granolarolla

[granolarolla]

Psychotic Little Drama Gremlin

Every story needs its hero. And its villain. And its monster.― Amie Kaufman, Jay Kristoff, Obsidio I tried not to have any beef with the other woman. It’s so cliche for two women to be at each other’s throats over some man’s bad behavior. All I wanted to be was strangers. Look, I’ve made my own mistakes. There are so many choices I am not proud of. I can’t condemn anyone for their past. I’m not…

[granolarolla]

I've Lost a Friend

A bosom friend–an intimate friend, you know–a really kindred spirit to whom I can confide my inmost soul. I’ve dreamed of meeting her all my life. I never really supposed I would, but so many of my loveliest dreams have come true all at once that perhaps this one will, too. L. M. MontgomeryAnne of Green Gables Writing a hurtful email was wrong and I shouldn’t have done it. I apologized and we…

[granolarolla]

A Woman Scorned

If it’s what you truly want… I can wear her skin over mine. Her hair over mine. Her hands as gloves. Her teeth as confetti. Her scalp, a cap. Her sternum, my bedazzled cane. We can pose for a photograph, all three of us. Immortalized… you and your perfect girl.Warsan ShireAnger, adapted for the visual album, Lemonade, by Beyoncé I did it all out of order. First I forgave him, then I got angry,…

[granolarolla]

Boundary Issues

That was how dishonesty and betrayal started, not in big lies but in small secretsAmy Tan There was an Irishman at our work who used to call everyone “Darlin.” This is not an Irish thing. This is an Irishman used to tending bar in the States, being full-tilt charming for tips until it became a permanent part of his personality thing. It is, in fact, incredibly endearing to be called Darlin’ with…

[granolarolla]

The Fatal Blow

I tried to make a home out of you, but doors lead to trap doors, a stairway leads to nothing. Unknown women wander the hallways at night. Where do you go when you go quiet? […] The past and the future merge to meet us here. What luck. What a fucking curse.– Warsan ShireIntuition, adapted for the visual album, Lemonade, by Beyoncé That should have been the whole story. It should have ended there,…

[granolarolla]

So What Happens Now?

There’s no single answer that will solve all our future problems. There’s no magic bullet. Instead there are thousands of answers—at least. You can be one of them if you choose to be.Octavia E. Butler, A Few Rules for Predicting the Future: An Essay I’ve long espoused that in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Ferris is a gender swapped Manic Pixie Dream Girl. MPDGs are never the main characters. The…

[granolarolla]

Saudade Summer

No llores porque ya se terminó, sonríe porque sucedió.Translation: Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.– probably not Gabriel García Márquez I hate the melodrama of breakups. Why does the end of a relationship feel so much like grieving a death? Why does grieving a death feel so much like dying? Every breakup I’ve ever had has been a gift. This one was no different. I mean,…

[granolarolla]

Miles From Nowhere

So, even though you have broken my heart yet again, I wanted to say in another life, I would have really liked just doing laundry and taxes with you. – Waymond Wang, Everything, Everywhere, All at Once I had been looking forward to that trip to the desert almost as much as I had been to my trip to Portugal. Then all at once, I couldn’t wait for it to be over. I wasn’t expecting to return to the…

[granolarolla]

The Last Night

The Heart wants what it wants – or else it does not careEmily Dickinson I want to say that I felt small and fragile like a child, but I never felt those things as a child. I had to be broken a few times before I understood how being fragile feels. He was sleeping peacefully next to me. He still looked the same as he had when he was the man who loved me, who had made me feel so safe, protected.…

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BDE

So I try to say goodbye, my friendI’d like to leave you with something warmBut never have I been a blue calm seaI have always been a stormFleetwood Mac, Storms My daughter had her first stalker in high school. This seems to be an unfortunate rite of passage for girls. We’re taught to be sweet, to be kind, and to prioritize other people’s comfort over our own. She befriended the loner that…

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Heartbreaker

When you’re surrounded by all these people, it can be lonelier than when you’re by yourself. You can be in a huge crowd, but if you don’t feel like you can trust anyone or talk to anybody, you feel like you’re really alone.– Fiona Apple It had been two nights with hardly any sleep. I sipped my coffee slowly. I was at work. There was an event. I had to put on my best professional facade. That…

[granolarolla]

Without Him

Her hips grind, pestle and mortar, cinnamon and cloves. Whenever he pulls out… loss. Dear moon, we blame you for floods… for the flush of blood… for men who are also wolves. We blame you for the night, for the dark, for the ghosts.– BeyonceEmptiness from LemonadeAdapted from Dear Moon by Warsan Shire A friend of mine has goddesses tattooed large, taking up her outer thighs, Kwan Ying on one side…

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We Need to Talk

Like the wind that shakes the boughHe moves me with a smileThe difficult I’ll do right nowThe impossible will take a little while–Billie HollidayCrazy He Calls Me “We need to talk” may be the scariest phrase in the English language. He didn’t say that exactly. I read his text so many times I think I could recite it verbatim now. What he texted meant more or less the same thing, though. I mean, I…

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[granolarolla]

As it Began

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.― Rumi there was a man in Baghdad who took his good fortune for granted and squandered it all away. In the midst of his misery, he had a dream telling him of a great treasure, buried in the faraway city of Cairo. The dream felt so real that he set out on the long and unlikely journey to find his treasure there. Even then, Cairo…

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You're My Home

The ache for home lives in all of us, The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.Maya Angelou By the end of our second month in Portugal, it seemed like everyone was homesick. One of my housemates could give the exact countdown of how many hours, minutes, seconds until she went home. She kept ordering McDonald’s and Burger King, and complaining that even the Coke tasted…

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Bucket List

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.– Lao Tzu The last reading assigned to us in Lisbon was The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis by José Saramago. With two months of studying Portuguese literature I still don’t believe that I caught all of the references in this book. Lisbon is built upon layers of its history, with Roman ruins…