miss_literal's blog

You might be different now.
Maybe you've grown up.
(Maybe not.)
I probably just

want you
to be better now.
And look,
we've seen these old
slides before.
Black and white and grainy
and still,
sticky on that one toward the end.
We can never reach the end.

Always get up and
turn off the machine
because it takes too long to
fix it.
And no one wants to see the end.

Damn, I'm scared of
the end.
Even if it might be
better to just get it over with,
watch it.

Rip it off quick.
Like a band-aid.

But you won't let me.
God, I hate that.

I think
no matter where you are,
if you look hard enough,
you'll find beauty.
The Sahara is a wasteland
until the sun sets
and the millions of
brilliant, blazing stars
light up the inky blanket above.
The slums of Port au Prince
hold nothing but sorrow
and filth
until an orphan
smiles a toothy grin
and hides her giggle
in her tiny hands.
(Just dig a little deeper.
You might be surprised
by how rich and full
the ugly places are.)

On Tuesday, I'll get on a plane and fly to my grandparents' house. I haven't visited them, seen that entire side of my family together -- all four aunts, three uncles, and ten cousins -- in three years. I should be excited, and maybe I am a little, but mostly I'm dreading it.

I shouldn't dread seeing my family. They're my family. I should love them. They're fun and loud and annoying and they do stupid stuff when they're drunk. They're a normal family. Mostly.

choose your words carefully -- they
mean more than you think,
more than you
would care to admit.
maybe

it doesn't matter
the words
we
use

at all...
maybe

it's just how we
punctuate!
them?

& if you think
the way
your face looks
doesn't matter, you'd be

WRONG.

(it matters a lot.)

so choose your words

c
a
r
e
f
u
l
l
y
,

because your message
is not half as important as
how you choose to

say
it.

You must be broken.

You,
with your slashed cans
and shattered bottles
and burnt cigarettes
and torn plastic bags
and broken condoms.
Yes,
you must be broken.

You,
with your frayed sleeves
and ripped jeans
and scuffed shoes.
Yes,
you must be broken.

You,
with your dirty face
and dirty lungs
and dirty heart
and dirty hands.
Yes,
you must be broken.

You're unraveling at the seams.

Wonder what it'll take
to put you back together.
Wonder if you've
ever been whole.

You're so broken.

On Sunday at 3:36 PM
I walked down the sidewalk
and into the sun.

We must lose our voices
in the tangled web of
emails
and texts
and wall-to-walls.
What we mean to say
gets cut down
to shortened words
of unfamiliar letters
and before we know it,
everything sounds the same.

I want to whisper in your ear,
send you paper airplanes
filled with curly,
loopy,
curvy messages.
I want you to
make us tin-can telephones
and paint me pictures
with your eyes.

I want our words
to mean what they used to.

I think a long time ago something inside me began to break. I'm not sure exactly when it started.

Maybe it was the first time I saw my mother cry because a piece of her life was dying, her mother was dying, and her husband's arms couldn't stop the tears.

Maybe it was when I saw my father lose control of his body and when I felt him slipping away from us, when I saw my mother cry because then, when her world was crumbling, her husband's arms weren't there to catch her tears.

Call me in for dinner
and sit with me as I eat.
Help me brush my hair
and make sure I don't
use too much toothpaste.

I want warm water and
sweet-smelling soap
in my bath,
and I want you to wrap me up
in a big fuzzy towel
and hand me my pajamas.

Then carry me to my bed and
read me a story (maybe twice).
Pull the covers over me
and tuck them in around me.

Hug me.
Wrap your arms all the way
around me,
bury my face in your warmth
so you are my whole world.

Kiss me on the nose and
whisper that you love me.
But smile,
don't cry.

I want things to be

Just when I thought
I'd slowed that
runaway train
down to a manageable
speed,
the real conductor
derailed,
sending the passengers
into a panic.
You could taste fear
as the three of us
hurtled toward
what we thought
would be
disaster.
We caught her
just before she fell
beneath the wheels.
We pulled her back.
She's scraped
and bruised,
and the blood and tears
mix on the tracks,
but her heart is still beating.
And she still has tears to shed.

People are quick to judge, quick to put others into certain categories and label them like they're canned food. But you know what? People aren't just black nail polish and Hollister jeans and shaved heads. They're a lot more than the eyeliner they wear and the colors they dye their hair. Because all that is just a mask. They have so much to hide, so much to hide from. The tattoos and earrings and Burton jackets are only there as shields, security blankets they can hide behind.

An like idk he was like being like a total retard about the hole thing, an I was like, serosly, wtf? Like can you like pleez just chil for like haf a frickin secint?

Omg I totally know what you meen. I wanna frickin like idk its like so retarded an evrythings just effd up.

I hate everything.

Me to.

Ur so rite.

Omg.

Angelo pushed aside a branch and watched her silently. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, her dark face radiant in the sunlight, a picture of serenity. He watched her swing back and forth over the mirror-like surface of the water for some time, standing completely still. He began to wonder where he was and how he had come to be standing on the mossy bank of an unfamiliar lake. All he could remember was the intense pain of the bullet, a cold sinking feeling deep in his stomach, and the look of desperate fear on the face of the young man standing before him.

Blue Moon Lake, Maine, July 18, 2009

Isabel gripped the rope and jumped. She swung out over the water and into the sunlight. Sitting on the knot, her bare feet stretched towards the cloudless blue sky and she threw her head back, her long dark hair tumbling off her bare shoulders and streaming out behind her. The blazing midday sun drew glistening beads of perspiration to her forehead, but the rush of air cooled her. Back and forth she swung, the end of the rope grazing the pine needles on the bank.

Chicago, July 18, 1986

Angelo got off work at ten. Though the sun had set hours ago, it still felt as if the sun had been trapped somewhere between Hell and Hyde Park. Wiping sweat from his brow, Angelo stepped out the back door of the restaurant where he washed dishes. The smells of the alley assaulted his nose as he pulled off his stained white apron and hung it on a hook drilled into the brick wall. He loped off down the alley and dug his keys out from the pocket of his denim cut-offs.

His car, a beat-up ’69 Camaro, was parked under a streetlight. He loved that car. Hours and hours had gone to repairing it when he first bought it from a used dealership. It had been a piece of shit, but now it was his baby. Now, jamming the key into the lock, Angelo was grateful he had wheels that never left him stranded.

Stop thinking so much
and just

let

your

heart

beat.

Another Father's Day gone
and we didn't make him
breakfast in bed.

I have a new skirt and they sang happy songs in church today so I feel floaty. It's a good feeling. One I haven't felt in a while. A long while. I think the last time...

I was about seven. I was wearing a purple dress with big, colorful butterflies. It had three white buttons. I had buttoned all three. It was warm that day and I played piano until the wind blew the sheet music off the piano. When it started to get hot outside, I ran out barefoot and jumped around in the sprinkler, making muddy puddles in the grass.

My clock ticks toward midnight.

The screen on my window sifts through the summer night, traps a fluttering moth, and sings me dream-songs.

The streetlamp outside my window illuminates an empty cracked stretch of sidewalk, which reaches into the darkness on either ends of the dim glow.

The moth on my screen searches for a hole, struggling to fit into my world of light. Fly away, midnight moth, and carry me with you. I want to get lost in your dark world.

The screen divides my world from yours as you flutter off to search for light in your dark world and my eyes flutter shut to let me escape to dark in my world of light.

And my clock ticks past midnight.

I understand now why you needed that bottle in a brown paper bag, that pack of cigarettes in your coat pocket, that plastic bag and pipe at the bottom of your backpack.

Unstimulated happiness only lasts so long.

Realization set in after you offered me a drink, after I watched you pop the cap of your bottle with your teeth, after dice stole two tens from your wallet, after I pushed you away from me (because wrapped in your hug, the smell of beer and smoke and you-not-being-you was too much for me).

So I'm glad you're gone, and when you get home, I won't call you. I'll try not to worry that you'll get yourself into shit up to your eyes, and I won't ask you what you've been up to. Because it takes too much out of me to care anymore.

Take care of yourself. I'm done trying to do it for you.

My name is Amelia.
That's it.
I write, but I am not a writer.
I play sports, but I am not an athlete.
I play piano, but I am not a pianist.
I think, but I am not a philosopher.
I know nothing about anyone.
I know only one thing about myself.
My name is all I am.

My eyes are too wide
(they are amazed
and surprised
at you,
but I'll never
tell)
and my throat is too dry
(because
I've swallowed
too many times
trying to find my voice.)

I look up
and get lost in the sky
behind your head.
I have to close my eyes
but then
I get even dizzier
(which really isn't helping
trying to stay sane
around you.)

Firelight
flickering
across my face
throws shadows
on the ground,
and your black eyes are holes
that I'm scrambling out of,
trying not to fall
farther into.
Please don't
push me in.

You know
I won't be able to climb
out on my own.

Come on,
come on,
he said.
There's a better life
just waiting out there
for you.

The clock's striking
twelve
and the train starts
rolling slowly...
away...

Wait,
wait,
don't go
without me,
she says.
I'm not ready
to leave all I know.

Steam is rising
and the conductor is calling...

All aboard!

He is
leaning out,
over the railing,
but she won't
give him her hand.

He's saying something,
she can see his
lips moving,
but the train
drowns out his words.

(She wouldn't want them
anyway.)

She's gone before
the train leaves the station.

Can you hear me
chasing you down
the corridor
of silent poems?

If you stop
and turn around now,
maybe you'll see
that I've been waiting....

for you
to stop and wait,
turn your heart and feet
toward me and never retreat....

into that place you have,
far away from me
and the people who love you.

(Because you know,
they do love you.)

No matter what you
say you wish for,
I know better,
I know you're lying.

Though you say
you can't wait to get
out of this little
town of ours....

I know you don't really
mean what you say,
I know you really would miss home.

If you left for long,
you'd have to write a song
'bout life without those who love you.

(Because you know,
they do love you.)

When the seas are rough
we often wish we could
fast forward
to calm waters.
When we trip and fall
over a root
we often wish we could
rewind
and pick our feet up
a little higher.
But,
you know,
sometimes
you can have fun on play.

Spin me a web
of words and music.
Wrap me in a cocoon
of heartbeats
and tears
and blushes
and laughs.
Hold me up
on a tree branch
facing the sky,
so I can watch the clouds
and feel the rain
and taste the wind.
Don't let me down.
No matter how hard
I beg.
(But promise
you'll come up with me.)

The train has gone on
down the track
and I don't know if
it's ever comin' back.
The whistle's shrill
and the night is still
as my clock nears midnight.

Tell me, tell me
if you're comin' back.
I wanna be ready
in case you do.
I wonder if you really
care as much
as I do for you.

Clouds are racing
to cover the moon,
and if they don't slow up,
they're gonna drown it soon.
A soft breath of air,
flutt'ring my hair,
slips in the open window.

Tell me, tell me
if you're comin' back.
I wanna be ready
in case you do.
I wonder if you really
care as much
as I do for you.

The sky cracks open
but the rain stops fallin'.
The clouds drift on
but the wind is stallin'.
The world seems cursed
and my heart's ready to burst
as the train flies by.

Tell me, tell me
if you're comin' back.
I wanna be ready
in case you do.
I wonder if you really
care as much
as I do for you.

One night, when the clock strikes twelve, I'll wake up silently and slip from my bed. I'll pull on jeans and a t-shirt, brush my teeth, wash my face, and braid my hair down my back. Then I'll make my bed (like my mother always tells me to) and leave my phone plugged into the wall. I won't need it.

I'll tip-toe downstairs, slip on shoes, and go out the back door, locking it behind me. I'll throw my key out into the dark and walk off into the woods. It doesn't matter where I'll go. The only thing that will matter is that I won't be coming back.

I wonder if anyone will miss me.

I wonder if anyone will even notice I'm gone.

Drum beats and
silver whistles
march up and
down the street.
Horns sound and
flags wave as
the people sit
on concrete.

Oh,
look at this
happy scene.
Do you know that
this is what you
died for?
Oh,
look at these
people here.
Do you know that
they are who you
died for?

Painted faces,
red, white, and blue,
are blissfully ignorant
of the world outside.
Innocent youths,
proud and strong,
are told,
Uncle Sam wants you.
Just give it a ride.

Oh,
look at this
happy scene.
Do you know that
this is what you
died for?
Oh,
look at these
people here.
Do you know that
they are who you
died for?

Lemonade and light-
hearted laughs
try to ignore
the gathering storm.
A tearful mother
trembles in fear
as she buttons
her young son's uniform.

Oh,
look at this
happy scene.
Do you know that
this is what you
died for?
Oh,
look at these
people here.
Do you know that
they are who you
died for?

Scissors snipped
and sunlight glinted off the blades
as her hair drifted down
to rest lightly on the
blacktop.

She perched on a
three-legged stool
on her driveway,
the late-afternoon heat
cooled by a lazy breeze which
lifted the soft strands
from her neck.

Her mother stood behind her,
turned her this way
and that,
carefully
evening the
ends,
frowning slightly
in concentration.

The discarded locks
collected at her feet,
swirled up like little tumbleweeds,
and were blown down the street
by the on-again,
off-again
breeze.

A small bird swooped down,
picked up a downy-soft
tumbleweed of hair,
and flew off with it.

Gently,
the bird tucked the hair,
soft as angel's eyelashes,
into its nest,
weaving a baby blanket for
her hatching eggs.