sydni, introduced:

i want to talk about me. and poems and summer and you and pavanes. and snowcones and hammocks and couches and rocks. and headbands and yoga and milkshakes and stars. i like parallelism and mikell abernathy and the way trees look when i wear my glasses and my sage-colored blanket and that malt shop in provo.
the happiest things: my little sister. mugs. rain and sunshine mixed. naps. the prettiest things: my little sister. daisies.
my real favorite things.
x. harry potter (by the way today is the seventh anniversary of the seventh book's release and you bet i cried)
x. bath and body
x. relief society (this is not a joke)
x. gossip girl
x. monday emails
x. like crazy
x. grapefruit candies
x. piggy banks
x. crying
x. almond milk
x. subbing for the primary pianist
x. seth
x. unrequited love poem
x. masaman
x. opi nailpolish
x. the keyboard by my bed
x. swinging
x. dresses
x. state street grill
things i'm really going to miss.
x. alex
x. alex
x. alex
x. baths

'you are best friends, after all'

subtitle you summed it up perfectly, sorry(notsorry) it's years long, of course it's you,
 two am at the kitchen table - so many notecards i remember because i read them in your voice - you once told me there was a really great pizza place in new york but never told me what it was - you ate my whole bagel sandwich in two bites - you always wore a hat after soccer games - and summer before sophomore year at a party at the top of cedar hills that turned into that party at the top of cedar hills - i finally know the dogs' names (took me forever) - i remember henry wadsworth longfellow and none of his poetry - you wore a green button up pinstriped shirt in eighth grade that's a weird thing to remember - going to mcdonalds for breakfast and i think it must've been after we went to attendance school, but mostly i just remember you were in my passenger seat - at first i could only find your house because of the rose bushes on the corner - soccer and football with my little brother who loves you so much - the snaps of you singing apologize you probably don't know your friend sent, and you say i've never heard you sing and if we were texting i'd add a wink there - walking to orange leaf in ninth grade - your phone call after registration. "i think we made a mistake -- we didn't plan our schedules together." i was in the hall behind the auditorium and my heart constricted a little and i shut my eyes and stopped walking, and it took you a term but you fixed our mistake (thank you.) - recycling at mountain ridge - and me and my "chastity cocoon" (yeah no.) - pirates of the carribean 4 and you sat in front of me and not next to me and i was less than thrilled. you asked and i gave that movie an 8/10 which was just not true, it was awful - the dream team (sorry i quit) - i don't remember our first facetime but i'm going to miss that for two years, and you - when harvard law was your background - your beat up blue sperry's next to my front door - and mandy moore lol - i remember your tears but i wouldn't be surprised if you denied them, "if we hadn't watched that stupid play" oh please - ken burns movies about electricity and the radio - you drew on my blue binder in mrs. rowe's seventh grade science class. you wrote your name in black pen that i never tried very hard to scrub off and everything is a metaphor - and that pen was probably mine because in all this time you've never kept track of a pencil. and you used to return mine all chewed on the ends but it became endearing by tenth grade - bowling, and i'm still just as bad at it by the way, but thanks for the lessons - how many mullets? - birrell and woolsey incessant in their questions for three whole years and the first time we were in the same room for it. and one of the later times sydney "the look on syd's face was priceless" and chambers "so was the look on his" - i remember your first kiss even though i didn't hear it from you, i'm not sure we were really friends then so - midnight pasta and how you always eat bread with pasta even though we only had the end of a wheat loaf - stepping on your foot (still embarrassed about that) - i have pandora stations that appeared on my account because i logged in with you - and finally speaking out loud "it fits. it took us til we were grown-a adults." which was some combination of so funny and perfect and maybe sad? - she was asleep on the couch at 3:30 am, and the trampoline a few hours earlier. - so many other 3:30 ams, arm over me with eyes closed shut, mind probably in that place mine sometimes goes where unspoken lines aren't lines anymore - i haven't closed your grooveshark and it's been searching for "pink houses" since may - like i looked for a way out until i realized that wasn't a solution, something i think you've known longer, but hey, you've always had math and i've only had words for paper that never come out quite right in the car - and i've loved all the years and feeling safe with you,

i'll be wearing sweaters and you'll be wearing sandals

maybe you won't be able to sleep your first night away from the phantom pulse of my lips on yours. maybe you'll double-take at a dark-haired girl you see. or a second. or a third, and it will hurt in your chest because you know it's not me. maybe you'll reach for my hand in the earliest dawn before your body understands the time difference, the tide difference (and how it pulled you away from me.) maybe you won't be able to try the best sushi on the island because you'll taste me in every drop of the soy sauce and grain of rice on your plate. maybe you'll text me when you land or send me a postcard from your dorm, or call me all of the days you're gone or maybe none of them. maybe you'll cry about our first week away and maybe i will, too.

but maybe, 

maybe i'll stay inside, lamenting my own tears and how only some are shed for you (and how they're mostly for missed opportunities and somewhat for fear.)

maybe i'll be fine by friday.  

it's spun glass

he put my mom's vacuum together and kissed my forehead before he left for work.

i'm excellent at goodbyes but that doesn't mean they're not hard, and The Goodbye that should make me hurt more than any other ever has doesn't even scare me.

his mouth forming words makes my heart pick up speed, til we're stomping on real love and laughing at the future.

he slept over after the all-night party and i tried to stay next to him, but my heart wouldn't stop from the quick kiss goodnight, so i moved from our beanbag to the small, empty couch because i knew i'd never sleep with his heart so close to mine.

it's a problem, the lack of fear.

we made pancakes at noon and guys, he poured my orange juice. an hour later, he didn't have to ask if it meant we aren't cheap. but i knew i had to answer.

and there's a reason i have to try when i talk about the racing. a gardener can't be a painter. my skin still sings with the pulse of an artist but the portraits are tired, tired and alone. they've grown weary of the same brushes stroking over their flaws, and the flaws are sick of being ignored.

i'm sure i'll keep on covering. (because sometimes it feels like honesty and even i'm not sure what's real and what's not)

but now my dissolve cut clean the creamy strokes and exposed the old splatters beneath, and it somehow felt better than just okay.

dear: sydni 16

keep walking, keep walking. no one looks if you walk fast enough and your hair blocks your face. just keep walking. 

but i know your eyes are SCREAMING and your heart says nothing, nothing, and all you want is to hear a little knock at the door, and you don't care who's doing the pounding. darling, i know how much you hurt when you fall out of bed every morning, and you say it was from scraping ice off your windshield, but you were frozen even in sleep. i know you froze in the spring, covered in your own flood of hardened Caring. i only want to tell you, i know, i know. all you needed was someone to understand.

this is about a box cutter, a safety pin, an earring, a knife. (plastic.) this is about under your bookshelf, where secrets stay hidden and the air reeks of copper. this is about a bracelet, the bed frame, a keychain, a knife. (steel.) this is about the hated glow on your left. this is about how comfortable the bathroom floor looks when blood is rushing away from your head and all you can think of is that you didn't know how beautiful the color red looked against porcelain. 

this is about nostalgic rust and how you'll always keep your flint next to your pillow. 

poor girl. you just don't know that it's easier to leave your senses untouched or that falling in love doesn't mean heartbreak. 

ps. i'm sorry about your feelings leaving. they'll come back soon. 

i remember

i remember watching 500 days of summer four times in two days, half of those with wilson. i remember my first time babysitting past midnight; it was the night before seventh grade started and at first i was bitter they kept me out so late but they paid me so much money i got over it real quick. i remember halloween when i dressed like a fairy, i remember my eyelashes, too, and i remember borrowing scarlet carol's little sister's pillow case.

i remember getting hooked on mumford the moment i heard after the storm. i remember arranging a meeting with the guy selling concert tickets in a run-down gas station in salt lake. i'm still not convinced the tickets were real but i used mine anyway.

i remember my first kiss. (brandon robbins.)

i remember how hot tar felt on my feet (literal and not a metaphor). there's no way to remember the amount of people that said "now you know how joseph smith felt!" i remember the cute "congratulations" card rothko painted for me when we both made student council. i still have that by my mirror. also the toothbrush she gave me.

 i remember the melt-down with my mom when i decided i couldn't quit piano and in fact i was going to major in performance. i remember the first song i ever accompanied for lois, august sophomore year and my hands were shaking so hard i could barely play.

i remember the first time i cried about a mission call, the only time actually, and it wasn't even at the real opening. i remember mikell's perfect attendance award and all the mini candy bars she threw across the room at me whenever i fell asleep. i remember trevor powers singing the smiths and i said "i love the smiths" and it was totally the aforementioned movie and ps i think we could have been friends based solely on love for that show.

i remember my civil war group with jackie but i don't know if we did well on it or if we just made temporary friends for christmas break. i remember lola franklin sending me a song two years ago and it was so perfect i cried. i remember going to real (as in the team) soccer games and always wishing i sat in the riot which i know is ridiculous but still.

hi moon. i remember all these little things about you, and i have a long list of them in a draft and a longer one inside, but i'm not ready for you to read it yet, because those things are mine that i can't just give them away, not even to you. but just know i remember all the little things because that's all there ever were.

and to him:
i remember your wool hat and red sweatshirt in lincoln center where we met. i remember i wore pinstripes before our first date. i remember how much you loved ender's game. i remember black ice. i remember bean bag nights, my favorite nights, your favorite nights. i remember when we almost fell down the stairs. i remember eating kumquats and mangoes by my fireplace when my parents were in europe. i remember dancing. so much dancing. (but we've never danced in the refrigerator light so does it even count?) people honking at us because they thought we were cute, and also obnoxious. and i remember the bridge and more than one waterfall with you. i remember exactly when i started thinking i knew what "whole" meant. i remember the bus ride in brooklyn, and i almost don't want to remember the me before that. i remember touch. i remember you called my chacos cute, an utter lie. i remember thinking it was fate that on both plane rides you sat next to an empty seat for me to fill. (you're welcome daveni, you two actually sat closer than if you had taken that seat.) i remember tie shopping and running in to hayden and ashlyn all week long with you. i remember you trying to do that lady and the tramp thing (fail). i remember my first time hammocking with you. i remember having the most perfect week i've had in new york with you.with you.with you. i remember, with you.

grey picture frames and slivers

years of science class, and i'm just now realizing it's only light for half the day. i'm exhausted from trying to lock cheap drapes.


i haven't been sleeping well at all.

the light at three a.m.

i'm sitting where i'll sit when you leave, by a tree you've never noticed on grass you may have set foot on, but not with me (so it shouldn't have anything to do with you but it does.) and i guess this is some sort of pathetic prequel to Absence instead of the cheered toast it ought to be, and normally i'm at my least selfish around you but that hasn't mattered much lately.

i've been thinking a lot about what it even means to move on and how maybe that's best.

but i have things with you i don't have with any other person, and ever since you read my words i only want to give you more.

something about flowers:

daisies where we met, daffodils for kisses. roses for december, peonies for fall. (peonies die in the summer.) sometimes i'm sorry weeds choke out sunflowers, but lies spring up like morning glory and priorities change like dandelions, and your blown wishes haven't worked since you turned ten.

weeds have been weaving themselves into my hair and our story for days, and sometimes i think they're too deeply rooted to pull. i've been plucking petals and leaves in a half-hearted attempt to stay clean, i've been hosing off my muddy fingers and polishing my ring all week, and it feels almost sad to see my skin so clear.

everything gets messier with heat, but i'll still gently tug at the weeds. i'll still sprinkle water on my face and call it baptism, and i'll always wash my hands of the roots. because the last thing i need is   m a s o c h i s t   tracked in mud on my forehead.

welcome.

i've been making a list of things i'll never get over and it's getting long because i'm bad at erasing. i cleaned out my room last weekend and i feel empty in a good way, but also i got rid of my comforter and i don't know why i did that, because my room is so cold my toes are ACTUALLY numb in here. i used a small curling iron for prom and that was a good decision but all the sickness at that dance made it almost not worth it (almost -- don't worry, you make everything worth it). i'm in love with sunday nights because new blogs to read. i somehow missed the essential skill of painting nails smoothly and that's embarrassing as i'm 18 years old. i miss my old friend even though i see him every day and i hope he's doing good things. and i can't every stop singing. like seriously ever. graduation requirements give me headaches, all this easter candy gives me toothaches, and looking at your darn cute face gives me heartaches, because i'll forever know i don't deserve you, and i'll keep saying you're biased when you keep saying i'm pretty. but really what does it matter because we're all leaving thank heavens except i don't know how i'm going to live without you for two whole years and WHAT IF I GET MARRIED oh i'll be so mad at myself and then i guess i could add that to the list of things i'll never get over.

for my moon, again

your words, somehow so warm, and your mouth, somehow so sweet,

my knuckles, white on the wheel --

i'm sure you don't know i cried on that 26 second drive home, just like i've never told you about the words i say after pressing end. but i have told you about my old bird, and the ink on my one nail, and my favorite scent of candle, and i think those things are more important even if you don't remember them.

my scratching fingertips still carve your name in my sleep and i hope you know the reason i can't speak back is because you sometimes tangle my heartstrings in my throat.

and even though you are as far-off as always.

even though your love is as stone-cold smokey as ever.

you are still my moon.

i think you may always be. 

\\\\\\\\\

i have so many words twisting in my brain and they're all the same even though they feel so different and the words are about chapstick and wounds and you, always you, and Looming Things and maybe one day i'll figure it all out even though mymap says i "have it figured out" whatever "it" even is and maybe i'll get pretty or skinny enough to deserve you even though i know you're better than that and maybe one day i'll stay up late enough to write the Beautiful Words but i think i'm in love with sleep so i'm writing at 10 a.m. (and i think there's something to that psychology principle of once you get paid you stop liking what you love) and i'm so sorry, i'm so sorry they just won't come out right now