acrid

There’s just no accounting for bitterness,

Or the way it snakes its way into every conversation,

snapping up its head to inject some venom into a line,

turning a joke into something more sinister.

But how can you resist?

The biting comment is approved of, laughed at, appreciated.

Misery loves company and your anger

spreads, disillusioning everyone around you,

one bad apple spoiling the bunch. 

You narrow your eyes at the shiny red fruit,

knowing the poisonous seeds will kill you

before your wicked stepmother can even cackle.

No, bitterness is the personal email that began with

“Hello esteemed reporters!”

and went on to trash your reputation and integrity,

twisting your words until you don’t know which way is up (or nice),

finding insult where there was none,

and with a final swipe,

ended with “Respectfully.”

It's the scratchy blanket you cling onto,

despite all admonitions to throw that junk away,

because dammit, its uncomfortableness is at least familiar.

Part I

I asked him how to get to the bottom of the swimming pool.
He didn’t answer.
It was a fair question.

He asked me what was wrong.
I didn’t answer.
It wasn’t a fair question.

There is no answer.
Nothing is wrong.
Everything is wrong.
Everything’s so wrong, it’s right.
Don’t worry, be happy!
So far, so good.

He asked me what was wrong.
Did he not hear me?
Everything’s dandy.
Swell.
Jolly good.

He waited.
I waited.
And I was like, do I tell him?
And I was like, what do I say?
And I was like, why am I here?
And I was like, you’re the biggest attention whore ever.
And I was like, and you don’t even admit it to yourself.
And I was like, well I just admitted it to myself!

He waited.

curriculum vitae

            Every winter, I ponder the life lessons I’m supposed to take from this.  Is it the humbling realization that life’s not a meritocracy and if you’re “cool,” you’re going to be in every senior dance, even if you can’t point your feet, straighten your arms, and do any of the moves correctly if your life depended on it?  Is it that wow, awkward how I can’t join in any of these conversations because I don’t know who Jordan is and never would be invited to any of these parties you all head to after Friday rehearsal?  Is it that being a gorgeous goof with an infectious laugh will get you anywhere you want in life, damn your awful grades, shoddy attendance, and late-night binge-drinking?

            Consider these lessons learned.

onus

they shouldn't have to bear it. 

and so they won't.

you swallow your tears, you draw back the thorns, and you quirk up your lips.

so you can be a good friend, supportive, warm, amiable, nice.  so you're not a drain a burden a maelstrom of negative energy.  so there's a reason they keep you around. 

but it builds and it builds until you start screaming in your mind and soon you're screaming in the air until finally you get to collapse and sleep.  sleep as you're deserted isolated alone but with no good can be no bad. 

adjectives

guilt because i can't help.
guilt because i have it better.
guilt because anger ravaged me is the happiest one of us all.

seething shaking bristling burning taut tense with anger.

blase, frustrated, raging, furor, frenzied.

no one to blame.

iterum

there's always a part of you that wishes they could understand everything.  and so you tell them in bits and pieces, clues and hints, trying to explain how you came to be cracked and shattered.  but you can never tell them everything and so consequently they will never understand everything.  the smart part of you knows that and struggles to accept it.  but the naive, stupid, just retarded part of you never will.  and that part gets crushed and disillusioned and battered and beaten, until finally you begin to keep it all in because really, no one cares. 

In this photograph, a cherry blossom tree grows over the feet of a man six feet under.  The neighborhood lawn mower, 10 years old and scrawny, lies on the grass over the dead man's head and tosses pebbles at the tree.

It is an unassuming house, one of those brick suburban houses (no white picket fence, though) that city people have trouble differentiating.  Rose bushes line the sides, and a plastic Fisher Price swing set from that store with the smiley face sits on the right.

Fourth grade was the year Ashley had to find new friends.
She had been kicked off her friends' table in English, and told unceremoniously (really, one would think a total social rejection like that would be more formal than a simple "You can't sit here") to go sit at the next table, with them.  Her old seat was given to the new favorite, a former tomboy now seeing the light of a world with pink sweaters and manicures.  Ashley still didn't know what having layers meant.

Fifth grade was the year Ashley became quiet.  She was the unobtrusive friend, a follower, definitely not a leader.  In the junior sorority her friend was planning, Ashley was the automatic secretary, because she had "neat handwriting and was organized."  Someone else got to be the social planner.  (Seriously, where did fifth graders learn about sororities?)

Struck

There are people in this lifetime/that we should never meet/cause to be here now without you/well my life's so incomplete...
-Vanessa Carlton "Come Undone"

I really, really love these lines.  This applies to so many people for me.  Something to think about at night.

above average

"Everyone can be a leader!"

"You want to stand out!  Be different!  Unique!  Extraordinary!"

"Everyone here is above average."

If everyone's a leader, where are the followers?  Who will they lead?
If everyone stands out among other stand-outs, won't the normal be the new unique?
What defines the average if everyone is above it?

Harbor

The pain that comes every winter like clockwork.

The regret.

The jealousy.

Frustration. 

Silky moves, sinuous and lithe, strong.

What could've been.
What never will.

Staring out into the lamps that line the park like constellations as people swirl and fall and clap in the distance.

Beaten down by harsh winds, that blow away the cringing memories and anger. 

As you listen.

makes no sense.  But it's true.

in 501

"We should sell something."

"Sell what?"

"You."

slipping under

Yael Naim's cover of Toxic is incredible.

varsity dance music??  who knows.

studying

There was something vaguely... romantic about the image of the student, bent over her history book, flipping the highlighter with her fingers, and a single light shining on the words that had lasted for 500 years. 

once again

Listening to broken hearted girl.

with a heavy history textbook in my lap.

typing my notes like always.

I always seem to come back to this.

three things in life that are constant:

death, lack of sleep, and absolutely loads of history homework.

(and a desire for cream puffs.  yummmmmm)

summer '09

Looking at our china group picture (in which I look bad, as usual)

It's weird that we're back.

We were so isolated (if you didn't have a computer), that it was our own world.  our own (slightly) happy, hungry, dysfunctional world.
  

I miss it.

needless to say.

(but 80 hours!)

on the bus from a day in the desert.  lights off, people nodding into that quiet little place before you dream, stuffed camels stuffed into a bag somewhere, the blue glow of ipods melting, molding with the blue light outside.  rumbling stomachs adding discordance, but closed eyes seemed to mean closed ears, as the guys tugged down their baseball caps in an attempt to ward off shrieks and laughs and it worked, at least from her side of no cap and inability to fall asleep, what with her neighbor sighing in pain as her leg was slowly, slowly being crushed by the broken seat in front. 

quiet.  quiet for the first time in 2 weeks, quiet from screams and chants of ktv , quiet from comparisons of home states, east v. west, quiet from the sounds of surprise and pain when she scrapes her knee again , quiet from complaints about food or the lack of it.  only silence.

finally

I'm back to writing...  feels good.

after today

no more white

no more flip flops

no more relaxing, chilling, hanging, gelato dripping, making a mess, a mess to clean up and wash and throw in the laundry machine.

artificial warmth, cooking germs, in the cold, freezing, chilly, weather with the heater on 70, an imitation of the sun cooking, boiling much too far away.

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