excerpts from pieces i never published, vol. 2
a girl's body is a battlefield1
But now that I'm growing more and more into my body, the extra softness in my stomach makes me feel awful sometimes. I know it's there to protect my organs ... but it's so hard to accept when you've always been called everything from sexy to skin and bones.
I know part of the value the world ascribes to me is in my waist measurements, or my long hair, or the way a skirt flares around my hips. And I love those things about me, too, and I hate that they've been tainted. I hate that sometimes I reach for pants that hide my stomach, or shrink away from myself in the mirror when I'm wearing a lovely dress because it falls over every curve that I hate.
my voice in a locked box
I've only really been a "singer" for a short while, but I'm a singer all the same. I live for the feeling of getting it right, all the right notes with the right emotion. I love it when I can feel that my body is doing what it needs to do to draw a song out of me. I'm not very good at it yet, but I love it.
the whole world is out there today
I've been feeling restless lately. The whole world is out there today, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. I want to get a blueberry brioche from my favorite bakery, and find even more bakeries. I want to dress up real nice, with that new lipstick, and go to the museum by myself. I want to go to the oceanarium and see the penguins. And yet every time I walk up to my apartment door, I hesitate and turn back.
on nostalgia
I was walking to class today and I saw someone on the street who looked like one of my best friends from afar. Suddenly I wasn't there on the sidewalk outside my college, but on the oval back in high school, running to catch up with her before she disappeared into a building. It lasted about two seconds. I wanted to cry.
re: learning english as a third language2
I have a love-hate relationship with English. It comes naturally to me ... It's an advantage I wish I didn't need to have: why is it that in this country, those who speak English get further ahead than everyone else? Why do we treat a colonizer's tongue like it's better than ours?
restlessness
Recently, I've been feeling restless, like there's something that I need to know or do, but I don't know what. I'm not usually a paranoid person; my anxieties don't run in that direction. But there's just something so anticipatory in the air, like the whole world is holding its breath. But it's just me. Everyone else is still breathing.
I still want to finish this and get it out there. Maybe someday, I'll find the right words to say.↩
Drafted in response to Lili's post.↩