Random Poetry

Too fast too proud, no brakes no clue
I refuse to see, I'm losing you
Broken bodies, tired hearts
My damn pride is tearing this apart

Too blind to see, no one knows me
I'm lining up, crying 'anarchy'
Sweaty fingers, calloused hands
My hand in yours, it's contraband

I'm a fool, I'm a fool
I've made you a wanted man
I can't play love by the rules
My hand in yours, It's contraband

No, No - Let ME Tell YOU a Thing or Two About Common Courtesy...

I'll admit I'm not the poster girl for common courtesy, but I'm certainly well-educated on the subject. Yes, you've picked the wrong person to bitch at about such a thing, and now that I've held my tongue while you degraded me and long enough to get back home, I'm going to learn you somethin' fierce - it was common courtesy to take it like some sort of criminal, but I'm home now and I'm free to run my mouth like a madwoman.

It is common courtesy to invite someone into your home, and them treat them as exactly what they are: a guest. You don't treat them like a criminal, a villain, a heartless, gutless, spineless, mindless psychobitch... They are your equal, if not your superior. Treat them as such. If they have the decency to sit there and take your criticism, you have the decency to shut the fuck up, not single them out and eat their face off.

It is common courtesy to keep your at-home problems inside your home. Don't take your dirty laundry out in front of others. I'm not old-fashioned, I'm not saying it's taboo or anything. I'm just saying that no one really gives a shit and/or wants to sit through the melodramatics of your private life.

Common courtesy is not throwing words around like 'bitch'.

Common courtesy is letting a child be parented by their parents. Don't play mommy with me - I have a mother, she's doing a much better job than you, thanks.

Common courtesy is not playing double standards. Fuckin' right.

You're a psychotic bitch. I had the common courtesy to come to your house, ride in your car, after you degraded me once already. And to what aim? To be humiliated and insulted all over again? I've done so fucking much for both your doughters: Show a little fucking apreciation. I'm not perfect all the time, no, sometimes I laugh at nothing and sometimes I make a mess and sometimes I love people who I can't have. But you know what? So does your kid. Open your fucking eyes, she's used me and thrown me away. She's backstabbed me. She's insulted me. She's thrown me away. And you know what? You don't see my mother riding her ass about it. And I'm smart enough to see that I have a great mother, who knows when to pull the leash, but who knows how to let me build my life.

Take a page from her book.

Fuck you,
-manda

5 Things My Daddy's Music Has Taught Me

1. Even if you can't stand the music, you have to give the lyrics a chance.
2. How to sing my heart out (no matter who's listening).
3. Just how great a song can sound on vinyl.
4. The difference between an artist and a salesman.
5. There is more beneath the surface, in songs and in people.

So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls
swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have you found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

Nothing Else Matters

I may not have screwed things up as bad as I'd originally thought with my dear boy.

At the very least, I'm happy with the meaningless 'love you's and his friendship. At least I'm lucky to know him. Expecting a relationship with him was...well, getting a bit greedy, I guess.

Riley said he had a little crush on me back before he started dating Sam. It's a cute thing to say, but it doesn't do much for me now that he's 'committed for life'. Haha. No, I really was happy to hear that, and I said (in the politest, non-whorish way possible) that if things don't work out with Samantha, to let me know.

There is a good reason why girlfriends hate me so much...

I get my hair dyed on Saturday. :). Because I'll be tied up with that, though, I'm missing Tavis and Nathan's second trip to town. They're gonna think I hate them or something... Ah, well I'll leave a 'hey' with Chelsea to deliver to them.

I'm not in the mood to be writing, sorry....

-manda

It was the only place I'd never known
Turned off the light on my way out the door
I will be watching wherever you go
Through the eyes of a fly on the wall
You have been followed back to the same place
I sat with you drink for drink
Take the pain out of love and then love won't exist

I am no gentleman, I can be a prick
And I do regret more than I admit
You have been followed back to the same place
I sat with you drink for drink
Take the pain out of love and then love won't exist

Everything we had, is no longer there...

Hello, how you doing?
What's it like to ruin all my self esteem
Let me blow off some steam
For 5 years I've waited,
So why am I jaded to get back at you
What makes it cool

When you act like nothing ever happened
I feel like I should feel bad
But I can't like someone who thought
They're the only one that mattered
I hope that you're flattered
Cause you broke this down
The best thing that you never had

And it seems like a loss somehow
My heart got lost on the way to my head
And my brain cells are dead
And the craziness shows
Now I start to go when the green turns to red
And I should be dead

When you act like nothing ever happened
I feel like I should feel bad
But I can't like someone who thought
They're the only one that mattered
While my heart got shattered like romantic roadkill
My heart is all splattered, your ego got fatter
And I hope that you're flattered
Cause you broke this down
The best thing that you never had

Like the toilet seat never got lifted
And I pissed on your confidence
When you weren't around, how can that be?
Don't turn this around
You were the one
Who drove my ass right to the ground

When you act like nothing ever happened
I feel like I should feel bad, and I can't like
Someone who thought
They're the only one that mattered
While my heart got shattered like romantic roadkill
My heart is all splattered, your ego got fatter
And I hope that you're flattered
Cause you broke this down
You broke this down
The best thing, the best thing,
The best thing that you never had

idiotidiotidiot

MANDA: *biggest hint ever, something along the lines of 'I wish you would go out with me'*
GUY: why?
MANDA: because you're an awesome guy
GUY: I think that's a good reason.... I don't feel good. Blah blah blah. Gonna go lie down.
MANDA: (inwardly: no you fucker I had more to say nooooo) Okay. Get better etc.

GREAT FUCKING IDEA, SELF.

Another Letter Better Left Unsent...

It's not like I didn't like you back when you seemed to like me. You had a girlfriend. What could I have done?

Then you dumped her, and raved about how great it was to be single. Wasn't about to do anything there either.

And then there was the girl at the party, the random makeout session that you told me about later that night. Ouch.

And then you just didn't seem to care.

Et cetera, et cetera...

And now you keep me guessing. You either think of me of such a close friend, a buddy, that you can share all these snippets of information with me, or you think you're dropping hints with "I want a girlfriend". But a hint isn't enough anyway.

I just wish I would know, whatever that would mean. If you're over me, hey, I'll hate myself for not helping you cheat on your ex, but I'll move on eventually. If you're not, why is it so hard to just say that? But as always I don't want to say anything I'll regret, so I don't take sides between you and me, and I pretend I'm oblivious, and - this is a new trick, too - I give you advice about other girls you seem to like. What a smart girl I am. "You're not sure if he likes you, so give him tips on how to get away from you as soon as possible. That will really win him over."

In short, I'm scared to scare you away, but I'm afraid I may have already done just that. I don't know where you stand because I don't see you nearly enough for that sort of thing.

I just read this over and it's laughable, I know what I need to do and I avoid doing it just because I'm a chickenshit. I cover it up with excuses, but you're a man, I'm sure it's not going to hurt you any to have a girl chasing after you.

So I'm gonna do it. It's not going to kill me, right?

Yours,
Manda

Actually, It Really Is Your Parents' Fault

August 20th approaches, which is (weirdly enough) both Evan's birthday and my parents' anniversary. I'm not sure which is more amazing: a boy like Evan living to see his 16th birthday, or parents like mine sticking it out for 19 years.

My mom confided to me the other day over breakfast that when she and my dad married, he wasn't quite ready for marriage. Confide is a silly word to use, because this fact wasn't in the least bit new to me. I can remember myself, aged somewhere between 6 and 9, being told the very same secret as my mom sat in the kitchen at 2 am, wondering where her husband had gone (the bar) and when he would be home (various times and dates). I laugh at it now, the thought of my dad even having the time to be such a headache, but I've begun to wonder how much has really changed.

My dad's last month at home was spent neglecting my mom and building mountains for the centennial instead. Chores were left incomplete, he only took Katie driving a grand total of one time, he recruited me to pick up some of his slack and when his mood would hit a one certain point, he'd throw words around that I don't think he really meant. There was something alarming about the whole thing, an unsettled air in the house, which i realize now was an invisible bridge burning. My mom's doubting that he ever really wanted this family, and he's too busy to change his ways. Flipping through some new books in the car, I found a relationship book at the bottom of the heap, tucked away almost ashamedly, in that dust-under-the-carpet way that neglected wives seem to have perfected.

I skimmed over it (as is so much like my mother, she bought this one titled "Actually, It Really Is Your Parents' Fault" or something to that effect) in an attempt to diagnose the severity of the situation. All efforts proved fruitless (I did, however, learn that Evan's problems all stem from the lack of a mother figure in his life. See paragraph 1, line 2). She may have bought it just to find yet another flaw she could blame her mother for. She may have bought it because she's running out of options. This is the first relationship book ever to enter our household. My parents don't fight. I don't know what to think, really. A very, very small part of my kind of wishes that they would get divorced. Very small. Most of me just wishes my dad would stop working so fucking much.

I'm running out of patience, boy. Brace yourself, I could open my big mouth any second now and kill everything we've worked so hard to build up.

Or you know, convince you to take me out to supper so I can try to make you fall for me like you've made me for you.

It's hard to be this naive, this conceited, this dumb.

-Manda

I've got a sureshot way to work things out
All of this growing up has worn you down
I've got a sureshot way to kill your doubts
Find what your following and chase it down

Dear Jerkface,

When you say you like someone, you are committed to that person somewhat.

You don't have to ask them out tomorrow, next week, next month.

You don't have to ask them out at all.

You're not engaged, you're not picking out the font for the invitations or buying a book of baby names.

You're not tied to that person for life.

You're not tied to that person at all.

But you've given them something to think about, hope for and dream of.

And if you dare take that away (especially on short notice), you are hurting that person,

And therefore deserve to be hurt back.

I hope you're hit by a train, killed in your sleep, eaten by wolves, electricuted, mauled, steamrolled, incinerated by a car fire, or otherwise fatally injured.

And I pray this kind of thing never happens to me personally. Cross your fingers for me, please, even after you're killed in a medley of painful scenarios. My boy is still a ball on indecision, but I'm being as patient as I can.

I do hope I've explained myself rationally and logically, and proven beyond doubt that you do deserve everything you're going to get - not one bullet less.

Regards,
Manda F.

Sewn Together

Two CD's scratched out from my wishlist - The Academy Is' "Santi" and Paramore's "All We Know is Falling" - symbolise a turning point in my situation, but as to whether this is positive or not is hard to say. Maybe I'm doing better, accepting each obstacle, getting my rhythm back and starting anew. Or maybe I'm collapsing beneath the pressure, searching for an anchor (any anchor), building false idols and running myself into the ground. I'm teetering on an anwkward seam between idealism and nihilism, held fast by a common thread of hope.

I wish he would just make up his mind and voice it to me. He's indecisive one minute, secretive the next. I need clarity, I guess. I need to know what's happening so I can stop trying to guess.

Almost

Self-portrait: Happier Days?

I found the photo and a half-started sketch in my room and I finished it up. It's weird to draw in semi-realism again, and even weirder to draw myself, especially myself with such a goofy expression. I was more in the mood to draw my own grave or something...

Techs: 50lb sketch paper, HB-7B Staedtler sketching pencils. About half an hour.

I have nothing else to say, really. Still moody, low, touchy and frustrated. Still practically alone in this big house with depressing songs blaring on Repeat. Still picking fights.

Oh, a very unpleasant stabbing pain in my gut. Yeah. That's new.

Hmm...


Almost (circa 2005)

She watched him through burning eyes as he swung back his head, swigged back most of the bottle. His eyes were tired and his face was solemn. Was this really the same boy she’d known only months ago? An echo of his drunken laughter rang in her ears. Now he drank in silence, usually alone with only the clinks and sloshes of the bottles to keep him company.

"It’s just…"

His eyes floated over to her, and he lowered the dull green glass to rest in his lap. She watched his hand, wrapped loosely around the bottle’s neck. He used to cling to the cool, dark glass as they sang and giggled together. It seemed now that the bottle was clinging to him. She pulled her focus up to meet his smoky grey eyes.

"Keep on," his eyes said, "Talk to me, hold me here…help me through…"

"Never mind," she found her mouth saying. She held his gaze a moment longer before she could stand it no longer. Drowning…He’s drowning…We’re both going under... She let go of his gaze, scrambling to find something else to turn her attention to. She stared at her feet for what seemed like ages.

"Life’s short."

Her eyes snapped up to him again when he spoke. Head down in one hand, empty bottle in the other. He was barely moving, he wouldn’t look at her…Had he even said anything at all? She glanced down at the toxic bottle in her own hands. Maybe now was a good time to quit…

"It just doesn’t seem fair, that we have—what, five years?—to do everything. Whatever we do, we like…live off of that for the rest of our lives, you know?"

How was it that the liquid that once emptied his heavy heart now only weighed it down all the more? Once again the drowning feeling tugged at her heart. Pulling her under… She said nothing, but this time when he revealed his tear-stained eyes to her, she fought to hold hers to his. His somber face cracked just enough for a slight tug at the corners of his mouth. The closest she’d seen to a smile from him in over half a year.

She took a long swig from the liquid lead, and this time it felt lighter in her throat.

"Almost like it used to feel," She noted aloud.

"You noticed too?" He glanced over at her, his blurred grey eyes almost sparkling.

-manda

We were out on a date in my daddy's car
We hadn't driven very far

There in the road, straight ahead

A car was stalled, the engine was dead

I couldn't stop so I swerved to the right

I'll never forget the sound that night:

The screamin' tires, the bustin' glass

The painful scream that I heard last...

Oh where oh where can my baby be?
The lord took her away from me
She's gone to heaven, so I got to be good
So I can see my baby when I leave this world

Stains

The wonderful thing about friends is that they are able to act as a blindfold when there are things in your life you would rather not see. But every so often, I'll pull away from the jokes and the pranks and the company in general, and I'll take a minute to stare real hard at those places.

I'm back home after cutting an evening with Hannah and Steph short.

And I'm just staring...

Jess is dead. That's it. She barely lived her life and now she never will.

My parents are barely a pair, let alone a married couple. They float around, they move to various locations alone, leaving their kids at home alone. They are parallel lines and terrible excuse for a marriage.

The boy I can't stop proclaiming my love to is apparently deaf.

I am receiving calls from a boy who I seldom talk to, begging forgiveness when I'm not even upset by him. I refuse to answer, but that doesn't do more than sweep the problem under the rug.

I kind of like to focus on them, though. It makes everything else look so much neater, clearer...happier.

So it will go, if it must... I guess

It's heart-wrenching that today rolled by so smoothly, only to crumble to ash mere inches from the finish line. Erin's friend Jess is dead.

...So it goes?

Maybe so in the Vonnegut's now-resting eyes, but as it would turn out, things are seldom so simple when reality strikes. I can't tell Jess' friends and family about the beads on a string, and even if someone did I doubt it would get through to cut their mourning short. She probably had a boyfriend, too, who is now alone - just like that, and suffering. The more I think about it the more I hate it, and the more I hate it the more I think...

Katie is at Sean's, and so is lost amid the mourners and the guilty-minded, and I feel for her too because I know how those situations scare her more than the event itself ever could.

All this reflection is hitting me, because as I always seem to do before someone I love dies or before a close friend's loved one dies, I got that ominous feeling when I woke up this morning, that unexplained urge to go home and stay home, retreat from friends and family, that suspicious part of my subconscious that frets over various scenarios all day long. It happens every time; I guess I just have an instinct for this sort of thing. But it's never that obvious to me until after said catastrophe rips a world apart. Then I go over how I should have and could have, when really there is absolutely nothing I could have could have done, right?

A very small part of me is still making up scenarios. In one, the scary voicemail message I received on my cell phone this morning is somehow connected to Jess' death. I don't know, I'm not logical right now.

I didn't really know Jess, only of her. It's kind of crazy to think this much about it if I didn't even know her, but at the same time, if I were to die, I would hope that people would stop and think about me too, if only for a minute or two.

Since I'm not really all that religious or that interested in the whole afterlife thing, I have no ideas as to where Jess went from here, but here's to hoping it's somewhere even better?Without a doubt she died much too young. I can only think of one intelligent quote on death, so I suppose I will close with that and hope she lived her life well?

-Manda

"We all die. The goal isn't to live forever. The goal is to create something that will."

Not Playing The Role To Get Let Down

It may be truer than I like to think: people never change.

Superficially, yes, we cut and dye and dress and colour ourselves into whatever sort of beast we think we would like to be. But deeper down, where all those messy emotions, likes, morals and memories hide, is so well-protected by layer upon layer of deceptive packaging, that it never gets a chance to peek out at the world around it, let alone be affected by it enough to change.

So am I still the self-conscious bundle of hate and nerves that I was during my early adolescence? Or am I the person I was even before that? And the people who hurt me back then, will they hurt me again in the future if I let them? I'm able to get by day-to-day without revealing the little girl I locked up somewhere down the line, but eventually I'll trip and she'll catch a glimpse of the world outside the safety of her shell, and she'll get scared and, hell, maybe cry a little.

Is Jenna's inner self a mean-spirited brat who she attempts to cover with a cheap brand of tolerance? Or is the selfish creature just a layer of her shell, under which a softer, innocent version of herself hides? Does she use me because she genuinely likes to see me hurt, or is it an attempt to hide the fact that beneath it all she's just a scared little girl who put up one too many walls?

Look at me, mulling over the psychological makeup of my supposed enemies. Guerrilla, I am not, but Freud?

As for him... I'm not sure what's going on with him. He won't tell me and I won't ask. It's a perpetual, stubborn cycle of shyness and, potentially, rue. I won't tell him what I want because I don't know who he wants, and he won't tell me who he wants because what he wants is relative to what I want. Or so it seems. I don't know. Maybe I'm not nearly as involved as I seem to think I am. I want him to call, desperately, at this point. He owes me an explanation, or at least a solid hint. I'm treading air, here...

There are very few bands whom write songs that describe my romantic situation so well, so bear with me while I quote The Higher at the end of my entries for the next month...

-Manda

And I don't mind having that someone around
If you listen and write
Then the lesson in life's not playing the role of the let down
And I know I'm casually learning to get down
And we're crazy concerned,
Attention deserved, not playing the role to get let down

Much More Like Your Modern-Day Peter Pan

I'm not sure I have much future as a poet, but I dabbled with poems long before I started writing on a daily basis. It's just a stupid little habbit I picked up somewhere: I think of clever, multi-dimensional lines or ideas, and build a few more around them, all in my head (the good ones are never very long, because I can only fit about six lines in my head at one time). I play around with the order and wording for a while, then when I'm satisfied with what I have, I get sentimental and write them down on the nearest available outlet, in fear of losing them forever.

The reason I'm explaining them is that, after a small squabble with my family at suppertime, I holed myself up in my room and filed through some old shit I had lying around, and happened to find a few snippets of poetry hidden within the pile. They're nothing spectacular, but I thought I'd share some favourites.


Scribbled inside the back cover of Jesus' Son, amongst phone numbers, notes to self and information on my flight home from Denver, and the second half (they make sense together, to me anyway), written on the back of a boarding pass and shoved inside the same book:

"I keep pictures under my pillow of the girl I used to be
Like he keeps his real name tattooed around his wrist..."

"...After all, isn’t part of walking watching where you put your feet?
Without a little recollection, how could we ever exist?

My mother always said it takes more to live than a heartbeat."

Small sheet of notepad paper, crumbled up in my guitar equipment box:

“He’s not much in the way of a gentle-man
Much more like your modern-day Peter Pan”

Inside my song-writing book (which I suppose qualifies it as a song, only I never wrote any music for it, lazy me:

“We cower below a man ten feet tall
The magistrate takes a bow
Good god damn, how the mighty fall
We’re all tied up like puppets now

When he raises a string
The rebels all sing his praises
A flick of the wrist
And we all twist and turn below
He’s got us on our toes
When he wrinkles his nose
We fall down when he lets us go”

On two equally boring white slips of paper, inside a dictionary:

“Deep down where our hearts reside
Is there no feeling that you can’t tame?”

“Romance is cyanide to the naive
And oxygen to the cruel”

-Manda

On a Dime

I'm semi-grounded. My mom wants me to reconsider my friendships, because she's noticed that shit tends to go down when Hannah and I are in the same place at the same time. I'm not very eager to obey, but we'll see.

I've already promised myself to build some walls between Shelby (because she's antagonized me over my mistakes not only to my face but behind my back) and Tammy (because she's taken over my mother's job as my primary caregiver, and it's obnoxious and wrong on multiple levels), but Hannah is a more gentle species than her mother and sister, contrary to popular belief. She likes to mask it with a wild-child exterior, but she's really very conscientious and deep. I suppose I'm very much the same, which may very well be the foundation for the friendship we've built over the past year or so.

I've been writing my CD wishlist for the 2007-2008 school year. School comes with multiple sources of pressure and stress, which collectively weigh down on me enough to cripple my spirits, and my theory is that if I have this list, each time I need a crutch I can go out and buy one from the list. It will provide a momentary bliss, a temporary high if you will, which should be enough to get me back on my feet long enough to pick up some momentum again.

The only rule is no hardcore, no emo, no screamo. That's like adding fuel to the fire, which is not what I'm looking for. I go pop/rock/altrock or I go musically hungry.

My List So Far:

Junior Varsity- "Cinematographic"
Boys Like Girls- "Boys Like Girls"
Yellowcard- "Paper Walls"
Sum 41- "Underclass Hero"
Paramore- "Riot!"
Motion City Soundtrack- "Even if it Kills Me", "Commit This to Memory"
The Harlots- "Connoisseur of Ruin"

I like the idea, really. I think it's going to help. I guess.

I had some unexpected conflict with Mel and Jenna last night, involving some drunken texts (they were drunk alone at Mel's house on a Wednesday night. Way to go, ladies) which were... well, not too horrible, but not kind-hearted either. I've been telling myself to ignore them, that they just want to compete with me and that fact alone should be flattering if anything, but these are the girls that made my life hell for me in elementary school, and as recovered as I seem to be, they still scare the living shit out of me.

It's quite possible that I'm addicted to hating myself (suicide junkie?). I'm talking it out (verbal detox?), though, and hoping for the best (insecurity rehab?).

Laughter from yesterday still lingers in the air. Life truly is a funny thing, if seen through the right perspective.

-Manda

No sir, well I don't wanna be the blame,
Not anymore
It's your turn, so take a seat
We're settling the final score

And why do we like to hurt, so much?
I can't decide
You have made it harder just to go on
And why, all the possibilities where I was wrong

I wonder, how am I supposed to feel
When you're not here
'Cause I burned every bridge I ever built
When you were here
I still try holding onto silly things,
I never learn
Oh why, all the possibilities I'm sure you've heard.