HEY LAZY FUCKER- yeah, you. don't even pretend that you are going to read this entire wordy ass entry, cause you're not. you don't read enough. i changed my favorite books & i want some new ones to read, so don't leave a comment pretending that you read my writing, just recommend a book.
*********************************
i went to the library today for the first time in more years than i would like to admit. i grew up in between the dusty shelves of dusty books with stories pressed between their dusty pages. each year i grew up and grew older and grew wiser courtesy of the LA unified school district, i shifted one row to the left, from childrens to young adult fiction to fiction to philosophy and fantasy and non-fiction. that library and i had a slow seductive love affair, whispered knowledge and eager acceptance. until, enough years had passed and i had scanned each shelf with decreasing levels of interest as adolescence made me masquerade as someone who was not a geek, not infatuated with words and pages and the flourescent hum of the librarys well lit silence. i crumpled up the pages i wrote and used them to stuff my empty bra. and i definitely didn't go to the library. but, high school's over and no one is watching anymore, like no one is reading these words.
i am a geek, no cooler than the dewey decimal system, and infinitely less useful or organized. so today, i didn't drink beer with all my painfully attractive friends. i didn't sit on the beach with an open mouthed laugh, esposing my flawless sparkling teeth, like some abercrombie & fitch print ad. i didn't do any of the things that 20-something college cool kids are supposed to do. i walked through the narrow aisles of my library. like a prodigal daughter, i returned to my giving tree, the one who's branches i had used to carve the bridges i have burned along my way. unfamiliar faces on book jackets reminded just how long i'd been away. the dust had grown dustier and sweet valley high paperbacks were all packed away. harry potter and his sorcerer told tales i'd never read. and i remembered i had misplaced the da vinci codes before i got to the end.
the very last shelf in the very last row, after fairy tales, after adult fiction after philosophy and after fantasy, held a row of matching volumes of a series i had never read before. at first i thought it was some particularly avant garde postmodernism, the first volume began right at the end.
"and they all lived happily ever after" it began. or it ended, rather. this was the part where the story ended and the living began.
it was a long long story, so i flipped to the last page, where the stage was set for the ending to make everything that really mattered start.
cinderella walked, barefoot and broken, along a muddy path, her torn hem dragging along behind. her head was hung, in defeat and in relief, of not having to hold up that heavy crown. it had pained her frail neck, and the diamonds on her fingers had made it hard to hold a pen. so cinderella, without her fairy god mothers wand, took jewelry, tiara and two dainty glass slippers and kicked the motherfuckers in the moat. she journeyed out, alone into the forest with only an idea of where to go. she had dreamed of a place, one night while in bed, not alone, but with a hollow prince who made her lonely.
she wasn't sure where she was going, where this dreamed of place was, but she knew that somewhere she could smoke, she could be unladylike and unpretty and unhelpful. she could say motherfucker and cunt and masterbate loudly at all times of day. there was a land of excess where money didn't matter and there were no jewels that sparkled but poets poemed and music was played.
now this story was different than what i had read and suddenly cinderella didn't seem so far away. so i forgot about adult manners and the things that make my mother blush and i sat down crosslegged right there. right in the way, where no one could get by and you could maybe see up my skirt. i chewed on my nails and i cried and i read, the way cinderella turned out just like me.
she walked along, unshowered, unshaved, and with no perfume to forgive the smells walking made. a voice came then, "aye princess walk with me, my eyes have been lonely and you're such beautiful things." cinderella looked down at her calloused hands and soiled dress and tears stung her eyes at his mocking. "go away, boy, i've no time for you, don't you tease me, just go."
he laughed and he shrugged and he walked right beside her and he built her a bridge when they got to a stream. she ignored him and stepped, on a mossy covered rock and wading right through the freezing water. "who walks through a stream? i like you princess." he muttered and she fell, despite herself, not in the stream but into him.
it was getting late, getting dark, all the stars pushed pinpoints through the dark blueblack veil that had hidden the sunlight away.
he told stories of skies that hung at the tip of the world, and of how ribbons were weaved in bright northern lights. cinderella laughed at the parts where eskimo sleigh drivers got drunk and she forgot that he had no white horse and he couldnt take her away. she left where she was and she never got where she was going, but through streams and all alone, she slayed dragons with a prince unarmored and vulnerable, ghosts were born and without prince charmings white steed, they happily walked away.
they live and they die, and they love and they try and the story is too long for me to read. but slowly, i live it, i pen it, i delete it, and years, like dust on pages, fall away.
THE END.
but, ONCE UPON A TIME, all endings were beginnings, and memories never died but would quickly fade. somethings in life cant be rationalized or explained, they just are and have to be.
today, charred branches of my local giving tree dropped a red apple in my lap. i took a bite and fell awake.
dreams are to be had.
*********************************
i went to the library today for the first time in more years than i would like to admit. i grew up in between the dusty shelves of dusty books with stories pressed between their dusty pages. each year i grew up and grew older and grew wiser courtesy of the LA unified school district, i shifted one row to the left, from childrens to young adult fiction to fiction to philosophy and fantasy and non-fiction. that library and i had a slow seductive love affair, whispered knowledge and eager acceptance. until, enough years had passed and i had scanned each shelf with decreasing levels of interest as adolescence made me masquerade as someone who was not a geek, not infatuated with words and pages and the flourescent hum of the librarys well lit silence. i crumpled up the pages i wrote and used them to stuff my empty bra. and i definitely didn't go to the library. but, high school's over and no one is watching anymore, like no one is reading these words.
i am a geek, no cooler than the dewey decimal system, and infinitely less useful or organized. so today, i didn't drink beer with all my painfully attractive friends. i didn't sit on the beach with an open mouthed laugh, esposing my flawless sparkling teeth, like some abercrombie & fitch print ad. i didn't do any of the things that 20-something college cool kids are supposed to do. i walked through the narrow aisles of my library. like a prodigal daughter, i returned to my giving tree, the one who's branches i had used to carve the bridges i have burned along my way. unfamiliar faces on book jackets reminded just how long i'd been away. the dust had grown dustier and sweet valley high paperbacks were all packed away. harry potter and his sorcerer told tales i'd never read. and i remembered i had misplaced the da vinci codes before i got to the end.
the very last shelf in the very last row, after fairy tales, after adult fiction after philosophy and after fantasy, held a row of matching volumes of a series i had never read before. at first i thought it was some particularly avant garde postmodernism, the first volume began right at the end.
"and they all lived happily ever after" it began. or it ended, rather. this was the part where the story ended and the living began.
it was a long long story, so i flipped to the last page, where the stage was set for the ending to make everything that really mattered start.
cinderella walked, barefoot and broken, along a muddy path, her torn hem dragging along behind. her head was hung, in defeat and in relief, of not having to hold up that heavy crown. it had pained her frail neck, and the diamonds on her fingers had made it hard to hold a pen. so cinderella, without her fairy god mothers wand, took jewelry, tiara and two dainty glass slippers and kicked the motherfuckers in the moat. she journeyed out, alone into the forest with only an idea of where to go. she had dreamed of a place, one night while in bed, not alone, but with a hollow prince who made her lonely.
she wasn't sure where she was going, where this dreamed of place was, but she knew that somewhere she could smoke, she could be unladylike and unpretty and unhelpful. she could say motherfucker and cunt and masterbate loudly at all times of day. there was a land of excess where money didn't matter and there were no jewels that sparkled but poets poemed and music was played.
now this story was different than what i had read and suddenly cinderella didn't seem so far away. so i forgot about adult manners and the things that make my mother blush and i sat down crosslegged right there. right in the way, where no one could get by and you could maybe see up my skirt. i chewed on my nails and i cried and i read, the way cinderella turned out just like me.
she walked along, unshowered, unshaved, and with no perfume to forgive the smells walking made. a voice came then, "aye princess walk with me, my eyes have been lonely and you're such beautiful things." cinderella looked down at her calloused hands and soiled dress and tears stung her eyes at his mocking. "go away, boy, i've no time for you, don't you tease me, just go."
he laughed and he shrugged and he walked right beside her and he built her a bridge when they got to a stream. she ignored him and stepped, on a mossy covered rock and wading right through the freezing water. "who walks through a stream? i like you princess." he muttered and she fell, despite herself, not in the stream but into him.
it was getting late, getting dark, all the stars pushed pinpoints through the dark blueblack veil that had hidden the sunlight away.
he told stories of skies that hung at the tip of the world, and of how ribbons were weaved in bright northern lights. cinderella laughed at the parts where eskimo sleigh drivers got drunk and she forgot that he had no white horse and he couldnt take her away. she left where she was and she never got where she was going, but through streams and all alone, she slayed dragons with a prince unarmored and vulnerable, ghosts were born and without prince charmings white steed, they happily walked away.
they live and they die, and they love and they try and the story is too long for me to read. but slowly, i live it, i pen it, i delete it, and years, like dust on pages, fall away.
THE END.
but, ONCE UPON A TIME, all endings were beginnings, and memories never died but would quickly fade. somethings in life cant be rationalized or explained, they just are and have to be.
today, charred branches of my local giving tree dropped a red apple in my lap. i took a bite and fell awake.
dreams are to be had.
VIEW 22 of 22 COMMENTS
rottenart:
this is a perfect example of why i shouldn't write. people like you blow me out of the fucking water.
thejuanupsman:
I felt five times as special. 
. I am doing a little better today. Kind of. Waiting for a call. always waiting for someone. Thanks for all the love and support. Are you doing ok? By the way cutting back on smoking is kicking my ass a little so if I am up & down that may be part of it.
. I am doing a little better today. Kind of. Waiting for a call. always waiting for someone. Thanks for all the love and support. Are you doing ok? By the way cutting back on smoking is kicking my ass a little so if I am up & down that may be part of it.