The Old Ones...

(my first try) 8/8/97 3:00 pm I am woman, girl, chick, babe, bitch, slut, whore...I am ani, tori, indigo, sarah and dar all rolled into one...I am playing with my friends and hiding from my parents, memorizing every movie I see, especially the bad ones, and quoting them every chance I get...I am a little girl with really big shoes who falls a lot; wanting and needing something soft to land on...I am swingsets, rain and waterfights...cheddar goldfish, grilled cheese and chocolate shakes...I am a lost Riki Lake episode and Brady Bunch reruns and I get the joke about the toster oven...I am meaning to say a lot more than what comes out of my mouth and then writing it all down instead...I am the jack, queen, king and ace, but you always win...I am more joy and less shame and I am not so soft...I am someone's dream, someone's nightmare, someone's everything and someone's nothing and I won't be quiet...I am writing the words to our conversation, finding her in the lyrics to every song I hear and wanting to see what's inside the ripped screen door...I am blue, green and hungry, waiting for "the one" and hoping that I won't be afraid to be as real as I expect everyone else to be...I am tired, dancing under my trees, swimming naked and drinking far too little...

8/10/97 3:00 pm (must be the hour of the pen) I am bubbles and water and clean...I am coming home from an amazing concert and not wanting to...I am really cute couples holding hands, crying during "Angel" and wrapping my arms around myself to keep from freezing or falling...I am the smell of leather when her elbow is touching my sweatshirt, wanting to speak so badly that my throat hurts and still not being able to work up to hello...I am five dollar beers...thirty dollar tee-shirts and rape whistles...pay phones and no place to stay...silent glances and aching arms...I am missing her...

same day, a little later 10:00 pm I am angry, frustrated and about to go to bed way too early...I am writing because she isn't here to keep my hands company...I am listening to Out of Range over and over, thinking about what it is that I want, and wondering if I'll ever know...I am all your gods and goddesses, backwards baseball hats and painting my furniture...I am on medication, but not enough, seeing invisible castles and speaking in a tongue that no one understands but me...I am framing everything and not understanding the notion to throw anything away, smiling bigger than I have in year because a five year old took my hand and writing on my jeans even though I should have outgrown that urge in junior high...I am freckles and no makeup, Birks and no socks, handmade jewelry and skirts...I am living...I am loving...I am being...I am smelling like boy, no bras and Hornseyby's, fake ID's, random hook-ups and purple necks, girls who like to play, boy's who don't and shutting my eyes...I am the little prince...I am the bee charmer...I am the walrus and I am going to bed...

8/11/97 11:00pm I am smiling and curious and content...I am cargo pants and corduroys, stripped sweaters and long-sleeved tee-shirts, v-necks and converse chucks...I am being followed by a moonshadow, thanks for noticing me and Christopher Robin...adidas pants, rollerblades and eyebrow rings...having whole conversations in quotes, going to group and no crying in baseball...I am more in love today than I was yesterday and losing my edge...I am lighting candles, turning up the music and taking a bath...I am playing games that are only understood by those on the inside...I am missing the park bench...counting the cars and trying to find something to do...I am the girl who laughs while they are crying and cries while they are laughing...the girl who wants to be real but can't let go of her crazy romantic ideals...the girl who uses sarcasm as protection and humor as a mask...I am just me, standing here, being me...and I think I am going to be okay...

8/12/97 5:15pm I am finally off of work...I am boring office jobs and power suits...I am filing and computing...I am copy machines and answering the phone...I am sick of fake smiles and too much energy behind hello...I am making money, though, so it's okay...and now I am finally breathing...I am songs about monkeys and angels...I am trying to make myself sit down with my guitar...I am calloused fingertips and no talent...I am madison...I am trips to Iowa City just to get out of here...I am empty parks with ponds and lunch time...I am obsessive compulsive and manic depressive...I am too happy or too sad...I am not know when it's gonna hit me...I am hemp necklaces made by my best friends...I am peanut butter and Doritoes...i am milk mustaches...I am sour patch kids...I am trying really hard to be something...anything really...anything that will take me away and fullfill my crazy idealism that I can't seem to let go of...I am waiting for it...

8/12/97 12:54 am I am seeing her for the first time in a year and surprised to find that she still smells the same...I am not wanting to let go when I hug her goodbye yet knowing that I have to...I am puff the magic dragon, phantom of the opera and the north star...I am three hour phone conversations about nothing and comfortable silence...I am really wanting to be fourteen again...I am "Bubba" and "Bertha"...I am Diamond and Jade...I am summers spent driving lawnmowers like cars and cars that we had no license to operate...I am living in clip...I am secret nicknames...I am playing the blindfold game and always letting her win the phone game...I am needing to be tamed...I am double meanings to every sentence...I am having too much time to ponder...I am going to stop...not because I want to , but because this makes me remember...and right now I need to just stop feeling...we all do sometimes...

8/13/97 12:00am I am smiling because I just spent the night doing nothing, but doing nothing with a best friend...I am getting used to the question...and the rumors...and the explanations...yet still surprised at the reactions...I am my mother when she thinks that my roommate is my lover and my roommate when she is everything but...I am beginning to feel not so scared anymore and that right here, right now is enough, but I don't know how long it will last...I am "random napkin poetry"...I am loyd dobler and jake ryan...I am chuck e cheeses and I am holding both of their hands while we walk home at night in the rain...I am not a valedictorian, but I play one on the TV...I am Kelly and Zach...I am jo from facts of life...I am singing all the wrong words to cheesey love songs in the shower because it just feels good and happy about sleeping because it's the only time I have with her...

8/18/97 9:45 pmI am going through the motions...I am watching time like a dream through blurred vision...I am silently screaming if I remember to...I am letting the past slip up from behind me to cover my eyes while holding my hand...I am making mistakes around every corner...I am waiting for a hand to guide me but still not asking anyone for help...I am sarcasm when they least expect it and pain when they can't understand...I am subtitles to movies that are so brilliant they couldn't have been American made...I am backyard Alps...I am no air conditioning or ice cubes...I am lots of bicycles and more pizza...I am one night in Paris...I am sixteen hours on a train and I am falling in love with Swedish EVERYTHING...I am needing to be right here, right now, but not being able to see...or I am seeing, but seeing through things, as if they aren't really there...or as if I'm not...I am trusting, but never entirely, even when I want to...I am loving, but never entirely, because I do not yet know how...I am running out of time...or perhaps time is running out of me...who knows...I don't...

8/25/97 10:37 pm I am repeating myself...I am two movies a day because it seems that everyone is now gone...I am getting ready to go myself, yet two weeks in advance...I am knowing the being best friends means never having to say goodbye, but crying anyway...I am road trips to make the time pass...I am playing soccer with my ten year old brother and talking about girls with the other one...I am ansel adams and claude monet...I am photo albums and random collages...I am brightly woven rugs and stained carpet...I am the top bunk...I am the clean side of the room...I am the girl with too many pairs of shoes...I am sitting on my rock, writing, breathing the new night air and pondering the existence of basically everything...just as I am supposed to do...I am making them guess when they already know and still tricking them, and myself, when I change my mind...I am not a follower...I am stubborn...I am aware, very aware, of my faults, yet still pissed off when somebody else sees them...I am getting my way, but not all the time and letting them have theirs in my weak moments...I am just not very poetic tonight...I am sorry...

9/10/97 more of the same...I am back and up later than usual...I am finding myself in Letters to a Young Poet and new friends introduced by old friends...I am being told to put on makeup, sit up straight and stay in step with the rest of the world but I am not listening...I am realizing that human beings are merely sexual and don't need to be thrown into catagories; that socialization make us want to take sides; and that there are people out there who think like I do...I am running out of clever things to say but not ashamed to admit it although I feel the need to fill up the space just like I see everyone else doing-thoughtlessly...meaninglessly...I am wanting to shout at those people-not to think like I do-but to open their eyes...It would be a big first step for many...I am alone, even when I am not alone but I am still waiting for my all alone to find another all alone so that we can be alone together...funny...

there is a lot more between here and there, but that'll have to do...now, for the more recent stuff...

9/30/97 I am a student, a listener, and a writer...I am moving out, and moving in, and moving on...I am daily planners...I am Tori bootlegs...I am pretty ice tea bottles saved and used for decoration...I am covering the walls to prevent the prison feeling and to attempt to trick myself into believing that this is home...I am questioning the definition of home and if I have one since she's not here...too much reading with too little interest...coffee shop job hunting...I am catching up, but not finding myself as comfortable as I remember once being...too many freshman trying too hard..and way over the dorm-life thing...I am back in line to eat shitty food off of wet trays...I am losing my keys and my mind...I am trying to fill up my time to prevent myself from thinking...I am realizing how ironic that last comment was and hoping that I can, at some point, use the word ironic without someone breaking into song...I am tired and needing to sleep for the 9 am class that will put me to sleep...

10/1/97 I am remembering, but not completely because it still hurts too much...needing to cry for a really long time and not being able to find that time...using confusion as an excuse for "not knowing"...I am a five day headache and a five Advil attemt at a solution...I am wanting to be 11 years old again because I heard a story about my little brother...recalling the ease with which I, then, went through daily life...the unquestioning, activity-filled mind that I once had...the kick ball games at recess...beating up the boys...hating the girls...loving every teacher and babysitter that paid attention to me...I am in fifth grade and writing a poem about loneliness and really believing that I know the meaning of the word lonely...I had no idea...no idea...I am wishing that I'd never hit the rewind button tonight because the picture is coming in more clearly than I can now handle...I am silently screaming and having conversations with ghosts...I am wanting to be back in that room listening to landslide and being near her...I am wanting the moments back, the little ones, the ones where I could feel myself letting go, and falling; but not being afraid because she was there when I opened my eyes and I could bring her in with every breath I took...I am holding my breath until I can open my eyes and see her again...

(The latest blah, blah blah)11/3/97 #1 of the day I am fuzzy heads and not being able to think...I am questions without answers, anger without a beginning and pain without an end...I am not finishing my sentences...I am not knowing how to start...I am shaking...I am needing hands from a dead dream's daughter and words written with intent...I am fumbling and mumbling and I can't find the lines that I am to follow...I am wanting...I am needing...I am that person...I am home...I am waiting...but wanting to run...straight to her, without looking, without thinking...i am needing to hold her...to be her...to fill her...I am lifting her broken shell to the sky to kiss the stars, and I will stand here until she comes back down...I am praying that she will look down and see me here...

same day, a little laterI am wanting to go back...to go back...to be in my body when I was in their body, again...I am not in my body...I am with her...I am with her...I am with her...I am not being able to take care of her...I am not even wanting to...I am sorry...I am disappointed...I am realizing that i was blind...I am seeing...I am seeing for the first time love's face turned away and feeling her body repel...I am watching it go...I am waving...

(and later yet) I am that night...I am with both of them, but she is missing...I am wanting the one I am not supposed to want and drunk way too fast...I am knowing, but not for sure...I am shells with marinara...I am letting myself look for too long...I am in rooms without walls that you can see from above...I am pretending that they can't see us...I am feeling the fire as I touch the angel...I am feeling both of them...I am searching her smile for a token of truth and listening to songs of tears held back for months...I am catching myself in the possibilities and ignoring the questions...I am only human...I am lost in her...I am wanting to make everything else go away...I am wanting to have her look at me like that again...I am crying without noticing because I can see how much she hurts and crying again because I am utterly helpless...I am liking her boots...I am liking her curls...I am liking her way too much...I am her touch and finally knowing what it is to be in her arms...I am wanting the time back for her, for them, but also for me...I am being quiet...I am watching her leave...I am wanting to run...I am broken...I am knowing she is broken...I am wanting it to be simple, but not meaningless...Easy, but not without passion...I am wanting to fill her...but not remind her, or lose her, or try to be her...I am red...

11/4/97 5:15pm I am more myself on paper than I ever am in real life...I am real...I am raw..I am not looking over my shoulder...I am not hiding my face...I am beautiful...I am free...I am nothing when I lift my pen...I am wanting the words that I write to find their way into my speech...I am scared...I am alone...I am waiting for something big but knowing that I should first take something small by the hand...I am looking at your ex-girlfriend...I am looking at you...I am seeing someone else's eyes looking back at me...I am searching for her hands...I am finding darkness...I am finding only my own...I am you when you are somebody else...I am you when you are wanting somebody else...I am angry and I am trying to get back what I only pretended to have in the first place...can I do that?

11/5/97This is my body-here is my soul...these are my hands...I can't give me whole...I am flowing into your arms...I am letting it go...I am closing my eyes...I am giving me whole...I am wanting it back, you are pouring me out...I am spilled on the floor...I am filling no mold...I am shapeless, I am empty...I am finding out that I should have held back...I am too late...I am too late...I am too late...Or maybe too early...I am holding hope by a string with her name on it; or maybe his...I am holding so tightly my knuckles are white...I am seeing pieces...I am gathering dreams...I am forcing issues...I am ISSUES...I am yesterday always, and never right now...I am counting the names and the breaks and suffering the sins...I am learning what it is to love, and forgetting...I am needing to remember...I am needing the kitchen and the egg rolls...I am only one...I am smiles across the wire, silent noises that only she can hear and soft stomachs...I am under and over and inside and I am not afraid because I am not alone...I am the minute I realized that she had gone...I am holding longer...I am kissing harder...I am loving more...I am too late and too much and not enough...I am wondering if it was all in my head...I am going back for the answers and finding only an unmade bed...I am going alone...

11/6/97 6:00 pm I am silent screams turned dry tears...I am angry...I am furious...I am not letting you win, but I am wanting to let it out...I am raging...I am sweating...I am unable to speak...I am remembering to breath...I am forgetting my lines...I am falling and she is laughing...I am playing her game...I am laying in her bed...I am giving her my breath...she is giving it back...I am choking on her words, I am tripping over her stares, I am head at her feet...I am on the other side...I am sleeping in cold warmth and a blanket that pretends to be security...I am waking up and wondering where she went...I am wondering is she was really ever there to begin with or if, like these writings, I created her with my hand...and my heart...and my head...I am giving her strong thoughts and good intentions...I am forgetting to give her time...she is forgetting to give me a name...

11/7/97 I am staring and you are screaming...You are fire, I am a blanket...I am being watched...I am being picked apart...I am on display...I am shrinking and searching; falling back and biting my lip; down on my knees and under your thumb...I am breaking my neck...I am burning my ears...I am behind in the game because I was crying too hard to read the rules...I am pieces of that game, faces on your cards and fingers dancing up your head...I am "shut off like the answer no" and needing "nothing but your hands"...

11/9/97 I am screaming at a stranger...I am screaming "i love you", "she don't hear me anymore"...I am using those three words, maybe to make myself believe them, over and over like a tribal chant, until they don't make sense anymore...I am getting no response...I am annoyed at her breathing...I am left alone to only listen and watch...I am feeling the bed rise and fall under her...I am wanting sleep like she used to want me...I am angry and restless and finding no comfort though I search for it everywhere...I am not meaning to laugh when she questions, but I sometimes forget the difference between laughing and crying...I sometimes forget a lot of things...

same day, little later I am in love and out of love and around love...I am watching it's mask lift and it's face form...I am still a little blurry-eyed from the cause and broken hearted from the effect, but I am here...at least on paper..