T.S. Eliot

and coffeespoons.

Are these the best way to measure out one's life?

I have read Eliot, Pound, Woolf, Joyce, Yeats, Austen, Brontes, Hesse, Hemmingway, Hawthorne, Poe, Plath, Dickenson, Walker, Milton, Shakespeare, Conrad, Ginsburg, Dickens, Fitzgerald, Ibsen, Carter, and the ilk.
I have graduated from college and a prep high school.
I go to coffeehouses, attend poetry readings, and enjoy chess games with discussion of philosophy in the background.

Why am I not happy with this knowledge?
It takes roleplaying in my friend's basement, jamming out to a mix cd, and late night waffle house visits to make me pleased.
It is all about connection. My connections are put on hold, perhaps indefinitely.
How do you make conversation?

When the story ends

I am decaying away.
Trapped in a castle of anxiety, social expectations, and words. I try to run away, but it is difficult when there are no spoken ties to happiness and blood ties to responsibility.

Now, I feel like I'm 18 again. Bumming around.
I want to smell the freedom of failure and a smile on my cheek. I want to hear broken and tainted words because we are all broken and tainted.

I want to find a job and live on my own and complete what is deemed necessary for happiness.
Where are you truly happy?

I feel like I'm crumbling.

Let me try again

I want to take this hammer,
break the walls of reality.
to fantasy.


I don't know what I'm doing. Years of preparation for being treated like I'm a little girl again.

I will make some difference. I have to. I can't sit still.

I, I, I, I, I
Dumb. Let's try not saying that letter outside of words or narcissism and crazy will ensue.

Let's make you matter, or him, or her. Let's make people matter.

There was a she once. She was a friend, a great friend, but left for the flute section and we parted. No good words were had ever. Nothing mattered. We faded. We were mortal.

Then there was a they. Eleven. No power to be had. It is why we disbanded. "What do you think of Elder?"
"It was supposed to be funny."
"You bitch"
Fade. Fade. Fade, but a return later.
"You don't like this store. Wait out here."
"You don't like him."
"You chose his side."
"Love, Best Friend."


Words are eternal.
Make them matter, make you matter.


Let's start new words, enough to be told no.

Day Five

I graduated five days ago.
I suppose that's it for a town I never loved until the end.
Hopefully, not of people.

I was a nomad living off of kindness and a debit card.
Not to be remembered for that, hopefully.

Oh, we sing for memories, but what do they do for us?
Coming home, I have to merge two rooms into one clean one.
What do we throw away? What memories are important enough to keep?

The second grade poem about a red tail hawk?
The quarter aliens that used to have a society, stories, in my mind?
The written note from a friend saying, you keep us together. no one gives you credit. i love you.
The candles won from a silly contest?

Where do we put the stuffed animals fictitious children will not care about?


What do we count as important?
The bad memories are in a box in the attic.
Don't remember the dog, the futon, the manatee bracelet.

I suppose the walking across a deafened stage passed me into adulthood.
Childhood memories, storylines, and hopes can be forgotten.
Time to grow up.
Find a job
any job
except THAT job.

Stand in line. Smile. Cry.
Walk with dignity because of course you are special.
Now live without any knowledge of how to breathe.