there are a lot of things i'm afraid of and the list for those things changes all the time. what i'm most afraid of right now is that i'm unaware. unaware of my emotions. unaware of what's going on in the region of the heart. i feel like i should be feeling a lot of things. i feel like i should be going through a lot of things. but i've been fine and that scares me a little bit. i feel like i'm not aware of my emotions enough to be a writer.

holiday blues

What is that feeling, the one you get when you are home and driving and there is no music in the car so you turn on a radio station that you used to listen to in high school and the DJ puts on a song, a song that you used to listen to on repeat sophomore year of high school while you thought about a boy that you could slow-dance to the song with, what is that feeling called, when you remember all those feelings that you felt when you heard that song at one point in your life, but you just remember them, you don't feel them? What is that feeling called, when you wake up one morning in a house that is no longer your home, a house you spent the majority of your life in, but one that you don't feel like you belong to anymore? What is that feeling, when you realize that you don't actually belong anywhere? What is that feeling called when you realize that you've grown out of things that you weren't quite ready to grow out of, that time has passed and that a new year is coming and you might not be ready to let go of the one you're in now?

I feel lonely when I come home, lonely in my thoughts and my opinions. Maybe it's because the church is so prevalent when I'm home, it's like this presence in my house and I feel like I can't escape it. I feel like I'm struggling against who I used to be when I'm at home, like it's hard to forget who I once was and I kind of despise myself for it. I am who I am now but it's still difficult for me to swallow the fact that I rebuked my family once, that I left them, all in the pursuit of God. I turned my back on them because I felt there was a higher calling. And I come home, now, and I look at them, now, and I feel sorrow for what I did. I'm always feeling sorrow for things I did. And home is the one place where I can't escape from my past mistakes, where I can't bury things. Because They Know. Because my family Knows me. They Know me and they still Love me. And that, that is terrifying. But I'm going to have to try harder now. We're all going to have to try harder now. And that is a Good Thing.




(Growing up is hard.)

i got my wisdom teeth pulled out today.

here is my failed attempt at capturing the aftereffects of today's ordeal:

just two on one side of my mouth. my face is lopsided for the time being. and my dentist didn't put me to sleep. and he also did me the favor of letting me know that he had to dig and cut unusually deep because my tooth was so buried and therefore i would be in a lot more pain during the healing process. so for three hours i was sitting, wide awake and anxious that i would feel something, anything, any sort of pain, and i didn't, and because i didn't feel anything, i was panicking. what a weird feeling. and all i could think about the entire time was that line salinger uses in zooey's manuscript, the one he's reading over the bathtub, rick's part, when rick calls theresa a beautiful little moron. and how that is so similar to fitzgerald's phrase, when daisy is being dramatic about the birth of her daughter, when she says pretty little fool. and i was sitting there on the dentist chair for about three hours thinking of which one i liked better and why. and how i need to read more. and all that sort of thing.

And we can have it all but it wouldn't be enough.

I miss having something to believe in. I think I must have been kinder when there was a God to put my faith in. A naive kind, but kind nonetheless. I think I more readily believed in things, in people, and I was easily convinced, easily impressed. Maybe I was happier. Was I selfish? Is Christianity selfish? Maybe it is in the sense that you are not really thinking of others in an effort to understand them, but you are thinking of yourself versus everybody else in an effort to change them. I've always had that contention with Christianity, the problem with Christians trying to change everyone without attempting to understand anyone.

And I know I'm offended by it, when someone says I am not who I'm supposed to be. What does supposed to be even look like?

pt. ii

The streets are black. Neon in places. Moonlit pavement and hollow thuds of shoes, feet shuffling through more feet, of children and their tired parents, couples holding hands in line. His voice is mechanical. Something unclear, against the sounds of popping balloons and spraying water. His steps are heavy. I feel them. He stops. I follow. He lets go of my hand and we stand there for a still moment, and he's looking at me. I love you, he says. This and we are still standing, and I am looking at him. Sometimes I don't think he means it and I wonder if I do. I wonder if true love exists and if it does, is it supposed to be met halfway, is it supposed to be met at all. I wonder if it is supposed to be independent of what the other person is feeling. Do you think so, I ask him, and he says no. He says true love should be able to stand on its own, without the need for it to be met, mutual, remember Beethoven. And he grabs my hand. We're walking again, and faces pass us, but I am still wondering if true love exists, if it has legs to stand, or if it's just a dress some girls use to cover the scrapes on their knees. Am I one of them, I wonder. We walk to the car in silence and we undress each other in silence.

The night is electric. The hairs on his arms stand up. Like static. His hands are damp, cold like clams. I loosen my grip and the still air fills the space between our palms, fits mine like a pocket. He's kissing me real hard. Then our hands are pressing up against the glass and it's cold in parts. I feel it slip under my fingers. His grip presses my hand harder and I scrape new lines. He pushes himself in, further, and I pull him into me, closer. He gasps. I twist and our bodies form new shadows, new shapes under the moonlight. He follows my movements, pushing each time, and I suddenly feel understood. My head is pushing against the plastic, the car door, and his against the roof. he breathes out my name, a cry and a whisper. Our sounds fill the small space and our legs are hot, bent, my toes curled, and my body goes rigid under the motions of his hips. I'm almost there. The prickly beginnings of his beard scrape the soft flesh of my neck, just there below my ear. I'm almost there. My thoughts are frozen. A moment of clarity. His motions grow desperate, mine frenzied. The moment crescendoes with his cries and his hands gasp around my face, then shoulders, and back as he pushes himself further. And then I'm there. He's there. I feel my contractions and his, simultaneous. Then it's our bodies, collapsing into each other. Loose bodies, soft breaths, and the air is stale from our sweat. The air is still. And he's looking at me.

His body is heavy on mine but I still feel weightless. All urgency is gone but my breaths have already grown forceful. His face is lying still on my neck and our chests are resting together. Tell me I'm pretty, I say, and he lifts his head. My neck is cold. My chest is cold. Our bodies are still damp and the air clings to them like bedsheets would. He looks at me and lifts my head with both hands, lifts it closer to his, suspended, and he kisses me. You're pretty, he says, and he kisses my cheek. You're pretty, he repeats, and he kisses my forehead. You're pretty. My nose. You're pretty. My eye. You're pretty. My chin. You're pretty, he says. and he kisses me again, this time on the mouth, soft at first, real gentle, and then again, and again, each time getting harder, until the moment dwindles down and our eyes are both open. He's looking at me again. And I tell him then, this is a memory I'd like to keep.