six word stories

found a rad website while I was stumbling [and procrastinating]
six word stories. here's one of theirs:

They lived happily ever after. Separately.

here are some of mine about the past week:

Just wanted to feel. Oh well.
The heater rumbled. I am cold.
Suddenly responsibility. I am a godmother.
Lets watch Megashark and be sarcastic.
Writers block. Need some help. You?
Third wheel on date. Second wheel?
Left early. Saw snow. Worth it.
Ate too much sushi. Happy full.
Didn't know how to comfort you.
Said the phrase: Lets be friends.
Acted for a minute. Craved it.
First line on a shirt. Cool.
Bought juice. Wasted money. Not there.
Salt and vinegar chips. My hero.
Can't skip ahead. Not this time.
My crush is big. Is yours?
Come see the Vagina Monologues. Please.
Crane Wife 3. My theme song.
Next door neighbor, loud boyfriend visit.
'Try a Little Tenderness" Dancing alone.

the blood of.....

creative writing assignment: Write about the funniest thing you've ever seen.

[and just because I am who I am, mine is a bit morbid. but still funny. and still to this day the funniest thing I've ever seen.]

A kind of numbness had settled over the house. In the past three days I had already witnessed things I never expected to witness. The first was my parents hugging. I was so shocked at the sight of this phenomenon that I nearly dropped my bowl of mac and cheese on the clean kitchen floor. The second was the sight of tears in my father’s eyes. I had inherited his stoicism so this was the more shocking of the two sights. His face was red and he wiped tears from his eyes as he calmly told my sister and I that his sister was dead.

The next few days were filled with white flowers and family meetings. Somehow I became in charge of the well being of all five of my young cousins. I was thirteen at the time, which clearly made me an authority on death. We all sat up in my room as I helped them draw pictures to put in her casket. Then we all sat at the top of the stairs listening intently at the “plan of action” for the service and what would become of her house and cat. My youngest cousin tapped me lightly on the shoulder and whispered, “When does Auntie Melissa get here?” I looked at her hopeful face and said, “She won’t.”

We passed the casket as we walked in and my eleven year old cousin Logan stopped and put his hand on it as we passed. I looked at him confused, scared myself to touch the casket and he looked at me and shrugged.

The two of us sat in the front row on the left side of the church with our older siblings. Everyone was sobbing as the service began but we just sat there, without a sound watching the faces of our fathers as they talked about my aunt.

I myself had made the decision that I did not want to be religious at this point in my life. When the priest asked us to come up to receive the body and blood of Christ I awkwardly stood up to walk up to eat the cardboard like bread. I didn’t want my grandma to have to think about the fact I didn’t want to be Catholic on top of everything else on this day. Logan followed closely behind me, confused because he had never been to church.

As I went back to the pew, I watched Logan receive the body of Christ and then walk swiftly over to the goblet of red wine. He took the glass from the priest and right there, in front of the church, he chugged the wine. The priest looked as though he had just watch him crucify Jesus. Logan looked at me and shrugged the same familiar shrug and I began to laugh. No one could hear me because of the loud organ. He smiled as he sat down and his teeth were stained red from the cheap wine.

and you paint them you say? you'll PAINT it?

I am all too abruptly deeply unsatisfied. It probably hasn't been abrupt it hasn't.
Rather, its been a gradual, deeply rooted state of dissatisfaction.

There is an excitement that builds like towering sky scrapers when I think about little, seemingly unimportant things.
and then, they crumble. They crumble almost as fast as I built them.

Well,
it wasn't for nothing.
but don't DRAW it. Don't paint it. that would be so...strange.
I bet my monologue will be better now because of that.
it was for my craft.
my fucking craft.
the craft I need to exercise.
I'm afraid I'll be out of shape by the time I get a chance.
out of shape in the same way I breathe so heavily as I walk up the library stairs.
Its not the time for thoughts such as these.
it'll happen.

[I need to sing again.]

you know whats keeping me in some little way satisfied?
all the books I have to read.
[!]

this one time, we just drove.

I am nineteen but I don't feel nineteen at all.

much older.

I just wanted to take things at a normal pace for once. To sit and have a decent conversation.

[because I said it. I said I wanted a decent conversation. Once I say it out loud I need it to be true.]

I walked away from his house with a lump in my throat. None of it had been wrong, just very not specifically what I was looking for and really, what I thought I found.
it started to rain and I walked quickly past drunken kids heading back to the dorms. The lump in my throat got bigger and I called a friend.
I was fine with returning home alone, in fact I preferred it. I opened my jar of nutella and began eating spoonfuls as I listened to 'Dear Avery' by the decemberists.

then she said, "lets go for a drive"

I changed out of my date clothes and into a huge comfortable flannel. Raced down the stairs, passed a romantic goodbye as I walked out the door.

And we just drove. I recounted the full story and she listened. She talked, I talked. Give and take, silence.
We kept driving and as I looked out my window and had a flash of being in Palos Verdes. the sky was black and it made me miss the ocean.
I looked forward and watched in shock as the aggressive rain turned into snow.
It was SNOWING.
real snow.
REAL SNOW.
we drove to the lake and it had frozen over. I was still in my flannel with a scarf wrapped around my head, my moccasins slipping on the icy rode. We got out and looked up. The soft, cold snow, landed carefully on my face and couldn't help but laugh to myself. It was exactly what I could hope for at the end of this day.
We drove back, back to the reality of dealing with what had happened before, the reality of my research, the reality of midterms.
I just needed to sleep.
I had left my computer up with my itunes on and the last strums of some song played and right as I put my keys down the song 'The Penalty' my favorite Beirut song began to play.
it was a good way to fall asleep.

I put away the jar of nutella.

Like an ancient day and I'm on trial
Let them seize the way, this once was an island And I could not stay for I believed them
Left for the lights always in season
Impassable night in a crowd of homesick fully grown children,
you'll leave the lights

-Beirut

that takes....

last night was "that takes ovaries" a open-mic benefit for The V-Day Campaign. I watched a few of my best friends here with pride as they sang and read personal poetry. For one in particular my heart filled as I watched her, very boldly reading a piece.
I wanted to sing but I still don't know if I can just go up and do that. That would take balls, not ovaries.
Instead, in order to promote The Vagina Monologues that are coming up in less than two weeks [yikes!] I wrote my own little vagina monologue. Since it was about me I assumed it would be harder, but, then again, the vagina monologue I have in the show is very close to home too so it was good practice.

Here is the piece I read:

I’m not someone who talks about my vagina. In fact, I very consciously don’t talk about it. Its part of me, whatever, but I never let it define me.

Recently I’ve begun to consider my vagina. Considering what it would wear and say. It would wear moccasins and a cape. The kind of moccasins that have been worn in and are now comfortable and the kind of cape you make from a sheet when you’re five. It would jump around on couches and pretend to fly around the room. On days when it felt sassy it would wear something see-through, see-through underwear, probably red lipstick. It would not talk about important matters at hand and instead say something sarcastic or a sentence that started with “duuuuude” or “what’s good?” Maybe one that ended with “fo sho!” It wants to make forts and lay in them all day with someone else. The funny part about that is, it hasn’t wanted to do that in a long time. Before it wanted to be irrational, stupid, fail a lot. It thrived on mocking itself. It craved the wrong kind of attention. It was moody, complacent and bored. Now, it just wants a decent conversation. Someone else to initiate. It wants to be tempted and perhaps even… romanced? ‘Romance’ is a strong word, a scary, cool word it isn’t familiar with. It wants to read a lot and be able to not have to impress anyone while still being impressive. It wants to say what it means, and what it doesn’t mean and would never mean. It needs to laugh; it needs to laugh a lot. But mainly it wants someone to make a fort with.

***side note, it may have found someone to make forts with. we'll see. the jury's still out.

it was too wonderful for me.

Creative writing assignment: Begin a piece of writing with the sentence "it was too wonderful for me"

It was too wonderful for me. I was full, full of something unrecognizable. I allowed myself to appreciate the sky. Walking back to my postage stamp of a room at three in the morning I allowed my gaze to find its way up. Stars were not normal. I was clearly not normal. My normal so long ago had swiftly become a hole of over-analytical self-involvement. I wasn’t living anymore. [Had I ever been living?]

It seemed to be almost unfair that I had all this good all at once.

The best of it all was that there was a constant undertone, a small layer of doubt underneath the surface. This doubt grounded me in the same way all the wonderful was trying to pull me up. Was I odd for still appreciating and embracing failure above all things? Failure taught me the wonderful lessons.

Failure is teaching me.

Now, it is a slew of old pictures that have a way of making me feel incredibly full and desolate at the same time. These pictures remind me of what was, and thankfully not what could be. Now, there is no backtracking. It is full speed ahead, like one of those expensive bullet trains they want to build back at home.

This is the feeling I like though. This is the feeling I feel right before something big happens, something substantial. I never know exactly what it is but this time I feel as though this is the thing I have been waiting for sense the last time I looked up at the sky, I mean really looked, which was far too long ago to even remember clearly.

I no longer feel as though I have a pile of rocks settled somewhere between my throat and my stomach. I do not miss things anymore. Missing things as much as I did use to be cathartic. No more.

It was too wonderful. Now it is just going to be wonderful.

It is simple that way.

I want a Sunday kind of love.

I sometimes consider the amount of time I spend considering.