days of your.

my good days aren’t going to look like anybody else’s good days. and if i want to keep having good days, i really have to understand that.

rooftops: cold, frozen, and otherwise

 

when i fall in love, i fall hard. and on repeat.
“and no le reas zhe goggly blu jah go.”

i had a dream we could taste songs

found lip gloss from a different decade. honey kiss. to my tongue it has the taste of an anonymous coffee drink, butterscotch, and cheap cosmetics. hmmm. a bit of a high school chaser, too. feeling quite comforted  by the discovery and application of this lost-and-found friend. tracking our reunion with these:

my dad used to cite REO Speedwagon’s “You Can Tune  a Piano but You Can’t Tuna Fish” quite a bit when i was young. i’m not sure he ever offered up any commentary on the album  itself, but we sure got a laugh from its title. and i did have a dream that we could taste songs. i bought “i am trying to break your heart” from a vending machine and it tasted like some sort of flavored cream soda. delicious.

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used bookstores make dull-sky days even better. after searching through a sorry collection of old records and scouring the children’s section for something familiar and beloved, i came away with none of those and all of these. three lovely things and one ultra-conservative production of homophobic propaganda penned by “a heterosexual, Bible-believing evangelical.” essentially, i payed fifty cents to be outraged. ah well. a little ideological opposition does the mind good. that’s what i’ve always said

jane eyre : it seems strange that i’ve not yet read this.
the gay invasion : heavens. i couldn’t leave this on the shelf, alone and unscrutinized. it had to be read and undermined!
ira sleeps over : i read this in-store and was immediately enamored with its  humble sophistication. sometimes children’s books are the most romantic, i think.
the book of presidents : knowledge is power, they say.

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so full, they tipped me over: or, what happened when nothing fell out

oh, darling girl: you’ll never be enough.

you will never be pretty enough. your skin will never be smooth and innocent enough. your hands will never be soft nor your fingers lean enough. your eyes won’t spark and fire under lashes thick enough. your voice, especially next to hers, won’t sing enough. it will never be dainty (like a hair bow or pearl earrings) enough. and when you really need it to be, your voice simply won’t be big enough. your legs aren’t thin enough. run your hand down your stomach and it won’t feel flat enough. roll around in sheets not clean enough and set your scarred feet on a floor not warm enough. twirl your own hair enough and you’ll see that it’s not long enough. you don’t work enough or write enough. did you think your cup of sugar would be sweet enough? oh, dear, don’t be dumb enough. your stacks aren’t tall enough and your piles aren’t small enough. make him say, that’s enough. the room will never be dark enough for a face not bright enough. remember that your face will never be bright enough.

oh pretty girl, you didn’t learn enough or try enough. you haven’t walked enough or hurt enough. you think you’ve had enough, but if you aren’t even, how could it be? oh beautiful girl, you will never hear or hold or love or lose enough to know what you could have been. the only way to know would have been to be enough. and darling girl, you will never be enough.

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mister remember me

do moments wear hats and raincoats and walk with canes to stand within themselves?

oil lamp love poems

i’ll marry someone who makes you wish you were better. he’ll be erudite and affectionate and he’ll never leave without coming back. he’ll have the most wonderful face and and i’ll hold it in my hands when we kiss. and he’ll write stories but never about me. “to have you on paper is too far away,” he’ll say. and there will be nothing left for me to want other than, of course, perhaps a glass of water before i fall asleep.

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i’ll never feel better ever again for as long as i’m alive

at one or many points in our small and insignificant lives, we will all be hung-over. this (or these) moment(s) will be wrought with the agony of self-administered discomfort. we will question ourselves and those who really could have been responsible for us. we will vow to never again ingest what we did only hours before, knowing good and well that our words will fall weightless with time and boredom. we will lie limp in our beds, curtains drawn and lights dimmed. we will call out, “why me?” and  our roommates will call back “me too.”  we will assume that our hang-over is much worse than theirs. but what’s important is to remember is that we should not feel shame, we should not feel guilt, and we should not feel regret. it’s a fact of life, a shining instar in the delicate beauty of our own individual metamorphoses. it is this transient pain, this comparatively fleeting moment of physical unease that we shed our white-as-snow exoskeletons. blankets woven with the purities of mother-given virtues will fall off our shoulders and next to our shoes, soaked in cheap beer. in this moment, we will grow. we will learn. we will suffer and we will tweet about it. we will become. and when the dusk breaks and figurative light at the end of our tunneled hell shines brighter than the one outside, we will be new again.

hung-over: a how-to

begin your night extremely. if you plan to drink moderately, you will do just that. by morning, you will have not a hang-over, but rather an “icky stomach” that no one pities, not even your mother. if you plan to drink “just one or two” or “totally a lot”, you will undoubtedly drink totally alot. jokingly tell your friends to not let you stumble into

this is me with a goat in stratford upon avon.

Qdoba, no matter how badly you say you want it. get drunk enough that your friends do not let you stumble into Qdoba, despite how badly you want it. yell out things like “burrito” and “you’re horrible.” when you get home, unbutton your jeans immediately and struggle to take of your shoes. i mean, really struggle. hobble to bed.

wake up at 7 am and finish removing your pants. resent cigarettes, their smoke, and your hands, because they’ve obviously been soaking in a 5-gallon tub of tobacco all night long. know that you must wash your hands or the smell will drive you to projectile vomit. sit up and regret it. let out a noise that could possibly belong to a Harry from Harry and the Hendersons after he’s suffered some sort of physical amputation and emotional abandonment. force yourself into the bathroom and lean up against the countertop, head down, as your soapy hands rest under the warm water. consider peeing yourself because the thought of sitting down and getting back up again is tortuous. don’t pee yourself. you’re 23.

dream of your bed and treat the walk back to it as a damn pilgrimage. think of all the comfort that awaits. lay down and bed and feel no comfort other than just the idleness of your legs. get completely naked because your body is incapable of bearing anything other than the ungodly pain that’s upon it. the room is moving clockwise. wait, no. the room is now moving counterclockwise. close your eyes, roll over, and open your eyes. like a Slush Puppy mirage in a burning dry desert, you see that ol’ bottle of Excedrin pm. don’t consider taking it, just take it. while you wait for the nectar of the gods to consume your wretched little body, grab your laptop and drag it onto your stomach because sitting up is nothing more than a rude and smug suggestion at this point. cue up a movie you would absolutely never watch under normal circumstances or amongst respectable company. or watch reruns of Friday Night Lights because there’s no holy lullaby quite like it. drift in, out of, and through the most surreal and marvelous OTC-induced phantasmagoria. feel very warm and vow to remain motionless until it’s an appropriate time to eat dinner. want tacos, but be nauseated by the thought of tacos. when the time comes, eat tacos. think about how dark and seemingly hopeless the previous 10 hours were. drink water like a Greek Olympic athlete, not like Michael Phelps or anything. feel strengthened by hydration and invigorated by your body’s ability to rehabilitate itself. your hair should be neither brushed nor washed.

leave the restaurant with friends and wear sunglasses regardless of how dark it may already be. round the corner and find yourself face to face with the local watering hole. meet your friends’ peer-pressure-is-real glances and say the words that will seal your fate, “yeah, sure. i’ll just drink one or two.” see ya in the morning, Harry.

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rw:lv

nany blows. adam’s trouble. i’d kiss that one dude who did indecorous things online. naomi is totally hot. michael is a dear but needs some game, son. leroy is few of words and i’m uniquely thankful for that. heather is pint-size cute, but in a pint-night drink special sort of way.

technicolor heartbeats

you should date an illiterate girl

quiet and ambiguous validation of present, pretty women whose sentiments are quite colossal and yet misunderstood as such. sincerity affirmed with the charm of our many fears

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