to-do list for June

• eat every kind of berry
• walk in the rain
• plant seeds in bottles
• show him your scars

the flash

"He has the additional charm of that cool air or detachment that people have who have given up the struggle. But now and then, when disturbed, something flashes behind it, like lightning in a fair sky, which shows that at some deeper level he is far from peaceful. Perhaps in a stronger light he would show some signs of delinquescence, but the fading, still warm, light from the gallery treats him gently."

—from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams

a drink to your health

Today I cried before ten in the morning. It wasn't much, but my eyes are still damp. It was good.

"I think the new drugs are working," I said, and she said, "Ahh, isn't that awful?" And I knew exactly what she meant.

I am happy for the first time in so long—happy because of coffee, books, friends, good weather, casual adventures, a cat and thoughts about the future. And at the back of my mind there's a worry that none of this happiness is real. A worry that I have myself fooled.

"All right," I said, "I have to go to bed. I've got to be up in the morning." And he said, "Working on your project?" And I said, "No, therapy appointment." And he looked down at me and said, "Ah, right! I forget about that."

It's a Tuesday, and Tuesday are full of classes I hate, but people I don't. The sky is grey and I'm glad to be alive.

monday 12am

I kissed him for the first time in the entryway to the apartment, and when he left he turned around and leaned against the doorframe and grinned. Then he turned around again and ran down the four stairs to the landing and then leapt down the last six, and for a moment time froze: him, in the air, arms spread and jacket billowing back like wings, suspended over the red brick steps.

It's March. I'm alive against the odds, my cat holds my hand when I sleep, and I can get any flavor  milkshake for $3. The idea that I could make anyone feel like flying is amazing.

the drugs.

The drugs make me nauseous, the drugs make me shaky. They make me tired, leave me leaning against doorframes and sprawled across the floor. They make me dizzy when I'm sitting down.

The drugs make me overaffectionate. Leave me saying "I love you" too early and kissing cheeks, stroking hair.  Leave me spacy, laughing too loudly and saying things that don't quite make sense, drunk when I'm sober. The drugs make me cussy, have me saying fuckfuckfuckfuck soft and Tourettsian in the empty stairwell of the library.

I hate them. I hate them because they remind me that I'm not completely in control of my emotions or thoughts or behaviors; and because I can't cope without them. I hate the thought that I need them, couldn't quit even though I want to. The idea that I might not be alive without them.

I feel helpless and I feel blind in the dark. I'm sorry for this. I'll delete it soon.

light on my shoulders

I woke up too early this morning but I was drenched in warm yellow sunlight, and the dust floated on the heat from the radiator, sparkling like glitter. I think it was a miracle God wanted me to see. The apartment is empty, but I can hear the faintest music drifting in through the window. I got up and took my meds and sprayed the tub with mold killer. I toasted my cinnamon raison bagel.

There's a violent, ugly bruise on the inside of my elbow where they pricked the vein for my blood test. There's sky blue paint in irregular smears all across my forearm from the bedroom painting job of a friend of a friend. There's a slashed pink scar across my wrist, fresh but healing, from what my therapist calls "intense anger turned inward."

That feels like a more accurate representation of my emotions than anything else I could say about them. It's January and I'm still alive. I'm sitting in sunlight.

Don't call back.

I am drinking coffee at 2 p.m.  I should be leaving now but I can't quite make it happen. There are only two weeks of school left, but they seem insurmountable. None of the places I call "home" are home. I'm a migratory bird and winter is biting.

He hung up the phone first last night, and I got that sudden hollow feeling again. It's been gone for so long. Somehow, it's still as familiar as the whistle your dog returns to.

I'm going to grow my hair longer than it's ever been. I'll become Samson in rainbow hues. I need strength to back up this cornered feeling: this fierceness arisen.

The words don't bubble like they used to. The thoughts are short and shadowed. Because they're ugly, I don't express them. I dress silence in smiles.

Two weeks.

(I'm not sure how to end this. Except that the coffee doesn't help the sadness. Things have been hard recently. I don't want to lie about it. But things will get better. I know it. I wait for it.)

to-do list for November

• get another piercing
• eat a doughnut
• wear cool jackets
• take care

poem for a clouded Tuesday

Unable to sleep, or pray, I stand
by the window looking out
at moonstruck trees a December storm
has bowed with ice.

Maple and mountain ash bend
under its glassy weight,
their cracked branches falling upon
the frozen snow.

The trees themselves, as in winters past,
will survive their burdening,
broken thrive. And am I less to You,
my God, than they?

—Ice Storm by Robert Hayden

a song that sounds like a text tone

My hair matches my favorite necklace. Today I got two cups of coffee for the price of the smaller one, and got to share it with a math-class friend. It's been raining since last Thursday. My feet are still wet from the walk to class at 8:30 this morning. I got a 90 on my math test, which was enough for my professor to write very good work in cramped, scratchy letters next to the score. My friends are all struggling, multilaterally, every single one. Today I thought too much about the way the world would be without me.

As I walked back across campus in the rain, I saw it pouring into the pond and churning the water to a boil. Across from that, the trees that mark the boundary were turning yellow and orange, and the smoke from the power site rose grey among them. Everything was silver. Everything gleamed.

to-do list for October

• be honest
• light candles
• fight
• come up swinging

everything is jumbled but here's this

I kill all the spiders in the house
because Lauren's too kindhearted and Emily's too scared.

My hair has gotten long again
without me taking notice.

I don't write anymore and I don't call home
maybe for reasons not so different.

(Hey, let me see your wrist! What happened?
deny deny deny)

One missed call from Lindy in Counseling.
You cancelled your appointment, please call back so we can get you in as soon as we can

He doesn't treat me the way I would like
but it feels like more than my just desserts.


The leaves are changing,
my hair color with them.


(It's fine, as long as you don't like anyone else. Do you?
deny deny deny)

A kitten kissed me softly
and I cried real tears.

His hand is on my thigh
and I let it be.

nothing but sparks

"When God had made The Man, he made him out of stuff that sung all the time and glittered all over. Then after that some angels got jealous and chopped him into millions of pieces, but still he glittered and hummed. So they beat him down to nothing but sparks but each little spark had a shine and a song. So they covered each one with mud. And the lonesomeness in the sparks made them hunt for one another, but the mud is deaf and dumb. Like all the other tumbling mud-balls, Janie had tried to show her shine."

—from Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

to-do list for September

• write home
• keep to yr own pace
• grow toward the light

dot-to-dot

The bruise on my knee is gone, has disappeared entirely save for a pinprick scab where the escalator step broke the skin. But it still hurts when I touch it. It's still tender. It isn't healed under the surface, even though any evidence of a wound is gone.

A few days ago, the doctor asked, "So why haven't you killed yourself? What's stopping you?" And I told her the truth. The memory isn't a victory, but it is a comfort.

Today I went to the library, and in the stacks, it felt like I could breathe for the first time in days. Books have always been my safest place. I was just there to get a card, and maybe look around, but I wasn't going to take anything home. I repeated this to myself during the six-block walk from my apartment. I am a master of self-delusion. On the way home, I carried the books against my side, the gold-lettered spines aligned.

(They say college is a good place to make connections. These are the ones I'm making.)

things that happen without words

Rain is drumming on the roof and the sound is a silver haze.

Lately, the phone doesn't ring for days at a time.

She asked and I lied, but later her eyes kept flicking back to my wrist.

the way you sounded when you told me you didn't know what I should do

A few days ago, at 5:30 in the morning, I listened to this song four times in a row as I sat alone in an airport, watching the sun rise through the plate glass window.  This song meant a lot to me a year ago. And now here I am, relating to it again. The light may even seem a little dimmer, a little farther, than it did then.

And I know you are a cynic but I think I can convince you, yeah, cause broken people can get better if they really want to. Or at least that's what I have to tell myself if I am hoping to survive.

green water, black water

There was a lake, I was in it. The water was bottle-green and so calm, smooth as bedsheets. I swam out until I was alone. The sunlight glinted off the surface in white spangles as far as I could see, and I stopped to tread water and drink in the glory. My feet kicked the ice-coldness five feet down. I shifted to my back and stared up at the sky. It was bottomless. My eyes couldn't focus on it.
 I  thought about a boy, and I thought about the overwhelming beauty all around me. I wondered if this is the broken heart that all the songs talk about.

Later, after the sun set that night, I set out into the darkness and swam again. The moon was huge and close and almost full. I swam in its reflection, fragmented in the black water. I swam out far enough to see the fireworks going off over another cove. The water held me up. It was silk; I was alone. I watched the glittery lights of docks shatter on the other shore. I was at peace, for the moment.

But before that, back in the sunlight, I was staying afloat as best I could. When my thoughts got too heavy, I rolled over. The water was a kiss. I turned around and swam for home.

definitions

want n. 1. The condition or quality of lacking something usual or necessary. 3. Something desired: a person of few wants. 4. A defect of character, a fault.
          —"want." The American Heritage High School Dictionary. 4th ed. 2004. Print.

beauty n. 1. The quality that gives pleasure to the mind or senses and is associated with such properties as harmony of form or color, excellence of artistry, truthfulness, and originality. 2. One that is beautiful.
         — "beauty." The American Heritage High School Dictionary. 

space n. 6. Sufficient freedom from external pressure for oneself and one's needs.
         —"space." The American Heritage High School Dictionary.
1. distance extending without limit in all directions; that which is thought of as a boundless, continuous expanse extending in all directions or in three dimensions, within which all material things  are contained.
         — "space." Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary Unabridged. 2nd ed. 1983. Print.

to-do list for July

• stay away from mirrors
• freckle
• eat orange popsicles
• take it one day at a time