alright, heart.

you'll come to find

that i'm always over-thinking,

over-analyzing,

over-hoping,

yet

still brilliantly unattached

to anything and everything at the same time.

i can't quite place my finger on

why i can't look into your eyes

and know

who you are.

surprise

captures a tired mind

that had grown listless

sulking in a bath of salty embraces

and draining thousand-mile run arounds.

it

plants a vanilla kiss

in the patted conviction

of a self-affirmed bitch.

the catch-22 of meta-emotion.

embarrassment is an understatement,

mortification too strong.

i'm dead and waiting

for a saving grace

that only cranberry sauce and birthday drinks can

(supposedly) bring.

so i sit on velvet couches

in the homes of people who

never doubt my sincerity

and wait like the pathetic heroines

of my seventh-grade paperbacks

for you to make decisions for me.

the four season seasonal depression and my obsession with zoloft commercials

these people are just as lost as i am.

crack the egg of cliche,

do your own thing

some days

i sit and wonder

when i can go back to my creaking splintered floor

and alien bed

twist my earrings

catch up on weeds

and run another mile or so.

sad to find that only solitude

in princeton brought me peace

and even then

i was unhappy.

my life is beautiful.

this picture doesn't describe us well

i've never written about you so directly before.

maybe that's because i couldn't.

today i was walking to the more house

and i realized that maybe we're too similar.

we allow one another to get caught up

in the intricacies of our mind,

the tangles of synapses.

it's fine to dance around thought

and harmonize pragmatism with neurosis

but we don't know how to cut the other one loose.

we just stand there, arms slack at our sides, staring at the other ensnared in a bear trap

mumbling, "i just don't know how this happened."

with incredible lightness of decision

comes a weighty coat

that makes the arms too heavy to lift.

winter's coming

but i rather be true to our desires

and freeze,

coatless.

philosophy of art- what i do instead of taking notes

i often find myself lost in the backgrounds of books. today i gaze at a bleak slate sea on the coast of maine, standing out in a deep navy and maroon sweater.

i feel a nostalgia

for a place i've only tasted through words.

bing crosby inspired

and in my daydreams,

grandma's hair is dark and lush, cut to a quick bob.

she wears a fine red wine dress over the sheen of tan stockings.

flitting around on hummingbird heels,

she ushers me close to the fireplace, letting me sit on the sturdy golden wood of a chair.

sitting close to me, we stare out at the softly falling snow,

much like the powdered sugar she will sprinkle on cookies thirty years from now.

i look at her flawless skin, her astoria-peaked nose, and grab her hand.

we are set in a time that was never our own,

happy to breathe in the expanding lung

between reality and wish.

dad, i can't think of anything but you.

close eyes: burn of cold air on lungs

within me a lunatic sings