i have a habit of losing things- not losing-losing, but the kind of losing where it’s right in front of your face and you still can’t see the damn thing. my little sister has a new habit of wrapping these things up nicely in paper and glue and writing “to faith, from hope” on it. i can’t stand her, but i love that kid so much.

i invented a recipe for pasta last week that almost made me die when i took the first bite, it was so good. well, i thought it was, the rest of my family liked it but they weren’t having to fight the desire to compose ballads about their plateful. i stole some mint/almond/lemon pesto from a recipe my mom was making, stir-fried tomatoes and green bell peppers in olive oil and garlic, mixed it all into a pot of pasta, and then put a solid cup of feta cheese on it while it was still hot so it got all melty and i am salivating just remembering it now. i will probably never be able to replicate it again, though, because i just dump random amount of things together until it tastes just right, and then i try too hard the next time to make it exactlythesame.

i’m up to three cups of earl grey tea/unsweetened vanilla almond milk/honey a day now. i told myself i’d stick to one a day so i don’t bored with it. i haven’t.

my hair is red again. i was going to let it go natural for the first time in two years, but i missed it so much i couldn’t resist.

i’m really angry right now, and it really wasn’t triggered by anything huge, just a brief incident today that pushed me over the edge when i was already upset.

i’d decided i was bored with my brown hair and found out that i could buy my old red dye in a brighter shade that also glows in the dark which seemed like a good solution to a boring haircut i’d gotten yesterday that i wasn’t happy with. my mom and sisters and i were out and about shopping, and i needed to stop by sally’s to pick up a couple jars of the dye. my mom, being tired, said they were going to stay in the car and wait for me. and as is always the case when i know i’m going to be alone in a public situation, i instantly went on male-alert. until today, i hadn’t even consciously realized how often i do this, but i instantly scope out the area for potentially uncomfortable/mildly threatening situations. and today two of them were standing directly in front of the door and the whole time i’m crossing the street i’m hoping, maybe they’ll leave. also, i’m wondering why two teenage men are hanging out in front of a sally’s beauty supply and a lane bryant. not waiting for someone or anything. just standing there. and so i’m praying hey maybe they won’t notice the girl all by herself directly in front of them and i will just get in and buy my fucking dye and get out and no.

and this is the part where my sister looks at me like i’m overreacting, but of course they notice me, i’m two feet away from them. and i do not understand how i can instantly be intimidated when people inside the shop are watching, people on the street, people driving by, hell, my family in the car across the parking lot are watching, they can’t really do anything but i’m praying they do something most nice strangers do and just nod or smile or look at something else or move out of the way instead of making me go around them, but no. well, technically, there was smiling and nodding, but only in a dictionary that does not contain the word “leering.” the whole time i am thinking, keep your head down, ignore them, don’t react. so i moved around them, i went inside, i bought my dye, trying to ignore them standing in the window watching me the entire time. came home and found out i bought two jars of different colors, i was in enough of a hurry to be done with it already. they left by the time i was done, no harm done i guess.

it’s just that i look at my little sister. she’ll be seven in july. i think, is this what i’m supposed to expect for her? to expect to be made to feel, in one look, not like a person but as just… a woman. to evaluate her surroundings while doing something as simple as running errands? to train herself not to react because it’ll just make it worse? to keep her mouth shut when she’s uncomfortable just because then someone will think she’s ‘one of those feminists’ and it’s not worth the fight? granted, she’s a lot different than i am; she isn’t shy, she isn’t self conscious (yet. i hope the world doesn’t make her any less confident than she is now). but will she learn to be?

i am depressed and tired. all day i’ve been angry, but now i am just tired and i’m going to be honest, sometimes i feel absolutely hopeless, i really do, because i don’t know what to do, i don’t have an answer. i would rather fight than sit at home and feel sad but i just feel sad. i don’t want this for all these women i love. hell, i don’t want this for myself. i want to go out and enjoy being outside and being around people i don’t know and not worry about how close that man is and if i should walk the other direction. because that just seems like a basic right to me that i would like to enjoy and i would like my sister and everyone else who is just a person to be able to enjoy as well.

my sister has been yelling at me all day because i’m so preoccupied with the awesomeness that is the fact that THE VLOGBROTHERS ARE GOING TO BE IN MY CITY IN LESS THAN TWO WEEKS. i have that much time to turn her into a nerdfighter and i shall succeed.

have i mentioned i am SO excited?

my whole family has been watching this over and over. i can’t get over how well they managed to condense the whole series into one music video.

everyone who has made my birthday unforgettable, i love you so much.  thank you.

there was a woman
(or was she? not much older than
me, & yet what am i?)
with eyes like light & a lip ring
holding onto her smile like it could save the world. like it
could save you. like she had saved
herself already.

i’ve seen a man, & his face was a canyon,
traced with cracks like a desert floor,
& his hands were knotted as a forestfull
of roots & veins. how many times
did i kiss that face, did i
hold his hands, did they hold mine-

did i walk
away.

there is smoke & there is darkness, drifting.
i am breath. i feel for a heartbeat, & there is none,
too deep in my own body. there are only lungs;
rise, collapse, under my hands i
live, i breathe, i look, i see.

next year: no meat. no more feeling obligated to wear makeup if i don’t feel like it because it’s my damn face. and, i have decided, no more withholding compliments, whether for friends or strangers. yesterday while shopping for some reason everyone i ran into was just lovely and kind and wonderful, most especially one girl who was so happy and enthusiastic about everything (did you see this blowdryer i’m buying? isn’t that lace over there beautiful? chatting with me on and on, completely in love with everything) that i began to wonder why i don’t just go ahead and talk to strangers when i feel like there’s a connection to be made. so i went with it and when i loved a stranger’s hair, i told her so. and she didn’t take out an axe and murder me for intruding on the little bubble of isolation that americans seem to wear even when out in public places with other human beings. she smiled and said thank you. and it made me wonder why i have always held back before.

non-rhetorical question, why don’t we allow ourselves to interact with strangers? is it something more unique to this culture, or is it just a humans-in-general thing?

i didn’t blog about the second part of the seventh movie when i saw it, because as silly as it may sound, it really was very emotional for me. my dad read the sorcerer’s stone to me when i was seven years old, and from that point until this summer, i haven’t ever not had something new to look forward to. from the fourth book on i read every book in one day, the moment i got it, even if it meant i had to read as i ate (or skip eating altogether) or stay up until six in the morning (which i did several times). for a while my dad had to actually ban me from reading the books, because i literally would read nothing else. i always said i grew up with harry potter, and not just that i grew up reading the books about him- i was seven when i read sorcerer’s stone, in which he was eleven, and this summer, when the last deathly hallows movie came out in which he was seventeen, i was fifteen, so to me it really felt like i was growing up with him, if at rather odd rates.

even once the last book came out, i wasn’t completely heartbroken, even though i knew how the story ended, because at least there were still the last few movies to look forward to (i sobbed uncontrollably for hours off and on after finishing the book anyway). but about half an hour into watching deathly hallows pt. 2 this summer, i really got to thinking about how lucky i was that i got to be growing up as these books were coming out. if i have kids, sure, they can read the books, and i can read them to my little sister who’s now six and a half, but they’ll never really get the experience of reading a book and waiting for the next one to come out, coming up with ideas about what will happen next, who’s good, who’s bad, and then be relieved after all that waiting when j.k. rowling’s ideas were so much better than yours. they’ll just be able to pick up the next book and go straight on. it hit me that i had actually been so absurdly privileged to have been part of a generation that had that experience. it was honestly the most emotional movie of my life. and, of course, i cried so loudly that my friend’s mom had to lean over and hush me.

these books were such a huge part of my life. they still are. until i turned eleven, there was a genuine part of me that knew it was ridiculous but, deep down, prayed every single time i read the books that i’d get a hogwarts acceptance letter on my birthday, or just that at some point in my life there would be a moment like this in which i found out i was right, it was real. god, they were just such good, good books, there’s really nothing i can say that will do them justice. i started reading them at an incredibly awkward stage of life when i didn’t have many friends and was always just out of place, and i can remember nights where i’d be crying myself to sleep, and then wake up and read about ron and harry saving hermione from the troll, or another of my favorite parts, and things would be okay again. and as sad as i am that it’s over, i am so, so grateful for the wizarding world jo created.

so months overdue: thank you, jo.

last night i had dreams of fingers linked; that moment deciding
i would not be
this flower-scented thing. this warm,
deep space for your enjoyment, a body, oppression
incarnate, i cannot think,
such contraries.

why is there
such symbolism in red?
it is a color that kills you
with its reality
by inches.
what i need is to scream.
give credit where it is due, this
brutality
can never exist outside of

how long until i ceased to allow myself
to be resigned to hell?
i wonder, as i dip my fingers into the pool
of water that lies
along the ridge of my collar bone. i am curious
of all the things the dictionary claims
do not exist.
when my fingernails gouge into my cheek
i realize i’ve begun to
equate food with death.

there are three hairs in the indentation
beside my kneecap, untouched by
my razor.
i left them there to spite you with my humanity.