TGIF

A thousand screaming high school students in white
and me and my best friend are wearing jet black tee shirts. Splashed in school spirit, pig tails, war paint, black bandana, beads. Beads. Beads.
This is our last year.
Our last chance to drink up all this Thursday night joy. Our boys looked so pretty in those green jerseys but the scoreboard didn’t lie and I’m sorry to say all the cheering in the world couldn’t save us now. But the stands are filled and the lights are bright while the sun sets and we all scream for the drum line. I take too many pictures of beautiful girls that walked straight out of a magazine and into my high school. I smile even though it’s hot and muggy and I feel bloated from all that spontaneous candy corn.
I didn’t call you all day. Didn’t text you to tell you I cared or ask how you were doing. My fingers were screaming for my cell phone but I shoved my anxious hands in my pockets and took deep breaths until thoughts of you drifted away. Eventually you came to me. Missing me. Wanting me. Telling me how pretty I was. I push away and you pull me back and we are stuck in this passionate tug-o-war and I honestly don’t see either of us coming out victorious. You told me you loved me and I told you the score of the game. Laugh to myself and finally fall asleep. This morning came far too quickly and even that blue energy drink could not bring life back into my eyes.Oh well,
Thank God It’s Friday. :)

so much more than you

Six AM alarm buzzing in my head as i brush pale pink blush onto my cheeks. I feel dizzy and pale and disoriented. Feeling my way around the bathroom but this churning in my stomach won't go away and even though these jeans she let me borrow fit just right i don't think ill be able to make it to school.
lying in bed watching Somethings Gotta Give and imagining what life will be like someday when I'm old. When my skin isn't smoothe and my laugh lines sink in. When my eyes sparkle with secerets that only come from extra years in the universe. I have decided I will laugh often, love loudly, grow my hair down to my waist. Blonde and grey waves with daiseys woven into that mess of luscious locks. I will shop at flea markets and tell stories. I will learn to play the piano and cook thai food for my neighbors. I will embrace every wrinkle time has painted on my face.
I always get sick on the truely beautiful days. Yesterday i went job hunting with a beautiful brunette and got interviewed for a resteraunt i would never eat at- let alone serve. A large woman with a hair lip and mini-fro asks me about my past experience and i can never picture myself in one of those turqious button downs. So i thank her for her time and buy him a slice of cheesecake. I lie sleepily on his shoulder and resist kissing him when he drops me off a half hour late. yes, i am getting stronger.
tonight he will go party at a club with his frineds and probably call to tell me about how much he loves me. tommorow he will mumble that he doesnt remember anything and make an excuse to hang up. i'm breaking this cycle before it starts again. i'm buying new CDs and stopping myself from sleeping in his oversized hollister sweatshirt. i'm breathing and living for this moment, not tonights or tommorows. a universe revolving around a pretty boy is a universe full of catastrophe and heartache and darling
i am living for so much more than you.

not writing you off just yet

Yesterday I wrote a novel for this blog.
I sat still and poured my heart out while pounding on my keyboard and sipping on a diet coke. I mindlessly spilled my secrets onto the internet. I did not hit save. I did not copy my words. I just hit enter and then sat in shock when my computer crashed. All those lovely lines lost forever. I could look at it as a tragedy but this is just one more chance to rewrite my history. Take a step back and breathe and look at the situation in a new state of mind. These words will not be the same ones I wrote yesterday. These will be the words of a girl wiser than she was 24 hours ago. Someone refreshed by a weekend of flirting with blue eyed boys working at green tea stands in the mall. Someone who walked on the pavilion in Mount Adams in high heeled cowgirl boots and a golden corset. Someone who had nightmares filled with Cameron Diaz and trips to Paris all last night but who feels stronger than she ever has.
That Friday lunch date did not go as I had planned. My stony silence did nothing to ease this aching heart and even though when you tried to hug me I pulled away in defiance I am talking until my lip gloss has lost its luster and my lips are chapped from too much honesty I swore I would never cover you in. You don’t deserve to know what I spend my days thinking about. You don’t deserve to sit there so beautifully. You don’t deserve one second of this awkward apology and yet somehow the way you’re blinking your eyes and looking at your freckled hands makes me think maybe you really are sorry.
The words your best friend told me during all those 4 hour phone conversations were lies. A well thought, gorgeous stab in the back. I believed him blindly because you hurt me once and I wanted to believe you were the monster all those angry teens write rock songs about. I drank up his elaborate stories about your mind games. I let them sing me to sleep and woke up with a soggy pillow case. I did not think to as you or her or them. I did not need a second opinion or proof.
And even though they were lies, there is one truth. When I was home you were with her and yes, I know you regret it. I know how sorry you are but sometimes
Sorry is not enough.
Sorry can’t make me trust you more. Can’t get you back all those friends you pushed away with your dizzy nights and eagerness to fight. Can’t take back the way you talked to your mom or the doors you slammed in the faces of people who adored you. Sorry is lovely but baby, it will take more than sorry to make me jump. We sat on the curb of my favorite Thai restaurant while you smoked a cigarette and blew angry smoke away from my face. Angry with yourself for you mistake, angry with him for his lies, angry with me because you know I wish I could love you like I did. You flick that death stick into the street and cradle your head in your hands. Your friends are far away and your mom is dying and you have no idea how I am longing to hold you. But those days are over. I can’t make the pain go away, only you can do that darling. But I will put my hand on your back and promise you better days. I will pop my gum and damnit I’m sorry but this is my confession.
He kissed me
And I kissed him back.
And I’m scared the faces of the people that love me enough to want to protect me will stare at me in disappointment. Shameful eyes casting glares at the still girl who lets her heart get the best of her. But please know that I am not blind anymore. I am not caught up in your lies like I once was. And if I kiss you again, you can be sure that if you give me a disaster like this summer again it will be the last time. You can be sure that I will not let you ignore my calls, blow me off, make me feel less that beautiful and loved and adored. Because I know I deserve that now.
I may give you a chance to prove yourself because I truly see something in you.
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
And maybe ill be shamed but if I am I am walking away without looking back. I am closing the door on you and us and your countless apologies. I will feel for your pain and love you from afar but you can bet your ass I will put up walls to keep your brown eyes far from me.
But I’m not ready to close that door.
Not yet.
Because I have made mistakes too. Let people down. Lied. I am not evil. I am not a monster. I am a teenage girl.
I’m not letting you throw your arm around my shoulders and claim me as yours. But I’m not writing you off just yet.

Goodbye.

Today I feel strong.
I feel funny.
I feel skinny and radiant and full of love for every lost teenage wanna-be aimlessly roaming these high school hallways. The grungy indie boy I used to love smacked me with his elbow in first bell and I didn’t even scowl at him. He hasn’t showered all summer and he wears the same tee shirt twice a week. He smells like old acoustic guitars and Halloween. He is a part of my past just as much as you will be. One day you might nudge me with your elbow and I would not even look your way. I would not remember the way you used to hug me. I would not miss those summer nights or magical fireworks. I would smile, and breathe, and move on.
I have a date this weekend. A first date with a sophomore in college who wants to be a policeman in a bad part of town. He remembers me laughing too loudly in the hallway when he was a senior and wants to know what’s behind these blue eyes. We aren’t expecting forever. We aren’t expecting love. We’re expecting to smile and nod and get to know another heart while watching a baseball game and splashing in the pool. When I said I was moving on,
I meant it.
But today I will meet you for lunch. In a few hours I will be in your car again-for the first time in days, for the last time ever. And the strange thing is, while my stomach churns at the though of smelling your musky promises again, I am not scared. I am not scared of falling back in love with you. I’m not scared of falling at all.
I will listen to what you have to say- apologies, regrets, well-wishes. I will forgive you and then leave you behind. I won’t wince when you call me baby. I won’t give in if you reach for my hand. Even though you don’t deserve it, I will give you this one chance to say goodbye.
Goodbye my brown eyed freckled armed free style rapping Hollister wearing obsessive compulsive liar. Goodbye.

Too Far Gone

The sad thing is
Yesterday I spent hours convincing myself you deserved a second chance. You were sorry. You meant every word of that e mail you sent me at two in the morning.
I was wrong.
I spent hours lying to myself and the people that love me for the sake of avoiding the pain of losing you. But I don’t feel pain now. I think of all the times you touched me and it burns my skin because I now know where your hands had been before I got dropped off at your house. I know whose pony tail was on your wrist next to mine. Some sixteen year old brunette across the street and if I didn’t love life so much I might just be sick. I was ready to meet you on Friday at our favorite pizza place. I was ready to sit across from you and color you purple with forgiveness. I was ready to let you hold me again like you told me you dreamed about. Your dreams are my nightmares. Swearing you loved me while you snuck around with your junior high sweetheart who lied to you too many times to count. I called and told you pizza was off. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to hear your voice- mumbling apologies and whispering I love you’s and searching for some redemption from a seventeen year old girl you can’t save you. You took advantage of my forgiveness, of my honesty, my easy going love I gave without question. I was there when your college dreams collapsed. I was there when the people you loved left. I stayed behind. I surrendered my summer. But I am not your savior. My forgiveness will not get rid of that guilt. You will have to lie in bed and think about what you lost. I will be sleeping soundly to James Taylor lullabies and Elton John records. I will be spending weekends at festivals. I will be tasting all that freedom again and licking my lips for more because I am rid of your head games. “Dude, I’m just messing with her mind.”
You can’t touch me anymore.
I’m too far gone.

Radiating Love

It’s a new day. My blonde hair is no longer short and choppy and hopeless. Thanks to birthday money and luscious extensions I can flip these long locks over my shoulder and brush them with a passion I forgot I had. Ha. Girls and their hair<3
Yesterday I tried to heal while reading a Buddhist manual for spiritual revolutionaries. I lie on my tummy in a well lit courtyard with an expensive fountain and read about forgiveness, the eightfold path, the four noble truths, cleansing my soul and body and mind and radiating love out into the world. All morning I have been radiating love while I sip this French vanilla coffee that burns my tongue and warms my hands. All morning I have been forgiving you while I close my eyes and breathe deep and count to ten and feel all that suffering fade away. Pain is real,
But I made myself suffer.
I made myself suffer when I put my head on my desk and thought of our first kiss and then our last one. I made myself suffer when I searched the computer frantically with lovesick fingers on the keyboard and forced myself to look at pictures of us before we were broken. I made myself suffer when I refused to see that it is out of my control. Pain may come and go, ease in and out of my universe but I will not avoid it. I will not shut it out or fight it off. I will embrace it, I will love this fucked up human reality of pain because when the pain is gone I am left with confidence and the power of knowing I did not sink to your level. I did not use your secret torments you whispered in my ear late at night when the crickets were outside your window and your friend’s cigarette smoke was filling up your car. I did not lash out at you with blood red words and a mouth full of profanity.
And I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you. When you call my best friends and beg for forgiveness they will probably hang up on your monotone mumbling frat boy voice. They will shake their heads and tell me to move on and believe me I will. But I will give you a chance to apologize to my face. To look at me and attempt to shower me in all the sincerity a 19 year old boy is capable of. I will sit across from you and stare you dead in the eye when I tell you that I will not bring you happiness. I will bring you phone calls and butterfly kisses and wrestling in your basement. I will bring you someone to make fun of and tickle and confide in. But until you find out who you are, until you forgive that girl you loved for four years before you even knew my name, until you let go of all that anger that’s flooding your brown eyes and making your fists clench into a tight ball- you will not know happiness. Not with me-
Not with anyone.
And as much as you hurt me darling,
I’m still radiating love.
I want you to be happy.

take your memories, i don't need em.

Back where I started again.
Blonde haired and broken hearted and thank God for best friends who will hold me while I cry my eyes out on an orange shag rug.
Our day started with Buddhist books and cheap Chinese food.
I find sanctuary in a book store and we sat for an hour with our legs crossed while we marveled at all the glossy covered miracles in front of us. We sat in a naturally lit hole-in-the-wall and ate broccoli and chicken for 7.50 with chop sticks we stole from Trader Joes. We planned our futures and laughed at the neon painting of paradise glowing above us. Surrounded by paper bouquets and fresh peas and hungry construction workers, her blue eyes made me calm. They eased my anxiety about that brown haired catastrophe I convinced myself I was in love with. Hours later and I’m bawling again. The radio is broken in her car and the silence is eating me up and making those tears sound like screams. While I was home taking meds and sipping tea and watching too much O.C he was out tasting someone else’s lips. Breaking promises at football games and dance clubs and then swearing we would be okay. That he still loved me.

Driving to his house in all that summer heat and even if it wasn’t 100 degrees I still think I’d be sweating in my Clash vintage tee and low rider jeans. All the makeup in the world couldn’t cover the tear tracks that have been streaming down my face but my eyes never look bluer than when I’ve been crying over the boys I love. He gave me back my Tiffany’s necklace and Guster CD. He gave me back the five page note I wrote him before I flew away to Hawaii. He gave me back my pony tail and flicked the other one on his wrist. “this one isn’t even yours.” It hurt and he knew it and I ran back to that music-less car because I’ll be damned if I let him see me fall apart over him. Him and his Hollister uniform. Him and his stupid raps. Him and his bad taste in movies and distaste for literature and smoky smelling car. Him and his promises and his brown eyes and his tickle-happy fingers. Him and his lies. And his lies. And his lies. I want him to know that today I will cry. I will talk down high school hallways in a pink Indie top and smile, then rush to quiet bathrooms to silently cry in closterphopic stalls. Today I will grieve, not because I miss him. Not because I want his freckled arms around me or his car in my driveway. I will cry because I stayed up all night making him that scrapbook for his birthday. Because I planned sunset skies in a hot air balloon and him in a tuxedo at Homecoming. Because we will never go sledding like he said we would.
But tommorow, tommorow darling boy that thought he'd shatter me, tommorow I will not cry. I will sing those break up songs in the shower and sway my hips when I walk and forget how bad it hurt when you text messaged me at midnight. I will eat lunch with my best friend and dream about weekends of not having to call you. Not having to hear your voice and wonder why it sounds like its dripping with deciet. I will laigh and flirt and smile and wear that pink lip gloss you never liked. I loved it.
tommorow is a new day.