- I bought mascara and cantered through it —
stopping every so often to straighten up,
to relevé,
to turn exactly 1.8 pirouettes then stumble out
of amateur balance and click my tongue like a yia-yia.
I dragged my fermenting body,
all wild eyes and heavy hair,
across four seasons while trying not to sigh too loud.
I dubbed 2014 the year of grit —
the year every day was a new texture of
gritty and I swelled my punches to match.
It was the year I cast my scars
out to sea on lines of poetry
I kept sequestered in my pockets
and reeled them back in published and
legitimate.
2014 gurgled into the year of stage lights,
highlighted scripts, and talent lanyards
that stuck with sweat and raw, giddy nerves
from my neck across sets and readings and premieres.
It was the year I learned to dread the
third person. The year of one hundred word
bios I wrote over and over (for this magazine
and that play and these performances and this featured poem),
always baffled and unable to compose a few lines
describing myself.
It was a year of small stabs and big failures —
of getting recognized while buying yogurt.
It was thousands of miles in the Hundai Santa Fe
without ever really leaving.
It was the year of chasing without ever really catching.
2014 was a big collection of small moments that left
me with less certainties than months in the year.
They are simple. They are so very difficult to commit:
-
Your emotions are valid. Please don’t defend them.
-
The less you speak the more you say.
-
Lipstain is never a good idea.
-
Remember to check your email, dude. But, actually.
-
Your bones aren’t baby teeth. You don’t want them loose.
-
The conversations you don’t have will haunt you.
-
The places where you shed your skin will then return to haunt you more.
-
A kiss is rarely just a kiss. Impossible with the threads of thought
-
you keep in your brain.
-
Sweating means you’re trying.
-
Feeling wanted is intoxicating, but be prepared for a hangover once the wanting stops.
It’s only a little. But it’s so much.
Walk tall with these bullets into 2015.
Be okay knowing you’ll laugh and squeal and feel beautiful and feel dead.
Know there will be moments you feel ethereal and there will be moments you will sit doubled over, pressing your arms into your stomach because it feels like that’s the only way to keep your guts from spilling out onto the floor for all to see.
There is no point but to make a point.
It’s just a year, and the goal is the same: stay whole and grow.