ivory ellis.: 2015

now that you're here.

now that you're here,

I'd like to thank you for brown eyes,

because there is no such thing as a warm atlantic.

I hear you when you tell me

that not even the stars are immortal,

but I'm not asking for all your sunday afternoons,

or monday mornings

or friday nights.

I don't need another weekday lover.

but now that you're here,

you with your godless days

and your labyrinth mind

and your stories of the south

I need heavy eyes and the air that makes your lungs sting.

I need kind eyes running across my shoulder blades as you take your seat,

three chairs south of mine.

I need winter eyes

asking me to come in.

to stay a while.

3:00 PM
5 Comments

east coast girls

she likes people who use heavy words, but never sterile ones.

the kind of lips that taste like worn pages,

and eyes like the Atlantic.

she likes blood moons
and busy hands
and the boys who never bothered to ask her major.

she likes the breaths that sit heavy on his skin,
and the kind of Paris that lives between the walls of high school classrooms.

and I'm sorry darling,

but she never much liked the Pacific.

5:20 PM
3 Comments

9,000 words

12:29 AM
3 Comments

vienna

tell me I walk too fast

tell me that stars are for science

tell me I'm no green-eyed child with piano keys under my nail beds and poems under every heavy breath.

tell me teenaged girls don't major in political science

tell me I'm not allowed to write my own dialogue in their margins and

tell me that I don't know because two weeks in south america won't make up for two years.

tell me "you are what you eat" while you, you struggle to choke down your own advice

tell me to take my time, though you know as well as I do that when you're 19

vienna waits for no one.

tell me I'm an inconvenience.

3:34 PM
3 Comments

high school poetry

it was only high school poetry.
it was only you with your august eyes and us with our tuesday love.

we had gold in our eyes and lead on our papers
but we were far too brave to write in pencil.

we had gold on our palms and lead on our fingers
but we washed our hands every sunday.

we had black on our jeans and white on our faces
because we were far too poetic to admit it.

admit it.

it was only high school poetry.

3:45 PM
5 Comments

Flight 175

My dad was stranded in China and then Australia for a few days.

No flights coming into the US.

My mom was ironing and crying and the television was far too loud.

He missed my 5th birthday,

and I refused to open presents until he was home.

At least he came home.

2:52 PM
2 Comments

and next.

I didn't read enough books when I was 18.

But I emptied more than my share of gas tanks.

I wanted to be good at everything, because when I was 17 I was.

I liked white shirts with collars and jeans with holes but I never liked my skin.

My best friends only spoke to me on Mondays,

I painted high school across their screens and in return they gave me words about next August.

I wrote a lot in my little black book. It sounds cliché but I worry about forgetting. I worry about someday-children being 18 and not knowing whether or not it's okay to love on Tuesdays and how necessary it is to have a friend willing to hate people by proxy. These sort of things are terribly important. 17 I was determined. 18 I was present. 19 (thus far) has a lot of homework and not a lot of empty minutes and she only likes running at night and casual eyes. She still doesn't understand the moon but 19 has a ride to Colorado so it'll be okay. It'll be okay because I'm not 20.

It'll be okay because I have a little grey book now.

12:16 AM
3 Comments

there's a last time for everything

I always knew who her favorite child was,

but that was almost okay because I knew who his was, too.

I fought like a lawyer and I never won, I always drove too fast but so did she.

He liked the windows cracked and the little lamp on.

We danced to "Sweetest Thing", his feet wearing through the carpet and mine on top of his, so I grew up convinced I got cheated out of the brown eyes in the lyrics.

He watched his fingers trace the leather more than the television, and her patience wore through too fast for the figures on the screen.

Never brought her roses, always tulips.

I came home far too late once, and she was waiting up. Green eyes, calloused fingers gripping the sheets. He told me "you become the average of the five people you spend the most time with".

I walked away.

She said "good things, bad things, happy things, sad things" and I never grew out of telling her.

My friends call her on Christmas and Mother's Day (still).

He was giddy the day he bought me hiking boots, and I broke them in the next morning.

Because I had so many things to prove to him.

He calls me from China to say goodnight.

She holds my hand from the other side of the mattress, both of us on our knees.

And I am so sorry.

I am so sorry I walked away.

And I love you.

9:08 PM
2 Comments

smoke

it's 2 am,
and I wish I was sorry.

but some loves wear leather jackets and ride without helmets
and some loves sit in the corner, too polite to tell you how pretty you are when you smell like smoke.

some loves are too polite to tell you when you're going up in smoke.

it's 2:18 am,
and I wish I was sorry.

but some girls know the sequels are never quite as satisfying
and some girls would rather write blindly on and on than finish the story.

some girls wear leather jackets and ride without helmets.

it's 9 am,
and I wish I was sorry.

but you wear my hand woven with your own
and you know full well that I can't stay the night.

12:59 AM
2 Comments

from Paris to Provo

I wanted the lift the room tonight.

I didn't want Nelson to have the fly the plane on his own.

But I wanted to go to college.

And I wanted this to be good,

But mostly it's just better than an empty page.

And I haven't let my fingers run wild on this keyboard in far too long,

But my thoughts have stamina all their own.

So thank you for the good people, the kind Jack Johnson sings about.

Thank you for the new scar on my left hand and a reason to break curfew.

Thank you for one last everything.

Thank you for walking me to rooms not meant for perfect people.

Thank you for reminding me to say it all out loud.

Thank you for Paris, and thank you for Provo.

It will be my own fault if I forget.

6:41 PM
4 Comments

I was never good at ending things.

Tonight I wrote a book about high school.

unprecedented: but maybe just because I never kissed a boy in junior high.

and

unforgiving: thanks to all the kids who made me feel like an idiot for not swearing.

and

remarkable.

I wore pink dresses to school but I spent more fourth periods at Snowbird than at a desk third term. I saw my friends break, I saw them drowning in their own beds and suffocating in another's. I fell in casual love and sunday love and hold-hands-while-driving love, but I'm still terrified of grown-up love. I never believed in anything I was supposed to do, but I got a 4.0. Once my mom was so angry with me she threw my phone and broke it, and half of you refuse to believe that, but I wasn't even scared because I feel like a lawyer when I fight with her. And I love her. I drove the same people home day after day, but I took a road trip to dance with a boy whose last name I barely knew. I didn't pay bills but I worked three jobs and (real talk) I never really hated slow songs all that much. I went to nearly every baseball game and I never once got sick of the canyon and I wish I treated curfew as more of a suggestion but to be honest I would never get away with sneaking out. I loved jeeps and tsunami snocones and volleyball at burgess and hiking and mission call openings but I can't stand farewells.

And to be perfectly honest,

I have too many people to miss.

And I don't really want to graduate,

I just am done with due dates.

And thank you Paris,

you were more than I deserved.

9:51 PM
4 Comments

hello harold miner.

Okay so here's the thing.
I am currently analyzing my English teacher's blog.
And English teachers love analysis.
(I know because I have the AP Lit test on Wednesday and I'm in full panic mode)

So this is to you Mr. Kyle Nelson.

Once you told us that we're only seventeen, but we write about everything, and nothing.
And I loved that.

Sometimes you write like you're a teenager ("too young for a mid-life crisis")

And sometimes you write like you're getting nostalgic watching your 32 children grow up ("a letter to my daughter" and also ("forget about it")

And sometimes you write things that sit on my mind when my eyes are closed ("lifegaurds")

And sometimes you write things I that read to my mother, and she doesn't get it. ("super bowl poetry")

You write like you think. Chambers told me it's called "stream of consciousness" but I think it's synonymous with "not being a coward". That didn't come out nearly as poetic as I meant it to, but that's alright because you can't write in pen on a screen. For ages now I thought this was ink, but I guess we've all become far too familiar with the backspace key and maybe that's why my last legitimate post was ages ago.

I know you said you've been writing about angst since you were our age, but "all the places we've lived" is charming. Honestly that's the first word that came to mind, it made me think of slow-dancing someday when your bones are too fragile to spin and it made me wonder what it will be like to know what color of eyes to write about and it made me think of "Les Emotifs Anonymes" (don't stress it has subtitles" and the final line about still being as bright as lights in a reception center was wonderful. Wonderful.

And I thought about "Sweetest Thing" by U2. And I know the video is weird but the song reminds me of dancing with my dad in our living room in Texas, and my husband and I will listen to this song on road trips. Like seriously don't watch the video just listen to the words.

ps "Your map is written in braille - I can see it with my eyes closed." - THIS LINE IS SO GOOD. TOO GOOD.

okay moving on.

Your blog is good. And your writing is good. And it's not because you're 35 and it's definitely not because you get paid. And English major was never a part of the plan, and most likely it never will be. But I am not about to abandon my 54 blog posts and all the words. All the terribly intoxicating, complicating, beautiful words. Thanks to you. And Harold Miner.

-Reagan

8:26 PM
3 Comments

Chicago Video

Chicago.

12:13 PM
0 Comments

i was always first.

ankles crossed

hair tumbled

eyes tangled

reaching for your words

like they'll sing the same as they did in october

graduation is a pretty way to phrase goodbyes

and I'm terribly sorry that it's all we write about,

but most people tend to fade into the sheets

as they unravel.

I was never well acquainted

with handling endings with care.

And I never appreciated the grey of not-knowing.

(or beginnings)

so I watched the middle child as she

grew and

slept and

fought me.

(her name is ava)

because the fact of the matter is,

I was always first,

but she was always kinder.

and she's never had her own october.

9:42 PM
3 Comments

the stars in the margins.

you were sixteen

couldn't breathe

back porch, 73 degree beauty.

ratted hair

ankle socks

5'6' with a decade worth of plans

and a high school career worth of empty gas tanks.

no blonde ponytail in cut off denim

no fly-by, goodbye, long night eyes

watching weekends tumble by like the Atlantic.

you pieced together your own sky

out of criss cross stars left in the margins

because the ones on the ceiling

are only lesser lights

and you knew that.

you never had to walk to school

but you envied the kids who did.

no one told you you had to cuff your jeans

until senior year

and by then, you were already playing catch up.

so you sang about God and state rings

and real talk and CS Lewis

and Youth Lagoon and hell

and everything and nothing.

you sang about blonde ponytails

in cut off denim

and road trips with someone else's paycheck.

but you never forgot about the Atlantic,

or the stars on the ceiling.

10:02 PM
4 Comments

synesthesia/watercolors

The girl with hair like cotton candy gave me saving words tonight.

And I thanked her, politely.

They were blue and green.

Blue words like her lips used to be.

Green words like everything she sees.

Like everything she sees.

Like she's new and March is the only thing she sees.

Like March at last can breathe and white hair is made of ashes.

Like February 27th turned her hands to matches.

I will cut pieces from everything I see.

From everything I see.

From everything but skin,

For skin is made of numbers.

Numbers red like July like

Purple like violet like

I made my words for my mother.

Because I love her.

Because she loves me.

And she saw me the night I forgot how deeply March could breathe,

And her words were yellow like

All the good books I didn't make time to read.

But they were good words

And good books

And yellow is good for me.

11:11 PM
7 Comments

irreverence.

My mother keeps pressing her cheek against mine and telling me how grateful she is.

Grateful.

Grateful.

All I feel is irreverent.

All I feel is the static on your end of the line

And the weight of my own voice in your hand.

Both of us entirely too grateful.

Like a six minute silent phone call is everything and nothing all at once and nothing is worth everything so long as someone else will appreciate the static with you.

And all at once

I am trembling like a poor man in December.

High school should never be this heavy,

Fourteen times over.

10:10 PM
6 Comments

chicago & washing windows

She washed her windows like the back of her eyelids,

Like last years lyrics hadn't quite worn off yet.

She wore her collar like her pride,

And her keyring like an anchor.

She was Chicago:

Wind-blown hair every weekday,

But Vegas on a Saturday.

(Not the strip, just the lights.)

Phoenix: never sure if the neighbors would be around come June,

But she's always been Colorado.

I saw her science and her shoulders.

I said, "we're coming back",

And I said that land-locked was never meant to be a tragedy.

I said that

she was never meant to be a tragedy.

I said that

out of state tuition is worth it,

And so are ankle socks

And bonfires

And the extra eight miles

And good bread, the kind with gluten in it.

And people, as a general rule.

But she wouldn't know,

Because Phoenix never knows if the neighbors are home.

8:54 PM
6 Comments

untitled, but about saving people.

I apologize for the inconvenience,

but I can't be your saviour.

See,

I'm only 18.

And I don't have enough words.

My parents threw them across the kitchen counter last night and I'm far too tired to sweep them off the hardwood floor.

They're paperweights, anyways.

I know I picked up the phone at 11:08 tonight but between curfew and my 9am client I'll have to refer you to a specialist.

See,

18 doesn't have enough words to fill the chapel tomorrow morning. Girlhood is still occupied with drowning out feminism and Monday's are still for reliving Saturday's and Tuesday's are still for drawing out Friday and graduation and stats homework and everything else 18 hasn't done quite yet.

See,

I can't help you, but I'll give you the name of a qualified colleague.

Once he told me that Chris Kyle was a prophet just like Anis and Moses and this new boy you talk about may let you sit shotgun and take pictures with you in front of Temple Square and he may know which lyrics still vibrate behind your eyes but he won't have enough words either. Not enough to fill your Wednesday's and your Thursday's and those are the days when you need heavy words the most. Heavy words to pull you all the way to the chapel Sunday morning.

See,

Paperweights are supposed to get along with gravity.

And physics never quite applied at 18.

11:35 PM
10 Comments

America

I read a lot of books about America.

(And I really and truly liked them all)

American Sniper

Lone Survivor

No Easy Day

And I saw the movie Unbroken.

Twice.

And none of those men are born authors,

They never had blogs

And nations like Iraq and Afghanistan are pressed into their passport pages instead of France.

But I wish my words carried half as much weight as theirs.

9:42 PM
1 Comments

Newer
Stories

Older
Stories

now that you're here.

east coast girls

9,000 words

vienna

high school poetry

Flight 175

and next.

there's a last time for everything

smoke

from Paris to Provo

I was never good at ending things.

hello harold miner.

Chicago Video

i was always first.

the stars in the margins.

synesthesia/watercolors

irreverence.

chicago & washing windows

untitled, but about saving people.

America

REAGAN

INSTA

VSCO

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