So Don't Cry

All My Loving, I'll Send to You

I officially love you. This isn’t a new discovery, or anything to marvel over really. It’s just a fact that is—something simple, something easy, something honest. We all know how much I love honesty. I can’t deny it. The truth is apparently my best friend, sitting comfortably on my lips. I won’t lie if you ask me this question, I won’t tell you something to make it better, or disguise how I’m feeling right now. I wear my secrets sewn snugly into my sleeve, resting atop my wrist, waiting for you to see them.
So I love you, for everything I’ve seen and everything I know. And it’s been hard to keep it quiet with my honest mouth on fire. I’ve called and written and sent you all the notes I can write with trembling fingers. When you don’t respond, I’ll try again, too afraid to give up.
I love you; it’s easy, now that I know how perfect it is to do so. I love you, from the moment I let myself, in that instant sort of love you kind of way. Your charms are enough to pull me in, and I’m pulled. And even when we move through phases of insecurities and moments of uncertainties, I won’t stop—I can’t stop, you’ve tangled me around your finger, and I can’t let go. I love you, despite it, this unfailing, foolish love. Unwavering, and sometimes unwanted. No matter what you do, however you act, I will love you still. I will fight for your happiness, I will fight for our love, but I will not fight you.
Love like this has left me before, broken and silenced by those who refuse to accept it. But nevertheless I love. What has happened to me that I can find it, unwavering inside of a heart so broken the bloods spilled on the floor, what has caused me to see the best in the people who tend to hurt me the most? What has allowed me to allow myself the pain, to let go of the fear, and love despite the sadness I’ll eventually endure? I know on some level you don’t love me, not the way that I do. I need you more than you will ever need someone’s love like mine. I know someday you will leave me, hanging on words I pray you don’t mean, but maybe you always will. I know this and yet, despite my mind’s warning, I put my heart on my sleeve, next to my secrets, waiting for you to see it. Waiting for you to take it. Waiting for you to break it. Hand it back with all the pieces, please, and leave me the needle and thread.
I love you, in these moments still, when I know someday I’ll miss your loving the way I’ll miss my ability to.

December 9, 2007
Author's Note: for everyone I love this unconditional, foolish, uncontrollable love--my friends and more.;)

You'll Be the Only One to Make Them Go Away

I Want to Change the World

"It was just a man with something to prove--"

My favorite mug is the red one.
My favorite shirt the long-sleeved one.
My favorite person is an idea,
a theory, an interpretation.
Everybody is waiting for a cure
for something nobody really has yet.
Everybody is working toward the moment
when they can make themselves proud.
What is it we’re looking for if we’re looking f
or something? What is it we’re hoping for,
since we’re all hoping for something?

I’m dying to make something of these moments,
wrapped in blankets and ideas,
sipping cold coffee
too anxious to do something
about the taste.
New ideas don’t form in my head,
they’re all repetitions of the ones I’ve had.
Being unsuccessful in my plans to merge them,
being for the benefit of keeping myself alive,
keeping my mind in tune to what is happening
in my world—the places I wander when I’m out
of my mind—being for the sake of saving
my ambitions, I repeat the plans I’ve made,
over again, until they are concrete in theory
and abundant in imagination.
The coffee just gets colder,
the blanket just warmer,
the dogs still bark and planes fly over.
I’ve still made nothing of this moment.

My favorite animal: a turtle.
My favorite dream: a city.
My favorite idea: a person.
Still just a person.

"--slightly bored and severely confused."

Instead I Sleep

Be Gentle with Me

"I fought the war, I fought the war, I fought the war but the war won."

Everything has become political, everything a battle of wits and attrition—whose theory, whose idea, whose belief can out last the others. Who can win the war? The idea is either to be universal or conflicting. I am unsure which. Both have been used, both are excuses, one for the other. Either way, don’t all ideas strive to be utopian in product? All I can see are angry people, angry and striving for peace. Except that human nature is to be at odds. From experience, anger doesn’t generate pleasant utopian societies. Anger produces anger, fire fueling fire. And they say to fight the fires of opposition with yet more fire. But fire doesn’t defeat fire, two of the same does not water make. Fire fighting fire yields all the more fire. In that regard, fire is the all-consumer, its main consumption thought. How can this yield peace? Humans must just be creatures of self-destruction. Pyromaniacs—all of us. Doesn’t anyone believe in water? Isn’t anyone tired of the heat? Hasn’t anyone been burnt? Maybe we can’t notice the pain, too distracted with the display of flames. Not necessarily beautiful, but captivating nonetheless. We always did enjoy watching our fellow man fall. Or, burn, I suppose, as the case may be.

“Stop for the love of God.”
December 4, 2007
'Cause My Heart Gets Broken So Easily.

We Push and Pull

Rachel is Enough Already. It's Boring.

I spend my life writing odes to new beginnings. Handing out glory and sense of self and gratification. Everything is a pledge, everything is a devotional, everything for the purpose of self proposition. I’m tired of planning, I’m tired of pledging, I’m tired of advice and inspiration, I’m tired of attempting to force motivation through words. I’m tired of listening to myself speak, pushing myself forward; repairing what damage has been done. And why does it all have to be so cliché?
Am I self-destructive or stitching up old wounds? Or am I simply neither. Somewhere in between. Cutting open the sutures and pulling the flesh back together with strings coated in motivational, inspirational, self-propelling words.
Have I stitched the holes closed, or have I left them in my heart; am I still bleeding?
When something rips, it leaves a hole. But when it falls apart all together, you can somehow rework it, put it back together, so that no holes show through. It’s still broken, still tattered, still technically in pieces. But the holes are missing, filled in, shut by two busted portions stitched together again.
If I’m taking the time to write out all the things I say in my head, all the ways I’ll fix my heart, all the ways I pull my life back together—if I’m bothering to repeat myself on a daily basis, am I really suturing the wounds, or am I holding the bloody pieces, searching for my string? Or am I simply reversing all the work I’ve done, cutting and stitching, slicing and sewing. Each line over, each stitch altered, each suture becoming straighter and smaller with each pass of the needle. Each scar bleeding, healing, scaring again.

December 3, 2005
And I Fall Down Sometimes

All I Want is a Heart

New rooms—unfamiliar;
and faces to match people to.
New ideas that fill the dents
in the road like puddles to plow through.
All the old things are growing
dark, like memories, faded around the edges.
And all the new things are piling up
on top, on top, on top,
one above the other.
Houses aren’t homes and home
has no heart; and the cable’s going out—
flashing on, flashing off, void of snow
or white noise. Nothing feels like comfort,
nothing feels like safe,
everything is a mystery
like new shoes and a new city.
Like new friends, who hardly know
any history or plans.
Everything is familiar, but nothing
is the same; nothing is familiar, but everything
has changed.
And I am stuck inside myself
for the duration of the day.
I’m wandering the rooms I’ve left
unfamiliar in my head.
It’s time to open up their doors,
expand into them; move all my
baggage from the crowded spaces
I’ve used and even out my head.


“Come now,
come
and mourn me.
It’s so easy
now I’m gone.”

The rain has made the lawns like swaps
and has left my heart hoping for more.
Walking through the yard has become
like trudging through mud,
grass is ankle deep and growing
with the increase of precipitation.
The only things I want are
to feel more at home in this suburban wildernessand
to not have to shake mudded water from my feet.
I miss the smell of concrete and steam,
the sound of sirens past midnight,
the jolt of trains stopping and going,
moving across the tracks with rough sparks
and no hesitation.
I miss the people who made that city my home.
I miss their energy, their honesty,
the feeling that we were true friends—
despite all the [fake ones] we encountered.
And I miss being able to laugh without needing to,
without having to smile to keep my spirits lifted.
The coffee, the cold air, the coats, the strolls,
the train rides for no reason, the adventures
that were ours.
People think I am strong, because it’s raining
and I smile.
What they can’t see are my hollowed-out insides,
and that I am happy just to not be sad.


To Feel Something Beating Against My Chest

One Cell in the Sea

The Devil in the Bathroom

©Rachel C Johnson

My mother confronts her demons in the shower. Early in the morning she addresses her issues whilst washing her hair. She chose the shower, I presume, because she maybe thinks no one can hear her, but I can make out every resentful word on mornings I sleep in. I unwillingly play audience to her diatribes on these mornings I have nowhere to be, paying relentless attention, eyes fixed on the dark water tower just beyond the yard. She’s noisy in the mornings, slamming doors with righteousness. I’m not falling asleep again.
When I was young I had a fear, probably spurned from the tales of Bloody Mary, and I couldn’t face myself in the bathroom mirror if it were dark. Unable to look my shadowed self in the eye, I would turn away until I found the light, or not go in at all. The anxiety followed me to the bath, and later the shower, where I felt eyes peering from places I couldn’t see hidden by shower curtains or, simply my back, turned on them. I had demons—demons in the bathroom—watching me from every point.
Even now my hand finds the light before my eyes hit the mirror—my refusal to face the glass becoming my refusal to face my darkened self. What lies beyond that mirror in the dark? I would like to remain mature in my imagination, say nothing—dry wall and insulation—but my childish superstitions and penchant for fantasy leave me questioning my appearance in the dark. Dark mirrors bring out the demons just as enchanted mirrors the beauty, and I’ll keep my eyes out of mine in the absence of light.
When I moved it was into a dorm, and I never had to face my demons in that bathroom. The light was always buzzing and someone was always there to share the experience. I took to hurrying my routine in the bathroom if only to shorten the communal event. There were times, however, when I would use the bathroom as an escape plan, a way to find peace from my roommate, a way to be alone with my thoughts. Finding an empty bathroom was a blessing, offering up a chance to take a moment for myself. In those moments I may have avoided the mirror for the safety of the stall, freeing myself from the obligation to face my mirror image. But, even while avoiding that sight, seeking console there alone forced me to cope with said demons. And, in a way, hide behind them, from the stress my life was developing. I hate my demons, but when I look in a lit mirror I see myself as something beautiful, and maybe only to contrast what lies in the dark.
My mother, she faces her demons with a noisy battle in the bath. My battle is silent, trudging on through age, keeping me aware of the little demons that haunt me.

November 12, 2007

Strangers in My Own Home

And Things Won't Fall Apart

Rachel C

It’s been raining. Raining now for three days straight; summer’s over and the fall’s come so soon. It stopped for about two months. Stop raining, and the temperature rose, and the humidity became unbearable, but the moment September came it poured. It’s been gloomy, and quiet as if the world were muffled by these clouds. Knowing me I’ve been enjoying my heart out of it, turning to watch it rain for brief moments while at work. It hasn’t become colder, but we can sense it coming, just by the look of the sky. The people around me are naturally put off; Oklahomans don’t enjoy their chilly weather, they don’t find satisfaction in a strong downpour. For the most part, I don’t understand most people—the people who choose to live in Oklahoma. It’s easier to assume they’re crazy than to bother with their reasoning. It’s easier because it helps me remember that I don’t want to live here anymore. It helps to remind me of one day moving out, and moving on.
The last few weeks have been planning, and changing, and becoming somebody else. My future, my ideas, my ambitions have all shifted; I’m solid in my head and steadier in life than I have ever been before. I am on my two feet as much as fate will allow and my legs are growing stronger every day. Some things have changed for me, and I won’t lie by saying I don’t know why or how. I do, I know exactly the reason, or at least exactly the theory I’ve created. Everything is moving, rearranging, altering my outlook on life. Mostly, it’s annoying, that I’m changing so quickly and so decisively—as if I’ve ever really been decisive before—but it’s also uplifting, and I am happier with each day. I know. I feel better. I feel aware. But mostly, I am just relieved. Relieved to have learned my lesson, relieved to be moving forward, so relieved to know who I am.
These past few weeks have been a life lesson, my realization of growth and wisdom. I put myself through a lot of unnecessary pain these past nine months, but I had to learn my lesson. I was tired of being arrogant, tired of being stupid, tired of being impatient. And being all of those things forced me to fuck up time after time, fail over and over. I got tired, I had to learn. These nine months have been about experience, and these next years will be about growing, moving forward, putting to action the lessons I’ve so painfully learned.
And I no longer feel redundant or dumb; these affirmations are for the sake of understanding what I’ve become. This is about moving forward, and I have finally realized what it takes to make that happen.
It’s raining again, always raining, and I’m happier for it on the outside. When it’s raining I can smile and be noticed, I can find comfort in the little things I hold dear; but even when it’s pouring torrents, when I’m happy just to be caught in the downpour, I’m happy to know this rain isn’t that kind of symbolism. It’s not that torrential downpour foreshadowing months of personal mistakes. It’s rain, September rain. Already it’s raining, and it’s just a sign that things are always moving forward.

September 7, 2007
They're All Just People to Meet

People Come and Go and Walk Away

Unlike Me
Rachel C

I wanted water. Water’s comfortable; I get water. Water is to me like a habit, something I have settled into, something soothing and sure, certain to make me feel better, relieve my constant nerves. I wanted water, because I was good at water, because I knew I could make water work for me, however I wanted to. I wanted water, because I could control it, I could control my watery future, and it was easy. Water is easy.
People are creatures of habit. We drink the same latte, eat at the same restaurant, sit in the same seat, all the time, every day. We do it because it’s comforting. It eases our nerves to know that everything in our routine is the same. Despite how quickly our lives and the world outside of our habits are changing, those little rituals make us feel at home. For years my routine has been based on my future—all that I plan to do with my life, all that my future revolves around. Which city, which school, which major, and ultimately which career. And around all of that, before and after everything: how to get there. My habit has been to plan, plan for my future, prepare myself, set my mind in focus. Five, ten, twenty years from now, set it in my mind, always focus on those dreams. To be fair, all of that constant focusing didn’t necessarily get me anywhere, ever. Through high school and into college, I have focused, but never on the day and the task at hand. Focusing on the future and not the present doesn’t get one there, but, the day dreaming was habitual, consoling, and it even had me convinced that I was comfortable with being so damn comfortable. I was wrong.
My habits were to remind myself everyday of my future, what I was doing and how I was getting there. My habits were to daydream and it became routine to fantasize about the life I was planning. My goals, my life, my future were set, comfortably, in a dream I knew I could achieve, even if I spent everyday dreaming and not working toward it. It was a dream characteristic of me. If I told anyone, they nodded knowingly; I’m easy to read, my emotions and my dreams on my sleeve. They were like water, flowing out of me, easily and naturally, I was born to it. I wanted to be comfortable, I have a tendency to be nervous, so comfortable is what I tend to strive for. I was comfortable in my natural habitat, doing what I considered to be so very like me. Much like childhood habits, chewing your nails for comfort, or pulling at hangnails for release, I scheduled and planned my life for a career that I was certain to succeed in, that I was certain to be comfortable in—something that wouldn’t make me anxious every time I thought about making it happen. But, as I’ve said, things in our lives, in the world outside, change so quickly they take you by surprise, and sometimes they can throw your routine out the window. And then what? You’re nervous, nervous because this is uncharacteristic, this isn’t natural, this isn’t so very like you. This is not habitual. This is fire, but you can’t deny how much you want fire, even though fire isn’t who you thought you were.
Habits are typically bad habits, at least the ones I am guilty of. And, once I was comfortable, I let them get the best of me. Until one Monday, when I realized that I’ve trained myself to believe I am only capable of one future. Like freezing water into ice—changing its color, giving it flavor, forming it into a heart shape with a silicone mold—I froze my future on an outcome I was certain of. My pink, strawberry ice-heart was familiar to me, but something has melted it, melted my future, melted my water. I’m capable of things I thought uncomfortable, and maybe what makes them uncomfortable should make me want to push through, turn the fire into something as soothing as water, even if it will never flow as easily. Because, I wanted water, but things have changed, and fire is so warm, so unpredictable, so very unlike me. I’ll walk through the fire if it will take me, until it becomes like a habit, until I am sure that I can face the heat without the water.
Even thought it’s not in habit, even though I’m anxious all the time, I have no desire to turn back to comfort. This fire, this blaze, is too bright to deny, and I can’t let water extinguish what could be so very great for me.

August 27, 2007
But I'm not Going Anywhere

The Reasons Have All Run Away

Our Downfalls
Rachel C

I spent an hour wandering the isles of a book store. I purchased three books and I still have nothing to read. I love the authors, I love the blurbs, but whether I will ever read them is the question. They were bought more as novelty items, something to say I have; something for someone to see, not necessarily for consuming on an all-night literary binge. Just another three titles to slip delicately onto my shelves. I am addicted to ideas.

August 8, 2007
But the Feeling Never Did

Two Steps Closer Than I had in Mind

I'm not going to lie...I've been a little weird lately.

In Repair

Am I tired, or am I
still awake and dreaming
of everything I’m not.
I’m wrapped in spirals
and crooked bull’s eyes
watching the world turn around me.
There is so much
I don’t know and
so much I
wish I did,
and I am not hopeless
without it, but tired.
I am tired, of never
knowing, of never seeing into the future.
I have no power
of divination. I
am blind. I am blind
to what you
smell like,
to the colors of the room,
to the softness
of my blankets
and the firmness
of my bed.
I only hear
what words are spoken in the loudness of my head.
I am quiet.

July 20, 2007
See what I mean? Weird.

Gaps

New rooms—unfamiliar;
and faces to match people to.
New ideas that fill the dents
in the road like puddles to plow through.
All the old things are growing
dark, like memories, faded around the edges.
And all the new things are piling up
on top, on top, on top,
one above the other.
Houses aren’t homes and home
has no heart; and the cable’s going out—
flashing on, flashing off, void of snow
or white noise. Nothing feels like comfort,
nothing feels like safe,
everything is a mystery
like new shoes and a new city.
Like new friends, who hardly know
any history or plans.
Everything is familiar, but nothing
is the same; nothing is familiar, but everything
has changed.
And I am stuck inside myself
for the duration of the day.
I’m wandering the rooms I’ve left
unfamiliar in my head.
It’s time to open up their doors,
expand into them; move all my
baggage from the crowded spaces
I’ve used and even out my head.

August 1, 2007
Oh, I'm sure there is more to come.
I Lost Myself Trying to Catch the Sun

Don't Aim High, Don't Aim Low

Things Fall Apart, as They Tend To

Rachel C Johnson

Half of me wants to be in Seattle all the time, the other half in Chicago. As for the rest of me, I’m dying to finally do something great, break out of this cycle I’ve been pulled into, this cycle of financial downfall and general discontent. To break out of this state, the state of mind that is Oklahoma—the intrepid discontent on an Oklahoma summer.
It seems that the closer I come to any sort of comfort the more I realize how in the dark I still am. I feel like, for once, I was almost on top of my situation. Not necessarily in control of it, but to the point that I felt I might finally have a chance at comfort, at repair. But, my world has a tendency to come crashing down. Things fall apart, all over the place, all of the time, and, as far as I’ve seen, at the most inopportune time. “Bed news never had good timing,” just when you’re together life falls to pieces.
I’m tired of being in repair. I know it takes time, but time is starting to get the best of me. Time is supposed to be on my side. AS they say, once you stop fighting you realize time is your friend. But, time seems to be fighting me. I’m standing still and it’s pushing me to the ground. No, I have no control, I have no way of calculating this end, but I think I have the right to ask time to be my companion. I think I might have the right to need it on my side. I wish it would stop throwing the punches, I can’t see for the black eyes I’ve been dealt.
I’m blind. From now on I seem to be relying on memories that don’t belong to me. My head is swirling, torn and in two places. All I can do is start into the familiar Oklahoma sky, place for lack of water color. And in the head I might just let my mind wander deeper into a state of submission.

July 26, 2007
Don't Hang On, Don't Let Go

With a Little Smirk

My Dreams are Dreaming Me
Rachel C

My life is in chronological order, but my mind doesn't work that way. I spend so much time contemplating the clouds, once I wake back up to life I'm so far behind or too far ahead I miss the present, I miss what is happening now. I miss the signs until I catch up and contemplate them later. I anticipate words that are too far away to actually hear. Nobody is ever prepared for the present; nobody expects what is happening right now. And I see so much of every time surrounding, I lose track of what time it is now. I don't hear what you're saying until you're on your way to complete your life. And I'm so thoughtful I tend to slow it down. I slow us all down, tire us out, and while you're sleeping, I jump ship to another period, sometime when you don't exist, and I am deep in the life I am not prepared for yet.
I don't know why I do this, though the comfort could explain it. The present is awkward, you don't exist any time else, and I don't move quick enough to say the right thing today. So I say it tomorrow, but you aren't in my head, not the way I wish you were. And no one ever hears exactly what I have to say. If I say it today, It will come out wrong, and I'll lose the chance to make it up tomorrow, and my mind will shift to focus on the past.
I'm not prepared for the present; I'm not prepared to move in chronological order. But I don't have control of time, not even the time in my head.

July 15, 2007

There's No More Logic

My Foolish Notion is Too Fun

©Rachel C

I want to take
you and drink you
and somehow become
a part of you and by
doing so I want to love
you and I want you to
love me.

July 1, 2007
When There's Magic Between Me and You

Come Now, Come and Mourn Me

My Old Bones are Growing New Bones

©Rachel C

Driving home I can see a string of nearly black clouds floating low in the sky. They’re thin, and almost resemble smoke, but they don’t have nearly that consistency. It’s weird to see such dark clouds so thin, and so low as if they just evaporated from the surface of the earth. So low, it seems, a tall man could reach right up and swing his hand through them, scattering the droplets and shaking them back to earth. Maybe even a short girl, with ballet flats and big dreams, could reach up and swipe them away, pull them down to her chest, breathe them in like a natural humidifier. From an angel where they lie next to the dark clouds in the horizon, they are nearly invisible, but once you’re facing the sun, they’re so close, so low, so dark, and so stretched thin you could pluck them right from the atmosphere. For some reason, I feel like these clouds, so fragile and yet out of reach. As if everyone could touch me, feel the moisture of my skin, but I am just an arms length away; a tall man’s head is too far below my feet. Touchable, right there to hold, and so far away, so scattered and stretched, so dark and no one can come near me. Those clouds, I know, aren’t me. They will pour their insides to the ground, or dissolve if they come any lower. They will disappear, and I won’t ever see these clouds again. I may have taken a dive, disappeared, dissolved for a moment, but I can resurface, I can breathe more life, I can begin again—maybe not where I left off, but where I am now. Those clouds will die, and I have not, and someday I will come close enough to touch.

July 1, 2007

It's So Easy, Now I'm Gone

Don't You Break--I Will Not Let You

My Fingers Get in the Way

I hate you simply because you act like you don't care. And you don't talk to me anymore. But I miss you more than I hate you. And songs and moments like these make me miss you even more.

I guess in the end, everything is lonely, thus I must be my own bestfriend.

--replace you with myself--

People touch our lives--but I wish you hadn't left mine.

June 28, 2007

I'll Make Sure They Will Not Get You

The Words That Throw Me

“Come now,

come

and mourn me.

It’s so easy

now I’m gone.”

The rain has made the lawns like swaps
and has left my heart hoping for more.

Walking through the yard has become

like trudging through mud,
grass is ankle deep and growing
with the increase of precipitation.

The only things I want are
to feel more at home in this suburban wilderness
and to not have to shake mudded water from my feet.

I miss the smell of concrete and steam,
the sound of sirens past midnight,
the jolt of trains stopping and going,
moving across the tracks with rough sparks
and no hesitation.

I miss the people who made that city my home.

I miss their energy, their honesty,
the feeling that we were true friends—
despite all the [fake ones] we encountered.

And I miss being able to laugh without needing to,
without having to smile to keep my spirits lifted.

The coffee, the cold air, the coats, the strolls,
the train rides from no reason, the adventures

that were ours.

People think I am strong, because it’s raining
and I smile.

What they can’t see are my hollowed-out insides,
and that I am happy just to not be sad.

Other People's Conversations

Inside Looking In
© Rachel C

Some one once said to write what you know, someone also said to be objective when you look back, write what you see as if you weren’t there but are experiencing it as a stranger. I don’t know who said either, or if either were ever actually said, but I do know that they cannot go hand in hand, for what you know cannot be objective. I’ve not lived a very long life, and for most of it I have been unconscious to the world. But, from what I’ve seen, from what I’ve lived cognizant and eyes-wide open, I have a pretty good understanding of the impossibility of objectivity. It can’t happen. Because, if it could, how many people would revert to objectivity to escape the pains of life? Sure there would be fewer suicides, maybe fewer cutters and burners, drug addicts and drinkers, whores and the men who buy them. Maybe society would seep into a Utopian image, but it would only be seemingly peaceful. The peace would come of thought being forced into a vegetative state. No one would survive to have opinions, only to survive without being hurt. Pain would be obsolete, self infliction would be achieved by slumping back into one’s mind, clearing out one’s history, tucking away one’s emotional thought for a perspective without perception. And everything would fall into itself. There would be no reason to war, no reason to cry. Because, when horrible things happened, we would recluse our emotions and step back, look at the situation as if we don’t know ourselves. Look at the situation as if we are strangers, and the girl being raped, the man being beaten, the wife being cheated and played, they wouldn’t be us and we wouldn’t have to deal with who they were on the inside looking in. So, society would fall into internal chaos, simply unaware of the destructive nature of objectivity, simply closed to the trouble it was inflicting upon itself. Someday, somewhere, when men who have become children and women useless bodies, someone will stand up and realize that living without pain has left us all inhuman. Robots, we’ve become robots. How could we have never seen it coming?
So this is my opinion about objectivity: we can’t have it, unless we are truly objective. Unless we have walked in on the situation from the outside looking in, honestly unaware of the details, honestly unconscious. And, in that case, we cannot know how to write it until we can immerse ourselves, completely, become knowledgeable entirely, and once we have we lose our objectivity instantly. But, at least we have a story.
We have to know what we write, and write what we know.

June 23, 2007
Author's Note: I guess I'm questioning the power of being objective.

Never Without Something

No Boundary on Color

© Rachel C

Have you ever thought that maybe this is my book?
I know you wonder if this is my life, is this is who I am. If this day will remain that way I lived it in my memory, if I won’t skew the dialog or the images in my mind. If I will remember at least what he said, if not his name or why I loved him. But at least who he was in the moment he became it, who I was in the moment I opened my smile and let my walls break down.
I’m tired of writing poems about dolls protected in glass walls, metaphors for my heart in its case of crystal and ice. I am tired of reaching too deep for something I won’t feel once I bring it to the surface. Honestly, the dark, twisty pieces are dying out, there is hardly anything left to hold on to. I’m melting, peacefully, with my smile growing brighter like quarter-moons and Cheshire curves. I can see something below the layers; I can cross my fingers that I am not the only one.
Maybe I am still waiting, for someone to love, for something to spark that nostalgia that pangs in my stomach. Those things motivate me, but never as much as I can, when I walk into a conversation without meaning to, when I stumble onto a personality so unlike those I am familiar with.
I want to know him, but he’s not someone to love, at least not for me. Though, in this moment I can recall imagining seeing him again, and a lot like love I’ll smile and recall his name and why I spoke in the first place. Maybe I’ll take that painting with me, when I leave everything behind. Maybe I’ll take his memory, when I try to forget all others. I plan to write them down and leave them on paper for others to read, and I can forget these years. But, maybe I’ll remember him and his red monster, maybe I’ll remember that I can be iceless, familiar, and smile. I like to think that I can smile—for all of our sakes.
I’ll take some things, and leave the others, when I’m riding on trains I’ll remember what I’ve brought. But for now, my porcelain exterior must be cracked, the glass barrier broken down. I need to join the folks as they wander side streets, smell the toxic air if only to cough it up again. In that meantime, before trains leave stations and my three years are on paper, I’ll hold his red monster in the back of my mind; my soundtrack playing along, illustrating my story, my narrative following along. I’ll look back, to the depths of my mind, back where I remember days of rain and the smell of steam from city streets, and I will smile. I will draw myself out from the dark places.

June 17, 2007
Back to the Sun and the Square

Red Monster

While Musing Over Art on the Walls
© Rachel C

So, I can’t concentrate. Not on Islam, not on research papers, at least. I wish it were still raining. It has been raining for maybe months, and I can’t grow tired of it. I can’t, and I won’t. Times like this, sounding so cliché, I realize maybe I don’t want to venture back to Chicago. Maybe I want to try again, start again in Seattle. The rain, the buildings, the personality—I can’t deny I am drawn to the idea of the city. But, Chicago is so comfortable. I know it, I almost understand how it moves, I can almost feel it. The strangest things remind me of it. Moments I never living in Chicago instantly leave me with the smell of the streets and the feel of the air. I want to be back there, with people I know are my friends—and some I’m not so sure of anymore. I’d love to be back there, living my life again, like I am not living it here. I would love to feel that irresistible happiness again. And yet, could I find it, on greater scale, more realistically in Seattle? I don’t know if I will ever have that answer. If I will ever feel that surge of blindness, that overwhelming, body consuming happiness that surrounds me while I walk through city streets—buildings so tall I am both small and greater than I have ever been all at the same moment. So small that I have worth, I have meaning, I am someone and no one, no one surrounded by nobodies, and happy for it. I don’t know that I will ever have that answer. Maybe I should just concede, stop thinking and sip my coffee. Sip my coffee and wait for the rain.

June 17, 2007
There'd Be Nobody if We All Stayed Alone

In and Out

Boys Named Chad

© Rachel C

What is it about boys named Chad? Or, boys in general—studying human anatomy with their triple grande white mochas in the middle of a crowded Starbucks? What is it about young beards and short hair, wandering eyes behind metal rimmed glasses? My first though is med. student. But, after several glances his way, while I read about Islam and listen to popular girls drink their frappuccinos, I think he might be an artist, studying the shape of the silhouette. But, it could go either way. And I suppose I couldn’t care, as long as he glances my way every once in a while to watch my face as I write, draw inspiration. In that case I sit up straighter, hide my imperfections as because I can. I touch my chin, my lips thoughtfully, maybe he’s intrigued. Maybe his blue eyes will meet mine for a moment. Maybe we’ll share a moment, as he thinks and I break for a sit of coffee. But, he’ll go back to work, and I will try to keep my eyes on the page. We’ll look up—he at the girl saying goodbye, me to see who responds. And that will be the most, that will be as much as I share with boys named Chad. He will check his watch, grab his back, and even if he thinks I’m pretty, he’ll walk out of my life, the door bouncing on its hinges behind him.

June 17, 2007
It's About Words that Throw Me

You'll Be a Bitch Because You Can

Only Happy When It Rains

©Rachel C

Maybe I am just a bitch because I can. Have you ever thought of it that way? As if I have control over the way I treat you, as if I know I am doing it. Better yet, maybe I don’t. Maybe I know I can, maybe I know I can show you bitch, but I can’t turn it off. It never shuts off, and I am a bitch just because I can.
The room is burning, it’s hot and sticky and so much like summer. For a while I felt like God was trying to tell me something, trying to tell me He needed me in Oklahoma. It’s been pouring for weeks, everyday it rains. I joke, “who needs Seattle”, but I still do. Seattle, Chicago, somewhere far away and big, somewhere with a dark center and a bright exterior, somewhere I can feel small—and for the sake of it, feel purposeful. I still need to breathe city air, feel the rush as the train speeds through an underground maze, take trips to the airport just to have something to do, somewhere to be, someone to talk with as we watch the city disappear. I still need to leave, even if God refuses to let me go; eventually I have to win my own battle—it’s unfair to keep me in hell when I am trying so hard to prove myself worthy of heaven. I will refuse, push back, I will no longer battle with this karma or this destiny. I will keep moving forward.
But it’s raining still, the heat of the morning stunted by the depth of the clouds. Later today it will be too humid to bear, I’ll squirm when I walk to the car, standing outside will make me sweat. But for now it’s raining, and I am smiling, imagining I’m somewhere else. Somewhere colder, maybe even soggier. It seems to me that it never rains for long enough—it always passes over, taking the cool with it, the cover from the sun with the clouds dark and low. I smile when it’s raining, smile as I sing along to the radio, fighting the urge to shut off the music and listen to the putter against the windshield. I smile and I bet that I am not a bitch in those moments. I am not a bitch in most moments. And yet, someone always seems to think so, even in the rain. Maybe I am reverting to my internal struggle with this place. And, though I like the people, maybe I am taking it out on them—who I live with, who I work with. But, in the rain I am not a bitch, I am not thinking about being a bitch, I am just thinking about the rain, about the city, about you and why you’re not closer, more real. But when I am standing in the rush, being told I’ve done something wrong, not knowing better, I’m a bitch. I’m a bitch because I can, because you want me to be, because it justifies something for the both of us—why you should hate me, why I should be angry...why I should hate myself.
But I don’t hate myself in the rain. I only dream in the rain. Dream of who I am beneath the water, who I am beneath this skin. Dream of the days when I can travel, and roam, and catch the train and go anywhere but here. Dream of the days when I don’t have to be a bitch to justify myself, be a bitch to justify why I hate you. Because, I don’t hate you. I could never hate you, but I can’t ever seem to make you see that I am worth the time you spend bitching at me. Bitching because you can, bitching because you don’t want a reason to get along with me. I’m a bitch; what does that make you?

June 11, 2007
Author's Note: thinking about things, I suppose. Maybe I'm not feeling so blue.
Don't You Think We Oughta Know by Now?

Let Me Show You How Much I Care

I suppose I felt like updating my non-existant readers. Haven't heard back from Cranky yet, but they have three months from the time it's sent, so they still have a while. I hate waiting, and I hate wondering whether I should try sending something to another magazine in the meantime. The only problem with that is most magazines want work sent in with a SASE, and I don't really want to bother with printing everything off several times over, addressing an envelope, and mailing it. I mean, I know I should, and if I really want it, I should do it no matter how much it sucks. But, until I hear from Cranky, I'm not really going to want to do anything. Just waiting sucks, but it's pretty much all I can do--other than everything I just said I could.

In other news, I think my Comp II teacher doesn't think I can pass her class. Yeah, I was shocked. But, I am not going to drop this class, it's paid for. It's the same class I took at UIC, so the credits will line up when I transfer. I know I can get an A, I just don't think she thinks I can, which is super annoying. I told her I had a little trouble with a simple, three point thesis, because I haven't needed to write one in so long. Then, when I simplified everything, it felt like she wasn't enthusiastic about my topic choices or my ability to write about those topics. That's just a little annoying. But what can I do but prove her wrong?

Other than that, not a lot is going on. The news looks interesting--watch it.

Your Heart is Not Able

Sorrow Drips into Your Heart Through a Pin Hole

Distance Lost Its Cause; It Lost Meaning to Us Both
© Rachel C

Distance lost its concern for my well being.
The ocean was built and between us,
the land was flooded and filled
with raging waters, dark and deep for drowning.
Dreams come and dreams go
like the current and the tide, back and forth—
enough to make one sick of movement,
tossed on the waves and carried away.
But standing still makes us tired,
wears us down to bones and bare skin,
quarantines us—hearts from dreams.
We’re losing faith.
Hope spreads like a sickness, and kills
just as quick. Leaves us to burn
in our desire to change, and, faithless,
we’re barred from letting it in, from letting
the good idea take us over.
I am left to wade out into the waters,
thick with my desire to meet you once again.
We can wade in waist deep, the river of doubt
spanning the continent and all these miles.
I can no longer hear feet on the pavement,
the cars and the streets, but the warmth
of my body will flow with the water,
we come into contact without ever touching,
or breathing the same air.
And the distance seems greater
in the cold of the water, like a virus
spreading through the sea. And the ocean
is deeper with us in it.
It widens and deepens and swallows us whole,
murky waters leaving no room to touch,
another barrier, between souls.
The water is colder as you step from the deep;
you step back to life
and leave me buried under the gallons
where feet kick and arms flinch
but no words are spoken in the ocean.
I am behind, held down by the distance,
the ocean between us,
of which we created
as if it could give us something to believe in.

June 4, 2007
Author's Note: could be about a person, could be about all people, could be about a city and a girl wanting desperately to get back. Maybe it's a combination of all three.
It Slowly Rises, Your Love is Gonna Drown.

Natural Regression

Notes on the Weather
©Rachel C Johnson

Today was the first day in weeks I’ve seen sun. Today was the first time the clouds parted, and for the most part I was disappointed. I wanted it to keep raining; I want it to be raining now, but all I see are weary clouds and tiny stars peaking out. I could swear that it has been raining for weeks, non-stop, wake-you-in-the-night rain. I was sure by now the streets would be flooded, that all of life might be drowned in the heavy droplets—I was wrong. The streets are wet, a thin layer of oil and rain water keeps them slick, but nothing is drowning in the over-dose of hydration. It seems almost that the rain isn’t living up to the expectations; it’s quietly letting us down. Our flowers and grass, our streets and homes have not been sacrificed for the sake of the rain, and I am left down, down under the weight of the downpour.

It turned cold today, without me expecting it. I came out of the library and I was chilled instantly. The humidity was still in the air, but it was lighter, thinner, not as harsh as earlier in the day. I couldn’t see out the window from where I sat in the library, so I don’t know if it rained, if it poured, if a cold front pushed its way through behind a dangerous storm. All I knew was the cold as I stepped out into it, and as I walked to my car. All I knew was the chill, the wind, and the scent of past rain and drying concrete. The feeling of sudden cold after days of summer might have stunned me, but I smiled on the way to my car. I smiled and smelt the air, breathed deep the chill, breathed in enough to warm my spirit if only for a moment.

May 12, 2007
May 15, 2007

Catch My Disease

I did it once more, I submitted some work to a magazine.

In January or February I submitted to Cranky Literary Journal, but never heard back. I didn't know why at the time, but now I understand that my submission was ignored because I forgot the cover letter. Oops. Not this time. I looked through some of the writings, so that I could pick from my own the most suited for this magazine, and found a cover letter format. This is me hoping it's worked this time, and that I will at least get a rejection letter. Any word is better than none at all.

Dear Cranky Literary Journal,

I have been searching for months, sifting through websites and periodicals, for a publication I find most desirable for my work. After stumbling upon your magazine, I was instantly interested in the content and look of the journal. Thus, I am writing, sending in something I hope is appropriate.
I have been writing since I was six. Not necessarily a long period of time—most of which was spent writing useless poetry, the brainchild of an underage day dreamer—but over time and with experience I have developed my style and voice, and I believe I am matured enough for the literary world.
Of course, I cannot be the judge of my ripeness. Ultimately, it will be publishers and journals such as Cranky that will decide my fate as a writer and the future of my career. But you cannot judge, and I cannot learn, if I do not take the first leap.
I am sending what I believe is a good representation of my voice—which might be a little offbeat, or “quirky” if you will. Here’s hoping you find these intriguing. Thank you for your time; I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely yours,

Rachel C Johnson


Rachel C has been writing for thirteen years, based in Oklahoma. After spending four months in Chicago, she has been working on developing her voice for publication. She is currently writing prose, poetry, and working on a chapter book based loosely on her life.



Down in a Rabbit Hole
January 16, 2006

Alice in Wonderland had nothing on girls living in America,
where dreams come true, so much more than
following the white rabbit down his hole,
to the pit of all insanity--because we don’t have to travel
so far to find that core

Take a subway, walk three blocks, break a heel
on your pretty new shoes, and call yourself a woman
of tomorrow, using superglue in the strangest
of places. You wouldn’t call yourself home, in these
alleyways stained with yesterdays,
and the seats on the subway are always different:
new people, new places, new ideas to fulfill,
all the while walking on a newly heeled sole;
balancing on tip-toe and hoping that those seats are all
empty, so you have something to fall into.

Rabbit holes don’t usually come on trains.
And all the gentlemen are mad to help you up,
because you’re independent now.



If Peter Pan Should Take You
January 24, 2004

Drop a tear into my ocean.
Trace the ripples
With your finger tips.
Let them linger on my skin.

Watch the sky,
For the stars might fall.
And we can follow them
To Never, Never Land.

Listen to chop sticks,
Hidden beneath towers
Of paperclips,
Where you hide.

And when night falls,
I'll watch you
From here I stand.
Dance with fairies on the wall.



Dematerializing Bonnie
January 16, 2006

She catches her hair in a brush every
morning, and watches strands she’ll miss
float to her feet, where they may hang
for the rest of the day, not letting go yet.
She’ll pick them off, one by one, and watch them drift
away to catch on to someone else, be drug along
to see sights they were never meant to see,
and hear things she would never have said.

She keeps her lips closed throughout the day,
never speaking unless asked, avoiding eye
contact with pretty faces, pretty mouths
saying words she’s heard in movies, and once
from my father. She imagines they go home and
see their parents fighting, beating, screaming,
and crying, but they sit
with their families at dinner tables--
study, read, play with little brothers.
From the way they speak, shouldn’t someone be
hurting them? From the way they yell,
shouldn’t someone be yelling back?

The world has engulfed its morals around material
items, and Bonnie has too. She still relies on childhood
fantasies, that family is always what it appears
on the outside looking in; but, I’ve realized that family
is not the street we live on, the car we drive, the home
we reside, and all the quiet girls, who do well in school,
who are obedient and respectful, and who never
say more than what is seemingly appropriate,
are always the broken ones.

Tear-Drop-Style
December 21, 2004

I
haven't

spoken yet,
and wink-smiles

are all I've got for

your lonely mind

and sad head.



Toes
May 12, 2005

I envelop myself in sand

and I hope it could swallow me,

but I can’t dig deep enough

and the suffocation is stifled.

I can see my toes above the surface

wiggling with spasm to release

themselves from the weight

I’ve taken on.

And when I pull myself from the

grasp of beach and tide, my toes

remain uncovered, unblemished,

unadorned with the grains that seep

into the crevices of my body

and weaken my breath.

It is they who carry me

to the bathhouse to find a

shower. It is they who take me

to the wardrobe where I dress.

It is they who create my movement

and force me forward with inch-steps,

twitches, convincing me with wiggles

that I should continue further.

I miss the sand some days,

the feeling of my toes above the surface;

for when I stand upright

the weight of all my burdens

falls to my toes.

Directionally Backwards and Mentally Challenged

Then I Could Travel Just by Folding a Map

©Rachel C Johnson

No matter which direction I am facing, while I am driving I feel as if I am heading north. I have no navigation system in my car, so I have to remember where I am going before I can remind myself why the sun is setting to my right. South, west; south, west. I can point it out, but I inevitably have to repeat the words as I drive. I find it interesting that I must remind myself I am driving south in a city where every street is familiar. And I could give you directions, from where you are standing to where I am waiting, north, south, east, turn west on Skelly and keep driving. Yet here I am, pointing east, mumbling streets through pursed lips, feeling all the while as if I’m moving north. Face south, speak south, live north. Move west, know west, feel north. North is calling me, calling me as I drive south toward a house no longer home. And as I stare out the window overlooking rows of houses, ancient trees, tarnished streams. I wake in the morning and instinctively look toward the sky. The sun rises out of sight, southeast of my bedroom window, and the light streams into the backyard just north of my house. Maybe it’s habitual, my intuition of the north. After all, I’ve grown up gazing at the northern sky. The Big Dipper comforted me on long summer nights, and Venus was always visible from my bedside. Maybe I was raised north, belong north—maybe I’m being called home.

May 19, 2007
Author's Note: I dunno, maybe I'm back on track, headed once again in the right direction. Maybe.
I Wish the World Were Flat like the Old Days.

More Contemplations on Being Lost

The District Sleeps Alone Tonight

©Rachel C Johnson

The feeling of being lost never retreats, never goes into hiding, it is never replaced with familiarity and comfort. Once you are lost you are not found, once the feeling seeps into your soul you cannot strip yourself of the overwhelming desire to scream for the lack of words or wander for the lack of a roadmap. The sensation fills you, swarms inside of you, drowns you in the struggle between stiff legs and the urge to never stop. Never stop walking. But that is your only choice. Walk or stop, stop or walk. Stand still and wait, or wander until your feet lose feeling and your heart hungers for home. Stand still, rest, breathe, cry for the sake of frustration, and hope—hope someone will stumble upon you and carry you home. The urge to stand still is overwhelming, it taunts you to stop walking, stop thinking, to just stop. But you can’t, because the trouble with stopping is that you won’t ever get farther than where you are—eventually you’ll have to start walking, eventually you’ll have to keep moving to stay alive.
Stay alive—stay alive you must. The emotions of being lost, of never finding your way home, are gateway drugs. They lead you onto a path of overwhelming depression, a path of unworthiness. How bad do you want to stop, how bad do you want to let the ache in your feet subside? Kill the pain only to stand again; it’s pointless to even try. Unfortunately, walking does very little for the mind but to fill it with unspeakable thoughts. Walking alone in the dark you cannot speak, you cannot say what is on your mind—but maybe for a whisper of frustration, and mumble of your deepest aggression. The situation worsens as your head dives deeper into itself, as your mind closes off. You focus on your anger—you become bitter. Bitter at map which led you wrong, bitter at street signs that have become difficult to read with tired eyes, bitter at the road beneath your aching feet, you’re so angry with the road. Bitterness seeps into your heart and turns it cold against the world. Thoughts creep in, conspiring against the sleeping citizens, so humble in their homes while you wander the streets alone. You’re unwanted, banished into the night, no one in these houses wants you, no one will come out and guide you. You’re lost, you’re disappearing. As you wander further, all the anger is lost. There is not point, this far from home, this dark of night. All you want is to stop wandering. All you want is to stop feeling so lost. To not exist for the sake of no more pain. The trouble with nonexistence is that when you want to exist again...you can’t.
And so you walk; and so you walk. Because life cannot end while there is still so much road to cover, life cannot die when you’re halfway home. The idea of never finding your way, the fear of being on these roads forever will haunt you with every step. But, you must remember there is one more corner to turn, one more street sign up ahead, one more chance before the dawn, when someone might emerge to find you wandering your way home.

May 18, 2007
Author's Note: possibly a little cliche, but necessary.
I am Finally Seeing Why I was the One Worth Leaving.

Taking Nothing for Giving Everything

To those who might read: I am wanting to publish, and I think these may be the pieces to try for, so I need some advice. Which one should I work toward, and if you have any ideas, who should I send to? Thanks.

Dematerializing Bonnie
January 17, 2006

She catches her hair in a brush every
morning, and watches strands she’ll miss
float to her feet, where they may hang
for the rest of the day, not letting go yet.
She’ll pick them off, one by one, and watch them drift
away to catch on to someone else, be drug along
to see sights they were never meant to see,
and hear things she would never have said.

She keeps her lips closed throughout the day,
never speaking unless asked, avoiding eye
contact with pretty faces, pretty mouths
saying words she’s heard in movies, and once
from my father. She imagines they go home and
see their parents fighting, beating, screaming,
and crying, but they sit
with their families at dinner tables--
study, read, play with little brothers.
From the way they speak, shouldn’t someone be
hurting them? From the way they yell,
shouldn’t someone be yelling back?

The world has engulfed its morals around material
items, and Bonnie has too. She still relies on childhood
fantasies, that family is always what it appears
on the outside looking in; but, I’ve realized that family
is not the street we live on, the car we drive, the home
we reside, and all the quiet girls, who do well in school,
who are obedient and respectful, and who never
say more than what is seemingly appropriate,
are always the broken ones.


One More Hand-Me-Down

January 18, 2007

Do you ever wonder if people just give up on love? I mean, literally, just give it up. Like giving up baseball or art, or giving up driving or giving up golf. Do you think people can love someone, something, but just let it go? They literally, despite loving it, despite caring how it is, how it deals with the sudden change, how it survives without them, do you think that people can just drop it like an old habit, one they think is time to quit? For some reason, that doesn’t seem illogical to me. For some reason, I can see someone doing that, living that way, knowing it’s wrong, it’s hard, but doing it anyway. I can see a man love a woman; I can see him realize there is a choice to make, and instead of choosing to make the relationship—whether or not it was working in the first place—he gives up on love and walks away. Maybe I can see that because my mother was given up on, my sister, my best friend, I was given up on. Maybe that is how you explain what has happened, maybe we were just pigeonholed, just let go.
As a writer, I feel like the concept works well for a plot, for a storyline, and a character. I guess because I have never been on the romantic side of a failed relationship, I can’t understand how wrong it is for that to actually happen. I can’t understand that, to be given up is to be broken up, to be broken in, and to be hurt. I don’t think I can understand that, even though I was broken in, pulled apart, left with holes where my father didn’t bother to suture his incisions. Because, my father gave up; he gave up and I can see how tormented my mother is, how broken my sister is, how numb I’ve been left.
Maybe I am wrong. Maybe what has happened wasn’t a man giving up on something he loved. Maybe the difference is that he never loved us, he never wanted us, and he is bitter all this time for taking one road instead of the other—taking the wife-and-kids expressway instead of the degree-and-career city street. So, I guess if that were the case, I guess if it’s not exactly giving up, I don’t understand anything at all....
When my parents first separated, I had a name for the way I felt. I felt like a hand-me-down, juggled between two people, treated like old news, no body really wanting me, but being forced to wear me for lack of anything new. A hand-me-down, and not even one shuffled through the same family. The kind you find at The Salvation Army or Good Will, the kind that has a strange scent from years in closets and boxes, the kind that went out-of-style and won’t come back in, the kind of stereotypical homeless people. That feeling, and the bitterness attached to it, sticks. Maybe unsuspectingly, but you feel trampled on one morning, or you smell ancient fabric the next; and everyday you thought you’d moved on, you find you’re less than one step closer—you’re barely out of the door. That feeling retraces its footprints through your heart, it makes your head hurt, your stomach ache. It makes you wonder if you belong. Honestly, you don’t. Hand-me-downs are old clothing: out-of-style, embarrassing to wear, cheap. Hand-me-downs belong in an aluminum trashcan, lid sealed tight.
I wished that I wouldn’t feel so lonely, the only hand-me-down in a closet full of brand new clothes—tags still attached. But, there was no place to go were I could be with others of my kind. There was no Salvation Army for adolescent hand-me-downs—at least not one I was willing to find. If I wanted a room full of used clothing, there was a price I had to pay. Rip a seam, get a stain, some sort of damage to be returned to the storefront with the other second hand fashions. But, I didn’t believe in slicing myself open, especially for attention, especially to feel comforted. I always figured having a hole would add a draft to my already cold interior. Ripping myself apart would just give me something new to cry over. So I was lonely, I was a lonely hand-me-down; no one understood the pain in being worn by more than one person, the fear in being thrown away, or the ache in hanging around waiting for someone to pick me off the self. Pick me up, shake me out, wash me off, and slip me over their warm body. There were some attempts, to give me a closet and a body to belong to, but, true to second hand nature, I found myself in the waste basket once again.
Hand-me-downs happen, I think, because the first time owner gives up on caring for the garment. They have worn out the fabric and are tired of washing, drying, folding, and hanging it. They are tired of maintaining it. So they go out and find a fresh piece. New, more appropriate for the changing times, and they use that as an excuse to pull the old one from its place in the closet and drop it in the trash. The good owners, the ones with big hearts, they give their used garments to stores that will discount the price and disregard the label and throw the thing in a bin to be rifled through. The ones to be feared in the world of hand-me-downs are the ones that give up entirely and don’t bother to pack the garment in a box. They mistake it for an old rag, use it to clean up their messes; or they just wad it into a ball and toss it to the garbage with food wrappers and used Kleenex. The feeling is the same, for the hand-me-downs. Used, abused, and disposed of. Trampled, stained, torn and tattered, tossed around like a cheap sock. Even if they eventually find somewhere to belong, it never lasts, not the way they would want to, and hand-me-downs become bitter. Hand-me-downs wall off, break away from the rest of the closet, and blame the world for the way they’ve been treated, for the way they feel.
It’s never really their fault, being tossed around and worn out, because, if it were up to hand-me-downs, they would remain in that first closet interminably, worn by that first body continually. Nothing feels so great as being picked for one person, because they like your colors, your style, the way you form to their body; nothing feels better than staying that way, form-fitting and snug, for the rest of forever with the original buyer. But, I also don’t think hand-me-downs are made resentful. I think that comes with time, with endless storefronts and never-ending buyers. I think it starts with anger toward the first to give them up, and as it happens more and more, the feeling grows and cynicism sets in. And it makes me wonder, for all those things given up despite the love and admiration they once received, if hand-me-downs are made in one moment, when that first owner drops them into the trash bag labeled “Good Will”. It makes me wonder if all it takes is that split second to question if that piece just isn’t worthy anymore. And then the hand-me-down is made, one quick moment and it’s just another item of everyday clothing—no longer that special article bought solely to make the owner feel extraordinary. If that first time, that first heart break, that first “give up” is all there is to creating a hand-me-down, than I worry that I am not actually alone. I worry that I am just one of many, one of many hand-me-down people, given up by that first love, that first chance, that first impression of what a man is supposed to be.
There is a small chance for a hand-me-down to find a permanent home on someone’s back, to no longer be second hand clothing. For the rest of us, I can’t help but wonder who will find us next; pick us up, shake us out, wash us off, and slip us on over their warm bodies, if only just to turn around and throw us away again, back on the shelf for another day. The future remains a mystery for the hand-me-downs in this world, never able to tell if that next shopper is the kind of person who gives up on love.

You Know How I Can Be

Through Your Kaleidoscope, It's Beautiful

©Rachel C Johnson

When you’re a child it’s so easy. So easy to believe in fairy tales and God, so easy to imagine big futures and create impossible goals, so easy because you’re told anything is possible, that you are capable of doing whatever you set your heart to. What no one tells you is that when you grow older, your heart becomes practical, and those fantasies seem so childish, and you want more realistic goals for yourself. Of course, true to human nature, we never stop dreaming, the child lives on secretly, maybe more practically, but continues to dream. When one dream dies, new ones kick in, and the cycle never stops. You keep dreaming, your imagination keeps the child alive, if only to continue the fantasy you base your adult life after. It’s not always a fantasy that comes true, but it is always there, gnawing at your insides, growing from the food of your soul, dying to be alive, dying to exist outside of your body. The fantasy becomes your inner self, it becomes who you are alone, in the car, in the dark. And your exterior and interior combat for your attention. You dream in the meantime, between living your life. You feed the beautiful monster your childlike spirit has created, you nurture it for all of your life. When you retire, you imagine you may have the chance to bring it to the world, the real world with the real people, and let it live for once as it was meant to. None of us know, however, that there is a binding source, something keeping the dream inside while we wilt away in the real world dying to let it out. We work all of our lives to finally birth the fantasy that has been brewing inside, only to find that our hard work, what we believed made life worth living, was the only thing holding us back from death. The moment we stop working, trying to give life to something childish and impossible, we let ourselves die in the span between success in the real world and personal achievement. Our dreams become hollow, just as God has become useless, and we find we have nothing left. Nothing left of what we believed in, what we put so much stock in, and in the end all we can do is try to dream again.

May 15, 2007
Author's Note: I don't know what to say, I have nothing to say, no one does.
You've Shown Me the World as It Could Be

My voice may very well be failing me, just when I thought I was on to something. I'm trying, and I don't think it matters, because in the end, trying might not lead to anything at all, and I will be miserable still. Somebody help me find my feet. I am not good enough on my own, not yet, I hope not for long.

All the Wounded Ones Home

© Rachel C

The clouds are lying low on one side of the house; low, gray, foreboding rain, and thunder in the distance. But on the other side, streaming in through the blind-covered windows, sun streaks the living room floor. Where is the sun coming from, where are the clouds going, are they traveling together? The sun fades, then brightens, fades, the lights the floor again. The clouds are winning the back and forth battle, or the sun is standing strong. I am watching it play out on the living room floor: bright sunshine, dark clouds, shiny light, twisted shapes. Back and forth, back and forth...I feel so back and forth, pulled and pushed, and prodded and poked toward every direction. The clouds are being shaped by the wind, pushing them farther away, molding them into greater, bolder masses, darkening the sky, creating thunder. The sun is victim to the spinning of the Earth. She’ll sink, they’ll blow away, she’ll rise, they’ll build with evaporation, with accumulation of everything she’s created. And I have no doubt that I will sit here, sit here and watch it play out on the living room carpet.
The clouds have overtaken the sky. I suppose, if just for a moment, I can let my emotions settle.

April 3, 2007
Author's Note: I don't think I have anything to say...I think I am slumping, I think I need some work.

Diving Deeper into Something Good

Each Coming Night

© Rachel C

I am up and down, like the weather. One moment something makes me angry, the next moment I’ve found a reason to smile again. I am up and down, side to side, back and forth—but mostly up and down. The weather never compliments me. If it rains, I want to smile. The low, gray clouds make me happy. And I love the sound of raindrops on the windshield. When it’s bright, and the sky is blue, I am mellow. Light-hearted, easy going, I am indifferent. But when it is warm I feel lonely, as if there is an element missing—there is: my coat. I would rather curl up with my fleece; walk through chilled air just to see my breath. The cold is comfortable. And living here, I wake up without knowing how I’ll feel that day. Tomorrow, I won’t know if it will be raining or hot. And I don’t know if I will be up to a drop in the temperature. I don’t know if I’ll be prepared to smile again.
At some point in my early youth I was traumatized. I was stuck in a small, one-story house in—let’s face it—bumblefuck Glenpool, Oklahoma, curled next to my mother as a Gust Nato passed over, ripping away privacy fences, pulling branches from their trees, sweeping shingles from defenseless, bare-bottomed roofs. I was tiny, I was terrified, and all I can recall is the sound of my mother’s voice hurrying along a prayer. I don’t think I have ever been the same.
When we moved into this house, we only had the laundry room bathroom to hide in—which, if there had ever been a true threat, we would have all been demolished in that tiny space—and I took to it with speed each time Travis Meyer declared a tornado watch. If you haven’t been in Tornado Alley, or spent your life in the world’s twister capital, then you might not know, as I didn’t, that a watch was nothing, meaningless, a precaution. And yet I flew to the bathroom, kneeled on the floor between the cabinets and the toilet, and prayed to Jesus to save my family from any danger. “Please don’t let us die.” I would grow nervous to the point of stomach aches when harmless thunderstorms would pass over; I would whimper, rush to my mother, sometimes even cry from anxiety. Tornadoes stressed me out; I was a nervous wreck at six.
As I grew older, I began to note the differences in tornadic storms and simple, easy, beautiful thunder. I grew to enjoy the latter, still petrified of the former. When my father left, and my sister was away at her first year of college, a storm of the former came sweeping in, as they do every spring, and I found myself in the closet under the stairs sobbing and praying to a god I was losing belief in. It’s almost ironic that I found myself on my knees in a closet that only came into existence because of my father’s angry fist and the brittle nature of sheetrock. There I was, crying for my mother to console me, on the floor of an accident of anger. And my mother, she soothed me by telling me we were alright, that we survived the worst without my father, that we would survive this. She didn’t know I was sobbing for my sister, I didn’t know she wasn’t referring to the storm.
Just this past year, the sirens sounded in downtown Chicago. My friend freaked out, ran downstairs from the fifteenth floor, and hid in the basement with the other tenants in her building. Unlike her, I sat in my room, opened my window, and listened to the rain. “This isn’t tornadic; there is nothing to worry about.” She told me things were different here, that I could be wrong. I wasn’t wrong, I was experienced, I knew better. And yet part of me is nervous, each time it begins to thunder late at night, each time the sound of pounding rain wakes me up from much-needed slumber. My stomach turns a little, I feel the twinge of anxiety in my gut, but I force myself to roll-over; I convince myself I know better, I tell myself someone is looking out for me even though I know they aren’t—everyone is sleeping, just as I should be. But a part of me won’t fall back asleep, even if my body does, even if my mind does. I dream of mysterious things that leave me feeling lonely in the morning, and leave my skin tingling with the moments I remember of creepy scenes. My deep seeded anxiety manifests itself in my subconscious expression, and I wake up awkward, I wake up anxious; I wake up only to find I am not really awake.
It’s spring; the weather is up and down, cold one day, humid the next. I wake up without knowing how the weather’s changed overnight; I am not able to tell how I will feel when I walk outside. Maybe one of these days there will be a tornado and I won’t have to decide how to feel based on the weather. I will just walk through the day with mixed emotions spinning all around my head.

April 2, 2007
Author's Note: GAH, I fucking hate having to conform in my comp class to simplistic, 750 word, five-paragraph essay bullshit, and it is showing in my most natural of forms. Fucking hate it, fucking hate how this feels, but I also know that I have to write, and I want to write, and these things truly are up and down. Yeah, so it sounds like a two-dollar essay, but it's all part of something greater--all part of some giant, grand machine. I can only hope that the whole meaning wasn't ruined by my feeling of strain, even when I am writing for nobody but myself. It's so strange how these things affect you. Please, pray I come out of this stupor quickly. I cannot stand to let myself fall into this high school style slump. I need my voice back.

Go Cry, Emo Kid

You Haven't Called Me in Weeks

©Rachel C

My body is being left behind. Time is moving, and somewhere I am mentally aware that each day is passing, each moth is progressing, and that time is pushing forward. The older I get, the faster it goes—the faster it goes, the sooner I am old. Emotionally, physically, something is being lost in translation. My body does not feel that it has aged four months even as I write the date on my next week’s schedule, or on a payment to my brother. And as time progresses, I feel more and more emotionally unstable. I could crack; I could crumble with one word, or sent into a fit of rage with another. I am not physically aware of the pressure time is putting on my body, or my heart; and yet every day that passes I do not question with disbelief that it is March, that it is the Twenty-second, that it is another day I’m putting toward something, and still another day I feel I have done nothing. I feel like I am not moving forward at all, not one single step, and here time is, showing me up, becoming a new day each morning.
I’m left behind, I’m detached. I don’t understand. A week ago, I was somebody’s person. Somebody’s best friend, someone they could count on. I think that was a little bit of an illusion, on my part. I think that I misled myself, because I need her to be my person. I need her to be here with me, but she doesn’t need me. She’s moved on, she doesn’t need my advice, she’s found someone new. She doesn’t need a person. I need a person, but all my people are disappearing. I think when we said “life long”, we were counting in mouse years.
I hate what I am doing—I feel like I am only hurting myself. And, moreover, I feel like some whiney “emo-kid”, whom everyone wished would shut up and move on. That’s what I feel like I should do. That’s what I feel like people are telling me to do, each time they give me that look of abhorrence. I can feel it in their eyes that they don’t want me here—or maybe I am just creating that sensation...but it doesn’t make me feel better. This bitter song won’t make me feel better. I feel like I should try harder, work harder, smile brighter, and be everything they think they are. I feel like being bitter, even for the sake of venting, is only making everything worse. I feel like I should stop talking—I am talking too much.
I don’t want to be the bitter person, always striving to make others proud, always working to prove everyone wrong. I don’t want to be the person who wakes up and realizes no one is going to care how successful she is, no one is going to care how smart she is, because the impression is already made and they won’t change their minds. I don’t want to be the person who realizes they were always going to be alone anyway. Loneliness is a mindset—a mind-trap is more correct. I thought I wouldn’t be, but I also thought someone needed me, and I think I was wrong, so I think I am wrong about everything. I want to know who missed me, who wanted me back. I want to know who still feels that way. I want to know if someone thinks about me, every now and then, because I think about them all the time. I want to know where I went wrong. I want to know how I ended up here. Mostly, I want to know where this is going.
I thought I was somebody’s person. I thought I had something to say. My message has been lost somewhere between my mind and my body, lost in translation at the tips of my fingers, just as time has been misinterpreted in my body, and I am torn. I am torn by the inconsistency in my mind and in my body. I feel completely sidetracked just remembering what day it is. Let alone remembering who I want to be, or how I want to get there.
I was supposed to be the one pushing forward. I was supposed to be the one ahead of the curve. On my way, a published author, detached from the skeptics of my youth. And yet here I am, sitting in Tulsa, living paycheck to paycheck; completely alone in a house full of people—completely alone in my head. I just wish you would call, but I know you won’t. And, honestly, it’s bringing me down.

March 22, 2007
Author's Note: Yeah, still part of that series I've been putting together, or whatever. I guess it's all linked because it's all one autobiographical string of thoughts, but this one is a lot-a-bit different than the others in it's style, so I guess it's just a little off-center that way. It's pretty bad, and I haven't written in a while, and I am in a complete funk. It sucks, I feel like shit, I feel like no one wants to talk to me--and honestly, no one will call me back...so, maybe it's not all imaginary. Anyway, I am a little depressed, and thus: emo-kid, whiney, crap prose has emerged. Eh, maybe it's not so bad, you know, for an amateur.

Concerning An Emo Kid

To Me You Are Depression

©Rachel C

I could curl up in your arms, fold my body to the contours of yours, rest my head against your shoulder-to-cry-on. I could link my fingers within yours, elegant and slender, like the piano player’s, but you do not serenade me. I could linger my mouth just-so slightly near yours, and let you taste my lust before my lips, my necessity before my want. But I do not, though in my mind I can feel your warm hands rest along my waist; and the gentle way you kiss my earlobe. I can feel your heavy weight upon my delight, pressing my objection into submission. And though I lie alone, distressed and undressed along the sheets stained with memories of my slumber, I do feel melancholy fingers linger at my neck; I do feel misery lips press into my own.

Depression expresses its slightest intimacies with me, making love to my vulnerable body and devastating me in despair.

February 20, 2005

And I Know You're Somewhere on the Road

I know I've been dead. Don't blame me, blame the world.
News, news, news!: I just submitted my first piece of prose to a literary journal, Cranky. From what I've seen of the poetry they publish, I am hoping my submission is suitable, but we'll all just have to wait and see. As for the piece I threw out there, if you remember "Nowhere Warm", or "Nothing to Keep My Hands Warm", you can pray that it will be accepted as my first piece to be published. Fingers crossed.

Shaking in My Ballet Flats

When God Closes a Door, He Jumps Out a Window

©Rachel C

Have you ever been walking down an unfamiliar street, heading toward an address you’ve never been, and realized that you have no idea what you are doing or how to get where you are going? This feeling comes over you, like a warm sickness in the pit of your stomach, and you could turn circles around yourself, point in any direction, and it wouldn’t matter which way you went, because you either have to find a way home or reach your destination, and you have no clue which way is east. I hate that feeling, when all you want to do is find the train and head home, but you can’t stop walking until you’ve reached the station. You’re damned if you turn the wrong way, but damned if you don’t. If you stand still, what is going to happen to you? Nothing, because standing still is out of the question—standing still is suicide, eventually you’ll get tired of standing in a strange neighborhood and have to start walking again. You can’t stop until you’ve found a way home. You can’t stop.
So many people have made analogies to this feeling, “life’s just a ride”, one that doesn’t stop, turn around, or let you off. There are two ends to the tunnel, “but you’re just as far in as you’ll ever be out”, and if you turn around you’ll repeat all the mistakes you’ve made and be back where you started. “An hour glass glued to the table”, the sensation of running along sand dunes, “keep moving forward and things won’t fall apart.” Things will fall apart anyway. In time everything finds a way to crumble. Don’t stop, don’t stop, though. Just don’t stop moving.
I could have stayed in Chicago. Found a way to live, maybe dirt poor, but maybe happy. I don’t know that I would have been, though, which is all the problem with decisions—you have to try one option before you can understand which direction was the better way to go. So maybe I chose wrong, but the other side of the street is still a mystery to me. What if I had stayed? I could have been miserable where I was living, so poor I couldn’t concentrate, and having to deal with the consequences of poor grades. But, would it have been any better than this? I am facing retaking all of my courses again, making up for lost grades by losing time. As for poor, here I am paying for my car, my food, my rent, my tuition. I have a job, yes, but forty hours a week is hardly comfortable here. I was talking about comfort with a girl I work with; I was saying soon I might finally reach that level of consolation, after the next pay check. I don’t think I was lying, to her or to myself, I think some sort of relief may soon be on its way, but I don’t know how long it will last. But, then again, if I can find comfort here, with only a few pay checks and the savings growing steadily, I might have in fact made the better of the two decisions. But how will I ever know?
If, in twenty years, I don’t still regret leaving Chicago.
I asked myself, on my knees in the middle of the floor, staring up at a photo on the wall, “am I making a mistake?” I never answered my own question, and I got on the plane anyway. Would it have been a mistake if I had stayed?
I was damned if I did, I was damned if I didn’t, and I’m damned until I find a way to get back to where I belong.
My mother tells me I can’t be in control of this situation, that no one can. Is the situation, then, in control of me? If I stopped walking, I would have let the feeling of being lost overwhelm me, and I never would have made it to the polling place that November morning. If I stopped walking, the situation I’d found myself in would have overtaken my ability to find a way out. I didn’t stop walking, I did what I could to get where I was going, and once I was there, getting home was like an old habit, getting home was a walk in the park. Isn’t it funny how, once you learn how to get where you need to be, turning back becomes habitual, second nature? Right now I am doing all that I can, and I guess that is to find a little comfort in the sound my soles make on the concrete. If I don’t stop walking, at least I feel like I am doing all I can to be a step ahead of the situation.

February 16, 2007
Author's Note: Different names for the same thing.

Digging Up the Past

August 8, 2005
©Rachel C

Frivolous and monotonic
I spread my insight
across the virtual pages
of the Microsoft revolution.
I want to be laid,
imbedded into someone else's clichés.
I'm so busy poking my
overdone symbolism with the prongs
of my metaphorical fork,
I've become another child abused
by the internal tick of a raising
gone Chaotic.

I've raised myself into a form
of fictional deities and internal
narrative.
I am a sad day kind of girl,
who giggles at the melancholic
because it makes a good plot.

No one ever wanted a story without
drama. No one ever wanted a life
without fulfillment. And this shitty re-
presentation is a "Cold Hard Bitch"
of a thing to do,
but someday I'll get a good
novel out of this;
someday I'll stop writing my life,
because I'll realize what I've got down
was never realistic anyway.

August 8, 2005
Author's Note: I found this, I thought I'd bring it up again.
The original, if you will.

Coming Clean?

Hilary Duff Sings Songs About This

©Rachel C

Surprisingly, this move back—from Oklahoma to Chicago to Oklahoma once again—is letting me examine myself in a way I never have, a way I never thought possible. Before this past month, I thought I knew who I was, I thought I knew myself; but, then again I was the one who said “I’m my own best friend, and even I don’t know myself that well”. Maybe I thought I never could, that that level of personal understanding was the work of fiction, some fantasy created in the head of a writer more confused than I was. But after some time seeing how things can change, how quickly life can bounce from Rock Bottom to High-as-the-Sky and back to Rock Bottom again, I am starting to see parts of my personality and my abilities that where hidden under a mask of disbelief. I am starting to uncover colors I never realize where visible to the human eye. It’s strange, how standing in the downpour of humility and redemption can shed away the black and white, can shed away the familiarity, can bring to light dark and scary places and transform them into something bright, something shiny.

January 29, 2007
Author's Note: it's a series people....

Neatly Tucked Beneath the Spotlight

Third Person Objective

©Rachel C

Objectivity was my goal, but I think I’ve failed. I don’t know that I can ever be truly objective, because I am in this. I am in it, in it so deep and so thoroughly that any objectiveness I can manage is bias and cold. In my head it feels like everyday is a new way to look at the world differently, everyday I have a stark narrative, a voice that not only observes how I am responding to situations in my way, but is also narrating the scene as I want to remember it—for literary reasons. I have a running narrative, telling my mind how to remember certain moments in time, so that later I can dictate them accurately and eloquently as I type them into a novel. Part of me thinks it’s sick; the rest: something so unique more people should notice and appreciate. For the rest of me, it is as close to objectivity as I can get, and it’s a first person narrative, which doesn’t bode much for openness in the way the story is perceived. But, I had the feeling that seeing this situation objectively was going to be a difficult thing to wrap my mind around.
Part of me that has been denying forces like God and self conclusion is starting to turn. I used to be confused, when everything happened, when everything came down on a seemingly innocent child. I used to think that karma was a sick joke on me, sick joke on us all. Ever since early high school, even before the divorce, I questioned my belief. I always assumed what I’d been told was the truth, but part of me wanted to deny it while the rest wanted to believe it. My body was in conflict, and I felt almost without a god all the while I claimed to believe in God. I can’t much explain it, or describe it, and my eloquence is lost almost to the cliché of discussing God. And yes, it is all very cliché, or maybe it is all very Godly. Maybe we want to believe it’s cliché to feed the humanist ideals instilled in our minds to live on our own, to never give credit or ask for aide, and to survive in a world without God—because believing in something mightier than ourselves often implies believing there may be a plan already in place. We want to map, live, control, and complete our lives. We want to feel whole without holy influence. But, most importantly we don’t want to fulfill a cliché. We don’t want to admit that prayer works, even though, most likely, it’s only ever answered because we find a way to resolve it ourselves. We don’t want to give in to the idea of God because God is no one we can influence, no one we can tame; and our worldly manipulations are too little to sway Him.
Looking back at this past month, or more wholly, this past half-year, I’m seeing things fall into place in a way I never could as I was living them. When my father left the first time, or maybe even as late as the fifth time, I resolved to write a book, an analysis, of the behavior I observed and conducted. I watched, listened, remembered all I could of the arguments and aggravations, trying to stockpile it all in my memory for a later time to write it all down. It became overwhelming, and I decided to step back, determined to breathe in and let the air settle before taking up the task again. I needed to let my mind rest. I needed to let the memories sit and stew; I needed to give it time enough that, when I came back to the story, I could look at it objectively, from every angle, and write honestly as one sees from the future looking back instead of the past looking forward. And then, sometime this past year, more happened than I’d resolved to remember, and I rethought my strategy.
Overall, I haven’t begun to pen that novel, or analysis, but I am beginning to see for certain the effect of stepping back, the advantage and insight of looking from the future’s perspective. I’m seeing that, if I had never gone to Chicago, I wouldn’t know who it is I want to be; and if I had never taken the step back and packed my bags, I would never see the person I am capable of becoming. It seems to me that there was something in the works before I knew what I was doing, there was something in the making, a plan I wasn’t aware of. And that side of me that wanted so bad to find assurance in science, just so I would never become another cliché, is starting to step in the direction of understanding—that the little voice inside of me, the one that comes from my gut, may just very well be the kind of instinct to believe in. Whether or not what I am seeing unravel is the work of a great and powerful God, or just the insight of a trained writer, doesn’t seem to matter anymore. As long as I continue to feel as if I am doing something right, that somebody out there approves, I think I have an immense possibility of someday being happy.
Seeing the way my life has unfolded, truly looking back from a different point of view does something for me I have never imagined. I can see clearly the irony I predicted, or the symbolism I suggested was important at the time. I can see that, as I lived it, I understood it on some level, the narrative in my mind picking out the literary devices I would someday use; and I can see that, as I look back, exactly how to use them, and exactly how inspiring it is at all to see that they happened in my life and aren’t just fantastical works of fiction. The day I said it poured, it rained and rained; how it kept falling from the sky for days after I arrived in Oklahoma—all of that was real, and how very amazing it is to see. Writers create the rain, the sunsets, the metaphors and symbols to fit with their character’s mood. My metaphors, my similes, my symbols were already in place, the moment I was living them, tailored to fit my mood. I didn’t make the rain this time, and it’s so much cooler that way.
Objectivity is a bitch, but I am starting to think it’s possible, even for a crazy like me. My friend, she wanted it in that moment, the way it happens in the movies. The movies are fictitious; in real life the objectiveness kicks in much later than you can predict.

January 28, 2007
Author's Note: you know the one.