Qwerty's blog

When you were angry you created one million tiny earthquakes; shaking the house like nothing ever had before. The aftershocks reverberated from the basement to our bedroom and sometimes I loved it when you were angry. Loved how the plates sounded crashing on the tile, loved how everything was quiet when you were done, loved how everything was perfect in the moments after the storm because I have always been in love with perfection (even if it exists for only a minute). 

This is my college admissions essay. Written at the last minute, as my application is due tomorrow and I wrote this yesterday. Anyway. Here it is. 

Once when it was November and just turned freezing cold I went outside with my orange-painted toes and stood where pavement meets grass. The grass was cold and wet; the pavement was colder. There were too many things to think about and not enough hours in the day, not enough water in the world to soak my feet for the amount of time I needed to think these thoughts. Read more »

What if I can’t remember that I loved you?
What if I first forget hands
next lips
next words once exchanged under blankets in the dark?
You would whisper your well-wishes through the smoke
curling towards the sky from your lips and
I was constantly shocked by your irrelevance. Read more »

Remember the first time you tried running? Remember how your legs were moving, pumping, faster faster and you felt like the world was yours. You could run all the way to London to Hong Kong to Sydney because nothing in the world could stop you.  Read more »

You tried to whisper your well-wishes through
the steam rising up from your
over-steeped cup of earl-grey but
fall was coming
too quickly the leaves
taking on their fiery orange 
too quickly the ground freezing
too quickly. 

Moving on, you insisted 
would be good for you. 
Moving on, you insisted
would allow you to forget but maybe you didn't consider that she
might not
need to forget.  Read more »

This one is really struggling. I would appreciate any help that anyone has to offer. 

I wasn't angry with you for turning 21. You cannot get angry with someone for something as trivial as aging just like you can't get angry with someone for something as trivial as a broken espresso machine.  Read more »

Hey, YWP. I've been virtually (heh, pun) absent this summer and I've been very sad about it. However, I have been writing! I'll post a few things here that I would really appreciate comments on. 
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To him she was beautiful in her imperfections.
Beautiful in that her hair didn't fall straight and smooth across her back. It lay in frizzy waves that curled around her arms, around her spine, behind her ears. Beautiful in that her eyes were not pure blue nor green but a muddy-brown that sometimes reminded him of coffee. Beautiful in that she was not pencil thin, would never be pencil thin, her curves were like mountains and they were beautiful like mountains.
He was beautiful to her for all the wrong reasons.
Reasons like the fact that he was a chain smoker and smoke would drift from his lips like upside-down waterfall (that smooth). Reasons like the fact that he was incapable of middle-ground feelings, everything was intense and when it was intense it was intensely perfect or intensely imperfect. Reasons like the fact that when things were intensely imperfect he wrote the most beautiful poetry she had ever read and she was very attracted to artists.
(They knew that if they ended up together everything would go horribly wrong. Buildings would fall and they sky would rain a thousand tiny apocalypses. You see, in the end none none of this ended because of bombs [It was love].)
Read more »

I have recently returned from a three-week visit to China. More writing to come but, here's a reflection
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China was fun, at least in part, due to its intensity. Spend three weeks with 13 people in one of the most densely populated and history-rich areas of the world and you end up with this ridiculous bond between people and place and people and people. I have 10 new best friends and the Rong Yuan hotel in Chengdu still feels like home. Yes, I'm happy to be in my comfy bed in Vermont but I kind of miss by rock-hard bed, under the air-conditioner, next to the too-bright window where I could always here car horns. It was perfect. Chengdu was perfect. I miss noodles and dumplings and drinking tea every day and walking to the convenience store next door and getting ice cream and looking at things and visiting things that had serious history. The language is beautiful and street signs are art. I even miss our host students. The quiet apartment with millions of teapots and Helen who wouldn't come clubbing with us. Niegel with his scrolls that were 30 meters long. He was one of the most impressive artists I have ever met. April and Yoyo. Our billionaire friends who wanted to do the things they never had time to do with us. They wanted to take us to their favorite restaurants, go shopping, just hang out and talk and read magazines. China was perfect and I'm still in a little bit of withdrawal but I am comforted by the intense feeling that I will go back some day. I can't not go back at this point. There's so much more I want to see and I want to become fluent in the language and I want to meet more people and there are people I want to see again and... I would go back tomorrow if given the choice.  Read more »

You were probably too
fastmoving for windows
positioned in a corner
locking you out
locking you in.

Based on: http://youngwritersproject.org/node/58486

Language warning.

This is because I miss you and I 
love you and I 
am sorry. 
I’m sorry that
I loved him more and
I’m sorry that 
I couldn’t bring myself to leave him and 
I’m sorry that 
I’m in this constant state of apology 
with you. 
I picutre you now in an apartment in the city with
no children and
one husband who will cook and clean for you like you know I never would have and
maybe just 
Maybe you will think of me sometimes as you put your head to
your pillow but mostly I will be gone. 
memories of springs and summer will fade away.

You used to tell me—“memories are like smoke” 
as you took drag
after drag on that
filter-less cigarette 
as your smoke curled to the sky and mixed with the stars.

It was always nighttime when I saw you.

and
I miss you.
and
I love you. 
I loved you when I was with you and even more when you
were gone because
it’s so true—that thing they say about loving things more when they’re gone 
and 
  Read more »

Language warning

This is because I love you and have not written you one of those love letters in months and months. I’m sorry. I know that’s not the most conventional way to start a love letter but I’m not sure what else to say. I’m sorry I loved him more than you, I’m sorry I couldn’t bring myself to leave you. I realize now—I’m probably too late. I can picture you in an apartment in New York or London (you always hated Vermont and wanted to get out of here as soon as we graduated), without children (you always hated children), and a husband—he’ll cook and clean for you like you know I never would have and maybe just maybe you’ll think of me sometimes as you put your head to the pillow but mostly I will be gone and our springs and summers—spent on beaches an in forests will be nothing but memories.  Read more »

 She had always guessed that maybe there was one chance left for a breath of sanity. Her room was dark and her hair was dark. Her skin was pale and she hadn't been outside for months and months. When the morning of the sixth of May came she decided that today was the day and she opened her windows. The trees were finally green, the grass finally green, the flowers finally in bloom. She had missed them, she thought. More than the people she had missed the grass and flowers. Sometimes she missed the large white owl that sat on her window ledge in December, but mostly she missed the grass and the flowers. Because she had not been outside for months and months her skin was bare and her hair was greasy. The water had been shut off when she made the executive decision to stop paying her bills and she had run out of shampoo in November. A mountain of soda bottles lived in the living room. High and mighty, they were the only thing that had sustained her in her self-imposed solitary confinement. She spoke words to the trees and flinched. Her voice was strange, alien. She had not spoken in months and months and her voice had scared her.

_________________________________________________

Work in progress... Read more »

Editor's note: Forgive the intrusion. I felt this piece needed a bit of background. Champlain Valley Union High School announced this morning that Dylan Peters, a CVU senior, died Friday morning after getting into a single car accident Thursday afternoon. Our hearts reach out to this writer, to Dylan's friends, classmates, family and neighbors. -- gg

The halls are eerily silent today. Walking from class to class, only a few voices can be heard.

After you crossed blurred the line between
what was happening and what was just-in-our-heads
we got confused. Confused like the little girl
pushed under by a wave
body flailing, gravity non-existent, she cannot tell which way is up.

When you get confused, you get dangerous. 
Dangerous like land mines are dangerous.
(neverknowing when they aregoing to explode)
When you are dangerous the rest of us worry because
his isn't Tyler Durden trying to light the world on fire and this isn't a parking lot attendant watching it burn. 
This is you and your mind, working against each other not side-by-side.  Read more »

 As much as I sort of hate angst poetry as a genre, I do think that sometimes you can get a couple good lines out of it that you can use other places.
 _____________________________________________________

We both know that you are prone to destructive behavior and you amplify your mistakes with each hit.
You go fast on the highway.
Needlessly fast, endlessly fast, you hit one hundred miles per hour on the way home the other day.
You are starting to care less and less about safety and
more and more about how the speed feels in your body.
Your life has turned into this shapeless visceral mass and I am
frustrated with you. None of us know what you’re doing anymore, least of all you, and it is
worrisome.
It’s worrisome like hand grenades are worrisome.
Slip your hand down, pull out the pin--we’re all blown to hell.
You won’t have time to whisper last
“I’m sorry”s or “fuck you”s.
These are not flames that you can blow out with half a breath and a shot of vodka.

In retrospect this all makes sense
(in retrospect, everything makes sense).
As you took his angry body and held it until it went limp
as you focused the magnifying glass on the salted slug in the middle of your driveway
just to watch its skin bubble and burn
as you crossed the street, jumped in front of the car without looking
you were building yourself up.
You were never afraid of pushing boundaries and more often than not--you completely disregarded them. Read more »

 This is something I am working on as my second writing sample for the New England Young Writers' Conference. Help?

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This is gg. Great night. Thanks to everyone who came, particularly the Woodstock Crew. Thanks to Isabelle and Qwerty for pulling this off. I'll post pics and sound tomorrow.

Who? 
Lifted, Crazy Afta Nin, Problem Child, Amelia Munson, Garrett Brown, Aidan Ellis, "Erin, Willy, & Keenan", Rae & Emily, The Current Flash, and The Haps. 

What?
A concert type setup. Each band had a set of either 10 or 15 minutes. 

When?
7pm, April 9, 2011. 

Where?
242 Main, Burlington (an awesome venue for young people to perform in a substance-free environment)

Why?
Because we want to!

So COME! It's going to be a fantastic time! Great music, maybe some baked goods, and really cool people. 

(Note: The coffee house is officially fully booked.) Read more »

 Sitting in the driveway
it's freezing cold
trying to get this car to start
'01 Volvo wagon-- it's never been cooperative. 
I can feel the cold in every 
inch of my body, I can feel it in my fingers it's
going through my fingers 
cold penetrates everything.
My hair is freezing-- 
curls have turned to blonde
icicles and they crack if you touch them. Read more »

 Maybe 
just maybe 
for once we will spend an evening 
without a trace of red. 
We will spend all of our time 
without questioning the colors
thrown up on the wall before us.
We will not question because questioning is a sign of weakness and we cannot be weak.  Read more »