Coffeehouse-October 2013

She was sitting in the basement, thinking about stealing one of her mom’s cigarettes for kicks but decided against it, she had never been too good with lighters. She laughed in the dark partly because she knew herself too well, and mostly because she could again.

You see the past year had been spent thinking about writing a self help book titled “Dear Everyone: The World is Indeed Not Your Oyster". It all started when the was winter a little colder than usual, took too long to shake off the goose bumps, she was still shivering at the beginning of the summer. Wishing for a straw to lodge into a lung for air because as far as she could tell she found the oyster, but the pearl was just so easy to choke on.

Those pearls. She was wearing the same ones when it all fell apart and of course when it all fell together again, she was a creature of continuity. Doodling full circles on her arms and tattooing them to her memories but not infinity symbols, never infinity symbols because they were too human. Human. The word reserved for all the others, the ones who chewed with their mouths open, only saw as far as their vision would allow them, knew nothing but the instincts their bodies told them. But those people never needed to breathe through a straw, didn’t have to sleep with a snake in the next bed over and those people never looked at an ocean and wished they were on the bottom of it. So she thought about those people, and the past year, her vision that would never fail her, and the hole from the straw, and so she knew. It was time for a change. Time to take the humanity off the shelf, look at it everyday, keep it in her pocket and touch it when she needed a reminder that she was small. Not small in the bad way, but small enough to know that the hands on her windpipe could never have been as big as they once seemed, that she could fit between the couch cushions, slip through a crack if she needed an escape, could be the missing corner piece of the puzzle, maybe even someone else’s puzzle, could stand next to anyone and whisper “you’re small too, isn’t it beautiful?”

I was sitting in the basement, thinking about stealing one of my mother’s cigarettes, watching the credits roll over all the concrete surfaces laughing with myself about nothing, finally feeling like something, a little small, a little human, but not so bad in the end.

Coffeehouse-May 2013

Ask any kid who knows how to work a crowd what they want to be when they get older, and they’ll say, “I want to be happy.”

Well, didn’t we all! Except, if you’re searching for it, you’ll never find it, it’s nameless and faceless but supposedly impossible to mistake and if you think that you are, you probably aren’t. Happy.

Forgive the cynic in me for being wary of contradictions but I think we’ve all spent a little too much time chasing after ghosts.

They teach you early on that nature has a way of balancing itself out, there’s no reason to fear tipping scales or capsized ships if you follow all the laws and obey your equal sign. I was the type of kid who liked getting it right and keeping my feet off the cracks looking left right left across the street and feeling the edges of the gold star on the paper like the stars in my eyes I saw them in yours too.

There’s nothing to be afraid of because I never once thought about God without conviction...well I have a knack for numbers at least.

When you were young all you needed was the promise of tomorrow to propel you through the shortcomings of yesterday and saying your prayers guaranteed you a decent ever after, but what they forgot to mention was the “in between” of decisions, damage and no do overs. Little girl isn’t spinning around in mother’s best perfume and jewelry anymore, now when she opens the box it’s too dirty to stay pure and when she digs around her hands get caught on the rough edges, leaving scars matching all the other sould who deserve it the least, crumbling under the weight of their own anticipation, glassy eyed from dry swallowing too many setbacks shedding dignity on bathroom floors in place of tears, or whispering “I want to be happy” in a smudged mirror, whose house is this, it’s two am, and I was always the level headed one.

I spent many an hour this year stooped before a throne and pounding on perfection’s doorstep, salvaging the memory of a childhood long gone that was the first mistake, when you’re always on your hands and knees looking in every corner for fables and idealizations your bound to fall through a crack eventually. Falling. You fall over on or down it might break a bone every time, you are the one on the floor wanting to blend into the tiles just like the lines blurred together, but now you brace yourself, instead of relying on good intentions or a feeble cry for the impeccable, the recognition of all this is half the battle.  

When no one is looking, put your hand up to your neck and feel around for the fibers of a noose woven from your own expectations, the one that’s always getting caught on all the jagged edges, the one that calls for perfection as it pulls on your windpipe. To the kids in the classroom who deserve to save themselves a few scraped knees, take it off every now and again because it’s just not worth tripping over anymore. I guess you can call it cynicism, but I still make my dandelion wishes, this time just a little differently.

Coffeehouse-December 2012

On my sixteenth birthday, I may have mixed it all up.

I say this because I went against every inspirationalist’s motto, when I spent the first quarter of it smiling because it happened, and the rest crying because it was over.

You could say I’m a bit pessimistic, but I like to think of it as a greater appreciation for the 365.

Three years and ten days ago exactly I wrote a poem about how someone had missed the play button when they set the tape up for my life

That’s easy to say when you’re a lonely eighth grader spending your Friday nights hoping for a boy to hold your hand, but really now I would give anything to be staring at those Christmas lights again. Because having so many Friday nights in your basket spent otherwise starts to get heavy, but not in a way that I cant carry them, only dripping with nostalgia, glaring headlights on foreign roads with foreign voices, laugh too loud and hush don’t go, crossing boundaries like the ts we used to try and tell exactly how we fit into this, this wide expanse of existence that just seems too damn small.

I put my palm against the glass and let it sit there, but it wasn’t quite winter and it wasn’t quite rain, so when the union was lost there was no sign I had ever tried to push right through I ended up with my fingers in my pockets, and that’s how we all end up. Thumb around for a while between the receipts and the loose change, maybe you’ll find what you’re looking for, but if what you’re looking for is time, then you won’t, because I’ve tried that too.

What I have found is that you can dig your heals in, swallow the last mouthful of liquor cabinet liquid courage lay your head on his shoulder while he takes you for one more circle around the bend it’s okay. 5 minutes won’t kill us, hit replay on that soundtrack one last time, at least we can count on this ticking clock. This clock is the only constant, I have watched the hands moving for three years and ten days and countless hours before that too, it’s mocking me baby, it knows it will always be around when you and you and you can’t be.  I’m not asking for that magic mirror on the wall, if forever is the fable that has always been stuck between the pages then let it be, if only for just one more season to blanket me on the coldest of nights. I think I might need it because I’ve always been more of a watch from the driveway type, why sit in the passenger seat if you only have eyes for the rearview mirror.

If you see me in three years, I hope you know I put the birthday candles away, I hope you see me setting back clocks on damp, poorly lit pavement with strangers.

I hope you know that we lost.

So for now,

Rolling credits cut copy and paste

If we don’t believe in reality then it will hit a little harder

I have the now to carry me over to the next life,

The then weighs heavy, I can’t hold it forever even so.

There will always be slow acoustic on a rainy day

I’ll never escape it, not with those clouds and this truth

For those who see the most beauty in hindsight

Well, it’s just the only way to feel.