PenTherapy

Deflecting low blows, she is a breathing barricade—iron and steel, ever holding up in the face of adversity. Why doesn’t she falter? Because she can’t. Words fall on her, sink in like leaden weights determined to extinguish her spirit. She has many moments of weakness. She’s indecisive. She thinks back, ponders past decisions. Ponders the path she’s currently on. Are her strides sure enough to carry her where she wants to go? Oh, but she doesn’t run, she hides. Her fortress keeps her safe, keeps her distant. She always attempts to find a silver lining, but sometimes it’s so hard to see a glint in the endless grey in that metallic-tasting life she leads atop the tower. Her eyes are the only windows to the world she cares to peer out of. Every time a sympathetic soul offers a ladder for her to climb down, she grasps the handrails, desiring nothing more than to descend…but she ultimately denies the aid she so craves, every single time. The ladder goes clattering back to the earth in a cloud of dust and apologies. You see, she has to preserve her life the way it is, as cold and withdrawn as it may seem, because the only thing that feels right in her silent, clinical, private life…is wrong.

“The air is sharp, steel sharp”
The teeth of the oxygen are biting hard and sticking fast
Try as I might, I can’t wrench myself
     from the heresy of the blueblack wind
The call to return home echoes in the valley before falling on deaf ears
I’m carving
clawing
creating my own path
Neglecting the frozen footsteps with everything in me
Tonight, I reach my destination–
Tonight, I taste freedom–
Tonight, I bury the past in favor of a warmer future

My favorite color used to be blue; now it’s purple. I get caught up in the details and sometimes forget all about the “big picture.” I had trouble leaving my grandmother in the cemetery after the funeral. I am constantly taking pictures to document my ever-changing life. I spent the 4^th of July at the beach with my best friend. I still watch cartoons. I wish I had a pretty singing voice. I enjoy feeling like people think they know me and secretly knowing that they have no idea. I adore kids. I used to have a pony and a ground squirrel. I wrote my first poem—“Lonely River”—when I was five years old. I love the smells of Xerox machines and jonquils. My sister once locked me outside in the snow when I was wearing nothing but a bath towel. I could read and write before kindergarten. I only feel truly at home when I’m in New York City. I feel sorry for my mother. I was born after my parents were married for eleven years. I’ve seen three “real” plays, two of them on Broadway. I think that Howl and Sophie have a perfect life together, and I’m jealous: I’ve never been in love. 2005 was the best and worst year of my life. I get nostalgic at wildly inappropriate times. The first time I went to Starbucks, I was instantly hooked. I’m both adaptable and set in my ways.

There are several things that really put me “in the zone,” so to speak. For example, I really enjoy taking pictures. I’m very prone to snapping a billion and two shots, but deleting all except the two. I also really get into reading and writing. When I read a particularly captivating book, it sets ablaze the most wonderful feeling. It’s a form of passive escapism– something we all need in our lives sometimes.

When I start writing a blog entry, I can go on and on for paragraphs and pages about things that seem unbearably, devestatingly important at the time of posting, but feel they make me feel a little silly when I examine them later, which is why I force myself to adhere to one simple, easy little rule: I won’t delete anything I post. Unlike all of those poor pictures I’ve erased, I refuse to eradicate my life of the emotional moments that define my teenage years.

You don’t want to be seen as what you aren’t. That’s admirable in so many ways. You want your radiance to be felt. Your beauty comes maybe from your simplicity. The last stanza is the most beautiful: “Watch these words become my wings/And then/Watch me fly.” Your message is hopeful. Dreams, when dreamed often and vivid enough, can become reality, even for the “dandelion that nobody wants.” Dandelion, you make me feel like anything I aspire to be is tangible, right there, ripe for the picking…just like it was for you.

I don’t think it’s true that anybody really is the dandelion that nobody wants. There’s doubtlessly somebody out there, whether you know it or not, that does want and love you because you are a special, unique individual, whether you’re a person or a dandelion. You perservere through the storm and come out standing strong. Your breaking point is elastic– another thing I admire. I see a lot of good qualities that you’re overlooking that I wouldn’t mind stealing from you.

Dandelion, you may not be a rose, a lion or a golden-haired girl, but I’m sure that somebody would pick you regardless. You have no thorns, no sharp teeth, and no wavering affections. You love life. Life is your passion. Perhaps it’s your love of life that lets your dreams take flight.

I wrote this when I was involved in a very heated, long, drawn-out battle with a friend. We utterly despised each other for two months, and the entire process was really draining. This, however, is the product of the desire to shed all that unnecessary resentment and make peace with him and with myself.

I hated seeing you go, I hated watching you change, I hated being left behind
Until I realized that I was not the one in neutral
Until I realized that I was the one growing
moving
branching out
touching others’ lives
as I wanted my life to be touched
treasured
I looked back once
Only once
Only because I could no longer stand to see you
neglecting to uproot yourself
Too needy to make it on your own,
Too tired to turn your face to the light

(Please, God
let me have made the right decision
in running
as fast as I
possibly could)

so you took a look outside yourself for once

and assessed the damage

you attempted to caulk up the holes and

barricade yourself further in

you walked through the doorframes of a somewhere,

far away,

and braved the open, empty spaced that you weren’t meant to see

you tried, you tried, you tried

so hard

to ignore

the whistling wind

and you were determined to find logic behind enemy lines—

in heretics’ houses

but there was no truth to be stumbled upon

you were quite content pretending that nothing had ever happened in the slightest

as you happily, miserably began

to sleepwalk back

back

into a place you’d never missed

(and you want

more than anything in the world

to know that the stinging stops—

the singing stops—)

I’m from Roxie Hart and Tracy Turnblad

       from Mark and Roger not paying their Rent

       from singing along in the dead of night to pass the ticking time.

I’m from cracked concrete alleyways that snake,

 and blasts from an overlooking mine that shake foundations mercilessly.

I’m from stretching hospital corridors and stark fluorescent lights.

I’m from the clinical smell of my grandmother’s life

and her roommate yelling for help

       she didn’t need

and help that never came.

I’m from sporadic trips to the farm,

       from War Ridge and Monroe County.

I’m from the Maddy reunion,

   hiding out in the gazebo,

   photographing the lake and not missing a solitary angle.

 I’m from wasting time and dragging my feet,

        from musing and thinking and hoping,

 and from chaotic bursts of starry-eyed inspiration.

I’m from peculiar fever dreams

       from illusions and illuminations,

       from wishing to be at the sea and the city at the exact same time.

The family tree was cut down, severed a long time ago—

   a sapling peeks shyly,

                  barely brave enough to come from under its cover of translucent leaves.

Mend these hats
Visit my sister
Return home
Close up shop
Whoever knew that my routine
Could be shaken up so completely?
Put out some more wood for Calcifer
Go to the market
Sweep the cobwebs from the ceiling
Hang a curtain over that gaping hole in the wall

He said:
“Sophie, Sophie, you’re beautiful!”
“Your hair looks just like starlight!”
For once in my life, I’m glad
To not stay rigid in the vicegrip of order
But to stray blindly– happily– into chaos
With my hand wrapped in the hand of
The wizard who steals young girls’ hearts

It wasn’t me
always preaching bravery
It wasn’t me, don’t you remember?
I’m the one with all of the perfect reasons
All of the sanity
Don’t you believe me?
It wasn’t me.

I’m set to self-destruct
at the smallest conflict,
high-strung and running out of power.
This candle in the wind bends
to no master, yields
to no rain or hurricane
I guard myself, my luminary
I guard myself with my life

It wasn’t me,
don’t you see?
I stood by, time after time,
Idly watching the course of sand,
A beacon, a lighthouse in the distance
without a spare inch of respite.

Don’t you realize
and don’t you see?
Don’t you believe it when I cry
proclaim
agree
“It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me!”

So when you trip the razorwire
and realize where we stand
I want you to be there
open hands
open mind
but recognize
it was not I
it wasn’t mine that sealed your fate
Look for some other fool to blame

It wasn’t me
who didn’t care
It wasn’t me
who left you bare
It wasn’t me
who wished you ill
But it was me– my heart–
you killed

If you can’t tell, I adore the beach. I’ve been dying to go back and relive last summer over and over again. It was the closest to a perfect summer I’ve yet to have, and the decidedly optimistic hope that this summer will be even better is very real to me. The biggest difference between the past and the future? I will walk on to the beach as a child for the final time, and I will leave the beach an adult. 

Standing still or changing
Waxing or waning
The only song—my dearest wish—I choose
     to listen to, to not ignore
(The breaking waves, the salty air
Piercing my eyes and lungs alike)
No other thrill will do for me
My heart belongs to the crashing sea
It so accepts, endears me to
A perfect, peaceful, pretty view
When I’m ashore—sand, setting sun
I feel as though I could stay
     for an eternity
          or two
Forget about my life away from the waves
Keep to myself—to the ocean, the sea
Alas, I leave with sighs and wistful looks
Time that once stopped is in motion again
To set a foot upon the sand is the greates joy I could presently feel–
To turn my back—it nearly kills