Too Bad You Bite

If everything turned out the way it seems we would be living a life in our own dreams.

I would climb to you on a field of sunflowers, tease you and please you with my magical powers.

I would hear a sweet sound and repeat it for you.

If you would like that, I would be true.

I would stand through traffic and chance suicide

I would jump on this magical carpet and take you on a ride.

I would do this for you

I would do this by your side.

I would let you taste the forbidden fruit

As long as you promised not to bite.

Breeze Baby

Goosebumps prickle my bed sheets as I shake awake from my fairytale dream. “Where are you?”. I feel a cool breeze dance across the back of my neck and I look to the windowsill for an explanation. I expected to see you there, expected to see you crawling in my window, parting the blinds and parting nightmare from fairytale. But I didn’t see you. I didn’t hear you. All I felt, all I can feel is the crisp winter air that fills this space. I close my eyes and reach my hands out- I feel for my expectations. “Where are you?” I can’t feel you. My hands are empty, so I open my eyes. You are nowhere to be found.

A gust of wind swarms through my window frame as I curl my toes. “Are you near?” I laugh a quiet, girly giggle because I know you cannot respond. You are so far away. I am so tired. I can’t fall asleep and even if I could, I would be dreaming the same thing asleep or awake.

I roll over and allow my curly hair to spread across my pillowcase. I slowly run my fingertips across my pillowcase. I slowly run my fingertips through my blonde mane and let out a yawn. “Hello? Hello?”. I want my voice to echo. Would I be able to wake up the neighbors? If you were my neighbor, I’d have no worries. I’d love to wake you up. My yawn wouldn’t be your wake up call either. I would crawl in your window. I would part your blinds and be the breeze that delivers goosebumps. You would say, “Where are you? Are you near?” I would be silent crawling in. I would fluff your pillow and spread my curly hair across your pillowcase.

US

If this pen did not touch paper and perhaps had other plans, I’m sure it would grow wings. It would fly across the globe to you and remind you of all the beautiful things ahead. This forest green ink pen would scribble “Loverboy” across your forehead and dud you my Prince Charming. Instead of drawing a valuable watch on your wrist, it would doodle “what are you waiting for?”- you did always check the time. This pend would draw a dotted line across the globe, all the way form you to me, so that you’d never get lost. You would always know the way. I would always know the way to happiness.

If this paper did not read ink, I’m sure it would fold in fours. It would crinkle and squirm until it was a perfect oragami love dove for you. Ontop of tables and underneath, it would dance all night and all day; just for you- all for you. This striped pink paper would create an invisible coded language just for the two of us to read- only you and I would be able to comprehend, to fully understand.

But this is no fairy tale. This pen will stay the same. This paper will stay the same.

But we will not.

Just like flowers we will grow-

Beautiful, and if we’re lucky- together.

You, you. Me, me.

I know that you’re out there somewhere,

I know that you’re special.

One day we will be together

Just like Hansel and Gretel.

You’re so far away,

And I’m still so young,

And even though I don’t know your name,

It’s on the tip of my tongue.

Come, hurry, and take me away-

I will lend you my ears for the music you play.

Laugh, play, and we can be free.

You will be you and I will be me.

Look at how glorious we can be.

You will be you

And I will be me.

We can balance each other

Like milk and tea.

We can marry atop

The tips of the trees.

You will be you

And I will be me.

Excuses

If eyes could lie,

And hair confess,

What would the secrets hold?

One by one,

The secrets would fumble,

Until cruel intentions unfold.

A witness of truth,

One does not fear,

To spill the tale truly told.

Fantastically possessed by a lie,

Your heart and soul are sold.

And though the warmth of truth can heal you,

A lie’s breath can shiver one cold.

And face to face,

Unhappiness stares,

Intimidation grows like mold.

While much unlike the joker,

The Queen of Hearts has love presented bold.

Though digging deep,

Within my depths,

I believe you are worth more worth more than gold.

You make me write.

You make me nervous.

My palms begin to sweat and my heart races to play catch up with my quivering lips.

I tremble.

You make me smile.

Your genius words form unintentional gorgeous sentences.

From ear to ear I have something worth keeping, worth savoring forever.

I light up.

You make me talk.

Unselfish topics and interesting questions make it easy to follow this lip game with words.

I respond so quickly, even I am surprised.

I open up.

You make me dance.

Through twisted movements, your gestures draw me closer and closer toward you.

I can no longer resist.

Our hands are predicting their final clasp;

As they will never be further separated.

I whirl.

You make me crazy

I wish this wish was granted, that I could perhaps understand your thoughts.

I wish to ask you something, but timing has to be just right.

When will it be?

Will it ever be?

Nothing happens alongside my predictions,

So I am doubtful.

I’m crazy.

I think.

Restless

His sincere eyes looked my way,

and from then on,

I knew he would never slow down.

I grabbed a pen and drew

“Don’t delay, time is wasting away”

On his forearm as I stopped the clock.

I gazed from afar and wondered which

Constellation I would see in his eyes tonight.

Gentle and calm, I counted my speeding heartbeat.

I can’t believe how orange the moon is tonight.

Against its black canvas,

Moon looks curious and awake.

Moon looks hopeful and willing.

I look like Moon.

Moon looks like I.

Letters to Parris Island

I miss the way you knew me

Like the back of your own hand.

I miss the way you knew me

Like our hometown and its sand.

And I know I never told you,

But it wasn’t just love I felt.

The pain I fought this battle with,

Was the trust in you I dealt.

And I know this might sound crazy,

And I know that you’re far away,

But I wish a plane would pick me up,

So tomorrow I’d say hey.

I miss your mom, your bother,

And your crazy Aunt Deb too,

But not only is it shocking-

I miss you for only you.

Who will be there when you’re in between acts of desperation?

You’ve got no where to go, feels like you’ve got no one to call, but you need someone the most, of course, right then. It’s wild how timing can seem to flip flop accordingly to your “I’m-so-over-this”s and “Forget about it”s. It’s all about expectations too, I’ve decided. If you ever expect anything out of anyone, you’re automatically forming assumptions and building up some ridiculous standard that will probably never even be met.

If you do so much for other people, it’s true, they will take advantage of it. They won’t understand when suddenly, heaven forbid, you’re not there at the drop of a hat. But what happens when you’re the one in need? What happens when you just need someone to sit there and shut up, just listen to you spit and sputter?

If you’re there, they wont be. If they’re there, you wont be.

Awesome.

Oh, and for the record, just because I’m on a rant, social networking is just a maze of distractions to add to it all, as well. Untagging photos, deleting wall posts, not writing you back, or maybe just using your account to stalk your Friday night plans is entirely too common. Either way, this form of communication (or form of non-communication) is just another confusion when you’re wondering who disappeared to where... And why?

Eh. It’s all about attention. It’s all about that damn push and the uncanny pull.

"I can't fill his shoes, you'll have to find someone else"

Who can tell me what I need to know?

It can’t be you, you say “move slow”.

But as I start to see affection grow,

I’m forced to disappear like a

Fleeing, silent crow.

And at times I feel lost,

As you offer me two tips:

You tell me to close my mouth,

Hypothetically sew my lips.

Secondly, but not so quaint,

You tell me to loosen my grips.

And as I let go to close my eyes,

I feel you try to sway my hips.

It’s not healthy, this feeling I feel.

Caught between emotions, my cheeks turn teal.

I’ve got spikes underneath and puncturing my heel.

And if I seem to feel this way,

I wonder how you feel.

Oh, Yankee.

First time we met

The darkness that night was sudden and crisp. We rode form borough to borough while the breeze blew my blonde locks crazy. We followed a cobblestone path down that luscious hill and fled to a secret room amidst the time of night. It may have been the darkest hour of the night, or perhaps the brightest hour of the morning, but wither way, that distinct moon howled. In a dark basement, miles and miles away from my known surroundings, I lost myself and found myself at the same instant. Green Apple wax dripped into multi-colored pebbles in that glass arrangement. There was a bittersweet aroma that filled our space, leaving smiles and smirks for hours afterward.

Everything felt right. Everything felt planned. We were like mice on Christmas morning, whispering and tip-toeing as we traveled from room to room. You and I went on an adventure that night as we dodged the swirls of darkness around us. You grabbed my hand, sweet and gentle, as you gazed into my eyes.

I watched the sun rise that morning. Through the fagged and misted glass, I saw a beautiful mixture of colors with you.

The brightness that morning was cool and delightful. I’m not sure which was brighter that day between your smile, mine, or the shimmer of summer against us together. Something sweet, so secret, and safe will continue to burn forever. Just like that Green Apple candle, shedding heat, shedding wax, it continued to burn for us.

I pursed my lips and blew the flame to smoke as you smiled. A mutual goodbye was shared, a mutual feeling of relief was felt.

So long.

For now.

Second time we met

That night you called me.

"I'm skipping math class and coming to get you in the morning,"

you told me without any sense of hesitation.

"But.. it's class. You can't skip."

I was trying to be the good-girl influence in the whole ordeal.

But you didn't care; you couldn't have cared less!

"No way am I going to class. You have 3 days left here, Eliza. Tomorrow is the only day we'll be able to see each other." You were so right.

Thank god you didn't go to class.

It would be so hard to forget it- I remember the next morning like it was yesterday.

I woke up in my sister's tiny, rectangular box of a dorm room only to find myself flustered and frazzled to no end.

What do I wear? What color nail polish? How do I fix or un-fix my hair? Great.

But I did precisely what my instincts told me- be yourself and all will go well.

So I did exactly so.

I threw on a pair of straight-legged black pants, a plain white tee-shirt, a pair of my sister's old-school red flats and grabbed a matching purse.

My hair was curly (nothing unusual) and before I sprinted to the elevator, I spritzed a nice spray of a subtle perfume and jetted for the door.

"I'm on the corner of 1st and 25th," you said.

My breathing patterns were so erratic, possibly even on the brink of a shy hyperventilation.

"Okay, I'll find you," I said while trying to keep it all together.

And I did. I kept it all together and I found you.

You smiled a great smile and stared at me with your wide, hazel eyes.

I didn't know you wore glasses.

I didn't know you could look so darn cute in them either.

But I found out.

I also found out that you could race around Manhattan like a semi-pro, spanish-speaking taxi driver.

We parked on the side of the road, something so uncommon for New Yorkers to even attempt to do.

Finding a parking space wasn't even difficult. I wondered why everything was going so smoothly, why everything just made sense.

On Columbus Street, you took me to a place called Amber; a beautiful sushi cuisine restaurant fit for royalty.

Sitting across the table from me, you looked like a prince in my eyes.

You were everything that the movies try and shoot for- tall, dark and handsome.

But you were better than any movie ingenue.

Sweet and kind. Polite and mature. Open-minded and witty. Smart and sexy.

After ordering a water with lemon, you called our waiter "boss" and unknowingly, you let your New York accent slip through your lips.

I couldn't help but to release a giggle, grinning and commenting on just how unusual it was to me.

We agreeably ordered a few sushi rolls- one in which was called "Perfect Match".

I'm not sure if you would ever remember that, simply because it was just the name of a sushi roll for an early dinner, but I couldn't seem to forget it.

"Perfect Match"? Really?

But we were.

I was the little, blonde southerner.

You were the tall, dark northerner.

But regardless of our appearances, where we came from or where we had been, we got along like two peas in a pretty porcelain pod.

We left, we got in the car and you told me you didn't want to take me home.

"We're going to my friend Gavin's house if that's okay with you. I need to show someone that you're real or else no one will believe me."

And off we went.

Third time we met.

The color of your v-neck was baby blue. Well, when you picked me up it was blue. I found out later that it changes. Things change I guess, even shirt colors. In front of a barber shop, I sat down briefly next to an elderly lady on 95th and 4th. I was in an aqua green beach dress as my curls clung to my back. We spotted each other instantly peering through the same glass window.The first few minutes took some getting used to. I mean, it had been 365 days since the last time I had seen you.

You smiled and it brought back that mutual vulnerability.

“How was the train?”, you asked, breaking the ice, calmly and collectively.

For a brief second before attempting to answer, I was trapped in thoughts of the last time we were together.

Bright lights, Sushi, Joe's, Gavin’s.

“Fine, but a bit strange. We don’t have trains in Florida.”

I laughed at my own statement. Then you did. Even though it wasn’t humorous, I just wanted to see your lips curl.

Fourth time we meet.

To be continued...

323 Facebook friend... requests.

This may sound stupid to admit, but I literally have 323 Facebook friend requests collecting dust. Some of these thumbnail photos I recognize, while as with others, I do not. Yeah, I went to high school with you, but we’ve never talked. Sure, you and I cheered on the same squad. Okay, we had one class together, but did we ever communicate? Have you ever once said, “Hey, Eliza, how are you?” I don’t think so. And this, my dear friend request lingerer, is why you are still in my “I guess I’ll decide later” pile.

It’s not that I never hit the “confirm” or “not now” button, because I do quite frequently, but it’s just that I have a funny feeling that some of these requesters won’t ever actually communicate with me upon confirmation. Why do you want to be Facebook friends with someone, if you never leave an occasional comment or two? If we never talked in middle school, if we never talked in high school, then why would you request to be my friend years down the road if you know you won’t talk to me now?

I think that Facebook is a place for the 500 million users to communicate with the people they feel most comfortable sharing personal information with. I don’t think the girl in my math class that sat in the back right corner, who also never talked to me, needs or cares to know what I do on my free day from the college chaos.

So as it stands, my 323 friend requests will slowly start to diminish, for I realize that half of the requests are from peers from the past, not the present.

I express my emotions on paper, not on my face.

My poems and short stories are filled with rage, passion, lust, hatred and emotions that could make you just plain confused. I write so much about emotion, about the unknown and quite simply, I tend to write excessively about things that you can not see, but perhaps just feel.

It’s funny really, that I don’t vent much aloud, but when it comes time to put my pen to paper, I rant. I scribble. I just go at it. When I’m upset, I’ll use metaphors to show you how angry I am. When I’m ecstatic, I’ll use similes to instantly put smiles across your face.

When it comes to weather, scenery, or experiences, I can write about them all. But the difficulty lies at the get-go with those subjects. Even though they are all worthy of beautiful descriptions and details to make them original pieces of work, the passion behind those stories falls somewhat short due to my lack of love, hate, etc. If only seeing a movie so great moved me to the extent of “love”, I would probably be able to write a more moving movie review. But because I tend to surround myself with people, not abnormal places or moving pictures, my emotions are much more heightened when I am expressing my feelings toward other people.

Yeah, emotions drive me to do crazy things.

Emotions drive me to write crazy things.

Dare it, wear it.

To be quite blunt, I don’t give an effing hoot what people think about me and I honestly never have. I don’t feel like I have anything to prove to most people and that pretty much just allows me a whole bundle of freedom in my self-expression. Some blondes are afraid to wear yellow because they claim it may clash with their hair, some with “bigger bums” are hesitant to wear tight-fitting jeans and some gals may even stray away from headbands decorated with enormous feathers and flowers, but not me.

Ever since I was little, figuring out eccentric and unique ways to pin my clothes, I’ve managed to score looks that are somewhat unusual. It doesn’t hurt that I have many, many vintage items thanks to my step-mom, friends, ex-boyfriend’s family, and whoever else that comes to me claiming “I can’t pull this off, so here, it’s yours.” It’s not only flattering hearing “you’ve got what it takes to make this look”, but it’s also just another fun thing that I like to play with artistically.

I wear obvious shirts as dresses, toddler shoes due to my tiny foot, mix-matched colors (but never patterns) and I’m not afraid of a little blue eye shadow for the right occassion either.

You know, I may wear some things that people would never even dare to put on, but I thoroughly enjoy it. My fashion sense is a part of who I am, and I don’t plan on ever changing it, just updating it as time goes on!

I have a full supply of nervous energy

There are 60 pieces of gum in my purse at any given moment and I know this to be a fact. I have tons of nervous energy that I somehow can’t seem to simmer. So what do I do? I bite my lips, I chew gum, I twirl my hair and I talk. A lot.

But why do I do these things? Well, I’m sure I over-analyze just about anything and everything to the point where I need some type of outlet. And this is where my foot-shaking phenomenons begin.

This anxious energy doesn’t only progress during the day time. Laying in bed, I have the same problem, if not worse. It must take me somewhere between 1-2 hours to actually fall asleep due to the busy bustle of that day running around in my head.

“Why did my professor say that? What will I eat for breakfast? Did I complete my voice log for today?”

I really don’t have to worry about any of these questions because they will all be answered, but I just for whatever reason can’t help it.

The “What If” questions really roll through my head and make every situation look possible, which makes me more and more anxious.

I don’t know how people sit in silence, calm and collectively. I don’t know how people walk .234908 miles per hour and I don’t know how people have the patience to sustain a full conversation over and over again for the 10th time.

I don’t know how people do it and sometimes I wish I did.

I miss you, stage

Sometimes sitting in class feels completely pointless to me. I don’t get the rush of passion burning through my body when I’m reading the steps on logarithms or when I’m researching which vocal folds to open and close for the Irish dialect. Don’t get me wrong, it’s all extremely interesting, but do I live for this? Would I lose sleep over these subjects if they weren’t in my life? No. But the one subject that I took a break from this semester, stupidly and on purpose, I lose more sleep over than you could ever imagine.

Not acting this semester has put me in a funk. I have used other subjects as outlets, fillers almost, just to pass time until I can audition for the next play or get my hands on some type of stage work. When this semester started and auditions rolled around, I didn’t have my monologue prepared, I was frazzled and distracted with an 18 credit hour semester load, and I didn’t think much of taking a semester away from the stage... Until I actually did.

My passion is just to perform. I love to sing, to dance, I love being an on-air personality for WFCF 88.5 and I’m in true love, and possibly lust, with acting. As soon as I get my hands on a script, I indulge myself into that character and figure out exactly what makes them squirm, what makes them tick and what they’re really all about. You see, that’s what it’s all about and that’s what keeps me up night after night.

I'm happy. In the future.

It’s not really fair to say that I’m not satisfied in the present, but I’m strongly inclined to. I’m looking forward to my future so much that sometimes I by-pass days without even realizing that I’m doing so. I am so focused on who I will be, what I will doing, and where I will be, that sometimes I struggle with admitting happiness in the present day. And it’s not that I'm not happy, but I just know I will be much more satisfied when I can say that I am without a doubt... successful.

It’s always a worry of mine; not knowing what’s going to happen drives me crazy. And expectations are just another conflict in this whole “future-happiness” scenario. When I have expectations, nine times out of ten I don’t get what I expect and I am left highly disappointed. But when I don’t have expectations, I over-exceed.

Somehow I wish that I could just know what the future held. I mean, how much easier would it be to fast-forward and see your successes unfold? You wouldn't have self-doubt, you would have the right amount of self-discipline and you'd have the sure knowledge that you can just relax, and that everything will pay off in the end.

Procrastinate, you procrastinator.

Okay, okay. This has gone on for far too long. Procrastination is a serious cycle, people, and don’t even try to deny it. You see, this rushed type of lifestyle has unfortunately engulfed my calendar, and what’s left of my social life. And the worst part is that I honestly feel like I have a reason for procrastinating, not an excuse.

I procrastinate so heavily because I am always doing something else! It’s actually quite ridiculous.

Time crunches are the worst. The night before something is due, when you get that awful feeling in the pit of your worried tummy, it aches. The feeling that you know something is due, but still haven’t done it yet. The plan backfires and you end up feeling guilt-stricken after your not-so-hot grade is staring you straight in the face. And why do we all do it? Well, as the saying goes, “everyone has their reasons”.

I “procrastinate” (or if that’s what you like to call it) because I’m usually doing something else that needs to get done, when I should be doing something else that also needs to get done. One thing always seems to shuffle in right after the other, and before you know it, I’ve racked up some heavy inkage on my calendar. Some assignments just blur around other more important ones, and my time management seems to do swirls on my agenda.

But seriously, as in the words of my fellow peers, “If you get it done... whatever".