Eyes Clenched Open
He sits with a cup, grasped tight in his hands
Pennies rattling softly with tin
And against the winter air
He stares, warmth missing from within.
With wrinkled skin and wispy, white hair
He sits so pensively
Upon this sidewalk, Boston bench
And towards him I walk, with head bent low,
And arms so close to me.
Before the man, so many pass,
Not sparing him a glimpse
As if their lives, so important now, can’t see what’s happened since—
Since skyscrapers stretched on and on—
Metal clashing high, with bright blue sky,
And on the ground, far below, these vagrants who come and go
Were left to watch the dollars fly
As they lay, cold, on unforgiving benches,
Kept alert from the stale, judgmental stares of those who prospered,
Those who strived above and off these sidewalks,
And up, up into the still brighter blue wide skies.
He who succeeded
And left these people out,
Out of service, out of luck—
So simply down and out
They mill about, here on the ground
And if they happen to look up—
I can’t help but think,
Of a certain emptiness, that sounds from that tin cup
And so they pass, leaving him be
All that he can be..
Perhaps they think he’s an addict of sorts-
Which leaves him only me…
And yet—
I stop.
Shoulders stiffening, and eyes glazed,
the image of so many men
Whose guise was just as his, comes rushing to my mind
And all I can picture is this man, whose now beside me
Spending my money on booze.
So hands clenched, I continue on
And mourn the loss of man,
Where so many before have looked and passed,
Denying so much to a simple outstretched hand
For who are we to look and scoff, and someone so completely put off
By life, and its burdens?
A fist closed around a dollar, is a closed hand indeed
And no matter the motive, I shiver to think
That this stingy, and cold world, now includes me.
Crumbling, Rumbling Love
The rusty tracks sat below him, down a hill, and noticeably larger at this shorter distance. He was not used to this spot really, as his house sat on a surface above the railroad, and faced away from it. Who would want to watch trains on unkempt grass when they could enjoy the view of pleasant suburbia from the front porch of his home?
But that was the point, because here, he was alone.
Behind him, his childhood home rocked with the sound of conflict and items fell crashing to the floor, as angry voices echoed inside.
Sighing, he rubbed his temples and looked out at the green woods below him. An enormous headache had bloomed from the stress of the thing and he began to realize this backyard escape would not suffice. His pulse remained fast and his face hot as he attempted to piece together what remained of an idea he had been building for some seventeen years.
The concept of his parent’s relationship had long been one of admiration, for that he was certain, but of late he had noticed the firm foundation was no longer enough to support the ever crumbling, ever crashing sky scraper of their love.
At a young age he had watched other children go through their own parent’s separation, but here, from this new perspective, it seemed far more threatening and far more terrifying. Rising, he remembered his untouched chemistry homework inside, but just as he arrived at the back door the neighborhood shock with the sound of his mother’s angry scream and a final resounding crash. His parents had never been violent. They could not be violent.
Could they?
A weakness filled him as the ground vibrated from a train approaching on the tracks below. He stared blankly. Of course he had heard, seen and felt a train pass, but it had been a while since he’d seen it from here. The last time, he remembered, was actually with his father when he himself was only a toddler. His breath caught, and suddenly he felt not so far from that child after all.
A moment passed as the train approached, and with horror he realized he realized his own tears, burning with shame at the sight of them. All he wanted to do was return to his room, but that apparently meant crossing a war zone.
Turning he gazed down at the tracks, the world roaring now as the train approached. Back to the dwelling of his childhood, he stood still as the train finally barreled past, clothes whipping with the accompanying wind.
Briefly he glimpsed the passengers of the 4:00 outbound train, wondering helplessly if they could see him too.
Rotten Words
Juice spilled all over my drawing, and I watched horrified as my delightfully green alien was surrounded by the yellowish force of the invading liquid on the paper.
“Ew” I said.
“Ewwww,” my small pigtailed friend echoed.
“Oh! Gosh, I really sorry, that just keeps happening, I’m really sorry, I’ll make you another I promise!”
His name was Danny, and this was the fourth time Danny had spilled some form of liquid on my work this week.
“Oh, that’s all right.” I responded “It’s not like you’re doing it on purpose, nobody’s that mean.”
“How’d ya know anyway?” the pigtailed individual questioned suspiciously. An extensive pause filled our table after her, yet an ever busy second grade classroom proceeded on around us. Somewhere, something shattered.
“Whad’ya mean Grace?” I questioned.
“All I’m sayin’ is that people do mean things on purpose all the time, just cause you don’t know why doesn’t mean that don’t have a meaning of their own.”
“Grace that’s stupid,” said Danny “It was really an accident, why would anyone-”
But silence had filled the room, and our teacher had begun to speak, wandering her way as she did through the beginnings of some topic I was not particularly interested in. Preferring to meddle with my newly pierced earrings instead, I glanced around the room, legs kicking freely beneath my chair and noting the surprisingly still appearance of my classmates. A radio crackled in the background, the reporter voicing something urgent and soft. Outside a bird had fallen silent, the cloud above it darkening almost in sync. The old door at the front of the room creaked open and heels clicked into the room, all the while my teacher’s voice droning in the background. My head turned and my stomach went with it as my eyes fell on the teacher who had just entered the room. She was crying, and despite her attempts to hide it, he shoulders shook wildly with her hands, failing to button her light coat.
“I’m heading out Laura” she stammered to my teacher “I’ll let you know if I hear anything from him.”
The door snapped shut and my ear began to bleed from the constant fiddling around my new earring. Head turning I decided maybe I should make an effort to listen to my teacher, who had also paled, and was stammering slightly now, her voice nearing a breaking point I had never before heard:
“…It happened about 30 minutes ago now, and we’re still not quite sure of the details, but some of you maybe going home to spend time with your mommies and daddies soon, just until we figure out what’s going on.”
“But why would anyone fly a plane into a building?”A small boy in the back of the room asked tentatively “Wouldn’t people get hurt?”
“Yes” she responded “But it might have been an accident, we don’t know yet. New York City is a very big place, it might take some time. The truth is, people do very…” her voiced faded searching sadly for a word, “very strange things sometimes, we can’t always understand them.”
Grace’s chair squeaked next to me and her dark eyes grew wide
“Do you think somebody meant to hurt somebody, Mrs. B?” she asked, uncomfortably close to eager.
Mrs. B held Graces gaze for a long time, yet the class remained still. Her eyes swept through ours, and the world fell unnaturally quiet, as if everyone was waiting for an answer. As if the nation together was waiting to hear, sitting criss-cross apple sauce on the floor, juice in hand, minds as hopeful as any second grader, united and vulnerable against an unknown enemy. It was in this way that they wanted to hear it from a trusted most loved source, that everything was an accident. That no one could truly muster that kind of evil, that depth of meanness.
“You’re a smart class” she said finally, a car passing loudly outside. “Sometimes people are mean. Sometimes people knock down each other’s blocks.” She slowed again looking for the softest words “ It does happen.”
“Yes, but is that what happened this time?” chirped Grace, her voice rankling and disturbing the acquired still of the world.
“We don’t know yet Grace. But it is possible. I guess we just have to be prepared for anything now”
The silence remained, but now there were small anxious movements throughout the room, and second graders began to do what second graders did best. They whispered. Theories spread through the room like disease, and suddenly children were crying, their ears red from excitement. Teachers came from all areas, and those few so deeply affected were escorted out with promises of numerous treats. Those left were instructed to color images of their feelings right then. I nearly drew a band-aid, as I know strongly needed one for my ear by then, but instead settled on beginning a large confused smiley face, complete with its very own braids, mirroring mine. Yet just as I went to add the necessary freckles, a wetness touched by arm, and I discovered that one side of my paper had already been destroyed by the remaining yellow juice. My throat closed and I gasped. This had been one piece of art. I looked up at Danny whose hands were shaking badly, and I held his eye contact. Graces crayons squeaked next to me.
“I’m so sorry, JA” he began “it was an acci-“
But he stopped when his eyes met mine again, and I felt them narrow to suspicious slits.
“Sometimes we don’t know why people do things Danny, they just do.”
Danny’s eyes sunk, his face reddening all the way up to the tip of his ears, now a dark shade of purple, and he backed up slowly out of his chair, and I sat watching what I thought to be his evil features the entire time. Danny, the doodle killing machine, left to go to the bathroom, and didn’t come back all day. I stood up to throw away the remainder of my confusion, and glared angrily at a girl who had left her foot in the aisle, surely to trip me. She glared back angrily, and my face twisted as if by the effect of some sour candy. A plane flew loudly over the school and I opened my mouth to confront my assailant…
Acting
It wasn’t really just an old script.
Sprayed with age old doodles and dates, the book lay in all its glory amidst hundreds of other aged artifacts. Yet, with its nonchalant position, it contained the power to deceive. Upon looking at it, a distinct impression was given of complete unimportance, as if it was placed there by mistake. Its wrinkled, water stained pages appeared to have nothing as compared to such priceless objects surrounding it. A picture of a rosy young girl with a blissfully serene smile, a tiny white tooth in an old plastic bag, and a chubby hand print positioned carefully on an old piece of construction paper possessed memories blatant to any passing eye. This battered script however contained many a priceless memory that others might scoff at. But I knew of its dear significance. The cover itself brought with it a wave of memory: A memory of a time that marked the beginning of a passion and a dream.
Acting isn’t a hobby for me, it’s a lifestyle. My social life, grades and health, it seems, are molded by its influence, just as my very thoughts are inundated with its aspirations and styles. While others dedicate themselves to the sweaty aggressive tendencies of athletics, my interests lay with the Dramatics. My individualism relies on my theatrical agenda. In other words, it’s what makes me, me. After all this being said, the significance of that lovely old book becomes clear, for you see, that script represented my first ever play.
The bold winding title of “Hansel and Gretel” labeled the script for what it was, and the neat sharpie in the corner that read “Julianna Donaher – Gretel 1” labeled what it would mean to me. In the weeks that followed its original distribution, the script would witness a cast hard at work. It would see several older kids make a difference, and while they might not have been the starring players they would effectively mold the minds and performances of younger members. The script would be put through rigorous memory sessions as lines were learned verbatim, and as blocking became natural it would view a production come together. Under its watchful eye the script would see the forming of friendships, habits and superstitions. But most importantly the script would be present when little outgoing J.A. became quirk y, dramatic Julianna. For with that first play came an understanding in me, of the power one can have in the theater. Acting is a way of controlling who you are at any given moment. In a crazy world, acting done right, gives you control over who you are, it provides an opportunity for the escape from reality, just as it provides foundation for confidence in everyday things. With my first play I began the path that would eventually lead me to discovering my gift, my purpose, and my identity.
As the years passed, my fascination remained with the theater and all the glorious aspects of it. As I aged it lead me to the discovery of film: A method in which the usual boundaries of theater were endless! Who’s to say a man can fly across the screen with three heads and an outer space alien on its back? In film it was all possible, a person could be anything and film would make it real.
As I matured, so did my ability to perform, and suddenly my versatility lead me to another conclusion: Let’s say you have a belief or a cause that you think the whole world should know? What better way to let them hear it then in a well-developed visually masterful film or play? As a kid, movies and TV had influenced me to feel and believe so passionately things I otherwise wouldn’t have even considered! Perhaps a position in entertainment would allow me to have the same power.
My continual love for the theater shapes everything (how I spend my time, my money, who I hang out with, what courses I take, what I watch, what I read, what I think, feel…) and I have no doubt that it will affect my future just as profoundly. Acting gave me an identity and a purpose. In a way, my life began the day I discovered theater, the day I joined the cast of Hansel and Gretel.
So you see, It really wasn’t just an old script.
Generation Ours.
The glaze of our generation, reads across the impression of a nation
And as we sit behind our computer screens
They judge I think
And rather assume that our makeup is only that
Of those who smoke and drink:
Of those who swear and curse, and fail
To think beyond
LOL
ROTFL
LMAO,
Instead dabbling only in the time to laugh and be loud.
We are numbed by that bright white screen, they believe,
That reads across our faces through all hours of the night we so occupy.
And often times they wonder, how we even manage to get by.
Our superiors, our leaders:
The fearless, with morals strong as cedars.
That never once in their day,
Turned away
To take in the easygoing way,
The steady pace of simplicity
Against the stinging sting of the real world
Who never once, embraced those last few moments of peace.
Before they broke off-
Into-
The deep dark tangle-
Of maturity.
Who, of course, were never once young
And could never once understand,
What it was like,
To rejoice in those last few seasons
Of freedom.
Above Suburbia
Without my shoes,
My aching feet
Feel cold and vulnerable on this suburban street.
Alone, here, now as man does sleep
I stand gazing up at the universe’s deep
Deep language.
A myriad of twinkling, and a wide expanse of thought.
The complexity of cryptic language, so fully meaning wrought
The stars chatter and talk and whisper
And walk amongst themselves I think
And with each quiet wise old blink:
They share a message, a meaning, a purpose, a truth.
Invisible to human eye
Invincible to their corrosive lies
They sit so high above me.
And as I gaze, one star above,
With a hand outstretched toward the wide expanse
One lonely, brilliant star, starts giggling think
And aims a wink
At my confusing puzzle box heart
And a million pieces I stand,
And plead for the light to share with me
What it knows
From sitting so high above these limited concrete rows
Of suburbia,
Lost and Broken,
Begging for just one token,
Of that cosmic wisdom.
And just above me I see
The very star that sat giggling, go soaring over me
It winks and shudders and
Down
Oppurtunity goes.
Never to be seen
And, I am left to only dream
At what the hell it was trying to say.
Audition Recognition
I had known the audition was coming for a long time. It was one of those annoying dates you remember for a long time after it passes, constantly recognizing it as potentially important, even when its significance had long since escaped.
November 11, 2007.
It’s been a bit since the actual date itself, but perhaps it’s the time before it, and my own personal mentality that made it so important to me. In fact, its without a doubt my own actions that made it so obnoxiously hard to forget, a stupid fly on my windshield that turned out to be an entire swarm, completely unrecognizable until it hits you full on. As I said, in the week s before the date I, along with my friends who were also auditioning, remained consciously aware of its looming presence. Then, however, it was not something to be feared, as all the audition meant was another beginning of a production, a reunion with what had become some of our oldest, most trusted friends. We celebrated the upcoming tryout as a beginning, and for most of them it was. The group I had become associated with was in fact not a normal theater group necessarily, as it preferred to keep each of the same actors show after show; their reasons being most likely to build a trustworthy cast of kids, remaining thoroughly predictable year after year. It was these kids that had become my closest friends, the few the proud the chosen as it were, considering the fact that those not chosen were discarded time after time, left to watch the veterans perform. In fact, I had only been accepted into one sacred show at that point, and yet it was this family I presumed acceptance in. We amused ourselves before, with the habit of predicting which friend would get what part, each of them, granted the luxury of knowing their own security. I took part in this also, assuming my own safety, even going as far as to predict bigger more important parts for myself.
Come the actual audition date, things were, at the beginning, exactly as predicted. Hugging, laughing, and of course fake anxiety, put on by those who already knew their own personal outcome of that five hour ideal, were all basic elements of that fateful day. And of course, in my infinite closed mindedness, I too mashed myself into that family, despite my one performance resume with the group I assumed that surely I was capable of functioning within the group. After all was I not the highest holy, spectacular being to walk the earth? Of course. The alternative was nonexistent to me.
And so we began with the most basic of all exercises: a simple well practiced monologue to separate the shy kids from those who came packed and prepared with the most energy and composure. I waited, fellow actors going before me, some taking the stage by storm others stuttering there way painfully through the prepared segment. I pitied them, and in my own little world I watched those poor souls leave the stage, presuming of course they would merely disappear when out of my sight. My turn came, and returned to my seat smiling, sure I had proven the most highest of exceptional talents. With the rest of the day however, I read three times. To this day I remember what I was asked to read for, once for a princess, again for a princess, then once more for a maid. That was it. I didn’t read again. Time after time I watched the people next to me read for a variety of different characters, some repeating the same ones, assuring the onlookers that they had secured the role. Infinite confusion consumed me just then, as I remained amazingly convinced in my own awesomeness. Who wouldn’t want to hear from me? And yet the entire day wore on, and my body remained glued to that stupid plastic auditorium chair, occupying myself mostly by observing the obscene doodles other middle school kids had taken to writing on the chairs in front of me. Time passed and finally, first cuts were made, I passing for the last time into that established family of veterans. Here I wasn’t confused; of course they didn’t cut me for the last part of auditions. I was awesome, so super spectacularly cool. And yet, for the next two hours I did not move once from my chair. While others around me continued to laugh and read, relaxed now, assured now, that they would receive not only a part, but the part they wanted.
My infinite confusion increased beyond recognition.
My name remained uncalled, and I kept up my lie, assuring myself the director had lost my audition sheet, rather than face the possibility that I wasn’t the queen of the world.
The time had come, and the director left the room to finalize the cast list. Now the wait had officially begun, and the fake anxiety of my cast mates had followed. We all sat stone still, holding hands across the board, and through my mind I turned for the first time the possibility I had so previously refused. My stomach turned; become so filled with butterflies I was actually dizzy. My breath picked up, and my heart raced. I had always question the concept of someone fearing the idea that another person could hear the racing of their heart. I had read about it, and yet I couldn’t imagine someone being that anxious.
In that moment I understood.
Looking around me I feared someone recognizing my fear, and with that I let it consume me, my face growing so thoroughly blushed, that now, looking back I pity whoever it was I might have been holding hands with to my left and right, as I must have been crushing them. The director entered, and began reading the cast list, my heart now quite literally inside my ears. She moved through ensemble parts, and with each name being read the person received a script and was welcomed into the cast. She read more and more names, the hands beside me leaving momentarily to collect their own script, leaving me alone. I now truly feared I would faint, as attempting to diagnose my fear was futile, I had simply never felt something of this magnitude before. I didn’t actually know I could be this dizzy. The list continued and the roles increased in significance, until it became only possible that I had not received a part, or had received the title role, something I had never actually read for. The final name was read and it was not mine. I didn’t receive a part.
Since that audition I actually think I’ve looked at everything in a different light. You see it turns out I’m not the greatest person in the world, and the latter doesn’t revolve around me. In my unbelievable arrogance that day, I think it’s quite possible I might have actually lost myself the part, as I failed to focus and commit, preferring more to read crossed out curse words on the back of people chairs. At the time, I was of course extremely disappointed to say the least, and yet it may remain to be the most important lesson I have learned yet. Since then I have entered ever single audition with the utmost madness, convinced of my own legitimate inadequacy, quite frequently sick with fear at the idea of failure. It’s this reality that has brought me to my best at times, and helped me constantly be aware of my own mortality in the eyes of every director. Without this audition I might have remained immature and arrogant, but with it I’ve grown, and can now actually call myself a young adult.
“Someday I’ll fly away, leave all this to yesterday”
When the din breaks,
And there is silence
I hear it:
The ticking of the clock,
The ticking of this heart of mine,
It thumps and it shakes,
My chest holding the mix of flesh, marble and mud—
Yet it may not be enough for this restless, angst filled thud.
Suddenly the little muscle knows,
That lying, napping, snoring,
In this room filled with clothes,
Is not enough.
And it struggles to escape—
Though there seems to be nothing more on this barren, suburban landscape.
Heart meets head, blood meets thought,
And roots give way to shoots
Ideas grow-
But hit a wall,
When opportunity fails to knock.
Tick.
Tock
Voices go silent,
TVs go dead
IPods are charging…
My limbs fill with lead.
When the din breaks,
These ticks make quakes…
And my eyes open to a world that has yet to bloom,
And I see:
I am but a teenager, staring at the ceiling in my room.
Tick.
Tick.
Recognition arrives, and a panic subsides:
This canvas lies blank,
Waiting for one clutch yank-
To pull it-
Drag it-
Into the universe.
But there is time yet, for my shenanigans.
A whole world lies beyond,
Waiting for me.
Strong but Steady
Each second she changes
Pulled by the tides, she comes in and out
Carrying boats on her back.
And through the sun and the moon she is influenced
Her hot, burning pressure raises heat
While his cooling embrace brings strength
The very weather brings inconsistencies
And with it her surface changes
The, waves, once sure and steady, grow angry
As they crash down in new places
And with the clouds of weather comes an absence in the sun and moon
Granted, this storm shall pass,
But not before it has brought down erosion on many a rock
And with the dawn a new earth emerges
The sun and the moon as a constant
And the ever returning tide becomes steady again
The storm and the clouds have cleared, and from it
A new age
The earth shall never be the same
But with its passing- goes the majority of her rage
As the rains brought a washing of insecurities,
Of litter upon her shores
And now her visions clears, the sun and the moon come smile
“Share with me the life” she says,
“For through the darkness, I have seen a light.”
Nicky
My dog’s dead.
Nicky’s dead.
He died, actually.
We had to put him down on Friday.
The cancer was everywhere.
He didn’t really have a chance.
Chemo would have put him through so much.
We made the decision to put him down.
In a matter of hours after we knew, he was gone.
“He’s gone.”
Tear flow. Loneliness ensues.
I never thought I could hurt so much, over a dog.
I wait for him to come to me when I come home.
He’s being buried in Marlborough I think.
Where the fuck is Marlborough?
Our couch still smells like his pee.
I don’t want the yellow snow to melt yet.
The backyard still has his mark, everywhere.
He loved the snow.
He was in pain for a while, we just never knew.
I yelled at him when he woke me up last week.
“I’m sick! Let me be!”
Oh the irony.
I just want to hug him again.
It’s not real.
Nick can’t die.
He’s my dog.
It’s very real.
He was my dog.
He’s happy now.
Chilling with my grandfather,
Who I barely cried over.
But Nick, Nick I will cry for for a while.
Most don’t understand.
That’s Haught
Amongst the crowd, his pale gray shirt
Goes drifting, bouncing back and forth, bored
Amongst their desperate, grasping, vain attempts to flirt
His face, so rude, so pretentious, so haughty, reminds them of a lord
Mighty and high
Attractive and soft
But he meets each smile with an exhausted sigh
As if, he can’t stand the smiling brunettes, so far aloft
He sits
Annoyed, so basically, by those who admire him,
By these poor misfits
Maybe he thinks them lame or dim?
And looking back, I wonder now,
If his life played out, in isolation, left alone with those gifts, he thought he’d been endowed.
Ode to My Tie Dye, My Tie Dye Pants
Yes, dear stranger, you may stop and look at my pants.
You can marvel.
You can worship.
Just don’t wonder why it is that I dance.
For if you had pants as wonderful as these,
Wouldn’t you jump, and run, and skip just like me?
Of course, there were many before.
First, my plaid flannels,
Then there were my navy sweats
And my soft, fluffy, blues, color as deep as any sky.
But while you’re here I’ll tell you,
There are nothing, nothing like my tie dyes.
I could write volumes,
I could fill pages
I could sit and talk to you for ages
About my wonderful,
Comfortable,
Vibrant,
Tie Dye pants.
Romeo and Juliet,
Jack and Rose—
They don’t have anything on me and my pants.
Be envious,
Feel threatened,
For I will understand.
These pants, I’m sure, can do more for me than any single man.
I can sleep in them,
I can swim in them,
I can even go to the gym in them,
And God knows I’ve done all three.
Quite simply put,
There is nothing so colorful that will ever satisfy me.
Except perhaps,
I mean, maybe,
Maybe I could find a box…
Of delightful tie dye socks?
Surely, I’d prefer to be bananas.
Surely now I will do it?
Surely now I will destroy your room?
My tantrum will send that shot glass collection
Smashing, clattering, and shattering to meet the hardwood.
Should I attack the laptop you love so much?
Explode the fish bowl I bought you?
-Complete with fish inside, who you have not fed for days-
And still,
Still, not feel satisfied as it flops there,
Gasping for air,
So tragically doomed by my tirade…?
But I stop.
It is at these moments,
With my heart racing
Hands shaking
And breath coming in bursts of uncontrollable wrath-
Like a boiler- ready to combust
To dust:
An explosion of tyrannical wind and fire
A short circuited, smoking wire-
That I stop and think surely,
Surely,
Surely you are crazy?
You would have to be unstable
To say such wildly inconsiderate things
A young man of twenty and yet-
The world exists to you, like a computer does to a monkey.
Surely,
Surely you are crazy?
Then again, why not make me walk through a snow bank
To the back door
Rather than get up,
And let me in the front?
You were comfortable.
Of course-
That does make it okay.
And yes,
Yes, I am crazy for screaming at you
In fact you’re right-
I’m “f***king nuts”
For thinking that you would have grown by now
Grown into knowing …
That after six hours of
Cold, concentrated, restless boredom,
Compacted into walls of cement and mortar-
And sealed off with a coating of undiluted pressure,
That after failing a math test,
Tripping down a mysteriously wet staircase,
After losing my glasses
Nearly missing my bus,
And forgetting all of my History supplies,
That maybe-
I didn’t feel like a trudge through winter wonderland.
Well, I am nuts for thinking that.
Yes-
The whole world is crazy,
And you?
You are sane, competent, and omnipresent
Omni-capable.
You know, I’m starting to think
-As I sit here and watch you laugh hysterically at my fury-
I’d rather think we’re both crazy
Yes, I’ve decided:
I’d much rather imagine us
Off our rocker, attempting to boil a sock…
Attempting to reanimate a cow…
Attempting to walk on a rope for a ‘wow’ crazy.
Because anything would be better than admitting it:
Admitting that this screaming, yelling, swearing, stomping,
Jaw chomping bunch of kids,
Is what we have become.
And these scars?
They are what we have done
With ourselves
From the cringing whip
Of ‘wit beyond measure’
From the jobs, and the pressure…
It is in moments like these,
After long hard days
That I have begun to hate what we have become for each other.
So are we crazy?
Bananas?
Or is this merely what we say
When everything else is a fiery pit?
I guess we’d rather take it out on each other
Then turn to face it.
To be an adolescent foiled by waffles
In my stomach sits a brick,
My conviction is sixteen years thick
I will not move,
I will not plan ahead,
I will nap.
The fuzzy disposition,
Of these too warm pajama pants
Will hold me deep in slumber.
And here beneath my comforter
Under my pillow,
And below my sheets,
I will rest, away from you.
You who go by future
You who go by real life,
You cannot crack me here.
So send me a message,
Shoot me a text,
Write me a letter, four pages deep
Give me a call—
And be sure to leave your name after my lonely little beep.
Because I am nowhere, I am asleep
I am dreaming
I am safe.
Who needs a job,
Who needs college,
When these slippers are doing me so darn fine?
I am comfy cozy indeed,
And no matter the passage of time,
You simply will not change my mind.
Consider it a bedtime story
These tales I have heard,
As each weary adult
Comes shuffling in, spinning me a tale
So many years thin.
They had goals,
They had dreams,
But they have pushed nothing, but their collared shirt’s seams.
So I say no thanks,
I’m happy here,
I don’t feel the need to join you,
My dear, dear future.
You cannot tempt me with your stories of promise
So I’ll lie in bed
-Lay my head right here—
And listen to you call.
What’s that you say?
There are waffles downstairs?
Crap, I guess I’m coming after all.
Maybe I would rather remain conscious for a bit
So as not miss the show in this too warm, lonely embrace of mine.
Two Best Friends
Two best friends, we laugh, possibilities thrown wide
A mother to a daughter, yet again and again
With ferocity we clash, never seeming to subside
But in those quiet, peaceful times, we move in stride.
A unified force, nothing dares to stop us then.
And two best friends we laugh, possibilities thrown wide.
Yet with one awful mutter, in response to a useless chide,
You ignite, and I smolder—failing to count to ten.
With ferocity we clash, never seeming to subside.
Other times, Out and about, we refuse to stay inside
And dancing in the sunshine, we sit and talk, comfort and ease with seemingly no end,
Two best friends, we laugh, possibilities thrown wide.
Then you say something tactless, feeling pent up frustration, yet failing to hide
And like an aggressive, compressed, and stressed volcano, I try to restrain, but it’s more than I can—
With ferocity we clash, never seeming to subside.
Through thick and thin, you remained by my side
Caustic, relieving you influence cannot be matched through pen…
Two best friends, we laugh, possibilities thrown wide
With ferocity we clash, never seeming to subside.
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