this is just so you know

you're allowed to still feel it

you can get your heartbroken once and you can heal it and you don't have to erase it

that's all i wanted, you know

didn't need to go back

didn't care to undo it

i just thought

if i had to feel it

if i had to swim in it

it might as well have been mine

if it's going to go through me and i through it

i'd like some piece of it to be permanent

i think that's a strange thing, to want the hurt to stay

it's not that i liked it

it's not as if it didn't bind me, didn't rob me

i just want it to matter

and therefore it does

haven't touched it since friday

haven't slept through the night in just as long

hi griff.

this isn't a poem and

i don't intend for you to read it but

someday i'd like you to know that

i ran two stop signs in one night for you.

or, at the very least, because of you.

and i stumble when i try to write to you or of you or for you

because the very best days are also the days on which i am most afraid.

afraid because you matter more to me than maybe you should,

just one month into anything.

but i can't tell you that

because i might frighten you.

i'm brave but i'm not foolhardy

at least not anymore

at least not in terms of hearts.

so on nights when i'm afraid

i will think of moon craters

and whiskey on graves.

and on mornings when i'm fragile

i will remember conversations

in the middle of your living room floor

and a seven-hour-first-date

and i will feel lucky and patient

and i will trust you

and your heart

with me

and mine.

i will hope you don't see this

so i will avoid losing any more bets

but if you do see 

or i do lose

please know

that you are dear to me

and today is enough.

i am thinking and feeling so many big things

i love eleven boys,
two of them are holidays
and eight of them are home base
and one of them might love boys, too.

I don't believe my face has enough color in it, so I wear lipstick though my mother tells me not to. I don't believe in coincidences either, but I like the idea of myself stumbling about on an unseen map. I don't believe God sleeps well on the nights when my best friend loses herself in her own sheets, and it's become apparent that people remember me better if I specify "like the president" when they ask my name.

I spend afternoons in the periodicals checking for gold beneath my fingernails and I only take notes in Political Philosophy 202 because I find the idea of paying men to argue the validity of their own humanity terribly intriguing. And lovely. I find it lovely.

At 5 o'clock the Star Spangled Banner plays out across campus. I find no shortage of excuses to be outside at 5 o'clock. I correct people's grammar shamelessly. I've only successfully run away three times, and I don't believe that the individuals responsible for such really need to be aware of the roles they played. I got sunburned two of the three times.

 I wear my skirts above my knee but I pray on the way to class and I am constantly reminded that I wasn't qualified to vote in the last two presidential elections, but also I am surrounded by loads wonderful people. Actually, a select few are on various other continents, but that's alright. I like college because there are always newcomers, even during midterms. I keep a running list of people who made even just one of my days, and Lauren and I note the high and low and also tender mercies of our days every night when the lights are out. But she doesn't let me designate any of the above as a boy. Because occasionally days roll about when he's your high and your low and under your skin and in your hair and your reasoning and I don't imagine such a situation to be good for your health.

I have a dozen terribly important playlists with terribly specific purposes. I never have and never will buy vanilla ice cream. I used to be the one that had to go to class, but last week I ended up in the Pacific Ocean and also Salt Lake three times and also in the back of a truck up the canyon.

On a school night.

I get terribly concerned with explaining myself, and what I like, and what I'll be when I grow up, and why I sleep-talk, and what my plans are for next fall, and how I plan to pull off political science, and French, and design degrees and the fact of that matter is, I'd like to think that you, my dear,
you couldn't quite explain me either.

See I've come to realize that we are only pieces of the things we see, bound in skin and ligaments.

I am fragments of every 11:11, every moon boy, every full gas tank, and every other thing I've ever fallen for. I am quite good at listening and very adept at finding concert tickets in advance and I cried when I got my first A- last semester but my side of the room is the epitome of organized chaos and I only call home when I'm alone, walking in the dark.

And I am tired, but I am more than pleased with nineteen.
And I am more than grateful for the ones that never let me say no,
and I forever owe those of you who are continually telling me yes.


Loves.

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.

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

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.

I wanted the lift the room tonight.

Tonight I wrote a book about high school.

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