Longing is a Comfort Mechanism

I never knew you from the sun, and when the lights went out, I only dreamed of breaking the sound barrier. We talked about the night and about the fence beside us, and our conversations filled with shivering arms and black proffered jackets. It was important to keep you safe, warm, loved. When things slip by, it is important to remember and to smile. Do you remember? I knew you from the sun. Cuando las luces apagaron en el parque, sentamos en el oscuro y hablaron sobre tiempo y espacio, y las barreras que nos enfrentamos, si?

"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"

Today, it rained. Buckets and buckets of the stuff fell from the sky. It made the world a misty green, so green that I dare not keep my bathroom window closed and not let in the new-found, greenness. It seeps in under and through and about the soft white curtain, anxious and eager to enter the house. How could I not let it in? Yesterday, Joanna, Beka, Shaila, and I sat in Joanna and Shaila's living room and watched Harry Potter movies all day. We started at 9 and got to the middle of the fourth movie before it was time for me to go home and join the race of men (my family) for grand adventures (fhe). By the time we turned off the t.v., Bek had left for her afternoon venture into the city, Joanna, Shaila, and I had all had alternate naps, and we had literally exploded our stomachs with good food. The movie marathon was fun. It made me remember how much I loved Harry Potter and why. The magic, the plot lines, the satisfying one-liners that the wise people in Harry's world say to explain life in seconds. I miss that, of course. It was nice to come home after school and have my biggest problem be whether or not I could find anymore pictures of Harry Potter and Hogwarts to plaster to my wall. Here I sit, in my almost and a half year self, wearing a shirt that's a little too big for me, but is a soft shade of pink that I like, and I wonder how life's going to continue after this. I'm definitely excited, but I'm almost anxious as well. It's weird to think you could spend so much time in one place because you're supposed to, and then be expected to move on out, to end that part of your life, because you're supposed to. I wouldn't be thinking about this just now, I guess, except I'm listening to the Trilogy Sonata for piano by Phillip Glass, on pandora radio, and it's making me pensive. It's really a beautiful piece, I've never heard before. I'd definitely suggest it. I'd just like to know how it's possible to hold so much importance in the people around you, who've been around you for years, and the world that you've created with them, and then have it no longer matter as much because you'll be leaving soon. Not the people, who don't matter, the problems you faced that you thought were such dilemmas that don't matter. How is it possible for something to matter so much one day, like how you're ever going to finish your homework in time for class or say something to the boy you really, really like but he doesn't know it, and then have it suddenly not matter?* "I say there are spots that don't come off.... Spots that never come off, d'you know what I mean?" -Mad-Eye Moody (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) "Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain." -Arthur Weasley (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) "It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore knew - and so do I, thought Harry, with a rush of fierce pride, and so did my parents - that there was all the difference in the world." -Harry (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) "Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?" -Dumbledore (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) And now I'm going to invite Joanna and Shaila to finish the movies at our house before we see number 6 in the movie theaters for only 6.50 a ticket. I love Tuesdays. *NOTE: This was, this asterisk, was, at one point, a disclaimer. But it is no longer.

Like a pot with the top askew

Alright. Let's run away. I'll grab my gray notebook and a banana; you pick up one of those emergency packs in the front hallway. Meet at the stop sign on the corner, three thirty sharp. I think I'll make some PB&J sandwiches first, though. Wheat bread, crunchy peanut butter, and strawberry jam, just how you like it. I think we should go somewhere without alligators, windy days, and noises outside the window. I'm not going to shut the windows. When it rains, I'll sit on the bathroom floor and listen to it pound down on the pine needles of the tree outside, the wood pile, the leafy bottom floor. A place with no junk food, I'm thinking. No bad quality movies and bed posts that you can bang your toes on. Bed posts hurt sometimes. I know we've been planning for this for a while, and I agree with you. We'll go rock-climbing at that gym first. You can snatch me away after I've had a hard day at school and I need some perspective. I'll bring my Euro textbook and you can help me learn how to climb mountains. My brain feels spongy, at this very present moment. The kind of sponge you toss into the wash because it's disintegrating and you've washed one too many dishes with it when you could have used it to paint something beautiful on your white-washed walls. We'll paint the space on the stairs that's white; we'll get little jars of every color paint you can imagine and paint in stripes. They say stripes are the new black. Oh, I love you all so much. Do you know how my heart aches for you, for you to be home with me? My heart needs you home so I can watch over you, so I can make sure that you are okay, that nobody hurts you. Maybe eternity's not so very far away, but anything could happen between now and eternity, and I just can't let anybody hurt you. So here we go. The sandwiches and bottles of sweet lemonade are packed. I've got a couple of sharpened pencils we won't be needing. Let's run to where we need to go.

Studio 60

Now is the time to stop procrastinating and start actually doing something, says she. I must have watched more than a day, really, of television shows on hulu.com, of the Harvey Girls, of Martian Child and Ghost Town, of After the Thin Man, clips of I was a Male War Bride, Homeless to Harvard (which I confused with the Harvey Girls, but that distinction has been clarified), and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. All while on break for a week. Apparently, it's winter. I have papers to write, pieces to practice, rooms to rearrange and clean up, words like scume (scy-oom) to push into my vocabularic brain, mothers to be forgiven of, tests to study for, and food not to eat. So I sit here, yearning for more Studio 60 and Heroes, chocolate cheesecake with oreos and answers to half-hearted, silly questions, and procrastinating. That is what I am. I am a procrastinator. Of time and purpose. I always thought that sounded cool... ever since I'd added the last bit on. And yet, procrastinating isn't cool. It isn't fun. Yes, I enjoy the time not spent doing something I don't want to do. But I could probably count the number of times I've reviewed something that I'd written, just because I'm used to the idea that you work at 2am, even though you don't want to, and print it out the next morning to try not to be late for school. I wonder what would happen if someone actually read my essays. :( Somehow, I think the world would end. But maybe it would teach me a lesson that I've needed to learn for a long, long time. And Studio 60. I'm finished with the season. I've spent the last forever just watching, just waiting to see what happened with Harriet and what's-his-name... Matt. I find myself doing Harriet impersonations, but I'm really just trying to act like she would in a situation. Somehow, that doesn't sound like the best idea. Where has the world gone? Where has my brain gone, my work ethic, my faith, my attempts at kindness and service and being sensitive to the pain of others? Where has my love for people gone? Why did it disappear so suddenly? I don't want to be a bad movie star impersonator for the rest of my life; I don't want to find myself, or others, ridiculous. I don't want to keep putting off what needs to be done just because I trust myself enough to beat time. I almost always can. But what has that taught me? Where am I going?

I am a broken record. I replay myself, over and over and over again. When the power finally gives out, I give up. Sleep and rest and quiet.

Postcards from Italy

I’m feeling like we should get on a bus and then get off at the next stop. Maybe walk around a little bit, walk in the street with hands in the pockets of my black coat, pulling me forward. And dance. Sing or write a poem as I walk, hands in pockets. World, pull me forward. I’m feeling like I could dance forever, nod my head and sway from side to side.

Bubble-wrapped

I would like somebody to blow a bubble. I’d like it to float softly in the air towards my open mouth until I swallow the glittering, light-reflecting soap ball. Then it would travel down my throat and squeeze in through the little spaces between my organs until it followed the signs to my fragile, pumping heart. The bubble would silently, so slowly and so gently, wrap my heart in its bubbly-mass. Then my heart would be in a bubble. Maybe it’d be uncomfortable at first. But I think I could get used to it. Why is it that when we talk about heartbreak, the heart is the organ we mention? The pumping, beating heart, never stopping until it stops, living until it dies. A. says one of the science teachers carries a pig heart around in her shoulder bag. Maybe it wasn’t a shoulder bag. I can’t remember. Hearts are so funny. Something about how the most complex and the simplest are always the most beautiful. The world’s so hard sometimes; it just feels nice to've been given the ability to cry. Sometimes, I wish the earth would stop spinning just for a second… maybe just a little longer. Only long enough to let me understand some things, let other things fall into place. Gather my armies. World, please just let me gather my armies.