I want to be a moonshiner’s daughter.
I want to be a cohort of Calamity Jane.
I want to be a Vietnam war protester on Pennsylvania Avenue in D.C.
I want to be a Freedom Rider.
I want to be a Freedom Writer.
I want to smuggle people of different ages and races and genders and religions and sexual orientations into the basement of my farmhouse on the way to Freedom.
I want to nurse wounded Patriot soldiers back to health during a revolution.
I want to do the right thing.
I want to do what the masses think is the wrong thing.
I want to make history.

1. I’m freezing. ALL. The time.
2. I’m making a list because I can’t seem to cultivate more than one coherent thought at time—let alone two related coherent thoughts.
3. I don’t even know if I’ll post this once I feel like the list has come to an end.
4. You think you know what nightmares are, but you don’t. You probably don’t even really know what night terrors are (maybe you’ve never heard of them). And I promise you Kid Cudi doesn’t, either. Nor does he want to.
5. It used to be easy for me to throw myself into work when I began to feel this way, but now I don’t love my work, so I feel like throwing my head into my keyboard or my desk. Repeatedly.
6. People are insipid. Feel free to stop reading now if you please.
7. I can’t count how many times today I’ve said (read: lied), “Good, how are you?” to someone in response to some pleasantry or other. I’m a robot.
8. Today at lunch I ran into a curb with my car and blew out both passenger side tires. Ice and shit. I couldn’t get a hold of my boss on voicemail, so I told her via text message. Luckily the bf was on his way to meet me anyway, so he gave me a ride back to work after taking my Jeep to the shop—wasn’t even late getting back to work. Boss still hasn’t looked at/spoken to me since I returned. I’m fine; I don’t need any sympathy, but I don’t really feel like a human being in her eyes, either.
9. I really just want to crawl into bed. Like, two hours ago.

This is going to be a rant. Fair warning.

Am I a complete neurotic if it bothers me to hear people in my office talking about hunting and “itching” to try out their new shotguns/shells when only hours ago there were 18 children and 9 adults killed and more injured in an elementary school shooting? Who robbed you of your innocence and capacity for empathy and armed you with a gun? When did this become so commonplace that people my age are able to shrug their shoulders and flippantly declare that as long as they are “responsible gun owners,” they could care less about anyone else who chooses to turn a gun on an innocent victim—it doesn’t directly affect them, so why bother giving it a second thought?

I will never understand why it is so simple for people to go on about their lives and continue to rant about gun control and “bleeding heart liberals” wanting to take away their precious weapons and their second amendment rights. Would it kill you to have to go through a few more steps to purchase and fire a gun legally so that a few more lives would be saved later on down the line? Has it ever occured to you that no one is going to stomp up to your doorstep wearing rope sandals and smelling of hemp and singing Kumbaya and take away all of your expensive artillery? I just don’t understand how people have become so disensitized to this tragedy. It happens more and more, and it makes me sick to see residents of this beautiful coutry and this world, members of humanity take human life for granted in this way. The fact that you can shrug your shoulders and chalk this up to “just another psycho” taking revenge into his own hands makes me physically ill.

This is not a political rant. This has nothing to do with leftist or rightist philosophy. This has so much more to do with empathy and kindness and compassion and stopping for two seconds to contemplate the reasoning behind tragedies like this one. There are ways of preventing more senseless deaths like this from happening. Yes, mental illness in some form or fashion, I’m certain, has played a role in what has happened today and what is still happening as a result. This is a real issue that cannot be ignored nor dismissed by any human being. But excuse me for questioning your mental health and/or priorities if upon hearing news that 27 people are dead as a result of senseless gun violence, all you can think of is nailing your next 10-point buck.

The scene in Bridesmaids where Melissa McCarthy has her ass in a sink and is screaming, “DON’T LOOK AT ME.” That’s what some days feel like. You know, sans the actual shit.

If you find yourself

having to remind someone that you were there for him(her) when (s)he really needed you…

that person’s probably not someone you should count on to be there for you in the return.

//

I admit it.

I haven’t written in far too long. 

I mean, other than a cluster of words here and there, or some clever or poignant lyric I’ve heard recently, I’ve been avoiding writing anything down. 

I don’t do it actively—or consciously, rather. I mostly just want to for a split second, at which point I usually realize there’s a grain of you hidden in the line(s) somewhere—some tiny sliver you’d know, or love, or appreciate, or empathize with. 

I’ve been hiding from you. I’ve been trying my best to drown whatever glimmer of your face and thoughts I feel resurfacing in the murky pool of my mind. I hardly remember the contours of your face anymore. 

So…I guess the best I’m allowing myself to do at this very moment is acknowledge the fact that writing is part if who I am, and you are a part of writing for me, and I can’t keep trying to murder the thought of you. Because it’s part of me. 

And I miss it, which angers me. But entertaining the thought of you angers me, too. 

This has all been quite the exercise in futility.

I want more ink on my body like right now today let’s go zomg aghhhhh.

.tattoo.addict.

I’ll just never be the girl who knows how to respond appropriately to confessions of love.

[I’m awkward, at best.]

I would love not to care at all.

Wouldn’t that be novel.

I can’t find you. I need to hear you.

When I read her poetry, I can hear Sylvia Plath’s melodic drone in my ears. I can imagine her words—see her stained lips curling around terse lines and mourning lullabies—but your voice is lost. I need the sounds of you that I’ve forgotten.

I cannot find you in the recesses of my memory, though you lived in me for so long. To know and access her is merely to think of her. How can I find her when I’ve never seen her lips move, never touched her face? I have the contours of yours memorized. Taught angles framed the countenance I thought I’d always know. Why is it that I feel haunted by you, but can’t call fourth the small sounds of your breath as comfort? How does my mind assume she may reside there, but attempt to banish you?

There’s really no way you could possibly know how every little decision you make affects the person who loves you with abandon—the one who couldn’t stop caring if he/she tried.

I’m all out of sorts.

This time of year is very meaningful for me normally, and this year is no different.

Today is significant, but not necessarily in a positive way.

So, it’s me. My issues. Apologies in advance.

I love until it hurts.