In June, I posted an old diary entry and followed it up a few days later by asking if anyone would...

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 16:31:00 -0400

In June, I posted an old diary entry and followed it up a few days later by asking if anyone would be interested in a public Tumblr group for that kind of thing. Nobody really showed any interest, so I’m posting this here. I found it tucked into the pages of an old diary; it’s a poem that a guy I dated briefly in college wrote for/about me:

“Marcela”

A flock of sparrows bursting from the tree;
disturbed from slumber by a gunshot.
Any confidence or surity in life
shattered the moment she trod upon the plain,
the moment she entered the waving grasses
and listened to the whispering in the wind.

The clear and tranquil pond that was my mind, my heart
Just got a boulder dropped into it.
Clouds of silt, dirt, and panicked tadpoles
drift about beneath the surface, the waves from the impact still echoing
throughout my mind.
Beautiful, glowing, glittering coy (sic) fish,
Oddities from the depths,
dayglo greens, blues, and reds radiating attention-seeking energy.
And creatures, monsters, demons long buried in the silt
All rise to the surface, not quite bursting through,
yet making their presence and strife known.

They begin to quarrel, pummelling each other to no end,
creating great waves that crash and beat in turn upon
the shoreline.

This pond will never be the same.

A few years ago, Adam and I were visiting family in South Florida. We took a trip to the Sawgrass Mills mall and I bumped into this guy. He was with a really cute girl and I was happy to see him doing well. The last time I’d seen him, he was on academic probation and sitting in the FIU cafeteria skipping classes to play Magick the Gathering.

Understandably, he wasn’t exactly happy to see me and when we parted ways, I turned to Adam and said “yeah, I kinda fucked up his life for a little bit back in college …” It felt kind of self-centered to say something like that, but now that I read this poem again, I wasn’t exactly off the mark.

Skipping dinner tonight; I'm full on angst.

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 20:58:00 -0400

It never fails: every time I clean out my closet, I end up going through my old diaries. I know it’s going to send me into a spiral of self-loathing, but I’m masochistic; so I do it anyway.

This is a hilarious excerpt from June of ‘96 (I was a month away from turning 14, if that’s any excuse):

6/12/96

Dear Diary,

Steve¹ is going out with Ruth². I want to run away, if I pack what I need and if I pack expensive stuff I could probably survive a couple of months if I needed to runaway. Right now I have some money & I can sell the expensive stuff*. And if I got away for a couple of months then maybe things would clear up. I hate swimming³ I want to write stories⁴ not become a fucking mermaid why can’t mom understand that? Besides mom and dad are tight on the money anyway even though I know they’d miss me it would help them out a bit only problem is where would I stay?

pro’s
no swimming
no school
no Daniela⁵
no rules
no responsibilities
no bullies

con’s
no stable food supply
no shelter
no friends
no Mayday⁶
no computer
no T.V.

*my leather jacket⁷

If you’ll notice, I was not a huge fan of punctuation back then. Also of note: the pro’s and the con’s evened out. I guess that’s why I ended up not running away.

¹the guy I had a massive crush on
²one of my best friends at the time
³I was on an optimist swim team and, around the time this entry was written, I had been fighting with my mom to let me quit. If I remember correctly, she did let me quit - right before the first meet
⁴as was common with many angsty teenagers, I fancied myself a writer.
⁵my sister, who would totally make it onto the “con’s” were I to update this list.
⁶my cat
⁷I have no idea how much I thought I was going to get for a Donna Karan knock-off

Marcela channeling Margeeka

In June, I posted an old diary entry and followed it up a few days later by asking if anyone would...

Skipping dinner tonight; I'm full on angst.