Sunday, September 18, 2011

Cooler Weather; Colder Beer

For a moment, just a moment, she walked into my line of sight. Her. The "she" that haunts my dreams, makes them hopes, makes me hope. The "her" who I can never get out of my mind, but I try. I swear I try. And try.
You spend days peeling back the memories, going over every part of your house like it's some sort of inventory day, in hopes that you can remove all traces of her. In hopes that she will not sneak up on you when you're not ready. I did all that. Spent days going through old pictures. Pictures that weren't necessarily of us or her, but of things we did together. There was the one of the fountain down near the park. She took the picture right before I fell in. Of course she'd tried to take one after, but her laughter prevented her from managing.
I found it, and I threw it away.
It's just a picture, after all. A picture of a fountain. Not that I don't like the fountain and not that it's not a good picture, but what if I'm going through the drawer where I keep my pictures and I find it? What then? The memory will hit me and I'll have to spend the day trying to come up with ways to remove the memory from my head.
I did so well until today.
All she has to do is walk by, without so much as a glimpse my way, and I'm devastated. Completely. My day is ruined now and I didn't even show up on her radar.
And October used to be my favorite month of the year.

Friday, May 6, 2011

The Dance of the Infamous


Dance on, Dance Man
Show the world your smooth legs.
Wear all the designer’s clothes
To make you look great.
Collapse in a fit of hunger,
Waiting too long to eat.
You can beat them once you join
And you will never be the same.

Jam on, Jam Man
Win the world with your tunes.
Cover your arms in ink
Because it’s the cool thing to do.
Shake it hard on a stage,
Party hard behind it.
Be their leader everyday,
Let them down and love it.

Dance on, Dance Man,
Dance, man, Dance.
Wear your clothes a little tighter,
And give the world a taste.
Dance in your own light,
And try not to fall down,
Just keep on dancing, man,
Dancing with the crowd.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

So What if I don't Capitalize?

While at church on Easter Sunday, I learned a valuable lesson in capitalization. While singing a praise song, the words pop up on the screen, "O death, where is your sting? O hell, where is your victory?"
While this may not catch everyone's attention, as an English teacher, I find joys in the little things in life. This happened to be one of them. Without capitalizing the word Hell, they've used it's more inappropriate brother, hell. Hell, representing the Christian afterlife for non-followers of Jesus Christ, should always be capitalized because it is the proper name for a place. While hell is better known as a curse word and is incidentally commonly preceded by the word "Oh".
So while in church on Sunday, I sang along with the words, "O hell." And I couldn't help but wonder if I was considered to be cussing since I knew the difference in the non-capitalized and the capitalized.
In reality, however, I simply had a good giggle about the typo and went on enjoying church.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

I Always Liked That One

I found her t-shirt today.
The red one that she always wore. I tried not to cry when my hands touched the fabric. The tears came anyway.
White letters decorated the front. They said something, formed words I should know. Every picture of her in my mind has that shirt. Every memory, she wears red.
I found that shirt today, and I thought of her. Of every good time. Of every bad time. I remembered her for the first time in a while. She must be mad that I have her shirt. It was her favorite one after all.
Cleaning out these memories isn’t as easy as she made it seem. It’s slow and tedious, and at times, it hurts. At least for me, it does. Sometimes, the memories are so raw that I can’t continue.
            But I must.
I want to be rid of her. At the same time, I want her here. That’s the reason I’ve put this off for so long. One side is finally winning. Finally I move on.
My mom never helps. “What happened to that girl?” she asks me every time I talk to her. “I always liked her.” I just tell her that I did, too. I always liked that one.
So I pack all of her things into one box. All the memories go in. I drop them in the dumpster outside my house. I say goodbye to her, all of her memories.
Everything but the red t-shirt.