because I like the idea of being a queen, grapevines twisting around my heart, southern noons painted in pointalism, beauteous con artists bringing me briny gold and sand that I trailed over my checkered marble.
and if I ask take me out to the middle of the sea so my petticoats float around me, as a jellyfish would sting, I scream into the salt.
because when the rain falls it's a queen's bath, drops evolving into wet petals when they hit the heat soaked gravel queens don't ask to wear shoes.
evenings covered up in veils that cloud me in confection. 4:30 am dances on balconies, twirling and teetering and tipping towards the weeds. mid-day heat steaming through the floor of my white leather car. open the windows and breathe until there's too much bay air in my lungs, like sails billowing with whomping breezes. the harbor is my home.
I got on the swing. It was cold. A little damp. Years of me rubbed into the surface. Hello. To the brown floor of planet. It's cold. If I did a handstand, how long do you think I could hold it? I fell.
Farther up went my swing. Circular. Grilled cheese. I am a mess. Laughter. Do you think seventh grade is better? Worse math grades. Then again, Higher went my swing. I try to do a pirouette, But my eyes spin in their pockets - Sockets, get it right! And my feet stick to the ground. The skin spinning around itself. Like a tie-dye. That didn't work.
I fell in the water yesterday. It felt like a cold nickel. Iron on my tongue. Plus, nuts (macademia) taste like nausea. Farther went my swing. But I knocked into the fence. So I stopped swinging. I went inside. My veins throbbing with nickels and nuts. The swing was still going.
An old woman and a young girl stood by the seashore. The sea was raging, large waves leaping onto the sand and gobbling back into the water in a curl of cackles. The old woman shivered. The girl opened her arms and embraced the breeze. "I want to go in!" said the girl. "It is too cold," said the woman. "I don't mind. I want to go in!" "You will get wet. You are not dressed for swimming." "I will go naked if I must." "No." "I have to!" "Why?" The girl pondered it for some time. Then she ran straight into the water. "Why!" yelled the old woman, clutching her arms on the shore. "I don't know!" The girl plunged through the waves, laughing, shouting. Irresistibly, deliriously, happy.
The moral of the story: Don't question the why. Live in the moment.
1. It doesn't matter what mask you're wearing. But... WEAR ONE. 2. When inside, hand sanitizer is god. Worship it. 3. When outside, it's perfectly normal to be about two feet apart. With no mask on. (Hey, there's fresh air, right?) 4. It's no longer rude to surreptitiously scoot away from someone who's too close for comfort (or just someone you don't like... but keep it surreptitious.) 5. Your teachers will continually comment on how new everything is for them. This is another way of saying please be nice to us, we're surviving on coffee alone. (But also, yay teachers. Thanks guys.) 6. You can't whisper in class anymore, because no one can tell you're whispering. It's easy to forget that the most expressive part of your face is hidden, so be prepared to ask and be asked "what??" about 15 times a day. 7. It's actually pretty easy to tell if someone is smiling, but you never know. Be nice.
it was night, and she crept along the edge of insanity wondering when she would fall.
tapping lights that flicker on and off inside my chest and now i sit writing wondering if i will ever have the same rush again
i've seen pink fade to grey to blue to black to all of the impossible things in the world that are the sweet taste of freeness because the sun had faded away and we were left with our hands outstretched
the cold of the shower, her hands felt the droplets fling themselves onto the creases and like tears, they were fleeting and fast more, more, more of the magical
because at sunset all things burn into my pupils at sunset i am left twirling until the moutain spins in front of me doing cartwheels until i am rushed with love and me, just me. just me and sunset.
It was the kind of Tuesday afternoon that made you want to do something at the same time you're ready to take a nap. And the kind of plane ride where the free bag of chips is the best thing you're going to have all day. The kind of fourty-degree weather that's too cold to do anything and too warm to do anything cold. Diana was the kind of person who liked to figure out what kind of people the people around her were.
So Tuesday afternoon found her, on a plane, stretching out in her seat and staring at the back of the person's head in front of her, trying to ignore the constant kicking of the seven year old boy behind her. He'd been nudging her seat back and forth since they took off, and she had given up turning around and trying to give him her best I'm-not-your-mother-but-listen-to-me look. Next to her sat a middle aged man who looked like he had gotten past the age where he could try new things. He was engrossed in his e-reader, squinting his eyes every so often and relaxing them like he was trying to figure out a certain mystery or clue. He wore a Red Sox jersey and faded, tough looking jeans. His old navy baseball cap was tipped far back on his head, almost as if it was trying to fall off on it's own. Diana had been studying him for several minutes now, wondering where he came from and where he was going.
The man looked up at her all of a sudden and smiled, but his eyes slid right past her and out the window on her left side. Diana looked out too, but she didn't see anything except clouds below them and blue next to them and around them. ...
Waiting For a toddler's hands to pluck me from my sidewalk crack home And tuck me in their soft hair.
At the playground, On asphalt so faded it is gray... Sing to me a poem about a yellow flower, And cup me in your small, happy fingers. So I will fall into you, And you fall into me,
It is the end and the beginning. It is the stars that are guiding Us now, and no longer the sun. The sun was bright but it was Worried, it was tired, And so it fell, and the stars Came. And they beckoned to me, So I followed, While the sun looked on, Jealous of the life we will Build together, the stars and I.
We will build a waterfall of newfound energy And while it flows (Which is eternity) We will fall down it As the word cascading falls From our lips And I will smile And so will she.
The stars are my mother, So I follow them home, Tripping on tiptoe to tantalous tips Of whipped cream spires on Our palace, Which is where I will rest As the stars caress my face, And so does the sun. For I won't leave her behind, She will wave to me from My old self. Goodbye, She whispers with tears in