the trip to north carolina part iii: the final showdown with chicago

in case you've completely forgotten about the trip to north carolina i started telling you about, you can read my past posts here and here.

and now... the finale of our saga.

when my sister and her husband dropped me off at the airport, there was some confusion with my ticket. for some reason it was showing up that i'd already checked in, which i obviously hadn't yet, since i was standing there. they got it sorted out eventually and i said my goodbyes and headed to my gate. it wasn't long before the plane took off and i was on my way back to (dun dun DUUUUUUUNNN) chicago.

remember that time i had a blog?

oh hello, gentle readers. just got back from spending two weeks seeing things like this. no big deal. :)

i promise to write the conclusion to my eons-old trip-to-north-carolina-saga this weekend. you have my word, now that i'm not being eaten by school. also, i'm hoping to get some other posts ready to go too, including posts about the aforementioned trip to greece.

moar poetry! i {heart} southern utah

more poetry, kids. we will return to our regularly scheduled program soon.

if it were possible for a person to have a crush on a location, i would daydream about southern utah. SU+BJ=luv 4-evah. it's where i was born, and every march for the past three years i've found myself drawn there, either consciously or not. the weather starts to turn, and i feel that pull for my annual pilgrimage home.

so here. have a poem about it.



I have red dust in my blood.
My skin is layered with eons-old silt
and my ribs
are framed
by rock canyons:

Grand to the lower right
Bryce the upper left,
Zion just over my heart.

This is the clay that formed me.
This is my inheritance.
And when I die,
return my body to the red earth

south
by southwest.

unbelievable

sometimes, i wonder what i did to deserve my friends.

last night, i got my taxes done and found out that i owe $500 in taxes. i was counting on that tax return a bit, though i could live without it. but owing $500? i've recently been racking up some medical bills and related expenses. went in to check for a sinus infection, went out with blood tests, ultrasounds, and some news that isn't entirely unexpected, but no less unwelcome.

change your life right now, or it will change for you and you won't have a chance to go back.

i was a little overwhelmed trying to think of where i could squeeze an extra $500 out of my turnip of a bank account. i sent a text to one of my friends as i sat in the driveway of my family's tax accountant, teary and looking for a bit of sympathy. i feel like i can't catch a break right now.

this morning, she called me, asked me if she could stop by. i said of course, despite my third-day hair and cluttered apartment.  she showed up with no makeup on, in her pajamas, with a book she'd been telling me about.  she held it while we chatted, and then she handed it to me as she left and told me to look in it five minutes after she left.

there was an envelope inside, with $500, marked brenda's break.

i am the most coordinated person on earth.

last night, i slipped getting out of the bathtub, banged up my leg royally*, sat on a burning candle, and pulled the towel rack off the wall. then i gave up on the day and went to bed at 9:00.

iiii am a rockstar.

best thing? wasn't even my bathtub. so... sorry about that towel rack, my dear sister. i will get you a new one, i promise.






*"royally," as in "very purple and looks very intimidating." it kind of looks (and feels) like the inside of my knee was run over.  so much ouch. the bruises haven't even all started showing up yet. right now they're just blueish purplish knots. i'm not one for emoticons on this blog, but... :(  ouch.

more poetry!: Tonight

real post soon, i promise! (i hope!) for now... more poetry!

Tonight

I want to lie stretched
                   beneath
the heavy moon.

I want to sip, soak until
my fingertips fold
  and I drip tarnished silver
  and leave footprints
                 that glow.

another sidenote: another bit of poetry

life has be insanely, frantically, tear-inducingly busy lately, so i apologize for leaving you hanging re: my trip back from north carolina. it will come. in the meantime, i shall re-purpose my writing assignments for class and give you a bit of poetry.



Matter

I have a list of what I would change
if I could remake this body.
as if I could revise
the shape of my waist
the taper of my calves
the unseen bones of my wrists.


When I was fourteen they called me
monster-- the boys
with stepladder voices and downy mouths.
Monster. The word measured my mass
against the value of flat bellies
and coltish legs
and by some
trick of
physics
made me

less.