"I like my body when it is with your body. It is so quite new a thing. Muscles better and nerves more."

-e.e. cummings

This is comforting.

When I was a kid, I can remember worrying about moving into my first apartment. I thought about all the things I'd need to live on my own--silverware, plates, a vacuum, a microwave, etc--and it all overwhelmed me. Never mind that this date was a long ways away, it still seemed so impossible that I'd be able to procure all these random items. It hit me yesterday that I used to feel like this. Of course, here I am in my house, and all the pieces fell into place quite easily without my even realizing that this happened. I got some stuff fo free, some stuff fo cheap, and my roommates provided a lot.

And here I am worrying about the transition from college to the real world--getting a job, making this life decision, wondering how everything's going to fall into place. But it works the same way, right? Slowly, and with help from others, the pieces fall into place without your realization that it's happened. And I've also learned that very rarely does anything in life hit you that you're completely unready and unprepared for.

God. I feel like my college years are over and done with, I still have one more. But I feel like they're gone. I always become incredibly nostalgic whenever I'm in my room, in my bed, in Little Rock (I hate Little Rock). I wouldn't give anything to be a freshman again. I've done that. I don't want to do it again. But. There was something so thrilling and fresh about being eighteen. Of course, I was also naive and nervous and inexperienced (or at least more so), and I wouldn't want to be that person again. It was exhausting.

Still. Still.

I feel old. I'm going to be twenty-two in about a month, tell me, where did years 19-22 go?

They went by in classrooms and bars and bedrooms. Mostly. Not so much in bars, but I like the way that sounds.

Why do the words, "When you're married with children" sound so foreign coming out of my mom's mouth? And it's always spoken of as though this is, obviously, my goal. Honestly, my sights are set on happiness in the form of success and peace with myself, doing things that interest me, things that I love (of course, this is vague, but so am I). It shouldn't piss me off that she says this so often, but it does. I can do so many more things than find a man get pregnant. I wish this were acknowledged more often.

I think if I removed the more grating aspects of my personality (you know, that questioning shit that's probably easier left alone and how angry I get about people's thoughtless words), I'd be more pleasant to be around. Granted, I don't let all this shit out to just anyone I run into on the street, but god, I really just can't keep my opinions to myself.

A bit more colorful

New design! Hope you like it!

There are so many good, nay, awesome things about being an adult. College. Eating when you want. Driving. Staying up late. Going to bars.

Probably the one thing that I HATE, nay, ABHOR, about it, is moving.

I don't know if I can handle moving one more time. I hate that transitional stage, it messes with my head, stresses me out. The one thing that makes stress bearable is the knowledge that I'll be coming HOME. But when you're moving--where is home?

I'll get through it. At least I'll have some help (:

Wow, it's been a while.

Yesterday I got back from my trip to Yellowstone/the Grand Tetons. It was magnificent, awe-inspiring, etc. I feel like I should write a Walt Whitman-style poem about it, one of these days. I listened to a lot of Bruce Springsteen, and I'm pretty sure that every time I listen to him from now on, there will always be a little bit of Wyoming along with the music.

At the moment, I'm trying so hard to keep my life in balance. I'm hoping to be forgiven for moments when my life hasn't been in balance. I want to be the best friend/sister/daughter/etc I can be for everyone, and I worry a lot that I'm not.

I'm already beginning to

get excited like I always do for the first day of school.

I get those butterflies in my stomach that always seem to accompany new binders and picking out what I'm going to wear and eating breakfast, trying to play it cool and not seem as excited as I actually am. This year, I get to move into my new house. Paint my walls. Put everything in order. I can't wait for that autumn-y smell that comes with fall. The leaves outside, slowly layering clothes as it gets a little chillier.

Maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

I'm ALSO excited about seeing more of the great United States than I've ever seen this summer. I'm going to Yellowstone, and then to Chicago and Lake Michigan. I'm so incredibly lucky. I hope to be able to write something good about all of this. I feel like Jack Kerouac, going on the road, seeing new things. Feeling the tight expectancy of seeing a new place. I guess even if I'm not doing interesting things abroad, I can be more than content with getting to know my own country a little better. This is when I feel the most patriotic I ever feel: when I get to experience more and more of America, all the different sides, the different temperatures and bars and sidewalks and trails.

And, I'm also excited that a story of mine (I posted it a long time ago, called "Redwoods" or something) is going to be published in Sanctuary, the Honors literary journal for some school somewhere, anyway it's a regional thing.

Read this!

This is by Anis Mojgani, a slam poet who rocks so hard. It's great to read, but look it up on Youtube to get the full effect.

"Shake the Dust" by Anis Mojgani

This is for the fat girls.

This is for the little brothers.

This is for the school-yard wimps, this is for the childhood bullies who tormented them.

This is for the former prom queen, this is for the milk-crate ball players.

This is for the nighttime cereal eaters and for the retired, elderly Wal-Mart store front door greeters. Shake the dust.
This is for the benches and the people sitting upon them,

for the bus drivers driving a million broken hymns,

for the men who have to hold down three jobs simply to hold up their children,

for the nighttime schoolers and the midnight bike riders who are trying to fly. Shake the dust.
This is for the two-year-olds who cannot be understood because they speak half-English and half-god. Shake the dust.
For the girls with the brothers who are going crazy,

for those gym class wall flowers and the twelve-year-olds afraid of taking public showers,

for the kid who's always late to class because he forgets the combination to his lockers,

for the girl who loves somebody else. Shake the dust.
This is for the hard men, the hard men who want to love but know that it won't come.

For the ones who are forgotten, the ones the amendments do not stand up for.

For the ones who are told to speak only when you are spoken to and then are never spoken to. Speak every time you stand so you do not forget yourself.

Do not let a moment go by that doesn't remind you that your heart beats 900 times a day and that there are enough gallons of blood to make you an ocean.

Do not settle for letting these waves settle and the dust to collect in your veins.
This is for the celibate pedophile who keeps on struggling,

for the poetry teachers and for the people who go on vacations alone.

For the sweat that drips off of Mick Jaggers' singing lips and for the shaking skirt on Tina Turner's shaking hips, for the heavens and for the hells through which Tina has lived.
This is for the tired and for the dreamers and for those families who'll never be like the Cleavers with perfectly made dinners and sons like Wally and the Beaver.
This is for the biggots,

this is for the sexists,

this is for the killers.

This is for the big house, pen-sentenced cats becoming redeemers and for the springtime that always shows up after the winters.
This? This is for you.

Make sure that by the time fisherman returns you are gone.

Because just like the days, I burn both ends and every time I write, every time I open my eyes I am cutting out a part of myself to give to you.
So shake the dust and take me with you when you do for none of this has never been for me.

All that pushes and pulls, pushes and pulls for you.

So grab this world by its clothespins and shake it out again and again and jump on top and take it for a spin and when you hop off shake it again for this is yours.

Make my words worth it, make this not just another poem that I write, not just another poem like just another night that sits heavy above us all.

Walk into it, breathe it in, let is crash through the halls of your arms at the millions of years of millions of poets coursing like blood pumping and pushing making you live, shaking the dust.
So when the world knocks at your front door, clutch the knob and open on up, running forward into its widespread greeting arms with your hands before you, fingertips trembling though they may be.