flapping about to keep up my strength

i wanted to do something cheap; i wanted to post something old; i wanted to feign creativity.

wing envy. flightless wings look just as appealing, though the air that they move will never be shaped to lift. but at least the air moves, you could say; at least she will not allow its stagnation. i will not allow my own stagnation. this is a verbal slap across my verbless face.

i'm falling again - falling like i fell through the connecticut air. except this time there is no impact; this is an astronaut's fall - endlessly down and around, till my fiery descent into the elastic ocean. and my tiny bolted window does the scenery no justice.

anticipating my 19th birthday

On Turning Ten

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I would shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

-- Billy Collins

ps. new comment system's up.

she records her summer goals

summer approaches quickly, and summer makes me nervous. if it's possible to bungle up one's summer at all, then i certainly did that last year; and i don't mean to do it again. i mean, just look at the shit i did last summer: i took up cooking and baking, i read copious amounts of literature and poetry, i slept for hours on end, i trained myself to ruminate in the third person, i crafted nifty little pins out of fabric and clutter that fell apart within a week. and then, folks, four months of my life were gone. and what did i have for it? a knack for peanut butter bar baking, half a notebook of useless and self-depricating journal entries, a passion for annie dillard, and a couple of pins hot-glued to neon green micromachines and princess-pink barbie shoes. i'm sorry, but that's simply not enough to account for nearly half a year of my life (yes, i know, i'm so difficult to satisfy, the micromachine pins were sheer genius). but this summer is going to be different; this summer i'm setting GOALS.

and here's my first go at it:

1. Get a job and make lots of money.
2. Don't work too hard, take some time to relax.
3. Read.
4. Grow my hair really long so I can hide in it even more effectively.
5. Learn to bake something new.
6. Devise a new useless craft.
7. Remain as pale as possible
8. Write journal entries and poetry that are slightly less self-depricating.
9. Make a new friend who is not a snapper turtle living in the Maine woods.
10. Retrain herself to ruminate in the third person.