process story

Lately, i've been going through old poems and revising them. I've done this many times before: in high school, i revised poems from middle school; in college, i revised poems from high school; in grad school, i revised poems from college. Now that i'm more or less post-grad school, i'm revising everything.

Usually, this process is largely one of deletion. I'll pull out a line or phrase from a poem that i like and throw the rest away as irredeemable trash. I'll scratch out the main themes of a poem, rearrange the stanzas, and throw out half of it. I'll throw away whole notebooks full of boring and embarrassing scrawls. But as the years go by, i've gotten better. I've trimmed away a lot of the bad stuff and built on a lot of the good. These days, the folder on my flash drive is about 80% potential, with only 20% fluff.

This makes the revision that much harder. When you have a whole sonnet that is absolutely perfect except for one weak line, and you have to fix it without disturbing the meter, and you can't just delete it because then you'd be a line short, it can take weeks and months and even years of work before the poem is solid. Sometimes you put it away for six months or so, and then come back to it with fresh eyes. Sometimes you delete the bad line anyway and decide that the poem makes a stronger statement as a partial sonnet. Sometimes you start dreaming in iambic pentameter and wake up sobbing, declaring that you will only write in free verse from now on.

I'm at the point now where i actually have two poetry folders, one marked "in progress" and one marked "ready". When i want to send in some submissions, i pull from the "ready" folder. In between submission periods, i work on moving things from "in progress" to "ready". Sometimes i find things i'd forgotten about. Sometimes i go looking for something that i can't find, completely forgetting that i renamed it on the last round of revisions. And sometimes, even now, i delete and delete and delete.

It feels strange to be so business-like about editing my work. I mean, my primary goal is simply to make each poem as good as it possibly can be, but i am aware that the better my poetry is, the better chance it has of getting published. And getting published would be pretty sweet. Despite my strong identification with Emily Dickinson, it would be nice to have some recognition while i'm alive, however slight and passing.

It just somehow feels like it should be against the rules or something, you know? It's like i'm grading my own paper. I'm sorting through my poems and reading them and deciding which ones are good enough to edit and which are not, and then i'm editing them and deciding which ones are good enough to publish. I've never had anything published in my life! It's not okay for me to do this! This is supposed to be someone else's job!

I mean, technically, just because i think something is good to go doesn't mean anyone else will ever agree. I've sent things out before that i thought were pretty good, that other people thought were pretty good, that published, award-winning poets told me should be sent out, and had them firmly rejected. So i don't have the deciding vote or anything, but i feel a little bit like the Chief of Staff, deciding what goes on the President's desk and what gets handled by an underling. And i'm like, I just registered to vote yesterday and I can't remember the difference between Congress and the House of Representatives. I really feel like there should be another layer of authority between me and the President. But apparently i'm a grown-up now, and i have to decide these things for myself. So if you see anything published under my name, thank Obama, i guess.

I think i lost track of my metaphor a little bit at the end there.

common theme: rape? and sexual orientation? the two are unrelated, unless you are a bigot.

When i was a freshman, i took a public speaking course. One of our assignments was to give a persuasive speech on a controversial topic. I can't for the life of me remember what i chose; probably something about feminism? Anyway. Several people spoke on gay rights, particularly gay marriage and don't ask, don't tell. One young man in the class was vehemently and vocally opposed to the very idea of gay soldiers.
"My dad was in the army," he said. "Those guys do everything together. They change together, shower together, spend every minute of the day together. I don't like the idea that someone who could be attracted to me might be in that environment."
Let's leave aside the non sequitur of his father's years of service. Let's also leave aside the issue of women in the service. And finally, let's ignore the fact that many, many, many, many women, both civilians and soldiers, have experienced all manner of sexual harassment and assault at the hands of men in uniform. Instead, let's address his unshakable belief in two things: all gay men are automatically attracted to all penises, and no gay man is able to control his sexual impulses. Because obviously, never in the history of the world has a gay man been able to look at any man (in any state of dress or undress, alertness or vulnerability, position of authority or position of subordination, homosexual or heterosexual, attractive or ugly, attached or single,) and thought, "Meh, not for me." To be gay means to be so strongly attracted to all penises everywhere that you cannot help but touch them, even if they belong to your boss; or your straight, married, best friend; or a really ugly, rude, obnoxious, bigoted guy with terrible personal hygiene; or a nice, single, attractive, gay man with a great personality who just doesn't like you that way. Obviously.
An entry in Cliff Pervocracy's archives addresses the issue of sexual abuse and harassment on the job.
"And I'll tell you a personal story: back when I worked 24-hour shifts, I shared a very small quarters with three people who were attracted to my gender. We slept together, shared a bathroom, and frequently changed clothes in front of each other. If I didn't want to sleep next to someone whose orientation made them potentially aroused by my gender, I'd have to sleep out in the truck . . .
Of course some female EMTs do face abuse. What if they had harassed me? Then the problem would be the harassment. "He was all heterosexual at me" isn't a complaint; it's "he was all disrespectful and abusive at me." It'd be nice to ban abusers from service but unfortunately we rarely ask and they never tell . . .
(Or, following the logic often used to exclude women, ban heterosexuals. They're the ones with the problem, right? Some hetero gets his boxers in a twist and files a frivolous complaint and your whole career goes down the tubes, I tell ya.)"

One of the finest features on Pervocracy has GOT to be Cosmocking. Here are some gems from an entry in April 2010 about avoiding rape on road trips:
"If you are taking a long trip and will need to stop for fuel after dark, go to websites like exxonstations.com/locator to find full-service stations along your route. That way, you can stay in your car with the doors locked.
There are several insane paranoid precautions you should take specifically when doing anything after dark. Apparently rapists are vampires.

When you're shopping at night, or if the lot looks eerily empty, ask store personnel for a security guard to walk you to your car. If there isn't one available, keep a hand free of packages as you walk to your car, and stay in the middle of the parking-lot aisle, away from vehicles, where criminals might be hiding.
Apparently rapists are funhouse vampires, and they operate by jumping out and going "boogy boogy boogy!" . . .
[If your car breaks down] While you wait for help to arrive, do not under any circumstances get out of your car; roll up your windows, lock the doors, and stay inside.
For fuck's sake. Is air toxic to women? I don't know about rapists; this is how I would act if there were velociraptors outside the car."

My introduction to Jennifer Knapp came from WOW 2001 (shut up; it played in the Christian music store where i worked). Her song "Into You" was something entirely new in Christian music. I knew the Point of Grace/Avalon/Petra/Michael W. Smith worship choruses, the Anne Murray hymns, and i was learning about Contemporary Christian Music for the Jesus Youths: DC Talk, Switchfoot, Superchic[k], KJ52, and so forth.
But i had never heard a voice like Jennifer's.
I had heard music that was immediately identifiable as Christian, and i had heard music that you could play at Youth Group OR under the credits of a popular movie or TV show (Switchfoot, i'm looking at "Dare You To Move"). It was in the 90s and early 2000s that young Christian artists began to simply write songs from their hearts, instead of trying to write "church music" (Keith Green and Amy Grant aside). There were still musicians who were trying to hit a particular target, but artists like Jennifer wanted to make art and trusted that God would speak to people through it, just like He has for the past several millennia.
"Into You" remained my only Jennifer Knapp exposure until 2010, when i learned that she had 1. temporarily quit music to spend some time in obscurity and personal growth, 2. just come out as a lesbian who had been in a same-sex relationship for many years, and 3. ended her "retirement" by releasing a new album about her feelings (both about her partner and about Jesus and the Church). I read several interviews, impressed by her reticence and discretion about her personal life, touched by the pain and anger she had felt and expressed, and wishing desperately that the interviewers would stop asking about her girlfriend and start talking about her music, because every time they did i became a bigger fan or Jennifer Knapp. I downloaded the new album and fell in love.
Three years later, she talked to Rachel Held Evans and her fans, and that interview has forever cemented Jennifer's place in my heart. Because not only is she a brilliant and talented musician, but her heart for God is amazing, and she says some stuff that i've been feeling and have been struggling to articulate. I wish i had enough skin to tattoo her words on my body:

". . . If I understand correctly, your journey took you to a point where you now own the fact that you can't not be gay and you can't not be Christian. For the second part of that - What were some of the moments, the thoughts, the experiences that brought you to the point of claiming your faith as a Christian?

There are times in our lives where we are witness to certain events and happenings that radically alter how we will move about our world. We have experiences where we are forever changed in how we see the world around us, how we see ourselves and how we will react in navigating our individually unique journeys. I am grateful that the Gospel spoke to me in such a way. I saw, I experienced, I left altered by a grace that I knew I could never merit nor repay. To this day, my life has never been the same.
Try as I might, the message of Christ continues to inspire and move me, even when no one is looking, even when others insist that I am "doing it wrong" or not acting 'Christian enough'. Being in a church every Sunday isn't why I identify as Christian . . .
Over the years I have continued to question what calling myself a 'Christian' implies. There's a lot to unpack there in terms of religion, tradition, history, theology -- but honestly, in the end, it doesn't matter what anyone calls me. I am and continue to be inspired by my experience with Christ. No one can take that away."

Pervocracy should just write articles taking down other articles. Because seriously? there's a lot of bullshit that needs to be deconstructed, and she does it so well and so hilariously. Here's a takedown of the idea that women "withhold" sex as punishment when men hurt their feelings.
"Some women make a habit of withholding sex from their partners, while some only do it under very specific circumstances. To men, this seems like cruel and unusual punishment.
Some women have sex very often, while others prefer to have sex less often. To men who think everything is about them, this seems like it's all about them . . .
Personally, I've never withheld sex in a relationship, because I couldn't withhold it from myself, but I've turned down sex, um, ones of times! For reasons that had to do with both my partner and myself . . . If I'm not fucking you because I'm unhappy, the main problem is the unhappiness; the fucking problem is only a symptom . . .
When I'm angry at you, I don't want to have you inside my body. This is not some ultimate cruelty that I'm "not above" . . .
Again, ugh, "sex privileges." It's not like I can just hand you the key. I have to be there the whole time and everything."
That last line is one of Pervocracy's greatest contributions to the discussion of "sexual rights": if a guy is hitting on me and i turn him down, i'm not just denying him sex. I'm also denying myself sex. It's not like i can just unscrew my vagina and hand it to him for the night. If he wants to have sex with me, that means i have to have sex with him, too.
Many men (and women! Example: Cosmo) seem to forget this, and talk about sex as a commodity that women hold. Women can choose to give their sex to men or to deny their sex to men. There is little or no discussion of women wanting sex, women pursuing sex, women being "denied" sex, or women actually "having sex with men". Sex is not something women have, it's something they give or keep. And of course there is little or no discussion of women having sex with each other; lesbians are an invention of porn and Katy Perry designed to give sexual pleasure to men. And women do not want sex because they like the sex itself, they want sex because they love their husbands or boyfriends and want to please them, or because it's the third date and they want to turn these guys into their husbands or boyfriends, or because they want a promotion or raise, or because they want attention and affection, or because their biological clocks are ticking and they want babies. Women choose to give men sex for one of these reasons, and they choose to withhold it because they are cranky, or they have a headache, or whatever.
Here's the thing: sex is something that two people do together. Rape is something that one person does to another person. If you want to talk about rape, we can talk about rape, and we can talk about how you can rape my vagina without my consent or enjoyment. In that case, you get laid and i do not. So me denying you sex? Is me denying you rape. But me deciding that i don't really feel like having sex with you? Is me deciding that I do not want to have sex. And maybe it's because i already have a boyfriend and you're not him, or maybe it's because i'm on my period, or maybe it's because you are unattractive to me, or yeah, maybe it's because i'm cranky or have a headache or whatever. But at the end of the day, if i am not having sex with you, it's not because i hate you and want to prevent you from getting laid. It's because i do not want to have sex. So men: stop whining about how women won't let you have sex with them, and start figuring out how you can make women want to have sex with you (hint: more hygiene and fewer rape threats will go a long way).

Emily Angelou? Maya Dickinson? Emilya Dickelou? Mayily Angeson?

A few nights ago, my boyfriend and i were getting ready for bed, and he asked me to tell him a story. He does that from time to time, and it never goes well; i'm not good at spontaneous story-telling, and anyway i mostly write non-narrative poems, so it's completely out of my wheelhouse. So i always ask him what kind of story he wants, and he always says, "I don't know; you're the writer," and then i tell him that i don't do that kind of writing, and then he whines, and then i snuggle him to sleep.

But the most recent time, when i asked him what kind of story he wanted, he said, "One that would make a lot of money."
I laughed. "If i had a story that would make a lot of money, don't you think i would have sold it by now?"
"No, because you write poetry," he countered.

Ignoring the irony embodied in his own words, i had a flashback to senior year. In our senior seminar class, we had an assignment designed to make us seriously consider our career prospects as English majors. (Hint: they are not bright.) Those of us on the Creative Writing track had to research the market, look at publishing houses and magazines and journals and calls for submissions and find out what was profitable, what our demographic was, what our chances were for success. There were four graduating English seniors that year: two Literary Analysis, one Creative Writing (fiction), and one Creative Writing (poetry). The fiction writer was writing a Christian teen romance novel which will almost certainly sell. I thought it was okay: fluffy beach fiction with structurally sound but stylistically flat writing. But that hasn't gotten in anyone else's way, so she has a good shot. Anyway, when it was my turn to talk about success in the poetry field, the professor called in some other experts.

So we sat there, me and Beach Fiction and the two Literary Analysts, and Benji and McCann (published poets, both), and KP, and we talked about what it means to be a successful poet.
"Emily Dickinson never published anything in her life," McCann pointed out.
"And Maya Angelou made a million dollars last year because she sold out to work for Hallmark," Benji added.

Then there was a debate about Maya Angelou, and whether her more popular, money-making poetry was as good as her earlier work, and whether any of it was as good as Emily Dickinson's work, and whether either of them would be read in another fifty or a hundred years, and does success as a poet mean that you get published and are famous in your own time, or that you're still read after your death, or both? Or what if you never get the recognition you deserve, but you're still talented and you feel good about your body of work? What does it mean to be a successful poet?

I've been looking at submission calls again lately and getting depressed. It's hard and scary and heartbreaking and awkward and forward to just send people your poems and ask to get them published. And what's the upside? You get published and then you have to start sending things out again? You get a ten dollar check and a free magazine and you can't tell anyone about it because the poem they picked is the one where you yell at your mom or the one about the time you had to buy Plan B? You get published and then some other random publication actually asks you for work and then you have to find something that's polished and ready to go? And then you've published all of your stuff and then you have to write more? And what if you only had ten good poems in you and then you've sent them all out and then you're faced with the inevitable truth that you suck, that that part of your life is over, that you'll spend the rest of your life showing visitors the laminated magazine page with your poem on it and serving people coffee? You send out a submission packet and promptly die of embarrassment and anxiety?

Still, my workshop requires me to turn things in every week for review. And when i'm applying for English teacher jobs, it looks good if i have some publishing credits on my résumé. And knowing is better than not knowing. And even ten bucks is better than nothing. And who knows? Maybe i'll be some kind of Maya Angelou/Emily Dickinson crossover: an introverted white lady who doesn't title her poems and makes some money off of them while she's still alive. Okay, so i guess that's less of a Maya Angelou/Emily Dickinson crossover and more of a Profitable Emily Dickinson, but whatever.

saving me (negation)

Sometimes when everything is slipping away from you, you can hold onto the things you're not. I'm not poor. I'm not alone. I'm not unintelligent. I'm not untalented. I'm not living at home. The list could go on and on.

not sure where this is going

So.

Seven years ago, i started writing a fairy tale. I had intended it to be novel length (which, according to the almighty Google, should be somewhere above 200 pages). When my little masterpiece was all neatly typed and edited in Microsoft Word, it was 25 pages. But in the meantime, i had written several more fairy tales.

The first one, begun in the back of my diary on a slow night at the Quiznos where i worked, was supposed to be a stand-alone project. Over the next few years, the stories were written in Quiznos, in church, in my bedroom, in airplanes, in German living rooms, in Spanish kitchens, in English dorm rooms, in Italian hotels, and in the great outdoors. And as i wrote, i began to see connections between my stories, places of contact where the smaller pieces could be woven into a compelling whole.

Can't you just picture cute forest
animals helping her bake a pie?

I began editing in different colors of ink, writing and rewriting by hand until there was an established shape and structure to my narrative. I filled whole notebooks with studies on races, languages, geographical features, economic structures, histories, and diplomatic relations between countries i had invented. I drew maps, illustrating shipping ports, mountains, areas of high magical concentration, types of commerce and industry, and major cities. I created charters for magical societies, drew family trees, and studied existing fairy tales and fantasy novels for clues about battle, magic, sociology, layered meanings, and how to create an original fairy tale that was recognizably a fairy tale. When i had writer's block, i found a popular fairy tale and re-wrote it to fit the history of my own stories (Cinderella, Rapunzel, and Snow White all got this treatment. I also wrote an outline of an alternate Snow White narrative where this snow-white-skin-ebony-black-hair-blood-red-lips girl was a modern Goth teenager). 


I began typing and transcribing and editing further. I re-drew my maps. I sent pieces of stories to friends for review and suggestions. I put my notebooks and flash drive away for months at a time to focus on school. I pulled them out again to do more editing and transcribing and dreaming.

A few weeks ago, the final story was transcribed. All that was left was the final editing of the overall structure and the story would be complete and ready for publication.

Except that, as i worked on these stories, i realized something important: they suck. I know: it's shocking that a fifteen-year-old writing in the back room of a Quiznos between the dinner rush and the dirtbag rush didn't come up with a literary masterpiece, but somehow this was the case.

However, there are still elements worth redeeming. But i'm not sure that short stories or novels are really my "thing". In the interest of preserving the good parts and replacing the bad parts with more good parts, i'm looking into what can be done to "save" this endeavor. And here is my thought: graphic novel. See, the parts that i suck at the most are the descriptions. I can do dialogue, and i can do exposition, and i can do romance and humor and tragedy and all that crap. But i can't show you what's happening, and we all know that the cardinal rule of writing is "show, don't tell".

As i have been reading graphic novels and comic books, i have seen that they are a really great shortcut for the "showing" part of writing. With the exception of very early comic books (X-Men, i'm looking at you), works in these genres let the images do the showing, allowing the writers to concentrate on the other parts of the writing. I've learned that writing a graphic novel is a little like writing a TV show/movie/play: what the writer produces is, in fact, called a script. It has things like dialogue and exposition, but it also has things like, "Full body shot of girl in a skimpy blue negligee. She has choppy blonde hair and is thin, but painfully so, like she's malnourished. She is facing the reader, but is gazing at nothing -- zoned out." The writer collaborates with artists, inkers, letterers, and colorists (these may not all the the technical terms) to produce a beautiful, fascinating, cohesive work of art and literature.

I want to do that, please.

Catch 1: i can't draw. Like, at all.

Catch 2: the people i know who can draw can't draw like what's in my head when i write these stories, and i don't want to do this if i can't do it right.

Catch 3: being a broke blogger/aspiring poet/grad student/administrative assistant with ZERO experience with any actual publication, any novel/short story writing, or any real publishing credits to my name, i don't have anything to convince a real comic book/graphic novel artist to work with me. For free. With no guarantee of compensation.

Catch 4: the limited Google research i did before writing this post has led me to conclude that publishers won't look at a graphic novel script. They only want to see a polished manuscript complete with artwork. If you're someone with some clout, like an employee of a comic publisher or Neil Gaiman, you can announce that you'd like to create a graphic novel and someone will probably respond. If you're me, i don't know what you do.

So.

I plan to continue editing/polishing/writing, possibly creating two copies of this book (one written as a traditional text novel and one as a script for a graphic novel). I plan to continue blogging/writing poems and being too scared to submit them anywhere/working toward my education degree/answering phones. And one day, maybe i'll meet someone who has always dreamed of creating a graphic novel of original fairy tales, but hasn't found anyone to write a script that matches the glorious images in his or her head.

And then magic will happen.

How Not to Get a Girl 2

Another guy i work with. Again, all totally real.

N: So you and John are not engaged yet?
Me: No. There's no need to rush things like that. If we're going to be spending the rest of our lives together, then we have the rest of our lives. We don't need to get married immediately.
N: Wow. You're so amazing. If only you were single . . .

N: Hey, gorgeous. How's John?

Me: He's great. We're great. Things are so great with us.

N: Awww, you guys are so cute together. I wish I could find someone like you.

N: How was your break?

Me: Pretty good.

N: And how's John? Did you guys spend any time together over the holidays?

Me: Yeah; actually, he came down to Maryland with me and met my whole family.

N: How did that go?

Me: It went great. Everyone really loved him. It was wonderful.

N: Awesome. So are you guys still together, or . . . ?

Me: So you have a girlfriend now?

N: Yeah. I figured I couldn't wait around for you forever.

Me: I wondered why you hadn't been hitting on me as much lately.

N: Ha ha ha!

Me: Awwww. You laugh like i'm kidding.

N: Guess what I'm doing in two hours?!
Me: Making out with your girlfriend?
N: No. She's six hours away.
Me: I know. I just like to taunt you.
N: Ew. Um, for some reason my brain connected "taunt" with you and me making out, and . . . Ew. Not that I think it would be gross to make out with you, just . . . With the relationship we have, it would be . . . Not that I want to make out with you . . . Or that I've thought about it . . .
Me: Do you need another shovel? Oh, no, it looks like you're doing just fine with the one you've got.

How Not to Get a Girl 1

These stories are all based on real events. In fact, they are all based on one guy who used to work with me.

A (picking up my hair): Your hair smells great.
Me: Please don't smell my hair.

A: See? This is why you should marry me.
Me: Because i told you about Dominos bread bowls?
A: Yes. We help each other out.
Me: But that's only an example of how i have helped you. What do you do for me?
A: I make you laugh. And that's the gift that lasts forever. How long can a bread bowl keep you satisfied? As long as it's on the menu. But how long can I keep you satisfied? As long as I'm alive.

A: This is why you should marry me. Because we have the same kind of energy beaming back and forth between us. I can see the energy in your soul beaming from your eyes into my eyes.
Me: Please stop talking.

A: I've updated my wardrobe, you know, trying to find more clothes like Casey might wear. Because I figured, you like the way he dresses, so maybe if I dress like him, you'll go out with me?
Me: I like Casey.

A: Did Casey give you that necklace?
Me: No. In fact, we broke up a few months ago.
A: What? You didn't tell me! I had no idea. Why didn't you tell me?
Me: It just didn't come up.
A: I'm so sorry. Man. Well, hey, now that that door is open, you wanna go get some coffee together or something?
Me: No.

A: See, I have a confession: the reason I've been asking you out more often is that I told Erica that I could get any girl I wanted. And she said I couldn't get you, no matter what. And I told her if I stepped up my game a little, I totally could.
Me: I know. She told me. She's my roommate.
A: So I'm stepping up my game.
Me: And stepping up your game involves . . . asking me out more often?
A: Well. Yeah. Pretty much.
Me: Yeah. It's not going to work. Erica was right.
A: We'll see.

A: I feel like I'll be at your wedding one day, and I'll be like, "Wow, you look so hot. You wanna go get coffee some time?" And your husband will go to punch me, and you'll be like, "No, babe. It's not worth it. His life is sad enough already."
Me: Yeah, that's pretty much how it would go down.

A: This is why we should get married, because we could just sit on our porch, and you could read, and I could be playing you music on the guitar, while we drink sweet tea and our beautiful adopted Black children run around in the yard.
Me: . . .

Ghosts of Boyfriends Past: Ford/Victor

Since neither of these relationships lasted for longer than a month, i'm combining them into one entry.

"Ford" was first. When i was fourteen, my friends and i started inexplicably taking late-night trips to Acme (grocery store). Looking back, i'm sure these trips really only happened half a dozen times, but it seemed like we were there once a week, usually to stock up on chips and soda for a sleepover.

There was one bag boy who was HOT. And i don't mean that we were fourteen and thought he was cute but really he was dorky. I mean he looked like an Abercrombie model. He was clearly older than we were, but no one was sure how much older. He always seemed to be there when we were, and always seemed to be looking at me. I actually didn't notice his attention until one of my friends pointed it out.

"Acme Boy is staring at you!" she whispered piercingly.
"What? No. I'm sure he's looking at all of us," i whispered back.

But the other girls soon confirmed it: Acme Boy had eyes only for me. Many months went by of awkward staring and smiling. When i was there with my mom, he'd check me out. When i was there with my friends, he'd check me out. Finally, one day, i was there with my uncle. As we were in the checkout line, Acme Boy was bagging groceries two lanes away. A few minutes later, he found a reason to move to the very next line. We continued staring and grinning until i was distracted by my uncle. Suddenly, Acme Boy was standing right next to me, and he slipped me a piece of paper, whispering, "Call me." On it was his name and number.

My friends and i were speechless with giggles. (What? We were fourteen. The stereotype is true: teenage girls giggle a lot.) My mom encouraged me to call, which i did the next day.

As it turned out, Ford was seventeen. He had just turned seventeen, and i was two months away from my fifteenth birthday, so it wasn't that significant a gap. As it further turned out, Ford had not realized that i was fourteen. He had thought i was twelve.

We continued chatting (and made out a few times) over the next few weeks, until Ford learned that i didn't want to have sex until i was married. I never heard from him again, though my sisters have since spotted him waiting tables at a sports bar. They say he has put on weight, and they are pretty sure he's gay.

"Victor", oddly enough, was an old friend of Fusco. I met him when my brother started taking Tae Kwon Do in town. Victor was in his class. He looked like a Hollister model, combining skater-boy edge with big blue eyes, dimples, and golden curls. I fell for him instantly and kept crushing on him for an entire year, even during the whole Ford fiasco. But he had a girlfriend.

Eventually, however, they broke up, he noticed me, and we started texting. I was nearly heartbroken when i learned that he was interested in a girl from my youth group, and tried to dissuade him by persuading him of her craziness (which was true, by the way. She was crazy.) The next day, he asked me out. Obviously i should have turned him down, but i was fifteen and he was really cute.

We dated for nearly three months before he broke it off because he was "going through some stuff" and needed to face it alone, like a "lone wolf". It wasn't until a few months after that that i learned he'd been cheating on me with the crazy girl from my youth group. Or maybe he was cheating on her with me. I never found out enough about the timeline to be sure, and i never wanted to. I did find out that he had been basically molesting her for their entire relationship. She was two years younger than we were (thirteen), and way too young and sheltered to be dating an older boy or to be making mature decisions about her sexuality. He'd pressured her into all kinds of things, and i am just selfish enough to still be glad that, for whatever reason, i had managed to escape that part of his character.

Ding Letter

Actually, it wasn't a letter. Just a creamy, almost-yellow card, slightly smaller than your average post card. I got my first ever rejection through email, but i was expecting that one. This was the first rejection that i could hold in my hand, and i had had high hopes for this particular opportunity.

I'm trying to convince myself that all it means is that my poems were not their cup of tea, but it's hard not to read this as "Seriously? You should have saved your postage and our time. What a waste."

Last semester, i wrote this poem:

Publishing

I fold up my heart and my soul

and all my hopes and dreams

(including a cover letter and SASE)

and send them off

to find out how much they are worth.

And sometimes

(all too often, in fact),

the answer comes back:

“Nothing.”

Putting aside the fact that the poem sucks, i am trying my damndest to remember that the question should not be, "How much is this worth?" but rather, "How much is this worth to you?"