NaNo: Day 1

1. Wake up at 6:30. Am horribly confused by time shift.
2. Wallow in a pit of despair and self-pity.
3. Churn out 1740 words of the most terrible drivel ever written.
4. Commence triumphant cackling and self-adulation.
5. Continue the productive trend by cleaning, taking a walk, decorating, reading, grocery shopping, feeding, and writing MORE.
6. Constantly stare at clock while announcing, “It can’t possibly be only ___ o’ clock!”
7. Attempt to begin crocheting Christmas gifts. Begin a scarf for myself instead.
8. Start to succumb to effects of fatigue around 7:00.
9. Stare desperately at clock while announcing, “It can’t possibly be only ____ o’ clock. I’m so tired.”
10. So tired. 
11. Goodnight.

Life Update

For those of you who have reached out and wondered about my existence over the past couple of years, I offer you this:

A Little Pink House

In connecting with people all over the world through writing, it has been my experience that we see ourselves in each other. We want that happiness for others that we can’t find in ourselves. A lot has changed in my life, and as many of you know, I keep my memories as words. I hope you will all be able to appreciate that I have chosen the path that makes me happiest, and that path and those memories exists as words that I am keeping for myself.

Thank you for respecting that decision.

You know, what’s really neat about growing up is that I keep surprising myself by finding that I have the capacity to be happy, to fall in love with myself as a person, and to sound like a Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul book.

(Sorry about that last part.)

NaNo

Day one: 1676 words about glitter, chewed-up bacon, and cherub thighs.

Day two: 1,988 words about neatly organized wicker baskets, purple lipstick, and a necklace made of red and yellow pom-poms.

ONCE UPON A TIME ONE OF MY STUDENTS READ A POEM ALOUD AND IT WAS SO GOOD THAT I STARTED TO UGLY CRY AND THEY ALL JUST SORT OF LOOKED AT ME WITH PANICKED EXPRESSIONS LIKE HAVING FEELINGS WAS CONTAGIOUS AND THEN AFTER THAT NONE OF THEM COMPLAINED ABOUT HAVING TO DO A POETRY UNIT

Friendship and Extended Metaphors

Making new friends is kinda like getting a bonsai tree.

At first you’re all like, fuck yeah, I got a bonsai, look how neat! But then you start to realize that bonsais require EFFORT and you have to WATER THEM and put weird little wires on their BRANCHES and then you’re just kinda like, yeah, there’s a tiny-ass tree on my windowsill and I don’t know how to feel about that.

Bonsai trees don’t understand when you just want to lie in bed and contemplate the weight of the universe pressing on your eyeballs. They’re all like, hey, repot me and check my soil composition and also let’s go out for beers.

How do you explain social anxiety to a bonsai tree?

Why do I always want things that I will eventually kill?

SO

Writing a personal entry about my life seemed like a good idea about two minutes ago, but now it’s hanging over my head like one of those commitments you see to completion due to obligation rather than desire.

Or maybe I just won’t see it through at all.

(That in and of itself is probably the best example of what my life is really like, anyway.)

The Kingdom of Life and Death

two weeks ago i threw a stone
at the water and watched it skip three times, thinking
it will never do to grow old and content.

-

somewhere beneath this river
there is a castle built from stones i’ve thrown,
and all of the fish are kings and queens.

they’ve never been asked about their royal decrees.
no one has ever wished them a happy birthday.
they reign over the kingdom of life and death, and even the river
refuses to stop and mourn them when they go.

-

one week ago i found a moss-covered stump,
and instead of crying, i counted its rings.

twenty-four.

if you were to cut me crosswise, i don’t know
what you’d find. perhaps severed arteries 
pouring out gold and poetry,
ancient cave paintings splashed across my vertebrae,
or the secret to immunity brewing
in the cauldron of my hips.

maybe you wouldn’t find anything.
i cannot grow rings, after all,
and i am no queen.

-

today, to celebrate my birthday,
i will head down to the river with a saw
slung over my shoulder and
chop down a tree.

i cannot help but think that one day you will
stumble across its stump and count its rings,
and you will ask the fish about what it’s like to die
without a name.

you will find a perfect skipping stone, but
instead of throwing it, you will put it in your pocket
because you know about the fish.
you know about the trees.

you know that we grow older against our will,
and even stones that skip still have to sink.