cryofthefishmongers-blog

[cryofthefishmongers-blog]

We have to leave in an hour.

His cat in the road.

His cat in a bag.

His cat in the ground.

Him, in my lap.

The world awaits our positivity.

I grab my keys,

he, his wallet.

I, his hand,

he, mine.

A kiss on the shirt,

A portrait of our struggle;

The ever-present need to

condense our feelings into car rides,

one place to the next, never here.

[cryofthefishmongers-blog]

I Live Here

Those who have loved me have only made me feel as though I am difficult to love. They are heroic, climbing mountains, crossing seas, trudging through hostile deserts to find the spark. They are brave for attempting the mythological narrative, the ultimate strife. The pains they take. But, I live here. I set up camp in these mountains, I wade through the water, even when it is neck deep. The sand is beneath my fingernails and in my hair and my ears. I’m trying to make this place a home. This place, a home.

[cryofthefishmongers-blog]

“When youth departs, hope that wisdom will be enough.”

- The sign outside of an auto parts shop en route to Carbondale, Illinois

[cryofthefishmongers-blog]

I Love My Distant Love

I’m sitting alone on a queen-sized bed in my new apartment, and I’m writing poetry again.

I don’t subscribe to the belief that art must always come from pain. Joy creates art just as well. However, I will say that I don’t think I’ll ever write better poetry than that which came out of my darkest period.

My freshman year of college, I was lonelier than I had ever felt before. I was staying in my hometown and attending community college, while most of my friends were off somewhere else, forming new friendships and experiences. My boyfriend lived three hours away from me, and while that may not seem like very much, to lovesick college students who didn’t own cars, this distance was insurmountable.

My life began to revolve around when I could see him again. I felt like I could only be okay when he was around, as if my life was only in its natural order when aligned with his. I put a lot of emotional eggs into one basket, but only because our honeymoon phase was cut short by 150 miles of Illinois farmland.

For a brief moment, this summer we were reunited. He had just graduated college, and I was home for summer break before my junior year. Our relationship thrived, and we were at peace. This was the way that life should be. Together, seeing each other every day, being a constant in each others lives.

I’m now sitting on a queen-sized bed in my new apartment writing poetry. I am in DeKalb. He is not.

This distance is manageable. It’s not nearly as far. But again, the thought creeps in every time I look at my schedule: When am I even going to see him again? I’m busy, and so is he. We still don’t have cars.

I would live my life next to his every day, if I could. But, our relationship has crossed many miles, and sometimes his garbled voice over the phone speaker is my rationed dose of him for the day.

We may one day finally be able to tire of each others’ company, gracefully and lovingly. But in the meantime, I’ve grown a firm believer that long distance love creates the strongest relationships, under the right set of circumstances.

It requires extreme trust. It’s hard to feel certain that his projected image of you is a convincing enough stand-in for the real you, the one who can touch and kiss and hold. On long nights, when he could be questioning why he’s in bed alone rather than somewhere else’s bed, not alone.

It requires communication, because communication is all that there is. There are no dates, no walks in the park, no warmth from a body laying close to yours. There is only the words you say and how you say them.

It requires commitment. Casual relationships often snap when pulled too far. A long distance relationship is a never-ending countdown that resets whenever you say goodbye again. It’s like waiting on the season for your favorite television show, most of the time spent between episodes. But is the show worth watching?

But the largest takeaway that I’ve gotten out of my distant love is the way that I now never take him for granted, because I know what it’s like to be without him. I used to spend anxious nights feeling worthless and ashamed, and I did so without a voice of opposition. I do this still, of course. It just feels less overpowering, because he isn’t as far away.

A long distance relationship will change how you love. I think it’s changed me for the better.

[cryofthefishmongers-blog]

The West Calls

The West calls,

as it does to dreamers.

Not I, of course.

But you.

A siren song echoes through plainland,

announcing the promise of gold and poppies,

a city of lights,

a factory of dreams

for travelers who left home in search

of displacement.

I am of this world of muddy boots.

Only thus. No more.

There is no room for me elsewhere.

I was born into a hole in the ground,

The only space I dare inhabit.

I exist where I am.

Where I was placed.

Last night,

I had a dream I ran all the way to Sacramento,

and when I arrived my shoes were so tattered and torn

I could not get back home.

You weren’t even there.

Just myself,

my ruins,

the sun on my back,

rising homeward,

hurting my eyes.

[cryofthefishmongers-blog]

In total

I have smoked

Exactly

72 cigarettes

In 262 days

Which isn't that bad

If I don't think about it too hard.

[cryofthefishmongers-blog]

Things I loved are turning grey

with potted tendrils growing thin.

A worn windowsill in partial sun

now a necropolis of

desperate yellow blossoms

gasping.

I think

on how life must bring death,

and death births new life,

a story that I tell myself

instead of accepting that I have killed,

and it is my fault alone

for not watering

what depended on me.

-G.S.

[cryofthefishmongers-blog]

This is my town at night, and it is not my home.

This is a house at 4:47pm, and it does not remember me.

What am I to do when every item I once knew has been replaced by something exactly identical to it?

When the bed stiffens as I drape my legs upon it?

At the carpeting turns cold and hesitant under my strange feet?

When the road signs point me forward, but the pavement draws me back, a conveyor belt working against my best efforts?

When I am only a transient visitor, wherever it is that I go?

I want only to roll around in the damp grass, run, arms outstretched, through newly alien streets, spread myself fully onto the surfaces that once I touched, that once touched me, in the hopes that the scent will cling to my clothes and I will no longer be a stranger.

-G.S

[cryofthefishmongers-blog]

Also, the new update makes quote posts look like shit now? Like, they're too big? I'm screwed.

[cryofthefishmongers-blog]

Life Update

AHHHH! I have not posted anything of substance for a while now. Things have been a little crazy in my life as of late, and I’ve been a little too busy to write leisurely on the regular. Basically, last week, I began school at Northern Illinois University, which has already been such a positive change in my life. Since moving to Dekalb, I’ve joined the Northern Star Newspaper as a blogger, became a part of a shadow cast of the Rocky Horror Picture show, joined a number of writing-based campus organizations, and generally met a lot of wonderful people. Before this, my college experience has been lackluster at best, and miserable at worst, and I’m very thankful for the opportunities and experiences that I now can partake in.

That being said! Now that I’m settling into my school schedule, I’ll be posting more frequently again. Between writing blog posts for the newspaper, working on a radio script for the theatre company I work for, and devoting all other writing time to working on some scripts that have been on the to-do list for a while, casual poetry and fiction has been put on the backburner. But, I’m definitely going to make it a point to work those into my life, as they’re very important outlets for me.

Anyway, keep writing, all. Thanks for reading.

[cryofthefishmongers-blog]

I'm very bad at appreciating things while they're here, and very good at missing them terribly when they're gone.

G.S // Excerpt from a script I'll never write

[cryofthefishmongers-blog]

The Desert.

I opened my eyes. An endless country road stretching out into an overcast sky had dissolved and left me somewhere else. The impact, for whatever reason, had decided to send me into the desert. It was nighttime now, and the difference between up and down was not of importance. The sand and the stars looked the same, at least from what I could see. I was clinging onto the ground with my fingernails, and a false move would send me upwards into space. I feared leaving the atmosphere. It would be hard to breathe.

My body felt sticky. The glue holding me together had begun to melt, caking my skin in chocolate syrup. It had been many years since I had been sticky. Sticky is a relic of childhood. I was just now remembering it. I couldn’t remember when I lost my affinity for being sticky. Somewhere along the way, dignity struck me and everything changed, and sticky was no longer comforting. Pieces of the sand felt large and sharp, covering me like a mosaic. They punctured me, allowing the glue to ooze from me. I wondered how much glue I had left to lose.

It was disorienting, to be going so very fast and then be completely still. It felt as though not all of me had caught up yet. I could call someone. That seemed the thing to do. To call someone. I would be embarrassed. I cannot remember the names of anyone that I knew. Was this a final moment? Will I die without their names? Am I dying? I realized that I now knew what is was like to be bleeding out, to be dying, and to know it. Few people got this opportunity. To be violently and quickly gone, but for time to slow down enough for her to appreciate it. I want to remember their names. I knew that there were things that were important to me twenty minutes ago, and I wanted them back. I wondered if I were to let go, the names would return.

The constellations were vivid and flashing, as if they were putting on a show, just for me. Are they sending me off? Are they waving goodbye, or are they welcoming me? They seemed to move, like ink running across a page, creating a drawing done haphazardly by a child. Or some renowned artist, an expensive masterpiece hanging in an abstract museum. From the corner of my eye, foxes emerged from the darkness, to check on me, to see if I was alright. Beautiful and sleek, they sauntered forward, four or five of them, keeping their distance. I wondered if they felt helpless. Or maybe they only wanted me gone. I was unsightly. I was roadkill. They all came together and became one entity, with a dozen legs and a ribbon of tails, before they vanished. I wished that they were my guardians. Or perhaps they thought little of me.

Where do the foxes go when they disappear? Do they have homes? Do they have a place? Do the places that I never visited exist? The things of my memories, will they have ever happened when the memories are gone? Do worlds disappear when I am no longer? Am I photograph, lost in the flood of my grandmother’s basement? Am I the tears that streamed down her face? Am I radio static? Am I in space? Am I anywhere? I did not know where I was. I have had so little time to get used to this place, and I felt it was time for me to leave already. I wished that there was time. I always thought I had an infinite amount of it.

Life is to be treated like a lover. So tender, so whole, and so quickly gone. Am I a summer fling? You love and you love and you love, and then you lose. I didn’t want this to be over. I needed closure. I needed warmth. I needed love. I didn’t want my surroundings to change again. I wanted stability. I wanted something to stay. I wanted to stay.  I wanted to remember their names. I wanted my grandma to have her photos back. I wanted the foxes to care that I was hurting. I wanted to know that the stars would be there forever, always stagnant, never moving beyond where I could see them. I didn’t want to leave. But I had been alive long enough to know that I would not always be, and that ends are inevitable. They often come too soon. There is never a good time for an end, but they come regardless. My life was a rendezvous, ended too soon, a brief summer heartbreak. I knew that if you loved something, you had to let it go. If you love something, let it go. Let go, let go, let go. My hands released their grip on the ground. I closed my eyes.

[cryofthefishmongers-blog]

Confronting Shame: A Rambling on Human Emotions

Each human being on Earth is made up of small parts. Physically, these scale all the way down to the atoms that make up the entirety of the space we take up, walking down the street, sitting in our homes, always there, always moving together to ensure that we don’t crumble into dust. Emotionally, we are each a network of perceptions, feelings, memories, and behaviors. The permanency of these are arguable, compared to their molecular counterparts. In the Buddhist school of thought, nothing is permanent. This, of course, refers to the fact that lives end, buildings collapse, and things are often forgotten shortly after they disappear from tangible reality. It also applies to identity. The people that we are ten years ago are not the people that we are today. Who we become when we are angry, sad, frustrated, excited, are not truly ourselves. There is no such thing as a solidified identity. We only react to the stimuli that occurs around us.

But no matter how hard we may try, things linger with us. Small events, short instances of emotion, can easily shape the way that we perceive ourselves. These things seem to become a part of who we are.

Lately, I have been confronting shame. A simple concept, when taken at face value. It often feels like guilt, or like embarrassment. These are words with which the word “shame” is sometimes used interchangeably. But I noticed that shame feels deeper, somehow. There have been instances where the word “shame” seemed to replace the blood in my veins, weighing me down to the floor. Shame is an aura. Shame becomes you. Guilt and embarrassment refer to the things that we do that we regret. Shame refers to things that become a part of who we are.

When I failed my first online class, I felt guilty for not studying harder. I felt embarrassed to mention it to my peers. I felt shame because I am too stupid to achieve my academic goals, and I am doomed for failure.

When I got into my first fight with my boyfriend, I felt guilty for jumping to conclusions. I felt embarrassed for making a scene when it was not warranted. I felt shame because I am unstable, emotionally volatile, and someone who will likely let her emotions ruin everything good that happens to her.

When I slip up and make a mistake when going about directing a theatrical production, I feel guilty for leading actors astray with bad suggestions. I feel embarrassed for letting the cracks in my persona visible. I feel shame, because I am not cut out for this, and I am making a fool out of myself for trying.

The wrongs that we commit do not define us, of course. There are plenty of other aspects of our identities to do this. But the wrongs exist amongst all else. We know that they are there. Even the things we have outgrown, the mistakes of the long past, exist somewhere within us. And they become heavy. I sometimes feel like a walking receptacle of shame, desperately trying to hide my flaws deep within me, but I can’t help but sweat them out, letting them drench me.

I do not know how to combat shame. Likely, it has something to do with letting go of negative emotions and allowing ourselves to be as we are, without apology. But as previously mentioned, shame is heavy. And once shame is present, it is difficult to shake. I sometimes am left to wonder if I can leave my immediate past behind, and become somebody new in a moment, solely by letting go of the things I cannot change. Or perhaps I will always be a thick, dense collection of all of the things that have ever haunted me. Perhaps all things are permanent, as all things exist somewhere, in some form, physically or emotionally. Perhaps I am what I feel. Perhaps, I am shame.

[cryofthefishmongers-blog]

Her roots were pulled up into blank, white walls, everything intended to be exactly where it is, where specks of dust were treated as an infestation, killed with chemicals advertised on daytime television. She is fascinated by things that are not perfect. With him, on his back porch, an isometric enclosure with no screen to keep out the bugs and beautiful weather, overlooking a busy road that leads to somewhere polished and clean. But that is not here. This is a place where things ended up, over time. Old pillows that were meant for indoors, but have fared well against the fickle tumult of the Midwestern seasons. The vines that grow a centimeter every hour, but somehow know where to stop, or so he tells her. Mismatched colors and old decorations, barely hiding chipping paint, exposed wood. They belong here too, just as every hardened traveler who steps foot here would find himself immediately at home. She helps to fill a piece of delicate pottery that has now been deemed an ashtray, only one of many things that were found in a flea market back before she was an idea. Three Coronas, James Taylor, and work in the morning. This is the bliss she thought she’d never find.

G.S.

[cryofthefishmongers-blog]

Cannot transfer call. Ma’am, you called the wrong number. Do not yell at me. Filling thick binders to sit on an untouched shelf. Shred next year, replace. Threatening children, taken off hold, unaware. Mandated reporter sighs. The crest of the full moon indicates that the weirdos will flood my phone line. Jagged pearly whites. Kathy from Reservations always finds mistakes. In a dark office, a nuclear bomb shelter, hair clawed from my head. Phone directory- there are too many Cheryl’s to count on one hand.

G.S. / Some Haiku About Working a Customer Service Office Job

[cryofthefishmongers-blog]

This is not the time for wishful thinking. I never assigned myself to be a housewife, and yet the frantic bedlam of whirring cogs, clicking, connecting, genuine, seemed to have surpassed me, and I am stranded, talking to myself. I sit on your back porch, lighting a slim coffin nail, trying to find the cigarette butt that I flung into your green patch of hard-earned Earth the last time I waited for you to come back home, but none have been marked by my cherry red. There is little of me here, save the hand soap in the bathroom. The harsh, metallic singing of the shower head will keep me company as I try to wash off the scent of every trait I am shedding to be born again from the ashes of a woman that I did not burn. I will look in the mirror at smudged makeup that survived the storm, and realize that every piece of me has been constructed to look porcelain even as I awaken and find myself drenched and cracked on bathroom floor, cherry red staining the dated yellow tiles. Eventually comes and passes, and it was not what you hoped it would be, and therefore goes unnoticed. This is not the time for wishful thinking, though it may always be like this. Caged in walls too high, rooms too large, a home maker without a home, coughing, dripping, waiting.

G.S.

[cryofthefishmongers-blog]

To Grow Into One’s Hands

My first real job was no small feat, in my eyes.

I had worked before, of course. But I had an office job now. I wasn’t mopping any floors, or taking food orders. I was working behind a desk, answering inquiries, running copies, writing emails, balancing income reports. And new to adulthood, this felt like a success.

In the planning of my early adult life, I aimed to fling myself into maturity as soon as humanly possible. I would go to school close to home and bypass the dorm living and cafeteria food. I would never leave my hometown. I would use a connection of mine to find a job in my field right after graduating, and I would get promoted once or twice, and I would do that until I died. This was the plan. To have everything figured out as simply and quickly as possible.

I liked the idea of being the youngest employee in my department at the office. It was a sign that I had done something right. I was still a college student, but I had a grown up job. I had a mature phone voice, and a good work ethic. I wore dress pants to work. I was an adult, right according to plan.

What I didn’t know about this job was that it is often hard. This, I was not anticipating. I was not anticipating putting out fires, difficult customer relations, and complicated finance paperwork and procedures. Each and every time I came across something that I did not know how to deal with, I could feel my pants grow longer around my ankles.

Balancing reports at the end of the day became the bane of my existence, because it was when all of the mistakes I had obliviously made throughout the course of the day would come to fruition and fill my heart with concrete. On one particularly rough day, I had made a mistake when dealing with a course transaction, and a co-worker had to spend an hour by my side figuring it out. To my face, she was generous. However, I had heard the way that the office ladies talked about other office ladies who had made mistakes. When I imagined the mocking banter that would occur at my expense tomorrow morning when I was not yet in the office, my shoes began to feel bigger around my feet, and they nearly slipped off as I walked to my car.

I realized that I did not handle stress well, and I handled the conflicts that caused my stress far worse. I realized that people are mean to you when you are not a person to them. I represent a company that has wronged them, and therefore, I have wronged them. Their words will reflect this. My words will be stuttered. And on one particularly bad day, I will be unable to hold myself upright as the forty-something that I feel that I should be.

The woman on the phone will scream. She will ask to speak with someone who knows what the hell they’re talking about. She will ask what my job even is, if it’s not to help her. She will scream louder when I suggest transferring her into a supervisor’s voicemail. She will insult me. She will scoff at me. She will hang up.

I take a moment to look around and make sure that no one is paying attention to me. Rarely anyone is, so long as I am not actively making a mistake. I log out of my phone, ensuring that it will not ring. With a burning face, I will run with my tail between my legs into the single-stalled bathroom down the hall, and I will look at my puffy face in the mirror.

I am five years old. I am four feet tall. My front teeth are missing. My hair is wiry, poorly shaped by my mother’s scissors. My legs are drowning in khaki pants that extend way beyond my feet, dragging behind me. My size six shoes clunk awkwardly in front of the sink, barely hanging on to my tiny feet. My collared top isn’t buttoned correctly, and a sleeve hanging down far beyond my hand rises to wipe away the tears and snot from my face.

I realized that I am small. And though some days my shoes fit, and some days my voice is clear and strong, and I stand with perfect upright posture, I am only ever fighting the part of me that is small. My five-year-old self has never gone away, fully. She lives within my chest, trying to learn and grow. But she is there, and she is still small. I try to convince myself that she is not who I am anymore, that she is simply observing me from the inside, no longer one with me.

But she is me. I am small. A part of me, perhaps, will always be small, grasping onto large things with hands that I have not yet grown into.