I'm Not Who I Used to Be

The best birthday I can remember was a long time ago. When I still lived in New York.

I was 6, maybe. Or 7. I don't know. But it'd snowed overnight, so when I woke up and looked out my window, our entire suburban street was blanketed in white.

It was early, or maybe just dark out, but my mother had snuck into my room in the night and tied mini chocolate bars to helium balloons, and scattered them across the floor of my room. They looked like a kelp forest of plastic pink ribbon and purple bubbles, bobbing gently against one another.

My family came in to wake me up. I can't remember whether or not my dad was there. I was wearing my favorite blue nightgown, the one with a plastic picture of TinkerBell on the front, and my hair was still long back then. Down to my back, all straggly and sleep-mussed. I must've been missing a few teeth too- all the old Polaroid pictures we have of that morning show me with gap-toothed, surprised grins.

We had cinnamon rolls.


We don't eat them anymore.
Cinnamon rolls, that is.

Hiatus

I'm leaving this blog for a while and might not come back.
Just thought I ought to say as much, rather than have an unannounced dry-spell of posts (:

I never once dreamed

that I'd start writing poetry

Sure I did it when I was young

But as a teen, it seems so cliche to me.

I guess I'm just a cliche after all

I probably shouldn't be surprised

I apologize to anyone whose read these

I'm sure the shitty prose hurt their eyes

But you see, it's too ____ here

I don't even know how to define

how the wind pulses against the trees

or how the wires keep me in line

My head won't stop hurting

all these brown eyes accusing

Everyone is shouting

But this is too confusing.

God, I don't know what to do.

Is life always this way?

Maybe I should-no. Maybe? 

Or just save it for a later day?

My throat is loaded full of knives

And my shoulders stained with blood

They trace wings along my skin

Like I could fly away- 

(maybe I should)

I don’t think I’m right, or okay
my head is screwed on the wrong way
and I keep sleeping my life away
(I don’t know what’s going on today.)

for you ♥

I think
I am in love with you?
and darling, for me
that’s something quite new

I’ve never done this
so do please forgive
if I blush when you notice
just how widely I grin

and of course it’s for you
my one and only love
that I smile and skip
(you make me feel overwhelmed)

and I do hope you’ll forgive
if I stare at you too long
but features like yours
deserve their own theme song

which is silly, I know
but I’m a silly girl
and I’m sorry if it’s a bother?
But you’re my whole world.

so do please forgive me
(this is something quite new)
But I’m a reasonably certain
that I’m in love with you.

paradoxical darling.

i’m hungry but there’s nothing worth eating
bored, but there’s nothing worth reading
tired, but it’s no use sleeping
lonely, but- no, not even.
hollow, mostly- but not.
i’m a paradoxical darling
and that title’s all I’ve got

since the rain is too bright here
for my thoughts to act right here
I thought this was better?
but nothing has changed.
I’m still hollow-paradoxical
winter-rain-gasoline
paper girl, strike a match
watch me burn up in a flash

(maybe then the boredom
will leave me?)

Optimist - An Update in Pictures

(Went to downtown Nashville today and decided I may as well make a normal blog entry for once.
And, y'know.
Let people know I'm not dead.)

We went to lunch at the Capitol Grille in the Hermitage Hotel. It was this really swanky place, and the bellhop who held the door for us was wearing a top hat. I ordered a banana chocolate creme puff for desert. It came with a football of hazelnut ice cream and a thin slab of gold-drizzled chocolate. 

(all of us loved the hand lotion in the hotel bathroom)

Afterwards we walked to the infamous Hatch Print Shop, a huge, long store filled with old band and promotional posters. It smelled like ink and chicken sandwiches, and floorboards were delightfully wonky and creaky.

 (The cat liked to hide behind the Ed Sheeran posters.)

After we bought a bunch of posters for random things and was given some free promotional bookmarks, we stumbled across an improbable relic of the Music City- a record store.

There was a whole wall of cassette tapes. I hadn't seen the things since I was 6 maybe- 'used to have one of those portable Sony players.

After the record store, we wandered some more. Found a neon sign advertising an RV resort in the middle of a city block.

Then we wandered over to the Bridgestone Arena. It was impossibly big, and there were lot of tourist-y little things in the giftshop. And a crap ton of adverts for the TV show Nashville.

Saw some city school kids- which was mildly disconcerting. You just don't expect to see kids in the middle of a city. Cities seem like the Adult World, like you must be 18 or older to enter. It was odd.

Found a streetlamp with gargoyle legs. Wish I could've gotten a better picture.

And finally, I got my haircut the other day. It's really, really short- it's only ever been this short when I was about 11 or so. It makes me look like a brunette Tinker Bell at times.

I kind of like it.

Idle Teen

I ate melted brie for dinner tonight and set a poptart on fire. I've been drinking milk out of tea cups and handfuls of cereals out of their boxes and there's an awful lot of warning signs that I'm falling into deterioration again.

Which, y'know

Would suck.

I got my hair cut super-short today and I look like a brunette Tinker Bell. My mother is making noises about ditching my homeschooling and attending a public high school next year, and I have the irrational fear people will mock me for having a "butch" haircut.

(I don't have a very good track record with public school kids)

For some reason an awful lot of strangers have been complimenting me tonight and it made me smile and grab fists of my (short) hair and cradle my grin into my hands because I've never known how to respond to compliments, and a whole tsunami of them renders me absolutely incompetent. Except for squealing and flailing my arms about- but that seems pretty incompetent to me anyways.

But it reminded me of all the times I've stared into the mirror, or into the synthetic-white-page of a text document, and berated myself. The times I've told myself "you're fucking worthless." or "you're an absolute idiot, what the hell do you expect to accomplish in life?" or "no wonder you don't have any friends- who'd want to be friends with a piece of shit like you?"

Self confidence, thou art not a common word to my ears.

Basically I used to get really upset with myself and sort of cuss myself out which is really depressing in retrospect and probably not the least bit mentally sound? But it worked, in it's own weird, derogatory way, and I sort of ended up programming myself to hate myself. My sister recently asked if I loved myself, and I said that for the most part, I'm apathetic towards myself. With occasional, seldom bursts of pride. So she asked if I'd ever really loved myself, and I told her the truth.
Which was no.

Which isn't good or healthy, I suppose, but I am a teenager and I'm of the general impression that self-loathing just comes with the territory. So it's kind of a shock to me on the few nights like these, when I look into the mirror and don't immediately recoil from what I see. It's a surprise when I smile and don't mind the reflection that grins back at me. Because sometimes, some few, glorious times like these, I get to like myself. I get to think, "you're pretty nice" or "you're an okay writer" or "wow nice bone structure there girl. A+ on your genetic makeup". Because really, I've got a decent set of cheekbones on me. And that's pretty cool.

Maybe someday I'll be courageous enough (or, perhaps, naïve enough) to love myself, really, truly and unconditionally.

But for now, I think occasional bouts of self-like is a good start.



(Wow this is very depressing in hindsight basically it's just me talking about my inability to love myself yikes)

love you, liar.

I could be better if you told me to

'cause there's not many people like me and you

and I get tired sometimes but baby I swear

I'll stay up all night if you give me a dare

I waited up till dawn just to see how you'd look

and you laughed sadly- your head frantically shook

so I smiled along, hard cheekbone-stretch

I'll pretend to be normal, when really, you're the best

you're the better of this duo- 

but I think you already knew

after all, how could someone like me 

be friends with someone like you?