Paris Holds the Key to Her Heart

Paris:

The bitter swell of my metaphorical coffee burning slowly down my throat. Warm yellow lights hit me in all the right places, and the flakes of snow bow down to kiss my hair. The lower lamp lights my skin and it smoothly whispers 'perfection'.

The neighbor's music's swimming up through our apartment floor like kisses to my eardrums. Planting seeds of love in our fraying carpet. The musician never sleeps.

Because we can always hear the music. We rock and sway together on our balcony. Cold metal railing. Icy, like the tips of my fingers, you tell me.



We will sleep till the sun hits my easel and my oils and my brushes. Then will the angels drag me from the blankets and from the comforter of my own bed.

And the gods and the muses and the demigods and the spirits of my children will work through me. Starting at my roots and creating sparks at each curve of my ringlets. But the fire splits at each of my ends, and that's the greatest part of it all. We'll create things heavier than the sun that filters through the cracks of our lace curtains.

And we'll write down everything, so our children can know what it's really like in Paris. So when they have to grow like an adult and they by their tickets out, they can know why I married you in Paris. Know why I loved in Paris and know why the best baguette's are in Paris. And know why they make 'paris' out of 'paradise'.

We'll be watching Hepburn in old black and white films and checking out Walt Disney biographies in the old man's makeshift library on the third floor.
We'll hold hands 7 blocks down. Then we stop there and get some lunch.

There's no time in Paris. No tea time or d.e.a.r. time or me time or you time.

Paris is wherever I'm with you.

Look at us Go

Look at us go. I am laughing and spinning and my classes are great. And I wanna hug everyone. Ev-er-y-one. And I have never wanted to hug anyone before.

Things are going good and I don't have a bit of regret and, ohhhhhhh. It feels so good to feel so new.
It's like gold glitter and silver hair.
And vanilla bean ice cream.
It's refreshing... like running down the summertime streets wearing Lone Peak choir robes, running at night, because we love to feel like Harry Potter, but we don't have to be Harry Potter.

Back when night was warm.
And running wasn't just for athletes.

This feels like banana cream pie. Or doing the dishes early on a Saturday morning. Kitchen windows facing east.

It's feels like when we would climb the boxelder tree at our old house and play time-machine. And Rachel was always "Sarah, the tri-sarah-top".
And remember when we sat in my brother's car and talked about Tyler's boxers? Cuz he had some with sailboats on them and some with green stripes? Yeah, that's how I feel. We were both proud that we knew that. I'm practically as happy as I was that day.

I'm feeling like wearing pink, and I never really feel like wearing pink.
I'm feeling nothing like this weather outside.
Brilliance and light, like white feathers.
                              Radiance.
                                           Sunbeams and Old Dust.
                                                                             Glitter and Gold.

I'm feeling like blue 1950's dresses.
I'm feeling like watching the beginning of 500 Days of Summer.
I'm feeling like staying in my church clothes, pretending to dance with someone when really, I am alone.

                                         I'm feeling like Taylor Swift's 'You Belong With Me'.

And you're all surprised because I'm feeling at all.
But only because things are working out.

let's see how long that lasts.

B

By Sarah Kay

If I should have a daughter, instead of “Mom,” she’s gonna call me “Point B,” because that way she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. And I’m going to paint solar systems on the backs of her hands so she has to learn the entire universe before she can say, “Oh, I know that like the back of my hand.”

And she’s going to learn that this life will hit you hard in the face, wait for you to get back up just so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air. There is hurt here that cannot be fixed by Band-Aids or poetry. So the first time she realizes that Wonder Woman isn’t coming, I’ll make sure she knows she doesn’t have to wear the cape all by herself because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I’ve tried. “And, baby,” I’ll tell her, don’t keep your nose up in the air like that. I know that trick; I’ve done it a million times.

You’re just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back to a burning house, so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him. Or else find the boy who lit the fire in the first place, to see if you can change him.” But I know she will anyway, so instead I’ll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boots nearby, because there is no heartbreak that chocolate can’t fix. Okay, there’s a few heartbreaks that chocolate can’t fix. But that’s what the rain boots are for, because rain will wash away everything, if you let it. I want her to look at the world through the underside of a glass-bottom boat, to look through a microscope at the galaxies that exist on the pinpoint of a human mind, because that’s the way my mom taught me.

That there’ll be days like this. “There’ll be days like this, my momma said.”

When you open your hands to catch and wind up with only blisters and bruises; when you step out of the phone booth and try to fly and the very people you want to save are the ones standing on your cape; when your boots will fill with rain, and you’ll be up to your knees in disappointment. And those are the very days you have all the more reason to say thank you. Because 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. You will put the wind in winsome, lose some. You will put the star in starting over, and over. And no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute, be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life. 

And yes, on a scale from one to over-trusting, I am pretty damn naive. But I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily, but don’t be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it. “Baby,” I’ll tell her, “remember, your momma is a worrier, and your poppa is a warrior, and you are the girl with small hands and big eyes who never stops asking for more.” Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things. And always apologize when you’ve done something wrong, but don’t you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining. Your voice is small, but don’t ever stop singing. And when they finally hand you heartache, when they slip war and hatred under your door and offer you handouts on street-corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.

If you read that entire thing, I will kiss you.

I would be Sorry.

On the subject of following your heart, I once said to someone, "It comes God, then Parents, then me." But now I can't remember which came first, parents or God.

I said, "I never really had an awkward phase." and he says, "Phyllis, you've never not been in an awkward phase. Actually, we shouldn't even name it a phase, it's just always been awkward."


She says, "You have no opinions. I've always liked that most about you."
That was the first memorable slap in the face.
I've always had opinions, I just never thought mine were important enough to share with you. To become vocal about. But don't worry, since then I have shared so many of them.

And I picture you lying in your bed at night, wondering, where did all the opinion-less friends go?

Because you've never been very okay with other people's opinions.
It's almost comical how judgmental you can be.
And prejudice too.
You're missing out on so much.
And it makes me sad, because you're so freakin blind.



I am sorry sometimes.

Sorry that I turned out the way I did.
I am sorry I am me and that I love it.

I am so sorry I am not afraid of you anymore.

I am sorry for you.


But, yes, at the end of everything, you made me Me.
So I guess my words shouldn't be "sorry" but they should read "thank you".