If You Love A Boy Like Mine

In an hours conversation, he will say the following:

"You can only end terrorism if you preach love." 

"Tell some white lies, but don't live a lie."

"Trying to be someone else is like a dog trying to meow.  I just want to bark, what the hell?" 

"The world is here and I'm here with the world."

"They live by a code of law that someone else put together."  

"Don't feel guilty for leaving it because it's beautiful." 

"I don't take religion so seriously, but I do take being a kind person very seriously." 

"You're selling yourself short."

"Just be a genuine human being."

You see, I thought it impossible to fall in love with the same person twice, but I was wrong.  It's possible and not only that, but I love him more this time around.

VaCuUm

Maybe I sat in class too long, because even words are getting old.

There is no good way to tell you I’m leaving, but maybe even then, you wouldn’t know what I said.  Je ne sais pas? 

I wandered around our apartment and wondered if I should take a picture.  Homes are only solid if you stay in them.  I’ve got 18 tick marks on my wrist, with two states and people lost along the way.  It wasn’t a massacre, but it was bloody just the same.  Is it ever kind when you pick up and go? 

I didn’t get homesick until I went home.  It was seeing how the wall paper was replaced and the smile on the face of my mother made me wonder if I was an addition or a rendition.  I’m not the newest version, not the 9.1 updated on her Iphone.  My phone’s been broken, but they wouldn’t have called anyway. 

I call when I can.  Isn’t that what a college kid is supposed to do?  But maybe I’m the mother, waiting for someone to call and the rest is just undiscovered.  I guess I thought that moving out would prove a point.  I didn’t think it would mean moving on. 

So, I’ll waste more time on Etsy.  Heaven knows, I should be writing my paper instead of self-destructing.  I don’t have enough bills to wipe my tears.  We had a cleaning inspection and I forgot to put my heart in the drawer.  It’s probably left on the floor from when I threw it there last night.  If we fail, I’ll tell them I couldn’t pick up the pieces, because they’re too spread out.

Use a vacuum, they’d say. 

I checked the bag.  It’s already filled with the bullshit I found and threw under my bed.  My roommate told me to clean it up.

If there was a vacuum to clean up sorrow, then hell, I’d save up my money and expedite it to me.  Two days, at minimum.  I could guarantee a pass and a better roommate.  Because we can hang up polaroids and stay up until 4 am.  We could gain 10 pounds and take a dance class to work it off.  We can skip every class at least once a week and fail one of the ones we actually liked. 

But my heart is bruised.  Is it possible to scar from a distance?  I didn’t want you to move on without me, but I guess you have your own cleaning to do.         

Letter To One: High School Hellcat

Dearest High School Hellcat, 

It's been half a year.  Six months, just shy of seven. Do you know that?  Do you realize that?  Do you care about that?  I haven't seen you since the day of our graduation, at least I don't think so.  You left over the summer and I left when you returned.  And then you left again.  Life moves like the tide I would suppose, except instead of moving backward as evenly as forward, the tide only moves up the sand.  I wrote a couple songs and called it good.  It, you ask?  It's a sort of drawer in my heart with things I filled that had to do with you.  I called it good and shut it.  I even thought I locked it. 

There are a lot of things I remember.  Maybe I conjured up some and maybe some were real.  Who knows, with the mind always playing tricks on us.  I used to write you letters I'd never send, but they always sounded so angry with you.  So mad that you hadn't loved me back, or so hurt that you weren't what I thought you were.  But I'm not mad anymore.  I probably understand now, at least more so than I did then.  

I don't think of you as often as I did.  Senior year was hell because I tried (and failed) to not think of you.  But you had always been there, just a constant presence in my head like a memory I couldn't, and wouldn't escape from.  There are passing moments when I remember the way I liked your hair when it was long or how around this time last year, you were Bender, running through the halls to see me with your fist in the air.  I don't remember loving you more than I did then. 

But this is all past tense, isn't it?  Damn, the past was tense.  I wasn't the girl I am now.  I think you'd like this version better.  The new 9.0.2 update or something.  

The minute high school ended, I was happier.  I got music going, I met someone else.  Zane Perry Callahan is quite the character and I actually think you'd get along swell.  He can make just about anyone laugh and has a beard that's overly impressive.  And I love him.  He's what I've needed, I suppose. 

Tonight, I looked up on the Internet how long it takes for the average human to fall asleep.  I can't fall asleep in seven minutes, but that is what it said.  I don't think I've done that since I was five years old without a care in the world or Bat Manors to listen to.  That's why tonight, I thought about you.

I listened to Bat Manors all day.  I love them and I think I am going to buy Literally Weird in vinyl.  I'd like the sound of them on my record player throughout the apartment.  Maybe if we ever get the chance, we could listen to it together.  

I still don't understand a lot of things.  I used to be this girl with good intentions, but that changed with the girl out of high school.  I don't have bad intentions now, or maybe I do, but I don't know where God is or whether or not He will hear me if I asked for help.  I've made mistakes, although I see them as blessings in disguise.  I don't believe that if there is a God, that He would punish you for the way you see the world.  And right now, I see it as clear.  

When I loved you, it was anything but.  

I still have regrets; things I should've told you.  Things I shouldn't have said.  I wished that I could've moved on sooner so that we could've been friends, like the type that stay in touch after high school.  I miss having you as my friend for one thing.  I miss a lot of things.  

But they're just things.  And the ache in my chest I had whenever I saw you in the halls can still be felt sometimes.  I guess loving you was the purest form of pain I'd ever felt.  It's distinctive and can be located through crowds, but only by me.  Tonight, I can feel it.  Acute as ever, the ache in my chest.  It made me worry for a moment that I still had feelings for you.  

Of course I do.  According to The Notebook, no one ever truly forgets their first love.  

And you were mine.  So thank you.  I'm a woman now, with bad intentions and a sloppy love life that isn't all due to you.  And I love it.  Every chaotic second and brutal minute, I am happy now with who I am.  Flaws and breakage, all the things they would warn me about in high school; how college was the only way to make a life for yourself....I couldn't be happier mistaking my way through it all.  

Gentry

P.S--I once almost bought you a Slow Club vinyl.  

P.P.S--I almost did today and sent it anonymously until I realized I have to ask someone for your address and they might tell you.  

P.P.P.S--I still might buy it. 

San Francisco Super-moon

I guess when I thought I wanted religion, I wanted a God that thought the change on the street was better than nothing.  Optimistic, positive.  Ringing affirmative.  

When it comes to teaching things you don't know about, the best way to go is to pretend.  That way no one suspects that the chocolate covered lies that truly spill out of your mouth.  But believe me when I say, this ain't no fondue.  

When I decided it wasn't for me, I didn't tell anyone.  If I was a superhero, I'd be "The Girl that Knows How To Save Face".  I have a persona that is excellent and a personality to match.  I met a boy with a beard whom my dad calls a 'wonder' and I guess that means he likes him.  I love him, which is weird.  The last boy I loved decided love didn't exist.  

I want to travel to San Francisco and share a bed with a boy who could possibly be lying to me.  I don't think he is, but what do I know.  When you call the name "Naive" in class, I'm the first to raise my palm and say, "Here!"  

Religion and icons and idols and lies and nature and naive and gorgeous to some people.  Do I have to quit on Jesus Christ if I want to play music and travel the world?

I've lived for far too long in a population that contradicts itself and far too little in the actuality of the modern world.  I don't care to "get with the times".  I don't care to sell myself short.  

What do I care about, you ask?

Not much, I could say.  I could tell you that maybe the sun sets on the other side, but the moon stays up all night.  Tonight, the clouds covered it even though it was a Super-moon.  "It's orange," my step mother texted and I didn't have the heart to tell her it was black to me.  God could be orange, and I could be missing my step.  

But I care. 

I'll lie a little more to keep you around, even if for just a little while.  I'll keep my wants from the prying eyes for a few more months at the most.  

Maybe when Christmas rolls around, I could tell the truth. 

It'd be a Christlike Christmas after all. 

Maybe when New Years comes.

We all love a good twelve o'clock surprise.  

Or maybe I'll take off to San Francisco and tell the Golden Gate bridge around Easter. 

Who can judge on the day of the Lord's birth? 

I could stay silent.  I could stay silent.  

I could never tell.  I could never tell. 

Ringing affirmative:

I won't ever tell.

Bedtime Stories

Once upon a time, there lived a girl named August.

August loved her brown wristwatch that ticked the seconds by faster than the clock on her dashboard.  She loved things that were out of place and the wristwatch stood out more than your regular one.  She decided one day it was because she had found it in an antique shop.

Kevin worked the night shift at the antique shop.  It was a lovely place that was open 24 hours, because you’d be surprised how many people needed something old in the middle of the night.  One night, around three in the morning, the bell that hung from the front door of the shop rang out and Kevin lifted his head to find a girl walking in.  She was unlike any girl that Kevin had ever seen; with red hair to her waist and green eyes that reminded him of grass.  He stood dumbly for a moment before quickly coming to her aid.

August told Kevin that she had found her wristwatch in the store.  She went on to explain that she was looking for an identical one she might someday give to the person she cared most about.  Instead of strange, Kevin found this endearing and so they searched together for a matching wristwatch. 

Hours it took, wristwatches were searched; many like the one that August wore, but none that ticked the time the same.  August nearly threw the search into thin air when she noticed something shining on the counter of the shop.  She inquired of Kevin what the object was when Kevin fell silent, his eyes resting upon the same object. 

It was his watch, he replied and gingerly lifted an identical wristwatch into his palm.  August, stepping closer, asked if she could see it and the watch was exchanged into her hands.  Leveling the clock with her own, she found the time matched more perfectly than she could have ever imagined. 

She stared for a long while at the plated glass and wondered aloud to Kevin what it could possibly mean.  Lifting her green eyes to his blue ones, he replied that maybe instead of waiting for the time to come when she would find the person she cared most about, the time waited for her.   

What Am I?

I am many things.  

I am ignorant.  I am naive.  I am insightful and sensitive.  I'm morbid and terrible.  I'm beautiful and sinister and messy and a handful.  I'm a girl and an adult and color blind and sorry.  I'm jealous and forgiving and believable and homesick.

  

I guess I thought when I told you I was leaving that I wasn't contributing to my own disappearance.  I thought when I said that maybe it was my fault that I hadn't started it in the first place. 

We can point fingers and scribble names.  We can abdicate ourselves to the finest form of confinement and say that we are free.  We can tell each other that no matter the amount of miles between just the 'I' and the 'U', that I'll be closer to you than the original years.  

I am many things. 

To YOU, I am many things. 

I am a liar.  I am your closest friend.  I am a song writer and blog idiot. I am annoying and obsessive.  I'm so kind and so manipulative.  I am the only one who gets you and the one that you wish would leave sooner than I already am.

We can say goodbye a thousand times and never remember our hello's.  We can laugh for our tears and consider the times that we felt that nothing would come between us.  

I am many things.  

To YOU, I am many things.  

But if there is one thing I am not, it is sure. 

Dull The Sky, Dear City?

I don't get nights like these very often.
The kind of nights where you forget the world around you.
The kind of nights where you see something other than the way you felt.
I didn't realize I liked him until tonight.
I thought maybe we would be friends, but it turns out when you're afraid and when you grasp a hand in your own, feelings ensue.
I thought he might taste like vanilla coffee and his laugh would sound like the way I cried during the show, but in a wonderful way.
I thought that it is God's way of punishing me;
I've been in the state called "Heart Break" for far too long,
and the moment it fades, He'll set the stage for "Moving Away."
But it was a beautiful night.  And I felt my heart beating again.
The last few months, I'd been wondering if I was still alive.
So, I guess God is showing me that I'm still here.
And although it may be offensive to be called 'worldly'
or 'earthy', I've found that I've been closer to a boy considered both.
And the further from God I become, the more I miss Him,
But God, I think you'd like him.
He is remarkable.
He makes me feel like I can be myself.
This boy makes me feel like I can walk through the canyon at night and count the stars in not-so-dark sky because the city lights are bright after all.

 This 

Vs. 

This

North of July, South of Neverland

I don't remember last July.

I don't remember much about last summer, really.

I do remember that the fireworks were on the beach,

and that I accidentally told the truth

when I was supposed to tell a lie.

I remember that if I were to leave my heart

in a box beside your bed,

I would make it say: "Never fear the smoke."

Because waking up after the fireworks

means you always miss the show.

After all these years,

I still love every color.

After all these years,

I still don't like the sounds.

And I'll remember that we watched

an action movie when I wanted to sleep

and that I nearly drowned my sorrow in a literal river.

I guess when I think of humanity

and freedom, I see the graves.

There's so many who are dead,

for all of us who barely live.

So in this year of 'eighteen days till eighteen',  

I guess it is time to grow up.

Stop throwing poppers at my sister's feet.

Stop spelling my name in cursive

because sparklers run out too fast.

I guess it is time to say that maybe,

just maybe;

I want to run away to Neverland. 

I bet the Lost Boys have fireworks.   

Concerning the Moon and Time

My fingers won't press down on the keyboard,
because they know I will write something concerning you.
If they could talk,
if they could move,
my hands would stretch and skid as far from here
as possible.
Being attached to me means mourning over you.
I couldn't live without my fingers,
without my bones that twist and groan.
So for the sake of saving them,
I won't write about you.
I stopped thinking about you.
That is a lie.
Stop writing about him, now!
There was once a time,
I thought I was drowning.
The waves had churned me round and round
until I was unsure of which direction the sky was.
I remember thinking about you,
NO!
Because you once said that you
were the ocean,
because no matter what was lost during the day,
the moon always came out at night.
He was your only friend.
Please stop, Gentry.  You're making it worse.  
I wish I could be poetic,
and say things about people like Tennyson
or express feelings through verses like Shakespeare.
But I am just a girl,
with a head full of thoughts that never seem to come out right.
My keyboard must be broken,
or maybe my hands must have a mind of their own.
And yet here I am,
as fragmented as Time itself.
I am ticking backwards each moment,
into thoughts of you.

 

Move on.

Not even the moon can stop Time.

 

 

 

Wailing Wall

I read a book called 'The History of Love'.

But it wasn't about you and I. 

That's okay, though.

Nothing seems to be these days.

I guess you can't hear me over the wave of her sighs or the wind through her hair.

I guess you can't hear me over the way your favorite song is the one she showed to you.

 

I can't even hear myself through my thoughts of you.

These last few years that I've loved you have been like suffering from amnesia.

I've forgotten everything that matters because I thought you were all that did.

I wanted out of that prison called 'Loving You From a Distance",

but now I've gone to a prison of swipe, delete.

I guess everything really is forgotten after high school.

If you searched my heart for sentences, they would all be yours.

I would write them on a slip of paper,

and fly the sky to Jerusalem.

The Wailing Wall for lamentations of sorrow and grief.

For God to save our souls.

I'd write the things I never said to you.

Lined paper doesn't seem to fit.

I'd say something like, "I can't be your friend,"

or, "Nothing makes me happier and nothing makes me sadder than you."

I'd say, "I love you," and "I wish I didn't love you."

I'd say, "Goodbye."

Because there is never victory in goodbye.

There is only surrender.

So here I am; surrendering.

Like the Joshua James song: "Should have known, that they'd be right."

Because they were right when they said I should have given in a long time ago.

But I was and am so lucky to love you. 

I'm just not so fortunate to have you feel the same. 

Does anyone ever get what the want?

You still don't?

Does God hear me?

I thought you were the only one that did.

 

 

 

The Wailing Wall of Jerusalem.

Au Revoir

I guess this is it.
I set my alarm for six-thirty, even though God knows me well enough to snooze it until seven.
I cleaned my room like I was already leaving.  Maybe I am.
I looked up bridges in Paris, because I need to build a thousand bridges and get over them.
I listened to I Can't Make You Love Me for the millionth time and thought about how Ruby asked me to post a cover and I did.  I took it off.
I drank too much water before bed because I know if I wake up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, my dreams will be over sooner.
I wrote this. 
I wrote this for Mr. Nelson, because I never needed a reason to live until this year.
I wrote this for a boy that may think I have moved on.  Two years is a long time for loving someone who doesn't feel the same.
I wrote this for the dead, because it is Memorial Day.  And because if they were to give a title to this school year, it would be 'Remember'.
I wrote this for Alta June and for Heisenburg because I loved you both and wish I knew you better.  I know comments shouldn't mean more to me than the words I wrote for them, but they do. 
I wrote this for Joshua James and for Iceland. 
I wrote this for Simran, for India.  For the shoes I bought for graduation because my mom talked me into them.
I wrote this for the kids who are going to miss high school,
and for the ones who couldn't be more ready.
I wrote this for me. 
Because I'm not ready to face the real world.
I don't want to be married in my early twenties.
I don't want to be a stay at home mom,
or a steady member of a religion. 
I don't want to be something that can be found behind a desk or in the same house after fifteen years.
I don't want to watch 500 Days of Summer and cry because I can hardly relate to anyone more than Tom.
I don't want to hear Raoul say 'chocolates'.
I don't want to say goodbye.
Dear God, how I don't want to say goodbye.
To you.
To you.
To you.
I'm done with the hallways and with the traffic jams.
I'm done with inspirational quotes or 'reaching our peaks'.
I'm done with ceramic projects and teachers that could care less (except for you, Nelson).
I'm done fighting my own eyes from searching the halls for a familiar face.
Those things I can say goodbye to.
But when graduation is over, and you walk out that door, I'd be insane not to think about if I'll ever see you again. 
But cheers to us.
"We did it", if that is something people say.
And maybe you'll live an extraordinary life.
Maybe you will die in a car accident three years from today.
Maybe you'll have five beautiful children,
and a husband who couldn't be happier.
Maybe you'll get divorced.
But that doesn't matter to us now,
because those things haven't happened. 
So the best thing to say to you now, I suppose, is not even something I wrote.
Caution: Never ask me for advice.

"I'd die for you, but I couldn't, and wouldn't live for you." 


In the wise words of one musician: "You see, I thought that I was mighty, but the truth is I'm scared."

I'm scared.

Est. 1997

There are a few things you need to know.

I need you to know that I loved you from every angle,

not just the rearview mirror.

When the lights went out and inspiration sank,

to lie down in the backseat, it was my best possible bed. 

But you and I were two wheels rolling in opposite directions.

The results were skid marks on my heart.

When Frances Senska was asked for an artist statement,

she wrote, “I make pots.”

Because is life ever as complicated as a sentence?

Now the year is over and we are the

semi truck with the word ‘diamond’ plastered on the side,

because even though we don’t look like much,

we’ve got some sort of value to offer the world.

And the truth is,

I don’t want to wake up some mornings.

Then again, maybe I do because

dreams seem to be better when they end.

We really can’t delude ourselves any further

Because soon, the way that you packed up your notes

will be a formula for how to pick up the pieces

And the hallways an algorithm 

that taught you how to dodge. 

Life after this is singing and not knowing the words,

so when you pull off the formalities and clothe

the impossibilities, there really is no truer way

Of telling you my artist statement then saying

“I’m here, aren’t I?” 

There is no better way to say goodbye

to these past few years then by leaving,

because moving on always proves a point.

So, what do you say?

Let’s define human nature

and fake our deaths at least once

 in the next twenty years.

Let’s prove em’ all wrong

by throwing our hearts into the wind

and hoping that they’ll catch. 

Let’s show the world

that although our wrongs were substantial

compared to our rights,

WE need you to know

That mistakes are for learning,

And isn’t that what graduating is for? 

come hear a story

I could tell you a story.

I could tell you a story about abuse and alcohol and defining human nature.  

I could tell you story about UNI, and how depression wasn't a diagnostic, but a lifetime worthy trial.  

I could tell you a story about heartbreak and how it feels when someone besides yourself consumes your life.  It's more often me than anyone.  

I could tell you a story about a class that I've looked forward too since sophomore year when I tried to get it and failed.  Same goes for junior year. 

Because when I walked into that class, I became Simran.  

But I won't tell you any of those stories.

Instead, I'll tell you a story about a graveyard made of trees. 

Down in the roots, you'll see something besides life.  There is always something else to pick up that the eye can't see by itself.  So pull out your microscope and look very closely.   Just...there.  

That's right.  

It's a human heart. 

 

You probably think I am crazy.  Maybe you think I am trying to hard to be creative.  But where a heart beats, things grow. 

High school was something I never meant to outlive.  I thought my roots would die with me and my heart would become one of the millions down underneath the surface; a fertilizer for some of the most beautiful sequoias, aspens and pines.  I meant to be creation and not just sustenance for life above ground.  

You probably think I am crazy.

I wanted high school to be everything my quarterback father had.  Where people knew your name, or where your pictures showed up in the #onesenioryear slide show at the Senior Dinner Dance.  Where not only was high school your kingdom, but your roots.  Because no matter how hard life became after that, you still had your Glory Days to look back on. 

So what happens when life became difficult long before high school?  What if high school wasn't your domain and being popular meant too many people noticing your mistakes?  

High school is the dirt, I've decided.

  

It is messy and hearts are buried beneath it.  From when the boy you loved told you he only ever saw you as friends.  From when your teacher made you feel insignificant or belittled.  From when the kid you passed in the hall ended it.  

High school, though, had to be the foundation.  It had to be everything we had to go through in order to get to where we are.  Granted, I am about as stable as that tree house grandpa built nearly forty years ago, but that doesn't mean I haven't learned.  

I've learned from this class.  From Mr. Nelson that:

"Ugly people get married everyday."

If we don't make the right decisions, he will start, "smashing mirrors."  

"People leave you everyday."  

"Now is the best time to do anything."  

I'm done with this foundation.

I'm too covered in mud, but the wind has blown it out of my eyes.  The hearts in the ground beat for us because they know.  They know that no matter how green their leaves will turn out, we noticed them before they grew.  

#realtalk

   

I Once Went Canoeing

We are fossils, you realize that don't you?
We aren't old, aged or melodramatic.
I guess I thought that we were new and I've found I don't like brand new things.  Shoes are too tight and dresses don't fit over my shoulders like I wish they did.  Hearts are too open and the sand is too soft. 
But the tide always washes in, doesn't it?    Cardiac arrests happen more often than they did fifty years ago.  It's not so much cholesterol as it is heartbreak.  That's something your Cheerios can't fix.  
I thought I was Damien Rice, singing about how love colored me in.  I thought we were fossils in the way we wished to be remembered, not in terms of age.  
Little did I know that you whistled a different tune.  It appears love disfigured you.  Believe me when I say, I would recognize you if I'd never fallen.
And Mr. Nelson, I didn't want to go to the pond behind the school. 
It was too perfect a night and I can't remember every detail though I am sure my brain has it. 

But.
We are fossils, you realize that don't you?
You know what else fossils are? 
History. 
Never to be repeated.  

But I wanted to repeat all my time with you.  Because maybe then, I would have cherished every moment and not have looked forward to a nonexistent future.

11:04:23PM

I'm afraid to take off my shoes.  I am always ready to run.

 

Life sends the chasers, and mom buys the lacers. 

 

Dad wonders where the money went and sister wants the same pair, but in pink.

 

I'm afraid to take off my shoes.  I am always ready to run.

 

Mobs send the protesters and pastors preach in a drunken slurs.

 

Life sends the chasers.

 

Life sends the racers.

 

Death ends the pacers.

 

I'm afraid to take off my shoes. 

 

I never run.

  

Nights of Constancy

You know, it's almost midnight

and the moon always loses track of time.

I'd never stay too late anyways.

I am too aware of my own addiction to The Solitude.

Except for when I'm not.

I cracked the window late last evening,

God knows, I never want to tell the moon goodnight.

Because when I wake up, in sweat or shivers,

in the darkness of the early A.M,

or laughing as the wind waltzes in, around my feet,

since it knows I never cover them,

I realize it's a beautiful thing,

CONSTANCY.

He's still there outside my window,

like the song my dad would sing.

Oh Mr. Moon, Moon, bright and shiny Moon...

I realize that it seems pointless to worry,

goodnights are only goodnights.

And I'll evermore find comfort in the way,

the moon never says it either.

 

 

 

Remembrance

I read it in a book once.

I heard it in this song I hate on the radio.

I hear it in the way Mr. Nelson says, "Hipster,"

And in the way you touched my back with your fingertips,

Like you were excavating a cave with fire.  

I saw it once when I made a name for myself, 

Not in terms of success,

But in terms of, "Unless You Want To Use Your Real Name."

Which I didn't.  

I didn't want to put the face to the name,

Because I don't like what I see. 

Step away and shine the flashlight on my face.  

I am never what anyone expects,

I am what everyone gets.  

What if you shut the flashlight off?

Just until May?

Until they call my name at graduation 

And you realize it isn't Simran Stone.  

I met Simi in a dreary, foreign place

With trash littering the streets and the sky

The color of ash.  

It wasn't until she told me to never forget, 

To remember her and this place

That I found out her name meant 

"The Act of Remembrance" in Hindi. 

Simran.  Simran.  Simran.  

She's real, but she isn't me.  

I take you want to know who I am?

I am the same girl who was in love in October.  

I am the same girl who thought that she was fat in sixth grade.

I am the same girl who has had writer's block for five days

Straight and is unsure if she will post this or not. 

I am the same girl who went to India 

And never always wants to go back.  

I am you. 

You are me.  

Because if we don't see soul in one another, 

We don't see each other as souls.  

I've seen soul in what you've written, 

in what you've seen.  

The question seems to be,

Have you seen mine?

Hung out to dry in the wind with 

Clothesline pins and developing film, 

With the name Gentry White stitched lightly onto the corner of every sheet?

Simran and I in India.

Loopholes

I am made up of positives.
Of negatives and legislation and laws and lectures.
I am made up completely of particles that no one has a name for,
because even the person who dubbed them has no idea what they are.
We're all pretenders.
That's why we have this.
This name that we hide behind like it will remove all the features from our face like dry erase and reform them into something even more misplaced.
We're afraid.
We see beneath the floor something that makes up the thing that scares us most.  It comes from the mouths of our tormentors and the minds of our friends.  Because no matter how much you mean to them, friendship is only as strong as you let it be.  And you never let anything be. 

They always see and they always agree that the worst of your faults is way passed plenty.

It is a necessary evil, this name.  To write about pains in blue ink that leaves stains and hinders our brains what we use to feel sane.  

Sanity in the form of writing.  Because the world is nothing but a crumbled up piece of paper that you wrote your heart onto, thin lines and thick lines intersecting with names and with dates.  The world is nothing when you write, because it doesn't matter. When you write, you're the protagonist and the world is the struggle, trying to steer you into reduction and bleeding through truth life calls vivacious reading and grades matched 'exceeding' while your hearts sits sidelined like a child just pleading.  Let me go.  Let me play.  Because.

This life is a game.  It gives loopholes the blame, something we cannot tame, just one thing we have named.  

Writing.

Thinker of Thinking Thoughts

I think all day long and into the night.  My dreams terrify me.  My stepmom pretends to be a Dream 

Interpreter.  We call her the DreamWeaver.

  

I thought up a sentence, regarding a has-been love.  "You can't be 'in' anything if it is only one sided.

So when I said 'I'm in love with you', I must not have meant it."  

I thought of the dirt that once was a tree I climbed.  A god of the land decided that paper green was

better than shrubbery green.  There goes my childhood, in a blink of a tractors wheel.

I thought of how I want a world of a novel, much different, much more painful than the one I am

 living because it has a something-like love in it.

I thought of the way that I am and how I'm not sure I'm ok with all the past colored on my face like

too much makeup.  

I thought of the way that pressing the keys on a keyboard was a little similar to that of gunshots.

Words are damage too.

I thought that maybe there was something wrong with me, but when they asked me what, 

 I replied, "I don't know." 

I know that was a lie.  

  

 

This Is What Happens When I Write Down The First Thing That Comes To My Head

They'll disappear
just like the ink you bought
for fifty cents when you were eleven.
It will never be as different
as it was then. 
Magicians like liars
they hide the truth
and stick to the roof of your mouth
like peanut butter and force
you to shoulder the sky like Atlas. 
They'll disappear
faster than you can say,
"Dad, come back," and
slower than your sister's
deterioration in the hospital bed.
We are not the words that people think
because words vanish through the years,
15,000 since 1950 and replaced by others
that fill humanity with 'ridiculous' and
'uneducated.'
Cell phones in hand telling you
when God's awake and when it's ok
to buy a lottery ticket. 
Spoiler: You won't win.
Fate plays favorites. 
Music loses tune,
it was the only thing you'll love.
Believe me when I say,
it's as noble a cause as any.
Shut your ears with a riptide,
you can't hear when you're unsure
of which was is up and which is down.
Build the words you know
like a tower in your head. 
Don't let fear of potential
wrong corners and street names
bring you from the brink of
extraordinary flying. 
You'll be unseen in the clouds,
just as you were on the ground
because even though they'll stab you
like Caesar or shoot you down like Gandhi,
there is never anything to see.
So all those bricks and robots and
lovelovelovelovelovelove
means nothing to the waves in Costa Rica.
Means nothing to the hills in Iceland.
Means nothing to the makeup that is
blown off when the wind swirls. 
A flurry of misspelled words.
They'll disappear
like alcohol down and addict's throat
like the words you want to say,
"I love you."
Gone in a moment that you
never remembered as a child
and almost forgotten in the moment
as a 17 year old. 
Because no matter all the words
they use against you,
like an army sent just for the purpose
of making you trip,
words do not exist.