We are all so lonely together.

Villain/Victim// (an excerpt from a memoir intro)

We believe that we are the heroes of our own story. The plot revolves around us, the protagonist, and we choose a cast of friends and family to fill smaller, supporting roles. We may cast a friend as the sidekick, our mother as a guide, or our significant other as the romantic lead. We may even cast those who hurt us as villains, and ourselves as their victim. We judge their performances, their decisions and their actions in relation to ourselves. We often forget that each person that we bring into our story is casting us as well. Sometimes they cast us more accurately than we cast ourselves,

And sometimes we’re not the heroes. 

This is a very special piece that I wrote for my creative non-fiction class this semester about an incredible local show I went to in November. I would highly suggest listening to “Makers” and “How We Woke Up” while you read this. Of course, I would also suggest that you then order the album, because its great. Photos from the evening can be found on my photography blog.

Read More

I like to look at my legs splayed out over my white comforter in the faint light of my closet. 

Skin is a miraculous thing.

Skin is not shiny, not completely matte. It glows in soft light, radiating life. It molds to our bodies, our expressions, allowing our emotions to translate into something material.

Skin is warm, it allows the life that it holds to radiate from within it, adding that living heat to everything it comes in contact with. It transfers energy with each embrace.

Skin is soft. Whether it is the fragile, fuzzy head of a baby or the soft wrinkles of the elderly, skin feels like nothing else on earth. When our skin greets another’s it is unmistakable and impossible to ignore.

Skin is a barrier. It protects us from the harmful things of the world. It heals itself. It clings to us with determined dedication. It guards every inch of us, resisting the constant abuse of the elements.

Our skin is an incredible thing. 

xxx.

I flip idly through the pages of my senior yearbook. My hands slide past unflattering haircuts and forced smiles. I am unattached to these faces, in three years we have all moved on.

I think of where the few I know are now.

Drugs, pregnant, just came out, moved away, married, married, married.

I sigh and lean back against the foot of my bed.

Youth is not wasted on just the young, but on pleasing the old.

I could have been writing, or growing, but high school is spent drowning in social strife and smothered self-esteem; Passing now-forgotten classes and trying to hold on to friends you’ll forget once the caps are thrown. 

xxx.

You may steal my thoughts through imitation, but the moment you do, you’ve handed me the ability to control your future. xxx.

When constantly bound in the paths of imitation, you are forced to always follow behind, a slave. xxx.

Guest Post

A Soliloquy on Drug Use//

Adolescents often hear that “drugs don’t make you happy,” that “they only lead to misery. Well, these words are always spoken by people who either haven’t delved into the debauched realm of chemical indulgence or didn’t play the game correctly. Either way, these are words ill-spoken.

Like financial securities, chemical-overuse is a game to be carefully played. There exists varied levels of volatility within the stock market, some securities (usually those priced by the penny) are extremely volatile, jumping hundreds of percent per week, while others progress at a stable and consistent rate, eventually reaching prices of hundreds of dollars a share.

Unlike that which is taught to many people, the volatile game of drug misuse can be a positive one. Granted, it takes an unusually keen hand to anticipate when to sell off or abstain, but if mastered, the results have the potential to be unexpectedly beneficial.

Polar to and exponentially more profitable than the nearly unanticipatible volition of the chemical-abuser’s penny stock trading is the wiseman’s investment in a life of reason, purpose and devotion. While the pence-junky experiences enormous returns (both negative and positive) in their life of needles and cheap shares, the purposeful logician finds his movements methodically progressive. Much like the continental drift, masses of enormous complexity and size are moving in way the pence-junky seldom sees. And yet, as is the case with Berkshire Hathaway, over time $19 a share becomes $123,000. Patience, reason and dedication, three things the pence-junky can’t understand, forbid him from the enormity of such returns

We are all heartless, until we are the one accusing others of heartlessness. xxx.

You trail me like a smoke ballon. Unless I am dashing forward you move in to crown me in unpleasant memories, blocking my sight and my way forward. 

I wonder if I will ever clear you away. I wave my arms wildly around my head, my hands pass through you. I wonder if escaping the past is always this much work. 

xxx.