Breakable.

Have you ever thought about what protects our hearts?
Just a cage of rib bones and other various parts
So it's fairly simple to cut right through the mess,
And to stop the muscle that makes us confess

And we are so fragile,
And our cracking bones make noise,
And we are just,
Breakable, breakable, breakable girls and boys

And you fasten my seat belt because it is the law
In your two ton death trap I finally saw
A piece of love in your face that bathed me in regret
Then you drove me to places I'll never forget

And we are so fragile,
And our cracking bones make noise,
And we are just,
Breakable, breakable, breakable girls and boys

And we are so fragile,
And our cracking bones make noise,
And we are just,
Breakable, breakable, breakable girls-
Breakable, breakable, breakable girls-
Breakable, breakable, breakable girls and boys

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Now playing: Ingrid Michaelson - Breakable
via FoxyTunes

Wishes.

Some people are strict about wishes. They will only wish on stars, candles on birthday and 11:11. I'm not so strict. I like to wish. I like to wish a lot. It makes me feel like a kid and although I don't expect them all to come true, I always wish for small things so that when they do, I have more reasons to smile in my day. This is why I allow myself to wish on the following things: Shooting stars, the first star I see each night, birthday candles, eyelashes, 11:11, 12:34 and my newest favorite, 1:51. Thanks to Nick Cone for that one. So wish more often, what do you have to lose?

Do You Remember?

I don’t remember how we met, but I will always remember how we ended. There was a moment, just one, and I remember it like it happened yesterday.


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Now playing: The Beatles - Wouldn't It Be Nice
via FoxyTunes

Autumn Chill.

Autumn was setting on the city and as I drove down the gravel road leading to the cemetery I stopped to watch the sunset. The air was chilled, like opening up a freezer and feeling the blast of cold air engulf your face. She always loved autumn, so when it hits, I can’t help but feel her with me. It was October 12th, her birthday. It was one of only three times a year I left my dorm to travel the 400 miles home to visit her. Not many people would do that for someone who was not their blood relative, but she was special, too special to forget. I looked in my bag one final time, flowers? Check. Card? Check. Blanket? Check. Lysol and brush? Check.
As I stepped out of my car and began walking closer to her resting place the burnt colored grass and scrolls of dried leaves gently crunched below my feet. I arrived at her gravestone, laid my blanket on the ground, and sat down, staring at the tomb stone for a few minutes. It always amazed me just how much moss could grow in only three months. The tombstone had turned from beautiful black brick to a field of auburns and olives, climbing over the letters and filling in all of the corners. I pulled out the Lysol and brush, sprayed down the tomb, and began to scrub the moss away. The bristles of my wire brush dug into the lettering, ripping each piece of moss out of its hiding spot as I continued to scrub. The cleaner the tombstone got, the newer it felt, bringing me back to the very day she died with each movement I took. I began scrubbing harder, trying to get the memory to go away. I looked down and my knuckles had turned white.
I took a minute to calm down, closing my eyes just to see the image of her tombstone embedded into the back of my eyelids. Once I regained my composure I reached in my bag and pulled out the flowers. I brought lilacs, even though they weren’t in season. They were her favorite and even though the flowers were plastic, I knew she would have loved the gesture. I set the card next to it and lay down on my blanket. Face up, looking at the sky, just like she taught me. “Use your imagination,” she would say. One cloud was a basketball. Two more clouds, a dragon holding a sword. Three clouds, all little stars, all appearing in different positions in the same sky. I looked at my watch. 8:15, time to head back to my parent’s house and get some sleep. I packed up my blanket and as I stood up, I saw a boy and immediately knew it was him. The way he walked like he was sulking; hands in pockets, face down, baseball cap on. It gave him away.
“It’s been you all along hasn’t it; you are the one leaving my mom lilacs and cleaning her grave?” he asked me. We went from best friends to strangers in a mere minute after his mother died.
“Yes.” I answered, avoiding eye contact.
“You did always know her best; she loved lilacs.”

Chalk Covered Kisses.

As I lift her off the ground she throws her tiny arms around my neck,
Saying hello in the only way we ever have.
“I love you, a bushel and a peck,” I say.
She interrupts, finishing the end of our song.
“A bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.”

She stands on her white chair in the middle of the kitchen
and adds red food coloring to the white cake mix, staining it pink.
It’s one of our traditions: pink cake, purple frosting.
As she sticks her finger in the cake mix to taste test it
I smile, mimicking her actions.

Chalk time comes, like always,
Sticks and stumps of color dumped out across the cold concrete.
Flowers, rainbows, hearts and stars,
The usual shapes and scenes illuminate the gray ground
While chalk covered kisses leave a powdered stamp on my cheek.

Four days pass and like the chalk murals on the ground
I must leave with the rain, back home.
The smiles are gone and her tears are here to stay.
As she hugs me one last time I whisper,
“I love you, a bushel and a peck.”

Little Foot had it right.

“Okay, I’m not a long neck, I’m a big mouth. But I am all alone, I am.”

Carve your heart out yourself.

How dumb do you think I am? If you think I’m that naïve then you are sadly mistaken. I know you. I know how you feel. I know that you pretend. I know that things are changing. I know they will never go back, not now, not like this. This line, the so called divider between us, its real and its taking over and its feeding into what I feel. It makes me ache to see how fake you are. You lie, you pretend, you manipulate. You think I’m the bad one, the bitch, the whore, the hypocrite, the one in the wrong. Stop pretending, show me something real. Something that makes me think you were not lying to me this whole time, because without that, I don’t know how much longer I can pretend to not know how you feel about me.

Empty.

Pen to paper. Finger to key. It always happens, but only if I’m really in the zone. I sit down thinking I am going to write and it will never happen. I sit down with music from Grey’s playing in my ears and it always does. If I ever meet the people that pick music for that show I will be in awe, they find the best talent. Amazing lyrics that reach inside of my body and make my heart literally ache. You know that feeling, the feeling that there is an utterly empty space where you heart belongs because it hurts so badly. Yeah, that one. That’s what happens. It’s the only time I can truly write. When I’m hurting so badly from music or life that it feels like there is nothing left inside of me except words and they don’t belong there either. I have to get them down on paper before my mind explodes into a million pieces and I spontaneously combust on the couch in my living room. I imagine that if that did happen, they wouldn’t find anything expect my singed clothes and lovely jewelry. My rings, both the ones on my fingers and the ones in my face. My roommate would walk into the living room and realize I was empty inside, that I didn’t just make it up. Maybe my mind would be left, because although my body feels empty, my mind is almost too full to function.

The sound. The feel. There is literally nothing better than sitting here typing. Eyes closed. Listening to the rain hit the window just enough to relax me but not overpower my music. Maybe sitting here with a full mind and an empty body isn’t so bad after all.

Hallelujah.

My thoughts just won’t stop running. As I lay in my bed, with Jeff Buckley’s version of Hallelujah resonating from my speakers I just couldn’t get myself to settle down. Turn left, lay right, look up, move my pillows. Nothing worked. Now, I’m sitting here in front of my screen, the thoughts just fighting to make it on the paper. Now it’s Kate Voegel’s version. I heard it tonight on One Tree Hill. I think it’s my favorite version. Each one gives me a different feeling. Imogen heap gives me a feeling of sadness, reminding me of the scene in the finale of season three of the OC. The Jeff Buckley version gives me a feeling of closure, but this one, the Kate Voegel version. It gives me hope. I’m not sure why, but it’s different. Different from all the other versions I’ve heard. I just can’t stop playing it, over and over.

Her Mama.

I have tried to write this story almost twenty times already over the last year. Each time, it has ended the same way it began, with a blank page. It’s not that I can’t remember how it happened. That is the most far from the truth reason. I remember it all. The reason is because it’s never perfect. This has to be perfect, and it never is. This story means a lot to me and until it’s perfect, or at least as close to perfect as I can get, then it will never be done.

Her name was Debra. Debra Jean Devries. People called her Debbie. I call her amazing. She gave me one of the best presents anyone can give, she gave me a confidant, she gave me a shoulder to lean on, and she gave me a best friend. She gave me Barb, her only daughter surrounded by four sons.

I met Barb in fourth grade. We became friends right away; it was just something we shared. I remember one of the first times I went over to her house; ‘mama’ was making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for us. Before she put the two pieces of bread together, she crunched up Lays potato chips and put them inside.
“That’s gross.” I said making the face a fourth grader would.
“Well, how do you know, I’ve bet you’ve never even tried it, here, take a bite.” Without further questioning I picked up the sandwich and took a bite. It was delicious. Magnificent in fact. To this day, if I have the option of putting ground up lays chips on my sandwich, I will do it.

For a while Barb and I separated. We were not really as great of friends in high school as we were when we were younger, granted we were still friends, it just wasn’t the same. I would see her mom at basketball at football games and always talk to her, she would say “Nae-Nae, when are you coming over again, it’s been too long.” And it had been too long, in fact, it had been years since I had been over to Barb’s house. The worst part of it all, was that by the time I did make it there again, Debbie was not. I never did make it to the house before she died, and to this day that makes me sad.