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.