Things that move and things that are harder to move

Growing up is like a sore thumb, or forgetting, or taking out the trash, or like---
well, I guess it is like all things, like most things, how when things start to change
you are changing, like growing, like how your chest starts hurting and your mom
can't explain why something inside of you is allowed to grow bigger than the thing
holding onto it. My outsides never caught up, like for most people, and my insides
are still big but growing up makes me feel like they are dying, like how the fat in my
cheeks is dying too, like how people move away and it makes you cry even though
it's not the regular kind of sad, like how you can still get sad about somebody you
used to love when you hear a song but how you love somebody else a lot and it doesn't
change it just because you cry from a feeling, like how when you planted the seeds it
took more dirt to fill the pot than you had originally thought it might, like how I cry
regularly in front of people I don't know but how I have a hard time communicating
my actual feelings, like how I remember being in the kitchen with small hands, like
how I remember being great at college and not great at most other things, like how
I forget that I wasn't always good at things, like how people think I'm a writer even
though nobody has ever seen proof in my entire life of that, like how writing almost
always makes me cry but only sometimes I will actually do it, like how I can think
about things and feel sad and hear a sad story and get annoyed, like how my horoscope
makes my heart sound both big and cold and that sounds right and hurts my feelings,
like how people can do things when they have the means, like how I just want to
do things my way. Like how I think I'm the exception to the rule. Like how I am.
Like how I think you are. Like how I think music is. Like how it is reading a book
when you're standing in line for birth control refills and everyone around you is
really, really grumpy even though we're all getting exactly what we want--- and how,
no matter how much things work out, there are so very many things that do not-
and how we hold them next to our big, cold hearts and talk to God and cry about it.
Like how it's okay, but that's just how we feel. Like how making changes doesn't
always make the changes you thought it would. Like how you always ask me how
I feel and lately it's never good like I wish it were. Like how I hate the thought of
giving you my blues. But like how I don't know where to put them anymore.


Like how when I was young and my dad was drunk and talking about music with me,
I understood slurred words and sad smiles and I knew what he meant, even when
he didn't know what he meant, and we both shake our heads now and say "okay."

Because my Windows finally roll down....

Keep playing that sweet song on repeat.

Aww, yeah. Just like that.

I am riding in your car, I am riding in my own. I am sitting in the back of a car sharing secrets with a boy with blue eyes. I am sitting in a black car singing songs written by women. I am singing one of the only 80's song I like. I am filling up my gas tank just to listen to music while driving a blue car that now belongs to somebody who soon will have to get close to the way death looks. It's nobody's fault. I am alone in my own car for two hours there, two hours back each weekend working to "make money" but really just because I liked to go. I was driving drunk people home. I was sixteen. I was eleven in a red car and Kristyn's sister is also blonde and she is telling us about correct stereotypes and learning to drive. I am in a car with somebody I barely know. I am in a cab for the first time ever in the middle of Italy. I am falling asleep to the beating of bus tires. I am believing my mother's most famous lie about seatbelts. I am crying, probably. I am nowhere to be found, because I don't talk on the phone while I drive. I don't break laws. I am in the backseat of a black car and my boyfriend almost gets stabbed. I'm not with him but I remember him. I am talking to God because I like my church on four wheels and no bucket seats. I'm driving a minivan. I'm best friends with Austin MacKain and we're going to Carrollton. I'm listening to Cara sing about the blood all over the floor while a dog sings in the backseat. I am smelling the ocean with my favorite Innocent. I am crying, probably. I am trying to drive a stick shift but I'm not meant for this. I'm watching the way Katie taps her thumbs. We're listening to Grateful Dead, every single morning. We're alive to something good. I'm parking funny because I loved that last song. I'm okay. Jim's taking me to waffle house because he has a license now. I'm scared because my cat knows my car is about to explode. I'm screaming because I realized somebody farted in my car. I'm throwing up outside of this rental one. I'm throwing up again, for different reasons. I'm waiting in line and every boy in this car is really attractive. I'm asking Tom if we can listen to that Jimmy Eat World song again. I'm kissing that blue eyed boy, but sometimes we're both crying, too. I'm going to Tennessee. I'm not going anywhere. I'm parked and missing you. I'm watching the state lines change with the landscape and thanking God for your grace, and His. I'm loud. I'm doing my own thing. I'm changing the station because I'm, okay, maybe just a little embarrassed. My mom is even singing on the way home from Six Flags--- it's Sunday so this song is exactly the right one. I'm holding hands all over America. Eric is my cousin: he reads all the signs. We are making up stories about the moon following us. We're listening to a book on tape. We hate this station. We grew up. I listen to talk radio alone. I listen to static on accident. I cry hardest in my car. I'm not afraid to be alone. I like having something to cry about. I'm not emotional, just awkwardly designed for a world that wants to define me by my tears. I let him kiss me in a car. I don't know why. We fell in love somewhere between blanket forts and an airport parking deck. There is fog sometimes. I'm not sorry about it. I love the way we were in cars, dancing or singing, or making a mess of who we could be, in favor of who we are. Britta cleaned my car. She made me a photo album. We are remembering that this is enough - we, the me in all of it, is realizing you can pick just one--- and it's a life. And it's all of the things. Like how Forrest had shoes. Like how other people have other things. Like I have all of them. Like how I am a lucky one. Like how I might be the luckiest. Like how good people are to me. Like how bad that makes me feel. Like how good it is to know that no matter what, you are doing a great job, and you're exactly where you should be. And you're so good. And this song is so good. And the car is so comfortable. And we can talk all night. And you can cry, even if you're a boy, and they tell you not to. Because this is my car. And we like it this way. And we're going places, forever, and ever, and ever.

Pretend we've never met our demons, just in case they come to dinner.

I am 6 feet tall hiding in a doll house, dressed like Barbie's hooker cousin and missing how much you never missed a beat, small and my head bent sideways wondering how you could let me go and now bent sideways wondering what is missing here. There's a stuffed dog and a picture colored in from the back of a cereal box and Let Down by Radiohead is pouring from my ears like I am the stereo. I still believe you can hear me when I talk to myself. I wish I knew where that went. But I'm tired now, tired of remembering how much I wish I could make you love me harder and I worry about mixing paints because too many blues and one brown will make ugly. I remember asking myself with lipstick on why we never fell in love, only because he asked me sitting in that chair and I didn't really have a reasonable explanation. That's worth thinking about, maybe.

//

there was red wine that i wouldn't drink and people doing illegal things on top of tupac's face and we were rhyming breaths without knowing each other's middle names but i knew we were meant to be best friends forever or at least something more than nothing particular or that feeling you get when salespeople ask you if you're looking for something in "particular" because you're looking but you know it's not in this store or in any store, but hopefully just in store, coming soon. but more to the point i remember the way i couldn't tell the difference between light rain and tears even though I don't remember crying. i remember nikki singing the judy garland song in a whisper with her arms holding amber and me and her crying but not knowing why. i remember the way your voice was collected pieces of things you have read by other older people and a handful of black artists like maybe tupac and maybe one or two of your really good friends. i'm not grateful for a loss but i'm grateful that if things don't work out, i can hold onto this untainted memory when possibility was the thing, was the only thing, is the only thing, is the, the, only is, is only, only one.

//

Don't tell me what to do about a broken heart because I know it will never be good again in the same way and that's why I don't care. It will never be the same again even when I am happy again, even when I am not covered in darkness. I am not the type to sit and pitch fits but it feels like now I am clawing my way out of my rib cage because I remember the way you talked to me and don't you remember how at first you were the cold one? I think sometimes we forget where we are. I think sometimes we forget how we are. We remember me being the cold one because it's easier than reminding you that you don't know what you're talking about. I am realizing how cold I am feeling and every inch of me hurts with desperation for something specifically vague, something more than just feeling small in a good way, but more like that way you are next to him, holding back tears because you can't figure out what to be upset about.