July 2010
0 posts
My house
It’ll have a large window extending past the walls, lined with long, flowing red curtains. On lazy afternoons I’ll curl up on the windowsill and read, until the sun paints the garden outside with a layer of gold. I’ll stare off into the sunset until the sky has turned cold, calm green that fades into strong, tranquil blue and it’s too dark to read anymore.
April 2010
1 post
I love staring at your gtalk icon after we’ve said goodbye and waiting for it to turn grey.
March 2010
3 posts
“There is a ship, and she sails the seas
She is loaded deep, as deep can be
But...”
– The Water is Wide
There’s a pond on the route I take walking home from my bus stop. Two geese take up residence there every year. But they always colonize the lawn of the house across the street.
I came upon them again today for the first time this year. They shied away as I walked past, like always. Like always I wondered why they prefer the house across the street so much. What was wrong with the grass...
He came in the next day with a penguin. The bracelet was around the penguin’s neck like a tie. “See, I found a use for it after all,” he said.
February 2010
1 post
Today I gave someone a friendship bracelet. I held out all the ones I’d made, telling him to pick one. He immediately pulled out a red and gold diamond one, the first I made in that particular pattern. I’d spent hours on it, making knots and picking them apart, mostly at night in bed so that my mother would not see and tell me to stop wasting my time on frivolous things. After a failed...
October 2009
1 post
“In loving, as in writing, you dig a well with a needle. You’re in for a...”
September 2009
1 post
“To truly know someone you must spend one thousand days with them.”
I’ve spent several thousand days with myself now, and I still hardly know her at all.
August 2009
1 post
One of my favorite activities at the pool is to make tiny whirlpools. I’ll stand still in the water and open my fingers, then bring my hand straight down. Left behind in the trail of my hand will be a miniature maelstrom, dragging whatever happens to be nearby down to where its spiral waters end. I can pretend that I am a vengeful sea goddess; the pool is my realm, and on my whim those...
July 2009
2 posts
“Bring me the scissors,” Mother calls out from the garden. I run down the stairs to oblige. Minutes later she comes in carrying a bundle of flowers, flowers flamboyantly pink and blue, content with the knowledge that they are safe, safely fresh, at least for now. She grabs the vase. One last stem from the previous bundle stands halfheartedly inside, half of the blooms on top wilted,...
Inexorable
I stepped outside one night, and they were there. Two thousand pricks of light, floating in the darkening sky. How is it that an eternity has passed, and yet the fireflies tell me that an eternity is but a year? I chased a few, as if by catching one I could restore the vortex of days I had missed, restore them and enjoy them this time. But they floated, teasingly, so close that I could almost...
June 2009
6 posts
Storm
The rain comes down in buckets; thunder roars and lightning rips apart the sky to its very core. But the convulsions of the elements are done by evening and the sun peeks out from behind the clouds just in time to color the sky flamboyant orange and pink.
Isn’t it odd how everyone seems to teach that self-approval is what matters? Yet approval of oneself always seems to require the approval of others.
“I love getting mail from the Ivies. That brochure from Harvard looks especially...”
– Emily Jones
There, in my back, is something called a spine or a backbone. If only I actually acted like I had one.
May 2009
3 posts
Rip. Rip. Rip.
“It’s time for us to get rid of all these old checks,” mother announced, dropping a huge bag on the floor. My dad had kept all of them, along with countless files and reports about their bank accounts in an old cabinet. Now my mother had decided to clean the cabinet out. So we formed a small circle, my mother, sister, and I, and ripped, tore, or snipped thirteen...
Reflections
When I was five, we lived in an apartment where my sister got the spare bedroom all to herself. My parents bought her a dresser with a huge mirror. She is six years older than me, and so the world she was on the brink of, so full of its insecurities and doubts, was unknowable to me. So when we moved a few years later and the mirror ended up being placed in my new room, I could not comprehend her...
Midnight. I lie awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, alone with my thoughts. I can’t believe you think more highly of her than you do of me. After all the hurtful things she’s said and done to me.
Dear god, or whatever entity may care to answer, why do I keep thinking these people are my friends? Why did I not learn my lesson the first time, only to fall into the same trap? Once more...
March 2009
8 posts
“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”
– Six word story by Ernest Hemmingway
Mister Bookseller →
One of the most beautiful comics I have ever read.
“I got into a bike race with time…and won.”
– Aaron Burger
My Camera
Model: Eyes and mind
Resolution: Life
He sits at the front of the room, collecting tests as one by one his students finish and walk up to hand them in. He’s asked each of them to put their favorite ice cream on the first page, and so he reads them as the tests come in.
“Strawberry. Bubblegum. Strawberry cheesecake. Being simple, huh? Just chocolate? Rocky road,” he reads, in succession. He pauses as the next student...
“When I was a kid, I thought I was ugly. Sometimes I think people don’t...”
– Clementine, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Moth on a Stick
Almost every summer I go to visit my grandfather’s grave. His ashes lie in a small temple atop a mountain, along with those of several of my other relatives, most of whom died before I was born. Most of whom I have no inkling of knowledge about their lives, or what type of person they were, or how exactly they were even related to me. They simply are, an invisible force in my life, in the...
February 2009
3 posts
“I whispered, “I am too young,”
And then, “I am old...”
– William Butler Yeats
“The heart has its reasons which reason does not know.”
– Wisdom from a chocolate wrapper
Musings
There were some days when she wished she could grab time by the tail and scream, “You can’t do this to me! Don’t make me grow up! Don’t make any of us grow up!”
But time paid her no heed, and dragged her along, no matter how she fought to pull it back.
September 2008
1 post
Winter Afternoon With Friends
The snow comes down in white tides, gently, yet inexorably, until the air, the ground, and the entire world is covered in a white veil. We’ll sit inside together by the window where it’s cozy to watch the snow come down, each with a mug of hot coffee, chocolate, or tea, depending on preference. We’ll sit in silence for a while. Then we’ll talk. About the times we shared,...