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.