the taste of summer

Spring is fading into summer and I am singing new songs. Songs that make my hips sway and my heart hurt in all this humidity. Unrealistic expectations I created myself because I wanted to badly to believe I was worth holding. I wanted to badly to live out a fairy tale- I forgot I am no princess. Just a mixed up hippie child with a digital camera and home made perfume. Just a brown haired misfit who loves in run on sentences and ethnic food. Last night I walked downtown by my mothers side in a short skirt and floral print silk. We ate crab cakes with thai sauce while a bearded faced bohemian played the cello. Everything tastes better when there’s music. We dreamed of Greece and watched slow paced southern love unfold in a cold abandoned movie theatre. We browsed for vintage clothes and golden Buddha statues and silver rings to warm callused writers fingers. We were suspended in a mother daughter paradise.
Swimming under hot rain clouds and there’s a sun-burnt boy in that pool I used to think I loved. While his skin turns red he smothers me in memories I have been killing myself to forget. All those pictures last fall- my purple polka dot mittens and his blue hat. Cold ears and pink noses and golden leaves scattered on haunted roads in the middle of nowhere. It was just us and her and a whole lot of deserted bridges to stand on while the sun set and the wind warned us it was time to go home. He reminded me of bible studies and sweaty concerts and being his bands biggest fan. He told me the picture I made him was still hanging in his room and damnit I am so sick of those green eyes staring at me. For months they wouldn’t even look my way but here we are and oh how I long to be far from him and his memories- his words are no accident.
So we swam and ate sticky brownies and at the end of the day I can taste summer on these chapped lips of mine. Last night I said goodbye to a boy I barely know. One with blue eyes and dreams of the army. One I won’t see for months but kissed me softly on a Saturday night. Maybe I should regret giving my lips so willingly but I don’t because I’m just sixteen and hopelessly brainwashed by countless romance novels and Hollywood love stories. Don’t get me wrong, I know that was not love. It was just a goodbye kiss he can think about those long nights away from home. When he’s writing me letters from an army camp in cursive and I’m checking the mailbox barefoot in early mornings. We both know this is pretend.
I have become desperately addicted to five girls. We drink Starbucks at ten o clock and pile in a blue car. We sing and we cry and we love each other in a way only best friends can. Unconditionally. Beautifully. In endless nights and groggy mornings and heartache.

Words of Wisdom

Dearest Mallory,
I am writing to you with hands you would not recognize- callused, wrinkled hands. My fingers are gnarled and twisted but don't worry. On my wrists there are hemp bracelets and Earth-tone beads and silver charms from Barcelona, Paris, and Amsterdam. These hands are eighty years older than the ones you are holding this paper with now but darling they are still yours. They are still draped in memories and thrift store jewelry. Some things never change.
If I am not mistaken you are currently sixteen and utterly lost. You're in love and out of your mind and you cut off all those long blonde waves that cascaded down pale shoulders. You bite your lip when you lie and spend anxious nights anticipating midnight calls- praying for a blonde boy to sing you to sleep while you light lavender incense and scribble peace signs on your ankle. If I am not mistaken, you wish you were a tie-dye-tee-shirt goddess.
Before I go to sleep tonight I wanted to write you a letter to reassure you that yes, you do master calligraphy. You spent weeks in that Sunday morning class downtown but you can finally bring beauty to uppercase S's and lowercase y's. Your signature makes overweight store owners gawk- they have never seen penmanship so closely resemble art. And don't worry, you fall in love. Oh, you fall in love. Over. And over. And over. You surrender yourself to brown eyes and acoustic guitars with engraved initials of reckless lovers. Sometimes you get hurt but you wrap that broken heart in silk scarves and mend it with green tea and Kashi bars. You paint your pain on white linen canvases and hang your masterpieces on a lonely wall. You grow into a Picasso fueled by these next few years of pain so keep all this beauty in mind when you’re drenching your pillow in sweet tasting tears.
Remind yourself daily that there is a rhyme and reason to the seemingly random disaster of our America. Stop eating Weight Watchers fudge bars when you could devour straight up chocolate heaven from your favorite ice cream parlor. I know you think your sides are chubby and your thighs are too wide but trust me on this one, one day you will realize how beautiful you were and long for that summer figure. One day your joints will ache while you do yoga in Central Park. You'll look down at your thirty-something year old cellulite body and remember the days when you could wear low rider jeans and not terrify lollipop licking toddlers. You will regret every time you looked in the mirror and hated what you saw. Please start loving yourself, before you start losing yourself. Please stop writing your poems for everyone else- yours is the heart that needs those lovely words the most. You have always loved to fix what’s broken- always lived to breathe life into the eyes of the hopeless. But as a personal favor to me my dear Mallory, breathe life into your own eyes. Learn to play the guitar. Tell that boy you love him. Forgive your father for not being able to hold you when you needed those arms more than ever. Embrace your best friend. Make the world as beautiful as you want it to be.
Live for today. No regrets. No what-ifs. This is your time to shine darling.
Love,
Mallory

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my logo for digital image design. peace and love baby,

peace and love.

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While I Live

Hours of crying on a blank canvas and praying that it came out as art. i ended up with a bunch of old Vogue pictures and snapshots from lazy childhood summers- sprawled out and scrambled and on top of all that loveliness i scribbled LOVE in a white pastel. Pearls are draped around those beautiful face, hot glue gunned down and covored in a thick layer of sparkles. Maybe its art or maybe its just a disaster but in the end it got me through another Sunday night waiting for my phone to ring or the sun to set or the right song to come on. John Mayor and The Shins sat with me on a glue covored carpet and let me miss him. It's not that I cant stand the taste of this pain. it has lingered on my lips politely for years now and i would swallow it but i would rather let it make me strong. This morning i left all those tears to yesterday and laughed out loud in a ying yang tank top. Yes I miss those bear hugs and lullabies but these jeans fit just right and it's eighty degrees and I'm tired of complaining. Tired of letting that pain get in the way of a beautiful spring. SO i will miss him while i smile. Miss him while novels spill from my fingertips. Miss him while I fall in love and find salvation in European poetry. While I cross smooth legs and bare feet and bite my nails. While i live.

breathing in spring

I'm breathing in spring. I'm taking in pure air that smells like Olive Garden and aromatherapy and a million memories I want to carry around in a golden locket. Wrap them around my neck in a hollow heart that sits on my chest on the days when I'm not strong enough to smile on my own.

I feel the need to update the world on all this happiness. To tell them I've found reasons to sing again. Reasons like a blonde haired boy with an Australian grandma. Reasons like a best friends car to clean in cut off shorts and blue bandanas. Reasons like sunny days created for long bike rides and kiwi slushis. unlimited bread sticks and choirs full of girls who hardly know how beautiful they are. I'm attempting to capture all these lovely fragments in run-on sentences and candid pictures but my grammer is awful and my fingers cant type fast enough.

these past few days ive been letting myself live in the world and said things that i wish i could take back. ive cut up people that i love with words when they werent looking and i hope you'll still love me when im done being honost. im sorry for thinking you were annoying. im sorry that when i was sick i called and calld and called because i couldnt stand any more VH1 and i ached to hear your voice. I thought it would make me feel better but i found myself depending on blue eyes for my happiness and i never want to do that. happiness comes from me. from music. from an infinity of journals i have filled with my truth. from unfinished sketches and a sea of dreams. not from someone else. they have their own happiness to find and if i can help i will but i cant give it to them. all i can give anyone is love and these words and pray that it's enough.

next summer I'll hear wedding bells but i swear darling

i refuse to let them shatter me.

im sorry i cant smile for you yet

maybe one day I'll fit in your family picture

Until then,

i suggest you brush up on photoshop.

my favorite duet partner && the greatest tragedy

This is the greatest tragedy
Tired eyes and scarred arms on a Monday morning
Steaming tears on a tile floor and not enough words to clean up that blood
Apologies slipping through unpolished fingers and flying into the deep blue silence
Vibrating in open mouths and shaking you to the core
She will wear long sleeves and softly kiss the boys who stroke her heart with bad intentions
Hate herself for loving too thickly and pour salt in her wounds until the sting makes her smile
No remedy can heal how deep those cuts go
This is the greatest tragedy
Crimson lips selling artificial love on a glossy 8x10
Blue eyes lined with regret and a beautiful girl getting lost in the lies her mirror whispers
The fairest of them all is falling into a generation of misplaced Cinderella’s
And those snow white cheeks are tanned to tainted perfection
That billboard body’s a bullshit body but her limbs ache for that airbrushed happiness to sweep across soft pink flesh
Desperate for something only the flash of a camera can ignite
Her smile frozen forever but behind that blissful grin are throbbing memories buried amidst lovely deceptions
This is the greatest tragedy
Liquid sin robbing the innocence from her eyes in a hot basement
Bitter taste on the tip of her tongue and that southern accent is thicker than ever
Hungry boys with popped collars and bad breath reaching for something those fingertips can barely brush
Empty bottles and smoky promises but in the morning their bodies ache with blurry regrets and their childhood lullabies are light-years away
This is the greatest tragedy
Silky words given to a boy who would love her like lightening
A fragile heart beating in his open hand
When that summer fades into golden leaves and three ring binders those thick fingers close around it until the beating stops
And she forgets how to love
Wasted songs and poison kisses
Oh how he adored that blonde hair but her poetry meant nothing
This is the greatest tragedy
A fathers heaving sobs echoing in pierced ears years after the tears have been dried
His baby rocking that man back and forth
I forgive you. I forgive you.
Hiding wet eyes in his worn Abercrombie polo
Be strong, hold him tight.
Maybe tomorrow those songs won’t make him think of pretty women and sleepless nights
This is the greatest tragedy
A broken goddess tied down by a prince charming nobody asked for

She cried into those wedding vows but the bells were haunting
Nothing but a sarcastic savior in a silent house
And while she slept he stole her rock n roll
Hid it in his favorite bottle of wine
drank it as she sketched her dreamland behind diamond eyelids
Someday I will learn to love him
This is the greatest tragedy
Naked honesty typed with unpainted fingers on a black Dell desktop
The truth of a sixteen year old girl screaming to be heard
Aching to be acknowledged
She’s painting it out on a dirty canvas for your judgmental eyes and praying you will love her anyways