I'm up and down.
Sort of a child on a tire-swing waiting to be let down by the "pusher".

...

...but you don't give much back do you?
I would crunch my bones to be next to you in the middle of the night with stacks of papers and cups of coffee. I would sit, heavy-eyed, lose precious comatose, and watch you with such grace, but you're too busy freezing yourself in a tub of ice.

I like to pretend that I don't give a shit, but my stomach lurches and hops as the minutes go by and you don't call back. You said. You said you'd call, I'm waiting, call me, why won't you call back? Don't you know I'm a child waiting for Santa to come down the chimney? when really it turns out to be the tooth fairy and he rips out my molar with numb force. Please.

It's for you really, I decorate my arm with a precious red scrape. It's pretty this time. Long, rose red, it crosses the healing scars from before. You should see it. I did it to pop the balloon, to release the pressurized air beneath my skin that was formed by my swollen heart. You have a way of throwing blows at me without leaving a bruise....so I do it for you. I leave your mark since you're too sorry to do it yourself. I leave your mark because I feel like I love way too much, like I go way too far to make such a spoiled man. I feel like you don't give back much, but who wrote your paper on racism for Afro-American class? Who ordered expensive food the day you were stuck in doing chores? Who did those things? Who is bleeding now?

But really, I love you. I just don't know how much I believe you lately.

Today we lay on the rocks in the harbor. Scratchy sand fleas hopped from rock to rock and crittered along the soft inside of my arm. I was with you, on our backs against a sun-warmed rock. So close to the water, so close to the birds and the wind and each other. This was a moment of time where I only loved you. Nothing else. I fell asleep on your chest as we lay down there at the bottom of the harbor. A place where usually only squirrels and vermin ventured, but we were there. We were the most beautiful vermin on the rocks. I slept on you. I felt the serenity of everything that was calm and harmless. I asked you burning yet unimportant questions and you followed after with yours.

 "Have you ever thought about me dieing?"
"Have you thought about having kids?"
"Have you ever been mad at me beyond words?"
"Did you want to have sex with your prom date?"

Those types.

We became part of the grass, the rocks, the water, the sea, and you kissed my red stained lips. I am your warmest responsibility and we were so perfect in that moment.
What do I do with you?

Acid

I can be hateful towards you and I can love you at the same time. Cliche, but also a mixture of acidic bubbles that tear into my innards and draw me closer to you. Sometimes I feel absolutely numb, I feel sick to my charred core and then the heat of your chest and the chill in my feet make me want to stay within the warmth of your heart. I've come to re-assume the fetal position. Sometimes it's to hold myself together, sometimes it's because I fear that standing up would dump me into the ground and you'll be left with a fleshy carpet.
Sometimes I don't want you to touch me. Your very contact makes me crawl and suddenly I see you there, my hand tracing your jaw and I want nothing more. I want nothing more than to be some dark spot in the corner of your mind. The car accident you can't look away from.
Once, you made the anger spill up until I opened my car door while we were in a tunnel. In that moment, I wanted to run away from the light at the end so you wouldn't be able to find me. What I really find is that I'm always angry. I'm always broken in a way that makes my hinges squeak and makes me want to push you away. God, sometimes. Sometimes you bug the shit out of me and most of the time I crave you in the middle of the night.
Today you kissed me long and hard like i'd be going away for a very long time. You kissed me and as I write this, my heart aches and I wonder if I take advantage of our love. If it were to be cast out of our live, minds, etc... would I be any different?
I just want to get away with you and open my door in that tunnel, but this time, take your large hand in mine and run. Please understand that I am confused in this. I am so in love with hating you and I hate that I love you so much.
Somehow though, my love becomes those acidic bubbles and burns through the hate so all that is left is a beautiful and perfectly constructed light.

Edge Wedge

I forced it. I wedged myself into some small place in such a way that I became a piece of it. Bystanders would have passed by without a hint of curiosity as to what I was. I locked up. I found a comfortable place and curled up there for hours on end until my body could no longer stand to be at rest. It heated up to wake me and I felt fire. I felt clammy warmth that spilled over into my bones and filled my head with boiled blood. All day I wondered why I was loved. I wondered how to be better, how to prune a bonsai tree, how to get away without any cents.
I drank blood red water that filled my body and replaced what I had let leak out in moments of weakness and darkness.
We said it at the same time...in whispers. I held it in hands of steel and clenched my teeth to bite down on the feeling. In the core of my very being I was so sure of a future encrusted in gold. I was so grateful for the feeling of being on top of you in a warm place. I hold you so close and you don't even know it. You don't get it my love. My love made of a tangible mold. You'll never understand how it feels to say the same words so methodically that they come out cracked and dry. I'm fine. It's fine. Don't worry. It's okay. I'm okay.
I'm a piece of work and you are a piece of my many pieces. So broken and so fragmented that putting me back together would be a project of grand proportions. So what's the point? Why do you love me?

I didn't understand it.
The motions that it would take to sink so far, so ankle-deep, that it'd be impossible to fall.
I tried, doe-eyed in bed to understand with my eyes. To see through something fleshy and beautiful, but I couldn't and the afternoon burned away without waiting for me.
I still tried to understand the new level you had reached, the realization...what it must feel like to be hit by a feeling as heavy as a brick or a sack of flour.
It seemed like as my cuts healed and turned to roseate etches, I was finding new things to love. Not healed, no, not reveling in a new self image or sense of structure...just discovering.
I think it hit me as I watched us in the mirror, readying ourselves for the day. You, washing your face in your hands, and me with a toothbrush sticking sideways out of my mouth.
I realized it; how my head always seems to know how to sit on your chest. How, I can curl into your shape and feel like the world can wait. It can just wait, and nothing bad will ever happen here, right here.
I think I started knowing while wearing your over-sized plaid shirt to bed. Wearing it, taking it off, letting it hang off of me. Vulnerable. Waking up in it loose around my bare body and you, looking at me in mid-morning light through tired lids. Those lids. So tired, so over-worked, but willing to stay open, to hold my gaze no matter what.
There are things I was waiting to understand, things I knew I understood, and things I never wanted to.
And then it hit me.
Magic.

Living Lindora

I'm going to be starting on the Lindora weight management plan as of Monday of next week
found here. This week is full of gearing up to the big race...a.k.a. putting myself on a twenty week program for my better body. I have blood tests, educational class, physician meetings, and weigh ins. I'm excited in a nervous kind of way. I get Vitamin B shots once a week and a monthly booster as part of the program which also came with food products, a book, and a food/exercise journal which I have to bring in every week for my physician to examine. I think this will be good for me. My house has turned into the Lindora house. My mother and sister are following the book's guidelines, but I'm the only one enrolled in the full program (which is quite pricey if you want to know in advance and are interested). I have the full support of my family and my boyfriend who is ecstatic to see me improve myself to the confident me he knows exists. I'm really excited to have a legitimate plan ahead of me and one that involves many other people who will keep me going. I may be posting meals and keeping track of calories here for this week because I want to try and lose what I can this week before I start on their program. Just a kicker before the real show begins.
LAdieu.

"I wish I was strong enough to lift not one, but both of us.
Someday, I will be strong to lift not one, but both of us."

Fix

In some small way it eats at me. Little things with big potential, tiny marks that crease themselves into my soft brain and into the pale parts of my skin. It's a hatred for hating, and a disturbing inability to snap out of it and tell people what's wrong. I don't know what's wrong. I'd like to pay someone else to tell me so that I won't have to work so hard to pretend to care. Sometimes I get instantly pissed off for things that should be silly and make me laugh. I turn my back and squint my eyes shut just so you won't bother me. I hate that I get so upset, but i can't help it. I can't exhaust myself with the same explanations, words, "I'm fine"s, and quiet lip biting. I just want you to see sometimes. To see and to fix things , not to just see. I want a fix. I want a fix like a fucking cigarette and a bottle of rum. I want to be let out of the car and go home or I want you between my legs with passionate vengeance. I don't want to go out all the time anymore. That's something I used to do throughout high school, it's just not that way anymore. Sometimes I just want to sit in silence and think about things. Then again, once I get out I feel a lot better about things so I guess it's a matter or laziness now. I don't like that sometimes I hurt myself just to make myself feel something that is real and not the typical drone and drag of a long day with a million apologies from you and nothing to do. I hate that I try so hard to be happy and that it's way too easy for me to be sad about nothing in particular. Sometimes I have a really nice day, like today, and then things crash so quickly that my brain cells suffocate themselves just to shut out the ensuing pain. Sometimes all I want is you, you, you, and you. And sometimes I just want to pick up something with an edge and cut into myself like a ripe peach. I go in and out so quickly and rely heavily on the good things to pull me out with a desperate grasp out of the slump that is my darkening mind. I love you to the ends of my hair and the tips of my toes, but sometimes I can't explain and I just need you to fix it for me.

Cut.

A terrible quake shook her bones.
The room spun with colors in a spider web of stick and rot. She was utterly lost in it.
Methodical
Obsessive
Effortless
Numb
Things were turning red, turning into long dark lines across her skin.
Uneven, she apologized for not doing a neater job. They were scattered, just all over.
No more room really.
Sorry.
When the spins stopped she looked at her work of art, a scratched and striped canvas on olive skin
Let no one in.
It all happened so fast.
She began to obsess, to stare, to not care, to want to feel the sting of reality upon her wrist, upon her legs, hip bone, and the soft of her stomach.
Why?
There are no reasons, but then there are too many to find words for. Too many to care to explain to those who would simply think of her as a child .
The breakdown.
Mother has instructed her to cover up with silver and beaded bracelets.

Phone Affair

Last night I couldn't sleep for three reasons: I drank water right before bed causing me to have to pee constantly, I have a chest cough which had me hacking throughout the night, and I was waiting for a text message that never came. I slept next to my phone and watched the hours go by, by, by, nothing yet. Maybe by the time I return from the bathroom? non. I was waiting for my usual goodnight from him, but because I had left his house that night slightly annoyed, that text never came. I kept having brief and fleeting dreams, or scenes, in which my head deceived me, leading me to believe that he was laying next to me in bed. I would turn on my side to face him and he would disappear. I would stretch my arm out to feel him, but he was air. That's a disappointing feeling, and so it kept me up. I kept thinking it's not that late: 3am is not that late he could still... I think it's a  bit obsessive. Bathroom break. I cough for a few minutes. Finally as dawn approached, I fell into a comatose like sleep only to be awoken an hour later by my alarm. Do you see what you do to me? Now I've slept all day.

Like This:

I want to keep it like this: I sit next to you at the bar, my hand with a mind of its own, traces lightly around the sleeve of your shirt. I'm looking at you even when I don't know that I am. It's become something of a talent of mine: to see you and to not think too much about it, but at the same time I think so much about you. I like the looks I give you as I drink my shake and I like how you justify your silliness in the most ridiculous manner. I like your pride and I like that your hand finds the smoothest parts of my body and warmly glides over them. I like the way you talk about babies and how I'm your different kind of baby. Yours. I like that you want to be involved with the people in my life even when I don't make them readily available to you. I like how you make conversation with strangers and act interested in things that aren't interesting. Actually, I don't think you're acting, I think you actually are interested.

You Are to Her

In that moment the world tasted sweeter.
The sun licked her skin and left it glistening in the heat.
She turned back down the hot street towards his voice; following it on the phone.
Like a child, she craned her neck around every bend searching, looking, waiting with giddy excitement.
The garden was straight ahead and she looked for him there before the wind turned her around with its gentle grip and she saw him.
He ran awkwardly towards her with the sun on a green stem.
Everything was like new.
He wore her favorite shirt, her favorite smile, and held her favorite flower.
You are my favorite favorite thing. She thought.

Fall Break

Something in his eyes was broken. I had once again asked for more from him, really, I'm just looking for reciprocation. I just want someone to run with me. Run free and careless. So what if we have class tomorrow! That's tomorrow. What if an asteroid smashes into Earth and we had cut our time short together to be prepped for class tomorrow. What if a tsunami swallowed this city and we were in bed, away from each other, and all we had done prior to that was sit and watch T.V.?? I need adventure. I didn't mean to break him. I didn't mean to make him so upset that the very earth he stands on turned to jello shots and caramel. All I wanted was to clear my mind and to say things that would help us to move forward. Sometimes it's a little exhausting to love another person because you become so wrapped up and so sensitive to everything they do that you begin to break a little. I don't want to take a break from you, but I do. I want you around, but I don't want to see you right now. I love you to death, but you make me feel small sometimes. You make me want to put this ring on my left finger, in fact, you promised that, but I twist it  until a red ring appears. Something in my stomach aches for you and something in my brain wants nothing to do with you for a couple days. Taking a break is exhausting. I told you all the things I want to do while we're a young couple in our first few months. I told you that. I want you to do those things not for me, but with me. I want to be happier than I have been, and that 's pretty happy. I've been content, but I feel us getting stuck in molasses. I love you. Don't take a break.

Before

My fear of being in a relationship, was always in that I wasn't comfortable with the idea of "belonging" to someone else. I didn't want to be responsible for having to care about another person just because we had sex or because that's what a relationship required by social standards. I always wanted a man, not a boy, someone that would understand my walls and why I had built them instead of focusing on tearing them down and being the Greek hero he had always fantasized of being. I didn't feel comfortable with the notion of having labels. You are my ________ and I am your ___________. I didn't want to become dependent on someone because my emotions and feelings were stronger than I was. It's nature taking over, and that scared me.
Within the two months that I've been with my boyfriend, I've come full circle and have watched myself change my ideals about relationships. Biased much? But really, I asked him yesterday to get me something...a ring, to solidify the notion that I belong to him. I used that word, "belonged", which used to feel like acid on my tongue. I didn't care how expensive, shiny, glitzy, or big it was, I just wanted something to have to reassure myself that this happiness does exist. Sort of like in "Inception", how each character who delves into the other side has their piece, something to keep them grounded in reality. That's what I wanted. I find myself thinking ahead about a future and saying "we" a lot instead of singular pronouns. I think about having kids a lot. (DISCLAIMER: I will not be having a baby anytime soon) But, I do think about it...in the future. I used to NEVER want kids. I mean, I was adamant about it. I didn't used to like them. I now find myself being suckered into their cute little worlds every time I see one at a restaurant, bookstore, cafe, etc..
I think about what we'll do on holidays (his family or mine?) I think about wanting to make him happy and I get angry when he doesn't live up to his own expectations. All I want is to belong. To have the freedom to be myself, yet, to belong to him. I want him to make me feel safe, secure, and wanted as much as possible. I want to know he'll be there and I want to make him happy. I want other people to know I'm "taken" and I want him to feel the same way. Today, as we walked around downtown at an art fair, we wandered into a beachy shop and together we picked out a ring for me to wear. Not at all expensive, but a simple surgical steel ring with a "diamond" in the center. It's just right. I'm just right. Everything is just right.

Blood

www.thefancy.com

I was watching the love of my life, sunken into another man's skin suit, fuck another dark haired woman. It was him, but I didn't recognize the fleshy facade he had pulled on over his body. He made love to me and then merely tossed me aside to make way for the other olive-skinned brunette. She had long luscious hair and stretched out naked on the floor with the devil in her eye. I hated again. I tried to stop it from happening by displaying my discomfort and distraught across my face. They kept fucking and so I found myself in a hallway heading towards the bathroom where I locked myself. There was plastic on the floor and I began to bleed all over it. I bled freely and painlessly, I bled chunks and pure streams of my warm claret which ran down my legs. I wrapped it up in the plastic and left it on the floor to fester within itself. Suddenly a bright blue square slammed into my vision and shook me awake. It felt real. I felt like the square had made enough noise to wake him up. He was still sound asleep, his bare back to me, and I wanted arms to secure me and to stop the dream-world bleeding.

I forced my eyelids shut again and waited to drift away, hoping this time that my love would remain faithful and that my happy vital fluids would remain skin deep. 

Long Dress

She stood at his door in a floor-length dress, nervous of what he'd think. 

They had nowhere to go, but it made her feel pretty.

He peeked out the window where the cat was laying in the sunlight.

"Who's that?"

She  smiled and he came around to the front door. 

"Wow."

His eyes swept over her making her feel slightly insecure.

"What?" she asked.

He gently pulled her inside the house and into his arms.

They kissed.

"You look beautiful"

And all the world went bright. 

We stood in the street.

We were at a stoplight and I was kissing him hard. 

I wanted to feel flesh against flesh and remember why. 

We drove 100mph on the freeway to rid his car of moisture from the gas station car-wash. 

A bridge.

Haven't we all wanted to jump?

Tell me secrets and I'll cradle your head in my hands and understand. 

My eyes watered and so did yours. 

What timing! When did you decide that you realized that I needed you just as eagerly?

How'd you know?

I would have grasped on tight and pulled you back like some hungry moth seeking out the light.

We were in your parked car then.

Our bodies, leaning against one another heated the windows so that we could finger paint our love. 

"I love you"

somehow you were thinking of marriage and all I want is a blade of grass knotted around my finger. 

I would so.

More pictures and I told you what it was like to not be wanted by the man of my own creation.

Then I cried softly and so did you,

for you could not imagine a life where nobody would ever want you.

"You are a beautiful human being"

Your whispers made his absence numb. 

"You didn't deserve that"

And both our tears fell.

I am so deeply in love and would like the blade of grass.

Write it on the window and kiss me goodnight. 

I Want You to Know...

I want you to know that i love you because of the way you cup my face in your large hands when you kiss me. I want you to know that i love you because you make me laugh even when i'm mad at you and because you have the ability to turn my day around with a single text message or call. I want you to know that i love you because you're always concerned about me even when everything is fine. I want you to know that i love you because you get excited and inspired by things that matter to me. I want you to know that i love you because you hold me in your arms whenever i look like i need a hug. I want you to know that i love you because you hold my hand while you drive. I want you to know that i love you because i love ou and i want to remember why i loved you for always no matter what.

Last night i wanted to go to the top of the world and that's where he took me. He took me higher than i knew we could go up to the " highest point in San Clemente", a place we had to hike up to. As we approached the official highest point, he cupped his hands over my eyes and told me to close them. He then turned my body out and unmasked me to the sight of the skyline, it was breathtaking. We just looked out at the lights and somehow, though we weren't there for more than twenty minutes, we both agreed thar it was one of the best time we'd had together. We then drove downtown and got frozen yogurt before heading home. I wrote to remember. I want to document as much as possible so that in any hard time i'll remember why i love him and hopefully my words will bring me back to him.

How Do I Know?

how do you know when you love someone.

It's 1/5 of a second, a moment when everything sort of collapses like sheets around you and your insides feel numb because your brain has stopped. It's like a game of self-tug-o-war, you don't want to fall, but the words are burning like a cut on the tip of your tongue. I love you. The feeling is both terrifying and liberating and all the things you always wanted to feel in one package. When you love like that, you can't say it enough. It's like you're constantly trying to convince yourself that it's real or that the other person really feels it too. tell me you love me back. It's wanting to speed up time in slow motion. I want to get to the end with you, but I want to feel every second of it. You know you love someone when you miss them even when you've only been apart for a few hours or a day or two. When you fall asleep wondering if they're in bed laying in the same position you are. Knowing you're in love is feeling giddy every time you see them even when you see them every day and they look just exactly the same as when you left them last. It's being content doing whatever: laying on the floor watching T.V. , walking the beach, eating cucumbers, laying in bed in the afternoon time, working out, it's everything all the time. It's getting mad, but not being able to stay mad because you don't want to hurt their feelings anymore than wanting your own feelings to be hurt
I love you. 

Skeptic

When I used to think of love, I thought it was something that only Taylor Swift would ever know. She wrote about it so well, she knew of its aches, pains, trials, and triumphs. I didn't know anything except, I knew my mom and dad divorced, my brother and sister-in-law, close family friends, and my sister and brother-in-law. I knew that love, for those who had found it, was temporary. It was merely a fleeting moment in life filled with infatuation, sex, and possibly a short marriage and some kids. After that, the spark would die and there would be hurt. Someone would fuck it up and forget what it was in the first place that drew them to the other person...what love actually was.Needless to say, I didn't believe in it and had very little faith in it either. Love was like an old romantic poem that someone had left in their coat pocket. It was truly beautiful, but probably had only been read once or twice. It had been forgotten. It didn't mean anything to anyone anymore. That's what I thought of love. Yet, I still wanted it. I still wanted to feel it, say it, have it, etc...
   He told me that it hit him, that he was in love with me, when I fell asleep on his lap at a get together we had attended. He said something, and he didn't know what, something hit him as he watched me sleep. Everyone else on the couch laughed, ate, and watched the fight on TV, but he said he was watching me, falling in love with me. Now he tells me everyday. Sometimes, he'll say it out of nowhere and sometimes I'll feel it before he can even form the words. He makes me put faith in it.
   I told him I loved him as I sobered up in his bed next to him. I told him truthfully and pushed my words through the alcohol that lingered in my system. He asked the next morning if I had remembered saying it and if I really meant it. I did, but he didn't yet. He didn't until that night when it hit him. I do believe in it now. Ever since he professed it to me, I've been trying to live in every moment with him and be thankful for it, in fear that someday it could fade away and we'll forget. When I lay down with him, I savor the textures, feelings, sounds, movements, words, etc... and try to wonder how quiet my world would be without him. And although I do believe in love now, I'm still a skeptic. I still wait for it to break at the britches, bend, and splinter beneath me. I'm still waiting to fall or for him to wake up and realize that I'm not the sleeping girl I once was, and this makes me fall in love with him more every day.

I'm Still Thinking About This:

Remember that long list I started of things I'm thankful for/happy about? I've left it since April, but now it's back. (some may be repeated as I am too lazy to look back on the other 400 + things I've already written)

432. Laying on his chest and listening to his heart beat
433. chocolate chips
434. night runs
435. booty shorts
436. horror films
437. long kisses
438. hot pockets
439. cats
440. fruit salad
441. my health
442. "Whip It" (the movie)
443. waking up next to him in the early morning still holding his hand
444.  a clean face
445. wiggling my hips
446. laying on the floor
447. boxing
448. tattoos
449. www.stumbleupon.com
450. clean socks
451. blueberry scones
452. sex
453. warm laundry
454. a warm bed
455. sitting in front of a fan on a  hot day
456. the new PINK store in the mall

Shallows

The tub of tap water seemed like a nice precipice for which to fall off of.

She stood on the edge of the tub, dipping her big toe into the water to test. 

It was ice.

Her pruned hand gripped the curtain and tugged so that its rings would sing her a song. 

So that its rings would sing her a song. 

There was nothing to fog the mirror and so she saw everything:

her freckles, her stringy hair, her glassy eyes, her broken smile. 

It was ice.

Up on her big toes she began to feel like dancing with death

and she let go.

A moment of silence, pure beauty in the balance and then she was in the shallows.

the hollows.

Dreaming of a bigger pond for a graceful fish she sank and plugged her nose to watch the bubbles slip out from her lips.

One, six, seven, twelve, 

Naked skin on porcelain 

Mom at the door frantic with the door knob

Dad at the store looking for some condoms

She could see dots on the ceiling-

pretty light blue dots that would flash yellow if she stared too long. 

sinking into the shallows

sinking

three, four, she locked the door

sinking, black, sinking

five, six, mother is sick

black out, sink, blue dots, flash of yellow

nine, ten, never breath again.  

Being Slightly Normal. Getting Healthy.

This morning I ran. 

Tonight I ran.

Today was not the best day. Running made it better, and although my calves and my feet ache, I feel better.

My boyfriend had a bad day. He was short with me. I'm getting closer to my period, and thus I felt like crying about everything. Especially when I watched "Never Let Me Go", which was also a highlight to this not-so-spectacular-day. I think it's good though. We're figuring each other out. He's not always happy. I'm not always positive. He doesn't always want me. Sometimes I want him too much. 

We ran together to try to run from each other. We had out headphones in and I rejected his offer to go any further. 

It scared me. 

Everything is normal. 

That's just how it's supposed to be. 

I feel healthier now that I'm back to eating meat. PROTEIN TO MY BODY'S RESCUE!

I feel like the two workouts a day (one crossfit at 6 am and one run at night) have made me just that much closer to my goal even after only three days. I ache. I hurt and it's hot. 

I'm watching a re-run marathon of "GIRLS" and I'm awaiting my dinner of beans, rice, and veggies. ;) Tomorrow is a new day and that's okay with me. Sleep will be delicious and smooth tonight. Tomorrow morning will come and I will workout and he will be busy working and at some point we'll find time for each other and I will make things better all of a sudden. Things are normal. Sunday was our one month. Things are good. We're just putting it all together. :)

Adieu

Ribbon

It all seemed silly now.

She tied a ribbon around her waist and wasted away. 

There were buildings, lights, drums, diners, traffic, boxes, cracked paint, and fog in the old book

She would have been somewhere else, a new place, a scary place, somewhere on a bus by herself. 

She pulled tighter now. 

He had captured her by the ends of a thread and reeled her in by the tips of her toes-

she was pleased and wondered so:

How is it that I'm here?

The fan in the living room spun cool air onto her chest

Why am I here?

The dogs upstairs snored softly.

What is all of this?

Tighter.

She grazed the room with a sweeping look that mopped the floors and had her hooked.

There was nothing but carpet and hot air there.

A screaming cockatoo 

A wet floor

Sheets in a bundle piled by the door. 

Where would she have been right now somehow one month ago without?

Not starting over, over, over

She is starting over, over, over

Tighter now

tightest

pull tight girl!

TIGHT! 

She disappeared all together. 

ribbon on the floor. 

Drowning Bride

I wanted so badly to know:

how it felt to write without a thought, without a subject, without a pen.

I wanted to go somewhere that had light coming out of the darkness so that I'd have a direction.

There is no will call

Only role play. 

I saw how the flecks of porcelain moonlight colored the water and thought how nice it would be to go down deep and sink to my ankles and into my bones. 

What fish would try to save me?

What human would call my name with concern from the deck of a ship?

I wanted so badly to take up less space, to be a little green army man in the presence of giants and for my tummy to be taut and for bones to poke through my skin.

There wasn't an blip in the timeline of my heart, but there were curves and sharp spikes in it that broke through the screen.

This is me! Don't scream! This is me! Stop. Sit up and wait a little longer in the heat. 

I wanted so badly to wake up in the cool night and instead I found myself gasping and grasping for an unidentified human being made of rawhide and stuffing. 

Sometimes I see pictures and it sparks a cruel assemblage of acidic words to spill forth.

I didn't break hearts, I broke my own spirit and forged a signature made of flesh across my face for years while they went on to live in that light. 

The darkness was only nearby and so I stayed in the shade where neither here nor there could get to me. 

Perhaps some bolts have come out of my brain and so I was not  built like the rest.

I shorted red wires and green wires and pulled the blue ones out of my chest.

I noted things through the lines in my hands and wrote down side notes on my ribs to keep them a secret-

No one would look there.

Sometimes I wondered why these robots, these creations were so cold and I can't remember asking, speaking, or what I was told.

They're creations not creators and my mind paid the toll-

I begged not on my knees, but with my eyes for someone to come along and grasp at what was left of me.

I wanted so badly to love, I wanted so badly to be better at getting better and something was growing inside of me. 

I was drowning in my own fluids, choking up dust with traces of feeling.

I wanted so badly to be pulled up and handled with the fragility that went missing somewhere when I was thirteen.

I'd put rocks in my apron and walk into the waves until I reached where my feet began to tread and I'd shut the lights off in my head. 

Somewhere down there, deep in the water that burned in salt, I found a speck of light that lured me down.

I'm down in that light

And I want so badly to stay.

www.thefancy.com

Little Woman

She peered through the glass and noticed the trees were bare.

They were exposed to the burning licks of rays that dried the bark and drank the sap

Blood trickled from her white night gown and pitter-pattered in teardrops on the wood floors at her feet.

No sense of it here, no sense of having time to feel

Tangled fingertips in dead hair and cracked lips. Her smile had aged years ago and left a child with an old woman's grin.

Everything outside had died and that's why she bled. 

So that she could remember life.

Improvement

My boyfriend and I decided today that we'd venture out to be a "fit" couple. We didn't call it that, it's just what I'm calling it. He's already very fit. I am not. We decided that we're going to run every day, cut out the alcohol (as much as possible), and go to the local farmer's market as much as possible for fresh fruits & veggies. He's excited. He's really excited to rev up our engines, to get running, and to see me at my top form (whenever it is that I get there.) There is nothing wrong with my body, he loves it, I like it, BUT there's always room for improvement. We  made a fun deal to punish each other whenever we slip up and eat something bad: first of all, we have to write it down, then report it to the other person in all our shame, and then...the rest is between the two of us. I'm excited because he's so excited and he has so much faith in my abilities. He knows that I can do it and he'll be right there with me rooting me on and showing me off the better I get and the better I feel.
This afternoon for lunch we made grilled chicken breast and chopped up home-grown tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, beans, carrots, potatoes, and corn and mixed them up in a bowl. It was ridiculously filling and satisfied like a steak dinner. I've just returned from an intensive run with him and finished off my night with a piece of whole wheat toast w/ 1 TBS of peanut butter and some green grapes for dessert.
I think this is the start of a great big awesome change.

Might I Rant?

I don't want to be like the majority of my family: successful, rich, proud parents, and with nothing to say. Currently i've had to listen to my pretentious aunt talk about laying tile
In her "super artistic" bathroom and how some dude is hand-staining the wood to match the counter. She talked about how technology is affecting kids these days and how her POS doesn't get all that fancy stuff...okay, just go spend your husband's money on your fancy tile. My uncle blabbered about his golden child going to Mexico to build homes, which is great, but that was in leu of my mom trying to talk about one of her kids achievements. My cousins somehow manage to outdo us and they don't even have to be here to do so. My brother is making a music video for Vans shoes and to counter that, my aunt mentioned her rich neighbors who self-built a very successful recording studio in their backyard. If you can't tell, i'm slightly annoyed. BUT my aunt feels bad about the starving people in some African country because they don't have any training facilities for Olympians and also... They have no food. She's so sentimental. I guess i should say that i love my other aunt and my other uncle (one from each other couple) because they are successful and humble. They are engaging. They actually give a shit about people and don't pretend that saying the word "shit" on facebook is the worst thing a child could do. I don't want to be pretentious, looking forward to champagne at a gathering instead of the company that will be held. People who are full of air and nothing creative or original in their bodies. They are products of their monetary success. See, i might be a waitress or barista for a little longer than i would please to be, but at least i know how to create a wonderful life around things that i love that are true and vivid instead of one that could collapse if the caviar is left out too long or if the house cleaner missed a spot, therefore rendering your guest bathroom as an "embarrassment". Lay your fancy tiles, i'm just gonna lay my tracks in this life if that's okay with you people.

Playlistless

Battle-Colbie Caillat
With You- Chris Brown
I'm Like a Bird- Nellie Furtado
Dimelo-Enrique Iglesias
Realize- Colbie Caillat
Untouchable- Taylor Swift
Hide and Seek- Imogen Heap
How to Save a Life- The Fray
Dare You to Move- Switchfoot
Stan (ft. Dido)- Eminem
Slow Life (ft. Victoria Legrand)- Grizzly Bear
Every Breath You Take- The Police
No Air (ft. Chris Brown)- Jordan Sparks
Stolen- Dashboard Confessional
Little Too Much- Natasha Bedingfield
Sweet Disposition- The Temper Trap
Love- Keyshia Cole
Love is Won- Lia Ices
White Horse- Taylor Swift
Skinny Love-Bon Iver
   After listening to everything on my iphone 45-100 times each, I went back through my entire library and got some new/old stuff back where it belonged. I'll never stop listening to music...it's just as productive as anything.

Identity

He's been away for three days and like a child I dwell on every second of absence. I can't lose my identity in this and so he told me to do what it was that I did before he came along: .........I worked. I had a job. I was packing to move away. I was visiting San Francisco and Berkeley. I was listening to sad lover's songs. I was playing with my friends (who now have intensive work schedules like I used to). I was daydreaming over chai lattes with my friend about when we'd lose our V- cards and who that guy would be, where we'd meet him, and what it'd be like. Whether or not he likes it, he's changed me because now I'm somewhat dependent on knowing he'll be there to sit with me and make me feel like I've got the golden ticket. I expressed how ridiculous I felt to him via text and how it'd only been two days and I was going nuts at home, I was longing to kiss him, I was longing to shove him against the washing machine and make-out with him. I never wanted to be dependent, but I can tell that I'm leaning on him and that's due to the falling that has occurred. I don't like the feeling of not knowing what to do with myself when he's not around because it makes me feel like I have in fact lost my identity, but I feel that it's because I was in the midst of changing my identity when he caught me. I had so many big plans and I had a dream that he was watching me eat spinach and I couldn't swallow it and it was stuck in my teeth and in my gums and I was choking and I couldn't fit the big bite in my mouth. I was gearing up to move away and somehow, like a mistaken trapeze artist, I fell into the big net at the bottom and accepted the grace of the fall. I'm happy to be here for this, to experience a different kind of love, to experience eager kisses, sex on the beach, tracing shapes, tickle fights, squirming beneath his muscular weight, slow motion undressing, being lifted onto my tippy toes, and adventuring to nowhere and being completely okay with everything. I don't know if San Francisco would have supplied me with those things, but I'm okay with not knowing. I'm okay with just being here, although, school is approaching rapidly and it's making me tired and annoyed already. I never missed the classroom setting and I'm beginning to panic due to my current status of being unemployed, but summer has been for playing this time. I've had so much playtime and I can worry about the rest when the sun goes down.

www.thefancy.com

What's Different Is...

I stood by the counter and watched like through a window. I saw him flitting around and displaying what a male ape would: a showcase of his strength, humor, and territorial comfort. 

I waited in my red dress as they finished their food and yearned for his hand to sweep over my lower back or a glance to pry me from my statue-esque stance. I wanted all of him all the time and it frightened me to think that perhaps I wanted him in the moment more than he has ever wanted me.

When it was time to move to a new setting, I realized it was time for me to visit with friends who have always been there for me and to leave the men to be with the men. We kissed and I walked back to my car and methodically drove back down the road from which I had come and from which I had driven a million times. 

They were all there.

Watching the Olympics.

Not two words were exchanged between me and them.

I sat on the carpet.

Everyone talked like they always had for all the time I had known them.

I wanted to be home in bed.

I find it strange that somehow I have become addicted to my new routine, and guilty of said addiction. I used to jump on the chance to be with these people, I used to get in trouble for being out so late with them, but this night I realized that I had gone somewhat numb and that drinking, smoking, playing, kissing, laughing, touching, grilling, swimming, talking, touching, and sleeping had taken over my mental agenda. 

Maybe it's just me...that's probably the most likely.

But maybe we're all changing, maybe these people who sat in front of the large television set watching the Olympics and talking amongst themselves had grown tired of my absence and so they decided that I should be considered absent even in my presence. I feel sorry for it. I feel guilty for always having plans with my significant other, except, I refuse to regret those moments. I refuse to be sad about being extraordinarily content. However, I do feel that I should come around more, that I shouldn't be a hypocrite to my own cries. Friends will be the ones there when the relationship is no longer. I should always remember that, but sometimes it's hard when things are going so well and things are so new and things are so promising. I will come around more, but I long for some sort of stimulation, a conversation. 

Don't leave me on the carpet.

Touch me. 

They Were

Weightless in all things like a pile of pink ribbon-

She was. 

Engulfed in a swirl of oddities made of dreams

He was. 

Burnt in with an iron a swelling urge built itself a home

She was.

When the time came to say something strong he was-

She was beginning to find it hard to sturdy herself

They were. 

"You're fucking awesome"

And she thought the same thing.

"When can we play?"

And when they played, they played with pink ribbon and black lace.

Ribbon dancers.

She hated the fact that she needed him and every hair on his chest so much.

He hated that she didn't crown herself beautiful 

And they were. 

When one morning he woke up without the doubt on his mind

She woke up with blood running out of her mouth

They spoke on the phone

They kissed like it was the last time every time

She scratched and he pushed

She grabbed and he lifted

She looked and he watched her

They were, She was, He is.

They are every day.

www.thefancy.com

Fire Queen

Her spine curved to fit the puzzle and when the book forbid it, the devil drooled over it.

She hung high and tasted sweet juice off the tip of some tongue that emerged like a slippery fruit. 

There are cat-like abilities in the woman's book of everything and she demonstrated it well.

She would bend over backwards or maybe just forwards for it. 

When the good son went to church, she went to bed with his brother. 

They would give lashes in school to the children who talked in class

She would give pecks, touches, smiles and get all of that back. 

She was called a spawn because she knew how to live.

The drink with the burning snake bite never lasted long in her cupboard. 

A specific scent and the taste of honey as she smoothed herself over a fleshy canvas of chest and

warm heartbeats.

Drip, drip, drip, the devil drools and beckons for more

as the nuns pray for her soul

She's done all the things that make her happy and they conspire to take it away with a slap on the wrist

She takes them on with a curled and swollen fist.

She aches all the time and feels warmest when she's wet from the rain.

His illustration of her was done by Picasso and spell-checked by Monet. 

She fluctuated and agitated, alarmed, expected, and danced her way into the fires.

She was alive with the spit of a hot iron.

www.thefancy.com

Summer & Tom

 I keep seeing Tom and Summer in my head and then realizing that we are not Tom and Summer.
We are vulgar human beings with poor spelling, awkward glances, sloppy kisses, cold burritos, bitter fingers, sticky chests, taco tongues, and foul language. There's no such thing as a Tom and Summer because they were made for the silver screen and we were made to make mistakes. The second I stopped comparing was the second I found myself laughing uncontrollably in bed with my toes curling beneath the blanket...genuinely happy in a moment that Summer would have taken and turned to sour milk. I always wanted the romance depicted in the movies, the kind with staged arguments and get-back-togethers, adorable summer wardrobes, elegant weddings, city strolls, and one sex scene. I dreamed of that and only wanted JGL to hold me in his arms in the rain while I cried my pretty melting mascaraed eyes out.
We are not Tom and Summer.
We hobbled along the rocks of Dana Point Harbor fishing for crabs. I lost his favorite bait piece in the sea and clumsily tangled the line into a terrible knot. We fed squirrels honey mustard peanuts because the store didn't have the unpeeled classic kinds. I warded off the herds of hungry squirrels with a piece of a broken stick when the treats were gone and they continued like hungry zombies and approached with wild eyes.
When he told me I was beautiful I puffed my cheeks out and crossed my eyes to make sure he still thought so...he did. I don't have a heart-shaped birth mark on my knee or retro-cut bangs. I just have what I have and that is enough for me. I am me and Summer is Summer and he is he and Tom is Tom.

Boy Meets Girl

His breath tasted of smoke and hers of strawberries.
She had starved herself for many days and no longer needed anything but the dry burn of vodka. He ate everyone out of house and home, but only desired her taste: it was of honey and a specific scent that only belonged to her.
There were moments when she laughed freely as he tickled  her and moments where his laugh burst out of his chest when she said unexpected things. She knew how to drive him crazy and he knew how to drive her away.
Sometimes all she wanted was to tell him that she loved him even though he told her all the time, but she knew she meant it and he wasn't all the way there.
They would lay in bed, her head resting on his chest and he would sleep while she dreamed laying awake. She would giggle to wake him up when she got bored of making shapes on the ceiling and sometimes they'd tell each other stories about one another. When she was happiest, she'd lift her legs and point her toes to the ceiling in a playful manner. He would hold her 'round the waist and tell her how cute her nose and chin were. There was nothing the matter except sometimes their bodies would overheat each other and they'd have to shift around.
Sometimes he would run up the stairs like a little boy expecting early Christmas gifts and she would coolly trail behind him, unzipping her boots and untying her waist belt. All she ached for was to be kissed and sometimes, when they were at their closest, they still desired to be even closer.
She was in love with him.

Scheduled

I'm settling back down into my old routine.

Today I signed up for classes: Horticulture, Psychology 2, Astronomy, and Health. They don't seem like much, and definitely don't revolve around an obvious focal point, but they satiate the requirements from General Ed and provide me with 13 units that I didn't have before. That makes 28! Only 32 more to go before I can technically transfer. woooohoooo. My boyfriend studied there for four years and realistically assured me that I'll probably be there for about the same time, but I think I can move quicker. If I take another 13 units in the Spring...then I'll only need 19 more. That's about one more full semester and less than half that for the rest. So, two years more. I'll have beat him out by one year ;) From there, who the hell knows, but I'm declaring my major in Psychology because I'm somewhat good at it and it's the one class I aced every test in. That must be a sign right? Getting a Ph.D. in Psych is a whole other story and I'll care to cross that bridge when I get to it. For now, this is what it is. I'll be going to class every day, Tuesdays being "the worst" as I'll be there from 10:30 am- 5:50 p.m.. Booo. To be honest, for registering so late in the game, I'm just glad I got the classes to fulfill some of my general education credits. That means, next semester will consist of math, speech, and perhaps a history class.
I go to college. Cool.
I need a job.

hensen + 66

His hands are bigger than mine. I feel like Jane and Tarzan when they study each other up in the tree. His hand is able to fold over mine and I continue to shrink every time. His three words never meant anything to me because of how early it all is, but the longer our days get, the closer I am to letting them slip from between my pressed lips. I think I feel it, but then I shirk away; afraid that when I say it...that will be it. There's no taking it back, even if the relationship ends, you'll always know that you meant it at some point in time. 

We spend most of the day together and I keep waiting for sudden impact: the moment when I'll feel the need to run as far away from him as possible. We watched the Olympics tonight on the couch. His fingers spreading through my tousled hair, the cat sleeping on my chest, and a feeling of utter comfort and content covering us like a sheet. He makes me feel safe like no one else can. I can feel moments, I can feel angry, happy, sad, annoyed, delighted, playful, childish, sexy, shy, hesitant, and confused. I can feel these things in all their emotional glory. 

I'm waiting for the day when he gets bored with me.

I'm waiting for the day when I have a pregnancy scare

I'm waiting for the day we go on vacation

I'm waiting for the day when I'll hate him

I'm waiting for the day when I'll say three words back and mean them with every ounce of my being.

I'm waiting to regret it all. 

Somehow, all the uncertainties make up this great big blooming bud. We are happy in single moments of time and without over-thinking those moments, we are able to basque in each others' lights. 

Why Does it Cry?

www.thefancy.com 

I feel like I've cried more and been more emotional since I found my boyfriend.

It's only been a little over a week and somehow, the thing that I never wanted (to be owned), is the most important thing for me. I don't want to be disowned by a person who sees me in such bright light that it nearly sets me ablaze. Last night he was pressured into making the decision to either break up with me or to make sure that what he wants with me is serious. This is his career talking. Being a fighter means focus. It means not having distractions with boobs and your sweatshirt on. So, I cried. I cried when he said he didn't know what to do because I didn't know what to do either, and I needed an answer. I promised to walk away the second his career is threatened, and he promised to quit all of that to stay with me (which is ridiculous).
So, we put on happy faces for our team and after they imbibed our beer and ate him out of house and home, him and I laid on the floor and did nothing else. That's when I know.
Now, we're taking one day at a time. No more planning for future events or thinking that all this means we'll be in it for the long-haul, because who the hell knows? Today, I am his girlfriend. Tomorrow I am...

copyright buckscountyfair 

Things are different ladies and gentlemen.

I've made a million decisions, or so it seems, over the time span of my last post alone. Everything feels like puzzle pieces and broken glass. I'm not really sure what's going on and I'm sticking with something that usually frightens me. San Francisco was put on hold by someone I've met, someone who seemed to come along when everything began to feel like a flooding room. I only had so much time to gather my shit and escape before drowning. I'm getting used to the responsibility of belonging to someone else, but I've managed to keep my morals, goals, and characteristics in check and balanced. I'm happy about my decision to stay. All of the things and all of the people I was afraid of leaving/losing are still going to be within reach and now I have someone to fall asleep with when I'm drunk and scared, someone to protect me, someone to kiss, play with, and someone who makes me feel like a fallen angel. I'm happy for now,though, I don't want to look too far ahead into the future in hopes that I'll keep myself from getting any hopes up and getting hurt.

I've not been eating very much at all. Probably rounding about 700-850 calories a day with the exception of yesterday when I allowed myself half of a pizza from his work. I'm not eating because food doesn't present itself in the way it did, and hey, I'm losing weight so there's a plus there. I'm sure I'll go back to eating just fine in the next couple of weeks or whenever I get needy for some junk food like I did last night. Everything is turning out fine for now. I got a new job at a coffee shop which happens to be home to the most delicious chai latte around. It's so amazing, and now I know how to make it! I'm excited to get a regular paycheck again, money is always stressful, but now I'm glad I'll get a little something here and there.

All is well.

drunk

I'm drunk. writing this makes no sense because my fingers are almost too loose to write anything. I'm very drunk and lately that's been good for me. I broke curfew again and woke up in my boyfriend's bed...naked. I had too much to drink and embarrassed us both in front of our boxing team. I ended up being driven home and balling my eyes out because my mom had called and said I was done for. He drove me home and walked me inside. We both got in trouble and as I grasped at his shirt and begged him to stay with me, he used his strength to shut the door on me. I went to my mom's room and broke down and explained between sobs that he was going to leave me for my own benefit because he didn't want to be the reason I got into trouble. I begged her, at three in the morning, to let me get into my car and try to find him.

She let me go.
I found him.

I snatched the keys out of my car and ran up the dark street and into his arms where he told me he wouldn't leave. We sat on the curb as he told me that no one, with a snotty nose, crazy hair, tears, sobs, and inexplicable verbal debate, was like me. I drooled and snotted all over him and yet he held me and told me what I needed to hear. I think perhaps I really am happy. I dove drunk and convinced my very strict mother, to let me chase after someone that I was at first unsure about. I realized I felt differently. He knows what he has to do, but can we do it without each other? no.

I'm so drunk I'm wanting to wake up.

Newness

Why am I awake with something that feels like heartburn, but isn't, and the notion that in three hours I'll have to be up and dressed? The power is out and the fan that keeps me company every night (rain/shine) is of no use to me and that makes my skin hot and my mind worry. I need that soft buzzing noise to lull me to sleep. I packed a bag halfway in the powerless darkness and tried on "on-the-road" outfits to make sure I'd feel as secure as possible at 3am. Someone new will be knocking at my door, someone new with new potential and new awkwardness. I'm excited and ancy and I have a pink Rockstar drink packed in my purse with two "porn star" vodka shots in a zipper pocket. I don't know what I'll do with those, but there they are. I don't know what I'll say in a six hour space of open road and newness at the wheel, but if I didn't put myself in that place then I'd never know anyways, so there's that bit of good news. I'm jittery like a school girl and no amount of corny music can satiate it. He is a monkey wrench in my brain and in my future, but I think probably not knowing is my favorite feeling ever. Wish me luck.

On The Way

Today, i leave. Originally my flight was to leave tomorrow at 10:43am, but although i feel i have a lot of business here, i just can't do much right now. I need to go home, sleep in my bed, figure out if i'll live alone or with another, and realize that this is happening. I feel hope, i feel like everything will fall into place as they usually end up doing in the long-run. I'm sipping on a too-sweet iced chai after a large and in charge breakfast at Ann's Kitchen. Eggs, toast, and potatoes never tasted so delicious. I slept on a sheet in the closet doorway last night. Mostly, i just fidgeted and searched for comfort that never came, but i still felt more at home than i did on that comfy couch in SF. I'll head to the BART station in a couple of hours and hand out my last few resumes on the way. What is it that i'm doing? I'm not entirely sure either.

I Heard it on the BART

For something i was so sure of, it ended up being based off of a memory that had me tangled in its foamy and hazy embrace. I had spent the day lost in the city- i went from plane, to air-BART, to BART, to bus, to bus, to crying in front of a RadioShack in the middle of somewhere i didn't know.if anything, my instincts and rapidly draining phone battery told me that i was screwed. So, i called a cab which drove passed me the first time and when he finally came back for me minutes later, i hated the city- more than anything i hated the people i was going to be living with IN the city. I hated them for abandoning me and not understanding that i had never taken public transportation before in my life/.. EVER, even in small town SC. After sleeping on a couch in the eerily quiet Sunset District, i realized that i couldn't learn to love it because i had already found myself a home away from home... Berkeley. Then, i was on the BART back to that home and all the while i worried that i would take the train too far or it wouldn't stop where i needed to get off. I worried until i observed the girl sitting across from me-she was reading a book with "Berkeley City Library" printed across the top of its pages and i knew i would end up where i needed to be. So, i made the decision to be here as i rode back on that BART, more so, when i rode the escalator up at the downtown Berkeley station. It felt good, and i didn't have to worry about taking the 28 to Quintara and then boarding the 66 and then the 58. I was just here. I could walk pretty much wherever it was i needed to be. The weather was bright and hot. I felt okay for one real time since i've been here. No, my friends weren't there to make everything even better, but i guess that's how i really knew anyway. I can make it if i want to. I'm so excited to be here, to not be so concerned with how far away things are, how crowded, how safe, i can just be here and be happy because i want to.

Right Now

Right now I feel like a bird trapped in someones house. There's light streaming in through the windows, but they are in fact windows, and so I am unable to get out. I feel like money is every-fucking-thing and I'm running out of it faster than I can realize where it's going to. I am here and I am there and then wishing to be back here...or there.
I made my mom cry because I acted different, she said she doesn't love the idea of me moving, but is letting me do it because she wants me to have adventure in my life even if it sets me back in other areas. She wants me to have the life she never did, one where I can be free and loose- able to make decisions which hopefully straighten things out for me. I made her cry because I acted like I was that bird. I was smacking my head against the windows at any cost to just get the fuck out. As she yelled and cried, I booked a flight.

I typed up a resume and printed out thirty.
I got a call from my friend who tried convincing me to stick with the plan. My roommate was in the background reminding him of things to say, things he needed to say to persuade me. I was slightly irked, but it was so good to hear his voice that it didn't matter. I felt like I didn't matter to him at all until he told me "you belong in San Francisco." Berkeley was like acid spit in his mouth and I felt silly and bashful for even considering it. I was out on my porch in the cold listening to the same shit my mom and everyone else has been telling me, but his voice was all I wanted in that moment. I wanted to cry and ask what the fuck I'm doing, what I'm losing is greater, what I'm certain of is little. Nothing is planned, and he told me that there's no way for there to be a plan because I've got to live without one to make one. It makes sense to me, but I can't live where I don't have a place and I can't work where I don't have a job. All I want is a plan and all I have is a plan to make a plan.
"Just stay here, you can't go back"
"you're an adult, you don't have to listen to anyone."
Everything is complicated and I fell in love with two places and I can't seem to get a grip on either. I fell  in love with being away from the place where my life was built upon, where I've always felt so obligated, loved, stuck, angry, happy, blissful, scared, and enchanted by.
I never meant to hurt anyone and in the moment or the time span where everything needs to be about me flying away I am accused of being self-indulgent and selfish. There's nothing I can do to make it okay to my mom or to even make sense of it to myself. I'm up in the air, I'm crashing with wings and I feel utterly helpless to stop it. I see myself, tomorrow, getting off the 28 bus and seeing them and feeling completely wrong. I see myself sitting in an airport alone, landing, and taking the BART to Berkeley and seeing my friends and feeling so right about it. I worry that I'll go to thirty places in SF and get plenty of promising job interviews and going to Berkeley and getting none. I worry that both will hold something for me, but not everything...and I worry that my mom won't stop crying.

Case of the Berks

I got sick from drinking, told secrets, wanted to be fucked by strangers, and had to be carried up the stairs by friends. I ate spicey things, walked in the morning, didn't shower, forgot to brush my teeth, and waited in long lines for sweet treats. Berkeley is "the other man" that stole my heart from San Francisco. I love both cities, but Berkeley holds that inexplicable communal feeling. Everyone is just everyone. We slept on the floor of an overcrowded room for 4.5 nights and drank sickeningly sweet vodka from the bottle. The alcohol purged me of any and all secrets that had been spiraling around inside of me. I had apparently missed someone so much that it became panicking and painful for him to leave my space. I confessed other peoples' love for them and found it hard to leave the pipe alone. I didn't feel anything for once- I didn't feel anything in just the right amount. As uncomfortable as I was at points, I didn't question why I was in Berkeley for no real reason. We had just found ourselves there- packed in the car with a Trader Joe's bag of assorted chips and granola bars. I like the simplicity of Berkeley, how everything seems to be within reach. I have the best friends a girl could ask for.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

"You are my favorite favorite thing."

Rackk and Ruin

It's too expensive to watch you fall. I'm balanced so thinly on something I don't even know and I pray that you're still willing to be my strong back, my legs when I can't move, and my voice when I can't speak. I need you to be older than me and to take care of me when I don't want to anymore. I need you to witness me in my most organic states and know that I miss you terrible twos. I miss you because you held me up with Popsicle sticks and they're cracking at the loss of their puppeteer. I'm waning and wanting you because sometimes I catch your scent in a place where you've probably never even been and then I want you so badly is burns my throat. I keep thinking it's not going to happen, but then I remember that it already has. I've already been that close-so close to you behind a wall that knows nothing, yet knows everything that has happened. I talk about you when it's not necessary and I can't stop it. Word chunder, diarrhea of the mouth, your name is the bile that rips the skin from inside of my throat. I see you everywhere and you're not, but oh God, I miss you all the time and I wish I had a real reason for it, but I don't. I'm beginning to wonder if I even know you at all or if I painted a picture with charcoal and sharpie. 

Conversations with the Sheets

Disguise the pallet of your porcelain skin which lights up the darkness of my space. 

She stands in a dark outside, watching and wondering why it is that she will never be good enough to stand with you. 

You would never allow a comfortable situation unless her tights were ripped to her loins and her lips were bitter red. 

In absolute silence you find discomfort and all she wants is to be loved. 

There are dreams which awaken her with real-time sickness, it bulges in her throat and fills her lungs with discourse and deliberate bile. 

You are not who you pretend to pretend to be because she saw you years ago in your driveway with braces-

You were better then.

When skin becomes tight around her bones she looks to find the beautiful ones-the ones who claim that beauty is non-existent, and yet hold it in their hands so much that creases form in their palms. 

"You are beautiful, but I am not in love with you.

I'm sorry that you're so lonely, but I can't be held in your company. You don't deserve to know my love, because I don't give it freely."

All she wanted was to be in love, or to have someone love her so much that it pained them to be away from her-something she'd felt for many men, but had never received in return. 

All she wanted was to be wanted in some fragmented way.

She wanted to be a butterfly on the wall in a love story, but that seemed so far. 

He loved her best friend, he loved ladies of the night too much, he loved another so dearly, he liked to play with her emotions, he didn't know she existed, and he was too scared to look her way. 

All she wanted was to be seen and to plug the bleeding wounds with her thumb before they sucked her inside of themselves.

Warped, warm, wrecked.

Broken bones cracked more gracefully than she did.

Crow's Sleep

He was stacked up black- a wild thing where the tame things are.

Disconnected, disentranced, as black as the sky he should be under, but lost.

Where are you lost from and found in such a tedious place?

Caretakers with fleshy antennae that reach out and tap the bars of your cage.

This is not nature, a pair of brown eyes illusive and translucent- able to see your fright, though you are all one shade of it. 

Time to leave the nest to be left behind before you could fly

Sometimes the wingless teach the alar how to be.

How to be. 

And oh, God that look in your eye like a ball of ashy end-of-world rock.

There are no tricks that can deceive you of your freedom and so here you're left in the place where we cook chickens.

You tuck yourself beneath your own wing, because no one else knows the comfort you need. 

Sleep little wild thing, sleep wild thing, sleep.

After awhile, things just become items.

Poem

Just an ounce of information purged itself from between your thumbs.

It's exhausting, pretending to not give a shit when I give it all at once.

Sometimes it hits at a moment's notice and at other times I'm expecting it when it comes-

it knocks me backwards in time and I rely solely on the reality of things to pull the wool over my own eyes. 

I'm homesick for a home I do not own and for a place I've never really been, but then there are senses that knock together-my knees which rock and run until they ache, wait to get to you somehow. 

I'm no longer afraid of night as she sweeps herself over the lampposts to put out their light in spite of my return home. 

I follow my shadow uphill and watch her run ahead of me to say that I'm lagging in some great way.

Go! Hurry! Get indoors! 

Alex, Dim, Lodger, and Tramp could find me in the dark and do the harmful magic they did onscreen. 

It slows my gait, could I really get away? Probably not, but I like to rest in your bed and think that perhaps I could. 

What if your mind is misting over and I'm being left behind? 

I want only the best and somehow dollar bills taunt me with you on the end of the stick.

"Walk on" they say to me, a grasp and a kick away.

Your short story carried one period, and then I weighted and felt bad for your lonesome. 

Some people probably think you're the greatest, the bravest, but you're just the greatest pretender to me. 

Probably, you think I'm just so taken by the spritzing glory of your presence, and I am, in a different kind of way.

I'm taken and thrust against the wall, pinned, stuck, angry, agape. 

Somehow, there was hopelessness in your words, an undercover warning, that maybe you knew only I would understand. 

I am no longer awake here, I should have told you really how it is.

I'm in need of your lifting companionship that never chained me down despite it all. 

Love is not the word anymore, perhaps you've made me someone that I'm not in touch with yet.

I am in debt to you, that's not in love with you.

Simply, there's no way to console the gap in my chest unless you're the doctor who bandages me up.

I'm okay for now, but the sooner the better.

I in debt you.