this may be the last letter i ever write to you. ive never been more speechless in my life..with everything in my life, being able to write what i feel has been the one thing that has kept me going, even when things just didnt seem like they could get better. now im writing back to you because you sent me a letter. except then all of this happened. and now the words just wont escape my mind so i can put them on paper. its so hard because im supposed to be optimistic for you right now so i need to keep this letter positive and not dwell on what i actually feel inside right now. but what if this is the last letter i ever send you? what if these are the last words i ever get to speak to you? what if, because im at school, i dont get to see you again? the words just wont come. i have maybe 10 words on this huge blank piece of paper and all i can think about it how much i want to tell you i love you and how all i can think about are all the memories we have together and how im so afraid of losing you that i feel like a piece of my heart has been torn from inside me and how i want to just talk about everything and nothing and how its all hitting me right now and i cant stop the tears but i cant seem to find the words and how i just have so much to tell you that i cant seem to tell you anything at all. im praying for you grandma. please dont leave me. not now. you know how bad things are with mom and dad and i cant lose you right now. please hold on for me. youve always been the rock of our family, youve helped me keep my feet so many times i just wanted to fall down and i dont know what to do because youre so far away and i cant get to you. i want to be there to hold you up so you can stand your ground. all i know about whats going on is an email i get from mom everyday saying that youre doing the same, that youre doing okay, and i just want her to tell me that you made it home that youre better that i can hold you in my arms and tell you how much i love you and how much i need you and how much youve changed my life and touched my soul. you are the most pure and amazing person ive ever met in my entire life and all i can think about is how i need to say all my fears to you but i cant because im not allowed to scare you because that wont help you get better. im just supposed to tell you that i love you and that youll be fine. please dont leave me. i need to tell you everything else im really feeling the next time i see you so i can tell you that the entire letter was a lie that my possible last words to you were all lies that i am actually afraid and that ive actually never been more scared shitless in my entire life. please come back to me. i need to tell you the truth or ill never be able to live with myself. i love you. please. if you cant hold on for yourself, please hold on for me.

i dont know if this makes me any more or less of a dork than him (since hes the one with the poetry blog..) but i decided to steal two of his. ill comment on them later, still thinking about them a bit.

this one is just exactlyy what matthew and i were talking about today..

SEASON AT THE SHORE
by Phyllis McGinley

On, not by sun and not by cloud
And not by whippoorwill, crying loud,
And not by the pricking of my thumbs,
Do I know the way that the summer comes.
Yet here on this seagull-haunted strand,
Hers is an omen I understand -
Sand:

Sand on the beaches,
Sand at the door,
Sand that screeches
On the new-swept floor;
In the shower, sand for the foot to crunch on;
Sand in the sandwiches spread for luncheon;
Sand adhesive to son and sibling,
From wallet sifting, from pockets dribbling;
Sand by the beaker
Nightly shed
From odious sneaker;
Sand in bed;
Sahara always in my seaside shanty
Like the sand in the voice
of J. Durante.

Winter is mittens, winter is gaiters
Steaming on various radiators.
Autumn is leaves that bog the broom.
Spring is mud in the living room
Or skates in places one scarcely planned.
But what is summer, her seal in hand?
Sand:
Sand in closets,
Sand on the stair,
Desert deposits
In the parlor chair;
Sand in the halls like the halls of the ocean;
Sand in he soap and the sun-tan lotion;
Stirred in the porridge, tossed on the greens,
Poured from the bottoms of rolled-up jeans;
In the elmy street
On the lawny acre;
Glued to the seat
Of the Studebaker.
Wrapped in the folds of the Wall Street Journal;
Damp sand, dry sand,
Sand eternal.

When I shake my garments at the Lord’s command,
What will I scatter in the Promised Land?
Sand.

this ones just very interesting. of course id pick one named this but still.

OPTIMISM
By Jane Hirshfield

More and more I have come to admire resilience.
Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam returns over and over to the same shape, but the sinuous tenacity of a tree: finding the light newly blocked on one side,
it turns in another.
A blind intelligence, true.
But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers, mitochondria, figs--all this resinous, unretractable earth.

it was weird buying a fathers day card.

words like "hero" just dont seem to fit.

Are people capable of loving forever?

I was watching A Beautiful Mind the other day when I came across a scene in which they say that the universe is infinite; people believe it is infinite even though there is no fact behind this statement. They then continue to say that this same concept can be applied to love: that although love cannot be proven, love is there and can be believed in. Later in the movie, she loves this image she has of him rather than who he is in the present which is why she still supports him. Did she prove that one cannot love another forever? The feeling may be something that someone needs to believe in but it also appears to be a feeling that is only true in its purest and most original form.

 Maybe I’m so skeptical because she has told me that she doesn’t love him anymore. She has spoken those words to me. She loves the image of who he used to be. Maybe love isn’t as infinite as the universe. I progressively stopped loving him not because of anything he did but because of a short distance. I didn’t grow hate so I don’t find the two to be opposites; I grew almost indifferent. But what if a short distance tore love apart…does this mean that love will not last forever? She doesn’t love him anymore and she can’t even remember an image of him that she does love that she can hold onto. Does this mean that love is only arbitrary, that love is only temporary? I thought it was infinite. I thought it was changing yet would remain infinite. Yet, how can I disprove it if there is no fact to disprove? On the other hand, how can I prove its eternal existence if I can’t prove it? She doesn’t love him anymore. What hope is there? Fairytales end with “they lived happily ever after” yet they fail to say “forever” after. Ever after merely implies that after the fact they lived happily. Forever is a lot different than after the fact.

I want to have a happy ending.

What if I’m not capable?  

well, there really is no beginning to this note. dont really know how im going to end it either. this note is basically me going crazy because my winter break isnt over yet..i mean, i am enjoying it. so much. i never realized how much sleep a person actually needs to get those bags out from underneath their eyes..thats one thing i accomplished this break at least hehe :) i didnt do any of the work i shouldve done..namely, in order to teach, i need to compile this huge portfolio thing that goes through, in detail, all the classes i took through college..so, you know, it would make sense for me to start now and just add to it each semester, right? yea...i kinda went with the whole sleeping in idea instead. and babysitting. did a lot of that, made some money. then spent it all on coffee so i could stay awake while babysitting and on clothes because it actually snowed here a lot and i was chilly walking from my car to the house i babysat at. no real complaints though, ill get to that junior portfolio thing eventually..probably not til the summer but hey ill be out early enough where it wont seem like summer yet when i start it...(ps if youre still reading at this point...i dont know what to tell you. im bored writing this so you cant be too intrigued either)..hmm what else what else. today was probably one of the best days of my break actually. it was so surreal when everyone got home from school in december, all of us exchanging stories and talking about all the stupid things we couldnt believe we got away with..and then today i hung out with taylor and it was a completely different feeling. it was me realizing that i finally made such a good choice in my life by going to delaware.. tays still stuck in the whole high school shin dig...and i remember junior year of high school when i was so in love with high school and i thought id never want to leave..and then senior year came and i absolutely loved my friends, i never wanted to leave them, but i wanted so badly to see what was out there...and tays in that position now, shes just ready...to go. i love that feeling. just knowing that no matter where life takes you, youre ready. and i needed to go at that point. one year ago, today, i was taylor. and its so strange to me how much ive changed in one year...the changes arent that evident but theyre slight enough where i feel like a whole new person. theres just so much out there, so much more than even delaware right now...i want to get out there. travel. live all over the world and take it all in.

another random thought..i just realized i brushed my teeth an odd number of times today..so ill be back. for those of you still reading who dont already know my strange obsession with brushing my teeth either 4 or 6 times daily (not 5...thats an odd number..), im surprised you are still reading this. speaking of, ive been doing a lot of reading lately. after i watched my full ten seasons of "friends" of course. that was a good solid start to my break..now im going through like a book a day..read some jodi picoult just for old times sake.. read choke, invisible monsters, and fight club (all chuck palahniuk for those of you who didnt know..speaking of...if anyone knows an easy way of remembering how to pronounce his last name without tripping over it every single time i go to say it, please let me know) and i dont remember the rest, but sitting next to my bed now is lolita, atlas shrugged, and nineteen minutes...basically, one day i decided to google books that were on the top lists like..forever. books that people loved since the day they came out, whether it be because they were so controversial (like lolita was) or because they were just so damn good they didnt need a reason..so that started my reading binge. ah. speaking of. looking for alaska was pretty good..and im not usually a sucker for those teen-ish books. but ill be honest, i had a good cry in the middle of that one. and again at the end. thats a damn good book if it made me cry.

i think i have some mild form of add. or ocd. or all of the above. i always need to be doing something or i get super fidgety. and my organizing just gets over done sometimes..which is weird bc i can also be really messy sometimes. but i can only be messy like now when im doing absolutely nothing with my life because of my long break..if im stressed or busy (like how i was during my semester) i cant get any work done unless i have a completely organized work space..and by work space, i mean entire room completely clean, dusted, vacuumed, the whole sha bang. i love the smell of cleaning stuff. its just so...clean.

hmm. i bought the cutest pair of pajamas from target the other day...for 98 cents. i know, i couldnt believe it either. apparently they think they wont sell cute winter pjs with gloves and mittens all over them after winter ends...so silly. i love winter pajamas. especially in the summer when theyre so not supposed to be worn around. wow. i really miss summer right now. i wanna be tan again and all awesome. summer just makes me feel awesome..wouldnt you agree?

im staring at my eiffel tower painting i made last year. and its making me really want to hang it on my dorm room wall instead. itll match my black and white stuff perfectly. i think im obsessed with black and white things.

but if i bring it to school, im gonna need to take down all of my (or a good chunk) of my pictures of my friends (which currently covers ceiling to floor all over the room)...thats a lot of work for once picture..considering the hours it took to hang all the other pictures up in the first place. hm. i love that im creating some sort of something to think about so i feel like theres something going on in my life. how dull.

i really hope my battery doesnt die. i shouldve plugged my laptop in a while ago...

oh wow. and my phone..

are you bored yet? im bored. oh. i know what i could put on here. i started this little story the other day...it was kinda like. a dream more so. it just came to me and i wrote the whole thing in like a minute..now i need to figure out something to do with it because im so using it for something. lets see here...

(by the way, thisis not a true story. just an idea for a story..ignore its sucky-ness, its the first draft)

          8:30 didn't come as early as I thought it would.
          It always does at this time of day.
         As I lay, motionless, my mind controlled by my insomnia, I glared violently in the direction of my alarm clock.
         6:25.
        I rolled over. If I didnt stare into the glow of the alarm clock, maybe I could avoid the mocking, hurtful gaze it glared back at me.
        Maybe if I wasnt thinking so much about sleeping and cleared my mind, I could actually sleep. Not that thinking about thinking was helping.
       Even facing the other way, I felt the red digits through the back of my head.
       6:26.
       Time moves really slow when you're watching it move. Seeing the seconds change from 3 to 4 to 5 to 6. The minutes change from 25 to 26....to 26....still 26...It's too bad it's so abstract; it would probably seem to move faster if I wasnt watching it through its small white box filled with numbers..if it were a horse racing by or a soccer ball being kicked..something to see. All I could watch was the red. Or the black sky that was my room.
       6:28 and I'm up out of bed, heading for the shower. I turn the knob as far left as possible, to the capital H-O-T that have faded over some time. I'm sure watching it fade would've allowed time to move faster than it was moving today.
     I step into the burning cauldron and it scorches my raw skin. I watch my flesh heat to a cruel red color and I take pride in the burning sensation that starts at my face. My chest. My waist. My thighs. My feet. And I begin to scrub my body until it is raw and there is nothing more I can scrub.
    I turn the knob all the way to the right and watch as the stream of water turns into a puddle of blood at the bottom of the tub. The last drips of water help dilute the red ocean, but not in a way where it was noticeable to me.
     All I notice is the red crawling through my toes and the soft gurgling as it drains out of the tub, out into the world.
     I get out of the shower, leaving a trail all the way back to my bedroom, not once stopping for a towel before my leap back into bed.
     Finally, I am clean.
    Finally, I sleep.

   I awake to the glare of red digits and the blaring of sirens that make their way out of the small speaker.
   8:30 had now come too early.
   Exhausted and dirty, I stripped my bloody sheets off my bed while I slammed the snooze button on the alarm clock. These would need to be cleaned.
      I step back into the shower, cold water waking my senses and cleaning the red ring that had formed in the bathtub. This time, I took a towel and dried my body, my wounds, starting with my face. My dry face. My chest. My huge chest. My waist. My curvy waist. My thighs. My huge, runner thighs. My feet. My torn up, damn bloody feet. I wrapped the towel around me, disrobing my nightly thoughts of 'cleanliness' and replacing them with a clean towel.
    Moving back to my room, I found myself in front of a mirror, an image staring back at me that I hardly recognized. My once tanned skin had grown pale. My face, scarred slightly just above my eyes from a past surgery. My chest, enlarged and in pain from a more recent one. My waist, cinched tight from a slight obsession with exercise. My thighs, burning where a layer of skin was stripped off last night. And my feet. They were almost arched as if I were wearing heels but gravity was pulling them back down with such force that they held the awkward in-between pose.
      8:30 had come too early.
      At this time of day, it always does.