Look to the Stars

zarifadam:

Mike and Jaime Best

jayarrarr:

You think
       (because it’s convenient)
You love me
      (because it’s convenient)
But love is always reaching,
Love is always more.

Love is more than fingers can feel,
Love lingers longer than hearts can still,
Love seeks only (ever) to relate
              and let ever take its course.

We lie
    (when it’s convenient)
Stained sheets and splintered chairs
Smiles holding shards behind scars
         we’ll surely (later) draw stories from.

          (and it’s convenient, more often than not.) 

curlsandswirls:

who knows if the moon’s

a balloon,coming out of a keen city

in the sky—filled with pretty people?

(and if you and i should

get into it,if they

should take me and take you into their balloon,

why then

we’d go up higher with all the pretty people

than houses and steeples and clouds:

go sailing

away and away sailing into a keen

city which nobody’s ever visited,where

always

          it’s

               Spring)and everyone’s

in love and flowers pick themselves

Because I always do this

stay up waiting for your call,

I hope to hear the phone ring

instead, hear nothing at all.

It always sort of kills me,

constantly waiting on you

and when I lay my head down,

I wait in my dreams too.

(Source: in-a-perfect-w0rld, via dangalang44)

jayarrarr:

I see y’all reblogging these “ask me a number” things, and I’m not saying they’re not interesting (okay, some of them aren’t), but none of them are tailored to the “writing community”. You call yourselves a writing community? Act like it! I’ll start. Here ya go.

Note: you can ask me these questions if you wish, but reblog them so others can ask you, and get asked, and we can all get to know one another as writers. That’s how you build community.

1. Who is your favorite tumblr poet — the one you always, without fail, must read — and why?
2. Who is your favorite tumblr prose writer — the one you always, without fail, must read — and why?
3. Who would you say is your greatest writing influence, in terms of your own writing style, and why?
4. Paper or plastic?
5. List three books you’ve read more than three times.
6. Do you find alcohol or other drugs enhance your creativity/writing ability, or detract from it? Why or why not?
7. Where is your favorite place to write, and why?
8. What other artistic pursuits (if any) do you indulge in apart from creative writing?
9. When do you find is the best time of day for you to write, and describe why this is so?
10. You get a brilliant thought/phrase/idea at an inappropriate moment (in the shower, while driving, while drifting off to sleep). What do you do?
11. Cake or death?
12. What are some of your favorite words, and why?
13. If you lost all ability to read and write for a day, what would you do?
14. Do you desire to be published or to make writing your profession? Why or why not?
15. If your writing process were or could be analogized to a movie, what movie would that be?
16. What is your favorite style or form of poetry to read, and why?
17. What is a style or form of poetry that you cannot stand, and why?
18. Who would you save the last dance for, and why?
19. What one thing would tell you that you’d “made it” as a writer?
20. Why would anyone ask this question?
21. Lyrics or music, and why?
22. Do you prefer to handwrite first, or compose on keyboard? Follow-up: if you do both, do you find your writing differs if you write it on the keyboard versus writing out by hand?
23. This, or that?
24. If you were a merperson, what song would you sing, and why?
25. What subject(s) do you find you cannot write about, and why?
26. What is the end?

(via sarastarkid)

(via hershbergerler)

(Source: ed-ingle, via axthousandxbutterflies)

bstinsons:

Quotes from John Green Novels: The Fault in Our Stars

(via sarastarkid)

A/N: This is my (almost) completed creative writing assignment. I would really like some feedback, if you have any. I have to turn it in Monday! It’s a little bit inspired by TFIOS. I hope you all like it. Also, it’s really long. Sorry bout that.

There is a moment when you pass a car on the highway at night, when there is nothing but light. The light envelops you for just a second, warm and bright. I sometimes wonder if that’s what death is like. When people say there’s a light at the end of the tunnel near death, I wonder if that light is like lights on the highway.

I also wonder if the tunnel is long or short.

I found out that my tunnel was shorter than others when I was diagnosed with cancer.

I was seventeen. My mom cried a lot. My dad did what he does best: lock himself in his study with expensive scotch. I, meanwhile, found solace in Fable III. For three days straight.

I think Mom knew I wanted to be left alone with my boxes of Kleenex, my string cheese, and my Xbox, but on the morning of day three (I’d started my third game of Fable; I was playing evil for the first time ever) she knocked on my door with a plate of white chocolate chip pancakes.

Mom smiled shakily as she passed me the plate. I prayed she wasn’t going to cry. Apparently someone was listening, because although her eyes began to water as I took a bite, she didn’t sob as she’d been doing for the past 72 hours.

“Your first Kemotherapy session is Tuesday,” Mom said quietly as I ravenously at my favorite meal. As soon as I heard those words, I felt like throwing it back up.

Four days.

Four days until I would no longer be able to hold down food, until my hair would start falling out, until I would be too weak to get out of bed for long periods of time.

Four days until I got the treatment that decided whether I lived or died.

I had been afraid that Mom would cry. But before she could even finish her thought, I had burst into tears that seemed to come out of me like I was some sort of hose.

“Oh, oh,” said my mom, popping up off the bed and rushing toward me. She forced herself into my moon chair with me, which was quite the feat indeed. “Hey, Olivia, it’s going to be fine.”

The way her voice cracked on fine told me that it was not going to be fine at all.

Mom held my head gently against her chest.

“You know it’s gonna be alright,” she hummed the Beatles song she’d used to sing when we were in the car, which only made me cry harder. She stroked my hair. “Your dad and I want you to spend some time outside the house,” she whispered. “Tell your friends, have some fun before-” she gagged on her words. “Before the treatment starts.”

Nice save, I thought.

She pulled me away to look at me, puffy red eyes and all. “I think that would be good for you.”

I lay my head back against her chest, nodding a little with a lump rising in my throat.

“I’m scared,” I choked out.

Mom’s chest shook with her own sobs. We said nothing more until we’d finished crying.

 

 

 

The only friend in the world I could imagine seeing at that time was Lucy Friedman. She was my closest friend, the crazy girl I’d met in my psychology class two years before who had insisted that we learn about hypnosis in the class, despite the fact that our teacher said it was not a legitimate form of psychotherapy.

Her father was a botany teacher at Sierra Nevada College, but he also owned a string of dispensaries in California. Because of this, Lucy was exceptionally good at being a hippie. She had sucked me into her life with her crazy stories about hypnosis, and I’d stayed her friend because she was willing to be crazy all the time. She insisted that I do stupid things with her. “Getting me out of my shell” and all that.  

The sun outside was extremely bright after the heavy darkness that filled my room from wall to wall. For the first time in years I tried to absorb the world around me. I touched the soft grass, breathed deeply through my nose, and blinked at the curves in the bright white clouds. As I drove to Lucy’s house, I slid my hand down the smooth steering wheel, appreciating for the first time that I was lucky to be alive in a time when there are cars. I was appreciating for the first time that I had lived to see sixteen years old, that I lived to get a bad picture taken for my driver’s license, and that I lived long enough to drive up to Lucy’s parent’s cabin in celebration of my new car for a wild weekend full of champagne and hot tubbing.

I pulled into Lucy’s driveway and realized that I’d been on auto pilot for the past five minutes. I also realized tears had been sliding down my face. I wiped them away roughly, promising myself not to break down.

I had grown used to entering Lucy’s house without knocking. If no one was there, I always knew where the spare key was, hidden under a piece of quartz on the front porch.

The first thing that greeted me when I walked through the door was a tall bookshelf covered in heavy botany books, and, on one shelf, a decorative, glass-blown bong. I wandered out of the entry hall into a room covered wall-to-wall with even more books, and dropped my purse on a fluffy couch before calling out a loud hello.

“Bathroom!” was the answer that came back.

Lucy stood in a bath towel, rubbing down her legs with hemp lotion.

“Long time no see,” she said, noting my three day Fable III absence.

I sat down on the toilet seat. “I have cancer.”

Lucy’s eyes snapped to mine. “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Ok then,” Lucy said after a moment. “I better get dressed then.”

I watched her walk out of the bathroom. “What?”

 

            “Right,” said Lucy, dropping an armful of her fancy pens and legal pads in front of me. “We’re making a bucket list.”

            “Can you just, like, listen to me for one second,” I asked, tired of trying to get a frenzied Lucy to stop for a moment. “There’s a thirty percent chance survival rate, I already know I’m probably gonna-” my voice cracked a little. “I just… I just want to talk to you about this.”

            “You know that crappy song from Rent that always gets stuck in my head because you make me listen to it?” Lucy asked.

            “Seasons of Love. And it’s not-”

            “Yes it is crappy. You know why? Because the whole ‘525,600 minutes’ is all someone has to hear to get it stuck in their heads for the next seven days. Liv, if there are 525,600 minutes in a year, and I have 40 more years, I say 40 because I plan on purposely overdosing on Acid before I turn 60 because that’s just too God damn old, I have 21,024,000 minutes left. I know that, and I know what I’m going to do with those minutes. You don’t know how many you have left. But however many there are, we’re going to figure out a way to spend them.”

            Despite the “don’t break down” mantra playing in my head, I began to sob wildly.

            After nearly 40 of my unknown left over minutes, Lucy had calmed down my choked sobs of “You’re such a g-g-good friend,” and “f-fuck cancer,” and we were both looking at the legal pad in front of us.

            “Ok, number one, finally smoke pot with your best friend in the world.”

            I glanced at the joint that Lucy was keeping behind her ear. “Ok.”

            Lucy dropped her pen dramatically. “Seriously?”

            “Seriously,” I replied. “I mean, odds are it’s better for me than the cancer.”

            I couldn’t believe it, but we both started laughing.

            “Tonight?” I asked.

            Lucy grinned. “Tonight,” she replied, and scrawled out number one on the legal pad.

            “Two, spit off the Golden Gate Bridge,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound too stupid. Lucy jotted it down anyway.

            “Three, trip mushrooms up at the cabin,” Lucy said, already writing.

            “Only one drug please,” I laughed, swatting the pen out of her hand.

            “Fine,” said Lucy. “What else?”

             “Um, get up the guts to give my number to a hot waiter.”

            “Nice! Next?”

            “Swim in the deepest part of Lake Tahoe.”

            “You’ve done that,” Lucy pointed out, although  she was already writing it down.

            “Well I’d like to do it again.”

            “Next?”

            I thought about it, everything I was scared of or had always wanted to do.

            “Skydiving.”

            “Yes!”

            “Scuba diving!”

            “Yes!”

            “Paris!”

            “Probably not!”

            We choked on our own laughter.

            “Ok, ok,” I said. “I’d like to see a Broadway musical.”

            “Be specific,” said Lucy as her pen moved across the page.

            “Wicked. Or Rent. Or Fiddle. Or Phantom of the Opera. Hell, I’d even go for Cats.”

            “No you wouldn’t,” snickered Lucy.

            “Ok, maybe not Cats,” I said. “Just a show. Any show. In a box. Where we can sip champagne. In long, sparkling dresses.”

            Lucy was nodding and a smile ghosted on her lips.

            “Ok, a fancy show,” she said. “What if we TP someone’s house?”

            I snorted. “Why?”

            “Always wanted to,” Lucy replied with a shrug. “I just never had anyone I was mad enough at to do it. Do you?”

            I thought about it. “Not really, no. Pick a random house?”

            “Good idea,” Lucy said, jotting down number eight on my bucket list.

            “Watch the entire Star Wars series from Episode one to six in one sitting,” I said.

            Lucy shook her head as she wrote. “Wow, that is going to be a long 14 and a half hours.”

            We’d reached the end of our ideas. Lucy left me with the legal pad so she could call her dad to ask him if we could use the boat to go out on the lake. I folded my bucket list into a frog, then unfolded it to jot down take an origami class.

            For the first time all week, I didn’t feel depressed. I felt hopeful.

 

 

            Lucy was a terrible boat driver. She was a pretty terrible regular driver too, but it was scarier on the waves of Lake Tahoe. I didn’t care that much, though. Perhaps cancer cures you of being scared of other things, because the real threat was what’s inside you, not outside.

            I held tight to the side rail and rejoiced in the spray of water that hit my face like little pins. I felt alive on this lake.

            We stopped beside a cliff. Waves gently bumped the sheer, black drop. Below the boat, the lake was the deepest, clearest color of blue.

            “Shit, it’s gonna be cold,” said Lucy. She had pulled off her life jacket and thin sundress and the wind that came off the lake caused her arms to erupt in goosebumps. Early June was not swimming time on Lake Tahoe.

            I slipped off my jacket and tunic as well, then pulled myself up onto the edge of the boat and arced myself off the edge in a dive. My body arched through the frozen water, and I came up with a gasp.

            “Shit!” I gasped. The water felt like thousands of needles sticking into my body. I kicked at the water hard in order to warm myself. “The water’s g-great!” I called at Lucy. She flipped me off before canon balling off the back of the boat.

            I floated on my back, staring up at the blue sky, ignoring Lucy as she surfaced screaming obscenities. Below me was 1,000 feet of cool, clear Lake Tahoe water. I turned and tread water for a moment, staring down at my body. All I could see were my pale legs, then endless blue. It was like floating through pure nothingness.

            The wind touched my exposed skin, and I shivered again, then dived once more.

            Under the water, I opened my eyes. Below me, I could see nothing but the infinity of blue. Above me, the light from the sun was scattered and broken I stared at my hands, pushing water out in order to propel myself deeper. They were small compared to the huge beauty that surrounded me. What had seemed just moment before like a pile of needles now surrounded me like a silken blanket.

            When I finally surfaced, Lucy was sitting in the boat, wrapped tightly in a large towel. I paddled myself to the boat, suddenly exhausted.

            I accepted the towel Lucy offered to me, but I didn’t dry off my face. Because on my cheeks, warm tears had mixed with the cold water.

 

 

            We sat in the blanket fort that Lucy and I had built together, lounging on pillows with every possible junk food we could imagine scattered around us.

            “Ok,” said Lucy, pulling out her pipe. It was a dark purple flecked with gold and silver. Lucy called it the Milky Way. “Now, I got my dad’s good shit, so you better be grateful.”

            Lucy crumbled a leafy bud into the pipe’s bowl. I’d watched her smoke a thousand times, but I’d never done it myself. I found that my fingers were shaking slightly.

            “Since you’ve never smoked, I’ll help you light it,” she said. I held the pipe up to my lips, and Lucy held a small hole on the side. “When I light it, suck as hard as you can, then nod when you feel like you can’t suck anymore and I’ll release the carb.”

            I took a deep breath, heard the chk chk of Lucy’s lighter, and sucked hard on the pipe. When I nodded, Lucy let go of the “carb” and burning smoke traveled rapidly down my throat and invaded my lungs.

            “Hold it!” said Lucy, but it was too late; I was coughing wildly.

            “G-god,” I said between hacks. “It like swallowing razor blades.”

            Lucy was already taking her own puff off Milky Way. She nodded as she sucked, then somehow without letting out any smoke, she said, “It’s your first time.”

            She lit my pipe again after I’d swallowed a bucket of water, and we passed the pipe back and forth until Lucy choked and coughed “that shit’s cashed.”

            I felt lightheaded and my arms felt light. I lay back against one of Lucy’s pillows.

            “How you feel?” asked Lucy.

            I felt like a full minute had passed before I said, “What?”

            Lucy laughed. I started laughing too, even though I wasn’t sure why.

            “My arms feel light,” I said, after I’d finished laughing.

            “Dude, you’re stoned.”

            “You’re stoned.”

            “Fuck yeah I am.”

            We were quiet for what felt like hours. I looked at my phone to see what time it was. It had only been a few minutes.

            “What were we talking about?” I asked, suddenly confused.

            Lucy started laughing again.

            I had a moment of clarity then. “What if I die?”

            Lucy shook her head for a long time. It felt like year before she answered. “You’re not going to die. If you die, I’m going to fucking kill you.”

            “Zombies,” I laughed.

            “What are you talking about?”          

            “I don’t know.”

            I zoned out suddenly, and in a moment, music was playing. A Mountain Goats song was playing and surrounded us like the pillows.

            “I am going to make it through this year if it kills me.”

 

 

           

“Wake up!” sang Lucy’s voice loudly.

            I opened my eyes slowly, still feeling little effects of the marijuana in the front of my forehead.

            “I made pancakes!” Lucy called from outside our blanket tent. “We gotta get going, we have an appointment with the Golden Gate Bridge!”

            I moaned, and she came into the blanket tent, holding a plate of pancakes.

            “We added to the bucket list,” she said, tossing me the yellow piece of paper. At the bottom added in sloppy cursive was become a ninja, get my Hogwarts letter, and travel to the moon.

            “Wow. We were maybe a little fucked up.”

            Lucy just laughed.

           

 

 

            Lucy always wore a hemp lotion that smelled like incense. I always wore a lotion that smelled like apples, which Lucy insisted was probably tested on animals. As we drove to San Francisco, the car smelled like incense, apples, and freedom.

            We rolled down the windows on the three hour drive so that we could scream out lyrics to Vampire Weekend songs.

            We found a parking garage a few blocks from the Golden Gate Bridge and wandered down the sidewalk of the bridge, our hands trailing along the rough orange rails. When we were roughly halfway down the bridge we stopped.

            “After you,” said Lucy.

            I spit into the bay.

           

            We wandered around San Francisco for a few hours. As tourists swarmed around us, I realized that I hadn’t spent enough time in this city. How had I been so close for so many years, and not spent as much time in San Francisco as possible? Was this the last time I would take a picture of Lucy on the corner of Haight Ashbury? Was this the last time I would buy a corny souvenir necklace of a heart that said “I heart SF”? Was this the last time I would eat crab on Fisherman’s Wharf?

            Around five, I asked Lucy if we should be heading home soon. In answer, she held up a hotel key.

            “Dad’s treating us to some quality time in the big city,” she said.

            I raised my eyebrows. “Does my mom know?”

            “Oh, hell yeah,” replied Lucy. “She’s stoked, I think. She seemed to think you needed to get out.”

            I was aware of that, at least.

            We drove to the hotel, where a huge suite awaited us. Lucy insisted I stay in the room while she went to grab stuff out of the car. She came back with our prom dresses from the year before.

            “What the hell?” I laughed, as she came in carrying the long dresses.

            “We’re going to see Phantom!” she said. “Get dressed!”

            “Oh my God, Lucy,” I whispered, as tears stung my eyes.

            “Yeah, when I called Dad yesterday I told him what was up. He bought us the tickets. We have a box. And champagne.”

            I didn’t answer. My fingers were stroking the soft silk of the red dress I’d bought for prom. It had complimented my dark hair, which I’d worn in a side braid.

            My last prom?

            My last chance to wear something beautiful and elegant?

            Lucy left me alone after I didn’t answer. It took me a long time to finally slide on the dress.

 

 

 

            The car ride home the next day was quiet. I stared out the window at the lines on the highway. They flashed quickly past my eyes, and occasionally I had to look away in order to stop asking myself if my life would flash by like those lines when I died.

            Lucy hummed Masquerade to herself, then looked over at me.

            “Masquerade,” she sang softly.

            I was quiet for a moment. “Hide your face so the world will never find you,” I sang back.

            I looked back out the window so Lucy would not see the single tear that rolled down my cheek.

 

 

 

            When the evening grew dark, we stopped in a suburb, and Lucy tossed me a black sweatshirt.

            “Here we go,” she said with a grin, hopping out of the car.

            “Here we go what?” I asked. She just closed the door behind her. I fumbled with my door handle and hurried out the car to join her at the trunk of the car. There was a pile of toilet paper rolls underneath the dresses we’d worn the night before.

            “Jesus, you prepared for everything.”

            “I don’t do anything half ass,” she replied, tossing me a few rolls. “And I’m especially not going to half ass my best friend’s life goals.”

            “Yep, because teepeeing a house is a super prestigious life goal.”

            “Always,” she said with a smirk.

            We picked a house that was an ugly bright blue color.

            “After you,” Lucy said again.

            I tossed the roll as hard as I could at the roof. It fluttered wildly, then bounced off the shingles and rolled to the grass.

            “Weak,” said Lucy. She tossed a roll of her own. This one went all the way over the roof and actually stayed. It draped down. I admired it like a piece of artwork.

            “Well done,” I said. I tossed my next roll into a tree. It tangled into the leaves.

            We both laughed as we tossed the toilet paper everywhere we could imagine.

            “Hey!” yelled a voice from nearby.

            “Shit!” we both laughed and we booked it back to the car, our sides still splitting from laughter.

 

 

 

            The next day, we drove to Pope Beach. Since it was still a little too chilly to swim, there weren’t a lot of beach goers. We lounged out on towels, hoping for a bit of a tan, while we drank some sort of not-very-tasty margarita mix that Lucy had put in water bottles.

            “Tomorrow,” I said quietly.

            Lucy propped herself up on her elbows and pushed her huge sunglasses back onto her golden head. “Are you scared?” She asked.

            It was the first time we’d really talked about it. There was no more avoiding.

            “Terrified.”

            Lucy picked at the corner of her towel. I wondered if she was about to give me some insightful saying that might change my whole outlook on the cancer thing. Instead she said, “Do you think you’ll look good bald?”

            “Fuck you!” I laughed, as I shoved her shoulder.

            She laughed. “I think that you’re going to rock it. Let’s buy glitter and just glitter your head. It’ll look awesome!”

            I dropped my head back on my towel. “You’re such a bitch sometimes.”

            “I love you too,” she said, as she sat up and adjusted her bikini top. “I do think you’ll look good bald though. And I’m serious about the glitter. And you’re going to be fine.”

            “Probably not,” I whispered.

            “Yeah you are,” she said as she lay back down. “You want to know why?”

            I nodded, then realized she couldn’t see me, because she was staring straight up. “Yes,” I said, my voice cracking.

            “Because you’re one tough bitch,” she said. “And because this world… well it would be shitty without you. I couldn’t survive without you, Liv.”

            For such a long time, I had thought that Lucy had been saving me. As it turns out, it had been the opposite way around.

            I reached over and grasped Lucy’s hand, and we lay on the beach holding hands. An unbreakable force.

 

 

 

            We ate at a little bistro that afternoon not far from the beach. Before we left, I hurried back to the table and jotted my phone number down on the side of the receipt for the curly-headed waiter with the cute smile.

            “Like I said, you’re a tough bitch,” Lucy said when I met her at the door. “Also, dibbs on the waiter.”

 

 

           

The phone rang only once before Lucy picked up.

“Hello?” said her anxious voice.

“I’m not dead, will you calm the fuck down already?” I said. My voice was small and weak. I’d been doing kemo treatments for the past two weeks. “But I do really need you.”

“Anytime doll,” she said.

I stared at the huge chunk of hair that my hair brush had pulled out that morning. “Can you bring over some glitter and your dad’s razor?”

 

 

 

We lay together on the pullout bed in my living room. It was possibly the most uncomfortable pullout bed in the world, but the television was in the living room.

“I don’t hate Jar Jar Binks,” said Lucy, as she munched on the popcorn Mom had brought us. “I mean, I know everyone else does, but I really don’t.”

I just shrugged. I was falling asleep and we were only in episode two of Star Wars.

“Need a break?” she asked, noticing that I was nodding off.

“I think so,” I replied. She paused the movie, and I turned over, then reached out for her hand.

“Thank you for saving me,” I whispered, before I drifted into sleep.

 

 

 

Two months after I had started kemo, I was moving along (surprisingly) well, and was becoming more and more (surprisingly) cancer-free.

 I walked into my house after a group therapy session. Lucy was in England on one of her family’s big summer trips, which meant my time was spent with other bald kids in a weekly therapy group. Mom called out that there was a letter on the kitchen counter, and being starved to hear from Lucy, I rushed to grab the envelope, covered with a ton of stamps. It was thick and cream colored and in green, spiky letters, was addressed

Olivia Anne Carston

The Eastern Corner Bedroom

#1607 Pine Avenue

Tahoe, CA

USA

I smiled as I opened the letter. There were several pieces of thick, fancy, cream colored folded neatly into the envelope. I opened the first.

 

Dear Liv,

            I kind of hate you. Do you know how expensive it is to send something from London to America? I had to use my entire college fund. Guess I’m going to Sierra Nevada College after all.

            Enclosed is the fake Hogwarts letter I wrote you. Because the truth is that there is some magic in this world. You’re alive, Liv. The fact that you are alive and I will still have some minutes to spend with you is magic. You said once that I saved you. The truth is that we saved each other. There is no other way I would have wanted to spend my summer with you than completing your bucket list. There’s no other way I would rather spend the rest of my life completing each other’s bucket lists. You’re my best friend, and there is no better magic than that.

 

No, there really isn’t.