This is an homage to a little poem called little infinities [here] by my friend called Avery. I feel like I can't take hardly any credit for anything beautiful about this piece, because the creative credit really goes to Avy, and the rest of it is just because I got lucky and ended up with a lot of really nice people in my life. xoxo
Phosphorus beauty, you never needed anybody, but the world is on your doorstep; it's begging for you to let it in. The world is yours more in its music than its microscope lenses, and years and years from now, they'll thumb through your notebooks and say, "God must be real; He has to be." There are things that you know and there are things that you are.
Xanax beauty, no one's ever going to love you more than I do, no matter how hard they try, and believe you me, they'll try so hard. You see the world through real, honest glasses, never rose colored and never graying, just the way it is, and then you smile at it. There are things you should fear and there are things you should embrace.
Pianissimo beauty, your sheer athletic bravado, I thought I knew love and then I saw you at my piano. You stepped out of a jazz age, something like a lullaby, and I wonder what you wonder about, how maybe you see thirty-second notes in the grass, or maybe you just see them on the tips of your fingers. There is A flat and there is B flat minor. There are the things that you say and the things that you laugh about.
Long-legged beauty, I still cry when someone whispers your name. Numbers drop, lungs expand, starter gun shot, and I still cry when I watch you running. Your heart and your mind are separate things; you and me are separate things; your socks and mine are separate things. There are things that I'll remember and things that I'll miss.
Philadelphia beauty, I've never loved something so much as I love the way the sun loves you. You never found home and you're never letting go of that, climb on a plane, see the world, touch the sunshine and never turn back, but I'll always set you a place at the dinner table. There are things you pack and there are things you cling to.
Medicinal beauty, you spend most nights on my family room couch, simultaneously making me wish I was you and terrifying me that I will become you. Let your hair curl. These are my hands. I am tall and you are tall and we both wear heels and that makes sense to me. You don't get to pick your relatives. There are the grades you'll get and there are the gravestones you'll see.
Ink-filled beauty, it's you I want to be when I grow up. I know you see poems in the streets and we'll write them together, toss them out the window, call for gun control, and die together, and you'll still answer the phone when I call at 1 am. These are the perks of being an insomniac. There are the things that you talk about and the things that you write about.
Scriptural beauty, your aggression felt like a personal insult, and now it just feels like home. Smarter than all of us but still having trouble with homophones, if I'm here to humble you, you're here to fix me. There are promises you can break and there are promises you can't.
Laundry Room beauty, do I thank you often enough? You're not excitable, but you're charitable, and I like the way you like the heat. I'll kiss you goodbye and set off into the world, broke except for your phone calls, broken except for the lunch you packed me -- what you asked of me was easy, and how many ways can I say that I'm sorry before you know what I mean? There are the children who will never leave you and there are the children who will never forget to tell you they love you before they close the car door.
Fiscal.
All my love,
Addy
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
We wake up every day and we do it again. And again. And again. And again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again.
And somewhere along the line, we became what we've become. How do we become what we are?
I'm sixteen years old and I've read a lot of books. Where I come from, you either like me, or you don't: There's no gray area with me. Except for God. God is gray area. I think I know about heartbreak, but I probably don't. It took me a long time to realize that I don't have to like everyone. Don't have to like everything. I have a weakness for boys in windbreakers, boys with great hands, great cheekbones, boys who like great literature. I like cats with human names. I like cats. I say a lot of things.
And you, you're almost 19 years old and you've done your fair share of kissing. You don't understand the things I understand. I don't understand the things you understand. Whatever, you're over it. Yeah, you're 18 years old, and you call yourself a Christian, say you're giving up a couple years for it, but I don't think you're anywhere near as Christian as the boy who wears too much black who we think had friends before us, or that boy who looks a lot like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbs -- yeah, you're giving up a couple of years for this, but those two have been living it for their entire lives, because that's who they are. Are you offended by that? I don't mean for you to be.
There's a girl who got a 33 on the ACT, perfect grades, comes from a family of people who don't even know what that means. I think they should, and if they don't yet, they will. They will. Sometimes I forget to ask questions, but she keeps sticking around.
There's Avery with that hair, and Kaitlyn with that dog, and Morgan with her dad. There's something about beating hearts and things coming in threes and dinner for two.
And we're these things. We've read a lot of books and we like cats and we've done our fair share of kissing and we call ourselves Christian and we come from a family that doesn't even know what that means. We keep sticking around and there's something about beating hearts and things coming in threes and dinner for two. We're these things, and I'm not sure how we became these things, but I think it might be because of all the times we've failed.
I've read a lot of books because I wasn't good at that for a long time. People like me, people hate me because I failed in their eyes. And 33 and perfect grades didn't do everything perfect. And Kaitlyn had to fail a lot of times to get that dog. Avery had to fail to cut that hair for a lot of years. She now successfully has the longest hair of anyone I know.
Yeah, we failed a lot, but we became what we've become.
There's something about beating hearts and things coming in threes and dinner for two.
Fashionably late, as always.
All my love,
Addy
I think I might be little bit of a perpetually-nostalgic person just by nature, but sometimes, nostalgia slips into my house and tip-toes through my bedroom door and climbs into my bed with me and we stay there for days, under my covers, nostalgia and I.
I don't mean to. I don't like to, really, but it just happens.
Today, nostalgia and I found a lot of old notes and we cried. There was one from Matt Pockrus where he used the wrong form of their/they're/there, and I had scribbled all over it in red pen, and now I wish I hadn't. I wish I'd have left his improper "there" untouched and kept it forever. (Also in that note, Matt said, "You should get a boyfriend.") There's a note from Avery with a picture of a giraffe that says, "Here is a giraffe for you. Because I love you this much." There's a series of notes from Emily Luse, her crinkled cursive, and when I read through them I relived the too-short handful months we had together. Her car didn't used to lock, ha, I remember that.
And I liked summer a lot. I liked August a lot. I liked Kaitlyn's van and how The Fountainhead brought us Kyle and Matt. I liked how late it got. I liked the way everything felt like we were getting away with murder, but not, obviously, because this simile doesn't make any sense like I meant it to. I liked riding bikes and taking pictures and everything was easy. I liked how we were freckled, tanned and kissed and full and musical and alive.
But I'm pale as ever again, and I have to wear real shoes now, and I don't get any notes in typewriter-handwriting from boys, and I don't control the universe of my math class with Madison. I don't control the universe, not any universe. And then college and Ukraine and Italy and New Jersey and Florida and then I thought I felt it back then, and I wrote about wishing for quality in my motions, and I've tried, but I'm feeling it now. Again. I'm feeling it all now again.
I'm going to have gray hair soon, and no one will pick me up and carry me around and I won't get notes from anyone at all soon and I can't even think about where I'm heading, so I'm trying to embrace what I've got: Golden years. Golden years. Golden years.
Who knew?
I guess I get stuck here with nostalgia because I know where I've been, but I don't know where I'm going. It scares me, because the future isn't predictable, even I know that, with my horoscopes and fortune cookies, I know I can't predict the future. I can't even predict the weather. But I look at where I've been and who I was, and how I became who I am, and the people that got me there, and the way they shape their capital "I"s and their haircuts (or lack thereof), and I remember how I got here. I can't believe it's been a year since... this.
If you need me tonight, I'll be under the covers crying lavender tears with nostalgia. We'll wake up tomorrow, just give us one night, and I'll give nostalgia its suitcase and kiss its cheeks and thank it for its time: I will tell nostalgia that I can't stay stuck there under the covers crying lavender tears forever, it's almost May, I have things to do, thank you very much.
It's almost May, I have things to do, thank you very much, it's almost May.
"And, as I always say, "If it ain't baroque, don't fix it!""
All my love,
Addy
It's hard to explain. Basically, this is about noses.
I like how people smell. I like how houses smell. To be honest, I sometimes even like them when they smell a little bit bad (key words: a little bit). It's human; it's home. And I always wonder what my house smells like to other people.
Sometimes, I will walk through the smell of Avery. Other times, it's Kaitlyn. Or one of the Matts or Kyle or Morgan or Daniel or Madeline. Sometimes it's my parents or my sisters. And I don't really realize what they smell like until I am just walking along and I will smell something like... I can't even describe it.
Avery smells like hair and words and poetry and owning three pairs of the same jeans. Kaitlyn smells like freckles and Ibsen and rice, Matt Davis like climbing and chai and knives, Kyle like record players and equations, Morgan like country music and vanilla bean, Daniel like statistics and purple pants, Madeline like her sister. My mom, for lack of any other way to describe it, smells like perfect energy, my dad like dancing and fatherliness, and my sisters smell like violins and puzzle pieces and crayons, and all of that together smells like home.
I think I smell like songs and like I have too many words for anyone to handle, and like falling in love easily, and I think I smell like falling in love easily isn't always a bad thing.
I mean that in the most metaphorical way possible -- no one smells like owning three pairs of the same jeans. I mean that in the most literal way possible -- people really smell like equations and country music. But how can I describe a smell? It just smells. Like an old folks home and a grape jolly rancher and lighting design.
And it's January now, and things smell like January. Things smell new and old and oak-y. Things smell like learning to shop for wood and learning to appreciate differences of opinions. Things smell human, and they smell like the renaissance. Mostly, things smell different, and things smell like they're changing, but I think that's misleading, because I keep walking through the scent of you.
Goodnight, folks.
All my love,
Addy
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!
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
