May 9, 2012

We are called to be Salt. Shakers in this World.

Back in college, I was the girl with plans to change the world.

I shoved up my peace sign and pummeled my friends with bits and pieces of the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child before trotting off to some 180-page report on sustainability in Malaysia that needed my reading eyes before bed.

And so, it only seemed appropriate when a girl like me, on fire and ready to rattle the cages of Injustice, trotted off to start my new job at the United Nations.

I basked in that first day, the flashing of my bright blue, holographic pass, and marveled at the building where Change Happened and Things Got Done.

No turning back.

The United Nations was my cake. And I was so darn hungry. So I gobbled, gobbled, gobbled: trafficking for breakfast & girls’ edu for lunch & microfinance for dinner. And then got sick. To my stomach. From eating too much. And not knowing. Just. How. To. Digest…. that change was a slow thing and not always an overnight slumber party buddy.

“This place only works for the ones who can be o.k. with baby steps,” a woman told me one morning. And she left to be angry, wringing my fists over orphans who needed me and an Unchangeable World.

And so, slowly & so sneakily, Doubt pulled out a stool and ordered a coffee in the cafe of my soul. And then another. And another.

But let’s be truthful. It was really Mark Zuckerberg who kissed me on the forehead and sealed my silence.

Yes, six girls. And my own Facebook status that shut me up for good:

“If I have only one quality for the rest of my life I hope that it is foolish… Foolish enough to think that I can make a difference in this world and then go out and do the things that others say cannot be done..”

They mocked it one by one. Skittering from page to page to laugh & “like” & make fun of me before defriending me. One. By One. By One.

And I decided then that Silence was better. Indifference was easier. And if you said nothing at all then no one would expect anything of you. And if you just shut up then the world would never know that your skin once thought it was made for World Changing.

I’d forgotten all of this until tonight. Until the preacher on the stage. Until his message on Salt. Of all things, salt. Leaving my mouth watered with a severe ache for french fries, he spoke of the Bible Days when Salt was more valued than petroleum. Where salt was so very good and people never took it for granted. To have salt in one’s home was a Very Big Deal.

His hands rose up as he spoke of how we, as Little Pencils in a Far Grander Love Letter, are called to be salt. Shakers in this world. Hungry for justice. Hungry for a difference. Hungry to Change the World.

And I licked my lips and thought: Yes, I am hungry. For girls with arms full of textbooks. For boys who put down their guns and run back to the schoolyard. For college students who emerge out into the world with an ache to change it and then get ambushed by the Doubt in the cafe. And the Doubt in the cubicle. And the Doubt in the media. And so they listen to statistics and they do a job they never grew a passion for, and ten years or twenty years later, they’re still thinking, “I would have really liked to change the world.”

And sincerely, I’ve grown tired:  of not talking about it enough. Of not filling more notebooks with the hope of it all. Of not wanting to call it “World-Changing” because the very word has felt narcissistic & self-absorbed & impossible since the day I placed it into a Facebook status and then ached to wash it away with a swift backspace.

But no more, cause we’re talking. No more, cause we’re seeing and we’re saying that this world is very broken. Her legs are mangled. Her mind is messed. And Once Upon a Time, we wanted to be doctors so let’s just pull out the plastic stethoscope, get real close to hear Beating, Bleeding Heart, and listen for a while.

And no more, cause we’re meeting. Gathering in tea shops & brunch on Amsterdam Avenue. In pools of social networking sites where we’ve all convinced once another that the Waters of World Shaking feel just fine so you better dive in. Doggy paddle if you got to, but Just. Jump. In.

And no more, cause I’m ready. To be a girl who doesn’t look back. And a girl who leaves her salt all over this whole place. And her breadcrumbs. And her Whole Entire Being if it means that someone Gonna Find the Light. Gonna Go to School. Gonna Break the Chains. Gonna Do their Part.

Baby, baby, I’ll pull up a stool. I’ll sit right beside you and I’ll ask you out loud, “Do you want to change the world?” And if you answer yes, I’ll finally find the words to say it.

“Yes… Me Too.”

That last line was inspired by my BOMB.com, space cadet of a friend who isn’t really a space cadet but rather a poet who has stood by side in learning the art of butt kicking. Her name is Azure Antoinette. #Cupcake. She was just signed into a contract with ABC Family yesterday. I am more proud than a mother watching her triplets graduate from Law School. And Azure, this post is for you. I’m not tired anymore.

 

 

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April 30, 2012

Grandma, I’m so teachable.

When my mama came to you with Remnants of Tears Still Yet to Be Cried left in her sockets and the stiff smell of Sadness on her breath, did you touch her wrist first or take her full force into your arms?

When she came to you looking more sleepless than Seattle, more worn than the limbs of the teddy she carried 17 years back, did you see her?

And when the strange ruckus of sounds moved out from her lips, “I don’t love him anymore. Will you help me call the wedding off,” Did you hear her?

When Indecision hijacked her Being— the tall frame and skinny legs of a daughter who was wearing a ring just yesterday—did you hold her?

Did you take it all in? And did you think, for maybe a moment, that before a more efficient version of the record player came around we should probably find a way to suck the tears from the eyes of one another?

Cause we don’t do that so well anymore, Grandma. No, we don’t do that so well.

You know, I’m afraid to admit to you that most of the fragmented pieces of my friends’ hearts come to me by way of messages that take up half an inch of space on my screen, that scream and howl beside Social Steals for yoga that is only 30 dollars this month. Only 30 dollars… I think that’s a deal.

That I’ve got more pain piled- like fluffed whites and linen- in my inbox. So I respond when I can. I click “reply” when I can. That I’m furiously tapping “Stay Strong”s and “We’ll meet up soon”s before my mimosa reaches the table and the conversation turns back to me.

Truth told, I’m scared. 1,500 followers lately and I’m most petrified, really. To tell you that all of this is Normalcy. It’s habit. Lifestyle. These Parades of Personality, this Character in 140 Characters, this Follow the Leader who has no reason to be followed, really.

I like mud runs. Chai tea with the skim milk steamed. I believe in people, in their goodness. I’ve been praying for my husband, wherever God has him right now, every day for three years straight. There’s not a reason to follow me at all.

And Grandma, I’m so torn. Because something like last night, four women sitting beside one another, laughing over thai food and wine while they talk of education for girls in India & poems in Brooklyn, never would have happened without a thing called Twitter. Torn because I’ve found God’s Children in tweets and they’d be the kind to join you for toast and hot chocolate. I know it. They would.

But I want to relearn Sacred.

Something you once told me would matter before the days I had to wonder if heaven had an inbox or if I could send a text message that would reach you through all the dirt. And the tears we cried. And the bagpipes that played when we placed you there, deep in the ground.

Sacred.

Like the dinners where phones don’t touch the table. Or moments when a vibration couldn’t take someone away from me so easily. Like boys whose faces glow without the help of a screen. Friendships founded, planted & rooted in dialogue such as this:

I’m struggling. I need you. Diner. Ten Minutes. No Questions.

Sacred. Like a time when you had me. You really had me. Showing up at my kitchen table to help me piece together the JonBenet Ramsey murder case, sitting with me for Tiny Eternities to talk about Who Done It. No text to answer on the other end. No reason to pin & tweet & tumble somewhere beside strangers who never called me “beautiful” with my ballet tutus on.

Grandma, I’m still teachable. Still so teachable. & eager to believe in the boy who makes poetry in hand movements, with blue eyes that sculpt lullabies like fragile fingers on pottery wheels. Eager to believe in Presence & Speechlessness & Skin: The First Connection.

Grandma, I’m so teachable. & ready to re-remember that I had you at a time when Apple was a thing that sat in the middle of table before you halved it and spread your love and peanut butter on top.

 

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April 25, 2012

A Manifesto for Living.

Here’s to the ones who were never normal. Never conforming. Never able to sink into the soles of a follower.

Here’s to the ones who were told to stop. To give up. To quit trying. To shove themselves into a little box because the world never needed their arms stretched out wide.

Here’s to the ones who refused to listen. To the negatives. To the naysayers. To pessimists & the procrastinators.

Here’s to the ones who believe in Away. And Going. And Newness  within Newness. And a world made to wash us & move us & sculpt us & change us. And the courage it takes to believe in all those things.

Here’s to the ones who have uncovered the recovery from darkness. Who have cried on bathroom floors. Who have found pockets of strength in cracks in the sidewalk. Who have declared new days & brighter days & lovelier days than this.

Here’s the ones who say, “I’ve moved on” & “I’m stronger now” & “You never completed me. No, that never happened.” Who believe in their wholeness even after breaking. Who believe in Better Than Ever even when the Better Half of them has eyes towards the neon EXIT sign.

Here’s to the ones who stopped trying. To please others. To be perfect. To get smaller. To live in the lines. To color with only the classics of Red & Blue & Green within a lifetime that swoons over Fuchsia & Gold.  

Here’s the ones who believe in shoes & stories. Yellow rain boots in any weather to Parade through Puddles of Passion. World Shaking Heels. Who believe in slipping into Sizes Too Big and doing a little walk, a little trot, a little stroll, before saying, “I know your story.”

Here’s to the ones who live. Life like a love letter. Like a well-worn pair of leather ballet shoes. Like a ferris wheel- spinning, spinning- and all the parts of it touched by great love stories and boys who used to help girls on by the hand.

Here’s to the ones who laugh within the thunder. Cry within the mud. Dance when the bagpipes of sorrow play. Here’s to the ones who hear music, even when the sacred songs of childhood get stuck in the throat, stifled by fear.

Here’s to the ones who wear “joy” like a sweater. Like a wedding dress you wish to wear while eating pancakes & Nutella. Your bare feet on the counter. The train of white hanging down on the tiles. Laughing, always laughing, as they have another short stack of blueberry.

Here’s to the ones who choose to be relentless. With their purpose. With their ambition. With their desires. With their calling.

Here’s to the ones who know their calling & that its greater than a cubicle or a paycheck will ever be. A calling to be a light. To be a lantern. To be a match in the darkness. A flashlight in the power outage. A bright star in a sky of a night that lost hope.

Here’s to the ones who pick up others. Who don’t need to believe in karma to understand “humanity” and how her wrinkles live on in the faces of others. The Sick. The Poor. The Lonely. The Down Trodden.

Here’s to the ones who say, “Enough” & “No More.” Who believe in things as crazy as a world where children can feel the fullness of a belly before Sleep. & Dreams. & Peace. Where girls can feel the itch of a school uniform & let their arms grow tired from stacks of beautiful books.

Here’s to the ones who believe. In a tomorrow packed with promise. In conversations where souls undress secrets. In late nights & knees that touch under blankets. In mornings that hold solitude.

In air just gasping & groaning to be sucked in and turned. Into gratitude. Into prayers. Into well wishes that float into the ear lobes of others.  Into Hello’s and Goodbye’s that leave us never the same. Into a life that is thrilling & delicate, like the very first time we saw the elephant tamer dance.

Into something wonderful that will leave us in rocking chairs, in older years, saying out loud, “Here’s to the sweetness that I never could define. Some call it ‘life’ but it has left me too breathless to give it a name.” 

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April 23, 2012

Finders and Weepers but never the Keepers.

I don’t often find the words for you. But when I find them, I always want to keep them.

“We will map it out in the sand,” the Girl with the Curls said to her Most Precious Friend.

“That way we will never forget it, that we are coming back to one another.”

The Girl with the Curls All Up in Her Hair was a bit older in years. She’d seen more stretch of the earth. She’d touched more tops of fingertips. She knew the good that could somehow live in a word as strange as “goodbye.”

She patted the ground for her Most Gracious Friend to come and sit down beside her. And then she began to clear away the rocks to make for a space, a map that would mean Together during a time of Apart.

“This is where I will be,” said the Girl with the Curls, tracing a circle out in the sand. “I will always be here and you can always find me here.”

She set on clearing a space several feet away, “And here is where….”

“There,” said the Girl with the Curls’ Most Lovely Friend, pointing back at the newly traced circle. “There is where I want to always be.”

“But we…”

“There.”

“I know it would be eas…”

There.” Her finger grew relentless with its pointing. “There or here. Whichever one keeps me with you.”

The Girl with the Curls had no answers. No answers for why, one day, she wouldn’t smell the lavender in the hair of her Best Friend or how she’d have to call upon her memory to play back the sound of a laughter she used to marry with her own percussion of giggles.

And so she said nothing. Not Much. And she let the Hunger for Words & Goodbyeless Goodbyes fill the air, thick like the humidity of August that calls curls to go untamed and motherless.

The two girls sat in the sand and stared at the circle for a very long while. They sat still & quiet until the stars had no choice but to join them, resolving to shine their brightest on this Night for Girls who were Never Good with Letting Go.

“It will come one day. One day we won’t be sitting here beside one another. It’s just the way it has to be,” the Girls with the Curls finally spoke, laying her head down to see the whole sky. Her curls splayed and spiraled across the parts of the map that hadn’t been drawn yet.

“But why?” asked her Most Sacred Friend.

The Girl with the Curls just nodded her head in Unknowing. And her Most Real Friend stared and let the whistles of silence out from her lips.

For they both had learned the hearts of one another—all the curves and spots of wear—as if they  old watercolors perched up on the mantel of a hallway from childhood. They’d learned each other in an easy way, in moments as slow and wonderful as the whispered names of French sugared sweets. Savarin & Souffle. Tartin & Brulee.  The two girls marveled at how it was never a thing that took effort or angst. They had simply found one another at a time when all they craved were open books and a Someone to sit beside when the world rocked crazy. A Someone to sit beside and find your whole self understood in a world that rarely leaves room for Understanding to take off her shoes.  That was the best thing they could have. They knew it in conversation & secrets & nights of tea with three lumps of sugar. It was the best thing they could have.

“I’ve never really known but it’s a thing called Growing Up,” said the Girl with the Curls to her Most Radiant Friend. “I think it’s probably beautiful but awkward and silly at times, with just pinches of pain to remind you of Aliveness.”

 Because that is how most things are: beautiful but awkward and silly at times, with just pinches of pain to remind us of Aliveness.

“But we can’t do it together? I want to be Growing Up with you. Not without you… I don’t want a reason to draw maps in the sand.”

The Girl with the Curls heard the stinging in the voice of her Most True Friend. She didn’t have reasons. She didn’t have answers. And she, also, never wished for Growing Up without her Best Friend beside her, Growing Up too.

“You know,” she finally spoke. “We could be Artists & Weepers. Dreamers & Dancers. We could own the stars if we wanted to. We could climb mountains and let the salt waters of the ocean pucker up to our ankles. We could be Explorers. & Finders. & Lovers. But I know we cannot be Keepers. A Carrier, maybe, but never a Keeper.”

“But why? What is the difference?”

“A Keeper would mean that we stayed here. And we never moved. And we held each other’s hands too tightly. And we never saw the world.

And you never became You and I never found Me in the spaces of this place where we were supposed to Be.”

For the Girl with the Curls had no answers. No connect the dot reasons. But she knew she could never be a Keeper, no matter how badly the urge tickled at her. To keep her Most Gifted Friend all to herself would only lead to a lifetime of picking Regret up by the armpits and spinning her round & round.

The world needed a Best Friend like hers. Strangers needed her. The sick needed her. The lonely needed her. And how does one become a Finder if they always stay a Keeper?

“Carry,” said the Girl with the Curls, to fill the spaces in the air left for Sadness & Sorrow & I’ll Miss You & Take Care. “I can be a Carrier. I promise I will be. I’ll carry you wherever I go.”

“Really?” said her Most Sacred Friend.

“I’ve already started,” the Girl with the Curls bit back more words.

She’d already started: The Letting Go. The Packing. The Looking Backward for a moment or two. The Finding but not the Keeping. And the Carrying. The Always Carrying the Heart of her Best Friend.”

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April 16, 2012

Spit out the lies the world wants to feed you and just eat your goldfish, baby.

I think that I am tired of this, I tell myself as I watch her swirl her purple fingernail in circles on the table and refuse goldfish crackers for snack.

Her mouth is shut now but just a moment ago she was spilling with stories of girls named Arya & Hanna–two girls who only come to her by way of the TV screen.

She is ten years old and looking to Aria & Hanna as role models. The Cookie Cutters of What She Should Be. Arya is 17 and sleeping with her high school English teacher. Hanna looks as though she has been cut out carefully from a catalog. Perfect clothes. Perfect skin. Perfect size.

Ten years old and already I want to hold out my hand and tell her to spit it out. Please, spit it out. Spit out the lies the world wants to feed you and just eat your goldfish, baby.

Yes, I am think I am tired of this.

Tired of a band of girls with Operation See My Hip Bones as their next endeavor. Tired of a culture that feeds its young  with skinny tips & “how to please your man” rhetoric.  No wonder we are hungry, starving for something more than this.

& I’ve been there. Wrapped & Wrapped & Wrapped by a world that would only want me if I took up less space. I spent an entire year dreading the door of my own apartment because to open it meant to walk outside. To walk outside meant to face the world. To face the world meant to move into conversations where I was expected to speak. And I was always afraid that someone would look at me, stare me up and down, and tell me that I was not good enough. Not pretty enough. Not smart enough.

But funny how it never ended when the door of the apartment slammed at night. It only started when I roamed into the kitchen, long after the moon had pulled blankets over the eyes of its children, to fill bowls with ice cream & cake & peanut butter & any ingredient that I could find.

It had only just begun when I sat on my kitchen table shoveling numbness into my mouth and let the tears dance wild on my cheeks. Oh, I still ache over the emptiness of it all. Oh, I still cry for the girl who always believed in other people’s mornings but never her own.

I have come a long way. I have battled with my body & a world that whispers lies upon my lovely handles & freckled forearms. But I remember clearly the day I woke up and said out loud, “You cannot stay here any longer. You cannot stay here any longer.” Put down the spoon. Put away the carton. And move.

Because if we always stay then we never move.

And if we ruminate on body fat and smaller thighs and tiny arms then we never see the miracles of life that already glitter the palms of our hands. That our lungs take air. That our feet get us there. That our fingers tap on keyboards and suddenly we are talking.  That with just an “@” I can find you, roaming somewhere in your own networks, and we can find a way to push through this. Together. I don’t care that we’ve never met. In fact, I have never cared.

That we serve the world better in Larger Proportions, out of our boxes and the bindings of other people’s beauty definitions. And if we’ve got a dream- a Keep You Up At Night Dream- then there is room to make it happen.  To make it more real than the leather of his jacket on the night he wrapped you in it and called you his “daisy.”

Because you are delicate like that.

You are beautiful like that. You always have been and you always will be. And your limbs– well they are perfect. Your words– I want to hear them more. Your thoughts– make them sing, baby. This life… well this life is only a one-time thing and I don’t want to wait until the close of it to see that it never had a thing to do with thighs or legs. It never really mattered how little of space we took up in our jeans. I cannot help but think we’ll get asked the Other Kinds of Questions as we stand beside a gate that brings us into fields that know no heartbreak or the calorie counts that create it.

“Did you spread your arms out as wide as you could?”

“Did you wrap them tightly when another needed you most?”

“Did you dance in the Today you had? Did you save Tomorrow for its own mystery?”

“Did you do something that mattered, really mattered? And was it outside of yourself?”

I want to answer Yes. Already, my mouth is watering to answer Yes.

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April 10, 2012

And when you reach ten, start counting again…

A car accident will make you think.

The boom-crash-churn.

You’ll be standing off to the side of the highway & suddenly counting fingers & toes.

One. & Two. & Three. & this one off to market. & this one is deciding to stay home.

“You alright?” the officer asks. You bite your bottom lip & you nod your head & you ache to tell him a story. But he aint your librarian, just a man in blue waiting to clear your wreck off the road so that he can go on home to a girl in a princess dress whose words are crystals to him and “Daddy” is a sacred name.

“I’m sorry,” you say again, this time to a young man with a grin that has probably captivated some girl since their high school prom. Since the very day he slipped a corsage on her bony wrist.

“Eh, take it back,” he laughs. “It’s not your fault.”

& so you stand, shifting from foot to foot to foot, aching to tell him a story. To tell him that you’ve never taken a “sorry” back. That you’ve always believed in sprinkling the grounds with “sorries,” like rose petals, after damage has been done.   

That’s the know-how of a Good Girl. & you don’t know or know how it gets done any other way.

& so you go back to counting…

Four. & Five. & Six.

As they hook your pretty little car to chains & pullies and haul, haul, haul. & you think the ground is sacred. That your standing: sacred. That your whole: sacred. That you’re all just fine: sacred.

& Seven. & Eight.

& your seeing–just now– what car accidents do. After the boom. the crash. the churn.

How they make you want to clutch. & mend. & walk away better with grace in your arms.  & call people. & burrow your body into unexplored parts of the library with books of French & German surrounding you. How they make you want to learn all the ways there are to tell someone you love them so that you never run out. So that you never run out.

& Nine.

& the man in blue strolls back again & he asks if you need anything else. & you want to say sidewalk chalk. & tea. & arms that take you without explanation.

& a life that lives itself out like a love letter. with imagery that drapes you. & adoration that takes you in by the elbow. & not an agenda in sight. No, no, all the Musts & the Shoulds & the Coulds went down with a ship they said was unsinkable one hundred years ago or so. That all you really need is grace. & a hug.

grace & a hug will fix you just fine.

grace & a hug & you’ll be brand new.

& you’ll reach Ten & start counting again.

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March 29, 2012

The contents of this blog post will knock you to your knees. Please. Read. Carefully.

I know all the caves and contours, all the “Picasso Gone Buck Wild” contortions of a face thats just heard the words, “It’s over. I’m sorry. We just can’t do this anymore.”

They sit playing on a reel in an old abandoned movie theatre in my mind though I don’t make popcorn and watch them flicker anymore. No one has ripped my ticket stub to that theatre in years. 

But I should tell you that they’re hollowed in my memory and I could easily stand over the workspace of an artist commissioned for the Museum of Broken-Hearted Faces and guide her. “Add a little more droop over there,” “His face needs to be paler,” “Ah, yes! You’ve captured it perfectly… that is exactly what he looked like when I asked him to open up his chest for me so I could rip his heart out with my scrawny manicured fingers.”

I’m not a heart breaker by any means, don’t get me wrong; these are just the faces I’ve collected like Pokemon cards, the only gathered proof I’ve got to tell you I was raised by a woman who doesn’t believe in cell phones and would never let me unload my baggage—the Suitcases & Hat Boxes of Strangeness and Sorrow—into a text message gone marching towards the eyes of Another while I headed for the grocery store to cross avocados off the list.

“I don’t care how far you have to drive or how hard it is to say it,” I can still envision her telling me. “If you are going to break up with that boy then you better do it to his face.”

I have not always listen to her but, during the times I have, I’ve had to say hard words that I realized quickly cannot be remedied with a few swift taps of my phone. I’ve had to swallow hard and bite down on my bottom lip. I’ve had to wait. Mostly in Silence. For someone else to release me.

I’ve had to watch tears pour. I’ve had to mix those tears with mine. I’ve had to concoct slobbery messes of Pain & Unsaid Words & Missed Phone Calls. An elixir that I am so sure caked the faces of those once wearing petticoats and buckled shoes, rocking back and forth in their puddles of Salt and Sorry’s, saying, “There will be social media for this one day?”

I don’t diary my pain on Facebook. I won’t tell you that I am hurting through index cards and a Macbook camera. But baby, baby, it’s only because I’ve got a Mama who once sat me down and told me, “God created faces for a reason.” That we were made to see them, touch them, learn them like numbers sweet & sticky on the chalkboard.

And I’ve learned this best in 23 years: the best thing my face will ever learn to be is present for the moment my heart has lent itself to. Present to the face of the one who deserves far more than my text messages and voice mails.

(Mama: God gave us faces so that others could hold them when the Sorrow rolled in with the fog & the tide. Am I getting warmer? Warmer, still?)

People– all the “They”s and “Them”s stacked upon “He”s and “She”s, boiled down to “Me” and “You”—people deserve this… You.

You. Deserve. This. Don’t you know it, baby?

You deserve words that don’t always sound like poetry because they are shaky & breathy & said out loud without a script, instead of tossed into a blog post where the title line don’t warn you right, “The contents of this blog post will knock you to your knees. Please. Read. Carefully.”

You deserve pauses.

Big.

Ol’.

Pauses.

& Losses of Words.

You deserve the sometimes weighted, sometimes throated explanations.

Regardless, you deserve the explanations and the effort it takes to say them out loud.

And you… well you deserved far more than what I gave you after we heard the news that time… I’m sorry I didn’t realize that sooner.

And if you deserve this then that must mean Me… Me, yes, Me. That I deserve something too.

I deserve to know when your heart first decides it is time to pack his bag, stand off by the side of a dusty road, stick out his thumb and wait for the nearest jeep wrangler to pick him up. I deserve to see the paleness in your face. I deserve to show you my face, when you’ve washed me clean with words you’ve been needing to place in the “Box of Said and Meant It” for far too long, and tell you- with my own shaky voice- that I’m going to be just fine… that I appreciate the honesty…

I deserve the times you tell me that your kind of social is dinner parties where people use their hands when their speaking and their phones are tucked in coat pockets letting other people get used to the scripted message we should all be telling one another when the laptops close and it becomes 5 o’ clock somewhere. I’m not here right now. Please leave a message. I’ll get back to you… In the morning… Because I’ve got someone who folds me in better than a file and who doesn’t need an e-vite to grab me by the face tonight. I’ve got someone who draws me to eye level more instantly than Instagram.

I deserve to tell you… well I guess you deserve to hear it… that you’ll always be one of the greatest Single Characters in my book– no matter where the time takes us, no matter how we come out from the rubble.

You deserve to know that there have never been 140-Characters when it comes to you… No sir, only one… only one…

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March 26, 2012

Coming home to your shoes.

Your shoes are by the door and I know I’ve done it again.

Only a lone pair of sneakers this time, it can’t be so bad. The last time this happened I unlocked the door and pushed it in to find hiking boots, dress shoes, sandals and a pair of slippers. All Size 11. Craterly & Mammoth to my Size 7 feet.

“I’m sorry,” I yell into the dark apartment. “I know why you’re here.”

“Do you really? And are you really sorry? I guess those are the questions on my mind,” you respond from the kitchen—a small space of pots & pans tucked tight and out of sight to the left of the apartment.

“I didn’t mean to bring you up…”

“But you did.” I wait for you to come into view. Wait to see your tousled hair. Your black ankle socks. Your casual, boyish attire.  “I’m worried because you did.” You don’t show.

“But…”

“Go ahead, explain it to me.”

“Alex was having a hard time. I brought you up. I told her about us. Our story.”

“Babe, how many times do I have to tell you that…”

“ I know, I know. We don’t have a story… or at least not one that I need to keep telling over & over & over again.” I walk past the kitchen, throwing my coat on the sofa and heading for the bathroom.

I play with the sink knobs. The water gushes out quickly. Soon enough, the hear pours out, collapsing and cloaking my tired hands.

“I only say it for your good. You know that, right?” Stop whispering, please stop whispering to me.

The tears stay pent inside the crooks of my eyelids where the gold shimmer faded nearly two hours ago. Not looking up. Not letting my eyes drift back to the sneakers at the door of the apartment.

“I only ever say it for your good because you and I both know that…”

“That I’ve got to move on. That I’m wasting time. That every time I bring your name into a coffee date then I am only hurting myself,” I steady my hands. I try to keep them from shaking.

You stay talking. On & On & On. As if you were the damn genius who invented conversation. And it does no good because I cannot see you and I cannot feel you the way I used to.

I abandon the towel and the light switch. I stay in the dark and crawl my way to the floor where the sofa’s legs kiss carpet and crook me into cushioned safety.

“You don’t get it… it’s not this hard for you,” I say into the darkness. “You are the not the one who has to live without me. I am the one who does that, every single day. In the best and only way that I know how.

And don’t you know that you are everywhere? You are in the trees. In the leftover slices of pizza that you should’ve ate in the middle of the night. In the side of the bed that makes me want to stay filthy forever if it means I’ll never have to lose your scent on the sheets. You don’t have to go through any of that…I do. I do. And I know, I know that every time I bring you up in conversation that I am going to come home to your shoes & nothing else, just the memory of you that doesn’t hold me right.”

I don’t hear you anymore. Nothing but the clicking of the clock all the way in the bedroom.

My hands are wet and down on the floor beside me. Clawing in the darkness at what I know is a shade of maroon that you picked out back when Carpet mattered & Salad mattered & Sunday Football mattered.

I put my head down on the floor and imagined what you’d do next. I know if you were here right now you’d pull me into your lap and you’d change my mind. You always did that. And not because I always seemed to melt into a pile of bones when I your arms wrapped me in, but because you were just one of those people who could explain the world for me. You plugged in lamps where I could not find light. You strung Christmas lights in the darkest of places throughout your whole fight. And so you say I’ve got to be stronger because you refused to leave me sitting in the dark. But it feels like dark. It feels like dark without you.

“Sometimes I hate you,” I whisper through clenched teeth. You know I am lying, right? “I hate that you left me here to do this without you. I hate that I couldn’t fix you. I hate that I’ve become some town tragedy where people treat me like a fogged up window that they can look through, apologize for the loss, watch me sway back & forth a bit and then head back to their own lit home. That I feel pathetic without you. That so much of this doesn’t matter without you.

I hate that I couldn’t go with you. That you left me standing here with all these secrets & things we told one another when the rest of the world fell asleep, things I was supposed to whisper back on a day when I wore white just for you. And now I’ve got to let it all go… I don’t want to let you go…. I don’t know how… I don’t want to learn.”

I cry. For your arms. For a blanket you’d place over me. For the hairs on my head I know you’d stroke. For the tears you’d wipe. The things you’d say. For the thought of you, up in the clouds, hanging your head over an image of me rendered Helpless & Heartbroken.

“Come home… Just come home again…I cant feel you anymore…” Your shoes are already by the door. I can leave the light on. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I’ll try again tomorrow.”

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Filed under Girl meets Boy, The Tough Stuff, Tragedy

March 18, 2012

The parts & particles of Me made to believe in someone like You.

I chose to believe in God the night my best friend and I fell out of Love’s gloved hand at the very same time.

We ran off to her dance studio with candles & love notes & tissues in tow, turned off all the nights, and just laid in the center of the floor for a very long time.

I remember a lot of silence. The kind of silence that hung her pain on coat hangers in the hallway.

And then the sniffles.

The occasional reading of an old love note or two.

The “Why is it like this?” and other questions we couldn’t answer.

And hot tears.

Hot tears that made no noise but still took every bone inside of you not to plug your ears and belt out Mariah Carey just to make it all feel more normal. Not so crazy. Not so miserable.

So this was it… the ending to a dizzying several years packed crater-full with First Kisses & sweaty palms at homecoming dances. Nights of no sleep, wrapped tight in the squiggles of telephone cords during the times when phones still stayed attached to the wall. Secrets sneaking into the crooks of 1:02am. Giggles piggy backing the 3am hour. The first I. Love. You—said in a hurry—until you realized you could say it again & again & again. Without ever stopping.  No one would make you stop.

I chose to believe in God that night as our hearts sizzled side by side like bacon strips basking in the heat of the pan. Cracking in a way that made you say, “I won’t have words for this thing for a very long time.” Your daddy couldn’t prep you for it. It carried no resemblance to the ice cream falling off the cone.

And she and I– we lay there– Crying. & Unashamed. Because it hurt. & when you were a little girl you let the tears roll in when something hurt you. & we prayed to be little girls once again when all there was to cripple your spirit was Sticks & Stones & Words, but never boys with sweatshirts cloaked in cologne as they pulled you in by the waist before geography class.

I chose to believe in God that night even though just days before I had told my mama I thought maybe we were all just particles. Particles without purpose. Formulated from the sea the way the science books illustrate. Evolution without a God. Bodies just crashing into one another with no real beginning or end. And we’d go to the ground without angels.

She ignored me. Ignored me as if to say, just wait… just wait for the day when you are sitting Indian-style on the floor of a Brooklyn apartment, tasting the sweet butter stirred deep in the take out clam chowder while she sits in the chair before you and reads poetry off pages because it is the only way she knows to cry out to you. You’ll feel God and the might of His peppermint breath as it blows in the sacred pockets of that time when you are sharing pain like playing cards with someone who just wants to disappear for a while.

Just wait to realize that God is everywhere in those Kinds of Moments that carry no nobility or pay stub for your listening, where you don’t have the right words and your arms are so tired. And your heart is chipped. And the Pain has Pummeled the Parts & Particles of You.

Just wait for when the world gets Too Heavy and your heart gets Too Broken and you’ve got to believe in something above roofs & ceilings. Skylights & Billboards. Something more than particles rising up from the foam of the sea.

Particles. They ain’t the kind to get up in the morning to the sound of church bells & sip mimosas & share croissants with strangers as some kind of strange communion for the humanity we lost in our iPhones.

Particles. They’re not the type to still believe in music even when the tuba player has headed off for the circus and the pianist ran off with the drummer.

Particles.  They wouldn’t have reason to yearn to be a Part of this. To give Parts of themselves. To never want to be Apart. But to want to do their Part. And Sometimes on Some Days, still, fall Apart on dance room floors with broken hearts strewn beside old love notes and tissues, crying upward to a God who never believed in Ceilings or Skylights or Limits anyway.

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March 13, 2012

How to change the world by sitting on countertops, drinking hot cocoa, screwing calories and reading Neruda out loud.

Wake up. Don’t press snooze. Sling legs over the side of the bed. Right. Left.

Turn on music. Good, Good Music. Like First Date, New Shoes, Better Yet- Bare Foot Music. You need a life soundtrack, has anyone told you that yet?

Pick out something spectacular from your closet. Feel good in your skin. Put on an item that tells some kind of story. Always have a story to tell, just a wrist or coat sleeve away. And if that yellow sweater aint got a story yet, vow that this will be the day it comes home with one.

Wear bright cardigans on the rainy days. Rain boots on any day. And if the sun is shining and someone asks why you are clomping around in red wellies, you simply say that you Parading in Puddles of Passion Today. Offer them a flute in the Parade. A trombone or a front row spot.

Take your bag. A few bobby pins. A hair elastic as you will need one. You know you will. Remember breakfast. Greek yogurt, perhaps? Berries? Honey is good for the heart. Red Kettle. Drip Coffee. Yellow Mug. Teaspoons of Sugar Cause You Just So Sweet.

Coat. If you need it.

Walk outside.

Open doors for others. Compliment the woman at the corner. Ask yourself what a real life, human, fleshy “retweet” would look like and try it with the girl on the subway beside you. It must be one part conversation. Two parts listening. Another part learning something and telling someone else when you reach 59th street and walk the rest of the way because the air is just too good for underground travel today. Acknowledge people. Look them in the eyes. Better yet, memorize their eye color like the roots to spanish words you digested before the 8th grade test on verbs.

Research ways to be a blessing. Yes, research. Google. For starters: care packages, postcards, cookie recipes, trinkets. Call instead of texting today. Email instead of Facebooking. Use that status of yours to lift up your network. Keep the drama for your Mama and if you really listened to your Mama then you know she aint’ a Keeper of Drama. So let it go. Out the windows. Under the Doors. Let all the mean thoughts slip away with the winter that never came.

Clean. Your room. Your car. Your pocketbook. You’ll feel lighter. You will find that you don’t need all of it. Get rid of the things that hold you down. Back. Standing still in a spot that expired two years ago. If it is too hard to let go then throw a Going Away Party. Pack all the memories in a box and whisper lies to them, “You are just going on a vacation. You’ll come back soon.” Love notes without the lovers. Old shirts without the arms to wrap them in. Make room for new love notes. New shirts. New arms. Buy new doormats. New can openers.

Take time on people, as if it were the only thing you had to do today. Ask hard questions. Listen when they don’t answer. People rarely get caught in rainstorms like the movies show, save the both of you a terrible cold and kiss him by the window instead. Say stuff. Hard stuff. Mammoth stuff that won’t fit the text messages. The Kinds of Things that Tap Danced Upon the Elephants in the Room. When he asks if it is him, tell him yes.

Unless it is a no. Avoid lies. Remember feelings and how simple they are. Sad. Happy. Tired. Joyful. Like red in preschool. Like 2 x 2 in the second grade.

Drink hot chocolate. Abandon chairs to sit on counter tops. Screw the calorie count every once in a while. Find an author whose words are like truffles for you. Sit on the countertop, drinking hot cocoa, screwing calories and reading Neruda out loud.

Learn a few greek words. Make pancakes for dinner. Write your dreams down, even when you insist that you don’t have the time. Place them some place where you can see them. Draw the tree that has been heavy on your heart all morning. Since childhood. For the past few weeks. A big family. A movement of sorts. A bestseller. A college education.

Decide on one person whom you will tell about the tree. Make a coffee date.

Ask yourself: How thick is my tree? How crisp are the leaves? How high are the branches? Can I climb them? Dare I climb them?

And, when you’ve drawn the tree completely, ask the most important question of all: Will it give shade to someone else one day?

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