Promises and Rise

I'm writing still. I promise.

SFYS book goes in Dec. 1. Get excited. I'm trying something about Adam and Eve and Samson and Delilah and Antony and Cleopatra and Romeo and Juliet.

Things to come.

For now, this:

Still I Rise -- by Maya Angelo

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise. 

Oh, I'm the most irreverent Sterling Scholar since the dawn of time.
All my love,
Addy 

Manifesto Ultimatum: Day 6: Unpopular Opinion

"It's all fun and gay until someone looses their rights."

If you don't want an abortion, don't get one.

But Ayn Rand, economically, got it just right.

But Ayn Rand, rhetorically, got it just right.

And if I were to do it all over again, I would do a lot of things differently.

Skinny boys are hot.

And everybody leaves you in the end.

"Carnal apple, Woman filled, burning moon,
dark smell of seaweed, crush of mud and light,
what secret knowledge is clasped between your pillars?
What primal night does Man touch with his senses?
Ay, Love is a journey through waters and stars,
through suffocating air, sharp tempests of grain:
Love is a war of lightning,
and two bodies ruined by a single sweetness.
Kiss by kiss I cover your tiny infinity,
your margins, your rivers, your diminutive villages,
and a genital fire, transformed by delight,
slips through the narrow channels of blood
to precipitate a nocturnal carnation,
to be, and be nothing but light in the dark."

That's my moon. Someday, I'll write a real blog post. Probably.
All my love,
Addy

Manifesto Ultimatum: Day 4: Haikus

 

 

 

I am so lucky

To call you my own mother.

Can't thank you enough.

Today, there is rain.

This morning, I loved your laugh.

Today, I miss you.

There's more where that came from.

All my love,

Addy

Originally, I was too indie for this. Turns out I'm just too pretentious. Either way, this is MANIFESTO ULTIMATUM: DAY ONE. My way.

"i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)" 

I hate my nose. Everyone hates their own nose. It's a thing. I'd be willing to bet that even Taylar Davis hates her own nose, and she has the cutest nose of anyone I've ever met. Except maybe Lauren Stratton. Her nose rivals all noses, and I know for a fact that Lauren Stratton hates her own nose; she told me so herself, right after I told her she has the best nose of anyone I've ever met.

People like their eyes, though. It's also a thing. I think it's because eyes can't possibly be an ugly shape. Or maybe they can, but it's just so subtle that I can't tell. Someone ask Billy Prilgrim, Optimologist, Unstuck In Time. He'll know. My eyes are the color of grass and also the color of mice.

I like my eyelashes the best, though. They're the most beautiful thing about me. Mostly only the makeup ladies at Nordstrom notice them, though. They say things like, "Girl! Your eyelashes!" and I walk on air for a solid hour after that.

Scientifically, men are more attracted to the left side of a woman's face than her right. This is ridiculous. Take pictures of the right side of my face all you want. If a man only wants to look at the left side of my face, I'll gladly have some choice words regarding feminism, gender roles, and also probably science for him.

I have eyebrows, and they look great for the three weeks after being waxed. God bless estheticians. 

Other people god bless:
-baristas
-French exchange students
-English majors
-yoga ladies
-poetry teachers
-Albert Einstein
-Andrew Garfield
-siblings that look a lot alike
-skinny boys

I like the idea of learning forever about what I want to learn about.

Someday, I think I will get a degree in English with an emphasis in Teaching, emphasis in Creative Writing with a double minor in theater with an emphasis in playwriting, Art History, emphasis Hellenistic Greece, Gothic Cathedrals, 20th Century.

Someday, I think I will get a Masters in English, emphasis in Creative Writing, playwriting. Masters in Art Restoration.

Someday, I might get a Ph.d. in Art History, emphasis in Gothic Art, especially cathedrals.

Someday, I'll just be a poet and write on the fire escape, maybe boasting a Ph.d. in Gothic Art just because I love it. Just because why not. Maybe I'll win a Pulitzer. Maybe I'll have taught English in the Bronx, restored great art just because it's getting older and older and older and older, but in the end, I'll just be a poet, and I will write from the fire escape, because "Someone asked me/what home was/and all I could think of/were the/stars/on the tip of your tongue/the flowers sprouting from your mouth/the/roots/entwined in/the gaps/between your fingers/the ocean echoing/inside of your/ribcage"

This has been day one of the Manifesto Ultimatum (my way).

And to all a good night.
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

Here's to long hair in the summer.

The Toast, by me

A toast: to the written word and not being able to wait any longer.

Here's to orange peels and coffee cups and what it felt like when I met you.

Here's to what you look like on the weekends, to Thursdays, to July.

Here's to long hair in the summer, to not hating Mondays, to the Sunday funnies,

to slam poetry, to independent films and to crying in public.

Here's to rock music -- and The Beatles and Elvis, who engineered that,

and to keeping it alive.

Here's to eminence and to ameliorating and to ski trips.

Here's to cat people and dog people and bird people,

to afternoon tea, to kissing, and to rain.

Here's to waking up and realizing that the road construction is finished.

Here's to the way you smell, to how that's home, 

to the way my dad mumbles "I love you" when he's sleeping,

to the way no one could understand what he's saying -- "I love you" -- except me,

and to the way my mom never forgets to say that -- "I love you" -- even when she's mad.

Here's to great music and big feet and sand, 

and here's to cheap Chinese food.

Here's to paper chains that count down the days until summer,

and here's to electric violins, and here's to ice cream,

and here's to best friends.

Here's to the Italian Renaissance and the Harlem Renaissance and change, dang it,

here's to change. 

Here's to good hair days, to fortune cookies, to impossible dreams.

Here's to waking up from nightmares, to the horse books you read in elementary school,

to boys with great hair and girls with great freckles,

Here's to being honest.

Here's to emotional healing.

Here's to saying "thank you, but no" when you don't want to.

Here's to falling in love, to cliff-jumping, to dirt-poor poets.

Here's to alliteration, to antithesis, to repetition, to rhetoric, and here's to the plain old alphabet.

Here's to cliches, to Emily Dickinson, to Sylvia Plath, 

and here's to every brilliant thing Ms. Plath did before she stuck her head in that oven

(such a shame, really).

Here's to jogging, and here's to cake, to Gothic cathedrals.

Here's to double-stuffed oreos and copyright laws and to half birthdays.

Here's to the things you weren't going to do, but you did, didn't you? 

And here's to being glad you did.

Here's to mail and boys with high IQs and flapper girls and history teachers and acing tests, to sleeping in, to Cliffnotes, to Kevin Bacon, to all that phenomena, to linguistics and architecture, here's to brand new babies named after your sister.

Here's to a marvelous God, a good God, a generous God, a forgiving God --

and here's to you.

From me.

Let's hear it, people.

Lucky # 16, 9, 13, 31, 27, 01

All my love,

Addy

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

Please pick the cobwebs off my woolen sweater.

Turns out, all I needed was "a little caffeine and perspective" because things are fine now. Actually, that's a lie. Things are not fine now. Things are not fine because there are still "FOR SALE" signs that could send me into a panic and life is still having its choices made by a flipping coin.


I could sit here and write about my thoughts on the beauty of tartmongers and "Trouble," but I think I'll just let you read a poem instead. Because I'm writing again, and that's a relief. I'm scared to share this, because no one reads my poetry, but now you are. Oh.

This Ain't Fiction, Folks

He asked me if I ever wrote fiction.

I said that I did because I thought

that I did. So it wasn't really a lie.

But the truth is that I'm afraid

of the devastating "Write What You Know" ideology.

So afraid, that my fiction

becomes mere fact.

It's all tainted with my insides and

the peanut shells in my pockets and

the cockroaches on the baseboards of the summer house.

My fiction is just the facts.

About how the toe-headed,

helplessly adorable

Methodist

likes my best friend better than me

because she's beautiful.

And a better poet than me.

My fiction is about how I spend my vacations:

seeing plays by British playwrights,

and eating Pad Thai,

while watching Swiss-German movies,

drinking American sodas.

Because this is America, my friends.

We are nothing more than a 

conglomeration of the rest of the universe.

This universal conglomeration

doesn't even have an official language.

But if it doesn't even have

an official language,

then why are people yelling from political pulpits

about if people cross our

magic-marker-ed borders, they ought to

learn our language? Bonjour?

If we don't even have a real-life language,

then why am I being yelled at,

in English,

to Write What I Know? Bonjour?

Sometimes, I get all worked up,

and I just have to pause.

And remind myself that talking

is really only singing, singing, singing.

It's just singing, singing, singing,

on the same note,

with a few syncopated accidentals

for punctuation (flat)

All I know is that I want to fly,

but I don't have silky wings,

like the bats,

or the hallow bone structure

found in birds of flight.

And all I know is that,

at the end of the day,

I don't really know anything at all.

Not for sure.

Not for real.

But I am you.

And I am us.

And we are everything -- everywhere.

We are the playground children.

We are the obsessive-compulsive mother,
checking the locks once,
twice,
three times,
afraid for the babies.
We are the starving artists,
we are the lost songs,
we are novels upon paperback novels,
shelved in public libraries.
We are the Shakespeare plays nobody performs anymore.
We are the B-list.
We are the drop-outs and graduates,
we are the honey-mooning lovers and divorcees.
We are antithesis.


So hold my and become a part of it.
Love me, and become it.


And if you can't be a part of it --
if you can't be it,
stop reading.
Because if you can't be a part of it --
if you can't be it,
then you're not ready for stuff yet.


But I hope -- I ache, even --
to know that you're still reading.
Because what I'm writing,
right now,
ain't what I know.
It's just what I feel.


It ain't fiction, folks.


It's just the facts.


Forever, I hope.
All my love,
Addy