and his father laughed and talked on the long ride home
it was inevitable
~
i want to preserve something. ownership of words, keeper of experiences, teller of tales. it is my duty to make this life more real, to make this life more than it would be if the only words we could say were our initials, vowel sounds, and the first letters of colors.
so i am here dreaming of preservation and lives to be lived and rejected and embraced. i am here dreaming of embraces and longing and yes, i am missing you. i am missing you and i am waking up like a kid on christmas morning and finding out that the mail doesn't come until 12:00 in the afternoon and even then the only people who care about me are Deans of Admission. so i dream of you and dirty cars, and of longing and memories. and i sit and write about irrelevance and life-living when really if i don't set something on fire soon this rebellion is going to be revoked and i will set foot in abercrombie. i really really want to get drunk, but i haven't yet; every bottle of alcohol i lay eyes on turns into the curvaceous women carved into the bows of ships. maybe this is because i am on medication that means i can't consume so i stare and dream of downing the whole half-bottle in one long stream down my throat. this is far too personal.
this should be in paragraphs. this should be in short lines. this should be poetry. i looked at myself in the mirror today, quickly, in passing, and found myself beautiful, and the label 'poet' flashed above my head. i can't explain it. i love other people's opinions of me. i hate wincing when someone i love makes a grammatical error and i must find it in my soul to forgive them and not judge them. i hate it when i make grammatical errors.
my sense of self is shady at best; i am discovering this uncertainty more and more and it is scary. the pressure increases every day.
know yourself know yourself know yourself:
don't know what color curtains you want in your room?
don't know if you like that bed?
don't know why you like those shoes,
are those shoes your style,
what is your style?
what is your style?
who are you?
WHO ARE YOU?
KNOW YOURSELF.
pressure.
i miss you SO MUCH. i miss when you used to sing dorky songs to me, and i miss sixth grade when we were all so fucking equal. i miss sleepovers and giggling and childhood and acting out i everything i saw on the tv and singing together in science class, the perfect picture of 11 year old douche bags. i miss being afraid to say shit. i miss reading books and imagining what it would be like to be older (why miss it when i still do it every day of my life?). i miss junk food, i miss bags of candy, bowlfuls of m&ms, how you always, always liked the weird stuff, and fuckin mike and ikes? like, what 7 year old likes mike and ikes except weird super mature ones. i miss greasy pizzas. i miss you.
there's a wall that has been put up between when i was young and when i was old.
i'm running through my memories trying to find it.
it's extremely eternal sunshine.
but i can't find it because what i'm looking for doesn't exist. there is no chain link fence put up after age 7 (that memory), there is no berlin wall to rip down post age 14 (that memory) and there is no wall bathed in bodies, 300 style, that lurks leering maliciously upon the day my mother announced my parents seperation (that memory). all the feelings i associate with childhood and all of the tears i associate with adulthood linger in memories from all ages. there's nowhere to draw a line. all of life is scary and terrible and beautiful and innocent.
but some days are less innocent.
some days draw sharp white chalk lines
down the center of the chalk board
and scrawl definitive darkness
that you can't hide from.
i don't remember
the time we ate pizza
because it was like any other time we ate pizza.
except for the secrets that were whispered to me later,
(i was never privvy to your problems until they were long past.)
because that was the time
(was it only once? i'll never know-- i tell myself i don't want to)
the you went into the bathroom
and made yourself throw it up.
and she found you in there.
[i can only imagine how much you hate me typing this.
i wish i could write it without you knowing i was writing about you.
i wish these weren't your memories too.]
i can only imagine the garish public bathroom light
toilets lined up in rows.
hidden.
tile floors.
"if you didn't want the pizza, we could've gotten salad."
"i would've thrown up the salad."
she tells it to me years after its occurence,
and i don't understand how it still scares both of us so much.
i can see it in our eyes,
in the reverence with which the story is passed.
it makes us both want to throw up.
"i would've thrown up the salad."
the words fill up the darkness
like getting hit by a semi truck.
(the words curl up like a dog next to you,
warm, living, fur puppy-soft.
you know them. they don't shock you.)
we are so far from sixth grade and at this point in my life when i think back ten years i was six years old.
who the fuck am i ?
who the fuck am i to pretend i know anything about anything.
what i know is that you're killing us, what i know is that too many people are saying nothing, what i know is that her thighs were bigger than that before they airbrushed him, what i know is that someday i've gotta stop singing along with lyrics about bitches and hos and pussies no matter how fat the beat is.
what i know is that being a feminist isn't cool, and that being a teenager sure as hell ain't cool. what i know is that i cannot impersonate disempowered black women, and i sure as hell can't deliver a monologue as one. what i know is that there are multiple meanings of the word contraction, and that a caryatid is a column used to support buildings, by some definitions with the shape a woman carved in it.
what i know is that my writing scares me. you told me i was raw once and you are right,
right right right,
but i don't know if i am raw like meat, wet and pink and surrounded by buzzing black specks
or if i am raw like skin rubbed red,
like something pushed
to the breaking point.
my writing scares be because i swear too much (my mother's best friend saw me recite a poem about fucking the boy i have loved since freshman year. granted it was only one line, but there was that other line about underage drinking.)
my writing scares me because i can't seem to make myself dishonest (make me stop writing about sex. make me stop submitting poems to variations that include refrences to beds. "why am i such a slut?")
i don't want to show it to you
i don't want to show it to you
i want you to read it and love me.
"hello, here's my heart, you can have it. you're the only one who deserves it."
"you're the good things,
yeah that's you
yeah that's you."
i don't even know why i'm writing this. i don't know who i'm writing this for. i don't know how my fingers learned to type this fast, how my brain learned to work this way, how my brain works how language works. but this is all irrelevant. or the only relevance. either way, there is no point to writing this because it is like chucking a rock at another rock. it makes a noise and then just sits there. who would want to wade through the novel that i have just spewed forth, and what would it give them in return, should they expend such an effort? oh, go be a math major you cocky bastard.
shit. i forgot what i was talking about. i had it all planned out in my head, and it was going somewhere but i forgot. i had it all planned out in my head.
it was going to sound nice and make you think, and the end result was going to be:
you make my sentences shorter.
because it's true.
well, in a manner of speaking.
i write a lot about signs of life, like breathing and heart beating and such.
i write a lot about explosions.
i write a lot about love, and being lost.
i am pathetic.
& i miss you.
come home.
( i will make a home for you
out of the smell of cooking quesadillas
and books. i will make a home for us:
a communal house of happiness
and literary publications; and i will take polaroids
of our happiness and tape them to walls
that are lined with twinkly lights. (we are non-
denominational.) i will breathe fog breath
onto frosty windows and draw hearts with my fingertips
that will guide you home.)
i miss you.
please come home.
~
i want to preserve something. ownership of words, keeper of experiences, teller of tales. it is my duty to make this life more real, to make this life more than it would be if the only words we could say were our initials, vowel sounds, and the first letters of colors.
so i am here dreaming of preservation and lives to be lived and rejected and embraced. i am here dreaming of embraces and longing and yes, i am missing you. i am missing you and i am waking up like a kid on christmas morning and finding out that the mail doesn't come until 12:00 in the afternoon and even then the only people who care about me are Deans of Admission. so i dream of you and dirty cars, and of longing and memories. and i sit and write about irrelevance and life-living when really if i don't set something on fire soon this rebellion is going to be revoked and i will set foot in abercrombie. i really really want to get drunk, but i haven't yet; every bottle of alcohol i lay eyes on turns into the curvaceous women carved into the bows of ships. maybe this is because i am on medication that means i can't consume so i stare and dream of downing the whole half-bottle in one long stream down my throat. this is far too personal.
this should be in paragraphs. this should be in short lines. this should be poetry. i looked at myself in the mirror today, quickly, in passing, and found myself beautiful, and the label 'poet' flashed above my head. i can't explain it. i love other people's opinions of me. i hate wincing when someone i love makes a grammatical error and i must find it in my soul to forgive them and not judge them. i hate it when i make grammatical errors.
my sense of self is shady at best; i am discovering this uncertainty more and more and it is scary. the pressure increases every day.
know yourself know yourself know yourself:
don't know what color curtains you want in your room?
don't know if you like that bed?
don't know why you like those shoes,
are those shoes your style,
what is your style?
what is your style?
who are you?
WHO ARE YOU?
KNOW YOURSELF.
pressure.
i miss you SO MUCH. i miss when you used to sing dorky songs to me, and i miss sixth grade when we were all so fucking equal. i miss sleepovers and giggling and childhood and acting out i everything i saw on the tv and singing together in science class, the perfect picture of 11 year old douche bags. i miss being afraid to say shit. i miss reading books and imagining what it would be like to be older (why miss it when i still do it every day of my life?). i miss junk food, i miss bags of candy, bowlfuls of m&ms, how you always, always liked the weird stuff, and fuckin mike and ikes? like, what 7 year old likes mike and ikes except weird super mature ones. i miss greasy pizzas. i miss you.
there's a wall that has been put up between when i was young and when i was old.
i'm running through my memories trying to find it.
it's extremely eternal sunshine.
but i can't find it because what i'm looking for doesn't exist. there is no chain link fence put up after age 7 (that memory), there is no berlin wall to rip down post age 14 (that memory) and there is no wall bathed in bodies, 300 style, that lurks leering maliciously upon the day my mother announced my parents seperation (that memory). all the feelings i associate with childhood and all of the tears i associate with adulthood linger in memories from all ages. there's nowhere to draw a line. all of life is scary and terrible and beautiful and innocent.
but some days are less innocent.
some days draw sharp white chalk lines
down the center of the chalk board
and scrawl definitive darkness
that you can't hide from.
i don't remember
the time we ate pizza
because it was like any other time we ate pizza.
except for the secrets that were whispered to me later,
(i was never privvy to your problems until they were long past.)
because that was the time
(was it only once? i'll never know-- i tell myself i don't want to)
the you went into the bathroom
and made yourself throw it up.
and she found you in there.
[i can only imagine how much you hate me typing this.
i wish i could write it without you knowing i was writing about you.
i wish these weren't your memories too.]
i can only imagine the garish public bathroom light
toilets lined up in rows.
hidden.
tile floors.
"if you didn't want the pizza, we could've gotten salad."
"i would've thrown up the salad."
she tells it to me years after its occurence,
and i don't understand how it still scares both of us so much.
i can see it in our eyes,
in the reverence with which the story is passed.
it makes us both want to throw up.
"i would've thrown up the salad."
the words fill up the darkness
like getting hit by a semi truck.
(the words curl up like a dog next to you,
warm, living, fur puppy-soft.
you know them. they don't shock you.)
we are so far from sixth grade and at this point in my life when i think back ten years i was six years old.
who the fuck am i ?
who the fuck am i to pretend i know anything about anything.
what i know is that you're killing us, what i know is that too many people are saying nothing, what i know is that her thighs were bigger than that before they airbrushed him, what i know is that someday i've gotta stop singing along with lyrics about bitches and hos and pussies no matter how fat the beat is.
what i know is that being a feminist isn't cool, and that being a teenager sure as hell ain't cool. what i know is that i cannot impersonate disempowered black women, and i sure as hell can't deliver a monologue as one. what i know is that there are multiple meanings of the word contraction, and that a caryatid is a column used to support buildings, by some definitions with the shape a woman carved in it.
what i know is that my writing scares me. you told me i was raw once and you are right,
right right right,
but i don't know if i am raw like meat, wet and pink and surrounded by buzzing black specks
or if i am raw like skin rubbed red,
like something pushed
to the breaking point.
my writing scares be because i swear too much (my mother's best friend saw me recite a poem about fucking the boy i have loved since freshman year. granted it was only one line, but there was that other line about underage drinking.)
my writing scares me because i can't seem to make myself dishonest (make me stop writing about sex. make me stop submitting poems to variations that include refrences to beds. "why am i such a slut?")
i don't want to show it to you
i don't want to show it to you
i want you to read it and love me.
"hello, here's my heart, you can have it. you're the only one who deserves it."
"you're the good things,
yeah that's you
yeah that's you."
i don't even know why i'm writing this. i don't know who i'm writing this for. i don't know how my fingers learned to type this fast, how my brain learned to work this way, how my brain works how language works. but this is all irrelevant. or the only relevance. either way, there is no point to writing this because it is like chucking a rock at another rock. it makes a noise and then just sits there. who would want to wade through the novel that i have just spewed forth, and what would it give them in return, should they expend such an effort? oh, go be a math major you cocky bastard.
shit. i forgot what i was talking about. i had it all planned out in my head, and it was going somewhere but i forgot. i had it all planned out in my head.
it was going to sound nice and make you think, and the end result was going to be:
you make my sentences shorter.
because it's true.
well, in a manner of speaking.
i write a lot about signs of life, like breathing and heart beating and such.
i write a lot about explosions.
i write a lot about love, and being lost.
i am pathetic.
& i miss you.
come home.
( i will make a home for you
out of the smell of cooking quesadillas
and books. i will make a home for us:
a communal house of happiness
and literary publications; and i will take polaroids
of our happiness and tape them to walls
that are lined with twinkly lights. (we are non-
denominational.) i will breathe fog breath
onto frosty windows and draw hearts with my fingertips
that will guide you home.)
i miss you.
please come home.