royal wedding

When I was like 10 I had the biggest crush on Prince William. I just knew that I would meet him, and he'd fall in love with me, and we'd be married, and I'd be a princess. I think that's what I was most excited for- being a princess. (What?! What ten year old girl didn't want to be a princess?)

I'm watching some NBC special about the preparation for the wedding and a number of issues come to mind:

- Why the @&(@# do I live in America? There is no royal family in America. The closest thing we have is Obama (don't get me wrong, Obama is the homeboy) and... Paris Hilton. Shoot me.

- Now that Kate Middleton is to marry the prince I am this much further from becoming a princess. Damn her. I'd hate her if she wasn't so darn cute.

- Hey Prince Harry... I always thought you were the cuter brother... No? I'll stop while I'm ahead.

I am feeling some royal envy. And I shouldn't. Because you know what? Princess is a state of mind.

breakthrough

i'm going to try and post everyday. blogging used to be so comforting, but it's been so hard lately. finding the words, that is, but i shouldn't give up. if you write than i'm sure you understand how difficult it is not to be able to express yourself, the pain at not finding the right words, the fear of being misunderstood, and the accompanying overcompensating. you don't want to say too much, you don't want to say too little, and sometimes it's hard finding the balance. but then you do find the right words and it's glorious, and that feeling makes up for all the rest. it isn't easy writing- it is often difficult and painful and revealing, but it is worth it. and if i am going to write than i must write fearlessly. i owe it to readers, but more importantly, i owe it to myself.

sunday mornings

"I felt this awful obligation to be charming
or at least have something to say,
and the pressure of having to be charming (or merely verbal)
incapacitates me."
-Peter Cameron

(I found this quote on Erika's blog ChambanaChik. She's a lovely writer)

I feel this way. A lot, especially lately, and I don't know why. There's a part of me locked away inside myself, and the key isn't hidden in a patch of rosethorns, but it's here, right under my tongue. It's being trapped inside yourself. It's the comfort and constraints of a bone prison. It is the discomfort of suddenly forgetting the shape of you, of becoming too small for yourself.

And the girl you are locking away sleeps in a pit in your stomach and curls painfully against the soft pink of you. And you are thinking about everything in the world she deserves, everything in the world you deserve, and the thoughts make you want to crawl backwards into the earth, but you can't. And you want to cry, but you don't.

The days fold themselves into a ball and lodge themselves in your throat.
You don't sing. If you were sure God could hear you, you would, but you're not.
You swallow your songs.
You're too afraid of choking.

betrayal

a betrayal is the worst kind of heartbreak there is.
it’s a knife in the back.
it’s a lie told through a smile.
it’s reaching out for a hand and coming back, palms empty.
it’s the cold realization that nothing is ever as it seems, and that we were never as we thought we were.

honesty is unflinching. it’s the greatest form of love there is. to be honest with someone is to say, i love you enough to tell you the truth. i love you more than my pride, more than my own self importance.

i’ve never been one to trust easily, never been one to collect friends on the cloak of my back. but eventually you realize that no one can go through life alone, and you pick your family, and you love them with a fierceness that births a thousand brand-new suns.

i would take anger over disappointment any day of the week. anger is a fire that breathes only temporarily. disappointment festers. it swims in veins and builds itself a home behind the ribcage.

i am disappointed. in this web that i’ve been caught up in. i want nothing to do with this- i never wanted anything to do with any of this. i only ever wanted anything to do with you.

sister-girls: all of you. it’s a shame you didn’t know me as well as i thought you did.

blood promise

do not whisper forever
against the soft pink of me



son of adam,
you are naught but a number of days

it's a new year

It's a new year. Well, not technically, but if you're under the age of 25 than you know what I mean because our lives revolve around the school year. Sadly.
And every new year practically REQUIRES a list of resolutions. A list of ways you will better your life. A list that will gather dust under your bed change your life. So here are my resolutions. Here are the things that I will do this coming year, the code that I will live by! Hurrah! I challenge you, as a self declared life coach (what?! it is all about speaking with conviction. trust me.), to make your very own new years list. It'll change your life. It can change your life. If you let it, that is. So, without further ado...

1) I will eat healthy. I realize that I have been saying this forever, but this time I actually mean it. My body is a temple, my body is a temple, my body is a temple... this mantra is to be repeated 50 times before bed.

2) I will do all my homework. I'm an expert slacker, but I've managed to get by unscathed. My luck is due to run out soon.

3) I will be organized. I will realize that my floor does not serve as additional closet space, and I really am sick and tired of waking up an hour early just to find my phone.

4) I will get to know more hot guys people. Hot guys people hot guys people can be amazing, if you give them a chance. This is why I will view everyone I meet as a potential boyfriend. Friend. Friend. If they happen to be boys? I don't discriminate. I am an equal opportunity befriender.

5) I will write. Because I have things to say and a captivated fan base that deserves it stories to tell and pictures to paint. Metaphorical pictures, that is. Unless I'm on the receiving end of a camera.

6) I will get over my obsession with Chuck Bass. Oh, who am I kidding. Our relationship (okay, I realize that is a bit of a stretch) is well documented. Case in point.

7) I will save money. I will, I will, I will. I am a fan of nice, expensive shoes that I cannot afford. I would like to be able to afford them.

8) I will follow this list. I will let it change my life. This took a substantial amount of time, and I will NOT let it go to waste.

Change is in the air! Challenge yourselves, push the edge a bit. As Dr. Seuss said, You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself, any direction you choose. Truer words have never been spoken.

be love <3

jamila

if you are going to love, love completely. anything worth doing is worth doing well

love the love that is so heavy it holds you down like a lifeline, like a paperweight.

love the love that is so fierce it causes a thousand brand new suns to rise and set inside you.

love the love that is so bright it's blinding.

love the love that's so much like home you can see your history in its eyes.

love the love that is love in love. the love that makes the angels in your gut spin in spirals. the love that brings you closer to god and heaven. the love that took you in its hand and shaped you.

love the love that is hard and unyielding as the earth.

love that is flawed. love the love that is forever.


---

this is inspired by Rachel McKibbens' poem last love which you can (and should!) read here

be love.

believe

the world is not a fairytale.
we are not all going to get happy endings

but we can all certainly try.

"I dream too much, and I don't write enough, and I'm trying to find God everywhere."



- Anis Mojgani

it can't always be pretzels and lemonade

i don't know how i feel about people.
they can be sunshine or rainstorms. they change their minds. they break hearts and hurt feelings, and they never act the way you want them to. they disappoint and disappear.

i don't mess around with people. they're unstable. they aren't there when you need them the most. ever. they don't ever know what's wrong when you most desperately need them to. i'm not jaded, but i know that people are fickle, like the weather, like the stock market.

but sometimes people make you laugh. they make your heart feel light, like cotton candy. sometimes they show up when you least expect them to. sometimes they say the right thing at exactly the right time. sometimes they make you realize that you are not alone.

people are never going to be everything i want them to be. they will not fit the molds i've created for them, or always tell me what i want to hear. but they can be pretty damn amazing if i'm willing to overlook that. if i'm willing to give them a chance.

i don't know how i feel about the human race, but i'm realizing that it is enough to simply feel.

for sarah

the end is where we begin, or something equally cliché

i forget sometimes, that everything has to end. everything. everything good, everything bad, everything you've waited so long for. it always ends.

endings taste like lemon heads. the idea of a fresh start, and meeting new people, and moving forward, and growing is so sweet. but i'm afraid. afraid i won't quite cut it. afraid that the future i've been building in my head out of fairytales and dreams won't ever come true.

part of me can't wait for this year to end, but part of me wishes i could rewind and live it over, and over, and over again. but we must all grow older, and we cannot let our fear stand in the way of our futures.

i cannot stand in the way of my own light.

i must not stand in the way of my own light.

i will not stand in the way of my own light.

like dark chocolate. it's bittersweet.

come live in the space i've made for you in my heart.

when they told us that the world is ours
they lied.
the world does not belong to us, but i hope this makes it almost okay:




we belong to the world.
you belong to me.
but more importantly, i belong to you.

we've fallen on hard times

when I said there was nothing
I wanted more than the job

I lied.

what I meant to say
was that I’ve fallen on hard times
and I can’t take the sound
of her belly
growling at me angrily
anymore

the soles of our shoes used to be worn from jumping rope, and now they are worn because we're walking to a better life

happy may day, world.
my voice is gone, my arms are sore (because i'm lazy and i don't work out, so two hours of holding up a sign is extremely taxing), and i can't walk anymore, but i marched and marched and marched.
for those who've passed.
for me.
for you.
for those to come.


karen finneyfrock is fabulous (not just because of her bad ass name). this is "newer colossus" (she's speaking from the POV of the statue of liberty fyi).
be love<3

dreaming in black and white

so maybe once a long, long time ago i defined my future by my dreams. and now that my dreams have changed i have no idea where to go from here.
sometimes i wonder how i got where i am. how do any of us get where we are?
and most importantly, how do we figure out where to go from here?
from here to there- it seems like it shouldn't be so hard, but it is. i'm ready to move on, but i'm afraid of taking that first step. it's like a false step on a staircase, and i'm afraid.
i am afraid.

and i hope this makes you better instead of bitter

i waited so long for this year, for this ending, for new beginnings, and they are here, but it is bittersweet.
one day bleeds so thoroughly into the other that i can no longer distinguish individual days anymore- it's all a blur of things i haven't done yet, and things i haven't said.
i am stuck between a past i couldn't care less about, and a future that seems so very, very far away. because each day pushes me further and further away from today, from now, and closer and closer to something that is out of reach, something that is on the tip of my tongue.
it's all become a puzzle with so many missing pieces that i can't even remember what the final picture was supposed to look like. so what do you do?
what is a girl to do when she is desperately etching her story into the sand, and wave after wave comes in erasing any history that she was ever there.
what is a girl to do when everything she has never had the nerve to say out loud keeps choking her? and the absence of the things she hasn't done weigh down on her, and the secrets she keeps close are threatening to pour out of every crevice of her soul. the fact of the matter is that i am on the border between past and present, birth and death, remembering and realizing, and closing my eyes and surrendering.

give as good as you get. so i am asking you to reach out into the dark, and turn on a light switch, wait while my eyes adjust to the brightness. take me by the hand, and walk beside me, no matter what path i choose. i've forgotten where i've come from, and i have no idea where i'm going, and as badly as i want you to show me the way, i know that i must fight my own battles, find my own way. i will get hopelessly lost, make wrong turn after wrong turn, but it is all in the hope that i will one day find what it is i've misplaced, one day remember what it is i've forgotten, one day realize what it is i've known all along.

so all i ask is that you please, please, please, just walk beside me.

and it all goes on.

"i am truly sorry about all this i envy you your ignorance i hear that it's bliss."
god. ani difranco is genius.
i've been thinking lately that the world is a ridiculously ugly, ugly place. it's cold, and heartless. it'll take everything away from you, everything you've worked so hard because it was and never will truly be yours. it's all temporary. and every once in a while something terrible will happen to you, and it's the world's way of saying "hey, just making sure you remember who you owe. don't get attached sucker." it's the world's way of stripping us of our false sense of security.

i want to make the world better for you. if you are cold, i am offering you my worn, raggedy blue comforter. it's barely big enough for me, but don't worry, we can share it. and if you're hungry, take whatever you want out of my pantry and my fridge. take enough to last you as long as you like, and when you are finished, feel free to come back for more.
and if you are lonely, or afraid, or awake in the middle of the night, take my words. i bleed when i write. i am pouring my heart and my soul into these words, so stop saying you are alone because you are not. for as long as you need to be saved, i will write. so find redemption in the truths that spill on to these dear pages. find solace in these letters that make words that make meaning, that build bridges, that close gaps, that heal hearts, that spell love.

rebirth

Nothing I want to say ever comes out right.
The words get stuck in my throat, get caught in the tiny crevices of my teeth, and never see the light of day. Spit or swallow. Nine times out of ten I will swallow, and the words make their way back down my body, and churn uncomfortably in the pit of my stomach.
I am not as graceful as I imagine, or as confident.
Sometimes I sit in my seat in class and contemplate getting up to throw something away, or use the bathroom for ten whole minutes. I don't why I do this, I just know that I do, and I wish I didn't.
I am not as good at casual conversation as I appear to be. While you're talking, and I am nodding my head, I am racking my brain for what to say next.
The bottom line is I am a lot of things, and I am not a lot of things, and this chasm is ripping me apart at the seams.
At night when I lay my head on my pillow, the person I will one day be runs rampant through my dreams.
But one day is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and when you try and touch a rainbow it slips between your fingers.
I am real. I am not someday, or somewhere.
I am here. I am now. And that's more than enough.
<3

realizations on a rainy day

Sometimes I want to lay out all the pieces of myself on a table for you to see. I'm a rainbow, a run on sentence or two, your last piece of gum. The best listener. A raving bitch (I'm working on being less 'bitch' and more 'raving')

On any given day I am the fifth chapter in your favorite book. Known to you, but nothing to anyone else without the beginning and end.
Blue and red make purple (if i remember correctly), but I cannot be blue and red and purple all at the same time, yet I still want you to know I can be all three.

There are two sides to every story, a million sides to a girl, and I wish I could show you them all at once, but I can't.

I am the sum of my past, my mistakes, my favorite books, my workout playlist, and the cheesecake I ate too much of for dessert.

But then I realize that I am only human. That I can only wear one face at any given time. That I am a lot of things, and that you will see this with time.

But most importantly, that I have nothing to prove.

take me somewhere that isn't nowhere

Take me back to kindergarten- to nap times, and barbie dolls, free snacks, and no worries.

As I sit here on this time worn couch, I wish I could go back to before the outside world came flooding in, and erased any delusions I may have had about the way things might one day be.

Reality is never as good as you picture it in your head. It's never neat or framed or pretty.

I am on the border between past and present, stuck in a grey area, doomed by own incompetency to live.

I got off the train two stops too early, and now I am nowhere. Unable to run and catch up, unable to distinguish up from down, here from there, I am afraid.

I have realized that the absence of something weighs more than its presence, silence is louder than the marching band, and who you were matters more than who you want to become.

I'm alone, she told me.

I said, sister, you're preaching to the choir.