Tick tick tick tick tick

Go steady with me...

2010-08-17T19:44:00.003-04:00

Today was Chris's last day in Virginia Beach. Three months until Thanksgiving. My shirt still smells like him.

I am so proud. I am so happy for him. I'm going to miss him so much.

I cannot stop listening to Tegan and Sara. The show last month was incredible and the music is just what I need right now.

On shaving and shopping.

2010-06-05T00:23:00.003-04:00

I shaved, you guys. I stopped when I was 17 and I loved being hairy. I'm still not sure why I decided to start shaving again or how long I'll keep doing it. I think I chose now because
1) it is summer, and summer means I sweat a lot and that means my underarms itch
2) because I didn't feel like I had to, so I felt okay doing it and
3) I was bored.

Starting at eight I was throwing up my food and berating myself for every unnecessary calorie. I would exercise to the point of hurting myself. I had spinal fusion surgery when I was twelve and should never have attempted curls or pull-ups. But I hated my body enough that I didn't care about the pain. I deserved it for being fat, being weak, being human.

In a way, not shaving helped me a lot with how I viewed myself. It forced me to admit and accept that there are things about me that do not and will never fit the popular idea of what's beautiful and acceptable and that that's okay.

Around the time I turned seventeen, I moved and lost a lot of weight. I'm still not sure if it was the fact that I didn't eat, that I'd fucked up my metabolism so badly through years of abuse or if I was just losing "baby fat," but I went from a steady 140 to abour 120 (at my heaviest, I weighed 180 lb. Bear in mind I am about 5'2").

Around this time I also stopped waging war on my body. I stopped counting, adding and multiplying calories gradually. I stopped throwing up my food and when my body told me to stp doing something, I listened. I stopped shaving and started buying cothes that fit me as I am.

I am 19 now. Except for a brief relapse over the winter, I've been avoiding any disordered eating patterns for about two years. It's wonderful to look at myself in the mirror and not see a thousand things I could move, flatten or enlarge. To see my body as it is and uncritically (and often even approvingly) is phenomenal. I am not sure how much of this is because I've truly gotten better and how much is because I found my skinnier body easier to accept.

Today I met up with MJ to help her pick out a dress for her graduation. True to form, she didn't get one (her mother called her home before we could shop) so I went by myself. I tried on over a dozen sundresses before deciding on two: one for wearing and sweating into and one to wear to Chris's graduation. I thought I looked great. In others, I thought the dresses were silly or not right for me. Never did it cross my mind that this dress would make me look like someone entirely different, better. I like my body and I'm learning to like myself for all its weird bits and unevenness

Recapitulation of promenade weekend.

2010-05-24T13:14:00.003-04:00

It started after I was sent home early from work Friday. I wasn't unduly upset, because my period surprised me and I needed to take care of my ladybitness. I came home and Chris and I tried napping. Of course I fail at naps, so he ended up plotting for the weekend while I sleepily paid some attention.

The plan was to go to Back Bay Wildlife Reserve Saturday morning, go to my house where my dear Chelsea would do my hair and make-up, then go promming before coming back to his house. I was to spend the night because the elder Winfields didn't want Chris driving around that late (prom ended at 11). Because we wanted to go to Back Bay earlier in the day, it was decided I would just spend Friday night at their house as well. So I packed up and slept in the guest room.

We woke up at nine in the morning, ate breakfast and headed off. Some slight confusion about how to get there but we found it. There was a $5 parking fee that surprised us but for once, I actually had cash on hand.

Well, it's mosquito season here in scenic Virginia. They aren't as terrifying as the flying ants of Texas but they are far greater in number. Also, remember that surprise period? I took a month off birth control and now I remember why I take birth control. Between the bugs and the cramps, we decided to go home. I also broke Chris's camcorder. Basically, we suck at leaving the house. I lay on his bed with a heating pad, some Tylenol and eventually managed to fall asleep whimpering in pain. Which apparently sounds just like when I hug him and make that weird, involuntary cooing sound. Needless to say, boy was confused.

A few hours later I woke up feeling much better. We ate lunch and Chelsea came over to rub make-up on my face. Not much happened besides eyeshadow which matched my orange dress. Chris said it looked more like allergies than make-up, because he is suave.

Prom was enjoyable, in a prommy sort of way. I can definitively say I have goe from not caring about Ke$ha to thinking she is the Ant-Christ. Vapid pop has its place but it should at least sound good. Not like a ravage banshee shrieking for your soul and your Jack Daniels. Gah. There was a chocolate fountain and seven-foot tall illuminated fabric cones. I forgot my corsage (the one Chris got me for Ring Dance March 2009 and I've been saving for prom).

I ran into my senior year English teacher. She asked if I were still writing and I fudged an, "I'm trying." I am trying.

We left about an hour early because. My ears were numb. The night was warm. We sang a few songs together. We got home and went to bed.

The next day Chris drove me to work, which was rather slow but at least there were bunnies. He picked me up and I went home that evening. The end. No moral.

I guess I'm the quiet type.

2010-05-18T23:31:00.003-04:00

I've been really happy lately. No school, not a lot of work. I've been bored, yes, but not stressed. I'm sleeping well, I'm remembering to eat and talking to people isn't a trial. My friends are wonderful people.

Anybody who knows me can easily categorise me as a complainer. I'm fine with that. I like to tell stories and human instinct say that a good story requires conflict. So I am going to tell stories about shitty professors, creepy commuters and whine about my boyfriend. But that really is only part of the picture. I just don't tell people the rest because I figure it will bore them.

For example, everybody knows I have a cat. She is orange and vocal and very clingy. Her name is Lyoko. What a lot of people don't know is that she makes me happy. I love coming home to her. I love when I stop to get water in the kitchen and she meows and wails until I go to pet her and then tries to lure me up to my room. Even as I complain about it and mock her, I'm happy that she's so excited to see me even if I've only been gone a few hours.

I do this with virtually everything: my family, my boyfriend, my job, my classes, my sundry maladies. It's a bad habit but it makes for good conversation.

Catcalls.

2010-05-05T18:04:00.002-04:00

It is not a compliment. Let's just get that straight right now.

It is spring. I am running around in t-shirts and am apparently shaped like a girl. Twice a week or so strange men make unsolicited remarks regarding my appearance and often yelling at me when I don't blush and swoon. The worst of these says something every time he sees me. One exchange went like this:

Him: So, I see you like to read books.
Me: ...
Him: I got a whole shelf full of books back at my house. You want them?
Me: ...
Him: I need to get rid of them. If you don't come get them, I'm just going to throw them away.
Me: Why not give them to a library or something? They could use books.
Him: Why not just come over and pick them up?

UM BECAUSE YOU MAKE KISSY FACES AT ME AND I DON'T LIKE YOU.

Guys, dudes, humans of all sorts, heed my words; it's okay to be phyiscally attracted to someone. Really, I'm fine with that. It's totally okay to flirt; it's how you get to know somebody. This guy I see in the library, he flirts with me. He asks about my interests, my choice in major, my life. I am not interested in him and I've told him so, but I also am not massively uncomfortable. The difference between this guy and the kissy face guy is simple: one of them has expressed an interest in something about me besides my ass.

I honestly don't expect a lot of my male friends to understand what it's like to have strangers whistling and shouting at them; even if it happens to them, the social context and mindset is completely different. Just like I can't imagine what it's like to be expected to not express emotion the way I do. And it's fucked up and distressing but dudes, just bear with me.

Okay, the thing about these guys is that they basically constantly remind me that regardless of what I am actually doing (going to work, studying, coming home, just enjoying the fresh air or any of a thousand things) I am, first and foremost, for their delectation. Whatever I am trying to accomplish, whatever I am working towards, those are immaterial because I am a woman in public and if I ever want to step outside I'd damn well better be hot and they will let me know.

Okay, this became horribly inarticulate but the point is: we can talk. We can be friends. You can even express an attraction. But for god's sakes remember that those women on the bus, on the sidewalk, in the library are actual humans with lives and plans and things to do besides look good for you.

2010-04-27T19:47:00.002-04:00

The clock has been at 5:19 for half an hour
I do not trust clocks any more.
My pills taste different this month.
My hips feel alien
my handwriting is not my own.
I don't even know what I'm waiting for
if I'm waiting

My past was so long ago
it barely hurts anymore.
My future seems so far ahead
and the days go but slowly.

2010-03-24T09:38:00.001-04:00

You're quiet
I'm quiet.
You taught me this silence.
Your big hands on my blue lips.
No fire, no smoke.
A puzzle of kindling is all.
Childish lions circle the edge of the camp
a tantrum of vultures
and then nothing.
Muskets are rusting.

My bones are as dry as yours
my eyes, too.
because you, you of all people
should know
the strength of kings rests
in my dirty peasant's hands
old baskets, empty of bread
I am bitter like lottery tickets
unthreading the needle before we've mended
the soles of our shoes

2010-03-22T21:29:00.002-04:00

You held love behind your back
ashamed
because you found love in the parking lot
It was wind-tossed against chain link fences.
(Surely this could not be the place.)

We both cast our eyes at sticky asphalt
and you are complicated by an uncomplicated past.
My hands found yours eventually.
We don't need their maps.
(but our lips were slow, so slow).
We have old stories to tell
suddenly new in the shadow of you
brave like trees

Voices.

2010-02-15T23:16:00.003-05:00

My dad got a laptop today and asked me for the wi-fi encryption key. I was late to work already and I just handed himmy flash drive and told him the name and hoped he wouldn't dig through and find my old poetry.

I don't know why I haven't deleted it. A lot of it is, frankly, awful. It holds no sentimental value for me; these were gifts from loved ones in the most indirect sense. Embarrassingly childish attempts at-- what? What did I even hope to accomplish? Some perfectly italicised declaration of independence of my teenage soul? Establishment that I too had had my heart broken (although I didn't yet know it).

I can't even figure out why I keep writing. I generally like my pieces at first, but after a month or so they wear thin; I can see how hard I was trying, how I bloodied my hands at some invisible window that was already open. And they don't seem effective. They seem alien.

When I was about seventeen I realised that I was constantly ashamed of the person I'd been a few years before. My seventeen-self was embarassed at my fifteen-year-old self, and now at nineteen I can't imagine anybody taking myself of two years ago seriously. Which is why now I'm not bothere by who I was, but at seventeen it was devastating to think basically, "I have always and will always suck and there's no way to break the cycle of sucking."

I had nowhere to let these poems loose. I posted anonymously on a poetry forum where the recpetion was warm but distant. So they gathered dust on my flashdrive, shuffled from disc to disc. I could never bear to delete them for fear of what might be lost.

So I keep the old poems. Not because I feel there's much worth saving, although some I honestly feel show some promise. Not because I'm scared I'll forget what it was like, but to give that thirteen, fifteen, seventeen-year-old girl a voice. To be somebody who says that no matter how stupidly and melodramatically you said something, you deserve to be listened to. She and I deserve not to have that voice silenced. Everybody does.

Famine

2010-02-11T12:37:00.002-05:00

Big eyes big eyes
like plutonian eccentricities orbiting emptiness
Where do your eyes go?
Do they travel the swoop of my garter
steady as astronomers, do they seek to unravel the universe?

deliberate hands pause on my shoulders
my cooking pots have begun to rust.
small predators
your Athenian silence
hunger
like alien stalactites in a limestone cave.

2010-02-06T14:06:00.002-05:00

I thought you were wonderful
and you were wonderful.
But this is no city for Nazarenes
not the time of year for your tunics
your sandals worn smooth by glittering asphalt
This world does not want us to save it.

I liked the way our shadows touched
as we flickered hand in hand
unsteady iambs, we walked over uneven ground.
I could not dedicate myself to you.
So I cut my hair.
I dyed it a million colours and all of them you liked.
I wore lipstick one day and still you kissed me.
I ripped my stockings
and bought a hundred pairs of shoes to match.

"Alas, my love you do me wrong"
I measured out the meter
in tapping fingers on your dashboard.
You never asked why.
I would not have answered if you had.
I did not write things down
knowing it would break your heart.
Knowing I would break your heart.

I liked the way our fingers touched.
I really did.

2010-01-28T19:44:00.002-05:00

Crushed pills dissolve like bones in acid
my bloodstream aches for a remedy
and in the thick of this pollution
broken promises
packets of poison
thumbtacks tracing my footprints to the window
and back
and back
and once more back
O wasn't I the faithful one?

Somewhere
elsewhere
ospreys tear down seagulls and soundlessly
here
an angel's feathers stumble down the tree outside my window
I watch like a hungry cat
My fur on end
my pupils dilated with darkness and with wine
pestles and mortars: I don't need them.
I have an oracle
my flesh is pure.
Outside, outside
wait outside. I will be downstairs in a minute.
O, aren't I the faithful one?

White lights take some getting used to

2010-01-24T22:44:00.003-05:00

This love had the illicit whiff of innocent lies.
Agile flutterings in fragile chests hemming in words
so small, so difficult to pronounce.
a vague pornography in the way we held hands and pretended no one noticed.
Kids. We were just kids
they saw our every move. It was recorded and held for evidence.
Answer, but first think carefully.

2010-01-13T20:37:00.003-05:00

We could build a palace of our bones,
insincere architectures offering the narrowest of shelters.
Mouthfuls of meat and empty bellies mirrored
we two, with our seperate histories
our invisible sicknesses
and bleeding hearts.

"Explain this. Your philosophy."
"It's no way to make a living."
You held something in your pocket
and gave me a trinket
to embroider with meaning.
A small thing built to be lost.

"Talk to me," you said.

Tell me that nothing could shock you.
Let me give you my secrets
let me disappear in discrete handfuls of flesh
and arabesques of hair
and gloat over the impossibility of you.

You and me and our skin dusting the floor
and our missing jewellery
our lists of endearments.
I never used to write about us
it was always just you and I.

Edifice complex

2009-12-15T13:50:00.003-05:00

Angled clinicians
dully inspired
this must be some kind of trick.
I should see my chart
surely I cannot be so ill.
surely I am unremarkable
Let me see it-- there is precious little
worth hiding.

If promises were marigolds
still I would be sitting here
with my eyes full of dust and my hands full of air.
If I could move my hips you would know
what my stillness signifies.
It has been years since they put me to bed
All the ceilings are beginning to look alike
All the nurses' silences are filling the spaces
between the sheets and the body
and the cracks in the floor are filling with pollen
never to grow
never to be cut down and left to wither by windows.

I asked for water.
I asked for marigolds and television.
I ask for morphine.
I ask you if I could ever be beautiful.

2009-12-14T00:50:00.002-05:00

Brains
skins
a loose assortment of nerves
the spoils of a hard day's work.
Words dribbled loosely
I forgot my blueprints back at the house.
Walk with me.

Burning old letters keeps me warm.
Once I, too, made something beautiful.
Once, you
and I, we were
Do you understand?
[WE WERE WE EXISTED ALIVE ALIVE]
Never so well as we argued.
precious pets
ingrained with gratitudes
adorned with promises
Isadora would be proud of all our scarves

"Could you speak a little slower?"
"Could you walk a little faster?"
Could you star-gaze with me? Could I just ask you?
The answer is never as satisfying
as asking the question.

Could you stay with me tonight?

Years.

2009-12-06T22:17:00.002-05:00

Early Sunday morning, Chris and I re-negotiated our anniversary. So it crept up on me. This day last year was the Maggie Walker Scholastic Bowl tournament. These things matter in nerd-love.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with MW, it's a private school in Richmond where we compete against kids who are much smarter than we are in Scholastic Bowl. For about eight hours, we hit buzzers and we recall trivia. And you expect it to be fun and for a while it is. Then you realise that everybody there is better than you. They're faster than you and they probably go to much better schools. You get tired, every wrong answer becomes a burden of guilt.

Perhaps I'm over-sensitive.

It was a rough day. I walked in there expecting to win. I expected us to just blow all those private-school kids away. I have a habit of execting myself to be the best and I judge myself horribly when I'm not. So I was pretty much on the verge of tears after the first few rounds (I AM SUCH A CRYBABY). Luckily my BFF Chris was there to hug me, cheer me up and make stupid jokes.

In the parking lot, we said we loved each other to mess with Zack. We fell asleep holding hands on the bus. Afterwards we went to his house to watch a documentary about Nirvana and Sonic Youth called "1991: The Year Punk Broke." I fell asleep on him. Basically, if I'd had any sense at all our anniversary would be the sixth.

2009-11-22T00:29:00.002-05:00

Summer took root
in cold, barren bones
You could have buried me but the snow
only goes so deep
before our soft hands froze.
I would have given anything to be
there. Hard by your side
unopened
I gave you no sign.

A clock strikes four in an empty room.

2009-11-17T23:19:00.003-05:00

It's a beautiful machine but what does it do?
(One and two and through and through
temporal blades just snicker-- )
Wiring jaws with telephone cords
we keep ourselves from screaming back

I line words up like empty glass
with alcohol trapped in the cracks.
I wish I could evaporate that fast.

It's a lovely book but when's it due?
(You never said you'd like it back
you never said you'd want me to-- )
With open eyes in photographs
If I had the time I'd write you back...

It's the same old story and faithful to the last.

2009-11-16T10:45:00.001-05:00

I'm willing to negotiate a truce
You keep the land and let me keep you.

2009-11-16T10:30:00.003-05:00

No one throws roses
when it's so easy to ask if
you meant what you said
(you said you'd never regret it)
I could just parade myself home
A delicate soldier you were never the marching kind
You're too kind
and I thought you were one of my kind
but I'm deciding it's fine
if you want to fight
I'll meet you with shields at the ready
(remember how you made them for me?)

The soft tyranny of your elbow in my side
a metaphor for a war that never occurred
I will not retreat
The end is all too easy to find.
Could you ever be mine?

For my centennial entry

2009-11-05T17:54:00.002-05:00

I'm going to freak out.

Today was supposed to be a good day. Yoga, no lab, Scholastic Bowl for old time's sakes, followed by IHOP with some friends and then chilling at home. And it was, until IHOP.

Jocy called me during dinner, and tells me some people have opened fire on Ft. Hood where her mom is. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33678801/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/?GT1=43001 Ms. Carmen is like family, and I'm freaking out. I can't imagine how terrified Jocy was. It didn't hit me until after she called and said they'd apprehended two suspects and another one had been shot.

She could have died. I can't stop thinking about it.

Around the same time, Chris also started freaking out due to caffeine at an unwise hour and an impending horrible school function. He left and Zack had to drive me home (Thanks, Zack.)

Oh god, today is a day to panic. I've calmed down over the course of writing this, at least. Just...oh, my god.

Breaks.

2009-11-04T22:39:00.002-05:00

I have neglected this for far too long.

Dear diary, I'm exhausted. My constant suckling at the electronic love teat of the internet keeps me jumping from task to task, nourishing me in my rare, scattered quiet moments. I ride the bus and stare at the windows, not out them. Not anymore. I have started writing one poem this month and I couldn't make myself finish it. I'm too tired to put forth the effort and have any energy left for myself. I used to drown in words. I want nothing more right now that to keep my head above water and breathe something clean and literal.

Okay, this writing thing isn't so hard...I just have to make myself do it. Wait, no. No, I need to want to do it. I refuse to let this become another assignment.

Ugh, this is now apparently a stream-of-consciousness blog. I just need to get the hang of this. I can do this. I can do this.I can do this.

It is late. My neck hurts. Real entry tomorrow, I promise. I keep promises.

Half of this list is just me saying your name

2009-10-11T22:29:00.002-04:00

My unkindness cradled like the infant Quasimodo
I do my best to keep it quiet
I wish I could still pray for you
My lips are frozen in the cold
the only word that will form is "please."

You told me I could work my way
around the monsters. I should not have worn
pyjamas so revealing if I wanted to sleep tight.
I know better
Every corner is an illuminated manuscript of the horrors in store.
It is my job to keep them under control.

The words I'm aching to say remain
fetal and fermented in the back of my mind
I have nothing left
to give but--
I will let you know what there is
as soon as I figure it out.

Passengers.

2009-09-21T11:17:00.003-04:00

At the beginning of this school year, an elderly Indian couple rode my bus every morning. They spoke and laughed softly. They reminded me of my grandparents with their teasing. A few weeks ago, the husband rode the bus alone, wearliy climbing aboard at his usual stop on Nimmo Parkway His eyes were unfocused and he kept smoothing down his red-tinted grey hair like his wife used to do durig lulls in their conversation. He hasn't ridden with me since then.

Matt sits next to me on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and we talk about cats and art forms. He was majoring in art last year and dropped out to actually do art for a year. We talk about work, the drudgery of arranging cans and smiling for the customers. He has a beautiful smile, he really does. His dreadlocks hang out from his baseball cap and he stashes his mp3 player in a Legend of Zelda bag he always carries. He misses his cat Koji.

Before Matt, there was a red-headed scene kid I called the rock-and-roll Ron Weasley in my head. He once texted his friend that he was "sitting next to this hot chick," which I of course had to find flattering and creepy. More on my reluctance to know I'm being checked out in a later entry.

I don't know this man's name, but I see him the same days I see Matt, and I also ride home with him. His eyes are expressionless and his mouth looks worried until he takes a swig of his coffee. The look on his face is absolutely rapturous. My first day on the bus, a man boarded without enough money to buy a day pass, and this guy wordlessly got up and handed him a dollar. He nodded to the man's "thank you" and opened his book back up, soundlessly. The mole on his upper lip looks kissable. I was thrilled when I too could help someone with their bus fare; two black kids with skateboards with passes rendered useless by the rain.

I'm not even sure what the point of this entry is. I just wanted to tell you about some of these people. There is a grim sort of love I feel for them. And I always think of Berlin.

2009-09-19T23:39:00.003-04:00

I tell you
don't be frightened
you are young yet and there are roads far too long for you to fathom.
I feel one hundred already.
I tell you it gets better and pieces find their places
but honestly I felt my pieces set themselves
when I was sixty-three in dog years.I was already afraid
the hooded figures with their scythes and empty eyes
outlined in the unsteady wave of traffic beyond my window.
I promise you, children.
I am already nineteen and have seen the ends of the earth.
You still have time.
There's always time between cars.
Wait for it.

2009-08-31T22:46:00.007-04:00

You should know better
my eyes are shifty
my hands flirt with clouds
I cannot be trusted.
I'll pull out all my lovely eyelashes
more uncreative wishes scattered for your consideration.
I'll make promises and the hell of it is
I would keep them if you'd just let me.

This weakness in my limbs can't hold up forever
eventually I'll recover
or collapse
after twenty hours of standing tall
(I couldn't make it
the whole twenty-four.)
I'll fall for you like I always do.
This stalemate is final.
Certainly I will lose you
and probably won't even notice at the time.

burned up on entry

2009-08-23T19:44:00.002-04:00

I forgot this was also a journal, but I'm going to remedy that.

So, I started college last Thursday. It's kind of cool and kind of terrifying. I'm nervous about when the actual work starts but so far it's all syllabi and rules. I think I'll like it but right now the uncertainty of what's to come is freaking me out. I'm still waiting for my loan to disburse so I can get my books. I already have oceanography and algebra homework.

I have no idea how anybody gets fat in college; I bike to the bus stop, I have to walk all around campus and I can't really afford food. Plus I'm starting yoga, which is exciting.

So, today I had another minor freak-out and decided to go out biking. Nobody's ever whistled at me until today. It was profoundly unsettling. I texted Meagan and told her about it, she told me to think of it as them saying, "I would like to take you to dinner. You seem like an intelligent girl with an interesting and realistic world view." It would be great if I could, but it just reminds me of the fact that I'm physically small and I probably can't defend myself.

I went to Red Mill Commons to poke around. I got a frappucino which is money I should not have spent but it was oh-so-delicious. I drank it outside and listened to people chat and watched them smoke three different kind of cigarettes. Two women discussed Ugg boots while a man sat next to them speaking in clipped sentences to his cellphone about gender. The other two people sat behind me. It was a quiet table, their cigarettes wasting away as the woman stared with red eyes at the wall behind her companion's head.

After I finished my coffee and ruefully trashed the plastic up (I'm sorry, planet!), I went to look at the gardening section of Wal-Mart. As soon as I stop being broke, I'm taking over that sad little patch in front of the house for flowers and probably planting some vegetables out back. For the front yard, I'm planning on some salvia because they remind me of Texas, some zinnias or bee balm and definitely some tulips. Sadly, the patch is only about 18"x24", so I can't get too crazy.

I'm not sure about what vegetables to grow yet, besides carrots because I love carrots. In a perfect world I could plant a fruit tree in the backyard, but I don't know about that yet. In a perfect universe, apples would grow in this climate and I could save loads of money not buying them at the store all the time. Deep down I suppose I still am an Alabama girl for wanting to basically start a tiny farm here. That red dirt is notoriously difficult to wash away.

Some kid in Target was throwing a temper tantrum about chocolate. Having children seems much more appealing when there are none around.

This is the part where I realise that I don't have much more to say and I fail to conclusively wrap up this entry. My writing has been less than stellar lately, hence the glacial pace of the write-off.

I'm proud of myself for going out and wandering around for two hours. It makes me feel more and more like this is a place where I live. The hot air shook out the chill the air conditioner had pushed under my skin. I missed this feeling of being part of the world.

2009-08-22T23:49:00.003-04:00

(Vers la lune tu cours.
Aies patience, la vie est courte)
like small soft spines spreading ribs
cracking hips
There is some paralysis in your kiss
the sum of your palaces is less than my prowess
in promising happiness. Your approval,
while tacit, remains indisputable.
You're beautiful
and the truth to be told
(Honêtement, tu ne peux pas mes lèvres coudre)
anything is better than sleeping alone.
You'd better not get too close.
N'arrêtes pas maintenant;
je t'attend.

Honestly, I'm playing more with sound than meaning in this one.

2009-08-09T15:42:00.004-04:00

This room is empty.
these hands
this bed.
This heart has been beaten itself half to death.
Those corners
where my whispers settled themselves
all my secrets (I'm assuming)
the spiders know me better than anyone.
I build these walls out of thin air
and suppose no one would ever breach them.

2009-08-09T15:31:00.004-04:00

The touch of hips on hips brings me far too much comfort.
The sundry Englishes of your laughter
too soft in this country,
so sincere in its flippancy.
I fear it is too much for me.
This ongoing war between
what I want and what I should need
(what should I want? I need you to
tell me, say you need me too.
Please) Don't go.
You won't go,
not until I've pushed you too far
and I'm pushing so hard
(so far).
It's so hard to make myself believe you
the way I know you do,
It's so hard to make-believe.
I would leave if I were you.

2009-08-09T15:16:00.003-04:00

The matter at hand is not the echoing of oceans,
nor the empty roar of territory unmarked
my need to confront my own shadows is overwhelmed by my fears
these rank, stinking weeds of my ego
that will not allow admission of weakness
If I admit to struggling I have already been defeated.

I need a cigarette
and I need it offered to me. I cannot just take one.
I need to watch the smoke slipping out from my lips
like summoning the ghosts of the words I never said
You can never take just one.

More weeds demanding attention
to be cut down or cultivated
my fears dried into a powder
too strong of a dose but never numbing me to the point where I can't lift my hands
I poison myself again.

Sleeping Sickness

2009-08-06T22:23:00.002-04:00

Is this love then?
The soft dawdle of months perfecting your kiss?
The careless intersections of our legs,
we two, who were plagued with shiftless eyes.
Possibilities condensing on our breath
disappear with gestures of infinity.
The shadows in your eyes linger,
you tell me "everything will be okay."
I'm alive and I'm alive.

Skilled in brevity,
the warm whiplash of your voice
tremor-shaped and violently beautiful
a splash of rain on asphalt
a split-second's quickening
before falling to earth.

I can sleep tonight
I'm alive and you're alive.
This sleeping sickness kills only our time.
The rain isn't stopping anytime soon.

Hometown.

2009-08-06T22:10:00.002-04:00

No water runs beneath these streets.
The fire doesn't need a reason.
No crosses burn beyond these hills.
The devil doesn't need a season.
No trolls hide beneath these bridges.
The river knows when to stay hidden.
No witches fly beneath these moons.
The mothers still lock up the children.

happy birthday

2009-08-01T03:28:00.003-04:00

It would have been a year today.
The stars are all aligned,
(drunk on summer and ready to fall)
but you will not be driving me home.
One year--
The whiplash of disappointment
every time I watched your taillights disappear.
A year later
and still I would be standing here
watching you leave.

Night falls so late now.

"I thought you said we were invincible."
No, darling, the word was "immiscible."
I was young last year
and I said a lot of things.

Could you drive me home again?
This is the season of empty roads,
this time of year I watched you flicker
like stars fading light-years away.

I'm going inside before it gets dark.

The first annual Great Write-Off '09 Edition

2009-07-17T01:25:00.004-04:00

Starting at midnight 1 August, the first (hopefully) annual Great Write-Off shall commence. This is a contest of sorts between myself and the lovely and brilliant Meagan Dermody. By midnight 1 September, she and I will have endeavoured to publish as many finished pieces as we can.

Da Rules:

1) Finished pieces may be of any length, as long as they are to the author's satisfaction. Few things are sadder than a beautiful poem stuffed with extra lines or whittled down to fit.

2) Non-contest pieces may still be published; Write-Off pieces will be published with the "write-off" tag. These pieces are to be counted at the end of the month.

3) One may publish old, previously unpublished work but the opponent reserves the right to scowl disappprovingly.

4) Tumblr entries are not official entries, as Tumblr hasn't any tags.

5) The contest ends at 12:00:00 a.m., 1 September.

6) The loser will buy the winner lunch at the establishment of the winner's choosing, or the winner may request a home-cooked delight (this must fall within the loser's skill range and the loser is not responsible for mad-difficult dishes.)

Bring it.

2009-07-17T00:16:00.003-04:00

Of all the moons
you were my favourite
Always your face was turned
but your light stayed as bright
Do you look in my window
while I am sleeping?
Do you wonder if
I am dreaming of you?
(always)
I cannot deal in darkness.

However
carefully I remark your phases in my calendar
you still astonish
Your axis is tilted, love
and you orbit dust.
But however inconstant the sun gets
regardless of the shuffling of clouds.
your light will still sneak through my curtains.

Of all my moons
you were the brightest.

2009-07-14T23:15:00.000-04:00

So, at the last minute, I finally decided to pursue my childhood dream of being an -ologist. I'm now admitted to TCC as a science major. Next is a bachelor's in environmental science.

I wonder if this is how people feel when they find out they're pregnant; I'm scared and excited and I think my life just made a very sharp turn.

Enlightenment.

2009-07-14T22:14:00.003-04:00

Smile for the cameras
My mouth is stuffed
with teeth like loose pearls
in the bottom of an abandoned hope chest

Bruises flowering and running to seed
a riot of colour against my pale soiled skin
a stained canvas stretched taut
waiting to be touched
by real
art

These voices are wearing on me
rubbing me away
my hips flirt with the air
my veins are all showing
Put my bones on display
string me up by my spine from the ceiling
I am defying gravity
to stop me.
(stop me)
Sleek-furred, I am the perfect predator among scavengers
a little more blood on my hands at the end of the day
Clearly I am not the fragile one.

Guns only work by being unloaded. People are pretty much the same.

2009-07-12T22:39:00.002-04:00

Opening the letter, I
hold my breath and hope for better, Why
does this keep happening? And
how do I keep smiling?

The notes are getting old and
tearing where they're folded
Moths have eaten all the good parts,
taking back the things you brought up.

The photographs are bleaching in the
sunlight's keeping me from sleeping
I stay up until the shadows deepen
under my eyes my skin is weakened

Neighbours in the next apartment
pound the walls with rock and parties
the record skips before it's started
the record skips before it's started

I figured out why I wrote more when I was younger, before I had anything to really write about. It's so much easier to imagine your own details than to try to accurately describe a reality. I wish I could find some of my old stuff, or remember it.

Blood, Guts, Unicorns & Rainbows

2009-07-12T22:20:00.002-04:00

Okay, so I'm now part of a band. The lineup is:

Meagan Dermody- guitar, lyrics, music
Claire Pickard- keyboard, vocals
Charlie Russell- vocals, lyrics
Chris Winfield- bass, music, vocals if he ever loosens up

I most definitely have the easiest job; I don't even have to carry any gear. Meagan has a lovely voice but says she gets nauseous singing in front of an audience, so it's on Claire and me.

Our first meeting was at Claire's house and involved veggie burgers and a trampoline. We decided which songs we would learn for our next meeting which would definitely be elsewhere because Claire's house gives me hell of allergies.

I'm really excited Chris and Meagan liked each other (this was the first time they'd met in person) and that the meet-up went so well. I'm just generally excited.

Today was a nice day. Chris and I watched "Control" and I made some rotini. Tomorrow, weather permitting, I am going mini-golfing and go-karting with my little brother. Yay.

2009-07-11T22:42:00.002-04:00

It's the small things that kill us. The careless tea spilled on your homework, the irritated "Good night." It's the mis-quote of a favourite song by someone who will never love it like you do that turns you inside out.

I can fight the big things for you. I'll die full of poison arrows before I let them hurt you.

My shield was raised so high I missed the spider that crawled next to you and bit you. My armor was too heavy for me to hold you.

Helplessness is not screaming.
Helplessness is silence.

2009-07-11T22:41:00.001-04:00

Il y avait une fois
quand j'avais peur des ombres,
des bêtes qui ont vécu,
qui j'étais.
Une fois quand les murmures s'agitent des ténèbres
et ne se dérangent pas avec mes soupires.

Aujourd'hui, j'ai quelque chose
C'est un petit chose,
avec un saveur de ca que je ne saurais jamais.

Il est moins que ton sourire.
Il est plus que tous les étoiles.

2009-07-11T21:59:00.004-04:00

The shaking never really goes away.
It changes--
sometimes,

and sometimes it just--

sometimes the haiku of your breath untangles my English and all the words fall out
Between the drop of the needle and the hiss of static
you pull my words out and around you
and leave me mute
,shaking.

Fathers.

2009-06-21T20:26:00.002-04:00

After eighteen years I'm still not sure how much we share. I look like you in exactly one picture I have ever seen, a picture taken as a joke in the middle of a war.

We let each other down over and over.
I guess it says something,
that we still expect better from us.
I should know better.
You should know better.

"You're eighteen.
I can't help you much longer."

It is your last name I will be keeping. Not my own.

I hope your next kid is a better writer.
I hope she likes music that's more to your taste.
I hope you learned from this.

Semi-anniversary and Other Made-up Words.

2009-06-09T20:48:00.003-04:00

Halfway around the sun,
we have travelled 469,450,000 kilometres
and are still sitting in this same bed
Stars are spinning in the sky
The same clouds whisper outside my window

They have fallen to
the ground

and they have climbed back up
it is almost summer now.

You leaned over and whispered
something
I couldn't hear through my own murmurs

A week
Two weeks
Three months
Turning pages
small victories counted like prisoners
Poetry in every one of our smiles
in our frozen hands
going unwritten.
every poem
gathering dust
until the dust became a thing itself: nebulous
but more solid.

I watched blank pages collecting in front of me
and I counted every one.

Yes, I stole some of a previous poem. That is how these things go. I hope this expresses some fraction of what you mean to me.

Heroes.

2009-06-08T14:33:00.003-04:00

I've been reading poetry again
and again I am astounded at my own inadequacy.
My words are too controlled, my imagery school-sharpened and my tone detached.
I didn't know I could bleed that much these days.
I wasn't sure if my heart were still beating
if my vision could go any darker
if my hands could feel any more numb.
I'm not really happy; just slightly
less than
greater than
equal to the task

I hear the desperation in my voice. It doesn't nauseate you?
"I love you, too."
casual as a papercut. I love too much. It isn't fair

To ask to matter half as much to someone. Semi-requited love is the best I can hope for. I guess my nerves couldn't stay raw forever. If this is growing up

I have pages more to go
I should just be happy these beautiful things exist.
Greater than me.
Less than promises.

Stars.

2009-06-06T22:54:00.006-04:00

You are home now.
You have been for hours so why
am I still terrified of losing you?
I am so tired,
my eyelids indigo and petal-heavy with bad dreams
but I must keep watch over you at night.
We are so fragile. Sleep
claims me for but a moment
and I slide awake,
keeping watch.
The rise and fall of your chest,
too fast you breathe in and out.
I match you breath for breath
dizzy as seals circling
the tank a fraction of an ocean.
Their dividend of freedom.

I know
someday I will lose you.
You will not hold me
Your smell will fade from our bed
and even though I make it all about me
you will remember that you drove me to it.

You are home now.
You said I was shaking and you watched me,
steady as any star
you are just as liable to explode
and leave me with a black hole to be pulled into.

I am a million miles away from home.
We will have to travel all the way around the sun
and again and
again
and again.
I will sleep well tonight.
There is a light in my window
incandescent as a kiss,
dusted with moths.

People.

2009-06-05T14:51:00.002-04:00

I usually love people. I love their folly, their frailty and their earnestness. The way their voices change while they try to make someone else understand. They're funny and they make wonderful things.

But not today. Today everybody seems like a bad actor. I found myself hating them. Those dull eyes and careless steps. I hated their shrill voices and the stupid questions they asked me.

This constant exhaustion is getting to me. My eyelids have felt soft and petal-heavy for the past week. I can't focus. I'm dreaming all the time but the dreams never go anywhere. It's not fair that after thirteen years of school it chooses now to burn me out. I hope it's school doing this.

Excuses.

2009-06-04T21:25:00.002-04:00

I make so many. Sometimes I really hate myself for it. Yes, I've had problems, but I ma by no means the only one. People like Chelsea just deal with shit after shit and still keep it together. I run off somewhere and brood about it and try to make something pretty out of it.

"It's a good thing I haven't been writing. That means everything's okay."

No, it means I'm slacking. I want to say I'm written out after the senior portfolio, but that's not true. I just don't want to. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is pick up a pencil and be careful.

My sleep schedule has shifted slightly. Now I'm in REM sleep at 6:03 a.m. when my alarm goes off and I wake up exhausted. This has happened the last four days in a row. I took a nap at Chris's and still was dead-tired by seven. I don't know what's happening but I don't like it.

I'm reading a book, finally. I missed this. I need to go to the library soon. I'll probably find some reason not to.

Thoughts.

2009-05-27T20:57:00.002-04:00

I know how egocentric I come across. I write about myself and a very few close people, seldom in great detail. It's not that I don't think about others, because I do and constantly.

The reason I don't talk about other people, even ones I love is because I don't feel at liberty to tell everybody about what they're doing.

I'm very good at reading people and divining their motives, and I think it would be uncomfortable for them if they knew what I know about them. I don't care what people know about me, and I have control over what I say. But I don't want to explain to them how exactly I know these things.

You are in my thoughts, probably more than you would like.

Politics.

2009-05-26T21:22:00.003-04:00

Lately I find myself discussing politics. I hate talking politics. It's fruitless and it generally leads to me getting annoyed. Nobody ever changes their minds because they've been argued into it. When they do, it's always quietly and elsewhere.

A few months ago I decided that I would be an anarcho-pacifist. This is my official declaration as such. I've refrained from saying it because..well, I don't even know anymore. I'm done being embarrassed.

I believe that as much as you may hate the system, sometimes you have to go with it. Vote if the issue is important enough (ex. had I lived in California when Prop 8 happened, I would have been in line). Sometimes you need to play the game to get something done.

What I hate most about politics is that it tends to colour everything. Politics are selfish things; everything just has to be about them.

Ultimately, I don't think most things are political issues. Global warming is a scientific one (what to do about it is a question of ethics and of human culture). Abortion and gay rights are moral ones. Censorship is to gather votes and to keep things running smoothly.

The same people who call themselves "realists" decry Affirmative Action because they believe in judgment based on merit. I do, too. But the fact of the matter is people are not judged solely on merit. Te'rah will be judged by her race, John by his speech, I by my gender.

Everybody is so afraid of admitting the uncomfortable.

Queers love just as much as you do.
Our habits and our numbers are destroying the planet.
Freedom of speech is meant specifically to protect the speech that makes you want to scream and punch someone in the throat.
Sometimes you just can't have a kid.
We need people to work those shitty dead-end jobs. We need toilet-scrubbers and window-washers. So why punish them with low wages and lousy insurance? Whatever happened to watching out for your fellow man?

This isn't fair. It doesn't have to be this way.

Gypsies.

2009-05-17T16:46:00.003-04:00

I live in military housing, and people come and go all the time. Today there is a new family moving in across the cul-de-sac. The lettering on their cardboard boxes runs in the rain. They move with direct strides. They've done this before.

Behind the slick pitted drywall, I can hear the neighbour's dog wailing again.

I took a picture of the view from out front of my house and realised how close I am to these strangers. There are so many of us. We are rootless. These kids go to school and make tentative friendships knowing they may have to leave.

We are not even Gypsies. We are not cowboys. We are boring people who eat too many potato chips and watch stupid television shows and talk too loudly over the roar of jets. We spend our Friday nights on the internet. There is no romance in these efficient houses. There are no foundations and we tilt in the sandy Virginia soil.

Fossils.

2009-05-17T14:31:00.003-04:00

While working on my senior portfolio for English, I found lots of old poems. I don't even remember writing this one. It seems my style, though, so I suppose I must have. It was titled "Ode Regarding A Nighttime Grove’s Exhalation," which isn't how I roll with titles. I think this one dates back to N. 19th St and dusty sidewalks.

Heavy-skinned and bright-eyed, with breath like summer
really a marvellous creation, this orange
this is alchemy, gold rendered from soil and rain and starlight
in a fit of selfishness, I gouge your small green eye
tear your skin and leave you
naked as bad dream, flesh aquiver.
You are strangely cool inside, calm
but you have claws,
pixie-sized

I don't think that's the end of it. Hell if I know what I was going to say. Here you go.

Scraps.

2009-05-13T23:03:00.004-04:00

It's not just how you look. It's what you are. And what you are seems almost too good to last. The world is acid. It lands on the beautiful things and tarnishes and rusts them and corrodes their strength.

I was writing you a poem. It was going to be beautiful. Then schools and families and institutions interfered and it fell by the wayside and I don't remember what I was going to say.

I whisper to your sleeping breaths, my words keeping time
hopeful
that these small burnt offerings will leave a smell in your clothes
a smudge of ash on your palm
pilgrim-grey and worn deep.

that dream-stoned smile.
Your arms squeeze me close for half a second
as I tell you all my secrets.
Your mouth opens half a breath's width.
I hope I somehow keep my voice down for once, I hope
that these infinitesimal vibrations in the air somehow
travel through your glittering nerves
and lodge themselves in your spine.

Tangled up in geometry of your hands
the iridescence of your eyelids. A constellation of freckles
almost too faint to be seen
I am guided by the invisible.

That's as far as that one is going for a long time. You deserve better. This poem has been slowly decomposing, word by word, inside my head for over a month now. Lifetimes for some.

Even if the world corrodes you, pits your freckles and rusts your bones, you will still be the most beautiful thing in it. Your disbelief, your sarcasm, our laughs, my promises. Your fragility.

It's late. I hope you're sleeping soundly. Of course I'm happy with you.

Teeth.

2009-05-13T16:33:00.003-04:00

I've been having really bad pain in the right side of my jaw for the last month, and today I got it checked out. The joint is palpably swollen and it's making me move in such a strange way that the left side is starting to hurt. I'm grinding my teeth at night really badly. I guess I'm more stressed than I thought. They made casts and I'm getting a bite guard in three weeks. Sexy, I know.

Genny's been here for the past week with Joey. She's leaving Friday and we're supposed to go to the adult novelty store sometime. It's all fun and games until one of us tries to buy something. Man, this entry just keeps getting sexier.

It's hard to think that I'm the only one disappointed.

Blocks.

2009-05-12T21:59:00.005-04:00

I feel the words drying up inside me. My writing comes and goes. Contentment is poisonous to my creativity. I begin to feel happy with my lot in life, and I lose that drive to escape, to build those bridges to nowhere. My writing is born of anxiety and hopelessness. Not so much lose as misplace. I know I'll find it again, dusted with the same old shadows.

Why do we find it so difficult to write about the happy parts of our lives? It's never, "I'll always love you." It's "I'll die if I lose you."

Being with Chris is the only thing that calms me down. My mind usually runs in a million circles and barks and chases small sharp sparrows. I am distracted by anything and everything. I will worry myself about years down the road when I need to focus on tomorrow. Why can't I write about that rare stillness? I barely even fidget when we're together.

I think I feel somewhat guilty for being happy when I know others aren't. I have this odd idea that there's a finite amount of happiness in the world. What, really, have I done to deserve it? I'm terrified somebody will realise they made a mistake, I shouldn't have this, and it will be taken away.

I'm going to try to appreciate what I have while I have it. This contentment while it lasts. When the fear comes back, and I know it will, I'm going to try to turn it into something beautiful for you.

Hopes.

2009-05-05T18:34:00.002-04:00

we walk the line between suffering and survival

somewhere there's a desert sky full of stars that we should be watching
even if you break my heart completely, I will never regret this.
even if all the ice melts and this house becomes a coral reef
we will keep our heads above water.
I promise.

Blinks.

2009-05-03T00:06:00.004-04:00

It's a warm night. This is supposed to be my season. I should be listening to old techno and drinking warm wine. I should be planning my escape to Morocco. Instead I am fidgeting. My fingers type volumes on air. Motion without movement, I shiver in the artificial chill of the air conditioner. I should be in my underwear this time of day. The window is open to let out the freezing air. This is a dangerous mood for me to be in.

My fingers are numb. I do not know these people but they are quiet outside. The streetlamps crackle, orange and moth-scented. I tread air. I breathe water.

Examinations.

2009-05-02T20:07:00.002-04:00

They're here. Starting Monday, College Board will be examining slices of my brain with their microscopes. It's that magical time of year: AP testing. I've been preparing all year, gathering every scrap of information. I have practice books I've even opened.

I am going to prove myself. I am buying peppermint LifeSavers tomorrow on Artrip's advice. I have mechanical pencils and extra lead and I have a theme song.

Let's do this.

Sighs.

2009-04-28T19:20:00.001-04:00

It's only Tuesday.

Synaptic Firings.

2009-04-26T15:32:00.004-04:00

It's been an okay weekend overall. Yesterday was fantastic. Today is tolerable.

We wanted to go to IHOP for breakfast like a normal family. We went outside to the car and found the cul-de-sac blocked by several fire trucks. So many trucks for one itty mattress fire.

My friend's relationship ended. I kind of saw it coming, but it was still a bit upsetting. They were one of those couples who actually liked each other. I guess that's not always enough. It just makes me that much happier for the people I have in my life. Geeze, would I listen to me? I sound like somebody died.

Today Chris is at band practice. I'm really proud of him for putting up that sign at Alpha Music, hastily scrawled in my green pen. I hope he's enjoying himself. I hope I can get adept enough at the keyboard to jam with him soon.

I'm doing another rubbish assignment for English (poetry journals). These don't teach us anything. It's like some dog show where we prance around, waving our shaved genitalia around and show everybody just what we've learned and what we're worth in their eyes.

I am so ready to be done with school. I think the reason I hate school so much is because I love learning, and I feel like we waste so much time. I hate that it's become pretty much the only way to get anywhere in life. I hate that most people will spend the first 25 years being treated like children and the rest of their lives in debt. I take AP courses mainly for the company. I genuinely enjoy Psych and Enviro because they're the most applicable to my life. Everybody has a mind to read, everything has an impact on the ecosystem. Even those are becoming less and less focused on inspiring a desire to learn and more focused on passing the AP test.

Lines.

2009-04-23T21:20:00.003-04:00

I'm not sure if I want the responsibility of being an artist. I don't think I'm capable of stripping myself to the bones and showing them to everyone. Everyone who reads this, everyone who listens to me is performing an autopsy. Here is a fracture, mostly healed. This was a clumsy person. These arteries are clear; she ate her vegetables and worried about her heart.

Sometimes I hate the way my mind works. Sometimes I wish I could look at something and love it for what it is. But I can't. Everything is a symbol for something. I think in imagery. I don't see a forehead; I see something like a snow globe: enticingly brittle and encapsulating an entire other world I will never touch, only see. That is how my mind works. I can't ever be happy with just an ocean or a small, cold body. No. This is a sign.

Sometimes I wish I could sleep next to you and not draw on my fears. But instead I use them to capture every beautiful thing I see. I may lose this bit of happiness; better to catalogue every minute detail. An iridescent eyelid, a hypnic jerk. These things are fragile and won't always be there. I should preserve them somehow.

My words are so inadequate. I want to finish a poem I started, and I can't help but see flat lines and sharp angles as I attempt to navigate my own thoughts. I am guided by nothing save a constellation of freckles and the cursor on my screen. It's a mess in here.

It has to be dizzying to know you've made some sort of impact. I don't feel like I'm doing that. I just feel like I'm naked and running around for everyone to watch and make of it what they will. Maybe they will look at me and miss something important. Maybe they will imagine how much better they could do it. Maybe they would try.

Keys.

2009-04-22T19:57:00.009-04:00

I've decided to take up piano again. I haven't played since I was eight or so. Chris and I need stuff to do together, and jamming with two basses is just ridiculous. I'm a little nervous and really excited.

I worry that I'm too old to start now and get truly decent. I tell myself it's just like learning a language; the notes are morphemes, the chords are words. Music theory is just like grammar. You put things in the right order and it sounds like it should and conveys what you were trying to say. It's supposed to be enormously difficult to gain fluency in a language at eighteen. Which I guess means I have the brain of a child. That's cool.

I've noticed a change in how I've been typing. It's much more fluid and I make fewer mistakes. I feel like all week I've been practicing, trying to adapt my clumsy hands to movement. I've even tried typing forte, andante, even pianissimo. I always do this. I get so excited about something that I think about it constantly. It almost never lives up to what I hope, but when it does it's breathtaking.

Snags.

2009-04-20T17:45:00.005-04:00

My day, as told to Stage. I don't feel like typing it. But holy crap people this was such a pain. ALSO: I swear a lot in it. Sorry, Mom.

17:336Bryan

CHARLES!

17:36Charlie

Fuck today, man.

Fuck it fuck it fuck it.

17:37Bryan

i need a condom

and sure thing

timefuck!
17:37Charlie

Okay, so I missed my alarm this morning.

In my hurry, I left my calculator at home,

and we had a test in Trig.

17:38Bryan

not so bad

17:38Charlie

Second block I realised I also left my Psych text at home, like I usually do.

Except this time it had a 50 point assignment inside.

So I called home, after borrowing a planner because I also left that.

Renee can't bring me the book because Dad took the car to work.

17:39Bryan

='(

17:41Bryan

*cuddle*

17:42Charlie

BUT Dad is picking me up at 12:30 so he can bring me the stuff then.

Because I have a doctor's appointment in Portsmouth.

We get there ten minutes early.

We wait for an hour and a half before anybody even sees us.

My appointment was at 1:30.

We didn't leave until 4:00

*3:30

Just in time for Portsmouth bridge traffic.

We get home at 5:30.

Today is my dad's birthday, too.
Bryan

/megasupersadface

dammit

that was supposed to say megasupersadface

17:44Charlie

I should be sad or something. I'm mainly just glad it's over.

I left out the part where my rubbish tea mug began leaking cruddy viscous dishwater all over my lunch bag and my hat. That was third block. Geeze.

Miles.

2009-04-17T16:12:00.006-04:00

There is a distance.
There is no disputing this.
I should be used to this by now.
It's been years.

You think I'd be numb from the cold
by now.
This shaking and sniffling should have stopped months ago.
I'm a big girl.
I don't need you to hold my hand.
I have pockets.
I have scraps of poems I wrote before I ever met you.
I used to think broken hearts were romantic.
I wanted to fall in love and get hit by a car.

There are enough sad stories in the world.

Tides.

2009-04-16T13:52:00.009-04:00

An ocean is not so far
not when your head is full of mermaids and monsters
and you can swim like Noah
We can only watch you
as the sand swallows your footsteps
as the gulls cry out above you.
(You always understood their language.
Where we saw pests,
scavengers,
where we saw beaks slicked with french fries and melting asphalt
you saw beauty and strength,
a creature adapted to a harsh world. You
saw love in their flat salted eyes.)

Watching
We watch
We scream and you cannot hear us
behind your beveled picture frames
our voices are just a shrug of air
"There is a better way to go
There are aeroplanes and
and there are caravans. There are astronauts."
But you laugh and toss your hair Ophelia-wise
and I see you shudder as the water rises up to meet you
You don't have to swim
you don't have to drown

I have watched the moons rise and fall
easy as a drowning breath and still there is no sign of your return.
We have our nets
we are ready to pull you from the water.
I have marked the tides of your passing
expecting every skittish gasp of water
to leave your body, fish-jeweled, at my feet
meeting only weeds and oil-dredged feathers.
So ready to be proven wrong.
We will always watch.

Circumstances.

2009-04-15T10:45:00.006-04:00

As much as I love Amanda Palmer, this was the one song on "Who Killed Amanda Palmer?" that didn't grow on me like the others did. Circumstances have changed. I just saw the video yesterday and started crying. Amanda Palmer is the only artist who can do this to me over and over.

Here's the song that I immediately fell in love with. It hit so uncomfortably close to the bone. It has very little relevance with shit going down right now, but it's still amazing.

At the end of the day, you can't pass judgment on the people you love. People need to make their own mistakes. The best you can do is love them and be there for them when and if their choices turn on them.

Nerves.

2009-04-13T15:49:00.004-04:00

I'm losing mine. I had a neurology appointment today. Going to the doctor always gets me down. I feel like I'm on trial, and that if I'd tried harder I wouldn't be in this mess. New doctor today, Dr. Seok. It's always so odd to see adult with braces like that. My last French teacher had braces, too.

By the time I got home I was wound tightly. My natural thigmotropism had me twisted around whatever I could find. Unfortunately, I found little for most of the day. Chris came over, but he's having his own problems. I felt a little better until around the time he left, and my cover slipped. I sat on the front porch after he drove off and let myself cry. I couldn't go back inside. I need the sky, I need to see the stars and clouds and feel the pollen in my lungs. I can't stare at walls all day.

My nerves are shot, run though with a thousand worries and a million accusations. I usually skip along merrily, but sometimes I trip.

Issues.

2009-04-13T11:04:00.004-04:00

I've been slacking on this blog for the past week. A couple of things have come up. Mainly, my laptop died a horrible death. It's passably functional right now, but I'm still having to fight with it. Also, my sister is having some problems and I'm doing what I can from three hundred miles away. Sorry for the low quality and volume of posts. I'll try to have some adventures or deep thoughts soon. I'm going to the orthopaedist today and maybe I'll find out what's up with my right foot being suckish and painful. Next week is the neurologist (I promise it's not a tumor making me twitch).

I'm the world's oldest teenager.

Odds.

2009-04-09T17:17:00.003-04:00

Pick one person, any person that you know. The quiet green-eyed girl at your lunch table, the asshole double-parked at China King next to you. You are so incredibly lucky to see this person. Think of how phenomenally unlikely it is that humans would even exist, that we would arise from congealed stardust and learn to walk: that we would travel so far and so fast. Think of all those children that could have been born instead. Nearly one-third of pregnancies end in miscarriage.

Even assuming that this individual is born, consider the odds of them living in the same time and the same place as you. That their lives would bring them to the same convenience store or the same stretch of beach that you just so happen to be at at exactly the same moment in time.

The other day I was lying with Chris and yes, I'd just finished reading "Watchmen." I was mulling over what Dr. Manhattan said to Laurie, and it hit me like condensed primordial soup. I am so lucky to have him. So lucky that my parents had an accident and had me, that they divorced and I couldn't stand living in Enterprise and had to move to my Dad's. I'm so lucky his parents wanted a kid so much, that his summer went so badly, that I caved and got an AIM like Nicole asked. He had a car, the football game was freezing. So many small things had to go wrong and right for me to be lying here, laughing at the ridiculous songs on Music Channel. After a life of feeling like I'm in the wrong country in the wrong century, I realised I finally found a place where I know I'm supposed to be.

Streets.

2009-04-09T08:11:00.006-04:00

I'm blogging in English, bitches. I am again using this blog for simultaneous showing-off and also for school stuffs. This was supposed to be an admissions essay to University of Chicago; it's about a street in Texas I used to always wander along in the afternoons and nights. Somewhere I have a version with a better opening and closing, but I have to find it.

Standing at a window in a bare new building, I stare into the setting sun. I am haunting a house a thousand miles to the west. I play la llorona, the wailing woman who gave her children to the river for love. Dad told me I'd like Virginia Beach. The people were more polite, the houses newer, the stores bigger. He doesn't understand why I cried so much when we left Texas, how much I need the mythology, the immortality, the magic of my empty dead-end town: how much I need to have to fight for my life. Nobody builds ofrendas to their dead in Virginia Beach; no marigolds fleck their cemeteries. There are no ghosts here; things die and they stay dead.

I am slowly re-drawing the map in my head. These roads are smoother than I’m used to, flat as a heartbeat on a screen. I stumble over the occasional level field, unaccustomed to this. It is drizzling slightly, light and fresh and cool; I catch one, two, three drops on my tongue and I miss the taste of settling dust. A thousand miles away, Dryden Avenue suns itself like a rattlesnake in the scrubland heat.

There are two Dryden Avenues. There is Dryden Avenue in the sunlight, and there is Dryden in starlight. In sunlight, Dryden is normal enough, a typical lower middle-class neighbourhood in central Texas in the 21st century. Long and winding, it is bordered by sage-scented scrubland, bounded by sandy culverts on one end and pawn shops on the other. In the amber wash of summer afternoons, Dryden is flat and grey, an elephant graveyard. In the anaemic, epileptic light of winter mornings it is a treacherous path to tread, slickened with frozen dew. But in the orange assurance of the sodium streetlamps Dryden glows, harsh and permanent as a chemical burn.

After hours, my homework as done as it will get, I evaporate into the dissipating heat of the day. My torn, frayed, safety-pin-patched, once-maybe-red Chucks begin to beat the pavement. The sidewalks and the shoes wear each other down, going for the throat; this is a fight to the death. I am trying to draw the blood from this town, to scratch into the mysteries, the myths, the magic that I see pooling beneath the surface, bruising the streets but never breaking the skin.

One hundred years ago, from this small hill I am cursing as I climb, coyotes stood and looked over the lupine and ox-eyes, and cried without words for the hunt to begin; it’s lonely at the top of the food chain. Ten years ago, from the green A-frame house seven gunshots rang out as a battered bride found the courage to say what she’d wanted all along. Yesterday I found a pair of shears thrust into someone’s lawn as protection against witches. The ends of the shears are pitted and rusted from decades in the toxic soil.

This is an area of town known as “up on the mountain,” so called for the steep, gravel-pocked granite projection which stands like a Maypole among the tiny houses dancing around it. There are tales of wild dogs on that hill, rumours of men in black-painted SUVs flitting in and out of the chain-circled dead zone on the north-eastern face.
People are crazy up here; it’s not their fault, ever since they put that power plant up all those years ago, people have gone all sorts of funny in the head. Crazy notions they get about witches, about la llorona, about werewolves. You can’t talk any sense into them; there’s no telling them what they saw.

Dryden is not where I live; it is an alien planet, a star which crossed my path while in retrograde. I cannot breathe this atmosphere. I cannot drink this water. I cannot live here, only survive. And survive I do. Sighing, heaving, blistering in the thousand lights I carve a path from the worn asphalt. I stumble on the way home and leave my skin and blood there for the wolves to find and follow me home. Late at night, when I stand at my window in a thousand miles to the east in this tragically sane new place, I hear them howling in the distance. I shut my eyes and I wait for them to find me.

It is October now. Dryden Avenue is paved in gold as wilting flowers shed their skins. I stand shirtless in my window, waiting to feel the hot wind on my skin, like the breath of some world-sized beast. Instead I feel a breeze cold and soft as a ghost’s fingers on my shoulder, and I smile. Maybe there is some life here after all.

[caesura]

Yeah, the other draft was better. I'll find it and replace this one with it in due time.

Memorials.

2009-04-07T21:28:00.004-04:00

Tomorrow I have a creative writing club meeting and I want to share this poem I did for English. However, I am too lazy and cold to leave my moderately-warm bed, so I'm copying it here from Facebook to be printed out at school. It's my interpretation of Adrienne Rich's "I am in Danger-- Sir--" as applied to one of my lifelong friends, E. E. Cummings.

“i who have died am alive again today”

“Nobody else” to no one in particular,
scrawling lovemad in neat paper columns
these wingless animals burrowing in circles
you who dreamed in colour

now burned,and interred
and you who lived more than any
who loved more than Pride
you were alive.

Channeling the spirits,
cleansing houses yet unhaunted
your pastels staining the edges
your hand a battlefield of syntax

you, capital, lowercase
in satiric kisses
for whom each bloom was not
the poem itself;

a fragile seed of something.
Until the windows whisperslid apart
and drifted inwards
cloud-shaped sheep

and while still breathing you sang
words into situations,
sang to feel the airy strength
,of moths, of presidents.

[caesura]

I write best when completely out of touch with reality. I was feeling somewhat crazy earlier, but it's passed. Until next time.

Brains.

2009-04-05T19:05:00.002-04:00

Ah, psychology, you wonderful monstrous thing.

Yesterday at Gino's I told Chris that statistically, five people in the restaurant had a personality disorder. He pointed to me, "One." Pointed to himself, "two. Where are the others?"

"Man in the green shirt with two kids. Dependent." He walks out; it's an Oasis shirt. That means Britpop which means insecurity.

Young guy is standing at his table, talking to his friends. He glances at himself constantly in the mirror, rubs his chin. Narcissist.

A girl no more than 12 reacts hysterically to her friend's text, shrieking with laughter at the other girl. She plays through the meal as if it were her swan song. Histrionic.

These are flimsy suppositions. It's a game we're playing. Psych has interfered with my view of the world so much. The ring Chris gave me no longer feels alien; that's sensory adaptation. I offer a hug to a friend because they increase oxytocin production which leads to feelings of bonding. Chris sleeps next to me, hypnagogic jerks shaking his leg; stage 1 sleep, that twisted electric mass of neurons producing alpha and theta waves. I hold him, I try to turn off my own brain.

I grew up surrounded by psychology. My mom got her master's degree when I was in elementary school. I remember she had a book about Kübler-Ross's grief cycle after my grandfather died. I learned about these later. Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. I remember them most keenly when we finally moved. For months I felt like a visitor to Virginia Beach. Then the loneliness set in. Then the wild, half-cracked plans to get an apartment in Texas coupled with my attempts to ingratiate myself with the people here. The grief, that feeling that I was absolutely truly homeless. That despair. Finally, the acceptance.

Freud argued that we are set in our ways in childhood. My mom's letter mentioned my outgoing personality and penchant for the extraordinary from when I was a small child, an infant. We evolve, we stay the same. We are ourselves, and we are the victims of circumstance. I could have turned out to differently given a different life, a different family, a different time. Or I could have been shaped by them in the same way I have been shaped by the actuality of my life. But I digress. We have a test tomorrow and I should be studying (sublimation: I defend myself from the odious chore by channeling my laziness into a more socially-acceptable outlet. I write.)

Side Effects.

2009-04-05T09:31:00.006-04:00

Holy crap you guys, I'm blonde. It's a bit lighter than my natural colour, but dude. I'm still getting used to it. This morning I took a shower and didn't have to worry about my hair getting wet. Awesome. Chris was here for the dyeing process even though I know it bores him. It bores me too.

Also, I finally got to watch "The Lion King." I mouthed the words to all the songs, and yes, I cried when Mufasa died. Chris was on the lookout and kept touching my face to see if there were tears; as soon as they came out he started tickling me. What a jerk. We also went out for pizza. That was my first time ever visiting Gino's and I made a joke about losing my virGinoty. God only knows how I made it this far in life without being beaten up.

My Mom sent me a letter on Facebook, which I read while Chris was here. It hit me how much I miss her and I started crying pretty hard. (Chris suspects the constant barrage of hormones from the Pill is making me emotional, and he may well be right. I'm going to keep on with this .prescription, though, and see what happens. Good luck dealing with me, dear.)

I really do miss my mom, though. I only get to see her a couple of times a year. I still feel bad for leaving her to live with Dad, but it was the only thing I could have done. If I'd stayed, I wouldn't have lasted much longer. If anything, moving out brought me here and it brought me to Chris. All those awful things just pushed me to where I belong. I've never been good at regrets. Still, I'm really looking forward to seeing Mom this summer.

Spoilers.

2009-04-02T20:36:00.008-04:00

Scholastic Bowl won Finals, heck yes. Then today I played in the All-Stars and got my well-dressed ass kicked. It was pretty fun. Chris was there making faces at me during commercial breaks and vanadalising my planner. We hung out at his house afterwards for a victory nap. I'm amazed these naps haven't messed with my sleep schedule appreciably. Although I do keep waking up a few minutes before my alarm every morning.

So during one of these naps a few days ago, I randomly moaned in my sleep, quite loudly. It's happened a couple of times before, but never with an audience. The most annoying part is that the sound wakes me up, but I can't stop myself; I'm totally aware of how stupid I sound. Then yesterday the phone startled me and I kicked Chris. I lose at naps.

In other news, tomorrow is most likely my last day as the girl with the colourful hair. I saw "most likely" because I'm not entirely sure about how it's going to turn out. I haven't had my natural hair colour since I was thirteen.

That was five years ago. Geeze, I'm old.

But the environmentalist in me feels guilty for all the water wasted in the dyeing process, and the lazy bum in me is tired of the upkeep. We had a hell of a run, didn't we hair? So Saturday I'm dyeing my hair my natural sandy blonde colour. Let's see how many of you guys don't notice me (protip: I'm short and probably wearing interesting socks.)

Confessions.

2009-03-29T19:20:00.003-04:00

I don't know what I would do without Chris. The thought alone scares me.

Cracks.

2009-03-29T10:58:00.004-04:00

So burned out. Two rough weeks in a row, no chance to recover. I think I may be starting to lose it. I can't lose it. I need to pull myself together; the situation's not so difficult. I'm just oh god so worn down.

"don't get me wrong oblivion
I never loved you kiddo
you that was always sticking around

spoiling me for everyone else"

I'm not sure if poetry helps me keep my sanity or if it just better expresses my lunacy. I don't care. Today I will hopefully get to see Chris and relax and just recuperate. I need to take a break before the break takes me. The last few weeks have been fun but very stupid of me. I need to learn my limits. I can't keep burning myself at both ends like this.

Fences.

2009-03-28T19:40:00.007-04:00

In case you couldn't tell, I went a little stir-crazy today. I woke up extremely full of energy; I dreamed a lot and my sheets were tousled and nearly off the bed in most places. Then, nothing.

I waited. I watched. I dicked around on Facebook. I stared into a million spaces. I took pictures of myself, my socks, my cat, the emptiness, the fog. I cried a couple of times for no real reason. I listened to Modest Mouse an unhealthy amount. I talked to Freddie for the first time in a while. Gotta love that wacky British fellow. I eventually decided to bike down to the beach to preserve my sanity in brine.

I nearly forgot my hat. My handlebar is rusted, my tyres are flat. But god, it felt good to feel the oxygen flooding me, to think of lactic acid and hyperventilation, to pedal until my vision started to blur. I felt like an ocean: churning, complex, cold, savage, polluted, full of rot and life and things with great glowing eyes. I love the beach, that thin border between our planet and that other world. In Texas I had hills and stars; here I have seas and clouds.

I walked past the fences on the dune, I walked to the fence that goes out into the water and thought about swimming around it. It's rusted, full of holes; the waves dig at the posts in the sand. There was a tall fence with barbed wire lining the path to the water's edge; beyond that were marshlands and frogs, snags full of termites. It was such a beautiful contrast: sharp metal, soft small flowers, wind-smoothed wood.

I sang loudly towards the horizon. I wrote things in the sand. I cried some more. When I was young I would cry every day. Somewhere I lost that. Lately things have been able to move me more. I was extremely ticklish, which I also lost and which has also come back. I'm not sure what that signifies.

There was a family there, taking pictures and enjoying being alone together. A small boy dangled a spiraled egg case from his hand. I want to be that family. I want to look at my children and ask if they want to go to the beach because we'll have it to ourselves. I hope they'll say yes.

I went nuts without Chris until I heard he'd had a genuinely good day; that made all my waiting and twitching suddenly worth it. Today I biked to the beach. I heard spring peepers in the woods. It's been cold for far too long, but it's almost over.

Deep breaths.

2009-03-28T17:52:00.005-04:00

I have stood
breathless
in front of so many microwaves
watching molecules shake
watching my next meal.
I shake with weakness
I haven't eaten in years.

Some days I have stood
raw
on the edge of the ocean
waiting for some sign,
listening to the sand singing
and singing along.

I can't stand on my own anymore.
I'm walking to the ocean today
the water is cold and there is a song stuck in my head
there is sand in my eyes.

There is a poem in this water, I am sure of it. Hell if I can find it. There's a poem inside me right now, and I can't get it out. I have lines, as you've seen. Today I haven't felt quite sane.

...

I should get some sleep, or go outside, or do something besides wait here. Anything.

Rarities.

2009-03-28T14:53:00.008-04:00

I finally got The Cure's first album, Three Imaginary Boys. I found it, used, at F.Y.E. music with Chris and of course had to shriek at him about it. God only knows why he likes me. I'm listening to it now. The Cure changed so much over their career, they evolved constantly. The constant ebb and flow of fresh blood kept them from getting boring. Even at their worst, they were never ever boring.

This is the deluxe edition, with an extra disc full of rarities: demos for Hansa, live performances. I'm most interested in these. I strain through the dusty sound of decades past and listen to Robert Smith's exuberant voice. I'm listening for some hint of his future mastery of poetry. A few lines stand out, signaling that this boy is not just some foolish yob with a guitar. But for the most part I hear a kid barely older than me, full of hope about his stroke of good luck with the band.

There's a live track called "Heroin Face," and I hear people chattering the background. I wonder what they think of this thin boy with wild black hair, of his oversized sneakers and his snarling and wailing. I wonder if Robert's moving with the music, if he was nervous.

A home demo of "10:15 Saturday Night." This version is slower, more melancholy than the one I grew up with. There's a keyboard line I've never heard before. I wonder why they upped the tempo on the album release:

I remember hearing this song, feeling that jolt in my guts; finally, somebody got me. I wasn't the only one who sat around for hours waiting for phone calls that never came. I wonder if she ever did call him, if she remembers him at all.

Even though my passion for them has waned, I still love The Cure and I think I always will. They always inspire this sort of wonder in me. It's so easy to be in love with a band. Even people who can't make a relationship last two weeks can devote their love to someone's voice for their whole lives without thinking, without doubting. Nobody gets hurt. When I had nobody else in the whole world, I had Robert Smith. Now that the tears have mostly stopped, he's still there. My favourite thing about The Cure is their eclecticism; they always have something to say. From that first bootlegged garage sale tape, I've been inseperable from this band. I can say with absolute certainty that this is the kind of love that lasts forever. When all else fails, there's always music. Always.

Words.

2009-03-25T19:23:00.005-04:00

I'm writing you a poem, you know. I don't want you to see it until I'm convinced it's perfect. It's so frustrating trying to capture something so ineffable in straight black rows. I wish I were a painter, or a singer. I wish I could carve a stone into something as beautiful as what you've given me. You deserve to know you inspired something magnificent and immortal.

Guts.

2009-03-24T15:01:00.008-04:00

It doesn't look like a bird from here: more an explosion of feathers. Walking home I found a dead bird in someone's yard. It was a mockingbird once. A black-and-white cat is sitting in the window gazing out lazily. You forget how savage the things you love can be. You forget about those sturdy masseter muscles when it's not you they're rending into so much dust and bone.

In the tree above it another bird sits, happily imitating a car alarm, unmindful of its fallen comrade. Even the birds here are soldiers.

I find myself trying to identify the parts that remain: down, primary flight feathers, the buccal mass. A distal phalanx lies nearby. All those books I read when I was a girl come back to me: those small bodies splayed open, bloodless pictures of iridescent muscles and glittering nerves, an open green eye circumscribed with a 270° field of vision. I know somebody trapped these animals, somebody limed twigs and somebody cut them open and arranged their organs in neat rows and counted the chambers in their hearts. To know a thing is to love it.

A breeze lifts up one downy feather, flightless.

Waves.

2009-03-23T21:43:00.004-04:00

My hands distorted under the water.
I have taken off my rings
and I belong to no one.
Nobody knocks at my door. It is just me in here:
quite naked, alone with the echoes
beneath the porcelain.
Under scrutiny from the spiders in the drain.
Alone.

Head bowed, under the waves of my own making
it isn't hard to drown
The trick is to keep breathing.

Steps.

2009-03-22T09:32:00.006-04:00

My legs are so sore, holy crap. Yesterday I climbed Cape Henry lighthouse with Jocy and my parents and then I went to Ring Dance with the gang. This morning I tried walking down those stupid winding Alice-in-Wonderland stairs in my house and I had to stop at the first landing to stretch and rest. Hahahowwww

It was all worth it. The view from the lighthouse was beautiful, and so was the ocean at the harbourmaster. I can finally appreciate Virginia for what it is instead of hating all the ways it's different from Texas. I also realised the my dad and stepmom are really cute together. Dad was taking Renee's picture in front of the statue of de Grasse and she asked why he was taking so much time to adjust the view. Dad responded with, "Well, I'm rather fond of the subject matter." Jocy and I had a good laugh about that on our way towards the beach. There were steps leading down to the water's edge and I doubt anybody's walked them in years.

On the ride home Jocy taught us if you spell socks you're saying "That's what it is." in Spanish (Eso si que es).

After we got home, Chris picked me up and we went to get ready for the dance. The whole drive there and on the walk to and from the restaurant Chris kept morosely insiting everyone was staring at us and we looked ridiculous. Poor boy: he hates being looked at, but he's six feet tall, drives an orange car, and has a girlfriend with colourful hair.

Ring Dance was better than anticipated. There's something to be said for boys who don't dance. I only fell once, although I hit my head and nearly popped out of my dress at the same time, so the awkwardness was of a pretty great magnitude. A bunch of SCA senior kids from my Gov class were there for some reason. I don't know how many of them were dating juniors. Zack and Maya civilly ignored each other for the whole event, as predicted. Everybody looked snazzy as hell and Donald danced like the magnificent lunatic he is.

My favourite part: Chris and I getting fed up with the music and listening to MGMT's "Kids" on his phone and singing along. I love that boy like anything.

Rings.

2009-03-21T09:46:00.011-04:00

Today is the long-awaited Ring Dance, so I'm going to tell y'all about my rings. I may as well do something ring-related.

My freshman year Jocy and I read an amazing book called "The Realm of Possibility " (which has been a longstanding favourite and never fails to make me believe in things like love and fate and such). It opens with a chapter about Jed who has a claddagh to give to his boyfriend Daniel for their anniversary. Throughout the book teenager's lives intersect and glance off each other.

"Here’s what I know about the realm of possibility—
it is always expanding, it is never what you think
it is. Everything around us was once deemed
impossible. From the airplane overhead to
the phones in our pockets to the choir girl
putting her arm around the metalhead.
As hard as it is for us to see sometimes, we all exist
within the realm of possibility. Most of the limits
are of our own world’s devising. And yet,
every day we each do so many things
that were once impossible to us."

Jed's my hero. Jocy and I both decided to find claddaghs of our own and that December, we finally did. In Copperas Cove every December, there was a German Christmas festival called Krist Kindl Markt and all of downtown would be barricaded off an transformed into a small carnival. I just so happened to find a vendor selling the rings for $5 a piece. I've worn mine virtually every day since then; Jocy had to buy a new one because of skin allergies, and she wears hers, too.

I have another ring on my left hand that Chris gave me as a Valentine's Day gift. He found it in his room ages ago. I can never decide if it's a bigger deal than it seems or if it matters too much to me. One time it fell off as we were walking and I flipped out trying to find it (it was dark). Chris was surprised that I was upset at nearly losing it. I told him it was important to me. I'm not sure if he realised it before then.

Things are most important when they're irreplaceable.

Most people who have heard these stories tell me they didn't even notice my rings. Truth be told, most days I don't. I put my rings on my glasses. at night so I don't lose them and put them on in a stupor in the morning. But I definitely notice when I can't find them. I suppose I should appreciate the things I have more than I do.

"Days into minutes
minutes into moments
moments into possibility."

One Hundred Days.

2009-03-20T14:39:00.007-04:00

One hundred days today. I'm not sure why I find that so interesting. I think because of what a big deal the hundredth day of school was when I was younger: those little Ziploc bags full of Cheerios, Froot Loops, pennies. So much, yet not enough. I had a small idea, but lack of transportation is making pretty much everything impossible. And everybody knows small ideas become extremely important when you can't carry them out...

I skipped school today to hang out with Jocy, slept until about noon and then watched YouTube videos. Terribly exciting stuff.

Tonight I'm shaving my underarms for the first time since last June on account of Ring Dance. I'm none too thrilled with the prospect, but I've pretty much made peace with it. One thing my adventures in hair colour have taught me is that no matter how much you like or hate your hair, it will always grow back. I don't think I'll be wearing as many tank tops until my pits are back to their usual fantastic fuzziness; it just wouldn't be the same. So today I'm wearing my favourite blue one and stretching out in the sun.

We all make compromises. It's only when they don't bother you that you've lost your integrity.

Dunes.

2009-03-19T20:47:00.005-04:00

It's bothersome that I live so near the ocean and I see it so seldom. Today Jocy and I walked to Pendleton beach on base to look at the water. The wind whipped the sand around my ankles and they got quite red and irritated. It was also extremely cold and I wore a skirt like a skirt-wearing dumbass. My feet were red and numb by the time we were halfway to the shore. Still a good time overall; the wind made the sand sing, which I've never heard in person. Jocy dug a hole in the sand, but we didn't bring anything to bury in it.

I didn't plan that trip out well at all. At one point I desperately had to pee, and Jocy told me to just find a quiet spot and go. I'm not going to lie; peeing outside was pretty cool. Felt very free. But then I found the port-a-johns twenty feet away. Oh, well.

On the walk back Jocy and I talked. She met Chris today and "was surprisingly pleasing but indecisive" (her words), but she also thinks he's very sweet (he totally is). She's gotten a bit more cynical over the years, and it's hard for me to watch that, especially as I've gotten ever more comfortable with that optimistic part of me. Tomorrow I'm skiving off school. Not really sure what we'll be doing, though.

Hints.

2009-03-17T21:56:00.005-04:00

I think it was you I loved all along.
I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner.
I could have written it out, splattered and crimson
but I didn't.
I held it back-- I forced it down.

Every smile, every frozen hand, every poem
gathering dust
until the dust became a thing itself: nebulous
but more solid.

I watched blank pages collecting in front of me
and I counted every one.

Baby Steps.

2009-03-15T09:53:00.008-04:00

Flour, sugar, water, cocoa, vegetable oil, vinegar, salt, baking soda, vanilla. Alchemy.

I love cooking: art, science, hedonism, necessity. Zack and Chris make cracks about gender roles, but whatever. Chris is the one who wants me to shave for Ring Dance, after all (that's an entry for another day...). Dad's the one who taught me to cook, and who showed me how useful a skill it is. One of the things I'm most looking forward to about being on my own is being able to cook dinner all the time.

Yesterday was Pi Day and I made a dairy-free cake. It was kinda disappointing, really: pretty dry. The plan was to frost it and write out pi in icing, but that fell through. So it was just a dry naked cake. Chris sheepishly told me on the ride home from Gibbings's that he didn't like it, and then kept asking if I was okay. And I was. There was a time that would have sent me into a shame spiral, but I just accepted that the cake was mediocre. I did not run home crying nd print out and try half a dozen recipes, I did not throw the remainder out of the window. It wasn't my recipe, and I know I made it correctly. I think I'm getting better at not letting things get to me.

Today at the Commissary, my card refused to work (I found out Dad had put the money in the wrong account; somebody hit pay dirt.) Last time that happened I nearly started crying. Instead I felt just a vague annoyance. Chris was with me at the time (of course) and seemed to expect me to freak out. Not an unreasonable expectation, really, but I stayed calm and eventually got my groceries. Yesss, I have food. Now I just have to remember to eat it fairly regularly.

Chris stayed for dinner with my parents and Grandma Sharon, which was mercifully uneventful. We discussed our respective childhood injuries (Me: pecan branch to the head; Renee: block to the face). We went upstairs to hang out and listened to my dad perform the Halo theme a capella downstairs.

Jocy's coming in two days. I feel so bad for Chris: broken computer, distracted girlfriend. I'm excited for them to meet, though. I really think they'll like each other. I love how J'Niece and Jocy are both excited to hang out again. Maybe I can finally get some Indian food. This week is going to be hella interesting, to say the least.

Plans.

2009-03-12T19:25:00.004-04:00

Today Alex told me he likes my blog. It's really excellent to know somebody appreciates what you're doing and you don't even have to sleep with them. Now I just have to be sure to keep things interesting. I think that's why I procrastinate so much; I like the challenge and rush of a last-minute project. For example that Enviro book report was assigned at the beginning of the school year. I started it at five this afternoon. I just finished it. I love close cuts like that, but I'm kind of worried that if I keep getting out of trouble like this, I'm never going to learn.

I should not have survived this week. I should be in tear-salted shreds. Two Battle of the Brains filmings, crazy English project, crazy Enviro project, various friends freaking out... and I haven't broken down in tears at lunch in months (a disconcertingly regular occurrence at the beginning of this school year). I'm becoming fearless. I've even become brave enough to ask when I need something. I think this bravery has something to do with sharing myself through this thing and a lot to do with having Chris around.

In other news, I have plans. Nothing makes me happier than planning. Plans for this weekend are DnDing with Gibbings, Stage and Co and feeding them vegan cake on Pi Day (because Chris is a weirdo and doesn't like pie) and finally seeing "Watchmen" after two foiled attempts. How will I accomplish this? I have a plan, of course. Plans for Ring Dance and dinner beforehand are slowly forming. I hope they work out. I hope everything works out.

UPDATE: Right after I went to bed Jocy called asking if we could pick her up from Norfolk Int'l Tuesday night. Now I'm too excited to sleep. JOCY IS COMING, HOORAY

Degrees.

2009-03-09T19:58:00.005-04:00

Spring is here. My window has been open for days. It's beautiful. Fuck winter. Fuck grey skies, fuck early nightfall, fuck its poor sweet soul. The air smells astringent and the ocean is blue. The Earth will keep spinning and tilting and wobbling and winter will come again. It's autumn in Australia.

These are my favourite parts of the year, when the old stale seasons crack and as they flake away you see soft green leaves, long sweat-slicked nights, the smell of smoke, a rime of frost. That sense of relief is my favourite season.

It's spring in my hemisphere. It's raining in my head and things are growing. This blog was a crocus, a fragile certain shoot in the snow, pushing, pushing. The ground lay fallow for so long; I'd forgotten writing. In my uncertainty, my only conviction became that I had nothing to say. And maybe I don't. But when I look out the window words apply themselves in certain ways I can't explain.

I wrote a poem today, deliberately and in neat rows. I used an index card because it's what I had. It's too dangerous to share. Even though it still hurts, the ground has been packed flat enough I can walk on it without sinking in mud up to my shins. I think I've gotten my anger under control enough that the indictment is hidden in the art. It's not what you think, but it's not what would surprise you. Today I wrote again. It's spring and things are growing, yellow, green, purpled and honey-scented. The world is tilting.

Seconds.

2009-03-07T23:17:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I got to see Life's Better Sides's show at Club Relevant. I'm proud to report my friends were legitimately the best band there. Well done, Messers. Gibbings, Renaud, Schwarz and Miss Cardiff. I also got to climb a tree, which I haven't done since the magnolia tree when I was very small. My cold is still lingering, and my coughing got pretty violent last night. Chris is still the only person allowed to worry about me, and I'm glad to have him around.

Today we set off in search of a Ring Dance dress for me. Again, CHKD has allowed me to look spiffy in a hurry. Last time it provided my prom dress for $20, and today it yielded up a Ring Dance dress. I thought $7.99 was a pretty sweet price, but the hipster cashier evidently thought it wasn't worth even that. She insisted on reducing the price to $3.99, and I should be really pleased. But I can't help but feel that nagging worry that everybody looks down on me. It gets to me a bit, and then I get aggravated with myself for allowing it to bother me, while Chris sweetly insists that hipsters aren't actual people. And I just hope I'm good enough for him.

Later we got to hang out at Guitar Center and frolic in the woods, admiring all the marvellous instruments we'd never own. We tried to get into "Watchmen" but there was a sly cashier who could actually look at Chris's ID and tell what age he would be. Curse you, maths. Cue slinking off in defeat.

Back home we recuperated, using Thin Mints to lift our spirits. That's how I found out Thin Mints make Chris sick... I'm eating some now, and I can't help but silently taunt them with each bite. This'll teach you to hurt my boyfriend, you stupid little chocolatey delight.

To Rachael, who I think reads this blog--

2009-03-07T09:14:00.003-05:00

I'm really proud of you for standing up to your mother like that. I know it was hard. I'm also sorry to hear you don't want to see me again, but it's probably for the best. Ten years is a long way off; I hope you'll find a way to be happy.

Love,
Charlie

Pills.

2009-03-05T20:19:00.008-05:00

Guess who had her first gynaecologist visit today? It was me. A pretty amusing experience. I actually totally forgot I had an appointment, and was a bit nervous when called out of Enviro down to the office. The I remembered the appointment and got really nervous.

Dad and I went to the tiny, ill-equipped navy hospital on Oceana, and the receptionist did little to allay my nerves. She made a half-hearted attempt at being discreet by pulling me off to the side and whispering "Are you sexually active?" My cover was immediately blown when I went back to Dad and she said quite loudly "I shoulda given you the lecture I give all the girls. You know the pill don't protect you from STDs. Make sure you use a condom even when you're on the pill; you know boys'll tell you they're clean just to get at you." She then shook her head sadly and said "Sex isn't even that fun, I don't know what's wrong with you." At that point Dad interjected with "You must not be doing it right." I love my dad.

Dr. Lintag was much nicer. She was a small Asian woman with an accent I couldn't place, and she called me "my dear" and was impressed with the scar on my back. She kept cracking jokes to help me relax, but this also made me laugh. Not a good thing during a pelvic exam. But still, I'm pretty stoked I got a nice doctor. If I'm going to get probed and groped by a stranger, it better be a nice one.

Later Chris came over and we hung out a bit. I showed him my spiffy little dialpak of pills. I'm a little nervous about going on birth control, knowing what some of the side effects are. But I'm counting on being among the millions of women who use them with little to no problem, unless you count the annoying clicking sound the dialpak makes. Today was the first time I've gotten to so much as kiss him in four days, and I seized the opportunity. Then I remembered that I'd registered a fever of 99.4 during my check-up. Ack. If he gets sick, not only will he be feeling suckish for days, but it will be my fault and all that time stopping myself from pouncing on him will have been for aught. I need to learn more self-control. Or get a less appealing boyfriend.

I guess I should feel more grown-up. You're supposed to after these milestones, but I never do. Not when I turned eighteen, not when I had my first kiss or lost my virginity. I only feel different after some situation arises and I see how I face it. I think people are most like themselves when they're distracted by a problem and don't have the energy to put on the mask. It's when you're too freaked out to take the pills that you know how much better you're feeling.

Germs.

2009-03-03T10:06:00.004-05:00

I've been feeling a little buzzy-headed for the past few days. I woke up this morning feverish and voiceless. I don't feel too terribly; at least last night's nausea and cramping has passed. But I decided to stay home, mainly because I don't want anyone else to catch this. Not fun. My mouth is numb from all the lozenges I've taken.

It's funny how I fell ill after insisting repeatedly to Chris's parents that I don't get sick. Fortunately, he seems to have evaded it for now.

I hate being sick. I think that's why I ignore my illnesses; that admission that I'm only human used to bother me, make me feel like I was weak. I think I've grown up a lot these past few months. I know I can't do everything; I know I have limits. I'm never going to be perfect. I'm learning to accept this, and doing my best to maybe even embrace it.

Secrets.

2009-03-01T12:18:00.005-05:00

I've never had many secrets. I have no shame, and I love telling stories. I'm pretty much an open book, and I hope to god I'm not a boring one. But some things I've kept hidden, afraid of forcing your hand. I've been told before that I drag people into things. I didn't want to make you do anything. I wanted to stand on my own.

It was so hard for me to swallow my pride and say "I'm yours." Every last little inch of me. It's embarrassing how love makes us give ourselves away, but I'm amazed at how it's not difficult to trust you with myself. You trust me with you. I'm thoroughly, irrevocably yours. That was my last secret.

States.

2009-02-28T22:40:00.003-05:00

I am so tired. I woke up at six, did trivia for hours, and then partied like a rock star. It's been amazing. After Friday's disconcerting numbness, today was welcome.

Today Scholastic Bowl went to STATE (echo, echo, echo). Chris and I went to Zack's house, and Z's mom drove us to William and Mary , along with Alex and Zack's girlfriend Emily. We met up with Megan, Eric, and John there. The first round went well, but we were trounced by Maggie Walker Governor's School later. They were so good, though. They deserved to win. We finished up fourth overall, and maybe have a shot at Nationals still. Plus, I got a super-sexy t-shirt.

William and Mary is one of those colleges I really wanted to apply to, but couldn't afford the application. I think I'll apply for transfer next year instead of waiting until I have my associate's. It was just so nice there.

After Hickory beat us up and sent us home, we went to hang out at Z's house for a few hours. We played Apples to Apples and Guitar Hero, and partook of some bubble gum. Alex was third-wheeling so hard, and he took it like a true gentlemen, even when Chris and I full-on snogged to mess with him.

I'm going to bed soon. Tomorrow I'm going to try to buy some hair dye, and see what havoc I can wreak. But now I'm tired from battles well-fought and games well-played. Thank you, everybody who made today possible.

Thanks to Chris for singing like a British punk, to Alex for being such a trooper. Thanks to Emily for taunting the boys, to Zack for his crazy eyebrows, and Mrs. Garcia for putting up with our nonsense. Thanks, Hickory, for the good-natured rivalry, and thanks to that guy who picked up Chris's camera after I dropped it. Thank you all. I love you; good night.

Leftovers.

2009-02-24T20:28:00.007-05:00

Dad and I argued again. Always the same argument; leftovers. Why didn't I eat the stuffed shells? How long has that celery been in the fridge? I hate these arguments more than anything. I hate how I get so aggravated and upset over something so trivial. At one point Dad said what I've felt for months, "It's getting more like we're roommates and less like a father and a daughter." Part of me thinks he doesn't know how much that stings, and part of me thinks it hurts him just as much.

It's not surprising, really. He expects me to feed and take care of myself, leaves me to my own devices, and pretty much gives me free rein. He's never been very involved: not when there were guitars to play, beers to drink, video games to play. I remember when I was little and Dad meant the world to me. How everything went grey and mute when the principal pulled me out of Mrs. Flemings' class and tole me Dad had had a heart attack.

Now there's just this. Just the pasta going hard in the back of the fridge, the small scar on his chest. Just these small crumbs where my family used to be.

Freebies.

2009-02-24T19:33:00.004-05:00

I haven't had to work for anything today. Chelsea bought me M&Ms for no reason; my English homework (yes, that homework) wasn't even presented today because my partner was sick. I had free pancakes with Chris at IHOP, and then somehow had no homework. Today was easy in ways that make me cautious.

One year I will celebrate Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Or Galveston, maybe.