Sometimes There Are Words

I'm Sam. This is a writing blog whoops don't listen to me

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When they ask you to grow up shout no at the top of your lungs kick out the doors and fight for messy hair and wandering hearts and do not settle for growing up. when they tell you to get your act together tell them you are young and in love and then fall in love fall in love with yourself or your lover or the way your hair looks at three in the morning or how your best friend laughs when say something funny that you didn’t mean or how you feel after you’ve completed another video game fall in love with that and tell them you can’t get your act together because you are young and fierce and desperately in love when they tell you to learn from your mistakes tell them go to fuck themselves because you are still allowed to make mistakes don’t stop now you’re not even halfway to the finish line. If there was ever a time to make mistakes and not learn from them it is now now now now so dye your hair pink and sleep with your next door neighbor because he smells like bubblegum and kiss boys and come late to school and laugh loud and obnoxious and never say sorry and forget apologizing because there will be time for learning from your mistakes but that time is not now you are young and you are alive and there are train whistles in the distance that can take you wherever you want to go so never take no for an answer

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Remember the things you want to forget. When you’re eighty and your grandkids ask you what you were like when you were young you want to be able to tell them the epic stories (the stories of when you and your friends drove to the beach and you camped out and hated each other until you got home and you cried when the car pulled away or when you went on your first date and the boy told you you looked like daisies after rain and you blushed so red he asked you if anything was wrong or how your late husband looked when you saw him through cigarette smoke and you knew right then he was the one for you) but remember the times you want to forget (remember in first grade when you cried because you thought you lost your favorite pencil and remember when you and your friends wanted to start a girls-only club but one girl, Marie, was obsessed with a boy named Patrick and insisted you had to invite him and if you invited him you had to invite all the other boys too but only Patrick showed up to the meeting and Marie was so happy she peed her pants and you had to call the club Girls-Only plus Patrick and years later you googled Patrick and he was gay gay gay and don’t forget how endlessly you made fun of Marie who was still half in love with him. Remember when you only wore the color yellow and remember when you hated pickles and remember when you laughed so hard you spit milk out your nose) do not try to forget them because those stories make up you and forgetting the embarrassing ones means you’re missing out. 

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I am a girl. I used to say those words in a whisper because what is feminine anyway but a short skirt and a lot of makeup and boys are there to play sports and ask you how far you’ve gone and laugh loudly when you say you haven’t so much as held hands with anyone and girls are there to be kissed and touched and ogled at like the displays in store windows I am a girl. So that means I am a compilation of complex emotions and I will bend to your will because you are Man and Man is better than Wo-Man and if I say no I’m prude and if I say yes I’m a slut because you, Man, are all about the labels. I am a girl. I could wear jeans and tee shirts and clothes that never fit right and still be a girl. I could cut off all my hair and only talk to other girls for the rest of my life and still be a girl. I am a girl and you seem to forget that I am not a prize and I am not an object I am a person But I am also a girl. I am little and big and scared and alive and I want to drive off into the sunset and I want to be loved and wanted but I want Respect because you are no better than me because you are a guy you’re just trapped in the confines you set for yourself I am a girl. I used to say that in a whisper but now I shout it from the top of my lungs. I am a girl and I like being a girl and you cannot take that away from me because I will light you on fire and watch you burn because I am a girl and I am not afraid.

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april 30th

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april 29th

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april 28th

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In Defense of Daisy Buchanan 

Daisy Buchanan lived in a big house all her life. She was always popular and pretty. She had stars in her eyes and money in her voice and boys leaned into her when she talked and she liked that. Daisy “was appalled by West Egg...by its raw vigor that chafed...and by the too obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants along a short-cut from nothing to nothing. She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand.” While West Egg was more on an emotion than an idea, Daisy Buchanan was more of an idea than an emotion – press her too hard and she would break.

Sometimes people hate Daisy. They blame her for the downfall of Gatsby. They hate the ways she talks and how she gets away with murder. But Daisy Buchanan was built for the world of the easy and the light. Jay Gatsby knew that when he first met her and she wore a white dress and her house glittered in the sunlight. She wasn't made for waiting and she wasn't made for wanting. When Gatsby left, Daisy was left waiting and wanting and until she couldn't wait anymore. Daisy was used to wanting but not in the way people are used to wanting now – she was used to wanting but never waiting, wanting and always receiving. So she picked Tom over Gatsby because Tom was safe and right and her parents cooed when she brought him home and they loved him and all her friends told her what a good match they were together and when she looked at him she felt a prick of something but she was never sure if it was love or pride. Tom gave her nice things like necklaces and dresses and she never had to wait or want with him. She got the letter from Gatsby the night before her wedding and she knew what passion was but she forced herself to forget it. And she cried but she knew she had made her choice and she cried but she knew he wasn't for her and she collected herself and she married Tom.

All Daisy wanted to be was a beautiful little fool. But she had eyes that could see and her mind worked in quick jumps and she knew when Tom got his first mistress because he held her hand for longer and he kissed her cheek instead of her nose and she wondered why she wasn’t enough for him. She wondered why he said he loved her but then he looked over his shoulder and said he had to leave. Daisy Buchanan wanted to smile and not understand but she was cursed with the beautiful but not the fool.

And then Jay Gatsby came back and he was everything he ever said he’d be. He had a big house and beautiful shirts and a smile that understood every bad thought she’d ever had and he looked at her like he loved her and only her and never looked over his shoulder. And there it was: the possibility to get back at Tom and be loved wholly and completely. Not more waiting or wanting just getting. Because Gatsby could offer those things to her with his gold tie and his yellow car and the yellow flowers that lined his house.

Daisy Buchanan couldn't deal with the showy nature of West Egg. She couldn't deal with its pounding heartbeat and its gaudy smile. She was a small, frail thing and if you put too much pressure on her she would break. She didn't have fun at Gatsby’s party any more than she had fun at Tom’s. And when she was driving that care she realized she loved herself more than she loved anyone else and she was a small frail thing and she couldn't stop because that meant facing her problems and the only thing Daisy knew how to do was smile and wave.

Tom’s talk about dirty money and Tom’s talk about love and Gatsby’s pulling her away scared her and she panicked because she was a young girl with money in her voice who only wanted to be a beautiful little fool but couldn't figure out how. And suddenly all the yellow got to her head and she felt herself retreating into Tom because Tom always read big books with big words and talked like he knew what he was saying and Gatsby loved her but where did his money come from and why couldn't he forget the past and what would she do with Pammy, her beautiful little fool?

And when she was driving home and she saw that woman with the red hair run into the street like she wanted Daisy to stop the car Daisy got very confused and she tried to pull away but she chose herself over the woman and she didn't stop and she didn't look back.

She asked Tom to move away with her because she was scared and she knew Tom had told Wilson where Gatsby was and she wanted to get out as quickly as possible. She thought about going to Gatsby’s funeral and thanking him for reminding her she was important but she couldn't because she didn't know how to tell him. So she went to Chicago and she curled up to Tom on the couch and she wished very hard to be a beautiful little fool. Because she was more of an idea than an emotion and she was a small, frail thing and if you pushed too hard she could break.