t expect him to call. 

He doesn’t.

[sierralaurinparsons]

to show our blood is the same.

When she was three and i was five, my sister and I played Barbie's on the brown carpet of her bedroom floor. I remember, one afternoon, she bit me—hard— the sharp pain of the depression on my arm from the crescent moon of my sister's clamped teeth, angered for something I had done or said.

I am always afraid my sister resents me for one thing or another: Because my name always came first on Christmas cards; because I went through school before her; because I acted in more plays than her; because I can be mean. I can spit poison words that burn her and I will not think twice about it. Because we are both fire signs and refuse to be smothered. Because I am Big, and she is Small.

She is growing into herself these days. I watch her become a woman: she is tall and slender and has long, glossy blond hair, blue eyes, and full breasts. Her laugh is a Sunday morning. She radiates life. She has our father's nose and our mother's steadfast heart. She goes to work and goes to college and packs her own lunch and lives on her own near a different ocean on a different coast. She is responsible. She does her work. She argues with our parents less than I do. She exercises more than I do.

I can't hold her in my arms anymore, and it is both because she doesn't let me, and because her limbs are so long I simply think they couldn't fold that way. I can't grasp her little hand in mine in the backseat of the mini van, where, as children, we would make-believe we were spies when we wore our matching black patent leather knee high boots. I am afraid she won't want to be roommates and eat tubs of whipped cream while watching TV in the dark, like we had planned to do as little girls. I am afraid I might lose her someday. That she will keep on growing up and on without me. She will become her own Big Sister.

I love her so much, I want to bite her— leave my own crescent moon marks on her body, suck her eyeballs out— show her how I hurt, how I would die without her.

Why does it hurt, to love so much? I want to rip my heart out for her, tear it to shreds—bleed, bleed, bleed.

[sierralaurinparsons]

hometown//adulthood

There are so many crows in Culver City. 

They cover the early morning sidewalk like 

black fog; rise to perch on telephone wires

with the heat of the day. Someone once told

me the reason there are so many crows in this

town is because they just dumped them here after

they filmed The Birds. I know this isn’t true and

yet I still wonder what it’s like to fly—to be left

in the city after you’re no longer needed. 

I moved home a month ago but already my hair is

falling out and I have ulcers in my mouth. My mother

says it’s stress but I keep thinking what if this is 

what adulthood is supposed to be. I sat in a chair 

in my first boyfriend’s bedroom the other day and 

suddenly felt 16 again, like nothing has changed

but really everything is always already changing

and I can’t quite figure it out but everything started

humming my name. Last week I saw two people

fucking on top of my high school auditorium

and I keep asking myself why the dogs in my

neighborhood won’t stop barking. I walk underneath

the jacarandas of my street, try to remember the places

where I’d skinned my knee as a child. I crouch down, 

search for my DNA in the cracks of the pavement. 

Surely, I’ve left myself here.