I am wavering like I haven't in a while, feeling like the timing's all
off for it could (and will, I'm sure it will) all easily be discounted
as a case of last-minute uncertainty when really it's four monthsworth
of swallowingme doubts all manifesting, surfacing in the form of North
Face fleece upon fleece ordered online when I really wanted to be
picking out another pair of Cole Haan boots and be bohemian
(two entirely unrelated desires. Both burning, but I'm feeling the need
to address my awareness that one doesn't lead to the other. And
I'm so damn defensive from having to rationalize everything always that
I'm even covering all the stupid, nitpicky bases in my own Xanga.
Lowlowlow.). I do this, this is who I am, I am characterized by my
tendency to call that just-glorified shrine of extensive
majorofferings, of god,WritingEnglishCompLitLinguisticsARTHISTORYliving.alldoneright two
weeks before I'm to head to Holyoke and tell them I'd like for them to
take me still. The secret is that I like the shroud of awkward silence
that floats above my newly brunetteness over Belgian waffles at
candlelit breakfasts, stuffy family members recommending some certain
brand of boot waterproofing substance and watching, reallywatchingandwhy? me spoon somuch whipped cream onto my Special Occasion Crystal (again why?)
soup dish. I like that they cringe and say the wrong things and blink
and wonder if I don't believe in God, if I meant what I said, I like
wishing that my hair were even a shade darker to make my eyes icier and
me look less like them, honey sunny blonde and befall-huedturtlenecked,
name-dropping and priest-praising and entirely. oblivious. For me too,
I like bustling things that feel bigger than me, that pull me around
and pull things out of me that I had sensed and seen glimmers of, but
never embraced over pecan rolls split sticky piece-by-piece next to
dullgray traffic jams in emerald wool scarves with Amadeusy everything
being shouted at me from worn-brick streetcorners, below signs with
names of schools I hope now never to attend. When you say them so much,
the words can represent everything and nothing at once, months and
miserable months of your life, breathless seconds spent loading as many
cents as you have onto your printing account, so many sips of English
Breakfast blend and such little enthusiasm over china blue bedding, New
England Charm (red farm houses and BITINGSTIFLING loneliness I've
before called crippling), Matisse prints and offerings I'd rather
decline. Notthistime, Late British Something Banal (I loaded and reloaded
the usually-speedy site so many times but couldn't find an actual
unappealing example. I was met instead with an I'll-make-it-symbolic
this: We're sorry, but this request was taking an unusually long time to complete, and has therefore been stopped.),
maybesomeothertime-slash-not. I don't want just English with
(WHYARETHEYALL) Renaissance-focused "fellow" enthusiasts because I ache for
this language, I want to whiptwistmanipulate it into something, warp
it, sounddevicedefy it into divine heart/Harpersshattering oblivion. I
actually sat in the front left corner of that crowded classroom all
year, yellow flourescent glow pounding down on blonde on hunter-colored
school-issue coat the pages of
Eliot/Keats/Byron/Shakespeare/Browning/god anyone parted
and letting imperfect fingers and allatonceself-importantandsounworthy
lips trace, form, the words the lines near tears, noreally. I want to
forget all that's been calculated, take everything precise and
Should-be Perfect and stuff it in that already-overflowing grayblue
envelope and send it off to some landfill in Orlando, and instead be
taken, be brass-wrapped-lapis dangling, for it not to be too late.

As if sensing my sudden departure-spawned lapses into the very
lachrymosity I spent the whole summer spurning, my grandparents seemed
damnendearing caricatures of themselves late this morning, scurrying
about mounting blue wicker-and-lace wreaths that recall the word homespun
and soothing, simplifying, one heavy leadglass goblet of too-sweet tea
at a time. Burgundy brocade fell in thick folds above the turquoise
sewing stool, and next to cream-colored kidd gloves and cranberry boot
buttons lie the daily devotional she read aloud from, drawling and
daring, “The Lord has given—Sarah, I’m going to say you instead of
thee!” There’s something so blithe, buttery about the first syllable;
Say-ruh, sipping Ceylon, slipping between crisp, sedum-studded sheets,
shellacking maple-footed settees and the heathens perched upon them
with a double coat of gra-cious-nuss. She flipped assuredly to
the right worn pages, rested perpetually cool fingers on my warm,
ink-stained own, and wondered aloud and utterly in earnest how those
fetching Ted Hughes Types I’m eternally taken with will manage to make
any money.

Oh, how I’ll miss these midweek escapes!—relishing
wordly-feeling words from beneath two woven throws, naughtily slicing
off scraps of justkneaded biscuit dough, and a valiant tenor telling me
“You are important and very special; remember that every day and every
night.”

AND YOUR HANDS ... AND KNEES ... FELT COLD AND WET ON THE GRASS TO ME