Dearest Memory Foam Mattress,

I hope you know how much
I admire and love you. You
keep me comfortable when I
dream the dreams I won’t
remember at all when I wake
up the next morning

and

I know that sometimes it
may not seem so, but I
appreciate you with all
of my heart. When I return
from a trip, your presence
is ubiquitous in my mind &
all I would like is to lie
down in my own bed,
with my own wonderful,
soft mattress.

I love you.

Your sleepy dreamer,
CD
 

They dance over the audience,
like two marionette dolls that play
their own instruments too. 

Two others are left on stage. They are
unable to move. 
Rooted down, through the floor, into the earth
all the way to where Antonio Vivaldi lies dead.

They make jokes at each other with their eyes
and play their tiny flutes into each other's ears.
They parade around us, traversing
to where they please.

I am transfixed, enamored, bewitched by these
gypsy musicians. They take the audience
and spin us into a mystical land.

We willingly follow them with wide eyes
and open mouths.

These people are magical.
I am convinced that they must be witches,
for I have never heard a sound as wonderful
as what my ears are witnessing tonight.

They are like marionette dolls,
floating around the audience,
picking us up one by one
taking us away from reality.

Today you texted me.
I missed you.

Did you miss me as much?
You asked, “what happened to us?”
and I smiled, because you made it sound like
we were boyfriend and girlfriend.
I said something like, “I don’t know. I tried.”
I’m still waiting on a reply.

You were my best friend.
Do you remember the time
we got pringles and twix
and ate and watched movies
and we danced around my room
and talked and talked
and giggled our hearts out
and I felt like I had the bestest friend in the whole world.

We traded our scrunchies:
my pink velvet
for your black matte.

And we met at summer camp!
Of all the places,
summer camp.
We were the perfect best friends there had ever been.
We were invincible.

But I guess things can’t always last forever.

 

character ideas that eventually became louise and carrie. made with fashmates.

there are two of them. louise and carrie.
i made them because there are certain things i cannot do.
like rocking an e.t. shirt from the 80s. 

i like to imagine louise as lighthearted and innocent.
she reminds me of lavender.
she is radiant and she always does her very best.
everyone loves her.

carrie, on the other hand, is more of a winter person.
she is the type who enjoys the way the cold air hits your skin,
before taking all of the feeling in your face
and dragging it down to the cold cement 
which leaves you with a rough, recently-slapped look about you.

carrie would try to cast spells.
so would louise.

casting spells is probably the only thing they have in common,
but even then they are completely opposite.

louise would cast a spell to make her flowers grow,
and for her friends to be happier.

I’m on one end of the phone,

waiting for you to say something,

anything.
but I have a bad feeling

that you aren’t planning on it,

or even thinking about it.
the last time you did say something

was one or two months ago,

but it feels like it’s been a lifetime.
I remember it because you told me

that my eyelashes were pretty.

it made me blush, a rare emotion on my face.
I miss the way we used to be.

we still share things with each other,

but it isn’t the same.
now you don’t ever get too close to me,

and when you leave me, I’m alone in the dust again,

wondering if you were aware of the silent space between us.
for some reason that I still have yet to figure out,

you started to get nervous

and worried, which made me tense.
I wonder if you know how much you’re hurting me.

he is like the rise of the sun
on a soon-to-be-hot summer's day.

she is like the bug that won't stop
flying around your ear.

do they work because the bugs
thrive in summer?

he is the cave art painted a long time ago;
mysterious and full of secrets.

she is like the paleolithic era humans
that killed off many animals.

do they work because those humans
painted the cave art?

where do I fit in this
topsy-turvy "connection"?

I know it is somewhere, but I am 
struggling to find out where exactly it is.

and what am I; if he is like a sunrise and cave art,
and she is like a bug and a serial killer?

am I the animal, slowly being
killed off?

or am I something completely different,
the rainstorm that washes everything clean and new?

the rainstorm that makes others cold
and miserable?

you think my hair is strange,
just because it isn’t straight and regular.
you think my nose is too wide,
and long,
and not proportioned in any direction it goes.
you think my eyes are plain
and not interesting,
not in the slightest.
you think
that my laugh sounds like a pig snorting.
but I think that my hair is good hair.
I think that my nose isn’t too wide or long.
I don’t think my eyes are plain.
they’re not stunning,
but that doesn’t mean they’re ugly.
and I don’t care if I sometimes snort when I laugh,
because at least I’m enjoying myself when I’m laughing.
and you may never take the slightest bit of interest in me,
might always think I’m butt-ugly,
might always think of me as
the girl who has too much confidence.
but I could stop investing my time in you,
faster than a quick snap of the fingers.
and you sure don’t seem
to need me in your life.

Before you read this, I would like to say that I wrote this during a very fast thought stream and it is very rough and could be a little hard to follow.

Why can't I be myself around you?

Whenever you start talking, my ideas shut down and I get tongue-tied.

You are the cat who has caught my tongue.

I want to tell you that this is what's happening, right now, in this very world!  Stop saying that! We can do anything we want to. You have to stop holding us back.

A couple times I've gotten close to telling you to stop. I interrupted you and said that girls can wear whatever they want. And you said, "Yeah, but..." and continued on. So I shut down. 

And all the other girls think you're so great, but I really don't think that sometimes. What if you hold me back? I can't let that happen.