Re: Anxious Toasts.

You can't go wrong with making a toast, even if it's made with cheap bottled-water you poured into a red plastic cup, because the world doesn't revolve around you and you don't actually drink. Listen up, this is toast to the present day, the present hour, even if you spend a few hours crying; darling, you don't need to cry, you just need to breathe. (Trust me on this one.) I can't recall the exact moment the universe began to hate for the sake of hating, but I can recall the exact moment I knew we had all the potential in the world to become something great.

The day my car battery died, I had somewhere to be for the first time in a long time. This isn't my idea of spectacular, and this isn't your idea of fun, but what do I know about the inner workings of your mind? I'll tell you what I know: I know you're obsessed with the north, and you can't stop the poetry from bleeding out of your fingertips; words are the same as blood and I still can't write on the walls without punishment. You created a world of perfection, and my bus stopped there, the guards let me through and I still don't understand why.

If you knew me the way I wish I knew you, I think the stars would start shining brighter and I think I might quit writing about death and lost hope, even if all the world went dark and you were the only thing left. Sometimes my world does grow dark, and you are the only thing left, but you don't know that and I leave the road with skinned knees.

Your collarbones, your hair, the way you whisper my name when you think no one can hear you. The moment you showed me my potential and I believed you. Tuesday, and I still hear your voice reading and re-reading – perfecting.

Is this the end of something and the beginning of typos, errors, mistakes? I'll figure it all out one day, but for now, I'm going to worry about my soul being taken by money and bank statements. I'm going to worry about the possible spiders in my closet that could kill me. I'm going to worry if I can spend my life searching the corners of the universe trying to find the meaning of everything, without ever finding anything. I'm going to worry about what we could have been, because I was too big of a coward.

You win, fear. You win, anxiety. You win, shaking hands, closed up throat, messed up fantasies. You win this round.

But I want to remind you that this is a toast made with cheap bottled-water, and this is a toast for the little things that make you tick, because you wouldn't be you without them. Here's to anxiety-ridden daydreams and trembling knees. Yes, I know I'm messed up, but that's what makes me, me. And if you can't accept that, don't bother pretending you 'get it'. You don't, and that's what makes you, you.

So thank you, society. Thank you, anxiety. Thank you, flaws. Thank you, wild hair and soft hands. Thank you, boy full of dreams – boy who taught me everything without really knowing it. Thank you, for making everything come together, to make me, me.

One day, it will all make perfect sense.

Forever Yours,

Rachel.

Speak for Yourself.

(Last SFYS of 2012. Here's a poem I read.)

I came into this world kicking and shouting

the words, “I'm invincible, I'm invincible!”

I remember the day I realized that if I tried

hard enough, I could touch the sky with my

trembling fingertips. And I almost did.

Floating through life, I ended up in a sea of

words, with no way out. The day I learned to

use those words, was the day I met you; White

winter winds and chaotic silence surrounding

everything we've ever loved.

Ink stained fingertips are my love song to

everything I've ever wanted. I closed my eyes

and threw a penny in the fountain of dreams

and came back with a wish bigger than it

could handle, a love song much too long to do

anything but smear the ink across pages

and pages.

Your wish was simple: to escape from death,

and escaping from death is easy, if you know

the right people. Call me your angel, I can

help you find the secret to life in this

world of explosions and liars.

You're blood and bones, dying to cheat Death

out of what she's due. But, you owe her. It's

not going to be easy, nothing is ever easy.

I take my lead from the people I used to know:

Fall in love, and you'll never get anywhere

you think you should be. You can't commit sin

if you never fall in love with the way a person

walks down an empty hallway, the sun hitting

their face in just the right way.

Following the map of our palms, running past

the river of hope, hiking up the

skyscrapers towards Heaven, we're headed for

salvation, we're headed for eternity.

That was the day you began to fed me matches,

and I swallowed them, one by one until I felt

as if I'd self-destruct; an atomic bomb, leaving

me in the grasp of eternity, a skeleton who

still remembers how to breathe.

Inhale, Exhale. Repeat.

You threw out the empty matchbox, and I watched

as you picked up your dusty ribcage, blew off

the cobwebs, and placed it back around your

heart, where it belongs. I didn't say a word;

I should have said something. The day you left

was the day I fell in love.

I was never out for blood, I was out for

someone to want me.

It turns out they're the same thing.

Here's to Poetry.

Forever Yours,

Rachel.

The time I wasn't a good blogger.

Based on this year's blogging statistics, you can't really expect much from me in the bloggin' world. (SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY.)

Future posts: 'The times I laughed at students sleeping at school and how I became one of them.', 'Apartment 316: the diary of an awkward roommate (aka: me.)', '19 years and I've accomplished nothing that will get me through adulthood.'

One of these days I'll get to finishing a real-life post, promise.

Until then, here's some gifs:

"Here, put this bandit hat on."
Forever Yours,
Rachel.

This is untitled. This is about letters and war.

 

 

It's September 7th, I'm doing fine.

If you define the word 'fine' it'd include words such as 'anxious', 'tired', and 'confused.' I'm not perfect. I'm not perfect. I'm still breathing, if only barely.

Inhale, Exhale. Repeat.

Exhaustion is evident in my eyes and I'm writing you letters on the back of receipts you'll never read, receipts I keep throwing away covered in messy cursive. Write, crumple, throw away. Again and again and again: it's the 2 am ritual. It's the nights I can't sleep and the nights I dream about bookstores and you and my teeth falling out and empty streets and you.

Inhale, Exhale. Repeat.

The world is at war. 

It's at war with the people who stay up late because they can't sleep with all the thoughts in their head, and the people who just can't seem to make the situation better and end up crying in the shower. The world doesn't want me to write letters, but I don't want to stop. Sometimes I'm a rebel, you know that. I think about war and I think about dreams and I think about you. Then I write. Then I breathe.

Inhale, Exhale. Repeat.

I'm still sane. I'm not perfect, I'm not perfect. But I'm still sane and that's about it. 

Inhale, Exhale. Repeat.

I miss the days of scraped up knees and colored band-aids that matched my overalls. Instead of cleaning up blood with a small washcloth, I'm cleaning up scraps of my heart when it was shattered into a million tiny pieces and scraps of my sanity as it escapes from my head one panic attack at a time. Maybe I'm not sane. 

Inhale, Exhale. Repeat.

It's September 7th, I'm doing fine.


"Fantastic."
 Forever Yours,
 Rachel.

Spinning circles and losing hearts.

He said, "Your nail polish and her nail polish are the same color."

She said, "I need you, I think."

High school was everywhere, hallways were zones of conflict and places of hope. I skinned my knees and I begged for a band-aid you didn't have and the heart I used to have. I was never out for blood, I was out for someone to want me. Maybe that's the same thing?

God put you in my life for a reason, that much I know. So why did I never figure it out? Why did I never figure out what your bones were trying to tell me? Sometimes I wonder if the weeks I knew you were real, or if I made you up. I think I pretended to know more about you than I knew. I think we were always real, I know you were always real. 


Let me know on Tuesday if your breath became the ocean, and if Wednesday will still come after that.

On Thursday, I want to know how far away Portland, Oregon is, I want to know the distance in inches and in centimeters and maybe we could go there? I'd like to go there and dance in the streets until we fall down and can't breathe.

He said, "Hey, you're cool."

She said, "We should do something fun, like hitchhike to the west coast. Or to Mars."

Then again, it's a shame that NASA isn't in Utah, and we can't all be spacemen. I wrote your name in the stars last night, because I knew a spaceman who owes me a favor, but then he left with all the stars in his right hand and I don't think he's coming back.

If we can't go to Portland, we can go to Canada. I hear it's nice there. 

My hands are tainted with lies I told, maps of far off places, and words I couldn't find the courage to say. I'm not sorry I met you; I'm sorry I didn't tell you how much you actually meant to me because I'm a coward & a thief. I keep the memories of you & I in a dusty corner of my head, they're not much, to be honest, but they exist. I replay them in my head every so often, to remind myself you're real. 

Every step I take gets harder and harder, it makes me ache a little more, knowing that every second I live is one second farther away from the day I met you and the day we both left. 

It was silent in that moment and I should have said something but I didn't.

So it goes.




"We were born to die."
Forever Yours, 
Rachel.

This is for an angel: she'll never really leave our hearts.

Funny how you never realize just how delicate life is until it's gone. 

Because it flies away just as quickly as it came.

Butterfly wings and aching hearts; the sun will still set, the sun will still rise. 

The sun should have burnt out with you. This world is a little more empty than before and the space that held you to the ground still bares your name.

Sierra, Sierra, Sierra.

Between clouds and gravity, the wind whispers it, the trees hold it, the stars have written it among the skies.


Tears are being shed for you, and candles have been lit in your memory.

Grown men cry; all the tears in the world have come together in one place. Remember, remember.

There's one more angel in heaven, and it's you. 

Funeral flowers are the most beautiful kind of sadness, and small coffins are the worst. 

Somehow you're still here, and we're still stuck in the time you left-tragedy has a funny way of sticking around; days, weeks, months.

There are too many things that don't matter; life can be cut short in a second. Tragedy like this isn't supposed to happen in real life, it's not supposed to happen to real people.


I guess it does.
 
Here's some news: People never really leave us; it's the best thing and the worst. It's what keeps us going and staying. You'll never leave us, and it's what makes me want to be better.

Bruised and hurting you took your six years and left this world for a better one, you claimed the heavens as you left, you became whole once again.

I know you're happy, and I know you're safe. Accepting that for what it is, is as easy as taming a hungry lion. It takes time, and time is everything we have. 


I'm writing your name in my heart, and I'm pasting it to the dust in my bones.

I'm going to the stars, and I'm taking your memory with me. 


This was the hardest thing I've ever written.
Forever Yours,
Rachel.


P.S. If you want to know exactly what happened to my mother's sweet little cousin, please click here.



 

Something Honest.

 

All I care about is poetry, and a boy made of smoke.

I want to travel to Paris, and I want to live in an apartment made of perfection and beauty, a place I can do all the things that matter to me. Here's the catch, I want to live with you.

You're the smoke and I'm the fire; or maybe it's the other way around.

I'm not a fighter, and I never have been. Right now, I wish I was. I wish I fought but I didn't and I wish I told you I might have loved you but I didn't and I wish I kissed you but I didn't.

I'm leaving this place and I'm never coming back. I don't regret that decision, not for one minute. My soul has been tortured for too long, and my heart has been stomped on too often.

I'm leaving and I'm not coming back.

I'm not worried about myself, I'm worried about the future. I've never been there, and I don't know that I want to live there. I've heard nice things about it, but I've also heard the worst.

If I could visit, I'd stay for a day or two. I'd visit the tourist spots, and the spots only you know, because you'd be there. I'd find out the bad things, and the good things, and I'd keep those things in my pocket. I'd write the good things on my arms in pen so I wouldn't forget and I'd let you keep the things you wanted to keep because that's how much I care about you.


You taught me more than you know, and maybe one day I'll be able to use everything you said and I'll be able to forget about everything I wanted.

I was told you can't be a writer unless you write something honest. 

Here's the honest truth: I miss you.

I've never said that before and it's the most honest thing I know. 




Forever Yours,
Rachel.

You don't need wings to fly: An ode to you.

This one's about you, and your hands.

The way you smiled at me this morning, you dimmed all the stars and they fell out of the heavens.

God was jealous of you; your perfection shines more than the moon.

My bones are aching, my ribcage is heavy with your words, they're weighing down my heart.

Here, take it-I don't want it anymore.

I want you and I want something real.

Every word you speak is the language of God & God has a soft spot for poets.

Poets & Artists; you're both and he has a soft spot for you.

There's a hole in the sky, but we call it the sun.

You realize more than anyone that it's a window to heaven, & even you can't deny it, love.

That's the way the angels visit.

But this isn't about windows to heaven; it's about you and your feather skin, soft & pale, hair the color of beauty.

Angels can't be as beautiful as you, you shine brighter than the heavens.

You don't need wings to fly.

You only need your words.

Darling, God is jealous of your poems & He's jealous of the way you walk.

Talk to me again, & let me stare at your perfection.

This one's about you, and your hands.

Good hands; Good heart; Good soul.

Destination: Unknown

I counted the stars last night.
I took the stars from the sky & created a forest.
Our voices became road maps,
our destination: unknown.
Let's measure our feet in centimeters & see how long it takes to tip-toe across the Golden Gate Bridge.
We'll reach the clouds & swallow them whole,
keeping them inside of us,
to protect our souls from self-destructing.
We'll create a new universe,
our own version of Paris, France.
The stars will be our poems;
the moon an original work of art.
The red thread on your shirt will be used to pave a road,
and the shoes on your feet will be the first to walk it.
Invincibility starts here,
but we'll start in Manhattan,
and work our way across the mountains & skylines.
A flock of birds will come out of your mouth,
& the sky will be painted the color of your eyes;
I think that's what love is.
We'll stand in the center of the universe we constructed with our bard hands, & I'll whisper,
"Hallelujah, hallelujah." 

My heart is saying one thing, my brain another. All I know is this: It's hard to tell them apart.







One day, I'll do a real post.

Forever Yours,
Rachel 

Existence.

This is the hour of fear, love. This is the time when we sit and we cry because we can't do anything but sit and stare at blank walls dreading the fact that our time in this room is coming to a close. Screams echo in my mind and I can't seem to think straight, yet I'm still here.

I exist.

The anxiety creeps up on me and I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, but then again, neither do you. Surprises scare me, and so does love. Curling irons are hot and shiny, but that doesn't really make a difference, does it? What if I don't like what happens tomorrow? What if what happens makes me the happiest of all the happy girls in the world? Is that even a good thing?

I don't know.

I can't seem to fathom the world as I know it, and I can't think of non-existence, because all I know is existence. (Don't we all?) And maybe existing is the hard part, and everything else is actually simple, but we wouldn't realize just how hard it is to simply exist, because we've been doing it our whole lives. Maybe that's the problem here.

I wouldn't know.

Tell me it gets easier, and tell me the truth.

Forever Yours,

Rachel.

My bones said to be patient. 

Maybe I should listen this time.

An Ode to You.

This isn't about me. (It never was about me.)

This is about paint and sunsets that shape the sky. It's about oxfords and jeans, and how dress shoes look good with jeans. It's about sweaters and gray nail polish, and how the British spell gray with an 'e'. Grey. It's about counting and calendars and birthdays. Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday. This is about keys and locks and doorknobs that are pretty.

This is about you.

This is about fear and yawning. It's about the twinkling stars, all 76 billion. Because they shine for you, love. (And this is about you, remember?) It's about the cats that purr, and the cats that sleep, and hey, it's about the cats. This is about the fear of mistakes. This is about the blood in your veins, and the blood in her veins, and the blood in that brunette boy's veins. It's about heartbeats. It's about heartache.

This is about you. 

This is about screams you can't hear, and voices you can't see. Words you can't touch because they just don't exist in real life anymore. This is about the commas, and the semicolons, and the apostrophes. It's about sounds. It's about dancing. It's about poetry. This is about pages upon pages that make no sense, and treasure maps that lead nowhere in particular. It's about the map to your heart. It's about the map away from you, too. 

This is about you. (And it always has been.)






Forever Yours,
Rachel.

Panicking about the (future) college life? 

Yes.

Forever Yours, 

Rachel.

I'm not supposed to love you.

(But I might.)

I'm not supposed to care. 

(But I probably do.)

I'm not supposed to fall for you.

(But I did.)

Forever Yours,
Rachel.

I promise I'm trying to be good.

And this is my life.

I'm trying and trying and trying, but I just can't seem to get it right.

All the facial expressions that make me want to crawl around in your brain, try to figure you out. Everything is confusing, everything is wrong. Everything will pack itself up in a box in approximately 4.5 months and then I'll be gone to new places, new opportunities.

Why can't this change again, change for the better this time? I don't understand. Everything keeps changing, but it's never in my favor. I'm tired of all the glares, all the death thoughts scraping at my ears. The bitter words you stole, because they can't possibly be your own, sneak their way out of your mouth, into the air, and pierce me straight through the back, into my heart. They make me want to vomit and scream and throw things all at the same time. The tears are easily held back, as I try my best to channel the fury away from my mouth and refrain from letting it spill off my lips. It's not easy. 

So take your knife out of my back, don't twist it anymore, take it away and hide it somewhere no one will think to look, try to keep it there. I know I'm not the last it will pierce, but I can hope. Change your ways, maybe try something new, or be who you used to be. Either way would be better than this new you, the you I don't even know anymore.

I'll just sit alone on Friday nights with my earbuds embedded in my ears, and think about all the things I could be doing, without actually doing anything. Because thinking is better than anything else at the moment. And that's the way things have been for a while.

 

I'd rather be alone. (But not really.)




Forever Yours,
Rachel.

It's been a long year...

*I realize this is overdue. I apologize. It's been a long few days.

Goodbye 2011.

A year of heartbreak and fighting. A year of sadness and tears soaking pillows. A year of screaming and shouting and wanting to runaway from all the problems of life. A year of almost getting kissed, almost having that moment. A year of learning hard lessons, and lessons of learning to ask for help sometimes. A year of stubbornness that's not quite gone.

A year of fears, a year of poems, a year of words.

A year of discovering. A year of breaking out of my shell. A year of speaking my mind for the first time. A year of trying to write a novel. A year of explanations. A year of questions with no answers. A year of meeting new people. A year of learning who my real friends are, the ones that are still there when I am in need.

A year of fears, a year of poems, a year of words.

A year of loneliness. A year of lunches with no meaning and awkward conversation. A year of art. A year of paint. A year of creating. A year of nostalgia that still creeps into my mind. A year of new things. A year of new people.

A year of fears, a year of poems, a year of words.

Here's to a new year.

2012. Please be kind.

Forever Yours, 

Rachel