You know what really used to get me off? Lending books.

If I read something that I appreciated or thought was beautiful, I wanted the people I cared about experience it too. Immediately! Makes sense, right?

I gave people–be it lovely best friend or emotionally damaged ex-boyfriend–my favorite books, hoping that they might be moved the way I was. I could think of no better way to show affection–no better way to be close to someone.

In this way, I could share myself innocently–could give myself easily.

Kissing? I think not. How bout a good Dickinson anthology? I get my hands on one of those, and oh boy. When I’m done with it, I will give it to you like it’s nobody’s business.

In all seriousness, I no longer have a copy of any of my favorite books.

The funny thing about lending books to people who don’t really care about you, is that you don’t get them back.

I’ve done this so many times, with so many people–friends, boys, whoever. But there’s one time in particular that I’m reminded of tonight, after finding a copy of this book at Goodwill earlier today.

I used to have a copy of my favorite book–The Heart is a Lonely Hunter–that I very much loved. It was heavily highlighted and well-worn–I had dogeared, scribbled on, and cried with this book for years.

I loved it. Not just the story–which is a goddamn work of art by the way–but this specificbook. It was mine. I had made it mine.

Just over a year ago, I gave it to a very beautiful, but deeply confused boy to read. He was creative and deep and sad and, dear god, he had long hair. And I just. I’m me.

You know how it be.

He was really quite lovely to be around. The first night we met, he made me black coffee. I told him it was so good I saw God.

He kissed me on the street.

I was wearing his jacket.

It had a key in the pocket.

I am positive he remembers none of this, and that doesn’t make me sad. It’s a tender memory that I’ve chosen to keep, and I’m glad I kept it. Even though I’m the only one who did.

We dated briefly, and I felt absolutely undeserving–not because he made me feel this way, but because I had decided that, for some reason, I wasn’t enough.

Of course I wasn’t good enough. Of course I couldn’t measure up. These were things I told myself–these were the things I believed.

I wanted to give as much of myself as I could to him, because I knew it wasn’t a lot.

I wanted to lend him my favorite book. I wanted him to read it and understand it the way I did–to share what I could with him.

I told him how beautiful it was, and put it on his dresser. He thanked me. He was lovely to be around.

I am positive he never read it.

He may have thrown it away. He may have given it to the girl he was with while I was away.

Or hey, it may be in a box somewhere. Who knows.

All I knew is that I didn’t get it back.

And what I know now is, of-fucking-course he didn’t.

Of course he isn’t going to read it. Of course he’ll give it to her, or throw it away, or–I dunno–use it to start a fire.

AND THAT’S OKAY.

I lent him a book that he didn’t ask for, or want, because I desperately wanted him to think it was beautiful too. I wanted him to get it–to get me. To have something of mine. Anything of mine.

He didn’t read it. He didn’t give it back. And this is all okay.

What isn’t okay is that I gave something so special of mine to someone who didn’t want it.

What isn’t okay is that I told myself I wasn’t enough.

He didn’t want the damn book. He didn’t want me. He lied to me. And yet, I don’t hate him for this–not at all. It made me realize something so profoundly important about myself.

I was compassionate because I cared about him, but I was blind because I didn’t feel like enough.

In deciding that I wasn’t good enough for him, I allowed parts of myself to become insignificant. My importance to myself was not only diminished–it was nonexistent.

I gave him a book he didn’t want to read. My book. My book that I loved.

I didn’t want to give it away or lose it or toss it on some shelf or watch him give it to another girl.

But I did, and oh my God am I sorry to 21 year old Allie. She really wasn’t all that bad. She was just trying her best.

One day she’ll find another copy Goodwill. One day, she’ll find an apartment halfway across the country. One day she’ll move to the mountains.

One day, someone will ask to read my favorite book, because they want to.

They’ll read it, and it’ll move them.

Then they’ll give it back.

And I won’t feel like I’ve lost anything.

And, dear God, that’ll feel good.

 

I love you dear reader. So much. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

I was looking for motivation to keep going this morning.

I wasn’t feeling especially dark, I was just feeling pretty powerless over my life, and terrible things in general.

There are good things in my life, don’t get me wrong. Lots of beautiful, wonderful people and beautiful, wonderful memories.

All this and still it’s hard to be a human with a body and a brain when both hurt just so much.

I think that’s pretty normal. I just need to nudge myself forward once in a while.

A voice inside saying, “Hey buddy, keep going!” is really all it takes. But today I wanted a little more. Brain Buddy just wasn’t cutting it.

I was listening to music, wandering around this strangely utopian Denver neighborhood, when I heard a line in this song by Panucci’s Pizza.

“I’m a ghost in training.”

I thought about this–how it was true. How it was funny and glorious to think about. Beliefs of the afterlife aside, we are all just living this life, training to be ghosts.

Yeah yeah I believe that after we die we descend into an endless void of nothing and whatever, but stay with me here. It’s a fun thought.

Our entire lives can become ammo when we’re ghosts. The longer we live–the more shit people we meet–the more data we have to haunt with when MANY MANY YEARS LATER, our time does come.

It’s all research.

The longer we live, the more pals we meet. These are the ghosts we can bop around with, secretly rubbing our ghost butts on the patriarchy’s dinner plates.

It’s extra time to plot.

I love you, and you better stick around long enough to learn some good ass secrets. The longer you live, the better you’ll spook.

Live long and haunt well my dearest reader.

You’re a ghost in training.

The notes on my phone are either hilarious, or painfully dark.

The funny ones are simple–a random string of numbers; a misspelled Thai food order; one item from a grocery list; etc.

The dark ones don’t read as easily.

Scrolling through them is like reading my own memoir, except only the shit bits. You know, the parts where you stop rooting for the writer because they’ve fucked up past the point of saving. You start to think maybe the ending is just more of the same shit.

This is where I went when I hurt.

I would reach for my phone when I was afraid to die at 3 am, or alone at noon on a Saturday. I would write here when I was too tired to pick up a pen.

I wrote here when I was a freshman in college and nothing seemed to fit. I wrote here when I was treated like a stack of bones by someone I thought I loved. I wrote here when I was sad without reason, and when the reason didn’t make sense. I wrote here when I was hurting.

I am struck by the first lines of these notes. They remind me immediately of very specific moments in my life–whether it’s ordering Thai food, or dealing with the fact that I didn’t really care about myself.

Through them, I am able to revisit myself as a scared 18 year old, and a wounded 20 year old. I can see that 6 months ago I didn’t have coherent thoughts, and that a week ago, I felt something really important.

There was something about these first words that seemed to fit together. I don’t know if it’s that they so clearly represent the passage of my life, or that I can look back on the girl I was and feel for her in a real way. Regardless, they fit.

They are random and beautiful and ugly and hard and painful and absolutely me.

So of course, dear reader, I put them in a poem. I have compiled just the first line from each of my notes over the past five years. I organized them from newest to oldest; the beginning lines were written early this year, and the end I wrote in 2015. The middle is all the years in between.

I did not change the order, or the words. Sometimes it’s crazy how they fit together, or maybe it’s just me who’s crazy.

I love you. Thank you for reading.

 

 

Lovesong

 

 

2019

Hold on to this feeling

I thought I’d be a poet

A name is shorthand for

How much can I feel.

There is a space

Pop ruins

For everything I’ve lost

I stomp and my feet fall off.

 

 

2018

Save The New

With hands and water

Courage is not the absence of fear, but

Remember when you spilled wonton soup

And then the man stood up

Remember when

“It made him shy”

I used to be all edges.

Today I am a Tailor

The bible does not mention the fate of

Fox Child

Please don’t let me hope too long

I’ve been pacing round and round

Me and

Remember when

We took photos

Shifting into park with my left hand

And so sleep

She puts things between her lips

Maybe I’ll stay here

Lovesong of Alfred J Prufrock

You two look like rockstars

She had to name the world

Sweet girl

He said yes so certainly

You will always be

blushing

In that moment you are old

I shook hands with the boy

Finch

Why won’t they ask me

Looking glass self

WHAT AM I DOING

 

2017

Allow me to be

Full of cauliflower

She’s all eyes

Me and my socialist boyfriend

I want for things I’ll never do

Now suddenly she is somebody

Shmits

Who do you want to be?

richara200

It is remarkable–truly

About the Author

Anorexia

Neighbors

He lets his hair be long

What is the aim of this medication?

Midnight in Paris

There are so many poets

Epcot rain

Watch the sun

How does he like his coffee?

I am like the world

Banana

There are lots of “wait a seconds”

Doing shots

There were people who were loved

 

 

2016

Woodlawn Cemetery

In the morning I look left

Fuck you and your birdhouse

I was kissed (I was kissed)

I hate the way I look and it makes me

The typical college student

Jackie, there aren’t enough words

Howl

I’m scared that I’m only okay with this

Open the windows

Hi Cate. It’s Allison

I thought my best options lived and died

And so I sit here

Being thin is my favorite part of me

You don’t have to want to be

Love and love and more

How silly little girls do

And it wasn’t for lack of trying

“And to the moon” she said

The purpose of my life

Don’t hurt me

Crippled by it

My soul has been

Why am I crying watching the sun

I need a window

Orange 35

My god I love

Karma

Hey, are you in love?

I dream of your face distorted

I’ll never raise a daughter

Ever since you were a baby

To God, about a girl

 

2015

If you rise above the noise

The night was in her eyes

Re: a song you wrote for me

A Decision of the Moon

2 black wings both flapping

Guitar strings

I cried because

Oatmeal and some coffee

She cannot change the world

Four apologies

Here’s to you

To truly love

I didn’t do a lot my freshman year

Time’s debt

You ruined me

If you think I’m so annoying

When anxiety left, depression took her

 

 

Growing up I was never good enough

She never did she the world change

 

 

 

 

 

 

My psychiatrist had a dream about me.

What does that mean for me–that I occupy enough space in my psychiatrist’s brain to star in her dream? I must be decently fucked up. But this isn’t news to me.

The only thing worse than realizing I hold subconscious significance to the woman who gives me Zoloft, is that she felt comfortable enough in our relationship to tell me about it.

She feels that we are close enough to share our dreams, or she doesn’t give a fuck what my opinion of her is. Either way, I think I’m offended.

If we’re honest, my opinion of her is a little iffy–but this has little to do with the dream, and more to do with the fact that she’s just kinda a boob.

This did get me thinking however, how many of my acquaintance’s dreams have I been in? I could just be bopping around in my coworker’s subconscious. We may have met Obama.

My lit professor could have had a dream about me. I could have killed them, dead.

I do not know how to feel about this.

No, that’s a lie. I do know. I feel narcissistic as all hell.

In reality, no casual friend of mine is dreaming about me.

But, just for fun, lets say they were. Not knowing what I’m doing in said dream is incredibly unsettling. Like, I’m present in their mind, and in their dream-reality, but have no control of their thoughts and interpretations of me. I’m just kinda there. At the mercy of their minds.

They could have killed me.

But why, Stacy? We get along at work so well. We shared a laugh that one time. Remember?

We’ve all done it. Tell me you haven’t had a dream about someone you’ve met once, or that you see everyday in passing, and I’ll take all this back. I’m just that confident in humanity’s collective weirdness.

I’m not going anywhere specific with this–no beautiful metaphor or moral revelation. I just think it’s interesting to think about.

I encourage you to tell people about your dreams–unless of course, you killed them. They may think you’re weird–no, they will think you’re weird.

But dear reader, I say, what the hell.

I’ve probably had a dream about you. Go ahead and ask me.

 

Drinking coffee is brave. Not just in the way I do it, which admittedly is more stupid than brave, but always.

I am in treatment for an eating disorder, and here we are only allowed one cup of coffee a day, at breakfast. This does not cut it, dear reader. Just doesn’t. I need more. Not in the very typical, “I need iced coffee or I’ll be like, totally grumpy” way. No. I get up at 5:30 a.m. and your girl is tired.

And so I revert to what I ever so fondly refer to as Hood Rat Shit.

I order single-use packets of instant coffee online, under the guise of a necessary purchase, and use hot water from the bathroom sink. I chug it in a stall as fast as my sweet, sweet throat can take. And it feels good. And I’m awake.

That sounds crazy–and it is. But I think it’s brave too.

I could sleep through this whole experience. I could collapse on a couch and sleep so I don’t feel, or think. But I don’t. I am awake and trying and shaking and I have to pee. I am present in my body, which is extremely difficult for me.

Oblivion is attractive. It takes us away from ourselves–which can be good. A good fix of oblivion is necessary when we are healing. And don’t get me wrong, I love sleep; I do it every night, in fact. Not in my bed, but still alone. How does this make sense? Well, that is an injustice we’ll explore another time.

I think a three o’clock coffee chugged in a bathroom stall gives the universe a big Fuck You.

I am awake. I am feeling. Try me, bitch. I dare you.

I wrote a poem about this feeling. Read it if you like.

I love you.

 

To sleep is to fold

The weight of things

And pass through with

One Swift Blink

 

To make the coffee

Is a kind of

Defiant act

 

We will God

 

Another Another Another

You say.

Give me another reason

To not want to stay.

 

 

I raise my mug to you, dear reader. Cheers.

I went to the park today. Huge news, I know.

It was incredibly large and very beautiful. There were so many dogs. People too–a whole bunch of both. It was really very exciting for me, so please, save your judgments.

I got sun-kissed; not burned, as I refuse to allow myself to be that vulnerable. My chest and scalp are just blushing; there were A LOT of people. Makes sense to me.

There are so many people in the world. Do you ever think about that? There are so many people. Mostly, this makes me feel better–less significant. Like my fuck-ups don’t matter, really. They’re just as insignificant as I am, if not more so. It’s great.

So post-park, wet with aloe, my newfound insignificance and I decided to cut my hair. With bright green, child-safe, craft scissors.

For your sake, dear reader, I wish it ended terribly. That I could give you a horrifying photo of a job so poorly done. But alas. I did not, in fact, fuck-up. It looks mad decent.

I cut some pieces around my face that blow around in my eyes. It’s so great. Now, I can hardly see all the other people.

I looked in the mirror, fist of hair in hand, and felt insignificant.

How wonderful.

But still, this insignificance does not encourage me to fuck-up. No, no. It humbles me. Like maybe I did have to leave school 3 times. Maybe I did have to spend months learning how to eat. But so what? I don’t matter.

It doesn’t discourage me either. The insignificance I feel doesn’t make me want to spend my life in some kind of drunken stupor. No, it just allows for my messy decisions to stop torturing me. That ‘s not a bad thing right?

I still write. An insignificant girl and her purposeless words. Fucking up.

That guy walking by with a dog has parents, who have siblings with kids and friends. And those friends have parents with siblings and friends. So does it matter that I forgot my friend’s birthday 6 months ago? No!

Well, that one kinda does. It hurts a little more than not at all. It feels like it matters to me.

Why? Why this and not those other things?

Because I love her; we made a connection; we shared part of our lives; she means something to me.

Because she matters to me. And to her parents, siblings and friends. Because the things she’s done have impacted all of those people. Who have parents, siblings, and friends.

Shit.

Maybe I shouldn’t have cut my hair. I won’t be able to see.

Maybe I should pin it back so I don’t miss something–someone

Significant.

 

I have an obsessive personality so I wrote a thing about it. Read if you’d like/if you dare.

I love you.

 

 

I like bland, triangular triscuits.

men.

the color pink, in theory.

aldi.

second place, jeopardy contestants.

eye contact.

pacing.

pregnant silences.

sad music written by people who are no longer sad.

my mom.

contra dancing.

lending books to nurses.

artificial sweeteners.

the musical Miss Saigon.

memoirs with sad beginnings.

certain songs played many times. others only sometimes.

women.

spacious eyelids.

male, Canadian figure skater, Roman Sadovsky

a clean face.

girls with weird eyes.

Kurt Cobain’s interview answers.

watching other people do impressive things.

androgyny.

the song landslide played at opportune times, inciting tears.

crying hard.

harry styles’ collection of billowy shirts.

pictures of childhood me.

poetry by anyone who is not me.

not being alone.

 

being alone.

 

 

 

thanks, friend. Love you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Allow me to preface this by saying that I am not an addict, but someone who struggles similarly and really likes metaphors. So here goes.

A woman I met in the psych ward–a drug dealer and an addict–told me that whenever she manages to stay sober, in rehab or outside of it, she does so with the belief that she will, one day soon, get high again.

That it will be as good as the first time.

Once she’s hit rock bottom, she knows she has to go back to treatment. She’s out of money; she almost dies; she can’t get high enough anymore. She can’t sustain that level of chaotic self destruction indefinitely, so she decides to get clean–at least for a little while.

She goes to rehab, and she gets sober. She goes to rehab and she feels in control again. She goes to rehab and it seems like maybe she didn’t need to go to rehab in the first place–like she could have kicked it on her own.

Or maybe she didn’t need to kick it at all.

She was fine. Stealing and starving, delusions and paranoia. It wasn’t really so bad. At least, it doesn’t look that way from here. Where everything is so grey and contained.

And this is the disease. Addiction is amnesia.

Sober life doesn’t feel sustainable for her either. It often feels just as painfully chaotic as actively using. Recovery is as hard, if not endlessly harder, than a life of actively participating in her own death.

Addiction is a first class room on the Titanic.

Recovery is different. It feels like you’re still on the Titanic. The only difference is that now, you’re sitting with the band.

Sure, you’ve switched seats, but you’re still going down.

Life still sucks, it just sucks different.

Though this is true, I’d like to offer another image. It’s a grossly optimistic metaphor, but a pretty strong one if I do say so myself.

I think maybe, instead of sitting with the band, recovery is floating on a door. Not a boat–that is far too functional. No. A door. And we don’t know if help is coming.

Maybe it will, but to know that is impossible. So we have to float there. Alone. With the knowledge that we may be floating there forever.

It’s the waiting that does it.

Getting back on the doomed ship would give us something. Using would give the addict in recovery everything. Certainty. Comfort. Familiarity. Relief. We would be surrounded by something familiar as we die. It’s our choice to drown. And maybe the water really isn’t as cold as they say. We’ve been in it before.

But here on the door, you have to watch your life break in two and sink. There’s so much screaming. There is pain here, but there is something else too. And I don’t care if I sound disgustingly optimistic. Because there is something else here. On the door.

Hope. 

I know there is.

We might still die waiting to get back to land. That’s a fact. Life might still be a pile of shit, but, Jesus here we have hope. We’ve got a shot. It’s scary and unclear and nothing makes any sense. Everything is cold and you’re wet. But on the door, we are not actively participating in our own demise. Even though it feels like it.

You’re not sitting with the band.

You’re not going down.

You are waiting in hope.

You are blowing a whistle.

You are sending a flare.

Keep going.

I love you.

I love Alex Trebek. He is the sassy grandfather of highbrow trivia–a national treasure–an ageless gem. And he has cancer. Trebek. The unchanging, Godlike figure who was going to outlive us all, is sick. And I’m scared for him.

I’ve written a lot about Trebek; people know him–they can see him clearly in their minds with minimal effort. He is a constant Good in the collective American heart, and knowing that he is sick is an odd reality. This immortal man is suddenly frail. It’s confusing.

I’m scared for him, sad for his family, and angry that illness is stronger than will.

I want to share a monologue I wrote for a play writing class in which I profess my undying love for this man. I hope it can make you laugh, dear reader. Send him good vibes.

 

Secret in Jeopardy

 

All humans should be allowed the freedom to change their career at any time. I really do believe this. However, free will, as I understand it, does not apply to Mr. Alex Trebek.

He is beyond us all, and yet, he is doomed to his fate. He has to stand still as a bookcase for forty-five minutes every night, without fail. He must do this until he dies. How could I not fall for that kind of rock-n-roll tragedy.

 I watch Jeopardy. Every night at seven p.m. Eastern Standard Time, I tune in. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this, other than the fact that I’m in love with the host, it’s that I know very little about anything.

I don’t know mid-century Russian literature, or the Greek word for tomato. I don’t know the name of the first taxi driver, or anything about 80’s television. But I figure I’m still better off than my Mr. Trebek; I can sit on my ass and laugh at the contestant’s when they stutter out  “what is whatever”. He has to play God. Poor thing.

Some like basketball, football, baseball–I never could. Give me three brainiacs and Trebek, or give me static.

I fell in love without realizing it. It’s funny really, how it happened. Every time someone answered a question of mine with, “I don’t know,” I couldn’t help but think of him. How he would know. How, dear God, how he would look standing in the front of the lecture hall. How he would look so dapper, so worldly.

I realize how I sound–I’m nuts. I know fifty years, several thousand miles, and millions of dollars separate the two of us. I know he’d never go for me. Who am I? Some girl. Some fan.

I know I have to kill the habit. I know I have to go cold turkey. But, God, I’ve tried. I tried Dancing With The Stars, The Walking Dead, I even tried reruns of some really bad 90s sitcoms. But I just couldn’t do it. At 7 PM Eastern Standard Time, every weeknight, I tune in. For him.

You see, some people watch for the contestants. They find them interesting and beautiful and full of hilarious quirks. But they bore me–they’re all so dull, so lifeless in comparison. They’re replaceable–disposable. He isn’t. The show needs him–I need him.

I know he doesn’t write the questions or know all the answers. But there’s something about the way he stands there–still and regal–that makes me feel like he isn’t reading from a prompter. That he knows everything somehow. I had to write the letters.

I have no idea how old he is. He could be sixty, seventy–I haven’t a clue. But I do know that I am too old for the boys my age. I am too old for frat basements and grubby bars. I am too old for someone who does not say, with complete conviction, exactly what is.

 

It’s all jokes. But I really do love him.

Goodnight dear reader.

I love you too

I love peanut butter. I am also anorexic. This makes for a very interesting peanut butter and jelly.

 

First, I cut it in half–diagonally, not vertically. Next, and this is essential, I peel apart the bread. Here, I must be precise. My hope is that one slice retains all the glorious peanut butter, and the other, the lesser but still respectable jelly. There should be no contamination–no mixing of the spreads. I then take my spoon, scrape the jelly from the bread, and lick the spoon clean. The now bereft slice then gets cut into tiny pieces, and eaten–crust first–with a fork.
Now for the main event. I take the spoon, licked clean of jelly, and gently scrape the peanut butter piece. I eat it in tiny mouthfuls–savouring it as much as torturing myself. I make this last as long as possible.
I eat the last slice of bread slowly, guiltily, with a fork and a knife. I then sit in silence, thinking about what I’ve just done. It was so good, and I hate myself.
I was diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa, restrictive type, at eighteen. I tried to fight it on my own, but I had no idea what I was up against. It was like trying to fight a fire with spit. No. It was like trying to fight a fire with spit after you’ve eaten a sleeve of saltines. Anorexia was way stronger than anything I had to throw at it. So I went to treatment.
When I got there, I hadn’t eaten peanut butter in maybe eight months. The days of dissecting a PB&J were long gone, as I had started denying myself bread and fat when anorexia shrunk my diet to greek yogurt, plain cheerios, and trident gum.
When I met with the dietitian, she wanted me to eat, for lunch–just one of three meals and three snacks–a peanut butter and jelly with two tablespoons of this lard. Two tablespoons of this delicious, forbidden fat. I was horrified and excited. Mostly horrified. This woman was giving me permission to eat the thing I had been dreaming of for months. I was going to eat peanut butter, because it was going to save my life.
In the kitchen, they had plain, creamy peanut butter. A respectable, logical choice. It would have, no doubt, been deliciously painful to eat. But I didn’t choose it–no no–I chose cinnamon raisin swirl. This peanut butter was not just peanut butter; it was blended with cinnamon and stirred with raisins. It was terrifying, but I was allowed to eat it. I was supposed to eat it. After the first glorious mouthful, I felt teary. I wasn’t sure if it was the fat, or the relief.

 

Slowly, over the next few months, I realized that I was allowed to have food that tasted this good. Everyday. I was allowed to eat food that felt good to eat–that didn’t feel like punishment. I didn’t have to eat unsalted popcorn for dinner. I could eat peanut butter.
And so I deemed myself, the Girl Seeking Peanut Butter, because I could eat peanut butter. And I could enjoy it.
I could eat it on bread, even.