Still haven’t saved the world

((Oh, September girl))

Today’s the kind of day when I want to get drunk at ten in the morning off of wine and old poetry and stumble through the snow the way we used to do back when we were alive.  I remember that one time.  The biggest blizzard we’d ever seen in that black and white town and all of a sudden, everything really was black and white and white and white.  Everything except us.  We were the color that kept the whole world spinning and that snow plow buried you waist deep in snow and we laughed so hard just to keep from crying because goddamn, when they’re that close to you, snow plows are fucking huge.  The snow never stopped and after you went home, we got drunk off of special occasion wine even though by then it was clear there would be no special occasions for us.

and she’s
screaming at me
you can’t save the world
and I can’t believe
I ever thought otherwise.

you’re just a
just a
just a dimestore heroine
a broken girl
with a pair of
plastic wings
strapped to your back
and a heavy heart
inside your chest
and there is
nothing that
will change
your ending

I don’t even know where to go from here.  There’s an alarm going off in the bedroom and he keeps shutting it off and my sister’s asleep in the spare room and both of them, they could sleep for hours.  But me, I never could stand to wake up after you’ve missed the whole day.  Doing it that way, that’s how you wake up one day forty five, overweight, never having done anything with your life and you’re not quite sure how you even got there.  I want to live.  There’s so much out there that needs doing.  So many places that need seeing.  So many puppies that need saving.  (Of course, being me I would throw that last one in there.)

This is all turning far too cliche for me.  Forgive me.

I still believe it when you say

You’re dying in America at the end of the millenium

It’s too often that I get lost these days.  Lost in nothing, really.  I don’t have much to do so I don’t do much.  I want that to change.  No, I need that to change.

I used to be a writer and a photographer and a believer and there was beauty in everything.  Give me that back.  But who am I to be demanding such things?  There is no one who would be able to give them to me.

So fuck it.  I’ll take them for myself.  There was once a time when I dyed my hair fire engine red and I’ll be goddamned if it didn’t stop traffic in that little town.  There was once a time when the Kish grew warmer simply because my pretty little girl with a bow in her hair wanted to wade through it because don’t you know that once you set foot in the Kish, you’ll never leave DeKalb.  There was once a time when I was ruthlesswildpassionate everything I wanted to be and there were no regrets and I was going to save the world.

And the songwriter can not hear.

So this year, I will be a writer again.  The way I was years ago when I couldn’t even live without the blue ink hurricanes spilling from my pen.  And this year, I will be a photographer again.  Even if I have to drive all the way back fucking home just to remember what beauty is.  And this year, I will dye my hair fire engine even if it’s only for a little bit just so I can remember what it’s like to be exactly who I am supposed to be.  ((Because I will be honest with you; nothing.  nothing will ever feel as much like waking up as that moment when the water runs red and you step out of the shower and look in the mirror and finally recognize the woman staring back at you.))  And this year, I will try to make new friends because I haven’t had a real friendship in lifetimes and it hurts.

This year, I will begin to put the beauty back into my life where it belongs.

If I were her, I'd paint my body til all my skin was gone.

I’m not one for resolutions, but look I’ve gone and done it anyways.

Because I’m used to relying on intellect

((Reason says I should have died three years ago))

I went back home today. Lunch with the girls who knew me when I was always fire engine. The girls who loved me even though I was always in a state of disgrace. And it was good and for a little bit I remembered what it was like to be surrounded by people who knew me for who I really am in my truest moments. I am lacking that in my life now. Real friends.

Going home doesn’t feel the same now as it once did. I don’t feel the urge to stay and never ever look back the way I once did. It was good once but now I want so much more.

I went to Gurhler Road today. I haven’t been since my accident. Haven’t driven on gravel since. It was time to say goodbye. To stop letting it control me. In two days it will be two years since everything changed. Can you believe it? Two fucking years. ((I can’t remember who I was back then. ))

I know you’re wise beyond your years

My heart still breaks sometimes. It’s November and everything happens in November and I know I keep saying that. Well, at least in my head I keep saying that but I guess in real life there’s no one around to hear it and it’s still the same sad songs that make me cry and it’s still Rent screaming through my speakers and it’s still Eternal Sunshine late at night and I guess I’ll give it one more go around (third time’s the charm, or so they say) and goddamn, sometimes I just get fucking terrified. ((But do you ever get the fear?)) And yesterday I almost divorced double parentheses because of all of the years that I have tied up between their beginning and lack of endings but then I found a bit of truth amidst the fiction I can’t seem to write my way out of these days so I decided I’d keep them around for at least a few more worlds. And here’s to running up the last three years in song and my green chucks are almost three years old and I could spin you a story for every day I wore them like the
time when it was
pouring outside and the tornado sirens were
going off and he drove away in his little black cavalier and
left you there standing
soaking wet in front of me so I
drove you back and you had on
the exact same shoes and
that was it. I don’t know why I remember that out of all of these worlds but you were screaming something about how you hated winter. And this entry is far too honest for the public blog that it will be posted on but I’m not stopping it now. I’m writing and god, you know how hard it is to come by words these days.

Everything happens in November

I signed up for NoJoMo over at OD.  Even though you and I both know I don’t have time to follow through on it and it’s aready day two and I haven’t written anything in lifetimes.

 

My life has been so busybusybusy.  Two jobs and school full time and every spare minute is spent laying in the arms of the man who is my home.

 

 

I’m a business woman now.  A grown up.  I wake up early every morning and put on pressed dress slacks and a freshly pressed shirt and heels.  I carry my planner with me to set up appointments and carry business cards.  I smile and laugh in all the right places.  It comes easy to me.  The ability to slip into that person is something I didn’t realize I possessed.  I shop at New York and Co and Banana Republic and walk longingly past Hot Topic dreaming of the days when I had nothing to live up to.  And don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining.  But sometimes I just miss being fire engine and not having so much responsibility and future ahead of me.  I guess I never really realized how scary the future can be until I actually started having one.

 

 

 

It’s November now.  November and we always said everything happens in November. It’s when you’re officially allowed to start playing Christmas music and it’s when we found Rent and it saved us and helped us believe in love ((I can’t believe you disagree)) and it’s when my poetry always used to say but then again, easy’s not my style, baby and it’s the month when I fought with a stranger and I met myself ((I opened my mouth and I heard myself))and  it’s when I finally gathered the courage to say goodbye and it’s when I heard the car spin out and it’s when I lost everything and it’s when I wrote this poem (last year)

You scare me
I say and
when he asks why
I say
Because you make me
feel things that
I’m not ready to
say out loud

And he says to me
I can’t say that.
Not yet.
You know that.
and I wasn’t
asking because
really I don’t
need the words
right now.
He puts his
arms around me
and kisses me
over and over
and when I wake up
next to him
he whispers the
exact same words
he said to me
on that very
first morning

You know,
you really are
very beautiful

And god
I still melt
and

don’t you know that
to me that
means much more
than those
three small words
that have been said
countless times by
nameless faceless others?

((Don’t you know that
you mean everything?))

and I’m terrified to say it but I’m afraid that this year when I say everything happens in November it will mean that this was the last November we got with my dad and let’s not even think like that, okay?

 

 

 

November 13th, 2005

 

.1. what (who) are you looking for?

I am looking for worlds and adventures and late nights talking and coffee cups that never empty and road trips to places we’ve never heard of and someone to fall asleep with every night and songs that make me shake and the chance to write everything and promises and a million other things.  I want to live.

.2. what do you believe in?

I believe in everything.  The stars the moon the sky the clouds aeroplanes dandelions trains the ocean snow rain autumn winds myself red hair dye spinning.  Truth.  Beauty.  Freedom.  Love.  Everything.

Give me an answer

October 9th, 10th, 11th:

Did you hear your favorite song one last time?

This car was beautiful and the hubcaps were pink and I just wanted to drive down country roads at night in it wearing my Marilyn dress and stopping traffic with my fire engine hair.

And here we go again with my love of church signs.

Church signs remind me of all the disbelief in the world and how through it all, people still choose to believe.  Because in the end, that’s all we have.  I once knew a pretty little girl with a bow in her hair who never knew how to fly until I gave her wings and whispered the magic words in her ear.  Just believe.

She's praying to Jesus she's pulling the trigger.

I fear my father will be dead within the year.  He is deteriorating at a frightening speed.  Tonight, my sister, Mom and I sat up watching home movies from 2002-2004.  That wasn’t that long ago but you wouldn’t even know he was the same man if I didn’t tell you.  Alcohol is killing him and all I can think is why didn’t he just stay gone all those years ago the first time he went crazy?  He’s killing himself but more than that, he’s killing his family.  When he is gone, we will remember him as a decrepid old man at only 47 who could barely walk.  He will never walk me down the aisle.  See me graduate college.  See me get that DVM put at the end of my name.  He will never hold my children.

And part of me still hates him for all of that.

It was this time last year

And as usual, I am late late late.  But here.  Still here.  And that is to be expected by now, I suppose.  ((Better late than never, right?))

So I’ll play catch up tomorrow.  But for tonight here is my life the way it was on the last day.

This is what the world looked like on the day I died.

Running all of the red lights

October 7th:

We swore up and down there would be no regrets

This reminds me of a picture from years and lifetimes ago when we were all much different people.

Oh make me a red cape.

((I can’t remember who I was back then))

But you think about yourself too much

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

October 6th:

My mommy’s doggy is crazy.    It makes me miss my Baily-face so much.  She would have killed anyone for me.  And if that isn’t love, then I’m quite sure I don’t know what love is.

I set my clocks early

I’m always late for everything.  I’m five days late for starting my photo blog.  Damn computer not reading Compact Flash cards.  I went to Best Buy and $35 later…here I am.

(Here I am.)

October 1st:

My heart is like a wound

October 2nd:

I'm kind of a little bit obsessed with churches.

October 3rd:

And right then and there, I believe again.

October 4th:

Silly!

And then October 5th:

Go ahead and understand me, underneath a killer blue sky.

All caught up!  Now I will be back with one a day.