rep

watercolor eyes bleed through to page 8
mama shakes her head
good refrigerator magnets are hard to come by these days

eighteen year old blood pumps the same as sixteen
even if the brain works the river
not the ocean

running water
running
running

behind your ears
between your lips
against your palms
smiles

falling
falling
falling

by the side of the road
stepped on like leaves

under three year old shoes

washed down the gutter

washing
washing
washing

clutching death like a bottle

watching
watching
watching

bare feet that are better in the rain
clothes that are better on the hanger

watch me hit the ground

sixteen didn't know it
sixteen smiled through the sun
sixteen laughed like the aspens

shit
shit
shit

third person hurts
second person quits
first person can't smell the blood

scratch the skin
until you find what you're looking for

can't
can't
can't

don't feed me the clouds

still
still
still

watch the sky

/
/
/

wait for the angels



--erin

I think I'm a loner.

you can beat the drums on aluminum tables,

hang air from the rafters,

and wrap the color of my cheeks around the beams,

but i'll still sit alone,

watching

white teeth flashing

feet shifting softly

lips tracing lyrics

warm palms falling

chins facing the stars

and i'll wonder why i'm here in the first place.

i've never really liked parties, 

to be honest.

--erin

Things I have actually said out loud before:

(And people still want to be seen with me in public. Don't ask me why.)

• All I can do is eat my skirt.
• I think I'm sweating grape juice.
• If I weren't here right now, I'd be jumping over tennis nets.
• You are the literal son of the devil. How do you feel about that?
• My final form is a frog.
• I hate triangles.
• My hair has a wind blown thing going on. And by that I mean that it looks like I slept in a wind tunnel.
• Because that's how I like my males. With cowlicks.
• Just because I'm in love with your brother doesn't mean we can't get married.
• Will you be my... Dreamboat?
• You aren't a line.
• Yes, Joncathon, there is a "c" in your name. Didn't your mother ever tell you?
• I think that dog just jacked a police car.
• How about instead of bringing snacks, you guys can just feast upon my image?
• You look like a cockatool. Get it? Cockatoo? Tool? No?
• My arms are too heavy for my arms.
• You have kind of an emo/Disney prince/vampire thing going on today.
• I would sell my soul to be Louise Brealy when they filmed "The Empty Hearse."
• OF COURSE IT WAS CLIMACTIC! THERE WAS MURDER! The sandwich was the denouement. 

There are so many more that it's pathetic. We'll stop here, though.

Bonus Point:

A picture I have actually sent to a real live person in an email before. And am now posting to a blog. On the internet. It's times like these that I say, "Fuck it. I'll never see these people again." It's also times like these that I hate myself.

YOU ARE ALL WELCOME. MERRY IT'S NOT CHRISTMAS.

--Erin

p.s. If any of you wants to copy my idea and post terrible pictures of you and your multiple chins and air dried hair and general undesirableness, I'd appreciate it. As much as I love doing embarrassing things alone, it would be cool if you all did this with me. #trendsetter #turningheads #notinagoodway

p.p.s. I really don't know why they let me out of the house at this point.

p.p.p.s. There are several good reasons I do not now and have never had a boyfriend. This whole post is exhibit A.

p.p.p.p.s. I'm so hot. lyk, its ridikulus. omg. those chins, gurl.

p.p.p.p.p.s. I swear I don't look like that always. Look. Proof. #selfiethursday

I always got participant ribbons.

Sometimes I want someone to be there to tell me why the spacebar is more worn out than the letters in "please"

and sometimes I want to ask love for its first name, because "in," "of," "for," and "with" are too simple to preface the thing I've never tried to search for.

My eyes are too restless to ask all the questions that matter, 

and before they can leave my lips they just slide back between my teeth and past my tongue and hide in my throat.

Wherefore art thou Romeo and wherefore art thou Juliet and wherefore art thou Erin
and it is the east and Juliet is the sun
But I haven't needed anyone to be the sun since I discovered why I liked the moon so much.

The sun is too busy.
It has to deal with hope and prayers and love.
It watches for hours and hours and everyone goes to see it.

The moon saves time for me, because I'm awake after the hope goes to bed.
It listens to my prayers and it knows why I can't let the questions past my lips and it knows why I'm asking in the first place.
It thinks more about the 3 a.m. lovers than the noontime dates
and it thinks more about the sad lips than the happy ones.

The moon, it sees them,
the tears hiding in your bedsheets and under your pillow,
and it wipes them away with a Mona Lisa smile.
Don't speak or you'll ruin it.

The moon sees with old eyes,
used to the desperation of the stars
and the things that can only be whispered when parents are asleep,

and I love it.

I love the yellow white glow,
the reflected light,
the face that I've never been able to see.

It knows why I look for Orion instead of the Big Dipper
and it knows why I'm disappointed when I find it.

The moon would tell me what love goes by, but it sees I want to find out on my own.
It would tell me whose name is more threadbare than the spacebar,
but it knows me too well.

It knows where I keep my nickels and it knows what shade of lipstick I wear
and it knows which skirts I wear for which occasions
and it knows why I wish I had more skirts for more occasions.

The moon breathes with the knowledge that it isn't warmth,
but the insomniacs love the light too much to care.

The light that turns gold into silver,
quiets the diamonds,
and relishes in pale skin and open-mouthed smiles.

The moon bleeds second place,
and maybe that explains my love.

The sun always got the gold.
Gold medals for the bright light.
Silver for the mirror in the sky.

I'd say that's a bad thing,
but it doesn't hurt to look at the moon.


--Erin

Paris is better than me at hide & seek

Give me a muse and I'll sing like the stars

but this poster of Paris

can't compare to reality

because

smoke and

dust and

love and

life

will always equal more there

than it does here

because I can bring Paris to Provo

but that doesn't mean 

it

still

wants

me

--Erin

49 things I have learned in my less than two weeks of college:

1. #collegelyfe
2. breakfast is overrated
3. the freshman fifteen is a thing and it's terrifying and it's also known as the cannon center
4. YSA ward sacrament meeting is eerily quiet
5. fanfiction is a life ruiner
6. I have an obsession with e.e. cummings
7. it's totally reasonable to spend $44 dollars at barnes and noble
8. poetry books are always more expensive than novels
9. it's actually a terrible idea to buy the big boxes of goldfish because freshman fifteen
10. being everyone's second choice kind of sucks
11. that whole hair-doing-looking-presentable thing is also overrated
12. I still love my mauve lipstick
13. cherish caffeine while you can, because guaranteed you're too lazy to walk across the street to Wendy's
14. skirts are a fabulous idea in the summer
15. unless it's windy
16. (courtesy of my roommate's cousin) don't park the car near the building if you plan on making out in it after your date
17. I either need to change clothes less often or get a bigger hamper
18. power outages result in screaming from apparently everyone but me
19. don't buy cartons of milk if you're only going to be using it for cereal every other day
20. even ten a.m. classes are difficult to stay awake in
21. the third floor is not the place to be if the a/c is out
22. there are bagels in the vending machines THIS IS NOT A DRILL
23. it's totally reasonable to be laying in your bed on a Friday night eating dry cereal out of a butterbeer mug while wearing a Gryffindor snuggie and reading fanfic about the Marauders
24. don't park near the grass or the dried sprinkler water will make your windshield esp difficult to see out of
25. writer's block is not the shit
26. cinnamon toast crunch is the shit
27. chick-fil-a is also the shit
28. sometimes saying shit on accident while you drive will make your roommate laugh
29. the whole mailing address thing in terms of the dorms is really difficult to figure out
30. it's really simpler to write notes on paper than to type them out on a laptop
31. like, really, that laptop is just more weight on your back
32. people like to go places without you 
33. all the time
34. so you end up sitting in your dorm room writing about things that you've learned so far in college and drinking dr. pepper with lipstick stains on the straw and reading selected poems from e.e. cummings
35. cake batter chapstick isn't actually bad
36. thumbtacks are really handy
37. as are command hooks
38. and goldfish
39. the xtreme cheese kind
40. even if it's $8.50 and you're just a poor college student
41. actual garbage bags are helpful
42. 3:14 is a perfectly reasonable time to go to bed
43. no one will want to go to seven peaks when you do
44. and they'll go to fault in our stars while you write a paper
45. and then you'll cry because feelings
46. and then you'll be okay because you'll come up with really good comebacks to the comments they'll never make
47. and listen to book on tape worm
48. and it's seriously all cool
49. like, srsly wat.

--Erin