When you are sad

Put on makeup –
more than you normally would.
Eyeshadow, especially, will make you feel special
and pretty. So that you can look at yourself
and say:
I’m more than okay.
I can look good
even if my insides are collapsing.

Clean your house.
Your life may be a mess
and things may not be
as you wish –
but your house is neat and tidy.
The way you thought it always would be
when you were a child.

Be nice to other people.
It’s not their fault you are sad –
or, if it is
feel better in the fact
that you are the bigger person.

Don’t:
imagine what life could be like
picture yourself running away
dream of a different version of you.

There is only you
There is only this
This is only now

Make what you can of it.

“So far you have survived 100% of your toughest days.”

“You’re doing great.”

Gilded cages

It’s paradise but you can’t get out of it. And anything that you can’t get out of is hell. 
//Margaret Atwood

---

“That’s the final challenge?” Bennett asked, eyes squinted in confusion and brow furrowed.

The doctor nodded. “Of course. The last challenge is meant to be the hardest one of all.”

“But it’s – it’s beautiful. And – well -” Bennett spluttered. “I just didn’t realize that naming it Eden wasn’t a move of irony on your part.”

The doctor quirked his eyebrow. “That would’ve been rather cruel, don’t you think?”

Bennett huffed in disbelief. “Not any crueler than any of the other levels that we’ve put them through.”

The doctor seemed not to hear and turned to face the monitors that were tracking all of the candidates. Many looked dazed with happiness. Some were napping on the soft green grass, others swimming in the eye achingly blue waters. Almost all had laid down their weapons. He stopped and tapped thoughtfully at the figure of one candidate far from the others, glaring at the barely perceptible force field in front of her, hands gripped tightly around her weapon. “It is perfection, of course. But it’s still a prison. And anyone that would choose pretty lies over grim truth is not anyone we need on our side.”

He turned and faced the much younger Bennett. “Our enemy are masters of using our own sense of optimism and complacency against us. An illusion, even one of happiness and perfection, is still deadly. These candidates must learn that or else they have no use to us.”

He laid the manila folder in his hands on the desk. “Give them one day, then begin releasing Toxin 7 into the air. If they haven’t found a way out by day 4, they never will.”

Bennett looked up at him in barely contained shock. “But what if none of them find the way out?” He motioned to the wall of monitors. “They don’t really look that motivated. The whole challenge could be a waste!”

The doctor smiled and pushed a few buttons on the panel in front of him, focusing on 6 or 7 individuals who were cautiously prowling the woods and open clearings. “Don’t worry. I have faith in our candidates. Not all of them are fooled by their gilded cage.”

And with a quirk of his eyebrow, he turned and left the room.

 

 

Haunted

In one aspect, yes, I believe in ghosts, but we create them. We haunt ourselves, and sometimes we do such a good job, we lose track of reality.
//Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls 

---

After the end of the world, all anyone wants to talk about is the past.

She can’t blame them really. The future is such a tenuous, muddy concept and the present is dreary and tedious all at the same time; the past is safe. Comforting.

And terrible, of course.

Because every story is essentially the same – a sad sort of apocalypse themed mad libs, except that she can generally fill in all the blanks:

You had loved ones. It didn’t matter if you thought you had few or many – once the plague hit the only thing that really stuck out to you was the fact that you realized that you cared about far more people than you initially thought. Each time someone got sick you hoped that it wouldn’t take them – that somehow, they would recover. It never worked out that way. You thought you’d get used to it, after a while, but each death was harder to take – perhaps because it meant you were closer to being alone. After you’d stood vigil for your last loved one, you laid down or curled up in fetal position or smashed your fist into every hard surface you could find, screaming, praying, hoping that it would finally take you, too. Obviously that didn’t happen, because here you are, telling your story. Because, of course, eventually you mustered up all of your inner strength and forced yourself out of bed, or away from the bottle, or through the haze of sadness and realized that you couldn’t possibly be the only one left alive and began looking for other survivors.

At this point of the story, they’ll look up at her, hopeful and expectant. She will murmur some comforting words and tell them how brave they’ve been. She will  say that they are safe, now, and won’t have to worry about being alone. Then she’llsend them on their way, to whatever cleared out home space they’ve been assigned to, with a kind word and a gentle reminder that they should come to her if they have any questions or issues.

Some stay, integrate, take to the new living arrangements – more cramped, more manual labor, but filled with the laughter of children and the promise of tomorrow. But others – others only flit about, filled with nervous, anxious energy. She sees them do double-takes to people they pass on the streets, watches as they catch themselves before accidentally calling strangers by the names of long-dead loved ones. Their movements are listless and lank. They’re tethered to the past, even though the past is dust-filled agony. She knows that these ones will not stay – they will go on from this place, continuing to tell their stories to other strangers they meet and leave, to God above, to themselves – fighting to keep the past with them. She always feels sadness when she sees them leave, in the dead of night or furtively during mealtimes. In her mind, she tells herself that perhaps they will find what they’re looking for elsewhere beyond this place; in her heart she knows they will not. They are chasing ghosts of what could’ve been, what might’ve happened, how they feel their stories should’ve ended. They are haunted by their own memories – and comforted by them, too. And because of this, they will never leave them and will never be able to march towards the future.

 

Love letter.

I didn’t want to kiss you goodbye — that was the trouble — I wanted to kiss you goodnight. And there’s a lot of difference.
//Ernest Hemingway

---

I always wanted you to
write me a love letter.
But, I guess I’ll have to settle
with you telling me just how
much you once loved me
and how
now
you love her better.

And hey, I promise I’m not bitter.
Cuz, honestly, I bet her
smile it never slips –
Like mine always used to
when you told me what you wished:
that I was more assertive,
picture perfect
image of a girl,
who could motivate
and compensate
for what you never were.

I thought you needed space and time
to make it all okay;
turns out you needed shame and lies
to help you get away.
And now I hear
Your earnest words
asking me to be honest.
And I’m so kind I won’t bring up
the monster that sprang up among us.

Well here’s some of that honesty
that you claim to love so much:
In your hands I realized that honesty
was just another word –
for hurting one another,
just another way to burn.
Cuz honesty, it honestly
was just another way
to excuse just another
of your
honest mistakes.

Your happily ever after.

You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness.
//Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum 

---

Imagine this: you are a fair maiden, slight and pure –
trapped high in the tower.
The guards are stiff, their faces hidden by fearsome masks.
Perhaps you could jump, true
But the dragon outside will surely kill you –
that is, if the 300 foot fall doesn’t first.
The guards, though, are only human and
you weep so bitterly and beautifully.
One of them breaks his oath to hear your heart breaking so and –
throws off his mask and carries you away
through wretched tunnels and under the burning dragon.
And, of course, you live happily ever after –
your shining hair a match for his shining redemption arc.

If that’s not quite your style, think of this:
you are lost, deep in the forest with night closing in around you.
The trees are thick and the air is stifling and –
oh, are those red eyes peering at you through the brush,
drawn to your scent of desperation and fear?
But oh, here comes gallant knight  to your rescue, just in time.
You can’t help but swoon as he beats back the snarling creatures and
whisk you upon his horse.
You will always recall the way he leaps out, sword blazing and –
oh, that darkness, or that monster, neither one, really
ever stood a chance.
So, yes, of course there is a happily ever after;
his gallantry never fails to make your heart skip a beat.

But perhaps the thought of being a damsel in distress makes you cringe
and, maybe, just the sound of that self important prince
or that self-righteous vagrant makes you want to retch.

So instead you are: a maiden, but more ruddy than fair and –
the pureness is rather debatable.
You smile wickedly every time you see the guards because you know beneath their masks
are deep cuts, flaming and red, courtesy of your repeated scuffles at mealtime.
You leap out of the window when the dragon’s back is turned,
grab onto its neck and try a trick your grandmother always said:
scratch the dragon behind its scaly ears and now –
now it’s pliant in your hands, completely in your control.
You take that dragon high into the air as it burns the tower into the ground
and laugh into the wind as you ride back to your self made happily ever after.

Or else, the darkness of the forest doesn’t faze you and –
when the monster leaps out at you, the snarl becomes a squeal
as you slit its underside with the knife you always have hidden in your boot.
You track down a troll or some other fearsome creature,
demand to know the way out on the strength of your voice alone.
And, when that doesn’t work, you shrug and turn away –
scale a tree and check your compass, chart a path out of the gloom.
As you emerge you hear the thunder of hoofs behind you and –
oh, there is the prince come to save you, brow furrowed.
You smile like he’s beneath you, even though he towers over you on his horse.
He gallops away as you begin towards the rising sun
and out into your happily ever after.

But, what if instead:
you refused the offer of the penitent guard
(because where would you go
and could it last? )
or ran from the prince
(because everyone knows that gallantry is dead.)
Or else, gave up when the leap to the dragon seemed too great;
or, your grandmother’s advice seemed a long shot at best;
perhaps, the dark was a comfort in its own way or;
that knife you had would never be able to cut its way through, anyway.
So you remain locked in your tower or lost in the woods
wasting away, lonely and alone, to the end of your days.

Whether you are a damsel in distress, perfect curls and doe like eyes,
saved by some knight or tower guard who was beguiled or bewitched
by your beauty and the pink flowing dress;
or you are a distressed damsel, hair braided back, eyes narrowed
who walked out of danger as easily as princesses seem to walk into it;
or else, you are a million other options in between –
a damsel who likes the dress but took out the petticoat that made it hard to walk;
curled your hair but pinned it back once the fighting began;
cut your hair altogether because the damn thing was so impractical;
sat hoping for a princess instead of a prince  –
your happily ever after could never be found
in a locked up tower or in the midst of the twilight forest.
You are meant to flee from those places
in any way you can.
You must seek out your own happily ever after –
whatever that means to you –
out there in the world,
away from the darkened forest and ivory tower,
where sunlight and freedom can help you grow.

 

Instead.

I hope that someday, somebody wants to hold you for twenty minutes straight, and that’s all they do. They don’t pull away. They don’t look at your face. They don’t try to kiss you. All they do is wrap you up in their arms, without an ounce of selfishness in it.
Jenna, Waitress

---

 

She spends her morning cataloging all the types of kisses she’s known.

There are kisses that leave you breathless.
They are: the end of the movie type kisses; the finally, finally, I’ve waited so long for this kisses; the blood pounding in your ears and stars in your eyes type kisses; the type of kisses that wrap you up and make the world disappear and make you think oh, i hope we kiss this way forever. 

There are kisses that are a promise of something more.
They are: often chaste, but followed up by lustful eyes and wet lips; quick, insistent, delivered through hooded eyes; or else, long and languid, trailing off slowly, confidently.

There are kisses for goodbye we’ll see each other soon, kisses for hello i’ve missed you, kisses when your body and mind are spent, content, flushed.

But what she really wants is not a kiss, wet and wanting, but a sign of love that’s not asking for anything.
She wants an assurance that the kiss is not the thing they’re after, after all, nor the things that come after kisses.
She wants the love that loves without expectation, love that stands still for its own sake. A love that sees her, and not the things she can offer in its stead.

 

Our bridges.

 Never cut what you can untie.
//Joseph Joubert

---

When you are young you think – every bridge must be burned.
And sometimes, you don’t think burning is enough. It must be scorched earth, altogether.
There can be nothing left around you – it must be desolate and empty.
You ground your frustrations into that barren earth and salt it, too
just for good measure. Just to know that nothing, nothing, nothing
will ever grow there ever again.

But that is you, in your youth. Always running too hot, always ready to light a match,
to raze the ground and choke the hedge into lifelessness.
It’s not until later that you realize that burning bridge brings tears to your eyes anyway.
The smoke wafts up and embeds itself in your hair, your clothes,
until all you can smell is the wreckage of your rage.
And later still you realize that all your practice is in bridge burning,
when what you really need to learn is bridge building.
You cross the same river over and over.
Oh, it’s in different spots – sometimes rougher, sometimes smooth as silk
but it’s that same river, alright.
And you can’t remember for the life of you how to cross it
because the ache of burning through it is muscle memory now.

So, perhaps it’s true that no bridge needs to be crossed twice.
But maybe all you need to do is close the gate behind you,
maybe throw the key back in for good measure,
and move on.

 

You were.

 I almost thanked you for teaching me something about survival back there, but then I remembered that the ocean never handed me the gift of swimming. I gave it to myself.
//Y.Z., what i forgot to remember

---

1. You were the sea and I had grown gills to accommodate you.
(Your absence left me gasping in toxic air, grasping uselessly towards the waning tide.)
2. You were the rain and I had sprouted upward branches, always reaching up towards you.
(The loss of you reminded me that I had grown roots, too, and could only remain where you had left me.)
3. You were the heavens and I had hollowed out my bones to stay afloat, surrounded by you.
(The gloom you left behind was suffocating, blinding, and complete.)
3. My hollowed out bones keep me afloat, my voice rising up into the sky, no matter the storms that rained down. (The sky does not hold me up, after all; it is my own beating wings that carry me forward.)
2. The roots keep me grounded, no matter how the wind howls; my branches sprout new life and bring it, too. (The rain passes and I realize that it is the sun, not the torrential fall, that my leaves spring up towards.)
1. The gills and tail recede, legs sprout forth; air strengthens me, emboldens me as I leap forward and away. (The sea is not so vast or final, after all, nor a sea at all; it is only a lake and I can swim in it and leave it as I please.)

Lights behind.

Loving you was like going to war; I never came back the same.
//Warsan Shire

---

Immediately after, all he can feel are the tips of her fingertips on the inside of his wrist. The five light pinpricks seem hot to him, still, even though it’s been weeks since she touched him, even though her hands had always been ice cold even on sunny days, even though he thinks he’s been numb with want ever since she walked out of his little life. That one last touch is seared into his memory, that and the look on her face – the type of sadness artists carve onto roughly hewn blocks of marble: cold, faraway, not quite real. All he can smell is the hint of her perfume in the air, though she took the bottle with her as she left. He supposes that the scent of  shampoo must fade from his sheets soon, but even after every wash, they still smell like her; and because they smell like her, he keeps expecting to turn around and find her lost in a book, hair in a messy ponytail.

Time passes, and he acts in an approximation of moving on. He no longer asks after her at parties, or jump every time he sees a lithe brunette with a confident stride and regal air. He does not stare mournfully at the coffee shop on 3rd and main, he does not shirk at ordering iced americanos, he does not avoid his favorite book store with the nosy owner and dusty shelves. He has rejoined life at large: drinks wine at parties without a wistful look on his face, writes without veiled metaphors of her, watches black and white films with passionless kisses without pining.

But sometimes, in his dreams, he finds her there. Or, a better description – he finds the emptiness of the places that she’s left. There are flashbacks, too bright like overexposed films – her red hat on the beach, her annotations on his hands, the fingertips curled around a coffee cup. When she speaks, her voice sounds tinny, faraway, the words jumbled, the laugh discordant. And when he opens his eyes, he can see the ashes of their love gone out falling slowly to earth, tastes the bitterness of regret and loss in his mouth, feels the burned marks on the inside of his wrist.

 

All the same.

I feel small; but so are stars from a distance.
//somniloquencee, “ten word poem”

---

She looks around her classroom and lets out a small laugh. Laughing abruptly and unexpectedly has always been her way of dealing with feelings she hasn’t quite processed yet, and as she looks around at her now barren walls and empty desks she finds herself at quite a loss to describe exactly how she’s feeling at the moment. A coworker had asked her earlier – So was your first year what you expected? And she had answered after a long moment – Yes…and no. I guess? He had laughed and nodded his head in understanding, which was a bit confusing to her since she wasn’t even quite sure what she meant by such a response. Perhaps that had been his response, too, when someone asked him how he felt at the end of his first year of teaching. Perhaps no one really knew how to respond. That’s what she hopes, at least.

She shakes her head at the recollection and turns her attention back to her workspace – the disaster zone that is her desk area and filing cabinet – which is the last thing that needs to be cleared out before she steps out into her first summer vacation as a teacher. She sets an hour-long goal for herself so that this simple task doesn’t turn into the long, drawn out affair that cleaning out her closet or room at home always seems to become – a job that invariably becomes five times longer than it needs to be because she’s overly sentimental and ends up spending more time reminiscing on random objects she comes across than actually throwing things away.

She makes good headway for about thirty minutes, throwing away old snacks, hurriedly scrawled on post-its and broken pencils (seriously, she thinks, why did she keep so many broken pencils?). She finds a stack of documents she had printed off from some website or another, secondary texts and worksheets she’d planned on using for her persuasive unit but had shoved into a drawer and promptly forgotten about instead. She frowns at them, thinks about what a shame it was that she never used them, resolves to definitely use them next year before she files them away into the appropriate file folder. She finds a few referrals that she had kept meaning to send up to the office for filing but, whoops, never managed to make their way up there, a few phone numbers of parents she kept meaning to call but then accidentally forgot to do so (sometimes accidentally-on-purpose). Her desk is actually somewhat filled with things that she meant to do or wanted to get around to but never did. A graveyard of good (and, at the very least, more organized) intentions. A catalog of the teacher she’d wanted to be. She leans back in her chair, feeling melancholy. Yes, many of her students had come up to her, one after another, saying how much they had enjoyed having her as a teacher, made promises to visit next year, but now she thinks they’re the type of words said during high moments of emotion – empty, platitudes stated on the high rush of endings.

Then she finds a stack of student notebooks that hadn’t been taken home (or, more likely, found their way into the school’s recycling bin) and begins to idly leaf through them. She shakes her head at the messiness of most of her student’s notes but manages to rip out a few pages to use as exemplars for next year. Then she begins reading a few students’ journal entries from the beginning of the year, rereading the notes she wrote back to all 100 of them during that first semester. At the time, as she watched the hours tick by during her coveted weekend and her hand began to cramp, she had cursed herself for making such a lofty goal. Now, though, she’s glad she did it. Her students had read her notes voraciously, more than one commenting how they’d never expected her to really read the journal entries, how awesome it was to know that she actually cared about what they had written. Underneath one of them, she finds a page long note written to her from a student after she’d been sent to the office, a heartfelt apology for her behavior in class. The last thing she packs up is her personal copy of the school yearbook. She spends time looking over her students’ end of the year notes to her, numerous and running over pictures when empty space ran out, heart warmed at the kind messages (though she’ll have to remember to do a better job of teaching the difference between your and you’re next year).

She closes the door behind her and walks out into desk filled hallway, wheeling her rolling cart filled to the brim with books and office supplies behind her. She thinks back to the past year – her dreaded 8th hour, her successful 3rd hour intervention class, the slapdash end of the year yearbook club, the euphoria of her 3rd benchmark tests scores, the disappointing scores on her final benchmark test. She thinks about the hugs and handshakes from her students and their parents, a few tears shed, lots of thanks all around. She thinks – perhaps they won’t visit next year, but the things said in the heat of noonday sun were sincere at the time they were said. She realizes – perhaps her failures were numerous, but so were her victories. There will probably never be movies made about her first year, songs commemorating it, or speeches dedicated to it. She is no great general having just come through a great battle, or an intrepid explorer who has discovered new and exotic lands; nor is she some sort of brilliant scientist who has uncovered a miracle cure or a writer who has penned the next great American novel. But she is here, still standing, proud, exhausted, euphoric and a little wistful, on her last day of her first year, and it feels monumental all the same.