And so it begins. I need to write something for the Creative Nonfiction competition this year. At Stanford, they give out prizes for best undergraduate fiction story, best senior fiction story, best poem, and best creative nonfiction piece. The undergrad and creative nonfiction prizes both offer $1000 for first place. The senior prize is $2000 for first place. I will speak plainly—I need that money.
I've never written with a contest in mind, with money in mind. They key to winning, of course, is to forget about the money. It's just another deadline. So, that's how I'll treat it.
I think for the undergrad prize I'll use "Signed, The Repairman" and for the senior prize I'll use "How to Forget a Father." Last year I entered "River Road" into the undergrad competition and I didn't even place. That made me feel Shitty. If I can't even place competing against Stanford kids, how do I compete with people trying to get book deals? But here's the secret: book deals aren't about competing, they're about using shoulders and elbows to make room where you want it, and inviting people into that space. And there's room for everyone. Someone said in a book I liked, There's always room at the top. And I like that. That's good.
I'm at Jo's on South Congress. There's a song playing with violins and the singer is crooning, Sugar Man, Sugar Man, and hey, that's pretty good.
I hear "creative nonfiction" but what my brain really hears is "talk about Mom." That's one of the times I feel like it's okay to talk about it extensively. But, at the same time—who wants another sob story. I refuse to write a sob story—I will write a story first and if a person sobs second, then by God it's a good story.
I have this Last Memory of Mom before the Worst Memory. It's one of those memories you have to work on, like it was a house that needed to be built up, or a shed in the back that needs tearing down. It's costly and weighty and I feel it right Here, right There, and I don't think about it in waking life often but when I do I feel guilty and then sad and then a warmth settles in my chest because I know there's nothing I can do now and that feels Okay.
The Last Memory before the Worst Memory has to do with smoking.
I have to remember—damn it, Lucas. You're writing this for you and no one else so just be you on the page and create and think about it and if you see it well enough then they'll see and don't forget that.
The Last Memory before the Worst Memory—it has to do with smoking. I was in seventh grade and it's the last thing I remember about Mom before the morning she passed away. And I don't want to shock or awe because there's nothing awe-inspiring and there's nothing to gape at and nothing to cry or feel bad about—my mom passed away when I was twelve. There it is. Kurt Vonnegut said in his rules about writing stories—which I find hilarious, that Vonnegut of all people wrote rules (I think it must have been a joke, but Still)—that the reader should know as much as possible as soon as possible. He said to hell with suspense, that cockroaches should be able to eat the last pages of your story and the reader would still know how the story ends. So, this story begins when my mom was in a bad way with bi-polar disorder and pills, and it begins with the best mom in the world who does things with you like lie face down on the grass and saying We're hugging Mother Earth—things like that—and it also begins with her passing away from a blood clot in our bath tub, and me seeing it happen, and calling the ambulance, and to hell with suspense, and the story begins with me shutting down and Plugging In, as I like to call it, to the Internet and the television and living inside buzzing wires so I didn't have to live out the Worst Memory anymore. And our story begins with this, and my dad and I Making It Work, and having a lot of hard times, and him finding three years later the most wonderful woman who could never replace my mom but is the next closest thing, and this story begins with me loving her, and loving my dad, and hard times, and it begins with middle school and high school and being Plugged In and going to Stanford and slowly Unplugging and realizing all these things about what I had missed, and what I had kept my eyes from—things like the Last Memory, things like the Worst Memory. And this story ends with me typing this story as I sidle up to graduation day smooth and steady and wondering what will become of life.
Like I said, the Last Memory has to do with smoking. It's almost worse than the Worst Memory, which means I have my labels mixed up, but each of them have their own taste and the names seem to fit in a strange way, like when people say, I'm doing fine, thank you—which can very often mean, I'm not fine at all but I don't want to talk about it. The point is, just because something has the wrong label doesn't mean it's talking about the wrong thing. Because sometimes a wrong label tells you more than the actual thing does. (?)
And I feel myself resisting the memory and having to suss it out. Crane flies have been everywhere in our house. It's the spring rain that brings them. I love crane flies but on accident I keep killing them. They are so so fragile. They are everywhere in our house always glittering around the edges of my vision. I find them and I try to catch them and put them outside in the night, but all I do is crush their legs in the gaps between my fingers. Sometimes they die all on their own—on the counter they get stuck in thin slips of water until they drown. I want to say, Hey you're so stupid stop flying inside there's nothing good for you in here. But they're attracted to the light, or the air conditioner, and they have very small brains, and so I keep trying to rescue them and my success rate is about one half, and that's what it's like trying to suss out my memories.
Or maybe that's only half what it's like. I have another memory of smoking where my dad and mom were out on the porch and it was raining outside and they were there, sitting, and sitting. And Mom was smoking a cigarette, and I was out there to ask her something, and I saw her drag on that skeleton bone and I told her, You're going to get addicted again, and I said it serious like an adult even though I was only somewhere between seven and eight. And she said, I won't, and I thought, But you will, and then she did.
And three years later she was still smoking but then she was working the night shift in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Babies born with their intestines on the outside. Things like that. I am not kidding. And often babies died on her watch, and can you think of a worse thing for a person who was bipolar and whose father had just passed away and who was on medication and who was working the night shift and who was not lying on the grass anymore and saying, Here is Mother Earth?
And then is the time of the Last Memory when I was waiting for her to pick me up under the elm tree in front of my school. And I was eleven years old and I waited and waited and she was not coming, and I could have gone inside to the office and called her, because she was probably sleeping because of the night shift, which they called the Graveyard Shift—but I wanted her to feel guilty.
But now I can't help thinking about all the ways Mom died. There was That Time Mom Died by SCUBA Diving. There was a hungry shark and can you blame it? And there was a funeral at sea and we scattered poppy petals because they were her favorite, and Dad found and killed the shark one-on-one and he took a tooth and so did I and now we wear them around our necks and Dad's has carved in it, Bastard, and mine says, Shark Fin Soup. There was The Time Mom Died by Toaster Oven. She was getting my Bagel Bites out of the metal trap with a fork when all of the sudden, zap! And I do not eat Bagel Bites anymore, mostly because I have outgrown them.
Of course there was The Time Mom Died Falling Off the Merry-Go-Round, which does not need explaining, and The Time Mom Died by Frogs, which does, but is irrelevant. I remember The Skydiving Incident clearly, though Crossing South Congress Avenue on May 14th is still a little hazy because of all the buzzing buses everywhere, and then the one bus that whisked her under. I can count the ways Mom bit the dust. Trolley Fishing, The Backward-Falling Chair, Losing in a Duel, Saving Me from a Bullet, of course That Time She Rented the Wrong Movie on the Wrong Night, and then Death By Knives.
My mother died in so many ways. One thousand, I know, because I counted. And that's the mystery, and that's what I think about sometimes when it's quiet, because all those One Thousand Deaths are so much better than The One Death, and what about a little imagination? And I'm not delusional and I'm not delusional about anything, but why not make it something magnificent and spectacular, and why not make things up, and why not, and why not?
I was talking about the Last Memory, which is a memory about smoking, and how I was waiting to be picked up, and I waited for an hour under the cool shade of the elm tree in front of my middle school, and I didn't go into the office to call. And then I saw Mom's car at the light far away, and when it turned green I heard rubber cry out and I knew the tires were hers, and she sped toward me and I saw her inhaling and then throwing a cigarette out the window, and I knew it was Bad, and I didn't want her to feel guilty anymore.
I invented things when I was young.
(here, Infinite Telescope, or The Doppler Effect, or Time Travel...)
(more soon...)
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Ice cream social
I had an Adventure today.
I made good on my promise: I wrote a poem in Sharpie marker on a piece of paper that went, I am a stump / It's sad to see / At the very least / Please sit on me? and put it one my across-the-street neighbors' stump. I held it in place with a dandelion and a stone. It made me smile—it was Guerilla Poetry.
Fun things happen when you carry a ukulele around. I walked through my neighborhood down to Zilker Park, and on the trail next to the blue-green water under the bridge sat an Australian. His name was Simon. I said Hi and he said Hi and I asked what he was doing and he said reading and writing, and I said Hey I write too. And we got to talking.
Simon is visiting the United States until the end of May. Simon plays guitar some. He got to play at Antone's last night somehow with the house band, and he said he played just Okay but that the experience was much better than his playing. He said he got to play on the same stage as Stevie Ray Vaughn and I said That's true and then I offered him my ukulele and he played some blues. I wish I could play blues.
I forgot to mention that I've been practicing saying Hi and/or smiling at every person I see whether they look friendly or not. This means I often get rejected—this also means I am often surprised. Those surprises are to die for.
I got to Zilker Park and sat out on the big rock in the middle and the whole city was out playing in the grass. There were two soccer games going on—most of the players were a little overweight, but their feet were still light and they looked graceful with the ball at their laces. There were women sunbathing and I couldn't see their faces but skin is skin and I appreciated it. I played ukulele for a while and made up a new song based off C.W.'s chord progression—Am, C, G, F, and I was mostly picking and it sounded nice. Then I read the last 80 or so pages of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which E.M. gave me for my birthday, and every time I came across her yellow underlining I felt like I knew her better. And I started underlining with blue. And sometimes our underlinings overlapped and it made green and that made me Happy.
I walked around Barton Springs road with half a mind for coffee and writing, but was sidetracked by an airstream trailer called Ice Cream Social. They were barely open because no one was out. I knocked on the glass and a woman I later learned was named Meredith slid the window open. I asked if they were open and she said they were, and I asked what her favorite thing was and she said salty caramel ice cream, and that she had just made fresh waffle cones, and I said, Yes.
Meredith was very friendly. She said her friend in the next-door Cajun food truck just got breast cancer, and that on Sunday they were going to have a big benefit brunch with old-timey Country Music and that the money would help pay for her friend's treatment. She invited me to come but I would be out of town by then, so I promised I would come for Sunday brunch when I got back to Austin. Incidentally, it was the best ice cream I'd ever had in my life—no kidding.
Walking back I saw a cool house that was three stories tall and red brick and looked out of place like there might be magic in it, and nearby a woman walked her tea-kettle-sized dog while jingling a bell she held between her fingers.
I walked under the shade of elm and live oak trees on the way back to the house. Boys played little league and their dads yelled and their moms cheered with every ping of those aluminum bats. Two chubby boys, one bigger than the other, played catch outside the fence by themselves. They were wearing outfits. The bigger one said, Remember when he hit that pop fly out in midfield? And he threw the ball to the other boy, who said, Uh-huh, and threw it back. The big kid continued, And I ran out to catch it and I was like I'll never make it and then I did and everyone was saying things? The smaller one caught the ball and said, That was nothing.
I walked home eating the ice cream. When I got back there were three people hanging out on the front porch of the across-the-street house, and one of them, a woman in her late twenties with long brown hair and a nose piercing, was sitting cross legged on the stump.
I made good on my promise: I wrote a poem in Sharpie marker on a piece of paper that went, I am a stump / It's sad to see / At the very least / Please sit on me? and put it one my across-the-street neighbors' stump. I held it in place with a dandelion and a stone. It made me smile—it was Guerilla Poetry.
Fun things happen when you carry a ukulele around. I walked through my neighborhood down to Zilker Park, and on the trail next to the blue-green water under the bridge sat an Australian. His name was Simon. I said Hi and he said Hi and I asked what he was doing and he said reading and writing, and I said Hey I write too. And we got to talking.
Simon is visiting the United States until the end of May. Simon plays guitar some. He got to play at Antone's last night somehow with the house band, and he said he played just Okay but that the experience was much better than his playing. He said he got to play on the same stage as Stevie Ray Vaughn and I said That's true and then I offered him my ukulele and he played some blues. I wish I could play blues.
I forgot to mention that I've been practicing saying Hi and/or smiling at every person I see whether they look friendly or not. This means I often get rejected—this also means I am often surprised. Those surprises are to die for.
I got to Zilker Park and sat out on the big rock in the middle and the whole city was out playing in the grass. There were two soccer games going on—most of the players were a little overweight, but their feet were still light and they looked graceful with the ball at their laces. There were women sunbathing and I couldn't see their faces but skin is skin and I appreciated it. I played ukulele for a while and made up a new song based off C.W.'s chord progression—Am, C, G, F, and I was mostly picking and it sounded nice. Then I read the last 80 or so pages of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which E.M. gave me for my birthday, and every time I came across her yellow underlining I felt like I knew her better. And I started underlining with blue. And sometimes our underlinings overlapped and it made green and that made me Happy.
I walked around Barton Springs road with half a mind for coffee and writing, but was sidetracked by an airstream trailer called Ice Cream Social. They were barely open because no one was out. I knocked on the glass and a woman I later learned was named Meredith slid the window open. I asked if they were open and she said they were, and I asked what her favorite thing was and she said salty caramel ice cream, and that she had just made fresh waffle cones, and I said, Yes.
Meredith was very friendly. She said her friend in the next-door Cajun food truck just got breast cancer, and that on Sunday they were going to have a big benefit brunch with old-timey Country Music and that the money would help pay for her friend's treatment. She invited me to come but I would be out of town by then, so I promised I would come for Sunday brunch when I got back to Austin. Incidentally, it was the best ice cream I'd ever had in my life—no kidding.
Walking back I saw a cool house that was three stories tall and red brick and looked out of place like there might be magic in it, and nearby a woman walked her tea-kettle-sized dog while jingling a bell she held between her fingers.
I walked under the shade of elm and live oak trees on the way back to the house. Boys played little league and their dads yelled and their moms cheered with every ping of those aluminum bats. Two chubby boys, one bigger than the other, played catch outside the fence by themselves. They were wearing outfits. The bigger one said, Remember when he hit that pop fly out in midfield? And he threw the ball to the other boy, who said, Uh-huh, and threw it back. The big kid continued, And I ran out to catch it and I was like I'll never make it and then I did and everyone was saying things? The smaller one caught the ball and said, That was nothing.
I walked home eating the ice cream. When I got back there were three people hanging out on the front porch of the across-the-street house, and one of them, a woman in her late twenties with long brown hair and a nose piercing, was sitting cross legged on the stump.
Monday, March 26, 2012
The Battle of Moon Crater Four
Us Skyboys fought well
Hurled great clumps of moon rock
Monsters by thousands
Stormed our sky docks.
A roaring great battle
The best of the age
Books written in ink
Will light me on their page.
We drove them away
Each tail between legs
Their terrible scales
Flashed bright with red rage.
We ate fat Moon Pies
Drank glasses of cheese
We partied all night
Until we were ordered to leave.
Out flew the last Sunboat
But I was hot under the skin
I relived the great Battle
While they sailed off on the Wind.
I beat all of the monsters
Down in Moon Crater Four
And now I'm alone in space
No one comes this way
Anymore.
Hurled great clumps of moon rock
Monsters by thousands
Stormed our sky docks.
A roaring great battle
The best of the age
Books written in ink
Will light me on their page.
We drove them away
Each tail between legs
Their terrible scales
Flashed bright with red rage.
We ate fat Moon Pies
Drank glasses of cheese
We partied all night
Until we were ordered to leave.
Out flew the last Sunboat
But I was hot under the skin
I relived the great Battle
While they sailed off on the Wind.
I beat all of the monsters
Down in Moon Crater Four
And now I'm alone in space
No one comes this way
Anymore.
Cosmic Humor
My friend E.M. gave me a book to read—The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It's lovely, Lovely. There is a moment when the main character Charlie is sitting around with all of his friends and everyone is just sitting there, getting it, and he says, "I feel infinite." That's good, that's a truth—and here, in Austin, I can feel slivers, shivers of that. Usually it's looking up at stars that does it for me. If I ever actually look I feel very small, and the world and space and the universe feels very big, and I feel like an ant on top of the Himalayas. The thing is, the world is big, and it used to scare me so much I didn't think about it. Now, I think about it in small sips. Let my brain open up to infinity in little bursts, and the bursts are so bright and so good that that scares me a little too, but it's so big and so grand that I have to love it, and I do, and I'm working to get to a place where I can taste it all the time always without shutting any of it out and I'm getting there and it's exciting and whew.
Which makes me think about people with Cosmic Humor. I like those people.
Three nights ago I slid down a piss slide. What I mean is—it was a piss slide. Someone had pissed on it. I was at the park with E.M. and her friends T.M. and S.P. We were howling at the moon, which is what you do at night in a park with friends. There was a twisty slide I had to go down, and I did, and I said, Damn that slide was wet! And it was. And I said, Hey E.M. come see—isn't my butt wet? So E.M., in her infinite generosity, came and patted down my butt. That's a wet butt, she said.
Meanwhile our howls had attracted a pack of prowling high school boys. I knew they were in high school because one time one of their voices cracked, and all the other times they were being Asshole Youths. Later, my friends told me that one of the Asshole Youths said, Don't slide on that slide, we pissed on it. I did not hear this, but I heard the word piss and I heard the word slide, and I then knew that my jeans were connected to the inside of one—or all—of these boys' bladders in a way I had not anticipated. In short—their territory had been marked.
But you know? I had to laugh. T.M., bless his soul, was livid for me. He is very soft spoken and only threw comments over his shoulder as we retreated to the parking lot, but he kept saying, I can't believe it, I can't believe it. I don't remember what S.P. said but I think she was trying to judge my reaction. I didn't know either of them well, but I think they were surprised that I laughed.
E.M. was laughing too because she has a Cosmic Sense of Humor. That's the whole deal—you look at yourself from far enough away, from a star in the milky way, from the edge of the universe, everything is Pretty Funny. Relationship shit. Family shit. School shit. Piss on my pants shit. I'm no damn saint and I get as rattled as the next person, but I'm thankful for those moments where my brain is in the right place and I can just laugh.
Then E.M. said a Thing, which was—I don't care if I slide down it, or you, and it's funny. But that's fucked up that they would piss on a slide that my little sister might go down.
And then it wasn't so funny anymore, because she was right. And that was a pretty fucked up thing they did. Because the park was at an elementary school. And if my ass hadn't slid that slide clean, hundreds of elementary-school students would have piss jeans—and there's nothing funny about that.
Well, maybe a little funny, but only if you're feeling a little Sadistic and a little Dark. And sometimes that's an okay thing, too. Those are the limits. Sometimes my stepbrother D.S. accidentally makes a joke about my dead mom and somehow, some way, we laugh. And I mean hard. And if I ever try to explain it to someone else it sounds sick. And we sound sick. And they don't get it. And I guess not many people really could. But it's funny because he's my brother and I love him and my mom died and he accidentally made a your-mother's-a-whore joke and I still love him and it didn't hurt my feelings so, pretty soon, the only option is to laugh hysterically because what else can you do?
And maybe we are a little Sick. But if that's Sick, Lord my Lord, I do not want to be Well.
Which makes me think about people with Cosmic Humor. I like those people.
Three nights ago I slid down a piss slide. What I mean is—it was a piss slide. Someone had pissed on it. I was at the park with E.M. and her friends T.M. and S.P. We were howling at the moon, which is what you do at night in a park with friends. There was a twisty slide I had to go down, and I did, and I said, Damn that slide was wet! And it was. And I said, Hey E.M. come see—isn't my butt wet? So E.M., in her infinite generosity, came and patted down my butt. That's a wet butt, she said.
Meanwhile our howls had attracted a pack of prowling high school boys. I knew they were in high school because one time one of their voices cracked, and all the other times they were being Asshole Youths. Later, my friends told me that one of the Asshole Youths said, Don't slide on that slide, we pissed on it. I did not hear this, but I heard the word piss and I heard the word slide, and I then knew that my jeans were connected to the inside of one—or all—of these boys' bladders in a way I had not anticipated. In short—their territory had been marked.
But you know? I had to laugh. T.M., bless his soul, was livid for me. He is very soft spoken and only threw comments over his shoulder as we retreated to the parking lot, but he kept saying, I can't believe it, I can't believe it. I don't remember what S.P. said but I think she was trying to judge my reaction. I didn't know either of them well, but I think they were surprised that I laughed.
E.M. was laughing too because she has a Cosmic Sense of Humor. That's the whole deal—you look at yourself from far enough away, from a star in the milky way, from the edge of the universe, everything is Pretty Funny. Relationship shit. Family shit. School shit. Piss on my pants shit. I'm no damn saint and I get as rattled as the next person, but I'm thankful for those moments where my brain is in the right place and I can just laugh.
Then E.M. said a Thing, which was—I don't care if I slide down it, or you, and it's funny. But that's fucked up that they would piss on a slide that my little sister might go down.
And then it wasn't so funny anymore, because she was right. And that was a pretty fucked up thing they did. Because the park was at an elementary school. And if my ass hadn't slid that slide clean, hundreds of elementary-school students would have piss jeans—and there's nothing funny about that.
Well, maybe a little funny, but only if you're feeling a little Sadistic and a little Dark. And sometimes that's an okay thing, too. Those are the limits. Sometimes my stepbrother D.S. accidentally makes a joke about my dead mom and somehow, some way, we laugh. And I mean hard. And if I ever try to explain it to someone else it sounds sick. And we sound sick. And they don't get it. And I guess not many people really could. But it's funny because he's my brother and I love him and my mom died and he accidentally made a your-mother's-a-whore joke and I still love him and it didn't hurt my feelings so, pretty soon, the only option is to laugh hysterically because what else can you do?
And maybe we are a little Sick. But if that's Sick, Lord my Lord, I do not want to be Well.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
A collection of random things
No writing in a while makes me a sad man. Writing now, again—that makes me happy. Here are some Random Thoughts:
I came home and the house across the street was naked. A tree too big for arms sat and grew there my whole life. Now it is chopped down and there is only a stump left. I decided that I will write a note and put it on the stump. The note will go like this:
I am a stump,
It's sad to see.
At the very least,
Please sit on me?
Two nights ago I was Very Content—it made me feel like I could evaporate. No, not quite—I felt my molecules slowly separate, like they carefully shed their charge and drifted lazily away so I was just a collection of atoms in air.
I love crane flies but on accident I keep killing them. They are so so fragile. They are everywhere in our house always glittering around the edges of my eyes. I find them and I try to catch them and rescue them and put them outside in the night, but all I do is crush their legs in the gaps between my fingers. Sometimes they die all on their own—they drown themselves on the counter in slips of thin water. I want to say hey you're so stupid stop flying inside there's nothing good in here for you, but the air conditioning is on, and it is awful nice, and so I can't blame them.
I hated Making a Move. In high school—I could never do it right.
Hey man, you were with her last night? Did you make a move?
What, you took her to the movies? So did you make a move?
Dude, I made a move last night. You did? Yeah. You did? Yeah.
Because in high school how the hell are you supposed to know when to Make a Move, and how are you supposed to know when to go in for you first kiss, and how are you supposed to know how to use your lips and what Feels Good, and how are you supposed to, and how are you supposed to
High school was filled with a lot of How Are You Supposed To...?s My first kiss on the lips ever was with my friend C.W. It was in the script of a play. And I tried to play it cool because I'm a junior in high school and of course I've had my first kiss already. No—I was all sweat and butterflies, and I went in and pecked her on the lips and I felt weird and I was both thankful and sad. Sad because it had taken me until I was 17 to get my first kiss, thankful because it was C.W. and I love her and it's a Pretty Cool Thing that she was my first kiss. Plus, I knew to Make a Move, because it said in the script, He kisses her.
Are you ever with an insecure person and a Wishing Event happens? You find an eyelash, there's a shooting star, the clock turns 11:11—point is, they say, Make a wish. Everyone's done that. But have you ever been with an insecure person who loves you and they say, Make a wish, but what they really said was, Make a wish about me and about us, please. And then they ask, Did you make a good wish? But what they really said was, Did you make a wish about me? And that makes me upset and it makes me feel like my dreams have to be about another person and I don't like that. Maybe I want to make a wish about you, maybe I don't. But don't hijack my wishes.
I came home and the house across the street was naked. A tree too big for arms sat and grew there my whole life. Now it is chopped down and there is only a stump left. I decided that I will write a note and put it on the stump. The note will go like this:
I am a stump,
It's sad to see.
At the very least,
Please sit on me?
Two nights ago I was Very Content—it made me feel like I could evaporate. No, not quite—I felt my molecules slowly separate, like they carefully shed their charge and drifted lazily away so I was just a collection of atoms in air.
I love crane flies but on accident I keep killing them. They are so so fragile. They are everywhere in our house always glittering around the edges of my eyes. I find them and I try to catch them and rescue them and put them outside in the night, but all I do is crush their legs in the gaps between my fingers. Sometimes they die all on their own—they drown themselves on the counter in slips of thin water. I want to say hey you're so stupid stop flying inside there's nothing good in here for you, but the air conditioning is on, and it is awful nice, and so I can't blame them.
I hated Making a Move. In high school—I could never do it right.
Hey man, you were with her last night? Did you make a move?
What, you took her to the movies? So did you make a move?
Dude, I made a move last night. You did? Yeah. You did? Yeah.
Because in high school how the hell are you supposed to know when to Make a Move, and how are you supposed to know when to go in for you first kiss, and how are you supposed to know how to use your lips and what Feels Good, and how are you supposed to, and how are you supposed to
High school was filled with a lot of How Are You Supposed To...?s My first kiss on the lips ever was with my friend C.W. It was in the script of a play. And I tried to play it cool because I'm a junior in high school and of course I've had my first kiss already. No—I was all sweat and butterflies, and I went in and pecked her on the lips and I felt weird and I was both thankful and sad. Sad because it had taken me until I was 17 to get my first kiss, thankful because it was C.W. and I love her and it's a Pretty Cool Thing that she was my first kiss. Plus, I knew to Make a Move, because it said in the script, He kisses her.
Are you ever with an insecure person and a Wishing Event happens? You find an eyelash, there's a shooting star, the clock turns 11:11—point is, they say, Make a wish. Everyone's done that. But have you ever been with an insecure person who loves you and they say, Make a wish, but what they really said was, Make a wish about me and about us, please. And then they ask, Did you make a good wish? But what they really said was, Did you make a wish about me? And that makes me upset and it makes me feel like my dreams have to be about another person and I don't like that. Maybe I want to make a wish about you, maybe I don't. But don't hijack my wishes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)