So...it's that time again, when I can't think of anything I specifically want to write about, so instead I'm going to post a collection of little bits and pieces of my writing. Mainly poetry, because at the moment I'm in a bit of a fiction block (a.k.a., every piece of fiction I write is virtually terrible and I'd be embarrassed to post it). So, here are a few of my latest attempts at creative writing.
'Fearless Vampire Killers'
[Note: This was what I read the first time I ever did a reading, at a Coffeehouse performance my first year at Interlochen.]
Forgive me if I repeat myself
It’s just that you distract me and I can’t remember what I’ve already said.
I love spending time with you
But I hate that you don't know why.
But I know that if I told you, you'd laugh at me
So I keep silent, and all I do is wish.
I wish I could be beautiful for you
I wish you saw me the way I saw you
I wish I wasn’t so awkward around you
And I wish I were one of the Fearless Vampire Killers
Because then I wouldn’t be afraid of anything
And I wouldn’t be afraid to tell you this to your face.
I’m sorry that I’m such a freak
And I’m sorry that I love you.
'Goodnight Heaven'
Goodnight, Heaven.
I’ve been waiting all day to see You.
Goodnight, Heaven.
Take me home tonight, when the moon is overhead
And everything is quiet and reassuring.
Goodnight, Heaven.
When You present to me the black curtain of the sky
Flecked with the glitter of stars,
I will take Your beauty home with me.
Goodnight, Heaven.
You are peaceful and beautiful and mine.
Every person in the world looks to Heaven
And finds their own piece of Heaven
And claims it for their own.
Goodnight, Heaven.
You made me believe again.
Goodnight, Heaven.
I thank You, forever and always.
“Fake Cigarette”
It was my first time smoking—or pretending to smoke.
I didn’t want to smoke,
but when she offered the fake cigarette I took it,
because I wanted to be sophisticated, like her.
She was older than me by exactly six months
and she always wore lipstick
and black, lots of black, and dark-red diabolical high heels.
I wanted to be like her.
It was the very beginning of November.
Outside it was gray and cold, as we knew only too well
because we had just walked to the store hours earlier,
to get coffee and energy drinks and various forms of sugar.
and we were sitting together in the library,
planning for National Novel Writing Month,
writers, beatniks, the “crazy ones,” just us, no outsiders.
And I wanted to be like her,
so I was wearing red lipstick and a black fedora
straight from a 1920s gangster film,
and I was drinking heavily-sugared coffee
while I pretended to smoke that fake cigarette.
I still have that cigarette, puckered at one end
and stained with red lipstick,
the veteran of many attempts to look cool.
I wanted to impress her, so I wore a black leather jacket
that I pretended was from a vintage store
but I really got it off the clearance rack at Target
and saddle shoes that I pretended were real
but were really from a costume shop
and red lipstick, always red lipstick.
I drank coffee from the school cafeteria at every meal
even though I hated the taste.
That night, on the first day of National Novel Writing Month,
was my first taste of real coffee,
not cafeteria coffee, but real coffee
that didn’t taste like dirt mixed with coffee creamer.
I turned to her, fake cigarette in my mouth, coffee in hand,
and said that I felt like a proper beatnik now.
Her reply was so predictable I could have said it along with her:
“Ist gut, ja? I have done my job now, mein schatz.”
'Misunderstanding'
She remembers his eyes.
His big, sweet brown eyes, precisely the same color as her best friend’s.
The kind of eyes that no one can really resist, especially not her.
She remembers the soft brown bed-head and the God-awful ski hat he wore when the snow first came.
She remembers his gentle smile
and the way his teeth sank into his lower lip when he was embarrassed.
She remembers the way he would look at her,
like she was someone worth seeing, someone worth loving,
and he always knew just when to look at her this way,
when her dreams were crashing around her and she needed to be loved.
He cared, and she will never forget it.
He remembers her voice.
Her distinct voice, the voice he would recognize in a crowd of a thousand.
The kind of voice no one can forget, even when they’re a hundred years old.
He remembers the long, loose curls, and that stupid pink scarf that made her look like Dolores Umbridge.
He remembers the smell of her perfume
and the hot-pink lipstick she wore when she needed a confidence boost.
He remembers the way she would look at him,
like he was the smartest, bravest person she could imagine,
and she always knew just when to look at him this way,
when he was vulnerable and he desperately needed a friend.
She was his friend, and he loved her.
“I’ll never want you.”
When she first said this it was reassuring, in a strange kind of way.
It meant things between them would never be awkward or uncomfortable.
It meant that no matter what happened there was the understanding that they were friends and nothing more.
But then they were alone together
and for the first time he realized that she was, in fact, a girl.
And now she was looking at him differently,
like he was her Prince Charming, her fairy tale,
and she knew this was the worst time to look at him this way,
when his guard was down and he wouldn’t push her away.
He had a choice to make.
“I’m sorry, I can’t.”
Her eyes burned with tears when she heard those four terrible words.
Those words meant the destruction of something she could never get back.
Those words meant that in a moment of weakness, she had destroyed something incalculably precious.
She ran away then, away from him
and tried to stop herself from crying harder than she’d ever cried before.
And he didn’t follow her when she ran,
because in that moment he knew he couldn’t stop her,
and he knew she would not forgive him,
and they both knew nothing would ever be the same.
All because of a misunderstanding.
'He’s A Rockstar'
[Note: This is a nonfiction essay written about meeting my idol, Ronnie Winter, at a concert with my dad. This is also the essay that inspired the title and theme of my senior thesis film.]
So it’s after midnight, I think, I don’t really know. What I do know is that I’m in the Agora Ballroom in Cleveland, Ohio, and it’s late, and the entire place smells like cigarette smoke and beer and sweat. Earlier I carefully straightened my hair and did my makeup, but now you can’t tell that I did anything because I’m such a mess from dancing and screaming and singing along for the past two hours. About an hour ago, someone chose to throw their beer over the railing above us so that a bunch of us were splattered, so even though I haven’t ingested a drop of alcohol I smell like I’ve just taken a bath in a keg.
Beside me, my dad scans the crowd. Everyone is moving for the exit and it’s literal human traffic from here to the door. “I think we’re going to be awhile,” he warns me.
I look around. He’s right. The entire club is a mass of bodies; we can’t move without stepping on each other. So Dad leads me back to the ballroom/concert venue, where we just watched Red Jumpsuit Apparatus perform, along with three bands I’d never heard of before. The floor is sticky with alcohol and grime. The place smells like it hasn’t been cleaned in ages. But the pink and yellow lights make the entire room seem to glow, and right now I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be.
I run across the dance floor and spread my arms wide, laughing and twirling like a little girl pretending to be a ballerina. “Shake it, break it, get off your feet, come dance with me,” I sing, quoting a line from a song we’ve just heard. My pink Saucony sneakers stick to the floor with every step, making a squelching sound that is vaguely reminiscent of a whoopee cushion.
Dad reaches out and catches my arm. “Come on, you. We might as well go now, it’s cleared up a little.”
I stop dancing and give him a reproachful look. “I don’t want to leave yet.” The drummer from Anafair, one of the opening bands and, in my opinion, much better than the other two, emerges from behind the stage. “I want to ask him for an autograph,” I say, thinking that I really want an autograph from the lead singer of Red Jumpsuit Apparatus but knowing that I will never, ever get that.
Dad shakes his head. “No, you don’t. Come on, we need to get going.” He puts his arm around me and steers me away from the dance floor.
Reluctantly I allow myself to be dragged along, through the crowd, until Dad looks at me, smiles, and says, “There he is.”
“Who?” I ask blankly. The thought that it might be Ronnie Winter never crosses my mind.
But then I look up, and, as Dad put it, there he is.
From the moment I heard Ronnie Winter’s voice on Don’t You Fake It, screaming and belting through the punk-rock anthems and then gliding through softer ballads, I fell in love. The themes of his lyrics—don’t give up, fight for change, love and be loved, don’t be afraid, be strong, be loyal to those you love and, most importantly (in my opinion anyway), don’t be a douchebag—spoke to me in ways that Kelly Clarkson and Green Day never could. From the outset, I loved his band and I loved him.
And then I found out about his past and it made me love him more. Ronnie Winter grew up in turmoil, with alcoholic, drug-addicted, abusive parents and siblings to take care of, little support from his family and nowhere to turn for help. He fought alcoholism in college and worked the night shift at Wal-Mart to put himself through school. And he pulled through all of this and became, in my opinion, an amazing person.
So to see him this close to me, literally feet away, is not only a shock, but the most amazing gift Fate could possibly hand me.
I fish in my pocket for my ticket stub, gibbering frantically to my dad the entire time—"Oh my God I don’t believe this, I can’t believe he’s doing this, he’s so sweet, you’d never see the Jonas Brothers doing this, oh my God where’s my Sharpie, Dad do you have the camera?"—and then it’s here, I’m standing in front of him, and he is smiling at me, and for a split second I wonder if I’ll wake up and still be in the car on the long drive from Oxford to Cleveland.
Ronnie is taller than me. Well, no kidding, everyone is taller than me, but he’s really taller than me, by about a foot. He looks much younger in person than he does on CD covers and in magazines, all light-brown hair and sweet dark-brown eyes, a kind smile on his thin face.
I think he says something to my dad, but I don’t know what. I just stare at him for a second, and then wordlessly shove my ticket stub into his hands. He signs it, still smiling, and I blush and finally manage to squeak out a word: “Hi.”
This is what being so close to him does to me. There is so much I want to tell him, starting with, “You are my hero,” and ending with, “Your music makes high school bearable,” and yet all I can manage is “Hi.” I can tell that my dad, who knows full well that I rarely, if ever, shut up, is wondering who the hell I am and what I have done with his talkative daughter.
It’s then that I feel the notebook in my back pocket and remember something. I pull it from my pocket and hand it to Ronnie. “My—my best friend—couldn’t come tonight,” I stammer. “Can you sign—this?—I want to bring it back to her.”
“Of course!” He smiles at me yet again. That smile—I can only wish my smile were that warm, that friendly, that nice. “What’s her name?”
I tell him her name, and he signs the notebook. My dad holds up the camera, and offers to take our picture. I realize what this means and almost scream: Ronnie Winter is going to put his arm around me. He does, slipping a thin arm around my shoulders and indicating that I should put my arm around his waist. I am only too glad to do so. He’s skinnier than I would’ve thought, and it’s only when he gasps that I realize I’m holding on too tight.
Click!
Dad snaps the picture. I have to let go of Ronnie, for a minute I don’t think I will, I don’t want to. But I do, because I have to, and with one last sweet smile he turns away from me.
I don’t want to let him go yet, don’t want to share him with the other fans. “Ronnie?”
He turns back to me.
“I really, really love ‘False Pretense,’” I tell him, naming my favorite Red Jumpsuit Apparatus song.
It’s not much. It can’t scratch the surface of how much I love his music, how I could live on his music, how badly I want to be like him.
But it’s enough for now.
He looks back to me, still smiling away—does he ever stop?—and replies, “I love that one too. Did you like hearing it live?”
“Yes!” I practically shriek, and, laughing, he turns away, to sign a t-shirt for another female fan.
Dad takes my hand and leads me away, and I’m so happy as we walk out the door that I am literally skipping. Outside it is freezing cold—it's January in Cleveland, and almost everything is covered in a paper-thin sheet of nearly invisible ice. And yet I skip along, so happy I barely notice the cold. My jacket is in the car and I'm wearing a t-shirt. I don't care. It could start snowing—and, if it keeps up like this, it probably will—and I wouldn't care. Right now, I am literally so happy that I wouldn't notice the apocalypse.
On Monday I will have to go back to school, where I will be called every four-letter-word known to man, where I will be insulted and told I am “pathetic” or “a loser” because I like school and I don’t have sex with anything that moves. I will endure a teacher who I think must have a PhD in Asshole Behavior instead of Education. I will endure student deans who think they own the world and condescend to me as if I were nothing more than a stupid child.
I don’t care. Ronnie wouldn’t let them bother him, and neither will I.
STOLEN DIALOGUE
"I was a very curvaceous Justin Bieber."
"You're the badass, Mr. Udell!"
Person one: Where's my singing partner?
Person two: Oh, she left.
Person one: Aww, I wanted to get pictures of us in our costumes!
Person three: Don't worry, they were unforgettable.
Person one: Oh my God, your dad is so nice!
Person two: Were you expecting otherwise?
Person one: I need to kiss his ass for awhile, see if anything comes of it.
Person two: Gosh...oh wait, I thought you meant that literally...
"On a scale of one to unacceptable...that's like a Rosie O'Donnell."
"You sound like a drunk Oompa-Loompa!"
(to a student using a film he edited in a presentation)
Teacher: How's that for kissing ass?
Person one: How's the editing going?
Person two: I'm slowly forgetting what sunshine looks like...but I'm getting a lot done so it's all good.
Person one: Yeah, 'cause it's not like humans need sun or anything.
Person two: Yeah, I know, right? It's not like I'm a plant; I can't do photosynthesis.
(in an editing workshop)
Person one: The head-exploding cut didn't work.
Person two: That's because you'd have to cut to something else exploding.
Person three: Okay, how about an exploding squirrel?
Person two: Well, no, because then you're saying their love is like an exploding squirrel.
"You're too short to be a serial killer."
Person one: Does this look weird to you?
Person two: That you...have skin?
Person one: I love you.
Person two: Your hands are freezing...but I love you too.
"I don't want you to die and get fed to the evil swans in the ornamental lake."
"Oh God...he's like the Creature from the Existentialist Lagoon. His pigheadedness and asshattery just keeps growing exponentially as the semester goes on."
STAY TUNED for my next epic blog post, which will feature a new, well, feature...it shall be called "Artist as Badass" (points to all who get the Interlochen reference) and will showcase some of my fellow awesomesauce indie artists...if you like hilariousness, awesomeness, and independent film, you will love this. I promise.
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