Speak For Yourself.

It doesn't have a name, but I wrote it sometime around 2 am this morning. Still didn't have a name when I performed it tonight, but it was rewarding. 


I'm past knowing what I want to do when I'm out of high school. I think it's about what I'm supposed to do at this point.

How To Be Cool At High School (colon):

a list that might be more appropriately entitled “How To Survive At High School”.

One: Listen to rap music.

Two: Like red meat, and also like football –

all types of football, yes, even if Chase Hansen is not playing.

Come on, people, beggars can’t be choosers.

Three: Wear skinny jeans and do your hair everyday.

That goes for you, too, boys.

Four: Get good at kissing. Get really good at kissing.

Five: Look bored during class, but actually pay attention,

because believe it or not, you actually have to graduate.

Six: Don’t say too much and don’t sing too often,

but do say something and sing when that one rap song comes on –

You know it; I believe in you. You’re cool, remember?

And seven: Say the right thing.

Or, maybe just forget all of that.

Say the wrong thing and do whatever you please,

because that’s what makes people fall in love with you,

and that’s what makes you endearing.

I’ll be honest: I struggle with myself.

I say the wrong thing.

A lot.

I tell myself that’s what makes me interesting,

but I’m also a liar.

And a procrastinator.

And I have really big feet.

This is my palm; would you like to read it?

I’ve been told that I have a lot of stress and anxiety lines,

but I’m pretty positive that’s just because

I’m growing up in an incredibly grotesque world.

We’re born, we watch people die, then we die ourselves,

and in between you need rap music

and you need to be hot

to get through high school,

and that’s disgusting.

I’m sorry –

I get worked up and I forget to calm down and stop…

for a second.

So when I get down on myself

and down on the world,

I remind myself to remember The Beatles,

who made art that will outlive every single one of them,

and us

and probably our children

and maybe even their children, too.

I think about Martin Luther

and the day he hung his complaints

on the door of that church,

and I think that without that one moment

of courage

we might not have the first amendment.

And I think of you.

I think of the day you were born,

and how the doctor cut the chord

and handed you to your mother,

and in that moment, she loved you so much

it was probably unbearable for her.

and she cannot deny that,

and if she does,

she’s lying.

And I think of God –

if you’re an atheist, I apologize.

I’m not the best person, but

I still believe in Him.

Maybe because I want to,

or maybe because I need to.

I need to believe that we are not alone around here,

and that all of this isn’t an accident

or a coincidence

or a mistake.

And, yes. I’m afraid of dying,

partly because I don’t think I’ve lived enough life yet,

but also because I’m worried that what life I’ve lived

might not be good enough for God.

But this isn’t about me:

It’s about how God created the world in less than one week,

and it’s breathtaking out there.

So take my hand, with all of its anxiety lines,

and run with me,

and together we can see past

How To Be Cool At High School,

and I think that’s important, because one minute

we’re going to be sitting in a bowling alley

counting down the minutes to midnight,

and then we’ll blink,

and it will be November,

and I really think we might regret it

if we didn’t stop and smell the roses.

Pay attention, would you?

All my love,

Addy

"In the Arms of Another Day"

Please don't ask me to write anymore. I don't know if I can. And also don't ask me to sing, 'cause I'm losing my voice. Or maybe just losing heart. And I can't drive at all. Let me do things on my own terms. Call my name and hold my hands and kiss my lips and hold me near you, please, that's fine, but let me do things on my own terms. Avery won't do anything until she is dead, and Kaitlyn won't do anything until she's out of her pajamas, and I won't do anything until I want to. I guess that's why we're friends, Avery and Kaitlyn and I: We're stubborn.


I'm just going to vacuum this whole house because I'm the best daughter, no other reason. Jklol; I totally have ulterior motives.


Let me google what I want to. Let me google "Burberry Acoustic" and "Andrew Garfield" and "chemistry puns" and "cat pictures." I don't want to learn about the Nazi invasion of France right now. I want to read Scott Pilgrim comics and I'm still trying to get used to this skin I was given.


I miss the ocean and I miss my youth, so let me mope.


No one calls me back anymore. I'm not interesting enough. I tell myself that I'm far too interesting, really, but that's just so that I can sleep at night.


I do listen when you talk. I promise what you say is powerful. I want to write swear words, but I know that people will read them and that people will not approve of me. I suppose it shouldn't matter because no one approves of anyone else anyway.


Look at the salmon in the koi pond and watch me eat them raw. "I like it because it is bitter and because it is my heart."


I'm not depressed or unwell. I'm just tired and I can't play the piano and I can't set priorities: to write French or to write plays? Fifty points should mean something, but it doesn't. Not yet. So I write nothing at all. Except this, and does this count, even?


"I'm trapped, but I want to be trapped." Sort of.


You will rule the whole world soon, I feel like.
All my love,
Addy


P.S. 100 followers? Holla!

See how they run.

We are phenomenal. We are beautiful songs and young love. We are hot water in the morning and sweaters in the fall and handwritten letters. We are beautiful views and poems that make people cry and sunshine and we are rain, too. We are the pies that actually taste good. We are youth and late nights and the first snow. We are what it is like to be a part of something and we are dancing and we are new shoes. We are good books and good hair days and good games.

We are everything beautiful and wonderful and everything happy.

But here I am, trying to protect myself from us. It isn't being happy that makes me want to protect myself: It's the knowledge that happiness can't last. It's that we will have to be noise and not music and that young love rarely lasts. We will have to be the moment that hot water runs out and everything is just icy, icy cold. We do have to be the letters that don't come and the view is sometimes just polluted. We have to be what it is to be alone and we have to be the months when there is just too much snow and no one wants it around anymore. We have to be the shoes that can't be worn anymore and the plugs that get pulled. We have to be poorly written and we have to be bad hair days and we have to be everything sad.

We do have to be everything ugly and awful and everything sad.

That's life, and sometimes I hate the thought of that. But we can't protect ourselves from happiness without protecting us from sadness, so I suppose we'd better cherish while we have it -- happiness, I mean.

And for now, we're too lovely to look away from, and I'm going to cling to that.

Happy Thanksgiving (Spanksgiving).

All my love,

Addy

Two.

I suppose that this is what youth is all about, this whole that-was-definitely-a-mistake-but-I-definitely-don't-regret-it feeling.


I think I sometimes forget to remember to be young. I sometimes forget to be okay with myself. Yeah, I don't think I'm going to finish the novel -- it's just been too crazy of a month, honestly. But I'm going to try. "I keep forgetting to put 'focus' on my to-do list."


I have writer's block.
All my love,
Addy

Ag, ag, and more ag.

 

I am too terrified of failure. What if I just give up now so that I can say, "Oh, I could've, but I just didn't." Is that better than saying, "I couldn't"? Is this a "quit while you're behind" sort of situation?


You make it seem so simple. And maybe it is simple, but it doesn't seem so simple and I miss you, don't you know that?


I'm not good at this. Can someone please bring me something in a major key?


Someday you'll be a real boy.
All my love,
Addy

I want to cause you a miracle.

11/11/11 was magical in its own way, don't you think?


I'm still a little broken, just like Kyle's car that I backed into, but maybe that's the magic. Maybe the magic is that we are a broken people and yesterday, we lived one single day where we could wish every single second for anything that came to mind, and no one could stop us.


We could wish away our fears and that was fine for one day. Caffeine and doughnuts could show up in room 111 on 11/11/11 just before 11:11 and that was entirely very acceptable. It was fine to hold pinkies in circles and wish little wishes and even throw world peace in there. Beautiful boys have to come visit you at high school. Everyone has to forgive you. 


We all do what we can, and it's magic.


Even your heartbeat is beautiful. What? Carry on.
All my love,
Addy

Oh, look. A golden slipper.

Do I give my heart too quickly? Too easily?


And then I am just another statistic. Another number, another name, another something for you to throw around to impress everyone. Just like you impressed me, but now it's just exhausting. 


So I've tossed my heart and my soul in another direction -- of course I've given my heart; what was I supposed to do with it? Keep it inside of me? -- and I think that maybe if I never, ever, ever stop running, never stop going, never stop singing or moving or making everyone else look perfect, then you can never catch up with me. You can never catch up with me. You can't even hinder my progress.


Because look at me: Look at what I have achieved.


I am untouchable and invincible and unstoppable. I am running on empty, but I don't need anything to fill me up. And look at them! Look at how beautiful they are! I did that.


I have a million words and a thousand costumes and a whole lot of hair. Try and catch me now.


I don't even know what adjective I'm looking for.
All my love,
Addy

This is only day one and I'm already loosing my mind.

We are terrified. We are terrified and we are running amongst these stars are if they are nothing. The snow will stumble through us like we're transparent. Like we're ghosts. We are stuck between heaven and hell because we never did anything with ourselves and no one who is still alive seems to care. Doesn't that bother anyone? We're terrified and positively overflowing with words, but when they come out, they fall in all the wrong places and we end up doing nothing. Not even when we're trapped with nothing but words to save us.


We have a thousand better things to do with ourselves, but we don't do them. We sing and read and watch television, but we don't whip out our pens and give the world something to talk about.


My mother can be made happy by a newer, quieter dishwasher, so shouldn't we be happier with newer, quieter appliances? Why aren't we our own newer, quieter appliances?


Hiss.
All my love,
Addy