scrambled

poetry, prose, and progress

[scrambled-poetry]

Summer: A Concept

Packing up your sweaters. Eating strawberries on the river bank, and then pulling off our sandals and wading. The smell of cut grass and sunscreen. Watching the sunrise, watching the sky turn orange. Late night phone calls while sitting on the roof, comparing each other to the moon and the stars. Waiting for the Lifesaver to dissolve in my mouth because that’s the kind of time we have. Picnics. Making friendships bracelet and mailing them to each other. The sound a glass of lemonade makes as the ice clinks against the sides. Dresses and sandals. Cherries and watermelon and pineapple. Running barefoot in the grass. Whispers picked up by the breeze, fireflies. Reading every book you have on the shelf. Watching old movies as dusk settles. Camping. Running in tall grass, feeling the stems brush your fingertips. Going to the water park or the fair. Churros and ice cream that you lick the drips off of. Chipped nail polish. No agenda.  

[scrambled-poetry]

We Are History

I met my first best friend through my mother, who has organized things for me my whole life. She had long strawberry blonde that she always seemed to think was frizzy (I always thought it was smooth) and blue eyes the color of the calm waves. She was one of the most well read children I’d ever met, especially for a kindergartner, and she had a knack for sending me notes in class. She taught me how to sit on the jungle gym so that no one could reach our feet, and I would sit on the ground and talk to her as she did daring things to far out of my reach. She liked ghost stories, so she told them. She likes climbing trees, so she climbed them. I didn’t like climbing trees or ghost stories, but I listened and watched because she was graceful and had a big vocabulary. 

When I was 8, and I realized I was more her than I was me, so I wished for new people to talk to. I made a friend who had short auburn hair and a nice accent, and we made friendship bracelets and shared cubbies up until the very moment that her father was moved to a new military base, one in Texas.

 Then I met a girl with tan skin and long brown hair who I invited over to my house that summer. I showed her my sticker collection and we danced on my bed to Taylor Swift, but she went home sick one evening before dinner, obviously more annoyed than nauseous, and we didn't talk the next year come September.

 Then I met the girl who made sense to me in a way few people do (and still does). She had short caramel and big brown eyes, and she thought I was funny. I liked being told I was funny, so she came to my birthday party and we watched movies after everyone else had fallen asleep. We whispered during lunch and math and library time and I felt like there was someone who wanted the same thing as me. She taunted the quarter inch she had on me, and I joked about how much milk she drank. We had plans to move somewhere far away. I’d be a writer and she’d be an illustrator, and we’d live in an apartment with a parakeet. (It was always we after this.)

Over the next while, we met a girl with smooth brown hair and freckles. (Or maybe she met my friend and I met her like that? This are the details that fade with age.) She moved here form somewhere that felt far away, and she told us about a house on a hill and three sisters who were loud and ruckus and I was sure she wasn’t afraid of anything. We walked together during gym and the two of us taught her how to play tetherball. We would sit together on long field trips, and they taught me first why secrets weren’t of value, and then why they meant something again. 

When I was 10, I met girl with thick black hair who was so quiet that when I sat with her I could almost hear the grass grow, and she seemed smart and wise and it became important to make her laugh. I felt at peace there, with three people who I knew well and who understood what I meant without explaining. We ate cheese pizza and made fun of each other, and during recess we played games where we were wizards or warriors or unicorns, and we’d be running through a donut shop or a dragon’s stomach. We made up rules and fought about them, but we all still agreed on just about maybe everything.

 The next year, I went middle school. I was worried with every fiber of my being, but I met a girl with curly hair who taught me that loud voices could powerful and brave and strong. Our lunch table was as loud as we could make it, and we studied for quizzes and compared scores and laughed at people who we didn’t want to understand. 

When I turned 12, our group got a little bigger. Even now, even tracing the roots and bits down to their beginning, I’m not sure how or when, but I am very sure of who. Two, and both kind and silly and liked to sing loudly when we ate lunch. I was overwhelmed by the sheer size of what we had become, but I had fallen in love with the rush of the unpredictability. The first was kind -so very kind- and she taught me that sometimes people have to fight for every bit of themselves. The second, who had a smile that was exhilarating to see, taught that people are more complex than the world that contains them. With all the people I now understood, I felt fuller. There was an infinite world. (Now that I think about it, this could have been around the time that I started to write things that were not necessarily awful, so maybe I owe that to all the pieces of us.) 

When I was 13, I met someone new, even though I met her again. She taught me that the first glance is well, first. That even if people drive you crazy, you’ll want to keep them around. That summer, it was… Well, I’m not sure it was. Maybe it isn't far enough away yet to teach me what is is. All I know is that is all consuming, but I would never have it any other way. I would not give up the chaos and the uproar and the unpredictability, because (and God, I really don’t mean to be sappy, but it’s 2 am and all that is left is emotion) I love them and I love them and I love them.

[scrambled-poetry]

Goodness: A Concept

Texting first and checking in because you haven't heard from her and you want to know shes alright. Melting milkshakes and talking about days far, far away. Leaving them notes and writing her letters. Cats falling asleep on your lap and voices that are soothing. An airy laugh after you've missed them for so long. Rereading an old favorite book and remembering that this author is really a poet, the kind you've always wanted to be. The spoon under your pillow actually making the ground turn white, and smiling at the kid across the room because there is a chance they'll smile back. Growing and changing. Leaning. Surprises. Someone telling you that they love what you've written, and smiling into your phone's blue glow because she really gets it. Compliments that explode out of your mouth because you mean them so deeply, and the little grin they make because they know you meant it. Pretty words, like lovely and dapper and illuminate. Sharing a hammock on a breezy day and giggling when you're tipped out. Throwing bored game pieces at her as you make each other laugh. Her telling me I'm yellow. The moment when you suck in a breath as you stand in pure awe. And being mentioned in a poem.

[scrambled-poetry]

When Time Stops

I wish the Earth would stop spinning

At 11:59:59

In that second, it's almost

yesterday-today-tomorrow

It's almost nothing

Time hangs for a moment

To recognize the beauty of its captor,

 Eternalness

I am quieter than quiet

As I observe a time that may not exist

A time where motion does not catch up

Let me breathe in a time 

Where clocks do not

Tick 

[scrambled-poetry]

Stream of Conscience No. 1

I want. 

I've already fallen in love with the idea of being away, but now I want to fall in love with being away. We will drive to a coast, with denim shorts and chromatic slushies. Then, bigger. I want to see every van Gogh painting, because he understood more about the human condition than I ever will. I want to sit in an art museum and sketch the things, but do the same thing on a street corner because the world can be art if you let it. I want to make art. God, I want to make art. In an apartment in a beautiful city somewhere, in a room with tall windows and a warm breeze. 

I want to stop living in such fear and restriction, hiding from a monster that can't bother itself to recognize me.  I want to dye my hair lilac without telling anyone or go cliff diving or do something that is nothing but dumb, because I can. I want to write, and everywhere. Bathroom stalls and cinder block walls. Wet cement. I want to write notes in bottles and throw them into the ocean, or leave them on windshields. I want to send a letter to someone I've never met because strangers deserve love too. I want a thousand pens to run out of ink in my name. I want novels and a dozen short stories and journals that line my shelves and spill onto my floor. 

I want to speak beauty and truth. I want to live unattached somewhere far away where no one is checking for my footprints in the snow. For a moment, I want someone to be so endlessly interested in the way I talk that they can't think of anything else to do but listen. I want to absorb beats and laughter and knowledge and be interested in every single thing I come across, because I need to remember that the Earth is more beautiful than we give it credit for.

[scrambled-poetry]

Untitled Poem No. 1

The place I grew up, she is classically beautiful. She probably has curly hair and olive skin. She is pleasant, and everyone thought that made her enough. She seems always a little distracted and easy to view without feeling seen. I want to move to the city, some day. Her beauty is striking and looking away means you might miss something. I hear that she sprays paints in the dark and sits in coffee shops during the afternoon. That sounds lovely. 

[scrambled-poetry]

excerpt from a book I’ll never write no. 1

She laughed. (She had a good laugh, strong but a little malleable, like maybe it could fit in tight places.)

[harlequinex]