Ghosts

Beth stomped up the wooden stairs to her apartment, skipping the half-gone one with the six-inch splinters. They creaked and rattled with every step, but she jogged up anyway, to escape the cold. And when a gust of wind sent her flying against the railing, she flung herself onto the steps instead, afraid that the rotten wood would finally give way and send her tumbling onto the concrete slab below.

When she finally got into the sheltered corridor that lead to her door, she rummaged through her bag for her keys. Pushing aside half-finished cross-words torn out of various newspapers and slippery gum wrappers, she touched the clammy metal of her cell phone, the rough fabric of her wallet. She heard jingling. At last she pulled out her keys by her plastic Mach-5 key chain.

She jammed the key in the door with one hand, pulled the knob toward her with the other, twisted the key, twisted the knob, and pushed. She flew inward with the door and slammed it shut on the wind. But not the cold, the cold had invaded the apartment.

She shuffled over to the thermostat and squinted at the thermometer. Fifty-eight. Not cold enough to warrant the heat. Not when she only worked fifteen hours this week.

Instead she plopped down on the lumpy sofa and cocooned herself in her fleece blanket. She didn't even bother to kick off her Converse.

Her computer was open on the coffee table. The same blank word document's cursor was blinking at her just as mockingly as it had been before she left for work. She stared at it without seeing it and sat very still for a long time. She waited for the pressure building in her chest to subside.

She had been on a high when she left for the bus this morning. The air had been cold and crisp. She'd breathed it in deeply and felt her lungs and body working and humming. The wind had swirled around her and the world had seemed beautiful. What happened?

Now as she slumped on the couch, she knew she should work, but her brain was empty. She only wanted to sink lower.

Struggling against her tightly wrapped blanket, she dug into the pocket on her coat. Grasping the plastic bag, she extricated it carefully from her warm encasing. She yanked her other arm out and unrolled the bag. The pot smelled good. Like rain and sour milk.

Getting up to get her pipe would be such a drag. Then she noticed the little blue pill Steven had dropped in the bag.

"Try it when you've got a while and you want a real escape," he'd advised.

Normally, Beth would never. She'd never done anything but smoke. At least marijuana was a plant. Not something somebody cooked up in their bathtub. But this afternoon, she just couldn't bring herself to care.

She popped the pill in her mouth and swallowed it dry. Realizing this was a mistake she reached for the mug on the floor and took a swig of the cold morning coffee. She gulped it down, making a face.

I wonder how long this shit takes to kick in, Beth thought. She grabbed the TV clicker and flipped to Law & Order.

By the time the episode had reached Order, she had given up on Steven's wonder drug as a dud. The she realized she wasn't cold. Or hot. Or anything. She didn't feel the cable-knit of her sweater or the springs in the sofa.

Interesting.

The sound went next. Only a faint buzzing remained. Then she dozed off.

When she woke up, everything was black. At first she thought the sun had gone down, but it was darker than that. It wasn't even dark. It was as if she had fallen into some nameless void hidden under one of the couch cushions.

This must still be that fucking shit Steven gave me! Beth began to panic. Just like the first time she got high, the paranoid feeling that this would never end took hold of her. She closed her eyes, to no effect, and breathed deep.

When that wave of nausea ended, another one washed over her. A far more familiar one. Her fear of the dark. Of being alone in the dark.

She held her breath and froze, just like she had done since she was a child. Don't move and they won't see you. Don't look and they won't hurt you. Not that she could look. But that rationale was the same in her mind.

She didn't know how much time had passed, but she couldn't take it any more. She opened one eye a sliver - still black. So she threw caution to the wind and open both lids wide. She stared out into the void and wondered what was staring back at her.

The cold was coming back. Or more likely this was a new cold. The chill that comes with irrational fear.

Slowly, slowly, Beth stood. After she was on her feat, she realized she wasn't sure where she had been before. Had she been laying down? Like a snail, she slid her left foot backward, groping for the couch. Nothing. Cautiously she took a silent step forward and didn't bump into the coffee table. She couldn't tell if she could feel the floor. Maybe she was bumping into stuff and not feeling it. But she knew that wasn't the case. This place was empty.

Empty except for - except for someone. Someone else was there. She could sense them. They were only a few feet away, perhaps inches. They could be almost nose-to-nose. She was afraid.

Beth was afraid, but she raised her right arm, extending it in front of her. The air was so still, it seemed to cling to the hairs on her arm like water drops from a fog. She reached out, her fingers trembling. And a hand took hold of hers. It was sudden, and grasped her fingers tightly. All the muscles she had tensed up in anticipation relaxed and made her feel like she was floating. She didn't need any light to see who the hand belonged to. The soft, but worn skin and firm, reassuring grip was enough.

She didn't say anything. She just let out her breath slowly, through barely parted lips. She knew that it would be him, waiting for her in the dark. Coming to meet her in this empty place. She didn't need anything else when he was there.

He pulled her closer. She laid her head on his chest. She hooked her thumbs in his pockets. The feel of his denim pants and old t-shirt came rushing back to her from months and years ago. She burried her face in his neck and took in his scent.

Beth breathed deep for the third and final time that day and knew how hard it would be to wake up.

holes

I've been in and
I've been out
of this hole.
And in and
out of it
some more.

I've leapt in
guns a'blazin'
I've snuck in
like a navy seal.
I've climbed down
finding every hand hold.

But I only fell
in once.

sleep-over anyone?

I have a hard time falling asleep on a normal night. But when I'm home alone, it becomes a near impossibility. I worked eight hours today. I have to be up at 6:30 to go and work another eleven tomorrow. I am tired. I know I should sleep. Friggin' TV commercials for the "The Strangers" DVD. I wonder how many one night stands result from a fear of the dark?

I can't explain it. There is nothing rational about fear. If fear was rational it wouldn't be frightening. But somehow the empty spot I was starring at when I flicked the light switch suddenly, immediately, impossibly has the possibility of being occupied by a menacing figure once the lights are out.

I wish my dog were here.

soundtrack

"Thunder" by Boys Like Girls is a terrible, terrible song. It is ridiculously sappy and pre-teen love idealistic. And, dammit, I like it. "Your voice was the soundtrack of my summer" is a stupid, ridiculous thing to say. But it struck a chord with me. Personal soundtracks. What is the soundtrack of your life? You can have one now, because of Apple's gift to man: the iPOD. But really the music you filter through your brain while you're on the bus or in line for krishna lunch is not what you remember. Other sounds make up the soundtrack to your life.

That intensely creepy version of "A Few of My favorite Things" that once issued from century tower. Those same bells chiming 10 p.m. on a cold and foggy night after poetry class. Frank, the Jesus-guy shouting about why we're all going to hell. The fire alarm in Graham Hall. Flip flops. Bike wheels zzzing over pavement. Drunken chants of "It's great to be a Florida Gator." These are the sounds that make up the "UF" track on my life's soundtrack.

(Another terrible song on the CD at work that got me thinking about this stuff: Taylor Swift's "Our Song.") Even when it comes to my spotty track record with boys. Of course I have a particular song that I associate with each guy I have cared about. (Incubus's "Wish You Were Here," The All American Rejects's "Dirty Little Secret," Peter Sarstedt's "Where Do You Go To My Lovely?") But these men have contributed much more meaning full tracks to my life's album.
Let's take "Dirty Little Secret" for instance. He provided a critcal piece to my "Time Spent Alone in my Dorm Freshman Year" track: a voice mail greeting of "Hello Darlin." The sound I hear when I picture him is not AAR's crooning, but they way he says the word "gorgeous," the plop of icecream dropping into the bottom of Trudy the vending machine, brushing sand off of denim, and the scraping of my desk on the tile of Ms. Hansen's classroom floor.
"Wish You were Here's" track is comprised of shuffling sneakers, soft snoring, trumpet rendition of the wedding march, my bedroom window sliding open (the loudest sound EVER), flicking a lighter, car doors, sneakers on the tile in building 11, and unwrapping fast food.

"Home" includes such selections as Cosmo's barking, Sonic theme music, golf commentary, old pages turning and crackling, the slapping of bare feet on tile.

I lost my iPOD this summer. At first I thought I would never get over the loss, but now I'm almost glad. Of course I still love to listen to music. But I want my life's soundtrack to be more unique that that of a dramedy romcom or episode of Scrubs.

Catch 22 Rant

I'm caught in a conundrum. When you're gone, I sink into a bout of depression. I feel tired and lazy. All I want to do is sleep. School work bores me and seems pointless as I continue to be malcontent. I work, but I spend too much money on things to make me forget I miss you. Mostly coffee and snacks and outfits to impress you when you return. When you're here I don't want to do anything but spend time with you. I fill our days with fun activities. And when I run out of those, I just want to get buzzed and lay around the apartment with you. I skip class and call out of work. I spend my money on the movies we see and the fast food we can't get enough of.

I want the life I cannot have. I want to be responsible and productive during the day and come home to goofing off with you at night. I don't want to worry about missing you tomorrow or how to get through today.

I want to go to sleep until you get back. I might as well, I'm already sinking into another three-week emotional coma.

Where did my friends go? Courtney got a boyfriend, so she's not inviting people over or dragging me along. Everyone is busy, busy, busy. I'm such a wall flower. A few weeks out of sight and I'm easily out of mind. Court throws a party and I'm worried the neighbors will complain. I throw a party and get 14 maybes.

And why do I feel like my life has become an episode of Friends? At least I don't have to change my name to play the part. I cried and he said this wouldn't happen. It did and I went back to my long-distance bipolar emotional cycle.

sweater weather

Somewhere that's not here the leaves are changing colours. And though there's beauty in my sky, I miss the reds and oranges from my crayon box. And when a chill wind cuts through the muggy high at mid afternoon, autumn is calling me from a place that isn't this one. I want to cocoon myself in cable-knit and feel the satisfying crunch underfoot. I want to rake up the fallen flames and hurl myself into their inferno. I want to to look out my window at a crisp blue sky and aniticipate the shiver of the fist step outdoors. I want to experience this mythical fall and savor my hot chocolate as it warms me from my hands and my throat. I want the friction of your hands on mine and a cold-lipped kiss that warms with lingering affection. It is such a stark visual in my head: us in sweaters and scarves and jeans and the trees on fire behind us. We're iceskating figure eights forever.

revisiting a poem from last spring

raw emotion outside Pugh Hall:

If I stop to think about it
That struggling, fleshy pump of mine
will explode
It's already operating at full capacity.
Just to move stuff limbs away from you.

I would strip the flesh from my bones
In reverse paper mache
To stop your self digestion
Keep peeling back till
tendons pulling on my bones exposed.

Feeble organic cords are nothing
next to the steel wires
of my puppeteering ex-lover.
Fused with every major artery
Strategically cutting of blood supply to the brain.

I've spent eons hacking away
At these predatory vines taking root.
But I'm infected - system error.
I can only hope to qurantine the virus.
Are you sure you want to delete this file?

No.
No.
No.

A week later's revision:

If I stop to think about it
That struggling fleshy pump
will explode
Already operating at full capacity
To move stiff limbs away from you.

I would strip the flesh from my bones
In reverse paper mache
To stop your self digestion
Keep peeling back till tendons
Pulling on my bones expose

Feeble organic cords are nothing
Next to the steel wires
Of a puppeteering ex-lover
Fused with every major artery
Strategically keeping blood from my brain

I’ve spent eons hacking away
At these predatory vines taking root
But I’m infected. System error.
Are you sure you want to delete this file?

No.
No.
No.

should be doing homework at present:

Too late to hit the breaks
Hydroplaning on salty solution
that never made it below the bridge
Brine that eats away at the hull
I watch those molars gnashing

flesh stripped from my marrow
in beautiful reverse paper mache
To halt your self-digestion
I'll peel myself in a strip tease
guaranteed to over-expose

feeble organic strings snap,
splatter on the copper wires
of my puppeteer's design
to keep the oxygen from the brain
Bitter metal in my mouth I taste

the delicate hacking of an old blade
at predatory vines taken root

bleh. it may never be good.

By the time the hot tears make it down to my lips, my mouth is dry cotton and and I lick them up. They taste like the ocean. The ocean tastes like you in the shower, after the beach, after a hard night's work. My face in the crook between your chin and your chest is just like my face pressing into a pillow sobbing. How could I have not seen this coming?

accessorize yourself (or A response for YouYouYou)

You're so funny to watch. All the peculiar turns and twists, all leading back into the same inescapable circle. You're just so wrapped up in yourself, you've become a tornado. Even when you pick something else up, it's still all about you and where you're going to throw it. Pretty words spew out of your mouth and you're so naive you think they're about someone else. But it's all in relation to you, you're only making yourself look pretty. Everyone else is just adornment to the shrine you're building for yourself. You try people on like rings. When you spot someone shiny, you only wonder if they go with your outfit. Accessorize yourself instead of accessorizing you and you'll see:

You don't set anyone free; they free themselves.

Sheets

There's certainly someone
knocking
But the lights are out
I can't stumble to find
the door.
Rather I'll keep softly
cocooned
in cacophony
of loud lush linen
rustling.

observations

She wasn't gorgeous at first glance. Second even. But when you'd been watching her work for hours on end, her beauty slowly started to seep out like tendrils from a seed and take root.

Her clothing, while always smart and classy, was too drab. Too many little black dresses bought at clearance sales and thrift stores. Yet she always wore a brightly coloured shoe, often nicked from her mother's closet. They looked very eighties-working-woman: closed toe, small heel, neon colours. She made a lovely silhouette, the first step in good fashion, but was too conservative. Today, however, as she leaned forward to pour over the computer screen, the V of her kimono-style top widened, revealing her left breast to posses a pleasing round curve.

Her constant slouched position helped to hide her good looks. Her slender shoulders became rounded and akward. Looking at her from the front, as she lowered her eyes to screen level, it appeared she had no neck. Or rather, that her head was too large for her body and protuded from her collar like that of a turtle's from its shell. Her gentle hourglass was doubled over like a melting Dali clock as she acordianed in on heself in the stiff-backed swivle chair.

Under the table, though, her legs were quite lovely as they glided down into those turquoise kitten-heels. Her knees prudely together, one set in the crook of the other. The tips of her shoes pointed inward in the pigeon-toe position that makes legs seem so attractive and girlish. Legs which are quite shapely, tapering down to slender, perfectly-formed ankles. These were the kind of legs, you were happy to just appreciate, you didn't need to touch.

Her face is plain, but would show a touch of classic beauty if it wasn't always squinting at copy on the screen. Watching her expressions change is most entertaining. The constant line between her brows from concentration. The way the left one archs when she's confused. Her thin lips pressing tightly together in frustration.

Her hair is forever tied back in a sensible, but elegant bun. The look suits her well, but, perhaps, were she to let it tumble down upon her shoulders, some sex-appeal might fall out as well.

The Nothing Year

Wanted to make it to midnight for you,
but the eyelids are growing heavy,
to watch your year sink over the horizon-
let you know I'd be present for every rise and set.
With limbs full of lead and an atrophied heart,
I want to watch this sun fade and flicker
or go out in a blaze of super nova glory-
would give all the seconds in a year,
to waste that one with you.
Around the world in 80 days will you be counting
minutes until that first shot of whiskey?
I swear I'll toast to you.

Wind me up.

I was supposed to be a wind-up doll. Wind me up and watch me dance. Turn my gears, force them back they'll roll forward and pull me like I'm on puppet strings. Twist and turn as some little girl sings.

But the toy maker was angry when he made me. He jammed my copper winder between my wooden shoulder blades like a spurned lover would a knife. Now my gears don't work right. You can wind me up, but I can't dance.

With every twist, my limbs get tighter. More pressure on my straining insides. As I sit quietly upon my shelf, never complaining, everyone takes a turn. They all give me a few good turns, each takes more effort than the last. But that doesn't stop them. Each winds me up to see what will happen, but nothing ever does. I get the feeling that they're disappointed. I hate to disappoint. I wish I could be more vocal.

"Please, don't wind me. I'm broken. You're putting a lot of stress on me and I'm already so tired."

But I just can't say no. All those children's faces full of wonder and innocence and want. How can I deny them? So I let them twist and feel my body pulled beyond what it can take while I am ashamed to not live up to their expectations.

I'm worried I won't last much longer. One or two more good winds and I'll surely bust. The gears will pop.

I dread this moment even as I anticipate it. It will most definitely be a moment of pure ecstasy in release, but I worry I won't live through to see the other side. Or find myself an even more empty husk. But maybe then, someone will come along and fix me. Or at least put me out of my misery.

A raw half-draft of an idea bandying about in my head. Is it worthwhile enough to turn into a real story? Maybe. Maybe it's too self-centered. I feel wound up. I'm supposed to empathize, but I can't sympathize with that.

Why my poetry teacher said DON'T RHYME

4 a.m. and no cents on the dollar

Hope you kept that receipt
just take em back to the market
cause those are last year's cliches
they'll only get staler in my back pocket

Yeah, you had me on a leash
and I was so happy just to follow
now you've let me off too easy
and it's just a bit much for me to swallow

Still standing here bewildered
right where you left me off the lead
ashamed I love your cigarette smoke smell
it's de ja voodoo - I'll go smoke some weed

It's not fairy dust rimmed round my lashes
The process is called desalination
So buy me some Mickey D's fries
and let's get on with my salvation.

All of it is bad, but I hate the second stanza. Hopefully will get around to improving in the future, when I can be more objective.

shuttlecocks

Shuttlecocks. That was all poor Nancy could say at the end. They batted her around till she was cracked.

Shuttlecocks. They all run and run for her while she flies helplessly through the air. Arms extended- reaching, stretching, striving to touch her. But as soon as you've got to her, just when she's in your grasp, you knock her away again. Just one more slap in the face. Another broken promise. A freshly revealed lie. And she's flying again, confused as to her direction.

Shuttlecocks. How many more bruises can she take? This is the final stroke. Her thin shell breaks to reveal her empty interior. She falls to the grass, it catches her lightly, but stabs into her wound. It's okay, though; you've got a fresh birdie waiting in the wings. And there's always the one you batted up onto the roof last week. One more good breeze and she'll be back in the game.

Shuttlecocks. How long until I'm broken? I won't give a backstory. I wouldn't let you take the credit. I would just be broken. Broken, insane and free. Drawing murals on sheets of butcher paper. Everyone would call me a genius. They would pity me for not knowing how much my art was selling for. I would be so happy.

coasting

A somewhat surprising number of my high school friends have/are getting married and having kids. This phenomenon is startling to me because I can't see how they could possibly be ready for such a feat. And I'm not even talking emotionally/psychologically ready. I mean financially, logistically. I'm just making it check to check and these guys are renting homes, buying diapers.

Up until I was about 18, I never thought I wanted to have kids. I knew I could be selfish and I wanted to have a career and spend my money on trekking across the globe. But I guess that maternal instinct finally turned itself on in my senior year. I started to think about how much joy children bring. How fulfilling it must be to pass on your knowledge to this small creature so curious and willing to learn. I think what really kicked started this foray into thoughts of parenthood was that I had fallen in love for the first time. I could actually see myself getting married and growing old with him. Finally, I could envision an environment loving and stable enough to bring a child into.

I knew when I went off to college that I was putting my relationship on hold. I knew I was forcing us to be stagnant. What didn't occur to me was how much of a toll this waiting would have on my emotional well-being. I also wasn't prepared to try to keep two rapidly changing individuals in an unchanging relationship. And the gap isn't closing as the years tick by. I was supposed to be moving in with the boyfriend next month. Instead we've tacked on another two or three years until "us" could even remotely be a happy possibility.

As I watch my friends get married and start families, I wonder if I have chosen the right path for myself. I was always going to go to university. It was what was expected of me. I was always a smart girl and smart girls go to college and get degrees and enter high-paying fields. How could an A student, AP student, Honor student give up higher education to be a housewife? That would be stupid. That would be wasted potential.

But I see the way my friends look at their spouses and their children. Those looks are filled with a kind of happiness I've never even come close to. I know that I am making memories and gaining invaluable experiences at college. And I'm having fun, I have the most wonderful friends. But at the end of the day, what it all comes down to is: when I do have children, all I want to do is stay at home and love them. So why am I dragging myself into debt for an education I will eventually throw away?

I've always done what was expected of me. I want to do the right thing. But I'm coasting. I can feel it. I'm just coasting.

Self Improvement

When you become complacent, it is time to do something drastic.

I want to be so busy I forget about the warm nest of apathy I like to retreat into when I feel like things have gotten too heavy. Working for The Fine Print, a progressive monthly magazine making its debut in Gainesville in September, has been my first step. Right now, I am busy creating flyers. I should actually probably get busier on that, but I work best under deadline. I also put in an app at The Alligator for a production job. I was told they needed people and I do have a little experience, but I haven't gotten that phone call yet. I think I might go by later this week. I really want the job. Not only would it look great on my resume, but I feel like I could really learn a lot.

I'm also holding onto the idea of going to Japan for a year after a I graduate to teach English. This involves applying to the JET programme. I need to devote more time to Japanese. I lost my study partner though, due to a change in majors, but hopefully this won't hurt my motivation. I want to get really involved with the Japanese Club as well.

I want someone to give me the opportunity to better myself.

I want to be so busy that if I decide to make that drastic decision, I won't have time to dwell on its consequences.

Auto-Focus has been disabled

I was tired, sleepy even, just a little while ago. But now that I find myself alone in my apartment with nothing so pressing that it can't wait until tomorrow, I have become restless. My mind won't shut down, but it refuses to focus. It meanders wildly from topic to tangent and zones out into some dimension where all of my problems seem to display themselves like album art in iTunes. My fidgety mind seems to have also rung the wariness out of my muscles like water out of a soaked t-shirt, leaving them damp and heavy, but no longer sopping with exhaustion. I found myself pacing about the living room staring spacily out the window, even though the blinds are drawn.

My brain keeps insisting on working it way into dusty files that should have been packed away in a backroom long ago. But my librarian is just as sentimental and only slightly more organized than I am. So there are a stack of files tucked into a deep drawer in her desk that she just can't bring herself to file away and risk their quickened deterioration. But these aren't current files. They are only memories. I must remember that these moments are gone. These people and these relationships are not static. They have changed. Some have changed so much they have become unrecognizable. Some have become toxic. A few I couldn't even tell you how they have changed because they have grown too far apart from me. But I still cling to how they were. From time to time I ponder over what might have grown if only that seed had found good, dark soil instead of dry, cracked sand.

I can't expect you to save me from my decisions. The you that would have saved me and the me you would have risked it all for are dead now. They are only images, smells, impressions on my gray matter. And I should never have expected you to save me then. How can I still hope you will?

I'm sick of thinking about how it used to be, how it could have been, how it might be, how it should be. I need to concentrate on how it is.

My knight in shining flannel is not coming. Where do I go from here?

nomadic

This is rambling, nonsense. Some of it is melodramatic, but all of it is pure thought. I'm not in a creative enough mood to put it all together cohesively. This is a good entry to skip, but I feel obligated to update.

Today was a lazy day. I failed to do anything productive. My lame excuse is that I'm half-sick. This is Paul's fault. So, thanks, Paul, for giving me a reason to have a PJs day.

I finished reading Ender's Game late last night. Even if you don't like SF - I don't read much of it myself - you should give this book a chance. Card has an awesome writing style and the characters are intense and the story sucks you in and really makes you think about your own story.

Do you ever feel like you're not you? Sometimes I do. Sometimes I seem to be this other person just watching my body do and say things. I feel like I'm on auto-pilot too often these days.

Speak. Laugh. Nod. Sympathize. Pretend like you give a damn. Smile. Get up. Go. Interact. Come back. Good night. Oh, hello, self. Are you home now? Maybe, I'm not sure. Where have you been? I don't know. Was I gone? Your phone is ringing. Oh. You should answer it. Okay. Don't forget to sound happy.

Sometimes I don't know If I'm acting or if I'm being genuine. Do I really find this funny, or am I laughing because I'm supposed to?

I teared up watching Wall-E, that was genuine. That was one of the best animated films I've ever seen. Relationships are so important.

I need to orient myself. Which way is down?

moths from the change purse

My mother gave me a check for five hundred dollars last week. That seems like a lot of money, but after 429 in rent and 20 for internet that only leaves me with 50 for groceries. I don't know how long those groceries have to last me. So in the store today, I'll have to add up how much everything I buy costs. How embarrassing.

puzzles and pensieves

What do I say? What can I say? It's been too long since I've poured a little bit of me out into this blog. I wish it could be more like a pensieve from Harry Potter. I wish I could save precious moments so I would never forget a detail and dump out the ones I just don't want to deal with right now.

I spent four days last week staying with a friend in Boca. It was lovely. We went to the ocean every morning. What is a better way to begin each day than having coffee with you best friend and then leaving everything behind as your feet hit the hot sand and the only thing in front of you is vast, blue ocean? I can't imagine anything sweeter.

We also drove to Miami a couple times. A lot of my friends are from Miami. It made me realize what a small town I come from. And not small and adorable place like some New England small town that a teen drama on the WB takes place in. A shitty little town that all the kids talk about getting out out out of.

But now I'm back in Gainesville. Here I feel like we're all on the same playing field. We're all just kids trying to figure ourselves out. I think I learned a lot about myself my first two years here. Now I want to spend the next two piecing it all together. I was going to use a puzzle analogy, but I realized I'll never finish the puzzle, because I keep finding new pieces.

Once, on a family vacation that is so old, it is hazy in my mind, my mother was doing a puzzle. It was one of those crazy puzzles with a gazillion piecies, when she had found the spot for each piece she discovered she was missing a piece from the puzzle. Just one had been left out of the box.

I feel like that puzzle sometimes. Like God sent my box down with a piece missing. Everything is going pretty well, but something's off and it pushes everything just a millimeter out of whack. I hope he's put that piece somewhere down here for me to find.

I miss the ocean.

Climbing Trees

I'm climbing. Up, up, up. My hands are small and slender and long lost callouses have grown back. The stinging from the friction with the bark of the oak tree is a pleasant burning. I climb dexterously, as if I'm going up a ladder. I know right where the next branch for my foot and hand will be before I see it. The sun is speckling my face through the leaves and I knock acorns to the ground as I rush up, up, up. Leaves are brushing the hair out of my face for me. Squirrels are playing tag, running about me. Swirling around me in circles. The morning birdsongs seem to come from the tree itself, except here's a flash of blue and a streak of red. Finally, I break through the canopy. I've reached the top. Legs spread between two branches sagging with my weight. The sun is heating my face as I lift my gaze to it's warm glow and shut my eyes. Dazzling colors dance inside my lids. The wind is in my hair tousling it now that I've cropped it short. Like Peter Pan on the mast of Hook's ship I survey my Neverland. The neighborhood I was an eternal child in. The yards I streaked through screaming in games of tag that never ended. Trees I got stuck in. Back yards I hopped fences through. No one can touch me up here. There are no conflicts, decisions or trade-offs. The five dollars in my pocket will buy treasures from the dollar store. Bikes go as fast as I could ever want to go down the one big hill.

I want to feel the sun on my face and be glad it's summer. I don't want to complain about the heat. I want to run through sprinklers and swing on swings. I want to climb the tallest tree. I want to fall off my bike and skin my knee and show the scar as a badge of a daring full circle with no hands and that ended with a spectacular crash. I want to eat food without thinking about how much it costs. I want to be happy in tattered jeans and a t-shirt. I want summer back.

Twilight

Waking up in the evening twilight

Is like waking up in another dimension where the sun runs backwards. There's an element of fantasy to it that's eerily pleasing to my recent feelings of longing.

In my semi nocturnal state I have become intimate with the two points of twilight in the day. Waking to both regularly, I've become the sunrise's unwilling companion and the dusk's estranged lover.

Begrudgingly, I go along as that ball of fire heats up the hues and the air of the day. I'm too reluctantly awake to appreciate the changing pallet. The harshness of midday drives me to stare up at the sun in appeasement, only to find a blinding beauty, raging with a power I cannot comprehend. And I look away and flirt with the prism-colored, damaged spots on my retinas until they fade. By mid-afternoon I can't take the clear brightness, so I pull the shades down and the sheets up.

As I wake to the sunset, I roll over to see the orange glow through the blinds caressing me softly. Now that he has softened, I can look into his satsuma face without too much fear of permanent sightlessness. And he paints the world in colors you can't appreciate during full light. First colors so warm in pinks and oranges, the clouds look like they're blushing. And then, slowly it cools, to so many shades of blue. And you realize, the night isn't black it's just too many shades of blue layered over one another.

And as night falls and the darkness takes away my ability to appreciate the subtle sapphires and periwinkles, I can concentrate on things that need to be done. But I miss the metamorphic warmth of twilight and wish for someone to wrap their arms around me until morning.

A Small, and sticky, Breakthrough

Lately I have been a little - what I can only describe as, though I hate to use the word - depressed. Let's call it deflated. For a while I had been feeling pretty good. I had discovered a new found sense of self and really started caring about myself. I started going to the gym and eating better. I was writing and enjoying my classes, friends and even my time to myself, which used to leave me empty. But as the semester ended, a few things shifted and my upswing turned sour.
Lately I've been feeling apathetic and antisocial. I've been doing my best to combat it by forcing myself to go out, even when I don't feel like it and becoming involved in new projects. But my creativity suffered and when I went to put pen to paper nothing offered itself.
Yesterday, i finally had a spark. It was just an idea. A metaphor about old habits and stepping in gum. I thought it would grow into a poem. But as I wrote a little outline of rough lines, I was that my idea was more suited for prose. This is where it stands:

When the weather was cold, I stepped in a piece of gum. It was cornflower blue and caught my eye, standing out so from the black of the asphalt like a piece of fake Native American jewelry in a flea market.
Yes, I stepped in it deliberately. A rebellious detour through the parking lot, on the way from my car to Publix. It looked juicy and fun to have around for a while - and a little dangerous, who knows where it’s been?
But it was stickier than I thought and halted me in my tracks. Trying in vain to pull away, I forgot where I was going. In trying to free myself, it changed my course completely. I walked in the exit instead of the entrance. I hate people who do that. Can’t they be bothered enough to read the signs? I couldn’t. Not that day, preoccupied by my new saliva molded shoe brooch.
I moved on, but it clung on. It even effected my walking a little; I was jerky and stilted for a while. I probably looked like a fool, trudging about with this piece of gum sticking to my shoe. Refusing to wear other shoes. But these were my favorites. They were that perfect match of not quite red and turquoise-y blue. And they were worn to a comfort level that a Tempur-Pedic mattress couldn’t even begin to comprehend.
Finally, it stopped sticking to the world. And only clung to me. It became dependent on me for its existence. It was an abusive relationship in both directions. I walked all over the gum and the gum never let me forget it. It molded to my shoe, filling in the grooves, causing me to lose traction and changing my footprints.
Over the weeks it began to wear away. I trudged far and wide. I walked to though new places and to new destinations. I left bits of the gum everywhere. Shedding it and its influence on me. But It was leaving its mark.
In the end, only a fragment remained. A lone sentinel of the once vast army. Its take over of my sole was all but over. It had lost its aquamarine luster and become an ugly shade of dark brown. It was a diseased blotch on my sneaker.
But how could rid myself of this last bit? I couldn’t ignore it anymore. I washed the shoe, but it didn’t do any good. It had almost become one with the rubber.
I accidentally found a semi-solution; walking through other things. I thought this worked - at first. But all it did was cover it up. Sometimes for a couple days, sometimes for weeks. Rich, dark soil seemed to hold the longest and feel the nicest, but I have to go home to find it. The dirt where I stay now just can’t live up to the high standards of the farmland. Though I’ve found one patch I like to stroll through when I’m feeling down. I’d like to try it barefoot.
But the gum always worked itself back out.
Now I really regret stepping in that piece of gum. I’d throw away the shoes, but I’ve had them so long.
And they look so lonely in the trash.

inspired by true events*

She'd stayed up much later than she'd meant to talking to her ex-boyfriend on the phone. With their hectic schedules always in conflict, late nights and early mornings were the only times they could catch up.
A quarter past midnight wasn't exactly the wee hours of the morning, especially by her standards, but when you have to get up at six for an early morning design class
that requires your creativity to be in full bloom, you needed a little beauty rest.
She excused herself, trying not to sound sad about it.
Setting the alarm for six-fifteen, she was so tired she barely remembered to plug in her phone. As soon as the digital display went dark, she drifted off.
Loud, loud, loud in her ear caused her to jolt up out of her half-asleep state. It couldn't be time to get up yet. No, it was still dark. Her phone was ringing.
She looked at the time first, 12:30. Her ex must've forgotten to say something. But the caller ID read "private." Normally she wouldn't answer a call from a blocked number, but in her sleepy state, autopilot hit the green button.
"Hullo?" she said blearily.
Something in a weird accent, she couldn't make it out. She felt more awake now, at the sound of the harsh voice.
"Hello?" she said again.
". . . suck you dry. Would you like that?" came the strange voice again.
She gasped and slammed the phone shut. panicking, she hit redial and called her ex back.
"Hey?" he said, sounding half-asleep.
She was wide awake now and terrified.
"Someone called me!"
"What?"
"Someone called me! It came up private! I - he said weird things and I hung up and -"
beep.beep.
"Oh, my god! He's calling again! What do I do?!" Her heart was beginning to thunder in her chest.
"Just don't answer."
beep.beep.
"But he's calling right now! I'm scared!"
"It's ok. It's just some idiot. Just don't answer the phone."
beep.beep.
"I'm scared. I'm really scared!"
"He can't do anything. It';s just a phone call."
"No one else is home. I'm scared!"
beep.beep.
"He keeps calling!"
"You need to calm down. There's nothing to be afraid of."
And then the sound of the lock tumbling on the front door seemed imposabley loud. And even though she knew it was her roommate getting back, she was horrified. The door creaked like it had never done before in its life and then slammed shut.
"Someone's home," she whispered. "I think it's my roommate."
Lights came on in the living room, seeping under her door. Comforting and chilling at the same time. Say something. Oh, say something. Let me know it's you. Then the sound of a purse and keys being slung on the coffee table.
"It's my roommate. I'll call you back."
"Ok. Call me and let me know you're alright."
She hung up and ran out into the hallway.
"Hey," her roommate said, all smiles. But she must have seen her stricken face, "Oh my god. Are you ok?"
"No. Someone called me. A private call and said really creepy shit and I hung up but they kept calling!"
"Are they calling you now?"
"No."
"Come in my room. If they call you again, give me the phone, I'll curse the asshole out."
She felt relieved to have someone else home, but was still shaken. Sitting on her roommate's bed she listened to her stories from home. Letting her roommate talk, but
It was late. "I should go back to bed."
"Do you want to sleep in here?"
"No it's ok. I'll be fine."
She opened her door slowly, surveying the room, dimly lit by her night-light. Paranoid, she even checked her closet, but of course no one was there but her hamster. She slid back the mirrored door and crawled under the covers.
She picked up her phone cautiously, as if it might snap at her.
She called her ex again.
"I'm better. Now that someone's here."
"Okay, are you going to go back to sleep?"
"I'm going to try."
"Call me if you can't sleep."
"I'm afraid they'll call again."
"Don't pick up."
"I know, but-"
She felt foolish to say what she was thinking. If they call again after I've laid down; that means they're watching me. That means they can see me.
"Ok. Well, I'll call you tomorrow."
"Ok, goodnight."
She put the phone back down and stared at it until it went dark again. She wanted to lay on her right side, but she couldn't bring herself to put her back too the dark room and those big closet doors. She'd watched too many scary movies.
She cursed herself for staying through The Strangers even though fifteen minutes in, she could tell it was going to keep her up for the next couple weeks. She propped her pillows against the wall and dosed off half sitting up.

*but not very inspired

On your mark

This is the third or fourth time I've attempted to start a blog and actually keep up with it. This time I've begun after encouragement from a friend. Hopefully, with her continued badgering, I shall accomplish my goal of maintaining this at least throughout my two remaining years of college.
I chose my title, not to be pretentious, but because I hope that's what I am doing now: moving from childhood to adulthood. It is also the title of a poem I wrote my freshman year. I will leave you with those words:

On Becoming an Adult

Nearing 12 AM outside the theater,

Both of us with too much bare skin,

Sam, dressed as Magenta,

Told me in puffs of frosted breath

That gravity weighed more.

That each step reverberated in her frame,

Like the rumbling bass

In the battered seats of her Dodge Neon,

Or muting a hard-struck Zildjian

With a flat palm.

She said it was like the first opening of a book,

Feeling the resistance,

Of the spine not broken in.

Like the first waking stretch

After a long night's sleep.

Like getting glasses

The first time each blade of grass

Comes into focus and being truly amazed

At how even the lawnmower cuts,

But frightened that the ground is so close.

She said it was the way the air

Hangs

Just before it rains:

Damp and heavy, like laundry.

And it was like Tim Curry in drag

At the midnight showing

Of a cult classic, saying,

"Antici–"