hush

My mouth tasted like screaming. Everything was silent but I could still feel the hum of the scream on my teeth and in my fillings. The darkness I woke up to was hollow and foreign although I could smell my bedding surrounding me. I stared into the black and waited to feel settled in my own flesh again.

I tried to remember the last time I felt settled in my skin. Remembered childhoods spent skipping through sprinklers in tiny bikinis and never sparing a thought about if my stomach was sticking out. Popping a blood blister in my palm while on the monkey bars, blood pouring down to my elbow until it stained the teal dress I was wearing. I remembered trying to find my mom in the crowd of people at the park, blood drifting further down from my hand and no one coming to help me. It was the first time I felt alone and vulnerable.

I felt it again as I sat in my bed, blood peeking through the center of my lip where I'd peeled the skin while I slept again. I gripped the edges of my blanket and licked the blood off slowly, letting the taste of copper replace the taste of screaming. I'd hoped I'd only screamed in my dream and not in real life. Then again, nobody was dashing into my room to hold me this time either.

via *

literally

I'm a fan of hyperbolic language because life is hyperbolic and explosive. I would much rather feel things in constant states of literally and hyperbole than through a veil of unshakable and polarizing apathy. Apathy does not make you impressive and isolation is not something to be proud of. Bleeding is impressive. Feeling pain that will lead to joy is impressive. Feeling joy that will lead to pain, that is even more impressive.

Let life drown you. We have been dying since the day we were born so why not go out with a fucking bang?

via *

car rides and conversations

We used to talk about snow cones and paper planes, now it's birth control and pregnancy scares. How did we get here? How did we grow up and enter this world of problems we never thought we would have to face?

I wonder about the conversations people have in their cars, those insular worlds that seem so private, but are really like tiny reality television shows with choose your own adventure stories attached to them zooming past your own car bubble. I wonder if that boy with the cigarette hanging off of his lip uses this alone time to listen to Taylor Swift, if that punk rocker is shouting out show tunes, if that blonde with Michael Kors sunglasses secretly loves System of a Down. What that couple is fighting about, what the old couple is sitting in silence. Why I feel the need to watch them so obsessively and empathize with people I don't know to the point of pain.

I nearly died on the freeway today when an asshole cut me off and charged me into a semi truck with a front grill like a T-Rex. But my little car kept me safe from the charging monster. Safe to scream out song lyrics and wonder about the morning traffic, who they are and how they got here for one more day.

via *

telephone wires above are sizzling like a snare, honey

The hazy blue of summer nights makes me feel selfish. With tangerine clouds inching past my window as I lay in bed, I don't know how I became so lucky as to see the world unfold around me. How I became so lucky to have been through so much and lived. To feel that tiny breeze play across my collarbone or that little thought of you peek through my eyelashes.

I bet you feel like summer and taste like ocean breezes.

Lana Del Rey is writing about us, you know.

via *

but I'm hoping at the gates, they'll tell me that you're mine

It's at that horrible point where I sit awake at five in the morning in complete darkness, save for the laptop screen, and see your face painted inside every song I listen to. I squeeze my eyes as tight as possible until spiders made of fractured light are crawling in the darker space behind my eyelids. This is the horrible point where I flirt with regretting all that I said and wanting desperately to say more. I'm trying to recapture that moment that was so the same three years ago while lying to myself about nothing having changed at all. I'd gladly say it all again. I hope you'd listen again and maybe let me hug you longer this time. But then again, I think I was the one who pulled away first. I should have breathed you in for as long as I could. Because now I'm breathless, but in the worst way possible. Everything is muddled at five in the morning.

via *

cookie cutter

Weeks of rain led to dripping lightning
and sugar cookies, lovely with roses.
He smiled and my heart bloomed;
I owed myself some bravery.

I organized my words like the outline
of a puzzle, working to connect the
skyline before the center can become clear.
Truth tastes better dipped in tea.

His fingers spread across the table top,
I ached to join mine with his, create
a paper doll chain of two before his hands moved.
The cookie remained uneaten, the tea growing cold.

Deeper words came flying out as
he watched the crumbs on my plate,
licking his lips as I dipped my finger
from the frosting to my teeth.

The broken cookie broke his heart
while mine finally unloaded.
The past was long, full of twists.
I needed more time to make mistakes.

I needed to earn someone with a soul of silver,
lips I imagine taste like sugar crumbles
to match the rosebuds that
grow on my cupid's bow.

Again I've said too much, fingers
typing faster than thoughts can fly.
working to close the gap with every word.
My life has never been cookie cutter perfect.

But I'm willing to wait.

a visit

Cemeteries are playgrounds of names and stories all ripe for the picking. I’ve walked through many cemeteries in my day and always spent more time jotting down names and piecing together ideas for stories than mourning my losses, facing a hunk of stone that is now supposed to be a place holder for a spirit that is gone. Crossed over. Vanished. But this cemetery, this headstone, her headstone, I know her story already. I cross back into it every time my car finds its way back down the familiar path toward the tree she rests under now. Even when I’m a few streets away from the cemetery entrance, I turn my music off and let the wind carry me forward. Maybe I’m afraid of silence and that’s why I need a constant stream of music. But in this place, I feel silence pressing in and I want to be alone with that fuzzy sound it has. 

My aunt died tragically. She was fine on a Monday and by Wednesday evening she was gone. Nine hours later my uncle, her brother, followed her into death. Unrelated. Both cancer. One known, another a sneaking viper that took her heart before mine had time to handle the break. I’m not a religious person but I always feel her at her headstone. I feel the eyes of all of these names watching me as I write them down in my notebook for use in my stories. But I feel her entire being at my back as I clear off the lighthouse on her grave. She was always so connected to the world around her and to her own mind. The borders people normally had didn’t seem to block her from knowing more than seemed possible. And now with me in ratty jeans, her beneath my feet in a white gown no doubt rotting and tarnished, but really her at my side, I feel light in my head for the first time in months. I see her opening a door and releasing pressure from my mind. 

All the names I’m seeing around me seem bigger than they should. Bourne. Blood. Killpack. Holding. Holding onto what? The decaying flowers sitting above your skulls? Born into what? The secret world we all want a peek into but that we are all dying to avoid. This cemetery is drenched in history and memorials. A marble angel stands guard over its child corpse, an angel that would turn from lovely to fearsome in the moonlight. A sand blasted headstone stands not even two feet tall for Millie Clair next to my great-grandfather’s headstone. Born October 20, 1891. Died February 12, 1892. Her headstone has a tree stump and a lonely little dove. I can see her blonde curls, pure as the dove’s wings. Next to her headstone is a newer model. Decorated with a basketball carved into the stone, another actual ball at the base of the statue. Flowers overflowing the pots. Did Millie see this boy’s family leaving the flowers what looks like hours beforehand? Did her little heart break at a lack of visitors for over 200 years? I vow to bring her flowers next time I visit. Yellow like her hair. 

An amazing pyramid while I am here. I stand with my Aunt. Three rows away two gravediggers are finishing filling a new grave. They are smeared in dirt and decidedly less cheerful than the clowns of Hamlet, headphones bouncing around as they swing their shovels back and forth. A few rows behind them a casket sits on a pyre high above the ground, all guests having left minutes before my arrival. Two maintenance workers work at removing floral arrangements and throwing them back into their bed of their truck. A few petals fall into the hole beneath the casket. One worker curses as he stubs a finger against the wood. Is this what we have to look forward to? 

via *

solstice

The onset of summer leaves me vibrating and nostalgic like folk music,
the sunset like melting ice cream and honeydew scents
curling in the newly forming blossoms on the trees.

I feel young and small and tired, fallen from the nest too soon.
I feel strong and awake and ready, getting drunk on warming air.
The paradox of 22, too young to not call mother, too old to miss her much.

via *

a fictionalization of complete nonfiction.

I'm not saying it's as bad as it could be. I'm not even saying it's bad. It's just that I know they are talking about it and I know they see how different I am. As much as they say it doesn't matter to them, I know it does. I'm the odd man out. I'm the one who isn't rushing marriage, the one who doesn't want children. The one who believes in a good time.

There are only so many times humor can happen at the expense of another person. There are only so many times I'll laugh with you when you are laughing at me and judging me in my attempt to play it off before I snap. I'm the moody girl in the basement, you're the celestial trio. Believe me, I get it. I'll be burning in hell with the alcohol and the swear words and the bass lines that read to you like crack cocaine in a bathroom stall. Bring on the burn if it means I get to feel joy in life now. At least I won't be bored.

Keep your eye rolls to yourself and I'll keep my suspicions and anxieties buried. I love who I am. I do. It only gets hard to love who I am when you shove it back in my face against me. That's when I question myself. That's when my nail beds itch and my pores crack open. I try my hardest not to judge you. Allow me the same courtesy.

via *

2.26.14

I’ve gotten used to sleeping with my curtains peeled back ever so slightly. I can see a little rectangle of sky when I lay in bed. In the morning the sun nudges my shoulder as I scramble to wake up and start my day. It’s become such a comfort to see my little corner of the sky each night. My black curtains sweep across the entire window, making my room a fortress. But with that small little crack for me to peer up and out of, I can watch the night move and change. I love feeling so small as I lay in my oversized bed. I love feeling so connected even in the detached moments of half sleep.

The best part is the tree. The tree that is sturdy and stable in a way I know I cannot be right now. I can’t explain why seeing that tree makes me less afraid of the dark or why it makes me feel that everything will be ok if I breathe a little deeper. I’m not sturdy. I’m as looped and changing as my record player, singing melancholy song after melancholy song and the gothic clouds mold themselves across the sky and peek at me from behind the arms of my ever present tree.

via *

i love gypsy life

(random ramblings ahead.)

After spending five days back at my old house, I am now back in Salt Lake permanently. Today was my last day of work at Barnes and Noble which means no more commuting! more time to myself! back to writing! school in less than a month! I took a little blog vacation for my last five days of work- five very long days and long hours of work. But now I am back and am so ready for a few weeks of relaxing and job securing before school starts in January.

Items:

- I was offered early acceptance to the Honors College at the University of Utah! I applied for admittance and was told that I was applying for next fall but then last week I got an email saying I was chosen for early admittance! I'm so happy! I now have to sort of mess up my perfectly placed schedule but that's alright. I'm just ready to be back on a campus, around working minds and shifting gears.

- I read so much in these past five days and it felt like heaven to feel my brain jogging around the words on the page. I'm so close to my goal of reading 50 books this year and being able to find time to just read about 5 books in 5 days helped push me toward the goal. I'm at 48 books right now!

- Can Game of Thrones just be on again already?

- I know it might appear that my constant repetition of my love and feeling of content at being single right now may make it seem that I am trying horribly to compensate for the true pain of being single but it's the exact opposite. I feel so at home in my own skin and in my new house that I cannot keep from talking about it. My stomach feels dizzy from excitement and bubbling opportunity in the future. The near future. Reaching this exact spot in my life has been my mantra for the past two years. I knew if I could just get here I would be deliriously happy. One person cannot be this happy. An internal bubbling happy that still lets me retain my constant layer of melancholy (ha). I feel connected to my artistry while still being happy.

I still feel myself missing my past boys. Sometimes terribly so. Sometimes I still cry about it. But you know? I'm happy I still do. They meant something and I deserve as many tears as my body still produces for them. Right now is my time to be me and let myself heal in my way. To write them all out so I can breathe them out of my system.

And even in my comfortable isolation, I could still use some male touch every now and again. Someone find me under the mistletoe. Steal a kiss from me. Hold my hand. Touch the small of my back. Whisper into my neck. Touch. Taste. Have fun.

"I don't want to be alone forever, but I love gypsy life." - Lady GaGa

mantra

via Tumblr

smatterings of thought

-I'm having a hard time motivating myself to continue interning where I am working/ interning in general. I feel like I gave the assisting thing a shot and it's just not where I want to be. at all. I loved the people in my first internship. the people at my second one are distant and guarded and have offered no help. I don't need mch. but some direction would be nice. The days drag. I only have something like two weeks left but every morning I feel like I cannot possibly make it.

-I miss someone and I don't know how to fix that. Advice? Do I call them? Text them a well intentioned message wishing them well? continuing to stalk his twitter and instagram? hope he will happen upon my blog and figure out which posts are for him and wait for his move? It's getting to a weird point. An insatiable hunger to see them, feel the support I had from him once. It's like a weeping willow has sprouted in my heart and it's weighing my chest down. 

-This. 

Staring at the ceiling in the dark,

same old empty feeling in your heart,

cause love comes slow and it goes so fast.

-The fact that it's not raining today is severely bumming me out. I super wanted to go run in the rain and let my skin get soaked down to my bones. 

-I found my journal from when I was 18. I can now say with evidence that I would have beat my 18 year old self up in about a minute. But, actually, I probably would have just hugged her and told her that it does in fact get better. Then it gets harder than I ever could have imagined, but that the future will also be brighter than either of us could have hoped for. It was funny reading what I was scared for, plans for the future. But mostly I was surprised by the emptiness of it all. I didn't remember a lot of what I had written. I didn't mention many names, just situations. I remember thinking that there was no way I would forget the people I was referencing, so there was no point to including names. Fact is, I don't remember. I feel like blogging will mean so much more in the future. It isn't just writing bland daily occurrences, it's tracking overpowering feelings and small puzzle pieces of my day. The diary entires consisted of "I cannot wait to graduate, today I wore new shoes, yesterday was hard." My blog has more feeling. I can't wait to look back on all this.

-Can we discuss the sunset last night? That single streak of pink peaking out under the grey blanket of clouds that still let a few stray raindrops fall. I want my life to look like that always.

-I had writer's block until I started writing. Funny how that works, huh? 

-This was my weekend.

via Tumblr

-This is my month. Let's pull through it together.

via iwastesomuchtime

risk

via Tumblr

It is a risk to chase your dreams. What if it doesn't work out? What if it does?

What's scarier?

Failing?

Or succeeding.

Complacence

I love feeling swept away with conversation. I love meeting someone who I feel I can talk with forever and ever. It reminds me about how amazing life is and how beautiful dedication and the human mind can be. With so much to do and so much to hope for, how can anyone stand to not be driven and active and excited to be alive? Lazy days are good but a lazy life? Such a shame.

I've been working in the dental office for about three weeks now and time has flown. Sure I've learned about dentistry but I've learned more about people, especially the people I am working with. The dentist I have been assisting has such a wise and kind soul. He is very thoughtful, very smart, very dedicated, and one of my favorite people to talk to. He listens without judging, shares opinions without preaching, and is also hilarious. So. He's a gem. If he's not your dentist, you're doing it wrong.

He's a very active man. He runs races. He raises a family. He works as a dentist. And he is always striving for self improvement and knowledge, a trait I find the most inspiring. He is so thirsty to learn and loves sharing ideas with people for the mutual pursuit of knowledge. He's the kind of person that you talk with that you walk away feeling better about yourself and so excited to get out and live! And run! (Or try and run. Oh exercise... why must you hurt me so?)

His excitement has made me feel excited again. For the past few weeks I have started to get this cringing complacency crawling across my mind. I've accomplished a good deal recently and I've landed into a rare transitional period where all I have to do is wait until it's time to start my next chapter. Because of that, I've gotten lazier and lazier. It's not so much unmotivated as it is...uncritical satisfaction. I'm satisfied for now because I really can't do anything else but wait for my time to come. It's not quite moving day, not quite time to get back to the U, not quite time. It's a lackluster limbo that has made me painfully complacent.

But as I've been talking with the doctor, I've rediscovered how much I have to do with my life. I feel like I've woken up after these past few weeks. Just because my goals and dreams aren't new to me, doesn't mean they aren't new to someone else or that you can't make them new again for yourself. There is never a good time to stop working hard to chase your dreams, especially if they are finally happen.

Is it just me, or did you never think you'd get to where you are right now? Like, you plan your whole life but the day it begins to happen, it amazes you. You can achieve your dreams in this life? You're allowed to get what you want? When did we all grow up? Time flies and before you know it, you're here. You're on your way, and why not? You deserve your dreams.

I know the feeling of never thinking you'd get to where you are right now. It's amazing to see dreams coming true for yourself and it's also very humbling to see how much work and how many detours it takes to get to your dream. When you're little you anticipate a straight shot to greatness; nobody told us the arrow would be curved. I never thought I'd be a dental assistant. I still can't believe it. I'm a professional person working with real people in real time. But this detour has taught  me so much and prepared me even more for my true calling in life.

Surgeons once worked at McDonalds too before they realized their dream of saving lives. The struggle toward your dreams inherently defies complacency. Take it from me, do not let yourself get complacent because you think you've hit a rest stop. Use this time to pour over your maps for the 700th time, reroute if necessary, and then carry on. Even if you are driving slowly in a desert, you are nearing your paradise faster than you know it.

via Tumblr. Quote by John Green

Walking Irony

Time is flying this year, isn't it? Was it not JUST New Year? I remember New Year so vividly like it was yesterday and so much has changed. It was 7 months ago! It's gonna be Christmas tomorrow at this rate.

I sort of hate how time flies. And just like everyone always says, it goes faster the older I get. Good lord, I'm only 21. Time better simmer down if I plan to enjoy being 30 eventually. I just find it amazing when big things happen after loads of planning and time. It's like your high school graduation. You know it's coming for 13 years of school. You know it's always on the horizon. But one day you wake up, slip on your graduation robe, adjust your tassel, and have your dad drive you to your graduation. It feels surreal and is over so fast, just like everything amazing in this life.

I've spent so long planning for my future and now it's here for the most part. At least, the future I've been working towards for two years now. January is on her way, which means I finally get to be back at a University studying English like I want to be. (Brief side note, how DARE America not speak like the British do by saying "I'm at University reading English instead of majoring in? Real missed opportunity there.)

As excited as I am to get on my way to my dreams and my future, I'm so scared to leave where I am right now. I love my little twin size bed in the room I grew up in. I love having my dogs around me. (Real talk, I'm the saddest to leave my girls. Unbearable. Un. Bear. Able.) I love how my bed smells. I love my small town. I love knowing what I'm doing.

I like to be the best at things. I like to be good at what I'm doing and know what I'm doing. I hate feeling unsure or stuck in limbo. However, I love adventure. I'm walking irony. I love new things, but I hate being imperfect. I love new bedrooms and decorating, but I hate leaving my home. I thirst for new places and new people, but I'm so afraid to be hurt. I love irony and I hate it.

 I'm human juxtaposition.

This is a weird sort of word vomit of a post, but writing catharsis is always needed, yes? Not all words are flowering and pretty, but some rambling is needed for the flowers to grow.

via Tumblr

midnight musings

-I love being so excited about a new part of a story you're writing that you can't sleep at night.

-I hate being so excited about a new part of your story that you can't even write it down because thoughts are coming too quickly and too powerfully.
-sometimes i get scared to write because I don't want the first draft to be bad. so I just don't write.
-that is no good.

-memories sting in the best of ways, don't they?

-as cliche as it is, I adore Hamlet

-I can't decide if my master's degree should focus on creative writing or literature.

-that scares me.

-when it rains i feel more focused

-when it rains i feel more lazy and ready to cuddle into being unproductive.

-i like sitting in empty bath tubs after the water has drained. The porcelain stays warm long after the water has left.

-when smells sneak up on you, nostalgia burrowing into your soul, you go numb for a moment. 

-i love going numb. 

via Favim.com

Grenadine

Grenadine, sunshine, can you break this heart of mine

Darling I'm waiting to greet you.

Come to me, baby. 

-Lana del Rey, Bel Air

pretty little things

-sitting awake in a dark room, writing. The entire world is asleep but me. Late night musings:

-old hollywood

-lily allen
-sunlight filtering through old fashioned perfume bottles.

-cracking open a new notebook
-shadows on bare human skin

-perfectly lined eyes
-twisted sheets on a shared bed

-warm summer driveways
-marie antoinette

-flowing human limbs

6/13/13

-being barely awake at 5:30. roll over darling, you still have hours to sleep.
-sweet little puppy faces cuddling with you in the early morning light streaking into your bedroom.
-sunlit sky so bright so early and so late.  endless possibilities on those horizons.
-dew coated grass kissing your bare feet in the early morning.

-solitude and silence with the rest of the world still in its mid morning slumber.

-cold cokes in the sun soaked afternoon.

-hazy violet, velvet evening skies.
-the pavement sweating as your shoes slip off. you step onto the hot ground, cold winter feet thawing.

-secret smiles flitting across your face, memories of summers past.

-soft winds singing from their perches in the leaves.

-driving free and clear on the open road, middle of the night, no one's watching. no one's hearing. 

-disappear into the light. breathe summer in.

*all images via Tumblr