Fear

I think I'm scared of him.

I leave already missing him, itching for just a little more time. I want to run back, throw my arms around his neck, just hold him close. I want to sit with him, I want to ask him what God is, and what he believes in, and the last time he prayed. I want to know where he'll be in five years, ten years, where he'll be when he's dead. I want to know why people have deja vu and if he's ever dreamt in color. I want to tell him things I don't have words for, trace the lines on his palms to see where they lead. I want to peer over the bridge of his nose, look into his eyes, and see if I can find the memories that he lost.

I want to open him up and understand him. I'm scared of someone else figuring him out before I do.

But I can't do any of these things. I bite my tongue.

I think he'd be scared of me.

Weight

I took my text books out of my backpack before I left campus. No real reason to keep them with me, no reason to leave them, but for some reason, I didn't want to carry the extra weight.

As I slip the strap of the empty bag over my shoulder, I wonder fleetingly if the unaccustomed lightness   won't be enough to keep me on the surface, if lift until only my toes touch the ground and then nothing, if I'll float into the sky until I'm just a speck, and then nothing.

But as I start to walk, I realize I needn't have worried. I'm heavy enough on my own. Each step sinks deep, down, through the snow, through the earth, sinking to the core. I'm weighed down still, though I can't tell why.

Snowfall

I hunch over my desk, slowly contemplating, chewing the inside of my upper lip. Suddenly, blood fills my mouth, a bitter, coppery taste. I suck the tip of my index finger, and it comes out a bright, fake red. I wipe it on my jeans and go back to the quiz, sucking on the torn skin in my mouth.

Outside, snow falls and melts on the nape of my neck, slithering down my back, making me shiver. I pull the collar of my hood up. My steps are slow and measured, concentrating on not falling, wishing I had worn boots. There's nobody else outside. The snow falls absolutely silently. It fills me and surrounds me, quietly making everything ok, and I can't quite describe how that feels.

I suck on my lip, taking a mouthful of blood, and turn to spit it in the snow. I expect it to splatter, an angry red mark on white, but the snow is too delicate, too fluffy, and caves quickly around it. There's just a hole there now, and it fills up quickly, making everything ok.

Adventures in Junk

We didn't know how to get where we were going. That may have been because the GPS didn't work, but let's chalk it up to an adventure. Adventurers. That's us.

Junk shop. Pull over.  The way the outside light filters through the old windows gives the whole store a sepia tone. Costume jewelry and splintered furniture. Ancient eggbeaters. Sealing wax. A box of bottle caps, jars of buttons. Boxy cameras that no longer work, field hockey sticks with peeling grips. All of it talks. All of it has a story.

There are records, stacks of  warped 45s without sleeves, hung on an upside-down stool leg. One by one, I go through them. On the other side of a bookshelf filled with broken super 8 projectors and tube radio parts, Sara rearranges books on shelves. She's cut her hair since I've last seen her, and it falls loosely forward as she pulls out an anthology of Oscar Wilde.

Elton John. Frank Sinatra. The Beach Boys. I set aside my favorites.

We tackle the biggest shelf together, full albums in colored sleeves. I move from left to right; her from right to left. I find it first. The complete soundtrack from Moonstruck, a stereotypical, ridiculous, romantic comedy, starring Cher and Nicolas Cage. It's fabulous. This movie is our movie. The record's beautiful, in nearly perfect condition, and I pull it off the shelf. We squeal. I hear another shopper joke to the owner, "I think you just made a sale."

We move through the rest of the store. Dollhouse furniture. An exit sign. A shaving kit. Hand bells. As we walk back to the front, we bump into the owner. His hair is wild and white, his face creased around his bright eyes and wide smile. He talks fast, excitedly, waving his hands.

"I've gotta know," he says, "What's the record? Does it tie you to an old flame, or what?"
I laugh, and Sara holds it up the record for him to see.
"We really like the movie," she explains.
"Ah," he nods, knowingly, "Great movie. Nicolas Cage's second best."
"Second best?"
"Ever seen Raising Arizona?"

I pay him for the records, he finds change in his wallet, handing us Moonstruck with a wink.

At home, we drink juice and put on the records and try on dresses. The moon is fittingly full."Your Song" has a skip, an infinite loop in the middle, but I don't bother to get up to change it. I could listen to Elton forever.

Again. Naturally.

I fell asleep happy. I felt right. Optimistic. I woke up happy. I savored the happiness for a moment. It had a strange taste, too sweet to be deserved, delicate and overwhelming in the same, but for a moment, I let it wash over me, indulging, completely, shamelessly.

Let's leave it there. I don't want it to come down. I don't want it to break again. Picture a mug on a table, carelessly swept aside. It falls slowly, endless infinities between it and the floor, its own inevitable end. Picture it, now just an inch above the floor. The surrounding people flinch, grit their teeth, suck in air, waiting for it. Don't be them. Don't picture it shattering. Just leave it there, frozen in time, suspended an inch away.



This isn't new. We're clumsy people. We drop things, we break things. Whether we mean to or not. Things end up broken. It's inevitable.


Picture the mug again. Let it fall now. It's ok. It'll be ok. Let it touch the floor, watch it shudder as the impact rips through it. Watch the cracks grow, watch it break into pieces. Watch it shatter. The pieces tear apart, the mess expands. And it's broken.

Dream Date

The internet is made for fanfiction and fantasies and such, right? Right. Exactly. So, my date.

I'd date a writer. Not an artist, no, I don't exist in pictures. I can't be captured in lines. I've been called pretty, ugly, a 3, a 5, a 7. But I'm not there. I exist in ideas, opinions, thoughts that unlace the seams of my chest, throat, and shoulders, that push to the surface and bead and grow until they drip, pulled down by their own weight, catching again at my fingertips, pausing just long enough to form, dripping into words. I exist in those words.

So I'd date a writer. He'd write by hand, of course. Hand, fingers, pressed against paper. He'd write in pen, in dark, spilling ink that captured his thoughts, like netted fish or webbed insects. He'd complain about the permanence, but never pause for an eraser. He'd scratch out mistakes with a single strikethrough and move on. And he'd write about me.

He wouldn't offer it to be read, but he'd let me if I asked. He would have terrible handwriting. I would exist in his notebooks, constantly under his arm, by his side, always in his reach. His notebooks, mind you, not me. I'd be just out of reach.

There would be sketches of me in words, outlining the way my hips sway when I walk heavier on my left foot, the way my bottom lip looks thicker when I smile, the way my opinions are bigger than myself, he'd see beyond my cynicism, and he would keep these things in his notebook.

To Gertrude

To Gertrude. Queen of Denmark.

You're a liar, Gertrude. And not a good one. See, here's my theory. You're guilty.

Act 3. Scene IV. A murder opens the scene in your dressing room, yet you do not so much as flinch. Are you so familiar with death that his macabre presence is a welcome one? But perhaps your calm control is derived from your expectation of his visit. You set up Polonius. You knew well what Hamlet was capable of, and you sent Polonius to take the brunt of it. Your control is wavering, Gertrude. And yet, you deny it all so defensively! You can see the King's ghost too, why wouldn't you? Everyone can: poor guards, Horatio, your son. In your own words, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

But Hamlet knows you're cracking, and he pushes you to break. You're a liar, Gertrude.

In the very next scene, you lament, "what have I seen to-night!" You're so quick to defend the murder as an act of madness, your lamentations must refer to the ghost, the one thing you've seen that you won't admit.

Gertrude, perhaps he wasn't enough as a partner or a lover. Perhaps he's not the father at all. Perhaps he just wasn't there for you. The gravedigger told us by accident. The day Hamlet was born, your King was at war. It was the Jester Yorick who raised your son, carried him on his back and kissed him.

Gertrude, I'm sorry. Hamlet defends a father who was never there for him, Fortinbras does the same, both fear becoming feminine. You're alone, Gertrude, just because you're a woman. Your only empathy shows itself when Ophelia dies, for both of you are victims of patriarchies, victims of masculine control.

You tried, that much I believe. Your hand never held the blade. You carried your family and your guilt together on your shoulders, struggling under it like Atlas under the world. Perhaps it wasn't enough. Perhaps you were doomed from the very beginning. Gertrude, I'm sorry.

Cat Fabric

I got snail mail today! There's nothing better than opening real mail. Nothing. Especially when it's from a cool place like illdownhill.

Beyond the sweet logo, let's look at that gorgeous swatch of cat fabric, which I have been absolutely itching to get for the past few days, because I'm going to do something really cool with it. Haven't decided what yet, so don't hold your breath, but enjoy these super girly ideas. 

 

I totally have a crush on the guy that sent me this.

Dumped and Deferred

So, it hasn't been the best week. I got dumped and deferred from my top choice school. I wish they hadn't happened so close to each other, because on some level, I think it'd be nice to have a loving boyfriend through this, but honestly, he wasn't all that loving (read: he was a total asshole) and I'm better without him, and I've got marvelously loving and supportive friends. So I'm being optimistic.

It would've been really nice to be accepted. Anyone could tell you that. But maybe this is for the best, too. It's still my top choice. Deferral is weird, because I'm disappointed, but there's a little part of me that's proud. One of the best schools looked at me and didn't say no. They didn't reject me. I wasn't the first application thrown out, and that makes me feel good. It's just a little more of the waiting game. But the waiting game sucks, so let's play hungry hungry hippos. (Simpsons reference, anyone?)

There is nothing wrong with aiming high. Nothing. I'm not crazy (well, not excessively) and I'm not wrong. Why shouldn't we aim high? Now I just have a few more essays to write and a few more schools to apply to. I'm determined. I'm not one to cut corners. Maybe I'll end up getting in, or maybe I'll fall in love with another, which wouldn't be the end of the world, because honestly, if the Admissions Committee at a school doesn't think I'll fit there, odds are, I probably won't fit there.

Metrophobia

I've neglected this blog for my Creative Writing course, so I figure I could share my quarter paper here. The prompt was to create a character that faces a certain phobia. Enjoy! 

The bell rings and I flinch, quickly, reflexively. I pack my books into my bag, slowly, hanging onto each second I have left before English. The rest of the class filters out, dripping into the hallway, flooding it with teens and hormones and Monday grunge and wet rain boots. I join at the end of the mob, trudging sluggishly over watery footprints.

The halls are mostly clear by the time I make it to the English wing. I pause, I halt, I wince outside the doorway. The poetry unit started last week. I had nightmares about the dissections. We tore apart each stanza, each line, with scalpels and teeth and ragged claws. We tied each word to a chair, squirming, squinting under a bald bulb, bruised and begging, and we made it spit out definitions it didn’t have.

Words cannot be cut in meter and verse. Words are marvelous, magical, infinitely deep. I can run my fingers over words, taste each one and let them melt on my tongue, press my ear against a sentence and listen to the endless echos within. But poetry slaughters. Poetry makes rules and rips and tears. Poetry ties the wrists of ideas together and throws them into boiling water, burning them down to nothing, while they scream, still living, still feeling.

I step back, recoiling, retreating. I can’t handle it, not today, not now, but the teacher sees me before I can escape. “Class is starting,” she says pointedly, accusingly, and nods to a chair in the first row. Painfully, I drag myself over to sit. On the board, in perfect, painstaking, penmanship is Emily Dickinson’s Hope.

"Hope" is the thing with feathers


That perches in the soul


And sings the tune without the words


And never stops at all.

“Read,” she commands. I do, slowly, stumbling. It’s abstract, it’s artsy, clipped and organized. “Now,” she starts, “what literary devices do we find in this poem?” She’s still staring at me.  I squirm, I fidget, and I’m trapped. My heart reaches out to hope, trapped between two quotation marks. The word is maimed, beaten and bruised, cuffed, strapped under markings, and stares up at me with sad eyes. Hope is not one thing with feathers, Hope should be everything, anything, uncountable. I stare into the pit of possible meanings, teetering on the edge of the cliff filled with broken words and fragments of chopped and bloody sentences. “Hope?” I say, and I hope, hope, hope she’ll let it go.

“No,” she chides, "Hope is not a literary device. However, personification, metaphor, and alliteration are all examples of acceptable answers.” And suddenly, the hope feels completely gone, and everything is clinical. Personification, metaphor, and alliteration.. My breath quickens. Personification, metaphor, and alliteration.  The words on the board swirl off into the air around me. Personification, metaphor, and alliteration. The hope is dead, a broken winged bird that was pushed out of its nest. Personification, metaphor, and alliteration.  “’S’cuse me,” I mutter, and I slide from my seat, making a dash for the girl’s bathroom down the hall.

I sit on the lid of the toilet so I can pull my feet up and wrap my arms around my legs. Comforting. I take a deep breath and lean my head back. Words don’t need places. Organization. Words don’t need surgery. Dissection. There’s a knock on the stall door. Interruption.

“The teacher sent me to get you. I know you’re in there.” A girl from class. A Dickinson fan. Her words are clipped, pruned, polished, perfectly placed. A place for everything and everything in its place. There’s a pause. “No,” I say.

She sighs, heavily, and I hear her lean again the stall door. “What’s your issue anyway?” I can’t tell her, because I can’t explain it, because I don’t have words, because I have too many words, because words don’t fit, words don’t mean what you need them to, trying to fit words in a sentence is like trying to pin insects to a corkboard. If you can get them to stay still, you’ve killed them. I shudder. She’s still outside, still waiting.

“Metrophobia,” I say. There. That’s a word. A heavy word. It carries all of me with it. “What?” she asks.

“Fear of poetry,“ I admit.

There’s another pause. She doesn’t believe me, she doesn’t understand. She tries again.

“I could probably tutor you, you know, if you want.”

If I could, I would boil down the thoughts in my head into words like her. I would tear them apart, rip off their wings, and pin them down. But I can’t bring myself to. They’re too precious, too infinite, with staggeringly vast meanings and inexhaustible choices. And I am meaningless, miniscule, teetering only on the brink of English language. She sighs again, and a few minutes later, I hear her walk away. I stay in the stall for the rest of the period.

That night, the nightmares come back. I dream of a bird, and at first it’s flying, soaring, free. Out of nowhere, there’s a gunshot, and it falls out of the sky, plummeting. I’m tearing through brush and trees and hills that seem to sprout even as I’m running, but I can’t get to it in time. They’re already plucking it naked, stripping it, ripping it to pieces and running off. Then there are birdcages, iron bars locking out light, and I realize I’m the one in the cage.  I’m in a classroom now, watching my words being written out on the board, everything I’ve said and everything I’m thinking. Students come up and cross out my words, one by one, and I throw myself against the cage, fighting, and I open my mouth to stop them, but I find that I can’t yell. Once they’ve crossed out every word, I don’t have anything left to say. Hope is just a thing with feathers. Personification, metaphor, and alliteration. I wake up, panicking, tangled in the bed sheets and covered in sweat. Panting, I touch my throat. “Words,” I whisper, my voice cracking, “words, I have words.”

The next afternoon is my first meeting with the school counselor. She wears a white blouse and dark slacks, all over-starched and perfectly creased. Her eyebrows are plucked too high, and she looks a sadistic, malicious, odious. I chew on a hangnail as I stare at her from the beaten couch the other side of the room.

“You’ve missed six English classes this semester,” she says, slowly, as though I don’t know, as though this is new.  I bite at my finger more, tearing away a sliver of skin. “You’re doing fine in all of your other classes. Could you tell me a little about English?” She stares steely at me. The world slows down to just this moment. I notice suddenly that she doesn’t move when she breathes. Either she’s holding her breath, or she can inhale without expanding. I say nothing, and she sits still. Waiting. She’s not going to move until I say something. Nervously, I wipe my spitty fingers on my jeans. “I don’t like poetry.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“It’s just, not my thing.”

“Is it difficult for you?”

“Well, not exactly.”

Her nostrils flare as she takes in a little breath and purses her lips. So she is breathing. Interesting. She drums her fingers lightly across her knee. She’s craving a conventional answer; she wants it simple and straight, in as little words as possible.  She’d be a good poet.

“I just, think it’s wrong, you know?”

“Wrong? How?”

I take a deep breath and try to steady myself.

“Like, if I wanted to tell you about something, I would use the words that best described it, instead of only using words that rhyme and beat together. It’s not really fair.

“Fair to who?”

“Fair to the words.”

Her eyebrows draw close. She didn’t expect this. She’s puzzled, flummoxed. She clears her throat with a tidy little “humph” and brushes her confusion under the table.

“Do you think that justifies skipping class?”

“I’m not comfortable with being in the room.”

“Don’t you think it’s better for a student to study than to skip class when they find things difficult?”

There she goes again, with the “difficulty thing.” It’s not difficult, no, how hard is it to commit murder? It’s a simple act. The problem is that it’s terrifying. The slaughter is wrong, it’s hopeless. She starts to launch into a speech she gives dozens of times a day, about how we can work together to find a tutor and do better in class, but I cut her off.

“There are students who skip biology when the class does dissections.”

“Pardon?” She asks. She’s off guard again.

“Some students aren’t comfortable with being in the room. And it’s ok for them to leave.”

“I’m afraid that isn’t the case here. Some students have specific issues-”

“I have issues with poetry,” I cut her off, but she’s beyond listening.

“-or they may fear dissections, or have conflicting religious beliefs. You’re not in the same situation. You’re skipping English class simply to avoid poetry.”

She’s accusing me now, spouting meaningless, worthless, useless things at me.

“I’m metrophobic,” I tell her. “I have metrophobia. Fear of poetry.”

She ignores this. “I know it may seem difficult-“

“It’s not difficult!”

“I don’t understand what you’re-“

“You don’t! Nobody does!” I’m yelling now, leaning dangerously forward on the worn couch, grasping at the edge of the cushion. “You don’t get it!”

The words fall from the air and stale quickly, turning the room fetid, rancid. She purses her lips again. The silence is long, much too long, and finally, she mutters, “Maybe we should take a break, and I can try to recommend someone a little better suited to help you.”

She stands, smoothing her blouse, and stepping briskly out of the doorway into the hallway of counseling offices. I hear her pumps click, hard snaps on the linoleum. I let go of the couch and lean back, caught by the cushions. Looking up at the ceiling, I sigh heavily. This feels ridiculous. Words drift in from the hall, and I can hear half of a conversation. The counselor has her control again, spouting her meaningless buzzwords, which limp, broken, back down the hall to me.

“…depression… frustration…needs help…try something else”

I recognize myself in her description. I close my eyes, pulling my legs up on the couch, and wrap myself small. I know someone will be here to pick me up soon. I’m relieved, in a way. Words are getting too heavy.

I skip the rest of the day, and I’m kept home Wednesday, too. “Just a mental health day,” I’m told. Maybe I am sick. The next day, the weather is still rainy. The whole world is hopeless and grey. I’m told I’ve been lucky enough to get an appointment with a psychologist who may be able to help. I slouch against the passenger seat, leaning against the cold inside of the rain-splattered window. I don’t know how I got out of school again today. Every few minutes, my mom glances over at me. I think she’s scared I’ll disappear before we even arrive. They want to fix me, they want to help. I’m done fighting it. They’ll tie me up, boil me down, cut out my words one by one. How poetic.

The woman who greets us is young, prettier, softer. She shakes my hand and smiles at me. I don’t smile back. She leads me to her office. It’s modern, the chairs are sleek leather, even the lampshade matches the throw rug. She moves to a chair and gestures to one facing her on the other side of a dark coffee table. As I sit down, she tells me, “I don’t like poetry either.” This time, I’m the one caught off guard.

“Sorry, what?”

“That’s what you’re scared of, isn’t it? Poetry? Your mom told me you have metrophobia.”

“Then my mom also probably told you she doesn’t think metrophobia is a real thing.”

“Why do you say that?”

“That’s what I was told.”

“Is that what you think?” She tilts her head slightly, genuinely curious. She waits, calmly, patiently. 

“No, I think I’m really scared of it. “

“That’s fine,” she says, and settles into her chair. I fidget nervously, but she doesn’t seem like she’s going to say anything more.

“So, you don’t like poetry?” I ask.

She shakes her head, “Nope. Too many rules. I like poetry without rules”

“Without rules?”

“Yes. When you don’t follow a pattern, anything can be a poem. Even just writing down your thoughts,” she says.  “Sometimes, a poem can give a word even more power than it had before.” She takes the notebook and pen from her lap and holds them out to me. “Why don’t you try?” I stare doubtfully, nervously, at her, but she looks sincere. I reach out and take them. The notebook is completely blank. She doesn’t speak as I flip through the pages, testing. She really expects me to do this.

“Just try,” she says, “Write whatever comes to mind.”

 Slowly, I trace out the word “hope.” I pause for a moment. “Is the thing, that’s in a lot of things,” I write. I write more before I can stop myself. No rules. “Hope is everywhere. And sometimes it flies, and sometimes it sits or crawls or edges in where you least expect it.” It’s not a poem. Jut words, filling the entire session and page with hope, over and over, unlocking its cage and little by little, taking it back.

“Our time is just about up,” she tells me, interrupting me, startling me.

“It’s not much of a poem,” I tell her, offering back the notebook. She takes it and reads it, slowly, savoring each word the way I would.

 “It’s lovely. It makes a fantastic poem,” She says, puts it on the table, sliding it over to me.

“But you didn’t analyze it,” I point out, “How can you say it’s fantastic if you didn’t look for meter or rhythm or literar-,” I cough, choking on this. “Or literary devices?”

“Not everything needs to be torn apart to be understood,” she tells me.

“Isn’t it your job to analyze me?”

She smiles, “Sometimes, you can understand more just by listening and reading than trying to analyze.”

And I smile back. She tears out my paper and hands it over to me. I fold it in half, then in half again, smaller, tighter, but it doesn’t matter so much now. Even if someone took out their red correcting pen and crossed out each word, one by one, I would be words ahead of them. I have hope.