no surprises

black on black.

2010-02-01T00:12:00.002-06:00

You said I looked twenty-five

as I leaned into the doorframe,

ponytail splayed across my shoulder.

I should have run my errands,

instead of scrunching my toes

into the matted pattern of cat hair and carpet,

stepping quietly into the crook of your arms,

so you could kill me.

still.

2009-10-29T18:43:00.003-05:00

my first attempt at flash fictionesque - still unsure of the ending, but we're getting there. started this forever ago, looking to finally finish it.

Stand still. Freeze with me here, right here, in this moment bound in anger. At least you’d still be bound to me. Linger just long enough so that none of us ends, even if it means we remain paralyzed in this creeping chill of what if. If time could stop, the resin of our joints would stiffen, a steady crawl of stillness so that we’d feel only this present moment, making us monuments to promises that would otherwise eerily yield to nothing.

What the hell am I doing here?

If there's an answer – and my god, let there be an answer – let this moment break and the world go on. Because this could be so much worse.

Because you simply mean that much to me.

Because I think, I know. I should know that I love you.

The motion of your lips is slow, forming around fury, the frustration of some other guy who never really existed. But you’re convinced, and all I can think about is how you once picked out a sunspot on my thigh before I’d even noticed it myself. You traced it with the tip of your finger and whispered promises of forever being the only one to know me so well. And I believed you.

But I’m caught here, eternalized in the painful brevity of a Saturday night war that, amidst the ache of retrospection, I’ll have to admit is our end.

Why can’t you just tell him to get the fuck away? Tell him to fucking lay off!

He doesn’t matter.

Never did. Why couldn’t you see that?

Leaned up against your car, you cross your arms, threaten to drive away.

God damn it! Can’t you just listen?

After a fragile kiss and make up, you drive off. And with that, the drifting begins. You’re on a violent course, ripping farther from that evening months ago when you’d first been so sure, so entirely certain that you loved me.

What are you thinking about? The question had been caught in my throat all night, but I had to ask.

Your eyes pierced the darkness of the basement, the glow of the unwatched television screen further chiseling out your features as I lifted my fingers to brush my hair away from falling in my face. You caught my hand and pushed the strands away with a gentle, adoring motion.

How much I want to kiss you again.

And so, you did. And then left me, leaving that searing mark of first love, that melting sensation that never seems afterward to hold the ability to reconstruct.

We continued with that avoiding waltz, constantly tiptoeing around the throbbing heart of the matter until the floor had disappeared entirely beneath us. We grasped and clung to one another, falling and slipping with unbelievable speed through the unfortunate meaningfulness of time.

The slam of a car door. Anger. Betrayal. Another girl. Some kiss one night. Blonde hair, pink dress up on stage with you.

Was that your girlfriend in the audience?

Yeah. Ex-girlfriend – don’t lie.

Your pale blue eyes set against the black of a midnight street corner in August. A plea for forgiveness. It’s ok. Maybe not. September sobs. I’m so sorry. Another boy. You did what? Denial. No. Maybe. No. No. Yes. Can’t be. Time. No. Please? Someday. No. The repetition of that rhythmic lyric. I said no. Thought no. All you need is love. Love, love, love. I can’t. No. Yes.

Yes.

october.

2009-10-18T18:27:00.006-05:00

The silent fire beckoned,

the autumn idol bursting

forth as you do,

drunk on the glow

of the ghost light

and good scotch.

Stumble towards

that which is not mine,

but always has been.

So I stand

in the crush of crimson,

still nursing last year's burns.

raise your glasses.

2009-09-10T13:35:00.001-05:00

this is still a really rough piece - just finished, still needs to go through revisions. feedback's always appreciated, though!

Padding down Western Avenue, he reaches for her hand. She doesn’t take it, can’t, and he whispers her name in frustration. Kate. A quick nod towards the sky and he shuts his eyes so tight that he swears he can see the creases in his eyelids. Still, he can’t stay mad at her. After all, this isn’t her fault.
He has to struggle to shrug his eyes open again; it’s as if they’ve been stuck together with pitch, a darkness that relentlessly pulls at the lids against the glow of the street lamps, the fluorescents illuminating the "L" track. He fiercely wraps his fleece more tightly around himself and focuses on the rhythm of the clacking heels and twang of cocktail hour laughter that rings all around. A gust of wind whips between the rows of brownstones, between the goosebumped calves of legs hardly sheltered by workday pencil skirts. God, he thinks, it’s way too cold to be just the end of August.
And it’s exactly that, August 31st, the beautiful bridge between summer and fall, when the sticky Chicago humidity is quite suddenly sucked dry with the burning red of leaves. August 31st. Her birthday.
Actually, it’s her twenty-first birthday, and he was keeping his end of their night-on-the-town pact as he finally pushed into the crowd at the Celtic Crown. The Crown hosted a slew of regulars, and at 7:30 on a Tuesday night, the place was still packed with the nine-to-five cronies, shoved in booths that would seem etched with their presence all week long, even long after the rush hour mecca had claimed them again.
He begins to edge through the clientele, and again reaches behind himself for Kate’s hand, but swipes the air instead. He doesn’t turn around, doesn’t even think to look behind, even when her fingers don’t immediately fold over his. It’s way too cold outside, and a heat seems to be radiating from the blaze of the neon draft ads that hang above the counter, a visible steam of blues and reds and greens that drew in sidewalk wanderers with a promise of the impossible. If their ethereal pull was as compelling as he knew, there was no doubt that she would have followed him in.
And regardless of the bar lights’ mystique, she wouldn’t have dressed properly anyway; those skinny jeans and plum cardigan she always loved to wear would be no match for the sudden temperature drop. He might have told her to put on something warmer, or offered her his jacket, if he could have, if she would have let him. But Kate had always made decisions, regardless of how foolish they may have seemed, and held fast to them. It was one of things he loved most about her; she was stubborn beyond belief. She had this way of furrowing her eyebrows together, a knit of concentration as she braved even her most ridiculous choices. She was that over-the-top, British Invasion-kind-of-poptastic beautiful when she did that, and it drove him crazy.

Had driven him crazy.

Two steps through the door, and already people have turned to stare, parting like a white-collared Red Sea. They know it’s her birthday. Many nod and smile, a slight, pained gesture that exudes such blatant genuineness that a sickening pit nestles in his marrow, leaving a twinge that aches away all the months of getting over. He pushes the thought far from his mind and forces a quick grin in return, so fleeting that no one may have noticed the tremor in his lip. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he shoulders through the stragglers who haven’t caught the hint. Their faces are pink with punch drunk exhaustion, but seem happy all the same. Hearty laughter harmonizes with the tinkling of giggles, a symphony of have-you-met’s and when-can-we-do-this-again’s that he tries to drown out, but can’t ignore.

He finally finds their table in the far corner of the bar, shaded in the emerald of hanging bank lamps. Both their table and two stools have been bussed to an eerie perfection, wiped down so that an oily sheen reflects the cheery, faceless shadows of the patrons – a ballet of ghosts flickering across the hardwood grooves. He sat, and so would she. He’d pull out a tattered deck of cards and they’d play gin rummy, the game he’d taught her when they’d first met.

It’d been May, and she’d been nineteen at the time, wandering the bar with the skittish excitement of someone who’d never truly broken the rules before. She kept eyeing him in the back, hunched over a Rolling Rock and a smear of cards, playing solitaire. He’d caught her staring and looked up, smiling to himself when she turned back into her gaggle of college girlfriends, done up just a bit too much, their disguises for the evening. When he finally packed up his cards to leave, he approached her, sipping a gin and tonic on one of the high-backed chairs at the bar, and asked for her name. She’d had to look down at her friend’s borrowed I.D. before she could honestly say, her eyelashes a canopy that could barely contain the lie her brown eyes playfully gave away.

“Sarah. Sarah Greenely,” she’d finally stammered.

“Oh, yeah? Your address?” He quickly grabbed the license away from her. And then, before she could try to answer, “And baby, what’s your sign?” His grin broadened, and he leaned over the back of her chair, noticing the splash of freckles on her bare shoulder. He wondered what it’d be like to kiss each one.

“Ah, um. Eleven. Eleven, zero, four, Lilac Lane? And I know for sure that I’m a Leo.” She’d laughed and he fell as hard as every pop song had promised.

The quizzing went on for a few more minutes until her got her to tell him that her name was actually Kate Lewis. She was a sophomore marketing major at a local university. She loved baseball and Ingmar Bergman films, but hated cats. He’d led her back to his table, their table, and he’d bought her another gin and tonic, commenting that if she was going to drink gin, she should know what going gin really meant. So, they’d played gin rummy nearly every time they came to the Celtic Crown in the past two years.

Tonight was no different. He began to shuffle the cards, and when a waitress approached, he didn’t need to check with Kate. He’d have a Rolling Rock and a gin and tonic, no lime; she hated lime. The waitress paused at first, but then gave a knowing nod, and dutifully walked back and behind the bar. When she’d returned, he’d dealt out a set of ten cards on opposite ends of the table and she set down the gin and tonic at Kate’s stool, shielding her eyes as she walked away.

He then grabbed the neck of his bottle, a crutch to steady himself before he finally raised it. He toasted Kate, and her worn copy of Jane Eyre that never left her nightstand, her single dimple and perfect collarbone, her saltwater taffy cravings, the way her nose crinkled when she winked at him in public. He raised his glass to her fingernails, brittle after years of biting them, her date book that was still laid out on his desk since she’d left it the last night she’d stayed over, how she’d chew her bottom lip when she was nervous and the way her cheeks were rosy after only an hour in the sun. He toasted the lingering scent of his bar soap on her that last morning before the accident, and how, even now, he loved the way she couldn’t walk in heels and how they’d sit on the curb on their walks home and watch the cars go by, everyone in a rush to reach the same end.

There’d been no resounding clink in response to the tilt of his glass, the tumbler remaining motionless on the table. He quietly finished his beer and left the pub, pushing through the same crowd, who finally began to whisper the truth of his celebration, a hollow beating he could never keep from aching. Kate. Dead. Dead. Dead.

The rhythm beat on as he struck a foot into the odd chill of August’s end, and knowing he’d left any lingering sense of her in the bar, he edged his way into the startling breath of a tragic something new.

at home.

2009-06-22T20:55:00.004-05:00

She says she's sleeping, but she's not. There's this window that looks out into her backyard, and she's looking through these white-washed sills to gaze upon a white-washed world. This is all we've ever known.
It's this world where you can see visions of children playing in the splash of the sprinklers reflected in the glass of her far-off shed.
It's where the grass is trimmed just so, and the slow-coming twilight plays on the ripples of backyard, inground pools. A world of scraped elbows on chipped curbs, training wheels, first and fourteenth kisses, lost learner's permits, ribbons stretched around enormous tree trunks.
A world we could bathe in and nearly forget that we'd been growing up all this time.
But she's avoiding sleep for a reason, and this world is suddenly and wholly strange.
Perhaps because it's been the year. The year that changes you, catapulting you into that quarter-life crisis you thought up until now, was a joking cliche.
A year so full of break-ups and breakdowns, loss, and pure uncertainty, that between all the aching and wishing, waiting and missing, you finally realized what growing pains are.
She'd grown up, and really, she'd missed it all.
And so, she's left with nothing but the windowsill, to stare at the dimming yardscape, the winking peek-a-boo of the fireflies, and wait.
To know this tainted new world and wait.
Just wait.

january.

2009-05-19T02:08:00.005-05:00

"i'm afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning." --andy warhol

January

My casualty

seems silly

when you contemplate

the loveliness

of ashes.

dear john, dear lennon.

2009-04-22T22:37:00.007-05:00

Dear John, Dear Lennon
(after "Dear John, Dear Coltrane")

Bombs rain
in Liverpool puddles,
as serif font punctuates
your John "Jack"
and Churchill namesakes.
With a guitar
that wouldn't split,
even if Alf had gone AWOL
and Julia drifted,
you didn't notice;
and getting better meant
it can't get no worse.
The cavern of the Quarry Men
reign echoed with that sweet accent
that cheated Cynthia years later -
love is all you need.

The strike of piano keys
breathe studded life
into Jude's Lucy -
though you lived in sin,
lost weekends and something
greater than Jesus,
pandemonium that made you
a saint - love, love, love,
love is all you need.

Peace pulsing
through the blood
spilled on city sidewalks,
in that ironic violence
that pressed questions
of what we'd miss,
and spring fields
of strawberries
in Central Park, a promise;
love, love is all you need.

für elise.

2009-04-06T22:50:00.001-05:00

Für Elise

Tell me who she was –
his darling girl that compelled
the limbs of genius to proclaim
love with a compulsion
of pressing tips and pedaled notes,
an opus claiming moments.

in '09.

2009-04-06T22:39:00.002-05:00

In '09

Countdowns with a three, two, and one
would leave me good and kissed,
and the demons of auld lang syne
would be vanquished with the charms
of your high heels and pitchers
of blood-red, seedy sangria.
Every moment of the year gone blotted
out by the relieving grace of the arbitrary
cycle of calendar minutes.
Curled up on the worn cushions of home,
I should have never tripped on the coffee tables
I'd danced on, rug burns ringing in the happiest
new year yet, with Auden’s voice, steady
as the hangover, shouting something about new years
and tears and brothels,
and how the years would come
without my own “happy” prefix.

jimmy.

2009-03-11T19:05:00.001-05:00

Jimmy

The bench clears, the rustle
of jeans and mom-picked-it-out skirts
giving way to sneakered feet
that clammer for a place in line,
a stampede of kindergarten fury.
She still sits, fumbling
for bunny ears in the snarl of loops.

He scoots closer to the edge
with the bedlam of the bell.
His Spiderman sneakers dangle
and he spots her knotted shoelace.
Shuffling with hunched coyness,
he grasps the mess and whispers
a song of rabbits running
around trees and into tethered burrows.

ends.

2009-03-09T01:17:00.000-05:00

Ends
after Sylvia Plath

Blades
of grass, whose stinging ends
pierce deadened
truth of summer drought
and scratch away

All those nights.
Those peaks of simple words
and sultry air played
like staccatos on my

Skin,
and you were gone,
with the breeze,
choking on clouds
of dandelion seeds.

loneliest thing in the world.

2009-03-08T19:53:00.002-05:00

Loneliest Thing in the World

I might have seen you,
stood up at the eighth grade dance,
playing like James Dean on the bleachers
in the frosted dim of the gymnasium,
like you meant to be a loner.

drive.

2009-02-27T00:25:00.004-06:00

have i mentioned that i do poetry now?
thank you, introductory courses.
and as for my amateur tendencies in this particular realm, i sincerely apologize.

Drive

Scream it out.
Every memory,
worry, taut heartstring.
Every piece,
every shift, falter.
“I don't want to jump in,
unless the music's thumping.”

The blur of moonlit road
never quite dead-ending.
She twists her body,
her fingers flapping aimless
with the blare of each neon light.
Windows down,
sun roof hidden,
just go.
The kind of melodrama
John Hughes would have framed.

Who are we listening to?
Some has-been, but who isn’t?
Their mystic
“where are they now?” fame drifts
into the misted air,
that rush of August.
Fall chill nips away that sting of summer’s heat
as the evening arcs with the breath of midnight.

Some lovebug sickness comes
bursting through the speakers,
caught in a rhythm of tra-la-la's.
Another Aphrodite praised,
but wounded hearts still sing out.
Then, the roaring calms
with the bleed of live acoustic –
a halt at that brink of teenage madness,
love of the wonder years kind.
The angst is enough,
and so it goes.
And so it goes.

the new philosophy.

2009-01-13T17:21:00.004-06:00

just go along; don't question it.

i believe in truth.
i believe in falling so that you'll eventually know where you stand.
i believe in the colorful variance contained in bookshelves.
i believe in love, that it isn't simply in response to time, that it can happen after a moment, a day, a decade.
i believe in coming back.
i believe in music, that in our last moment, it will flood every sense.
i believe in crossword puzzles done in bed on a lazy sunday.
i believe in trust and meant-to-be's.
i believe in loss.
i believe in coffee talk.
i believe in reading books in the corner of bookstores.
i believe in the thinly veiled beauty of everywhere.
i believe in eskimo kisses.
i believe in singing, even if you don't know how.
i believe in secrets, and those who keep them.
i believe in pain, that it reminds us we're alive.
i believe in hiding.
i believe in walking and forgetting.
i believe in the veracity of writing.
i believe in lying every now and again.
i believe in laughter, that it's a sign of who we're meant for.
i believe in the silence of falling apart.

above all, i believe in beating ethan kessler in scrabble.

"love (understood as the desire of good for another) is in fact so unnatural a phenomenon that it can scarcely repeat itself, the soul being unable to become virgin again and not having energy enough to cast itself out again into the ocean of another's soul." - james joyce

i believe in w.h. auden.

2009-01-04T01:17:00.005-06:00

"the only way to spend new year's eve is either quietly with friends or in a brothel. otherwise when the evening ends and people pair off, someone is bound to be left in tears." --w.h. auden

so, another new year's eve, come and gone.
and here i sit, blogging in the early days of '09, hoping for something, anything different to come from this year that auld lang syne couldn't offer.
that sounds ridiculous.
but truth. i'm looking for something else, and i'm thankful for beginnings of any kind.
even if that beginning comes from simply paying homage to our arbitrary gregorian calendar.

anyway.
i figured i'd take a quick look at where i am this january 4th, 2009.

what i'm listening to (because music kind of counts for everything): ok, i'm a huge fan of the paul mccartney-youth duo, the fireman, and their new album, electric arguments. it's incredible. download it. immediately. the track "sing the changes" has me all tingly and happy.

what i'm watching: the list is endless for this break, but i just finished the coen brothers' burn after reading, and i'm going to attempt polanski's chinatown in the morning. we'll see how that goes. i'm optimistic.

what i'm reading: i'm actually re-reading one of my favorites: something happened by jospeh heller. i love having the time to read and re-read. thank goodness for comforter-only, ridiculously cold weather.

how much money's in my bank account: $61.35 - well, that was at least $20 more than i thought was in there.

last thing i bought: i took a little trip to amazon.com recently. bad idea. many things were bought.

what's in my purse: yellow leather wallet, burt's bees & chapstick (yes, i have both), ipod, extra headphones (i have a knack for breaking mine), 2009 moleskine daybook that i bought back in july (no idea why), pen & pencil, two compacts - blush & pressed powder, phone, glasses, my infamous "hobo" gloves.

something learned: somewhere along the line, i grew up. i think i missed it.

a goal: figure it out. don't ask me what it is; it's all part of the figuring.

aphorism for the moment: let it be.

to the happiest new year yet.
love & love & love.

pieces.

2008-12-27T13:38:00.005-06:00

this is my plug for the year. i've been reading "pieces," an anthology of short stories edited by stephen chbosky ("the perks of being a wallflower"). the collection is from a slew of literary newcomers, winners of mtv's "write stuff" competition back in 2000. it's all amateur, but incredibly fantastic.
read it. you know you want to.

googlism.com

2008-12-23T01:12:00.002-06:00

not a piece, but this is too much fun. type in your name on googlism.com.
i dare you.

some of my favorites:
mallory is madness
mallory is mentioned briefly
mallory is an alternate of our quinn
mallory is a professionally trained fighter
mallory is a great figure in the history of himalayan mountaineering
mallory is a success story
mallory is immensely proud of her biceps
mallory is television's fastest rising new star
mallory is the chaotic free
mallory is a magician also
mallory is what a wild cat would look like if it changed into human form
mallory is everywhere
mallory is
mallory is even sweeter than me
mallory is my best friend
mallory is back
mallory is organized
mallory is a sports superstar
mallory is in jail
mallory is taking very well to crate training
mallory is not without his doubts at his own precarious position
mallory is batting
mallory is a life
mallory is approximately 1126
mallory is beautiful
mallory is dancing about the house to the tune of the rain
mallory is reunited with her monkey
mallory is the perfect godly complement
mallory is 23 years old
mallory is approached on new year's eve by an elf
mallory is effortlessly tough
mallory is looking forward to meeting some really interesting people
mallory is a superb writer
mallory is presently the only single
mallory is personable
mallory is lucky
mallory is an old hotel
mallory is of course
mallory is something of an enigma
mallory is a self
mallory is not one of those authors who is going to spoonfeed you the solutions
mallory is now buried

waiting.

2008-12-17T02:08:00.005-06:00

I can't tell you how long I'd been here. You were late, had to be.
Standing on the building's low rooftop, I threw my head back to look at the late night sky. I couldn't see the stars. Clouds further cloaked the dim darkness of midnight so that the entire landscape was an expanse of shadow. Even the slight glow emanating from the street below had begun to fade with the late hour, lamps turned down for the early a.m.
I rolled back and forth on the balls of my feet, rubbing my shoulders to try to keep myself from shaking. It had to be eighty-some degrees out, but my teeth were chattering violently.
God, what the hell was I doing here?
I looked at the sea of pebbles beneath my feet, pushing them into a series of neat circles in front of me. Somewhere around the seventh or eighth loop, I couldn't kick a reluctant stone into place and picked it up.
I walked towards the railing at the roof's edge, and closed my eyes.
You were there; you always were, though, you were hazy now. I scrunched my eyelids tighter, trying to define the image, but all I could conjure was your fraying form.
Why couldn't I remember what you looked like? And the tears began to leak from the thin slits between my eyelids, finally clinging perilously to my eyelashes.
Then, with my eyes still tightly closed, I threw the defiant rock, waiting to hear it hit the steps at the theater's entrance. I listened, holding my breath, but, perhaps because I was too far up from the ground, or because of the constant rush of wind tearing past and all around me, I couldn't hear its fall.
I turned around and picked up another, this time taking a moment to lift myself over to the other side of the railing, so that now the barrier between self and fall had disappeared. I stood there, looking out at the two a.m. traffic at the property's edge. The wind had kicked up, so strong now that it had blown massive strands out of the loose grip of my ponytail. I could feel the burn seeping through my arms as I clung to the railing, stretching further and further away from the edge.
I smiled for the first time in weeks.
Just for that moment, I could imagine what it'd be like to fall. I could feel the wind desperately trying to be the hero, resisting, my saving grace. But then, futility, as gravity pulled all the same.
You'd kill me if you saw me doing this.
I shook the thought from my head and arched my back, straining to see the stars through the blinding cloud cover. I wasn't expecting to, but squinted anyway.
I remembered summertime by Joe's Pond, over on 104th Avenue, watching you strip blades of grass as we talked about futures. I remembered concert halls in the middle of April, dances in June. I remembered August goodbyes, December embraces.
I could remember dates, dialogue, contexts, places.
But even through it all, I still couldn't seem to find your face.
Where were you?
I continued to look over the street, a few of the lamps flickering spastically against the shaded brick buildings, giving me the stars I'd been searching for.
The wind roared past me, a liberating, deafening sound that compelled me to grip the railing tighter. My ears were clogged with the rushing night air, causing a ringing pain, a single consistency in my immediate life.
I almost didn't hear it, but then there was the rustle of your jeans, the pebbles beneath parting from one another as you made your way behind me.
You'd finally made it.
And so, because I couldn't remember your face, I swung my legs back over the railing.
I turned around.

truly, madly.

2008-12-09T19:43:00.003-06:00

a bit i wrote a while back - probably where i picked up my crazy addiction to adjectives.
love & procrastination.

Here I was, standing on that same porch in the frigid February air with only a flimsy sweatshirt, edging under the spotlight of the porch lamp, hoping some tiny stitch of heat might radiate from its perpetual glow. I lowered my eyes, trying my best not to look up at you. I didn’t want you to know that I was freezing; you’d already asked at least twice, and both times I’d denied you with an insistent, “I’m fine.” I didn’t want to admit I was cold, or even worse, that I was incredibly nervous about everything I was about to say. I was afraid that if I moved even a single inch, I might lose my nerve and rush back inside.
The last time I had stood here, I had been tap-dancing with my little sister for a crowd of stuffed animals. They had been cheering, we imagined, their euphoria contained in the ironic hardness of their critical, beady eyes, cleverly hidden by a muss of fuzz and wasted fur.
Funny how things change.
It was a textbook moment, one of those moments you secretly cherish, never telling a soul the entire truth, only letting on fragments of the larger, more brilliant picture. You keep the rest of the seconds tucked away in a tiny section of your conscience, hoping their kept secret will somehow eternalize the beauty of the memory. One of those moments. I would end up looking back on this scene years later, wishing I could have somehow drawn out its essence just an instant longer. I needed more than just this moment.
You stared at me so intently with your ghostly blue eyes, and I couldn’t help but look away. Awkwardly shuffling my feet, I spoke the words I knew were going to change just about everything about my momentary life. Over the past month, you and I had remained extremely close, allowing only a slight romance to bud and manifest itself to all of our mutual friends and confidantes - a lingering smile, a fleeting, secretive handhold. You wanted this, had made that perfectly clear. You wanted to do this. I, however, was stuck, stuck on a notion that this couldn’t be happening, that this guy couldn’t possibly be interested in me. Yet, here you were, standing before me, waiting for me to say something, anything. God damn it, say something!
“I told you I needed time. I don’t want anymore time.”
I paused. I, forever the queen of awkwardness, the perpetual friend, the “oh, she’s like my sister” girl that could never seem to catch a break, left this gaping wound in a should-be scripted, perfect John Hughes clip.
Why couldn’t you stop looking at me?
“I want to do this.”
At this, your fallen, creased face uncertainly relaxed, and I could tell you were searching for something to say – an odd and rare occurrence.
But then, instead of saying anything, you simply wrapped your arms around me, and I found myself not caring about my father, who was undoubtedly standing just beyond the temporary barricade of the front door, or the fact that my fingers were entirely numb. I completely disregarded that I was swept up in this twisted, time-will-end sequence, that I had only a few months left in this town.
None of it mattered now.
You whispered into my hair, quietly, tentatively, as if you were almost sure I would take everything back in the same instant.
“Are you sure?”
I finally looked up, beyond your face and at the darkened, yet distinct night sky I hadn’t bothered to notice before. I was so inebriated by the evening glow, the thrill of the moment, the tempting chance. I was drunk on the stars and the moonlight.
“Truly, madly, deeply.”

untitled

2008-12-09T12:19:00.003-06:00

this is a sort of combination piece, a really simple one, my guilty pleasure piece, in a lot of ways. it's just been something fun, really, playing with characters and such, but i've really enjoyed working with it over the past few years - most of the bits have been developed from separate stories i've written, all taking on this slightly autobiographical sentiment. some of the parts were actually separate stories within themselves, but i somehow was never able to let go of them, so they keep coming back. as i've garnered some different experiences, the overall tone of these pieces has changed. i've yet to put a title on it - i'm horrible at titles.
warning: it has a happy ending. but seriously, don't we need those every now and then? i've got to believe that the best friends get together in the end sometimes.

“How did we get here?” Grace said, turning her head in interested conversation, allowing her bare toes to glide across the broken surface of the murky creek.
“It's been a long time since I've heard that question,” Sean replied, laughing at the girl beside him. In an impulsive moment, he plunged a hand into the muddy water, and playfully splashed Grace’s ankles, and then again, upward towards her face.
She gasped, her eyes scrunching closed as her hands halfheartedly batted away the droplets.
It's war.
And she splashed him back.
“I'm serious!” she said, recovering from their minor battle. “I'm having a Walden Pond kind of moment here,” she continued.
“I'm not even going to ask where the hell Walden Pond is,” Sean remarked, and he began to busy himself with an anthill that stood beside him.
Grace didn't even bother to explain. Sometimes it was best, she'd found, to just let Sean bask in his literary ignorance. It almost always provided a little comic relief. “I'm just being contemplative, that's all,” she sighed, propping her elbows on her knees, mimicking the imagined pose of ancient great minds in a state of pensive struggle.
Why does the apple fall?
Who should we kill off first: Romeo or Juliet?
Who shot J.R.?
“Well, go use your big words somewhere else,” Sean jokingly jabbed, poking Grace's balanced arm with a stick he'd found until she slipped out of her meditative posture. “I've only got a week here to spend with you and everybody else, so I'd rather not listen to your gabbing on about Wallman Pond.”
“Walden,” she corrected.
“Whatever,” he laughed, now using the stick as a device in destroying his conquered anthill. Sean had known Grace forever. He'd seen everything. Her room, the humiliating baby pictures, snuck into her early journals. He'd witnessed the desperation in high school breakups, the jittery frivolity in college relationships. He'd let her cry, painfully shoved her advice. Yet, unless duty called, he could hardly be serious with her, and so, here he sat, jokingly splashing at her as if they had to be fourteen again.
Sean had been sitting with Grace for what seemed like hours, their legs dangling, barefoot, over the jagged edge of the clouded ripples of water. They were in for their ten-year high school reunion, and had both agreed to meet up a day early to pal around their hometown before the big event on Saturday. They’d talked with some of their other closest friends from high school and, as if the past ten years had never happened, the fragmented group was back together, their entire week in the suburbs booked.
Though he was excited to see everyone else, all Sean had been able to think about for the past month since his plans had been arranged, was spending his little bit of time alone with Grace. Though they’d kept in touch over the years, it was hardly at all like it had once been. Yeah, she was still his best friend, and he always made sure he returned her calls, but it had been ten years since they’d been back here together. They’d gone to different universities – he’d stayed close to home, about an hour south of town at a small private college that was hardly mentioned anywhere outside the Midwest; Grace had done what no one thought she would and had gone to the coast, finishing up at Brown, only to make a cross-country bound for the west coast immediately after graduation, where she’d taken up some publishing job in San Francisco. Though she’d been back a few times over the years, her visits had been far and few, only having enough time to meet Sean for dinner or a quick lunch catch-up when her time wasn’t being demanded by everyone else in her life. He’d always thought he might be able to catch her during Christmas or New Year’s, but her parents had always been more than happy to make the flight out to California for all the major holidays. She’d barely been around, out living the life that had been meticulously printed on the In five years… line from their senior yearbook.
All these years, she’d been going places, and he’d been stuck, living her memories through a long distance line.
He remembered when she’d called from her first apartment when she’d first moved out to the west coast.
“It’s a fucking shithole,” she’d laughed, and he heard some mysterious clanging in the background and Grace’s wild scream as she dropped the phone. She called down to the floor, pleading with him, “Wait! Just give me a second!” her voice sounding panicked as she slammed every drawer, apparently looking for something. Her frenzied litany of “Wait, Sean! Wait!” continued, and so he leaned on the receiver, and lingered until whatever crisis she’d been dealing with had been calmed.
When she finally had the phone to her ear again, she was breathing heavily, gasping out her words. “God, I’m so sorry,” she panted. “There’s this – mouse, or something. I don’t know. It scurries. Get your ass over here right now and get rid of it.” And then she laughed, the light sound sending a shiver down his spine that eventually nestled in his stomach, a weighing pit keeping him from saying everything he wished he could.
God, he missed her.
He’d laughed at her obviously ridiculous request, but even through his fading laughter, he was simultaneously calculating the amount of money he had remaining in his checking account. How much could a plane ticket to L.A. really cost? He could just hop on a plane and be with her.
Just to see her. It’d been so long.
And now, it’d been ten years since he’d really gotten to spend time with her. True, there’d been the dinners and lunches and short outings, but they never felt like they were quite long enough. He’d essentially had to go ten years without legitimately seeing her. And she’d always seemed ok with it; she asked him to come visit, but with his work at his family’s accountancy firm, he’d been too busy being groomed for partnership that he could never just take the week or two off to see her. She always sounded incredibly disappointed whenever he would cancel their fragile, preliminary plans for his visits, but he could never bring himself to just get on the fucking plane. And he could never quite figure out why.
Maybe he was scared, scared of her new life, scared he wouldn’t be good enough, but good enough how, he’d never really been able to place. He didn’t know what he needed from her, didn’t know what she needed from him. And so, he’d spent a decade afraid of what? An entire fucking decade.
And to Sean, ten years had felt like, well, ten years.
So, when he’d finally walked by her house earlier that afternoon to pick her up, he couldn’t help but feel his heart skip a little. She was wrapped in an old fleece and a faded plaid scarf, and she smiled at him with that outrageously genuine grin she’d always had. She lifted one hand into a wave as she walked down the driveway, and then pressed a single finger to her lips as she pulled a pair of beers out from behind her back. Rolling Rock. Clearly stolen from her dad’s permanent stash in the fridge in the garage.
Just like high school.
Now, they were sitting on the muddy bank of the creek, sipping from the green glass bottles. The sunlight sifted through the trees, glinting off the bottles, creating odd sparks amidst the shade.
“Why do you always ask that question when we're here, anyway?” Sean asked, putting his beer down to examine an ant that had somehow escaped getting speared to the edge of his destructive twig, and was now scrambling quickly up to meet his maker.
“What question?”
“How we got here,” Sean said, finally turning to face her, resting the ant in a pile of dirt not far from him. A moment of mercy. “The last time I heard you ask that question, it had to have been ten years ago, the last time we actually made it out to this place.” He stopped, looking out over the sun-skimmed creek, trying desperately to remember the rest of his anecdote, or maybe to simply allow each savored flit of the memory to dance before him once more.
They'd been fourteen, he remembered, imitating Grace's pose, and somehow, it all came rushing back.
Sun rising up over the edge of the creek’s shoreline.
Their own secret garden.
It had hardly seemed possible that they'd found such a perfect place.
But then again, everything had been possible in that twisted game of once upon a time.
Once.
----
It hadn’t been until the summer before high school we’d found a winding path that ran along the edge of the town's murky creek.
The creek was about one-third of everything in our town.
There was a White Hen, a UPS headquarters, and the creek.
Since the bike ride to the White Hen was too vigorous on this crisp, fall evening, and the UPS headquarters was honestly nothing more than a vast expanse of gated warehouses and loading docks, the creek seemed the only option.
We’d known about the creek since we'd been five years old, both in maroon soccer jerseys from the park district, both looking for tadpoles that couldn't possibly exist in the grimy, toxic water, both caked in mud with overprotective parents who believed their children could contract some waterborne disease from wading in the water.
It hadn't been until this glorious summer that we'd found the path.
The clearing gave way to a brilliant display of buds and bloom, trees now crystallized with the abrupt coming of winter. The canopy of spindly branches and falling leaves shaded us as we entered these hallowed grounds. We hadn't been completely sure why we'd made the short walk out there.
It seemed our last attempt at emphatic defiance that school hadn't started just the week before.
We were proving to the world that we were not, and would never be responsible high school students.
But perhaps, above all, it was to say goodbye.
We were hardly thinking of the school year that had just begun. Somehow a silent pact penetrated our conversation that the events of summer would be the only topic of discussion.
I don't care who you have for Spanish. It only reminds me that I only see you for about two seconds a day.
The two of us made quite the duo. Sean and Grace. It had been that way since, well, forever, it seemed. Of course, being the feminine half of the pairing, I was the one that was always forced to prove herself amidst Sean’s inherent tendency towards male domination. I was used to the jabs by now, the you're such a girl comments. It was a challenge I'd accepted when I was seven. I was just as good as any boy. And I got to wear lip gloss, so therefore I was automatically better. We were a rare breed of musketeers, Sean and me. And at times, it really seemed like I might be better off having a girl for a best friend. Sean wasn’t exactly all that keen to talk about my ever-changing crushes with me, and the whole concept of menstruating made him uncomfortable. But I'd always figured that if worse came to worse, at least I'd have a great guy friend to take me to prom.
This was one of those nights where I didn't mind having a guy as a best friend. We were talking about a wiffleball tournament we'd had the week before in Sean's backyard. There'd been some disputes over the integrity of the game.
You so did not win that game! I hit the ball into the trees and you... 
At least I don't cheat! You tripped me when I tried to run home!
Shut up, you! It was last week! 
What do you know? You're a girl!
Hey!
The argument quickly died after Sean threw a handful of leaves in the air, letting them sprinkle down onto our heads and drift into the creek. Then, the sight of the leaves making their way down the rushing rapids caused him to throw down one of his infamous gauntlets.
Bet you can't walk across.
Can to.
Really? Prove it.
This is where that whole anything you can do, I can do better mentality that had permeated Sean's and my friendship-rivalry came into play.
I could hear the shrill voice of my mother, vehemently preaching that it was stupid to walk across the creek, and that I was going to fall and that I would never get the smell out of my clothes and that I would hurt myself and that she would disown me for getting that sweater wet and that some shift in the tectonic plates would cause a massive tidal wave to sweep me downstream and I would soon be stranded on a raft with a slave named Jim, trying to make the treacherous journey to freedom.
Whatever. Take my shoes.
As I made my first tentative step off the crumbling edge of the path, the slimy moss on the stones went slick under my wet feet. As I teetered on the edge of the two-foot fall, Sean grabbed a massive stick and handed it to me.
I laughed.
What are you laughing at now?
I spread out my arms, attempting my best Charlton Heston impression, and in my pseudo-biblical reenactment, began to lose my balance.
I regained composure and made it halfway across. I turned around to tell Sean that “See? I can so do this, you imbecile,” and mid-twist, dropped my supportive Moses staff.
I fell.
SPLASH!
I was drenched, completely drenched. I turned around as I had initially intended, and found Sean cackling maliciously on the park bench near the bank.
You! Why did you listen to me?
Um, to prove I could do it? Why else? Now help me out of here!
I began wading through the water. Well, the muck that was masquerading as water. I could feel the slime, mud, and amoeba seeping through the pores of my jeans as Sean finally calmed himself and firmly grasped my hand to help me scale out of the water. After slipping on the bank and a few attempts to hoist me out, I collapsed onto the dirt path. Sean then returned to his spot by the park bench, doubling over in fits of laughter, while I started to giggle. In the midst of the setting sun and the freeze of the wind, I felt it and I knew. At fourteen, I knew.
Sean was all I’d ever need.
----
Sean realized with sudden regret that the sun was starting to set, soon they’d have to make the walk back to their shared, generic subdivision. And he would have lost another chance.
A chance for what, though?
He turned to look at Grace, her empty beer bottle balanced between her knees as she wrapped her arms tighter around her. It really had been a cold September. Kind of like that September when they’d come here when they’d just started high school and she’d fallen in the creek. Sean wondered if she remembered.
Probably not.
And then, she was edging toward him, not really saying anything. She hadn’t for a while, really. They’d gone through all the familiar topics. Her apartment was good, his family was doing well. Her sister had just graduated from college, his brother had just won some golf tournament for his university’s golf team. Work was exhausting for both of them, but good. He felt trapped with the firm, but he’d never admit it, not even to her, because she seemed so fully satisfied with everything she was doing. He could never tell her he thought he’d made a mistake, that he’d settled. She’d always made him promise not to.
She wasn’t seeing anyone, at least not anymore, and he’d entered the world of the two-month curse, always finding some excuse to leave a girl at around that eight-week mark.
Now, she was resting her head on his shoulder, mumbling something about the gathering they were supposed to get to later on that evening.
“Do you think you’re going to want to drive, or should I?” she asked, and turned to look up at him.
He looked back, and she was there, and it could happen. He could make it happen. He could erase the past ten years and he could stop being so fucking scared. He could let go, let her be more than just his best friend from home.
She could be it.
God damn, just lean in, you fucking idiot.
And she stayed quiet, even though he hadn’t answered her question in the proper amount of time. Then, she tilted her head, a movement that was so slight he wasn’t even sure she’d budged at all. But even the possibility was all he needed, and in one quick, gentle motion, her face was in his hands and he was effortlessly pulling her ever closer towards him.
The tips of their noses touched, and their lips brushed, saturated with the anticipation of the moment that was to follow. But this was the moment to savor, the instant before the kiss, before the contact, when everything hangs on the beauty of a fleeting blink of time. The definable point when potentiality, possibility becomes reality, the moment before he could finally give in, get everything he ever dreamed of, everything he wanted thirsting in that single flash of present.
For the second afterwards, they embraced, and Sean pushed away the strand of hair that had strayed to Grace’s cheek. There was a calmness to the memory, a sense of lightening relief. There was determination, uncertainty, the soothing scent of prospect.
“Um,” he started, suddenly unsure of what to say. For him, it had been a perfect moment, but maybe he’d been too wrapped up in his own bliss to fully understand what she might be thinking. “I. Wow. Um, should we go?”
“What are you? Twelve?” she said, tilting her head and starting to giggle.
Oh, thank god.
As her laughter dissolved, Sean finally cracked a slight smile of relief. She was right; he did feel kind of like he was twelve again, with his awkward transition, as if he needed to get her home for curfew again.
“Sean?”
“Yeah?”
“How did we get here?” and she brushed the hair that was persistently falling into her face with each gentle breath of wind.
“I don’t know,” he said, as he grabbed her hand. “But it’s been too damn long.”

well, it's about damn time.

2008-12-09T11:31:00.005-06:00

well, he's finally been arrested.
the trib's got it down pretty solid.
apparently, we love electing crooks in illinois.
anyway, adios, blago.

HAPPY 52ND BIRTHDAY!

it was fun while it lasted.

pinky swear

2008-12-08T17:17:00.002-06:00

this is a piece i've just recently started working on - i mostly write short stories, and this is one i've written for an honors project for one of my classes. it's a little rough, i know, but every piece has to start somewhere. comments appreciated.

All you’d tell me was that you just needed to get away.
“Seriously, I don’t care where we go,” you’d said, thrusting your feet into your mismatched flip flops and making a dash for the car. You threw me the keys. “Fuck Mom and Dad’s rules and insurance coverage. You drive.”
You jumped into the passenger seat, and immediately discarded your flip flops, throwing them into the space beneath the glove compartment, while I fumbled with your set of keys, a tangled mess of plastic “I ♥”’s and vacation destinations.
In a moment, you’d grabbed the nearest uncased CD, a generic blank disc with some vague name like “Sara’s Car Mix” scrawled across it, and popped it into the player. The music came blasting out, and you started to sing along. Well, you were more or less screaming, but that was how it had always been. You knew you were tone deaf, but it didn’t matter when your voice would inevitably give out, taking on that raspy, Demi Moore-like quality.
You singing in the middle of summer’s end. That’s how I want to remember you.
The second we hit the stop sign at the edge of the cul-de-sac, I turned to you and asked you which way you wanted me to turn.
You closed your eyes and shouted, “Left!” over the music. It was a game we’d played ever since I could drive. Every time I slowed to stop, you’d point in the direction you wanted me to go. We’d almost always get lost, and have to call Dad from some middle-of-nowhere Citgo to help us figure out how we’d somehow driven through two neighboring counties.
Following your blind directions, I took a right turn onto Archer, past the decrepit ballroom with its perpetual advertisement for “SW NG DANCIN LESSONS EV RY FRI & SAT,” away from the canal and the smoky coffee house, until all that surrounded us was the lush green of the forest preserves.
You had your head stuck slightly out the window, repeatedly running your hands through your hair, mouthing the words that were drifting through the speakers. I couldn’t remember the name of the artist; it could be any number of 90s-capsuled pop stars of “Where Are They Now?” fame.
This is how I want to remember you. You, watching the trees pass by with dizzying rapidity, and then suddenly and very spastically commanding me to steer towards St. James of the Sag cemetery.
The request was odd, and you spoke hurriedly, “The gates’ll be open, and we’ve always talked about how it’s haunted, and seriously, we should just go!”
I didn’t argue, didn’t want to be the one to spoil the adventure.
When we’d finally reached the gates, the “ST.” and “JAMES” bannered on the bars were separated, beckoning us towards the empty parking lot and hills of headstones. I barely had the car parked before you jumped out, talking quickly and gesturing wildly as you sprinted towards the field of graves.
“Seriously! How cool is this?” you said, slowing your hurried pace to admire the form of a moss-covered stone angel. Her face was worn by the cruelty of a century enduring the elements, but still honored the name “Kennedy.” She was crying rusty tears for her engraved beloved, but you didn’t seem to notice at you ran your hand over her wing. “Wonder how they died, you know? Last death was in May 1926. Bet you no one’s been here in a long time.” You leaned over and pushed a pile of dead leaves from the head of the nearest grave embedded in the ground. “Martha. I think that’s a good name for a girl. Log it so I can remember when I’m older, ok?”
I nodded as I ambled up to you, but didn’t say anything as you moved to clear the name of the next plot. Funny how you could talk about death so coolly now, as if it was something you couldn’t possibly ever be afraid of.
As if you never had been.
But you had, and I knew you remembered. But I couldn’t ever say, because this is how I want to remember you – there are ways I don’t.

You called me into the bathroom one night. You’d been taking a bath, and you were screaming for me as I was scribbling math homework problems in the next room.
“Mary? Mary! MARY!”
“WHAT?”
“Could you come in here for a sec?”
And so, I reluctantly opened the door to the steaming bathroom. I was twelve, much too old to see my ten year-old sister taking a bath, but you’d asked, and I didn’t want Mom to hear you and come running upstairs, thinking we were in a fight. She’d ground us, for sure.
I cracked the door open, and saw you, looking panicked in the sudsy water, holding an unplugged hair dryer above your head.
“I wanted to see if it’d electrocute me,” you said in response to my gaping expression. “Don’t tell Mom.”

You continued to clear the headstones as we ventured into the community of sacred plots, making up imagined histories for every brother, infant, father, sister laid to rest.
Gretta Lucille, Beloved Mother had been a simple homemaker in the 20s. She’d loved to knit, and had a staple, vibrant smattering of crimson lipstick playing on her mouth. She’d married her high school sweetheart, but had died during childbirth.
John Mackenzie, Jr. had been a lively young boy of barely seven, always trying to trap tadpoles, and chasing fish without a pole. He’d drowned in nearby Maple Lake when no one was watching.
Percy Gillespie had served in the First World War, sent overseas to Germany and had miraculously returned home with only a small piece of shrapnel embedded in his calf. He’d displayed his abrasion for his family and friends as a source of pride, a physical accompaniment to his war stories. He’d died a few months later of infection from the wound at the age of 22.
You told these mock biographies with such nonchalance, but didn’t somehow seem unnerved by their potential realities. Death had become a game.

Curled up next to me on my oversized bed well after midnight, you and I had been whispering secrets to each other for hours.
I liked Steven; you’d told Dad you’d walked the dog last week when you hadn’t. I’d been the one who’d left my lip gloss in the pocket of my jeans when Mom did the laundry and stained everyone else’s clothes.
Your turn.
“Well,” you said, pulling my favorite fleece blanket closer to your chin, “I’m worried I’m going to kill myself. But, shhh. You can’t tell.”
And you stuck out your right pinky finger.

We’d been meandering for over an hour, sifting through possible fictions when you approached the mausoleum. The copper doorframe had tarnished, the shine fading into an eerie green so that the family name of “Gustafson” was hardly legible. The structure was failing, a decaying tomb, the picture perfect for every horror film, but still, you approached.
You touched the brass handle, as if poised to turn it and walk inside, but you stopped, and instead turned to me.
“I dare you to try to open it,” you said. I could tell you were spooked.
And so, I walked up and gripped the knob, turning it forcefully. I could never falter at one of your dares. The knob creaked and a gust of wind kicked up the leaves settled behind you.
We both screamed and ran for the car.
That’s how I want to remember you.

You slammed the door behind me.
“Don't you ever bring that up again! I hate you for bringing that up!”
You were shouting, and your words echoed off the black linoleum of the bathroom’s walls and floor. I suddenly thought of Mom and Dad, asleep down the hall, little Lucy in the next room.
If there's anything I've learned from this life, it's been all too aphoristic to remember.
“I didn't mean to say it,” I hissed back. “I just – you can't pretend it never happened, Sar.”
“Of course I can! It's been years and no one has said anything! No one’s ever talked about it! No one, except you.”
The opposite of love isn't hate, it's apathy.
Because when you stop caring, what's left?
“I'm never going to feel that way again, will I?” You’d started to cry.
“No, no, of course you won't.”
“You promise?”
“Of course.”
Sitting on the bathroom rug, the cool, ceramic tile chilling my legs, you asked me the same question that had always materialized our secret pact.
“Pinky swear?”
I've learned that there's peace at the end of it all.
And someone will hold your hand.
“Pinky swear.”
And our fingers locked.

The entire car ride back, you couldn’t stop talking. Not that it bothered me at a ll, but you’d gotten some rush, your eyes glinting impishly with the light of the setting sun. Mom would be home from work soon.
“Man, did you feel that? The chill and the wind and stuff? Dude, that was creepy!” You took a deep breath and smiled, leaning back in the passenger seat. Then, you reached for the stereo’s play button again, letting Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers explode from the speakers, out of the car to be lost amidst the silence of the trees.
“All the vampires walkin’ through the valley. They move west down Ventura Boulevard.”
You were humming along, even though I was singing out, because I knew you really didn’t know the words.
“Hey,” you said, turning away from the window. “We probably shouldn’t tell Mom about this, should we?”
“Yeah,” I agreed, as I took the turn back onto the bridge to cross the canal to home. “She probably wouldn’t like to hear that we’d spent most of our day wasting gas and trekking through a strange graveyard.”
“Ok, so pinky swear you won’t tell?”
“Gonna free fall out into nothing.”
“Yeah, pinky swear.”
“Oh, I’m gonna leave this world for a while.”

my god, what have i just done?

2008-12-08T16:58:00.001-06:00

hello my very small readership!
ok, so i'm not entirely sure what i've just signed myself on for, but i've talked about doing this before, and with nothing more productive to add to my to-do than facebook or that paper i should be writing, i've caved and started a blog. for right now, it'll mostly just be writing i've been working on, or reworking and whatnot, but i'm sure i'll find some way to squeeze in my incoherent train of thought every now and again. look forward to that - it's a real treat. trust me. anyway, i'm horrible at this, so we'll see how it goes! i'll be posting a piece or two soon, so get ready!
my god, if i want to call myself a writer, i should be much better at this.
god, i love being an amateur.
tease all you like.

love & procrastination to you all.