Megan Falley's Blog, page 67

"I like your outfit. You know where it would look even better? On the other side of the room far far..."

“I like your outfit. You know where it would look even better? On the other side of the room far far away.”

- Megan Falley (via dropofflines)

"Probably 90 percent of what any artist does is practice. We practiceand we fail and we fail. You..."

“Probably 90 percent of what any artist does is practice. We practice

and we fail and we fail. You set your pen to the page every day, and of course, you’re hoping that something grand will happen. But the chances are slim, and you know that going in, but you go in anyway. That’s faith. You keep hitting the page, hoping that something’s going to fit, something’s going to happen, something’s going to bloom up out of it. And the more you practice, the more that possibility of success is present. The more you do anything, the greater the possibility that something might actually come of it. So you constantly live with failure, and yet, you know that that failure is teaching you something.”

- Dorianne Laux, interviewed by Tana Young for Willow Springs (via nps2013)

A Triptych for Weight, Body, and Lost Girls

I. WHAT HAPPENS AT FAT CAMP

Jenny wasn’t back in time for lights out.
Our counselors went searching for her, assuming 
she left her lips inside a boy’s bunk. 
Instead, they found her running
around the track, sharpening
her hip bones. Us girls all angry
for not thinking of it first.

Every week after weigh-ins,
I would console my best friend,
an 86-pound teenager, Mallory,
by holding up a slab of meat, swearing
This is what a pound looks like. If you only
lost .8 of that this week, it’s still a lot
off your body.

 No one sent me here. I chose
to spend five summer birthdays making myself
smaller. Every August, instead of a cake,
the dining hall sang to me
as I wished on an apple
with a candle in it.

 

 II. ALICE LEAVES WONDERLAND TO ATTEND HER FIRST OVEREATERS ANONYMOUS MEETING

Hi my name is Alice, and I am an overeater. All food says, “Eat Me.” Sometimes I am so big that my arms and legs shoot out the windows, I ruin the house. I want to eat the thing that makes me small enough to slip through the keyhole. I want the flowers, for a moment, to mistake me for one of them.

 

III. FIFTH GRADE REPORT CARD

I got straight A’s. It was the first year
they recorded our height and weight
next to our grades. I knew what
mattered then. Knew I was failing.

In the class photo,
I stuck a pushpin
through my own face.

______________________________________________________________

-Megan Falley
published in An Uncommon Core
and forthcoming in Redhead and the Slaughter King (Write Bloody)
Buy her first book, After the Witch Hunt, here. 

BRALESS

In September of 1970 we took off our bras
and waved them like flags over our liberated heads,
cruising in Jan’s convertible Bug
to the college we would attend.
When we let the bras go, they fluttered up
on various cup-sized wings and flew
into a cornfield.

We were eighteen, we could do whatever we wanted,
and that first Friday night staring awestruck
at Tina Turner singing on the outdoor stage,
I wanted to belt out the lyrics of my life,
a life unlike any woman’s I’d known.
I was free in my gauzy blouse,
dancing in the street with a man
with long curly black hair and a paisley bandana.
He quoted Nietzche and Rimbaud,
and he knew all about Plath.

How old are you? I asked.
Let’s go to a party, he said.
It was dark under the oaks by the creek,
no other cars but his station wagon.
The party’s here, he said, pressing
my hand into his lap.

I told him I was a virgin,
and he held my hair back so hard
I thought my skull would crack.
He bit my neck, whispering
that he was so big,
I couldn’t handle it,
but he’d know when I was ready
just by looking at me.

Thank you, I said.

As we drove to the dormitory,
he said he’d come by tomorrow.
I have homework.
You sure are a smart girl. He winked.

I locked the door of my room,
lay down on my narrow bed,
the stack of books on the desk
outlined in the light
from the streetlamp.
I would get smarter.
And if a man ever did anything
like that again,
I would do what I wanted.
I would kill him.

-Susan Browne

Photo

versesandflow:Get to Know…. Megan Falley!MEGAN FALLEY is sure...

versesandflow:

Get to Know…. Megan Falley!

MEGAN FALLEY is sure to get your attention. If it’s not from her vibrant wordplay, then it might be from the title of her recent book, “After the Witch Hunt.” Either way, the New York resident, who’s been writing since she was very young, will make you think. The SUNY New Paltz grad shared with us about the first poem she ever performed, the reason behind her book title, and how slam helped her realize her dream.

Follow her journey…. and to read the full article, log on to www.versesandflow.com

i might not own a TV, but last night i was on TV.

i might not own a TV, but last night i was on TV. :

If you have the “TV ONE” station you can still catch me reading poems for a live studio audience in Los Angeles on the show Verses & Flow. If you don’t have a TV, call someone and ask them to DVR it (like I did) and then watch this little web exclusive about my journey to poetry!

I WANT TO MEET YOU

I want you meet you & your city. I want to come read poems in the place where you live. Let’s get coffee and read books. Did you know that such things are deliciously possible? Send me an e-mail to meganfalley@gmail.com & we can talk about making all the good things happen.

PREY

Saturday night I was meeting old friends at a bar and it started pouring. I began hopping from awning to awning when the rain let up a little. Two guys standing under the cover of a food cart yelled “Come here! Get shelter with us! Big titties! Big titties!” and when I rightfully ignored them, speeding past, they started screaming “FAT! FAT! FAT!” at me and into the ever-growing distance between us. 

This is what it means to be a woman walking the streets of NYC. This case of street harassment is not even that extreme. But even if a woman walks by and you say “hi, what’s your name?” or “wow, beautiful” or “nice nice niceeeee” it isn’t a compliment. It NEVER makes us feel beautiful. It makes us feel like prey. 

I didn’t get dressed this morning FOR YOU. I don’t wear lipstick FOR YOU. I wasn’t born with a face FOR YOU. I didn’t grow boobs FOR YOU.

I carry around a self-defense keychain. It’s in the shape of a cat and it could gouge a man’s eyes out. I carry it around everywhere. FOR YOU.

last night i said goodbye to my favorite serial killer.

there should be a word for the hurt that happens after you’ve followed a family in a series for seven years and you love them, and then they end.