prose

I'm sitting under a roof
of scattered tree limbs,
in a dusty, fenced in patch
of Tallahassee grass
with an abandoned ballet
bar on the left
  miniature, faded yellow
chairs scattered by
some giant in a brief
   fit of rage
and old gray-white pipe
flies: butter, fruit, red?
I think it's going to rain

-----------------------

Shrill peep of an
  orange beaked
bird (Cardinal!)
   it nest-led
in a low hanging
branch
too close to childrens'
curious fingers
guarding, not ten
    feet away

-----------------------

sugar ants flock to ice cream
  like little girls flocks to
low
    hanging
         branches.

time and season

Your limbs half bare
in May
in Florida
Resisting summer
or too lazy, or
dying?

Your limbs grew wild
outstretched and crooked
in those early
days before you
really
   knew
you were alive

Do you regret
  the growing over
time and season?

Do you regret bearing
children on your arms
and standing still
when storms, surely
  hundreds now,
washed over you?

Perhaps it's too
much, and too
hard
to grow back,
          bring back,
all that you lost
  again,
    and over ag-
ain.

ugh

People need to stop being so flippant about divorce. the reason why your grandparents are still together is because they stayed together during times they didn't particularly want to be together. wake up, people. if you stop feeling the love, find a way to feel it again, or let time pass and rekindle it later. don't just make up some stupid excuse about knowing that you just weren't right for eachother or growing apart. Marriage is work. Duh. To maintain a close relationship with anyone for a long time is work. Your life may be crap, but you can't blame it on your spouse, cut ties, and omg, just start again with, like, a whole great life ahead of you. When you get a divorce, I imagine it's not really that easy to just pick things up and start over. Stop deluding yourself, world.

the middle

"I have heard that many of us sojourn in the middle for a long, long time; that we have many middles; that we keep meeting and making new middles. Maybe every ten years, like Ruth's mother said. Maybe, for some people, more often than that.

And I have heard that some people eventually leave the middle and arrive at an end. I have heard that this end is a place of wisdom, of beatitude. I have heard it is a place of unself-consciousness. I have heard there is a lot of give in the fabric there." - Lauren Winner, Still

once

Appropriate for Easter?

Part of me
Has Died
And won't return
And part of me
Wants to hide
The part that's burned

Once, once
Knew how to talk to you
Once, once
But not anymore

Hear the sirens call me home
Hear the sirens call me home
Hear the sirens call me home
Hear the sirens call me home

Part of me
Has vied
To watch it burn
And the heart of me
Has tried
But look what it's become

Once, once
I knew how to look for you
Once, once
But that was before
Once, once
I would have laid down and died for you
Once, once
But not anymore.

Hear the sirens call me home
Hear the sirens call me home
Hear the sirens call me home
Hear the sirens call me home

- Once by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irgslova

2. Describe 3 legitimate fears you have and explain how they became fears.

1. Ghosts and Demons: My dad informed me about 4 years ago that he used to have this dream when we lived in my first house (I lived there until I was 4) that all the rooms were protected except for mine. As a result, all sorts of malignant beings were able to enter the house via my room and hover around my bed. I have been unusually horrified of spirits my whole life and I think his dream points to something very real and very scary going on in that house during my most impressionable years.

2. Burglars/Robbers/ Home invaders: This is related to the above fear in the sense that home invaders, like spirits, enter your house without permission. I was already scared of them, but when someone robbed our house when I was in the sixth grade, the fear was further cemented. I actually had to move my bed so that I couldn't see out the window at night in order to sleep soundly again, because I thought I could see the silhouettes of people highlighted by the security light outside (it was likely an armadillo digging in the bushes).

3. Rapists: I think this is self explanatory.

Runners up: the ocean (but I love documentaries about it), being considered stupid, Daniel dying in a tragic accident

1. List 20 random facts about yourself

1. I was born in Anderson, Indiana.
2. I have one sibling, a younger sister.
3. My thumbs are double jointed.
4. I like to dance.
5. I have a lifelong obsession with fashion.
6. I became a Christian when I was six.
7. I became a Religion major when I was 19. 
8. I met my husband when I was 20.
9. I have two moles on my neck.
10. I played softball, soccer, and basketball in elementary school.
11. I have taken tap, ballet, irish dancing, hip hop, and swing dance classes.
12. I started to sing formally in the third grade and never stopped (until this past year - how sad).
13. When I was little, I wanted to be a marine biologist, until I went to the beach for the first time and realized I hated sand and was terrified of sea creatures.
14. I own many shoes.
15. I love cats and cat paraphernalia. 
16. I have astigmatism.
17. I produce too much saliva.
18. I played viola for six weeks in middle school.
19. My initials are LCW, even now that I'm married (it's awesome!).
20. I am moving out of state in 4 months.