Inclement

single-passenger umbrellas fill the streets as rain does,
grates absorbing the storm and filth,
sleeves absorbing the weight.
it's not moisture they fight, but gravity
willing the clouds instead to swell
gray, full, stoic
as though with the silent
pride and thick
ambition
city dreams require.
'Be nice to everyone, for each fights a battle'
or something like that.
cabs carry two
one driving, one paying
yet tonight
as one
we battle the rain.

Hush

All along the western front, the ringtones and blingtones screamed from the spires. "I can see you and be you," they cried. "Be me?" I inquired. "What am I to be while you are me? If my eyes are to be free, should they see you being me? Am I to bleed into the sea so the you that's me can be?"

They shrugged.

***

Tears are tributaries. Cheeks the basins, sorrow the sea. Droughts are signs of good times, then, but what are the fish to breathe?

***

I love you, Great Grandma Bebe. I will miss your soft words and humor, you calling me precious, you smiling as we walked in the door. Please forgive me for not being there once you didn't know whether to smile. Internet spans the nations, right? And the heavens, I believe. You will see this somehow, or feel it straight from me, as I will feel you for the rest of my life.

Hey Kids

I haven't written in ages. Maybe that's why my back hurts.

Recent thoughts for those who wonder why I never post them:
1) I hope I pass my driver's license test next Thursday
2) My siblings and I are growing up to be really cool people
3) I love that feeling when you first meet a friend and have a gut feeling that you'll be each other's support system for a long time coming. I love the ambiguity and anticipation in that feeling even more than I love the security in knowing that they feel the same about you. Must be the dose of gambler's adrenaline in my veins.
4) Poker is fun
5) I'm going to be on my complete own in the capital of the world, and I'm not nervous about it. Though I can't tell if understanding that you think I would be means I actually am....
6) I have a sinking feeling that I'll never get around to seeing very much of the world. Seriously, it gnaws at me.
7) I need to stop priding myself on being a ray of reality in people's lives and start focusing on becoming a ray of sunshine.

Sunshine is real, after all.

Pop Tart

I've been having thoughts lately. The kind I would write down if I were sitting down to my typewriter as I had them. But I never was. And I pretended that introspection's majesty lies in its internalization. I changed my mind. A thought's majesty lies in the possibility that it could affect another's thoughts. Interactions, relationships, discussions, opinions, arguments, agreements, realizations, after all, make the world go round. More so than, in my opinion, fat bottoms ever did. But hey.

Also, I dance wildly in computer chairs. In the wee hours of the morning. To Lady Gaga. Adios, Indie. Helloooo pop, love, and happiness.

Happy summer, loves.

Roomy Nations

I think this next chapter of my life is going to be a picture book.
the words will be in the back of the book on a page called Acknowledgments. and Index.


also, damn you, insecurities. that is all.

A is for Alive

I hope you can imagine the places where, if I were to read my writing, my eyebrows would raise, my eyes would tear, my jaw would set, my lips would smile, my fists would clench, my chin would lift, my head would hang, my eyes would widen.

I hope you can imagine what my words, were they to live, would look like.

All I ever wanted to be was a starving artist.

I wish I had recorded Barbara Donnelly Lane's presentation to our class today. She's a freelance/children's author who spoke to my Literary Magazine class about why she writes, the persistence a writer's life requires, and the importance of knowing why such persistence is worth it.

Though she described in detail the hardships writers face, she fueled my yearning to share my words with other people. As she described the discouragement attached to multiple publishing rejections, I couldn't help but know that I will stomach whatever it takes. She said, "You have to want to write badly enough that the process seems worth it. You have to have an outer shell that rejection bounces off of because if you don't, you'll stop trying. I used to save all of my rejection letters. Don't do that. Burn them.

"You have to know why you want to write, and you have to practice your craft. I have no respect for writers who don't practice their craft. And I have no respect for writers who can't tell me what they read last. Writers need to read.

"You need to know how you're going to eat. Writing for self-publication alone will not put food on the table. Think about your education and get a degree that sets you apart."

She shared this quote with us as one that stood out to her as irrevocably true for writers:

"Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent." - Calvin Coolidge

I want to clarify that I do not ever plan to answer the question "What do you do?" with "I'm a writer." I envision "writer" as a title saved for other people to use about the writers they respect. The title is overused. Too many use the title as their key to a literary pedestal. To cultural importance. To unmistakable talent.

In my opinion, which I will too gladly share with you for the rest of my life, no one should label themselves as having any of those.

Class of 2010, prepare yourselves. The next twenty-five years may fly by as swiftly as the past twelve did. And when you ask me at our 25th High School Reunion, "What are you doing these days?" you'll wonder if I ever removed the "rising" from "rising college freshman." I will answer, "I want to be a writer."