Weeklies 3: Manic Pixie Dreamers

Weekly Writings Week Three: Write about true love. Compare true love with puppy love. Do you or your character believe in love at first sight? Manic Pixie Dreamers “You must accept the reality of other people. You think that reality is up for negotiation, that we think it's whatever you say it is. You must accept that we are as real as you are.” -J.K Rowling, The Casual Vacancy Love is Easy. Today I got a boyfriend. It's the thirteenth day of second grade and I have a boyfriend. Her name's Brynn. She's got red hair that I like and even though I'm not really a freckle kinda guy, hers aren't bad. Kinda cute I guess. His name's Jacob. He wrote me a love letter. He says he loves me, and I wrote back that I loved him too. That's how being boyfriend and girlfriend goes. You've got to write a lot of letters and say the word love a lot and people stay happy. You're cute. I really love you. Do you love me? Yes/ No. Should we go on a date? I'm only eight. Haha that rhymed. Poet and I didn't know it. You're so funny that's why I love you. :)))) xoxo I thought it was cus I was cute oh yeah xoxo what are the x's and o's? I'm not real sure, they put them on valentines well then xoxoxo Love is Easy. Love hurts. I'm twelve and I guess they think I'm older sometimes. At least Marcus does. If only Marcus. The boys at school whisper jokes about me. It's because my breasts are bigger than the other girls. I don't know why this matters, but it matters to them, and it matters to Marcus. I found ace bandages and I wrap them really tight around my chest every morning before I get dressed. By lunchtime it's hard to breathe, but it's worth it. It's very worth it. So the boys stop joking and teasing and, well, I don't know about Marcus. No one does. I just hope for the best while I walk home from school breathing heavy in sweaters three times too large. So I don't breathe well, but I breathe better than when he is lonely and finds me. Brynn didn't speak to me today. I don't know why. I sat down next to her at lunch and started unwrapping my turkey sandwich. She was twirling a carrot absentmindedly in her fingers but not eating anything, staring at something I couldn't see. What's wrong, baby? You don't have to call me that. I didn't know you didn't like it. Well I don't. What's wrong? Nothing's wrong. Did I do something? No. Sorry. Can I help? No. Do you still love me? Of course. You're life's not the only one with problems. Neither is yours. You wouldn't understand my problems. Neither would you. I don't want to fight. So we won't. I took her hand and she was nicer. I went home from school that night to what looked like an empty house. There weren't lights on that you could see from outside and the doors were locked. Mom had work. Dad had the thing he called work that happened in a bedroom on the other side of town. Emily was home. Light seeped out from under her door. She was fifteen and I wanted to ask her about Brynn. How to help her, what was wrong with her. So I turned the knob and she didn't hear me because she was laying on her back and there was a boy laying on top of her and they were doing what mom and dad do after they fight and what dad does with someone else across town while mom's at work and what Brynn said she'd do when we got older and smarter and braver. So I didn't want to talk to my sister, about Brynn, or about anyone. I didn't want to look at her, so I left. She never heard me. The bandages and sweaters worked for three weeks. I felt safe, finally. I felt young and pretty and safe and even though it was stolen from me, I felt pure. I felt happy because I let myself forget. He said “I 'aven't seen you in a while, babe.” and in my head I said “Don't call me that.” He said “You're lovelier than I remember.” and he grabbed at my arm. And in my head I said “Let go of me. I'll call the police.” Out loud I said “please.” And he said “Please? Well I suppose, since you begged me.” And he pushed and he pulled and he stole again what twelve year old girls should never fear of losing. And he called me “babe” and I thought of Jacob and I prayed that he'd still love me. And I wondered why people loved each other at all. And I wondered why people care about love, why I cared about love. I wondered what love was. I wondered why anyone ever made love. I wondered why it mattered. I wondered whether love could exist without evil. And then I remembered what Marcus was doing. And I knew it'd be impossible. And I thought I was lucky to have Brynn who was not like my sister, or like anyone. She's crazy. She's secretive. She's harsh. She's manipulative. But she's beautiful. And she's special. And she's kind. And I love her. And sometimes love hurts. Love is confusing. I went to the doctor yesterday. I've got something wrong inside me. It's incurable. I am dying. My mother is crying, my dad came home, for once, and cried, too. My sister slept with mom instead of with a boy. They hugged me. I didn't cry. I am fourteen and dying and the love of my life will not know about it. I won't tell her. I can't tell her. We'll just pretend it's not real. She likes mystery. She likes being interested. I like to interest her. I hope she still loves me after this. “What is this?” “It's heroin.” “Why do you have heroin?” “It's none of yer business.” “Mom, you don't, please stop, mom, please--” “pleaseee! Pleassseee mom! Pleasseee! Just like you said to MY fiance you little slut. Pleaseeee!” she waved the syringe like a magic wand and I cried and it fueled her just as much as the drug. “You're a whore.” She jabbed the needle in the air in front of her, her eyes sunken. “A little whore.” “I'm not...stop it.” I was crying and I said it so quietly she didn't hear me. “Useless slut.” She spat, filling the syringe with the poison that coursed through her veins, tricking her into believing the opposite of what is real and what is right and what is poison and what is life. And inside me I felt him and he wouldn't go away. And I said please please what please..please...my mind forgetting to say what needed to come next, forgetting the words...helpless and useless and ruined. Please...please. And I knew that Jacob was too good for me. He deserved better. He deserved someone prettier and smarter and richer and kinder and funnier, someone who was not ruined. Someone better. But I needed him. And I don't know if he needed me. Hey. What's wrong? How did you get here? I walked. You're shivering, come inside. What's the matter? I don't know. Okay. I do know. But I don't want to talk about it. Okay. Something's wrong with you, too, Jacob. I know. And you don't want to talk about it either. No, I don't. So we won't. So we won't. Jacob, do you love me? I love you a lot. How much? More than anyone loves me. That's not true. I love you and they love you. Your family, I mean. Not as much. Why don't you want to tell me what's wrong with you? Why don't you? Because you might not love me anymore. The same reason. So we won't. So we won't. She fell asleep and I stroked the knots from her hair. In my dream, I stroked the knots from our lives. I've got a depressed mother and a cheating father and reckless sister and I am dying. I've got an addict mother and her fiance raped me and everything's dying. Love is confusing. Why do people believe in love? I am sixteen and in love and I am sixteen and I don't believe in love. And he is not in me but it feels like he never left and never will and he's part of me and there's no ignoring it. And now it. Now it. Why not? I thought you said you were ready? But I'm not, okay? But I love you. I love you, too. So why not? Don't. Please. Okay. And that's why he's better than me. He understands when I say please. It's getting worse and she suspects and I can see it in her and she is better than me so she doesn't ask. She doesn't ask why I can't breathe or why I'm getting thinner. She doesn't ask where I am when I'm at doctor's appointments. She doesn't ask when my parents treat us differently. I'm running out of time. And though she doesn't ask, I know. I know she knows it. But we're running out of time. And why do people believe in love? I love you I know. I love you I know. I love you. I love you. I'm dying. I know. So are you. Yeah. Living gets tiring. Love get's tiring. It all gets tiring. We can't live together. So we won't. So we won't. I love you.

Weeklies 2: Macaroni Necklaces

Weekly Writings Week Two: What are your thoughts on ghosts, demons, and the afterlife? Macaroni Necklaces “You're just one of those ghosts traveling endlessly. Don't need no road in fact they follow me. And we just go in circles.” -Paramore Part one 67 Sleeps Hey Momma, it's Little Boy. It's been sixty seven sleeps since you tucked me in, I've been counting. Miss Brown says my numbers are real good and my letters even better. She always pats my head, Momma, I think it's 'cause she knows it's been sixty seven days. She must be counting, too. So anyways, Momma, I really like Miss Brown, even though she smiles real sad at me sometimes. Remember when you made me macaronies when I stayed home sick from school, Momma? I do, it made me feel like one thousand dollars when you made me macaronies. Dad always forgets to put pretzels on top like I like and like you like, too, so I'm real starved for macaronies all the time, and so yesterday in play time I got the craft macaronies and from the big shelf in Miss Browns room and some other boys with trucks and power rangers laughed and pointed at me, but I had fun at the craft table with the girls, momma, so it's okay and I forgive them because they can have macaronies whenever they want I bet so they just don't get it, momma, but like I said, don't worry, because I forgived them very much for laughing when they just didn't know. I got some purple string and pink glitter because I remembered those are the only colors you ever EVER paint your toenails in the summer time, so they must be your favorite, right? When Miss Brown stopped smiling sad at me to smile happy at some other kids I snuck a few pieces in my mouth and it was even worse than when dad makes it and forgets the pretzels on top but for some reason it made my tummy feel a little happier inside so I kept sneaking macaronies, and when my tummy was so full I could absolutely burst, your necklace was done, and it was so pretty so I showed Miss Brown. She smiled extra sad and patted my head and even kissed my cheek. “It's beautiful!” she said real sad with a clown smile painted real messy over top, or maybe the other way around actually, momma, she might not really be so sad, I just thought about that. But that's okay, I guess, I still like Miss Brown. “Will you let me wear it, maybe?” She said real nice and I frowned in my head, momma, because that necklace was for you, but she knowed that it was sixty seven days, so I couldn't say it was yours without another happy/sad face and I didn't want her to run out of clown paints before next time she really needed them. “Mhmm, you can wear it.” I said real calm and started making another necklace for you, but this time it wasn't as fun, because I knew no matter how pretty it'd never be as pretty as the first. So there wasn't much point in wasting all that glue, Miss Brown says it's not real cheap. Maybe one day I'll get the necklace back from Miss Brown and you can wear it. I'm getting bigger, dad measured me last week and so did the nurse at my checkup. I'm getting real big and soon I'll be tough enough to get your necklace back and also undig you from down there so you can wear it. I'll be real tough then. Now I'm only little. Anyways love you momma for always, love little boy. Part Two 500 mornings Hey, Sunshine. I miss you. It's been over a year since you had a heartbeat for me to listen to. I guess towards the end the beats started dwindling, and I knew that. There wasn't much for me to listen to, but I did anyway. When I was sent home after visiting hours I'd still hear the beats in my ears, and it would terrify me because they were never capable of matching mine. Remember when we would lie awake at night and stare at the shadows the streetlights cast on the old ceiling fan, not saying anything, your head on my chest, and it was as if there was only heart. A harmony we'll never share again. Anyways, I miss you. Little boy misses you, too, but I don't think he really understands, Sunshine. I don't think he understands that you are gone from him. He has grown so much, sweetheart, I wish you could see him. You know, I think I underestimate him sometimes. How smart he is, or how kind he is. I swear, sweetie, you should see the projects he brings home, hear how fast he reads. He's witty. He says things so funny they could bring me to tears, not because they're cute or nonsensical, but because he's impossibly wise beyond his years. I love that about him, I like that he's got an advantage out there. He's smart enough to build an exterior, and he needs one. We all do, and his will be thick, and it will keep him safe. I think if you could read this, you'd roll your eyes. I remember when he was born and you held him in your arms and pushed cowlicks of fairy blond hair behind his ears, and said “all I want is a child stupid enough to love me no matter what reasons he has to feel otherwise.” I guess at the time I thought you were talking about grounding him or taking his favorite toys away if he didn't eat his broccoli. I didn't know you had something specific in mind. I guess I didn't really know much of anything back then. Look where we are now. You gone and him still making macaroni necklaces with your favorite colors even though it's hard to believe he actually remembers what you look like, and me writing letters you'll never read. Funny how things happen and we end up with other things. Things we don't want, or didn't ask for. So baby, I miss you. I miss the part of you I knew. And today, your doctor called me. I hesitated at the caller ID and my hands sweat and I thought of the little boy and his macaroni necklaces and I wished I'd never had to put this doctor on speed dial in the first place. “I'd really like to speak with you today, if you can get out of work. It's important.” He sounded nervous. He sounded guilty, almost. Guilty is something you don't want to detect in the voice of the doctor that could not keep our wife alive. So I drove to the hospital, and I brought the boy, who brought the stuffed elephant, who brought comfort. “What is it?” I asked when we arrived, sweating, as I always did when the Doctor and I shared a room. “Is it alright for him to hear?” I patted the boy's shoulder, who bit the elephant's ear and stared at the floor. I don't know if he remembers your face, but he remembers the place you lived, and he will not look up. Doc smiled at him. “Hey, buddy. How've you been?” He asks, friendly, though the boy just furrows his face into my arm and bites harder onto elephant's ear. “Maybe it's best if he sat just outside the office.” “Alright, Bud, just stay right here. You'll be able to see us through the glass.” “It'll only be a minute.” “It'll only be a minute, alright?” Elephant ear, elephant ear. Small nod. I kiss his head and ruffle his hair. Like you would. It's not the same with me, I guess. Not much is. “I've been living with some knowledge about your wife's condition for too long, and I swore to her I would not break patient secrecy, but I want you to know what happened to your wife, and I want you to know for real.” “I..I don't understand. Secrecy?” Doc takes a very deep breath and closes his eyes and I am alarmed by how I am the one with the cryptic phone calls from doctors and a dead wife and a sad little boy, and yet HE is the one distraught. He doesn't know distress. He doesn't know death. He knows dead bodies, but not dead wives. “She made me promise that the details of her illness remain completely confidential.” “I'm her husband. That's her kid out there, our kid.” “I know, I'm sorry. She specifically said that you were to be kept at distance. That the secrecy did not elude you. In fact, it was for you.” “So why are you telling me this? Respect her wishes, Doc, she's dead.” Another deep breath from the Doctor. Maybe he knew distress. “She had been sick for over three years before she passed.” It was silent in the doctor's office I'd grown so familiar with. I could practically recite every medical poster on the walls. I had the patterns of the creases in his face memorized. I looked out at our son sitting in the small waiting room, looking at us through the glass windows, elephant ear in his mouth. His hair thin and fair, like yours. He raised his eyebrows and I smiled at him. “That's impossible. She was diagnosed a month after our son was born. That was only two years before...just two.” “I know that's what she told you--” “You told me, too.” I said. “I sat in the office and you said you were sorry, but she had a tumor and not long, and then we talked about therapy and time and--” “I know. I know. But this was not the diagnoses, I'm sorry. She was diagnosed, by herself, a year earlier.” It was my turn for theatrical deep breathing. “What are you saying?” “Your wife was diagnosed with early stages of cervical cancer in August of 2008. It was early, with a few months of radiation and chemotherapy we could have killed the cells. But she wanted a baby. She wanted a baby more than I was able to understand, seeing as I'd seen the cells and I understood the hourglass she wasn't paying attention to. But she wanted a baby. She didn't want the treatments to affect the pregnancy I think she conjured the idea of right here in this office. It was as if the hunger for motherhood came to her the instant she discovered she might have to be starved. So she fought me, and finally, to my dismay, we agreed. She'd get pregnant and have the kid she craved so desperately, and then we'd go to work on the tumors.” As he spoke, I just stared out the window at our son. He is beautiful, but the more I stared, the less unique he looked. As if the farther I detached the word “son” from the word “mine” the less special he became. So I sat there staring at some kid in the lobby chewing on the ear of a stupid elephant and reading a Dr. Seuss book he'd found among the protocol outdated cooking magazines, and I wondered why, in your right mind, he was ever worth it. “Through the nine months she carried him, the cells multiplied. We anticipated this. So did she.” The kid flipped the pages faster than any other six year old I'd ever seen. He looked like you, and it frightened me that you were dead but your genes and DNA were still alive. So I stopped looking at him. So sunshine, I miss you. I miss when I was more important to you than anything else. I miss when your dreams involved me. I miss when you weren't so thin, even though you spent all that time wishing you were, and I miss when you were young and healthy and the future didn't matter, because it was infinite. I miss being part of your infinity. It's juvenile to resent him, I know that. It's terrible that I blame him. But somehow I do, and I can tell you this, because honey, you'll never read it. You're dead, and he's alive, and you had to make that choice, I guess, and somehow you thought it'd be best to leave me with a lookalike who lives by half your chromosomes instead of with you, the real you, the one you were when it was just me and you not Mr. and Mrs. Before doctors. So I took the boy home from the hospital and we were very quiet, and when he asked about the visit, I wanted to tell him it was his fault. You killed her, I said in my ruined mind. You killed her and how am I supposed to love you now. So we drove without speaking and I did not listen to see if his heartbeat matched mine. I love you, and I'm sorry for it. -your husband Part three two months before To my husband and child, As I'm writing this, I am thinking about the day when you'll have to read it. I guess it might be sooner than I'd like, but who am I to believe I have a choice? I've had to learn lately that, though impossible to accept, really, I'm not the only one who can control my life and what happens in it. My entire life, I've allowed myself to furrow into this place inside myself where I am what I believe I am, and not what I really am. It's easy to dig this kind of hole, and it's easy to crawl inside. It's not so easy when you have to climb out. So I'd walk down streets or halls or aisles and I'd look at the other people buying milk or rushing off to work and I would allow myself the ignorance of imaging these people were being pulled by puppet strings. The woman squabbling with the cashier is letting herself be manipulated by Father Time or by the bank or by her husband or her boss, and the strings are getting tangled, and it's all because the puppet master is anyone other than herself. And I'd pray that these people found the strength to cut the strings before it became impossible to unravel them. I was stupid, and as you read this, you understand. You are not me, my boys. You can see my strings even when I blind myself to them. And I can see yours, and I try very hard to keep them straight for you so that you won't get tangled. But loves, I've been hiding some strings from you. I've got a lot of greedy puppet masters, I guess, and I'm not quite ready for you to know just how greedy. So I hope this letter helps you understand. I'm not so sure I quite get it, myself. You'll have time to figure it out for me, to learn and accept what life decides to thrust upon us. I won't have that time. I have to skip steps like “denial” and “depression” and skip right ahead to “acceptance.” I'm not sure that's possible. Another thing you'll have to figure out for me when I'm gone, and you're still here. I am sorry it had to happen this way. You here, me there. I suppose life and death are inevitable. I wish our dreams were, too. So first to my husband. We met on a cable car. I was nineteen, you were twenty one. It was New Years Eve in San Francisco and the fog had cleared. And I could see you in the back with your friends, tipsy and laughing at jokes I wasn't a part of. You said I was beautiful and kissed me at midnight. You know this story, I don't know why I'm telling it. Maybe because I probably won't ever tell it again. And it's a damn good story, and I'll miss telling it. Don't ever forget it, okay? Tell the boy. Tell him about us. Don't let our stories die with us, okay? Anyways, it was New Years. Two years later to the day, we were married. Years and Years, perfect years. You kissed me at midnight. There were lots of midnights. There were midnights when it was dark in our house and I couldn't see my hand in front of my face and I couldn't see you, and we weren't looking. There were midnights that felt like mornings. There were mornings that felt like midnights. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference. Honey, I don't know where I am going with this. With this sentence. With this letter. With my thoughts. With my ideas. With my breathing, my sickness. With my life. But I know we're reaching an end, and I'm going to have to learn where exactly it is I've been lead, and I don't know if I am ready for that. We had a life, separate and together. We grew up, we went to parties, we had sleepovers, we saw movies, we read books, we went to school, we went to college, we traveled the world and took pictures of each other instead of the landscapes, we fell in love, we got married, we got jobs, we had a child, I got sick...and then there's a conclusion. It's like the last line of your favorite book, darling, the one you read to me in college when we first started dating after New Years. The Great Gatsby. And you would always skip to the end, even though I hated that, and read the last line, over and over. “So we beat on...” I can still hear your young voice, soft in my ear. “boats against the current. Borne back ceaselessly into the past.” And I'd ask what it meant, and you'd say you thought it was about people, and history. Milestones that don't really mean much because if you take the entirety of human history and shrink it to fit in a single day, mankind would only be around for maybe an hour, so how important could we actually be? We're nanoseconds. Maybe smaller. And you said you really liked that idea, because it hurt to think about. You were that kind of person, in college. You liked ideas that involved things bigger than yourself. And then you met me and you started reading different kinds of books. I hope you don't regret that I made your thoughts smaller. I hope I made your nanoseconds last a little longer. But I don't have time, literally, to be small or to be big. I don't have time much for anything, so I'm just going to be what happens, and say what comes out, and think whatever my mind decides without my consent. So here's this: I don't want to be a boat against the current. I'm not very smart, I hardly know what that line means. But I get it enough to know that I don't want to be pulled back anywhere. I want to be pulled forward. And maybe he meant mankind by “we”, and not individual people, so maybe I sound simple minded. But I was part of mankind for thirty four years, and I believe I should have a say in what happens to me. I don't want to be a boat against a current, sweetheart, and I'm scared I will be. And scarier still, I don't know if I'll have the choice. I don't know if I'll become something else, something better or something worse, or if I'll just disappear. I think it might be the latter. I hope it's not, but maybe that's because I've never been brave, you had to do that for me all these years. I don't have practice in courage. I don't have time to change that about myself now. But remember when we used to wake up and tell each other our nightmares and dreams and make it better, and safer, and calmer? That's what we have to do right now. And I know by the time you read this it will be too late to help me. But I know you would if I had given you the chance. My dream: matter is neither created or destroyed. It's a circle, not a line. I'm going somewhere. Something will happen. I don't know what. But something. And that's something to wait for. When I close my eyes, there will be something else to open them to. And even though that something may not be what I imagine, it's something. And if that's true, I'm not a boat. Or maybe, I am, I don't know, like I said, I never really understood what that meant. But I've got some ideas. So darling, I love you. And I miss you already. I will miss midnights that feel like mornings, and I'll miss cable cars, and you calling me Sunshine. I'll miss holding your hand when it's cold and I forgot my gloves. I'll miss wearing your tee shirts to bed. I'll miss your scent. I'll miss waking up next to you. But every morning that felt like a midnight was worth it, okay? And I love you. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry I can't control whether or not I'll grow old with you. But I had to make a choice, I guess, and I guess if you really thought about it, I could have controlled it. I did control it, actually. Not in the way you would have wanted, and not in the easy way, but in the best way, I truly believe that. And I want you to know that what I did was my decision. And I don't have very many of those left. And I want you to honor them. I told Doc not to tell you, but I know he will. I can see it in him. He's waiting for when I'm gone and he can free himself of what I've done to him, which he says is basically sanctioning a suicide, but don't believe that. I don't. He doesn't really, either, but he wants me to be guilty. He wanted me to change my mind. It's too late now, and I wouldn't take it back. I wouldn't trade this for anything. So in case he hasn't told you yet, I will. I was sick before the boy, and I let myself get sicker so we could have him. I wanted him more than I wanted myself. And I know that to you this might sound selfish: I chose him over us. But darling, he's more important than me, and I hope you understand that. I did this because of the boats against the current. I did this just in case my dream of matter being a circle was wrong. I did this so I wouldn't die without leaving a piece of myself behind. Honey, you never wanted children, I know that. I know we never talked about having a baby seriously, and when we did, we always said “not now, not now...now's not the right time.” But I didn't have any time. And when I told you I was pregnant, you were scared and you were nervous, but I know you were happy. You were as happy as you were on New Years Eve in San Francisco when you were twenty one. And I know that if you would have known the truth about our child your smile would not have been as wide. And I wanted to see that smile, sweetie. I didn't know how many I'd have left. So darling, I'm dying. I'm dying and I'm going to leave you soon, and I am scared. I am so scared. I spent my life imagining that by the time this point came, I'd be old enough to be ready. But I don't think you can ever be old enough, really. And thirty four isn't nearly old enough to tell. So I'm leaving. But there's him. And he is half me, and he is half you. And I'll be gone, but he won't be. And I want you to understand that I am dying now so that I'll never have to die for real. There will be him, and there will be his children, and theirs. And matter is a circle, not a straight line, so let's keep that hope alive even when I'm not here to hope for it. I hope you understand that I won't ever leave you. Honey, don't blame him. He loves you terribly, and I love you both even more. He's got strings, so please be there to untangle them when he needs you. And you've got them too, and just know I'll be with him when he needs to help you, in return. So let him help you. And help him, too. I love you. You'll always be the morning to my midnight. Thank you for being the most lovely puppet master of them all. You're the only one that was ever careful with me. And I love you. And to my child, my only child. You're little, but your mind and your heart are very big. I hope you never grow into them. You are everything I could ever have asked for in a child, and more, so much more. You are kind, and smart, and brave, and beautiful, my baby, you are so beautiful. You were born with a full head of fairy blond hair, and on that first night, I combed my fingers through it instead of sleeping. I stared at you and I twisted my fingers through your cowlicks while you slept, and I wanted to be alive forever so I could watch your hair grow out and your skin get tighter, and your legs get longer. I never wanted to take my eyes off of you. I love you more than I knew possible, and I knew I wouldn't have time to see you for much longer so I didn't dare look away. I took in every inch of you. You were the reason, darling, that my short life had a purpose. And I never want you to forget that. You got a little bigger, and my hair got a lot thinner. You liked pretzels on top of your macaroni. You had a thing for macaroni, sweetie. You made me macaroni necklaces with my favorite colors, and I'd wear them everyday, all day, all night, when I made you dinner, when we watched movies, when we played, right now, when I am lying in bed unable to do much more because I know that I'm nearing “the end”, and you're at preschool, and your daddy's downstairs reading books to help his ideas get bigger again because I've been telling him that in a while I won't be here to keep them small and I know he doesn't want to listen to me, but he can't argue with his dying wife. But your necklaces are prettier than any necklaces money can buy and they are yours, and I can see where you got tired and changed the patterns and I can see where you got excited with the glitter in some places and I can see where your fingers slipped when you were tying the yarn in knots, and I can see you making this necklace and smiling and you are so happy and I want you to smile like that as long as you live, sweetheart. Do it for me, please. I know that I am going to leave you before we really get the chance to know each other, but baby, when I leave, I will remember you making macaroni necklaces. I'm going to remember you sleeping on the night you were born and the texture of your hair. And honey you're little. You're too little to remember me, really, as anything other than I am now, which is the farthest from what I would ever want you to remember. And it's not my decision to choose how you remember me. So I want you to decide for yourself. I want you to think of me as whatever crazy, inaccurate, wildly romanticized fabrication your incredible little mind dreams up, and I want you to make up stories about me where I can be whatever you need me to be, whenever you need me to be it. I want you to think about me not as I was, but how I am, to you. Because I'll never leave you. I am half of you. And matter is a circle, just like your macaroni necklaces that have no start and no ending, I hope, I hope you never stop creating them, and I hope you never stop loving them, and honey just know I'll never stop wearing them, because I'll never go away, and neither will they, and neither will you. Your father will be very sad, sweetie. And when he reads this, it might make him even sadder, though I hope it makes him better. I can never tell what his emotions will do to him. But he'll get better. He'll smile again, I promise you. And though he'll be sad, he'll never stop loving you. Help him, okay, baby? Help him to know that you are half me and half him and that we are all macaronies on string waiting to be glittered by a boy who is smaller than his heart and always smiling. Be that boy as long as you live. And I'll be there too. My favorite puppet strings were the ones you made for me. Just know that I wouldn't cut them for anything. Darling, your father might love again, and I want you to be okay with that. It's very hard for me to say this now, but I truly believe that once I am gone I will want, if I am still somehow capable of wanting things, nothing more than for you both to be happy. Help him to know that it's okay to be happy. And you, too, baby. It's okay to smile. So I could keep writing until somehow my body tells me it's okay to stop and it's okay to go and it's okay for me to leave and I depart. But even then, I don't think I could say everything I want to say, need to say. So this will be it, I suppose. I am sorry I am a boat against the current, and that I must, in some ways, end. But don't forget the macaroni necklaces, love. You'll forget me, but remember to recreate me in every way you need to. Let me be the star of your stories, at least until one day you meet a girl, whether it be on a cable car on New Years Eve or anywhere else your life takes you, and it is time for me to bow out and her to step in. At least until then, and when that time comes, love her as much as your father loves me, and love your children as much as I love you. I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you, darling, I love you. I love you. I love you. So to my husband and my child...here's my life, and all that comes after. Understand that it was worth it. -Mommy and Sunshine

Weeklies 1: Happiness, Happiness

Weekly Writings Week One: What is happiness made of? Happiness, Happiness “The opposite of love is indifference.” -The Lumineers Once upon a time there lived a man with creased trousers and leather shoes. He awoke each morning in the same house at the same time, with the same things happening outside his window it seemed, because the curtains were always closed. He ironed the creases, he laced the shoes. He combed a part in his hair the same width as the crease in his trousers, and walked down streets as narrow, too, nodding at other crease-walkers and forgetting that maybe their creases were thicker than his, or thinner than his. It was impossible for the man to imagine a life where the crease in your trousers did not match the part in your hair. So he ironed the creases. And he laced the shoes. Indifference, indifference. Once Upon a time there walked a young woman down a street that was not a crease, but a valley. She wore clothes of thick fabric much too large for her frame, and grew blind to anything other than the view of her boots on the pavement. She was young once, and there were dreams. But it is hard to climb when you've been buried. She buttoned her coat, she scuffed her boots. Bills in white envelopes with red stamps built mountains on her desk and buried the typewriter between them. In the evenings she sits and stares at some rusted keys and each evening the mountains grow higher, so the valleys get deeper. It was getting dark in her valley. So she buttoned her coat. And she scuffed her boots. Hopelessness, Hopelessness. Once upon a time Indifference walked down his creases to an office of gray paint where the walls were lined with picture-less books of many volumes. He sat at the gray chair and another man knocked on the gray door, wearing yellow and crumbling the monotony. “Morning, Sir.” he exclaims with the twinge of a smile, handing the man in gray a mug of milkless coffee. “Fine day, isn't it?” The man in yellow looked out the gray curtains and saw not the creases of the man in gray but the hills of the smiling face in the sun. It was easy for the man in yellow to navigate the planet, clearly. His shoes bore no sign of wear. The man in gray looked at his guest. “Why are you so lively this morning?” he ventured, thoughtfully. “It's a fine day to be alive.” Said Liveliness. “It's the same as any other day.” Said Indifference, with a shrug of his gray clad shoulders. “Just so!” And Liveliness left the room, with a wave. Indifference stared into the dark mug and wondered for the first time what coffee might taste like with cream. When Hopelessness in her long coat and scuffed boots was smaller with a shorter coat and clean sneakers she liked the word “poetry” and the children of its meaning. She liked words people bent their heads to read and bent their minds to fathom, she liked painting pictures with the same twenty six letters over and over again. Aspiration, Aspiration. She who wears the smile of happiness, she wrote, repels the shrug of indifference. Aspiration, Aspiration. Aspiration: N, strong desire, goal, intellectual aim Oh, Aspiration, Aspiration, when'd you get Hopeless, Darling? Dear New York, New York, today you introduced us, how kind of you the streets were lined with many people there was smoke in the air smoke in the air buildings falling people screaming but you introduced us, how kind of you “some sweets with that, dear?” he asked from his place in line behind me a crooked smile juggling a bag of candies “why would I want those?” “you look a bit bitter” “that's bold of you” “better than dull of me” “just the sauce for me, thanks.” but somehow I bought the candies and he came to my apartment and we ate every piece outside our windows sirens blared people screamed people cried people died buildings collapsed “I worked there” he said, sprawled across the sofa of my pathetic living room, unwrapping toffee morsels “a long time ago?” “yesterday.” “today, even?” “went for coffee, saw you, made a decision” “what was your decision” “work could wait” you introduced us, how kind of you new york, new york I had new york dreams and he heard the new york screams a perfect pair thirty four funerals, two weeks I joined him at all of them candy after, always candy our dreams were deafened by the screams together new york, new york how kind of you I met a girl today, New York we ate sweets in our apartment I skipped work so I skipped death so I get to not-skip a lot of other things, now I'll bring her with me I guess I've lost everyone else, New York I asked her to marry me today we ate sweets afterwards new york new york you introduced us, how lovely of you we're getting married tomorrow, and you introduced us lots of empty rows in the church because you weren't strong enough and our friends fell from buildings it's okay, New York, you introduced us so I forgive you when I was eight-teen I wrote some stories silly stories, new york, silly stories they were about a lonely girl in a lonely world I liked cliches, new york she did a math problem to figure out if she was happy or why she wasn't happy or why she was and she figured it all out it looked so easy, new york , for her I forgot she was fiction should've remembered Once upon a time Aspiration did a math problem and she asked Contentedness to help her. She wore a thinner coat and shorter boots. He wore denim that could not be pleated and didn't bother parting his hair. They ate candies that turned their teeth pink and made their breath smell sickly sweet. Love love love love love is what we are in, they thought. And they could not fathom why with love at their fingerprints they were each neither happy nor sad. I had everything I ever wanted and I wanted nothing more but still I reminded myself to smile she wrote on the typewriter that sat between mountains that were not yet tall enough to create valleys. So they fixed the problem. Once upon a time, Contentedness started wearing grey and taking things for granted. I'll help you, I'll help you It will make us happy expectation + reality = happiness happiness = gratitude + luck Luck = happiness success + desire + gratification = happiness expectation + reality = happiness that's the one New york, new york love X a career X a dream city = happiness Him X An unplugged typewriter X lots of screaming in New York = equals = equals = equals i'm afraid it's not happiness do I tell him career X marriage X times X times X I don't know what I wanted but it wasn't this equals equals = = indifference so the man started wearing a lot of grey, you see, and pleating his trousers and parting his hair because he got a new job at the place that burnt down, they put it back together again, and he forgot that he had a taste for strawberry toffee and he forgot that he made the decision for her, and he forgot about happiness, happiness. “what makes you so happy today?” Indifference asked Liveliness, in his yellow shirt and bright tie. “It's a fine day to be alive.” “it's just like any other day.” “Just so!” “What makes you happy?” Indifference asked Liveliness. “The mere joy of living.” “That's not all, though. Can't be all.” “Happiness isn't an equation to be solved, my friend.” Dear New York, New York you introduced us. I don't know how kind it was, actually. Hopelessness, Hopelessness. I can't write to you any more, New york, new york I plugged you into the problem and the solution wasn't what I'd wanted don't know if it's your fault but it might be after all you introduced us. So once upon a time the girl with the long coat and scuffed boots unburied the typewriter and let the mountains fall into the valley to create a plane. And she laced the boots and locked the apartment door and threw away the candies. And the man in the gray creased pants stared out his window at the place where things had burned and creases were walked and valleys were flooded and wondered again where Liveliness got his ambition and why Hopelessness allowed defeat and why he wore grey and never had milk in his coffee. So he left the office and walked his creases. And he did some equations in his head. And he never ate strawberry toffee. And he combed the part in his hair to match the creases. And he thought about Hopelessness. And Hopelessness did not think of Indifference. And she wrote about Liveliness. Dear New York, New york today I left him we spit out the candies and I met a man in yellow who does not believe in the equation and maybe he's right and maybe the creases built my valleys and it's all your fault after all you introduced us so she wrote poems on the typewriter and buttoned the coat and made herself believe in what she had scoffed and chased new dreams in new cities with new people and new ideas. And once upon a time, it was nothing special, really. It was all of us, and each of us. And the creases and the valleys. And the hair parts and the trench coats. Compromises, compromises.

P.S Don't Hurry

Dear grown ups, don't you wish you were small Dear listeners, keep an ear out for the call. Dear children, you've got time. Don't hurry. Dear growers, whatever you do don't hurry. Dear teachers, look up from bent dictionaries Dear learners, be your own sewn visionaries. Dear waiters, I beg you, wait a little longer Dear rushers, do as they did wait longer. Dear poets, use words you understand please Dear dreamers, don't ever stop climbing tall trees. Dear walkers, won't you slow, tie your shoestrings Dear runners, just be careful fix your heartstrings. Dear mother, I've tried to do as you would Dear father, Would I be yours, then, had I could? Dear teenagers, don't play your music quite so loud Dear rebellers, we'll still hear you, not so loud. Dear anarchists, thank you greatly for your turmoil Dear lovers, thanks for unwinding hate's coil. Dear arguers, it's your choice, but you'll grow tired. Dear agree-ers, well, Love, we all grow tired. Dear typewriter, please find hope when things aren't permanent Dear pencil, oh how fleeting your ornaments. Dear thinkers, keep writing Dear writers, keep thinking Dear hope-ers, just know, nothing's permanent. Dear parents, it's me again, and dear Rebellers, I'm here, Dear sixteen year olds, maybe someday, you'll be both. Dear children, listen closely, and let's all give a cheer Dear wanders, we've all got something to clothe. Dear sunshine, please forgive rainfall Dear storm clouds, make amends with life's rag dolls. Dear ponderers Dear high school time wasters drab office desk workers lonely newspaper column writers Dear wine tasters Dear beer drinkers big book on a rainy day readers too fast bike pedallers Dear slumber party hair braiders Dear toy guns from window shooters mall shoppers tent sleepers Without a cause notebook writers Dear forgetful-of-meaning-college-textbook-reciters Dear absentminded calendar scratchers slutty time keepers hungry politician speakers Dear ancestors Dear future grandchildren Dear parents Dear listeners Dear children Dear teachers students waiters rushers poets Dear dreamers Dear walkers Dear runners Dear mothers fathers teenagers rebellers anarchists Dear silent hearts, Dear arguers Dear agreers Dear kiteflyers bus riders train crashers movie watchers train crashers kidnappers Dear God, if you're listening, We've all written, but we're fizzling Dear livers And Dear breathers altogether promise keepers With love, take your time we're time's reapers.

Shoeboxes Stuffed With Ands

We were young and small and stupid and fragile and we believed we were invincible and we refused to believe otherwise and we blamed being frugal on being young and we did not know otherwise and and and and we smiled at the thought of love and we didn't know we hadn't felt it and we quieted at the thought of war and we didn't know we did not comprehend it and we laughed at the thought of futures and we were young and small and stupid and fragile and and and and. We became the dot dot dot and the et cetera and the blank spaces after every and and we didn't know where the next sentence would take us and we were afraid of where it wouldn't and and and so we stopped talking and we started rebelling and that's what being young is all about, right? Making people mad and taking a stand and fighting a battle and using your voice and dying your hair and peircing your lips and popping balloons and sitting on needles and looking in mirrors and dressing in costumes and and and and we were young and small and stupid and fragile and we've gotta stop thinking our mistakes didn't count and that they never happenned and that we had an excuse and we didn't and and and we did and and we should be grateful we had those mistakes to frown at and laugh at and shout at and scream at and cry at and “cheers to the teenage years” and welcome to the start of your immortality and welcome to the end of the rebellion and the start of the intervention and and we are young and small and stupid and.... and... look at all the ands, we are a lot of things, darling. We were young, and that's the excuse we've always used, so why all the ands? Don't grow up, and limit the amount of caterpillars you kill. One day there will be even more stories to end in ands because you are always younger today than you will be tomorrow and you will always have mistakes to defend and you will always have the future to rely far too heavily upon. One day you will run out of ands and you will run out of butterflies and you will hold an umbrella to the sun and you will wear a swimsuit in the rain and you will think about how being young was not an excuse and it wasn't an apology. It was what you were. And and and what you are. And and

What is Man?

Someone, somewhere is lying to you and to themselves and to everything. Someone, somewhere stares into reflections that cannot be theirs before they rest, each night imagining how perfect they'd be if only this were different if only that had changed. Donning masks, and capes and smiling at all the wrong times just trying to understand what it takes to be invincible and meaningful. But they don't understand. Somewhere, out there people hum to lyrics that mean nothing because trying to understand the ones that do just isn't worth the effort. And it wouldn't make sense anyway. So why bother? Clinging to the folds of the pages of stories that will never get them anywhere, hang numb faces and blank eyes because there's nothing more to grasp. And if there were, it wouldn't make sense, anyway. Standing right in front of you are faces that don't exist outside of lies, and ignorant mist. Souls that live, because there's nothing more to do. Who think that how strong their arms are or how nice their hair looks is the only thing that means anything, anymore. Because what else is there? And they wear a mask, painted too thick with the lettering of their strength sewn across their chests. And they believe, somewhere in the gaps between missing dreams that it somehow matters. And behind them, silent tears fall from the eyes of people who see to much who feel too much and who understand, at least a little, that there's so much more out there. if only they'd take their eyes off broken mirrors maybe they'd see what's left when the paint from their faces begins to drip. But this is man, you have to remember and we don't have much to offer. We've got rap songs, and football. And if God blew that all away we'd be so lost. And it's terrible, that that's what it's come to. That a billion years in the making, is still only a single life an ever growing, ever moving breath that grows blinder, and weaker as it ages. From heaven, beleaguered angels watch and note that our footsteps keep getting softer and harder to see. And on His map of home, Our shepherd would see that his sheep weren't moving anymore. We're all standing so still. Stuck in thickets of ideals and promises that don't mean anything. That were only made to be broken. All of us staring each other in the eyes but not seeing anything. All of us listening, but not hearing. Trying to understand, but giving up. Because it'd be so hard, and we're too lost. And we've taken all the wrong roads. But this is man, remember. And those roads will forever lie twisted. And our feet will never move where we want them to. And there will never be enough make up in the universe to try and hide behind. We're a fickle creation, with lives made of follies. And yes, we all understand, somewhere inside of us, that there really is so much more out there. But we're not ones to seek answers, or cures to anything that might matter, in the end. We're a tired, wrinkled elder who has lived so long, so long and seen so much, so much but gained nothing, nothing on the journey. We've swam through the inkblots in Shakespeare's journals and we asked old Will what it all meant. But sadly, he did not answer us. Because sadly, there was never much to say. We've set the bricks, of millenniums past and we've counted how many footsteps stamp their imprint and we've wondered , just where they're headed. But when the sun goes down, and there's nothing left to do but drink, and fall asleep to the sounds of sitcoms that aren't even all that funny, after all, we realize that they weren't headed anywhere. That there's nowhere left to go. And still, someone, somewhere is clutching the sides of a cracked mirror and not understanding what she sees. Why her eyes are not bluer, her cheeks rosier her smile wider her hair longer. And still, someone, out there yells out songs about clubs, and dancing. But it means nothing, absolutely nothing. Yet no one cares. Why's it matter? And still, still, still they're spending money they don't have on shoes that really don't even fit so that maybe, they might pretend to belong somewhere. Because that's all you need, in a friend, of course. Expensive shoes, and perfect hair. But we're man, you can't forget that. And we're blessed to be so blind. Because maybe, if our eyes were wider, happiness, would be harder to find. We'd understand things like war, and politics and old men would stand up, and take action instead of chasing cars from creaking rocking chairs instead of complaining about things they aren't a part of. And this burden, this burden of knowing of seeing more than eyeshadow in the mirror is what would break us, when finally, it was all too much to carry. We'd wear clothes we actually liked and we wouldn't have to pretend anymore. But it'd be a lot of work, remember. And we're not up for the chore. We'd stare above our heads as we walked instead of at our shoes. And we'd hear the songs of bluejays instead of broken sounds, and drumbeats we'll always lose. And the notes, they'd make sense this time. And we'd wonder how we missed it. And the sky'd be bluer, when the stars came out and this time, we won't resist it. We're man, we're blind and unknowing and, God, there's so much out there, we aren't seeing. But that doesn't matter, so forget it all, today. Because after all, it wouldn't matter anyway.