Bones

This is super rough, but I like it, and I love the idea, obviously. If you know me at all you know I love the idea. It has a lot more to do with what I am working on than one would expect, though this is the first time I've actually sat down to write about this particular part. I really don't know how to say it yet, but you have to get it on paper before you can start to figure it out--at least, this is how it works for me. So, here is my really rough, really not so awesome first attempt to say what I am trying to say about bones, and skeletons, and broken parts in general:

The majority of the human body is soft—except for the bones. I have known the softness, the ease of bruising, the sponginess of relaxed muscles and tender fat. How simple it is to slice our flesh, rip it apart, cause it to crack down to the bone. I have felt how vulnerable our skin is, how breakable our flesh is. How easily we get hurt. I like to believe I have built up an exoskeleton along the surface of my skin, to protect my mushy insides, because for twenty years I’ve been over-sensitive to the slices of words and tones and looks from people I’d like to trust. So I pretend to be strong on the outside, because the organs, the blood, the heart, and the brain can’t take it when flesh breaks. It isn’t really true, though, about the shell.
If anything, it’s an inner hardness that I have developed, which has caused in me a longing to be “soft” on the inside. This, too, though, I believe is a lie. I don’t think I have ever been hard, but maybe for small moments when I pretend I am strong, when I pretend I am made of bone. Maybe this is why I love them so much—bones. I love lyrics, songs with references, “broken parts,” “cracking bones,” “all my old bones are growing new bones,” like some sick form of super skeleton, doubling up on the hard parts. I love the idea of skeletons, the idea of bones...of stripping away the easy to kill flesh, down until there isn’t anything soft. I don’t like to get hurt, I don’t like to break, and I don’t like to cry. I don’t like being soft, although sometimes I think I am not, I know I tend to be easily bruised, like the pink, fuzzy flesh of peaches. But, I have never broken a bone.
We are all so soft, so squishy. Our bones hold us together.

Oh What a Day

My problem is that I have too much I want to say, too much I want to include, too much I want to discuss that really doesn't have much to do with the points I am trying to make or the messages I am attempting to get across. Too much that really isn't about anything but myself, and in a way that isn't necessarily entertaining or insightful, but more self-destructive and sometimes just corny, motivationals of which I have never been pleased with--I'm not a "motivational" kind of person, but I always find myself writing them to myself, which in turn just turns me off more from the idea of motivation. No, what I want to say isn't about that, self-motivating or stories about my job or paying off my car...that isn't the point of it, and the idea of writing those things in, I think, is bogging down the whole idea. I can't breathe under the weight of all the useless crap--thus is my life. But, everyday, I am getting closer to knowing what needs to be cut, what I need to concentrate on, what really has the story all wrapped up around it's finger. My father, the divorce, the move from Tulsa to Chicago, from Chicago to Tulsa, and then back again this past fall, my family's communication problem, my mother...those are the things that are important, the things that are still bogging me down a little with their massive weight, but the things that are necessary. In a way, though, those are the things that just discuss how I got here, and that is the ultimate challenge...how did I get here, so worried about everything, so terrified to invest faith, so cynical towards hope and yet eager to hope again. How did I get to this point, trying believe that something good has to come because I am due, when really I am the one who has to make it happen. That is the lesson, and the lesson of faith, because we have to invest it, or nothing will happen. For so long nothing was happening, but when you step out on a ledge and you jump, well, you're going to fall. It's supposed to be about all of the lessons that were so hard to learn, why they were, and if I have.
I guess what I am saying is this, I am closer today than I was yesterday to understanding what it is I need to talk about. The thing about it is, that even if everything works out for me the way I want it to, I still won't have said these things until I do this and until I do this I can't be whole and healed and I can't forgive anyone, and I especially don't want to, I don't want to forgive. I'm not ready; I'm still broken. I'm still looking for a reason to deny it, I am looking for a way to avoid it, and I am closer each day to finally confronting it. I have to get over it, and I can't do that without this book, I know that because I can never say to anyone what I need to say, but I can write it down. I don't care so much if it gets published, but I will try, and I certainly want it to. Right now, though, I would really like to just move on; I would really like to just write it, put it on paper, and finally get over the past five years, finally learn my lessons, and move on with my life the way that I should.
Yes, I know, this itself seems motivational. But, more, I am coming to some understandings, and when I do that, I like to write about it. Go figure.
I just don't want to lose sight of what it is that is most important to me. Yes school, yes my career, yes my friends, yes my family, but the one thing I have wanted since I was six, the one thing I have been working hard to accomplish since I was fifteen, the one thing I think about the most is this, and I have to do it sometime or other...I would rather do it now. I think it's important to do it now. I think somewhere someone knew, some part of some pattern, and I didn't lose my job or get this one at Old Navy or finally have the opportunity to get the CNA, or get back into UIC, or have the opportunity to pay off my debt myself....none of this happened because shit happens. Somebody, somewhere, some piece of some pattern, I was fired because I needed to stop being someone I am not and finally realize who this person is...and that includes finally realizing what it is I need to write about.
I Think I'm Ready to Win

All Winter We Got Carried Away

"Pillow Talk"

Sometimes I curl up
to the pillows
on the other side of the bed
as if they were something warmer,
something firmer,
something tangible beyond
feathers and lace.

I find myself with the overwhelming
desire
to wrap my arms around a stranger
whose warmth radiates
and whose body seems strong.

For all I know, if I did, he’d
crumble into feathers;
he’d crumple under my weight.
He’d be nothing but pillows,
cotton and lace.

And cold,
on the other side.

December 15, 2008
So Come Over, Just Be Patient, and Don't Worry

Closer Whole World

I felt like posting this again. Dunno why....

Roll Up Your Sleeves

Why do I get this feeling
that life is harder without you
so close and so easily obtainable—
so easily found on street corners
were buildings are tall enough to swallow
our small hearts?

If there weren’t an ocean of grass and land
maybe life would be less heavy,
maybe I would feel less hard—
stone walls and glass barriers and
borders I put up—seemingly impenetrable.

If trees as fierce as skylines, cold
and metal and cruel,
didn’t appear in the distance;
if they were as beautiful as
small pines in the past, left behind with
all the things deemed so difficult
maybe I would be kind.
Maybe I would be gentle.

I get this feeling the world
would be softer if you weren’t
a distant thing, long sought after.
And I ask it, all around me, the cars
and concrete and cold steel,
I ask the world: “when will I be soft?”

When will I begin again, closer
to you, swallowed and whole
in the belly of the world
so distant I can’t but feel
the world would be easier
if it were close.

January 25, 2008

All the City Buses Swimming Past

Desmond is My Constant

What happens to a plane that falls
thirty-thousand-feet?
If it happens to be traveling
at the acceptable speed
for modern day air travel
my assumption is
it explodes.

Unless it falls into the sea.

And then, it splashes,
like something greater than
a whale, or a pod of them,
or a space shuttle
falling from the heavens
like a rock the moon tossed
right back at us—it doesn’t
so much like to be stoned.

And when it splashes,
and when it crashes,
its bones,
its limbs—
its skeleton—
they shatter like a little bird’s frame,
hallow and insecure.

And when there are flames,
or ripples of water
that someone somewhere
is surfing along the affects of,
all the souls inside
that hallow piece of metal
are somewhere else entirely,
already gone away.


November 30, 2008
Author's Note: The title is a working title...and you might've laughed if you too are a Lostie. I could have also called it "At the Bottom of Everything." (And when we get down there, way down to the very bottom of everything, oh then we'll see it, well see it, well see it!) As for the poem...it's kind of surprisingly upbeat, especially for me.
I'm Happy Just Because

Someone Called It a Candle, Slowly Flickering Out

Gets Around in My Head

Ambient light
now sneaks its way into my room
at night the way it
sneaks away the stars
and nothing is ever truly dark,
not anymore.
Even the moon is lost somewhere,
though, occasionally, I can see it peer
over the lake, on the Michigan
side of life.
Everything is closer, cramped in
and tight around me,
suffocating in an intoxicating way.

And my throat longs for the freedom
of places I’ve come from
where everything was good and right,
wholesome and predictable,
and nobody lost their job, their money,
no body lost their life.
It was safe, where—
though we knew not where
we were going or how to get there—
we believed we could handle anything,
we believed it was possible to leave.

Leaving was one thing, living is another.
And, though part of my body and my heart
yearn for the place in which safety nets were cast
around every corner, the rest would be hard pressed
to turn around and go back
to that innocence and that naivety
to that life in which I was miserable
living too far from ambient light.

Sure, I could go back, and return myself
to the state of mind I was once in, if only
to abolish this particular thought process.
But leaving is one thing, living another;
and, it’s important to remember
I had never done much living,
neither here nor there;
I’d never been living before.

A Letter of Petition, Of Sorts

There are two things that I want to say:
1.) That there always seems to be a new The Killers album out just when I am going through a major life change. How do they do it; how do they know? I may never know, but this certainly secures them in my Top Five for life, simply based on timing and relate-ability. Are The Killers to me what The Clash is to Anderson Cooper? Who knows? I don't know, but time may tell.
And: 2.) That this has to be a new beginning, because I have believed I would get one at one point in my life, and, honestly, I have never seen it happen. I have seen the opportunity, and I have seen myself ignore it, over look it, or fail it miserably. In fact, this is a major fail, one that I am attempting to pull out of. And this is it: I have to, or I will go back to Oklahoma, I will be forced to live with my mother through college, and I will stay there until I am out of school, doing what I consider the safe, boring, and very not like me thing. And I say it isn't like me, when really it is, that I roll over and rely on the situation to make it okay, to sort itself out. That part of me has to die; it has to stop here, because look at where it has gotten me. I do not want to go back to Oklahoma, no matter who might be living there that I love, or what might be easier if I did. I want to do this, get on my feet, and be forever from this time on, capable.
Up until this moment, I have put on quite the show of seeming to be, but I know, and I am sure you do, that I am not. I am not because I have allowed myself to be distracted from what really needs to be done. I have allowed myself to ignore the steps and to daydream instead of move forward. And, yes, I have done my fair share of moving forward, but I did it in an impatient hurry. A hurry that put me in an apartment in Uptown Chicago with nothing; a hurry that put me in a situation with the girl who bought my car which is now, possibly, resolved, but I have no way of knowing; a situation that didn't take care of my debt, but helped make it impossible for me to. I hurried, back to Chicago, back to school, back into a life that I was never ready for, be it the first time I moved or today. So this has to be a new beginning, simply in that I need to be ready to live, or else I should just turn around, break my lease, and return to Oklahoma, self-scorned and even more bitter and cynical than when I began, or than I am now--which is a sizable amount of cynicism, if you ask me.
This is my chance to finally buckle down, become responsible the way I told myself and everyone else I was. This is my chance to find a job that will help build a career, to finally pay off all of my debt, to save money for the next time I need something to fall onto. This is my chance to do what I have been telling myself I would for so long--to get back to who I was, to what I believed in, and to what I wanted. And to take with me all of the lessons I have been forced to learn, and all of the lessons I will soon learn.
This isn't something I am just saying, this isn't something I am just writing to make myself and everyone think I am in control. I am not in control, and this is a revelation that I need to be. I need to be on top, I need to be whole and together, I need to trust myself with money. I need to trust that, when things are right, when I have made them right, things will come together and I will be who I want to be, who I cannot be yet, who I am incapable of being because I haven't opened myself up completely to all of the possibilities of me.
So, I am returning to basics. Today I bought a cup of coffee, stirred in three sugars and cream, and sat down with my laptop at Starbucks, where I have always felt at home, even before I worked there. And it was just as it was, me drinking coffee the way I used to, two years ago--even though today it doesn't taste as great, and I long for the breve I typically use, but can't afford--me sitting in a Starbucks, not as a partner relying on her job to help make do or offer comfort, but as a student, as a writer, as a hopeful kid. I am going back to that, to when I could dream of nothing but writing and becoming a journalist. I am going back to studying politics and the Middle East, going back to blogging about world affairs and foreign policy. Going back to that kid who thought everything was possible and was confident that everything would work out, even when it looked as if it never could.
But, I am taking with me the understanding that I can't just dream and it will come true--a notion which has plagued me since childhood. I am going back as a person who understands hard work is the key to long term happiness and success, that there is nothing rare about pride and it can blur opportunities, and that there is someone I want to be, who I can be, if I just make it happen and stop dreaming I already have. I am taking with me this desire to be better, which has always been a desire, and has always--I thought--been a reality, if I can make it. I am also taking with me the desire to study medicine, because I believe it brings out in me a competitive, logical person, who is rational and smart. A person that isn't always around when I think about writing, which brings out creativity, certainly, and hope and pride, but doesn't fulfill everything I need to pull through this situation and make myself into something. I need to take the fierceness of a surgical career, of a competitive field such as medicine and apply it to everything. I need to step up, stop rolling over, and be the person I thought for sure I was. I need to fight.
And I am ready. I am tired of sitting down, waiting for something to resolve. I am tired of being treating like I am naive. Yes, I know, I am. But, I believe I can work it out, and there is nothing wrong with belief, or with faith, or with hope. It may be naive, but it helps get things done. In fact, it's necessary to get things done. Nothing can be accomplished if someone hasn't invested their faith and their hope into it. Faith is what it takes; and maybe that is naive, but it is also true.
So, I am going to stand up. This is my chance to do it; to make something of myself, which I can accurately say is no one and nothing as of right now. I have been reduced to nothing over the course of my life, the last five years helping to break me down to something I never wanted to be and someone I don't understand. I am no one, I am nothing, and this isn't a bad thing. This is a chance to build, to reverse everything, to finally learn a lesson or two. This is the chance to turn my nothing self into someone to be proud of, someone who has a voice, someone who can take care of herself and isn't afraid to defend herself. I am going to go back to that person with all those ambitions, add a few more, and take with me all the lessons I have learned about making those ambitions reality. I am going to start studying again, blogging again, diving into what is happening in the world and, very importantly, with our country. I am going to find a job, work as much as I can, pay off my debt and build my savings, and I am going to return to school in August.
I am going to write, not only in this blog about current events, but every day work on fiction and essays I have been writing in my head for months, years. I am going to finally develop the ideas that have been gnawing at my head and growing in my heart. I am going to plant seeds and start watering the ones I planted long ago. And I am not going to take no for an answer. I am not going to let anyone get away with hurting me. I am not going to roll over, let it be; I am going to make it be the way it should be, the way it needs to be.
Right now, I am in serious debt for someone my age, and some of that debt wasn't initially my fault, but I was the one who needed to step up and take responsibility. It isn't about blame, or whose fault it is, not anymore. Today it is about working it out. I am not going to do as my mother told me, to get a loan to cover my school debt. Her prerogative is to get me back in school, and I appreciate her ferocity at pushing that point. I want nothing more than to get back into school, which I want to stress, because I know she fears I will never want to go back. I have to go back, even if just for myself to say I did, I have to go back. But, I will not rid myself of debt with one person by putting myself into debt with another. So, I am going to instead to the "hard" thing, as she says I always do, and work the debt off. I am not going to compromise my credit score more than I already have, or my future finances, just so I can go back to school next semester. No matter when I start, I am starting at the same point, and I am not ever going to be eighteen again, that kid who didn't have a job, who relied on school for a purpose, and who allowed that purpose to go unfulfilled. I am never going to be that again; in that way I cannot go back. But, I can rid myself of the mistakes of my past by taking them upon myself and accepting responsibility.
No loan, not now; not until I can safely say I have enough and am smart enough financially, and stable enough, to go back full-time and take on the loans as a responsible adult, planning a future and a way to pay them off once I am through with my degrees.
So, I am going to work, as much as I can, and hopefully it will be at a job where I can make a name for myself. I am looking for something in the health care industry, where it's less likely I will lose my job, and I am looking for something I can build off of, something that will give me experience and recommendations when I need them.
And, I am going to write, every day, working to make a name for myself the way I planned to two years ago. Some days it will be working on literature that I hope to publish, some days it will be working in this blog to offer commentary on today's events and world affairs and maybe even a bit of news.
And I am going to push myself to be better in different ways. Taking the plunge into the kind of person I thought I was and would very much like to be. I came to the conclusion that I am not the person I thought I was, that I, in fact, became the entirely wrong person. I don't know how I got here, but I know that I have allowed myself to be angry and unhappy. I have done that to myself. If I have learned anything, and anything from my last few weeks at Starbucks, it's that I can be happy, I can be smart, and witty, and funny, and good. That, I can still be cynical, but like so many people I look up to, be happy with who I am and what I am doing in this moment, knowing that I am going somewhere. I don't have to have the perfect life to be happy, and I shouldn't be ashamed of myself when I smile at someone. I shouldn't be too proud to be that nice, pretty, happy girl. I want to be bright and shiny, I always have; and, as much as I enjoy being cynical and sarcastic, I have to understand I can be nice too. It isn't going to hurt me, or my pride, or my standing with others if I am a nice person. In fact, I am kind of under the impression that people may like me more. So, I am going to try to be both a good person, a kind person, a nice person, and that doesn't mean I have to give up on sarcasm or cynical commentary for which I have always wanted to be known.
I'm going to figure it out. I am not saying all of this to be proud, or to make you proud or think highly of me. Quite frankly, I haven't done anything that should make you think highly. I have been arrogant, and cocky, and a downright bitch. I have been full-of-it, all talk and no walk. I am going to step up, stand up, make a point, and be something better. Because, I have to.
So, if with or without me, it is what it is, and this is what I am going to do.
I’m sorry if you got all the way to this point and realized this post was really redundant and kind of stupid. I don’t deny those points, not at all. But, everything that needed to be said, things I was afraid to say, and things I am afraid to step up and do. I am not really asking anyone to be accountable for me, because I have to be accountable for myself, something I have never really done. This isn’t about approval or about what you think. It’s a declaration, a thesis statement, even, if you will. And I am putting it out here simply to say, this is what I am going to make myself do, who I am going to make myself become, and I hope it’s someone you can accept, because it’s someone I can accept. It’s my way to become that person I can be proud of, who is really, truly, very much like me.
And, The Killers...totally my Clash.

The Change Came in Disguise of Revelation

I Just Want to Be OK

I am afraid of finding out that I am not the person I say I am.
I am afraid of admitting I was wrong about myself and about my life.
I am afraid of discovering that I am incapable.
I am afraid of failure.
I am afraid of never finding my way.
I am afraid of never becoming who I want to become.
I am afraid of who I have become.
I am afraid that I cannot do anything worth while.
I am afraid I will never get out of this situation.
I am afraid I will never be happy.
I am afraid no one wants me.
I am afraid I will die alone.
I am afraid that I will put this off forever.
I am afraid that if I don’t do this, I will never be whole.
I am afraid of admitting that I was never whole, that somebody hurt me, that I feel the way I feel.
I am afraid I am depressed.
I am afraid I am beyond repair.
I am afraid of what will happen to me if I don’t get it together.
I am afraid that nothing will ever resolve, that nothing will ever come through.
I am afraid I will never be okay.
I am afraid of feeling, anything.
I am afraid of finding out how broken I truly am.
I am afraid of doing something, because I am afraid it will hurt me.
I am afraid, also, that it won’t.
I am afraid of finding out who I really am.
I am afraid that this is it, this is everything, this is what there is for me, this is who I am.
I am afraid of posting this, of telling everyone this, of labeling myself as “broken,” or “scared,” or “fucked up,” which I know in my heart is true.
I am afraid of doing what I have been telling myself I must do for five years.
I am afraid to admit that I cried through this whole list--sobbed, actually--and I am afraid of what that means.

I am afraid of putting it on paper, because writing it down makes it real.
Writing it down makes it real, and I am afraid it’s time for things to get real.

So I posted it.
Think what you will.
Everybody needs to take a first step. I was afraid of mine.

LOST

Um, LOST.

Candy and Coffee

All Hopped Up

I roll out of bed and pull on the jeans
that I wore yesterday, lying haphazard
on the floor. I grab a Twix from
the counter and don’t bother eating breakfast.
(It is unfortunate that I must wait
until I punch in on the clock
to have my morning coffee,
my only moment of happiness,
the thing that keeps me whole.)

I run to the train on most mornings,
running late a new thing on my agenda,
something I haven’t been doing
along with smoking and drinking and
anything but television and sleeping.
And everything is a rush, until it slows
mindlessly down, between station and station,
the agonizing forty-five minutes of daydreams
and homeless talking,
and men preaching anarchist teachings
while pledging their love to their country.
(And I wait, uncaffeinated, my fingers
tapping on the window, my eyes
lolling back and forth, noting people
and buildings and places I’d go
if I could get myself out of bed in the morning.)

And at work I grudge through,
the first cup just a moment, a sip,
something I can only live for,
hoping there comes another.
I don’t take notice of the people
passing through the doors,
whose appearance would otherwise
have caught my attention
in another day, another life.
(And the coffee doesn’t kick in,
never like I want it to.
It used to be I could have a cup
and the day would flow on
peaceful and understanding
and beautiful some days,
depending on the people,
and the places I decided to go
when I woke up and pulled on my jeans
and brushed my teeth and hair
and gave a concern for where I was headed
or how I was getting there.)

I wait a little longer, after all the people
have gone on to work, and all the noise
is settled into a whisper or a tone
that I simply don’t acknowledge.
I wait a little longer, fingers crossed,
knowing the smile, the bright eyes,
the girl I was with ambition and dreams,
will wake up with that coffee, if she’ll give
the mug and the brew a chance
to really reach in and touch her heart,
warm her soul, make her soft, make her sweet.
If she’ll give it a chance, enjoy it the way
she used to on Sunday mornings and days
spent wondering what to do next—
if she’ll give it a chance, it will heal her,
make a whole of her heart,
take her broken pieces and hand them over
to some friend, some surgeon, to sew them all up
and let them beat accelerated, spirited beats,
all hopped up on caffeine.

September 21, 2008
Chocolates and Tomorrow's News

I'm Just a Little Girl Lost in the Moment

It's a beautiful day. I usually don't care for beautiful days, with the sun out, and the sky so very blue, and a light, perfect breeze blowing into my room through gladly opened windows. I usually don't care. I find these days annoying and bright; I prefer the rain. But, today is a beautiful day, and I am feeling it all over. The scent of the lake just a few blocks away, the sound of traffic, and the cool, crisp, late morning air. I am loving it, completely feeling it, rolling in it.
It also helps, I suppose that I slept in this morning. And then I took myself out to get my coffee and steal a paper. I spent the better half of the morning lying in bed with my mug of Pike and my New York Times reading up on Joe Biden and Obamanomics. This is the way I like to spend my Sundays.
I haven't been feeling so wonderful, not lately. I have been giving myself time to get over my departure, to get into this life with an understanding that I made some decisions I may not entirely be happy with. I am not in school, which gnaws at my stomach every day, and I am not truly enjoying my job like I once might've, if I could remember when that was. I want more out of life, feeling like if I don't start moving now, if I don't start doing something, I will be doing nothing for the rest of my life. And I have some fears I will never overcome this barrier that has kept me out of school for so long and will thus never return to continue my education. I have been overwhelmed with missing my mother and her house and missing my best friend. And I miss the store that I opened, and the manager that was my friend, and the people I never want to go without speaking to, even though that may soon happen. I haven't been entirely happy with my decision, because I am so worried and so focused on all of the bad things I may encounter, or an currently encountering. I am worried about money, but more I am worried about missing people too much. So, I have been lying in it, in my unhappiness, and allowing it to consume me so that I might mourn. So that I might go through the stages and come out happier, fuller, and ready. I have been mourning the loss of my past and my partially unplanned, unprepared future. I am slightly, or even more than so, not ready.
But, today. Today is a truly beautiful day. I am smiling and letting the breeze in and accepting that I can read the paper on my bed and not feel guilty or wonder if I've made a mistake. I am accepting that I won't be going back to school for a year, and that it is going to be okay if I don't. I am accepting that I need to be getting over my pain and my fear and my sadness and finally sit down in a cafe to write what I've been meaning to, to do what I moved for. I am smiling despite the fact that I haven't yet put away my clothes in the dresser, or done a load of laundry, or put together the bed frame still sitting in Ikea boxes in the corner of my room. I am smiling because today I want to. I haven't wanted to. I have wanted to lay down on my lonely mattress sitting on the floor. I haven't wanted to drag myself downstairs to clean my clothes. I haven't wanted to fold and stack my life into the new chest of drawers I bought so that I might have a place for my things. I haven't wanted to do anything but cry and mourn and wonder what I am going to do. Today, however, I want to put my bed together, I want to lay around and red the paper instead of watch old episodes of Grey's Anatomy and long to be in school. Today I want to sit and write in a journal I haven't touched for weeks; I want to sit and write at all. Today I want to resolve to always have Sundays off, to make my own coffee, to have a bagel and a banana for breakfast every morning. Today I want to settle into myself, plan to experience life the way I wanted to, plan to write and publish like I've dreamed to. Today I just want to live and let live.
I have a shift at a store this evening that I picked up for the extra cash to get me through until tipday. And tomorrow I start another full-time week at my store downtown. I have Sunday off next week, and I plan to do what I've done today, with a mug of coffee and the Sunday Times. Tomorrow, I will venture to all the stores I've worked at and collect my tips. I will go grocery shopping. I will make myself dinner. And then I will decide, if I am still feeling up for a little bit of happiness and a little bit of life, to put my frame together and sleep in a real bed tomorrow night.
I am feeling good. For the first time I am feeling good, like I can handle it, and like I am going to make it happen. I am not regretting anything right now in this moment other than not getting to spend this beautiful afternoon in a cafe somewhere writing. But, that is okay, because I have time, lots of time. Lots of days, beautiful days, to spend in cafes writing and building on the foundation I have created by moving. I am building my future, right now, in this moment, on this beautiful day.
I'm So Scared, but I Don't Show It

Money Can't Buy You

I Want My Money Back

The wind is strong today,
it blows at skirts, attempting to whisk girls away
but they are stronger than they appear
in their dainty sundresses
and their shimmer pink lip gloss.

And when it finally rains—
the clouds opening to storm the bay
and cool the air
which had them sweating as they ran
from beach spot to train station
in their yellow platform heels—
they pull out their umbrellas
and walk along in a bustle
looking for a rainbow to crouch under.

Some of them, the favorites,
smile as they buy their coffee,
sipping it innocently, politely, and charmingly.
The others scowl,
at the heat, at the rain,
at the sun or at the clouds,
and are usually the ones people tend to renounce.
And all of them stir
the air of the city, laced with pollution
so harmful to their pink lungs.

And each of them is terrified,
because they are in love
or because they are adults
or because they want neither to grow
nor to care nor to wish someone there.
Each of them is falling
into cycles of mistakes
reaching for the next one
to carry her through the day.

Each of them is trying
day-by-day to survive.
And the dresses and the heels
get them through, one at a time,
as the sun beats down a spotlight
on their tiny little lives.

And the rain clouds give a curtain
for them to bow out of the show,
to get their money back, and go home.

August 23, 2008
I am not going to lie, this is a change of pace. A very weird piece for me to have written indeed. But, I wanted to try something slightly brighter. If you can call this bright and shiny. Which you can't, because it isn't...but for me it is.
Back the Love that You Had Then

I Put My New Shoes On

Little Red Slippers

I am Dorothy in uncharted territory
walking the Yellow Brick Road
with all the confidence I can muster
if only to find myself trapped in the witch’s castle.
It’s an illusion we use—humility and ignorance—
to save ourselves from explanation
and undoubtedly from certain death.

Metaphorical death, as opposed to physical death,
may be more the case, I suppose,
than landing myself accidentally
in the lair of a witch.
It is a death, instead, that cools the soul
and stops the heart from valiantly beating.
It is the death that ignominy yields from;
the death that is born of failure.

I was brought here against my will
on the backlash of a storm
Mother Nature cruelly hurled at the earth.
Thrown around and whip lashed,
I landed on some nobility
and found myself hero and hunted alike.

Yellow continues, despite
the overwhelming glare of the bricks below,
to be my favorite color plastered across
this globe on which we skip,
barely skimming the surface.
This gives me some hope of finding
alleged great Emerald City
where maybe my shoes might carry me home.
But the witch lingers closer,
hovering still above my sight,
and I allow myself the ignorance
and the humility
to dispel any rumor I might be the one
she’s looking to kill.

I am Dorothy, I am dim, I hail
from some unknown state
where rainbows are just things
which I focus my imagination
so that I might be distracted and envision
I am something greater than this land.

July 16, 2008
Short on Money, but Long on Time

Because Words Simply Paper

It's Shit Because I Made It

There is a moment
in everyday I have been alive,
which is too many to count
and growing by the spinning
of this orb we call our home,
that I have thought about who
I want to call myself
and about finally writing that novel
I’ve been penning in my head
for so many years.

When it comes down to it,
I am the only thing
that has ever stopped me
from being truly honest with myself.
Maybe I wasn’t cut out
for this. Maybe I don’t know
why exactly I was born.
And I tell myself
every one of those days
that I will learn from my mistakes
and finally make a change.
I will finally put onto paper
what I have been thinking
all of this time.

I don’t, and it isn’t because
I have no talent with words.
But, I do believe that I simply
can’t put anything onto paper.

Except for self-motivational,
"I’ll learn my lesson,
I’ll make something of myself”
kind of bullshit that
makes me cringe and
feel stupid. I am tired
of telling myself I am better
when obviously I am worse.

And all I want to do,
every second of every day,
is finally write what I’ve been meaning to.

The sad thing is, I know what to say.
I know what I feel,
and I know what’s the matter.
And I know how to tell the story.
It’s all this contempt,
all this pent up, unreliable anger,
that keeps getting in my way.

June 1, 2008
We're Coming Close to Bridging the Gap

We Didn't Do It for the Money

I thought I would update, since that seems important, even though I haven't really written anything in a while. That kind of makes me sad. In fact, it does make me sad. But, I have been working on getting a "new life" started for myself, and unfortunately, my writing has fallen second fiddle. Oops. Seriously.

I just want to say this: why is Hillary still running?! At this point, I am terrified the party is going to crumble. The problem with her continuing a campaign is simply that she will bring her die-hard supporters all the way. If this has a bloody end, which it is bound to if it continues toward the DNC, her supporters will likely be lost to the party. Either they will vote for McCain, or worse, they won't vote at all, which is exactly the opposite of progress if you ask me. The past Mid-Term was a wonderful step toward getting youth voters to put in their two cents, but I am afraid that Clinton supporters will throw in the towel if she keeps this battle up. It wouldn't be so bad if she weren't playing old-school politics, which has worked to alienate a portion of the party. And if she doesn't concede and fully support Obama and the Democratic Party, her supporters will see that they don't need to and will refuse on her behalf.

I know I have made many Americans sound like sheep here, but for the most part, we are. A mob, thus is America. And, the mob wields the most power, and together the mob can do anything. Without the power, the full power, of the mob, of the people, the Democratic Party has no chance in winning this election. Unfortunately for Hillary and her supporters, she is loosing the battle for the nomination, and it is almost too late to heal the wounds the primaries caused. If she were in Obama's place, and if he were fighting the battle she is, I would say the same. She must concede, or the party will be permanently damaged. The end.

I feel kind of uninformed, however, when I talk about this, because I have been so caught up in all the things I need to get done. A.) is moving, which will take a lot out of me; and 2.) is deciding where I want to go next with my education. When I say next I mean: what exactly do I plan to do the next semester and where it will lead in the future. I need a plan, and I am torn--so, so torn--as to which direction I need to be facing. Part of me thinks I should ride it out; don't face any direction. But, the rest of me loves a plan, is used to a plan, is obsessive about plans. Part of me seriously needs a plan. And what do I do? I avoid it. Believe me, this is me completely avoiding it--see how it works? I am just completely ignoring it. I see a book I want to read that could potentially point me in one direction and I don't read it. I see a program on television that could potentially change my mind and I don't watch it. I am not making any decisions. And my decision to not make any decisions is driving me crazy.

In writing news, I killed my flash drive with my novella on it. So, that's going to be pulled back together from various pieces I have lying around. It'll be good for it, a new look at it, a new revision; but, damn, it's going to be a lot of work. Not that I am making time for writing. Because I'm not, if you haven't figured that out.

Also, I know where I am heading with my book. Direction is always good when it comes to this.

Other than that, I've been working. And by working, I mean seven days/sixty hours a week, which has left me utterly useless.

It's going to be an interesting summer. Or worse, a completely boring one.

Lock Me Up, I'm Stupid

Guys,

I’m love-sick and stupid.
So you shouldn’t let me out
in public today.

I might propose on the corner
of some street I find attractive.

And then where would I be?

...married to a street
that’s taken my last name
when all I really wanted
was you.

April 18, 2008

I Don't Know Why

I Didn't Ask for It

One-Sided Nightstand Note

I get a note saying “thanks anyway”.
Who gets a note saying that?
People who don’t try hard enough
to get what they want out of life,
those are the people who receive
notes on their nightstand—
thanks anyway,
and thanks for nothing.

I grew up with a skewed perception
of the kind of woman I would be,
thinking maybe I’d have darker hair,
or that it would curl easier;
but also thinking I would be strong
and independent like they always say
we should be—as if vulnerability were
a bad thing in this day and age (it is,
incase you didn’t get the memo).

But nobody wants to see a woman
so stable in her life that she doesn’t need
a man to come and save her—
this is the image we most often portray,
but honestly, baby, we need you.
You just have to wait and see;
it’s not an “ask and you’ll know”
kind of thing.

I think my ideas of modern day women
were all tainted by popular television.
But I never wanted to be the lawyer
or the doctor with the boy
chasing after her like she’s the only thing
he’s ever understood—she’s not,
he still doesn’t understand her,
even when he tries
(this is the way of men).

As much as I’ve fancied fantasies
like this one, I’ve always held deep-seeded
understanding that I’m not that kind of person.
And I came to a deal with
the sound of my heart beating
that no one would run after me
in the rain.
Not because I’m independent,
like the woman I imagined,
but because along with that
I added contempt to the picture.

And so I don’t get boys,
frustrated with my behavior,
sacrificing their clothing
to stop me on my leave.
I get notes that say “thanks anyway,
but I never needed you dear.
I just wanted something to make me feel loved,
and now that I do, I think I’m done.

“But thank you for the concern.
I appreciate your friendship.
I’ll call you when I want you.
Don’t bother calling me.”

April 6, 2008
But, I Like It When It Hurts

They'll Name a City After Us

This is the Sound of Loneliness

I hate
ambiant light
in the distance.

It needs to be closer.

March 28, 2008

'Cause They've Got Years of Experience

Oh, My Morning's Coming Back

Okay, finally time for an update.
Today I deposited my first check into my savings account from New York and Company, so that's wonderful. Tomorrow I get paid from Starbucks, and this new, frugal life of mine officially begins. I did the math and figured out my budget, which has me spending about $370 a month on all of the basic things like bills and food. Techinically, it is about $290 on bills and $80 - $100 on gas and food. With my new raise at the 'Bucks, I should be pulling in about $800 a month, and with what I make and get at NY&Co. I should pull in about $400 a month. So, that puts me at $1200, minus $400 on expenses. Thus, being frugal, down-to-the-grind, move-the-fuck-back-home me, I'm going to put about $800 in the old savings account a month until August, in which case I will move and thus spend it all. In that amount of time, I estimate about $2000 - $3000 in savings.
I need to take my car to finish having it fixed my next morning off. I need an allignment, a new battery, and to fix my sideview mirror--which is currently hanging from three cords off the side of my car. Once I have that done, I'm going to keep it very clean and shinny and put a nice FOR SALE sign on it with a price at $3000. Hopefully with all its dents I can pull $3000. And then I will pay that directly to UIC, which will leave me about $1700 in debt with them. I would like to make $4000, but I doubt that will happen, so I am aiming a little low. You haven't seen the car; believe me, it's not worth $4000. Hardly $3000...but it's all I've got.
I'm expecting to get that $600 from the government in May. I filed by myself, not as a dependent to my mother at all, and paid all of my own taxes. I think I made about $12,500. So...I think I should probably be elligiable, at least that is what I've been told. With that, I am torn. My sister and Misti are going to New York, at least so I still hear, in June, and I could use that money to pay for it and go see The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Or, I could use the money toward UIC/moving. I'm in a bind, and I haven't decided. Jon Stewart is very hard for me to pass up. You just don't understand...it's extremely hard for me to pass up. But, I have a debt, and that needs to be paid. Especially since I can't really continue with my education until it is, those bastards. I'm torn. It sucks. Logically...but, goddammit...it's Jon Stewart!

I am going to start looking at single apartments here soon, I just need some time and some ideas. I have a few ideas of where I want to live, so I'm going to scout those first. Then, if they are awful, I am going to search randomly. Hopefully I can find something that looks good, send a friend to check it out, and see if I get it before July. I would like very much to have it waiting for me when I move. I should be able to handle a deposit and a downpayment, so I am just looking for the right place.

Also, I have some ideas of which Starbucks I want to work at, but not a lot. So, I'll be doing some investigations into that matter as well. I have to let Diane, my DM, know which ones I've chosen by the end of April, so that she can start talking it up with the DMs in Chicago. I really want a nifty store, so if you see one you think I should work at, let me know!

And, in my writing life: I am finishing up my first major story--as in, it's longer than four pages--as well as writing poetry pretty consistantly. Woohoo. I am also moving forward with a much bigger project, planning on entering a few larger competitions--and by that I mean simply not poetry competitions, more like short story and essay ones, which to me are bigger and scarier. As for the ones I have entered, I haven't heard from two, but from the other three I did not win. I still don't know if I was a finalist, but it doesn't matter, really, because there is no award for that. The only nice thing about knowing I was one would be to assure me that I at least can be noteworthy, I just need some work. So, we'll see what happens. I just need to keep writing everyday and having faith in my ability to make it work, somehow. If I want to be a writer, I can find a way to do it, right? Carrie Bradshaw did, and she's based after a real woman. :)

So, that is my life. Today I bought a gorgeous trench coat, tomorrow I work all day at both jobs, and Saturday I sleep in. I'm feeling pretty good right now. However, if I don't go to bed soon, and very soon, I will not be feeling so good in the morning. Or at eight pm when I will still be on my feet and folding clothes.
The Whole World's Waking Up

So You Fell Into a Rabbit Hole

Buddhism

I’m afraid everyone will see
through me. See that I know
nothing, that I have no experience.
Honestly, I think they already believe
I’m a failure—a failure in the sense
that I’ve lived no life and now attempt
to write about it, which defies
everything I was ever told.
Write what you know, its better that way.
Am I? The explanation of that theory
would be that I lived other lives,
and have a mild, wisdom-like
recollection of such things,
but I’m not consciously aware
of all the things I’ve done. I bet
I was a hooker, in another life.
A “harlequin woman,” as I’ve said,
and will tend to say in the future—
because it sounds more eloquent than prostitute,
although nothing is as literary
as the word “whore.”
And I bet for a while I
was an English girl, lost somewhere
in the countryside, the carriage ride
getting ever-the-more rough—my corset
ever-the-more painful.
But I enjoyed the adventure when it came,
because I was too noble
to smile and too peasant
to laugh. And I bet, before
all of that, I was just an orphan,
somewhere in the recesses of India
or Sri Lanka or even as west as Saudi Arabia.
And I was abused, probably, and left
to wallow and to die.
Because I was a girl.
Although in some life, maybe
I was a boy, and possibly that’s
why I think I understand anything at all.

March 25, 2008
Where'd You Go for Days and Days?

Are You Poison?

Mosquito

Nobody loves like an insect
who only desires the touch of
your skin and the taste
of your blood so deep inside
your shallow flesh.
Others have tried, tried to love
the way such pests and predators,
such parasites, do. Tried to love
me who cannot be soft
and cannot be gentle,
and whose skin is immune
to stings as passionate
as that of yours.
You are no mosquito,
no bug of prey—and,
if you were, you wouldn’t break
through the barrier of my flesh.
Nothing breaks skin which has been
knitted and sewn to keep out
the pests.
Water and air can come in;
breath and bath can reach deeper
than kisses and embraces
and love.
And nobody loves like an insect,
which you claim to be in the evenings,
when the sun has set and the lights are glowing,
drawing you to their touch.
But mosquito you are not,
and mosquito only does my skin
break for, open and wide,
exposing my fragile heart.

March 17, 2008
Author's Note: my personal ode to Ingrid Michaelson, hahaha. Inspired by her songs "Mosquito", "Breakable", and "Masochist". I hope, however, that it was my point I got across, and not hers.
Are you Poisoning Me?

Love Like No Human Could

Medusa

The truth is: I’m freezing.
I can hear the cold resonating
as I speak to you through blue
lips, still dying for something
you haven’t given in all your time
working toward what it is I have.
I can feel my body trembling,
and you think it’s the touch
of your skin
along the curves of my waist,
but nothing is as icy
as your mouth.
My breath is stifled and
my hands are clenching;
I am struggling to generate
something more than heat.
Because, the passion in your eyes
should be enough to fill my lungs
with fire and desire,
but it’s failing.
And you’ll touch me again and again,
fingers here, lips there,
body wrapping ever so carefully
to consume mine.
But the fire that you burn with,
that spreads along your shoulders
and down to the base of your spine
has turned to ash, has turned to dust;
my body’s riddled with cold.
I’ll just say it, and break the tension,
and stop your lips from turning me to stone.
I’m freezing, and you caused it,
and I’ll roll over when you’re done.
The bed is warmer with just me—
there is only room enough for one.

March 16, 2008
Love Like No Human Should

The Ides of March

My Fingers Get in the Way (So Why Do I Keep Counting?)

I used to believe that three was the
lucky number, until things
continued and years added up.
Now I don’t remember
what number I worship
when thinking back on the times
I spent talking to ghosts in corners
and apparitions on stairwells.
And now they are just air,
so many years later,
years I can’t count on five fingers.
Years I can’t remember
in chronological order,
or in real-time,
or at all.
Years that make you seem
like a distant, far, and sweet thing
I remember on the nights
when counting is hardest.
But I tend to recall, somewhere
after adding, that sweetness
turns to sour, wrinkled things
over time and distance, and
the alcoholic content sometimes
rises past peek, so things turn rancid.
And beautiful things become covered
with the dust of all these years,
unable to fit on five fingers;
and beautiful people are nothing
but words hanging along the shadows,
ghosts and apparitions, memories from
three years before, and beyond the span
of my memory’s recollection.
My hands cringe at the thought
of all those years adding up,
weighing down my little fingers,
which struggle to keep time.

March 15, 2008
Beware the Thirty-Three Stab Wounds to Your Back

I Don't Even Like Jelly

Distance manages to do for me
things no one else could.
It pulled me to pieces and left me
on the floor—kind of like you did,
although it wasn’t as gentle, and yet
it stung less. And it took it’s time,
but eventually, it put my pieces all back
together, one-by-one, glue and staples
and sutures and the blood I lost
when I thought my life was over,
traveling the distance, leaving behind
what I thought was a life.
Nothing I have done
could be considered living,
I’ve been walking this distance numb
and a ghost—not a spirit or demon,
a person
without a purpose but to mess myself up.
These sorts of things
are called self-destructive behaviors,
and I am the self-destructive bear,
swimming out though there is no ice,
searching for shelter though there is no room.
I helped the distance, and I helped you,
to break my arm behind my back and snap
my heart right in two.
And I helped the distance
put me back together, ready
and waiting to shatter again.
It isn’t that I enjoy misery,
but I am starting to think I enjoy
tearing myself to the point of no return.
Settling for something
so mundane
never was this violent.
Maybe it’s the settling,
not the distance, that did this.

I can’t be sure, but the distance isn’t so great
when I think about what it will take
to realize I can’t settle for anything less
than finding you again.
The distance is less, because this settlement is more,
and overcoming myself is twice the challenge
of overcoming the distance.


March 4, 2008
Author's Note: basically just a lot of rambling...an ode to self-destructive behavior. Everybody loves Scrubs and Pandy the Self-Destructive Teddy Bear. Basically, that's all this ever was. Really nothing. :) I write a lot about distance...you would think it was the biggest barrier I have to overcome in order to make my way back home. You would be wrong, unfortunately. Home is, apparently, more than seven-hundred miles away. It's more of a state-of-mind...a seven-hundred-mile-away state-of-mind.
I Don't Even Care

You're Looking Like You're Looking For Something

My Things on a Pedestal

I wonder if I hold on to the things that remind me of home. The purse and bags I carry, the sweaters I wear, the places I visit when I need a break from reality. All of these things are the same, whether I am here or there. Today I wore the sweater, carried my laptop in the bag, and ordered the same meal I ordered more than a year before. And I carry with me everywhere what I bought in June nearly two years ago, the purse I have yet to replace, that has traveled with me back and forth and been my companion. Is it simply that I want to be reminded of home, of a place where I feel happier, softer, sweeter? Or is it my longing for the place that I hold on, is it the idea that by given them up, replacing them with other, newer things, I will have lost something dear while it is so far away. As if I cannot allow myself the luxury of a new purse simply because I am not yet home. Simply because, to replace it would mean that here is where it dies. Here is where it stays, replaced, and without use for it, I somehow stay here. If I move on by moving up to a new bag or sweater, I am comfortable, and somehow promising I will never return to the place I was best. It’s as if, somehow, these things are destined to be mine until I can return home and replace them proper. Or maybe I just like the way it feels.
I still love this sweater, and the bag that I’ve fixed up so it won’t break. And the purse—even though sometimes I hate it more than life—I can just never find a suitable replacement. These are my things. My true things. Which I will not let go without knowing I can.
Maybe, when I return, someone will convince me I’ve had them all too long, and we’ll go shopping for more.

January 25, 2008
If Only You Could Hear Me Out

She Said "You're a Masochist"

Roll Up Your Sleeves

Why do I get this feeling
that life is harder without you
so close and so easily obtainable—
so easily found on street corners
were buildings are tall enough to swallow
our small hearts?

If there weren’t an ocean of grass and land
maybe life would be less heavy,
maybe I would feel less hard—
stone walls and glass barriers and
borders I put up—seemingly impenetrable.

If trees as fierce as skylines, cold
and metal and cruel,
didn’t appear in the distance;
if they were as beautiful as
small pines in the past, left behind with
all the things deemed so difficult
maybe I would be kind.
Maybe I would be gentle.

I get this feeling the world would
be softer if you weren’t
a distant thing, long sought after.
And I ask it, all around me, the cars
and concrete and cold steel,
I ask the world: “when will I be soft?”

When will I begin again, closer
to you, swallowed and whole
in the belly of the world
so distant I can’t but feel
the world would be easier
if it were close.

January 25, 2008
So Roll Up Your Sleeves

Full of Things Even I Don't Understand

In the Sun


I made a decision today—the kind that plague my life, full of worry and the possibility of regret—and worse, the chance I’ve ruined my opportunity. But, unlike so many others, all those decisions I’ve made that have racked my body with grief and fear, this one I hardly questioned. This one I didn’t fear. This one, I stepped out and rook a risk, believing whole heartedly that taking a risk truly will do us all some good. I was never before one to risk. It was unnecessary, earlier in my life, to risk what I had—which was absolutely nothing, although I wasn’t aware. I did it, though, eventually, without regret, with everything I knew on the line. I experienced phenomenal fear, but I stepped right out and chose it. Once I had, the door was opened. Something, in that first risk, was available to ruin, and I allowed that chance. I survived, taking another risk soon after, exceptionally pleased each time with the outcome. But then, I stopped; I moved back to Oklahoma; I returned to play-it-safe—for safe is the only word I can think to describe it. In fact, it wasn’t safe, I wasn’t safe. Not from myself. I endangered my future. I, on some unknown, childish, God-fearing level, refused to resign to safety. I lived, and in many ways, I failed as often as I succeeded. I risked everything—the life I wanted, and the person I was. I put her on the line. I lost her. She went, gone to a sea of problems, fears, regrets, and the inability to learn. I lost her, risking what I had left to replace who I was. I found along the way that a move to safety hadn’t been a risk I was willing to take. Thus, I changed part of who I was; a new person possibly emerged. Until this day, I thought one had. Now I know I had only changed enough to satisfy my needs, not enough to satisfy my wants. I feel, today, however, that the risk is ripe for the time, and the place; and the girl destined to survive will be the one I must eventually be. Not to mention, it will end with a city and a hope that’s new but familiar, and worth all the risk.
I dropped out of school today. Returned my books and left the campus a weight lifted. As if something had truly changed. All I can do is understand my deepest desire, and from there find my own way toward it. It is a risk, but more for the sale of salvation and security, and hope. It’s a risk of character, I suppose, one I have never been truly willing to make, despite my many lines about personal change. I’ve been satisfied by the little changes I’d made in order to survive. However, without further change, I might as well have never made them at all. Even today I wonder about my true willingness—how I advocate personal change on a daily bases, spending many an hour writing these odes to new beginnings. I wonder if I will do it and I know myself enough to worry. But, I am not allowing myself a declaration of dedication. I will not right another note of personal motivation—and redundancy. I haven’t taken the risk to change who I am, so I have placed school on the backburner to find who I am. And to find my way home. I want to go home. I no longer want to be satisfied with what little change I have made, as difficult as it was. I want to, finally take a risk worth taking, once against, and not emerge on an act of luck but with an ability to survive.
I made this decision with as much rationality as I could allow, and then I did it, with one swift motion. From here I know where I will go. I know what I should do. I know how to finally deliver myself home. It isn’t going to hurt, this risk, not in the long run, not the way I’ve been hurt before. It’s simply time to go home. It’s time to put myself out in the sun, as I have pledged many times before. It’s time to make everything that’s been put wrong right once again—even if I’ll only see it turn again. It won’t be without worth, whatever I do.
I once wrote that my heart was shattered, but when I put the pieces back I was able to sew in the holes that previously perforated the surface. I hadn’t finished the sutures, and they ripped again, pulling the muscle apart. Those holes can’t be shut if the pieces can’t heal and scars can’t form. I wasn’t ready, to perform open heart surgery, to crack my ribs and cut right through the mess. It’s time to mend the poor thing, allow the scars to heal. And they will form, a sacrifice I cannot ignore. The holes will disappear, behind scars and sutures, maybe even patched with new pieces. The holes will fill and the stitches mend the muscle. It will still be fragile, someday break, as hearts tend to. That is no reason to leave it in pieces, that it could never break for it is already broken. I’m willing to risk the mend, even just to let it break again. Make it right, even just to watch it go wrong. How can it, after all, beat if it remains in so many pieces?
I’m not worried, not about this. This is something I just can’t avoid. Taking this risk will do us all some good, including those who refuse to allow me this one quick jump, right off the cliff. The sea is below, red with blood and green with envy. And I will jump, arms flailing, throat screaming, legs preparing to swim.

January 8, 2008
But I'll Try--Oh How I'll Try