everything except the last thing

The world is kind of shitty sometimes so I'm just going to tell you a story about nice bus drivers in a small town.

I've come to count on buses being late. I know this isn't a particularly sound habit. It's cynical. Today, I learned that it can also be destructive.

Not the kind of destructive that has you digging your fingernails into the soft skin of your inner arm on a night that sort of makes you want to stop existing. No, this is a simpler destructive. A 'there will be blisters on my feet today because these are not walking shoes and I just missed my bus' type of destructive.

Spoiler: I missed my bus today. Twice.

The first time, I could have hastened down an icy hill and caught the bus at a different stop but I decided to walk to work. I got there one minute late but no one noticed.

The second time was slightly more eventful. I was at school, editing a poster for my theatre performance next month. I left the building with plenty of time to catch my bus, according to the computer I was working on. When I stepped outside the building and checked my phone, however, I found out that it was 4:10, not 4:03. My bus was leaving. Needless to say, I was not on it.

I ran anyway. I hoped it would be late leaving. It wasn't.

There was another bus sitting at the station so I stepped on and asked the driver where the closest stop to my house was. I was semi-relieved to find that I wouldn't have to wait half an hour or walk all the way home. The bus driver asked me if I had wanted to get on the other bus and I said yes and he asked if I wanted to connect to the other bus if possible and I said that would be great. Then I sat down in my usual spot.

When we were approaching the mall, the driver made an announcement. He said that he had called the other bus driver and they were waiting for me at the next stop and that I could get off and transfer. And I just sat there, letting it wash over me that he had called the other driver and asked him to wait for me. That an entire bus full of people were waiting for me so that I could get home. Just another anonymous teenage girl who missed her bus.

So I'm sitting here thinking about losing my best friend and how sometimes a terribly broken person will go into a school and murder other human beings and how we're quickly destroying our earthly habitat and things seem pretty fucking bleak a lot of the time. But then there are my bus drivers who get me to school and work and back every day--Harold and Frank and the two whose names I don't know from today. Kind people who will wait at the mall for five minutes so that a stranger can get home. It doesn't erase all the grief but it makes it slightly more bearable.

"I'm not saying that everything is survivable. Just that everything except the last thing is."*

*from Paper Towns by John Green

in the snow

somehow
it seems like time has slowed
or stopped.
the loudest voice
is a whisper.
somehow
walking home through the falling snow
forgiveness is in reach.
wanting peace with myself
trumps the urge to self loathe.
somehow
the sharpest words
thrown through my mind
decide the scars aren't worth my time
every stupid thing said or done--
hurts caused by my carelessness--
fade to gray.

snowflakes brush my cheeks
plant tiny wet kisses on my flushed face
reassurance that the world spins on,
out of my view.

fingers whisper

Put your hands against my rib-cage,
Pull me closer into you,
Blur the lines,
Turn out the lights,
Your fingers whisper
what is true.

bedroom windows, part three

It's been too long since that night. Too long since I opened my eyes to her sleeping right next to me, not remembering where I was and very suddenly realizing that I didn't care.

Partly because I can't remember every detail, I won't chronicle it all. In a way, I just need to finish this story before it slips away irrevocably.

I remember the struggle to leave the bed. I remember not wanting to fight her, wanting to surrender and stay there forever. But my dad was picking me up and I had a window to sneak out of. A window that I did not particularly want to climb through again.

I was crossing my fingers that she would tell me to leave through the front door. It wasn't a school night, we hadn't done anything wrong and I had a feeling my presence in her room that morning was anything but a secret from her mom. But Niki insisted with her eyes and then climbed out the window ahead of me.

Passing her my bag as I stepped onto the desk chair, I glanced back at her bedroom door, now ajar. Someone had pushed it open that morning and we were hoping it was one of her dogs. Halfway out the window, I heard the smashing sound and my body tensed. I wasn't sure what I had knocked off the windowsill and broken but I was positive that footsteps were rapidly coming down the hall and that her mom's voice was cheerily calling out good morning.

As Niki's face turned bright red, it occurred to me  that it's sometimes easier to sneak in than out. Doing things by the light of the moon feels stealthy and badass but once the sun had come up, all the rebellion guilt and clumsiness splattered across my body like a thick layer of paint.

Niki was so embarrassed but I didn't want to melt into a muddle of invisibility. I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of my life. Her mom was giving us the benefit of the doubt and seemed genuinely pleased to see me there, awkwardly loitering outside of her daughter's bedroom window, a window I had obviously just failed to escape through. I stood there, leaning against the side of the house as I was offered breakfast, coffee, fruit or maybe pancakes and declined it all as Niki muttered, "You couldn't just let me have this one teenagery thing, Mom."

I pleaded my departure and eventually fled, smiling at the vindication of getting caught. There's something so pure and satisfying about the suspense ending, the worst thing happening, having it not be that terrible. There's something to be said about a mother who is endlessly hospitable to a teenager who just climbed out a window rather than exit through the front door.

It was the end of my summer, officially. The best night and the most eventful morning, one of those momentous occasions that reaffirms my "no regrets" philosophy. If the opportunity presented itself again, I would seize it. Next time, though--given the choice--I'd take breakfast.

Breathless

Your fingers trace 

snowflake patterns on my skin,

never the same one twice.

I curl towards your touch

and away reflexively--

An exhale to match the inhale.

But my breath is far from even;

My focus out of tune.

You've taken all my sanity;

I'm breathless thanks to you.

bedroom windows, part two

If I had taken the time to imagine the first time I would sneak into a girl's window, I doubt it would have looked like this.

I doubt I would have imagined myself standing at a locked window, waiting for Niki to break into her own house through another entrance because she forgot her key. Yet I did stand outside that locked window. And I did wait, smiling to myself about what I was about to do. Even after the light turned on in her bedroom, I stood outside her window, watching the shadows dance across the shades as Niki moved around her room, throwing her possessions around in a last ditch attempt at tidying.

Finally, she opened the window and smiled a mischievous grin at me, her coconspirator. But there was a tentative edge to that smile that made my stomach tense momentarily. I stepped onto the plastic deck chair that we had positioned underneath her window. Holding my breath and thinking stealthy thoughts, I pulled myself off the moonlit chair and onto the window sill. Then came the awkwardness of my legs but Niki was right there on the other side so I slid into her arms and she maneuvered me into the bedroom.

I kind of cleaned up, in case this happened, she said, sheepish and I wanted to take that sheepishness in my hands and hold it close. I wanted to hold every part of her close but I collapsed onto her bed and settled for squeezing the stuffies I'd left in her care months previously.

The events that followed displayed all of the splendid awkwardnesses that one can expect from teenagers illicitly occupying each others bedrooms. There was the moment when her brother stood outside the door and I shoved a pillow in my face to muffle the giggles I couldn't contain. There was the familiar feeI of the pajamas I wore, ones I'd seen Niki wear at sleepover after sleepover, none of which had taken place in her bedroom. There was the fact that I flossed my teeth but didn't brush, as Niki's brother remained in the kitchen making eggs. We set an alarm for my departure the next morning and then fell into bed, exhausted with our supposed rebellion.

I can't describe accurately enough the feeling of lying in Niki's dark bedroom, our limbs a tangled mess of each other and even if I could, I can't say I'd want to. I remember the moonlight and my eyes refusing to stay open and our bodies so close and molded to the other's that we were like Lego, slowly becoming one whole. There was warmth, sometimes too much, and I kept throwing the covers off and then dragging them back on. As I said, I can't describe it perfectly but I can say that if I could chose one moment from my summer to go back to and live in forever, it would be that one and I would spend the rest of eternity wrapped in her pale arms. I wish I could have stayed awake longer to appreciate it but my body refused to cooperate and sleep washed over me like a drug.

bedroom windows, part one

It wasn't as if I planned it like this. If I had planed to be sneaking out of Niki's bedroom window at 8:30 on a Saturday morning, I would have stuck a toothbrush in my pocket when I left home. Like the best deranged plans, this one was spur of the moment.
I hesitate by the window, looking back and forth from the chair waiting for me against the wall and my pajama clad friend. She looks at me expectantly and then sighs a little and hops onto the chair herself. Niki is out the window before I can calculate the improbability of my circumstances. Glancing back at the slightly open door, hoping no one wanders in, I step onto the desk chair and propel myself onto the window sill.
***
The night previously, I had expected to be home by 10:30. I had a ride and everything. My friend dropped me off in town and I left most of my stuff stashed in her car. I thought I was coming back for it. I set off to meet Niki, throwing on my red cape as I walked. I can't say what made me want to wear it. It was one of those random things.
When I imagine myself walking up to her, I'm sure it's way more badass in my mind. I pulled my hood up so that from behind you could only see the bottom half of my black skinny jeans, the red hooded cloak covering the rest of my frame. The cloak blew slightly open in the wind as I half skipped up to Niki. She smiled at me and then at my cape and I wanted her to stare at me for decades and also for her to never look at me again. It was like being frozen in a spotlight and I only moved when she decided to release me.
We started to walk in the only real direction worth walking and our hands found each other magnetically. Her touch made my palm tingle gently. Moving through the quiet streets with Niki at my side--our fingers intertwined, both reaching and relaxed, like ivy on an English country home--I had a surreal feeling of being  completely present, like I was in the exact right place at the exact right time. My happiness at being alive with her at that precise second must have radiated from my body in waves.
If it were a dream, we would have glided through town for an endless amount of time, provoking smiles and pausing traffic, as every person tried to figure out what was so right about us and how they could copy it. Our glow was inimitable and imperfect.
But in reality, there was deep fried sushi to eat and texts to be sent. There were friends to console and dark train tracks to walk down. There were iPods to give away and goodbyes to be whispered. There were hugs to be hugged and benches to be loitered on. It was a different sort of gliding around town that took place that Friday evening.
At what I thought was near the end of our night together, Niki sat on a bus bench and I sat on her. We appeared to wait for a bus that had stopped running hours ago as we both put off our inevitable separation. I kept troubleshooting the moment I would have to leave her and delaying it and waiting for her to tell me to come over to her house and knowing that she wouldn't. But it hurt to keep drawing out the end when I knew I couldn't put it off indefinitely so I texted my dad for a ride and when he said sure and asked where I was, I looked into her eyes and said what I promised myself I wouldn't: "Could I sneak in your bedroom window tonight?"

Hi Donnie

this has been a blog.

the beginning of everything

This isn't my original thought and I have a strange de ja vu feeling typing this that makes me feel like I've already posted it but I don't think I have. This quote, particularly the last sentence, is constantly on my mind as of late. Enjoy.

“I fell in love with her courage, her sincerity, and her flaming self respect. And it's these things I'd believe in, even if the whole world indulged in wild suspicions that she wasn't all she should be. I love her and it is the beginning of everything.”

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

"I love her and it is the beginning of everything." 

fractured memories part 4

Remember when I hugged you

before security swallowed me whole

and I calculated how much explaining

you'd have to do,

if I kissed you right there.

I wouldn't have had to deal,

could have stolen

through the frosted doors

without a glance back,

left you to blank looks

and questioning eyes.

I hesitated, arms around you,

working up the nerve.

But I pulled away,

without even brushing my lips

across your cheek.

And I'm not the type of girl

who has regrets,

but god,

I regret that.

it kind of rhymes (weird)

I was that girl
to whom texting was incorrigible
until I started texting her.
I was that girl
who scoffed at thumbs on tiny keyboards
until my fingertips drafted messages
to her.
I am that girl
who smiles to herself
when texting is discussed in crowds.
I am that girl
who never thought
she'd be writing texts out loud.
Again and again,
I surprise myself.
It makes me feel quite free,
to still not know just who I am,
or what's left for me to be.

I would follow you anywhere

Footsteps on unfamiliar footpaths,
we attempt to find our way back.
The rain picks up,
I whisper to the sky,
Perfect timing.
You panic, shove the sugar my way,
I giggle, lift my shirt to hide
the paper bag from raindrops
that threaten to destroy it.
We stumble down the trail,
spin in all directions,
not knowing which trail is ours.
You pull me to the right,
I follow because it's you and
I would follow you anywhere.

Baskin Robins, soccer kleats

After every soccer game
of my youth, back
when I played soccer
and not solitaire,
my dad would take me to Baskin Robins.
"Win or lose,"
he'd say.
I wanted to win.

Today, I walked past,
glanced through the glass,
at all 31 flavours,
didn't stop walking
but lingered on the memory
of flavour swirling through my mind.
Soccer kleats still on my feet,
smile as wide as PEI rainbows.

life goals

I just want to fill
a lifetime of notebooks
with bad poetry;
raise children with my sister;
smile while I sleep;
spend hours on letters,
I know I'll never send;
read a library of books
and pour more tea
than I'll consume,
constantly marvelling
at every refraction of light
my imperfect eyes perceive.

Remember
when we stood on the rooftop
let the stars kiss our noses
my favourite people
under one sky

sitting in a treehouse
raindrops caught on leaves and branches
instead of her head.
love spilling from her shirtsleeves,
crammed underneath fingernails
lodged in the space behind her ear,
for a girl who loves comic sans.
the platform is heavy, strained
from the weight of her suppressed expectations
she knows from the dark circles
under her eyes, reflected in the sky
disappointment is the root of most heartache
she's trying to cut it off early,
intercept it like an amateur athlete's pass
rip out nine stitches in her own time
rather than watch them taken
into less gentle hands
waiting for the moment when she can let out
the breath she swore she wouldn't hold.

some haikus I wrote in May

Eighteen years old, lost
without needing to be found
for her, maps beckon
--------------------------
I promised okay
Fingers crossed you'd feel that way
Easier everyday
--------------------------
I used to love maps
Now all that they show
Is distance between

fractured memories part 3

Remember when we swayed,
eyes open, arms splayed
to the rhythm of our memories.
Fingers combing the air
the way I move my through your hair
not needing to be anywhere
we weren't.
You fixed yourself in the light
spilling from my cracks.
I held you, whispered slowly,
promised to come back

fractured memories part 2

Remember when we sat on my bed
pushing boxes inside our heads
waiting, impatient for the give
ease of tension in the fabric.
Remember when I said that word,
girlfriend
and I watched your body
pour into the air
like cream into coffee.
You let out the breath
you didn't want me to know
you were holding,
hoping,
wishing,
this girl who rejected labels
would exhale those words
in that order.
We were two knots,
unraveling in sync.
But I never let myself think
it would last.

fractured memories part 1

Remember when we would stay,
lay in my bed all damn day,
wrapped up in the soft sounds of the covers,
each other's refusal to make breakfast or lunch,
as long as it meant leaving the warmth.
Who needs dietary sustenance?
We scoffed, all but immortal,
superheroes of our own respect.
Our only real need to make the moment last.
and it lasted, still present tense lasts.

Everything is ending (except not really)

It has only just occurred to me, as I sat on the edge of a motel bed in Anaheim and tried not to cry as I finished reading aloud the book we started a long time ago and have been reading on this trip, that my road trip is ending. I've been so wrapped up in excitement at returning home that I have left myself little time to contemplate that I am leaving this group adventure and carving out my own solo. On Thursday night, I will sleep in a bed that is (mostly) permanently mine. I'm going to wake up, for the first time in two months, someplace incredibly familiar and walk down streets I've known for the last ten years of my life.
This weird pang of sadness has taken me by surprise even though it shouldn't have. I hugged Rachel, tightly, before she climbed into bed and felt my throat tighten. I didn't want to let go but she was tired and I had blogs to write and sleep to evade. I'm leaving. Even writing it, the words sink in slowly and they hurt a little.
When I left home in May, I felt like I had something conceivable to come back to and it's a little fractured now but I'm clinging to my resolve. I feel a little torn but I made my choices and I'm sticking to them. I'm pretty certain that, either way, I'm going to feel a pull towards the other option but I feel ready to go home so home I will go.
Not to the Grand Canyon or Lake Powell in Utah. Not to Yellowstone or Mount Rushmore. My adventures this month will be on a different scale than the last two. Let us hope I don't regret taking myself out of the road trip and that my actions are driven by something more than hopeless longing.
I feel like Tara Finke from The Piper's Son in that way, not wanting my life to be spent in a perpetual state of longing--either for home or travel--and yet I'm starting to see longing as inevitable. I will miss my mom and sisters. I'll miss reading to them and making them laugh and pissing them off and drinking tea in a different coffee shop every day. But I've missed home, too, missed my dad and my cat and my friends and reliable wifi and... you. I've missed you. Is this what my life will be from now on, with my family moving nine hours away? Missing someone or everyone at all times, no matter where I am or who I'm with?
I guess I'll have to get used to it. Either that or take up drug abuse but I'm leaning towards the former.

travelling thoughts

There's something completely unique about travelling and maybe that is a super obvious statement but I feel it needs to be stated nonetheless. I access places in a completely different way when I don't live there, and the foreign layouts and places are food for endless wonder and comparison.

I've been to quite a few different places in the past three and a half weeks and I have pretty much found something to love about all of them, whether it is a desolate piece of beach or a neat hispter-y coffeeshop. Libraries are usually my favourite spot; I love it when they have particular rooms just for the use of teens. (I also love the clicking keyboards of library computers that give me a soundtrack as I type.)

Travelling brings so much contrast to my life. I can't help but comparing these places to home and picturing myself living here. There are so many amazing little towns on this continent that are full of really cool people and it seems unfortuante that I won't get to see them all. In part, it makes me glad to be away from White Rock, exploring somewhere new. I want to say I miss it and I guess there's some parts that I do but mostly I'm happy to be immersed in these new places--not knowing every street and its name, not having any memories attached to the buildings before my eyes. Like a blank slate, starting fresh in every new city.

I'm getting used to it, the wanderlove, as Kirsten Hubbard put it. The more I see, the more I realize how much there is to fall in love with. Hopefully, I keep falling.

I don't feel 18

I know it's not like your birthday comes by and suddenly a switch is flipped and you're supposed to feel OLDER. I'm not sure what older feels like. For the last couple of years, older feels like having less of a clue about everything, being less sure--and not necessarily in a bad way. I'm not saying I even want to feel noticeably more mature, even though I'm now legally now responsible for myself.

It's just weird. I remember being younger and thinking I'd have it all together at 18. Well, 16, too. I just assumed I'd be grown up and together. Sorry, 9-year-old self, you must be a little disappointed.

Or maybe you're not. I'm not. I think.

birthday blitz

Today, April 15th, kicks off the birthday season in my house with my oldest sister turning twenty two. For the first time, I just realized that my sister's birthdays take place in chronological order throughout the year (my oldest sister having the first of the year in April and my youngest sister the last in September, with Rachel and I in between). WEIRD.

Anyway, because my mother was crafty, she planned for us all to be earth signs so that we would be compatible with and like her, zodiac-wise. And so we have the yearly string of spring birthdays, April 15th (she was born early and is an Ares, thus failing THE PLAN), April 20th, and culminating in my birthday, May 10th.

Fascinating, fascinating trivia, Alex. Thank you for sharing that with the internet.

No but seriously. Birthday season is here. When I think about my immediate friend group, it intrigues me to report that five out of eight of us are Tauruses. Five out of eight! Meaning that when I read my horoscope, I tend to think about it in relation to the majority of my friends. And I realize maybe that is a little weird.

But it's true. And now you know.

See, see? This right here is the downside of BEDA. Rambling pre-bed posts about my zodiac sign. What am I even?

I love metaphors like a love song, baby

I love metaphors. This love has been growing for a while now but it felt especially prominent after my first encounter with The Fault In Our Stars. Reading about Augustus Waters and his use of metaphorical resonance, I was ensconced in the magic of metaphors, the seemingly endless possibility that lies within them.

I started to use metaphors in my life as a way of talking about things without actually talking about them. It was easier that using the real words and maybe it was a bit cowardly but I still managed to access the same conversation, even if it was hidden behind a facade. It was even fun, finding the right analogy and trying to fit it into the situation, all the while avoiding the admission that this was my life I was discussing. It was easier for me to compare my life to a game of Clue than to openly say that I had no idea what was going on and I was stumbling around in the dark.

John Green first introduced me to the power of metaphor and I'm extremely grateful for that. He showed me how metaphors, particularly in literature, give us an easy entry point to asking the hard questions we have to ask if we're going to live examined lives. Metaphors are like the simple machines I learned about at Science World when I was ten; they make the heavy lifting a little more manageable.

I'll be continuing with my use of them to tackle the tricky stuff. When actually talking about stuff is too hard? METAPHOR!

Now, kids, go forth and conquer your challenges with metaphor clutched in your fist. I strongly recommend it.

my turn to leave

y brain gets the fact that you come as much as go,

though this logic exists incognito.

The rest of me is the tender skin under a band-aid,

and I’m not sure if what you were covering up will heal,

or if anything was ever broken.

But, damn—it hurts coming off,

regardless of speed or efficiency.

I don’t want you to stay forever,

wouldn’t ask that you’re always around.

But I’m jealous, okay? That you get to depart,

choose when to leave, and how.

I feel a bit stuck, like a ship run aground,

while you come and you go as you please,

never thinking of the transparent privilege you have

to ever so simply just leave.

I stand in my doorway

as you dish out your hugs

to my family members at large,

sink into the frame,

out of place in my skin,

not knowing where

in this puzzle

I belong.

You slink towards me,

I’ve forgotten I exist.

But I still garner the last embrace.

Your exit resembles the quick untying of shoelaces,

to me it feels like a corset pulled tighter.

I’m selfishly wishing to strip it off,

untie my own shoes and run barefoot

towards the ocean

until the tide and my own inhibitions

bring me back

effortlessly

to you.

See,

You don’t have to lie alone

in a bed that not the smoothest conman could convince you is half full,

nostalgia replacing the heat in your cheeks,

as your body forgets

what it was like to conform to another.

You don’t have to remain,

air stained

by my lingering presence

as I go off to conquer grander maybes.

Perhaps that’s not quite fair,

I hope you’ll forgive me

for looking at this through my own eyes, for now.

I hope you’ll forgive me

for asking you

to give me my chance,

to walk out the door,

Plant kisses and wish you goodbye.

Step slow with regret, out of sight, out of everything,

leaving nothing but memories behind.

But wait.

I want the pleasure of coming back too,

I want to not have to wait.

To show up at your door

when I want, when I’m ready,

swagger up with my unmemorized gait.

Not always be peering out windows,

and shuffling around empty rooms,

trying to convince myself I’m not waiting

for anything

for anyone.

for you.

Is there a way I can grasp hold of this balance,

not always be the one left behind?

Or should I accept my fate as the beach

give up hopes of becoming the tide?

forever in our fingertips

Today you get a poem.

It felt like forever in our fingertips,

Rocks flung from commitment-phobic palms

into a cacophony of water,

indifferent to our suffering.

And as we screamed obscenities,

unforgotten injustices,

into the river,

there was peace for a flickering moment.

A contradiction,

one second of feeling broken and whole;

empty and everything.

It was like forever in our fingertips—

 A feeble forever that we tied to those rocks

and half hurled from our bodies.

A forever that was sucked away,

involuntarily dismissed,

like the laughs bubbling from our lungs,

like the tears leaking from our eyes.

It was like forever in our fingertips,

slipping away because it never existed.

sitting in a tree

Today I went on a walk with no real destination in mind and ended up sitting on a tree for a couple hours.

Life is nice. It's nice to go on a Sunday stroll and find yourself in a forest that isn't the park you were aiming for. It's nice when you have someone to do this with, someone to hold your hand and follow you down the ravine.

Just sayin'.

The Hunger Games

So I just returned from seeing The Hunger Games for the second time and I think I'm a little more scarred than I was the first time around. This may be because for this show, I managed to keep my eyes open for pretty much the entire movie. And there was some scary shit that I blocked out at midnight on the 23rd.

My first not midnight, not falling asleep observation is about the shaky camera. This may have been pointed out to me by several sources between my two screenings but I picked up on it tonight and it kind of bothered me. I appreciated the artistic use of it when they were actually in the arena and I felt like it portrayed the hectic, panicky theme quite well (also, the fact that I couldn't tell what kind of violence was going on was nice for me) but, earlier in the movie, it seemed unnecessary. Why, I ask, did we need the shaky cam vibe when Katniss was hunting in the woods with Gale? The woods is the place that Katniss is most comfortable and at ease. The shaky, uncertain footage seemed contradictory to what I know from reading the books--not to go all book elitist but, um, yeah, Katniss in the woods should have been calm and steady.

The other thing that really stood out for me was the violence and it might have been because I'm generally sensitive to that kind of thing or because of the blog post Maggie Stiefvater wrote about it (god, I love Maggie Stiefvater). In her blog post, she talked about how people expressed wishes that it would have been more violent and I was aghast, mostly because that's not what The Hunger Games is about to me. It's not supposed to be some graphically violent portrayal of kids murdering each other. It's about, well, a lot of things, on various levels but to me it's mostly about Katniss, trying to stay alive for her sister. And yes, there's Peeta's qualms about his humanity and that leads Katniss to want to show the Gamemaker's that they don't own her but this is a story about love* and war and the kids affected by it. It's not supposed to be some depiction of gratuitous violence for the sake of it. I thought there was more than enough violence. Maybe it could have been more personal but maybe the point is that it wasn't**.

I'm pleased with The Hunger Games movie. There's not much I would have changed and nothing is really worth mentioning. I'm pretty excited to see what Jennifer Lawrence does with Catching Fire. And now we wait.

p.s. Okay, the real thing on my mind is the cave scene. All I could think about was how dirty Peeta's face was and then after Katniss got him the medicine and they fell asleep together, he woke up and his face was practically clean. I bet the medicine took care of that for him, right? Because it's magical, sexy face medicine. I see what you did there, Gamemakers. I see that.

*coughcough of the sisterly variety. Keep your pants on.
**I've read reviews where people said each tribute death felt like a punch to the gut. I didn't feel that way.

why I like buses

Whenever I hear people complain about how much they hate buses, I can be found making myself invisible on the fringes, trying to keep my mouth shut. You see, it's not exactly easy to convince people of the merits of public transit.

But the merits exist.

Mostly what I like about buses is that for however long, all the passengers are going the same place. Ever since I was younger, whenever travelling in cars, I find myself staring at drivers in other cars, wondering where they're going, what their lives are like, if they're late or on any kind of schedule. On a bus, it's like that only amplified. Everyone is confined to a certain place and people get on and off as they please. You could argue that a temporary camaraderie is created, as everyone inhales the same scents of too strong perfume and body odor and tries to ignore the same crazy people.

Then you get off the bus and the sense of unity disappears quietly, like maybe it never existed at all. And hey, maybe it didn't.

adventures in fate*: meeting Vita

I'm going to admit what you may already be thinking: I'm not very good at this BEDA thing. Like... I have good intentions and all and then I get locked in a lab room with my mom and there are blood pressure machines on us and we're supposed to talk about feels and everything falls to chaos.

That's basically what happened.

I also went to Seattle to meet a girl who I can basically sum up as my soulmate. Platonically. Don't make it weird.

So that took up some time.

Crossing the border both times, the inspection guards asked me what I was doing in Seattle and when I replied that I was meeting a friend and her mom, they wanted to know how long I'd known my friend and how we met.

Both times I tried not to sound sheepish when I said we've known each other for three years and we met on the internet. But it's hard not to sound sheepish when you tell people you're going to visit someone you've never technically speaking met. In my defense, meeting people from the internet doesn't seem as sketchy today as it did to me when I was eleven years old.

In short, it was lovely. Am I allowed to say that Vita and I have great chemistry without crossing a line? I said it. For two people who have never been in the same physical space at the same time, I think it's fair to say we hit it off. We literally just walked around and talked for hours and it was beautiful and surreal. The weirdest thing about the whole experience was definitely how not weird it was. I imagined it would be a little more awkward so I was surprised when it just totally wasn't. At all. Period.

It's been a pretty nice two days, travelling on the bus included.

*for comedic purposes only. I don't actually believe in fate. My view on soulmates however has changed since my encounter with the ever-amazing Vita. How could it not?

BEDA is going to be a thing

I feel like this month is a kind of precipice and I want to chronicle it in some way.

And it's April so... the answer seems clear.

BEDA.

For now I am tired. I'll write more tomorrow, friends.

:)

not asking for forever

Girl, sitting in a tree,
writing letters into the bark
she never imagined she'd scrawl:
dp's girlfriend.
Embellishing with a heart,
her pink pen completes the cliche.
No foolish forevers, though.
She only promises the present.

This paper girl, she's perching between branches,
eyes dwelling on the forever sky,
thoughts jumbled and raw,
happiness seeping through the folds
of her flimsy, borrowed body.
Recycled stardust is all she possesses
and she doesn't get to keep it.
Probably wouldn't, if she could.

She lingers longer on forever,
incorrect concept that it is.
Does infinity make right now meaningless?
Or meaningful? She can't tell.

The satisfaction she breathes is foreign.
She'd forgotten how to not want more,
more love, more laughter, more hugs, more kisses.
She doesn't need more now, isn't asking for forever.
For once, she has enough.

cleaning my glasses

I cleaned my bedroom window today.
It's something that I've been meaning to do and thus procrastinating doing for a long time. I'm not sure what I was waiting for, exactly, because every time my mom volunteered to do it, I told her I'd get around to it. And, though I wish I hadn't waited, I'm kind of glad I did.

I find it so absurdly easy to look back at everything that's happened and wish certain things had happened earlier but, not surprising to you if you watch Doctor Who, time doesn't work that way. If I had gotten out the bleach and Windex and cleaned my stupid window a month ago, I might not have had the same, staring-through-the-clear-glass-at-the-blue-sky epiphany, type moment that I experienced today. I might have been listening to a different song on repeat which would have led me down a different train of thoughts. It might not have been so simply satisfying.

Sometimes, things are worth the wait.

And just like that, my list of things to remember for this year is constantly growing. It started with 'chill your pants' and grew to 'cheer up and chill your pants.' I'm happy to now add 'clean your glasses' to the list.
When you're looking through the same window for a year, it's so effortless to think everyone is looking through the same one and grow accustomed to its flaws. It's so ridiculously difficult to keep in mind that your window or your lenses can get smudgy and warped--that is, until you push a cloth across the surface and check out how much dust you picked up.

I'm always laughing about how sad it is when I put on my glasses and my sight is just as horrible as it was without them. I think we all need to be reminded to look through different, cleaner lenses sometimes.