a blank white page and a swelling rage

It makes me remember those incredible first few days with Tom. (The first time I touched his skin, smooth as caramel. The first tim I unbuttoned his cotton shirt and felt the hard warmth of his chest. The first time he kissed me until my bones shook. The first time I kissed him until his blue-green eyes lost focus and turned slate gray.)

-Bed Rest by Sarah Bilston

I’m reading a book by my Victorian literature professor over this short Thanksgiving break. It’s pregnancy based chick lit, but I kind of love it. I’m back in my old bedroom right now. I went to the high school this morning, and seeing my old teachers was fantastic. I’m not close with my professors now like I was last year. The one thing I was really looking forward to for this break, though, was seeing the boy, and hopefully going on a date with him. But now I’ve been diagnosed with fucking strep throat so I can’t do a thing. I’ll see him with a group on Friday, and then not again till May. God Fucking Damn. I realized that I don’t consider here home anymore. I consider school as my home. I’m happy there. It took me such a short amount of time to slip into my own ways- I found my way into my room and into my bed and I’m just not leaving. I hate this and I want to cry and this book is the only thing keeping me from doing so.

She batted her eyelids and gave me a flirty grin. “Don’t you like different?”

“Sure I do,” I said, maybe a little too quickly.

A look of sudden discovery brightened her face. She reached out with her foot and tapped my sneaker. “I know what your problem is.”

“Really?” I said. “What?”

“You’re jealous. You’re upset because I’m paying all this attention to other people and not enough to you.”

“Right,” I sniffed. “I’m jealous of Peter Sinkowitz.”

She stood. “You just want me all to yourself, don’t you?” She stepped into my space. The tips of our noses were touching. “Don’t you, Mr. Leo?” Her arms were around my neck.

We were on the sidewalk in front of her house, in full view. “What are you doing?” I said.

“I’m giving you some attention,” she cooed. “Don’t you want some attention?”

I was losing my battle for balance.

“I don’t know,” I heard myself say.

“You’re really dumb,” she whispered in my ear.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Why do you think there’s eighteen pebbles in my wagon?” And then the last remaining space between our lips was gone and I was falling headlong into her eyes, right there on Palo Verde after dinner. And I can tell you, that was no saint kissing me.

-Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company.

-Jean-Paul Sartre

I never met you but I knew all your secrets. You’d spill them late at night across the wires, across the earth, from one continent to another. I don’t know what you sounded like but I knew what you’d say. And I didn’t even know what you looked like. But I knew how you felt. We trust in strangers the most.

- pleasefindthis.blogspot.com, saturday august 11, 2007

This Be the Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

-Philip Larkin

I like this poem a lot but I’m a bit ashamed to admit it. The first two lines were used in the show Skins during a really emotional episode, so that may be part of it.

Anyway, it’s a philosophy I’ve often shared. In many, many ways my parents have made my life truly wonderful. But in many, and probably substantially less important ways, they have fucked me up.

And I’m terrified to have kids. I would fuck them up an unbelievable amount. It wouldn’t be fair to them. I wouldn’t even know I was doing it, and that idea haunts me too much.

I think I would fuck them up less as a single mother. It’s the damaged way I interact with others that would be the problem, I think.

i sleep… i wake…
how wide
the bed with none beside.

-kaga no chiyo