anneke
Francesca used to be the girl with the camera, the girl always taking pictures, the girl I pestered to stop. There are now, thanks to her, several photographs detailing a time in my life I wish I could forget. I remember telling her to put the camera down and live out of the context of a lens. I still feel that way. I'm also not sure if I spelled lens correctly.
Props is a great word for me, I used to work props in high school. I used to be the prop goddess, the manager, whatever. I used to be a part of a family of weird kids in a house filled with, well, props. But isn't that what all houses are filled with now? Props for an ordinary existence, or maybe an extraordinary one, depending on who you are. My room is filled with my props: my make up, my shoes, my bags, my books, my records. They're all props in my existence, which used to be that of a goddess of the backstage, guarding the props.
This year, for his birthday, Nicole and I wanted to buy Joe a tacky cigar holder, for his desk next year. We didn't, of course. I mean, it was an Anne-and-Nicole plan, as opposed to a Nicole-only plan, meaning it was destined to fail. Anyway, the cigar holder plan fell through, shortly followed by us.
"That's the icing on the cake!" she proclaimed to no one in particular, as her car wouldn't start in the parking lot of the hellish job she worked. There was a knock at her window and she wanted to cry. There was no one she wanted to see right now. No one. Despite his beard, the man at the window looked to be rather young.
The instructions are to write about the word above, but I don't want to follow the instructions. I want to write about Ryan Adams. Or, kind of, I'd like to write about Ryan Adams. I want to write about how I want to find someone else that loves Ryan Adams, that isn't ashamed to sing along to the radio, that likes Andrew Bird and eskimo kisses. But none of those things have to do with instructions.
I've never seen anyone carried out on a stretcher, though I've come close. I remember, once, a while ago, probably two years ago, my mom had a seizure. I heard her hit the floor, and it had sounded like she was laughing, but when I called her name she didn't reply. I went in the room and there she was, on the floor. I was too afraid to do much of anything but yell for my dad.
Sonar, like the whales, right?
Sonar, like, the sensing thing?
Or is that submarines?
Sometimes, I felt like I had sonar, always detecting you, even from far away.
Well, as far as the walls were, where you always were, lingering on the walls, not approaching me, making me wait. You didn't even know you were doing it, but you were, always making me wait.
Decorations for a party
Fairy lights around the backyard
Kissing in the artificial twilight
Because the party started hours after twilight
But it still seems real, sometimes
if it's with the right person
at the right time,
under the decorative fairy lights
at a party that started
hours after twilight.
My favorite place in the world didn't have a doorknob, but rather a bar to push into it.
It smelled like wood chips and paint and it was where I felt most at home in school.
But now, when I look back, I wish it'd had a doorknob and a lock and that it'd been locked when I got there, because I wish it'd all been different.
Sometimes, anyway, I wish it had been different.
I've never been good at advising.
Be it in terms of relationships, an area I have little to no expertise in, or in terms of clothing, hobbies, movies, books, I'm insecure in what I like.
About 'real' advisers, I dunno.
I've never had a great academic advisers.
My adviser in high school seemed afraid of children, and though it wasn't long ago, I can't remember grade school advising.