….I see some flowers on a hillside, like a wall of new TVs ((Old Soul Song — Bright Eyes))
—
Here’s some word vomit/stream of consciousness. I sparked it by a line in a Motion City Soundtrack song “In memory of what we used to call in love” and went from there. Random.
In memory of what I used to call normality. Things change quickly from red to green to yellow to orange to black. Different views become different eyes and different eyes become a new person. Change, change, change.
Only pennies.
The change is running out as I use all my remaining change to buy the last color hair dye for change. Blondes have more fun, but brunettes are bitchier.
Sink my toes into a heated blanket, curl around a body pillow and watch as drama unfolds over the rim of a cup of lemon tea. Two bags. Bags and bags of candy from Halloween still haunt me.
Hauntingly slow and hauntingly new. Whispering around us all the time, so please don’t ouija in a graveyard. Okay thanks bye. Stop saying LOL.
I haven’t really laughed in a long time.
As time flies by I try to find a meaning for life, a reason to wake up in the morning instead of throwing fits of rage because I have to live. I have to.
Well, I don’t have to, but my parents are spending far too much money on my college education for me to waste it by killing myself. I’m pretty sure it’s fucked up that I think like that.
I think about a lot of things. My mind never stops. Stop hating, stop loving, stop everything for just a moment so I can catch my breaths that come faster as you approach. Breaths that I see in the cold November air. Only November, but it feels like Christmas because of the decorations at my part time job. Working, working, working.
Working for money, for a future, for something beyond these six walls closing in. Closing the door on too many good things, but a few bad ones too. I know what the handles look like so I’ll just grab hold and hold on as I swing them back and forth undecided. Decisions, decisions I don’t really know what to make of them or how to make them.
Making pumpkin cheesecake, making friends, making mistakes. Mistakes are so common, and I regret them all. Regrets. But I wouldn’t change them for anything because they make me who I am. Who am I? The girl that makes mistakes. I’m allowed to, I’m only seventeen.
Seventeen is such an odd number. Just past a license, just short of emancipation. Emaciated skeletons still hang in my closet, but they tend to come out and scare me from time to time. Times of night, at night, in my dreams, closing in, scaring me.
Scared to the point of tears with all the lights on and a blanket securing me, security security. Am I ever really safe? I don’t think so, and the things I do probably make it worse. I try to not be stupid but I really am a silly little girl.
Silly little girl pull your hair down and swing your hips a little stronger now. Straighten your back, find your confidence. Beauty isn’t just from within, but when it’s not from the outside you have to fake it till you make it. Don’t worry, just fake it. Fake it.
I feel fake and yet so authentic sometimes. It’s funny how those things happen. It’s like I’m a real fake. I’m real but I have to hide the real by faking. I don’t think I even understand myself right now.
Do I ever really understand my thoughts or myself? They just keep going and going like that stupid pink bunny. Fuck you energizer, if I want to stop I’ll stop.
Actually I don’t think I can stop, there’s too much. Too much running and circling back and running some more through my head, faster than those skinny cross country bitches.
I wish that I could be invisible for a day. Not for the usual reasons, I don’t want to disappear, I’m not that emotionally retarded yet. I’d want to slip around to all the quiet corners and watch the people who look the most upset and purposely do something retarded and supernatural so they’d see it and come alive. If I could take all the unhappy faces in the world and change them, I wouldn’t. Light and dark. Life and death. They’re all polar opposites but without one you can’t have the other. If we were happy all the fucking time we’d go insane, there must be depression in order for the happiness to be happy. Otherwise happiness would just be so ordinary.
I wish happiness was an ordinary thing for me, not a rare occasion on which things actually make sense.
To be or not to be, that’s the essential question.
Filed under: Creative Writing, Life as a Broad Title | Tags: change, friends, future, hope, life, short story, summer, time
It’s official. I get to change my homepage to say a “seventeen year old girl”. Honestly though, 17 really isn’t that big. It’s that crappy thing between getting a license and being an “adult”.
As per usual, my birthday wasn’t really a big deal. I had a dual party with my friend on the 23rd because her birthday is the 25th, which was fun, and afterwards I drank Vodka and went put-putting, also fun. But today was nothing special. I watched Harry Potter in IMAX with my dad. I did laundry. I finished some last minute AP work. It was just another day.
Today also marks the last day of summer. I go back to school tomorrow. Odd.
I just want to say, that while this summer did have its lows, it has by far been the best I’ve had in years.
Another summer is gone. One more, and this time next year I’ll be typing this in a dorm room. Hm. Strange.
The thing about summer is that it’s so conflicted in my head. I love the idea of it. Fun, freedom, no school, etc. Just the feeling you get when you think about how epic summer can be just makes me smile. But I hate the actual summertime, as in the heat, the humidity, etc. So I guess I’ll leave it at a love-hate relationship. I’m waving goodbye for now (although NC is still hot well into October….).
Over the past 2 and 1/2 months I’ve been writing a little goodbye serenade to summer. It’s pretty much just a list, but it’s got inside jokes and random occurrences that I’ve kept track of.
2 Months, 2 Pages, and Too Many Words
Summer is setting the alarm clock for 2 pm. Staying up till 4 am playing monopoly. Girls’ nights with too much alcohol and just enough laughs. Hot nights with hookups and broken hearts chilled in the 95-degree weather.
Summer is making sand castle nipples and boogie boarding. Sunburns and saltwater. Skinny-dipping and sliding on hardwoods. Dancing on couches and lip-syncing about how much we love Stacy’s mom. Eating too much pizza. Scratch that, you can never have too much pizza.
Summer is smiles and sandals and smoke. Hot tubs, pool parties, and wet feet. Sandy bathing suits, star gazing, and lollipops. Long drives, Southpark, and ghost riding. Music, good books, and nausea.
Summer is excitement, anxiety, and readiness for the future. Nervousness, horniness, and cheap thrills. Movies, malls, and parking garages. Short-shorts, sun-bleached hair, and wet sofas. Fights, feuds, and forgiveness.
Summer is drunken evenings, Bacardi, and rum. Early morning IHOP runs that end with champion eating skills and twisted stomachs. Eating dust, and watching Dressage lessons. Learning new skills such as opening a bottle with your arm. Toasts, toasts, and more toasts.
Summer is falling over and being picked up by a friend, laughing over our own stupidity. House alarms, party-less nights, and Dexter. Weeds, weed, and brownies.
Summer is lies, excuses, and disappointment. My sister’s cat scratched me, I’m too tired, she’s a fucking alcoholic, and I really just don’t want to talk to you. Pulling up and down like the waves we crash into on hot beaches.
Summer is three hour lingerie shopping, baby faces, and death by celibacy. Burgundy, picture phones, and back seats. Volley ball courts, pool tables, and vegetable pizza.
Summer is mistakes, mistakes, and more mistakes. Regrets, relapses, and plans that make me wonder about my own sanity. Realizing you can’t erase the past, but you can choose your future. Shit happens.
Summer is Nancy Drew, emergency rooms, and baby boys. Toes in the sand, shark in the water, 75 SPF on my body. Cheap hennas, cramped car rides, and chow mein noodles. Summer is bye bye miss American pie and not enough legroom.
Summer is wizarding outfits and eyeliner lightening bolts. Questioning friendships and making new ones. Procrastination. Procrastination. Procrastination. Doubting if that AP work will ever be complete.
Summer is staying out all night – I mean, “Movie marathons at so&so’s house”. Laughing at the drunk people in the bar who are dancing like idiots. Great music, and the “Hottest, most sexiest shirt I’ve ever seen”. Drinking on couches holding 8 people at minimum. Beer pyramids. Waking up in foreign places to naked white asses. Cartoons & bagels the morning after. No pants, 2 hours of sleep, and smelling like 15 brands of cigarettes without having smoked a single one.
Summer is erotica on a refrigerator and five-finger-discount stakes. Put the meat with your meat and walk away. Walmart runs in the early morning. Wax paper, ovens, and setting off the smoke alarm for bagel bites. Cinnamon toast crunch. Pretty in Pink.
Summer is inside slip’n’slide on oiled hardwood floors. Aching bodies for days after. Videos to prove it make it worth the while. Drunken monopoly. Pouring, pouring, pouring. “Was that one shot?” – “No I think that was four…” “It smells like Mexican in here…”
Summer is Pina Coladas, Ring of Death, and Vodka. Drama, dazes, and dancing. Inappropriate behavior. Inappropriate behavior. & more inappropriate behavior. Sleeping on floors, couches, and lawns. Beds are for pussies and squares. Tie Dye gone right. Tie Dye gone bleach. Turquoise fingers & Windex really does cure all.
Summer is lying in driveways. Popsicles. Different driveways. Two hours waiting for a meteor shower. Cloud cover = 90%. Waste of time? Watching the stars is never a waste of time. The crick in my back is semi worth it.
Summer is togas, grape leaves, and Dr.Phil. Eggs, rice, and banana bread. Summer is gin on my pants, and a laugh on my mouth. Cold mornings, shared blankets, and peaceful silence.
Summer is new beginnings & new endings. Wobbly starts and stressful finishes. Secrets, secrets, secrets, secrets, TRUTH. Tears, fears, and hearing too much Taylor Swift. Stress, stress, stress, and procrastination time running low.
Summer is broken feet, piñatas, and mints. Put-put, spilt drinks, and Van Gogh. Sugar, sugar, and more sugar. Summer is “If you touch me in my sleep, I’ll kill you” and one fucked up family.
Summer is saying goodbye and moving on. Saying goodbye to summer is a new adventure.
Fall.
The two tea candles (because my mother forgot regular ones) on top of my ice cream cake that I didn’t even eat were lit and blown out. I wished for 17 to be a better year than 16. Lets see if I can make that happen. I try to have hope, but sometimes that’s not good enough.
…bad tattoos and worse IDs, do you feel alive? Do you feel alive? ((One More Weekend — The Academy Is… ))
—
This is just something I wrote the other night. Short & simple, no real title yet, and it may be worked on more later.
Driving around chasing fun times and free beer. Empty highways snake through our dark territory lit by headlights and bright eyes shining with excitement. Tonight is our night, ours for the taking.
We waver high on painful shoes and smile at passersby. Empty flirting and meaningless chatter in every corner of the room. Smoke slips through the crowd from the lips of smiling faces. Into our hair & skin & clothes & minds, making these nights last forever.
Lying with calm voices and encouraging smiles. Questioning who, what, when, & where.
No sleep and sleeping late. Staying up late and waking early. Warmth from head to toe as big spoon and little spoon fit perfectly together like soft kisses and proclamations of adoration. Nothing will tear us apart.
Bite the lips, breathe, and hold on tight. These nights are young, as are we.
…and I still don’t know exactly who I am ((Last Night — Motion City Soundtrack))
—-
A few random paragraphs I was working on the other day. It’s a work in progress I think. No title yet, I haven’t found the right one.
Sleeping away the vivid dreams of myself caught in the cross hairs of situations yet to happen. Waking up to find some situations have happened, and some I have forgotten. Empty pieces of memories like shards of my favorite glass vase after it was smashed from a three floor drop ebb and flow like tides upon my conscious, revealing all the things I never wanted to admit.
Star gazing from a pool chair with the smell of smoke etching itself into my pores and eyes closed. Splashes, crickets, and a strong bass line of some band on the stereo fill my ears with summer. This is how it’s supposed to be. Good conversation and humidity bring wet toes and annoyed contentedness.
Loud humming reverberates from the splash of cool air. The music is turned louder to overcome its competition. My stomach remains silent although inside it’s screaming for something, anything, but the moment it touches anything but water it rebels against me with the force of a thousand women scorned. We always tend to want the things we know are bad for us.
I can’t figure out what comes next. Hmmmmm.
“…been waiting for a dream to seep in through my blinds.” ((This Time — Jonathan Rhys Meyers))
——-
I’ve been getting random bursts of writing lately, here’s some pieces.
Nail Polish
What a great way to celebrate being a day older.
I watch cars zoom by on the busy street as my feet swing – pulling and pumping. I feel the rain drizzle down my makeup-covered, trying-to-hide-my-true-skin face as my friend chatters – joking and laughing. I feel dirt and mud and sand between my toes – this better make a good fucking exfoliate or I swear to God I’ll cut her for making me walk through sand, dirt, rocks, mud, & woodchips to get here.
I see thick black clouds in the sky, and thick yellow bruises on my skin – from the thunder I say. The chains rattle, back and forth.
If only every day could be this simple, growing up wouldn’t suck so much. It’s not really the growing up that gets me; it’s the uncertainty.
In the long run, it’s not going to matter if I bought the lime green nail polish or the Easter egg blue. It won’t matter how many times I’ve smiled, or how many miles I’ve driven with damp eyes. The way I danced at that party that time when I was drunk isn’t going to be on the top of the list of things to think about. Neither is the time I threw chicken out a moving window. In the long run, only the whowhatwherewhenhow’s will matter. At this point, I can’t really see what those are.
But there are future cubicles calling out to me, filled to the keyboard with monotony and self-loathing – if I fuck everything up.
Maybe I’ll end up super-sizing or “plastic or paper”–ing. Who knows, maybe I’ll be fighting for the rights to the corner up the street and around the block.
There are so many unknowns, too many factors. If “What if?”’s are diet supplements, I’ll be ashes in the wind by tomorrow. I don’t like unknowns; I can’t control them. Remotes are nice, because you always know what you’re headed for.
Sometimes I wish my life would stop – but only on the down days, months, or weeks. Sometimes, mostly, I wish the world would stop – if only for a moment. Then maybe I could catch my breath, a nice big one. One full of cigarette smoke and pollution, all the necessary ingredients given by society to clear the lungs and therefore the mind. Or maybe that’s how they give you tumors? I can never remember the difference.
Sometimes, most times actually, the world isn’t going to stop for one single person though. Sure, I can ask politely and kiss some ass, but gravity doesn’t give a shit and my mouth is just another black hole.
“Come on!” she yells and heads black-nail-polished toes first into the mud towards my car.
Simplicity, is it so much to ask for?
What a great way to celebrate being a day older.
Here is a random paragraph I wrote, I was going to go for a four seasons thing but I just kind of landed here and stopped.
Untitled For Now
Have you ever sat outside at night in the winter? The cold burns so deep, my bones can feel the next ice age. They shake unconsciously. I can smell the Thanksgiving turkeys and the Christmas trees poking through the burning dryness in my nose. The streetlight flickers and shuts out – hibernating like a suburban grizzly bear. The smooth warmth of spring will wake it up again. I look down and see red. I didn’t even noticed my finger snagged on a broken bulb. Icicle lights will do that to you.
Like it, don’t like it, whatever. I’m just putting it out there. It’s not my best, but it’s something, and I haven’t been this productive in a while so I’ll go with it.
So this is the piece I’m submitting to the Literary Magazine at my school. I’m the Copy Editor, so I feel I should submit something. I’ve been working on this for a while but I’d still like some more look-overs. If you’re out there, and you read this, PLEASE give some constructive criticism. I really want some.
The story behind this is that instead of writing a whole new story, I pulled lines from past poems, short stories, blogs, and emails I have written in the past few months. I took the lines and smooshed them together in a somwhat organized fashion to create my own unique “anthology” of my writing.
Please, please, please let me know what you think. It’s called ‘An Anthology of Infinite Words’ (and originally all the different pieces were different fonts and whatnot):
——————————
I didn’t know my family owned a fish until the day it died. I am socially awkward, but I do enjoy getting lost in a crowd of people. I’m the kind of person who keeps the fan on in the winter. I am open, and I am nothing, and I am a part of something bigger than the case that restrains me.
I closed my eyes to blow out the candles of a vanilla ice cream cake in August, and opened them almost midway across November. I will blink again, and it will be April. Another year, another birthday
“Maybe I’m eighteen,” I said with a smile coyer than the fish as I ate my doughnut.
I can never find parking spots at the mall, but I do love to people-watch this time of year.
“Lets have an adventure,” she told me.
Some nights I sit on my back porch with a blanket and watch the planes get ready to land. My toes are cold and clammy like a little boy with a fever, just the way I like them.
“You can see the stars in the water,” I said. Everything else just vanished.
Distraction, distraction! There is no other taste like the burn of control against my fingertips. At least I had tonight.
Flash. Give me insanity. Artificial air freeze burns pictures of salvation. Imperfections and flaws are second nature necessities. All hope is gone for I have lost my sanity to a shared bathroom! I am oatmeal and wine. I think I want some Cheerios. I kind of like the chaos.
My favorite tree lies just beyond my window; red is slowly eating away at the green hearts. I watch each leaf being consumed, dripping with auburn jaws. Soon, there will be nothing but bones: desolate branches being abused by the wind.
Only quarters. Burnt tongue. Lonely leaf on the ground. Tree shivering – wants its skin back. Screw you caffeine. I want to sleep forever.
It’s funny how things change.
Frustration isn’t like in the movies — It doesn’t just magically disappear if you close your eyes, take a deep breath, and get a really determined look on your face. There’s nothing more upsetting than waking up to find reality isn’t as beautiful as you want it to be. So I guess in the end it really was my fault.
There will be tension spilling out the chimney as my family congregates into the same house at one time and angry words teetering on the verge of chapped lips, held in only by bitter tongues. It’s like being Donnie Darko, but never figuring out that you have to stay in bed.
I swear we were infinite.
My mind swims in the empty fishbowl. Big gulps. Big gulps. I need oxygen. But none of that compares. I feel like I have this story in my head. I guess I will just keep watching the planes go by.
————–
For the record, I cannot figure out why some parts look like links (they’re not). And I don’t know how to fix it so deal with it.
This is the first time I’ve ever posted a full short story by me. Honestly I’m not sure why I chose to post this one. It is certainly not my best, and I find it rough around the edges (aka crappy). But I just had the feeling that I should post it somewhere. So here it is.
___________________________________________
It’s the special kind of latte they serve that gets me craving for brisk air and bright red leaves eating the frozen skin of trees. I can taste the holiday season well into the hours of the night when the caffeine is stealing precious sleep.
There’s six hours a night I have for sleep, and there’s far too many days until I can breathe again. There’s three Neko Case cds on my desk, and there’s far too few moments to listen.
I sit and smile outside of Target on a bench with a friend. I listen to her stories of the things she used to do: the drunken nights, and the “relation-shit” that would have torn me apart. Sex, pills, and alcohol = nothing lasts forever. She says it’s all over now, and I believe her. It’s in her eyes.
Meanwhile, the anvil sinks further into my chest. There’s so much too do, and so little time to do it. There’s so much weighing my heart down, and not nearly enough muscle to hold it up. Mental note, need more exercise.
There’s three nights off, and there’s not enough to get everything done. There’s one moment to be crushed, and not enough to figure out how to pick myself up again. There’s room for two in my bed, and plenty of tears committed to loneliness.
I put everything in boxes inside my head. They’re labeled with big red letters that burn reminders into my skull. If I can control the flimsy tape that keeps them shut, then maybe I won’t panic. If I can separate everything, then maybe it won’t feel so overwhelming. If I can let some gather dust on the broken top shelf (weighed down by too many boxes being shoved there), then maybe they’ll disappear.
There are four pictures of myself as a kid in this room, and there’s no way to predict this future from them. There’s at least one memory in each of them, and there’s no way to pull them out.
I wear one of my dad’s old plaid, flannel shirts. It’s hideous — forest green clashes with the deep amber lines similar to the ones buried under sweatpants. Squares, boxes, and rectangles where I can hide my insecurities under a blanket of fabric.
My toes are cold and clammy like a little boy with a fever, just the way I like them. I’m the kind of person who keeps the fan on in the winter.
There are thirty-nine books on my shelf, and not enough words to digest. There’s five seasons of Gilmore Girls, two Dead Like Me’s, and three Veronica Mars all in one stack, but not enough wit to sip at (you can’t drink it all at once, like red wine. Too much, too fast will only leave your tongue bitter and a bitch of a hangover the morning after). There are plenty of distractions, and there’s not enough time to be distracted.
I am socially awkward, but I do enjoy getting lost in a crowd of people. It makes me feel safe in a backwards logic kind of way. I’m princess of the people who sit in the corner and watch other people living, but I’m queen of wishing for their memories and their stories to make myself feel alive.
Burn the thrown down, it’s not strong enough to support how fucked up I have become anyways. Things weren’t always like this. My mind has blocked out all reason, which leaves me in the dark to when this all began. I’m dark room without a red light. All I see are chemicals changing everything (and everyone) into something new – except (me) the one negative forgotten on the counter.
There are at least seventeen idiosyncrasies roaming the streets in my head, and there are too many involving post-it-notes. There are at least forty-three things I’m tired of, and too many things I’m afraid to change.
I sum myself up to a walking contradiction some days. I am a puzzle without a picture. I am a pulp without fiction. I am a Beuller without a day off. I am a Veronica without a taser. I am a Daisy without a Gatsby, and a Daisy without a Mason, George, Rube, or Roxy. I am a white blood cell without stripes. I am postcard without a secret. I am a boom box without a John Cusak. I am a House without a cane. I am a transvestite without meds to steal, and a sex addict without people to turn into heroes.
I am the one with a war devastating the cities in my head, and without any more ammunition to fight back. I am a piece of sand swept away by the tsunami, and no way to find my beach again.
Pumpkin spice. Extra whipped cream. Dash of cinnamon. Grande. Only quarters. Burnt tongue. Lonely leaf on ground. Tree shivering – wants its skin back. Fuck you caffeine. I want to sleep forever.
