What To Do With All This Love

I know I haven't posted in forever, but that's cause it seems like I have run out of words. I'm still taking a lot of pictures though!! and you can follow my adventures on my instagram. I'll post here again eventually :)

It Doesn’t Have To Be Beautiful

All the boys I ever loved liked me better with long hair because it was the easiest part of me to own. So I grew it out in hopes that it would strangle me eventually. K always said that September begins with a secret death wish, but that was only half true. Dying is surprisingly easy and secrets are hard to keep. 

That’s why when I found myself lying compulsively again last week, I cobbled together whatever pieces of me were still salvageable and hopped on the first train out of Chicago. I stop charging my phone after the fifteenth missed call and spend an hour listening to the voicemails you left in my mailbox on repeat, wondering why I was always the first one to say “I love you”. Like the theory of galaxies, everything comes together, everything breaks apart. At the end of the day, what are we really? I’m sitting alone in front of my seedy motel waiting for the waxing moon to emerge and end up falling asleep before the sky fades into the dusky purple horizon. You were right, the stars do look brighter in the city.

Hauntings

Not About Strangers

I used to count the days by the passage of ladybugs underneath the stairwell. Like beads on a rosary, they never failed to keep me calm, even when the rain started falling, turning the dusty ground into mudpits. I wasn’t always afraid of the rain you know, it just became something that reminded me of you and the way your blood spilled onto the kitchen floor after the knife slipped. Without flinching, you bent down to clean up the mess (I still haven’t forgiven you for ruining my favorite tea towel). The plink of water dripping from the sink, like little April showers, would haunt me for days afterwards. 

That was years ago though, before I made the mistake of memorizing the slow, steady pulse on the edge of your wrist – the only place I think you could ever be vulnerable. The scar is still there and sometimes, I catch you running your fingers over its raised landscape. And sometimes, when I am sitting next to you on the bus, I wonder how you stop yourself from burning through your skin. Ashes to ashes, we all fall down.

So Far Away

Hazy summer noon. Pressing flowers. Eggs Benedict and carrot cake from David Burke’s Kitchen. Nothing cohesive, just bits and pieces from an Indian summer. 

I miss the warm weather. When I walked back to my dorm at 6 in the morning, I was shivering so hard my hands were shaking as I swiped myself into the building. I’ve been trying desperately to catch up on sleep and have ended up feeling pretty sick and tired of just about everything right now (I even changed my blog name). So absolutely done with school at this moment and looking forward to my 7 month break before medical school starts. My days are comprised of phantom toothaches, BBC Sherlock, and pining. I left my cameras at home and it really is like losing a limb. I find myself reaching for the shelf, but nothing is there. 3 weeks left – it shouldn’t be this hard, but it is.

Beyond the Clouds

I think I've spent more time flying this past month than sleeping, though in a strange way, both are the same thing. 

Today the sun dipped below the horizon and colored the clouds buttermilk gold. I asked the pilot if he could stop for a bit and open his window so I could get a jar of clouds. He shook his head sadly and said no because we were on schedule and when you get off schedule, you disappear like Amelia, over the deep blue sea. He looked at the camera around my neck and asked if a picture was okay. Yes. A picture is okay. A picture is better than nothing. When I woke up, it was dark outside. I listened to my slow, even breath until the moon disappeared from my window.

I woke up in the middle of the night to find myself speeding down another highway, paralyzed by this gripping anxiety. And it's strange because last week, I would have given anything to be here. But now, I feel as if I lost that right somehow, swallowed by a sea of lights.

Even still. Even if my memories are a little hazy. Even if it's kinda lonely out there. And nothing seems quite right, but nothing seems wrong either. Everything is okay...isn't it? I'll let myself be swallowed by that sea of lights and you can forget about this voice that once haunted your dreams. New York City. It's about what sort of story you are trying to tell and what kind of person you are pretending to be. It's always been about that.

Went away on a trip a few weekends ago to Springfield, Illinois. Not for any particular reason though, except maybe to save myself from quietly drowning between the pages of my textbook. It's this weather that has been getting me down. Too warm to be already November and nothing to show for it really. Bad habits turning up again. The tendency to live vicariously through other people - do you know that feeling? - coupled with the urge to fade into your own shadow. Something like turning into a ghost I imagine. Unbearable.

Soulard market on a warm and fuzzy afternoon. Mind is full of apples. Hands full of apples and apple cider.There is just something different about autumn in this sleepy town. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it leaves me with this twisting sensation between my clavicles. Maybe because I don't even remember the last time I sat on a park bench with this feeling of migrating geese overhead. Quietly worrying over this problem around a cup of tea and some warm milk. Saturday, and somehow I am not thinking too much about tiny astrocytes in the brain reaching towards the milky way, like old english ivy on these brick walls. This tired feeling, Van Winkle would have understood, of trees dying. It's suffocating.

Goodbye Loneliness

Sleepy. Oh so sleepy. But also afraid to sleep because I might not be able to tell that I am dreaming. Being chased by solitude and half-insanity, and bird feathers that engulf the sky making it white, white, white. So I sit up all night on the porch and watch as the stars shift across the sky. My heart won't stop twinging every time I hear a stray dog bark. I wish morning would come sooner. The moonlight is so heavy.

Between December and February We Fly

Aestivation (n.) Also known as "summer sleep", is a state of dormancy somewhat similar to hibernation.

Even when it is 3 degrees outside, the world calls to me in a symphony of trills. I don't care. As long as there are friends to laugh with and cardinals to chase through the woods: I am free like a heron on the wing.