It's a rainy thursday and I'm missing you.
I had my camera charged and my favorite tie die shirt on but you were caught in traffic and i can hear your frineds rapping in the back seat of your car.
oh well
i had a headache anyways
these bobby pins i shoved into my scalp are starting to hurt and my stomach is cramping like a bitch. im regretting all the days i forgot to write because now the world will never know exactly how i fell back in love with you.
i don't really know how it happened either
promises of expensive dinners and that stupid Buckcherry song playing over and over and over
29 missed calls from you
christmas on it's way and you were all that i wanted
i need to stop worrying. stop being anxious and paranoid. stop reapplying lip gloss when im sitting in this condo alone watching lifetime and biting my nails.

jolly old saint nicholas

It snowed this morning.
I woke up with cold feet scrunched up in blue flannel pajamas. somewhere around three o clock last night i tip toed to the fridge and ate all those esther price chocolates my grandma was saving for christmas. smoothe silky chocolate seduced my tongue and quieted all these winter fantasies.
i love people the most when it snows
when their cheeks are pink and their noses are stuffy and their hair is covored in snowflakes. i love them most when they're filled with the possibility that that first snow breathes into their rusty fall hearts. when they shiver as snow crunches beneath their feet and seeps through their soggy boots. when for a moment they are restored with that childish innocence christmas morning inevitably brings to all ages. writing letters to a jolly man in a red suit. one who never judges and pats you on the head. one who loves. and loves. and loves. and always eats your cookies.
a man who will never break your heart.
a man who will never let you down.
where have all the santa clauses gone?

Missing My Confidence

Just got yelled at by some hollow eyed librarian in a tangerine sweater but all I can think about is how comfortable these sweat pants are and how I shouldn’t have eaten that oversized chocolate chip cookie on the way to class. The hallways were crowded and I shoved bite after bite of sugary sweetness into eager lips because my best friend wasn’t there to laugh at and my stomach’s been growling all day. In the silence of American Government it cried out for food while we watched Mark Mallory try to pitch a baseball. I told it to be quiet and crossed my arms over the giant Buddha on my chest but the pleading continued and when the bell finally rang for lunch I bolted as fast as these soft pink boots would take me down two flights of stairs and into the cafeteria. I tried to tell myself not to eat it but I did, before I knew it I had chocolate smeared on the edges of my candy pink lips and an empty Otis Spunkemeyer wrapper crumpled in my hands. Damnit damnit damnit. No, I am not one of those girls who weighs herself each night and spends her afternoons with her head in the toilet. My happiness does not lie upon a scale or within a size 2 pair of jeans. I am not killing myself to be beautiful but my mirror is not the friend it used to be. It does not greet me on those early high school mornings with a smile and a wink. It does not whisper quiet affirmations on the days when my phone never rings and this house seems worlds away from reality. I used to find solace in that blonde haired reflection but my gym membership is expired and I eat raisonettes for breakfast. I stopped tanning because I was losing myself to a bronzed stranger and stood out too much in winter. Now my face is dull and lifeless and I swear if you stare long enough you’ll see your eyes in these porcelain cheeks. The complaining must stop because I’m missing my confidence far too much. I forgot how beautiful I was when he traded me in for someone else but I need to remember so that these sunny fall days are not wasted on an insecure seventeen year old with a camera in her hand.
And oh, that camera is in my hand. Every day I’m snapping pictures of the world only I can see. Downloading them so that-if only for an instant- everyone can bear witness to the beauty that overwhelms me. They can realize how gorgeous the specks of gold are in their eyes or find peace within the way the sun hits the wet pavement on dewy afternoons. The only thing keeping me grounded in this cyclone of change are these pictures and the people posing for them. I meditate as I snap shot after shot and by the time their cheeks are sore with smiling I have found my center again. I have found my Om. I have forgotten you. I have forgotten it all.

autumns wind

I'm filing these weekends away in my heart so that I can relive them on those nights when tears come easy and nothing tastes right. These automn winds are whispering winters promises and picking up golden leaves to blow them in my hair. Things are changing like they always do and the only difference is that I finally don't love him anymore. I can see him and buy him a buritto and know that he is destined for sadness because he has not smelled compassion from anyone but me and I am gone from him now. I will not hate him because hating anyone tears down the walls of my universe and makes me bitter. I love the morning too much to be bitter. I love this life too much to hate.
His best friend calls me late at night to stumble over confessions of "love" and I'm sorry but I could never kiss you. You and your jeep and your bad directions and your promises. These boys need to stop watching The OC, it makes them too damn dramatic and they get silly with ultimatums. Him or me, this or that, never or eternity. Just shut up, I have too much on my plate without your college boy problems. I will listen but I will not love you. I will love my best friend and my mom and myself. That's all the love I'm handing out for now so you can wait in line or surrender to my truth. <3

rainy days

Every day is a rainy day. Golden orange leaves sticking to my best friend wind shield- adhered firmly with crystal raindrops that don’t seem to be able to stop falling all over this quiet fall suburbia. At first those rain clouds were comforting, shielding a sun that hurt my eyes and reminded me of summer days in the front seat of your car. Now I am willing them away because the bottoms of my favorite jeans are soaked and my moccasins are slippery on the cold tile floors of my high school. Because my hair is frizzy and the hood on my new red jacket isn’t big enough to cover this blonde mess on my head. Because the only songs I like to listen to when it rains are the slow ones that make me think of you and everyone knows I grew sick of that long ago. I’m tired of talking about you. I could say that I have moved on but here I am blogging again and you seem to be the center of my poetry. You seem to make my fingers fly across the keyboard.
No, I am not jealous of that brunette sophomore kissing you at the Bengals game. I’m sure she is a lovely girl but those circles under her eyes scream of sleepless nights and I wonder how long she will stay innocent with a boy like you in her world. You took a picture of her pressing her lips to your cheek while you scrunched up that freckled face and tried to look like a hard ass. I took a picture like that. Exactly the same- that kiss, that angle, that face. You’re living through cheap imitations of our summer and I’m sorry she can’t edit pictures like I can. Maybe then it would look like you were actually happy. And yes this sounds bitter but the truth is… I have every RIGHT to let the phone ring when you call. I have every right to deny your friend requests on facebook and delete your ridiculous texts. I have every right to shut you out of my life and if I had a little bit more of a bitch in my blood I would have done it long ago. I should have done it long ago. So don’t whine to your friends when I hang up on you and don’t return your messages. They are meeting up with me at Krogers to watch the OC and listen to Sean Kingston in the car before they party the night away with you anyways. The truth hurts, doesn’t it? I forgive you. I wish you happiness. But I have been a dumb blonde for much too long.
I am pale again. My tan faded away when my gym membership expired and I realized I would rather be an Audrey Hepburn than a Paris Hilton. I was born with this porcelain shade so I suppose there is beauty in it somewhere,
but damn Barbie for having such bronzed plastic skin. I yearn for the smell of a tanning bed again and the shade of my eyes when my face is brown. I will accept my beauty. I will love my body even when I shove my face with caramel apples and too much candy corn and hot banana nut bread. I will worship the mirror even when I feel far less that beautiful, because if I don’t believe it- nobody will.

rasberries

Sour apple slices and ADD medication
Thick fog hanging on my bronzed shoulders and crocheted green scarf
Yawning and blinking blue eyes to life
I don’t want to see those high school halls but I know they are coming
Last night we ate at The Cheesecake Factory and revealed our dirty secrets over parmesan chicken and too much bread. We walked quickly around a deserted mall hunted for green eyed cuties and came up empty handed but oh, it was a lovely time.
This week is wearing me down.
I have been reading about wacky chicks in Paris and Milan who speak their minds and open cheap vintage boutiques in the center of the universe. They take off their makeup with tampons and dare to defy all those blonde haired beauty queens and bow-tied communists. They swim against the mainstream with a passion and take baths with Baking Soda. They collect iguanas and inspire the likes of Andy Warhol.
They would never let an asshole like you ruin their day.
And even when you told me you were with some brown haired sophomore,
I chose to be a wacky chick.
I chose to laugh in your face.
Go ahead; call me in a month from now. See if I remember how you used to smell.
See if I care about your apologies then.
I hope you’re happy,
But I’m sure you’re not.
Yesterday I sat in awe while a hobbling Holocaust survivor told her story in front of a hundred high schoolers in ironed pants and fuzzy red sweaters. She wiped her eyes and brought life the terror of her past. She made jokes about the return of Elvis and I laughed at the way her polish accent wrapped around pop culture references.
She told us about the selfless courage of an eighteen year old Jew. This stringy haired girl presented a dusty raspberry to her best friend on a leaf, and in my mind their world is black and white- maroon raspberry and green leaf the only color illuminated in a world drained of all color.
She represented all that was beautiful and her 83 year old skin told stories written in every pale wrinkle and saggy laugh line.
One day I will have a story to tell,
She did not make hers a tragedy- she made it an inspiration.
I refuse to live a tragedy when there are all these raspberries in the world.