for you to notice.

tony-- probably the only person i'll mention by name on here-- mused recently that i'm too eager. i think he's right. i'm a romance junkie, searching for anything approaching the xoxo sensibility of the modern love affair.

this perspective is rather problematic. i get caught up in memories of the past.

i saw a black mustang two days ago, and my heart caught in my throat.

there's the cyclical rejection of bb and the circumstantial 'i'm sorry's of ducky and even the continuous 'who-the-fuck-knows' of harry.

that last one is the most troubling to me. the romantic dynamic of our relationship is tempestuous, ravaging, heartbreaking, and ever-present. it always comes back to harry. last night, i saw him. he panned, "i've missed you so much," and scooted closer, hips touching hips, comfortable and common.

a testament to the enduring emotions?
the mix i crafted this summer, months of cultivation, sent without word to his home. i've since lost the track listing, but i can recreate it simply in my head, and not a single song from it is placed upon a mix for another.

it's love, yeah, and i'm in it.

i'm searching so hard for lovelovelovelove because i can't seem to form the words to make it clear to the one i actually feel for. my heart aches. heartache.

it's not ducky, persay, and it's not even bb, godforbid. it's harry, plain and simple. it always has been.

something tells me--
--it always will.

i'm insightful or brave or smooth or charming.
i swear it.

i can be whoever you want me to.

p.s. i love you.

I'm watching this film and still thinking of you. You're running through my mind constantly, though you told me outright you didn't want me.

I think I still want you.

it's too easy to say you ruined my life.
because, for one small second, you made it all a little better.






p.s. i love you.

missing you.

I want to sign my name ten thousand names with your surname.

And I want to dot every letter with a heart.

Especially the ones that don't need it.

I'm yours.

[bruised.]

the world won't turn until something breaks
who will make the first last mistake
you say good things come to those who
wait
well i can't wait

i'm reading this memoir chronicling one writer's romantic tribulations through a series of mixtapes.

i have a yearning to make a really fucking good mixtape.




this isn't home anymore.

from braco to blue to you:

i miss you already.
and you haven't even left yet.

i was never good at goodbye. no matter how temporary.

Small hands

it's interesting how quickly Ducky came flying right back into my life.

flapping, even.

d, when i tell you you're nearly perfect, i mean it.
and when i tell you that you're the greatest person i know, i mean it.

but you look at me sheepishly, sad smiles teasing your mouth, investigating your toes as you murmur,

if you really think that's true, you're in for severe disappointment.

foundations

speaking of disappointment:

to you, bb. i wanted more. in the theoretical idealism i cling to so painfully, we worked. in reality, we failed. you failed. i failed. somewhere along the line, the 'we' became miserable, separately, together, rooted in this ethos surrounding overthinking.

i wanted you.
i want you.

but i know better.

maybe there's a chance for us later. maybe there's a we in the future.

but you're right. for now.
thanks for doing what i simply didn't have the courage to do.

warm sentiments to you.
lonely sleeps to me.
my heart's all heavy again, and i'm sinking, but b and d and j are all pulling me up with all their might.

and it's working.
for real this time.

bb, i wish things could be.

to you, it all makes sense:
my fingertips are holding onto
the cracks in our foundation
and i know that i should let go, but i can't
and every time we fight, i know it's not right
every time that you're upset and i smile
i know i should forget, but i can't

thanks, aaroneous.
it hurts, but you did the big thing.

c

(attention whore)

attention: whore,

running for cover from tickle fights into the arms of the man who is not mine.

missing mine and settling for less for the warmth of company, blurry lines 'tween you and i and him and her and she and he and they and us.

i'm marrying monotony and missing out on memories of collegiate tall-tales, and i'm clinging to the hopes of happilyeverafter without first exploring just what that means. and i'm seeking love in company i know and finding something like it where i expect it least.

maybe this is what it feels like to let go.

modernmystery.

i think you are so annoying,
that's why you get so disappointing.
i swear you are so important,
nothing you do is pointless,

yeah.

there is no modern mystery

official.

officially official.
he made the big gesture.

and i'm content, and i am comfortable, and i am calm in my heart of hearts.

and i am
happy.
happy.
happy.

aaroneous.

aloners.

:/

firsts

john cameron mitchell. live and in person. hilarious and touching and nostalgic and personal.

complete beauty.

click the link, yo.

EDITat11:24p.m.

i've never before so appreciated desks and open door policies.

it's wednesday night, and i'm not a drinker.
i'm a worrier, a lover, a compulsive facebook-er.
it's late, and i'm tuned into the party down the hall
to the melodies of hellogoodbye.

watching. listening. worrying.

EDITat3:12a.m.

righteousness is so two years ago. it's much less fun when your heart's involved.

first snow

the up-swing, the down-pour, the frayed sleeve
of the first snow—

so the gods shake us from our sleep.

i've been contemplating for what seems like eternities (rather endless days and sleepless nights of tangled arms and legs and b-b-b-bodies interwoven into one ethereal experience) the perfect pseudonym for him. or you, depending on who's reading. i just can't pick one. i was struggling with fiction and fantasy, pouring over obscure references passed over in conversation, and, finally, finally, one stuck:

the blue bandit, bb for short.

i'm beginning to feel the murmurings of something big with this eponymous bb. i feel particularly clever in his presence, though my penchant for trusting (read: gullible) is driving me mad. i'm hiding in your bed, and you're hiding in your bed.

and i'm playing both nursemaid and the crazy patient.

bb makes me feel warm and secure with gripping bear hugs (not fatal. yet.) and whisperings of innuendo fmeo. the kisses and pleadings and failure to convey properly only endear him further. and i'm pressing my heart closerandcloserandcloser until the only remnants of me are the greasy smudges on eyeglasses, creating the cling-wrap effect of the coloring of overwhelming sentiments.

and i'm getting small tokens from suitors who i'd like to feel for in the abstract, but my mind's so wrapped around the tightly-trimmed cleanly nail of the blue bandit, masked and waiting and enigmatic and wholly feeling for me.

and that's the thing that helps me sleep at night, often wrapped in his embrace:

helikesmehelikesmehelikesme

i think it's a sure sign of something grandiose, as i witnessed my first real northern snowfall this week. it was epically beautiful, the misting flakes hitting my upturned face in a torrent of smile-inducing precipitation.

and i took it all in as he took my hand and guided me from the window
home.

lay down your arms now

see the world
find an old fashioned girl
and when all's been said and done
it's the things that are given, not won
are the things that you want

i'm breaking down the boys' fort and playing kissing games with tickling and non-diegetic (or is it diegetic?) uproars of giggles and hand-grabbing. i'm being an old-fashioned girl and using too many hyphens, but i'm finding it harder to push away the insecurities and the nagging of a mind too concentrated on the things that ultimately don't matter. i'm losing my focus into words and theories and scents, closing my eyes and trying to grab the reins from the dispassionate and impossibly stubborn and self-righteous contexts of life simply working out.

i'm rushing the fort with t's and holy shoes (hole-y, not saintly), obscure and idiosyncratic, and he's kissing me through murmurings and questions and terror and mock indignation. and he's kissing me with the lights off, and i'm kissing him with my eyes closed, and i'm falling faster.

i'm toppling the fort with scores of laughter and breathlessness, and it'sworkingit'sworkingit'sworking.

maybe he's falling too

addled.

it's something more.

itisgaspingbreathsandclutchinghandsandintertwinedfingersanddesperationandhearttugsand
earsandearsandearsandticklingandsomethingapproachingtherealsentimentalityoflove.

and i like it.

sing again.

a life packed full of mindless joy
it is not easy to enjoy

and all of a sudden, it was like a barrage. a tidal wave of sentiments and longing, desperation and longing and longing desperation poured out of my mouth and in torrents cascaded down my chest and trickled to the soles of my feet.

and it was nice to feel important for mere moments, to feel desire and to feel desired. and it was fucking fantastic to hear the silence marred and broken by the steady rhythm of heartbeats and labored, heavy breathing.

and i don't feel as if i should be ashamed for wanting something inconsequential. for wanting the delicacy of lipsandfingertipsandpleasure.

i'm eighteen and confused and lonesome.

and i just want to feel important to somebody. even once. just for one night.

and i think i was.

for jack.

three a.m. desires for girl talk met with giggles and modern sonnets muffled by the familiar wood of the door.

loud,but still softer than the thump-thump-thumping of my heart against my ribcage.

no one said it would be easy.

some constellation

I'm feeling the pervasive edge of desperation.
And I can't even seem to be honest with anyone quite how heavy my heart feels.

Except Ducky. My Ducky.

Yes, another boy. Another nickname for another boy.

But, in so many ways, this territory feels pleasantly threadbare. He's Harry part deux, the deja-vu sentiments of treading that place between friend and friendlier, that semblance of comfort and honesty and simple pleasure derived from the company of another.

Why am I constantly falling for the boys whose absence I couldn't take? Why am I always unconsciously pushing away the ones I want need to stay?

Ducky, look how cute I am!
Listen to my heartache as my face contorts in anguish and depravity personified.

Thisisthesoundofaheartbreaking.

How is it that I can be so positively candid here, and with Ducky, but nowhere else? Why is fate so cruel that my heart can burst when he's around, exposing the worst and most ill-liked parts of my personality?

Am I really that laissez-faire with my emotions? Elsewhere, that is.

I want to paint the town my favorite color and explode into handclap choruses. I want heartfelt sing-alongs and childish frivolity. I'm finding it harder...

...harder to be.

Stitching Leggings

I'm seeking gratification.

Romantic, intellectual, torrid, and simplistic.

I'm hiding in unmade beds and unwashed dishes, clever and careful and carefree.
Except I'm not.
I'm reclusive in my lack of reserve,
and I'm finding sorrow in the discontent of platonic handholding.

Here's to attempts to saving myself from myself.

one zero zero zero zero zero zero cruel

Sarah Palin inspires me to spit nails. With my words, of course, as any decent aspiring journalist would.

Please don't misunderstand. I'm a feminist when it counts, and I'll pump a fist in the air to support strong women toppling tradition and societal norms.

But, Sarah Palin? Aleutian Barbie? The walking Lenscrafters advertisement? The hypocritical contradiction? Dolores Umbridge bolstering the Muggle world? Mother of Track, Trig, Bristol, Willow, and Piper? How much is McCain's choice a sincere attempt to change American politics versus a sheer ploy to alienate the American public?

Granted, I still haven't decisively cast my vote. I'll do my additional research and watch the election play out until November. I'll mail my absentee and watch the world unfold.

Change is imminent, but only in terms of gender or race. How much can either candidate truly reshape our nation? How much change is our nation prepared to accept?

I'm sick of bipartisan politics; maybe this isn't the answer. I'm prepared for change, but we're all just riding the median. There's no such thing as an extremist in America. There are those that believe in the American identity, and those that do not. There are the faithful and the jaded, the blind and the blindfolded.

There's no conclusion to my pseudo-editorial. I'm just angry. Maybe soon enough I'll find a better way to express it with words.

If not, there's always Quidditch.

(i'll wait outside your heart)

cross my heart, I would die
shove the needle in my eye
be your sugar, I could try
where's the papers, let me sign
all I want is to be wanted by you

I really ought to ask Cassi to help me update this monster. This delicious, teenage angst beast.

I'm in like again. This rather bizarre preteen crush on a boy I hardly know. But one I'd very much like to.

There's Harry, still.
There's always Harry.

But then there's this new antelope grazing the plain (what a silly analogy!). We'll call him Apollo. Or Paulo. Ech, Apollo. He looks like an Apollo. Or an Adonis.

I'm mumbling and giggly.

I like it. I like this nervous, gaspy feeling. I like feeling insecure (sometimes) and grasping for words to make awkward jokes and panic as I struggle to fill silences that are perfectly acceptable just being.

But, most of all, I like this newness. I like Apollo's quirks and knowing that I don't know him. I'm getting there, slowly, predicting words and jokes and grammatical mishaps. I like the neuroticism (yes! a made-up word) associated with meeting new people, elongated conversations about nothingness and just existing.

In some nine-odd days, I'll hopefully be throwing myself headfirst into this expectational lack of cognizance. Seven-thousand new peers, 100-plus new roommates, 150-odd new classmates...and Apollo just a hop-skip-and-a-bus-ride away.

I'm nervous and excited and nauseated.

And I like it.

my aim is true.

(alison)

I lied. Again.

It's not over. It's not over. It's not over.

I spent part of the day at Harry's, lounging on his couch, petting his dogs (literally, not a figurative sexual assertion), meeting his parents (for the first time in two years, oddly. I think I may have managed to perhaps impress them a bit), stealing his CDs, and channel-surfing between monk (!) and malcolm. Oh, Harry.

It was strange, ethereal, surreal.

I was suffering from this disconnect where my mind wandered with touching lips and my being remained, static, warm, wholly conscious of new haircuts and wanderlust and romantic, yes romantic tension.

As I drove away after a gripping hug-- me, clutching, too tightly-- and promises to keep in touch, I felt an emptiness greater than anything I had experienced prior, and I was overwhelmed by, simply and melodramatically, the immensity of my sentiments for him. My hands drove me away, but my heart boarded the train right back to him.

In all my goodbyes, I never once felt the tug of heartstrings and the stinging itch of tears crowding the ducts in the exterior compartments of my eyes. Until Harry.

Harry.

It's not over. It's never over.

And, if it's not love, it's damn close.

fuck me for letting go of chances. fuck me for not taking a chance.

the pains of being pure at heart

I lied.

Pretty sure it's over.

More exciting posting later about the potentially thrilling new revelation in my life!

(my teeth chattered rhythms)

If you look back a few posts, you'll come across the 3 AM rager entitled 'spitting games.' I thought it would mean something to him, to me, be enlightening or resonating or even therapeutic. But it wasn't. In retrospect, it was not even anything new. It was the same old word vomit in a new age "personal" upgrade from Xanga. It was the same trite, pathetic drivel spewed forth upon keyboards by every Dashboard-loving 'real' adolescent in the English speaking world.

It wasn't even fucking poetic.

"I apologize for my record of minuets to those who cry from the depths."
Thanks, Wislawa.

It's plausible-- and likely truth-- that I take for granted the life I am given and rather moan the litany of paltry frivolity.

Fuck it. I'm a suburban indie queen.
I'll pass off my pseudo-witty pop culture references as conversation and failed attempts at blissful forevers. I'll lament what I cannot fix simply because it'll fill the empty void of space with conversation. I'll dissect mix CDs and pour through track after track to compile the perfect soundtrack to what is currently a mundane existence. I'll write my papers and avoid the Medill 'F,' earn my BSJ and then, perhaps, my MRS. I'll whittle my days with nostalgia for badly-acted television from yesteryear. Brandon Walsh, I won't have a cow, man.

I'm a tawny gypsy girl
sleeping blanketed by stars.

I've done my fair share of over-analyzing every minute aspect of my 'romantic' life. I've divided my pursuits into 'Harry' and 'Cedric.'

I don't love Cedric. Not like I say I do, anyway. It's like in 'Tiny Vessels.'

this is the moment/
that you know/
that you told her that you loved her/
but you don't

I should. I truly should love him, be in love with him, but I just can't force it. I think I allowed myself to feel for him because of a bizarre amalgamation of unusual circumstances (see: foreign country, allegedly unrequited love for Harry). But now, with distance and miles and tangled phone lines cluttering up the path between my heart and my head (from me to you, you unrevealed)... I can't seem to reason any longer. I declared in the first few days that there was something about the nature of our relationship which defied reason and logic. I realize now that it's likely because it's unreasonable and entirely illogical. I can't reconcile the notion that it just doesn't make sense in my life, right now, with any lingering emotional sentiments.

And then there's Harry.
The-Boy-Who-Lived in my heart, in my head, in my words.

He's the soundtrack to summer, my autumn, my winter, my spring. He's the voice--

He's calling.
Harry's calling.

It's Harry's voice saying he's coming home. Harry's coming home.
To me.

Harry's coming home to me.

It's not over.

(Ache) For You

Caught between my heart and head
I couldn't help the things I said
By the time I shut my mouth, oh God
I was mortified
Just set me on f-f-fire

The longer I stay
The more I want to and

Baby, I'm yours.

I'm trying to hold you at arms' length. I'm holding you close in idyllic images and pushing you away in reality. I'm attempting to let things happen, follow my gut (thanks, Carney), exclusive of my tongue and brain and overwhelming sentimentality.

I'm going to forgo wading and dive in headfirst.

Here's to connecting my head to my heart to my mouth and attempting to reconcile the conflicting emotions flashing from core to stage.

Oddly, I know that, in the end, he'll end up being the best and closest friend I'll have.
And the soundtrack to my summer.

Spitting Games

eff this. i'm posting it. (august 9, 2008)
note the nu-loving. fantastic, j-mac.

somewhere between all our laughs, long talks, stupid little fights, and all our jokes,
i fell in love


It's funny that, as everything changes, a part of me is yearning for some aspects to just... stay.

I'm Northwestern-bound in the fall. I never quite vocalized that entirely. I'm actually rather thrilled regarding it. I'm enrolling in Medill, the most prestigious j-school in the country, and I'm finally finding myself content in my decision. I'm getting by with a little help from my friends, and the words of wisdom, consolation, and convincing from J-Mac and Plum Cake are helping more than I can convey in this pithy excuse for reality written at six to four on a Sunday morning.

I'm waiting patiently for your name to flash, for the alert that you're thinking of me.

It's happened every other night, but, somehow, I know tonight things will change.

I love that look that you give me. It's petty, but I know somehow it's just for me. And the way that sometimes you press your forehead against mine. The way our legs or elbows or knees touch, mine trembling and yours sturdy, stable, you never flinching. I love how you smile at me, that toothy grin, your right eye squeezed tighter than the left. I love your phone calls, our late nights, the fact that, through it all, you're thinking of me.

Little ol' me.

I fell in love with you over buzzer systems and drag and lipsticked kisses. I gave you my heart amidst strawberry milkshakes and Baseball Tonight, and I lost myself in your eyes of blue (I could barely take my mind off you).

Three AM curiosities, insistences on Malcolm and Wonder Showzen.

Do you know how special you are? To me, at least?
The way you make my heart pitter-patter faster and slower all at once?

You're what I want to change. The only thing. And, it's not even you, persay, but our situation, our circumstances; I want things to "be different," like they would be. I want time to stop so I can have even mere moments of your consciousness. Because I love the way I love you.

I am in love with swirls and colors and the inability to speak.
When you are around.

I am in love with your emotional roadtrip.
And I am in love with mine.

Pick me, choose me, love me.
I said I couldn't say it.
But I just did.

Please let it mean something.