Mrs. Jones' harp breaks flag fields
magnetic, gnashing fertility ritual.
impossible stairs, lack of resources
zigzag around the crucifixes.
cornhusk braids,
lambs like copper --
we're having a house party
for the chimney corpses.
pluck throat like magic rope
from and into no light and lungs.
slipping and coiled,
my breath's the script of a vanishing,
ancient hypocrite algebra.
oh shudder when call returns,
Joseph of blood --
and do not totally inhale the barnyard.
stench climbs breath to stench roofbeams,
transposes staves of shepherds
like angel orgies.
my voice is like a wax car,
it melts as it drives along.
bounced between Angles and throat
it dies out and cools on a silver plate.
As much as I might want to leave,
I know that I am doomed to stay.
The lights in night-time's empty clouds
Trebuchet me like a moth against a lamp.
She murmurs like a spent tractor, like
There's sugar in her gas tank.
I want love and I want to feel loveable,
But it's clear that I didn't come prepared.
I'm a clone and a skeleton in a ballgown --
Tarsals and jaws poke through my shroud.
Jackass fish, I'm curious
What your opinion is.
I see the water poured from a vessel --
It never reaches the stone, like aquarius.
(chewing on a mint in Idaho)
will the unbelting road whip us off the earth
will we survive to kiss in the bathroom
you pitched the sides of your jacket like a tent
to keep it away
slap it back on the grass / spider in the bushes /
walking back to your car / i'm looking, looking /
falling asleep on the highway / you were kept
awake by the rain / pounding on the window /
window shield / lights like snakes, brake lights
like snakes / you swallow them whole with your
feelings kept under your tongue /
you don't like me that way
i'm never getting out of here
i feel like you're not telling me something
I wanna be gone, but there's so many things
--
there's an owl in my room, it's pecking at me.
so I can't write this email saying goodbye --
I don't know that
the words that I'm saying are alright.
I need to think logically:
if I throw myself into my community
I'll think less about my body
and the terror in my heart.
I'm scared to start gardening,
I can never stay on top of things.
I need someone to work with me,
to lend me their trowel.
why're you so scared of being alone?
I'm a handful.
I need to wash off my face,
if I hadn't braced and been there for me
I'd be chainmail bleeding by the lake,
cause you killed me with the engine brake.
I wanted you to be broken
as badly as I was.
I'm ready to cut that out,
I'm petty and I know that.
I'm a handful / I get manic /
My eyes are dead / I'm dramatic /
My throat is closing like a sheathe /
there's no excalibur coming to save Me /
there's a garland on fire,
woven in my dumb brain.
the cop in me must be
pulled up and burned like weeds,
Every Hour of the Day.
i'm gonna go to hell
although i don't deserve to be there
i'm on one thing but it slips to another
underneath the ocean yawns
it's so bored
it wants to sleep
i think i'm ready to die
ready to drag a knife down my arm
my right hand to my left arm
even though i'm left-handed
i'm gonna go to hell etc.
in my memory she ages with me
i'm almost 30 and to me she's 33
did she see who i was when she flew the coop
did she try to get through to the answering machine's tape loop
you're never gonna be there
the way i needed you
so i'll put my heel to the stone
and talk to me
i want your cum inside me
love is making me sick
i can't fuck my way out of this one this time
no
my potential family
is components trapped inside of me
like an upside-down agincourt
blood crashing into blood
a pelican holds blood in its mouth
it unbeads blood from its lips
and gags blood to its stomach
my lipstick melting in my pants
caught out on a hot day
all day long is long
when the day is a parking lot
the proteins dilute in the saliva
and modulate upwards
then forget themselves falling
in a body that blunts their purpose
the body (to venus)
is stuffed (in sagg)
to the lattice windows
agincourt -- a war can only go on so long
a hundred years in an afternoon
a pool can only hold
water
beat up and tied down
down on my knees
i aim to please --
i only want to please
use me up and heat me
until i'm like an alloy
without your spit on me
i'll never get shiny
you make me forget
i ever existed
i want to get stranded
on your weird ice floe
you ruined me with your big black eyes
you beat me until you fell down dizzy
remember all the time that we had
all the time that we spent
?????????
burn me to ashes
tie me to a tree
get us to the end
i want to adopt your dog
to adopt your dog
i want to adopt your dog
to adopt your dog
my voice is like a coin
trapped inside an empty well.
i was just a naked arm --
my right elbow's a sculpted boar.
why isn't it coming together?
i need whatever you've got.
[string of numbers and letters]
why isn't it coming together?
i fell into the grassy waves,
sunk into the dirt.
she dropped me out of her open mouth.
she turned and turned.
i'm nothing
do you remember when
you were in the bathtub and your body
seemed like a flat image? i remember
that too. i remember how you seesawed
a soap-dulled drop of water between you
fingers like some master of gravity.
no one can hear what i say, anyway.
the water gave up its vibration to the air --
and so had sunk
back down to below
body temperature
i don't know what i want to say
the ground has now all burned away
she never loved me anyway
a dying star collapsed in her shape
i think i need to suffer in hell someday
it'll feel much better when i'm finally flayed
i'll inhale the hot sulphur and burn w/ shame
i feel divine when i'm soaked in pain
i sucked a demon's cock right off
i took his cum all in my mouth
i hope i don't see him again
when i turn my back he attacks my friends
i just need access to the stairs
get me to the parking lot i'll disappear
the beauty's bled out from my words
i've hemorrhaged all my poetry cures
god's stupid plan is to keep me around (x3)
forever
god is made of tuna fish (x3)
i always wanted to be someone
that my god could drown
too much death put in my hands
i played in the worship band
you know however it comes
it's held against a picture of who you used to be
and if you make a fuss
they'll refuse to help you out of the tree
so you scratch your head
[ad lib i don't remember]
nobody has any-thing to say
nobody gives me anything
nobody gives me anything
(what a bitch)
all i have to take
oh i have to take
all i have to take
i clear the table off
please get that food away
i clear the table off
i get caught in the round
i throw my food away
the lazy susan prays
i throw my food away
i never eat at all
i never eat at all
(you won't go out)
never eat at all
(you won't go out)
you can't make me
(you won't go out)
never eat at all
never eat at all
(you won't go out)
never at all
(you won't go out)
never at all
(you just stay in)
you can't let them see me like this
I wanted to make songs that sounded like water pouring on concrete, nests of noise, etc. and then suddenly I wanted to make pop songs as well. it both sounds a lot sleepier and a lot more like something boiling up than I meant. there's some cathedral of the body and sucking someone's dick as well, I think.
the lyrics can be read in the album streaming page and there'll be a lyrics zine available to download soon. maybe I can even mail them out~*
credits
released February 22, 2021
Recorded, produced, and mixed by Polly Llewellyn at her home in Salt Lake City during the summer and fall of 2020.
Ben Swisher very kindly contributed field organ, banjo, vocal, and organelle drum pattern tracks to "i'm a nun, i'm utterly nothing, i have a headache." with very little to go off of.
Luke Williams mastered "i'm a nun, i'm utterly nothing, i have a headache."
Extensive mixing advice from Josie Cordova and Luke Williams.
Cover art by Kit Stanworth and Leah Levinson.
Special thanks to everybody above and: Emma Hoenes, Margot Apricot, Rabbit, David Payne, Cecil Smith, Marcus Koncar, Nora Mal & Durian Durian, Pearl, Katy Ducos, Willow, Emma Mason, and many others for either talking with me about music and artistic processes, encouraging me, listening to early mixes, enabling me to play and collaborate, or influencing me through their writing and performing. Thanks to my brothers and my mom. Thank you to the friends I made through poetry: Jackie, Joss, Tian-Ai, Lyrik, James, Imani, Prince, Alejandro, Yahaira, Cori, Leslie, and Jan. I'm deeply appreciative of my socialist and anarchist friends. Thank you to Felix and Leo for letting me officiate your wedding in our parking lot. Thank you to the people who have done my estrogen shots over the last calendar year: Hanna Walter, Josie Cordova, Kit Stanworth, Jojo Bluemel, Rebecca Baker, Stephanie Howell, my mom, and Justin Prather.
license
Some rights reserved. Please refer to individual track pages for license info.
