gloves

you're gonna have to wear gloves
to protect you from my storm.
you're gonna have to stand taller
to dance on my stage.
as long as you're feeling
my heart break in yours,
my words will hug each other
and teach you yours.

sophomore

I’ve felt so unlike a writer recently. Wondering if it’s the right life choice for me and everything. I’ve wanted to be an author since I was in elementary school, but then I decided it was more practical to aspire to become an editor or a publisher. Apparently that’s still not very logical, but it’s just that I’m not good at anything else. I really like proofreading and giving people feedback and if that’s not what earns me money, then… I guess I just won’t be rich and that’s all there is to it. I have no regrets so far about being an English major; I just want to be the best at it that I can be. And not slack off or anything like that. If I can accomplish that then I think I’ll be happy with myself. Even though I’ll be paying off college loans for the rest of my life. But isn’t that what so many other people do? I won’t be put off from education because of a ~dark looming future~.

I’m realizing that this reflects my philosophy on pretty much everything. “That’s just the way it is.” I’m very simple in that way. I didn’t really enjoy my sociology classes for that reason – I like learning about current events and issues, but I don’t like thinking about them too much or asking why. It’s just that things will be the way things will be and we have to accept them as they are. I don’t know if that’s a particularly positive way of thinking and I’m sure I’m not making any sense, but… YOLO.

Yep. I just went there.

I’m going to be starting my sophomore year of college in a couple days and I can’t believe I just typed that. I’ve written so many online blog posts about starting the first day of a school year in a couple days and it’s just mind blowing that time goes by so quickly like that. I feel like I really haven’t even accomplished very much. 

cool

i told you it was cool,
cause i wanted to shrug it off at the time.
hide behind the bushes and jump out,
"guess what? i forgive you!"
and you were proud of me, you said,
"i'm glad we're cool."

and i guess we were, we were cool.
we even shared a few words afterward.
but then the blanket of silence fell,
snow inside my head,
and i knew you never gave a damn about me
in the first place.

i know it was just an online thing,
but my heart could've sprinted a 5k
just thinking about your smile.
i wish i would've been more honest now,
told you how i'd spend a whole half hour
thinking of what to say to you.
i took it so seriously
and you probably still think we're cool -
a silent friendship,
cool.

puppet

i am not your puppet.
you will not wield me, bend me, mold me and make me yours.
you will not decorate my body with words you deem appropriate,
cut out from magazines,
carefully pasted on my pasty legs.

i am not your enemy.
though it may seem so, with my fiery temper
licking up your ocean breeze. .
you can try to tame me,
but this firestorm ain't cracklin for you.

you can take all the offense you want,
but i'll be fine with just water
and maybe a couple packets of
idon'tgiveafuck.
goodbye.

love letter to my copy of order of the phoenix

baby,

i love you so much. you've been with me through it all. i first purchased you at a walmart the morning you were released in 2003. i had to wait until about 11am because i was only a wee 9 year old at my grandma's house, where the nearest place (walmart) to purchase you was 40 minutes away. i got into the series in 2nd grade, after goblet of fire came out, so i never got to purchase a potter book on the day it was released. i hardly slept a wink while i awaited your arrival. in mere hours i ran into the chilled walmart in altoona, my goose bumped legs carrying me toward the books section.

even though i knew millions of other people purchased you from midnight onward, i felt SO special sitting in the backseat of our subaru, opening the fresh binding and grinning like i was about to discover the secret of the universe (i was). i saw "dudley demented" and felt pretty intimidated. i suddenly realized how big of a book you were. but then the gryffindor in me reminded myself that my fourth grade teacher had told me i couldn't read goblet of fire because it was too big. so therefore, i vowed to myself that i'd get to the end of you. 

i remember having to ask my mom what "bespectacled" meant. and what "enough - effing - owls" meant. "they said effing?" my mom asked incredulously. "well...yeah..." i thought i knew what that meant, but i wanted proof. 

i remember when reading you how harry's humor struck me for the first time as seriously funny. i would have laughed out loud at "we're not stupid, you know" "well, that's news to me" if i wouldn't have been such an awkward child. 

before i left for tour i found pictures in the basement of me at a family reunion at age 10 or 11, rereading you. my family was gathered inside the pitcairn park building but i was sitting outside with my huge thomas edison shirt, with you propped up on the picnic table in front of me, bigger than my head. i didn't care how it looked, i just wanted you alone, baby, and nothing more.

my dad dated the first page of you, and i remember feeling violated for your sake. i didn't want anyone touching my precious. "they say the third time you read a book is when you truly start to understand it," my dad told me. but i knew better. i knew i'd read you only once and understand every little thing about you. i judged you from your cover, and i couldn't have been more correct about your brilliance.

over the years i've brought you to the high school cafeteria and read from your pages instead of eating, stuffed you in my purse and brought you everywhere, and defended you from the hating muggles. once i even screamed and cried to get my way out of a bad situation, all the while focusing on your open pages for support. you've helped me more than you know.

you've accumulated various pen marks (i honestly don't know) and eyeliner stains when the sad parts came. you are waterlogged from when i cried and when my brother spilled water on you. you are taped up in some places and the back cover of you has flower and grass stains from when you tipped over the wooden porch railing and smashed onto my grandma's newly planted plain purple-and-red flowers. i thought i was so cool, underlining specific passages or words in pen as if they'd have a deeper meaning in the future. one time i was so tired reading you at the dining room table i fell asleep on the tablecloth, and another time i used you as a pillow on accident and woke up with your words imprinted on my face.

i was so excited and proud when i finished you. i ran to my sister's bedroom door - mine, now - and knocked, jumping up and down with my news. "i finished!" i squealed. "what happens?" she asked, and so i began to read to her.

every so often, i go back and read the first four books published before you. i did this recently, before looking at your size and getting overwhelmed and unwilling to bring you to college and carry you around since you were so damn heavy. but now i'm home, baby, i've come home and i'm sorry for neglecting you.

if possible, you mean more to me now than you did then. i will never forget the 'THEN I DON'T WANT TO BE HUMAN!' and how i could relate to your depiction of harry more and more as i got older. thank you for everything.

i will now open your pages and once again fall under the spell of 9 year old tianna, with no doubt that the world is magical.

can we still be married?

love, 

your part time lover and full time friend,

tianna

july

i have an odd way of thinking about the people i used to like.
i would say exes, but i didn't actually date all of them.
it's like i want them to talk to me, but at the same time,
i fear growing too close and liking them too much again.
it's scary.

before college, i never used to believe people
when they said things like "you're about to enter a
stress free zone, leave your worries outside"
it seemed impossible

but then i was in that circle of freshmen
and i knew i could get there, if only
with a couple extra shoves.
as long as i don't end up like
the girl in that video, i'm fine.

it's not just songs

there's something charming about the way
you talk to me.
through drugged brain cells and sleepy fingers,
your words don't skip a beat,
they keep in time with my heart.
all these months later,
again,
you're not something i'll give up
easily.

i don't know if it's possible to write
an appreciative poem
without it being labeled love.
but i do appreciate you, in the highest sense.
you saw me when i was chameleonized,
as hungry as the exotic hotel carpet,
threatening to swallow me whole.

you are your smooth hands,
the ones that remind me of how well you're living.
they say that's the best revenge,
but i hope that's not how it is for us.
i want it even,
a flat, smooth line,
from your house to mine,
linking us, knotted
and a glass half filled -
no, empty -
with regret.