ivory ellis.: 2014

morning/mourning

I forgot about the sun.

I forgot about 2013 and rhymes on napkins and I forgot about sleeping with my face to the wall.

And I forgot about soldiers and how we couldn't have a real Christmas tree in Texas because it might light on fire and I forgot about a textbook that taught me about hope and Indians.

There were piano keys and fifteens.

Then they told me that fireworks are only for Independence Day and ink was never meant for skin. And it made me think of the day my uncle read us a book about the little mermaid finding a prince to be her best friend and I said "what about love" and then the car felt like a cubicle for the entire stretch of I-15.

But my little sister still broke and I still wrote about telescopes and my knees hit the floor more than they were supposed to, but it wasn't always that way.

And I remembered 9am.

4:32 PM
7 Comments

girls & strings & shoulders

This is for the girls scribbling chemistry notes in the margins.

The ones who outgrew attaching last names in the third grade.

The ones looking for a ticket out.

A ticket east.

This is for you,

Because I can't write to myself.

This is for the girls who hide their seams.

The ones who run on the dust just to avoid the asphalt and the eyes.

This is for those who speak only in pen,

Fingers in pockets,

Lips pressed against themselves,

Making promises for September,

Only so they don't have to worry themselves about December.

This is for the girls without painted nails

And a string on their wrists

And clumsy tongues.

This is for the girls, eighteen.

Eighteen with untested shoulders.

This is for the girls shaking the dust,

And clearing their throats,

Like they're afraid of sleeping away the sentences.

And that string has been on my left wrist since June.

reagan curtis.

11:36 PM
13 Comments

fingertips.

I saw the lights line up last night.

Not the stars,

Just the street lamps.

I saw the hands on the asphalt,

And the skin,

And the sheets.

And it was real.

And I remembered other real things.

Self-help books and

Cop cars and

Trying to force an appreciation for country music.

I remembered swearing we could hear Indians while we sat on the little roof of the little house on the little mountain and I remember debating whether or not we would slip off the edge if we kissed up there.

And I remembered the night you did kiss me through a rolled-down window and how much nicer that was than you sitting shotgun.

And I remember now that real things are not always as they should be, and remembering is only words,

So we use our fingertips.

3:14 PM
8 Comments

in all reality.

3:25 PM
5 Comments

taking heart & paying bills.

Honey your heart is a telescope.

I'm tracing constellations you put together of your own stories

like I'm watching reruns of sophomore year through its lens.

Its walls are worn thin from 18 years of pacing

like someone couldn't make up their mind.

There are stars there, too.

but some of them are far colder than they were meant to be.

Most likely there's a moon

tugging one way or another.

And someone labeled your moon a "conscience"

but I'm not sure who was in charge of that.

And you didn't know this but its surface is anything but smooth

almost like a fingerprint.

And I think God did that on purpose

so that when hearts brush up against each other they leave a mark.

And then He gave your heart a sanctuary

hidden under bone.

And then he let those ribs crack

and those walls bruise.

And now, darling,

you get to decide if this heart of yours is worth the insurance.

6:04 PM
5 Comments

pre-nostalgia

I'm home at last and I still haven't slept in my own bed since Thursday.

It has nothing to do with your arms and everything to do with songs we aren't even allowed to listen to and goodbyes that won't sting our lips for another six months yet they're forever sitting in the back seat.

It's the girl that hated me in the fifth grade, but we keep ending up on eachother's carpet, fingers tripping over split ends and piano keys and she's crying to me about the lips that had no idea what fully invested meant and I'm running scenarios by her I wouldn't dare to admit to my sister.

And then there's the one that was pounding the pavement right next to me the night after I got my first kiss because I was terrified and the only things I had under control were my own feet. So we ran.

And another that was sitting shot gun before she'd even heard my story. And then she was at my kitchen counter with the rest of them.

I got a letter in the mail yesterday.

Return address was one who left that same counter for a different continent. But I'm still checking my email 19 times every Monday because nostalgia has a funny way of making you substitute words for people. Six of them in particular.

10:03 PM
4 Comments

the nature of lungs.

roll your shoulders forward to protect your heart

remember hallways are more than to & from

goodbyes aren't always worth the breath

do your calculus homework

if only for the sense of accomplishment

organized hearts are rarely worth holding

rib cages are invincible for today alone

let the stars keep their stories

forgive the mothers & fathers

keep your heels on the pavement

take your vitamins

don't wait for the oxygen to come to you

because there are those that have to ask for it.

i just hope your lungs always do what they're supposed to do.

4:52 PM
4 Comments

push & pull.

you asked me to write about death,

but all that comes to mind is hands.

hands

on the small of my back.

fingers

on my scalp.

prints

everywhere they shouldn't be.

there's a vulnerability to it.

and I'm flipping back through the pages

looking for your arms

but arms are nothing without hands,

and these hands

these hands

these hands are pushing me towards the edge.

it is constant

it is steady and patient,

and only the narrator can put them on pause.

these hands have got me writing a bucket list,

they've got me despising cold sheets

and empty friday nights.

sleep is for the young,

curfew-breaking for the careless,

for the ones who pay the hands no attention.

last night a boy turned and took those hands,

I'd like to ask if they were warm.

and exactly what they spelled out on his spine in order to get his attention.

and I'd like that tragedy to make your skin cold,

and I'd like to pound out

any

single

word

that would somehow warm his mind.

and I would like my cursor to breathe,

for him,

for me,

for anyone who needs it.

I'd like to say I understand.

I'd like to tell you about tomorrow,

and I'd like you to trust my hands

instead of the ones pressed against your back.

because the rest of us have become awfully good at ignoring them.

8:17 AM
6 Comments

run-on sentences + the universe.

I'm being quite honest when I say that this is not a poem. Anything but, in reality.

This is me shouting out to the universe for a moment about people and places and days that matter.

This is a thank you note to fathers because even if I'm never quite sure if mine is in the same state as me, that's alright because he still likes to come up with lovely little plans for my future (even if I'll never be the entrepreneur he's crossing his fingers for).

And today I'm just happy that the universe or the Almighty or whoever you would like to think is in charge is someone other than me, because today I don't have to decide who ought to be born where or what congress needs to vote on. Not yet, anyways.

And also I'd like to put in a request that it rains this week.

Simply because it's always nice for the pavement to be coated in something other than dust and sunlight. And also because I bought rain boots.

I'd like to thank the universe for movies like "The Parent Trap" and Saturdays and books about the holocaust because humans have to see sad things in pretty forms if we are going to admit that they belong to us.

Oh, and I'd like to thank humanity for nice people that offer rides home and playlists and please we can even take turns being that person. Rotations are fully acceptable.

And the fact of the matter is, a large majority of you have lost interest by now but that's alright because I'm here and these are my words and I just had the nicest epiphany about how happy I am to be here because I've already gotten so many days and I don't need to start conversations with how tired I am or how I can't stand being at school or how senioritis is real life because,

like I said:

I'm just happy to be here.

6:22 PM
6 Comments

petty words

I'd like to have a few words with you.
Nothing to worry about,
I assure you.
Just a thought, really.
Something that's been on my mind.
And it never hurts to ask, right?
That's what they told me at least.
(it was on the handout they gave me on "how to be your best self")
Just spit it out, you say?
You've got places to be?
Candid shots to commemorate the occasion?
Oh no, that's fine.
I'd be happy to take a photo for you.
Alright so while we're here,
I was just wondering.

Could I be your Saturday night?

10:08 PM
0 Comments

rational is overrated

things that are scary:

1. numbers on waistbands

2. numbers in textbooks

3. statistics about sad things that are real life

4. songs for people & places & days that used to be

5. missing a spot

6. jumping off of tall things, bridges in particular

7. silent treatment from mom

8. knowing you deserve it

9. not-so-flat stomachs

10. no new notifications

11. concussions

12. people who tell you you're not allowed to be afraid of irrational things

13. headlights too close for comfort

14. mixed signals

11:15 AM
3 Comments

because of college applications.

Oh but darling,

what if we were allowed to say no?

As if

we were

whatever we wished to be.

As if

she

called the shots.

As if

poetry wasn't an assignment

and

we all found ourselves

because we went looking

and not because someone older & wiser tapped you on the shoulder.

As if

I didn't mind

coming home to an unmade bed.

As if undocumented was the thing to be,

As if no one asked me what I want to grow up to be,

As if I didn't already know

because it hadn't been pieced together

by the

questions

since we sat down at our desks.

As if

I weren't proud of it.

"and as 17 creeps closer and closer to 18, I can't help but dread the moment that clock strikes twelve"

-celeste cobain

9:14 PM
8 Comments

how to spend your time wisely.

-go off-roading (preferably in lambert)

-give your mom detailed descriptions of your day thus far

-make cookies

-pinterest

-flirt in the parking lot

-watch old "the office" episodes

-read your scriptures

-don't go to haunted houses

-put thoughts down on paper

-start a foundation, pick any disease off of wikipedia as long as nobody else has dibs

-kiss a boy that's bad for you

-go to church

-walk the dog

-photograph tibblefork

-watch "the parent trap"

-people watch

-make friends with kids that don't match your other friends

-tweet

-talk your parents into adopting

-be around people that smell good

-paste photos on your walls even if mom threatens to take them down

-sneak out because you can, not because there's anything worth doing

-master physics

-never use hair spray

-color code your closet

-fall asleep to jack johnson

-write letters

-go to taco time

-listen to songs about drugs

-kiss a boy that's good for you

-run a 5k

-go up the canyon without taking a picture

-don't bother blow-drying

-write mr. smith a thank you note

-play the piano

-sit between the shelves in barnes & noble

-buy a little black dress

-do crunches

-drink hot chocolate and don't listen to anyone who tells you it's still too warm outside.

4:58 PM
3 Comments

i mean this in the nicest way.

You've got tired eyes.

Bitter eyes.

I-think-I-ought-to-try-coffee eyes.

Business call eyes.

Blue-ink-only eyes.

You've got slow eyes.

Honey eyes.

Backstory eyes.

Unread-answers eyes.

Blanket eyes.

They-won't-miss-us eyes.

You've got busy eyes.

A-thousand-words-in-your-pupil eyes.

High noon eyes.

You've got proud eyes.

Royal eyes.

Going-places eyes.

Sunrise eyes.

You've got bright eyes.

Ready eyes.

Been-there eyes.

Thursday-evening eyes.

Calculating eyes.

Summit eyes.

& I think I'd like them to be mine.

9:57 PM
5 Comments

why not all mornings are the same.

I woke up

with sugar fermenting on my tongue,

and a letter from you in my hand.

I woke up

with questions & answers that don't match

and ideas that don't belong.

I woke up

with runs carved through my mind,

and trembling hands.

I woke up

with one name on my lips

and another hovering in my thoughts.

I woke up

and looked for the stars

between cold sheets.

I woke up

with unwilling eyes

and clouded thoughts.

but

I woke up

a little more

than I did yesterday.

11:40 AM
2 Comments

watching the clock.

18 minutes left of class.

but I know I'll never be Lexi,

because I'll never learn to paste my pain on a screen

with words to make the rest of us catch our breath.

16 minutes left of class

and my head is spinning

swimming

drowning

and there are still 16 minutes left,

but I know these words aren't meant for me

and honey those words weren't meant for you,

and we don't know why you claimed them

but feel free to enjoy yourself while the rest of us dance barefoot on the patio.

because this one is for the yesterdays that decided our tomorrows.

(and we thought that was up to us)

this one is for the high school crush she'll never quite shake off

and this one is for the choice that wasn't ever his to make

and this one is for the letters you wrote before he so much as stepped out the door

and this one is for the poetry he waited until fall to share because he couldn't introduce himself til all our eyes were closed.

6:14 AM
11 Comments

words for bricks

If bricks were minutes you'd have far too many of mine already,

and I'd be stealing yours whenever you turn away.

If bricks were prayers we'd each have a small city built up behind the bedroom door,

but only if you'll count the ones behind the steering wheel instead of on our knees.

If bricks were friends that used to be I'd really only have three,

because people tend to show up unannounced.

But if bricks were karma I'd like to be in charge of determining which bricks are thrown where.

If bricks were kisses maybe some would be nicer than others but

If bricks were bruises at least they'd each have a story.

If bricks were worth our time perhaps we'd put together something meaningful.

And then we could sit back and admire our handiwork, because we ought to be proud of building something lovely out of bricks.

3:43 PM
5 Comments

could we?

All I know is there's a deck of 52 things a boy loved about me hidden in my top right drawer.

(Except they're not all that hidden.)

All I know is I believe in clichés and that love is wanting in the nicest way and that the best ones have no "supposed to's".

I'm not supposed to want to drop everything for you, but you weren't supposed to ask me to.

And I wasn't supposed to say yes but we both know you didn't give me much of a choice.

And I suppose this isn't about love in reality, mostly it's just about things that could be.

Like Tuesdays could be ours.

Like we could drive the whole way without missing the music.

Like I could be tangled in your reasons, too.

Like neither of us would mind.

11:20 PM
7 Comments

34 Things To Say Yes To

someone else's gas money

burger chains you've never tried

pavement singed bare feet

rumours I wouldn't correct

anything but rest

tents and high ceilings

raspberry jam

stance socks

balloons with helium

the temper trap

newly waxed skis

praying because you're happy

sock tan lines

straight faces

back two rows of the bus

orange juice

fridays

photos you don't remember taking

pleated skirts

people who you don't remember becoming friends with, you just are

not everybody winning a medal

postcards

red mango

holding hands

jeeps

new cities

8th grade journal entries about boys

9th grade journal entries about boys

days without "having to"

twitter

weathered playbills

laser tag

jack johnson

having the upper hand

5:45 PM
2 Comments

soul.

Quilts heavy

Eyes heavy

Words heavy

And we don't know what to do with them.

Words wander

Hands wander

Thoughts wander

And we don't know where to go with them.

Baby don't let them steal your breath. Don't loosen your grip on your humanity. I know and he knows it's the one thing with which we do what we wish.

We are what we want and we are real.

We say what we want and we steal.

We see what we want and we fall.

And I didn't believe them when they said your choices were darker than the shadows you walk in.

And I didn't see the invitation in the dim corners and the empty houses until he flipped that switch.

And I didn't realize that souls can step out for a moment, leaving only human.

And it's just as bitter as it sounds.

So maybe being human isn't the goal.

Maybe human is what we are when we give up and I'm sorry that's not more poetic but I don't know how else to say this and

maybe we should all be defining souls instead.

10:08 AM
12 Comments

ahead of our time.

"Just Like Heaven" was playing but I wasn't sitting shotgun and you weren't late for curfew and the odds weren't in my favor.

You danced through my kitchen today and I realized just how many of you have let me breathe into your chest in the doorframe.

Because hearts get worn but my hands aren't heavy now. Not yet. This isn't good for me quite yet.

We aren't supposed to have to learn goodbyes.

Not yet.

8:41 PM
2 Comments

true story.

This is a true story about how nobody ever took my crayons.

I just forgot about them.

Maybe I realized that watercolors look more elegant and colored pencils more sophisticated and nobody ever takes crayons seriously anyways and maybe I used to believe that being taken seriously was worth more than my crayons.

But this is a true story about how I danced with you last night and all I wanted was for nobody to take me seriously.

I'm not asking you to let me be a child, I would just like to base my decisions off of whims rather than logic now please.

9:28 AM
5 Comments

paris, baby.

I only have two stamps in my passport.

Two stamps.

Three weeks, roughly.

But Paris is on the list, baby.

I want her streets and her rain to swallow my shoes.

I want her autumn to sting my lips and her language to infiltrate my dreams like a thousand marching men flood a valley.

Paris is the list.

And we're all very much aware that August just took her last breath, so maybe next summer. But I'll keep wanting.

Because I want Paris.

4:34 PM
1 Comments

hello ivory.

I just want my words to be worth reading.

I want you to know me without ever hearing my name.

(it could happen you know.)

I want each of you to know I will always choose people over sleep, chocolate over vanilla, and honestly any road before treadmills. I want you to believe me when I say that not-quite-18 doesn't mean I'm not ready for the East Coast and you can't wear high tops with shorts. Hear me when I say that I could make you a list of every swear word I've ever said and boy I've ever kissed but you can't convince me that open eyes see more than open hands. I know mountains are good for you and some memories look better on paper and words are for making people move.

And let me just say,

Paris is for me.

8:01 AM
8 Comments

stars & stories

We wanted a grand finale to seal up our summer, one night to define three months worth of curfews.

We wanted goodbyes to never sting but if we're being honest I cried siting inbetween J & C yesterday.

We wanted the cuts to scar just so we'd have a story to tell, and for snocones to never get old and for just a few more people to come full circle.

And maybe we didn't get everything on our list, but no one ever does.

So we'll make do with blonde ponytails and rain on the asphalt in burgess and a night where the grass was far more comfortable than any movie theater. We'll take new faces and warm hands and we'll dance at a stranger's wedding. Pack sleeping bags we didn't use and watch the stars set in.

Just sit tight, and let the stars set in.

10:21 AM
2 Comments

weekend

Find music loud enough to shake the dust and save your thoughts for Monday.

9:22 AM
1 Comments

the last bits of 17

She bought pretty dresses and pretty words.

And it didn't matter from which mouth they spilled, so long as the strung-together sentences glistened when they hit the air.

She watched 17 fade along with the hands that had shaped it, but she didn't mind all that much either.

Backyard volleyball courts and fushia nail polish and jeep rides have been stamped into the pages, but 18 calls for a new book and a new pen and a slightly new hand to pull it along.

Cryptic poems and faded songs began to lose their pull, but U2 never will and neither will sunday socials or friendly wars that leave us wanting more.

(mama said to always leave them wanting more)

So here's to 17 and the last few weeks of it I've got. She's done me well, but 18's words will be even brighter.

8:58 AM
2 Comments

past advice

Once I asked Charles Darnell why some people hurt more than others.

Some see more and

Some want more and

Some feel more

And

Some just close their eyes.

And

The ones that close their eyes still seem to me like they're looking, because the sky isn't always blue and eyes don't always see but hearts will always sting so

Lock it.

Don't pretend you want to want

Because however numb you think you are

Very few know how to fall without ever hitting the ground.

11:01 PM
1 Comments

summer & symbols

The type of day when there's no way you're going to let the raindrops fade, so you leave the wipers off and keep on driving because the sun rarely lights them up on your window like this.

Suede shoes that have been on first dates and goodbyes and danced more than one night away.

A night when you don't need to make plans because if you pause to take a breath someone's gonna nail you with another water balloon. And I'm sure there's some poetic symbolism in there, too.

Two full days that turn into one because some people don't disappear as soon as the lights go out.

Initials on a chain from hands you wouldn't have expected.

Truths that sting from lips that only form words worth hearing.

And there's something symbolic about mixing up whose clothes are whose and which car you left your blanket in because maybe you found some people that are pieces of yourself and even if they don't believe in souls I sure do and everyone needs a few old souls and twisted souls and free souls around them.

Especially in the summer.

So don't turn your windshield wipers on baby, let's just keep driving because no one cares as much as we think they do and summer only sticks around when our eyes are open.

2:20 PM
2 Comments

i want to talk about the weather

I don't want to talk about Palestine and religion and my stupid decisions anymore.

I want to talk about mountains and kit-kats and road trips.

And perhaps this is terribly naive of me but I'm alright with that because, then again, I am naive. And I have few precious months until naivety will be one more luxury I can't afford.

And every sabbath one more throws away their naivety and soon enough it'll just be he and I and her and she and are you going to let me drop every twist my mind takes on you or will I have to send those thoughts to Liberia and Japan, crossing my fingers they still have time for me? Because those are the boys that answered all my questions, even if they had no idea how to handle tears.

But I'd rather you know how to hold my words than wipe my tears.

1:23 PM
2 Comments

truces

go ahead and call it a truce.

that's what I wanted it to be anyways.

although officially this wasn't even a war

you

know better than anyone what it was.

there were sides picked and teams chosen and I made mine from the four kids that have stood by me for far more days than

you

but I picked up some others along the way as well.

you

I never saw

you

coming.

and I must have been looking the other way when

you

decided to step out.

but your words are loud and

you

pulled me in again.

you

let me in again.

but I don't have any interest in going back. I've never been one to turn around. I have better places and people to give my minutes to, but truces mean I don't have to toss out all the memories of

you.

because now I'm standing in the middle of a crowded tube station in england and my mind is filled with far more ideas than just

you.

but it's nice to know that truces aren't just for grown-ups and I'm still me and you're still

you.

1:59 AM
3 Comments

mountains

There were mountains in her eyes when I took the time to look.

Mountains she had climbed, and some yet on the horizon. And even though each footstep hurt, she's the type to carry on simply because she knows each stride will take less on the way down.

She's climbed more mountains than I have.

But plenty of those mountains were in her way only because the straight and narrow got a little too straight. And now she's older and wiser and brighter because of it, and maybe that's why I'm craving some mountains of my own.

I just want to get to pick which ones I have to climb.

5:02 PM
3 Comments

looking

I want to write words that are heavier than paper. I want my words to hit you and I want you to want to hold onto them.

I want to take a photo and show you the thousand words it holds.

So this is for the girl we called "wizard child" and snapshots that look like they came out of a 1960's national geographic and the pool we never went to because there was so much more we hadn't seen and the sun that soaked us up instead and the golf cart marshall that wasn't fast enough to catch us and waking up in tangles and the invincibility we felt.

This is for the dozens of photos that have turned into hundreds pasted on my wall.

This is for the fear of losing those photos because instagram is just a fad anyways and in thirty years will I know the faces on that paper?

Those faces are everything I have, and a few have fallen behind but at long last I've come to realize that if I keep checking to see if they're still around I'll lose the ability to lock eyes with those still around me.

And what's the point of looking if you can't seem to lock eyes?

4:19 PM
1 Comments

Numbers

It's crazy, really. Everybody has a number. However infinite life itself is every day is a number and at some point you're gonna run out of numbers; we all are. And the people that know their number live life so differently from the rest of us. They carry around oxygen tanks or try to hold onto every second as if it were their last even though they know quite well it's not because that finite value is burned into their consciousness. But maybe I have even less numbers than the boy in the ICU. Maybe I'll have less numbers than even Itzel did. Because I don't know my number, not yet. And heavy as this is tomorrow could be my last and would knowing that make it more or less of a tragedy? I'm really not sure.

And yes I did just see Fault in our Stars and yes perhaps that makes me a typical teenaged girl but I didn't even really cry I just kind of melted into a puddle on the inside and all these words started swimming and trying to make sense out of life and math and death but it didn't turn out all that well and that's okay.

9:17 PM
1 Comments

Here

Okay so here I am. Summer blogging. Spilling out words and trying to make them into poems. To be perfectly honest I don't even know why I'm doing this Nelson, but I'll give it a shot.

Also, this blog is just for inbetween. We're not juniors any longer, but we're not quite seniors either. Wandering around for 81 days until suddenly we're on the road to growing up. But as long as it's summer we can pretend that there's such a thing as an inbetween stage. We can instagram and tweet and snap all kinds of adventures that prove to the world how "young and wild and free we are".

I don't mean to sound cynical.

Cynical isn't all that fun anyways.

10:34 AM
1 Comments

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