the unfolding

sunny day: literally and metaphorically

: jfink216; June 24th, 18:19

Current Music:: human of the year, regina spektor

let's not call it writer's block. let's call it a speed bump. maybe traffic cones or caution signs.

three second love, five sentence wonder. these are the gravestones of my past-- words and words and words about men, made of clay and metal in their turn. bones of the things i can remember, shadows of the things i cannot. a wasteland or a museum: i will settle for a maesoleum. i am all about compromises except i have problems with authority. i am an english major who has not liked a single one of her english teachers in four years. i've been doing a lot of writing about myself lately and i feel guilty about that until i remember that if there is one thing in my life that no one else is entitled to give a damn about it is my writing.

i feel like disorder. like i am living in a picture. like i couldn't write a single proper sentence if my life depended on it. like the words are too deep today, too far under the skin, and i am too tired to go looking for them. if i wait long enough they will bubble to the surface, and then they will spill out, and i will stand with a bucket under the rain ready to catch them- but today is a sunny day.

it's just the fault of faulty manufacturing

: jfink216; June 11th, 17:12

i was standing in front of the bathroom mirror today when it occured to me that beauty is mostly about logistics. traditional beauty is a series of formulas: measurements by facial proportion by whiteness of teeth. it's all very simple and we make it so very complex. the inside is the maze we see as a list of traits and nothing more. we are mathemathical creatures; we like absolutes and subjectivity presented as fact. as a whole we do not like surprises.

see, here is the thing- i am a young woman with brown hair and brown eyes who made honor roll with flying colors her first year of college. i work with my youth group and i wish i had kept dancing when i had the chance. i like to do well in school and i like to listen to lil wayne on my way to work in the mornings. i like feeling powerful and driving too fast and dancing to music with its own heartbeat. every weekday morning i open the door to the neighborhood pool and for four hours i try to teach children the things people taught me about being strong, physically and emotionally and mentally and spiritually. then they leave, and for half an hour i push myself to do the one thing all the doctors told me i could never do again. it is only a ghost of what it used to be- thirty laps when i used to do three hundred, half an hour when it used to be two and a half. it is a small victory. it is still a victory. my shoulder screams at me. i scream back. most days, i win. the victories add up.

this is honest: i am a quitter. self-motivation in others is attractive to me because i am not sure i will ever really have it. i went to college and lost weight on accident because i thought maybe i should eat more salad. i am a writer and was published because i thought maybe i should send a piece to a magazine i found a link to. i am a woman who fell in love because she couldn't quite stop herself in time. people like to talk about my time in the hospital, so short as it was: two weeks stretched out into eternity in my mind, canvas pulled tight over a frame. they like to talk about my bravery and my endurance and how well i pulled myself through, and what i do not say is that i wasted away for those two weeks. i did not even know there was a chance that i would die. i was a coward; i cried and prayed for it to end while people were pouring out their souls for me. i did not choose to live, because three IVs and a team of talented doctors did it for me. people ask about my scar and i tell them the story, so brief in its explanation: i had a staph infection in my bloodstream. it shut down my liver and kidneys. they did surgery and it is better. i am blessed. this is the truth. at no point did i exemplify behavior of a saint. my parents like to talk about the time i asked a pregnant nurse if she was okay to lift me, like no one else had ever thought to ask the same question, like i have a deep-rooted sense of kindness towards the human race. i would laugh if it weren't so damn depressing.

this is the closest i will ever get to true bravery. we all have our daydreams about being wonderful at something: we all have our dreams about saving the world, and some days i run myself mentally through a drowning scenario just so that if it ever happens i'll be ready. i try to ignore the feeling that i would do it wrong. i choose to celebrate this imaginary moment of heroic action. in these imaginings i am usually a little thinner and less surprised to actually succeed. if i could sigh over text, this is how it would sound. if i had given the choice between beauty and truth, i hope i would have picked the harder road. i cannot say for sure. all i know is that i am a young woman with brown hair and brown eyes that you could pass on the street without a second glance, and i am living inside the skin that has grown on me like ivy. i used to be the victim of some sort of identity crisis because the inside did not match the outside, but i have been getting a little older and a little more worn and a little more beautiful and i think that seems about right. a little older, a little prettier. you give and you take, you win and you lose- abstract statements meant to hold the meaning that we never profit without going bankrupt. the world has its own remarkable sort of equilibrium. i still don't quite have my own.

some days are not those days

: jfink216; June 10th, 17:04

i am in a church- it is empty and dark and silent. i am in a church and it is late enough that all the lights have been turned off hours ago, and the whole place is so big i think it might swallow me. i kneel in front of the alter for a minute. i think about being swallowed. i think i might want it, like waves that rise up and roll in from the sea. like exhibitions of power in the natural world.

one of the things i enjoy most about my own perspective is that i can pull in my garage after a drive home late at night and think to myself that i truly enjoyed it. we talk about not wasting water or styrafoam or fertile land, but we are deathly quiet about wasting our own lives. why is that?

stanislavski says in one of his books on acting that it is extremely difficult to cultivate a creative mood, but extremely easy to disrupt it. in all of my acting and my writing i consider myself an artist. it is part of the schema i have of myself.

i just don't think it's going to happen today.

i cannot apologize

: jfink216; May 18th, 23:52

calm down
deep breaths
and get yourself dressed
instead of running around
and pulling all your threads
and breaking yourself up

if it's a broken part, replace it
if it's a broken arm, then brace it
if it's a broken heart, then face it

and hold you own
know your name
and go your own way.

-jason mraz: details in the fabric

there are better things than this moment you are in. you know it. the verb to pursue: the decision, the catalyst. faults and faulting others. not better, just more real. not better, just more life-like than a screen and time spent or wasted. part of me wants to write something that makes sense to you- something you can read and understand on some level; something more than guessing games. something concrete, mathematical in nature, rights and wrongs and polar opposites and disney fairytales. something you can read and think "right, exactly" and move on with your life. i can't do that. for you i wish i could, but if i'm being honest with myself this is not about you. this is not about what happened to me today or what i had for breakfast or even what my best friend said to me. this is about what i have to do, this is about the person that i am and the ways i have to purge those things out of me before i lose all objectivity. this is about who i am as an artist and the frustration that builds in me when i cannot create. this is about God and selfishness. i can't apologize to you and mean it.

i heard when i was younger that the largest organ is the skin. skin and skin. some sort of cover or protection; and i want to peel it back to elements, i want to be atoms and honesty but those things are so deep inside me that i have to dig. i layer myself in these things- walls and walls of protection, ideas of the person i can be and the future i want for myself and the perfectness of my own design, the subtlety of nature and creation. this is about skin. this is about freckles and the man who will count them all; i want kisses for each one- math and art together, numbering and painting over- like a paint by numbers of the venice sunset on my body. i want you to want different things for yourself.

sketch

: jfink216; May 12th, 0:14

i walk down the halls of cambridge and think to myself this is the last time i will do this, this is the last time i will walk this particular section of the hall or the last time i will knock on this particular door or the last time i will run on this particular treadmill. i am full of lasts and i feel like they should be significant but they are not. it is like trying to remember my last day of high school or my last day of work at the gym or my last ethics class first semester. they are all lasts and i remember none of them. they mark new things and accomplishments and i remember none of them. i cannot remember my grades senior year or my final gpa in high school or if i ever figured out what i got on that ib environmental exam junior year. i see people taking exams and i read status updates on facebook about ap and ib tests and the truth in me rings out-- these things are unimportant. i have invested so much time and these things do not matter. i do not remember my grades. i do not remember the sashes or various accolades i recieved at graduation.

i remember the last time i complimented someone and the last time someone complimented me. i remember the faces of my friends and the ways they smile and the moments i have shared with them. those are the things i will remember.

i have said before that i want to write in a way that matters
i have said before that i am weak
i have known the truths of who i am
variously. insurmountably.
undeniably.

the limbs. the human body. 'the love song of j. alfred prufrock. a train of thought that only i can catch. writing like a drug addict. chemicals like white walls and padded rooms. things i will only understand for a moment before they leave me. thoughts i will never think again. these are the things i want marked on my body. there are the tattoos i want stretched across my skin, along its hills and valleys and along the bones and along my fingertips. print so tiny it has to be kissed to be read. this is who i am, so simple and easy.

this is just a sketch. this is just it all pouring out, however i get to- canvas or wood floor or stage, whatever comes first, whatever is closest at hand. i make myself keep writing because tenth grade taught me so and i would like that to think that four years of high school taught me something, anything that mattered. i keep writing even when i have nothing to say, even when the next words are a mystery to me and they just come however they come and they don't make sense and i have learned to be okay with that. i have to be okay with that. the music changes and my fingers are moving and i'm making typos every which way and i am just trying to bleed out everything that i have until i find something that really matters. i am mining for gold in my own creative system- inside my own body- and there is dirt and old shoes and fishing lures and a speck of something valuable, and that's enough to make it worth the effort. just like one moment makes a life, just like one kiss changes the rotation of the earth, just like another half-degree tilt and we'd all be ashes at the alter of the sun. just like how stars are suns and we never know, just like they burn out and we never know, just like how people lead lives of magnificance and we never know. there are people in the world that would change my life that i will not meet. somewhere in my future there is something beautiful and something heartwrenching and some sort of triumph and some sort of bitter failure. and it takes everything i have to not be afraid; it takes everything i have to push forward in strength that i am only just now learning to really have.

i spoke somewhere about bleeding and bleeding out. even my own words are ghosts to me. people tell me about moments we had together and i do not remember them, i have no recollection, and it scares me more than anything else because i lost a part of my own definition. it changed me and it was gone. i told ryan the story about rich anter (i saved his name or it would be gone by now as well) and i think of him out somewhere in the great world in only God knows where and i wonder if he remembers a girl who took a step so big and scary years ago. i wonder what was happening in his life that needed such prayer; i wonder if he made it out. i know he made it out. i wonder if we saw each other on the street if we would remember each other. if, for him, there was even anything to remember. for me there was something to remember. eros and agape, the meanings and functions of love, the first time i gave selflessly, the first time i let prayer be my body. the first time i let myself be overcome with Christ. the first time i loved a man in a way that mattered.

i am only skin and bones and these are only words. i have no epic story to be told, only quiet moments in whispers. love notes hidden in the hollows of chests and collarbones. letters strung together like popcorn or paper chains. things that are breakable and easily forgotten- because these things will never make sense to me again. it is five past twelve, five minutes into another day, and these thoughts will leave me. i grieve them because i have to- i mourn the words because they are lost and it almost doesn't even matter. i am wounded and it doesn't really make a difference. it's black and white pictures and mazes and just being able to hurt because something inside of me calls for it. if i had a dance floor i would dance something lovely. if the wooden floor of my room were wide and expansive i would pour all the soul out and cover it. i would swallow the sun and the sea and be loved in brilliance. if it were easy i think i could be okay with that. i think i would be alright with it.

stuck

: jfink216; May 2nd, 13:57

well baby, i've been here before
i've seen this room and i've walked this floor
you know, i used to live alone before i knew you

and i've seen your flag on the marble arch
and love is not a victory march
it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

-hallelujah:kate voegele (cover)

moments, better moments

we live simple quiet soft in broken hollows
we live easy lovely loud on beaches, in oceans made of men and promises

i am looking to be beautiful unconventional
i am looking to be pretty different
almost maybe easy
almost maybe repeat
almost maybe an idea that has been around forever
i am looking to sketch to a rhythm
to blend arts- dance sing draw write

and every breath we drew was hallelujah

i am not looking to be loved or noticed
or lauded and applauded
to hold golden men or globes or prizes of a certain nobility
i am not looking for these things
i am looking for the skin and bones of peace
for children and their mothers, for daughters and their sons
for people who live ordinary lives extraordinarily

the baffled king composing hallelujah

i am looking for the word spoken living softly
unaware- i am looking for the things that are not self-conscious
i am looking for little scars and needles in stacks of hay
i am looking for diamonds in roughs and various cliches
i am looking for numbers and rings and redeeming qualities

i am looking at what makes me believe
i am forward thinking of better things
i am forward thinking of moments, better moments

"nothing better", the postal service

: jfink216; April 29th, 18:03

i am driving down 85-south. the wheels are turning under my little black car and i am moving quickly- too quickly, for the record, but no one's noticed yet- back to home version two. i am driving and my hands are steady on the wheel and i am thinking. i am tapping my fingers against the black steering wheel and i am thinking.

for me, thinking turns to wishing quickly. joshua radin is on the radio and suddenly there is the farmiliar ache, the one that pulls at me when i pull out of the driveway. it is the one that speaks to my heartstrings and tells me that what you are doing right now is absurd, that leaving is nothing but a lack of self-preservation, that any woman who would leave that man standing waving goodbye for weeks at a time ought to be dragged out and shot. i hear and i agree.

Don't you feed me lines about some idealistic future
Your heart won't heal right if you keep tearing out the sutures

i cry every time. every single time, without fail. it's a matter of how long i cry for. on good days, i'm okay by the time i get on the 77-south on ramp. on bad days- the ones where weeks and weeks stretch out ahead like lizards sunbathing- it isn't until i get on 85 that i shake off the sadness. i tell myself it's not so long, i'll be home soon, and i am right. but at this moment now, with my hands on the steering wheel listening to joshua radin a hundred miles outside of atlanta, it takes every piece of strength not to turn around. i see an off-ramp, then another, and the ache is speaking to me again it is telling me just turn the fucking car around. it'll work out, you'll figure it out, for your sake just turn the car around. you can't do this anymore. i can't do this anymore.

here are the logistics of disappearing: every exit sign calls to you. you see u-turns in the middle of the interstate with signs that say "law enforcement only" and you chalk yourself up to natural law and figure they're yours to use. you rationalize your own presence. you entertain ways to convince your professors that there has been an emergency and you will be indefinitely delayed. you know it wouldn't work, so you weigh out the benefits of a college education in your mind. you consider to the point of absurdity and you deny the voice in your head that tells you so.

I feel I must interject here; you're getting carried away feeling sorry for yourself
With these revisions and gaps in history

this is where i am.

i am at a place somewhere between where my home lives and where my home is. home is huntersville. home is auburn. home is ryan coleman with flowers on the back porch. home is him curled up in a blanket, sick and miserable. home is him in simple moments, pouring iced tea or turning the page of a book. my house is the work of a builder and my home is the masterpiece of God. there is no need to ask which one i prefer: the answer is immediately clear. it is painfully clear to me.

people here tell me they want a relationship like ours, but i am not sure they know what they are saying. we do what we do now so we do not have to suffer the consequences in the future. we hurt now so that we can have a lifetime to heal later. we speak seriously, one day a few years from now maybe even logistically. this not an easy thing i do because it is fun and he is handsome and i haven't found someone else here that i like yet. this is a hard thing that i do because it matters, because by God something in my life matters enough for me to put an honest effort in it and part of me thinks i should call the press just to let them know. i think about brandi and dj and how insulting it is to them to compare our situations, with ryan six hours away and dj fighting overseas, with me being sad when i don't get a phone call and brandi not getting an email for days on end. i pray for them because i cannot imagine stretching myself any further than i am now. i cannot imagine the backs that they must bend to breaking. i cannot imagine the muscles in my heart being pulled so tauntly.

Tell me, am I right to think that there could be nothing better
Than making you my bride and slowly growing old together?

here are the logistics of staying: you wipe off the days on your whiteboard at ten thirty because you figure it's nearly midnight anyway. you count days while trying not to, you keep yourself so busy- too busy- and it helps a little. it helps a little when your phone beeps with text messages and your computer pops up with a skype call, but it's not home. you know, but you also know that you have been called to something else. you know that the life you have planned for yourself is nothing compared to the life Christ has set out for you, the road He has put under your feet if you will only follow it.

you follow it.

the distance between simple and easy

: jfink216; April 15th, 0:26

push me up against the wall
young kentucky girl in a push-up bra
fallin' all over myself
to lick your heart and taste your health

blood loss in a bathroom stall
southern girl with a scarlett drawl
wave goodbye to ma and pa

-scar tissue, red hot chili peppers

he gives her the option of easy
she'll take it not because she doesn't know better
but because she's known worse

he gives her words like beauty
and she drinks them
inhales them like a drug

she molds becaise it's simple
prefabricaded, put together
no assembly necessary

he kisses her
she makes a list of things to do
it's her spare moment in the day

the bed is never quite her enemy
but it's never quite her friend
just a person she met in passing

the rain hits outside the door
and it seems harder than before
to call it all okay

she makes references to poems
that no one ever knows
and feels unusually alone

she never asked for a prince charming
or a white horse or a house with shutters
just someone who could appreciate her history

but he is math and she is english
he is science and she is art
he is fact and she is fiction

they say that things fade with time
that the problem is not uncommon
love just dies, that's all

and there are answers to the questions-
why we choose to love
and choose to hate

but she does not know them
because they are not in the books that she has read
or in the places she has been

they are not in the room she keeps
or the things she draws
or the words she speaks

they are not inside her biological heart
or her liver or her lungs
or her fingertips on his

they are not inside of him
when he is inside of her
because she is a crowded room

she is full of her better parts
of repeated songs and slow dances
and cigarettes lit in dark rooms

he doesn't know anything
about the road beneath her feet
or the friend she had who shot himself

he doesn't know about her brother
or her friends, her mother,
the life she could have lived

but he knows about the sacrifices
and what it means to make do
and how it isn't right to leave

he knows about her birthmark
and her trip to cozumel last spring
and the pattern of the cushions on her sofa

he knows about being comfortable
and being safe and sound
and the upsides to complacency

and if something has to matter
if it's worth it to try and justify
then the simpleness is enough

Alleluia!

: jfink216; April 12th, 10:09

to all of my friends list-- i hope you all have a wonderful, blessed Easter, whether you celebrate it or not!

"I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now. For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. For it is only right for me to feel this way about you all, because I have you in my heart...for God as my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus! And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God."

-Philippians 1:3-11

talk

: jfink216; April 9th, 23:20

let's talk about her space holiday
let's talk about oh no not stereo
let's talk about the things that matter
the things that happen in this second
let's talk about lists and lists and lists
and cuffs and fists and suit jackets
and floors and glass-bottle beverages

let's talk about structure
and the color of the furniture
and the things you think early in the morning
when the world is still asleep
let's talk about hot air balloons
and what my hair does when it rains
and various inconveniences

let's sit in the living room of a stranger
we both kind of call a friend
and talk about the lives we lead
the people that we know
the places we have been and hope to go
let's talk about colors
and how we never have a favorite one

let's talk about stereotypes and boxes
and simple songs about identity
and the merits of knowing movie titles
and the best soundtracks, and places to eat
let's talk about possibility and relativity
and let's leave out actuality
and the complications of the truth

let's talk about your sister and your mom
let's talk about movie stars and beauty
let's flip through catalogues and phonebooks
and google our names to see what comes up
so we can laugh when i'm a prostitute and you're a plumber
let's learn to laugh at each other
and the things we take so seriously

let's talk about religion and soapboxes
and politics and nature and supertargets
and other things that change lives
let's talk about bad habits
and how to form or break them
let's talk about whys and why nots
and let's agree to disagree

let's talk about youtube and yahoo
and dumb commercials with olympic athletes
let's talk about actors and picture frames
let's talk about dried flowers and the smell of rain
and our favorite time of day
and the kind of milk we drink
and how we used to take the bus to school

let's talk about puzzles and their pieces
let's talk about husbands and their wives
and the things we did when we were kids
let's talk about carnivals and ice cream
and the sun on a summer day
and what we love about construction sites
and the feel of feet sunk in the sand

let's talk about concerts and remixes
and lengthly novels neither of us have read
let's talk about our need to be perfect
and bathing suits with patterns
and the merits of running shorts
and better days with loves that we have had
and lost but found again in time

chance encounter

: jfink216; April 7th, 18:40

i am a pedestrian
you pass on the street
one lonely evening;
shirt- on sale, probably
shoes- nondescript

i am the girl
on the way to class;
blue bookbag
empty-handed
open-minded

i am the woman
in a picture
you once painted
filled with angles
and suggestions

i am a guitar
strummed softly
to a lover
to a brother
to a friend

i am a celebrity crush
a life you wish you had
that you do not understand,
all held inside the fingertips
of one strange, beautiful man

i am the song
your heart is singing
that you have never heard
lyrics mumbled,
tune unsure

i am dressed up
looking down
easy to forget
not much harder
to regret

i am example "a"
full of stories
you will never know
and places
you will never be

i am nothing
but a lesser version
of your dreams,
skipping cracks in sidewalks
throwing rocks

i am no one
you would write about
no one you would find
in storybooks or prose
about great lives or adventures

i am no one
but a woman on the street
that you chose to stop
and meet and greet
and one day love.

Tags: poetry

your bones and skin

: jfink216; April 4th, 14:10

"i do not care what car you drive or where you live. if you know someone who knows someone who knows someone. if your clothes are this years cutting edge. if your trust fund is unlimited. if you are a-list b-list or never heard of you list. i only care about the words that flutter from your mind. they are the only thing you truly own. the only thing i will remember you by. i will not fall in love with your bones and skin. i will not fall in love with the places you have been. i will not fall in love with anything but the words that flutter from your extraordinary mind."

-andre jordan
www.abeautifulrevolution.com

small thoughts of a cupcake-painter

: jfink216; April 3rd, 11:23

i feel like a painter

today i walked down the street and there was a man wearing a fedora. the sun was out and shining, the pavement was dry but the cracks between the slabs were filled with water like little pools for ants. beautiful.

there is condensation on the outside of my diet cherry coke can. my fingerprints erase it and my breath brings it back again.

the past few days- magic in a bottle, ryan giving me words like i'm the only woman he's ever loved, i drink them in deliriously. like an alcoholic. like an abuser. like all the taboo words you can think of.

i learned how to make cupcakes that remind me of the drugs i've never done. i stumbled on the recipie. i miss kitchens, even just one kitchen would be nice, just a stove and an oven and a sink and some counter space. maybe a fridge for the sake of ambition. all things in moderation.

the music player is repeating 'never think' by rob pattinson. i found at least four different versions of the lyrics today. one reviewer said his voice sounds like a goat drowning, i laughed but still listen to the song anyway. a lot of my music is weird.

the verb 'to thrive': to grow or develop vigorously; flourish. related searches include 'failure to thrive', a medical condition and reflection of our mindset.

damn, i am really dying for those cupcakes. they had them at the valentine's day wedding with m&ms with the couple's faces on them and all three of the women in my family wore black and white. they look like little candies. they had sprinkles on top, like they need more precious baby calories in confetti colors. lovely presentation, though.

when i was younger my dream job was a comedienne on 'whose line is it anyway?' i realize now that the job is both above my talent level and possibly below my paygrade. funny how that happens.

i got no fight in me in this whole damn world
so hold off-- she should hold off
it's the one thing that i've known

once i put my coat on
i'm coming out of this all wrong
she's standing outside, holding me
saying oh please, i'm in love
i'm in love

-never think

excerpt

: jfink216; March 24th, 19:52

Current Music:: coldplay

GABE: It all goes by so fast, Tom, I know. The hair goes, and the waist. And the stamina; the capacity for staying up late, to read or watch a movie, never mind sex. Want to hear a shocker? Karen is pre-menopausal. That's right: My sweetheart, my lover, that sweet girl I lolled around with on endless Sundays, is getting hot flashes. It doesn't seem possible. We spend our youth unconscious, feeling immortal, then we marry and have kids and awaken with a shock to mortality, theirs, ours, that's all we see. We worry about them, their safety, our own, air bags, plane crashes, pederasts, and spend our middle years wanting back the dreamy, carefree part, the part we fucked and pissed away; now we want that back, 'cause now we know how fleeting it all is, when there's really so little left. So, some of us try to regain unconsciousness. Some of us blow up our homes... And others of us...take up piano; I'm taking piano.

-"Dinner With Friends" by Donald Margulies

"when you are near", carolina liar

: jfink216; February 24th, 18:41

Current Music:: carolina liar

you wonder what it is that you can say. there are moment of inspiration that you know pass you by, things you think on the way to concepts lab or in the middle of the atlanta airport that you know you can't get back, things that are profound and meaningful and have the lifespan of a moment before they're gone. one thing that you remember is standing in the shower yesterday, thinking about what it means to be happy- and you can say that you are happy because you would not want to live anyone else's life other than your own. it seems ridiculous to think about the things you would have to give up. it seems absurd to really want anything more than what you have.

there are hard things. there are struggles and phone calls that end at four a.m. and you wake up feeling drained but beautiful because you made a decision that mattered, my God, you really made it. every time you sit down to write all you can think about is the unbearable beauty of the fact, and you know it's redundant but you can't bring yourself to believe that it's wrong. you are taking care of yourself. you look back on diary entries from years ago and they make you cringe but you see the path; you see the places God was taking you and the places you refused to be led and you wish that the you today could have talked to the you circa 2005 for just a few minutes. you'd tell her- i know you feel like you're in love, but please be careful. i know that you feel ugly, but you're so beautiful. i know you feel worthless, but you have so much worth in you. i know you feel like you can do anything, and you should try, but please don't expect perfection from yourself. hold on to your friends- make an effort. i know you, you're lazy. just try. katie heubel is going to love you forever, but eddie watson isn't. gab never will. you'll hurt alex more than he could ever deserve, but he'll forgive you- be honest, even though it will be hard. you're doing the right thing by him; pretty soon he'll end up with a girl that you know is perfect for him and it will make you smile. i won't tell you about joe, you can figure it out for yourself, but don't be afraid to take action and don't be afraid to hurt and don't be afraid to not hurt either. i promise you that one day you will wake up feeling beautiful and you will feel that way for a long time. i know it seems impossible, but trust me. oh, and one last thing- he's right under your nose. you'll kick yourself when you finally see it, but it's perfect timing, i promise. it's going to suck for a while and you're going to get some dirty looks and words, but you are making the right decision. don't be afraid. remember what jp2 always said? don't be afraid.

over four hundred days. it's a kind of accomplishment for the two of you who are terribly ADD sometimes; it's kind of an accomplishment when you look back at it and you can't find the boredom that plagued the other relationships you've had. you can't find the lack of things to say, you can't find any moment of awkwardness even though it's to be expected. you still feel the 'series of skip-jump-stop that happens to your heart' when you see him from across the room, and you still remember the words you wrote and it's kind of terrible to be quoting yourself but it's the only words that really make sense. if you close your eyes hard enough you can conjure up an image of him in a blue shirt and slacks dancing with you at a wedding on valentine's day, and it makes you laugh because he's so goofy and it makes you cry because he's in love with you. it makes you smile because you are so in love with him. it gives you butterflies because you can't help changing around the clothing and the date a little and daydreaming something that has turned from a fairytale to a legitimate possibility. you have decided that fairytales are overrated, that real life is much better and much more technicolor and much more alive and much more beautiful than fiction could ever come up with. it's better than a walk to remember and the notebook and titanic and when harry met sally and any other romantic story you have ever heard because it contains inside of it the possibility of being, like rainer maria rilke's novel. like the point of life is to love and be loved by Christ. like the fact that you could not want more than what you have.

you keep a post-it game of hangman on your corkboard. there's a head and the letter s and the phrase 'will you go to prom with me?' because you made an idle comment that you'd never really been asked in a cute way before so he pulled it off from three hundred miles away for you. here's the kicker- you're not really surprised. you didn't expect it and he continues to sweep you off your feet, but you're not surprised. it's normal behavior for him to love you in a way that is exceptional. it's just his way. he wouldn't really consider loving you any other way. it reminds you of God. it reminds you of the way that you sit in mass and look at the cross and you are so happy to be there because you get to spend time with the man you love- the heavenly one, that is- and you just look at him on the cross and you are so in love. he's beautiful to you, your sweet jesus who made the sacrifice for you. he's so handsome and in love with you. you smile at the pattern because he intended it. you smile because it's a little less fate and a little more blessing heaped upon each other. you smile because it seems strange not to.

Tags: faith, god, love

numbers

: jfink216; January 12th, 9:12

373.07- the number of miles apart we are, from door to door.

i feel them in my bones.

small lines

: jfink216; December 9th, 2008

after all we did the best we could

the night is electric-tension-quiet

the car is black and silent

and i ask you,

what are our chances?

i don't know, you say.

it is an answer in itself.

the term coincidence is a cop-out

in a small room with bad acoustics

i closed my eyes and i said

God, i've been awful.

the people in my dream heard me singing-

God, they said, she's awful.

i never really believed in symbolism,

but God never really believed in subtlelty.

well, you asked for something sure

the resolution is quick-

we are lost and losing sight

of what we were; all of the cliches apply.

we take it as a sign.

indepen- screw it, no-one's buying

there are assumptions-

she's writing about breakups, i think.

it must have been the distance.

disclaimers at the tops of pages say

'i can't be held responsible-

what i write's not what i am.'

conclusion and the afterword or writer's insurance

life is terribly beautiful-

the oranges and reds inside his kisses,

the electricity of truth,

the glint of silver on the sun.

the world is upside-down

but i live it just the same.

the momentum behind ribbons and bows

: jfink216; December 8th, 2008

there are these exquisite moments buried inside the course of our lives, and this is one of them: a small group of college kids gathered around a gingerbread house, laughing and working together to build it up and make it beautiful. it's not complicated, it's not profound, but it's full of love- and that is so much more than enough. christmas music is playing in the background and you can't really stop yourself from smiling, because for a few minutes you're all just enjoying being together. and maybe that's what it's about, you know? being grateful. taking a second to love each other. what christmas really means-- it's not a difficult message, not an arduous task, not a complicated truth. it just this- love each other, because God loves you. that's the heart of it, really, the thing that lies behind the tree and the tradition and the gift-giving. because there is not one person in the world who loves getting a good present more than they do the look on someone's face when they open yours and it's exactly what they wanted. i cannot believe that people are cruel by nature, because if they were the concept of giving beyond your means would have phased out of society a long time ago. there is more inside of us than facts and figures; there is more to our human nature than survival instinct. we have a little bit of God in us, whether we acknowledge it or not, and it's enough momentum to push us through the difficult parts of life. it's enough to make us love.

there is... so much hate. when the top story on cnn is a battle over an atheist sign right next to a nativity, you know things have gone out of control. and neither side is showing love; christians keep stealing the sign and the atheists keep biting back and somehow the whole issue comes down to the fact that the christans stole christmas, and as hard as i try i cannot make sense of it. there is a common thread. there is an unmistakable resemblence that the ideas have towards each other, and what it comes down to is love and celebration and family. so what is happening here? i do not understand- what is happening here? it's nearly enough to make a person despair the whole idea; it's nearly enough to make people throw up their hands at the concept and call it a day. and this is the truth- there was born a very long time ago a very little child who would become the very center of the lives of very many people. it is a truth that will not be compromised, but is it also a truth that mandates a certain kind of love and acceptance that is absent from our world. it does not mean tolerance- it does not mean sacrificing your views to the whims of social acceptance- but it does mean compassion. always and forever it means compassion, because without it there would have been no reason for the baby in the manger and there would be no reason for the love that we profess to be paramount. it is not complicated. it is not unfathomable. it is not easy. but it's christmas, so maybe we should give it a try.

kenneth

: jfink216; November 15th, 2008

i wanted you to know

that i love the way you laugh

i want to hold you high

and steal you pain away

i keep your photograph

and i know it serves me well...

i don't feel right

when you're gone away.

broken: seether ft. amy lee

he sat in it with me, the bed i'm on now. he sat with me and we talked about whatever, he told me he thought i was cute and i told him about my boyfriend at home and there was no awkwardness, just acceptance. he would sit with me in the cafe downstairs sometimes when i was alone and tell me about his life. a preacher's kid from the south, he'd ask me why i didn't drink and i'd tell him and there was no awkwardness, just acceptance. that was kenneth's way. the way of love. and i don't know what happened that night, i don't know why the formula failed two weeks ago today but it did and kenneth killed himself.

this is not a story i made up. this is real. this is real that kenneth sat on my bed eating easy-mac and he paid for my dinner when we walked to checker's with some friends one time. this is real that when i said something about brownies kenneth followed it up with the most well-placed "that's what she said" i've ever heard. this is real that the last thing kenneth ever did on his facebook- before it got flooded with messages from people trying to say goodbye- was comment on a picture of me and two friends in our halloween costumes. this is real that kenneth killed himself in his own home with his preacher father downstairs and his brother in the other room.

they asked me to step out into the hall for a minute, his roommate and his best friend. it didn't register. they came and knocked on my door room door and asked me to step into the hall for a minute. there were a lot of people in my room, and i gave them a confused look but followed them out and someone made a joke about going to the principal's office and i think i might have laughed. they asked me to step out into the hall for a minute and they told me that they didn't know how to say this, but i was his friend and they thought i should know that kenneth killed himself. kenneth killed himself last night and we thought you should know. you were his friend, you should know. i was his friend. i should have known.

there are bits and pieces of rememberance- his best friend was wearing a burgandy shirt. i clutched it while i sobbed, he clutched me while i sobbed. i kept shaking my head, i kept telling them no. no it couldn't be, not kenneth, not that, not now. they did not say anything. his roommate looked away. they did not say anything. i slid down the wall, torn apart from the inside by grief, i was breathing and sobbing and they did not say anything. some small grace of God, ryan had chosen that weekend to come visit, he came out of the room and kenneth's best friend told him what happened and his roommate didn't say anything and there was a chaos in my head. ryan put his arms around me and put me back together for a second and then i turned and said thank you for letting me know and they left, kenneth's best friend and his roommate and ryan watched me walk back in the room. they have to know, i said. i need for them to know.

i told them. silence louder than my ears could take, my sobs and their silence and the sound of many things breaking at once. brett drawing me into his shoulder, then neal, sitting on my bed where kenneth once sat eating easy-mac and thank God i did not remember at that time, just sobbed and the boys held me and ryan let me be with those people. he knew how to help me. i did not know how to help me. the rounds were made, i told people and they told people and soon it was hugs and i am so sorry from people whose names i do not know, people who pass me in the hallway, and soon they were crying too and we took up a whole pew at church. these people were not catholic and we took up a whole pew at church, and it was all souls day and father prayed for kenneth brazell and we took up a whole pew at church and there was the silence and the sound of many things breaking at once. ryan drew my hands to his and i held them tight and i was his friend, i should have known and there was still the silence. still many things breaking at once.

there are different ways of coping. we went to church and these people were not catholic and we took up a whole pew and when we came back the boys were laughing and they were fucking smashed, they were drunk and laughing and i was swallowing sobs and it is strange that we mourn death by death. it is strange. and in the weeks to come people keep coping the way they know how, and there are silent tears and the loud sound of the boys down the hall, they are fucking smashed and we do not expect a change in behavior. ryan helps me piece myself back together over breakfast the morning before he leaves, and slowly i regain feeling and the silence is not as loud but still i miss kenneth. still i miss him sitting on my bed where i am now eating easy-mac and still i miss no awkwardness just acceptance and still i miss his way of love and still i was his friend, i should have known. there is no way of knowing because the formula should have held but it didn't and there was no way of knowing but i should have known. there is no point in guilt or pointing the finger but i should have known.

i miss you, kenneth.

Woman

: jfink216; October 2nd, 2008

I love being a woman-

The smell of body lotion

and perfume;

the feel of soft legs

and silky sheets.

I love the sway

of my hips

parting seas on streets

to some inner-sounding beat.

I love buying shoes

just to match a dress;

I love buying a dress

just because it's red;

I love buying a red dress

just to match the lipstick

I got last week.

I love the feel of big hands

on my back;

of the contrast

between callouses and curves.

I love the shadows

playing underneath my hipbones;

my collarbones;

my breasts.

I love the tousled hair,

clothes on the floor,

makeup in the sink

date-night routine.

I love the smell of hairspray

and how it looks with blush;

I love the never-failing rush

when he sweeps me with his eyes

and takes me by my hand

and leads me to the car.

I love the passenger seat,

his name on the credit card-

knowing that I offered

but that he never lets me pay.

I love his hand

on the small of my back

after dinner;

I love the smell of his cologne

on his shirt collar;

I love saying goodnight

for the better part of an hour.

And when the night is over-

when the dress is

on its hanger

and the makeup

has been washed away

and the curls

have fallen out;

when I am in my sweatpants

and he tells me

"goodnight, my pretty princess"-

those are the times

I love being a woman

the very best.

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jfink216

the unfolding

my love, you drive me to distraction.

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