i go outside sometimes partie deux

there are rivers underneath my skin
moving past the rocks in my chest
and smoothing out the branches of my spine
that dip into the current.

there's a set of footprints on my palm
jumping from head to heart
line
but avoiding my life
line.

clear skies in clear eyes
follow gaps between fingers
follow gaps between teeth
follow gaps between hearts
follow gaps between thighs.

there are trees growing from my fingertips
and the still branches taught me about love
and how to feel what my eyes can't see.

roses fall into place
between leaves and thorns
and hands fall into place
between rivers and trees

and the cool palm on my shoulder
breathes into the breeze
telling me to keep drawing cassiopeia on my arm
even if i can't find her throne in the sky.

i'm still watching for the moon,
letting her pull me with the tide,
washing my rivers into the oceans
and teaching me about the clouds
that hold me as i fall asleep.


--erin

3 am messes (a letter to my head)

i won't turn the light on, but neither will you.

you're crawling between the pages and i can't find it in myself to stop you.

you tell me there's a galaxy in my eyes before you press a nail into my heart.
you tell me that red shows more than black and white.

you tell me that the freckles on my shoulders are the constellations the night forgot,
but you watch me fall with the setting sun.

you're the reason i'm dragging this pen across the paper
until i forget where i end and the lines begin.

you tell me to be a forever in the ocean.
you tell me to be an ant in the world.

you call me cold,
you call me hard,
you call me a question no one cares enough to answer.

you tell me to laugh,
you tell me to smile,
you tell me to ask the question no one cares enough to answer.

weave yourself into my chest like a ribbon
and wrap around my heart,
because if it won't listen,
you can at least make sure it doesn't speak.

you always call it incoherent,
but it least it's never lied to me.

i want you to control my arms
my legs
my neck
my eyes
because at least this way i can pretend i'm telling you to.

the sidewalks keep cracking,
but you tell me to walk.


i know i can't save myself,

but i didn't ask you to, either.


--erin

(this page was actually written at three am, which explains the illegibility)

i want you guys to read this because of reasons.

"Myth" - Natasha Trethewey
(which means this isn't my poem and she's much cooler than me. like, poet laureate cool.)


I was asleep while you were dying.
It's as if you slipped through some rift, a hollow
I make between my slumber and my waking,

the Erebus I keep you in, still trying
not to let go. You'll be dead again tomorrow,
but in dreams you live. So I try taking

you back into morning. Sleep-heavy, turning,
my eyes open, I find you do not follow.
Again and again, this constant forsaking.

*

Again and again, this constant forsaking:
my eyes open, I find you do not follow.
You back into morning, sleep-heavy, turning.

But in dreams you live. So I try taking,
not to let go. You'll be dead again tomorrow.
The Erebus I keep you in - still, trying -

I make between my slumber and my waking.
It's as if you slipped through some rift, a hollow.
I was asleep while you were dying.

basilica

you're walking around asking
the wrong questions
because people are always talking
about my red heart

but i'm thinking about my lungs
and i think they're pink
and that feels more important today.

i'm a monument
and you'll be visiting for years.
taking your pictures,
cameras strapped around your neck,
arch support keeping you on your feet,
sandwiches in your backpack.
(everything here is too damn expensive)

marble smooth as i never was,
velvet ropes keeping you from getting too close,
but the gold glittering at sunset
is worth battling the crowd.

they'll turn me into collectibles,
miniature and plastic.
a piece of my lungs watching from a dusty bookshelf
with a smile they never questioned.

remember the color of the sunset.
find the sunrise someday.

your lungs feel like home.


--erin

sometimes, when you are a man

i'm forgetting my soul at the bottom of a purse
with red lipstick and a grey notebook
that's quiet enough to make me wonder
what it would say if i got around
to opening it.

my thoughts slide back down into a pile of
"gothic cathedrals tend to have rib vaults
and pointed arches.
romanesque cathedrals usually have groin vaults
and rounded arches."
"lady macbeth goes crazy because she focuses so hard
on distinguishing imagination from reality
that when her imagination becomes her reality
she doesn't realize it."
"i hate myself for loving you.
and by you i mean 5 seconds of summer.
i swear.
all my indie street cred is out the window."
"hitchcock usually gets credit for creating the accordian zoom
because of his application of it in vertigo.
this is significant because it is used a means
of character development and revelation."
and it all gets lost.

i'm drawing in the chipped parts of my
black fingernails like they'll redeem me.
it doesn't mean anything.
it doesn't mean anything.

i'm used to holding myself together like the arms
around my torso can keep the world
from falling.
my arms are around my torso but the world
is falling.


--erin



you wear stretchy pants in your room.
it's for fun.

growth hormones

(sometimes i feel hidden.
lights only reach my outside.)
[i guess that's true.
is that a good thing?]
(i'm wearing a mask.
just like everyone else.)
[literally or figuratively?
because you look the same to me.]
(it doesn't even look like me.
smiles that bright hurt my eyes.)
[i think you have a lovely smile.
what doesn't look like you?]
(this mask is warm.
melting everything.)
[i don't understand.
please elaborate.]
(i have a problem.
it's about melting.)
[okay.
what about melting?]
(what happens
when i melt away?)
[i expect you'll be warmer.
melting hearts are generally regarded as good.]
(i think i'm water.
ice melts into water.)
[that's true.
there will be a puddle at your feet.]
(no.
i think i might be the puddle.)
[what do you mean?
i don't understand.]
(you wouldn't.
i don't.)
[again, what do you mean?
please elaborate.]
(your heart is frozen in ice.
my heart is frozen ice.)
[what?]


--erin

another list called "good things"

• rediscovering totally bangin' playlists from long ago
• people who recognize movie quotes
• not writing papers at 1a.m.
• sleep
• laughing at yourself
• feeling full but not fat
• modest mouse
• coming up with band names
• like how cool would it be if your band was named eponymous so that your eponymous album would be called eponymous
• don't steal my idea
• bullet points
• not having homework to do
• sleep
• obedient liquid eye liner
• having q-tips readily on hand for disobedient liquid eye liner
• laying on the ground
• harry potter and the prizoner of azkaban
• harry potter and the literally anything 
• that wasn't actually a book
• sorry for crushing your hopes and dreams
• mine died with fred weasley
• no shave november and also october and december and january and february and throw in march for good measure
• electric guest
• five dollar concerts in pioneer park
• chocolate milk
• the word "heathen" and its accurate application to me that everyone thinks i'm joking about but i kind of want a tattoo and i don't want to go on a mission and i say shit a lot and my brain says fuck a lot and i have to think about what i'm saying a lot because otherwise i'd end up saying "you can take your studying and shove it up your ass" and that seems to be frowned upon in the greater provo area
• sleep
• dr pepper from mcdonald's
• autocorrect*
• asterisks
• ampersands
• freckled shoulders
• phantogram
• knowing trivia
• did you know that snails are hermaphrodites
• did you know that lions and leopards and cheetahs don't get along
• did you know that grizzly bear remixed a feist song
• like what is this and how is this
• as much as i like it, i don't know how i feel about grizzly bear remixing things
• did you know that titus andronicus is the worst ever
• this is truth
• not opinion
• sleeping babies
• lyk omg babeez
• apple cider
• sweaters
• boys
• campfires
• the combination of the four preceding points
• sleep
• 1a.m. blogging
• eating real breakfast
• CAPSLOCK
• a lack of capslock
• rain
• crunchy leaves
• electric blankets
• e.e. cummings
• a lot of the books on the banned book list
• i'm looking at you, perks of being a wallflower
• not so much captain underpants.
• sorry
• those chocolate oranges i get in my stocking at christmas that you against the floor so that the little chocolate sections fall away from the center like a beautiful artichoke
• or something like that
• everyone's obsession with david archuleta and then they're like "but his ideal girl is one that isn't obsessed with him" and then i say "obv i'm his ideal girl then, considering the fact that if i wasn't as lazy as i def am, i probably would've voted for david cook." and then they ignore my lack of fangirling over him as i laugh because probably none of us will marry him
• sleep
• oreos dipped in nutella
• thinking about baby names like i can actually talk to cute boys without reverting to my multi-chinned state of awkward non-flirting
• i can't
• i'm never getting married
• if i have a girl, i want to name her rosaline
• my dog
• he's smelly
• i love him
• my roommate
• she's actually super cool
• we get along really well
• we have dance parties with a strobe light app
• she thinks it's scary
• i think her fear is amusing
• i am a terrible person
• sleep
• boys with nice jawlines
• i could name our child rosaline
• beating other people academically
• it reminds me of high school
• #sorrynotsorry
• sleep

--erin

*sometimes

a mostly pointless list of mostly pointless superpowers written by a mostly pointless girl with a mostly pointless major and mostly pointless blue eyes that cry mostly pointless tears when she's mostly pointlessly sad

• the ability to make water lukewarm
• the ability to gain weight at above average speed (but you have to do that whole diet and exercise crap to get rid of it)
• the ability to punch really hard but really slowly
• the ability to run in slow motion 
• the ability to turn anything into a tv remote (but you can't change it back)
• the ability to doggy paddle twice as quickly
• the ability to move at the speed of light (but only when you're already in space. good luck finding a rocketship. if draco couldn't find one, neither can you. no pigfarts for you. pff)
• the ability to screenshot just by blinking
• the ability to fall asleep exactly 38 minutes after you go to bed
• the ability to eat two chocolate cakes in the space of an hour
• the ability to insert punctuation into other people's texts
• the ability to attract baseballs with your face
• the ability to name that actor in that movie without consulting imdb
• the ability to turn any noodles into top ramen
• the ability to make green things orange
• the ability to be open about things
• the ability to fall in love
• the ability to not care about getting hurt
• the ability to run away from feelings
• the ability to make leopard print into cheetah print
• the ability to make a really successful baking soda and vinegar volcano
• the ability to make cardboard into printer paper
• the ability to ask the supposedly nonexistent "stupid question"
• the ability to finish half of the things you start
• like this list

--erin

notes

my bones broke when i ripped the page

and your mother stopped calling when you were

nothing but fine.

you were

anything but fine.

big hearts break into small pieces.

and her lips said love

and her hips said sin

and i know i can't be unbroken

and i know i can't take back the words i've thrown from my tongue,

even if i wanted to,

even when they shattered against you

and you

and you

and you

like a glass bottle shatters against brick

and i lied to myself when i said that i was strong.

because broken glass cuts.

it always has.

it always will.

and i warn myself away

and i keep my own secrets

for now.

and i watched my hands,

two at the top

the right drops

the white splits

half stuck on the left

half escaped to the right

that flutters down

and the "in" falls

on the fault line

and the "er" stays

between the satin covers.

so, slip your fingers between mine, love,

and cry for me when i can't myself

because my bones broke when i ripped the page,

and my eyes stayed dry.

my bones broke when i ripped the page

and i watched as white turned to grey.

let the tears carve tracks to your throat, dear,

because my bones broke when i ripped the page,

and i'd be lying if i said i wouldn't do it again.

cry like a firestorm, love,

cry,

because big hearts break into small pieces,

just like everything else.


--erin

wizdomme

things that didn't make my paper about the definition of wisdom for my shakespeare class:

wisdom is a heart that beats instead of breaking
understanding before reacting
living before falling
falling before running
running before crawling
crawling before crying
wisdom bleeds
wisdom hears and
wisdom hurts
belief in yourself
belief in everything but yourself
wisdom is remembering pain
knowing you don't know everything
trying to learn everything
loving without reservation
loving with only reservation
watching the spaces between your fingertips
closing the spaces between your hearts
dropping barriers
putting them up
knowing yourself
forgetting yourself
forgetting everyone else
crying until the tears forget why they're there
showing vulnerability
hiding vulnerability
sharing your soul
keeping it to yourself



i still don't know what wisdom is
where to find it
how to gain it
if i'm supposed to apply it
or live in shaking ignorance






tell me if wisdom is accepting pain
or avoiding it



--erin