What Should You Be? Keep on, Keep on, Be a Rebel

Lexi told me I'm being a slacker for taking so long to write a new post. And she's not wrong. I've just been kind of busy. My apologies to you, Lexi, and anyone who was, apparently, disappointed in my lack of posting recently.

But!

I've got a story to tell today. It's not my story, but I've been thinking about it a lot lately.

Last winter, I was talking (and also probably crying) to Dani (most likely about GS). Whatever I had said drove Dani to tell me a story about his son, Robbie. Dani hushed me. "Bubba," he said. "You're like Robbie." Then he went on to tell me how he instructed Robbie to get dressed and after a few minutes heard a cry, "Papa! Papa! My legs are broken!" Dani, upon arriving at the doorway to his son's room, saw Robbie with both legs in the same pant leg. "That's you, Bubba," he said in his inimitable accent. "You've got both your feet in the same hole and you think you're legs are broken!"

***

Olivia and I watched this movie called "We Are The Best" about three thirteen-year-old girls who start a punk band. I loved it and watched it again by myself the next day. It was just striking to me: these girl were fantastically aware how everything they experienced was wrong, and yet incapable of explaining and expressing themselves. They lived as far away from feminine as possible, yet still were these emotional, loving, and caring friends with extremely effeminate characteristics. Their music and band were constantly put down, not just because "punk is dead," but also because they're girls, trying to be part of something considered to be inherently masculine. The three girls didn't seem to fit any of the boxes society offered them, and were constantly brought down because of it.

You watch the characters grow some, while also maintaining their integrity. One can also predict the way these girls lives will progress and evolve, or at least question it. I wonder how long Hedvig, the blonde, Christian girl, will stay friends with Klara, the God-hating, mohawk-wearing bass player. I also worry about the negative effects on Bobo, the smallest of the group. She seems constantly surrounded by selfish and inconsiderate people (her mother and Klara) and her school-girl crushes that don't work out feel like larger, more hurtful blows than others because she is always short-changed, gipped, and left out. I worry and wonder and frustratedly reexamine what I've viewed for some answers, because beyond the issues these girls are facing personally, they are also dealing with the same sputters and falterings in confidence every 13-year-old girl does, Bobo especially. Despite their shared and personal issues, they seem to understand the power of caring for each other and respond to the negativity they face through a war cry: "WE ARE THE BEST!"

(Here is the translation of the lyrics)

What are you going to be when you grow up

Are you going to become like your father and mother

Are you going to be a boss

A salesman

Or CEO somewhere

Or maybe you're just happy with

Whatever lousy job you can get

You just don't care at all

And things can turn out however they like

What are you going to be

Now you're young and rebellious like hell

You play hard against hard

You now exactly what you want

And you don't want to become one of those

Keep on, keep on being a rebel

Keep on, keep on being yourself

Keep on, keep on being a rebel

What will become of your future then

How will it be in a few years

Are you going to sink into a couch

What will happen with you

What are you going to be

Wake up-go to work-work-work-eat lunch

Same thing will happen tomorrow

Work-take the metro-come home and sit down and stare

That's not a life

That's slavery

So keep on, keep on being a rebel...

***

"Cause in a room full of loud the most punk thing is quiet. In a room full of "Fuck you," the most punk thing is "Thank you."
-Patrick Stump 

Actually, I Think I am Just Going to Go to Sleep

Yes, yes we do.

“A Skeleton in Water” (Wow, Sammi, you're so good at titles. Thanks, Sammi!)

I.

In closing my eyes,

my eyelids cover the distance

of 100 miles, and again

when opening them.

The ceiling and I

(though light years apart)

look at each other,

exchanging understanding glances

of what it means

to crack and peel.

Air travels the length

of Texas to fill my lungs,

which I can feel,

resigned and disintegrating,

having gathered

a rainforest’s

worth of oxygen

just to touch my ribs.

Exhaling a windstorm of air,

I roll, travelling an acre

to the end of my bed, and

allow myself to fall.

My feet hit the ground

with the momentum of a dive

from the top of Mount Everest.

Despite my growth, I don’t feel

the shortened distance of my

new height and the world,

out of thoughtfulness,

continues to encompass

the distance of infinity.

Traversing the distance

of the Sahara Desert,

I arrive at my desk,

and reach

(from the bottom of the Mariana’s Trench)

to grab my car keys;

holding them at armslength,

they might as well be on the moon.

The thought of traversing a tundra,

which covers the distance to Jupiter,

just to arrive at my car,

diminishes my wave of motivation and resolve

as quickly as it formed; my keys

drop from the Empire State Building

and land on my desk.

(I lean back

and plummet off

the end of

the earth.)

II.

The connection,

the plug, fixing my brain to

the rest of me,  requires

the world’s supply of extension cords.

Voices reach me as whispers.

I scream, knowing my friends ears

are too far away to hear me.

The bones in my fingers

slide away from one another:

tendons and muscle failing me; they stretch,

and then fall away.

I cannot bend my ankles; I have no

lungs that ask for air.

What purpose could such a body serve?

My bones, reaching the deafening quiet

that follows immense cacophony, splinter.

Disintegrating, the dust of my fossils

scatters as particles. My atoms find

no attraction in one another.

I am everywhere.

"Please don't go, please don't go

I love you so, I love you so

Please break my heart"

***

"I know because I've seen your footsteps, sometimes the road gets so dark, you forget what light was like.

I know, it's easy to forget that it's just the end of the day, not the end of you.

And if you'd let me walk with you, I'd tell you that it doesn't matter who you walk with, as long as you walk this road, well."

-"The Place I Stopped Briefly" (Source)

Headaches and January Blues

Using my hand, I lower myself onto the trunk in Mike's room. My head swims and my watch tells me I have twenty minutes before class. I feel sick but begin mentally preparing myself for the relatively soon walk to class. Mike and I continue our conversation:
"I don't really know," I say. "It's just, like... Everything that I am is so anti-instutitonal."
Mike doesn't miss a beat and his exasperation is evident when he says, "Sammi! That's a terrible way to live."
My brain feels water-logged and I am not properly offended by Mike's comment, nor am I mentally capable enough to respond with the ferocity I normally would. Instead, I shrug and curl up on the trunk. My eyes closed, the world finally stopped spinning and I could concentrate.

I wanted to tell Mike, in more detail than I had in the rest of our conversation, my reasoning; I wanted to make him understand: "Institution" is a vague word and while there are some social constructs that simply cannot be ignored, conforming to ones that are detrimental or harmful or problematic to you or others isn't mandatory. Anti-institution isn't anti-community; it's not anti-social; it's not anti-personal relationship; it's not anti-empathy or anti-reciprocity.

Anti-institution is a lack of trust, not in the people I know and understand, but in those who are privy to more and decide not to share. (Yo man, I'm not sure how I feel about all information being available, but I'm certainly not about this current system.) It is the belief that I am important, intelligent, and capable enough to make my own decisions based upon the information given to me, my own personal preference, and the well-being of myself and others. It's not letting others make these decisions for me, simply because I know myself and what I want better than they do. Whether my decisions include partaking in recognized social constructs is based upon everything I know and believe at the time. Anti-institution is everything I do of my own free will, whether it is a conformative action or not, which creates a lot of room for new ideas and opinions and beliefs.

Anti-institution has no place for, "That's the way we've always done it." Anti-institution is constantly inspecting the walls and ceilings of social constructions for termites and mold because we are ready for change. We are ready to scrap everything we've created thus far for something better, something to keep the termites out. No idea or system can last forever. Some don't stand to come past half-thought. But anti-institution is thought. It's a constant need to search and imagine something new and better even after we imagine something new and better. Anti-institution is everything I struggle and aspire to be and I don't know if it's something I can ever make Mike understand.

***

At New Year's, Geoff was playing music from his phone, which sat in his breast pocket. After one J. Cole song came on, I called him over.

"Dude, dude, dude," I half-chanted. "Can you play that song? That "Just Can't Get Enough" Song?"
After some scrolling and some arguing as to which song was which, Geoff played "Can't Get Enough" by J. Cole and walked back over to where some of the boys were lining up fireworks to be lit. I leaned toward Christine and started rapping the first verse. A verse later, Geoff had circled back to us, and we shouted to each other the honest-to-god best line in the song, "I love it when you give me head/ I hate it when you give me headaches." During the rest of our time together at the Rosens' Geoff and I repeated the line to each other like goons followed by peals of laughter.

***

I want summer. It's literally only January and I can't wait for all this fucking snow to melt.

***

I love Ed Sheeran. I think he's really cool, honestly, and I usually sincerely appreciate his lyrics. Ya know? Honestly. But that's why I'm not super stoked about that song, "Thinkin Out Loud." It's adorable, but it truthfully doesn't have the same magic that the rest of Ed's lyrics have. Like: "I don't get waves of missing you anymore/ they're more like tsunami tides in my eyes" and "Give a little time to me or burn this out/ We'll play hide and seek to turn this around/ All I want is the taste that your lips allow" and "after my blood is drowning in alcohol" and "they say I'm up and coming like I'm fucking in an elevator."  All of his lyrics are hella and I just feel like "Thinking Out Loud" is missing that.

***

"You cured my January blues
Yeah you made it all alright
I got a feeling I might have lit the very fuse
that you were trying not to light
you were a stranger in my phonebook
i was acting like i knew
cause i had nothing to lose
when the winter's in full swing
ain't it funny what you'll do"

***

lol. I almost forgot. I totally wrote stuff.

I think I titled this "You are nothing," which is a little bit depressing but I don't really have any other qualms with that title.

The way a game of

hopscotch, turns into a

hop, skip, and a jump off

a slightly-larger-than-you-thought

cliff;

The way the sun,

ashamed of its boldness and height,

spends the rest of the day

receding

(in with a bang,

out with the cold, chilling lights of night

seeping in to fossilize your bones);

The way the waves

reach foamy fingers

for the driest

swaths of sand

before

folding back into itself:

returning with the confidence

of high-tide

ebbing with the embarrassment

of low-tide

is the way that I

find solace in the

smallest version

of myself

after realizing

(with a crushing lack of finality)

that I am a speck

piloting a titan.

I think I'll call this one "Titles are for schmucks. Later haterz"

Gathering

fabric at the front

of my hips

I walk on

the mountains

of concrete,

the water rising

to their peaks

I sit

to examine

the bottoms of my

feet

thinking that

maybe

the holes in me are

(simultaneously)

smaller

and

mountainous

***

Yo dude. Writing is difficult and I'm inconsistent. So, I'm sorry for being terrible at this, but also not that sorry.

***

1. It was sparkling cider. 2. Lexi is still putting up with my shit in 2015

STOP

Get Out of My Life

1. I would sell my soul for clear skin.

2. The meaning of life is having glasses ugly enough to make you look pretty.
3. I don't really feel like being a person, yet here we are.

***

Maybe if I

were instead

a baby bird,

you wouldn't always

have to come up

with excuses

for holding me,

soft and tender

in your hands.

Maybe if I

were instead

a baby bird,

I wouldn't always

have to come up

with excuses

for not flying away

from here.

***

Some days in this life, you are the tracks that lead off to some mysterious and wonderful distance. Some days you are the train, strong and filled with purpose and fire and the promise of a destination. Some days, my friends, you will be the coins and on those days, when the weight of the world is about to run you over and the tracks feel like they are frozen and silent, just remember…soon, someone will run to the tracks, ignore the distance they lead to, forget the sound of the train that passed, and search frantically for your transformed self, shining and smooth. They will pick you up, they will hold you forever and when age catches up to them, it won’t be the train or the tracks they will remember, it will be you, the coin.
***

Please
grab hold
of my neck
and whisper
sternly
into my ear
that you did not forget
to remember
me.
You did not forget
the way I warm you up,
the pace
of our love.
The way my heart is tender
or how hard you laugh?
The way I smell
or how my arms
hold you
like they were made
out of the empty space
that surrounds
you?

***

I stayed there, alone, waiting for the sound of your legs in the long grass. I waited there, quiet, watching for a glimpse of your hair in the wind. I am there still, tired, believing you will find me.
***

***

In other news, Tyler Knott Gregson is a bro. My life is a mess. There is something fundamentally wrong with people who enjoy socializing. I literally don't want to be anything. The absence of something is where I'm sort of at right now, which is, ya know, awesome.

"Bleeding-Heart Liberal"

We all had a case of the post-Thanksgiving lazies, so my mother was scrolling through Netflix, trying to pick a movie for us all to watch. I somehow convinced her we should watch Hotel Rwanda. In the middle, my father kept pestering me. Asking if I wanted to go hunting with him, if I wanted a gun for Christmas; he did this repeatedly and in spite of my obvious discomfort with the subject. My mom said, about the movie, "It's almost like Hitler and the Jews in Germany."

"Mom," I was a little incredulous. "It was a genocide." 

Somehow, the subject changed and we were talking about planes. The Thanksgiving before I turned five, my dad and I flew to Utah and skied for a few days. On the way there, we were walking through security when my father saw someone we knew. Mr. Napoli is my friend Gaetano's father. (His family's just a little bit Italian.) His fat cheeks jiggled as he and my father joked for a few moments. I knew Mr. Napoli worked at the airport, but I didn't really understand what his job was. He had on a white button-up, black dress pants, and he had a long, black object in his hand as he leaned against the metal arches that sometimes beeped and sometimes didn't. He patted me on the head with meaty hands as my father asked him, "Do you ever, ya know, profile the people who walk through security?"

Mr. Napoli, blond mustache wiggling and balding brow sweating, laughed and said, "Of course."

My father laughed with him and said, in the airport, and then again, standing in the middle of the living room over ten years later, "A little profiling never hurt anybody."

I don't have a lot of words, but none of the ones I have are very nice and I think I just need to go to bed.

“Atticus—-" …said Jem bleakly. "How could they do it, how could they?"
“I don’t know, but they did it. They’ve done it before and they did it tonight and they’ll do it again and when they do it—seems that only children weep.”
— Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird

"Scars and Stripes" Source

"Today I am heartbroken.
Today I am angry.
I’m at a loss for words, so let this speak for its self.
Scars and Stripes, -Acrylic and ink on paper. 

"A lot of people have asked me if it’s ok for them to share this on their site or social media, and to all who have I thank you.
But I’ve left this unsigned and un-watermarked for a reason.
I don’t care much for the credit, all I care about is getting this out there.
It’s not about me, it’s not about promoting my art, and it’s not just about Mike Brown. This piece is about all those right now who are being persecuted by the state for their color. This is for every unwarranted traffic stop, every beating by an officer, every black child who is afraid to walk home from school, not from bullies, or pedophiles, or muggers, but scared to death by the very people who swore an oath to serve and protect them.
It’s not my image,
it’s theirs."

Little Girls on Skis

"Hold on," I said. "Just let me get ready." 

I moved to leave Liezl's room. I turned the doorknob and opened the door. As I was about to pass through the door and into the hallway, Liezl called me.

"Sam?"

I turned around. "Yeah?"

"Sometimes--some days, I feel like I'm in Colorado. Do you know what I mean? Does that make any sense?"

I leaned on the door jamb for support, fighting the urge to rest my head on it. "Yeah. No. Yeah. That makes sense. I know what you mean. I-I get you."

***

My mom called me about a week ago. "Dad wants to ski with you this weekend."

"What day?"

"Oh." She sounded surprised at my quickly implied agreement. "Saturday."

"Okay."

On Friday, I drove to Killington, took my pass picture, and drove home to wait for my parents.

On Saturday morning, my dad and I took the gondola to the top and began the cycle of the most ridiculously repetitive recreational sport I've ever had the opportunity and misfortune to partake in. 

On one of our first runs, we were standing in line, waiting to alternate with a group from the line next to us. To our left, a little girl was leaning on her poles and looking up to say something to a man, presumably her father. She pushed herself forward with little red mittens wrapped clumsily around the grips of her poles. My father took his left pole and pressed it across my shins, as if I was going to cut the father-daughter duo in front of us. I watched her; she stopped herself on the plastic line that said, "STOP STOP STOP," handed her father her poles, and took his hand as she shuffled and slid herself to the line that said, "LOAD HERE LOAD HERE LOAD HERE." He lifted her onto the chair when it swung around. Her skis whacked against each other and her little body bounced as the chair bumped over the first few wheels on the chairlift line.

Wearing skis is half standing and half sliding, but there were so many people on the first day Killington was open from the top to the bottom, there wasn't a lot of room for the "sliding" aspect of skiing. Between runs, I froze on the chairlift without my neckie or an actual jacket; my father teased me that I can't live in Vermont if I was going to be cold, joking I'd have to turn in my license for a Massachusetts one. I told him I wasn't complaining about the cold and therefore couldn't be scolded. I almost told him what I actually thought. I wanted to ask him if bravery was the absence of fear or just the overcoming of it, and if it was the latter, was I even cold if I didn't complain about it? But my father didn't want to hear any of that, so I put the tops of my poles in my armpits, slid my fingers from their individual sections of my gloves to keep them, observed the snow underneath my skis, and didn't say anything.