more writing, untitled

you are a storm
she, the sea
I loved you both.

she pulled me away, and you rushed in,
blustering in your fury.

between the storm and sea,
there was me, and I was

destroyed.
I loved you both, and wrongly -
it was wrong of me to know it.
I let her shape sweep me away,
and I pulled you after.
I charged the air and still,
shock when lightning strikes.

read hamsun, she said, and you'll understand.
I don't understand.
I never did.
I loved her -

I didn't want to understand.
I loved you,

and for that I am sorry.

for my mother, on her birthday, a vignette from childhood

She made a carnival in her room. Last night she dragged me by my arms down the hall and I'm still a little sore on my back when I think about it.

But now her room's a fairground, the pink carpet seems like it goes on forever instead of just sevenfeetsixinches because we measured once.

Her mattress is on the floor, but it's not a mattress, it's a state-of-the-art trampoline, much better than those air-filled things that make the hissing noises and scare me sometimes. I have ten cents and she charges me five. She's always making money somehow.

She offers to hold my other nickel for me, but I've fallen for that one before, no thank you miss I will hold it for myself. Only I have no pockets and there's no way I'm leaving it in my room or on the desk, I've fallen for those before too, she'll just run and get it while I'm busy jumping on her trampoline-bed.

I'm six, I'm much too smart now to let her steal my money, I know that.

So I put my nickel in my mouth. It tastes a little like tinfoil. I mean mom says not to put metal in your mouth but I kind of like the way it tastes, all strange and tinny and familiar but confusing all at once.

With that problem solved I'm jumping! It's so fun just like when you're higher up but when you're higher you can't go as far so this is better. I'm jumping, I'm jumping, now I fell down and now my nickel is in my throat.

The nickel is in my throat and I guess I'm choking. This feels kinda funny, like I'm gonna throw up but not in a bad way. I don't really know why I'm not really breathing, but it's okay because my sister, my hero, she's coming to my rescue, her arms are wrapped around me and she's squeezing me, jerking me around like I'm a bear.

I spit out my nickel and I miss the taste of it in my mouth, but I don't put it back in.

When we tell my parents they hug me they squeeze me almost as tight as she did to get the nickel out and then they get mad at my sister for letting me eat the nickel in the first place.

more writing, untitled

we should be older.
we should meet again
under the blankets.
this is the last time
I'll let you sleep alone.
until we're older
and I get mad at you
and you sleep on the couch.

I dream about us.
our first dance
the first time
taking you to lunch
my future is bright
with the hope of
someday knowing that
no matter what
the first thing I'll see
when I open my eyes
(except maybe a kid)
(or a cat asleep on my face)
(or the numbers on an alarm clock)
(or maybe the ceiling)
for the rest of my life
will always be you.

unless you sleep on the couch.

then the first thing I'll see
will be the floor.

because we both know
I won't stay mad at you all night
and couches don't work for two
all that well.

but if I wake up on the floor for love of you,

you had better damn well make pancakes.



again, high school, in one of my uncharacteristic (for the time) humorous periods.

things to read, if you are bored

Study things: Women tend to take their jobs more seriously than men

Completely true things: Why it's dumb to be in your 20s

Real things: A man talks about his life as an undocumented immigrant

Fun things: Crying baby around Obama? I THINK NOT.

Weird things: Babies poop everywhere (and from my time as a nanny, I know people actually do this, a lot, and it is weird)

Annoying things: Make up your mind, scientists, I like stretching

Friendly things: A girl I know draws comics sometimes, and this one is real funny

the dissonance of yes.

do you ever think about me the way I
but no - that forbidden thought
remains stillborn behind my lips.
a question I don't want answered;
better yet,
a question I'm not ready for.
We could be perfect
an ending crescendo
oh, we would be so right.
but I'm too afraid that
I've already seen your answer.
I'm even more afraid
no I am terrified
that maybe
just maybe
your answer would shock.
it would force a beginning or an end
catalyze an explosion
I couldn't bear an end
and where to go from a beginning?
Time is against us now
as is Logic
as is Luck
as is everything good
except hope
that damned hope
that maybe
just maybe
I'd hear you answer
"yes."


this was definitely, most certainly from senior year of high school, because i know exactly who i wrote this about and i wasn't friends with her until senior year. obviously that was a weird time for me!


also, i think i wrote this about the time i was in the high school lit mag, because i know my friend CJ objected strongly to my lack of capitalization and when i asked him to type out/make copies of this for me, he put them where they should be, so to spite him a little, i moved them around.

mind games.

i wish i could sleep
but my mind is racing
i don't think i could even
say what exactly got me so spun
his boyish face and what i
must've once felt, i suppose -
his face, with fierce man lines,
darts through my mind, races
around my thoughts and
racing racing he races
i think of the gum he
bought me in owajima market
the nights i couldn't sleep
because of these racing racing
that tiny picture of his face
and it laughs as it baits
my mind until it races itself
into the very ground
            and
                          i
                                       fall.







this is one i wrote senior year of high school i think? about someone who is still something of a mystery to me, in his own way.

the hunger games

After sorting through hundreds of dentists today, I'm taking a break to look at the cast for the upcoming Hunger Games movie(s) and GETTING CRITICAL.

If you haven't read the books, I don't know how much sense this will make; go along with it anyway.

baaaaaaaadaaaaaaaasssssss

Besides the obvious issues with hair and eye color - which I guess you can change? Why not! It is Hollywood, and very Capitol-ish - I guess I'm more or less okay with Katniss and Peeta. Jennifer Lawrence looks completely badass on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, and Josh Hutcherson was pretty enjoyable in Bridge to Terabithia and The Kids Are Alright. Gale seems a bit too beefcake-y to be able to pull off smart, angry hunter guy who drives a revolution. He was dating Miley Cyrus, y'all. Let's be real.

My first real issue comes with Elizabeth Banks as the efficient and thoughtless Effie Trinket. I love Elizabeth Banks. Don't get me wrong. She's fantastic. It's just... Dudes, the thing with this is that the image that always pops into my head for Effie Trinket is more or less this -->

Come on! How awesome would that be? Nicki Minaj sauntering around in weird future suits with like Jetson-ish hips, squeaking out "May the odds be ever in your favor!" in a lisping Capitol accent? COME ON. Get behind me, internet.

Also, I think that Lady Gaga should have been enlisted as a stylist consultant for the Capitol residents. Just the normal ones.

I have to say, I didn't think of Woody Harrelson for Haymitch Abernathy. I was thinking more of that dude who played Mad-Eye Moody. But now, having thought about it, I really love Woody Harrelson as Haymitch. Loud-mouthed, drunken, falling into a pile of his own vomit. Oh Haymitch.

Stanley Tucci will make a completely wonderful Caesar Flickerman. Excellent choice, Stanley Tucci's parents, for getting together to create that man.

For Prim, though, I was having dreams of it being Chloe Moretz. I don't know, I know Prim's supposed to be 12, but Chloe Moretz has such a great range, and I think she could pull off all three years of Prim-ness. Sure, I don't know anything about this other random girl. Maybe she has all that great little-kid-ish-ness to her.

But then, on the other hand, the girl who they picked for Rue looks just right. I don't know. Maybe I just have too clear of pictures of them built up in my head.

Donald Sutherland as President Snow? I don't know. I feel like he looks like he has aged naturally, but I suppose it's easy enough to get some tape and do a quick facelift and lip augmentation? I don't know. I can only really think of him right now as Mr. Bennett, and he was so likable there.

OH, OH MY GOD. I DO NOT KNOW HOW I ONLY JUST GOT TO THIS.

LENNY KRAVITZ IS CINNA.

I DO NOT EVEN KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MYSELF RIGHT NOW.

I want to take you seriously, Hunger Games movie. I do. But. But. LENNY KRAVITZ. As CINNA.

Well good God.

At least they got Glimmer insanely right.

beginnings and endings

Single days are here again.

My boyfriend has now become a justafriend, someone with whom I am performing the awkward un-mating rituals necessary after a year and a half. Negotiations over bars, friends, and our single jointly-owned object: a small chest-of-drawers we found walking home from the park one afternoon as it began to rain. We found it by one of the decadent buildings on Central Park West, in the kind of area where gilt objects appear on sidewalks next to empty cardboard boxes and wine bottles.

He conveniently forgets that I was the one who spotted it and eventually cleaned it, obsessively; I conveniently forget that he paid the cab fare after twenty blocks of knee-bruising stumbling.

Relationships tend towards that, I think. Forgetting the small kindnesses in the shadow of the argument. I think that's why it's hard to explain to little kids why things don't work out sometimes. Little kids remember everything. Their heads haven't been crowded with the periodic table and the names of everyone on their high school tennis team yet, and they can still remember whether or not Jimmy deserved whatever he got. It gets harder, I guess.

It's incredible, though, how easy our conversation was, how freely we laughed, after we'd been relieved of the weight of our crumbling relationship. Suddenly, with the arguments about nights out or jealousy over friends who seemed too close forced into irrelevance, the man I love was easy to see.

Oh yes, friends. I still love him. He is, at his core, a good guy. He loves his family, desperately wants to prove that the work they did in raising him has paid off. He'll always remember everyone's names and can make you feel special while he's talking to a crowd, where he's the most comfortable. I'm just the sort of person who keeps my friends close and forgets about the rest. We have fundamentally different ways of relating to people, something that's fine between friends but seems to stop being okay once you kiss someone.

I've been through a dozen or more breakups, everything from a text ending a long-distance romance to the more traditional screaming matches that involve some "Don't touch me!"s and usually end with some "I never want to see you again"s. I've only had one other where I genuinely wanted to stay friends, and that was difficult to maintain once feelings started to get uneven.

This, though - this is someone I've spent ages discussing everything with, someone who shared my bed and my life for a while. Someone who befriended my friends and introduced me to more people and places than I can easily count, people who enrich my life and lead to incredibly bizarre stories. This is someone I loved so much and wanted so much to make happy that it was hard to admit that things weren't working anymore.

Basically, what I'm trying to get across is that, friends and family, lovers of my now ex-boyfriend, you can still talk to him. Though he did try to call dibs on one golden-footed friend of ours, we want to be friends, and there's no reason why I would block anyone from him. I honestly still want him in my life, which is bizarre enough at the end of a relationship.

I just wanted to get this down. I want him to be happy, and I want me to be happy, and somehow we both smartened up enough for a minute to realize we weren't doing that.

työ!!!

Well, as of the 27th I will be officially employed. Thank everything. What a huge relief. And at Big Fancy Law Firm, no less!

That said, boyfriend made the excellent point of "Why don't you write anymore?" (Me: "I don't know." Him: "Then do it." Excellent motivation, babycakes.)

I'm going to post some older stuff I wrote, and hopefully newer things, and why not, this should be an exercise in writing anyway, right?

Anyway, happy birthday to me. An excellent birthday week was had. I'm sure I enjoyed my actual birthday, though I do not entirely recall it, as it seems that the goal of your friends on your birthday is to destroy you by sneakily refilling your drink. I appreciate the thought, but maybe it could come in some other form next year? Like cupcakes? Last time I checked, it is hard to refill a cupcake.