December 02 2021
She didn’t want to take the pill, but she didn’t want to be an outcast either. She heard of people getting addicted to popping pills and she didn’t want that to be her. “Come on Miranda…it’ll make you feel good,” her friends told her. “It’s harmless', everyone’s doing it,” her comrades chanted over the loud music at the house party.
She still didn’t want to, but she made herself do it. She didn’t want to be all alone in school. She was tired of walking the halls of school with no friends. Even though she wasn’t in the popular crowd, she liked to believe she was still somebody, and by not keeping the group of friends she already had, she would then become non-existent. She even tried to make herself believe popularity wasn’t real. That it was just a fictional honor admired by the delusional. Just a stereotype, just an excuse for rich spoiled kids to go out every weekend smoke pot and drink beer…but with the pill she held in her hand, and the friends that stood before her, this, was the closest she would ever come to being popular. She raised her hand to her face and let the small white object rest on her tongue. She looked around for something to drink. Her friend handed her a plastic cup, the same one who handed her the pill. There was a pause. Her friend said it was ok, that it was Bud Light. No one said anything about alcohol, but once again, she wanted to feel like someone, so she let the plastic and her lips connect. She tilted her head back and swallowed hard. She didn’t know what was to come as she looked around at the crowded house and all the people. Her friends didn’t tell her she would end up addicted. They didn’t tell her this would control her life. They didn’t tell her this would ruin her life.
January 15 2022
The house I grew up in was green with a small front porch and brown shutters. The house I grew up in is not my childhood home. The house I grew up in had separate places for my mom and dad's car but one day Dad left with the preschool teacher who wore bright red lipstick and who I always saw smoking cigarettes. We had Traditions. Like praying from 11:45 to 12:15 on New Year's Eve to New Year's Day. My dad would then lead us all in prayer at the end and we would eat. we would feast. Once mom renovated the kitchen we never feasted like family on New Year's again.
January 01 2022
I would want to look for you. Look my best for you, be my best for you. I would smother you. So much so that you would take me for granted and things would inevitably come to an end...because I love you. Am in love with you and I don't know how not to be. It would be clear as day to anyone standing still. I don't know how to play games in relationships. How to keep him interested. I don't know how to do anything but love you with everything I have.
I knew I was in trouble when I saw the look on his face when he found out I inhaled his 150 page thesis within 6 hours of him giving me a link to his blog. His blog didn't contain his MFA thesis, that was located on a website he didn't offer up.
February 01 2022
We were happy and smiling and laughing and the sadness covered me light a weighted blanket. Like a blanket of the season's first snow. So light, but cold. Truth tears held back. I was still forced to lean into the truth, that there is no escaping death. So I lean in and let death open me like the Holy Bible.