December 2011
1 post
songs about ghosts.
In the North our rain is white for six months out of the year and it changes things. I put on my scarf first, gloves, hat, two jackets and headed off to see people I hadn’t seen in years. The thing I noticed most is that these people have grown up, I wonder if I have? But their bodies and facial expressions were the same. I looked at Philip’s arms, the arms that grew up with my...
November 2011
8 posts
“How do you make someone love you? For the very young, there can be nothing...”
– Andrew Sean Greer, The Story of a Marriage (via durianquotes)
if i had a dime
for every time a hipster bought a kitten, posted pictures with it on a social networking site, and then was through with it before it was fully grown i would seriously be rich.
October 2011
4 posts
10/24/11
the other morning i drove across the state of georgia in the wee hours of the morning. listening to “catching fire” and holding on to a cup of coffee like a broken crutch. the heat coming out just as fast as the cool air coming in through the open windows, my favorite. as the first morning light started to infuse the black sky i made a mental note, “you are about to watch the...
rant on rants.
it’s interesting to me that people continually post things about love and feeling “safe” with someone. because we’ve all been hurt, yes, but really, what are we all so afraid of? if we’re still living and still breathing and still walking around debating whether or not someone is safe then i guess we’ve made it so far right? so i think the problem is that too...
twennies
Recently, when on a trip together, my father told me a story. It was a trip to the ocean and as we looked out at the sea together he started talking. It didn’t seem like he was about to tell me anything significant, he brought coffee from a Styrofoam cup to his mouth and let the coffee go slowly and gently down his throat like he was drinking clouds. He started talking like he would about...
September 2011
3 posts
morning radio
I walk out my front door every morning at 6:50 am, it’s still dark outside and the air smells salty somehow. Sometimes the city bus is driving through our development or the garbage truck, and sometimes it’s just quiet. In my car, and I’m sipping coffee to stay alive, thinking wildly about all the things I want to do, for some reason everything feels capable this early, because...
moleskine
clicking leads to clicking and somehow i end up on endless online archives of you. all the typical things you like and the things you’ve surrounded yourself with for years. angles you like to use when taking photos of yourself, things you think are pretty. even pictures of a voyage you took to a place i showed you for the first time, standing there with some other person who was somehow...
crazy stupid love
the only sound echoing through the hallway is the clicking of my own shoes. it’s me, i’m the person with the clicking shoes, smaller people pass me and know to get quiet when my adult shoes come clicking through, i look down at the little girl’s feet as she passes me, she is wearing the same pair of grey tom’s i wore everyday before this fall and i am beyond envious, i...
August 2011
7 posts
colours
I keep looking at your letter that is asking me how to be happy and I don’t know how to respond. I wish I knew, I thought I knew. I’ve been spending thousands and thousands of dollars in pursuit of it. But now I’m not so sure, there is this huge part of me that wants to erase my name and erase my life completely and disappear from this stream of 9 numbers that makes me real. ...
3 tags
verbatim et literatim: “Two Halves”Oh, the way you... →
palisade:
“Two Halves”
Oh, the way you made me feel. I wanted to press my body against cement and turn into the streets we walked on, I wanted to stare at you so ardently that you might be able to hear the plea inside of my lungs, my need for recognition, just one moment of your time to validate…
Vespers: where, when all the roads are gone, am i,... →
wanderingvesper:
where, when all the roads are gone, am i, god, in this creation if at my every call, christ, desire answers all and you are no where near this animal self is all around is all i know because all thoughts lead precisely to one end and it, god, is a great dark wall, existence no further and…
Danny this is perfect.
why can't it just slow down?
outside on a 4 and the air is thick with humidity all these years trying to write these words in a way that makes sense so i have a legacy. a broken computer makes life clearer because of the lack of bullshit i have to endure. you are a black box far away and i’m sick of how pretty you are in a 3x5. i want life to stop for just a few moments, just enough time to count the scars on your...
1 tag
a letter I wrote to myself on 11/23/2010
I found this today when going through my things, I learned how to write letters to myself from James Tooke because he often does the same.
Dear Me,
Don’t ever fall for the tricks again. Be smart, work hard, keep reading, keep writing. Don’t lie, don’t do things you’ll be ashamed of later. Make an impact.
Me
080211
i wonder if anyone ever sat me down when i was little and said “nicole, the only thing consistent about life is that it is always inconsistent.” if they did i wasn’t listening. this summer is viscious and four hours in a car is a long time to think. when i was 23 i’m sure i could have written “i’m scared about the future” 1,000 different beautiful ways...
July 2011
5 posts
ya'll can keep picking sides, i've never been much...
i miss myspace because you didn’t have to constantly monitor who you were adding as your friend and what they were thinking about you. family members and friends from high school keeping an eye on you to make sure you’re still living in sin. i drive around this city sick with happiness and i pray to God just like everyone else. i love the people in my life because i can’t even...
11 Things to Know at 25(ish) →
What you need to know to be a real adult.
guest bedroom
when i was little i would sit outside during the summer time and listen to the crickets, you could see forever in every direction and i could tell then by how loud those crickets were what month it was and how much longer until school started. as it got closer to the end of summer the sounds changed and everything got closer to smelling like a football game. those summers are so distinct in my...
9th st.
of course it was raining. i shake my head and try again to focus on my daily activities, checking things off of a list with red pen. i stopped before i got into my car, the sun was just beginning to get bright. i looked at the tree that stood beside where your car was parked, thought of taking a picture, but instead i smiled at how silly that was, and stared at the tree, trying to memorize the...
June 2011
11 posts
From Yahoo News' Top 10 Dirtiest Cities
No. 6 Baltimore
The Inner Harbor is a crowd-pleaser, but AFC voters weren’t impressed by Charm City’s overall cleanliness or its more land-based features. Baltimore came in next-to-last place for its public parks, hotels, and even interesting people.
Amen.
i saw you
you appeared like you always do, from across the room or across the sidewalk, who says pretty girls don’t descend upon you? offered me a sip of some sugary alcoholic beverage and i laughed because you are one of the few people in my life that i am genuinely entertained by, i relaxed my muscles and my brain and just let you talk and it was truly a relief. we talked as we have for the last...
matthew sweet
i’m inconsolable. i am that person sitting in a chair in her room on a saturday night paralyzed by the feeling of homesickness for a place and a feeling that doesn’t even exist. i don’t even know what i want but i know i don’t want to wake up one more morning like this, i don’t want to fold my sailboat blanket and i don’t want to make my coffee and i...
kissing the lipless
called to see if your back is still aligned and your sheets are growing grass out of the corners of your bed, but you’ve got too much to wear on your sleeves, it’s too much to do with me, but secretly i want to bury in the yard, the great remains of a friendship scarred.
i’m sure i won’t lose anything in my sleep.
it's wednesday night.
i’m that good time you had years ago, i’m that late drive home singing loud with your hands out the window. the moment you let go. i’m the floor wet with beer and feet moving slowly together to a song that is much too fast. i’m that party you went to, i was across the room and you were dressed up, we exchanged glances and smiled and knew that someday there would be late...
May 2011
7 posts
052911
I walked into the classroom and took a seat in the back of the room, which is really unlike me because I usually try to sit in the T zone. The kids were all 8th graders and I was a stranger among them, yet somehow, I understood what was going on. The teacher passed out papers which had your name across the top, it was your resume. You, of all people would be addressing the class on this very...
So affections fade away, And do adults just learn...
i made you work so hard. you waited and waited for us to grow closer and i let you. i didn’t know the whole time i was actually building future walls between us. there are miles between us, except little things from you are always popping up, unexpected because you thought it was funny to hide things, you’ve always been the chaos in my plan. i’ve packed all of you away in a...
are you lightning?
It’s morning and somehow if you get up early enough and smell air that smells like all of the summers of your life, it really does feel like a beginning. As I push through chapters and lessons of my life at the speed of light I stop often to think about all of the things I’ve lost and all of the people who are gone. The weird thing is you don’t always know when the last time...
days without incident=2
i’m at that stage now where i don’t even know if i want to feel like before. that vulnerable 2 or 3 day period where you listen to copeland songs and actually revel in the loss. if i can keep working on this chapel that i set out to build and forget about the way your voice sounds in complete darkness. think about michaelangelo and forget about the way you take your coffee. just a...
if i were to make a green cd with purple dots this...
The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
By T.S. Eliot
Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent ...
air
I drove past that Winn Dixie the other day, on the way through a Taco Bell drive thru that was directly beside some makeshift carnival. That city, it’s weird because I have been gone so long but sometimes I see things and I am quickly stabbed with memories that I forgot to remember. I kept driving giving only a second’s glance to where we sat waiting so many years ago. We’d...
the poet's husband - molly giles
He sits in the front row, large, a large man with large hands and large ears, dry lips, fresh-cut hair, pink skin, clear eyes that don’t blink, a nice man, calm, that’s the impression he gives, a quiet man who knows how to listen; he is listening now as she sways on the stage in a short black dress and reads one poem about the time she slit her wrists and another poem about a man she...
April 2011
5 posts
wagon wheel
i’m sitting here in my room with both fans on me, the wind blows through the window but my hair stays matted to my head. such a strange feeling, always me behind these eyes looking out a second story window thinking about time and how things are changing. i walked out of that building today that same building, always that building. i’m always angry, or exhausted, or tired, or...
i'm a creep.
if you knew how many times i went back in my head and wondered why i used the word “immersion” it would probably push you even further away from me than you are already. it’s interesting how polite and civilized i am, so concerned with how others feel, but i always find myself on the corner of my blanket wondering why i can’t relate to people anymore. i think back to my...