Speak for Yourself pt. ii

Untitled Something no. 2

The first time you said you loved me you asked if that would scare me, and I said that I’m tougher than I look, which was the wrong answer, although it is true, and here is what I should have said: Darling, I love you like fireworks, like honestly and like cat calls, like fast cars, more sun than usual, like inhale, exhale, make my heartbeat get normal again, and darling, your lips are like an empty guest bedroom but a car in the driveway, but stop making assumptions about what that means. I love you like Independence Day, ironically enough. Me and you, we’re two racing hearts and two narcissists with four sweaty palms and twenty tired toes and you’re lovely even when you lie to me.

The night you wouldn’t kiss me I said, “Take it or leave it,” but I couldn’t walk away. You couldn’t take it, but you didn’t leave it, so I just stayed.

We are made of broken things. You are built on broken families; I am built on broken promises, and because of that, baby, I miss you in a way that makes me want to never let you hear this poem. I wish that was a secret, but I am The Cellophane Girl and The Cellophane girl wears her heart where it belongs, right behind her rib cage, but she may as well wear it on her sleeve because The Cellophane Girl has see-through skin.

They told you, they said to you, “Sink or swim, kid,” but they didn’t know you could walk on water, and you went running.

I can fly. I can tell you about it, and when you listen to me talk about flight, by listening you have taught me about standing still.

We talk about horror movies and when we do it goes like this: You are quiet and I mumble something like, “Pay attention to the way blood bleeds. You’ll learn something from that, I bet.” Neither of us knows what I mean by that. I mean nothing by that.

I ask too many questions and you whisper, “Chew your food, darling. Stop swallowing things whole,” and both of us know what you mean by that. You mean everything by that.

When I look at the Tokyo sky I whisper things across the miles to you. I whisper things like, “The poetry about this place practically writes itself,” and I’m sure that you hear me, because we are watching the same sky tonight. Everything is foreign here, and it reminds me of you, which is ironic, because I know you so well. I know the shape of you and the smell of you and the curvature of your lips and the oh-so-parallel lines of your hips, and I whisper to our sky, I whisper, “There is a city in the sky, and everything about it, all of it, everything is enormous and very small in the same moment” – you make me feel enormous and very small in the same moment – “You’d appreciate the lavender staircases and that one orange-tiled building that was skinnier than I am, especially after I got my hands on ramen houses.” I hear your laugh across the miles.

We think about art across the miles. You’re a minimalistic masterpiece. You’re something Warhol. I am The Birth of Venus, and I am Cindy Sherman. We are not the same, but we still fit inside an art museum. You tell me that’s all that really matters.

I think about God and the two titans of the twentieth century and the way I’m sure they built this city. Picasso shaped these buildings and Matisse grabbed his paints and God shoved them close together, breathing his prayer into them, breathing his prayer into us, me and you are leaping across telephone lines, gathering speed, soaring through the clouds, turning into the skyline, shattering laws of matter, laws of thermodynamics, but I was just dreaming that, which makes more sense than anything has ever made to me.

I wore the fabric of us today and suddenly you are back, you are whispering that it looks nice on me, that it suits me, and I joke, saying, “Take it or leave it,” and then we are living that midnight one more time, you are kissing me in the street, kissing me goodbye, kissing me goodnight and the salt of your tears screams just how human you are tonight.

Sometimes, I think I can hear you praying for hope across the sky, and I whisper that I hope your deity grants you that. I am not lying when I say that, but I hope I am lovely even when I lie to you. You are lovely even when you lie to me.

Please understand my poetic justice, but know that darling, these days, I see right through your poker face, and that I think you’re lovely even when you lie to me.


Hollaback.
All my love,
Addy

Speak for Yourself, pt. i

If you were there last night, I can't thank you enough. We had a really great time and I'm so honored to have shared the stage with Angie, Tim, Matt, Avery, Soleil, Roah, Jake, Cody, Mr. Nelson, and Jesse. You all blow me away. Here's my part one (of two).


Our Favorite Food is Formaldehyde or The Tribute Poem


Look: We were absolutely glorious. We were absolutely glorious and we were nothing else. Everything we had was rimmed with some sort of light, telling us we'd gotten it right for once, just because we'd found each other, and that was enough for us. All we really wanted was to glow, you know? We wanted the sun at our backs and the moon in our eyes, and then we could really be something.


We reeked of fame and stardom and said things like, "Paul McCartney told me not to namedrop!" We knew about love and we knew hatred and we knew about what it was like to be not liked, but it felt almost endearing, because at least we weren't liked as a whole, because at least we were a whole.


We smelled like flames and beauty that bleeds, and you wouldn't believe the way we gave gifts, like Trader Joe's, but better, like the entire nation on Christmas, but better, because we were the ones that were giving them, and that made them absolutely golden.


We were shaped like somebody that somebody else might long to be, like beautiful long limbs and shiny long hair and glory, and when we walked through the door, nothing else mattered. We owned the place right then, no matter who was paying the mortgage.


In those months, we tasted like perfection, like a weird mixture of Carmel Apple Cider and Salted Carmel Hot Chocolate and Chai Tea and White Mocha and Cat Cookies, which sounds like it wouldn't be tasty, but it was tasty because it was us.


I wish you could've read us, back in those days, we were the YA section one moment and the philosophy section the next. We were gender studies and classic fiction and the interesting part of the nonfiction section. We were Ayn Rand, we were a House of Leaves, we were daunting -- Look: We were the whole library. You'd never run low on us, never run out of us, 'cause in those stolen moments, we were forever interesting, always something to talk about, always something to cry over.


The sound of our voices was something else, "We're getting the band back together," we'd rumble, nothing short of thunder, our glow turned to lightning. We were truth like the Bible, brilliance like Shakespeare, we were somebody's love child, and you heard it when we talked, it was there, you didn't even have to listen closely hear it.


We dwelt in our own devastation. We were stunningly worldly, surprisingly materialistic, and shockingly honest about it. If we were ever going to kiss again, we'd kiss each other. Our favorite food: formaldehyde. We tasted dust Monday mornings, but we built an amusement park with our bare hands in a single weekend. We were dead set on catching up with the moon, and when we did, we were the prettiest things to have ever set foot in that place.


And The Man Upstairs, He gave us one year, said, "Be back by September," and we slipped out of the cracks in the foundation, timid, contemplating veganism, illiterate, freshly-washed. Tomorrow, we'll saunter back home, carnivorous, well-read, sweaty. Look: There we'll be, absolutely glorious. He'll ask for a report and we'll show Him our palms, an almost gory allusion, but He'll understand. God always understands. God will laugh. God will say, "I hear the whole of you was so bright it got you kicked out of business class seating." We will laugh. Someone will make the obligatory "smoke follows beauty" joke, and God will pat us on the heads, and this is what He'll say to us: "You are here now. You are here now, and now you understand."


But the best part is that last night, we realized the pains in our backs were only because we've been sprouting wings.


Speak for Yourself.
All my love,
Addy

Itchy eyes, why we really went to the dollar store.

Here's a thing I learned today, on the day my yoga teacher promised me "high vibrations" would make something exciting happen: When death is on the line, nothing really matters. The Bachelorette doesn't matter and dresses don't matter and nothing matters except everybody you've ever loved. All that really matters is watching your kid graduate or walk down the isle and how many days you spent with your family before you couldn't do that anymore.


You have to realize that -- you have to realize what's important before death is on the line and you're then required to realize it in the scariest, saddest way possible, but it doesn't even matter that I'm saying that to you right now, because you won't realize until you have to. That's the way it works.


What I'm saying is that sometimes, when someone says, "Drive out here and do sidewalk chalk with me," that isn't what they're really saying. They're saying, "Listen, we're going through this thing, and you're not going to come down here and talk to me about it, you're going to come down here and just be with me because we haven't done that enough in the last year, and you matter to me."


Tread lightly.
All my love,
Addy

"What I wanted was mercy, but I didn't know what that word meant."

Let me warn you up front: This post isn't going to be anything artistic or even anything real, but, by all means, read on.

I have to tell you something. It's this: I'm stuck. Writing used to be so easy for me. I could turn anything into a poem or a blog post or a journal entry or at least a clever email to Hayley Walker. But then Hayley and I stopped emailing each other and my journal got more and more "Artifacts of Note" and less and less actual words about actual ideas and for sure it got less than ever actually developed and fleshed-out ideas -- and I hate the word "flesh" but look at me now. And I worry about this blog. All I seem to do is write at anonymously at people who might even read about themselves and then they probably don't even know it's them, but that's narcissistic of me to think half the people I write at actually read this, you know?

I just want to give you something beautiful. I want to give you all ideas that are developed and fleshed-out and I want you to read what I have to say and relate and be touched and hopefully I've put words to something you haven't quite been able to put words to. I've always been grateful for Avery Taylor and Buddy Wakefield for being able to do that for me. I'm grateful for Avery and Buddy for putting words to my own self when I can't, which seems to be happening more and more often than it used to.

I think this is called writer's block. They say it happens to everyone. I keep googling "cures for writer's block" and "when will writer's block go away" and "i hate writer's block so much yeah it sucks."

I have one line. That's it. That's all I've got. I've got, "Chew your food, darling. Stop swallowing things whole." That's all. And I don't know where to go from there. I've got something about eggshells, but I don't know what it is. It's on the tip of my tongue, but I feel like swallowing it instead of spitting it out.

You hear about writer's block all the time. Like, it's a thing, right? And it happens to me sometimes, but only for a week or two or something. Not like this. This is like nothing is getting down on paper right and all the stuff that used to bleed out of me, some of which was even pretty good sometimes, it's just... like blood clots or something.

Plus there's this theory that everything you could possibly say has already been said by someone somewhere at sometime in the existence of mankind. Like, what's the point of even talking if everything you ever say has already been thought up and vocalized by somebody else?

All I do anymore is grocery shopping and yoga. I want my words back. If you find them, please please please let me know. Show up on my doorstep or call me up or send me a telegram and say, "Hey, baby, I found your words! I know where they went!" Give me their longitude and latitude, and I'll go anywhere for them. Anywhere. I miss them. And when I find them, I'll keep them on a leash. I'll lock 'em up.

Say a prayer for me. Send good vibrations my way.

I already tried a change of scenery. Maybe I just have bad karma lately.

I just didn't think it would make me this sad.

"Smoking is not allowed on any Delta flight."

All my love,

Addy

Wanderlust part ii.

Last week, I saw an entire city rise into the sky. One minute it wasn't there, and the next minute, it was. And me? I felt like God -- yeah, yeah, blaspheme, I know -- but I felt like God, like first there was nothing and I said, "Let there be everything," and there it was.


Poetry about that place basically writes itself.


And I didn't miss you, and I didn't want to come home, but I forgot how much I like it here. The times I like home the best are when I've been somewhere very different for a very long time.


I dare you.
All my love,
Addy

Iambic pentameter is the only thing that actually exists.

I'm going to try and explain this to you, but you might not understand what I'm saying. Bear with me. Here: I'm never going to die. I mean, I'm going to die, but not really. That's not going to really happen. I'm Tuck Everlasting. I'm Addy Everlasting. I'm never going to die.


I mean, I understand the facts. I know I'm going to roll over one day and be twenty years old, and that isn't really that far away. But I'm also going to be 35 and then 40something and then 68 and then I'll be 80 years old one day, eyesight and body completely shot. But... but, in reality, I might never get there -- literally -- but also... Also, the only thing that's real is right this exact second.


I get it. I'll never be as young as I am right this second, and I've never been this old before, but those are just things people say. I'm actually just infinite and unending and I'll always be exactly like I am right now. You'll be exactly like you are right now. Mathematically speaking, we'll all always be a mean age of 17.5. Emotionally, we'll all always be a mean age of 17.5 -- "seventeen years old and invincible" -- and we've been this way since the dawn of time, always have been, always will be, which is bizarre, because we definitely haven't always been this way, and I'm not even as young as I was when I started writing this sentence.


It's just, like, these are the golden-est of the golden years. I've gotten everything I've ever wanted. I've got ten fingers and ten toes and I can run and dance and hear and sing and everything is a thousand miles an hour and all achey and breathless and blissful, and it's really cliche, but, "in that moment, we were infinite," and in these last few months, we have been infinite, just forever suspended in the space between the beginning and the end of time, all infinitely youthful, or something.


I've just never really thought about it. I've always known that I'll grow old, but it hasn't been an actual reality until now. No, that's not true. It's not an actual reality even now. The weirdest part is that some part of me remembers the past, like, life before last August or life before last week, but none of it's really real. Even though Old Life was wonderful and beautiful a lot of the time, but it isn't really real anymore. The only reality is now. 


The only reality is long hair and the way things intertwine and Scout the Dog and Atticus the Cat. Reality and Infinity have nothing to do with the emptiness of February that I filled up with phone calls or bad days when I started high school. Reality, Infinity, it's right now, unending, forever, so fake, so raw, so finite, but not. Not finite one bit.


We're never going to die. This is all we have. Just a oxymoronic, paradoxical, doublethink-y, finite infinity. We're just suspended forever in ever-marching time. Does that make sense?


I almost asked the librarian.
All my love,
Addy

2 June 2012: In which I make you seem complicated, cryptic, and desirable, which you are.

And everything's getting sticky, your upper lip in the sun, the backs of my knees in the sun, the way you won't kiss me. That's making things sticky. I'm used to getting what I want. You're used to being in control. You put me in my place for a minute there, but I'll win in the end, baby. I always win in the end, baby.

And I can't decide if you're Judas or Jesus yet, if you're more like Satan or more like the Holy Father, and maybe you haven't really made up your mind yet. I can't get enough of you. You can't get enough of you.

Spring likes to remind us she isn't done yet, like she'll sneak in and rain a little despite the sun, but summer is pulling out all the stops, Lest We Forget Her Beauty, Remember Oh Remember, and I'm into that. I think it's a nice idea, pulling out all the stops, Lest We Forget My Beauty, Remember Oh Remember.

So tell me what I have to do for you. Look like a model? Talk less about books? Talk less? I'm not saying I'll do it. I'm just asking.

I want to impress you. I want to baffle you. I want to stun you. I want you to wonder what I'm doing every minute of every day. I want to be something like famous to you. I want to be famous, books and papers about me, mostly lies about marriages I'm not having and divorces I'm not getting, and I want you to read about me, like I'm some sort of scandal that no one can get enough of. I want a picture with Freddy Mercury, despite the fact of his being dead, which sucks.

So are you impressed by messy hair and pointless musical trivia? If so, I'm set for years to come. But the truth is, I just want to know everything about you. I want to prod you about God and your preferences in winter sports.

And so far, here's what I've gathered about you: You get what you want, and you know what you want. You're true to that zodiac sign of yours, right down to your good ol' SPF 4. You might understand theories of the universe, and even if you don't, I think you might care a little bit about theories of the universe, which is, uh, pretty sexy, I guess. You don't like to be lonely, and you think about the presence of a higher power, and you sleep past noon, which is just so human of you, so teen boy of you. I love it. Your humanity makes you so harmless, makes you so dangerous, and oh my goodness, you're so handsome. That's a pretty toxic mixture, you know, because blatant humanity + second-glancy good looks + sometimes sleepless cynicism/usually sleepless hope just might = my downfall. For now.

This is war. I can feel it. We're too alike. We're frighteningly different.

And most of this has overwhelmingly literal undertones, but don't worry too much, darling, 'cause it's also kind of underwhelmingly metaphorical.

You keep a good poker face. Literally. Metaphorically.


So, do they make SPF a billion? Because I want that.
All my love,
Addy