I Didn't Spellcheck

Am I going to be the kind of barely-in-her-twenties, vegetarian, girl who binge eats three chicken tenders straight out of the oven because her sister called her self centered?

I am completely uninspired by the idea of being inspired. I find myself blaming the stigma attached to not knowing what you want or who you are more and more each day. It's completely stifling to feel like your mistakes are being tallied up like pounds on a scale, and reducing you in the eyes of others. I want to be able to trip and fall and have that be perfectly ok. Because that's normal! It's normal to be 19 years old and switching majors more often than you switch out disposable razors. I don't watch shows like Nikita or Covert Affairs to feel better about myself. I know that it's awesome to see women portrayed as strong individuals, but to me that's not real. I can't find myself, or any other woman I know, within those characters. We are imperfect, we are soft, mushy, and emotional. We are strong, but not because we can wear a jumpsuit, or find 20 different defensive uses for a kitchen knife. I want to see people fuck up, embarrass themselves, change their minds, and still keep moving forward. That's what's inspiring to me, those are the woman who convince me to get up every morning and just do me, whatever the consequences might be.

Badass is feeling. Badass is being able to face up to how much of a failure you currently are, and yet not let it hinder you from believing with all your heart that someday that will all change.

So hurray to the Lena Dunhams of the world. Thank you for making me feel less alone in my clumsy entrance into womanhood. Yeah maybe I will be 24 and still only paying for half of my iphone bill because I'm working as an unpaid intern at some publishing firm while I "write my first essay collection". Maybe even the Coffee Bean won't call me back in for an interview. Maybe I will continue to love all the wrong people in all the wrong ways. But it won't always be so.

It won't.

xoxo Yaz

You Take What You Can Get And You Die With It

Something really amazing happened to you. Something you never dreamed ever would be in your hands, red hot and burning through the palms of your hands. What do you do? You want it SO BADLY, you can feel the desire melting down your spine. But you can't have it. Or maybe you could, but you certainly shouldn't. So you make a list of choices, how to deal with the situation. You could: 1) Sabotage the whole thing. Be a madwoman/madman. Convince yourself you don't deserve it, until it starts to believe you. Follow every self-destructive nerve ending until you are alone once again, laying in a pile of ash. 2) Be patient. Simple, hard, long. Be virtuous, and faithful, and optimistic. Believe that if you turn a blind eye and continue to drive along the answer will eventually appear in front of you. 3. Pack up all your things. Leave. Leave it all behind. There is no control. We have no control. All we can do is try to understand that life is sort of a joke anyway, a sad and wonderful and short joke. Breathe, go through the motions, be mad in your head or all the other aspects of your life except the one that consumes you most. Be dignified. Take all the sharp turns and left hooks you can because bruises give you depth. Make yourself over over and over again, until looking in the mirror and not recognizing yourself is routine. All you've got right now is you. Maybe sometime soon, or sometime far, you will have him. But for now it can never be. The Atlantic Ocean robbed you of a second chance to taste those lips. Twist it into inspiration. Write, write, write. Light yourself up like a spark and marvel at your shine. Consider growing accustomed to a different taste. But then again, maybe no. I didn't say give up did I? Don't give up. You know you love the impossible. You know you are a challenge who loves challenges. You are chasing a dream. What could be more worth a few burns than that?

I Know All The Rules

When I take a picture of myself I stare out it for hours, on and off, trying to imagine what other people would or wouldn't see in it. In me. Narcissism or the looking glass self?

Could You Make Me a Cup of Tea

So it happened. You heard a song, and it took you twenty paces back. Maybe it's not the right time to swallow down memories and feelings and faces. To imagine that your pillow still smells like him, to pull out those creased notes from the bottom of the sock drawer and read it out loud to yourself. It's a good feeling though, to know that enough time has passed that you can afford to look back for a little while. It's only a moment of realizing that you will be ok, that you're almost ok, and you can afford to crack down the middle for just a microscopic moment. Melancholy. All beautiful things in life are melancholy.

Noticing the Little Things

Today Something Happened

I'm writing my first novel. It's really happening. I'm really doing it. Maybe, if I can conjure up the willpower, I will post the goings-on of my process....BUT what I'm really hoping will happen, is that I will disappear and write something truly wonderful and magical. So for now, goodbye. Talk to you soon. - Yaz

Don't Ask Me To Rise

I can't put into words what I'm feeling. It's like every thing hurts. My eyes feel like lead weights but they won't stay shut. I don't know what you're trying to do to me. Why is it okay for you to walk in and out of peoples' lives when you know damn well how much you rearrange a persons anatomy the minute you look them in the eye. I finished putting myself back together after leaning on you for so long and now it just feels like my veins and nerves are splitting and reattaching themselves. Why is it so easy for me to forget the horrible, cruel way you treated me? I just want to talk to you. I just want to talk to you. I want to lay in bed with you, like we used to, and feel, for a moment, that I am safe and understood. I just want to sleep you away. I just want this ambivalence to end. I got what I wished for every day for four months, and now I have no idea what to do. I don't know what to do with you. I just want to sleep. But I know I'll just dream about being OK. I'll dream that you and I are OK. I'll dream so hard that I'll wake up thinking I'm whole. I can't be whole, you won't give back the parts of me I gave you. To fill in the holes, the gaps, the spaces that were left empty.

I just want to sleep.