Uncommon Sense

my mind is crawling trees

2012-01-28T02:11:00.007-05:00

disclaimer: the creation and decision to publish this post was done very late at night while in a very emotionally unstable state. (per usual) however, as this post is of a more explicit nature than most random word combinations I pass off as poetry, please keep that in mind while reading.

apologies in advance.

I'm laying on your couch, and I'm throwing myself the world's most entertaining pity party. Sad, yes, pathetic, yes, exaggerated and for the most part completely irrational, yes, but funny...or so I'd like to think. So I lay there and say words like "hurt" and "always" and expect you to rub my back and tell me I'm wrong. But you don't. Instead, you simply look at me in that same steadying way that can be so maddening and so healing and you say stop. Stop it. You tell me you will listen, that you'd love to even, but you also tell me to stop. To pull myself together at whatever heartstrings remain and to put my shoes on like a big girl and drive home. Again. As always. My 3am drive made painful with memories.

Which memories? If you ask me, I will hum and sigh and smile (default) and make some stupid remark that I perceive to be funny. Twenty years of reflex at its finest. A shrug and a joke, the icing on my smoldering insides. So you ask and I reflex then might add, stuff.

Which stuff? Oh, you know, the usual. Stuff buried too deep to think about. Stuff not even you could understand. Stuff that when said aloud sounds like the musing of a crazy person. Am I a joke to you? The musings of a crazy person. A person who loves. Who cannot make potholders or run marathons or make proper muffins or find her way to the doctor's office but who loves you. Loves all of you. Loves every hour spent over lunch, every minute spent on the phone, every smile we've ever exchanged. I may not know much, but I know who I love. I may not always say the right thing, or eat the right thing, or know the right people or care about the right things but I will love you now and I will love you as long as I am able to love.

So we ask ourselves this question: who do we love? Who, really, do we love, and what, what the fuck does that mean? can you love me, even if I sleep a little too late or don't clean my clothes off the floor? can you love me even for saying words like "fuck?" can you look me straight in the eyes and tell me you respect and love me for all the piles of piles of shame and confusion and beauty and humanity that I am? can you? can I?

can we.

and what are these things we call "selves." really. what are they? what are you for doing such-and-such or I for doing the opposite? can you love me even still? can I love you? love.

what the fuck does that mean?

but I digress. the memories that haunt me (now that I'm warmed up) are as follows:

the day it rained on my parade and you were there to save me. you wore red and a tan face and I fumed because I was too happy for my own health. my health that falters after such a twisted and fascinating person like you. and now it is too much, and we are too deep, and this will never resolve itself overnight, especially overnight, but will take weeks, maybe years....maybe never.

I sold my happiness (the parts that seemed irrelevant) for the gaining of truth.

you. my poison, poison apple.

the forbidden fruit that turned me carnivorous.

and you haunt me.

then there was the day you looked away. a different "you," let the records stay clear. but you turned your back for your own special reasons and left me standing illegitimate. throughly stripping me of any reason to hate you, you turned sunshine into sheets of ice and graciousness into bitterness. and the fault, after all this, resides with me. and I hate you for making damn sure of that.

I hate you because I love you.

love. (what the fuck does that mean?)

the final moment, the moment I saw her, the most earnest and delightful person I have ever met, and rather than a normal hello or the professional small talk, instead: reflex.

quick shrug and self-depricating joke, the usual greeting, and a cuss word to finish off the encounter.

another perfect ten.

am I a joke to you?

and there is more (inevitably), and there are others, but it is late and my stomach is weary. weary with the vomit of your faces, your sparkling faces that I love too much to flush away but cannot keep down peacefully.

so instead I drive home miserably mollified. embarrassed at my own misunderstandings and insecurities and straight up issues.

but despite all this, despite everyone who has every hurt me or helped me, made my day or squashed it, and despite the sickly feeling of too much feeling that makes my gut ache like a child's--despite all of that: I can still look out my windshield at the shaky darkness and think of all of this, all of you, and be happy to have a part in it.

this infinite shattering of our only hopes

and healing comprised of the unexpected.

complete.

2012-01-26T02:39:00.004-05:00

surrounded by smokey yells

conspiracy theories and the speeches of generations

I am finally and honestly happy.

blue hoodie, sparkling scarf

my hand enveloped in soft flannel

your eyes

her laugh

his smile

these people, my family.

my funny funny family.

sassy and rambunctious

calculating and imbalanced

we laugh our way back into being

whole again.

vision of jaded light

2012-01-24T23:12:00.008-05:00

Whenever I come home from a long time away, I have to drive around for awhile (preferably at night) to reflect and remember and take time to simply exist again in a world that has meaningful dimension and valid appreciation for my crazy life. and how appropriate that tonight, night of my drive, the northern lights created a supernatural glow that enveloped my thoughts and gave them magic.

I was able to remember, remember all that was good about my stay in Paris and all that really really wasn't. Able to tangibly recall every moment of confusion, of joy, of loneliness, of fear. but most importantly, I was able to look into the eyes of the people I love and see unconditional regard staring me straight in the face, eyes that say "you are home and you are wonderful," and for what feels like the first time, believe them.

It is so good to be home.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

sometimes there is, deep within us, immeasurable hurt. sometimes, we need to go back and revisit those places to remember who we are, and sometimes we don't have a choice. forced back in time, we are stripped of all security and left naked to rebuild from the pieces we've lost.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

unbidden, they are here

clawing at my heart in its most fearful places

places long roped off as dangerous

for good reasons.

places I now try to stare in the face

but find I am still

afraid.

too much to live for

too many ways to die

fight the hurt.

so we walk around like twisted bandaids, thinking ourselves masters of healing, forgetting our fragility and capacity to cause more pain.

toothache desires

destroyed with a healthy dose of daylight

(awaiting a cure?)

but in the meantime, these are the memories I am left with

and this mystery

is mine.

wild

strong steps forward

each direct, intentional

slightly diagonal

our eyes are blades of burning fury

we are

we will be

we must

startling as a white murmur

a sensual plea for help

she is like a cat in the dark

and then she is the darkness

despite my mental state

and torn up feelings

I can still look up

-at you-

and smile

and wholeheartedly mean

both

put us all in one room, our smoking, pleated, hazardous selves--just to see what kind of ruckus we make.

my dreams encircle me,

laughing a litte at my earnest face.

a million miles away

I can finally sleep.

less seasons and more dancing

the intricate workings of time and space on those fragile ideas we call

ourselves.

my pants are red

my shirt is on fire

and my hair eclipses the night

guilt

vin au matin

leaving us drunk on madness

hungover from our wasted desire

and now there is nothing--

nothing but too much emptiness that runs too deep

thrashing the remnants

we hide in our pockets

you look at me and laugh

but I feel it much much deeper

remind me again

color me joyful

because it seems I've forgotten

from one who finds value in little else--words. I can do everything and nothing.

swaying as part of our own outside

fed by the very shadows we run from

such a beautiful place to die.

unsaid

2012-01-03T03:02:00.002-05:00

rather than stand tall

or strong (whatever it is that word means these days)

I instead bury my face in the soft warm that is your hair

the coward that I am

real this time

and I think now, instead of goodbye, I will say

nothing

and let good enough be just that:

enough

because I am not brave enough for more.

trapped

2012-01-01T19:06:00.008-05:00

it's sad when facebook becomes a crucial source for information. unwilling to believe my mother's dire warnings of a snow storm, rather than checking weather.com, I log on to facebook, hoping that a multitude of status updates will finally provide me with enough evidence to cancel my evening plans.

reflecting on the year, started reading through all my old blog posts from 2011 in hopes of understanding a bit more of how far I've come, or what've I been through or learned etc...but got exceptionally bored 2 months in and stopped.

thinking about love. about its "power to alter and define our lives." about the way it can ruin an evening with one misplaced word. or how a snowstorm can stand in the way of my happiness.

pathetic. real.

my favorite worst, pretending it's too perfect to know otherwise.

ferocious twistings of my innermost secrets

those giant stones watch me

watch you

watch our mysteries untangle into the strangest of rhymes

and I am heartbroken with the future

wishing I would have chosen to flee this monstrous institution

to destroy the infamous "bubble"

to leap out of my skin and into the next existence, to halt my own misgivings and reach into hell for salvation

to have found my feet where no others have wandered

mourning the courage I lost when I chose to stay, the passion I've found in murky expressions

the simultaneous burning to be more than this and to become this.

too many words, too much angst and I can't help but love the very things that bind me, that trap me in a giant vault of everything I swore I cannot be. and my own desperate pleas for help and redemption are answered by tears of overwhelming love for all of this. my tears. my own goddamn tears building a translucent wall around my terror. this is not the end, it is all of it: the beginning, the middle, the end and every pitstop. it is all here.

and I am suffocating.

smothered by my uncontrollable love for my captors.

2012

2012-01-01T04:57:00.004-05:00

who I am

who I want to be

non-congruent--like the way you tuck in your shirt

it will not change, not so easily

intention and meaning are not the same

climb down from your perch to gather with the masses

invest in your past since your memory is now

take no notice of those things that have possessed you, instead:

welcome them as brothers

as pieces of your broken self that no amount of haphazard song can destroy

remember and hold on---for this is all we have left.

we sit there in the haunted parking lot

saying our lasts/firsts

shriveled dreams growing ripe with time

and our own foolish hearts electric as the lightning surrounding us

anti-climatic, I say

but my insides are swarming

I will see you on the other side, across the river of greatest grief and into the arms of coherency.

past the pressures of my arm are the luxuries of your future

and we will not

forget

this night.

---

2011-12-30T13:29:00.001-05:00

we live too fast

but the rain remembers

and our porcelain mountains

remain distant with promises

turn out the lights

don't try to save me

Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T17:46:00.003-05:00

Since my recent decision to start the pill, my hormones have been completely unpredictable and extreme (more so that usual) for the past month or so. examples include:

talking to boyfriend last night about possibility of his death. conversation ends with me sobbing uncontrollably about a completely hypothetical conversation. boyfriend gives me a magic wand to distract me, a gift that not only served it's purpose of ending my irrational tears but also provided me with a new way of entering my dark house at 3 30 am and also something to do all day today. (sit in my dark closet saying lumos and nox, lighting and unlighting the wand).

this morning when my mom asked me to clean my room (understandable, as is a complete mess) I get uncharacteristically furious and proceed to fight with my mother for no reason but for the raging beast inside me that is my vagina.

my brother accidentally stepped on the dog's tail, causing the dog to whine pitifully to which I respond with, you guessed it, tears of sympathy for the poor creature.

dear lord. it's as though all the tears I was unable to shed in my first 18 years of living have decided to force their way out and call themselves birth control.

nice.

infinite discord--a beautiful mess

2011-12-18T02:10:00.004-05:00

we are, none of us, unbreakable.

if there is anything I've learned about people as a species, it is how utterly and inalterably fragile we are.

I pray not for healing but for hope.

for a strength that surpasses all loss.

and then there's me.

2011-12-15T00:09:00.001-05:00

REACHING MY LIMIT OF EXAM STUDYING.

(over it)

(doesn't even cover it)

...then realize still have 3 MORE EXAMS to go before I am a free woman.

oh.dear.god.

wallow

2011-12-11T22:48:00.001-05:00

the most infinite

waste.

tis the season

2011-12-06T14:36:00.003-05:00

pasty

flakey

scratchy

lumpy

bumpy

ucky

my how I love my winter body.

...I'm like Dr Suess, but for really morbid people.

feelings of today:

2011-11-30T23:31:00.001-05:00

IHATEMENANDALSOTHEWORLD.

I am going to never shave my legs again, become a lesbian and also mormon so I can marry Ellen Degeneres and laugh my way through mortality.

voyer

2011-11-29T17:24:00.004-05:00

today the sky was on fire, covering everything surreally in its pinkish glow. and I, productive as ever, turned off all the lights in my dorm room and sat at my window for a longer-than-is-probably-ok time, simultaneously watching the sky and the reactions of those walking out of the dorm when they saw it.

2011-11-29T16:58:00.004-05:00

"...seized by the same feeling I get whenever I see the ocean--the feeling that it is all too much to behold, too beautiful, too much to bear--and I am filled with an aching love for it."

20

2011-11-28T20:51:00.002-05:00

Hello! It's that time of year again. and by that time I mean my birthday. Today, I am 20 years old. 2 whole decades!

welp.

I told my mom: "I'm too young to be 20!"

she, approaching 50, just looks at me.

backpedalbackpedal."on second thought, I'm young and spry."

anyway. my dad tonight, with his ever-present video camera, points it about 2 inches from my face so I'm sure the camera saw just about an entire nostril, and asks me if I have any wisdom to impart, now that I am no longer a teenager.

I think for half an awkward second before defaulting to what I perceive to be a funny face and shrug. "nope!"

and really, why waste a brilliant blog entry such as this with cheesyass wisdom about things which I am only beginning to discover.

instead, I'll leave you with a quote that imparts the wisdom of Mark Twain:

"Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint."

let the roaring twenties begin.

answer

2011-11-27T01:21:00.002-05:00

in the candlelight,

thinking.

he asks me what I want. what will make me happy.

and I lie there and look up at the ceiling, hearing the rain, the flickering flames dancing behind us...a perfect picture, really.

I think of my parents

my dog

my bed.

what do I want?

All I want is home.

yesterday:

2011-11-24T14:11:00.005-05:00

an overly emotional day:

thinking about life and crying.

arguing with boyfriend about the reading level of Eragon and crying.

driving home singing justin bieber...and crying.

then I get home and see my brother for the first time since August and commence straight up sobbing. He is touched, believing my breakdown to be because of his glorious return, and I pretend as though he truly is the reason for my tears. because the alternative conversation segue of "oh no I'm actually not crying about you...good to see you though!" would be slightly more than hideously awkward...esp since he started to tear up as I'm sniveling my unattractive way through "hey bro,what's up?"

welp.

I also cried my way through a stage production of the Wizard of Oz, the most particular moment of emotion when the dog playing Toto seems scared by the man in the lion costume.

ohhhhh boy.

clearly new medication is going well.

furthermore, today after stuffing my face with extraordinary amounts of food and retiring to the couch where I am beyond excited to sleep the most gaseous of sleeps, my dad struts into the living room to announce a family game of football. tackle football.

My face does something like this:

you've gotta be fucking kidding me.

they call me...

2011-11-21T20:06:00.004-05:00

things that offer pathetic insight into my life:

the other day a stranger called me "a babe" and it made my week. skipping over the term "babe" and its general implications, this is especially pathetic considering he did not tell me this to my face, rather in passing to a friend who in turn informed me of this.

I was recognized in the library by an old friend not by my hair, or my backpack, or coat, but by diet coke-- the one dangling from my hand and the other happily situated in the pocket of my backpack.

after hearing the plot of a scary movie, not watching the movie itself, or the trailer, or even seeing photo stills, no--after hearing a paragraph summary of a scary movie I was so scared I spent the entire night looking behind me, taking friends with me to the bathroom so I was never alone and sleeping with every single light in my house on.

bold tresses

2011-11-21T14:22:00.005-05:00

My hands are dry, and faltering.

she stands in front of the room, forcing us to recognize this fact: she is far from home, but her roots have ceased to be painless.

and I, a haphazard student for the hour I must,

open my ears to listen to this.

To speak of loss as though it has no meaning: I do not understand how.

Picking up my copy, The Beautiful and the Damned, I now begin to realize just how much we are neither: we are both.

he beautiful

I damned

an eternal dance with our own depravity

48%

2011-11-21T14:15:00.003-05:00

I sat still, then.

as if by calming my limbs I could silence the torrent within me.

I remember thinking everything was different

though every line came easily

I was: new feet in old shoes

my heart eternally altered.

and I suppose I was right, to the extent that it mattered.

I danced with the devil and won the reward of truth.

truth in the depths of my depravity.

the jazz music is deafening, the ornament-laden silver christmas trees look burdened rather than jolly.

and I am overwhelmed.

gander

2011-11-20T15:46:00.002-05:00

battered beauty

staring wildly back

fighting to end

this torn-apart jest

I stare out at the parking lot

and the world seems to faint a little

because my arms are not long enough

to carry this.

New Age

2011-11-14T22:32:00.005-05:00

I remember sitting on a wobbly stool in the Religion section of the local bookstore, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of material written for and about religion and human spirituality. From Astrology to Catholicism, spiritual memoirs to copies of the Koran--I couldn't help but feel stifled, as though I was drowning in the unread words the hundreds of books were whispering at me, each certain in its place as modern prose of divine revelation. And I remember sitting there, frozen into a revered sort of helplessness, unable to even begin to take a book from the shelf for fear it would be the wrong one and so condemn me for my lack of judgment or forever lead me astray. There was no path, no method, only the pages upon pages of those writing to cease the torrential prodding, questioning, fervor and emptiness we all feel when it comes to matters of the soul. I sat there, unmoving, wishing for the single book that would help me to understand the very thing that is so clearly misunderstood that it desires hundreds upon thousands of texts written in an attempt to explain what can never be known in full.

So I sat there in silence, pondering my faith and the faith of the universe: shaky as the stool beneath me.

the only thing worse than a bunion is a frozen bunion.

2011-11-11T11:44:00.006-05:00

walking back over the soggy leaves, I feel nothing. For the moment, I have stopped thinking about endings and beginnings and have started thinking only of time, that dimension which is simultaneously endless and finite.

Time.

Am currently sitting in my English class, shuddering uncontrollably every time my Professor makes a joke or closes his eyes and moves his head in that weird, serpentine way that makes my soul shrivel up and die a terrible death of revulsion.

Due to my own lack of sense, I do not own boots or any sort of warm footwear, a fact that only presents itself as a problem during snowy cold weather. ...That is, the majority of the year. I'm not entirely sure how I have lived in Michigan all my life and still refuse to buy winter footwear, but there you have it. Rebellion at its finest. Instead, I am wearing leg warmers over hiking socks, my heavily padded feet now stuffed awkwardly into my moccasins. And when this layering of socklike elements make me feel like an uncoordinated hobbit, I vaguely entertain thoughts of defeating winter by my refusal to accept it, that by trudging through the snow in light slip-ons I can somehow maintain a fragile state of denial to the fact that the desolate cold is raining down upon and around me, destroying all things good and right about God's creation. However, am beginning to accept that stomping around campus for the next 5 or so months in less-than-adequate footwear will not in fact lead to the resignation of winter, but instead to half a year of perpetually cold and wet feet, which roughly translates to unadulterated misery.

Will have to go purchase some boots this weekend.

...either that or another pair of leg-warmers.

pour

2011-11-08T15:37:00.003-05:00

indefinite amounts of royalty

washed down with the rights of one who is

dead.

watching the rain fall endlessly on

forgotten prayers of a simple nature

because the way I see it, I don't.

that moment when:

2011-11-06T14:59:00.008-05:00

been noticing lately the new trend of writing a facebook status, picture caption, or the like beginning with "that moment when..."

often funny but mostly just intriguing to me, am offering a sample of my own "moments when..." purely for satirical and explorative purposes.

moments such as these:

that moment when you're overwhelmingly irritated at your boyfriend for saying something that is true but mildly offensive, and so you're trying to be cold and aloof and make him really suffer for his transgressions but instead he remains oblivious to his punishment, smiles and brings you dark chocolate, making you feel guilty for something he did to piss you off.

that moment when he calls you sheltered and so you spend an entire afternoon trying to act exceptionally badass but end up eating salad at Panera.

that moment when you watch a movie about war and your entire faith in humanity is yet again destroyed, leaving you crying on the couch while your bewildered boyfriend attempts to remedy the situation by giving you a Sunday school lesson.

that moment when you eat captain crunch cereal at 3 in the morning, a sickly sweet farewell communion with a part of your heart you may never see again.

that moment when you and your friend spend Saturday night lying on the floor watching Twilight trailers, remembering your screaming selves at the first movie premiere and congratulating yourselves on being so much cooler now...while wearing matching Justin Bieber tank tops.

that moment when your hair is becoming much too long and matted but you begin to think of yourself as some sort of ferocious amazon woman and so are increasingly ok with it.

that moment when you have a paper due tomorrow but instead sleep in until 1 pm and spend the rest of the afternoon blogging about pointless things like this.

and that moment when you no longer care, because you are a badass, amazon pacifist that is infinitely over inane things like Twilight.

overboard

2011-11-06T03:58:00.007-05:00

time went slowly, as if in stop motion.

I told myself I was ready.

That everything was for the best, and nothing was final.

but the truth--

truth is.

I was never ready for this moment.

no matter how long each second seemed to last.

the twisted knot of tangled selves

remembering their beauty in the places they've almost forgotten

wild places

the million dollar question

finally abandoned in search of the horizon

orange light surrounded our unspoken lasts

a proper sendoff, really.

then the grand silence,

nothing left to say because there is everything hanging on this moment.

you stood up then,

shouldered your fear and excitement

and a giant bag of what I can only assume was

held me close

and it was "too soon," all of it.

but for real this time

too. damn. soon.

a choked i love you,

eyes averted from the very thing I was so desperate to keep close:

you.

and then you were waving

and walking

out of our arms and

into the dazzling sunlight

and I never knew a room could feel so empty.

suffer me pretty

2011-11-06T03:48:00.003-05:00

the only sound the steady drip drip

dripping

of innocent blood into a demented river

a river of divine sorrows

drowning

under the warmth of those I love

the weight of that I cannot control

labyrinth grief

incoherent love

caught flailing

amidst the swirling pain of overwhelming

beauty

the beauty of one who can only stare and cry

for those things that are

gone.

Mistletoe

2011-11-01T18:30:00.005-04:00

Yes, this is Justin Bieber. And yes, this is a Christmas album.

Have purchased the album on release day (today) and have spent an inappropriate amount of time squealing over the perfect union of two of my absolute favorite things: Christmas music and the Biebs.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

...also received my Never Say Never tshirt in the mail today...um.

With gems like the freestyle rapping of Little Drummer Boy, the "shake it baby" bridge addition to Santa Claus is Coming to Town, a soulful Silent Night, Usher's contribution to Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire, as well as a collaboration with Mariah Carrey for All I Want for Christmas is You, Justin's shorter hair and lower decibels still produce gleeful adolescent magic I haven't felt since the release of the 7th Harry Potter.

and who knows? Maybe one of these days I'll come home to find Justin Bieber standing under the mistletoe waiting for me, and Selina Gomez quietly (although sexually, I'm sure) crying to herself in the corner.

never say never.

enlighten me with justice

2011-10-31T21:03:00.005-04:00

how to say this in words?

it is difficult to say the least.

impossible to determine when you call into question the matters of perception, of bias, and of all matters generally psychotic.

I call today and make an appointment, and when she asks me "and what do you need to see the doctor about?" I falter, and am silent.

for there are few words for this, few phrases that can really capture the all-emcompassing rage and submission that accompany a realization like this.

betrayal seems too strong--rather, a new light shed on old habits, and an awakening to the dawn of harsh reality.

unwillingness to believe what all my senses are screaming

all pain twisted into a broken memory.

you.

a familiar face turned sour with ignorance.

fist

2011-10-31T02:16:00.004-04:00

free from the bondage of that which I once believed

I can now hold fast to songs that are, by definition, old news.

startled,

I reach out with shaking hands

to capture them

and press them to my chest as precious

to me

rediscovered harmonies--

the masterpiece of a soul

colliding with the rest

a lone fist of love

made strong by the groping

fingers of disease

and smooth palm

of bottomless questions

so broken

we are

so much wrong smushed together,

smushed back into our own kind of beginning

where fragile resurrection can finally

flourish

wearing green in rebellion of my own foolish wanderings

because of you

2011-10-29T04:03:00.002-04:00

and luck

draws its own way

with the circles of lives

constantly twisting

and cycling

back into our own kind of

peace.

inverted

2011-10-26T15:30:00.002-04:00

sitting here, realizing there is more left than what has been previously remembered.

that is, in watching a business woman clickity-clack past me in her pencil skirt, blazer and heals, each part perfectly symmetrical, rather than the usual awe and respect I feel for such working women, I instead inwardly shudder and wish instead for a more colorful life, one closer to the ground and with a lot less angles.

trump

2011-10-24T14:01:00.001-04:00

delving into the most beautiful disaster

pieces littered into poise

keeping faith with a faith unknown

"still I will trust you Lord."

halfmoon smiles

2011-10-19T21:33:00.003-04:00

that feeling of stomach churning, heart pumping.

the feeling that suddenly you will be onstage in front of everyone you know, without knowing any lines or spacing or anything. that terrifying anticipation of the unknown. you, on display, unrehearsed and a second away from pending failure.

you.

I suddenly have this feeling while sitting in Philosophy, when my professor talked of pusilanimous, or the inability to do what you are called to do for fear of failing. After a moment or two of adrenaline for no apparent reason, I decided I was simply delirious from hunger and that I should, rather than focus on self-study and ideas of what it is I am called to do, instead head to the joyous dining hall for some lunch.

yet.

if only I had the courage

if only I had the grace

if only

shatter me with your laughter

but I deserve it

I guess

she tells me this and I stand

uncertain

tumbling over in waves of the same old lies and questions with nothing but bricks for answers

enough forgotten to remember the worst

and that's all, I guess.

we can but guess.

United we fall

2011-10-17T21:44:00.005-04:00

"Everyone needs both a purpose and a place to truly be happy."

I of course, have neither.

I keep researching kickass internships far away or travel opportunities and think "what's stopping me?" before remembering how I would be murdered if I moved to the Bronx or the like and have no place to live in any of these places let alone the money to pay rent.

and so I am here, talking to a close friend about things like life, and friendships, and how people in my life seem so scattered, like a dot-to-dot where none of the pieces form a cohesive picture. Feeling as though I not only have no purpose, but no place, nowhere that I can look around me and think "this is where I belong." there is nothing to hold me here, no hand to hold but his, and even that is against every core fiber of my being, to stay put for a boy.

And so I remain. torn between those I love but have lost touch with, and the overwhelming need to become more than this. to reach farther and regain that sense of self that has disappeared between the cracks. to stand with dignity rather than distain, to be seen as beautiful and filled with potential, rather than another girl at the same college, with no destination to take off for and no place to land.

stranded, is a good way to put it. lost is another.

she tells me "here for a reason," and I have to believe her, not because I do but because I must. believe or despair.

and when my mom takes me aside and makes sure I am ok, that I am a peace with my decisions and happy in my life as of now, I told her yes. I told her college is a myth, and I have found my own formula to live by. I told her I was happy. and I was...I was.

So many things to be thankful for: a steady job, loving boyfriend, some good friends (scattered, but alive), a car, family, etc etc etc. so much thanking for so many blessings.

but to look around and see the life that you somehow missed, the floor bonding, the steady group of friends, a way to shine and be supported, a place to have a purpose...I can't help but feel empty, as though my own individualism is somehow no longer enough. Friends I once sought become strangers as they no longer seem to have time, and who can blame them? we are all living our own lives, all have schedules to uphold, homework to do, jobs to attend...yet.

there is only so much we can give before we give up.

purpose and a place.

have been waiting for over a year now...and have come up with few answers.

enjoying not only the activity but the people, this is a fulfilled life.

searching still, probably forever.

a plea for answers, not attention.

believing myself to be fine, but the corner I seek says otherwise.

looking at those around me, thinking really? and enough.

for there is a point when all I ask for is what I give in return.

but people are people and people have lives.

wanting more, wanting out, but stuck by my own inhibition.

rambling into a webpage because for this moment, I can speak.

terrified by my own potential, I let it sit stagnant, the last energies of summer dying faster than I can reconjure them.

here we are again.

2011-10-17T14:31:00.004-04:00

Due to the nonexistent nature of my current health, I have decided to skip PE class and instead spend the next 3 hours napping and listening to Christmas music.

...welp.

overthetop

2011-10-17T00:02:00.006-04:00

we sit there, in the corner, banished from our own places because of stupid things like time and the nature of our genitals. wishing so badly for a place to rest, a haven from the ordinary but there is nowhere. there is nothing to hide tear stricken acne but a rotted old tissue.

a raspy cry for validation.

because a shelf that falls on your head

and a sentence that stomps on your heart

are enough to shatter a day's carefully built stability.

squeezing tight the cough drops in my pocket

my face is sandstone for a fleeting second, before eroding into the last curtain call it can remember.

smushed words of defiant hope obediently turned to ash. it was only a matter of time, I guess. time before the sunlight turned to shivers and my surroundings to chalky snapshots.

he hugs me but his breath smells and no amount of talking can save me. it is pointless I think, as I feel my shaved legs. pointless.

working harder than average at the things beyond my control and ignoring that which I can rightfully claim. I am the pendulum of disaster, the dietary need forever unmet.

past mistakes count for nothing.

for here, here in the effortless and endless beyond, nothing counts but the motion.

a final salute, and for miles we fall.

strangers.

2011-10-16T22:10:00.002-04:00

time and hypocrisy

not enough space.

the communal shit spread far and wide

leaving me

voiceless and hopeless

sluggishly leaving as fast as I can.

Thursday

2011-10-13T20:33:00.002-04:00

ache.

rain soothe us so often

our years have grown bland

still we wither

Renewed love for Wordsworth

2011-10-12T22:30:00.003-04:00

"That time is past, and all its aching joys are now no more, and all its dizzy raptures."

"That best portion of a good man's life; his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love."

"the burthen of mystery...the heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelligible world"

"For I have learned to look on nature, not as in the hour of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes the still, sad music of humanity."

"And now, with gleams of half-extinguish'd thought, with many recognitions dim and faint, and somewhat of a sad perplexity, the picture of the mind revives again."

"...and so I dare to hope."

~"Tintern Abbey," William Wordsworth.

whimsical

2011-10-11T20:41:00.004-04:00

born again, into something like England in the 1930s.

wishing for that kind of grace, the elegance that comes with high frilly collars and assuming one's place in society without interruption.

instead I sit here surrounded by the mess that is my dorm room, listening to Justin Bieber and keeping it classy with a lukewarm diet coke. is there any redemption from this? my bigass flowered hat is nonexistent but there is at least a certain freedom that comes from the sacrifice of poise.

I think.

kept

2011-10-08T19:50:00.002-04:00

when people become vessels.

my safeguard when the world seems too big for me

a bowl in which my ideas can wander.

headache and little space,

incessant reaching for the last thing I can rightfully claim:

freedom.

but for a moment

strange but familiar,

if only because it is inevitable.

in the mist we exchange words, drunken lore disguised as a mystery. so torn between the mental block that needed building and the desperation of a girl so needing to understand the loyalties of her heart.

or at least to define them.

helpless I cringe with the desire to overcome,

to succeed not by work but by brilliancy.

such things are not true for people like us.

haphazardly watching

our tables crumble with time

beautifully falling

in time with our beings

enforcing reaction

and threatening our stability.

ceaseless

2011-10-08T19:40:00.002-04:00

there are new places for the old and estrangement with the new

smiling now but remembering how quickly our smiles melt

watching wondering being and falling anew

justification is more than what we can ever expect to find

ripped and torn from our beings daily

as those who are born become wretched

grease stains on lives that are doing well

imply resentment beneath

and fornication beyond

moody? alive.

I prefer.

colliding wisdom with pain

sorrow and fulfillment

ceaseless

pausing but briefly

2011-10-04T21:31:00.017-04:00

was never

am not

will never be

that way.

what way? you ask. why the way of the champions, and the way of the smilers, the beauty queens, the stampeding masses and the heartless warlord.

of those that sing

and those who use movement

to speak.

am not.

can't be.

it is hard, this stranded self-conquest.

but worse are the days when we crawl.

crawling onward

and through

up out of this mess and back into

another

but beside any of that, we remain only our own.

the green light is dancing,

laughing to a sound I only recognize as a

thud.

how much, oh lord, how much can we endure?

----

there is only this: the panting of raw wonder as the car door slams and new hearts are ripped wide.

for we are only as much as the sum of our answers,

and our questions define what we wish was our past.

because beyond that, beyond any of it, I am standing,

sunlit and horrified,

calm with the blood of my memories

....standing, half bent but alive.

who are we to wonder, when a song is all we can hear?

and what moment is this for a half change of heart?

I see blue lights astonishing and the peace of dotted smiles.

I feel rain in the sunshine and the rush of yearning for what was lost long ago.

snapshot grief and small wonders, these are our definitions of beauty.

for what was lost is unfindable

and the curse is attraction to such infinite shattering.

they watch me smile and think unfathomable

I hear a laugh while they scoff.

We are nothing but their reflected anger

strangers in our own world:

this universe created from everything but truth.

so let us dance on in this madness, consumed by our grief,

ever wandering and staggering into this abyss we call home.

everyday

2011-10-04T19:21:00.003-04:00

the small things.

like complementary fingernails, or unfinished coffee.

believing myself to understand, while in

truth

i have no clue.

respite.

2011-09-30T17:25:00.003-04:00

sitting in my room, alone for the moment and happy to be so.

tired.

sad in a tragic way, that is, in a way that I'm sure is good for me. wishing for nothing more than to rest.

watching them and their preparations

knowing there was almost

nothing

we are empty to the brim

filled with heartache we only bring upon ourselves

generally

faced with glaring opposition

we can only

rise

to see above those that make it their goal to squash us.

spiral

2011-09-30T16:49:00.002-04:00

hating myself for hating myself for regretting my favorite mistake.

musings from the dark lady

2011-09-30T16:35:00.006-04:00

beneath me.

the haphazard circles

colors forgotten

your hair

my laughter

beneath me.

like walking for no reason but to move

is this being so tangled in you

lobbythinking

2011-09-28T15:36:00.005-04:00

there has been too much lately.

too much of most things, the things are that overwhelming and sluggish, and not enough of the rest.

but sitting here with piano music swirling around me, I am at last no longer captive to the things of worry or consternation, but instead am nothing more than a momentary occupation of space, no more lasting nor any less beautiful than each note that dances out of the piano for just a shining moment before dissipating into the world which swallows it.

-

2011-09-26T17:00:00.004-04:00

we see ourselves reflected in

leaves and things

and wonder why we keep falling.

valued

2011-09-25T11:50:00.004-04:00

there is not enough to go around sometimes, only enough for a

second thought.

and so all of this, all of everything must remain just that.

a second thought

because to dwell

or to give more

would be impossible.

finally succumbing to what they all see

she stands

fallen

amid the wreckage of past nuances

losing herself in ebony newness.

and while all of these swirl around me, it is all I can do just to

think

one more time.

motion

2011-09-23T14:59:00.001-04:00

movement

is relative

but we are too busy.

Friends: A Brief Evaluation.

2011-09-19T21:53:00.044-04:00

Some people look around at their friends and are so proud, so awed to be associated with people they look up to so much. My situation is...a bit different. I love my friends deeply, but more in a really? why oh lord why sort of way. Perhaps a little glimpse into my night yesterday can illustrate what I mean.

Begin evening by eating a solitary dinner. And by solitary, I mean with my boyfriend, although between his conversations with every single passing person I basically enjoyed a meal of stuff-my-face-with-no-shame-and-no-conversation-to-disrupt-me.

After dinner, proceed to my room while boyfriend leaves to shower. Tells me he'll meet me in my room after, and we can meet up with our friends and leave campus for a night out on the town.

After about 10 minutes in my room, am beyond bored and decide to go find boyfriend in his room. Upon arriving, open his door to find him sitting on his couch in his towel, watching TV and looking for all the world as though his hair just exploded. "Um..." I announce my presence with my ever-present wit and grace. He looks up. "Oh hey!" I ask him what he's doing. He looks at me as though this is a stupid question. "Watching TV."

"In your towel...?"

Again, the are-you-really-that-dumb look. Apparently watching TV in one's towel is not only normal, but expected. I step out for a moment to let him re-clothe himself.

Once boyfriend is decent, we sit together on his couch, attempting to contact our friend who is beyond impossible to find, given the fact that, for reasons unknown, does not own a cell phone. Which, in this day in age, roughly translates to being one-armed. Anyway. No success. Boyfriend calls Friend #2, sits on the phone for 5 minutes, hangs up and informs me he just had to listen to friend describe, in detail, his differential equation math homework. After throughly complaining about friend's overwhelming nerdiness, we decide to wait for our other friend to join us, and while waiting, what better way to spend time than by playing SuperSmashBros. Being a good sport, I go along with it. What the heck, the animated animal/people/things are, for the most part, cute. Luckily for me, boyfriends suitemate enters soon after and takes my place as SmashBros opponent, sparing my the embarrassment of losing spectacularly (mostly by accidentally killing off my own people) again as I did earlier in the week.

Friend #2 finally joins us. Decides to help out in attempt to contact Friend #1, which we do by calling anyone in our contacts who may know Friend #1, facebook stalking him, and finally facebook stalking anyone remotely related to him, in hopes to find a phone number, any phone number to try calling. 45 minutes, 1 wrong number and 3 awkward phone calls later, finally find out Friend #1 is in fact at his parent's house. With no further ado, we set out to pick him up.

We load in my truck, me, boyfriend, and Friend #2. 5 minutes of being in the car, and boys decide to sing in the style of Aretha Franklin. Loudly. Harmonizing. Smiling kindly, I turn on the radio, subtly letting my dear children know that although their singing is lovely, inspiring even, I have quite perfectly had more than enough. Undeterred, boys sing louder. I clear my throat. Boys begin singing song about me. I begin to wonder about my choice of company.

I stop to get gas. Get out of the car (after being completely mocked for needing to open car door while pulling up to pump in order to match my gas spot on the car to the nozzle...makes sense, right?) shut the car door. Right on my finger. mother of god. THE PAIN. swearing loudly, I jump up and down shaking my injured finger. Boys are completely unaware of the carnage going on outside the vehicle, as are still singing with and to each other. Continually swearing, I pump the gas, and get back in the car. Boyfriend realizes I hurt myself, decides to make everything better by kissing my now swollen finger. I raise my eyebrows at him, marginally charmed but still in so much pain. Decide to move on with my life, continue driving.

Problem: none of us know exactly how to get to Friend #1's house. Both boys believe themselves to have a vague knowledge of the location, but their ideas directly conflict, leaving me driving in abrupt Uturns and other such lawbreaking in order to follow 2 opposite sets of instructions. Halfway through this event, while in the midst of a loud argument about which janky street to turn on, boyfriend suddenly exclaims: "Oh! Hold on guys! ....Hi mom!" picks up his phone. Friend #2 and I look at each other. "What? Oh, my shoe size? Um, hold on." Boyfriend takes off his shoe (nearly knocking Friend #2 and I out of our seats) and checks the tag. "Um...it says, US size...9." Still talking in a louder than humanly necessary voice. "Yup! Ok! Love you toooo!"

It was around this time that the exact hilarity of my situation hit me, not just the humorous conversation happening (loudly) between boyfriend and his mother, but simply my life, and the entire drive so far, what with the singing, the math problems, the phone call, (not to mention the fact that I popped my belt while driving home from church, and yes, it's as bad as it sounds). All of this coupled with my overall exhaustion started me laughing. Not just a giggle here, chuckle there, but full on cannot-breathe laughing. Boys just stare, wondering what the heck is happening, and whether or not all girls act this way. I try to regain control, after all, things really aren't that funny, but by this point I can't even see the road and have to pull over. Yes ladies and gentlemen, I pulled the car over so I could laugh. and by laugh I mean convulse and squeak. cute, I know.

finally regaining some semblance of composure, I get out of the car, hop in the backseat and inform boyfriend (in whatever words I could gasp out) that he is now driving, and I will be in the backseat rolling around with pointless laughter. Uneasy, both boys continue arguing over directions while casting me the occasional uncomfortable glance, as I continue to lay on my back having a mini seizure from unprecedented hilarity.

Arrive at Friend #1's house. Boyfriend runs him over with my F150. Friend #1 survives, as is what Friend #1 does. By this time, I'm breathing at a somewhat normal rate, and am able to form the beginnings of words. We get out of car to see Friend #1's house, as have heard it is notoriously messy, as is friend. House appears to be a normal, suburban home.

...enter house. There are quite literally no words to describe what I saw in this house. It was as though a tornado had gone through it, not just any tornado but the kind that kills people and makes national news. Clothes everywhere. Old rotted food everywhere. Broken pieces of lord knows what everywhere. Every room I entered was worse. Also friend's dog looked like a little brown gremlin and was hyperactively drooling every which way. Overwhelmed by everything in sight and the total explanation this offered of Friend #1's behavior, I sat my butt down on the rotting piano bench (next to a stack of...maybe top hats?) and laughed. Round 2 of the maniacal stroke of laughter.

I couldn't stop. Tears were streaming from my eyes, and boys are at first entertained by my reaction, but soon worried. Friend #1 begins to get offended. I think I laughed for probably 10 straight minutes. Recovering slightly, stood up and proclaimed my need to leave the vicinity immediately, lest the black plague infect me.

Out we go, the most motley troupe imaginable. Deciding to head to boyfriend's house, I thought it best boyfriend drive again, and I resumed my post in the backseat in case another bout of psycho-person laughter hit me again. Which it did, while trying to explain to Friend #1 the story of boyfriend telling his mother his shoe size (US size, let us be clear on this) but merely succeed in another 20 minutes of hiccuping, gasping, squealing and convulsing that only results in Friend #1 being concerned and frightened, rather than entertained by the story, as was my intent.

Once arrived at boyfriend's house, things went relatively smoothly. I was over my laughing fit, was looking nice (minus tear-stained laughter face and popped belt...lesson learned, don't wear cute clothing) and we settled in to watch a movie the boys made early in high school. All boys found it funnier than I did, as were involved in the making of said film, but nonetheless I enjoyed it.

Next order of business, boys decide to light their farts on fire. A little uncomfortable, but curious beyond belief, decide to allow such proceedings to occur. Boys, thrilled with my leniency (rare), gather candles, turn off the lights, bend over in a downward-facing-dog position and wait in the holy silence of pending fart. And the farts begin to fly. Loud ones, squeezed ones, short ones, long ones, juicy ones....the chorus of farts echoed throughout the house. However, despite the enjoyment farting-in-the-dark can bring to one's evening, no boy succeeded in producing the much anticipated fireball from farting on the candle. All disappointed, we end the activity after about 45 minutes of gaseous fun.

Friend #2 leaves, as is 11pm and so way past his bedtime. This leaves myself, friend #1 and boyfriend. Still exceptionally giggly, the boys continue to try farting on the candle, interrupting our conversations with the occasional I got one!!!, pulling down pants and rushing to candle to release their gases over it.

So we're standing in the kitchen, laughing, talking, occasionally farting (the boys, that is) when Friend #1 says something particularly funny. We all crack up, hahahaha--FART. Suddenly there was a tremendous fart that sounded although a ferbie exploded. boyfriend redoubles in laugher, pointing at Friend #1, unable to speak for laughing. Friend #1, taken aback, shakes his head. Both boys look at each other...than slowly at me. For yes, my friends, it was I, the girl, the one in the dress, that released such a sound into the universe. Both boys stare at me wide-eyed, unable to believe their laughing ears. I half point at Friend #1, scrambling for redemption, but soon give up and nod, red-faced and wishing to die, hating the social standards girls have to follow, hating myself for completely destroying the myth of the clean, gas-less woman, but most of all hating that I wasn't positioned over a candle at such a prime moment.

We laugh, we get over it, we watch TV until all 3 of us fall asleep. Woke up at 1:30am exceptionally grumpy at thought of drive back to school, walk back to dorm room, and the sound of my alarm in 6 hours.

So there you have it.

Though perhaps not perfect role models, and though they often drive me to near suicide, these are my friends. And despite the speed of their math solving, awareness of shoe size or condition of their house, they remain a dysfunctional family of boys who continually make my life interesting and love me even when I fart.

rain

2011-09-19T12:50:00.005-04:00

Woke up to the sound of rain, the sound of blessing.

Not only does the drizzly sky mean I no longer have to bike miles upon miles for looming PE class, but it also provides a cushion for the dampened spirit, making things like drinking-a-butt-ton-of-coffee-while-staring-at-the-ceiling-for-the-duration-of-computer-class ok.

Similarly, it allows for the sporting of my bright yellow rain jacket, a beautiful thing that directly contradicts the sinking, suffocating feeling a monday morning inevitably brings.

yours, mine, and ours.

2011-09-18T02:44:00.004-04:00

so much is different now

but

so much overwhelmingly the same

from a jumbled mess of sexual hilarity

to our real life stories,

that is, the faces of shock lining down the pew.

but. here we are now, still not altogether recovered, but despite everything, fine. fine enough to watch G-rated movies and call ourselves us again. our waltz of shame turned almost funny.

I guess that's what you call resiliency.

purposes and white lights

2011-09-05T10:53:00.004-04:00

it is not this that matters, rather that.

this being my too-small pajamas and the smell of cookies down the hall.

not this that matters, rather that.

that being a table round enough to gather all my mismatched pieces and make them beautiful.

tshirt grace

2011-09-05T10:48:00.003-04:00

sometimes we are strangely somber, watching those around us leap at life and wondering where on earth that kind of energy comes from. but other times, we roll. tipsily stumbling around an old house sporting little clothes and halftime smiles.

and love

is a strange thing

causing blindness we call night-vision

never let you go

2011-08-26T21:40:00.004-04:00

wanting to write it all down, all of it, from the beginning this time, without pride or twistings or shadings of circumstances, only humor and honest heart. but to write it all down would be pointless. too easy, they'd say. I want to write it all---the hunted white t-shirt, brown beaded necklace, the glow-in-the-dark watch ticking ticking ticking. but I won't. some things must remain unwritten, unrecorded, understood only in memory. for now, at least.

because after all, who would believe me??

opening the door for what was then the first time, feeling a deep sense of recognition from some unknown place buried inside me. stopping only to remove my shoes, the whole place smelled like something I had smelled before, smelled like familiarity, smelled like...home. unsettled but surprised to find myself completely at ease, I returned a shy smile and wished only for completion.

I lay awake all night, re-reading crumpled up notes and wishing my head would stop pounding from all this worry.

But it doesn't. I toss and turn and toss and turn again only to find myself awake as ever, staring at the faded ceiling stars, stomach painfully knotted with things within and beyond me.

Running Barbie

2011-08-25T17:08:00.005-04:00

Being 19 years old, and presumably a grown up, you'd think having a few free days at home would lead to productivity. Sadly, this is so terrifically not the case. For example:

I decided to go running, both for reasons of personal benefit (must stay thin and counter the millions of fries I consume on an almost daily basis) and also sibling pressure (both younger siblings have now decided to become distance runners. why? not important). So I decided to run. Recall I have not gone running in probably 3 full months, for reasons exams, reasons 9,000ft, reasons just-got-home-and-must-relax. however, none of the previous reasons really applied anymore, and the younger siblings pranced into the house looking refreshed and happy and sweaty as hell. So I realized I should probably suck it up and run. PROBLEM: have not been able to find my running shoes since my return to michigan. I suspect them to be in my brother's car...which is now in Ithaca, New York for the next 6 years. welp. Proud of my more-than-valid excuse not to exert myself, I feign sadness to my mother, explaining the loss of shoes that tragically is keeping me from being able to go on my "much-anticipated" run. Feeling sorry for me, or possibly just really really wanting me to get off my ass at some point before I turn 40, my mother comes up with about 13 different solutions. I did not see this coming. However, in the interest of seeming fit and happy to be so, I gladly tell her thank you and that yes I will in fact be happy to use her old tennis shoes that are lounging in the garage, no doubt filled with a multitude of spiders and other such grossities. I hang up the phone, go upstairs, and sloooowly change into my running clothes. (which, incidentally, are also more than satisfactory lounging attire). Upon changing, shaking dirt dust and yes, a cricket, out of the recommended tennis shoes, I tell my brother (proudly, although implying with my tone that this is an everyday activity and so not a big deal) that I am going for a run (!) and will see him later. He grunts a response, one I took to mean "go forth, my active and motivated (not to mention thin and fabulous) elder sister." something like that. So I start to run. Rather than risk the embarrassment of running on a street where people could see me stop to walk--and by that I mean "jog faster because I am fit"--I decide to instead run laps around my house. big laps, though. huge. So I begin. Feel great, must be the mountains still making me so incredibly good at breathing. Love this, love running, love feeling thin and can't wait for those endorphins. This is great, I am fabulous, I--HOLY LORD. Nearly halfway through my second lap, my heart decided to take a few laps of its own. Sprinting laps, may I add. Like Nicki Minaj's Super Bass but not near as catchy. Once I caught my breath, 20 minutes later, I felt better. Must've just been running too fast, that's all. No problem. Just have to pace myself, take it slow. After another lap, or ok half a lap, I decided it was much to warm out for running, and I was a walking (that is, running, obviously) heat stroke risk, and jogging at 3 in the afternoon on a day like today (and by that I mean summer) is plain and simply idiotic. With that in mind, I did 10 beautifully formed push-ups (which I have since felt every single time I move my arms), a couple (um...hundred, of course) crunches, my ever-classic ballet stretches (that I pride myself on still being able to do with relative ease...I'll end up fat, but flexible) and went upstairs to shower. Passing my brother on the stairs, he asks "you done already?" to which I respond "why yes, I have places to be you see," since I find this to be somewhat believable. The fact that I didn't have any plans except my usual date with my laptop and freemovies.com was at this point, irrelevant. "how many laps?" um...quickretaindignity. "seven, maybe more. I didn't really count." He raises his eyebrows. Living with me for 14 years has taught him a thing or two. "seven?" pointless to argue. "ok... two. but I got bored." Attempting to seem aloof and busy rather than simply hopelessly out of shape and lazy, I held my head high as I proceeded up the stairs, and by the time I was washing my hair all thoughts of embarrassment were gone, and I was celebrating my attempted exercise with shameless enjoyment. Because, as my father says, "It's getting out there and trying that counts," and to my reckoning, the day's events certainly fell under the category of "trying." In light of this, dinner would most definitely be followed by a celebratory cookie. Or maybe two.

I also decided the age of the ponytail-everyday is long over, and so I must learn to wear my hair down. Inspired by several janky youtube videos, I camped out in the bathroom experimenting with my hair, figuring our how to use things like curling irons, straighteners, mousse, hairspray, 8 trillion bobby pins, etc. After 2 full hours of this nonsense, decided hair is best as is (pulled back) and any use of all these demonic and ultra-confusing products was both a waste of time and natural resources, that is, my energy. And so ladies and gentlemen, it is with great joy I am able to announce the age of the ponytail is here to stay, presumably for a very long time.

As for my other attempts at passing time in a productive manner, this blogpost couldn't possibly begin to capture the tries and fails, the freakish motivation followed by defeating boredom and thoughts of this is stupid that have been my existence for the past week or so. Although I will say, my toenails are successfully bright pink (a color that goes fabulously with my pajamas).

Ah summer. Even barbie never had this much fun.

startle me

2011-08-24T20:27:00.006-04:00

Window cracked, a blessed relief from the stifling heat of the car, and my arm holding the top of the window frame. The rain poured down my proffered arm in a slow and surreal way, keeping one part of my body at least, cool. Thunderous clouds above brilliant sunlight made everything brighter than it should be, and I could literally see each raindrop fall in front of the much-too-yellow traffic light. And turning the corner onto my street, seeing the sunlight on the pastures and the way the soft oranges on the fallen peach tree were a perfect contrast to the green of everything else, I fell victim to a biased bout of opinion, and thought to myself: I live in the most beautiful place in the world.

driving in circles that are not perhaps, glamorous, but are honest and true and lend themselves useful on occasion.

and for now, that is enough.

Flaws: that is, a post about my dysfunctional romantic life.

2011-08-23T12:38:00.008-04:00

Thinking about flaws, those both tragic and benign. wondering where the lines blend between the two, or if even such a difference exists. Flaws. Despite knowing truths, when seeing boyfriend (on our weekly encounter) I still felt such a sudden and desperate need to explain my flaws, to apologize away things I know cannot be helped. Things like a hacking cough for example, or the way my torso curves (that is, doesn't) into my hips. Things like my refusal to participate in a seran-wrap race. Those eyes said please and wondered why on earth I stamped my foot with a resounding and delicately-put hell no. Flaws. Flaws?

Tragic flaw. Curses and blessings. Blessings that are cursed. Curses seen as blessings. Love and everything in between.

Flaws?

Flawed.

He tells me this is a blessing, this conflict of heart and everything else. This refusal to be held coupled with a complete unwillingness to let go. A blessing. A blessing? Flaw. Tragic Flaw. Will give me everything I need but nothing I hoped for, leaving me forever grateful, forever resentful, forever torn.

"Thy self-willed temper hath wrought thy ruin."

Despite all this, he is sweet, says all the things he should, as though reading from a manuel on how to handle emotionally unstable women. But I grew more distraught at his kindness, wishing only for the chance to explain my shortcomings, to make him see the brokenness and for once, not lovemeforit but revolt at my jagged sentences. My need for him, for freedom, for love and for power all mash together in a messy vat of yikes. Leaving me in the middle, crying out for some sort of vindication (since answers are clearly beyond me) while he walks right into the swirling mess that is me, takes my hand and says it's ok and you're beautiful and worst of all he means it. I stare emptily down at his hand, holding mine above the fire and scream internally. can't he see? sometimes it is NOT ok, and sometimes I am beautiful, but other times I absolutely am not. and because these truths are so glaring to me, and he is so blind to them, I am left feeling looked over with love, and not understood through it. but what is the difference. is there a difference?

standing in the yard, all voices screaming live a little! while I stand there speechless because that is all I do, is live, live in whole pieces and broken pictures. No life is the same, but everyone lives. disappointment in the eyes I want to see it in least, once a week I see these eyes, and now they are disappointed. remember me differently, I beg silently after them. please.

sitting on the counter, 2:30 am, half in tears half defiant but completely broken. he is trying so hard to make me stop this, stop my emotional crazy, but it is not something to be stopped, only something to be tapered off by hugs and endless talking. he is willing but it is late now, and I can see I take precious hours of sleep away from his exhausted self. so I drag myself out the door and try to smile, while really feeling like a ball of weirdness straight from planet fuckedupness. while the strange thing is, in driving away and coming home to eat half a bag of mini marshmallows, I feel ok. not great, not about to win any miss congeniality pageants, but ok. able to recognize the night for what is was (a mess) and focus on the good things, like an afternoon spent lounging in furniture stores and playing with puppets in the bookstore, nearly peeing ourselves laughing and finding we can hold hands in public and not feel too stupid.

all of this, all of everything, flawed.

and without flaws, we are nothing.

nothing worth knowing, anyway.

dull

2011-08-17T16:33:00.005-04:00

The gray bunny on the top shelf of the old and once-terrifying closet hasn't changed in 23 years. His blue-gray fur is perhaps a bit more ragged than it once was, but his corduroy vest and dull beaded eyes are no different. I look at that old bunny, this symbol from my childhood, and carefully take it down from its long-held perch. turning it back and forth in my bare hands, I am stricken by how empty my brother's room really is, and how this poor bunny would never know the difference-- locked away behind those ancient doors. Filled with a small sense of melancholy, I replace the bunny and turn away, marginally saddened but most of all astonished by how little such a momentous occasion can have on my now-distant life. Because I am a walking torrent of relative movement, more concerned with the occasional email or new phone in my pocket than the sudden silence the turning of a new page of life can make. I say my goodbyes quietly, robustly, with a smile and stupid joke, hoping he/she/me won't notice the thuds of the giant time-clock we're all ignoring as thuds of our own hearts. and in thinking these things, (but only vaguely) I go back to my place as the forgotten bunny and leave the room as empty as I found it.

Recaptured underscore

2011-08-04T20:50:00.004-04:00

It is easy to miss the mountains at times like this, times where the purply shadows cast from the thunderous clouds make everything look terrifyingly magical. and sitting here watching them outside my tiny window, I keep wondering, wondering, and feel as though I need to know the answers RIGHT NOW to questions I'm too much of a coward to finish formulating. Questions regarding careless hemp bracelets, taylor swift, crinkled t-shirts and eyes...so many eyes. Second guessing all my greatest decisions and embracing the rest; I remain, stuck between so many craggy rock faces of guessing that I can sometimes hardly breathe. Remembering the way the mountains used to loom so unfamiliar and daunting, scaring me into a state of being I find myself unable to recapture--it's so far away. Now the mountains are comforting, a way of orienting myself that I know I will miss once they're gone. so we dance in the front seat, surrounding ourselves with haphazard delights, the weight of wholeness and complexity tremendous within us. us. a twisted, convoluted family evolved from the hysteria of hundreds of broken selves searching for validation. and I am overwhelmed...by the flowers, by the mountains, by the unanimity a strange place can bring. by the answers and the questions, the fleeting purposes that dance in spite of our misgivings and perhaps because of them. because here, we are strangers to our old ways and unsteady in the new, here we are trademarks of the fading pasts that underscore our every effort...here, we are free.

more words

2011-08-01T14:44:00.002-04:00

My roommate packs her bags slowly, as if each item placed in a suitcase is another finality. and it is, really. I look around my messy room and reflect on my life here, my time here, my clothes strewn all over the floor representative of my scattered attachments. Out my window I see the mountains, mountains I have hiked and I have hated, mountains I have grown used to and a part of. mountains I know I will miss. and in thinking these things, I am filled with a deep deep ache, the ache of memory settling into my being. the people, the cards, the way I have to jump to reach my mailbox...all of these things and more cumulating into a whole sense of belonging. but then I remember home, and although this now too is also home, I remember I have a crazy family, wonderful boyfriend, funny friends, a red pick-up truck and a whole lot of loitering waiting back home for me, and the idea of leaving this home for another doesn't seem so bad anymore. because home is not a place, but a feeling, a feeling you can carry with and before you, allowing it to shape every decision and grow out of your existence as a thing of beauty. and in recognizing this, I find I am able to comprehend my return differently, and even with anticipation think of all that I have left behind and will soon return to.

so I will be back soon, back to the humidity and the water, the mosquitos and the people that I miss.

and although I am sad to leave what was a wonderful piece of my life here, by taking it with me as a part of my jagged self, I am really leaving nothing, rather gaining perspective and appreciation for parts of life that were so much unlike my own they have become my own.

save the last dance.

2011-08-01T02:19:00.003-04:00

I understand nothing.

you say all the right things at all the right times

but I gorge myself on the now because it's running out fast.

trading spaces for new placements

I find time just as wild as it was at the start.

just as untamable as when we began.

choked explanations to a voice of haunted stability

we are who we are

more of this, less than that...amen. again?

she smiles a smile of undeserving joy

pure

I had a good day

...what would my parting shot be?

tripping faster

we fall in elegant twisters

the only one alive who needs people this badly. needs this much stability.

the perfect combo

tragic flaw

dead feet in unwanted slippers of justification

words.

and I understand nothing.

only.

2011-07-31T01:55:00.004-04:00

bleeding dark chocolate on frayed sheets

praying fountain prayers

forgotten piety

my fault?

there is no fuller life than a life that calls you back.

a life that grows to fill the intended spaces.

he is what He wants but he is a

shadow

the return to a faded existence.

no time at all.

I lost myself in this, the magic of the leaving. the agony of the goodbyes. the ticking of that final clock.

alpenglow dreams.

wasted?

Will you miss me?

I ask the daisies questions I think cannot be answered.

I wonder after the retreating blue. a new blue, an interesting blue, a blue that answers that distant ringing. broken promises, time shattering before my eyes I wince at the finality but revel in the beauty of the final hours. last this, last that...lasts. will you miss me? shark dates, a kiss of faithless hope, a morning coffee that welcomes my exhaustion as joy.

realizing my countdown of time is really a countdown of you.

because your eyes also make a circle, around my wildest fragments and making them part of me again.

welcome to the wild.

tilted beauty

2011-07-28T17:03:00.004-04:00

When confronted with this, another ending, all I feel is a resounding NO. because it is not time yet, there is not time yet, I have not had enough time yet.

yet.

lying beneath tilted yellow, I contrast this lighting with the old feel of the fading red. Red, familiar, warm, safe. Yellow...bids me. come, come delight in my newness, my fancy, your own crazy in a joyous reflection. come dance.

and I want to. I try to. but I am held, I am haunted, by the memory of red.

come dance.

and shall I?

blinking back red tears I am happy to pretend to forget. happy to lie my head in the crook of an unfamiliar shoulder, and find I fit there. happy to extend my soul in new directions.

happy.

home looms like the most sinister of beautiful shadows. home. but where now is home? who now is home? redefined by the actions I once hated, I bloom where I was forced to plant. home.

Ever-changing as the wildflowers, I am different every week. and I delight in the consistency of the differences.

come dance.

half the way there

2011-07-22T14:34:00.002-04:00

Dancing in weird circles, I think about circles (in and of themselves) and wonder what it would be like to love to spin.

Looks. Looks of humor, kindness, distain, lust. Looking back at the looks wondering when look turns to see.

Have now gone since monday without a diet coke. Without any pop, even. Spent most the week feeling like the worst version of myself, that is, until last night when I probably WAS the worst version of myself, but at least I felt free for the first time since who-knows-when. Free to dance and talk loudly about nothing and annoy everyone but myself and the horny men around me.

we gonna light it up like it's dynamite

finding leather to be a safeguard against my own worst inclinations

can't buy me LOVE but I sure can find it. even if it's lurking under an old plaid shirt and the tool-iest shades I've ever seen. butyousingprettyandbuymelime and that is enough.

at least...until I remember blue eyes

(bright eyes you say from across the ropes)

and another plaid shirt

so I dance like a fool

a fool

if only to erase what I know can't change.

kiva eyes. run for your very life.

2011-07-18T16:04:00.012-04:00

Rereading some old things, things from the retreat etc.

Carefully, we stare into a fire built of ashy confidence and wooden aspirations.

soaking my heart in mountain tears--the final burial solidifies the nonexistent and makes transparent what was once impassible.

Thinking today about home. not in a homesick way, but wondering about my return. The first day I sit in my truck and stare into the parking lot before me, a divine summertime loiter. am I.... Happy? Relieved? Stuck? Depressed? Worried? Bored?

All of these, probably. But more importantly, I will be thinking. thinking about what to do next year, the year after, the spring semester, the life-long semester.....sheesh. it never ends. I'm sure I'll feel as though I never left at all, as though my time in Colorado was but a vivid dream that involved some nightmarish aspects (food poisoning, desperate homesickness, holding fat people up on a rope, long bible studies) and some good-dream qualities (ice cream, friends, laughter, free diet coke...although AM quitting. seriously this time. at least for a few weeks. so can enjoy the beverage of the gods as an enjoyable beverage, rather than vice-like survival kit. am quitting under threat of buying a friend a $25 gift card to REI, soooo... roughly translates to: not drinking diet coke under threat of spending money I don't have to a cause I don't support, that is: the cause of outdoor gear for all expeditions granola). anyway. no idea what I was talking about. welp.

instead I can tell the internet world about my quest to be a better person, caused primarily by my feelings of complete fuckwittery lately. First: swear less. Second: be nicer to people. Third: be more patient. and by that I mean patient at all, most especially with guests who appear to be less competent than elephant jizz. ooops I mean than a frog piss. pee, frog pee. less competent than frog pee. see? I'm better already.

painting a picture of myself as a horrid, vulgar, probably incredibly butch woman. not the case. have my moments of shining glory and beauty, but more often moments of the curse or complaint, the....

ok. to write anything here is pointless, as am bombarded by people who, even though I try best to fix them with my "your request is below me" stare, still act as though I am a dancing chimpanzee here solely for their entertainment and skate-handling value. dear. god.

commence rain. mobbed with the entire population of Snow Mountain Ranch and also probably the surrounding 6 states. any thoughts of being the cute, smiley, competent, witty desk person sails out the window with my sanity and I begin to wear eyes I don't recognize. crazed, desperate eyes. kiva eyes.

let me just give you a preview of what I'm dealing with here:

girl, probably 13 or 14, chomping gum, comes up.

"how does this work?"

Me: "well, that depends on what you'd like to do."

"this." points to the roller skating rink, currently filled with about 698 needy people, the bane of my life. I explain the skating system to her. summed up, you tell me size, I give you crappy skate. fo free.

her: "weeeeeell, I don't know my size."

Me, the woman of no patience: "that's too bad. can't really help you there, if you decide which size you'd like let me know." what, did she want me to measure her foot while rubbing cool lotion on it?

Her: "weeeeeell, how about a 7."

I get her a 7. Two seconds later: "I can't get the knot undone." (skates tied together for impractical purposes. also the bane of my life.)

I have her hand them to me, to untie them for her highness. she yells over to her friend, "Hey! this chick can get them untied for you!"

Me: "Excuse me? Did you just call me 'this chick?'"

Her: blushes. "yeeeeeah. I didn't know your name, so..." leaves.

Me: don't even know what to do right now. don't know my left from my right, am gone completely psycho by the kiva, causing my brain to both fry into blankness and run and a million miles an hour with senseless thoughts, thus this post. anyway.

she comes back. "excuse me, missy?"

me: "missy? this chick, now missy?"

her: "weeeell, you didn't like chick, so missy will work."

Me: "you sure about that?"

she leaves. two minutes later. to a friend: "can you get my skates off for me?" he responds with a resounding and appropriate "no." she catches me looking at her. half smiles, "these skates are so tight!" chomp chomp gum.

Me: "don't worry, I'm sure this chick can help you out." I smile so she doesn't suspect I'm about to kill her, but I totally am.

this is what I'm dealing with here.

point of redemption: huuuge old man roller skating.

then, while Justin Bieber is playing loud and proud, the boy who skates up and says something under his breath about puberty. or the lack of it. "You making fun of the Biebs?" I ask. shocked that I heard him, he smiles and mumbles "no. well, ok yes." then skates away. shame, I think as I watch him leave. he was cute.

annnnnyway.

have been thinking "maybe I should be a writer" lately, but then no, I can't be a writer, because then I actually have to write things, real things, not mindless blog posts about whatever random thought pops into my very nutso brain, and I have to commit to writing, that is, not only write things of value or interest to an audience of more than approximately 3, but motivate myself to do so. on a regular basis. sooooooo....I'm thinking no. because whenever I think I need to write something well, and furthermore something worth writing it turns out poop. or doesn't even happen, and my page looks something like sijgoirjgeirbj;lekrgerigj. like that.

but then I try and think of other things I would do with this thing I call my life, and my options looks so wide they are slim. if that makes sense. and I think about choosing classes, and study abroad programs, and a major, and friends, and activities, and a house, and a roommate, and a life....HOLY SHIT. I CAN'T MAKE THESE DECISIONS.

study abroad, for example. England=bitchin. excuse me, awesome. study abroad=incredible experience. however, word "experience" often = "something you hate but do it anyway." so do I, once again, pack up form everything I love (except british accents) and go away? for like, twice as long as I was here??? right. as if. but! do I let my baby-tendencies of homesickness and whatnot keep me back from what could be a great "experience?" do I even want to go or do I just like the idea of going?

see the problem? endless. end. less.

then this song comes on, and I hear a voice say deep in my heart "hey. HEY. ...it's ok." it's ok. it's ok. and for 4 minutes and 26 blissful seconds I am able to feel ok. and I almost want to cry, almost, tears of sappy remembrance, then I think I can't cry dammit then I think why then because it's the most girly, feminine thing to do and he's just a boy for crying out loud then well SCREW THAT because I AM girl, and that BOY makes things better simply by being loud and oblivious and so damn happy all the time and that STEADIES me and my perpetual roller coaster of emotional crazy so WHY THE FUCK NOT CRY. ...by now, I no longer even have to cry, the song has ended, and I can feel remorse for so much swearing in such a little paragraph. "the fuck" phrase needs to go. why even say it? It feels as though it gives more weight, more emphasis to the things I say, when instead I'm sure it achieves just the opposite, making me sound as white trash as they come. my poor mother.

and then I remember the small kids on the rock wall this morning, screaming and crying the most frightened of tears because they were 4 feet off the ground. tears they did not need to cry over fear that was only in their underdeveloped minds. I see them, and I think of them, and I think I am not so different from them and somehow the kiva seems a little less overwhelming. that is, until the next wave of a billion and half incompetent people barrel in and I lose all sense of perspective or grace.

this is what the kiva does to a soul. brings out the worst. the craziest. the most abnormal.

we're falling apart here.

falling the fuck apart.

ovarian beginnings

2011-07-17T23:44:00.004-04:00

regarding: an afternoon spent deep in talk, thought-talk, the kind that is true because it is spoken to no one but yourself and an empty shed. truth. what I believe, what I know, what I infer, who I was, who I am, who I could be...all of it swirling in my brain like some sick kind of ballet. hula hoop ballet, the rain as the dancers.

looking back can be dangerous...like a kaleidoscope of misshapen reasons.

sadly in search of

turmoil. an absolute turmoil of strong emotions from absolutely nowhere. First the dread, the drudgery of morning and stale coffee, followed by a shady seat and wisdom from those I often find myself shocked to be thankful for. peeled oranges making us smell like wisdom.

Then later indignation at what is not, what is not REAL. like the tuft of hair growing under the weakest of chins and the vomit a plate of carefully selected salad can force me to choke back. there is too much, too much here to take in and process with care. rather-- quickly and rashly I see the lives and the lies and I am overwhelmed by the entirety of the truth. that is, I would be, if I could see it.

do you see??

senseless as a baby blue puzzle.

crisp elephant ears washed down with retainer giggles and our own version of hilarity. too far away to remember, too close in here to forget. forever knotted in a back crooked with the past.

under dull yellow lights I sit stagnant and sandy, forgetting my place as the one I knew. across the electric blue he waves in that way I never completely understood. waves a wave of nevermind which I take to mean goodbye. saddened by the absence of that which was never mine to claim.

watching. wondering. talking. reading. choking back gut reactions, like distain when confronted with everything I've ever rebelled against wrapped up into two human beings. wanting to scoff, but feeling it much, much deeper.

and pretend that it's the ocean

Then there is the anger. the uncontrollable, irrational, inevitable anger I feel after every green pull, every smile, every quiet joke, every move. The anger only love can induce. heathen anger. The Lord is my shepherd. Falling face-first into the green pastures. "Things to work out," he tells me. and I nod and almost smile a wretched smile, because those things are too far buried to ever work themselves into anything but roots. frayed, torn roots. the roots of the heartstrings.

coming down to wash me clean

swallowing my misgivings, I close my abandoned eyes and hold close the thoughts that matter. Thoughts of irony and friendship, wishing I could capture every moment and place it on a shelf of reckless memory to be taken down at random and written in full.

wash me clean

is

2011-07-11T15:46:00.002-04:00

wearing tints of red that could be mistaken for valor--we draw mindless pictures are pretend they are meaningful.

For what is more valuable than a small look exchanged with someone who understands; the communal recognition of what is and what could be.

be my thrill.

2011-07-05T19:32:00.003-04:00

rainy reflections of things that I was too wrapped up in misunderstandings to truly comprehend.

surrounded by those I respect and those I do not, I can only scramble my way into my own warped reality.

a quick comparison

2011-07-05T18:06:00.004-04:00

Adorable.

Obscene.

Reading etc

2011-07-05T16:15:00.003-04:00

Something I love:

"Outrage is love's wild and unacknowledged sister. She is the one who recognizes feminine injury, stands on the roof and announces it if she has to, then jumps into the fray to change it. She is the one grappling with her life, reconfiguring it, struggling to find liberating ways of relating. She is the one who never bores God or Goddess."

~Sue Monk Kidd

An artistic endeavor

2011-07-02T13:38:00.004-04:00

As posted to our "collective experience" blog for my Colorado group. To re-post saves me the effort of a separate post for this blog yet allows for a continued documentation of my small and whacked-out life.

"When asked to reflect on our time here so far, I find it hard to say much simply because there is so much to say. I personally am finding things to work in extremes here in the mountains--days of extreme happiness and enjoyment in the work we’re doing here followed by days where nothing sounds better than my own shower and friends back home. Regardless, the constant shifting of both mental attitudes and weather conditions result in my growing understanding of what it means to live across the country from everything that is comfortable and work hard as part of both a YMCA environment and school community.

This past week I had the opportunity to attend an interactive lecture about art therapy. Although admittedly I didn’t get much out of the talk itself, as am neither crafty nor patient, it was still an interesting experience. After a brief intro speech, the speaker asked us all to trace our hands and feet onto large slabs of paper (a disastrous endeavor for many) then proceed to decorate our drawn appendages using various crafty things representing how we use our hands and feet to glorify/serve God. The results varied from the club-foot with sporadic glitter splotches to the carefully formed hand replica filled with meaningful and artistically placed feathers or magazine pictures. However, aside from our varying artistic abilities and fights over scissors that barely fit on our actual hands, the activity was meant to instill in us a greater knowledge of how art can be used to help reach out to others. To represent this, we were all asked to lay our finished products out on the ground, the part of the evening where each of us was able to experience either the great swelling of pride at our handiwork or great knot of humiliation towards the smudge of paper that regrettably was our own. Moving past this emotional moment, we were next supposed to choose someone else’s hands and feet, find the person who took ours, then recite a Bible verse about hands or feet in order to reclaim our paper offerings. As I was only able to complete one poorly crafted hand during the time allotted for artistic creation, I was only required to find one such verse. The one I ended up choosing was Isaiah 41:13, which reads “For I am the Lord your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.” (NIV) I guess I liked the image of God physically grabbing your hand to guide you through the tough stuff. It’s a really tangible image of God as both support and companionship. Anyway. In order to motivate us and perceivably make the entire experience more fun-friendly, prizes were the inevitable result of being the first to reclaim all your 2D hands and feet. Again, only having one hand to bargain for, I was first finished, and proudly gave the speaker both my magazine-clipping smattered handish object and my selected Bible verse. After explaining that I only had one hand to share, rather than congratulating me on my concordance skills or perhaps exchanging a consoling glance regarding the state of my artwork, she instead stared at me as though I was crazy. Apparently four verses were required for all participants, as vaguely or not-at-all stated, though implied to all but the less-than-aware contestants like myself. welp. Able to move past this disappointment with little to no emotional damage, I decided 2 hours was much too long to spend in an craft-centered environment on a worknight, proceeded to call it an informative evening and take my paper hand home, leaving others to frantically Bible-bingo their way to the moral finish line.

And as I sit here in the Kiva, handing out skates and basketballs to people of varying degrees of politeness, I remember the verse about God taking us by the hand to keep us steady when everything around and beneath us seems to crumble, or even present itself as foreign, as is the case for many of us here this summer. And in remembering this, I am able to see the meagerly formed hand in my backpack not as a mockery of my dexterity with all things crafty, but rather as a reminder of what is possible when we stop seeing ourselves simply as poorly-crafted paper offerings, but rather as the hands and feet of God, capable of things beyond our imagination.

So despite the sickly blue walls, scissor shortage or perceived amounts of verbal blah, I conclude that perhaps my pilgrimage into the world of art therapy wasn’t such a waste after all. Go figure."

voulez-vous?

2011-07-01T18:55:00.001-04:00

incoherent with unresolved sentences and half-assed happiness. Because I am free, I am out, I am away. and still...there is the blog post box, the obscene amounts of diet coke and the ceaseless remembering. Nothing changes much, not even across the country.

and I guess it will never be perfect, I think as I watch him walk away, hair long enough to be tacky and arms almost long enough to be comforting.

sifting through confusion regarding the present as it relates to the past and affects the future, I think enough and wish to proclaim my version of truth to everyone I encounter. but such things are not for now. instead, I am handing out skate after skate to people of varying politeness, wishing I could laugh in the face of confrontation and release myself from the prison of my own ideas.

PMS

2011-06-30T21:37:00.003-04:00

Things I do that are unhealthy:

~complain. loudly. abrasively. often vulgarly. to anyone who will or even won't listen. just because it helps me feel vindicated.

~drink diet coke. all the freaking time.

~eat unknown desserts in absolutely huge quantities. what is this? not important. it tastes good. I'm getting more.

~creep on people I don't like on facebook, just so I can dislike them more.

basically....I'm a terrible person.

welp.

resolved?

2011-06-30T16:12:00.004-04:00

The lights were blinding the night I stood beneath that tree, the largest Christmas tree I'd ever seen. My face was raw with the cold air, eyes that had long given up looking beyond this, this omniscient tree, for what I believed I had left behind me. In my mind ran the absence of previous images, images like her eyes--brighter than I'd seen them, fingers raised in mock adoration, and hugs from a knit cap I tried hard not to recognize. But what of those around me? Lost, probably. Unwilling to hop a fence made of old regrets and stale ideas of gumption. So that left me standing beneath that magnificent tree, ringing in a new era with my hand frozen under a coat of bad memories and boots weighed down with the earnestness of forgotten hopes.

2011-06-30T14:12:00.006-04:00

no longer searching for clues

or the means to imagined ends

for I have given up on such things.

skill-learning equates to what...a failure?

seeing the browned dashboard in the outline of a memory and dreaming of the absurd

light blue walls screaming that trapped is only a state of mind

take my hand

let's just dance

watch my feet

follow me

thunder shaking the building, we stare into the sheets of rain, wishing to be swept up by their majesty and taken away into the pavement with the rest.

pull me up

can't swim on my own

I used to be able to....could tread the words into memories into

screw it. can't even write. can't even get out my words through the most important of screams, those that are internal. instead, I will remain.

remain.

2011-06-30T14:11:00.002-04:00

skating wildly, unsteadily, they look at me with eyes of confusion: why this music?

my eyes respond with a very polite "screw you, it's my music and it's wonderful."

vampire useful

2011-06-28T11:45:00.003-04:00

with crashing hair

she imagines the unthinkable

pretty eyes

pirate smile

her dreams

once so immeasurable

now buried deep beneath the paisley

turning back

she just laughs

the boulevard is not that bad

dreaming of that which is tasteless, but insightful I suppose.

back to this, the 6 hours sleep, unhealthy breakfast, talking to myself about life's incoherencies as I make my way to work.

...and I am overwhelmed, by the air, the songs, my own inability to ask for prayer. so we sit and hold hands, mine warm enough to melt my soggy heart, filled with an irrepressible desire to both run and be held.

Sleigh-bells in the snow

2011-06-23T14:01:00.003-04:00

In celebration of my first day off in over a week, I am choosing, over any ideas of productivity, the old standby of "do whatever the hell you want to."

So, in light of this, I slept outdoors last night--and by "slept" I mean "froze my tush off." spent night tossing and turning, mind bouncing back and forth between my frozen self, the cramps in my legs from having them pulled up to my chin for maximum warmth, and the way that I had unfortunately chosen to place my sleeping back over a giant root. ouch.

Walked the 2 miles back to my bed at 5 30 in the am, proceeded straight to breakfast to eat legitimately everything they had in the room, sketchy dining-hall-eggs and all, then crawl back to bed to sleep it off.

I now lay in bed, wearing only a sports bra and gym shorts in order to best display my fabulously hairy legs, on my computer typing pointless things like this and listening to Christmas music.

Thug life.

volley of orange

2011-06-21T19:45:00.005-04:00

After hour six of handing out smelly roller skates to children who believe themselves to have the entitlement of one who has singlehandedly recently cured cancer and rid Africa of AIDs, I have many thoughts swirling around my caffeine-deprived brain.

Thoughts like: perhaps there will be a time of small gray cars and low-fats for dinner, and perhaps I am ok with that idea.

remembering the way jeans bunched just enough to make everyone in the area uncomfortable, and wishing the seven chocolate bars stashed in my room were people stashed away in my suitcase instead.

but now it is 6 pm, and I am free to eat food that will inevitably lead to multiple food babies before singing songs of an insignificant nature to special needs children.

love to all.

welp.

2011-06-20T11:23:00.004-04:00

woke up to see a few inches of snow on the ground. after the initial despair etc, decided there is something to be learned here, if only that God has the ultimate sense of humor and that irony simply means lack of control.

meeting people that both restore and destroy my faith in the human race. as to be expected when working with the public.

never cease to be amazed by a parents’ ability to understand their child. a small kid will utter a few sentences of utter gibberish and the parent will inevitably know exactly what it is the child is trying to communicate. meanwhile I stand there smiling like dummy, wondering when exactly it is we attain our ability to maintain a certain level of coherency, or if in fact we ever achieve this.

things so often happen to me in colors. for example: white is the color of a shattered memory, red the promise of the unattainable, and green the remembrance of a yellow part of life.

Destination: directly south.

2011-06-18T22:47:00.002-04:00

...can we talk about this.

tornado love.

2011-06-10T20:29:00.003-04:00

Something about the mountains makes time seem wild, as though it no longer has to be anything close to the dimensions we so casually decide it should fill. Things often work in extremes here, and not just the weather, which can change so drastically within moments. There is an internal shifting that is constant, nothing new for me, but it is such that any uplift or drop in stamina or mood I feel not only inside my mind or emotional safe, but within every cell in my body and spirit. There is the calm, an overwhelming calm that can be felt on top of a mountain, or in a the sunshine of a morning on the way to work, but there is also the unease that is experienced when walking alone down a long dirt road, expecting any moment to be raped or eaten by a wild beast or even the threat of an Into the Wild moment and eating a poison plant on the spur of the wilderness. There is the hope and joy felt under burning sun or the shadow of night, surrounded by faces that are growingly familiar in both laughter and trust, but there is also the pit of anguish and homesickness a plate of noodles can't replace no matter what random sauce you choose to adorn it with.

all of these and more, I am constantly caught in the swiftness of time running circles around me and my ever-shifting state of mind and winded lungs. and I keep feeling as though if I walk fast enough, or work hard enough, or talk to enough people swirling around me I'll find a solid ground, a hold in which to place things like french fries or tears for the next few months.

despite these swings, I can say with absolute confidence that the daily events are no more recordable than the quiet of the morning or the echo of a hand-picked song in an empty gym. there is something far greater at work here, some secret moving of fundamentals that I will only be able to recognize when I (finally) arrive on the other side of the summer, in a place that may not be different, but will be akin to the freedom of dancing in a crowded car if only to better survive the curves.

kaleidoscope

2011-06-09T22:35:00.003-04:00

again she feels the rush

the promise/the terror

of possibility and nerves. again, she is let lose (alone) to rage the war of men she feels she has no choice but to handle.

with grace? hardly, but with might.

the might of one who may never be certain.

infinite jest.

2011-06-09T21:30:00.004-04:00

holding the dirt as a safeguard

collecting fear in my cuffs

believing myself to someday be capable of turning them inside out

and stand to fill the faded space.

Much

2011-06-02T02:04:00.003-04:00

I am shocked at how stunning the mountains are. go figure.

I have much to say, but no stamina to. not here. not yet.

stay tuned.

reasons.

2011-05-30T14:42:00.002-04:00

knots.

in my hair.

in my swim suit.

in my stomach.

knots deep in my tissues

embedded in my bones.

knots no amount of pamprin can take away.

safe.

2011-05-30T03:44:00.002-04:00

fortified for now, I can finally sleep.

~amphitheater aches

mutinous tears~

replaced by this.

this = fortification that stands on: the escaping of rouge sobs caught and made sacred by blue warmth and prayers for tomorrow.

huh.

2011-05-27T03:16:00.000-04:00

love. covers all manner of sins, doesn't it.

1:03 am.

2011-05-25T01:02:00.005-04:00

:inspired by drunken truth and gumption found lurking in a classy movie.

Inspired to pray, even.

ahem.

Dear Lord,

Thank you for people that like me. Thank you for not killing me when I ran a red light. And thank you for this diet fucking coke.

amen.

pickled.

2011-05-24T17:03:00.003-04:00

Jitters as I pack everyone into the next three days of my life.

confusion when my schedules colide.

angst of nightmares filled with warped versions of the people I love.

my selfishness a disease.

calling the exit sign my home, I can only say for sure that I have no idea what is coming.

2011-05-23T03:47:00.002-04:00

3 am lightning. reminds me of prayers finally reaching their destination.

The End of the World

2011-05-21T17:47:00.005-04:00

The Day Before the World Ended:

black shoes and a smile as sparkling as the straps.

because enough is more than a napkin but far far from a stump in the middle of mud.

mud that says STUCK loud loud loud and clear.

then there was the pit

the darkness

the nausea

knowing, knowing you are wrong but accepting yourself anyway.

enforcing the wrong on the people you love most.

the conversation of nos, no no no no.

one broken piece to another, declaring itself whole.

we sang then, we sang songs we had no memory of and waltzed aimlessly on carpet that was too good for us.

beneath those beautiful chandeliers, we were together for the moment, the stubborn pod of well-dressed candor. Us.

singing for only the blisters on my toes

because I no longer care who listens.

Later the most somber of soundtracks held us frozen

listening to our voices speak names and pictures

fat angels falling into our laps as we hold them for the future.

Mamba sickness and old school goodbyes.

The day before the world ended.

The Day the World Ended:

It ended like this. With purple ribbons and the sight of earnest blessing. A hodgepodge of people I knew once, or have seen before, or maybe just look like family, all dressed like mirages under a spotted yellow unbrella. And my hands were in my pockets, counting all the moments I've spent with and beyond them (mostly with), trying desperately to stay awake to the rhythm of name after name after name.

And the world would end this way, with names. Names of the future, like Charlotte or Levi, and names of the past, fuzzy like the portait setting on a camera. Names of people who each believe themselves to be the epi, the reason, the next big thing. Names of those I can't stand but who love me, or those that I wish I could be seen by but to whom my name has fallen beneath. And names of the unknown, names I'm beginning to see more clearly because they are growing into the most ferocious of dreams: family.

So we ate our hugs with cookies and held one another with our kodak moments, temporarily forgetting that the world around us that we have so carefully constructed of handshakes and eye-rolls is ending. The punch bowl and brick work is ending, leaving us standing with nothing but our memories, our rawly formed selves, and our names.

And so it is also fitting that the world should end as things are now, that I should cease my small and revolving existance with the typing of only marginally reasonable sentences, drinking diet coke from a mug and remembering my decisions. Realizing that no wonder I am not entirely happy, no wonder things have come to this, no wonder no wonder. It is all making sense now, with the image of sunglasses worn without purpose contrasted with a carefully counted bowl of cereal. No wonder.

So in the absence of wonder and echo of our names, the world we have grown into and out of

ends.

&

2011-05-20T13:37:00.000-04:00

sometimes I think we are no longer defined by the shapes that used to be so significant.

That what's up.

2011-05-18T21:32:00.006-04:00

Summer vacation, people.

Oh. Yeah.

suck it school.

Helpless.

2011-05-15T17:53:00.002-04:00

"It seems to me," said Magid finally, as the moon became clearer than the sun, "that you have tried to love a man as if he were an island and you were shipwrecked and you could mark the land with an X. It seems to me it is too late in the day for all that." Then he gave her a kiss on the forehead that felt like a baptism and she wept like a baby.

~Zadie Smith