why so sullen, edward cullen?

why so sullen, edward cullen?

sara

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words pt 4.	[May. 22nd, 2009\|01:20 am]
this piece was another short story I wrote for my CRW3111 class. it was actually based on true events, I just added a few white lies here and there to make it into a fiction piece. ( buffalo )
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words pt 3.	[May. 22nd, 2009\|01:17 am]
this piece was a short story I wrote for my creative writing 3111 class this past year at college titled "Injuries" ( topeka )
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words pt 2.	[May. 22nd, 2009\|01:12 am]
the premise of this piece was to take characters from the book "a home at the end of the world" and put them ten years into their futures, after only reading the first chapter of the book. this is my interpretation of that assignment. ( arizona. )
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dear friend	[Jul. 24th, 2008\|12:56 pm]
i wish you could realize how beautiful and perfect you are. you had nothing to prove to them. you are a princess and you are a goddess and you are the best friend i've had in a while. why did you do this to yourself? i still love you, though. every time you fight, the scars are gonna heal, but they're never gonna go away.
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snippets.	[May. 18th, 2008\|12:15 am]
oh and by the way. tonight, at the gas station, the boy in front of us in line was buying one of the new size red bulls. i told him, "it's about time they put out a bigger size. those little ones just weren't cutting it anymore." he said, "i know, this is like, my third one of these today. soon enough i'm going to have to start doing like, crystal meth just to stay awake." and laughed. sometimes i really love these tiny conversations.
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sometimes life is like a movie.	[May. 17th, 2008\|11:15 pm]
"This is therapy." His feet were hitting the pavement, steps faster than mine, strides longer than mine, so I was practically jogging to keep up. Flip-flops, an old Ryan Cabrera t-shirt, some tiny shorts and an over sized hoodie with my fingers shoved inside the pockets. In Maryland, it was somewhere in the seventies outside, but still I was already shivering. Back home, it was already muggy and summer was weaving its way into the mornings, leaving the windows of my car steamed and foggy before school. Home. Was it really, though? Or was home this place, the place I left? Who knew. I was lost, sort of torn between them both. And even there with him, I had to wonder. When my fingers pulled the door handle open I knew I should stop, there on the curb beside his car, and change my mind. Not get in that passenger seat. I knew I was making a mistake. This entire night was a mistake. I could see the future, and in that future, I was crying. Over him. I knew this would only make it harder to leave. To go back home. Or, to the place I lived. But still, I slid into the seat and shut the door. The interior smelled like any old car from a used car lot would smell, but his scent was laced with it. Cigarette smoke and cologne. The fabric softener from his clothes. "Seatbelt." I clicked it into place as he spoke the word, my muscles shaking. Shaking so hard, I had to press my hands against my knees to keep them from knocking together. I felt like I was eleven again, being strapped into my first rollercoaster ride. I remember even my insides were shaking. That was happening again now. "Where are we going?" "For a drive." ( I was terrified. )
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memoirs.	[Apr. 10th, 2008\|10:37 pm]
FOREWARD. I always swore I would never write about my life. I refused to be another autobiography tucked on a back shelf in a corner bookstore on Nothing Street in Nowhereville. I always assumed that my life was never as interesting as the ones of the people who wrote autobiographies (save for a few people I was forced to read about in high school, whose lives were more dull than watching someone brush their teeth, for three hours). But here it is, my life, slapped onto a few blank pages, falling out of my mind from the backseat of the terrible toaster-shaped car I deemed the Embarrassment Wagon from day one. When I really got down to it, I decided that I didn't have to write about all the bad times and all the drama that made up my life in order to make it sound interesting. Instead, I decided to write about the seemingly average moments that pieced together the core of my existence; the little pieces of laughter, and the broken bits of late nights out that sort of comprised the elements of, well, me. And as I wrote them all out-- the music, the laughter, the screaming, the long drives, the cups of coffee, the stupid high school jobs, the countless shows, the new shoes-- I realized: nothing about these average, ordinary moments was average or ordinary in any way, shape, or form. For seventeen years, I have believed that I am a little fish in a big sea, and up until now, I let it belittle me and discourage me into thinking that I had nothing to share with the world. But now, I realize that being a little fish in a big sea just means that I have that much more to explore; that much more to learn, and that much more room to grow into the person I will eventually become. I figured that the end of my senior year in high school was a good time to begin this epic tale of nothingness, seeing as how this point in my life is definitely a milestone, and ultimately a good place to start looking back on how far I have come. In retrospect, there were, of course, a lot of things I wish I had chosen to do differently. But for the most part, I am thankful for every step I have ever taken in all the directions I have ever taken them in, because all the twisted, messed up paths have all eventually led to me being who and where I am today: strong, and where I belong. About a month ago, I came across a book in my friend's closet while I was helping her clean her room. The cover was your overly typical black and white photo of a boy on some stairs, looking sullen and serious, but it was the bright yellow type across that photo that caught my eye. "A Life Deliberate, Memoirs of an Unbreakable Boy," it said. "By Christopher Gutierrez." His name struck me as familiar, and the book suddenly took on a new weight in my hands. "Christopher Gutierrez?" I asked outloud, interrupting my friend, Lauren, as she shuffled through some loose papers. "Where do I know that name from?" "It's HeyChris." She clarified, shrugging. I looked at her. "HeyChris, as in, Fall Out Boy's HeyChris?" I had to laugh a little bit. Up until that very moment, I had assumed the boy who wrote the book I was holding was an internet famous, good for nothing, fame-sucking leech who hung on bassist Pete Wentz' every word. I assumed, from what little I knew of him, that he had written the book just to brag about his awesome times touring with the band and being their go-to guy, and over using quotes from their song dedicated to him. The lyrics were already playing in my head-- "Hey, Chris, you were our only friend, and I know this is belated, but we love you back." From that song on, Chris Gutierrez became HeyChris, and to most cynics like myself, lost any future credit he might have ever had. Lauren nodded. I was hesitant to put the book down, though. Something about the title made me think twice. "Memoirs of an Unbreakable Boy." I ran my thumb over the pages, pressing the spine of the paperback into my palm, and asked Lauren, "Can I borrow this?" That night, I indulged in the words on the pages of that book. I fell into stories of seventh grade embarrassment, fourth grade war games, and ridiculous past fashion trends. I read aloud his tale of an impromptu trip to Barcelona, just to run with the bulls and nearly losing his life in the pursuit of living it to the fullest. HeyChris was suddenly Christopher Gutierrez again, and I was suddenly not a cynic anymore. I fell in literary love with the boy who wrote those words, and I deemed the book my holy bible of sorts. I carried it around for weeks, refusing to give it back to Lauren, adopting the paperback as my own. I copied lines from it onto sheets of paper in drawing class, adorning the blank sheets of white printing paper with colorful interpretations of the words -- his words -- the ones I had come to live by. I scribbled 'LIVE DELIBERATE' on every blank surface I happened to come by, and spread the gospel of my little holy bible to every ear that would listen. I kept the book safe in my Anberlin tote, pulling it out in every class to re-read bits and pieces of the life I suddenly wished to know more and more about. Every time I opened the cover, I was truly hoping that somehow, if by magic, more pages would have been added to the end, letting me read on into the epic story that was this Christopher Gutierrez. To some, an average sort of boy with too many tattoos and a foul mouth, but to me, and everyone else the book may have touched, a special person who had truly defined the meaning of living. Thus, I was finally inspired to let go of my hatred for writing about myself. The book led me to realize that, to myself, my life may be mediocre and average, but to someone else, it could be magic. And so, I felt it only right to document the things I have experienced, so that other people might read my words and come to the realization that they, too, are special and extraordinary. Every walk down the street, every silly dream, every afternoon out with a best friend, every drive to the mall, every night at every show-- everything we ever do is worth remembering. So here are my memories. -- ( DRIVE-THRU WINDOWS. )
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my true story, if you really want to know.	[Mar. 17th, 2008\|09:57 pm]
I try to remember how I used to step outside myself when I was thirteen, and lay on the floor, and watch my wrists bleed and mix with the salt from my tears. I try to remember how I used to take a step back, and watch it all happen, hear the music playing but not really comprehend the lyrics or which part was the guitar and which part was the drums. I try to remember what it felt like to watch myself crumble. To be wise beyond my years and still fall to pieces like every other little girl I ever knew back then. I have tried for ages to figure out how she held herself together like she did. How she was able to stay beautiful and get more beautiful as the years went by us. I grew into my hips and my nose in an ordinary sort of way but she grew into a Venus and I sat back and watched her be better than me with a smile rather than jealousy. I try to remember unscrewing the little blade from a brand new eyeliner sharpener, fresh out of the package. I remember stealing it from my mom's make up drawer, and for some reason, she never noticed it was gone. I used my thumbnail to unscrew the tiny little screw that held it onto the plastic, and I dumped the glinting metal into my palm, sharp and new, and tossed the plastic casing aside. I can't remember what music I had on, but I know that whatever it was, it was slow and loud and heartbreaking and I was crying over that music before I was crying over myself. I turned my wrist over, stared at the pale patch of skin and the road map of green veins exposed just under it, and I thought about where it would hurt the worst to cut. I pressed the sharp side of the little razor against my wrist, felt it sink in, that little shock of pain against my nerve endings, until I gasped and it was gone, and I sank into relief. I dragged the metal lightly, my tears drying on my cheeks as I watched the blood bloom up behind the razor, and drip quietly down the side of my wrist. I remember thinking that for a simple eye pencil sharpener, it was pretty dangerous. Pretty sharp and pretty destructive. The red was light and it fell in a tiny drop onto my crossed legs, and I felt free. I drifted somewhere above myself, moved out the window, into the cool air of early spring in Maryland. I sat on a tree branch and stared into my bedroom from outside, and breathed in fresh air. I must have laid there for a good few hours, and that CD was on repeat, and I was soaking the music up into my skin and bleeding it back out through the hole I had cut in myself. Not enough to die, just enough to feel weightless. That first time, I slipped, I caved, I fell into something worse than an addiction. I feel into desperation. I had been standing on the edge of growing up and staying young and I threw myself off into the oblivion of an adulthood that I wasn't really prepared for. I told myself, the past four years, that everyone has this same story, locked up in their brains to look back on when it rains, or when the sun goes down on a particularly unpleasant day. I told myself that I was one of millions. I was a face in a crowd of lonely people, all crying and screaming for attention and for a savior. But I was the silent one. The one who had no desire to be rescued. I was content in my misfortune, in my ruined skin, in my bloodied wrists. I was content in my self-destruction. Best friends would come to school and slide off wrist bands and boast their tiny marks with faux frowns and crocodile tears, and I would console them while I kept my deep scars hidden under long sleeves and laughter. I don't need to listen to sad songs while I write this. I don't need to reminisce about terrible times by putting myself back into them. I am free of what I once was. I am standing on the edge of an oblivion that I am finally ready for. I am toeing the line between the here and the there, and I am one step away from someone new. I remember my back against a mattress that wasn't mine. I remember his hands and the way that he tasted-- like cigarettes, and it stuck to my mouth. I remember clothes on the floor and leaving inhibitions somewhere down the street with my bag of clothes I had packed for that particular sleepover. I remember exchanging phones five days before and laughing as we programmed our numbers and blushing when he winked at me and blushing when he actually ended up calling a few hours later. I remember throwing myself into a love that I only wanted because I craved the experience. I know what I gave him. I knew what I was giving him. I let him take it like it was a plague that was making me sick, but after it was taken from me, I was still doubled over in sickness. But now, with his name out of my phone and out of my mind and out of my thoughts, I am free of what I once was. I am seventeen. I am in a place I barely know and was hesitant to accept, but now I've got one of the best friends I could ever ask for, and somehow, things here just seem right. On May 27, I will walk across a stage, shake my principle's hand, and step back down a new person. I will spend my summer with my foot to a gas pedal, exploring the world around me as much as I possibly can over a short three month span. I will spend my summer with my hands in the air, singing along with bands in the summer heat, laughing and going deaf for hours after, practically yelling at my friends at McDonald's at three in the morning afterwards. I will spend my summer writing and drawing and painting and swimming and dancing and singing and living and exploring and growing. I will pack my things, I will take all my posters down from my walls, I will paint over the words I so carefully chose to paint on them. I will move into a new house and before I can unpack there, I will move into a dorm room at the University of South Florida. I will embrace my life. I will breathe in new air. After all, today is a new day. I try to remember when I last felt this brand new.
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letters.	[Jan. 13th, 2008\|08:57 pm]
letters to a congressman letters to a dead sister letters to self letters to holden caulfield letters to an absent father letters to a misshape You sat there on that old couch with a sweating plastic cup in your hand half filled with liquor and you asked me, what sort of person would hate their own son? I shook my head and you shook yours and we would laugh about the whole thing later, but right then, it still hurt too much. You downed the rest of that drink and then three more before I saw you smile that night, and even so, I knew it was foreign to your heavy lips after everything that happened. Your father would eat his words one day, you kept telling me. Your mother would love something more than her Bentley one day. One day, things would be right and they would realize they were wrong about her. The girl you told them you loved. You know, the one in the red skirt with red painted lips and black hair that was always just right. She was a train wreck, they warned you. You marry her, and they would never allow you back in their home. Four drinks and you were holding a ring in your palm, telling me how you told them to go fuck themselves and then went to find her apartment empty. Cleaned out. How could the universe be so cruel to you, you wondered, in my lap, crushed plastic cups littering the floor and the music shaking your insides. I asked you if she left a note and you shook your blonde head, but no dismay was clear on your tired face. Karah was music. She was what you listened to in your headphones up in the DJ booth, as you slid another CD into the stereo to play for the bodies moving down in the crowd. You never heard music, you told me, just her speaking to you in it. She was from Washington, and her skin was porcelain and breakable. She bent like putty in your hands when you held her and it terrified you, you told me. I never understood why you liked her so much. She was just a girl. Just a girl with no real attractive qualities other than that face of hers. How her hair fell over one eye. How her legs looked coming out of that tiny red skirt. She was barely shorter than you, and she would braid your long mess of blonde hair into french braids and kiss your nose and tell you that you looked like a little girl that used to live down the street from her when she lived in Washington. You always hated when she told you that you looked like a girl. I would always remind you of those androgynous features and that smooth nose, and those ice blue eyes that she barely ever spent any time staring into because eye contact make her squeamish. I never understood that. Or her. Or you. I still don't. Right now, you're back on that couch. Maybe experimenting with boys now that she's gone. Now that she's not here to keep your fragile attention. You're back on that couch and I'm listening to the music you picked-- the music that isn't her anymore. I wear flats around you, so that when we look at each other, it's eye to eye. I never wore heels like her. She wore heels and your foreheads would brush when you kissed. She was always one for dressing up, even in this stupid place that no one else dresses up for. Karah, she would kiss you and kiss the bottoms of bottles of cheap wine that sent her spiraling onto your apartment floor at dawn. You used to sleep in my bathtub and sing to me when the sun came up but then Karah was born. Born into your life, anyway. Born into an existence I recognized. Before she met your eyes, she was nothing. She was vapor. I didn't care that she was across the country breathing in our precious oxygen and wasting a good thing. But now I care. I care that she's somewhere else and not here, tonight, watching you drink yourself away from her pitiful memory. You bled onto her bare apartment floor the night you defied your own family for her love. You took out that old pocket knife and dug it into your forearm and carved her name into your skin until red drip-dropped onto the dirty floor. Until your tears were just dried up salt water on your cheeks. That night, I cleaned up your arm in the club bathroom before anyone else could see it. I put a band aid over her name and pulled a hoodie over your skinny arms so you could hide from everyone. You learned so quickly. You learned from me how to smile and make people believe it. I loved you for it. I loved how well you faked it. When you came home with me that night, I knew your circumstance. I knew the liquor on your breath-- I poured a few of those drinks myself for you. I knew the band aid on your arm, I put it there myself. I knew that bruise on your inner thigh; you told me how she'd left it there. I knew those hands on my body. I knew you. And once she was gone, you knew me, too. That night you slept in my bed and not my bathtub. You slept with tears on your cheeks and her name on your lips just after they had kissed my own. Karah could be in India selling her body to dirty old men right now but it wouldn't change the fact that you're drunk on her memory again. ( i guess you need no one. )
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come and take a walk with me.	[Dec. 30th, 2007\|11:03 pm]
dear mr. president, what kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away? and what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay?
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head underwater, and you tell me to breathe easy for a while	[Dec. 28th, 2007\|11:37 pm]
i think time has begun to spiral into a form of counting that i can't follow. six days away from routine and my head won't stop spinning with HOW MUCH TIME IS LEFT????? cause it's all i can seem to focus on. how much IS left, anyway? it's been six days of laughing and crying and congratulating my brother on finally getting the guts to get down on one knee in front of that girl. everyone's talking into one ear and i'm waiting to hear some other voice in the other one. some voice that sounds like this boy, who i know, who wears a lot of black but not in a sad sort of way. this boy that yanks our desks closer and doesn't really notice how i laugh over it. or does he? who knows, i mean, i probably couldn't even tell you my foot from my elbow from my heart that's been sitting in the bottom of my ribcage and wishing to be swallowed up by my stupid stomach so that it won't feel so lonely anymore. maybe that's why i keep on counting. because it's this TIME that's keeping me from what i wanna feel the most. his backpack falling over onto mine. his jacket thrown against it, brushing my foot. HIS desk pushed back against mine. HIS freckles on the back of his neck that i connect into perfect freckle constellations. HIS STUPID FACE IN MY HEAD. time is uncountable! unmeasurable! and this entire thing is so breakable! tangible! un-do-able! it's imperfect and wrong and i bet his girlfriend feels the same about him as i do, but at the same time, i have to wonder if her feelings do every inch of him justice, like mine do. for instance, my feelings go right down to his shoelaces-- now what does she have to say to that? i bet hers go down to his tshirt, and not even the tshirt that he wears the most, the one i recognize the smell of. my feelings go down to his backpack and forgetting his cell phone in his seat in class and i laugh at how worn out it is before i return it to him. my feelings go down to stupid love songs on my itunes playlist because they all REMIND ME OF HIM AND HIS STUPID SHOELACE LOVE HE'S GOT ME IN. it's not even logical, or reasonable, but it's real and even if he doesn't know it exists, i have to wonder if he does, because of the way that he'll smile at me when he turns around to make some smart ass comment about what the douchebag teacher just said. how he's so excited to tell me about his weekend every monday morning and doesn't even realize that as he's telling me, i'm filling in the holes of his story with little moments of us us us that won't exist didn't exist haven't existed? i dunno. words come easy when you're not thinking, and when i look at him i'm all tangled up in thoughts so the words get stuck in my mouth like peanut butter. and i used to be able to eat that stuff with a spoon when i was a kid, but then i grew up and found boys and peanut butter lost its innocence to silly metaphors relating it to my words when i'm tongue tied around some completely oblivious boy. i spend two hours with him every other day, and somehow, i have enough of all this bottled up to be able to spill it all out right now. and to who? maybe people i don't know, who find my writing to be easy! fun! carefree! or maybe his girlfriend, who might come to tears when she realizes that some other girl is so perfect for her perfect boy and she can't even measure up, even with a smaller waistline, and bigger bra size, she just can't measure up! or maybe she won't even realize i'm talking about HER perfect boy because she doesn't love him down as far as i do, to his shoelaces and backpack and freckles, so she wouldn't even be able to realize this was describing him, and therefore only go to prove her unworthiness to have him like she does! oh god. sometimes i ramble. and sometimes? it makes sense. to me. and to him, i bet. if he ever saw this one.
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nothing.	[Dec. 23rd, 2007\|10:05 pm]
( hayley. )
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oh snap.	[Dec. 13th, 2007\|06:49 pm]
you guys remember that time i got into the university of central florida? i do. because it happened twenty minutes ago when the letter came.
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we're doing it.	[Dec. 11th, 2007\|08:30 pm]
you're a waste of breath so i'd rather just hold the air in my lungs than speak your name. where are you going? out of here? california to find peace? europe to study art? canada to feel winter? somewhere quiet where no one will judge you? i pity the ones you'll live amongst. i hold my breath and laugh it out while i watch you leave. but where are you going? nowhere. nowhere at all. you're stuck; a fossil to remain imprinted in this godforsaken town until the day you die. and as you breathe your last breath you'll laugh and wonder, what ever happened to that girl? the one that used to be everything and then suddenly was nothing. the one that was worth my life and still i barely gave her a brief moment of my life to remember. you'll choke on your last words as you say, i wonder if she's happy. you're toxic waste i can't shake. plaguing these veins. reminding me why i keep to myself. i don't answer my phone, not because it isn't working but because i don't want to hear your voice. i know you'll see me in every single face, hear me in every lyric, feel me in every touch from a stranger, taste me in every kiss you steal. you're gonna miss me when i'm gone. ( but we're not gonna waste another moment in this town. )
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no one, not even you.

[Nov. 27th, 2007|07:15 pm]

[	Current Mood	\|	lost.	]
[	Current Music	\|	mayday parade - you be the anchor	]

your credibility is shrinking with every misspelled word that falls from your fingertips and soaks through my eyes. you're wrong, all wrong, you make no sense, you have no idea how real life feels wrapped around your throat. your troubles are petty, your life is closed, your doors bolted and locked to all that's outside your walls-- all that matters. music notes and clever words on a cd jacket can only get you so far. seventeen ain't so fucking sweet but you don't see me crying for sympathy into a blank space that no one will ever acknowledge. he owned me, threw me around, burned me in ways no fire could and still my heart is higher than ever before and life is coming at me full force and my smile never falters. i'm grown up, with much more growing to go, but you're light years behind and i can't listen to your nothing anymore. you're a broken record from a band i stopped liking ages ago, and your songs are mediocre and overdone. i see right through your fancy cover art to the fake you are while you pretend to listen when really you're just waiting til it's your turn to speak. the world is full of people and you're just one of them. get over it.

summer faded three nights ago, seated at a best friend's kitchen table, hearing the news about that voice from the stereo that i wouldn't be hearing anymore. the world hurdled into winter, left me shivering in the front seat of my car, trying to understand why those words were making my hands shake. i'd never seen his eyes on mine, heard him laugh at my words, never touched his hand or heard him speak my name but still he spoke to me. he spoke to me through headphones on nights alone, reminded me of reasons to wipe my eyes. he mended old wounds and got me up off the ground and back onto my feet, blind to his own saving. was it honestly true? closed his eyes and didn't wake up? rolled over in a peaceful dream and lost himself to the emptiness of eternity? truths are usually heavy in their seriousness, dark in their brutal honesty. his name rolled off my tongue so easily that first day of his disappearance as i spread the sad word but now it sticks to my teeth and makes my lips bind together in silence, those syllables not coming easy anymore. my words hold no weight there; he is gone and the earth is still turning. my stereo plays his memory on until i'll forget his name and the words to the songs he saved me with.

i'm saying sorry outside your window in ohio and i have no words left.

( every song is ours tonight )

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the rubber-glue mentality.	[Nov. 10th, 2007\|09:29 pm]
Tall, Dark and Italian is fussing over a scuff on his freshly polished shoes again. That stupid curb gets him every time. He’s got another Palahniuk novel in his hand; he’s promised himself no more art history for a while. He wants something new. A sigh over his shoes and he’s walking to the elevator. He usually takes the stairs– eighteen flights to get up nine floors twice a day is enough to keep his personal trainer off his back, but there is no way he’s risking another scuff. God forbid. Small, Pale and Vegan stubs the toe of his (very scuffed) shoe into the marble floor, shifting what little weight he has onto the other leg. Blue stained fingers wrap around the strap of his messenger bag and he purses his lips at their color. The blue on his fingers matches the splotch of blue in his hair, covered mostly by a ratty old beanie that he had a nervous habit of tugging on. Another kick of his shoe into the floor and a body moves up beside him just in time to slip into the opening elevator doors in front of him. His brown eyes peel up from the floor to take in that chiseled figure, those designer clothes, that pair of shoes that probably cost more than his first car– which was a Corolla. He follows him, his 35 dollar Vans falling into the empty steps of His 350 dollar something-or-others. He recognizes the face. Not only from living two floors below him for two years but from the covers of the fashion magazines he keeps in the top dresser drawer. The Guy is legs and hair and skin, designer clothes and a pretty face– the polar opposite of the skinny, blue-haired seventeen year old he’s now sharing an elevator with. Small, Pale and Vegan shifts his stance. The doors close. Cue that awkward ‘who-speaks-first’ silence; one that Tall, Dark and Italian doesn’t even feel the weight of. So of course it’s Small, Pale and Vegan in all his PETA supporting glory who breaks it, pursing his lips and pointing a blue finger at his elevatormate’s scuffed shoe. “You know, a cow had to die somewhere for you to wear those,” he pointed out simply, rocking back onto his heels. Tall, Dark and Italian looks at the scuff, seeing as how that’s all he seems to be able to see when he looked at his shoes. He mentally curses that God forsaken curb before he retorts. “I’ll be sure to pay a little homage to him next time I eat a steak.” Such a sharp tongue coming from such a beautiful person, but Small, Pale and Vegan hardly feels it. Must be that rubber-glue mentality he’s built up since the hazing in freshman year. He looked over, scanning him from his dead cow shoes to his elegantly dissheveled brown hair, a lopsided smile on his wind chapped lips. “You don’t really strike me as much of a meat eater,” he drawled, tugging the zipper of his jacket up and down with two blue fingers. He waits for a laugh, some flirtatious shift of his eyes or bow of his perfect head, but instead he’s met with a pointed glance, cold composure and that runway frown. “But you wouldn’t know that,” his accented words come. “You don’t even know who I am.” A lock of blue twisted around an equally blue finger, Small, Pale and Vegan doesn’t let his coy twist of a smile leave his lips. He wonders if all models have that ‘You don’t know me, I’m too good’ mentality. He considers writing them all a nice pamphlet explaining his rubber-glue alternative. It’s much more fulfilling. “You should really learned to talk to people, not at them,” he advised, with a tug of his beanie. Nervous habit. At this point, Tall, Dark and Italian is watching the floors pass, counting each ‘ding’– one, two, three. It seems to be going much slower today– of all days for the elevator to slow down. Slower. Slower. Four... five... stop. Oh, God, please, no– the first four words that slip from his Cherry ChapStick smoothed lips in a barely audible whisper. Small, Pale and Vegan leans himself against the back wall, letting out a quiet laugh as he shoves his hands into his jeans pockets, watching the back of his head with a look of sheer amusement. Of course this would ruin his evening. Or, maybe even his week. “Oh, well, shucks,” he sighs almost teasingly, letting his thin frame slide down to the floor, corners of his lips twitching with a waiting smile as he watches Tall, Dark and very upset Italian turn around to look at him. Of course this would happen tonight, he knows he’s thinking. Of course this would happen with him. Even his sigh sounds like it came from Rome. Soft but frustrated, laced with the threat of oncoming mumbles of Italian curse words, which inevitably do come as that perfect slender figure of his eases itself against the corner.He lifts his hands to press his fingers into his temples, as if it will help; as if he expects to warp himself to some other time and place. Small, Pale and Vegan knows without asking that he’s wishing for just that. Or maybe he’s wishing for the elevator cables to snap and send them both into the oblivion he would probably rather be in right now. As if the little blue haired kid in the corner was that unappealing. Tick, tock. Another Roman sigh. “So,” Small, Pale and Vegan chirps from his place on the floor, picking at a loose thread in his shoes. “You come here often?” Another grin, his eyes still on his shoes as he waits for the chortle that should follow but instead, that perfect slender figure slides down beside him, close enough to his side for him to smell his imported-from-France cologne. Tugging on his beanie, he considers telling him to mind those tailored pants on that dirty floor– who knows whose feet have been there? But he keeps to himself, boney knees tucked against his boney chest, skinny arms wrapped around them. Tall, Dark and Italian is wondering why Small, Pale and Vegan hasn’t thrown himself at him, slurring about fashion and ‘I saw you in Vogue ’ as he begs for an autograph. Maybe the kid really doesn’t know who he is, after all. Though he seems the type. Something about this boy, the little ball of blue and worn jeans on the floor beside him, makes him lean in closer, for a better look. His eyes, the shape of his face, the way he bounced his chin on his knees, so seemingly lost in thought. Something made him want to know what he was so lost in. He moved back before the boy noticed, trying to place a name with that would-be hard to forget face of his. He’s seen him before, in stairwells and hallways, a new splotch of color in his hair every time. He’s the ever changing back drop to Tall, Dark and Italian’s otherwise stationary life. The one noticeable extra in his over done Box Office blockbuster. And for a reason he can’t place, that elevator floor is slowly becoming a little more comfortable. “You stare a lot,” comes that quiet voice beside him, and now he realizes those brown eyes are locked with his. He has no idea why his stomach suddenly flips. “You give me something to stare at,” he admits without thinking, dark eyes dropping to the floor, heart sinking somewhere behind his stomach, hiding embarrassment and blushing cheeks. Maybe it was his genuity that drew him in. Being treated like an honest to God normal human being was a nice change from what he was treated as behind cameras and bright lights. He makes a mental note to become a vegetarian. And to never buy another pair of leather shoes. Click, beep, click. A jolt breaks the awkward silence for them as the elevator wakes up, tugging them up to the sixth floor, seventh floor. Ding. The doors slide open. Small, Pale and Vegan gets to his feet, taking two small steps towards the open doors before he stops and turns back. Without a word, he draws the latest Vogue from his tattered messenger bag, a familiar chiseled face adorning the glossy cover. “It was nice to meet you, Romeo Farelle,” he says, handing him the magazine as that coy smile returns to his lips and he steps from the elevator. “Maybe we’ll meet again sometime. You know. On a broken escalator, or something.” Another flash of his smile and the doors have closed, leaving Tall, Dark and Italian, Romeo Farelle, international male supermodel, wondering if he just let something good get away. It’s amazing how far apart two floors can really be.
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i think maybe we all just need something to be addicted to.	[Oct. 25th, 2007\|09:20 pm]
i wanna see art. i wanna see real life on canvas. i wanna walk the naves of the cathedrals i see on the fronts of postcards and in the beloved books i dream from. i wanna see statues of jesus and mary and joseph, wanna see bronze casts of the crucifixion, wanna see greek ruins and the supposed bones of long-dead saints. i wanna touch frescoes on chapel walls, wanna see egyptian tombs and neolithic cave paintings. i wanna climb the steps of the fortuna, wanna run my fingers over the arc de triomphe, wanna see the place where ann boeyln took her very last breath. i wanna step where great caesars stepped, wanna stare up at the ceiling of the sistine chapel, wanna write down everything i feel as i'm standing in front of the nike of semothrace in all her stone decapitated beauty. i wanna walk the entire length of the bayoux tapestry, wanna see the stone floors of chartres turned colors from the lux nova through the rose window. i wanna hear the bells of notre dam, wanna go to the top of the eiffle tower. i wanna see the world through its art. a year from this day, i can see myself a college freshman, hidden in back aisles of the massive library (no doubt my favorite building on campus), buried in books telling me of how things used to be, what they've come to be, and what's changed them. art is a process, it's a steady time line, it's a gorgeous progression through history that i've come to adore learning the ins and outs of. i used to dream of new york city streets and chicago taxis and california lattes but now i think in terms of european cathedrals and egyptian artifacts and byzantine illuminated manuscripts. my life has taken a turn to remind me of the dreams i once had-- dreams of a life of happiness and spontaneity, not one of routine and banal procedure. i wanna write. i wanna write about life and god and death and the earth and the future and the past. i wanna write about love and disaster and perfection, about the bible and serial killers and high school. i wanna write about mismatched shoes and forgotten schoolbooks and missed planes. i wanna write about first kisses and last breaths, about here and there and then and now. i wanna write, and i wanna write well. but most importantly, i just want to live this life, and live it well. that's where art steps in and takes the steering wheel. university of west florida waits for me. its books about art in its library wait to be opened in my hands, some dorm room waits to be where i sprawl out on my twin bed with a week's worth of homework and indulge myself in my learning. its lawns wait for me to spend cool october days on them with groups of classmates, talking about everything from life to poetry to film to architecture. the life it holds for me waits to swallow me up and turn me into everything i ever wanted to be. to show me art. to let me write. to let me live.
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the scene is dead.	[Oct. 19th, 2007\|09:51 am]
A few nights ago, as I was pressed against the barrier at House of Blues, staring up at William Beckett with the same look of awe on my face as the 2,200 other kids around me, it dawned on me that I was probably one of the few kids left who isn't in it for the singles, anymore. Surrounded by teeny boppers who came just to hear 'Big Mess' and 'Everything We Had', I was completely swallowed up in a sea of sellouts and single-freaks, the ones who knew the songs they heard on their friend's myspace, the ones who tuned into the local Top 40 radio station and caught the latest single from some up and coming indie band. The day I first heard Boys Like Girls on the Top 40 radio station as I was switching CDs in my car, I felt like crying for their lost credibility. From that moment on, their shows would be infested with thirteen year olds only singing along to 'The Great Escape' and not even understanding the well-crafted metaphoric lyrics that were coming out of their drooling mouths as they stared at Martin Johnson in tight pants. The moment I saw the first commercial for Now 25, featuring 'The Great Escape' by Boys Like Girls, I knew they were completely done for. It's a sad situation, really. Bands that came from thin air being shoved into the limelight only to be leeched on by the pathetic, blood-sucking preteens that stick their Bop Magazine pin-ups of Pete Wentz all over their pastel walls. I remember being thirteen, listening to the local rock station and enjoying bands like Three Days Grace, Story of the Year, Lost Prophets, Staind, and Linkin Park. But apparently four years is a long time in the world of music and the people that listen to it. Now, thirteen year olds throw on a Paramore t-shirt from the Hot Topic in the mall, slip on some Vans, and call themselves "scene." Girls in ninth grade sit at the front of the line at The Academy Is... shows dressed in outfits that bear uncanny resemblence to a few Jac Vanek had worn in a recent photoshoot, and they talk of how much they hate scene queens like her as they chat on their Sidekicks. Then of course, there's the grown-up (or would-be grown-up) versions of them: eighteen year olds who name drop unimportant people like HeyChris that serve no purpose to anything just to say they knew them for a brief moment. Girls in college who take a picture with Tom from Cute is What We Aim For and claim that makes them best friends. Wake up call, kiddies-- he took pictures with 20 billion other girls at Warped Tour, what makes you so special? Music is no longer about music. Music is about names and competition-- not even amongst the bands, but amongst their pathetic wanna-be fans. It's a fight over who's gone to more shows, who's known about the band for the longest, who met them, who took a stupid photo with them after some shitty show at The Social. But it kills me, because that's so completely the last thing that should matter. What matters is hearing it, feeling it, enjoying it, living it. Respecting them as people just like ourselves who just happen to have incredible talents that they can use in their life. They put their pants on, they breathe and their hearts beat just like ours, so what makes it so hard for people to understand that they make music just for the sheer joy of making music? They don't make music to please the single freaks or the teeny boppers. They make music because they love to make music. Plain and simple. Shows aren't about "Oh my God, am I gonna get to meet them afterwards so I can post pictures of me trying to act all suave and cool with them on my MySpace for all my internet friends to think I'm cool?" No. Shows are about jumping up and down, screaming your heart out, laughing singing dancing moshing getting sweaty losing your voice. They're about living inside the music they made, the music they LOVE to make, and letting it take you over. Plain and fucking simple. Music is music. Fuck the scene.
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liar, if we're keeping score

[Oct. 14th, 2007|09:01 pm]

[

Current Music

last winter

]

Everything in life is a lie, it just takes a special person to realize it. That's what makes you special, he told me, come one of the Saturdays I spent in his shadow, your cynicism. Real life cannot be converted into some fairytale. Fairytales are what exist to prove the utter flaws in real life; to help them sink in. You can't just turn the other cheek to the things in this world that matter, the real things, the pain and suffering and the doubt. Ever wonder why books end? He asked me. Because the writers stop caring. They stop giving a hell about what happens to these fake, made up people that only live in their minds. He said, people only write these interesting, spell binding stories because their own lives are too empty. The one who writes of drugs, sex and scandal in the city resides in a suburb home with three charming children and a cat. They know nothing of reality, because they block their own out. That's what you do, he told me, on one saturday in the backseat of his Volvo, you make shit up because your life is a joke. Your life is nothing. What do you even do? He questioned. Wake up, pay an overpriced cab fare to get to the bullshit you call a job, you go home, and you go to sleep. What the hell do you even do? You're a slave to the Man and you're so brainwashed that you don't even care. Against the stained and cigarette burned backseat, he sighed a breath of alcohol and said to me, you're just another lie. A hypocrite to your own worthless realizations. He always had verbiage on his side but still he could barely articulate those fancy, philosophical words on those Saturday nights. Your life is a tool that mends the machine that you were born into. Your heart only beats because it was programmed to do so, not because you're loved. Your blood only seeps from your cuts because that empty organ that is your heart pumps it out. You're a machine, just like the society that owns you. He was always a cynic at best but that was the role I was supposed to assimilate into in my silence, agreeing with him while he spoke his own cynical words in descriptions of me. He barely read one sentence I ever wrote, his eyes saw the words but never comprehended them. He never gave himself time to comprehend them before his tongue took over and he was spitting out witty, carefully crafted metaphors in the form of criticism at me. It wasn't my job to speak, or to ask questions, only to listen and pretend I agreed with the nonsense he spoke to me. He would hold my journal in his lap, slender fingers curled tightly around the hard binding, as he verbally abused the words written inside, words he could only assume were not worth his time or care to actually read. I never went back to read what I had written as I wrote, I just wrote without thought or maybe too much of it and closed the cover when my pen stopped. I let him be the judge before I could. He was better at it that I was, without even glancing over the nonsense I had written. You think too much, he would say. You think too much about things that shouldn't be thought on. Do you even know how to smile, anymore? Or is that something else that you suck at? Another sigh of vodka scented breath and he slid the book back over to me, off of his lap and onto the mall patch of worn car upholstery between us, a disgusted look on his face, as if the book itself carried my cynic disease. Try harder, he said quietly, to try less. Nothing he said ever made sense. You would think he spoke the words right off my pages-- the ones he never bothered to read. The ones he never really had to read. The ones he never really got a second chance to read. One of the Saturdays in his Volvo, he was back in the drivers seat, taking me home. I barely spent an hour with him on those nights, or ever. That night a man whose name I'm told was Mitchell ran his F150 into the drivers side door of the Volvo at the intersection of 8th and Walton. My journal fell off my lap in time for him to be thrown into it, limbs broken and skin seeping blood from the places the glass had sliced wide open. When the noise died down, he was still, his machine having shut off, leaving him silent and broken in my lap. The empty organ that was his heart stopped beating, and all the words he left unread soaked into his quiet soul and finally made sense. Mitchell in the F150 had four stitched put in his right cheek. I had firefighters pulling me from the wreckage, pulling me away from his broken down machine of a body, and even as they did, I promise he was smiling. The only way to cure the disease of this plagued existence is to die, he had said on more than one Saturday. I left my journal where it was, beside him. One Saturday in the front seat of my Jetta, I found a receipt in the glove compartment. Twenty-eight dollars for a bottle of liquor and a pack of Newports. I smelled that vodka sigh from the backseat as he whispered over my shoulder, everything in life is a lie.

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