Author: Jess

i become:

low quality
    (over the counter,
    of course,
    just a college kid
    with no money
    to spend on
    under the counter
    drugs…

but i have those too)

you,
    my friend
    are hipster-cool;
    i'd like to
    memorize
    your digits

parce que
    ma peau
    manque
    vos mains,

she asked me if its okay to want someone else because he's a beautiful poet. she says she wants to know what else love could be. i can't hold my crimes against her. because the more i hear or see the more i crave from you. but you are not succumbing. you are so cryptically silent in all of our verbal dances. i only have the receptors in my body by which to judge this; but, i'm so naturally non-judgmental.

okay. here goes. last night i was going to go to manhattan. but my breaks started making these horrible grinding sounds on thursday night and i was really freaked out about it so i decided not to go. because i didn’t want to get to like wamego and have my breaks go out and there are so many stoplights between highway 24 and kstate that i figured they probably would or at least i’d be really freaked out driving it. so i made an intelligent decision and didn’t go.

then by the time i got back to the dorms (that decision was made on the way back from WaRu’s debate tournament) i was really sick feeling. but i thought it was just a headache from having to actually think about things in the debate rounds i watched so i just took a shower and then i felt a lot clearer and stuff and so i had colby pick me up and i grabbed daytime (cheap dayquil) capsules and some food and toothpaste at dillons then we went over to his house for a while and watched movies about being emo and listened to the new jimmy eat world cd. (i can’t wait for it to come out!!!)

about 11:40 or so m. called me and so i answered the phone and she was just like “jess i’m really freaking out..” and i asked her what was going on and she said that she’d been taking caffeine pills which she’d told me about earlier that day and i told her to stop doing it but its hard to just stop something i guess.. so i got this call and i googled “nodoz” +”overdose” and asked her about waht symptoms she had via the list and she said that she had most of them except for the really bad ones (ie fever, vommitting, diarrhea) so i was like “well i’ll come get you” and she made me promise her that i would take her back to my dorm and she could “just sleep” cos thats all she wanted to do.

when i got off the phone with her i called poison control. good thing the internet is so damn quick.. and told them what was happening. they said that she had to go to the emergency room given her body weight, age, and how many pills she had taken. so i went and got her from the frat party she was at and was like “we have to go to the emergency room” because she could die and stuff (augh) and she was like “no we’re not going can we have this conversation elsewhere?” so we got in colby’s car and i’d told collby just to drive to the hospital before we even got to m. so he drove us to the hospital and by the time we got there i had convinced her we needed to go.

at the hospital they took her heartrate (139, resting, whoa!) and said that she had to be seen with those symptoms so i called her mom and her mom came down and they finally saw her at like 2 am. and by then her heart had slowed down a little and i guess they gave her some medicine to make her calm down so that she could sleep. and i think that’s probably what she’s doing now.

i’m so glad she’s okay. i don’t know what i’d do without her. and i’m so glad my break pads went out so that i didn’t go to manhattan. i couldn’t live with myself.

i spent from about 11:15 pm till 2 am in the emergency room. long story. i wasn’t the one in need of emergency care though. i think everything will be alright.

i want your heart
pumping,
pulpy
in my palms
as our lungs
gasp
together;
my body??
waiting,
expecting
a sweet release
of all this
denied tension
??asks
for you
by name.

okay. so i just folded my laundry to take it down to the laundry room. because i didn’t want to cary more than just a bookbag. it actually wasn’t that crazy of an idea. and it did save space.

(slash me continues to try to justify herself). how kinsley-esque.

a fetus became a sticky wicket today in class. lol. i’m there right now and its turning into a really stupid abortion debate. its mostly just freeman talking about whether or not people are vegetables when they are in car accidents or whatever or not born. and he talked about aristotlean acorn analysis concerning potentiality or actuality of the zygote become a human being. then, of course, the non-trads got all up in a tizzy about the baby being a baby. and a person. and all this other just stupid stuff. i don’t know. i’m not positive i would abort my fetus. but i probably could. hrm. i wish someone would comment on the rights of the woman in this case. its just one more way to take away the control of the woman over her body. not to mention all the girls that throw themselves down stairs or onto coat hangers. yay for women’s rights!

“can’t bear false witness to any idols that aren’t their god.” wait. freeman. christ. i think he just combined sections of the ten commandments.. i wonder if he realizes he just said that you shouldn’t lie to any gods other than the Christian one. lol.

i took lacey out today because she was stressing major about the capcityclash but i’m sure that all of that is going to go off well. she’ll make it happen. i have so much faith in that girl. we went to the mall and tried on clothes then didn’t buy anything. and we went to pick up her necklace at kay’s and then we went to best buy and i bought some headphones so i can use my palm as an mp3 player. heart. i just got Rosie Thomas’ When We Were Small; it’s amazing. truly.

after the shopping adventures, we went to lola’s and had cheesecake and talked for a while then we invited j to come by and andy came and sat with us and this other girl whose name i don’t know too. it was a lot of fun. and um. alex from silver lake was there too. it was hardcore. i had a really good time and i drank my iced chai. and had cheesecake and felt genuinely at peace with the world.

i’m learning things about myself at college. like im learning that i miss out on a lot by not listening. so i’m trying to get better at that. not that i’m not a listener, just that i do this thing where i interrupt to make my point too. competitive speakers.. ugh. so i’ve been working on that. i know that it comes out of my growing up in a family where being heard meant getting your voice into the first lull in a sentence. lol. family holidays were the greatest.

i’m really sad about my uncle that shot himself. lately. this girl gave a speech in public speaking about how her uncle committed suicide and she said that she wasn’t able to cry about it until a year after it happened and i realized that i haven’t gotten past my anger toward him and been able to just say goodbye and be sad and stuff. maybe i’ll stop by the cemetery on my way to manhattan. it would be nice to see my grandparents graves too. i don’t think i’ve been out there in a long time. i could cry right now. in fact i think i kind of am. if that choked up feeling and moisture in one eye counts.. i don’t know how to deal with this. because theres so much anger. and so much that i have to let go of before i can deal with any of the grief. before i can grieve at all. because i still haven’t done that. the only feeling i remember having is relief because he always threatened to take my aunt with him. and now theres all this anger because he took his own life and left us with this huge mess. i don’t know how to react to it. i’m at a complete loss for words.

ericka’s funeral made me realize that what i thought was emotional maturity (that is, a belief that i wasn’t crying all the time anymore because i understood there were better things to cry about) was actually me being completely numb and not dealing with events in the correct fashion. i’ve always been better at crying during movies and music and other things that don’t matter as much. because my tears for real-life events is my art by way of poetry, prose, and photography. i realized that i’d forgotten how to cry. even though i appeared to be pretty good at it. i feel like i have my emotions back. ((i feel like i’m in a manic episode)). i’ve been trying to let myself cry when things are so beautiful again. i miss the jess that did that.

ps. after lola’s
lacey: “i like j. he just seems to really know who he is.”
jes: “but he’s still looking for himself. he’s just not afraid of what he’ll find.”
and i realized right then that im afraid of what i’ll find when i find myself. so i’m not going to do that. it’s okay if i’m not who i think i am. that doesn’t mean i have any less identity. and its okay if i let other people help me through this process. i’m the kind of person who’s always looking for their own personal definition and i can’t spend my whole life shutting people out of my dictionary.

i exposed the fleshy part of my arm
as you turned your head
to show myself the fleshly memories
and i wanted to tell you
but you left too many blanks in my brain
so instead of opening my mouth
i picked up my pen
and i began to fill them in,

with her i can' t utter a word.
the stillness in the open spaces of my head
turns my attention to so many
cellular symbols of dissatisfaction
while her voice finally turns into a death rattle
i want to reveal myself
and unearth these emotions
until the ground quakes.

when you weren't looking,
i ran my fingers over the
stronger tissue upon which i managed to surive
and reached for you
when you weren't looking.