you were only waiting for this moment to arise

the same stars

2012-01-20T18:28:00.000-05:00

i had forgotten what a twisting heart feels like. i had forgotten how it felt to sit in my room, listening to too much carole king, missing someone with a dull ache in my chest. i don't cry too much. when i used to cry, it was out of heartbreak, fear, rejection. my tears these days are often a combination of frustration, happiness, and longing. it's still easy to smile. i don't spend my days hoping my parents won't notice swollen eyes and a heavy heart. i feel lighter, these days. i guess the difference between now and then is the certainty of the future, the steadiness of love, the hope and joy and wonder of every passing day. i open my eyes a little wider now, and even though i wish the days would go by faster, i try to stop and savor what i can because soon i'll never have this time again. i can step outside and look at the beautiful sky and love this place for what it is, and what it means to me. i'm growing up, and it's a little scary, but it feels good to be able to grasp onto my past for a bit longer before letting it go. and besides, it'll always be back here, waiting for me.

we are miles apart right now but this is a tether than no distance can sever. and i wonder where you are, are we looking at the same stars again? it comforts me to know that we are still sleeping under the same sky, and that the winds rolling down the coast mean that we have the same air in our lungs. i take a deep breath and it calms me. patience. one day at a time, one slow crawl of the sun through the sky. i can do this. i can do this. i can do this.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will be be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.
-- Walt Whitman

had a feeling i could be someone, could be someone

2012-01-07T18:30:00.001-05:00

life is climbing to the pitch-perfect peak of a symphony, and i'm sitting here waiting for it to crash down into a crescendo. beautiful happy things have been swirling around me for the past few weeks in a blur of family (old and new), friends, love, laughter. but in my heart i can feel things slowly dying down. jeff is gone in connecticut, last bleary spoken words at 6:30am on thursday; my family is leaving for home one by one. soon enough it'll be the four of us here in my house, just like i'm in high school again, and the wait begins. i feel like i've been in a state of transition ever since i graduated college (because let's face it: college was a state of transition in itself but it always felt like home). but i keep on keeping on. life goes by quickly but there's still so much that lies ahead. counting down the days but never wanting any to pass me by. i want adventure in the great wide somewhere, i want it more than i can tell. but it's all a great adventure, isn't it? not just the stars and the moon, but also the earth and the wind and the sand and the sea? like diving off a cliff and never looking back --

-- here goes nothing, she says. here goes nothing.

this is the story of a girl

2011-11-17T00:00:00.001-05:00

today i went to a meeting in the parish hall of my old grade school. the meeting was a training for substitute teaching at that very school, which is strange and interesting and circular in its own way. but what struck me most about tonight, when i walked into that room, is how utterly unchanged it looked - down to the same old tiles, the same auditorium stage, the same round tables with the faces scratched from age and use. i sat down at one of the tables (thankfully, they had enough common sense to get new chairs after ten years) and could almost see myself as a shy ten-year-old, sitting across the table staring at what i would become.

and i stared across that room and i saw as i had in all its different incarnations: dark and strobelighted for our seventh and eighth grade dances; stark and full of white robed kids before our confirmation and graduation ceremonies; loud and crowded as it always was during our lunch hour; hushed and spotlit for every annual talent show. i grew up in that room and i never even noticed until i came back, unwittingly, ten years later.

at the end of the training i ducked into the bathroom to see if it, too, had remained the same. sure enough, it was as though i had stepped into 2001 - the same off-white tiles, the same off-white stalls, the same single sink and the same blue ribbom wallpaper border. i stood in front of the mirror and brushed the hair out of my face and realized that although i am now twenty-three and so different than i how used to be, there i was: standing in the same place and doing the exact same thing as my eighth-grade self. there were the same eyes peering out at me; they hadn't changed a bit (and you know what they say about the eyes). so there i was, completely different and yet still, somehow, the same. and in that moment i realized the biggest difference between me, today, and the girl who looked in that mirror all those years ago: as hard as she tried, she could never, ever like what she saw. the girl looking in the mirror today sees it all for what it is and what it has been (beauty and flaws alike) - but unlike the girl from long ago, this one wouldn't change a thing.

beautiful and crystalline and epic

2011-09-06T12:03:00.000-04:00

notre dame is pulling off at exit 77 with your heart in your throat. notre dame is the first glimpse of the golden dome calling me back home. notre dame is the way any ordinary landmark is extraordinary through the lens of memory.

notre dame is sprinting across a driveway and tackling and hugging. notre dame is best friends for life. notre dame is walking to the bookstore and laughing at old jokes. notre dame is buying unnecessary school merchandise just because.

notre dame is old friends and new friends. notre dame is sharing a mirror and appliance cords getting tangled. notre dame is dancing around the house to an ipod while getting ready. notre dame is taxi cabs and three dollar fare. notre dame is jumping around to 80s songs and screaming all the words and swaying in a circle. notre dame is dancing until 3am and staying up talking until 4.

notre dame is waiting out two stadium evacuations on the concrete concourse floor, sitting on a poncho with two of my best friends. notre dame is walking back into that stadium and looking around and seeing it mostly full after two hours of lightning and rain. notre dame is most of those people still coming back after the second evacuation. notre dame is screaming my throat sore even when there's two minutes left and not even a chance of a win.

notre dame is standing in the back of the crowded basilica. notre dame is kneeling on the floor even though it hurts a little. notre dame is looking up at the vaulted ceilings and feeling like the luckiest person in the world. notre dame is tearing up when the folk choir sings an a capella alleluia. notre dame is getting choked up and almost sobbing at the sound of the alma mater. notre dame is a friend's hand on my shoulder saying it's okay.

notre dame is lighting a candle at the grotto and praying thank you, thank you, thank you. notre dame is the way there's a still a hush even though the place is crowded with tourists. notre dame is the way that when i'm there, it feels like no time has passed at all. notre dame is our lady of the lake watching over us always. notre dame is family. notre dame is love.

it was the end of a decade but the start of an age

2011-07-28T09:35:00.004-04:00

today i was looking through old pictures, primarily those from the end of our 2008 fall break trip in barcelona, spain. we had just arrived from traveling for five days in cold norway and germany, and it was 75 degrees and sunny in spain. in almost all of these pictures, we're smiling; not just scheduled smiles for the camera, but real, open-mouthed grins, traces of laughter from something just outside the frame. those three days in barcelona were some of the happiest and carefree days of my life. the weather was warm and we dipped our feet into the mediterranean and we ate delicious food and sat in the sun, drinking sangria and enjoying life.

on our last night we wandered down to port vell, and sat on the edge of the dock with wine and cheese and i felt as though my heart could have soared. i was in a beautiful place with people that i loved and i was so happy, truly happy, and some of the things that had weighed heavily on my heart for the past few months lifted for a while. i have never been so engrossed in a moment in time as that last night on the pier, sipping wine from a plastic cup and laughing, head tipped back.

i feel like ever since i've graduated i've been wallowing in a pit of nostalgia and recently i've been trying to crawl out. that feeling of happiness i felt on the barcelona pier, walking through london streets, licking a cone of gelato in rome, giggling with friends in my dorm room, walking across south quad looking at the dome and the sunset sky -- i want to feel that way about my life now. i want to love the past but to a degree, let go, so that i can live in my present and be as fully happy as i was then.

in eat, pray, love the author introduces a concept where your entire sense of self can be defined in a single word. my word is traveler. i have always been a traveler. i boarded my first plane when i was less than six months old and ever since then i've always been itching to go places, see new things, visit corners of the world where i've never been. i left home after graduating high school and in a way i've been traveling ever since. D.C. might not be my favorite adventure but it's definitely a huge part of the overall journey, and for that i am grateful. so i'll hang on. and i'll keep traveling. and i will be happy.

for the burning in our veins

2011-07-19T14:15:00.003-04:00

have just come to the realization that i am in the midst of the biggest writer's block ever. i look back on some things i've written before and i wonder to myself, why on EARTH am i not writing? i do try sometimes, but for some reason i just seem to repeat the same things over and over, and i can't make anything come out the way i want it to.

but for the first time in my life, i have an idea. a real book idea that i think could really get somewhere. i actually have some semblance of a planned-out plot. i always said i wanted to write poetry but for the first time in my life i have an idea for something longer than a few pages, and it's a feeling like no other.

all i have left to do is write.

i don't know when this block will go away, when i'll be able to let the prose pour out of my fingertips like it used to, in my elementary school story notebooks. but i am armed with an idea and a keyboard, and when the time comes--whether it be two days or two years from now--i will be ready. and i will write.

even though the moment passed me by

2011-06-02T14:58:00.000-04:00

i'll never forget that morning; the lump in my throat, the wide-eyed disbelief, the feeling of hanging on the edge of a precipice.

to this day, when i see pictures i feel like i could climb inside and be exactly where i was that day. the way the ground felt under my feet, the breeze that ruffled my hair and the sun that made us bake inside our shapeless black robes. the way i felt when i walked out of the tunnel into the bright light of the stadium: i looked up at the blue sky and at the people all around me and for the first time, i felt truly proud. i was proud of myself and everyone else that day, because we had made it through those four years and had something to show for it. we had learned. and that's what college is, really: learning in every aspect of the word.

at the very end, i wandered around the campus grounds with full eyes and a heavy heart. i said goodbye to every person, every place, all the while feeling like it was all a dream. leaving was inevitable, but leaving was unthinkable. how could it be that so much of my life whizzed by in this place: me at eighteen, thrust into a brave new world; at nineteen, living and loving; at twenty, making mistakes and facing consequences; at twenty-one, independent and free and incandescently happy. i retraced the spots where i had my first kiss, fought bitter fights, rolled around in the snow, rode my bike in the sunshine, splashed in the fountain, yelled my throat sore, whispered at night, turned pages, typed furiously, scribbled poetry, broke my heart, broke my bones, danced 'till i was out of breath. it's hard to fit four years into a paragraph, or an hour's time, but on that last day it was like i relived it all.

throughout my four years at notre dame i was exposed to countless opinions and sentiments about the place, both positive and negative. and for me, the one thing that rang true was this: from the outside, you can't understand it, and from the inside, you can't explain it. the university of notre dame is a part of my life that i loved then, cherish now, and probably romanticize - but those four years changed me. they taught me who i was, who i wanted to be, and what things in life were worth fighting for. they taught me to hold on to my faith and make it an ever-fixed part of my life. they taught me that no one is perfect, and no ever will be, and that all we should do is try to be our very best. they taught me that the people that matter are the ones who will stay.

they taught me that even if we have to let go, our time was was real. it happened. we will carry it with us for the rest of our lives, and no one can take it away from us.

when the rain starts to fall

2011-05-17T16:34:00.002-04:00

on a more uplifting note - this one's for you, my love.

I'll be there, my darling, through thick and through thin
When your mind's in a mess and your head's in a spin
When your plane's been delayed, and you've missed the last train.
When life is just threatening to drive you insane
When your thrilling whodunit has lost its last page
When somebody tells you, you're looking your age
When your coffee's too cool, and your wine is too warm
When the forecast said, “Fine,” but you're out in a storm
When your quick break hotel, turns into a slum
And your holiday photos show only your thumb
When you park for five minutes in a resident's bay 
And return to discover you've been towed away
When the jeans that you bought in hope or in haste
Just stick on your hips and don't reach round your waist
When the food you most like brings you out in red rashes
When as soon as you boot up the bloody thing crashes
So my darling, my sweetheart, my dear...
When you break a rule, when you act the fool
When you've got the flu, when you're in a stew
When you're last in the queue, don't feel blue
'cause I'm telling you, I'll be there.

-- Louise Cuddon, I'll Be There For You

we spent time in swings empty

2011-05-17T15:53:00.003-04:00

day five - your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend.

i was listening to third eye blind the other day and when the lead singer wailed out how's it going to be when you don't know me anymore? i couldn't help but think of you.

there are a million emotions i could name that, in some way in the past, related to you. guilt. naivete. hurt. anger. inadequacy. frustration. loneliness. and maybe, in fleeting moments - happiness, something close to love.

but what i never felt with you was calm. safety. the feeling that i could wrap myself up in you as if you were a sweater, and close my eyes and sleep forever. our relationship was fueled by angst, by uncertainty, by the things left unspoken that haunted me for those years we were together.

i still don't quite know what to make of you. i don't think i will ever understand you, the way you could break a chair over a lost football game but couldn't shed one tear the day before i went across the ocean for four months. somewhere deep inside there's a real you, a real person with real feelings - but it's covered up with your brash attitude and braying laugh and a thick armor that deflects any difficult question or subject. i don't know what, or who, made you that way, but i know that i couldn't be happy with someone who locks real emotion deep inside themselves, never to see the light of day.

i guess i found out what it's like to not know you anymore - but i don't think i ever really knew you, not at all.

i'm sorry i hurt you. this much is true. no matter how much i needed to get out of our relationship, you still didn't deserve for me to neglect you and distance myself and yes, kiss another boy, all the while assuring you that it would be okay. no one deserves that, not even you. but the truth is, i didn't know anything other than you, and i was afraid of the void you'd leave if i let you go. i was a coward, but i was also young. i look back at myself then and it's so clear how lost and alone i was back then - i just didn't fully know it.

even that day i said goodbye you i didn't truly think i was going to do it. deep down, though, we both knew it was happening. it was too late for us: we could never have fixed it. i don't think we were meant to fix it. and i knew that i had to let you go not only because you deserved better, but also because i deserved better.

i have a new life now and i am happy in ways i've previously never known how to be. the only thing i regret is that the way we went out completely killed any chance at friendship, because i think in another world we really could have been friends. now all i can do is hope that you're happy too.

in the end, our story is over. i hope that when you think of me, you don't hate me. in fact, i hope you don't think of me at all. i hope you live out a full live. i hope that whatever it is that makes you lock your emotions away will disappear.

(then i whisper these wishes to the wind, and let them go.)

hanging on the edge of nothing

2011-04-15T00:35:00.004-04:00

continuing this series...

day five - your dreams.

i just want to be a writer, okay?

it's not my fault that i have only one talent in life, and that talent decides to come and go as it pleases. it may not even be that great, what do i know? all i know is that the one thing i want to do with my life (write) is the most difficult thing to achieve as a "real" job. i'm not competitive enough for an actual writing job and my grades weren't good enough so an MFA is probably out of the question, even if i decided i wanted to jump back into school again.

and the worst part is, i don't even know what i want to write - poetry? maybe, but the only poetry i can manage to write these days are either a) dripping with treacly nostalgia or b) about doomed love/my past that i've romanticized to sound more glamorous than it actually was! i tried to write short stories but that never worked out. i even tried to start writing a book and well, that just sucked. the only thing that i'm really that good at is writing non-fiction, writing about myself and my life experiences in overly romantic terms. but could i really write a memoir? my life isn't even that exciting!

i'm having a minor life crisis here.

i don't want to sit in an office and write about things i barely care about when there's real truth and beauty in the world waiting to be written about! i don't want to stay inside all day when i'd be happier just sitting in a field writing about a freaking blade of grass! i don't want to force myself to find a job that i know i will never love because i am not a career girl, i'm a writer, probably not the best writer, but a writer nonetheless. and i want to do what i love, is that too much to ask for?

i know so many people here in DC who are all about careers, careers, careers. if you don't have a career path or a five-year-plan or any vision for your future then you are not a feminist, you do not have self-worth, and a whole bunch of other nonsense that, on paper, should apply to me.

i don't care about a career, or a five-year-plan, or losing my freaking independence as a woman if i don't have a job. i am a writer and that means that my primary purpose in life is to feel, and then put those feelings into words. i want to love life, and i want to feel the good and the bad as much as i can, and i want to enjoy friends and enjoy family and i want passion and i want joy and i want anger; i want to "suck the marrow of life," damn it!

i am so frustrated with trying to find a job that i know i won't enjoy, when all i want to do is write and write and write until i have enough to make some sort of compilation and get someone, anyone to read it and get someone, anyone to say it's good enough.

that's it. and yet, it seems so impossible.

i will never forget those books and poems and essays that i've read that have made me laugh out loud, cry, think, write, dance, call my friends and say "you just have to read this book/poem/essay/whatever it is." i will never forget the way other people's words have made me feel, the moment i realize that this is important, that it's speaking to me in ways i never knew were possible.

i just want to give that feeling to someone else. is that too much to ask for?

it's the way we feel that this is real

2011-04-07T15:21:00.002-04:00

seriously dudes, i feel like my life undergoes a spring cleaning every year. maybe it's because every time lent rolls around i take a look at myself and think, "hey, you can always be better!" and then i actually go and do something about it... but this fledgling spring in particular has been great because i can actually feel myself getting better, and i feel myself becoming happier.

i always wonder whether i secretly have SAD (seasonal affective disorder, for those non-midwesterners out there), because winter seriously gets me down in the dumps. i cannot tell you how many times i have cried on the phone to my mom, to jeff, about how much i hate DC and the weather and the get-ahead mentality and all that good stuff. and while i still feel similarly about the get-ahead mentality (among other DC work/people-related things), now that the sun is out and it's warmer and the cherry blossoms are in bloom, i find myself walking a little slower, smiling a little more, and realizing that i don't hate it here. maybe it's not what i would have dreamed for myself - i have always wanted something a little more exotic, exciting - but it's all right. and i'm actually happy. and life is good.

the temperature outside is above fifty degrees. the sky is brilliantly blue. i'm wearing a skirt without leggings. i've been going to mass almost every day. i've been eating healthier and i am in much better shape than i've been in a while. my leg hasn't been in pain or swollen for months. i'm about to buy a plastic adirondack chair for balcony. my family is coming to visit. molly's baby shower is this weekend. jeff and i are coming up on two years. summer is just around the corner. spring is a beautiful time that reminds me how much i love life, and that anywhere can be home if i keep the things and people i love close to my heart.

these times are hard and they're making us crazy

2011-03-23T18:02:00.000-04:00

this morning was a fight to get up

those words still ringing in my head

never felt like such a fool in front of anyone

i guess that's what you do when you love someone

i was in nashville, you were driving home

i wish I'd been in the passenger seat

i just needed you to know that i'm coming undone

that's what you do when you love someone

if i fall, i'll try a little harder and get back up

please stay by me, love

that's what you do when you love someone

just give me time, if you need more

there's no way to ever really know

how to protect yourself or predict the outcome

but you'll do anything when you love someone

you'll do anything when you love someone

if i fall, i'll try a little harder and get back up

please stay by me, love

that's what you do when you love someone

i just hung up the phone

you've got a way of changing my day

you proved me wrong

when i was convinced i was alone

yeah, that's what you do when you love someone

if i fall, i'll try a little harder and get back up

please stay by me, love

that's what you do when you love someone

that's what you do when you love someone

-- When You Love Someone, Bethany Dillon

the morning will come

2011-02-07T15:08:00.002-05:00

every so often i come across what i like to call a "punch in the gut" poem. in my facebook profile i quote kafka:

I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? We need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.

i think this can apply just as well to poetry, or even more so. i can completely understand the need for a book of fluff, or chick lit, or a mindless read after a book that leaves your mind spinning. and while i have nothing against, say, william carlos williams (i have eaten / the plums / that were in / the icebox, etc.), i personally feel like when you have so few words, you should use them to say as much as you possibly can. yes, yes, different tastes and all - but if it's possibly to achieve so much with so little, why not do it? or at least try?

the point: today i read a poem that speaks volumes to me. it is called "A Litany for Survival," written by Audre Lord. it's a tad long but the beginning and the end are my favorite parts:

For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures

...

and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid

So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive

what this poem says to me is that we are not meant to just be survivors. we shouldn't sit and endure, coming away with only what the storm did not weather. when we are silent we are still afraid. so speak! maybe we still won't be heard, or welcomed, but at least we didn't have to wonder what might have been. to me, this poem screams, live! to me, this poem screams, be! we were not meant to merely exist; we were meant to do more than just survive. these thoughts, i think, are one of the many things we can hold on to when remembering not to be afraid.

shamelessly snagged from angela

2011-02-03T11:14:00.002-05:00

1. four shows that you watch:
chuck

glee

the office

friends

2. four things that you are passionate about:
literature

my family
generalization of/discrimination against latinos

traveling

3. four words or phrases you use a lot:
no worries

oh heeeeeey

chicka yeahhhh

never leave my life!

4. four things you've learned from the past:
very few things are just black and white - there is always a gray area.
look both ways before crossing the street.

savor every moment because soon enough you'll be missing it.

it's not worth it to not be as happy as you can possibly be.

5. four places you'd like to go:
new zealand

japan

germany

spain

6. four things you did yesterday:
went to work

played skee-ball

had a wendy's frosty and fries (yum!)
watched more episodes of greek

7. four things you are looking forward too:
springtime!
going to see jeff's brother's show
the weekend

watching my netflix movie (i lead such an exciting life...)

8. four that things you love about winter:

christmas

snow

an excuse to make warm alcoholic beverages

family vacations that take me to warmer places (hah!)

for my friends

2011-01-10T12:10:00.003-05:00

love and maps

i can count the sparse scattered freckles
on my arms like stars, or like dots on a map,
colored pushpins over cities we can connect
with a pencil line or twine. we loop around each
opaquely and solidly placed pin amidst paper earth tones,
orange, blue, yellow, green, red just like
our rough chapped palms grasping at strings,
plus two big cans and some small hearts
who whisper hello, goodbye.

we were strewn about like birdseed
countries, continents wide; seagulls snatched us up
and flew us away over bodies of water,
though none as vast as our ocean eyes, airplane skies;
just catch the wind and we'll sail the sunrise.
but the world turns my head and time zones make it spin
so maybe i'll just write to you instead:
pen scratching, thumbs tapping, keys clacking.
we can build this world on words, our alphabet maps
out this place where all the you’s and me’s still spell out us,
lettered across the clouds, the land, the sea.

don’t let go of the string; i won’t let go of your hands.

you are whatever a moon has always meant

2011-01-06T23:36:00.004-05:00

pablo neruda is coming close to tying with e.e. cummings as my favorite poet of all time, because this is one of the most beautiful things i have ever read, especially in spanish (there's just something about reading the original rather than the translation, and i'm lucky to be able read it this way!):

Soneto XVII

No te amo como si fueras rosa de sal, topacio
o flecha de claveles que propagan el fuego:
te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras,
secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma.
Te amo como la planta que no florece y lleva
dentro de sí, escondida, la luz de aquellas flores,
y gracias a tu amor vive oscuro en mi cuerpo
el apretado aroma que ascendió de la tierra.
Te amo sin saber cómo, ni cuándo, ni de dónde,
te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo:
así te amo porque no sé amar de otra manera,
sino así de este modo en que no soy ni eres,
tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mía,
tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueño.

(i love when poems hit that place where your head can't quite grasp what it's trying to say, but your heart just gets it.)

the heart not to lose it

2011-01-06T23:08:00.003-05:00

there are always moments like these, after talking to my friends, when i miss them and notre dame so much that my heart lurches and i have to catch my breath. sometimes i scowl at the injustice of it all, how the powers that be gave us those four years to love and treasure and then ripped it away without a second thought. it's like london all over again, but a thousand times worse. all i can do is think about how even though we weren't perfect, or even happy with each other all the time, we stuck together through it all. we were a unit, each of us parts of a whole. on nights like these i yearn for nights we took for granted: sweaty, singing, laughing, dancing; conversations in the dark when we were supposed to be sleeping; not caring when the clock ticked to 3am, then 4, even 5.

in moments like these, at my most selfish, i wish i could have any of those nights back, relive their ordinary glory now that i know how much it actually meant in the long run. at my most selfish, i feel like i'm turning into those people i can't stand, who pine over the past until it's long overdue. but at my most selfish, i can't help but feel justified, because damn we had it good enough to care so much that it's over now.

i love and miss my besties so much.

so this is the new year

2011-01-04T23:50:00.007-05:00

so everybody put your best suit or dress on

let's make believe that we are wealthy for just this once

lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn

as thirty dialogues bleed into one

i wish the world was flat like the old days

then i could travel just by folding a map

no more airplanes, or speed trains, or freeways

there'd be no distance that could hold us back.

run for your children for your sisters and brothers

2010-12-06T16:42:00.002-05:00

day four - your sibling.

i remember being in the hospital room days after you were born, munching on graham crackers and sipping apple juice. in the shaky home video the nurse walks into the frame to wheel your little crib back to the nursery, and you can hear the panic in my voice as i ask why are they taking him away?

we've been separated in one way or another ever since i started high school when you were still in fifth grade. but despite this distance it's always been you and me versus the world, with our jokes and our arguments and fake karate kicks and hugs that are tighter than we want to admit. you're a freshman in college now but in my head you're still my baby brother, who i'd make up imaginary universes with, who i'd recite all the words to toy story with, who i'd always lose to in video games.

they say friends come and go, but family lasts forever. and while the jury's still out on the first part, nothing can convince me that the second isn't true. there's no one else i'd put my dukes up for. you and me for life, bro - that's a fact.

parachutes and airplanes

2010-11-16T14:55:00.002-05:00

day three - your parents.

sometimes i wonder when i'll stop feeling like that little girl of years past, wondering what it would be like when i was tall like you. when you dropped me off at college and my eighteen-year-old self shed all self-confidence and clung to you and cried. when i was scared of the thunderstorm, but safe with you even if the house blew down.

the truth is, no matter how far away i am, no matter how grown-up i may seem to be, there will always be that little girl inside me who will call home for advice, who who will run to you with arms outstretched, who will trust you no matter what happens.

you gave me my life. you gave me everything i have. you made me everything i am. i would be nowhere without your love, a forgotten autumn leaf blowing away in the winter winds. instead, you gave me roots, and planted them deep in this crazy world, where i know i will grow and break through and grow tall above the rest. i owe it all to you. i love you.

i was enchanted to meet you

2010-11-12T10:36:00.001-05:00

day two - your crush/boyfriend/girlfriend.

i don't ever want to forget the way i felt when i first met you, when i first knew you. how we were so nervous, like eighth graders dropped off at the movies together. running off into the dark and laying flat on our backs staring at the south bend sky as you told me about the stars in africa. the way just holding your hand on the quad made my heart pound harder than any kiss from before ever could.

the way i couldn't shake you from my back of mind even though you were the last thing i should have been worried about. the way i loved you before i even really knew it. the way you make every cheesy taylor swift song true for me. the way you made me happy, so purely and sincerely; the way in which my home is wherever you are.

maybe together we can get somewhere

2010-11-10T15:12:00.001-05:00

day one - your best friends.

what is there that i can say to you that hasn't already been said? we are beyond what words can describe; we are in the territory where a hand on a shoulder can mean so much while a whole paragraph can mean so little. what is there between us that hasn't happened? we were thrown together and then pulled apart and then thrown back together and then pulled apart again. we have fought and cried and rolled our eyes and still, here we are, keeping track of our days through the signals we send through computer wires, through our thumbs tapping out texts and crackling voices from miles away. what can explain what we are? friends, roommates, classmates, surrogate sisters? we do not fall under categories contained in our language or any other. we are who we are, and i don't know how i got lucky enough to belong to it.

15 days

2010-11-10T15:07:00.002-05:00

say something to each of these:

day one - your best friends.
day two - your crush/boyfriend/girlfriend.
day three - your parents.
day four - your sibling.
day five - your dreams.
day six - your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend.
day seven - someone you wish you could meet.
day eight - someone you wish could forgive you.
day nine - someone you've drifted away from.
day ten - the person you miss the most.
day eleven - the person that you wish you could be.
day twelve - the one that broke your heart the hardest.
day thirteen - the last person you kissed.
day fourteen - the person that gave you your favorite memory.
day fifteen - someone that changed your life.

for this moment to arise

2010-11-10T10:39:00.003-05:00

two things that give me hope:

To be free is to know who we are, with all that is beautiful, all the brokenness in us; it is to love our own values, to embrace them, and to develop them; it is to be anchored ina vision and a truth but also to be open to others and so, to change. Freedom lies in discovering that the truth is not a set of fixed certitudes but a mystery we enter into, one step at a time.

-- Jean Vanier, Becoming Human

&

How shall I hold on to my soul, so that
it does not touch yours? How shall I lift
it gently up over you on to other things?
I would so very much like to tuck it away
among long lost objects in the dark,
in some quiet, unknown place, somewhere
which remains motionless when your depths resound.
And yet everything which touches us, you and me,
takes us together like a single bow,
drawing out from two strings but one voice.
On which instrument are we strung?
And which violinist holds us in his hand?
O sweetest of songs.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke, "Love Song"

the well-worn path

2010-10-22T10:43:00.002-04:00

i am constantly amazed at how quickly life moves. i went back to notre dame this past weekend and in a way, it was like i had never left. being there felt so normal that it became weird. i felt as though i could stroll into ryan, and our room would be exactly the same as it was a year ago. i still felt like i belonged there - but how could i not belong? i don't know how to not belong. notre dame is one of the places that has taken up residency deep in my heart, with a piece that will never go away. driving away from the dome will always hurt a little bit, like pulling off a scab that's not quite ready yet. it was good to be back, but bittersweet.

this past weekend also officially marks a year since the accident. i guess i never realized until after what an awful time that was for me...being positive sure takes a lot out of you. i'm a little amazed at how i managed to be so determined to not let it ruin my year...but i guess that force of will is something that comes only and exactly when you need it. but damn, it felt good to tread that terrain with two feet again.

you held me down in this starless city

2010-10-07T14:44:00.011-04:00

i feel like i've created a world for myself out of my nostalgia. why is it that we can only experience things once? if you want to look at it the pessimistic way - memory is only a lie, a sad reminder that these times that made your heart swell are gone, and that every time you recall them they'll be more and more blurry, until eventually you can't remember at all?

it's enough to make anyone lay down and cry.

and yet -

why is it that a simple bass line can get inside my soul? how is it that when i hear a certain song, i'm immediately transported to my sixteen-ear-old self in the throes of selfish adolescence, or my eighteen-year-old self throwing snowflakes in the air, or my twenty-year-old self tripping on cobblestones on the streets? why is it that a simple line of poetry can make my heart clench? why is it that so many verses and lyrics and lines stop me cold and make me think that yes, yes, this is what i have been trying to say all along?

the truth is, art is what keeps us here. it is what makes this life, these shining un-relivable moments strung together like christmas lights, less of a line and more of a circle. i firmly believe that we would die withough art, without musicians, without writers. we are the lifeblood of the world. engineers and businesspeople keep the world running--but we, the artists, give it a reason to run at all. there is too much beauty in the world to ignore it.

this is what gives me hope. the artists of the world have given me something to relate to, something to hang on to, something to love. someday i hope to give that to someone else, another twenty-something year old who is grasping at straws to follow their dreams.

just a stranger on the bus tryin' to make his way home

2010-10-06T12:26:00.000-04:00

to this day the smell of airports and ck one brings me back to those days where i almost can't believe how carefree we were.

we lived hard and we never thought twice. i ran through the streets of london in flats so fast that i got pins and needles in my feet. we drank entire bottles of wine and danced in clubs, laughing. we spent money on cover and gin and tonics and theatre tickets and overpriced sandwiches for lunch. we went to movie premieres and shrieked as we reached out and jumped for a glance at someone famous. we took trains and planes to corners of the world we'd never seen before. we broke out of our shells because for once, in this city, we could be whoever we wanted to be.

i know it's pathetic but i still miss it more than i can say.

you're the only song i want to hear

2010-09-27T09:50:00.002-04:00

i remember your face when we walked into the hot spicy air of the thai restaurant and to this day i can't help but burst out laughing at the memory. you shifted from foot to foot and rubbed sweaty palms together as we stood awkwardly in a dining room small enough to be a closet, and with a sheepish smile you slowly asked me if i wanted to go somewhere else. i remember those tentative early days as a sweet dream, all first dates and first kisses and long walks in the dark. i can't remember feeling the same way about anyone else, even the people i pined for, cried over, thought my heart would break over. the way i felt about you at the beginning was never full of anguish or guilt or stress. sometimes we bear our teeth and swipe our claws but when it's all over, curled up together like quotation marks, i know that the story of you and me are unlike anything i have ever scribbled out before.

i do believe it's true that there are roads left in both of our shoes

2010-09-16T09:36:00.005-04:00

sometimes i wish i could live in a book, where everything is always just that much more extraordinary. no one writes about ordinary things, after all, that would make for boring reading. no matter how everyday or plain the main character is, something always happens that makes them more interesting, gives them that touch of uniqueness that you need for the plot of a book.

sometimes i think that no one would want to write about my life right now. in a way, things are exciting and changing, but there's not that strange bit of zaniness that could make it much more interesting, i guess. my interesting days are behind me. sometimes i feel like i could write a book about my college years and that would make for some good reading, but...now, in this city that thrives during the day but actually sleeps at night, i feel ordinary. happy, contended, surrounded by people i love...bur ordinary.

i guess i just want that extra spark and that is the reason why i'm itching to do something, go somewhere. maybe that's why i'm missing my whirldwind european days so much, because all i long for is to sleep where i can hear the sounds of the street, to gaze blearily at a city all lit up and bump shoulders with people in crowded squares and streets at night. dc isn't too shabby by any means, but it's way too full of career-minded people who don't have enough fun. don't get me wrong, i've had some great times here and have been meeting some great people, but everywhere i turn i am reminded of the "get ahead" mentality.

but i am not part of that. i can't be a part of that. i want to do something i love but how can a career be my first prority when there is travel and excitement and love and bright neon lights and life all around me in the world? dc can be lovely but in my heart i am feeling that it's a transitional place for me. i've got other places to see.

and it goes on and on and on

2010-09-04T00:07:00.002-04:00

it's so funny to think that i've only lived about a quarter of my life. i feel like i've already been through so much of it, but it's crazy and slightly overwhelming to think about, well, how much MORE there is. i guess when i was little everything seemed so far away in the future that i never really thought about it.

i'm slowly getting adjusted to "real world" life, figuring out exactly what it's like (as opposed to this idea i had in my mind) and being me, living in a city...well as much as i can from my cricket-infested bethesda basement. it's weird because at the same time, i felt so much more independent in london than i do now (and before you ask, invisible reader, no, it's not because of boyfriend issues or the lack thereof...) - i guess there i really had no limitations and a whole ton less responsibility than i do now. and i guess more responsibility should mean less limitations but let's be honest, my life in london was eating, sleeping, drinking, traveling, and squeezing class in between all of that. no worrying about rent, no worrying about a job, how i'm going to get home at night...it was very carefree. even though i was broke most of the time, even though i worried myself sick with boy issues, none of the memories i have of london are marred by any of that. all i remember are the wonderful, amazing times i had in those four months and the feelings of overwhelming happiness that i associate with that whole time. i have said this before and it was so true - i was waking up for the first time after a very long sleep.

i have always thought about london a lot, but recently it's been a lot more frequent. maybe it's because i'm riding public transportation every day again, maybe it's because one of the summer interns in the office is heading back to school in london as i write, maybe it's a thousand other reasons why. either way, i have an itch to go back that started the day i left and has been growing stronger ever since. i'll go back someday, i know, but i'm starting to get impatient waiting for that day to come.

and don't even get me started on ND. fingers crossed for tomorrow.

i wanna be forever young

2010-08-23T14:09:00.002-04:00

Things that are great:

Hearing a song for the first time that stops you cold. You're out somewhere, you hear it, it just stops you. You're convinced the moment you hear it - might be the greatest thing you've ever heard to date, and it has the power to change your life. Go with it, because thing 2 is related.

Seeing the one you love in a completely ordinary, random moment that you find beautiful and crystalline and epic, and it reminds you of why you love them in the first place: because of what's inside them. And trust me when I tell you this, that thing that happens with music happens with love. Believe in love at first sight, its as real as anything else in this life.

Thing three is the day when we don't have to mention the word "first" in conjunction with, say, Barack Obama or Katie Washington.

Thing four of the greatest things in life: Regis Philbin in any form.

Thing five is being from somewhere; being part of something larger than yourself. Its part of our identity as we go through life, and its a powerful thing. As of today, you went to Notre Dame...take in those bells when they play the alma mater, come back and visit Touchdown Jesus, and bring your kids to the grotto and buy them a quarter dog and tell them, tell them you didn't go to college - you went to Notre Dame.

-- Brian Williams

so this is the new year

2010-08-23T12:31:00.002-04:00

i don't need glamour, i don't need money, i don't need fancy clothes. i don't need the top tier job or to be a VIP or fancy drinks at a club. all i need is a beer, a book, bright lights and this big city. work that changes the world. my goofball friends. and i know i can be happy.

freeway runnin' through the yard

2010-08-18T11:01:00.003-04:00

where am i?

i know that i am currently in a little gray cubicle cubicle in a building at 1401 new york avenue in washington d.c. in the united states of america in north america in the northern hemisphere in the western hemisphere on the planet earth in our solar system in the milky way galaxy floating somewhere in the depths of space.

(can i get more specific than that?)

and yet. i don't know where i am.

i know the places that i belong to: parkland, florida; south bend, indiana; san jose, costa rica; san salvador, el salvador; london, united kingdom; rome, italy. washington isn't mine yet, i feel as though i'm hovering somewhere along the border, waiting for a sign as to whether i should call this place home, or float on to somewhere (anywhere?) else.

i feel as though graduation, moving on, is something i really haven't accepted yet. it goes much deeper than knowing that i won't be going back, even though i still feel like i'm waiting for something, somewhere else to go, in this constantly nomadic life of mine. i feel like my friends are slipping away slowly, because we keep in touch, yes, and we love each other fiercely...but people make new friends. life keeps splitting. i am afraid that everyone will forget me. i am afraid of being replaced.

most days i'm excited for my new life to grow, and i'm ready for new things, ready to try my hand at this crazy world where no one really ever sleeps.

but on rainy days like today, where the dc streets look like london in the gray light, and the rain smells just like in did crossing south quad in the middle of april....i wish i were on a plane, like my brother, heading somewhere i already know is home.

it's not where or what, it's who we were with

2010-08-11T14:32:00.002-04:00

so i've come to the pretty obvious realization that i have the best friends in the whole world. now, you may be thinking, of course not, that's not possible because I have the best friends in the whole world, but let me assure you, you are wrong. how else could i explain that these girls are my adopted roommates, my surrogate sisters? how else could i tell you what these girls mean to me?

it's been four years of late nights, early mornings, laughter, clothes in each others' closets, crying into shoulders, hugs lit up by a thousand candles, closing down the bar, drunk videos, road trips, laying on the beach, dining hall people-watching, paper-writing sessions that last until morning, dancing on elevated surfaces, football games, inside jokes, marathon tv episodes, hand-holding (literal and figurative), raised fists, apology letters, music mixes, 3am pizza, secrets, confessions, endless message threads, giggling in church, singing in the basilica, playing catch, needing each other.

but in the end, what really matters is that in the last four years, we found true love - because no matter how crazy it is sometimes, there is nothing like the love of your best friends.

a thousand ways

2010-06-21T15:57:00.000-04:00

i'm scrambling for ways to remember things i hope i will never forget. pictures of the insides of restaurants, nights that exist only in photo albums, ticket stubs, stains on shirts, every little detail that could bring back a barrage of good, bad, and in between times. and as i stand in the in-between of my own life, on foot in my youth and the other in the ever-elusive "real world," i can't help but wonder about when i will look back on these days and what my constantly-expanding mind will think of me. the sky is falling outside, thick fat raindrops that seem to never stop coming down. the thunder rolls as if to growl at me and say, get out of your pajamas, wash your hair and get on with your life. everything i have written, i have thought or said many times before, and still i can't seem to stop writing, as if the frantic staccato of my fingers on the keyboard will brand these memories into the binary of my mind. i never want to forget, but how can i stand to remember?

oh i've seen fire and i've seen rain

2010-05-19T00:46:00.001-04:00

i never thought leaving notre dame would be this hard.

:(

just how this story ends

2010-05-17T08:49:00.002-04:00

and i didn't really cry until i stood in front of the blazing mass of candles, radiating heat all around me, staring and staring and staring until i couldn't see from the blur in my eyes. and i cried. i cried, sobs that racked through me and made me shake. and everything passed through my mind all at once, every good time and bad time, every friend i made, every mistake i made, everything that made this place special for me. and i said thank you, thank you, thank you for everything you have given me notre dame du lac, our lady of the lakes.

and now i'm sitting in my almost-empty dorm room and it doesn't feel like when i leave it will be for real, for ever, for the last time - this place that i have made my home and this place that has made me who i am.

a little piece of me will always stay here. love thee notre dame. don't let me forget a single moment of you.

so scared of getting older, i'm only good at being young

2010-04-26T22:25:00.003-04:00

and in these last moments, these last days of my last classes at the university of notre dame (!), i can't quite believe that we've made it all this way.

i look around my room in its state of disarray and think of all the seemingly ordinary things that the mere memory of will make my heart ache next year. my bright orange sheets. molly's always messy desk. countless pairs of crocs on the floor. an excess of cups, bowls, shot glasses, wine glasses, vases. molly's piccolo. angela's futon. drawers full of cans of soup and popcorn and random snacks. 330 to 146, full circle. we came here knowing nothing of how our throats would hurt after football games, or how the coldest winter nights would feel. how sweaty it really gets in a dorm party, or the glories of the candy wall in the huddle. how the first warm day feels in the spring, or the ease it takes to skip a class you hate. how the dome still manages to glow even on the cloudiest day, or how it feels when the ten girls you live with become your sisters, in a way.

i almost want to turn around and relive the past four years, just as they've been. every excitement, heartbreak, revelation, adventure, and nights stayed up until 4am watching friends or talking about anything at all. everything i have gone through with notre dame has brought me here: i don't have a job. i don't have money. but i do have friends. i have people that love me. and best of all, i know who i am.

i have said this before about many places, many things, but still: i am going to miss this like you can't imagine.

and all we are is all so far

2010-04-15T20:13:00.002-04:00

i used to say i wanted to live in
rome,
boston,
new york,
london,
dc,

just like i could pack right up and move there and
sip my coffee on a tiny table on a busy city street
never thought about rent or money or jobs, no
just thought about me and my poetry and how
i didn't have to worry about i thing, i just needed
to get out, and live my exciting new life
all on my own.

i've got big dreams but they're not taking me anywhere
and i'm sittin' here stringing words into sentences
that all of six people will read (at most)

i can't build planes or spaceships or program a computer
i can't do any more school to save my life
so where do i fit in this giant plan everyone else seems to have?
why can't i do the one thing i love?

there's a big white curtain in front of me
and it's made of steel and i can't even put my eye
to a crack, because it's all welded shut.
steel blindfold, handcuffs on my eyes, gag on my brain.

this poem won't make me one cent
and yet, it is all i have
maybe i'm doing this all wrong but
tell me how could i do it all right?

come on and drive me wild

2010-04-07T17:13:00.002-04:00

and i feel so cliche sometimes, sitting at my desk while it rains outside, contemplating to the tune of slow guitars. winter has finally melted away and it's spring, and everything is warm and soggy and just the way things should be. i can only ask myself what this spring will bring, because each one so far has been so different and wonderful. i feel like i'm starting to thaw, starting to wake up from the long sleep of winter. it's been a long time since my feet have both touched the ground. baby steps. little by little.

maybe i can't run across construction sites and jump fences just yet, but the mere fact that april is here reminds me of days where i'd sit and listen to matt nathanson and high school musical on repeat, with a stupid smile on my face that wouldn't go away. it doesn't feel like that long ago. my heart doesn't do backflips every time you walk in the room anymore, but every new day with you surprises me and makes me happier, not by leaps and bounds anymore but in the little ways that make me want to lay my head on your shoulder and love you forever.

you make me laugh like no one else. you still make me smile for no reason. you make me want to be better every day. it's not perfect and it will never be. but every day with you reminds me that every decision i made last year was the right one. i've never been so sure of anything in my life.

the things we do

2010-03-25T15:51:00.004-04:00

And I think it's funny
that I will never enjoy banana pancakes
with you on a Sunday morning because you can't stand
the taste of bananas.

It's also funny
that you will never enjoy skiing
with me on a mountain because my bones will break so easily
and I'd fall on my face most likely.

I will never make you a peanut butter sandwich
for lunch and we will never enjoy fajitas
with green peppers together because
I hate them.

I will probably never see your wild side
and you will probably never see the side of me
that does things I regret.

but
(in between)
of our little lives and little likes and little selves

We will find a place where
I pick the bananas out of the batter
and you pick the peppers out of the pan

and it will be okay if one or two get through.

one night to speed up truth

2010-03-23T01:08:00.000-04:00

today i realized that it is going to end.

molly always asks us if we've come to terms with the end. everyone usually responds with something like, "it'll be bittersweet," or "i'm excited, but kind of sad," or anything within that range. "no," molly always says, "not how you feel about it. i want to know if you have come to terms with the fact that graduation is actually happening, that this is all actually going to end."

and we chat about it, and muse about it, and everyone always says that it feels pretty surreal, that they don't know it yet.

but today, i realized that it is actually happening. in less than two months, it is going to end.

and i'm not sure i'm as ready for it as i think i've been.

graduating from the university of notre dame is completely different from eighth grade or high school graduation in almost every way. college is different because it is not only school, it is not only friends: it is a way of life. for four years, you eat, sleep and breathe college. i have spent more time in south bend in the past three and a half years than i have at my own home. notre dame, indiana became my home. i look back at myself as a freshman, and then look at myself now. i'm older, poorer, happier. i have felt things i didn't really know i could feel. i have done things i never really thought i would do. i have been at low points and high points. i have seen so much of the world and so much of who people really are. it's cliche, but i've learned just as much (if not more) outside the classrooms than in.

and still - this is a school. i got what i came here for: academic knowledge. true, i have had my fair share of classes i could care less about, but the ones that have made a difference were worth every penny my parents have spent. i have gone from a girl who likes books, to one who understands them. i have gone from a girl who likes writing, to a writer. i have figured out what i spent all of my confused high school years searching for: who i am. i don't feel lost anymore, at least not in that department, because i feel like for the first time in my life i really know.

i've learned what it's like to love. i've learned what it's like to truly appreciate your family. i've learned the meaning of keeping in touch. i've learned that you don't let the people that matter slip away that easily. i've learned that you can think something is love when really, you have no idea. i've learned what it's like to feel your heart bursting with happiness. i've learned what it's like to feel your heart break with sadness. i've learned what it's like to be a part of something bigger than you. i've learned the meaning of loyalty.

i've learned what it's like to lose a friend. i've learned that those who are there for you are more valuable than anything in the world. i've learned that the people who don't care are not worth your time. i've learned that faith is a choice, and that it is a choice i want to make. i've learned that the spring is that much better when you've gone through the winter. i've learned that life goes on and there's nothing any of us can do to stop it.

maybe the biggest thing i've learned is that we may feel like we're not ready for the next part of our lives, whatever it may be: new home, new school, new friends, new lovers, new anything. and it's always going to be a little scary and a little exciting to leave the old behind for the new. but anyways - the biggest thing i've learned is that we're all going to be okay. no matter how bad we think it is...we'll make it through. the test will be over. your heart will mend. you'll be home soon. you'll be back soon enough.

which brings me back to the beginning: it's going to end. and i'm not going to lie, i'm scared out of my mind. how can i leave this place so soon? this place that has held so much magic for me. i've lived through a lot of firsts and lasts here. there are times when i'm still in awe of how the dome can still shine even on the dreariest day. there are times when the sun is setting and the sky over south quad is still breathtaking. there are times when i know i will miss life chats that go on and on forever. there are times when i will miss every single little thing about this place and i will not know what to do with myself.

and then, then it'll be time to take my own advice: it will be okay. life goes on. i'm gonna miss this place to death...but at least i loved it enough to miss it that much.

they say bad things happen for a reason

2010-03-15T10:54:00.003-04:00

if it weren't for my broken leg i'd be the happiest girl in the world. but if it weren't for you i would be the saddest, and to not be the saddest is all i can ask for.

don't let me give up on you

2010-03-15T09:50:00.002-04:00

when everything's a white curtain you're not really sure where to go. laugh loudly and suffer quietly. shake the sand out of your hair let the sun burn your skin but in the end everyone always has to leave. sometimes i don't know what i'm really writing about anymore. all i want to do is go back to those places where i belonged: across the quad, across the country, across the sea. anywhere but here. these four walls close in too fast and the door is covered by a white curtain that just won't flutter aside. i'm screaming about broken things and hitting the keys on the keyboard like i'm playing my heart on the piano. take me back to the summer where all we had to do was drink beer and watch fireflies. now it's cold and i can't run around anymore but we're still happy, right? i still know how to be happy, right? everyone's a mess every once in a while, right? all i ask is that you don't let me give up on me. don't let me give up on you.

they say bad things happen for a reason

2010-02-24T15:09:00.000-05:00

how does it feel?

impact. lights. blind blinder blinding.
it's numb. there's no pain.
nothing but the odd realization that your plans for the night/week/month/year have instantly changed.

there's no reason to cry. why would you cry when you feel no pain?

you whimper and you ask for the only people you want to see. other people come anyways. they put your neck in a brace and cut your clothes off and put an IV in your arm even though you've been afraid of IV's ever since you've known what they were. they ask for a number one through ten even though you're no good at gauging ballpark figures. you're inside an ambulance and you think ah, that's what they look like on the inside. you feel like you're floating above yourself, watching. your leg is at an uncomfortable angle and you're horrified to find that you can't move it to make it comfortable. you start crying when you realize you're going to miss the football game. you cry more when you realize you're going to miss the rest of the season.

you go into surgery and are so tired afterwards that you can't even stay awake to watch the game you cried over.

you spend an excruciating helpless horrible month and a half in a wheelchair and shower every other day in a little room all the way across campus. you eat less because your stomach shrinks since you're not using up the same amount of energy that you did when you could walk.

four months later you sit, one leg well and the other leg in a state of infuriating limbo. you still haven't walked. you almost don't remember what it's like so you bring to mind memories like the way cobblestones feel when you run over them, how your foot feels when you stamp your foot in a sandal, the way new grass tickles when you run through it. you reassure yourself that you remember, you remember, you remember.

you make fists and cry and furiously type out your frustrations every so often. people feel sorry for you and let you go into the elevator first. people call you a trooper when they see you out at a bar. people see you on your little university provided scooter and say things like i wish i broke my leg so i could get one of those. you want to punch those people the only thing they don't know is that you'd give anything to be unnoticed, to be just like everyone else, to walk as slow as everyone else. they don't have to deal with this crap along with everything else a normal college student normally does. yeah, it could be worse. but it doesn't matter because when it comes down to it, it still sucks.

you try and try to be as positive as everyone says you are, but it's hard when all you want to do is build a time machine to tell yourself not to cross the street. you're about to crack. everyone's patience runs out eventually. they tell you everything is possible, but for you it's all just out of reach, and you don't know the next time it will be.

so for now all you can do is wring your hands, smile, nod, shrug, and say it's coming along. because there's nothing else you can do if you want to keep yourself sane.

the whispers that it won't last

2010-02-19T14:36:00.001-05:00

things i ~~want~~ need to do when i go back to london:

- greenwich/prime meridian
- BRITISH LIBRARY (how could i be so stupid???)
- re-do british museum
- go inside westminster abbey
- high tea at harrod's (or, if i'm poor, somewhere less expensive HA)
- buy something completely useless at the notting hill market
- go to world's end pub in camden
- BRICK LANE. INDIAN FOOD. 'nuff said.
- see romeo and juliet in the globe (this would really be circumstantial...but wouldn't it be AWESOME?!)
- re-do tower of london (it's been too long)
- go back to dovetail, jerusalem tavern, cheshire cheese, roadhouse, the zoo, o'neill's, exmouth...
- thoroughly explore regent's park
- actually go to gordon's wine bar
- REUNITE WITH CAFE CANOVA AND IT'S AMAZING TOMATO SOUP AND BAGUETTE GAHHHH
- stock up on chocolate/caramel digestives, hobnobs, those awesome crackers, bourbon cream cookies, custard cream cookies, those smoothie drink things, weird flavored potato chips, and CADBURY
- actually go to the icebar
- hampstead heath
- see phantom of the opera
- see les miz (again)

- to be continued...

taking a mental picture of you now

2010-02-07T15:08:00.001-05:00

Woke up in London yesterday
Found myself in the city near Piccadilly
Don't really know how I got here
I got some pictures on my phone

New names and numbers that I don't know
Address to places like Abbey Road
Day turns to night, night turns to whatever we want
We're young enough to say

Oh this has gotta be the good life
This has gotta be the good life
This could really be a good life, good life

Say oh, got this feeling that you can't fight
Like this city is on fire tonight
This could really be a good life
A good, good life

take me back there. this city is in my bones and i can't get it out. <3

speeding so fast it felt like i was drunk

2010-02-01T14:29:00.000-05:00

and even when i'm mad at you i can't help but love your stupid, stupid face. it's so not fair. and it's all your fault.

but if you try sometimes

2010-01-16T14:34:00.002-05:00

exactly...except i would never wish i didn't love you, and i could write a thousand books and it still wouldn't come close to what i feel.

i want the world to see you be with me

2010-01-10T01:19:00.003-05:00

five minutes to midnight and there you were on the other side of the sliding glass door, leaning on the bar, waiting as we all hovered on the other side waiting for you. i tapped the glass and you grinned and shrugged. two minutes to midnight and i decided it would be okay if we just smiled at each other through the glass because there would be plenty of time for kisses later. 10 9 8 the DJ said and suddenly there you were 7 6 5 forgotten gold chain of my purse still slung over your shoulder 4 3 2 and we didn't even get to say 1 and yes, it was a happy new year indeed.

and i know that it's so cliche

2010-01-07T13:09:00.003-05:00

i don't know why it's now that i'm missing london so much, that i'm looking at old pictures and longing, or looking at old quotes and laughing. i see a picture of the parking garage next to our flats and want to cry. i pore over images of the city lit up like a birthday cake and wonder how it is that i lived there for four months like it was nothing, walked down those streets like it was nothing, cherished every moment but never realized how much i'd still miss it, even a whole year after leaving it. i don't think i've ever grown to love a city so much; it wasn't love at first sight but after winding my way through its intricacies every day i just can't forget it, can't shake it off. i can't imagine not going back, but i can't imagine it ever being the same. but i guess that's the thing about london, as it is with every good city: it's alive, it never stays the same, it breathes - and even though the worn cobblestones remain and the old buildings still stand, there will always be something different about that place and maybe that's why i love it so much.

for months after i always wondered if i had made the right choice. should i have tried harder for rome, the first city i ever loved, the beauty, the food, the ancient-ness of it all? or australia which everyone seemed to love so much - the sweeping landscapes, the crazy nights, crazy travels? or spain or mexico with a language i knew but a totally different culture? i watched abroad friend groups get stronger and others fall apart, while my own group of 20 dwindled down to about 6. but even though a big part of london, for me, was the people i met there, in the end it's not about that, and it's not about missing out on something i could've gotten if i had studied abroad somewhere else. it's about the way i felt when i walked across blackfriars bridge in the sunshine. it's about standing on the balcony of the national gallery looking down at trafalgar square. it's about marveling at every item in sainsbury's and laughing at weird flavors of potato chips we wouldn't be able to find in the USA. it's about standing on that spot on the globe stage and hearing my voice echo around me. it's about the triumphant satisfaction i felt the first time i squeezed onto the tube in the nick of time, and the first time i navigated my way inside king's cross without having to look at the signs. it's about the very first time i ordered a drink at a pub, the way i wanted to cry before the first act ended in les miserables, the way my feet were numb after running all the way to school in a skirt and flats, the way i could walk down the streets of london at night and feel totally safe, like i was home.

we should get jerseys 'cause we make a great team

2009-12-26T11:41:00.002-05:00

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

2009-12-24T01:09:00.001-05:00

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

2009-12-18T10:31:00.004-05:00

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

2009-12-16T16:42:00.001-05:00

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

you pass through places and places pass through you

2009-12-16T16:11:00.004-05:00

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

2009-12-14T12:45:00.002-05:00

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

2009-12-06T12:49:00.002-05:00

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

2009-12-03T01:48:00.000-05:00

i love the way everything just falls into place.

sharp knife: an autobiography in four parts

2009-11-24T02:29:00.000-05:00

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

2009-11-23T01:18:00.003-05:00

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

2009-11-19T18:53:00.002-05:00

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

2009-11-18T01:49:00.001-05:00

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

2009-11-17T00:02:00.002-05:00

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

2009-11-10T21:22:00.004-05:00

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

2009-11-10T15:24:00.004-05:00

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

2009-11-09T10:53:00.002-05:00

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

2009-11-05T18:00:00.000-05:00

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

2009-10-30T13:04:00.004-04:00

"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

2009-09-29T15:06:00.000-04:00

“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

2009-09-28T11:14:00.002-04:00

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

2009-09-26T12:04:00.003-04:00

when i looked into your eyes i knew it was true

2009-09-21T23:59:00.003-04:00

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

2009-09-21T11:58:00.002-04:00

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

2009-09-15T00:00:00.001-04:00

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

2009-09-07T11:35:00.001-04:00

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

2009-09-07T00:12:00.003-04:00

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

2009-09-02T14:54:00.002-04:00

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

2009-09-02T14:12:00.007-04:00

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

2009-08-22T22:59:00.002-04:00

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

2009-08-14T10:08:00.003-04:00

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

2009-08-12T13:39:00.003-04:00

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

2009-08-10T14:43:00.005-04:00

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

2009-08-08T16:44:00.002-04:00

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

2009-07-31T14:46:00.002-04:00

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

2009-07-20T14:20:00.000-04:00

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

2009-07-17T10:38:00.002-04:00

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

2009-07-15T15:14:00.002-04:00

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

2009-07-10T10:01:00.003-04:00

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

2009-07-09T13:37:00.001-04:00

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

2009-07-07T13:54:00.002-04:00

...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

2009-07-06T00:43:00.007-04:00

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?

2009-07-01T13:48:00.003-04:00

love me like the world is ending.

kisses are a better fate than wisdom

2009-06-30T02:44:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-22T15:27:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-20T16:50:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-15T01:53:00.005-04:00

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

2009-06-07T17:30:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-04T13:31:00.003-04:00

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

2009-05-29T01:02:00.003-04:00

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. :)