Then I wrote

August 1, 2013

When I was eleven and small and innocent
some boy down the street brought me into a bedroom.
He told me "be quiet be quiet BE QUIET"
and I was.
When I got away I was so filled up with hate
and then I wrote.

And after that, too when I stopped sleeping
because something was haunting me when I closed
my eyes,
I would shoot up in bed
and then I wrote.

I wrote when I fell in love
and out of love
and in love again.
I wrote when my friends died
and my friends drank
and my friends wound up in some back alley
planning their escapes and sniffing nose candy,
I wrote because I was mad and
anything I put on paper I didn't have to say out loud.

I wrote because it made me permanent.
I wrote because I could see how real
everything felt after I slammed the pen
to the paper or the napkin or the desk or the bench
and wrote and wrote and wrote.

I grew up and I still wrote.
I grew smarter and more driven
and I met someone new
and I had new friends that made better decisions.
I created a life
and looking back all of what I dreamed
was there, spilled out on sheets of papers,
tucked into notebooks,
folders, washed pairs of pants and shorts.

Everything I wanted I wrote.
And then I wrote some more.

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Comments (5)

lianecAug 1, 2013

<div class="regular_post_body" style="outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">I know that your arms ache from reaching, reaching in the middle of the night and in the middle of the day, in the middle of everything always. I know that your head hurts from trying to imagine her smile or her eyes. And I know, I know that in your ears you can still hear her sometimes, but the moment you feel definite that it’s her the voice has faded and you’re left with dull ringing and tears spilling down your face.  I know.In moments like these, when you feel like you’re loosing her, don’t fret sad girl. Instead look at your hands, and the skin that is stretched across them. Aren’t those her hands? Instead move your head, back and forth, check the mirror. Isn’t that her neck moving her jaw? There she is fuller than you could ever hope to imagine again.You have a gift greater than any old photograph or perfume that smells like her. You have her eyes, her mouth, her shoulders. And while you are so exactly you, unlike anything else, you are exactly her too.There will be hard days and dreadful nights and stretches of minutes where time is unbearable. I know that. But it’s time you know now, when you feel like you are without her, you are not.  You are never.She is with you in the closest ways possible.<div> </div></div>

lianecAug 1, 2013

<div class="regular_post_body" style="outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">twisting into my brain, connecting at the base of my cerebellum.  It’s at this time each night that I go jumping again.  Bundled up in a tattered robe I push my feet as far the to edge as possible and I extend, leaping clear into the air, a perfect arch, my toes feeling the last solidity.  It’s at the peak of the arc, the climax, that I remember all the reasons  I wanted to stop this madness, and once I hit the ground,  then I really know that this pain in my body from the connection with the world again, the seizing and angry flames licking up my legs, this is what’s going to stop me next time.  I can’t handle this crash again.But then there are nights when, alone in my lonely bed, I hear your voice and feel your breath licking at my ears.  I reach out, finally feeling the concrete slab being lifted from my body, only to see that I’ve been dreaming of you again. It’s this pain too, this electric shock-I toss myself out of bed, the sheets are a rumpled mess, tie my hair back, slide into my old, weathered robe, and stick my toes to the very limit of this world.  I know this is going to hurt, oh I can feel it already in my joints, but I’ve been missing something for too long. The moment I leap, it drowns out the awful pain, for those three and one half seconds, nothing hurts. Then there is the arc, the drop, the meet. I crumple to this salty earth and I want to remain part of this soil.What is better than empty? The answer-anything.<div> </div></div>

lianecAug 1, 2013

<p style="outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 18px; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">pushing your little body  and watching your hands fly out to catch yourself before  hitting the ground.  I could be the worst,  really awful, and I remember your palms, with scrapes, though now that I’m older, it’s not the scrapes as much as the tears that cross my mind. Oh, that too,  I remember giggling  until our eyes filled up, and the salty water tumbled down our cheeks.  It was something I said, I recall it perfectly, as we sat, indian-style, in the foyer and laughed until we couldn’t breathe. Oh, that time too, thank you for reminding me, when you finally realized you towered over my small frame, and I couldn’t pin you any longer. No, no, what was I even saying the first time I ran to your room crying sobbing even and jumped on your bed  and made you listen to me carry on until I had worn myself out and we talked until we were too tired to be coherent? Do you remember why I was so sad? I don’t.  It doesn’t matter anyway, not now. Oh, and have I got one for you. I remember the first time I cried at one of your school functions, pride filling me like I was a water glass.<p style="outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 18px; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">I don’t remember where all of this time went, and now looking back I don’t know how I got older and you as well, and I don’t remember why I wanted to leave, all I know is that I did. I’m not sorry,  I just can’t really recall.<p style="outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 18px; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Today I mentioned your age to a friend, just a passing mention, and my heart fluttered for a second. I don’t remember how you got to be as old as you are. Weren’t we just little kids playing pretend in the safety of our home’s walls? And then, all of a sudden, I’m teaching you to lightly, NO LIGHTLY, tap the breaks. And even then you were young at least too young to drive.<p style="outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 18px; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">It’s often that I miss my best friend from home, who shared my stupid secrets and adjacent wall.<p style="outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 18px; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Little brother, when did you get so big?

lianecAug 1, 2013

<p style="outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 18px; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">in port, and it was a mighty ship indeed.  On the ship there was a boy, and he wanted to sail the world, and he wanted to do it all alone.  The wood above deck and the wood below was rich, and, unlike many other ships, when it was struck with salt water, the wood released such a perfume into the air that immediately those who smelled it became intoxicated with its loveliness.<p style="outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 18px; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The boy drew maps. <p style="outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 18px; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">He drew maps and maps of places that no one believed even existed; maps of heaven and hell, of cities under the sea, castles nestled inside the crust of the earth where it rises out of the ocean into cliffs.  He would let his dark hair fall into his light eyes, and, sometimes painfully, he would bend his head over the paper and let out everything he saw in the world and beyond it.<p style="outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 18px; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The boy knew about science and measurement. He was intelligent. He was intuitive.<p style="outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 18px; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The ship rocks at night, and as the boy leaves his post he is afraid and alive all at once. The ship rocks and rocks and rocks, and the ocean water licks the sides like they’re candy. And the boy stares out into the night, the black water meeting the black sky, every dot of light between here and forever all for his eyes to see. He maps the stars, too.<p style="outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 18px; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">He goes to his desk, a fine sailor sitting, musing, and looks over his fine work. Maps of Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Atlantis, Mount Olympus, the eighth sea, maps of everything his eyes have witnessed, maps of a girl.<p style="outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 18px; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Or rather one.<p style="outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 18px; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">There was a ship, sailing the seas, as far as ships may travel and beyond, and on the ship was a brilliant boy, a brilliant man. In his hand he holds the only map that leaves his mind blank, a map of her. A map of her mind, of her body, of her heart and all of it’s beautiful chambers that keep her beautiful emotions pumping through her veins.  He could not draw this map, not even when she asked for it. He could not draw this map, not even when he begged for it.<p style="outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 18px; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">And now, on his magnificent ship, he weeps bitterly, salty tears on salty water. Her face is what he’s been longing to enjoy, not the loneliness of this ship, of this silent wandering.  And he can feel her when the boat rocks.<p style="outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 18px; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">There is a girl on a dock at a port for a ship and she waits and waits. She knows he has no map to come back to her, but he could invent one, she has every faith in that.