Sunday, October 9, 2011

all through the night

I know your story
and i bet you think you know mine
you got me all figured out
don't bother asking because I will tell you I am doing just fine
there's something about the way you look at me
from across the room
the music is playing
but all I can see is you
you spend the night talking to her
as I wait impatiently for it to be my turn
and when the odds never are in my favor
that is when I will crash and burn

I smoke too much and I know I always fall too short
my love life is complicated
but word on the street so is yours
If you spent some time on me baby
paid me the attention I so desperately crave
I would tell you how I almost gave up everything
for you
but you are all over the place

Maybe it wouldn't work
between me and you
I just want you to give me the time of day
and maybe the timing isn't right
But If you sing me a song
I will stay with you all through the night
If you sing me a song
I will be yours all through the night

Friday, September 30, 2011

Untitled uncertainty

maybe i am not cut out for this
all my friends tell me I am crazy
and secretly i know they are right
I stay out late and want too much
I am needy and wear my heart on my sleeve
there are moments when i think it's right
that i have it all figured out
finally
after all this time.

Then there are moments where I am unsure
moments of hesitation
and maybe it is these moments that lead me further away
from where we started
from where i thought i was
maybe we've come too far to go back
maybe you can never break up and start over again
maybe everyone is still clinging to that perfect person that got away
and nobody will ever compare
not me
not you
so why do any of us even try
to fill that void with something new
and maybe we are all stumbling in the dark
trying to figure it out as we go
and maybe we haven't gotten there yet.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

diary of a young girl the day after 9/11

Dear Diary, September 12, 2001

Yesterday morning two airplanes were hijacked by terrorists and crashed into the World Trade Center. The twin towers were on fire and then later on collapsed. Thousands of New Yorkers working in those two skyline buildings are killed. Hundreds are filling up the tri-state area hospitals injured. Another plane also hijacked by terrorist suicide bombers crashed into the Pentagon and another crashed in Pennsylvania. All of New York City is in shock and dismay. People fear it may be an act of war from some foreign country. I am feeling pure rage and terror from this situation. I have heard of terrorist bombings and war in other countries before but as a teenager in the 21st century living in America and New York City of all places, never in my life have I thought we'd be under such great terrorist attack. I wonder as I sit and look out my window and am fortunate enough to see clear sky, smell fresh air, and hear the peaceful silence of an early fall night, is this over? Are we going to be subjected to further terrorist attacks? How are we as a state, as a country going to survive and have the strength to get through this? Times like this really give us a sort of reality check and make us realize that at any moment our freedom and happiness could be taken away from us by evil. It makes us realize what an unsafe, and corrupt evil world we really live in. Innocent people went about their lives, going to work as they would on any average day only to have their lives taken away by evil cowardly terrorists. This makes me wonder if we are safe anywhere. This makes me think about what's really important to me and who I truly care about. This is a pure example of how you don't realize what you've got till you've lost it. I can certainly relate that philosophy to my life...


Reflections 10 years later

This entry is entirely different than I remember it being. I remember writing about 9/11 on 9/11 not the next day. I remember writing this entry in more detail, about my day, about the details of how my day went. Like how I was in gym class, but the teacher was absent so for some reason they had us in the auditorium. Or maybe we were in the auditorium for an assembly so the teachers and principal can tells us what just happened. I remember hearing students a few seats over whispering something about planes, something about buildings, something about World Trade Centers. None of it made sense, so my 16 year old mind couldn't make sense of these rumors floating around. Finally we found out.

I remember not going to another class the rest of the day. I remember wandering the halls in a panic, unsure of where my dad worked, but only armed with the knowledge that he worked "in the city somewhere", I was certain he worked in the Financial District because after all he was a CPA, so where else would he work. I remember cursing my parents for not buying me a cell phone, because it's times like these that it would be oh so useful. I remember using a phone in my schools main office to try to call my dad and not getting through. I remember calling my grandma and speaking to her, both of us speaking quickly, happy to hear the other person was alright and unsure of what the hell was going on. I remember her telling me that no, my dad did not work near the World Trade Centers but a bit uptown from there, so he should be okay, but she hadn't heard from him yet.I remember my mom leaving work early at my old junior high school where she had started working the year before, to walk over to my high school to sign me out. I remember feeling strangely happy to see her and surprisingly unembarrassed that my mom was picking me up from school when I am 16. I remember walking out of the front of the building with my mom, and seeing Kira, my best friend who I was in a fight with and hadn't spoken to since the middle of the summer standing outside with her new friends who just so happened to be the bitchiest girls in school who made a part-time job out of making me feel miserable. She and I locked eyes but didn't say anything to each other. In that moment I wanted to run right over to her and hug her and forget all the reasons why we stopped talking in the first place, because none of it mattered when there were bombs and mass murder going on just a few miles away. I remember the long walk from Forest Hills High School to our apartment. All of Queens Blvd and Austin Street was deserted. A quiet and stillness permeated my neighborhood a neighborhood usually overwhelmed with cars, buses and pedestrians. Not one bus, not one car, not one person passed us by on our long walk home. When we got upstairs to our apartment, my mother and I, I looked out my bedroom window and half expected to see smoke and fire, and bombs going off outside. But nothing. Just quiet and eery stillness. There was no TV. The TV's weren't working that first day, at least when we came home, so I put on my headphones and turned on my discman and z100 my radio station of choice, which broadcasted from the Empire State Building was not playing music, instead just news. Just a constant flow of news coverage about the catastrophe. I remember when the TV's eventually came back on, every channel including MTV and VH1 played news. Replaying images of the planes striking the towers, the towers shaking and collapsing, sending smoke and toxic ash into the sky. People hurt and running and the police, firemen, and national guard at the scene. It felt like TV coverage would never end and when it did it was a relief, but it was also sad, because it was a part of history that I and the rest of the city was transfixed to not because it was on, but because it was the only thing we could do. Especially those that felt so stunned, so scared and so helpless by this unthinkable tragedy. On Sunday following September 11th, Kira called me to make up. I was so thankful she made the first move, so relieved to have her back in my life as a friend, and so happy to realize that in life love is the most important thing.


Sunday, August 14, 2011

Sunday's

there's something about Sunday's
that make you want to kill yourself
like Angela Chase
in My So-Called Life
like it's 1995 and teenage angst purchased from the Gap
is all the rage

It's nights like tonight
when the rain falls on the oak trees
and the dust covering every piece of paper
collecting in my room is somehow more noticeable
on a cloudy day
when there is nothing to do except build a fort in my room
with Ani, Tori, Alanis and Liz
blaring from my speakers
as I bang away keys frantically trying to pen my memoir
in a narcissistic frenzy
deluding myself into believing I actually have something important to share with the world

nights when safety and security is 868 miles away
and Kurt Cobain still stares at me from behind his shades
and I peer out from beneath my window frame and everything outside is tinged a faded gray
and I am reminded of all the many reasons why
I absolutely hate Sunday.


Monday, July 25, 2011

you know it's love...


when you miss the person when you are still with them
when you wouldn't mind taking care of them when they are hurt or sick
when you feel safe enough to pour your heart out to them without the fear of judgment or rejection
when you look up at the moon and wonder if they are looking at the same moon right now too
when you are willing to give them a foot massage after a long days work
when you let them choose the movie, even though they always choose the movie(or restaurant)
when you fear them saying I love you, because you always want those words to feel as amazing as the first time they spoke them to you
when you can spend hours just gazing at them as they sleep
when your heart skips a beat when the phone rings and it is them
when you catch yourself staring at them for no reason and smiling
when it kills you to be apart
when you'll spend two hours in a store you never shop in just for them
when you try new things, things you never thought you would all because of them
when you travel hours on bus, train, boat or plane just to be with them
when there are times when your problems take a back seat to their problems and you are okay with that
when you can look them in the eye and see your forever in their eyes
when you are willing to take that leap of faith, because you know it just might be worth it this time.