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college realities

I spent today shopping for zebra bedspreads and sunny shower curtains with two beautiful brunettes that have the same smile and my cheery eyed dream interpreting goddess mom. we ate meatballs and swedish fish and hugged when it was over, but oh
it hasn't even really started.
in less than a month all these college fantasies will become a reality and as I walked through my hippie paradise of a room I touched all the tiny things I might have to leave behind because there is no room for them in my new world- the Indian Cupboard i begged my grandma to buy me and covered with plastic pearls and glitter, the tiny tin bucket with the vines weaving around the handle my mom gave to me at our sacred gathering, the old battered Rent, Beatles, and Madonna posters that have watched me journal and cry and dream countless times from their home on my wall. I think of all the treasures from my childhood that don't belong in this black and pink haven that will soon feel like home- and something inside of me collapses with the realness of it all. something in me is scared and anxious and aching for her mommy and her phsycotic dog.
Today was the first time I've seen you since I felt naseus in your car and spent a sleepless night in my sisters bed. We bickered and kissed and fell back into this easy routine of loving eachother that feels like it started years ago.
hard to believe it was only last summer.

18 years old

my 18th birthday has come and gone and with it it brought yellow punch buggie pinyatas, lip staining sloppy joes, scrapbook pages created by the hands of the most beautiful girls i have ever seen, poems from my mother that made me cry and want to cradle my 18 year old body in her arms again, singing cards promising tropical vacations from this bland Ohio landscape, tye die balloons screaming GROOVY, pictures with ancient nuns who smile with their eyes and prefer dogs over children, and sweet smelling vintage perfume that will be the scent wrapped around my wrists the first days that i walk into this new college world.
i was nervous when you gushed about the scavenger hunt and Get To Know Mallory games my friends would be playing but you gave me the best birthday party ever in our magical backyard and made me rememmber that i'm never too old to bask in all my innocence. After all, I'm only 18
I have my whole life to grow up.
I clapped my hands when i saw that tree trunk you personalized just for me. our initials carved into the thick wood look like they've been there forever and smile at me every morning when the sun rises and shines it's jubilant light on those letters. MD+MM, and a jagged heart enclosing us together. The best birthday present you could've given me and it cost NOTHING.

i felt infinite

last saturday i saw sisterhood of the traveling pants with my pink lipped grandma and my favorite workout-aholic. we laughed when her wrinkled eyelids drifted shut before the previews were over and ate our low calorie popcorn we snuck in our purses. watching those four best friends on the screen took me back to days when i thought best friends were forever. maybe they are. maybe we will come back to eachother and realize all the times we have missed out on, realize that our laughs still sound the same. but for now we all look at pictures from those crazy sophmore nights when we wore red lipstick and war paint under our innocent eyes and we yearn for something we never realized we were leaving behind. we yearn for the memories that have become pictures that we look back at on sunny days when the house is quiet and we feel loneliness in every corner of our minds. we have all spun off in different directions but i have faith in best friends and boomerangs,
they will always come back.
after the movie i let those tight french braids my sister wove into my scalp that morning unravel and go wild. my hair was a jungle of corn colored waves and i let it hang while i put coral colored chanel lip gloss on my lips and waited for two blue eyed blondies to pick me up. we sped off to your house and oh that august wind felt so good on my face. the festival that night was a blur of pretty girls and drunk old men and funnel cake sugar sticking to the corners of my mouth. we laughed and posed for pictures and in the end i had to lay down on the pavement and look at the stars because all those stands and rides and voices were overwhelming.
later that week when the concerts were done and the festivals were over we drove around in your car and pretended we had a destination. we didn't. we were driving to nowhere and i know it sounds dumb but when you turned dave matthews on and put the windows down and rubbed your thumb over my hand,
i felt infinite.

Somebody's Hero

watching Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants with my sister while the sun shines through the cracks in our closed blinds and mu stomach tosses and turns the chicken dumplings i downed a half hour ago. this summer is dragging on and on but at least the nightmares have stopped and i can sleep again. I guess i was dragging around all this bad energy but once that floral pant wearing artist put her magic hands on me i was centered again.
yesterday we ran accross car filled roads, dodging trucks filled with trashy hicks who hollered at me out the window and honked with dirty fingers. they don't see me- just a tall blonde in a tank top. they aren't close enough to see the blue eyes, peace sign necklace, dreams of european cafe's and 18th birthdays. they don't see an artist, a girlfriend, a daughter, a dreamer. they see a piece of ass. sometimes this world makes me sick. open your eyes all you gritty truck drivers of america, that seventeen year old you honked at is so much more than another girl to honk at.
you held my hand even though i was dripping sweat and my toes were still caked with dirt from the soggy lawn at the Dave Matthews concert. we found refuge in Barnes n Noble while you flipped through UFC magazines and I looked at glossy pictures of toned perfection. 31 moves to get your abs toned this summer. 20 foods to slim down. how about 100 reasons why i should put down this magazine and start loving myself in spite of the fact that I am so far from these starving beauties? that's what i should be reading. by the time we picked up your car from Pep Boys my purple eyeshadow was smudging and my head felt too heavy on my neck. thankfully, I had you to rest it on while we waited in traffic and your dad yelled at you to get your head out of your ass. we both laughed silently as the sun beat down on your adorable farmers tan. If my camera wasn't so heavy I'd be snapping pictures of us at that red light, but it is so the last time i felt my finger on that button was at my cousins birthday party. we filled three tables at Friday's and her strawberry blonde hair looked shinier than ever. Her blue eyes are so full of the world and when she looks at me I feel like i could actually be somebody's hero. When she reaches up for me to hold her,
I feel like I deserve to be looked at that way. I feel like I want to hold her forever.

snapshots of my summer

walking around the movie theatre as the sun set and made everything pink and blue and orange. this time of night the world turns into a hippie's tie dye dream and i snap pictures of the sky while I breathe in all this Ohio air and listen to the two supermodels on either side of me laugh. they are beautiful and geniuine and i know you think your arms look flabby but i promise you- they're not. pree teen boys with messy hair and cargo shorts whistle as we walk by and you say they probably got droppped off by their mommy. i laughed- until i rememmbered i had too.
Dinner at PF changs and goosebumps painted pictures on my tan arms while i tried to work those plastic chopsticks and watched that brown eyed beauty twist the ring around and around her fragile finger. too in love to take it off but much too free to wear it for eternity. so sure of herself in that polka dot dress- people are never what you expect them to be. she is so much more than just another pretty girl. after dinner you picked me up and i couldn't see that face i love because your windows are tinted too dark. twenty years old now and you still play your music so loud it makes the car shake, and catch slimey frogs on sunny days, and kiss me like it's the first time. these are just some of the reasons i love you. i know i told you to grow up but i don't know what i'd do if you lost that twinkle in your eye. i take it back. stay just like this forever. stay mine. we drove down windy roads until we reached his grandmas house. he lives there now with that blonde lifegaurd who makes me laugh so hard when i least expect it. she curled up on his couch while he demonstrated UFC moves and refused to make her macaroni. these nights seem so insifgnifigant but im writing them down because they are the tiny moments of summer i want to rememmber- the way i bury my head in the curve between your neck and your shoulder and breathe deep. sweat and cologne and sunflower seeds. these are the snapshots of my summer.

driving

my dad has a new house. and oh, it is beautiful
and gigantic
and bustling with dirt streaked construction workers
and barefoot little girls
and smart mouthed high schoolers
and bikini wearing college freshman drinking diet cokes and watching their skin turn browner and browner. laying on their backs on a smooth wooden dock. legs dangling in the man-made lake thats full of oversized bass and carp and a million other mysteries my boyfriend tried to catch on a pole for three hours last week. that freckly skin i love so much turned cherry red and burned against his blue armani shirt we bought for half price in new york. oh well, his eyes are still the same dark brown i lost myself in last summer.
today i drove to panera and ate salad for the first time. well, i didn't drive. these seventeen year old fingers have yet to grip a steering wheel and take a hold of all the freedom that a liscence brings. i am happy being stuck in the front seat, hand out the window and wind in my hair. I'm not in control, but I'm completely blissful. my 14 year old sister is already looking at cars, jeeps and lexus's and oh she is in such a hurry to grow up but she has no idea how beautiful she is. this will be her second year of high school and i watch her and the "Core Four" lounge by the neighborhood pool and giggle and share secrets. they think that it will last forever, how do i tell them that by graduation they may not even speak to eachother? that one may be pregnant, another an addict, another valedictorian? how do i tell them the world changes and so do the people in it, how do i remind them to love eachother regaurdless of who they all become? thats something i've learned recently. the people i used to devote my heart to somehow slipped right through my fingers. forgotten friends and broken promises and high school dances just passed us by and we speeded over them and called them bumps in the road but i don't want my friendships to be just another speed bump. i want to take my life by the wheel and drive on and keep all those forgotten loves in my car, fill up every seat with the people i have neglected or hurt. fill it up with the friendships of my childhood, the bonds that never break no matter how different the paths we drive down may be. i want to floor that car towards a future where we can all remember that this is LIFE,
and we are in it together.