every time

every time 

your eyes meet mine

i can hear my heart 

thump-thump-thumping

trying to break out of my rib cage 

just to be closer to you

& every time

you open your lips to say my name

my cheeks flush previously uncharted depths of red

because the sound of your voice

whispering something that i call mine

makes my ears melt 

and my fingertips tremble

and i absorb your words through my skin and bloodstream

where they effloresce inside my giddy, schoolgirl soul

& every time

i see you with another girl

my throat closes

and my stomach drops

like i've just jumped off a twenty story building

my eyes flutter shut

as if me not seeing you would be 

a panacea to you not loving me

and I try to squeeze out the voice of my cruel, cruel mind

relentlessly reminding me 

"you will never be her" 

five shitty poems about five shitty mistakes

1
you sat across from me in english
we had the teacher whose S's slithered like snakes across silky sheets
you asked me to write your name in chinese
i tattooed it on your hand, you tattooed it on my heart
your cruel friends laughed,
"what are you gonna do? date an asian girl?"
you gave me a helpless look,
fuck you, you weren't helpless
you just cared about popularity
and your awful, racist friends more
than you cared about me
i cried
i got over it

2
i met you in chicago
you made me blush
"quit it with the hand-holding"
but i didn't want you to ever stop
you teased me about liking you
i teased you about your awful taste in tee shirts
it's six years later and i can't believe i ever liked you
i'm embarrassed

3 
you were with her
but i was the one you talked to until 3AM
and everyone hated me for it
you wanted "official"
but i was a master of avoidance
1/2 of summer was spent fawning over you
the other 1/2 was spent ignoring you
fall came and with it, a new girlfriend
i was still the one you called at 3AM

4
roses are red
violets are blue
i hate you

5
you had me at "i love neutral milk hotel"
you told me about your fears, your dreams, your aspirations
i listened to every song you sent me
you told me things you never told anyone else
you talked to me about anything,
everything
but it turns out
you lied about not liking rap music
you lied about kissing her
you lied about quitting
you're the stupidest brilliant person i've ever met

6
you weren't a mistake but if you were
you'd be the sweetest one
i miss you

america the beautiful

I'm sure all of you (nonexistent readers) have heard the news about the mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard by now.

 It's tragic. It's heartbreaking. What is it, the fifth mass shooting we've had all year? Correction. I did my research; today's shooting is the SIXTEENTH mass shooting this year. And all these shootings have death tolls that are four people or more, with the Newtown, CT shooting topping the list at 27 deaths and today's shooting coming in at second with 12 deaths. And, keep in mind: it's only September.

 See, every time a mass shooting happens, I go through the same steps. There's the initial shock as a "Breaking News" CNN update lights up on the screen of my phone, followed by a close reading of the news/social media coverage. Then, I try to research as much as I can about the perpetrator. Who was he? What was his motive? Any signs of terrorism? Any signs of mental illness? The next few days, I take to Twitter and Facebook to share articles on gun control reform. Weeks pass as I (along with a majority of this country) wait on the laws that could lessen killings, prevent deaths, and save countless family members from the grief of having to bury their loved ones. But time and time again, reform is not made; stricter gun control laws are not enforced. The initial shock returns, but this time with disappointment and anger.

 I'm sorry, but how many mass shootings does this country have to go through for the government to enforce stricter gun laws? There's been SIXTEEN mass shootings this year. SIXTEEN. It just seems that the number of mass gun-related deaths go up and up. The problem is not with the people. When polled, the majority of the American public are for stricter gun control laws. There are a few people that aren't, however. I apologize, but those people are just ignorant and ridiculous. NO ONE IS TAKING AWAY YOUR GUNS. Stricter gun laws do not mean no guns at all. Don't give me that "guns don't kill people, people kill people" bullshit. Would today's perpetrator have as easily killed 12 people had he had a knife instead of a gun? Yes, people kill people, but guns provide a hell of an easier way to kill those people and much more. And don't pull that "2nd amendment" crap either. If your right to bear arms infringes on other innocent people's right to live, I say fuck your second amendment. You sit at home and shake your rifles proudly in the air, fighting to keep what is an instrument of death even after 27 innocent students and teachers lost their lives in that elementary school? I've said sorry a lot in this paragraph, but I'm not going to apologize for this. That's incredibly selfish of you.

 However, regardless of an individual's stance on gun control laws, the truth of the matter is that the majority favors stricter gun control laws. Remember last year, after the Sandy Hook shootings, when Obama pushed and pushed for the gun control bill to be passed? Yeah, the majority of United States citizens were in favor of that bill. However, it was not passed. The Senate refused to pass it in fear that the minority of people that were against that bill would not provide votes and funding for many of the Senators when reelection came. In Obama's speech afters, our close-to-tears President told the United States (and the world) of his disappointment in the Senate and how this was a "shameful day" for America. It was the most heartbreaking speech I've ever heard Obama give. How bad does your government have to fuck up for the President to call it "shameful" and bring him close to tears? Let me tell you, pretty bad.

 But hey, whatever, we're America the Beautiful, land of the brave and the free, right?

 oh, and ps: fuck the NRA.

[t e n]

1 O things on 1O lists

(please do tell me your 1O things too)

ten things that make me happy

1. feeling snuggly and warm when it's freezing outside

2. friendly strangers

3. late night phone calls

4. cracking glowsticks

5. freshly squeezed lemonade

6. perfectly messy hair

7. crashing waves

8. boys' hoodies

9. handwritten notes

10. typewriters

ten songs I could listen to over and over

1. wish you were here - pink floyd

2. baba o'riley - the who

3. first day of my life - bright eyes

4. come thou fount - sufjan stevens

5. liebestraum no. 3 - franz liszt 

6. timshel - mumford & sons

7. tiny dancer - elton john

8. no surprises - radiohead

9. voodoo child - jimi hendrix

10. epilogue - the antlers 

ten celebrities who should probably date me

1. dylan o'brien ♡

2. john krasinski

3. adam levine

4. joseph gordon-levitt

5. aidan turner

6. matthew gray gubler

7. paul rudd

8. christoph waltz

9. leonardo dicaprio

10. jennifer lawrence - added because she's just amazing

ten favorite films

1. the darjeeling limited

2. fight club

3. pride and prejudice (2005)

4. almost famous

5. alice in wonderland (1957)

6. garden state

7. away we go

8. star wars iv: a new hope

9. the breakfast club

10. inglourious basterds

ten favorite books

1. the diving bell and the butterfly // jean-dominique bauby

2. fight club // chuck palahniuk

3. the great gatsby // f. scott fitzgerald

4. twenty love poems and a song of despair // pablo neruda

5. dubliners // james joyce

6. pride and prejudice // jane austen

7. to kill a mockingbird // harper lee

8. alice in wonderland // lewis carroll

9. looking for alaska // john green

10. slaughterhouse-five // kurt vonnegut

ten bands i could never get sick of

1. radiohead

2. mumford & sons

3. neutral milk hotel

4. brand new

5. bob dylan

6. blink-182

7. bon iver

8. nirvana

9. simon & garfunkel

10. the black keys

ten favorite television shows

1. sherlock

2. arrested development

3. house

4. parks and recreation

5. the office

6. american horror story

7. teen wolf

8. game of thrones

9. supernatural

10. modern family 

ten words/phrases i find beautiful

1. efflorescence - a bursting forth or flowering

2. l'appel du vide -  "call of the void"; the instinctive urge some people get to jump when near high places

3. Lethe - a river in the Greek underworld that, when drunk from, made souls forget the sufferings of life

4.ingénue - a naïve young woman
5. noceur - one who sleeps late or not at all
6. nyctophilia - love of darkness or night; finding relaxation or comfort in the darkness
7. cafuné - the act of tenderly running your fingers through someone's hair
8. wanderlust - a great desire to travel or rove about 
9. saudade - the feeling of longing for something or someone that you love and which is lost 
10. l'espirit de l'escalier - "staircase wit"; the predicament of thinking of the perfect retort too late

ten favorite quotes

1. "and there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it's sent away" -sarah kay 

2. "the cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea"

3. "many people need desperately to receive this message: "I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people don't care about them. You are not alone." - kurt vonnegut

4. "some people never go crazy. what truly horrible lives they must lead." - charles bukowski

5. "you don't need another human being to make your life complete, but let's be honest. Having your wounds kissed by someone who doesn't see them as disasters in your soul but cracks to put their love into is th emost calming thing in this world." - emery allen

6. "people should fall in love with their eyes closed" -andy warhol

7. "he offered her the world, she said she had her own." -monique duval

8. "The mind is beautiful because of the paradox. It uses itself to understand itself." 

-adam elenbass

9. "cussing doesn't come from a lack of vocabulary - I know all the other words. None of them speak the same language that my fucking heart does." - anis moghani

10. "get scared. it will do you good. smoke a bit, stare blankly at some ceilings, beat your head against some walls, refuse to see some people, paint and write. get scared some more. allow your little mind to do nothing but function. stay inside, go out - I don't care what you'll do; but stay scared as hell. you will never be able to experience everything. so, please, do poetical justice to your soul and simply experience yourself." -albert camus

ten places i'd like to go to before i die

1.  peru

2. india

3. italy

4. new zealand

5. greece

6. england

7. ireland

8. palau

9. australia

10. south africa

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

i'm curious. what are your 10 things?

bruises that won't heal

I dreamed about you last night.

You called me on the phone. The minute the sound of your voice hit my ears I felt a rush of surprise, excitement, and fear, all at the same time. You told me that you couldn't stop thinking about me and that you wanted to start over. "I can't help it, I really like you," you breathed into the phone. My eyelids fluttered as heart did cartwheels in my chest.

And then I woke up.

I spent the first fifteen seconds thinking that it wasn't a dream; surely you had actually called me and wanted to start something up again. How could I have even made that up? And that's when I realized I'd been asleep for the past 10 hours and that the last time you called, the trees were bare and there was still snow on the ground. My cartwheel-doing heart transformed into a lump in my throat. I felt embarrassed; I had promised my friends (but more importantly, myself) that I would stop thinking about you. But it's not like I broke that rule, right? I stopped obsessing over you. I trained myself to slow my breathing to a normal pace around you. It's not like I have any control over my subconscious.

Hahaha. God, this is a joke. I'm pathetic. I've perfected rationalizing to an art.

I can't control how I feel about you. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. It wasn't fair of you to just break things off all of a sudden without explaining yourself, especially when they were going so well. You caught me completely and totally off guard. I called you on that winter night, asking you if things were okay, and you couldn't even tell me to my face what you really felt. It took you two phone calls, one "yes, everything is fine," and seventeen minutes after we hung up for you to text me, "I guess what I'm saying is that I think we should just be friends." How did it go from "I really, really like you" to "let's just be friends"? I've convinced myself into believing that it's the distance. "We just live too far away from each other," is the only reason that keeps me from crumbling. Because if the reason is distance, it's not that you stopped liking me, you just found it too hard to keep going. And if the reason is distance, there's still a chance for us in the future. And then, we can still be friends and talk and flirt and make people question, "wait, is there something going on between them?" And if the reason truly is distance, it wasn't because you were scared off by my totally fucking weird personality or how much of an emotional mess I am or how I have nothing in my life put together. So I tell myself it's the distance; I tell others it was the distance, and "it was the distance it was the distance it was the distance" is the lullaby playing in my head every night.

Which is a totally valid reason to call things off with someone, right? And it's totally logical, and I shouldn't be upset, right? So I guess that solves it; it wasn't because of the distance. Because you're still not talking to me and I'm still in tears.

blog until i die

So this is going to be my new blog.

Yeah, sorry for the shitty introduction.

I've tried using Tumblr as an outlet for my thoughts, but I feel like it's just not a good platform to get my unfiltered, pure thoughts out. I don't know, is it just me? I feel like I'm limited to what I can write simply because I'm constantly worried and thinking about the ridiculous people on that site that will be offended by literally anything. Like, for example, there was this one time when I was babysitting and I blogged about playing "Nerf Gun War" with the two boys I was babysitting and how much fun it was, and then this crazy pacifist (I'm assuming) chick messages me and replies, saying something along the lines of, "how dare you, you're teaching these kids war at such a young age, the reason this earth is a place of war is because of people like you" et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And that is why I never blog personal things on Tumblr. Because people on the internet are physically incapable of chilling the f out. 

And I suppose it also has to do something with me going off on crazy tangents and telling irrelevant stories. 

But anyway, that was my wayward way of introducing my blog. Like dude, I don't know, do people have introduction blog posts? Or do they just start blogging their life? wat? how to blOG?!/1/1?!

I need to get my shit together. I'll figure out how to do this. Eventually.

Until next time,

bethie

p.s. how do I "sign off" on my blog posts without sounding like a total prick?