some things you didn't know about me

i have a very real fear of driving. i have had my drivers licsense for less than a year because i took drivers ed too late and then put off getting my permit for a long time. the morning of my driving test for my license i had a panic attack in the car and made matt drive me back home. later when i calmed down i went back and passed the test somehow.

as it is right now, there are only five places i will drive to:
-two thrift shops (which are right across from each other)
-two drug stores (once again, right across from each other)
-one shopping center in the next town over that has a target, etc.

m is a dear about it and tries to help me by having me practice driving while he is in the passengers seat, but it almost always ends in a panic attack or some sort of crying fit because i'm too scared to do a u-turn or i don't know what lane to be in or i do something even the slightest bit wrong. driving feels like math to me.

i haven't even been able to drive myself back to my hometown (about half an hour away)

my trichotillomania has been more than manageable (non existant for the past few months which is great. if you have trich, ask me how i'm managing-- it's very easy). but i feel my ocd getting quite a bit worse as far as cleaning compulsions go. and although i've made small steps with my driving, i still have to tell matt to "drive safe" every time he leaves the house or else i feel like something very, very bad will happen. i won't drive if the weather looks like it could go bad and i won't drive past four pm and i don't drive on saturdays. it really is exhausting. when i'm spending a day at home with nothing to do and a friend asks me if i have plans, i always have to make it sound like i'm keeping busy. god forbid i ask someone to come pick me up. i absolutely hate asking for favors as much as i hate driving.

and i hate phonecalls, too. the only two people i can call and feel totally comfortable with are matt and my mom. with anybody else, even a close friend, i have to write out what i'm going to say before hand in case i have to leave a voicemail and stick to notes. i will have the phone in my hand for a long time before i can actually dial the number, sometimes even twenty minutes or more. that is exhausting too, especially when trying to plan this wedding

blarg blarg blarg
at least i'm not scrubbing the house with a toothbrush or counting things. i hate numbers too much to compulse that way


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this time of year i always get really nostalgic, or maybe thats all the time every year

but april always makes me think of april eighteenth, which is also a poem by sylvia plath, which is also the day einstein died, which is also the day virginia woolf's body was discovered in the river

it's a very bad day so this year-- everybody wear your saints and kiss the person you want to kiss--

october seventh

this poem started in a forest. i was a constant, never sleeping
on the couch, never cornered
into the passenger seat of your car
oceans away from your birthmark
(the things i notice)

i'd rather be a question. i'd rather
hide from you with your own hands (i've
not been beautiful for long)

follicle motivated

can anyone give me any information about the whereabouts of this poet

i believe this poem was written by a gent named rob kilshaw, he was banned from deviant art. his name was either shakespeares sister or kingvitamin. if anyone knows anything about him let me know, this is one of my favorite poems of all time

Sun Sick

Grinding pills at the all-night chemists -
it’s been 3 days since the sun made me sick.
my hands are steadier now, my cheeks less jaundice
and I’ve lost the need to touch or to kiss

but you disappeared like a hail stone necklace
when the city went for a cigarette break;
dabbed rouge on the bruises, coughed and left us.
I found you shouting at swans on the lips of the lake.
how can something so white be so sad and so ugly?
like a cup full of crumbs from a wedding cake.
then your eyes were two balls of dirty grey snow.
you said that I left but the songs all stayed.

Now my closest friends are hypochondriacs,
I keep them afraid and their breathing hard.
everything here is made of stone and dead clouds,
everyone’s thrown to the volcano god.
and I’m sorry if I offended your soothsayer mother,
claiming her tea was crude oil and her coffee was silt
but the streets here just seem to get thinner and thinner
since I undressed your legs with a grave-robber’s guilt.

and when I sleep I see our lives as told by tour guides -
they all know how you won’t wear your cross for me anymore,
they know how your hair’s always hung on the breath of the night
like the one-armed jesus hangs above the bedroom door.
then the rich widow laughs and the sound kills the tour
and I wake up in a heap on the floor
and I wake up dream drunk and unsure
and I wake up

but I promise to mourn for the pigeons whilst you’re disappeared -
sticky urchins turning to sponge in the mouth of the bridge.
I’ll be the singing merchant of your archipelago of tears
and my song will cut a path through the sweet human mist.
I’ll remember your love when I’m crushing bright drugs.
it’s been 3 days since the sun made me sick.
It’s been 3 days since the sun made me sick.

tumblr

i have a tumblr now: www.jillianlclark.tumblr.com

new art

here are some new drawings i've been working on. thank you ben from epson scan for helping me troubleshoot for twenty minutes over the phone. the most fun so far is the drawing ink.



winsor and newton ink on paper, sourced from a pictorial archive of men



self portrait



matt



light study, graphite on paper



self portrait as a silent movie star in a wig

snails

where did you put the rock
we took from the grove park inn
you were disgusted with the snails
and things that had attached to it
you put it in the trunk of the car
for the way home in the dark
where they belonged

now i want to put it in my garden
next to the antlers sticking up out of the ground
but i'm not sure where it is
and i feel a sad wanting for you today
just because i know there was a day in the past
where i didn't think you would ever see me
and boy was i wrong

i just want to find that mountain rock
so i can throw it at my past self
and say "it's okay, keep writing your sad poems, love will realize you"
and then put it in my garden
and go inside
and listen to you talk about the things you care about