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–"