can’t

Today began normally.
I woke up, showered, got breakfast.
Went to lecture.
The lecture was sad but interesting, it was on the Holocaust.
Well, the first half was.
I had to leave partway through.
Because the lecturer was playing this beautiful Gorecki piece that Robin used in a play. And I tried to hold it together, but I just… can’t. I started crying, and I had to leave.

What else will set me off? I’m a little bomb full of grief, waiting to explode again.

Robin BR Wood

This is Robin BR Wood.  She was fucking amazing, and I really wish I’d made sure she knew how much she’s affected my life.

Robin was there from my freshman year, when I was a little Hot Topic wanna-be goth kid, until now.  In the theatre department I grew up into a girl who’s comfortable with who I am, a girl with set paint on her rain boots who proudly wears overalls in public.  I’m so much more confident due to Robin’s influence.  I know (some) ASL thanks to her, and her encouragement.  I’ve seen firsthand how the amazing the Children’s Garden that she helped create is.

And fuck, I miss her.

here is modern grief

We leave our phones on all night. We pour out emotions on a Facebook group. We find comfort in mp3s, videos, digital photos. We set our Facebook photos, our statuses, our desktop backgrounds, in memory. We talk out our grief via IM, text message, email.

We leave our phones on all night in case someone needs to talk.

sadness.

I wish this wasn’t the first post in ages, there are so many good things that’ve happened since I last wrote.

The list I was starting in my head after my good friend K. told me to write here again had:
- the first black US President was elected and inaugurated
- I came to Canada for university
- I fell in love with the guy I met the first night of frosh week

But you know what happened?

An absolutely incredible woman died. She was my advisor for a good part of my high school years, and head of the theatre department, where I spent an absurd amount of time. She’s the one who got me to get my shit together on my senior project, she’s the one who helped me grow up. I already missed her, up here over 400 miles away. I’d promised her a longer email a couple of weeks ago, which I never wrote. It was going to be full of things I was so proud to tell her about. I was so excited that I’d get home in time to see the musical, too.

Life sucks, you know?

I think it might be harder for me, too, because I’m alone with this. None of my friends here knew her. There’s one other person in the city (that I know of) who went to my school, and I’m not sure he ever spent time in the theatre department. Not like I did, certainly.

I was talking to a friend last night, and she said: “people can be understanding, but when there’s a death in the family (which the theatre crowd certainly is), you just want to be with your family.” That’s exactly it. I want to hug someone who knows how I feel. I called K. last night, which helps, but I want to be with everyone. I want to choke my way through “Rose” (which we sang before every show) in a group, not alone.

But most of all I want Robin to give me a hug, and that’s never going to happen again.

Quelquefois

I want things to be different.
If I could make one wish
I’d return to that dream
fantasy of me and you.
The one reality bent around
until you bent it back.

I hate it when you’ve turned your back.
When it’s been so long, and it shouldn’t feel different
anymore. When it’s “see you around,”
and all I can do is wish.
When it’s so long since I’ve touched you.
I just get lost in a dream.

I wonder do you miss that dream?
Do you want to have it back?
And how are you,
anyway? You’re different.
I wonder do you wish
The way I do? Well, I’ve wished enough to go around.

What goes around comes around
and life is a crazy dream.
Blow out your birthday candles, make a wish.
Could all the pink yellow blue candles get us back
to where we were? It’s different now
maybe. Not sure about you.

When I see you
wherever, just around
you don’t seem that different.
Just less busy, which lets me dream
of your saying you want me back.
Not a guess, just a wish.

An eyelash has fallen, make a wish.
I’ve used so many on you
but I wouldn’t take any back.
Maybe they’ll come back around,
anyway. I can still dream
of things being different.

I only wish when you’re not around.
Like the other night, you were in my dream.
I’d take you back, even if it’s different.

“Technicalities” (written last year)

I shouldn’t have said what I said about horses
horses and riders
in castles of air
I shouldn’t’ve dropped hints all over the ground
where they could be found by
anyone who’d pick them up
I shouldn’t just wait
until it’s too late
it’s already happened
I already have
I shouldn’t have wished
so imprecisely
that’s how wishes go wrong
why haven’t we learned?
we’ll always be burned
by the gift of three wishes
it’s just like a fire and never a warning and
there’s no returning it
so you get what you wish for
but not what you want

—–

I wrote this poem last year, based in part off of a journal entry. Posting it here because I never put it anywhere public. (I did submit it to my school’s litmag, but that hasn’t come out yet this year.)

I’ll try to write something more later, but I have selection day for the school dance concert for a lot of the day. Much excitement! I choreographed a solo, let’s see if it gets in . . .

thinking morbid thoughts

Stumbled onto the blog of an old friend whose boyfriend died in a car crash on Thanksgiving, so I’m thinking about death and how it affects people.

Words/phrases that disappeared from Sara’s tongue:

-car crash
-collisions
-Nick
-love
-death, dead, die, dying, dead
-Bowdoin (his college)

And she’s not the only friend to be touched by death.

I don’t like death.

worried . . .

My journal, the paper one, went missing sometime today at school.  That’s a bunch of very personal thoughts and feelings roaming the campus with yes my name attached (not to mention my home address, email address, and phone number).  That’s a worrisome thought.

platonic for her, not for him

I love you, ya know?
not just saying it to you
I mean it - always

could you come back please?
can’t force you - that wouldn’t fit
so I’ll try waiting

I am never babysitting for my parents again.

I can’t do it.

I don’t have enough authority with my brother.

Screaming fights are no fun.

And I’m a small girl, and he’s growing up, and he’s big enough to hurt me.