and it grows, on it grows

I'm still so afraid to ask questions

at a poetry reading in Seattle, she spoke of crayons

and 864 miles away from home, I could still feel remnants of Paris stuck on my skin

smell the scent of history finding its way back to me

in the crowded space of people, who listened to what was being said aloud but kept missing the silent in-betweens

I felt it again

I felt like dying

powerless panic

unexplainable misery

I wanted to hurt myself

I was scared I'd hurt someone else if I didn't get the hell out of there

and I was still breathing

but I want you to know that in that moment I knew what suffocation was

and I don't understand it

please tell me why it hits me in unexpected places like that night

at times when there's nothing wrong

all of my journals since the beginning have had gaps of days, months, years

where I didn't write a single thing

I never lived and breathed in poetry

I inhale and exhale just because

I lurk and I linger

never trusting the words I write completely

because I don't know if that's what I mean

ready to run from them more than once in a while

but poetry's always there

I see it everywhere

in the footprints in the snow

in the veins on her hand

in the crinkles in his eyes when he talks about tomorrow

in their body language when they're a room apart

in his laugh that screams life

in the tragedy that lasts three seconds on the news

in the injustice that perception feeds

but I'm missing the unbearable sights

I don't take the time to look

I'm impatient again

I'm at a place in life I couldn't imagine I could be a year ago

but going back to the person I was when I was not okay

I'm okay now though

I think

and I need someone to tell me why I'm going backwards when okay doesn't mean not okay

but I'm still so afraid to ask questions

between away and gone

the freedom lied in the serenity of the dirt underneath my fingernails
damp hair from the cold currents
and old sweat resting on sun soaked skin
smoke in my bee stung eyes
and rocky imprints on dirty soles
no pretenses
just us
and the great starry-eyed view of somewhere else
drenched in rain
and moved by wind
where the moments flew freely by
just long enough for fingertip grazes
and soft blown kisses
negative space upon my hands
filled with parted lips
closer to the earth than I ever was to my hungry heart
where strangers were the best company
where the rabbits darted back and forth
and the field mice came to visit
and the crows called the morning
and the bald eagle soared
where I was unwaveringly happy
and for the first time
I didn't have to question it
my limbs were sore
but nothing hurt
nothing hurt where I was
between away and gone

pretty as not

I used to remind my hand that my a's were ugly
that the only beautiful a's were the ones with the top half
a graceful soft curve that made it seem better 
somewhat untouchable
somewhat other in a good way
somewhat more
I willed my pencil to move differently
because if my a's were ugly
I reasoned the rest of my alphabet was too

tell me something else

tell me about the tsunami trapped behind your glassy left eye
tell me how the waves strip you naked everyday
but the volcano erupted years ago
and the sky is still roaring
your heart is still shaking
tell me how the death toll is forty-four
but the population has always been one
tell me how the waves rise faster than you can swim towards dry land
so you raise your white flag
but it's transparent to roaming eyes
and invisible to shadowy search parties

tell me how you keep your eyes open because you want to see your destruction in all its glow

and feel your edges as you're swallowed whole

tell me about the wildfire burning in your dry right eye

tell me how it's 0% contained

and the wind is blowing in all directions

tell me how the smokejumpers gave up on you when the fire was small

and you gave up on yourself before you saw the sparks

tell me how the planes flew right over you because the whole world is burning to the ground

and it was too late for any solace

tell me how you're ashes and dust

tell me how you're pulverized

but the cinders still spell out S.O.S

tell me how the smoke doesn't care about your plea

tell me how you think this is hell but you never believed in heaven

tell me about the stars on your tongue
tell me how they itch to radiate their light
because someone once told you they're beacons
but your lips refuse to give them that freedom
and the staircase in your throat
is getting steeper and more jagged for words to climb
tell me how it's not a civil war anymore because your heart has always lived in Antarctica
and your mind is somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle

tell me about the dried blood in your flaring right nostril

and the sunny-side up ooze in your raw left one

tell me about the wild jungle in your left ear

and how the eyeless sounds multiply when you think you've stumbled upon a clearing

tell me about the salty sea in your right ear

and how you're made of erosion

tell me how the carelessness gets you more than effort ever has

tell me something

tell me anything

because the quiet can be savage

and you keep stepping on pins and needles

reaching for a rush

reaching for a reason

your shoulder blades more familiar to me than the color of your eyes

and I'll keep following you

I'll be right behind you

waiting for something

waiting for anything

i apologize in advance

A little while ago, I looked at Bing's image of the day on my Windows phone and saw a wonderfully eccentric beautiful birdy.  It turns out that the bird's name is 'blue-footed booby' and I don't know if it's immaturity or the weirdly giddy mood I was in, but needless to say, I laughed and laughed and laughed.  And that night, my family and I went to eat sushi at a place called 'Wasabi' and I thought my dad was joking when he said that was the name of the restaurant and I laughed and laughed.  The sushi and service were lovely but I am so puerile.  And ten seconds ago I had no clue what that word meant but I love looking for synonyms for other words and finding out what they mean and how they're related but never the same.  While we were eating sushi, I showed my family the picture of the blue-footed booby and built up the suspense before telling them its name but when I did they weren't as amused as I thought they'd be.  I was thinking of Drake and Josh too, because Megan called them 'boobs' a lot.  I call my brother 'butt' a lot.  I feel incredibly silly for this post.

So I kind of did some spur of the moment online research on the blue-footed booby and found that 'booby' comes from the Spanish word 'bobo' which means stupid fellow, clown, fool, etc.  Named so because they're a bit clumsy on land and they're not scared of humans.  I saw this short YouTube video of a smaller male blue-footed booby being rejected by a larger female one.  She just didn't like his dance moves I guess.  The poor fella.  And over the course of a two days, I've fallen in love.  I feel like it wouldn't be an insult, but kind of maybe like an endearment if I affectionately said to someone, "Oh, you blue-footed booby".  I don't know what response that would get.  I'll get back to you.  Actually, in all honesty, I probably will never say that out loud.

I'm not sure why I feel embarrassment creeping up whenever I'm on the verge of saying "I absolutely love watching MTV's Teen Wolf and The Challenge".  There's nothing to be ashamed of.  Stiles is the best and Isaac please come back and CT's beard is lush.  And I guess while I'm on the matter of not-too-shabby looking, sigh-inducing, amazing actors, I should say that I love Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Thomas Brodie-Sangster.  Maybe I just need to sit on a bench with a guy who listens to The Smiths and yell "PENIS" at the top of my lungs.  There's nothing to be ashamed of.  Okay, truthfully, I'm embarrassed for myself for all this random stuff I'm putting out there.

If you've got a secret vendetta against me because of a small reason or no reason, I have something to say to you:

I will mess you up.

With weird but changed smiles because apparently there is valid evidence from old photographs that I didn't know how to smile as a youngster.  I also have sufficiently large teeth and I remember in James Franco's Roast, someone said something along the lines of, 'Andy Samberg's teeth are so big, that each is a lonely island', and it was awful but I couldn't help but laugh, and I feel like that sometimes.  But back to messing you up.  I will smile at you and I will mean it and I'll create the most awkward bubble of silence because I never know what to say.  It might make you uneasy and it'll make me uneasy too.  But that's okay.  No ill will, no apathy.  It's okay if you hate me though, I hate me too.  That was the wrong closer.

And that ladies and gents, is a comeback to a nonexistent insult.  An odd, terrible, late-night, unrealistic, doozy comeback.

forget about because

your straying seconds will sway to the beat of a tap routine you never attempted to learn
your tap shoes were two sizes too small
and there was no room to practice at home
and everyone learning was so much younger
and you kept falling behind anyways

those swaying seconds will swing to the motion of the home run baseball you could never hit
the pitcher threw too hard
and you ran too slow
and they pointed and laughed
and you were always picked last
and the bench was there for you

those swinging seconds will stomp to the marks of a painting you never finished
you didn't have the right shade of azure
and the artist's block kept hitting you
and the brushes were too frayed
and you hated what you saw
and starting over was out of the question
and another unfinished piece wouldn't leave a dent

those stomping seconds will startle at the sound of your shadow running away
and stutter at a picture of your seconds wasted away
coming up with a because
and
and
and
and
and
and

and the polaroid picture will go with your makeshift burial of regrets
and your swaying, straying, swinging, stomping seconds will cease to wake
resting just under the surface
just out of grasp
waiting for you to forget about your because

and you'll remember in the eleventh hour
your last words
and your whispered reasons

nothing was ever enough


I was never enough



but you are

wholeheartedly I believe that


but I'm tired of telling myself

only when I'm not looking in the mirror



there's the faltering and the hesitating and the apprehension

and there's the do it anyways

and lately, tomorrow's been feeling closer than yesterday

here we are

Screams crawled recklessly, restlessly under my skin, in every niche imaginable.  And when I tried to hit myself where I swear I felt it, it'd already be gone, and a new one would rip me open somewhere else, leaving a messy painting of a moody girl, with no traces of tearing.  I was by all means, ostensibly okay.  And I wondered.  I wondered how I'd walk without falling if I couldn't see my feet.  I wondered how I'd talk if I couldn't hear what I was saying.  I wondered if I was in some ghostly way, already on the other side where they fed me the lie that the grass was greener.

When they say you've got negative seconds to get your shit together, I stayed as still and unmoving as I possibly could.  I didn't want to find my head. It was better off lost. I'd been looking for my heart, but I'm thinking I can't put everything into one as I ignore the other. The head and the heart. I need both. I need to know that I need both.

I'm still bad at this and still embarrassed about that and still angry about this and still insecure about that and still guilty about this and still regretful about that.  But even with all those this and thats I carry around, I believe that these things will change.  I'm not saying everything's all better now.  Because it's not.  It got worse and it got better and it got worse again.  But hell, that's life.  And if it's not quite so hard and terrifying, I don't think it would be quite so worth it.

And the craziest thing is, you find that the kid next door's battling some unwonted terminal illness and has only got a few days left, and that girl you've had a useless vendetta against for the longest time drinks away the pain on school nights and downs stolen pills on the weekend, and the beggar on the street is a con artist with a roof over his head but no food for his two year old motherless child.  And the world goes on like it doesn't care about sad stories but you start seeing things through beautiful perspectives and you start seeing people in more than ephemeral glances.


Then, when the moment comes, you find that you go on too.

You find out that you've gone on too.


But I think the world does care, not that your stories are filled with the sad, but that your stories are filled with living and loving and meaning and moments, even though the sad will always be there.

I believe in being here.  I believe in you and I believe in me and I believe in us.  I believe in you and me and us and being here and doing good.  We've got fire inside of us.  We can be embers.  We can be raging wildfires.  But one minute to the next, the fire's burning and sometimes the flames will tease you and sometimes you'll dance free and it's okay.  It's okay.  Sometimes it will hit you unexpectedly that we'll all be ashes soon enough.  It's okay.

Life is a beautiful uncertainty.  A spectacularly, splendidly, beautiful uncertainty.  But ask me tomorrow what I think of the four letter word and my answer might be different.  Ask me in an hour and it might change.