How to carve a pumpkin

Think about it all day. Tell a bunch of people who shouldn't care. Leave tenth period running. Get to your car. Beat all the traffic. Ignore the people waving at you. Drive.

Get to Jewel. Walk around. See no pumpkins. Feel concerned. Remember that pumpkins are usually kept outside. Look foolish walking past the cash registrar empty handed. Check outside. Notice the parking cars. Notice the smoking employees. Notice the talking teens. Notice no pumpkins. Return inside, foolishly. Ask Costumer Service for a pumpkin. Hear that there are no more pumpkins. Drop jaw. Leave store. See friend buying ice cream. Realize you need ice cream too.

Drive to Daily Scoop. Look at ice cream flavors. Chat with chuck. Buy a single scoop of pumpkin ice cream. Answer, no, you have not yet carved a pumpkin. Realize that you probably will not. Pay. Leave.

Get back in car. Drive to Prospect Park. Climb to top of hill. Eat pumpkin ice cream. Wish you had a real pumpkin. Weep. Lay on hill for a while. Feel stupid. Realize you are probably too old for pumpkin carving. Call mom to tell her, anyway. Finish ice cream. Go home.

Drive to Oakbrook. Touter girl. Notice the jack-o-lanterns in her window. Count she has two. Remember you have none. Think about asking for one. Shake it off and quiz her on Vocab. Drive home.

Open garage door. Notice mom is missing. Call her. Hear that she is in Lombard. Ask why. Realize she is buying you a pumpkin. Realize you have the greatest mother in the world. Feel too excited to get homework done. Wait for her to get home.

Help carry pumpkin inside. Wash it off. Lay newspapers on table. Think about reading them first. Decide not to. Ask mom to cut off the top off the stem. Grimace as the knife gets very close to her hand. Open pumpkin. Smell memories.

Notice it is quieter than you remember. Grab two huge bowls. Place gunk in the larger one. Weave through to find seeds. Stick them in the smaller one. Get hands messy. Talk about things that are also messy, her friends divorce, your friends sickness. Wash hands. Look at the bowl with seeds. Note that there are fewer seeds than you remember there usually being. Realize that usually there are more pumpkins. Recognize that there are usually more people to eat them too. Wish there were more people this year too.

Let mom handle making the pumpkin seeds, she is good at that. Realize that you will have to be the one good at that someday. Be thankful that you still have time. Carefully plan out the face. Draw two triangles and a square. Ask for help with the mouth. Watch mom start to carve the triangles. Ask to give it a shot. Do a sloppy job. Act embarrassed when mom tries to take pictures. Smile anyway. Smile bigger when you see her send them to grandma.

Finish carving eyes and nose. Dislike your work. Ask mom to carve the mouth. Admire her precision in carving teeth. Laugh when half of teeth fall out in trying to extract excess gunk. Remember that this used to always happen. Remember you used to always laugh.

Want to show your pumpkin off. Carry it into the front room. Make room by the window. Suggest you name the pumpkin. Get distracted in looking for a candle. Find a candle under the kitchen sink. Place it inside of pumpkin. Jokingly sing Chanukah song as mom lights the candles. Note her cross necklace. Stop singing. Realize she is still humming along. Never name the pumpkin.

Listen to her question, are you happy with it? Smile. Nod your head. You will be.

Still spinning

We are all spinning
Always twirling
Though it is common to deny

The earth is spinning us all
Slowly
Around an orbit we've always know

We all stumble
On a familiar pair of sea legs, loose
Unfit for this spinning world

So unbalance becomes steady
And to spin feels still
When it is all we've ever known




But I am now spinning
Quicker than usual
On an orbit I control

I am shaking
On worthless legs
Unable to keep up with a new pace

I am flying
Through my childhoods twirls
Around and around, faster

It's a game
But it always ends
Spinning slows to still




And when I get off
I will, we will be

Spinning, still

It's raining everybody!

How could you not make time to dance in the rain?

The unstarted homework, the unanswered texts, the unfinished conversations, the uncleaned mess, these things will all still be here when clouds pass.

But the chill of each raindrop, the thrill of predicting the next lightning bolt, the bliss and serenity of dancing and drinking and standing and thinking in the rain, these things will blow away as suddenly as the storm came on.

So, go! Go outside, right now! Dance! Sing! Stand! Make a fool out of yourself! Your "responsibilities" will be there when you return, but will not follow you outside (that, I think, is the best part).

I refuse to take another raindrop for granted.

What will last will last

Will I last or will I be
Gone before another sun?
Will I live to see the caught set free?
To find out who is really me?
Or will I parish before I'm done?

Memories, they fill my mind
Of all the good times that have past
Of nights so sweet and hearts so kind
Once my whole world, now left behind
Certainly, they did not last

And if those things so beautiful
Could crack without a noticed tear
Than will I ever remain whole?
Or will time always take its toll?
All will be gone but at least was here

Maybe, I don't want to last
For when I think of all that might
Colors, wind, rivers, light
Fall and spring, day and night
Things much larger than their height
I know I'm just a shadow cast
And that I'm not big enough
To want
To last.

Guys, my back hurts

I like to imagine that all of the pain I have in my back is a build up of things I have never said. As if everything I held inside of me got pulled out of my mind, out of my heart, and wadded up between my shoulder blades.

I threw out my back four years ago for a sport I loved. Back pain has been a big part of my high-school years because of some of the side affects of the pain killer I take. I've always had to alter things to make them less painful for my back: the way I walk, the way I stand, the way I sleep, the way I face the day. I have my way of doing those things now, and although it is not the normal way, it seems to work for me.

Tonight, my back is feeling especially tight. But I'm so used to it throbbing that I wouldn't know how to stand another way.

This city (ayyeee) is my city (ayyyeee)

I never knew where home was
Until I saw it from the sky
Until reduced to lights and boxes
And I was miles high

Once shaped and shrunken down
foreign eyes can see no hook
Just lights enclosed in boxes
If they even choose to look

But I, I see dimensions
And know what they inclose
My neighbors, schools, and brothers
My world beneath my toes

Till I know another like this
I'll hold it to be true
That when flying from city to city
Home's the greater of the two




(Fun fact: when I first wrote this poem, it was about Chicago being the lesser of two evils. Then I changed my mind.)

Hush

There is something so comfortable about sitting in the silence with my father. Really, I shouldn't call it silence because our house is always filled with songs from whatever album he picked out the night before, but background music has become so familiar in my home that it often blends into silence, so normal that I take it for granted.

Unlike my mother, my dad waits until he is talked to. He does not ask questions or force conversation. That is not to say that he doesn't care or is reserved, because he does care very much and is fairly outgoing. Rather, my father treats words as if they are limited, as if each word sacrifices his ability to latter express an unmade thought. I admire his ability to filter his superfluous or silly thoughts and instead speak only thoughts that will introduce something new

My father's silence is a fresh break from the noise of friendships and the nag of my mother. Not that I don't love both of those groups, but shared silence is a nice reminder that some people love you not for your thoughts, or your humor, or your willingness to listen, but for you. In my fathers silence I hear how he feels about me.

I like to guess what my quite father is thinking, using his music choice as a guide. Tonight, we are listening to The Smashing Pumpkins and my father misses his wife and has too much work to do and needs to fix the washing machine and is worried about his son and probably forgot to get his flu shot again. (Smashing Pumpkins was a perfect choice). But we will never address those things or anything vocally. Instead, we will share this silence and know that, as loud as life may seem, it can all easily become background music.

So, sitting here quietly in the company of my father, I know his thoughts are far off of me. But mine, they are screaming to tell him -screaming to break the silence - that this quite is perfect.

Because soon enough we will get used to the situations we are with and they too will become obsolete, familiarly unnoticed. Maybe I will one day take this silence for granted, but for now,










Hush.