writingmaybe

[writingmaybe]

[writingmaybe]

We knew the pain of winter wind rushing up your skirt, and the ache of keeping your knees together in class, and how drab and infuriating it was to jump rope while the boys played baseball. We could never understand why the girls cared so much about being mature, or why they felt compelled to compliment each other, but sometimes, after one of us had read a long portion of the diary out loud, we had to fight back the urge to hug one another or to tell each other how pretty we were. We felt the imprisonment of being a girl, the way it made your mind active and dreamy, and how you ended up knowing which colors went together. We knew that the girls were our twins, that we all existed in space like animals with identical skins, and that they knew everything about us though we couldn’t fathom them at all. We knew, finally, that the girls were really women in disguise, that they understood love and even death, and that our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them.

Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides (via rdtrashpanda)

Alright but this paragraph......whoo whee.....good shit!

[writingmaybe]

What it feels like to be awake in a place that has fallen asleep

It’s like being the only thing alive.

It’s like white noise we will learn to ignore.

It’s like being thirteen, when they forgot to wait up for me.

It’s like being the hum of something no one can place.

It’s like being what my mother, in her pajamas, felt every Sunday for most of her life.

It’s like not being here but not being anywhere else. It’s being nowhere.

It’s like when you become a yawning floorboard and an exhausted screen door.

It’s like an atom of dust that dances in lamplight and closes its eyes for the night somewhere safe on the bookshelf. It is waiting forever for a hand to come stir it awake again. Send it spinning to the carpet. Bury me under your sock.

It’s almost like being the guitar in the corner no one has touched in eight months.

It’s like being the baseball cap your father doesn’t wear anymore.

It’s like when there’s no one else on the road and the car drives itself.

It’s like an especially noticeable breeze across my cheek.

It’s like electric green shadows on your chin.

It’s like when you become an unanswerable knock on the door.

It’s like how the refrigerator light goes off when the door is shut, but we’re not really certain if anything at all is true. Probably, nothing is. But I know it will be dark when I walk away.

It’s like being seventeen. What carpet the age of you feels like when it is pressed into the skin of your elbows.

It is memorizing landscapes in the ceiling plaster.

It is white noise we will learn to forgive.

It is slightly lavender.

It is dust on the bookshelf.

It’s like suddenly, I want to strip down and take a bath. Bury me under a skylight

that looks up into the treetops that have always been there, but have never been climbed. Bury me where everything is dancing.

It’s like touching a mirror. What does a Sunday feel like? Slightly silver.

It’s like the hum of myself I can’t place. It’s like the hum of you being far away and probably imagined. It’s like an especially noticeable breeze that kicks out the last of the fire

where we were huddled around, keeping our hands warm, feeling like this was somewhere. It’s like the idea of somewhere. Not here or there. Settling safely

for the night, where it is safe.

[writingmaybe]

When we haven’t talked in a while

I’ve been scratching out a list of everything I want

to tell you, but there never seems to be a pen

or the right lighting, or paper thick enough

not to wrinkle the instant I touch it.

Napkins will bleed and my palms will sweat into

my sleeves before I reach you, so I can’t say exactly

just how long it’s gotten. But if you have a second,

if there’s a quiet room, or a loud one with a quiet

corner, or a place for just a minute of me,

wherever you are, I’ll make this quick:

The first thing I wished you’d been here to see

was what I looked like, in the dark in the sun on the

overcast pavement, in this city where I

look the way I look in it, making faces

at things happening in it, drinking up the gray

blue yellow sunlight peeks of stacked up

windows in it. And then, I think, there was something

about my hair. How you haven’t been here to watch it

creep lazily longer, and for some reason I can’t name,

it’s made me start to worry about being twenty

and being forty six and seventy,

and what kind of natural light I’ll be working with

when I move into the next house, and if you’ll be there to

stand until you’re too warm and your palms are

sweating into your sleeves in it. And there was

this poem that would have made you want to kick your

shoes off in the olive dusk and be who you were

when you were stealing apples and braiding my hair

down my back, measuring years in elastic

inches in it. And this moment

in the park. And this split-second

of violin. And this specific squeal

of street-chatter, this erratic

midnight rain patter, and I know we haven’t

talked in a while, but there was this one,

this breezy finger snap, brisk eye blink of a wind caress

that I really wished you’d felt. On your cheeks. In your

sleeves. In whatever place you’ve found for me.

In the place where we used to live and the empty shape of us,

still floating in it.

[writingmaybe]

May 23

You turn on the television.

The local news station still looks the same after a year in Boston

and a summer in New York and all those explosions

lined up on the ticker tape. You’re adjusting

the volume. Watering the plants. One is infected

with a leprosy of fruit flies. You grit your teeth

and we carry it downstairs. I stand back

and you buckle your knees and dump it all out

in the gravel, and you’re saying something about building

sandcastles out of the soil. I’m thinking it looks like

those walls of jutting rocks designed to hold up the weight

of artificial mountains, where we go to roller skate

and talk about regrets and abstractions that flit around

without bodies, and are careful not to scrape our palms

on the rusted railings doing their best to hold us up.

You look down at the spilled dirt and all the moving specs.

I’ve never bothered to memorize the way home, because

if I did, it would mean you wouldn’t always be there to point me

in the right direction. If I have to spill you out onto a patch of gravel

in the driveway, you will have never done anything more selfish.

And if we talk about how close we are now, we might forget

how far away we used to be. And when we pass each other

the shampoo between the curtains, my dripping hand is telling yours

that I will begin to miss this before it has even ended.

You turn on the radio.

I remember every voice I have ever heard.

I remember when they said Hello, Goodbye, I’ll Miss You or

I Won’t. I remember dancing in empty kitchens to the music

playing at weddings for people we’ve never met. I remember

missing you before you even went away. I remember the names

of every body of water that ever flooded the road between our

windows. I remember how you touched the roots of the sick

succulent as they lay tangled on the ground. How its dying

was the most selfish thing it could have done. How I thought

you could save it but you couldn’t.

You turn the page.

I’m driving barefoot. You tell me to make the next left.

I cut my hair off and everything else about me changed shape, too.

When we leave the apartment, the sun still comes up though the windows.

When we come home, it hasn’t picked itself up and moved somewhere else.

When we roll the hammock out, it has forgotten last summer’s shape of us.

When I turn on the television, something else is exploding

and the mushroom cloud looks infected with a leprosy of shrapnel

and stolen smiles and sentences cut off in the middle. And in the morning

we wake up and try to hold up a mountain made of all the debris

and torn roots. And we cut our palms on it. And you

adjust the volume.

[writingmaybe]

From inside the frame of the only thing hanging from your freshly painted walls

I am at home, I am in the room

where I’ve become suddenly allergic to everything,

all the dust and dampness littered

across the carpet that could be blue or could be white

or could be dead and dying grass in the frustrating and noncommittal winter.

I am at the drawing board of the last day with you

crossing things out, left and right, one after another,

reshaping my quick scribble nose and the way the least beautiful conversations ended,

on the phone in the night in the dark in the soaked

parking lot in the pillows,

spitting on my sleeve when your back is turned

and starting all over.

I am at the fringes of something

at the heart of nothing, at the cusp of this thing that could be

big and bright but all still feels, somehow, small and shrouded

in shadow,

all dust and dampness, and I am at

your door again saying “I don’t know who I am anywhere else,” and

you’re saying you’re sorry for things you can’t be sorry for,

and I am at home but so suddenly

allergic to it.

And I am at the time of night where I start wanting to remember

winters more real than this one

and cups filled with things hot enough the first time through the brewer

and scrunching my eyes shut tight in the chill

and stepping all over, dancing on top of, things that weren’t real,

but could have been,

as they wait littered between the bricks, all big and bright.

I am at “It’s okay, I’m here,”

“I’m glad you were here,”

and, “I’ll always be here,”

and being afraid of always being here.

I am at what it feels like to sit in an empty room with just one frame on the wall.

I am at enclosing myself in glass, hanging from plaster, lying on the could-be-anything carpet,

wanting to remember rooms more full than this one. And I am at

the emptiness. At the brilliance and the disastrousness. At the blankness of this room

you’re still allergic to. And I am at calmly, loudly,

erasing everything all over again, “I’ll always be here,”

and being here.

I am at the bottom of your suitcase, swallowing your shadows.

I am at the crawlspace beneath ceiling fans, laughing with you at their wingspans

and I am at “It’s me again, I’m here, where are you,”

and places less real than where we are,

and I am pouncing and prancing on the things you’re afraid of as they suffocate themselves in slowly cooling mortar and I am at

home, in the room

where the dust is settling,

and the grass is dying and the concrete between the footprinted bricks is damp,

and being here.

[writingmaybe]

My Bedroom Walls at 8:23 P.M. on April 29, 2015

“To a great mind, nothing is little.” - Sherlock Holmes

Me, age 8, and my brother, age 3. He’s holding a plastic toy violin and I’m holding my first guitar, staring into space in my lavender turtleneck, hair all over the place, vaguely pissed off while he grins, covered in something red

Harry Potter Poster #1

Perpetually out of tune mandolin I never learned to play, hanging lazily from a hook.

Write & Wrong

Little letter in an envelope, written by an out of work librarian, “Thank you for caring.”

“…There is still time…”

Hogwarts letter, ironed out trifold marks, heavy paper, green ink. Stuffed into a creamy envelope, “Erin Sherry, the room at the end of the hall,” from Sarah at that basement Christmas party, age 18

“Here is the point of everything I have been trying to tell you, Oskar. It was always necessary. I love you. Grandmother.”

Atticus and Scout on the porch swing, legs dangling

“Flee: all is discovered.” - Robert Penn Warren, All The King’s Men

“We are writing…we are writing…we are writing…”

Out of Print Clothing tag I once used as a bookmark

Key Club International scholarship application

Sufjan Stevens, April 16, 2015, Cleveland, OH (Everyone cried and held each other)

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which anyone can fight and never stop fighting.” - E.E. Cummings

Youngstown State University English Festival brochure

Vampire Weekend, June 9, 2014, Buffalo, NY (Everyone smiled and held each other)

“You never understand a person until you consider things from his point of view — until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” - Atticus Finch

The Hunger Games, November 23, 2012, Meadville, PA (“The book was better,” but we still went back the next day)

“I can’t explain what I mean and even if I could, I’m not sure I’d feel like it.” - Holden Caulfield

YSU ESSAY

“Lol Erin sucks #yolo” - Lexie’s handwriting, gray pencil, green paper, age 14

“FRANZ KAFKA IS DEAD: He died in a tree from which he wouldn’t come down. ‘Come down!’ They cried to him. ‘Come down!’ Silence filled the night, and the night filled the silence, while they waited for Kafka to speak. ‘I can’t,’ he finally said, with a note of wistfulness. ‘Why?’ they cried. Stars spilled across the black sky. ‘Because then you’ll stop asking for me.’” - Nicole Krauss

The Perks of Being a Wallflower, December 13, 2012, Erie, PA (I wore a green sweater, she

FAFSA UPDATE: APRIL 2

HOCUS POCUS / I AM SPEECH / HONORS ESSAY / NANOWRIMO / PLAN YOUR LIFE

EMERSON DEPOSIT: MAY 1

The Great Gatsby, May 10, 2013, Meadville PA (It was raining. Later, we ran a bake sale. It was still raining.)

“Erin, this is your friendly reminder from your BFF Queen Lexie to always do the drugs and commit loads of suicide. XOXO - Queen Lexie” - Lexie’s handwriting, gray pencil, yellow paper, age 16

Lexie, Rachel, Olivia and me in the eight grade, mismatched plaids in shades of chaotically calm blues and greens, staticky hair, white backdrop, we ate overpriced ice cream and lost our shoes in the ball pit

“That smile could end wars and cure cancer.” - John Green

Saving Mr. Banks, December 21, 2013 (We were tired of driving around looking for Christmas lights. We ate fish and had something new to talk about.)

Bent tree branches, flowers as leaves, stolen images, “We were the balloon catchers / You are the world fixing babies of our destruction”

Newsies, November 29, 2014, Pittsburgh, PA (We admired the acrobatics, we were covered in spaghetti sauce and temporary things, we didn’t mind when our teeth chattered)

It’s Snow-Joking Matter: Worlds Leading Snowman Historian Talks to The Panther Press by Erin Sherry and Lexie Erdos, Staff Writers, 2012

Me and Lexie at the bus stop on the first day of fourth grade. She’s wearing blue and I’m wearing orange. Our glasses are smudged with a thousand fingerprints. She’s laughing at the camera. I’m laughing at the pavement. Everything is crooked and clumsy and clear. My favorite.

Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and Daniel Radcliffe on the day they were introduced to the world in the newspapers as Hermione, Ron, and Harry

“It is only with the heart that one sees rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” - Antoine de Saint Exupery

Birthday card from Lexie, age 16, gray pencil, pink and green paper, yellow flower

Map of Boston  

All three doctors making jokes, wearing their hats

Harry Potter Poster #2

The Marauder’s Map

DOWN WITH THE CAPITOL

And we can try to feel okay about them.

Stephen King in a black tee shirt and glasses

Rachel, Lexie, and me, age 16, sharing a blanket in the bleachers of a football stadium of a high school we didn’t go to, pretending to cheer for people we hardly knew, red scarf, sophomore homecoming

Lexie and me at the Powderpuff football game, junior year, age 17, black frame, gray sweatshirts, ponytails, overcast everything

Eric, Emily, Lexie and me wearing tie dye, soaking wet, arm in arm, a squirming pitbull, hair in my face, sun’s out

Five girls, silver sequined Michael Jackson costumes, ice skates, age 14

Leather and tie dye, age 13

Me and Lindsay. I’m wearing gold. She’s wearing pink. We’re lacing our skates. I’m 12. She’s fifteen. We’re smiling.

“CAUTION! THIS PILLOW IS FULL OF PINS!” - Rachel’s handwriting, yellow paper, age 11

“Yo homie I broke into your house and you weren’t here so I hung out for a bit. Also I took your charger. Kay, bye.” - Lexie’s handwriting, green paper, fading, age 12

Harry Potter Posters #3-22

And for Jonathan, my life.

A snagged flag of Ireland

Harry Potter poster #24

Hand-painted light-switch, LUMOS/NOX, Christmas gift from Lexie, age 16

LOOKING EVERYDAY FOR LEGENDS

OUR PERFECT ALIEN BEAUTY

PLEASE MAKE A BETTER WORLD

TASTE LIFE

SAY YES

DIE LAUGHING

“You whisper victory is sweet, honey, deep in the cheap seats.” - Conor Oberst

“Let us sleep, for in dreams we enter a world that is entirely our own.” - Albus Dumbledore

Stupid pencil drawing of Holden Caulfield in his hunting cap. That bit about the ducks. And the frozen pond. And where do they go.

Candace Gay Memorial Essay Contest - 1st Place Award Winner

Big Ben clock tower

Don’t be scared of nothin’, you go pound for pound, you bring peace to midnight like a spotted owl. I’ll be rootin’ for you like my favorite team, if somebody sweats you, you just point ‘em out to me.

Harry Potter poster #25

I LOVE BOOKS MORE THAN PEOPLE

I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning

“We are here, and we’re alive.” - Jonathan Safran Foer

“‘And were you very sad? On the day you watched 44 sunsets?’ But the Little Prince did not reply.”

Date a girl who reads.

IwasabeautifulgirlPleasedon’tgoItoobelievemybodyismadeofglassI’veneverlovedanyoneIthinkofmyselfasfunnyForgiveme

I’m looking for a girl named Alma Mereminsky

The poem Lexie wrote for me, grade 8, covered in smiles and regrettable hairstyles, propped up in a frame made of oak

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Still, given an infinite number of possible worlds, it must be true on one of them. And if a story set in an infinite number of possible universes is true in one of them, then it must be true in all of them. So maybe it’s not as fictional as we think.

THE THINKER OF TENDER THOUGHTS: An Illustration by Shel Silverstein

Map of the United States of America

Map of Britain and Ireland

IT ALL ENDS, or, Harry Potter poster #26

SKATER AVENUE

Harry Potter poster #27

Coffee for the soul

You Should Be Writing

Can’t repeat the past? Guess who just bought a time machine.

“Of course this is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on Earth should that mean it is not real?” - Albus Dumbledore

SOMETIMES, WE HAVE TO FACE OUR FEARS!

“Hello my friend :)” - Olivia’s handwriting, age 13

“We’re all stories in the end. Make it a good one, eh?” - The Eleventh Doctor

LONDON’S CALLING

Big white runway stretched out across New York City

Maybe our favorite quotations say more about us than about the stories and people we’re quoting

And 3 rows of yellow post-it notes lined up in columns of 9, 28 in all, written in Lexie’s gray pencil on Thursday nights for four years, ideas for stories and poems and conversations over cheap coffees and folders on my desktop and other things in other places. The 28th was never finished. So there will be another Thursday. So it isn’t over. So there will be a 29th. And a 30th. And a 67th. And a 100th.

And there feels like more. But that’s everything.

[writingmaybe]

An Autobiography: An Exercise in Listing

1. I am overflowing.

2. Because I am overflowing, because I am happening now

3. No, vanilla. Let me speak louder.

4. THIS is happening now

5. No, blueberry. Let me try all over again.

6. EVERYTHING is happening now.

7. I want to rephrase EVERYTHING.

8. And I want to thank you for the half of the night that isn’t dark yet, and the cushions that were just the right amount of rumpled.

9. I don’t know how to rephrase everything.

10. When are you coming home?

11. Soon.

12. When?

13. I don’t know.

14. My heroes keep slitting their wrists.

15. You’re going to catch a colder.1

16. No idea how to tell you to stop sending me so many shamrocks…

17. They make me feel sad.

18. They make me feel small, I don’t know why.

19. Call you back later, we’ll all be less busy then.

20. Eight windows with lights all lit up from the inside

21. Unsure about today and punctuation (.)

22. Legally, Amicably And Under The Radar, The Kim And Kanye Of Jewish American Novelists Have SPLIT!

23. My heroes keep toppling out of burning buildings.

24. “You have to at least TRY."1

25. Hovering at the top of the hill, frozen over the pedals, you’re calling up at me:

26. My heroes keep barreling down hills too steep, and I’m squeezing my eyelids together

27. Oh, Would You Look At The Time …

28. "I see your pain and beauty and talent and effort and humility and you are a gem, and I am on your side. After the Elliot Smith songs end on my music player, the Foo Fighters automatically start. I depend on it.”

29. I depended on you and it.

30. Sitting at the streetlight in the middle of the lazy ocean

31. Iloveyou & I’llforgiveyou

32. “Here.

33. Here is simple and happy.

34. That’s what I meant to give you.” 2

35. I hated your apartment.

36. Mothballs are lumps in my throat.

37. Cat scratchings and love shoutings

38. You hurt us and it smelled like mothballs.

39. “Did you get my message?”

40. I didn’t know how to tell you that I wished we could share another banana split, three spoons, backseat of an old car, playing songs we keep saying, over and over and over and over again, that we hate.

41. But we love them.

42. And I love you.

43. Mug For A Succulent Seed.

44. A Shelf For All The Mugs.

45. Marry You And Build A Big House Made Entirely Out of Open Curtains and All The Shelves We’ll Need to Hold Up Our Many Many Mugs And Succulents And Other Things.

46. I have so much hope in Other Things.

47. NOTSTOP LOOKING 1

48. Because

49. “Her life was a desperate, urgent struggle to justify her life."3

50. Because of how blue the carpet seemed.

51. Because of hats made of felt, with small ears, red and stinging in the wind.

52. Because I’m still pissed they chopped down my favorite cherry tree while I was asleep.

53. Because of how blue the carpet seemed, until we tore it up with screaming machines and the vacuums got stage fright. Because EVERYTHING under it seemed color blind and splintered with the opposite of blue. Because there’s an opposite of blue.

54. Because of the vacuums and their stage fright.

55. Microwave clocks with the time all wrong

56. IsEVERYTHINGokay IsEVERYTHINGokay IsEVERYTHINGokay

57. This is persimmons, father. 4

58. And I will walk without noise

59. And I will open the door in the darkness

60. And I will 3

61. Unsure about most things and punctuation (!?)

62. You were so excited about the chickens and I wished I could have been excited, too.

63. You were so excited about the tables and their "semiotics” and I wished I could have been excited, too.

64. You were so excited about being so excited, and I wished

65. The silent fear of being made of fire.

66. Slivers of indigo where my incisor won’t fit

67. The incombustible ability to disguise her share of terror

68. Until we all believe it

69. And so does she.

70. Be beside me somewhere:

71. “And the houses have shadows strange across their faces…and I walk in the middle of the road.” 5

72. Houses made of bones.

73. Chocolate Chip/Orville Redenbacher Compromise

74. How far away are we?

75. Rewriting history in the name of Greyhound busses.

76. Sour cherries still stewing in the pits of our stomachs

77. Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.6

78. Houses made of curtains.

79. Houses made of shelves.

80. Made of shelves made of wood made of mugs made of succulent seeds made of coffee rings on the dresser made of dishes piled sky high in the sink made of unsealed envelopes made of iloveyou & i’llforgiveyou made of shelves made of wood

81. And it will not be because I cannot endure —3

82. Because of the hole in the dandelion tree

83. You weren’t stuck in traffic, you were afraid of getting there

84. All things go, all things go.7

85. Once upon a time, New York had a sixth borough. 1

86. And here we aren’t; so quickly

87. EVERYTHING

88. At the bottom of EVERYTHING

89. I found out I am really no one.8

90. What happens when I’m no one?

91. It was 1a.m. and we’d caught a colder

92. Because of how terrible it was, all the things we couldn’t say

93. Because of Saturday in the Park

94. Because we are a hole in a fourth story art exhibit and we keep spying on the neighbors grilling garbage in the lawn

95. We are an infinity of dots in a colossus of mirrors

96. We are white walled wonderlands and strangely emptying exhibits.

97. And don’t you GET IT, the moonswinger’s garden was always overflowing!

98. Because of the crack in the universe

99. Burnt Out Stars And Cities That Don’t Exist

100. Because I am overflowing.

-----

1. Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

2. Mike Mills, “Beginners”

3. Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated

4. Li-Young Lee, “Persimmons”

5. Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals

6. Sylvia Plath, “Daddy”

7. Sufjan Stevens, “Chicago”

8. Bright Eyes, “At the Bottom of Everything”

[writingmaybe]

Pause (Revised)

The woman presses play.


The man reclines into the sofa with a bowl of popcorn in his lap, a mug of hot coffee on the armrest.


The woman pours a handful of chocolate chips into the man’s bowl of popcorn.

They love each other. Love is a chocolate chip/Orville Redenbaucher compromise.


The woman dims the lights.
 Liam Neeson opens his jacket and reaches into the inside pocket.


“Pause it.”


Liam Neeson is frozen, his reaching arm concealed inside his jacket.

“A gun. Obviously.”


“A bouquet of flowers. For his wife.”


“Now? In the middle of this holdup?”


“The kidnapper is actually a male nurse. Liam Neeson’s wife is in the hospital. He’s giving the male nurse the flowers to take to her and put on her windowsill and liven up the place.”


“Okay. I see. Huh. A magic wand.”


“Where from?”


“A Harry Potter theme park.”


“Why? What's Liam Neeson gonna do with a magic wand?"

“He’ll make himself disappear. Snap. Pop. Gone. Magic.”


“Where will he disappear to?”


“An Island in Jamaica, where the locals sing and dance and drink out of coconuts, sprawling out on white beaches under always sunny skies."

“Will he be happy there?”


“Yes. Yes, I think he’ll be very happy there. Happier than he’d have been if you were right and his wife was in the hospital. Jesus.”


“Sorry. I forgot the point of the game.”


“Happy endings only.”


“Right. Happy endings only. If only.”


“If only.”


“Maybe his wife had just snapped her little finger and was going to be back to normal in no time at all. Maybe the flowers weren't for her hospital windowsill, but her dining room back home, in her favorite crystal vase. Sunflowers - no, forget-me-nots! Their wedding flower. Liam Neeson's quite the romantic. That's why she married him."

"Nice save.”


“Thank you.”


“And then the two of them, healed finger and forget-me-not bouquet and all, could go together to the island in Jamaica with the locals and the coconut milk and the flowers, and the nurse/kidnapper could come, too, if he promises to behave himself, and they’ll all wear grass skirts and learn new languages and build a beautiful house made out of empty coconut shells and the bark of banana trees, and they’ll love each other very much.”


The man tosses a handful of chocolate chip/Orville Redenbacher compromise into his mouth, staring at Liam Neeson, frozen forever on the screen in the ever suspended millisecond between the inevitable and the only imaginable.

But the man and the woman choose Jamaica.
 They remove the dvd from its player before unpausing it.
 They build their own ending. It is richly detailed and brightly colored. A lot of things happen to Liam Neeson in it. But all of them are happy.

“What next?”


“Oh, I don’t know. Romeo and Juliet?”


“My favorite.”


They pop it into the player, set back into themselves and the sofa and their carefully crafted catacombs of self defined comfort and pin-mapped survival.

After a while - “Pause it.”


On the screen, a young, technicolored Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting lay entwined in each other beneath famously crossed stars, wrapped in translucent white sheets, the sun careening its dusty neck through Juliet's blinking curtains.

“Yes. That’s it. Right here."

"Good call."

“They just grow up and grow older and older, all of it together.”


“In love, right?”


“In perfect, dizzying, beautiful, passionate, hectic, nauseating, seasick in the desert, hopscotching in the rain, not even bothering with the umbrella, mad, brilliant love.”


“Or maybe not.”


“No?”


“They grow up. Juliet falls in love with Mercutio.”


“What about Romeo?”


“Rosalind finally comes around to him, and the two are happier than he and Juliet ever could have been. The play ends early. Happy. Which is fine. Isn't the happy ending the entire point? No sense wasting all that time, spilling all that blood. Let's get on with things."

“But does Rosalind really love Romeo?”


“So much. And he loves her, too.”


“And Mercutio? Is he good to Juliet?”


“So good. He kisses the ground she walks on. Makes sure her pillows are always fluffed. Brings her breakfast in bed. They have two rose dimpled children. Happy, happy, happy.”


“What about Tybalt?”


“He becomes king.”


“King?! How?"

“Does it matter? He's a fantastic king. All of Verona loves him. Mercutio and Juliet go on 'round for supper every Sunday. It’s great.”


“Do Romeo and Juliet stay friends, after all that? Do they get along?"

“Best of friends. And the four of them – Mercutio, Romeo, Juliet, and Rosalind – are like a big, happy, never awkward, never uncomfortable, always young and healthy and attractive, perfectly lovely little family. It’s great.”


“It does sound great.”


“If only.”


"If only."

They bite down. The room is still, filled and silently fizzing with quietly contemplating compromises.

“Olivia Hussey was hot back then, huh? All that hair. Those big eyes.”


“And Romeo! Oh, what was that actor's name? He was perfect! But wait – remember – they’re like that forever. We don’t have to press play. They can stay there, like that, until the end of time. Forever and ever and ever. Never old, never sad. Never anything but happy.”


“If only.”


“If only.”


They swallow their trail mix, both salty and sweet. They hold each other’s hands. They press eject. They slide in a new one. They press play. It’s one they haven’t seen before, but the ending isn’t hard to figure out.

The woman sinks into the man’s shoulder as a fighter plane hovers over an unprepared European city at supper time. Snow flits around in front of a clock tower. In the lazy streets, a little boy with knee socks and a cap drops his mother’s hand to pick up his yo-yo. He looks up.


“Pause it.”


“Right now?”


“Yes. Right now. Pause it. Hurry.”


The little boy stares up at the sky, at the camera, at God and everyone with a DVD player, forever.


“What should he be looking at?”


“A butterfly.”


“A butterfly?”


“A butterfly. Maybe he has a butterfly collection, maybe he -"

“That’s sad, really. Does he kill his butterflies?”
“No, no of course he doesn’t kill them. He’s very kind to them. He, he…he puts them in a mason jar with four holes in the lid, and he fills the jar with grass and milkweed and pretty little twigs and flowers and every butterfly has his or her own little jar, and he puts all the jars in a row on his windowsill and tends them every morning and again before bed and - ”


“That’s good, that’s really good. But what if he’s looking up, and it’s a hot air balloon he sees up there. A big blue one, with yellow and pink and green stripes like cake frosting.”


“That’s good. That’s good.”


“And he squints up at it and he thinks he sees someone waving but he can’t be sure.”


“His mother turns around and says, “Come on, Billy, hurry up.””


“And he says, ‘No, mom, look, someone’s waving from the balloon!’”


“And she looks up, and the baby in the stroller she’s pushing looks up, and Billy’s right - someone’s waving from inside the balloon for sure, and the balloon seems to be getting closer and closer and closer and - ”


“And then everyone in all the buildings poke their heads out of their windows and look up, up, up.”


“And their necks don’t ache from it.”


“No. Their necks never ache from it.”


“And everyone climbs out of their bomb shelters and kitchens and bedsheets and covers and dreary moods and gray temperaments and gathers in the streets surrounding little Billy and his mother and the baby and everyone just looks up, and the balloon floats closer and closer, and - "


“And the waving gets heartier, and faster, and suddenly - "

“And suddenly everyone makes out the face of the man who’s waving and - "

“And, and, and everyone cheers and the waving man smiles because - "

“Because it’s Billy’s father! Home from the war!”


“Yes! And Billy jumps up and down and reaches up, up, up, and his mother puts her hand over her lipsticked mouth and gasps and laughs and the baby in the stroller coos and - ”


“And finally, the balloon lands."

"Everyone makes room for it in the street, so it doesn’t land on anybody and suffocate them or snag on the streetlamps or fence posts or stray shoe shiner or - "

“Or a trellis from a rooftop or somebody’s jagged fingernail or a shard of glass from a broken bottle in front of the pub and - "

“And the balloon lands ever so safely.”


“Yes, the balloon lands ever so safely. That’s right.”


“And out climbs Billy’s father.”


“And he runs to him and billy jumps up into his arms and he swings him around and around and around.”


“And then he puts Billy on his shoulders and wraps Billy’s mother in his arms and embraces her so lovingly and fiercely and dizzyingly and beautifully, home from the war in an air balloon-ly, never forgot your voice from behind your postcards-ly, you're as elegant as the day I married you-ly, lovingly."

"And the baby in the stroller laughs even though it doesn’t know why it's laughing, it just knows today is the best day of its little life and it's so happy - "

“And the father picks up the baby and says hello and kisses the soft spot on its head and its face and its little fingernails and it’s a family reunion and everyone in the streets who gathered around to watch the balloon landing yell and cheer and celebrate and sing happy songs -”


“And Billy and his family go home together and everyone else links arms and goes home, too.”


“And every family in every little house or little apartment or big house or big apartment gathers around for supper and all of the food is extra hot and flavorful and everyone around the table is especially starving but especially satisfied.”


“So they eat and they eat and they eat.”


The woman picks a chocolate chip out of the popcorn.

"And everyone is full, and warm. Drowsy and filled up and complete."

“And happy.”


“And happy.”


“Always happy.”


“Always, always happy.”


“If only.”


“If only.”


“Honey?”


“Yes, darling?”


“Let’s pause the world. What’s gonna happen tomorrow?”


The man crunches a handful of popcorn kernels, his hands sticky with melted chocolate chips and microwaved butter that sticks to his chin and turns his skin pink.

“In reality, or in the game?”


“Let’s make the game reality.”


“Okay. Hmm. Let’s see. Everyone will wake up in the morning after a very sound night’s rest. Some might even claim it was the best they’d ever slept. Some dreamt of financial stability. Debt relief. Others of mountains made out of ice cream. Or their mothers. Sex. Merry-Go-Rounds. Peace on Earth. Heaven. So when everyone woke up and stretched their arms out, there really weren’t any aches to crick out in the first place. That’s how well the night went.”


“That sounds so lovely.”


“It does, doesn’t it?”


“Will they eat breakfast, everyone on Earth? I think they should eat French Toast. The thick kind, with the little balls of whipped butter on top, and the perfect amount of hot, sticky syrup, all dusted with powdered sugar like snow on Christmas morning…”


“And hot, hot coffee with vanilla cream that wakes up every nerve in everyone’s bodies and makes the sun seem like the most mellow, perfect shade of honey.”


“And piles of greasy bacon. Plenty to go around.”


“And toast that never gets cold or soggy.”


“Yes, and it's the most perfect breakfast table, fit for the most perfect life in the most perfect world. You’re right. And everyone eats, eats, eats.”


“And gets full, but not sick, and not fatigued, and not guilty about the extra calories or whipped cream mustaches. It's a very pleasant breakfast.”


“And then the whole world smiles, collectively.”


“And after that, the whole world laughs. Collectively.”


“The sound of it jangles around the globe like coins in someone’s purse, or bells on Easter morning.”


“What happens to. . . oh. . . let’s see. . . the government?”


“It runs perfectly. The President ages backwards and his hair isn’t gray anymore and there aren’t bags under his eyes anymore and he doesn’t cause any trouble anymore and there’s peace on Earth. What do you think will happen to soldiers, though, if there’s no more war?”


“They’ll come home to their families and drink milkshakes that are very rich, but don’t make them sick. Nothing makes anyone sick anymore. But I wonder what happens to the doctors, then? If no one's sick?"

"They take up painting. They learn to canoe. They become Grammy Award winning recording artists and there’s quadruple the music in the world. But what about the music that’s already here? Would it be forgotten?”


“No. Nothing can ever be forgotten. It’s stored away in everyone’s hearts like baby clothes in the attic or George Washington in the history books. But what about new memories? Would there be room for them?”


“Always. Everyone’s brains expand to hold all of their new, fabulous, wonderful, never to be replaced or lost or faded, kissing me at sunset, breathing heavy at the funny parts, all the tiny wrinkles in your palm, our first anniversary, meeting you at that party, following you off that train, loving you and living happily, gracefully, memories.”


“That’s beautiful. It is. Really. Truly.”


“What about those who have already died? Will they come back to life now?”


“No, but heaven will open itself up to the public, free of charge, and be like Disneyland or the National Portrait Gallery. The living and the dead can waltz back and forth together and the living can vacation in the land of the dead and the dead can drop by for the living friend’s birthday parties and share a scone and a cup of tea together here and there and everyone really loves seeing each other as soon as they can, but no one really misses each other - "

“How?”


“Because the world shrinks and shrinks until everyone is close enough together to be friends with everyone else."

"But what about originality? What about color?”


“They’ll still exist. They’ll still be wonderful. Everyone will just love each other instead of hating each other. Misunderstanding each other. Not really knowing each other. Growing older and forgetting each other."

“Everyone will forgive each other.”


“Hitler will say, ‘Hey. I was young. I was foolish. So sorry.’”


“The Jews will dance back into their lives unscathed and say, ‘Hey, buddy. We all make mistakes. Let’s grab a bite to eat.’ And they’ll go to Pizza Hut and talk it all out with open minds and open hearts and it’ll be good.”


“Lee Harvey Oswald will say, ‘Hey. Mr. President, listen. It was all a big misunderstanding.’ And then he and JFK will pile into a limousine together and they’ll join Hitler and the Jews at their big, long table at Pizza Hut. They’ll share a pepperoni, and all chip into the bill.”


“Eventually, I bet, a lot of other people would join them there, too. Everyone who ever hated someone else or hurt someone else or killed someone else or distrusted someone else will gather 'round the big ole table at Pizza Hut and there will be plenty of breadsticks to go around.”


“John Wilkes Booth and Honest Abe."

“The Conservatives and the gays, blacks, women, and immigrants."

"The Liberals and the preachers, farmers, arguers."

“The Democrats and the Republicans."

“The Christians and the atheists."

“The Irish and the British.”


“Slytherin and Gryffindor.”


“Jekyll and Hyde.”


“Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes.”


"The Sox and the Yankees."

“The moon and the sun."

“The night and the day.”


“Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.”


“Hamilton and Burr."

"Palin and Clinton."

“Me and you.”


“What was that?”


“Nothing. Never mind.”


“I love you.”


“I love you, too.”


To prove it, the man eats a chocolate chip and the woman sucks a popcorn kernel.


“Let’s pause just us now.”


“Our lives?”


“Yes. Let’s pause just our lives. Mine and yours. Ours. Pause them.”


“Okay. Pause.”


“What happens next?”


“We kiss.”


“Okay.”


“We say we’re sorry.”


“Do I believe you?”


“I hope so.”


“Do you believe me?”


“I hope so. Oh, honey, I hope so.”


“Okay. What next?”


“We rub each others backs. I braid your hair like I used to.”


“Will you be gentle?”


“I’ll be gentle.”


“And then?”


“And then we’ll buy two roundtrip tickets to Paris. We’ll get a fancy hotel. We’ll order fancy meals and eat them in our fancy bathrobes in our fancy room, and the lights of the Eiffel tower at night will graze the smooth skin of your cheek and illuminate the shadow of your eyelashes against the wallpaper."

“Do I look pretty, in a bathrobe in Paris?”


“Beautiful. Stunning."

"As elegant - "

"As the day I married you. Yes."

The woman pulls the bags under her eyes down exaggeratedly with her fingers, sucking her cheeks into the hollows of her mouth.

“Do I look younger, in Paris when I’m beautiful and stunning?”


“You look ageless.”


“Does that mean we stop aging?”


“Yes. We’re young forever.”


“But that’d have to mean we’re stupid forever, and bound to make destructive, uncompromising, leave without warning, ignore every phone call, stop buying me flowers, forget my favorite color and how to make me laugh, brew your coffee in silence, sleep in the guest room, forget how to live and how to love together, dumb and mindless and silly mistakes forever. So really, truly, that just won’t do.”


“Okay. You’re right. Yes, you’re absolutely right. We don’t look old. We look young. We look like our best selves and we’re extremely happy and extremely comfortable with the way we look. And we’re not self conscious. We don’t have to calculate our movements. We get older, but we only get better. I’m unaware of the way I goggle at you over the candlelight, and the spinach in my teeth, and the sauce on my chin, and the size of my nose and my ears. You’re unaware of the way you talk with your hands, that your lipstick has smeared across your nose, the lazy curls that have tumbled out of your barret, that your foot keeps tapping and rattling the wine glasses, that you're a mess and you're all over the place but so am I, the mole on your left shoulder…”


“Am I happy?”


“Yes. I hope so.”


“Are you happy.”


“Yes.”


“Just yes?”


“Just yes.”


“What else happens, then?”


“We don’t have to tell each other bedtime stories or sing each other lullabies because the world is as happy and good as it can get, so there’s not much left behind for fiction and pretty melodies to compensate for.”


“Isn’t it boring, then?”


“No, no. Instead of opening a story book, we just have to open a window. Instead of turning on the radio, we pick up the telephone, or we walk outside . . . or we look at each other. And we laugh and we laugh and we laugh and it jangles across the globe like coins in a plastic cup or bells on Easter morning.”


“That sounds beautiful.”


“It is beautiful.”


“Is everyone as happy as we are?”


“Yes, but to satisfy the immortal human need to be happier and prettier and brighter and better than everyone else, everyone is convinced, completely, that they’re the happiest. So, really, everyone, everyone, is happiest.”


“That’s perfect.”


“I hope it is.”


They look each other in the eye and crunch  down, in unison, on a chocolate chip/popcorn compromise.


“And if ever, for a moment, we lose sight of our ability to convince ourselves we’re the happiest,” says the man, “There will always be two empty chairs with our names on them waiting for us at the endless party table at Pizza Hut, where the buffet is always hot and the glasses are always full and we can share a pepperoni and there are plenty of breadsticks to go around.”


“Will we have to sit next to Hitler?”


“Well, no. But remember, he’d be a happier man there. A more understanding man there.”


“Still. If we can avoid it, we should try.”


“Wouldn’t that be against the point?”


“I don’t know. Even in the world of happy endings, we’re bound to create some villains out of all the heroes. Don’t you think it’d be inevitable?”


“I don’t know. Not if we say it isn’t.”


“And even amongst all happy people, someone is always going to be less happy than someone else. And if everyone’s gathered around the same table at the same Pizza Hut, they’re bound to find out the truth about themselves soon enough, don’t you think?”


“I don’t know…that wasn’t the plan. That wasn’t the goal. That wasn’t the idea.”


“Sometimes, things don’t go as planned.”


He takes her hands. He swallows an entire handful of chocolate chips.

"But this is the world of happy endings, remember? Happiness is the entire point. Come on.”


“You’re right. I forgot. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry."

"I forgive you."

"I'll forgive you, too. Eventually."

"I love you."

"I'll remember to love you, too. Eventually."

"Let’s pause and start over.”


“Okay. Ready?”


“Ready.”


“Pause.”


They stare at each other. There’s nothing on the screen. They look young, but they’re getting older. They sit perfectly still, their fingers frozen around handfuls of memories that can't remember to forget to fade, curtains that will soon need drawn in the blinding light of morning they can't imagine once the stars flick on, and a million bouquets, unpollinated and probably wilting, of compromises.

When their lives become unpaused in a moment, anything could happen.

Anything at all.

“Play.”

[writingmaybe]

It’s Boston, It’s late, It’s nothing

The Green Line, at night, is always roaring out my window

nine rows of closed curtains down

all of them empty or full - and the windowsill at six o’clock

lined with cactus pots shaken by it -

when it clamors to a close

around two.

But I swear I’ve heard it later.

I don’t know when I stopped craning my neck

to ache up at pretty things aching down at me

but it had to have been some decision I made -

it must have been some moment -

how didn’t I notice, that part of me drifting

aching somewhere far away from me?

The cafe downstairs claims it closes at nine.

But I swear I’ve wandered there so much

later.

I’m afraid of not feeling enough.

I’m afraid of feeling too much.

The tug-of-war of feelingness/feelingless is quieter

than the Red Line that never came - I

was sitting at the wrong station, at the wrong time

watching the ticker change - and she was just upstairs,

headed onwards, where I’d never been, wearing that shirt

she used to wear to our old familiar places -

where we were too heavy with ourselves to know

we were happy.

You should always face the wrong way in creaky elevators

with no floors

and laugh at the humorless.

But I have to go, I’m trying to catch a Green Line

that I hear closes around two,

though my neighbor, the Chinese one,

insists stays open later.

The girl across the street, nine rows up

never waters her plants when I’m home.

I wouldn’t recognize her if we were coming at each other

across our shared corner, into each other’s stratospheres,

and you shouldn’t pet a stranger’s dog in public places,

or go dancing for the red line before lunch time.

Turn the lights off. It’s so late, okay?

But I swear it feels, somehow,

so much later.

[writingmaybe]

London // Day 1 I'm jet lagged and exhausted but also warm and fuzzy and life is ok and London is brilliant

[writingmaybe]

"Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size But when I start to tell them, They think I’m telling lies. I say, It’s in the reach of my arms, The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me. I walk into a room Just as cool as you please, And to a man, The fellows stand or Fall down on their knees. Then they swarm around me, A hive of honey bees. I say, It’s the fire in my eyes, And the flash of my teeth, The swing in my waist, And the joy in my feet. I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me. Men themselves have wondered What they see in me. They try so much But they can’t touch My inner mystery. When I try to show them, They say they still can’t see. I say, It’s in the arch of my back, The sun of my smile, The ride of my breasts, The grace of my style. I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me. Now you understand Just why my head’s not bowed. I don’t shout or jump about Or have to talk real loud. When you see me passing, It ought to make you proud. I say, It’s in the click of my heels, The bend of my hair, the palm of my hand, The need for my care. ’Cause I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me." -Maya Angelou (I made my best friend a big thing for her dorm feat. this poem and some geraniums and mandalas so here's a peek)

[writingmaybe]

Between a Set of Quotation Mark Tattoos

Between them there are nine houses across one sixteenth of a mile A green mailbox that might belong to our seventh period teacher And an obviously finite, though intangibly great, stretch of sharp toothed gravel.

Slung taut like bottomless tin cans tied up with fishing line There’s the rusted yellow spaceship that still blisters my palms A patch of grass that still smells like a cherry tree And an apple blossom – miles and miles away – where we walked in our bare feet before collapsing, or climbing the roof, or scraping our heels in the unending yawn of sharp toothed gravel.

Between them there are ten thousand and one discarded banana peels An inconceivable measure of dog barks and the pitter patter of the thunder storms you weren’t afraid to run through with your hair wet and your shoes undone knocking on my door during the lightning claps while we try to dry you off with a pile of blue towels, and you’re not even shivering.

There are 28 yellow post-it notes scribbled with your dull pencil. There’s a picture of us grinning at the bus stop, crooked and chaotic, our clothes hanging off our shoulders in haphazard, breakfast-rush yanks, our glasses smudged with each others fingerprints, our backpacks mostly empty.

And there is an obviously finite, though intangibly piled, mountain of grass blades we tore out of the dirt absentmindedly while they made imprints on the backs of our thighs on sunny mornings or cloudy evenings, and we were talking about the things we didn’t feel big enough to write about, and writing about the things we didn’t feel small enough to talk about.

There are brimming volcanoes of handwritten birthday cards, dogeared paperbacks, a rubber giraffe mask I bought at the zoo the day you turned fourteen and our knees knocked together on the tiny train seat, nineteen notebooks, full and empty, and a song played on a banjo or a ukelele trickling out from the speakers in your mothers car, before we were old enough to drive our own.

There’s the day you fell down and nodded off while we were running and breathing heavy, and we hovered over you and you fogged up at us like the steam over a bowl of my mom’s chilli under your chin, or the countless puddles of condensation from all our melted coffee cups and dandelion colored Popsicle sticks. And there’s the night I started crying and didn’t stop for an entire year, and you scooped me up like a sturdy serving of Superman ice cream, and we walked circles around everything and didn’t notice the cuts under our toes from all the sharp toothed gravel.

There’s the band we started in my basement, with no instruments or even voices outside of our echoing laughter. There’s the night you almost drove us, in your little space shuttle, over the edge of a dead end street in a town we can’t remember the name of, or how we got there, or how to get back. There’s talking to you while you’re asleep because you dream out loud and it’s nonsense, but it feels so sensible, somehow, when you’re replying with your eyes shut and my neck is careening over the side of my bed my hair hanging down over my face, trying to see if you’re awake and falling back to sleep before your fire alarm medley of stopwatches wakes up every last grass blade and shard of sharp toothed gravel in the neighborhood.

And I’m sitting in the room you’ve left so much of yourself tossed all over Across from the desk chair where you wrote at least half of all your stories and you’re nine houses and one sixteenth of a mile away, but there are only the one point five inches of pale and freckled wrist-skin between our little black quotation mark tattoos.

And between them, there are somewhere between seven and seventeen contentedly yawning years of walking circles around everything beneath a truly infinite stretch of banana pudding sunlight, volumes and volumes, whole libraries, of stories our four ears will be the only ones to ever hear, and the sickly sweet tang of stolen green apples and fistfuls of unripe cherries still stewing in the pits of our stomachs.

And there’s the night I sat alone in my car in the parking lot of an Italian restaurant, screaming at your father and you and myself and Jesus Christ from behind the wheel I couldn’t seem to move, and it was starting to rain, but I couldn’t reach the windshield wipers, and my hands and my head and the leaves on all the trees and everything was shaking, and I kept looking at my half of our little black quotation mark tattoos, because there was nothing else in the universe, nothing between my car and our yellow spaceship, nothing nine houses or seven hundred miles away, nothing beneath the sky that still insisted on fading to banana pudding yellow at the end of the storm, that felt okay to look at.

There’s tearing open letters (and there’s nothing more familiar to me now than your dull gray pencil handwriting on yellow paper), and reading them twenty three times even though there’s nothing in them I didn’t inherently, impossibly and instinctively, already know.

And there’s holding your head on my shoulders and promising you, and I’m still, I will always be, promising you, that you’re okay, it’s all okay, I’m okay, we’re okay, it will all, one day, be so much more than just okay.

Lexie, between a pair of little black, possibly infected, suspiciously sanitized needle injected, somewhat misshapen and constantly fading though amazingly permanent quotation mark tattoos, there is everything I ever told you while we sat huddled together beneath a sky that was sometimes sweet and honey hinted, and sometimes swollen with all the storms you weren’t afraid to race through all the way to my doorstep.

There are volumes and volumes, whole libraries, of times you made me warm when everything was cold, and times you made me laugh while I was crying, and a million or so poems about love and all of its quieter definitions, and nights when you filled me back up when I was empty.

There is everything we communicate between glances and eyebrow flexes and first words of sentences we never need to finish, leaving the world hanging, unsatisfied and scrambling, on the feathered ends of everything that fits so soundly and so perfectly between our little black quotation mark tattoos, and absolutely nowhere else.

And we’re sitting nine houses and one sixteenth of a mile from each other and I’m holding your head to my chest and telling you, though you already know it and don’t need reminded, that you’re okay. I’m okay. We’re okay. It’s all, I promise, I really really promise you, more than just okay. And there is so much more that could nestle in between us and our too-loud voices in the hushed night and the beaches of sharp toothed gravel under the banana pudding sky and our wrists and our quotation mark tattoos.

But I don’t need to tell you what they are because you inherently, impossibly and instinctively, already know.

I love you. You’re okay. I’m okay. We’re okay. And it will all, someday so soon, I promise, be so much more than just okay.

[writingmaybe]

I can’t imagine this room not existing in this exact, ridiculous state. It’s like I just threw myself up all over it over the last 18 years and at the end of the summer I have to tear it all down and start over somewhere new. And that’s beautiful and liberating, but it’s also fucking terrifying. I want to take my room with me everywhere I go and let it keep growing with me, getting messier and messier and messier over time.

[writingmaybe]

My best friend wears acrylics and knows how to click them together to create warmth Like a fire made out of twigs And I’ve bitten back my nails so far my teeth can’t get down there, under them anymore. I always come home green or blue or purple. I wasn’t even using markers today, I don’t know how it happened. There’s this sticky, Crayola warmth on my chin, beneath the friction of the only unchoreographed, wholly comfortable maneuver my pale and pudgy arms and aching discomfort keep repeating. I’m not trying to build a fire. My fingertips are hot and pink and there’s nothing left to bite. Somehow, not watching, I stuffed a sliver of indigo where my incisor won’t fit. And the sting of it, the burn of what’s already been bitten, is a feeling – It’s not falling asleep on top of her acrylics on a long car ride across Ohio in the dark. It’s not the glow of the radio or the whimper of the speakers, but it’s the memory of the passenger seat when I felt taller and brighter and closer to it. It’s not smiling, quietly, half asleep, remembering a picture from four years ago when I was smiling, loudly, very awake. But it’s the click of the record player I stole from my father when the A Side ended and I never got up to switch it. It’s sitting in the new, achingly comfortable silence of the room I covered with myself and that covered me, and all of my skin, my pulp-bitten-pores, have embedded themselves in the wood-works. It is wanting to dust, clean it all up, shed and shed and shed and shed and shed and shed and come out shining, red and gleaming, like over bitten fingernails, and squinting in the sun that’s too bright and too hot – but warm. My best friend has longer, prettier fingers than me And knows how to keep herself warm by making fires out of fearlessness And the incombustible ability to disguise her share of terror until we all believe it and so does she. We met a poet the other day and his shoes didn’t match and there was dirt under his skin and in his beard and he laughed and cried and remembered at us, and I didn’t try to bite my nails. Not even once. And that’s a feeling. It is staring at nothing. It is running out of things to stare at, and I want to stare at everything, but God, I am so uninterested in staring at anything. But I keep staring anyway. Because that’s it. That’s the feeling. It is staring, staring anyway.

Nail Biter, 4/26/15

[writingmaybe]

The Devil's Advocate

In the beginning, there was God. We're not sure how He got there, if He's a “he” at all, or who put him there (or where “there” was), or why. But we're pretty sure, for the most part, that He or She was somewhere. So in the beginning, we think, there was God. Towards the middle, God put everyone through a lot of hurricanes and plagues and heartbreaks - or he didn't, we're not exactly sure – the effects of which turned everyone into idiom enthusiasts who liked to say things like “It takes two to tango,” “I'll be the judge of that,” “Playing the Devil's Advocate,” and, like a pill chased with honey at the end of the longest day, “It's in God's hands now.” At any given moment, God's hands must be simply overflowing. Nonetheless, He (if He's a he) is a most excellent juggler. Every morning, He pats our heads or swats them. He shakes us around in our little glass beakers with relentless precision, and we keep rubbing the vertigo out of our temples. Dawn always turns to dusk. Cars keep moving and crashing. Dogs keep barking. Everything keeps happening. So in the beginning, I guess, God took the time to raise one of his Medusa-magician hands to his chest, detach a rib, and water it like sunflower seeds until a man popped out of the heavenly dirt. Later, when God's friends or enemies – we're not sure who it was, but someone – got hilariously bored, they wrote a book. “Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man,” they said. “And the rib, which the lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her to the man.” So in the beginning, I guess, God, who must have been made by someone, but we're rather stumped as to who it was, created a man who got lonely and created a woman. Rain kept falling. People kept crying and smiling. Cats kept meowing. Together, they created another man. And he created another woman. The sun kept peeking out. Grass kept drying up and growing. Eventually, some man put some woman to good use, and, in grand fulfillment of her womanly duty, she pushed me out from between her legs and into a dreary universe disguised as a dreary hospital room buzzing with three A.M coffee breath and the last, unnoticed gasps of all the flies stuck in the purgatory of the electric white light fixtures. The woman sang African lullabies to me in incoherent Caucasian murmurs while I made patterns out of the ceiling fan and the shadows of the streetlights through the curtains. She told me Jesus loved me, his father made me, his father made everything, his name was God, God is good, goodnight, I love you. “But who made God?” “Shh...we're whispering now. It's late.” “But who made God?” “No one made God.” “I bet someone made God.” “Time to go to sleep now.” So, I guess, no one made God. He might be a fantastic juggler, but not talented enough, it seems, to create himself from nothing. I'd lend him a rib, but I have to save them for when its my turn to cough them up in a whirlwind of womanly duty in a dreary hospital bed. So, once upon a time, there I was. God made me up. Unless He didn't. And once upon a time, there was a girl. I made her up. Unless I didn't. Her name was Anne Margot Auto, but I don't remember why. It was some metaphor. All God's friends and enemies get bored and lonely and end up writing books about forgettable metaphors. She existed in a black binder filled with two hundred and seventy five pages, three packages of avocado green post-it notes, and several hundred margin scribbles written in the tiny font of my blue, ballpoint penmanship. Her story was fiction. Unless it wasn't. I was barely eighteen and so was she. We had the same haircut. She dressed better, though, because when I got bored and lonely I dolled her up in all the pretty things I didn't have but wanted. She was smarter and prettier and braver. Unless she wasn't. It was an exercise in creativity. I created. I acted like a God. I wrote her a story, just like the disciples wrote one for their friend, The Lord Jesus. I built her a house and furnished it with white, white, everything white. We wore thick, black sweaters and sat together in the white living room, and I tried to mimic all the cool, smart, pretty, brave things I wrote her into doing. She didn't speak to me, because I didn't tell her to. But if she had, she'd have said something like, “What are you doing, trying to be me? You made me. Go make yourself instead.” And, sitting alone in my green bedroom while the sky out my window turned the color of banana pudding behind an organza gray veil, I said aloud to my computer screen, which was all the white house ever really was in the first place, “I don't know how.” So in the beginning of this story that is fiction unless it isn't, I plopped Anne Margot Auto into an empty, imaginary field that someone, at some point, though I'm not sure who or when, created. Maybe it was God, maybe it was me, maybe it was an English teacher from rural Pennsylvania. I don't know. But someone. “Where am I?” She said, because I told her to. Her voice showed no emotion, but it was every emotion. (Does that make sense? Probably not. Another forgettable metaphor.) She swung around in her black clothes, and she was afraid, but she was brave. Braver than me. She had never been out of the white house, the black binder, my computer screen. I had made her out of my own rib, with my own ink. But I didn't answer her, because Gods don't owe anyone any answers. In the foggy distance, I planted a cluster of trees, and I wrapped her and them and everything in an endless embrace of electric fencing. She reached out and touched the wires, and something stung her. It might have been me. It might have been God. It might have been the static of her pages rustling when I flipped them lazily, alone in my green bedroom, whole universes and heavens or the lack thereof away from her. Or, maybe, it was the electricity. It was an electric fence, after all. It doesn't really matter, in the end, who put it there. She still got stung. “Are you okay?” Said a man, who climbed out of his broken-down station wagon, rusted over and mangled at the apparently ancient hinges. He was in his mid-twenties. Handsome. A smooth talker. Smart, but stupider than me. Or so I tell myself. “I'm fine,” replied Anne Margot Auto. She's always fine. Finer than me. “I was trying to climb over the fence to get to those trees over there, but it shocked me. That's all.” “It's electric,” said the man, stating the obvious, for which he is exhaustingly notorious. “I'm Adam.” I named him Adam, two years ago in his own black binder, because it was another exercise in creativity, and I was acting like a God. His story was fiction. Unless it wasn't. Ironically, I made him, a man, out of my, a woman's, ribs. I wonder if God hated his Adam. Because I hate mine. I hate him because he's exactly like the original Adam – he keeps trying to cover himself up in sweet smelling leaves and then rip out a rib when I'm not looking. He's so simple, he's so empty, he's such an easily forgettable metaphor. But it takes two to tango. Someone, at some point, planted him in my head. I don't know who watered him until he grew like a cluster of trees in the foggy distance, but I have a feeling it was me. So, in the beginning, I guess, someone made Adam. It might have been God, it might have been me, it might have been a random and inconceivable collection of life-giving cells or pages in a Microsoft Word document. But there he was. While Adam spewed whatever idioms and forgettable metaphors to Anne Margot Auto that I told him to spew in the middle of that fenced-in field I told them to stand in, they started walking. The field was big, the horizon stretched infinitely onwards, as far away as I told it to stretch. She listened to him politely, but didn't allow him to mistake her kindness for love. In so many ways, she is braver than me. Soon, they approached a winding coil of train tracks. A girl, about Anne Margot Auto's age, yet somehow forever younger, kept jumping over the tracks from side to side, back and forth, back and forth, pausing every few leaps to stand in the very center and stare, blankly, into the horizon I kept repainting with my watercolors and blue, ballpoint penmanship. Her name was December Juliet. I know, I know. Don't laugh. Even Gods make mistakes. War, disease, tsunamis...the name “December Juliet.” When I was thirteen, I got hilariously bored and wrote a book with the Google Translate version of a Latin phrase about hope and home for the title. She was, of course, another forgettable metaphor. She embodied cold, sad romanticism, not being sure whether to stand on the cusp of everything, or simply jump off it. So, in this story that was fiction unless it wasn't, she did just that – hopscotched back and forth on the train tracks between wanting to live, wanting to die, deciding to be and deciding to end. But none of that was ever her choice, was it? It was mine. Or God's. Or...I don't know. But it was someone's. As they ambled closer, Adam and Anne Margot Auto heard her say to an old man sitting in the grass beside the tracks, “Aren't you going to try to stop me?” December Juliet was lying on her back atop the tracks, because I told her to. And because I made him, too, and because I told him to sit there and say it, the old man said, “There's no point. You'll get up if you want, or you'll keep lying there if you want. It's no one's choice but yours.” So December Juliet kept lying there. When I felt like it, of course, I'd stand her up again. Because this was an exercise in creativity, and I was playing God, and that's what Gods do. The electric fence kept buzzing. The wind kept blowing. I kept creating. The old man's name was Aric Herlichmann, and I still believe in him, but he no longer believes in me. That was the point of the story I wrote about him, in the same black binder and chaotic fit of exasperated word-spilling in which I also created Anne Margot Auto. He was the obstacle, she was the marathon runner. He was the cluster of trees in her foggy distance, and no matter how determined I decided she must be to reach him, he kept sending shocks up through the grass to her fingertips: keeping her, isolated, on the other side of the big, empty field. At the end of his story, Aric Herlichmann follows Anne Margot Auto out of the front door of the white house I built for them, and into the lawn and the possibility of there being a world beyond this one, or that one, or any one built by any hilariously bored teenage storyteller or fame hungry disciple or selfishly unsatisfied God of Heaven or Hell or the respective lacks-thereof. I built him a world, and he didn't like it, so he left it. Maybe I made him leave it, or maybe Anne Margot Auto did, or maybe he made the decision on his own. He's a fictional character. Unless he isn't. So I don't know, really, who made him leave. But he left. So someone must have. Anne Margot Auto stared directly at Aric Herlichmann. She is braver than anyone. But because he isn't as brave as her, he didn't stare back. His eyes remained focused on December Juliet, lying stiff across the train tracks. “Who are you?” “My name is Anne. Anne Margot Auto.” When she said her name, she glanced at the Old Man. But he did nothing. “You should get off the tracks, you never know when a train might come.” “Let it. I'm in the mood to end - right here, right now.” Adam stood over her. “You remind me of someone I once knew.” “I don't care.” December Juliet crossed her arms over her chest. She was Snow White. “She used to love trains, just like you.” “I don't love trains. I just want to lie here for a while. That's all.” “She lied there just like you, but ended up lying there forever.” Adam's neck pulsed. “What happened to her?” “She died. We both did.” “Oh, that's adorable.” Anne Margot Auto stomped the dirt from the toe of her boot, her chin pouting in the hazy sunlight. “We both did. That's some real tragic stuff. How romantic. Maybe she just wanted to lie around on some damn train tracks for a while, and you wouldn't let her off board long enough to find a peaceful little patch and rest. Maybe she just wanted a rest.” Aric Herlichmann smiled up at Adam. “Don't worry. She doesn't hate you. She's just tired of you.” “I just met her!” “But she knows everything! Or, she thinks she does. She's got us all figured out.” Anne Margot Auto towered over the Old Man, her fist clenched. “Unlike you.” “Unlike anyone, sweetheart. Unlike anyone.” Her lip trembled. “I used to think you were God.” “I'm sorry I disappointed you.” “I prayed to you every night.” “I'm so sorry, Annie, that I disappointed you.” “I don't think you're real.” “Okay.” “I don't think you, or him, or that girl, or me, or God, or anything is real.” “Okay.” “I want to touch the trees over there. I spent so much time in your white living room, waiting for you to come downstairs. You never did. Now I can't even touch the trees, or get to them.” December Juliet sat up on her elbows, listening. “I bet you're the one who put the electric fence up. I bet you're the reason we're all stuck here.” “Annie, you say you don't believe in God anymore, but you're still blaming him for everything.” “So you admit it! You think you're God!” “I don't think I'm God. That's not what I-” “Will you both be quiet?” December Juliet stood up, brushing the dirt from her jeans. “It doesn't matter! Maybe there's a God, maybe there isn't! Who cares!” Adam took her place on the tracks, stretching his back lengthwise along the rails and closing his eyes to the clouds, thinking about nothing, pretending to think about the girl he 'died' with, thinking about nothing. “You only think that because you're young. You can't make up your mind.” “Don't talk to her like that!” Anne Margot Auto shouted. She is braver than me and she is smarter and kinder and wiser than me, but she is just as impossible as me and as overflowing as me and as heavy with the ever irretrievable weight of all the stories she can't finish, words she can't define, feelings and silences and ugly nuances she can't fathom, as me. In these ways, I can't detach myself from her. She's fiction. Unless she isn't. In many ways, truly, she isn't. “You don't know her, Adam. You don't know anything about her, or anyone. What's your name?” “December Juliet.” “See? Did you know her name was December Juliet?” “No, I -” “So how could you possibly know that she's only confused about God and dying and living because she's too young to make up her mind? You don't know anything at all.” “Annie -” “I can't hear you.” Annie Margot Auto takes December Juliet's hand, because I tell her to. Or maybe she does it on her own. Or, and I'm playing the Devil's Advocate here, maybe I only tell her to do it because someone else told me to tell her to do it. I don't know. But she does it. “Come on. Let's go.” And because someone or something tells me to do it, I tell December Juliet to say: “But we can't get to the trees without crossing the fence, and we'll get shocked if we try.” “By what? What will shock us?” “The electricity...it's an electric fence.” “But why does the electricity shock us, December?” “Because that's how electricity works. I don't know. That's just how it is.” They keep walking. The fence keeps pulsing. The Earth keeps spinning. I've stopped writing. The old man, Aric Herlichmann, peeks up at me from his blue, ballpoint place in the scrapbook of my eighteen year old, green bedroom in early spring, wannabe storyteller, God fear-er, penmanship. “Are you going to tell them?” He seems to ask. “Tell them what?” “You know.” He puts on his glasses. He seems to smile. “That in the beginning, we think, there was a cluster of trees in a foggy distance. No one knows who planted them or why, but there they are, nonetheless. So someone must have.” The two girls that are fiction unless they aren't become silhouettes in my white house and whole galaxy of idioms and forgettable metaphors disguised as a laptop and a black binder. “And, in the middle, someone got hilariously bored and wrapped everything up in a big silver fence. Unless they didn't.” They touch the fence. I can't see if they were shocked or if they weren't. “A shock happened. Unless it didn't.” I turn the page. The Old Man, and everything, are gone. Unless they aren't. When I close my eyes, I hear Adam say, as he watches them wander off into the impossible horizon, “I guess it's in God's hands now.” “You're so stupid, Adam.” I wonder if God hates his Adam as much as I hate mine. The fence pulses. Or it doesn't. “But you're right.” I put down my blue pen. I'm playing God. Or I'm not. “It's in God's hands now.”

[writingmaybe]

Sad photographs of happy people

Crushed ice cubes. What does that mean? Probably nothing. I just keep existing in churned out monosyllabic phrasings caught in public mirrors that are less than flattering, and I've got these dry, scaly palms that use my straw as my trumpet and my spoon as my oar or flimsy sail, but I picked the one day in hundreds when the wind took a much needed, though unexpected, day off. So it's this lull. It's this absent breeze in the back of my throat. It's sitting in this little boat, and my hands are dry and scaly and the water glides right through them without stopping for a nod or a smile or a kiss goodnight or even hello. I could trudge away, but it's this lull. I am overflowing. There's no fizz in the cup, and the ice is, most likely, soundly sleeping. And I am overflowing. Streetlights. Really? Absolutely. The glare through the rain on the windshield. Does it mean anything? I hope so. But probably not. It's probably nothing. I just keep reliving that hour in that room brimming with allergens from snowy cat hair and sad photographs of happy people and the fire trucks that were nowhere and everywhere and the crash of the ice maker down the hall that made my chest ache. The pillow was so red and so new and so clean it made my chest ache. And all I could hear was the hum of white noise from unfamiliar noiseless instruments, the precarious snores of people I didn't know or love, that fucking cat that wouldn't leave me alone and all its scratchings like touch shoutings, the pages of the book I wasn't reading sighing, my cell phone spitting against my pocket, and my scaly hands warm when they reached for it. And thinking about it, Reimagining it, Makes my chest ache. I want to forget lying there in the half dark hour while my fingers got sore and tired just as easily as we forgot to turn the headlights on, but it was okay, because there were still streetlights. I just want there, in the end of it, to still be streetlights. Even if I don't notice them. Even if I forget to thank them for the half of the night that isn't dark yet, and the cushion that's just the right amount of rumpled. I just want streetlights. Stripes. Earn them, get rid of them. I don't care anymore. Or I'm trying not to. Paint yourself with them, black and white, merlot and navy, gray and green. For a while longer, they will linger behind the shower curtains when I'm trying not to look, and I'm teaching someone I don't know or love how to hold a toothbrush and prolong the hour between popcorn and made-up half-myths, and the police sirens aren't out the window but they're in the muted carpet, and I'm trying not to paint myself with them. I'm trying not to wrap myself in them, ensnare myself in them, trap myself in them. Stripes. They are a sweater you pulled over your head in a big empty field full of people we didn't know or love. They are the click and the flashbulb snap of the camera creating sad photos of us looking like we're happy. They are mud on the wheels and between our fingers. And we don't help each other clean up afterwards. We're just this lull. We're just the absent wind at the buzzing streetlight, a spilt cup of tiny crushed ice cubes propelling our clumsiness and a prison bar glance in a half crowded room made of semi circles that we'll never acknowledge and will probably, eventually, forget. And it makes my chest ache. I'll be okay. Very soon, I'll be okay. But it makes my chest ache. In that house with the ice machine and the perfect pillows And all the strangers and anxious text alert vibrations on the coffee table In a neat collection of pretty frames, there are a lot of sad photographs of happy people. So I'm sitting at the streetlight in the middle of the lazy ocean, and maybe it means nothing, or maybe it means something really big, I don't know, but: I'm going to turn my headlights off. I'm going to close the shower curtain and stop looking for you in the mirror. There's a lot of fizz in my brain and the people I don't know or love, including you, are, most likely, soundly sleeping. Because I don't want to become a sad photograph of a happy person Trapped in your itchy sweater stripes and scaly palms Like cat scratchings or love shoutings. And it might make my chest ache, But I am overflowing. And it might make my chest ache, while I'm sitting in a tiny boat that won't sail and my nose is running and everything is silent and unmoving again, but, Believe me. I am overflowing.