we should get jerseys 'cause we make a great team

missing you is different from missing anybody else. i've had empty longing, heartache that phsyically hurt me when i would cry and cry myself to sleep at night, before. but it's not like that with you; and it's not that i don't miss you as much, because honestly i have missed you more than i have missed anyone else before.

the thing is, before, it was always about the absence, the lack of speaking, lack of seeing, lack of being with whoever i needed to be with. and now, even though you're a thousand miles away you are more here with me than anyone else ever was. and my life doesn't seem empty and meaningless when you're gone, either. and don't take that the wrong way, because when you are here you make my life better, so much better, but i am still me. i am still happy. and the only thing that could make me even happier is if you were here to share it with me.

i say that i learned how to be happy, but the truth is you were the one that taught me.

we'll bring neon to its knees

and the city lights look like the stars

i miss the thames and its blue-grayness that was sometimes dull, but more often reflected the light of the sky, the light that lived in our eyes. do you remember the south bank and the trees all strung up with blue and white lights, and how when we walked through it felt like we were in a fairy tale? or the graffiti scrawled underneath the national theatre, art in spray-paint, and how i wished my name was scrawled there too? so many times i walked that way, whether it was at twilight, hurrying along to the globe clutching my coat around me; or when we'd stroll back to the flats at night, cold but marveling at the city lights; or when i was by myself on that last day, sun glinting in my eyes, crossing albert bridge, music pounding in my ears. i sometimes think i've gotten over how much i miss london, but then i realize that i could never stop missing it, that city that got under my skin, that lived in my bones. but most of all, i miss the south bank, the place that made me feel like magic, that made me lift my arms to the skies and wish that i would never really have to go home.

you just might find you get what you need

and for every time i think about you
and every time i see a picture with
you and me, and a secret smile, and
every time i curl up close and close my eyes
after tracing constellations, lines between
freckles you can't see from far away, well,
every time your fingers fill the spaces between
my own, and i miss you, quietlysecretlysilently
before you're even gone, i wonder
how it can be real, if i will wake up and
it'll all be a dream, but then i think -
no -
and for every time i think this, i know that
even if i'm dreaming, i won't wake up -


"and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)"

every morning that you rise

and yet sometimes i am inevitably at a loss for words.

you pass through places and places pass through you

but you carry them with you on the soles of your traveling shoes.






sometimes it just randomly hits me that damn, i miss london. i miss that city. i saw a map today and traced farringdon street with my finger, from blackfriars past holborn off the map to where i used to live. i miss it. every piece of it. every cobblestone and every street sign and every bus stop and every raindrop. i hope i go back there someday, and i hope it's soon.

you're unlike anything i've seen

sometimes i look back on this past year of my life as a calendar in my mind: january, confusion. february, misery. march, waking up for the first time in forever. april, nervousness and happiness. may, pure unadulterated joy. june, thinking things could never get any better. july, realizing they can. august, getting back into the swing of things. september, getting used to things. october, realizing that i am luckier than i think. november, getting through the rough times. december, realizing that it's all worth it, every minute, every second.

i don't think i understood what happiness was until this year taught me.

how much i can come and go

sometimes i miss the way things used to be, and the way it was before that, and even before that. it's so strange how so much can change from one year to another, one place to another, one person to another. thinking about now compared with two years ago compared with two years before that makes me realize that so much changed without anyone really noticing. it's not until you look back that you really see it, i guess. it's so strange how things only happen once and after it's over, all you have is memories that fade, and pictures if you're lucky. maybe i shouldn't be so bittersweet, because even though it's over, it still happened. and i still have the here and now, which is more that i could have ever asked for. it's getting colder but i am getting better. i am here and i am happy.

i knew when we collided

i love the way everything just falls into place. 

sharp knife: an autobiography in four parts

time tick tick ticks after me / my mp3 is out of juice / i wrote a song for you but what's the use / how did we get knocked so loose, knocked so loose?


and for some reason i can write pages and pages of thoughts, fluid and flowing out of my fingers and into the keys; useless words that i can't turn in for a grade, words that won't add up to twelve annotated pages about things i could care less about. but when it comes to matters of the mind, matters of the heart, there's no limit, there's no word count, there's no stopping me; i'm rolling down a hill with too much memento and it won't stop until the crash at the end, when i'm out of breath, lying on the ground with pieces of grass in my hair, looking up to survey the damage. it's the calm not before the storm but after, the deep breath after i can finally rest my hands and read the feverish words that crawl across the page.


well nature has its own rules / like gravity crushing me / lately it's a little hard for me to see / lately it's a little hard for me to believe / and we should all just go along / and it all would be so easy / if we could just say, "let it be" / but that's not me


you think you know yourself and then the world knocks you down and laughs in your face; sometimes it's a chuckle, a giggle, an inside joke where for once you're not on the outside. and then without warning you're knocked into the outside, knocked down to the ground and everything you thought you knew is completely different. seeing things from the other side, "waist high in the world." the only thing that's comforting is that you don't have to wonder anymore who will be there when it's all said and done, because you've been there, done that, gotten the t-shirt. once you know, it's a lot easier to deal. it's a lot easier to love the ones who care and forget about the ones that don't. and even though there are times when it feels like all you're doing is kicking and screaming, you're kicking the world in the face and screaming that hey, i'm still here. i'm still here.


and i think there's a reason / at least there's a sign / and all that we call chaos / i will say it's by design


all my life i always felt like i never really had a way with words. whenever i speak i talk like i'm tripping, clumsy feet falling over sentences and phrases and hey, it's hard to always get it right. but give me a pen, give me the keys, and i'll give you something someone can understand, someone can feel, someone can love. people have told me i've moved them, i've made them cry, i'm amazing - all these things i never really thought anyone would believe about me, much less i myself. i guess somewhere between all those words i found a way to make people love me. somewhere between the fourth grade stories and the middle school journals and the high school poems and the college ramblings i found a way to love myself too.


so new friend can you hear this? / can we return to fearless? / merry pranksters one and all / and walk that devil down the hall


in the end i'm never really sure what i've wanted to say. in the end i'm still making it up as i go along. in the end i read over everything i've said and laugh at myself because who really knows what they're talking about, anyways? but what i do know is that i have life, i have love, and i have words to call my own. no one can take my words away from me. and i've been writing for years and i'm writing now and i'll keep writing even after this is all a distant memory. and when it's all behind me, when we can dance again and run again and jump fences again and do everything we always loved to do - i'll come and write it down. because that's who i am, that's what i do, and i'm still here to do it. i'm not afraid anymore.

sunny then raining, but it's all right

and i know that's it's so cliche
to tell you that every day
i spend with you is the new best day of my life

and i'm racking my brain for a new and improved way
to let you know you're more to me than what i know how to say
you're ok with the way this is going to be
'cause this is going to be the best thing we've ever seen

if anyone could make me a better person you could
all i gotta say is i must've done something good
you came along one day and you rearranged my life
all i gotta say is i must've done something right




sometime i forget that i have so many things to be thankful for.

why don't you just say so

and all the color drains out from the corners of the world and the cold creeps in, unwelcome and unwanted. stuck on a track that goes in circles and circles and circles. want to go somewhere to hide and never come back. want to disappear. want to sleep. want to forget.

this is the best thing

the story of you and me has always been a conversation, and i don't think we'll ever run out of things to talk about.

solid ground below or a hand to hold or hell to pay

some days are harder than others. some days -- when i hit the wall for the thousandth time, or when watch people crane their heads to stare at me, or when i let myself think too hard about the things i miss -- i just want to throw everything down and cry and cry and cry. some days i just want to curl up around my pillow and sleep forever. but something keeps me pushing through, holding on. i don't know what it is. i don't know if it's stubbornness, or wanting to prove something, or those seconds when things are so normal i forget about everything. maybe it's none of those things. maybe it's all of those things. maybe it's sheer memories of friends and summer and love and all the times when things were great and the weather was warm and i could fling my arms up and spin around and around. i don't know. what i do know is that i'm still here, and you're still here, and neither of us are going anywhere. maybe that's it.

and the four right chords can make me cry

i guess the big thing about life is that you never really know what is going to happen. things that you can seem so sure of at one point can turn into something you sigh, or laugh, or just shake your head about years later. so many times i go back and think, who would've known? sometimes the once-upon-a-times don't have the happily-ever-afters. then again, sometimes the simplest beginnings that you'd never think twice about turn out to have the fairytale endings. a lot of times i think about buildups and letdowns and things that just spring out at you from nowhere. about how many people there are on this earth and how maybe it's not just chance that you happen to run into "the one." i have always been an idealist; i have never been cynical about love like a lot of my friends. not that they don't have any reason to be cynical (because the world can give all of us enough reason to think that), but for some reason i have always believed in love and finding someone, if not "the one."

even back when i was in high school and never had anyone, for some reason i never thought i would end up alone. and maybe that's it-- still believing even long after you're due to be cynical. i had finally come to terms with it, and right after that happened i found someone. it didn't work out and i think we're both better off for it, but for a while i wouldn't sworn my life on it. and the funny thing is, part of my reluctance for it to come to its end was because of the beginning, and how magical it all felt when i had finally found someone for the first time. but that's life: it didn't work out like the stories said it should. like we all say it should. but then life came in and turned things around when i least expected it, and i found myself on a couch with a boy at 5am, grinning like an idiot, in the midst of a conversation that we couldn't bring ourselves to end.

and i guess i'm not like everyone else. and reading this or listening to me is not going to make any difference in the mind of anyone who is hurt or fed up or sick of it or just plain cynical. in the end, my life and my experiences only matter to me; and in the end, i am happy. and even more importantly, i never knew happiness until i was truly there. i guess it's one of those things you can't express, or force, or prove. you just have to know.

you don't need to go out there and prove to the world that you're happy. if you really are, the world will already know, too.

gifts and curses

i was there when the bomb dropped, and the light that came from another world lit up our faces, blinding us as we tried to do a thousand things at once. i was there when the wall fell, i was there when the ship sank and the band played on. i was there when the soldier kissed that woman in the street, i was there when the bell tolled and we could hear the wheelbarrow rolling and the sound of trudging feet. i was there at every tragedy and every comedy.

i was there thinking faster than i could write, even though i was never really there at all.

the loudest thing in my head

sometimes songs will take me back to the smell of grass as it peeks out again for the first time after winter, or the pavement when it's warm on bare feet, or sipping beer in the backyard knowing it's a matter of hours until you're sunburnt. sometimes i go back to days where it gets dark at 10pm and fireflies come out in droves, sparkling for a split second before fading away. days where the only thing that mattered was getting to work on time and getting off work early. tank tops and shorts. sleeping in 'till forever. a tub of sherbet on the hottest day you could think of. tossing off the sheets at night because it's just too warm. hopping trains planes and cars. watching the sun set over chicago. bars and birthdays. the fog outside on the fourth of july. feeling like it'll never end. hoping it never really will.

and all the stars and boulevards

Just push me 'til I have to fly
I've shed my skin, my scars
Take me deep out past the lights
Where nothing dims these stars
Nothing dims these stars

I wanna feel the car crash
I wanna feel the capsize
I wanna feel the bomb drop, the earth stop
'Til I'm satisfied
I wanna feel the car crash
'Cause I'm dyin' on the inside
I wanna let go and know
That I'll be alright, alright

make you believe, make you forget

"if i could walk on water, if i could tell you what's next." chances are you'll never know. deer in headlights, then the impact and it's like you never knew what hit you. it's like looking down on yourself from somewhere else. i don't remember breathing. i don't remember crying. i remember someone holding my hand and then you, there, pale-faced in a polka dot shirt. i'm not really a poet (and i don't even know it) but one time i wrote a poem where the windshield cracked and we all fell down but our ribs weren't broken and everything was okay. that night there was no cracked windshield spiderweb spiraling out and my bones were broken but you were there and still, somehow, somehow everything was okay.

and to tell you the truth, i would go anywhere. i'd go to the desert and watch the sun set dark and red as the oversize moon rises up above the horizon. i'd go to the city and watch it light up at night, pretty and dirty and wonderful. i'd go to the forest and make a bed out of pine needles or stay inside and watch the raindrops roll down the windowpane. i could take these heavy feet and learn to fly, but instead i wait. for sun, for splendor, for the orange leaves to fall and green new ones to grow in its place. winter is coming, quiet winter when the snow had fallen and it's like everyone in the world is holding their breath at the same time. in the winter everyone goes to sleep. i just want to be awake.

this is exactly what i have always wanted to say

“Love isn’t an act. It’s a whole life. It’s staying with her now because she needs you; it’s knowing you and she will still care about each other when sex and daydreams, fights and futures- when all that’s on the shelf and done with. Love - why, I’ll tell you what love is: it’s you at 75 and her at 71, each of you listening for the others step in the next room, each afraid that a sudden silence, a sudden cry, could mean a lifetime’s talk is over.”

-- Brian Moore

i still can recall that moment so ready and waiting to fall

and suddenly, it all matters so much less - the grand gestures, first-time declarations, everything that built this into what it is now. what matters now are the things you wouldn't think twice about: falling asleep on your shoulder, sharing a beer in an applebee's, dancing to the radio at a red light. our lives are spread out before us like an open road and there are so many things i want to do and see, but honestly? i want the extraordinary but i can't wait for the ordinary: making dinner, walking to a park, brushing our teeth in the same mirror, curling up on the couch when it's cold and watching tv. that's what i want. all of it. even (especially) the parts we wouldn't think twice about.

i wish i had written this

when i looked into your eyes i knew it was true

now i’m not a highly metaphysical man
but i know when the stars are aligned you can
bump into person in the middle of the road
look into their eyes and you suddenly know
rocking in the dance hall moving with you
dancing in the night in the middle of june
my momma told me don’t lose you
‘cause the best luck i had was you

i said hey, I'll be gone today
but i'll be back all around the way
it seems like everywhere i go
the more i see the less i know
but i know one thing, that i love you
i love you, i love you, i love you

[say hey (i love you), michael franti and the spearheads]





well i love you so dearly, i love you so fearlessly
i wake you up in the mornin' so early
just to tell you i got the wanderin' blues, i got the wanderin' blues
and i don't wanna leave you, i love you through and through

oh i left my baby on an underground train
and i sang my songs to the cold london rain
i had the wanderin' blues, and i sang those wanderin' blues
and i'm gonna quit these ramblin' ways one of these days soon
and i'll sing, the littlest birds sing the prettiest songs...

[the littlest birds, be good tanyas]







i am so laaaaame. :)

even if the sky is falling down

i. i was looking through my london blog and came across this passage:

The thing about London is-- well, there's more than one thing, really, but the thing about London is that you can't really put it into words. I would say it's my beautiful city, but it's not really beautiful, no; in its subtleties, maybe, but London is too big and busy to be beautiful. London doesn't slow down and wait for you. (I walk about ten times faster now than I did four months ago.) London is full of life. London breathes. There are people everywhere, and I like that. London is diverse and colorful and sometimes it's dirty, sometimes it's clean, but it's real and it lights up at night and sometimes, still, I look around as I walk down the street and I can't believe I'm really here.

GAHHH I MISS IT. <3




ii. baby don't worry, you are my only, you won't be lonely, even if the sky is falling down.




iii. and i think the best part is that truly, i believe everything you've ever told me, during the day, in the morning light, in the dark before my eyes get used to it.

if i could tell you what's next

this is what i say: hello. how are you? how was your day/class/meeting/work/everything/life?

this is what i mean: hello. i love you. i love you. i love you.

this is what i do: every so often i search the well-worn corners of my mind and revisit
those words--

--by me or by others; on paper, on computer screens, on walls, engraved in stone; sloppy,
neat, scribbly, clear, muddled, legible, impossible, possible, but always real--

--that make me think of you and smile and say yes, yes, yes, this is it.

something about you turns me inside out

i could write you a couple hundred thousand billion trillion words and even then, i wouldn't be able to come close to describing what i feel about you. so since i know you're not one for reading i'll spare you the trouble, and get to the important part: i love you, like a hurricane, like an atomic bomb, like a cup in the sink that's overflowing because i forgot to turn off the faucet. i love you. i promise. always. forever.

you mean so much while the world can mean so little

and in light of everything that has happened, everything i've said, everything i've seen - i've realized that nothing really matters except for the fact that you and i know we are meant to be and we want to tell the world. and really, that's all i've ever wanted. everything could be crashing down around me but i know that as long as i have you, i'll be safe. i've finally been able to stop doubting and start trusting. you are the best decision i have ever made and i feel like the luckiest girl in the whole wide world.

the seasons of my life

sometimes i'm tangled up, like knotted up headphone cords or a necklace you just can't get undone or sheets that bunch around my ankles and hold me in place. it's like how you're scared to death when you're on a roller coaster, twists and turns and drops that make your stomach soar but in the end all it is a metal car on a metal track and electricity and magnets that go back and forth, and two minutes later it's like you never left that place where you started. if i had my way, every day would be my birthday and my present would always be you. sometimes my heart beats too fast, a telegram running through my veins to whoever is listening ear to chest. i want you STOP i need you STOP where are you STOP i can't sleep without you STOP. but who understands morse code anymore? no one made a rosetta stone for the matters of the heart. so let's throw away the rules and roll the dice; we already know how to play the game. i'm standing at the edge of the mountain and all i can feel is your hand in mine. close your eyes and jump and if there's a landslide i know we'll be okay.

my two favorite songs ever

uno:
but time makes you bolder, children get older, i'm getting older too.

this song gets me every time. i could listen to a thousand different versions a thousand times and it will still make me cry and it will never get old.

(also 2:05 in this version. amazing.)

dos:
and when the night is cloudy, there is still a light that shines on me.

<3. that is all.

broken lights on the freeway

i'm a plane ride away from senior year. the pictures on my walls are staring at me and i feel like it wasn't too long ago that i cried in the car on the way to the airport, that first august. text message from kenzie: "my section reminds me of us as freshmen." remembering that time i tried to sift the cheese powder out of my failed easy mac. remembering the first time we all met. remembering sitting in the study room and falling alseep, nose first, into the adventures of tom sayer. remembering watching the sophomores coming back at 2am on a tuesday and thinking they were crazy. remembering screaming and running down the halls of lewis when we beat michigan state. remembering backstreet boys dance parties with cat in that same hallway. remembering the wonder of the first football game and the first time at the dining hall and the first snowfall where i got so excited i almost broke the lamp. the first everything. it's funny how it all flies by like nothing and then out of nowhere it's time for the last this, the last that.

in the moment i feel like nothing is different, like i've learned nothing, but in an instant i realize that everything is different and i've learned so much. and still, some things remain the same. but i guess what i'm trying to say, after all my standard nostalgia, is that hopefully we did not peak at 21 and that these four years were the best it's ever gonna get. but damn, they've sure been amazing so far and i wouldn't trade it for anything. all of it.

i know nobody could ever fill your shoes

in the dark, on the phone
you tell me the names of your brothers
and your favorite colors: i'm learning you

and when it snows again
we'll take a walk outside
and search the sky like children do
i'll say to you

no way november we'll say our goodbye
when it comes to december it's obvious why
no one wants to be alone at christmas time
and come january we're frozen inside
making new resolution a hundred times
february, won't you be my valentine?

and we'll both be safe 'till st. patrick's day.

my future in your hands

i think my favorite thing about you and me are the quiet parts that no one else knows about, the parts where we have to stop talking because you already know what i mean, the parts where you make me a bagel or buy me dollar frozen lemonades, the parts where we are very very tired and fall asleep just like that, the parts where i wake up and you're still there.

a loose bolt of a complete machine

i think the best part of music and lyrics is this:

a) when the notes reach out and tug your heartstrings and you're not sure exactly why the combination of this guitar riff and that cymbal crash make you want to run and dance and cry your eyes out at the same time.

b) when you're not really sure what a lyric means, and you can't grasp it all the way, but somehow it manages to say exactly what you can't.



for example:

imperfect boys with their perfect ploys. nobody wants to hear you sing about tragedy. i used to waste my time dreaming of being alive, now i only waste it dreaming of you. i wanna scream i love you from the top of my lungs. get new passports and get get get get out now. i can't explain a thing. i want everything to change and stay the same. these words are all i have, so i'll write them. change will come, oh change will come. stuck on a little hot mess. dear gravity, you held me down in a starless city. long live the car crash hearts. fix me in 45. me and you, setting in a honeymoon (if i woke up next to you, if i woke up next to you). i'm not going home alone, 'cause i don't do too well on my own. i set my clocks early 'cause i know i'm always late. i'm no good at math and besides, the dollar is down. but there's a light on in chicago, and i know i should be home. i'm addicted to the way i feel when i think of you. tonight i'm writing you a million miles away. i could write it better than you ever felt it.





(since when am i such an emokid? oh wait. hah.)

and all that i can feel is how long ever after is

sometimes when i turn back and look at old pictures and read what i've written i think about who i was and who i've been lately and all those things that me at thirteen, me at sixteen, me at eighteen said i wanted but was never quite sure i would have. and yet - i think it's safe to say that you are everything i have ever wanted, and somewhere out there you had been there all along.

and everything depends upon how near you sleep to me

and so here i am. hum hum humming at work in last friday's dress, chairdancing to crescendos crashing through my headphones. last night i sat on a front porch ledge, legs crossed carefully with the phone balanced between shoulder and ear - it seems that i am listening my way through life. i've got a feeling (ooh, ooh) that tonight's gonna be a good night. we're picking you up in ten, be ready. meeting people and falling over backs of couches and hey, how've you been, i haven't seen you in forever! clear vodka and cloudy eyes. tan lines and summer skin. baseball games in the afternoon and shotgun wars and laughing the whole way home. i want to eat an ice cream cone and spin around in the sun. home is where the beach is where the heart is. salt water spray as the wind squeezes your eyes shut; i can almost taste it again. don't even have to pretend to smile. the beatles said it best: i want to hold your hand. i'm happy just to dance with you. and just in case you didn't know, ps: i love you. songs are poems set to music. poems are words and words are what i do best, except when words can't even come close and then you know i've got it bad. im all yours, baby, signed sealed delivered like a stevie wonder postage stamp. cheesefest 2009. just tell me we'll never get used to it.

but in these rhymes i'm without a fear

i'm not sure of too many things in life but i do know this: i will always believe in you.

remember what you told me

they say your past always comes back to haunt you. well, here i am psyching myself out again because that's what always happens, right now. i get freaked and think this is all too good to be true and something has to go wrong soon 'cause nothing has yet and god, why can't i just tell my brain to shut up? i'm happy, dammit. i wouldn't ask for anything different and it's all just so good so why can't i just calm down and take this thing, which is so real, for what it is?

and i was doing so much better. maybe this is just an off week for me. everyone has their days, you know? maybe my "day" is a whole fricking week. i don't know. maybe i just want reassurance but how much more reassurance can i really get? it's all up to me on this one, really. i just have to trust and not be afraid for the worst. this is just a bad morning. the rest of the day will be better. i have to believe that.

just to be with you, just to be with you

let's run away. let's paint the sky. there's a clock outside my window that keeps spinning and spinning but the minutes tick by so slowly. the walls of my cubicle are as gray as the sky. (do you dream in black and white or in technicolor?) i want more than these flourescent bulbs overhead. let's light an old kerosene lamp and sit on the beach under the stars. let's stare at city lights until we get dizzy. some places glow brighter when you see them from the satellites. let's run through the grass with bare feet. let's kiss until our lips are red and let's sing until our throats are sore. let's go cliff diving. let's let life pump through our veins.

faith and desire and the swing of your hips

so i remember a long time ago i was sitting here staring at this white box with its blinking cursor, unable to come up with any words for how horrible and empty and sad i was feeling at the time. just now i was sitting here staring at the same white box and i am at a loss for words again but not because i'm sad - instead it's because i can't come up with any words that would accurately convey how happy i am, how i feel like i can do anything or be anything, how i want to cry every time i think about you and this and everything because i just can't keep it in. how i just wrote the longest run-on sentence ever and really don't care. how much it means to me when i wake up shaking in the middle of the night and you're there to tell me it's okay. how you want what i want and vice versa. how nothing i could say could even come close to how much the real thing means.

wanna write her name in the sky

i want to tell the world. i want to tell every single little person i know but right now it's like we have this grand secret that only we know, and we can catch each other's eyes across the room and grin and know exactly what each of us is thinking. i whisper it into my clenched hands and then set it free, as though it can permeate the air, lingering, so i can breathe it right back in. let's count our freckles like constellations. let's be explorers on an adventure, mapping each other out like uncharted continents. i make wishes on stars, on lucky pennies, on clocks when they click to 11:11, shutting my eyes tight even though it doesn't matter what i wish for anymore. i want to climb mountains or sit on my roof or ride my bike with no handlebars. sometimes i pedal so fast that the wind whips through my hair and i fling my arms out and pretend like i'm flying. there is nothing more that i need. i've got it all.

'cause it's nine in the afternoon

...your eyes are the size of the moon.




tell me a secret. tell me a story. or better yet, don't say anything at all. any word that could drip from our lips would say so much less than what it really means. you say you don't deserve me and i say i don't deserve you but really, who deserves anyone in this world? all anyone could ever ask for is to find perfection in two imperfect halves of one imperfect whole. i could have gone my whole life and never found you but somehow i did. i never want to forget how i felt the very first time i saw you, way back when nothing could ever have even happened between us. somewhere deep down, i knew since that day. it took me a little while to come to my senses but nobody could ever know how glad i am that i did.

you can never say never

i feel like i'm getting older and younger at the same time. one half of me could watch lightning bugs and fireworks forever and never get tired of it; the other half just wants to finish school already and get out there and see the whole wide world. one half of me just wants to graduate and the other half tears up just thinking about it. i long for both the future and the past. writing my name in sparklers takes me back to when i was four years old in el salvador on christmas eve. nochebuena and the dress-up kit i got that year. costa rica and all the christmas parties at siba's house. waiting on the worn red carpet on the stairs every christmas morning. waking aly up at 1pm to do puzzles. y2k. that one new year's where the power went out and my brother and i slept in the trundle bed and made as much noise as two kids could make when the clock turned twelve. hermit crab races on the beach. roller skates in the driveway and the ice cream man.

and still - here i am, hoping and wishing and laughing and loving and finally having some semblance of the life teenagers usually have in high school. i guess i really did get to be a starving college student. i miss the beach more than usual. i miss the way the sky looks in front of my house at dusk. i miss running around the block and flopping down underneath the tree with the red flowers, with the branches that sweep the ground. it's funny how i never thought i loved that place until i left it. i miss my dad's dinners and "good morning sunshine" from my mom and guitar hero with my brother. but at the same time i know that even though i miss it, this is where i want to be. i'm sitting here in my room typing while the smell of firework smoke wafts through my window. my heart and my eyes are way too full with way too much. maybe the reason i have to cry is because everything is spilling over 'cause it doesn't fit inside me.

i'm scared of the future. but at the same time, i'm not scared at all. i guess my life plan is just different than everyone else's because i don't know where or what i'm going to be ("when i grow up...") - but somehow, i can keep the faith that the people i love will never leave me. as long as i have someone by my side, that is all i really need.

baby can you hear the message i am sending?

love me like the world is ending.

kisses are a better fate than wisdom

we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms

as we clutched the blanket around us and

stared at the bright lights and felt the music

pounding in our ears and i was in front of you so

you couldn't see me smile, but i bet you felt it.

'cause i know i did. always did, still do, always will.

what you and i spoke of and others only read of

see i'm all about them words

over numbers, unencumbered, numbered words

hundreds of pages, pages, pages forwards

more words than i had ever heard

and i feel so alive

yes yes yes.

this could be the very minute i'm aware i'm alive

never realized just how messed up i really was until i was finally okay again. finally me again. i don't see the last two years as time wasted because i looking back, i've learned so much from that, and it did make me happy for a little while. but now, knowing just how happy i can really be, knowing just how whole i can really be ... i wonder what exactly i thought was going to happen that whole time. when i was in london it was like the real world knocked on my door and said, "hey, there's a whole universe out there that's so much more than you think you know." nobody is perfect. everyone makes mistakes. and i think that it's definitely a scary possibility that everyone has someone out there for them, but that you could go your whole life and never find them-- both on opposite sides of existence, searching for their other half to no avail. i don't think everyone is just lucky. but i do believe firmly in this fact: people are flawed and all of us will make inevitable wrong turns at certain points in our lives, but after all of it is said and done, if you try and do the right thing and try to go the right way (back up those roads you went down, turn after turn until you find the right street)-- you will find what has been waiting for you all your life.

and the best part is, our lives haven't even really started yet.

not everyone is just lucky. but i do also believe firmly in this: we're the lucky ones.

a smile that could light up this whole town

today i feel like my heart is so full, it's fit to burst. i love the everything. i love happiness. i love love. sometimes i just want to press pause and look down at everything and marvel at the fact that this is all real, this is all happening, this is everything i have ever wanted. you never know until you do. i have never been more myself. i am wearing my big earrings from high school again and i laugh when i want to and i don't hide anything about who i am anymore because hey, i'm me, and if you don't like it then tough. i finally figured out who i'm supposed to be. i've got my whole life ahead of me, my whole life ahead of me to be happy with the right person and yes, yes, yes.

and on top of all of this, one of my very best friends got engaged today and i cannot express how happy i am for them. i love seeing love in the world. i have become the biggest sap recently but i honestly just don't care anymore. one more year; we're all about to be catapulted into the real world. suddenly it's not nearly as scary as i thought it was.

drag me headfirst fearless

i've become this person that thinks primarily in quotes and pieces of poems, words and phrases running a marathon through my mind because everything i want to say about you and me and this and everything has been said so much better by so many before me, taking the words right out of my mouth. this is what people write books about. i've been leafing through pages, scrolling through websites, collecting these words and tucking them safely away into the back of my mind in an attempt to describe this crazy whirlwind of a thing. i am pretty sure we're certifiably insane but i don't even care and that's all that fucking matters right now.

you're all i need; please believe me

all i can say about this poem is yes, yes, YES.




"Before Everything is Over" by George Wallace

before everything is over i would like to make love to you
the same number of times as a gentleman knocking on a
door that will never open for him.

the same number of times a mirror fails to reflect the spirit
of a ruined man. the same number of times a young woman
discovers in the middle of a noisy party

that she is alone. i would like to make love to you like a man
leaning his face from the window of a passenger train to catch
one more look at the one woman he ever

truly adored, but now he must leave behind. like a circus
performer looking up at a ceiling of trapeze rings, crazy
lights and precarious high wires,

knowing he will never climb that high. like a washed up prize
fighter reaching for the canvas because it is his only friend.
like a bum reaching for a twenty dollar bill

that is blowing across a busy boulevard. o i would like to make love to
you before the passersby pass by before
the falling sun falls out of this world

and into the next, before the brown bear of winter falls
into his magnificent winter slumber. i would like to make
love to you with my forehead

pressed to your naked waist. with my platelets pulsing in
your veins. with my brain on fire and snow falling on your
hissing flames o i would like to make

love to you a hundred times with the shuddering knowledge
of you, with your frozen smile and untraceable fingertips.
you with your indecipherable dreams.

because i am doomed to live with you even when i am
without you -- you with your incomplete shoulders. you
with your rainbow colored lips.

you with your empty hands. your perfumed silence, your
perfect elegance. you, with the sunlight that leaks out of
your darkness and into my world.

oh what a thing to do

a quote i love:

"I like to see people reunited, maybe that's a silly thing, but what can I say, I like to see people run into each other, I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can't tell fast enough, the ears that aren't big enough, the eyes that can't take in all of the change, I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone..."
- jonathan safran foer, extremely loud and incredibly close



i kind of want to reread that book again. that, and everything is illuminated, and good omens and nineteen minutes and about every book i read last summer ever. last summer was an excellent summer for books. i need to make some more choice discoveries (although i am currently addicted to jodi picoult, and the ending of salem falls completely floored me-- definitely one of her better novels).

this has been the slowest week ever for some reason. maybe it's that i'm anticipating sunday so much, or maybe it's that the weather has been so weird lately (sunny then raining, but it's all right), or maybe it's that i've been so tired ... it's not really a bad slow, it's just been kind of lethargic. i can feel it hanging dense in in the air. sunday is so close that i just want to fast forward to when i'm already in sb and settle in and get on with life! it's kind of weird bc i haven't really been thinking about the fact that i won't be home this summer, and it's really the first summer ever that i won't be home. it isn't sinking in for some reason. hmm...



the best feeling in the world is discovering that you're smiling for no real reason at all, after the fact, and the only reason you realize is that you feel your mouth stretching into this impossible grin that can hardly hold your heart because it's fit to burst. :)

there's a freeway runnin' through the yard

things i love about my life at the moment:

peals of laughter punctuate sentences instead of commas. staying up too late and getting up too early. levels of comfort where our clothes end up in each others' closets without any of us knowing how they got there. literal crying shoulders when you're sad and reality checks when you need them. honesty. love. the family you choose.

tangled up on the grass with only the sky to watch us. taste tangy like sweet and sour candy. point out shapes in the clouds as they shift and change and we laugh and it's just like counting the speckles in the ceiling, except bigger and better and brighter and the stars shine through and i'm free fallin', free fallin'.

summer rainstorms and the five o' clock sun spilling through the window. forgetting how much this is home until i'm back. dancing by myself in the moonlight in the middle of the night. cannonballing in the pool and then making dinner: being both too young and too old. maybe i'll come back here for good someday. just maybe.

double nickels on your dime

so i lied: sometimes there are things you just know.






summer rain. summer nights. thunderstorms when you wake up. putting your all into a hope than you'll be on a plane two weeks from now. but there's really no choice-- can't back out this time. dizzy and drunk on the sand with the moon looming over the horizon. sharing stories with sixth grade grade comrades who somehow always know what's best. missing but not hurting. wanting but not longing. who knew it'd make all the difference in the world? my life doesn't suck without you, but when you're in it you make it better.







spin around in circles and never stop even when you're dizzy and sneak into places you're not supposed to be and lie flat on your back in the middle of the street and laugh till your stomach hurts and live life while you're young because you have all the rest of forever to get old.

i'll spill my secrets to you

i think the two biggest things i've learned since college are these:

one-- you can't make things happen, and things happen when you least expect or even want them to. there is no such thing as good timing, there is only what happens to you and what you decide to do with what you're given. sometime you don't know better, but sometimes you do.

two-- there is no such thing as "when you know, you know." here's the deal: you can think you know, you can have the strong feeling that you know, but the truth is, you'll never be 100% sure. what makes it real, though, is that even if you don't just know, that you're willing to take a chance on it. it's taking that risk that makes it all worth it

la vita e bella

te amo vida. everything is beautiful. everyone should love life, love everything. it's not worth it if you're not happy. (bc i'm a nerd, like ms. frizzle said) take chances, make mistakes, get messy. gotta live my life by all three, and learn from them. don't stop smiling. live each day. i promise it will be worth it. spring changes my life every year. don't be afraid of changes. life is full of them.

te amo te amo te amo. dios mio santo, que mi vida sea buena. que aprende todo bueno de la vida. lo bueno y lo malo, todo. lo que sea. que mi vida sea completa.

wrote this last spring; it's still true

this is what life is about, really. it's about laying out on the quad on a warm day doing absolutely nothing even when you probably should be. it's about passion iced tea lemonades from starbucks, sipping them slowly in a booth with a friend. it's about meeting up at 8pm no matter what, watching american idol and squealing and critiquing right along with the judges. it's about riding your bike across campus, dodging passers-by, wind whipping through your hair.

it's about eating ice cream with friends, and then sitting for hours and laughing so hard your stomach hurts. it's about birthday plans and concocting dinners and surprises; it's about filling a friend's room with 120 balloons. it's about crying into each other's shoulders-- not so much about the crying, but more about who that shoulder belongs to.

it's about watching the glow of a million candles in the grotto. it's about the tulips that are finally beginning to peek out and bloom. it's about pealing bells of the basilica, waking you up on sunday mornings. it's about looking out your window and seeing the gold of the dome glinting in the sun.

we complain so much about school, about work, about teachers, about drama, about boys-- and in that, we forget about our youth. we forget that these are our golden years. we forget to let go a little, loosen up. in the words of a friend, we shouldn't worry: we'll find a way to be where we are meant to be.

i think it's time that i stop worrying, and start living.

the only thing that ever made sense in my life

something big i've learned in the past couple of weeks is that you've got to do what makes you happy. take chances. go with it. sometimes you've just gotta plunge right in. so many times in the past, i've opted out of things because i'm scared it will be awkward or weird or intimidating or whatever. i've learned that more than half the time it's really all in my head. any situation is essentially what you make of it. and i think that's one of the most important things to remember in life.

i feel like i'm finally on the road to figuring it all out. i look at myself at eighteen and i was a completely different person. i still feel like the core of me is the same-- basically, the me inside my head. i feel like i've done so much to get that person on the outside. there have been detours and wrong turns and roadblocks (think that molasses dude in candyland) but i think it's really necessary not only to figure out who you are, but who you don't want to be. there are things i have done that i am not proud of: straight-up PLC's, questionable life decisions, and even things that i thought were right all along that, in the end, weren't. but i'm learning. i guess that's what growing up is for.

i have learned how to be happy for real, which is not necessarily being in a good mood all the time. happiness is knowing that you're exactly where you need to be. somehow any bitterness i had has completely melted away.

i want you to be happy. i don't know if any of you still read this, but wherever you are, whenever you read these words, know this: go forth. be happy. it's worth it.

rage rage rage

a) uncalled for, b) SERIOUSLY?!

WTF?!

you've got a fast car, i want a ticket to anywhere

i just want to stop crying. i just want to stop hurting. i just want to know if i made the right decision. i just want to know if i threw away the only thing that mattered. i just want to know if i just made the biggest mistake of my life.

why can't i let myself let go

i can't even look at pictures anymore. for me it's music. it's memories. it's the things we don't have pictures of. it's the things i miss that i can't put into words. it's the way i felt when i walked down the street. it's the way the butter melted on the bread when i dipped it into the soup at lunch. it's the way the wind would rush across my face as a bus sped by. it's the way my umbrella would bump into everyone else's on rainy mornings. it's the way the pint glasses looked, lined up on the table. it's the way i felt when i stood on that spot in the center of the globe stage and said my lines to the whole wide world. it's the way i could just plop onto that red couch on weeknights and talk for hours. it's the way wine would taste when i drank it out of a nutella jar. it's the way i felt when i'd stand alone waiting for tube, headphones in. it's the way the sound of the street would filter through our window at night, no matter how tightly we closed it. it's the way my stomach would hurt sometimes from laughing too much.

sometimes i'd wonder if my city was made out of stars. everywhere we looked-- lights, lights, lights. when it rained, sometimes they'd blend together; every car that rushed by looked like it was painting streaks of color onto the streets. sometimes i'd look out my window and pinch myself because i after weeks and months i still couldn't believe it. there is something about that place that still has my heart, and will always have my heart. you could live there a thousand years and never discover all its secrets. london is alive; it has been alive long before us and will live long after us. we're just a dot on the timeline, a tiny world in the city of stars-- suns for every new galaxy.

in a place where we only say goodbye

every time i listen to death cab it brings me back. or every time i see pictures of people who are there now, or every time i hang out with my london friends here, or every time i look at pictures, or every time i decide to torture myself and google image search it.

sometimes i look back and i can't believe it really happened at all. it was like a dream, this wonderful wonderful dream that could not possibly have been real ... except it was. i don't think i've ever lived more. i don't think i've ever laughed more. i'll never forget it, even when memories fade i'll always remember the feeling, the happiness that just bubbled inside me every day and made me feel like i could do anything.

i wonder how long it'll take me to shake this. i don't know if i ever will.

stuck on a little hot mess

i miss london so much it aches. i didn't know it was possible to miss it so much.

being back here is indescribable in so many ways. i love being back with my friends, new and old. i love the 3W girls and how we're there for each other no matter what and i love my london friends and how we've actually, you know, stayed friends despite being thrown back here partially against our will-- we're doing okay. i went to a basketball game yesterday and even though we lost, i realized how much i really did miss doing the cheers and hoping, wishing, praying, believing in my team. i missed notre dame, because it is comfortable and it has always been home for me.

and still--

3W is straining under the pressure of trying to keep everything balanced. every day i feel like as i gain something, i lose something else. my relationship is straining under the pressure of how i've changed. i miss being able to dictate my own life without thinking about it in correlation with someone else's. which, i guess, is a bit selfish of me, but sometimes i miss making my own decisions and not having to disappoint anyone with my choice of plans for the night. i miss bumming around in flat 7 and being "one of the guys." i never see brian or will anymore, i see matt and dan sometimes on the weekends, evan is always with theresa, and shea is ... well, you know shea. i miss just having a group of guys i can hang out with in my sweats and not worry about anything.

which, again, is pretty selfish of me but hey. i feel like i keep going from one extreme to the other.

i miss seeing michelle every day and i miss our heart to hearts and i miss FG and i miss walking to the globe with kate and i miss breakfast & the LC on mondays with shea and i miss actually being able to go out to actual places and i miss being able to wander around in the freaking city of london and i miss the tube and i miss the bus and i miss looking out my window and seeing st. paul's and the betsey and i miss going out for a pint at exmouth and i miss gill's class and i miss caffe canova and their two-pound soup and i miss our jetset weekends and i miss our fall break shenanigans and i miss walking home through trafalgar square in the dark and i miss the self-checkout at tesco and i miss everything that i know i can never have again, never ever.

i've been trying so hard to be optimistic but i feel like i'm allowed my little missing-london jag every once in a while. sometimes i just need to complain and let it out and this is one of those times.

ahhhhhhh i am so messed up.