Mr. Brown, You've Disappointed Me Once Again

He said his time was unspent, his promises un-sung.  He told me he was waiting for the winds to change, to lift his trodden feet off the dirt and carry him away to a different state.  Someplace where the street corners are crooked and the gutters are empty.  He wanted a new building to look at every day on his way to get his morning coffee.  He wanted less alcohol and his mom to stop calling him.  He said all her phone calls ended the same: a broken plate and a mark on his forehead.

He said that he saves $30 from each of his pay checks, but he doesn't know what for.  He just saves it.  

He said he loves Tennessee in the winter.  

He said that he would call me when he figures out how to stop seeing rain everywhere.  

I still haven't heard back.

Concerto For Piano And Violin In C Minor

You must think me mad.

Well I have no reason to reason with you.  Because you never did learn to get to know me, and you never did learn to let me be.

But I will still claim to love you, now and for forever.  You don't deserve that at all, but I give it freely.  I understand the things we never speak of.  I understand the things you cannot see.

But you did always say that I was going to suffer.

And you always did say I was at fault.

You told me once that I was no better than the soil, 

and that I'd always be plain and dull and small.

What To Expect From Me For The Next Five Years:

-A lot of missed phone calls

-A lot of canceled weekend trips

-Short days

-Long nights

-Cookies (apologies)

-Music

-Half-finished craft projects

-3:00 am research papers

-Stained notebooks

-Unopened stationary

-About 4 really long hugs

-A lot of back aches

-Trash runs in the middle of the night

-Insecurity

-Carefully planned bedsheets

-Morning breath

-A half-present mind

-Paris themed walls

-Too many blog posts

-One sided conversations about how I think my legs are getting  really chubby

-No eye contact

-A box in my closet full of crap memories
-Matthew Broderick movie marathons

-Spice scented candles

-Unused ice skates

-An unfinished screenplay for a zombie movie

-A really long bucket list

-Exhausted use of the word awesome

-Fake laughing

-Awkward moments

-Ignored questions

-3200 used matches

-Hours of listening to classical music set to funky drum beats*

-Hipster jokes

-Glee: The Music - Volumes 2,3, and 5

-Duct tape pens

-Christmas sweaters

-Unwashed dishes
-Empty shelves
-Empty promises

*

My Indian Nose

"You have your grandmother's eyes, you have your father's nose."

They picked a little white girl to play Cinderella in my third grade play.  And I didn't think much of it, really.  But when they picked a blue eyed girl to play Rapunzel a few years after, I realized I'd never be that kind of princess.

I knew he was Indian when I turned 11.  That was the year my little sister asked him what tigers looked like.  That was the year I got glasses.  That was the year he ripped a chunk of hair out of my doll's head.  I knew it like I knew that yellow was just a color, and green was not.  Yes, that was the year his own mother died, and I recalled the day I met her years before and we didn't speak at all because neither of us knew how.  But I remember the tears on her face when we left.  She must have loved me, I just never heard it for myself.  

But he was Indian to me for the first time that year, and I can't say why.  I noticed that his skin looked darker and his grammar was poor, and his head had started balding, and his arms were more hairy.  I thought it was strange.  I never thought about what that made me until I was 15, and someone asked me if I had a feather or a dot*.  

They say that discovering yourself is like waking up.  And now I know why.  It took me 18 years, but I now understand the story of the lines on my hands and the curve of my nose.  I understand why my fingers bend backwards, as if there is no bone.  I understand the thick, dark hairs on my arms and my almond shaped eyes.  I know why my irises hide my pupils.  I know why my skin scars too easily and why sun screen was never necessary.  I get it.  I'm made for the sun and for the colors.  I'm made for rain and dust and heart.

I've fallen in love with the people and the country that I come from.  They are loud and nosy and stubborn, but they love with a love that matches God's.  They feel with their mouths and hear with their eyes.  And while many of them live with nothing, they are without a doubt the happiest people I know. And I love them and all that they stand for.  

Tradition, honor, family, and love.

నేను నా కుటుంబం మరియు నా సంస్కృతి ప్రేమ. నేను భారత రక్త కలిగి గర్వపడుతున్నాను. నేను లోపాలు కలిగి, మరియు నేను విచారం కలిగి, కానీ నేను వాటిని నాకు వదిలి కలిగి అనుకుంటున్నారా ఎప్పుడూ. వారు నా పూర్వీకులు నాకు కనెక్ట్ విషయాలు ఉన్నాయి. వారు నన్ను ఇంటికి తీసుకురావడానికి.

My aunt Margret, me, and my father

*The answer to that, by the way, is neither.

No one cares about the promises you keep.

Snow In August

There's a cold hallway in my building that leads to the roof.  Dish washer empty, curtains pulled together, I wonder where to hide the key.  That cold hallway will still be there tomorrow morning, but I'll stand in the middle of it until my neighbor's light goes off.

I figure one day I'll have somewhere to be on nights like this.  Maybe you'll invite me to go for Chinese.  Maybe we'll finally go to Moab.  Maybe that carnival will still be open, and maybe your plans will fall through.  Maybe we'll ride the ferris wheel, twice.  And maybe I won't get sick.  But maybe if I do, you'll buy me ice cream to calm my stomach.  And maybe you won't think that's lame.

There's a girl in my building who passes me every Sunday on her way up to the top.  I can hear her calling out into the open sometimes.  "My days are empty, every day."  And I believe it's true.  Because it's our collective truth.  She'll be the framework and I'll be the floor, and he'll be the walls, and you'll be the roof.  We'll be the box, and everything will just be expected.  Cream paint with complementing shades of beige.  Pottery barn furnished.  And a pug.  Christmas will always be on December 25th, and school will always start in August.  Mondays will be long and Fridays will be fast and the living room still needs to be vacuumed, I asked you to do that two weeks ago. And that picture you drew in Preschool has been on the fridge for twenty years because you haven't yet made something better to replace it, not because your mom likes it there.

Maybe it'll snow this August, and they'll cancel school.

Or maybe it'll be just the same as it's always been, and you won't offer to carry my books.

And maybe someday I'll figure out how to open that door at the end of that cold hallway that leads up to the roof.  And I'll find that girl that passes me every Sunday.  And I'll ask her why she hasn't jumped yet.  And she'll say, "I thought you'd never ask."

That's when she jumps.

Quiero Tus Manos En Mis Ojos

Darling, I'm not the same person I was when I awoke this morning.  I don't know what it was, but I no longer want those things I so desperately settled for the night before yesterday.  Instead, I want your chiseled knees bumping into mine underneath the table, and your morning breath.  I want your eye lids to only close halfway when you look at me.  I want your broken fountain pens and your empty journals.  I want your temper tantrums and your bitter comments and your cold cup of tea.  I want your jar of strawberry jam to be my jar of strawberry jam.

Our strawberry jam.

And darling, I'll take your soaking silence over your finger tips any day.

I just want to be able to tell you that your eyes match the mountains and all the uncharted seas.  That the lights on the hillside are all yours to keep, and that the clocks that think they're needed don't count down the time for you.

Darling, you make me wonder why hearts aren't shaped like hearts, and why that matters to me so much.  You're peaches and red gingham table cloths and daffodils.  You're wind chimes in June.  You're Saturday's sunrise.  You're violins.

And I love you, just because.