we could live in a matchbox

and eat embers for breakfast

i could taste your lips just once a day 

and crawl to bed each night, nourished

it was a few years before i could sing as loudly as mom did. and before that it took a few years for me to not be afraid in the open. Now though, there is just... so much space. And I have to fill it with something. 

My eyes had drifted over the ocean, unfocused in the direction of the setting sun. Apparently that is not good for my eyes, but since I know there is a line directly from my pupils to my heart, I am not immediately concerned.  It just gets so dark sometimes, gotta soak up whatever you can.

The bulb dipped under the water.

"Margot, you get to see this every day. It always blows my mind."
"I know. Mine too, still."  She didn't have to ask to what I was referring - the way the sun drags her way down, afraid to leave the sky, until right before the horizon, when she falls. A quick, final surrender.

a la piedras negras

was thinking about a poem my brother wrote and sent me a long time ago after i found a couch on craigslist. will expand.

there is a couch on craigslist that looks an awful lot
like the one 'buelita used to have.
maybe it's still lying around that old ranch house in mexico.
more likely walked her red crushed velvet ass
all the way up to westminster.

we ate real ice cream
made with real strawberries
for two small coins a day.

my brother texted me to say
he smelled guisado in the park
  or somewhere.
neither of us eats meat anymore and
haven't had soda in years.
so strawberries are fine
and mexican cokes.
those don't count as soda.

Not Car-muhl Cupcakes.

I don't know why I have only dedicated this blog to writing. I do plenty of shit all the time that Facebook does not care about - time to start logging all of it here. This includes: cooking and new recipe attempts, baking, sewing and costume ideas.  I was going to start another blog called "Secondhand Swagger" but have decided to just add that onto this one; more information to come.   So here's what I did Thursday night.

You see, I am addicted to Pinterest.  I work in a call center. This means when I'm not being yelled at, I am senselessly wasting my time on the Internetz.  One of my boards is called "Food I want to make and never ever eat."  This is a lie. Because that particular board is filled with cupcake, brownie, cake, candy, cookie, and other shit-food recipes that OBVIOUSLY I want to eat by the bucket. But I'm trying to be a good little body-builder. So these recipes are for making for other people; this time, it happened to be my new roommate's birthday. Which means these cupcakes are in the house - the danger zone - until these morsels are gone.

From scratch:  Cinnamon apple cupcakes with caramel frosting.

 As you can tell, many have been eaten. That means they don't totally suck. And they're super simple to make.

This recipe is for twelve cupcakes.

1 1/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons pure vanilla
2 apples, peeled and shredded
1 1/2 cups caramel candies (about 25)
2 tablespoons heavy cream

Oven at 350. 
Shred the apples, set aside. 
Mix flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon, set aside.  
Whisk eggs and both sugars together, then add oil and vanilla.  
Slowly add in the flour mixture until combined.  
Add shredded apples.  

Fill 12 cupcake liners about 3/4 full, then bake till they are cupcakey. If you don't know what this means, then you deserve some trial and error.  Possibly some kitchen fires, of which I've start plenty. Anyway, mine baked like 25 minutes. I'm also at high altitude so if you're a low-lander do something different maybe. 

Slowly melt caramels in microwave (use 50%-75% power, one minute at a time), and then add cream. Stir.

Frost cupcakes, enjoy subsequent mess. 

Also, it is pronounced care-uh-melle. 

Dickheads.

I follow Humans of New York on Facebook. I count on this page to warm-and-fuzzy my soul on a daily basis.

Yesterday Brandon, the author of HONY, posted a picture of a beautiful, outspoken young woman named Stella. The photo was originally posted on her personal blog, in her underwear along with a short piece calling out the numerous people who have chosen to judge her, make her feel generally unworthy throughout her life solely based on her size. I was truly inspired and shared her story.

A "friend" of mine - the quotes are necessary because I could never justify any sort of constant contact with a character like that - re-shared the photo. 

He said "This is exactly what's wrong with America."  

And I fucking lost it. 

I watched a young man rife with white privilege spout what I can only determine to be the deliberate brainwashings of a perfectly materialized American culture, complete with horrible grammar and an utter lack of regard for punctuation. I read as he generalized all overweight people, labeling them as lazy, selfish, weak-minded, spoiled brats (these are all his adjectives). He blamed fat people in America for starvation in Africa while telling me that racism and sexism have never killed anyone, as some sort of justification for his out-right bullying (and asked why he could be considered a bully). He suggested that we send all of the obese people in the US to PoW camps. And proceeded to call me closed-minded while his friend called me fat.

You can't make this shit up.

I try to keep my ramblings to a minimum - in general I spend my days in sheer awe at the universe, smiling at the mountains and winking at the sun.  But sometimes... I just can't allow myself to stay quiet.

So here is just a small reminder.

Some people are thin, some are not. Unhealthiness (and health!) comes in EVERY SIZE - and yes, I might consider your permanent mental state of douchebag to be unhealthy. If you are big and make little people feel like shit, you might be a shallow person.  If you are little and make big people feel like shit, you might be a shallow person. And no matter how skinny or buff or right you think you are, you still might fucking suck. 

Freedom of speech is my favorite thing - we are allowed to be real, and I will always encourage people to say what they mean. 

But, for the love of Zeus, stop being so fucking mean to one another.

Jesus Christ. 

these sunglasses are cheap so

oncoming light makes glaring halos
obscuring my path straight toward the sun
saturating all color toward grey.
alternating with shade - air suddenly crisper
and the greens reconfigure themselves
letting the trees smile back and the leaves
don't even say a thing when i crush them.

I can hear only two things:
the moonlight sonata and
my own hardened breathing.

i felt pretty real for a second
wishing i were on horseback instead.
         then the undead pirate attack theme from
pirates of the caribbean came on and
of course i pedal faster.
There might be something to that, Beethoven.

mm. haven't heard your voice in weeks.
 personal fizzy lifting drink.

New house, new fridge poetry.