Sarah took my picture.

My sweet friend Sarah Strobel took these pictures of me and my great-grandmother's shirt (one of the best things in my closet).

Girl knows what she's doing.

Also, you should listen to Cody's mix, because he's cool and has great taste in music.

My first and only prose poem.

We trampled the grass with eight-year-old feet, stalking that bleary-eyed dog of our neighbor’s, wielding bleeding Popsicle torches, traversing green hills (in search of war), tore the heads off blades of grass and suffocated smooth stones in our sticky palms. When we’d looted the sand for coins and ravaged the trees for grapefruit, our pagan sun-god had disappeared and we returned to our only conqueror, who alone had power to knife the dirt from under our fingernails and scald us with steaming water.

I'm in this band.

When I wrote my Bucket List for a class in Fall 2009, 14 was "Be in a band." I did not expect that this would happen anytime soon. Friends had asked me to join bands in high school and I'd never been particularly interested.

Also during Fall 2009, I met Scott Shepard at Open Mic night. Having enjoyed each other's music, we talked for a minute or two, left, and didn't speak for months.

In January Corey Fox asked me to play at an acoustic showcase. I agreed to, and a little later, he sent me an interesting email, saying that Scott wanted me to play piano with his band at the Velour Valentine's Masquerade. Again, I agreed. When Scott and I practiced for the first time, we worked on music for about an hour, and talked about books for two.

Clearly, it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Velour Valentine's Masquerade, 2/13/2010

Credit: Kaneischa Johnson

We played the Valentine's show together along with my friend Dan on the cello and our friend Claire on the harp. It was a magical night. About a month later, we saw Ciera Black playing with some of her friends at Open Mic and asked her if she wanted to play with us. By March of 2010, Book on Tape Worm as it is today was formed, and 14 was crossed off my bucket list.

Slumber Party 1/12/2011

Credit: Jeff Cornwall

Book on Tape Worm, 3/12/2011

Credit: Trevor Christensen

Most recently, we're raising money for a full-length album on Kickstarter. Within the space of 4 days and 14 hours (7:28 on Saturday to 9:58 today), we've raised $5,005 dollars of our $6,000 goal. The influx of support has been so humbling, and we are so grateful to everyone who's helped so far.



If you'd like to support us, check out our video and visit bookontapeworm.com, or write a blog post and get your friends informed! If you do blog, leave me a link in the comments and I'll post it to our Kickstarter page.

28

Having opened the door we sat down at the table
The light dim in the evening and my eyes dying out as later came sooner
And soon became late at night
Studying face after face I realized carefully
And then quickly-
That every pupil was dark and frightening enough to fall into.

The next day, meeting with a mirror, I rubbed my eyes
And almost tipped into my own.

On Bernini's David (27)

Lips licked slick and the sun glaring down I squint up,
(First, gripping a smooth and heavy stone in one hand)
And everything happens in instants
I am breathing hard as I run toward a dark mass, shadowy, backlit by brilliance,
Shedding cumbersome armor, dropping a back, losing my sandals,
My body tenses as I skid to a stop before the giant,
I crease my brow, load the sling,
And aim

26 (Or, This Is How I Felt Today)

For a week I yawned
And the next I opened my eyes, millimeter after next into one full blink
Almost completely still, I rubbed one eye over the course of a day
My index finger sliding to my tear duct like a snail drying up
(Voiceless and dusty, headache fermenting in my stagnant skull)
After a year my toes touched the floor
Another month and my feet
And I stood, an ancient tree, weathered, still rising from the ground.

25

Here is a stupid poem I wrote in English on Friday. We had to pick a concept and then the person next to us gave an object. I couldn't think of anything, so I wrote "Love" in droopy cursive letters. Then I got the word paperclip. What? Anyway. Here's what I came up with.

We keep turning curbs together
And we talk and we sit around and we don't talk
And I find you at my front door some of the time
But love is just a paperclip
Short, small, shallow
Malleable,
Nothing new, or unique
Then again, bright, again, then purposeful.
And nonetheless keeping us together.

I'm going to write three more poems right now, and then something in honor of National Blog About Book on Tape Worm Month (NoBloBoTWMo?).

Okay, I never update my blog.

I got a bit burnt out, and I owe you people four poems for the end of February. Hold me to it. 

24

And here you may notice, at the end of the day
That three cups of very hot chocolate,
A good and true friend,
And the end of a project
Will solve everything.

23

Then there was that time in the spring
When I was riding my bike down 5th
(At that point I still didn't recognize anything)
I was riding as fast as I could pedal
Feeling foreign, feeling new
And realizing what seemed at the time
The most important realization I would ever make:
(Being human, being incomplete,
Being young and lost, by virtue of being young.
Being confused, being in love,
Being eighteen and riding a bicycle)

That I am not yet what I am meant to be.

These were the most joyous words I knew.
(I whispered them to the stranger streets)
That I will never be in life what I am meant to be
That all I can do is add miles and years.

22

There are things I shouldn't have told to people
Things I didn't know were inarticulate
And best left that way
Until I put them crudely into words
And lost their meaning completely

Posters I Made and Liked:

Guess what? I discovered Helvetica Neue the week before last and now I can't stop using it.

I am especially proud of this typewriter. Credit for the concept to the incomparable Tess Kelly.

P.S. I definitely submitted to the Mayhew Contests and so should you.

On Flying

Flying at night is best.
Look down at all those burning dots
And all the darkness between them-
And maybe it's all floating on a deep, deep body of water
And the lamp-lined streets
Trailing out like warped fingers
Are bridges from house to garden to city to highway
Or maybe each bright car is a gondolier on fire
Later if you're lucky
Notice there are festivals spread out on every island
They have lit all their torches, rejoicing
Some, blinking lanterns, sending signals of joy
To all the neighboring tribes.

Here in the air the flight attendant demonstrates the use of an emergency mask.
Overhead reading lights click on
Or maybe it's only Sudoku puzzles and algebra homework
iPods glowing with Tetris and album covers
And some catastrophe shouting, breaking windows, exploding and burning
On the bluish screen glaring forward and to the right
Then again, to the right, soldiers with angry faces.

It's harder to believe it of these blocked-out cities.
Sitting flat in grids on some plateau I can't see.
Each light is just a repetition of the last and of the next
Row of dots square on graph paper.
And then swallowed by cloud cover.
Maybe further away a silvery row of lights
Pointing out a caravan of sailors.

No.
We are lost inside of a cloud, because some announcement comes on about turbulence.
And every passenger wonders not-so-secretly (looking around wide-eyed and maybe
Clutching the armrests with each lurch)
Wonders

(WAIT!)

"Oh God, is this how I die?"

Maren's Lullaby

Here's the lullaby, as finished as it can be for now. I got Madelyn and Melissa to sing on it, and I think putting this together was pretty neat to do as sisters. Madelyn is the lowest voice and Melissa is the inordinately high one. They made up their own harmonies. My favorite part of this song is about a minute in, when some cool harmonies come in and there are a few soaring notes in all the parts. Anyway, the song is the second track on this music player. Happy listening!

Nineteen is a song.

Seeing Maren

When Dad called me in I walked over in the soft light,
And kneeling next to a crib I know I laid in
Peeked through at her for the first time
Sometimes there aren't enough words
The tiniest yawn I've ever seen
(Between quick, sweet breaths)
Coming from this perfect face and nose
And blinked-shut eyes
Her head the size of a fist
And fist the size of a thumb
Her fingernails drips of barely opaque paint
On the ends of blushing curled fingers
She blinked for an instant
The dark globes of her eyes
Maybe having registered a stranger
And then closed.
I crouched before her, transfixed.
There was nothing else.

Flights

The last time was about a year ago,
Watching the tiny lights of my newest hometown
Blinking closer as we landed,
Six months previous I was hunched over writing a poem
While the plane turned out over the sea and then in again at LAX.
And year before that on the Fourth of July
I was walking through Heathrow
Listening to the drawling accents of the women behind me
And I wondered aloud why we were going back to America.

A VERY corny poem about an adventure I had one time.

I walked away and crumpled in my car

The night the ides of March struck sharp and true

I drove home- the familiar roads, I barely knew

A block away, I slowed to wonder who you are

So why in Paris? Why, at seventeen,

Did I find you, miraculously there,

Know you so well, that from the topmost stair

I called you, and you turned- what did it mean?

Did it mean Fate rules Paris, or the Louvre?

Did it mean I should find the things I miss?

Or God set us in clockwork- maybe this

Is blasphemy- or maybe this is proof

Of graciousness- some grain of hope in love

For seventeen, that day has been enough.

Sometimes it was late
And I was walking outside still seventeen
Into the backyard of the house I grew up in
I would lie in the hammock, looking up
Finding the only constellations I knew
Sometimes humming to myself
Sometimes talking at the sky
Sometimes it was late and I slipped out the back door
And then through the fence and onto the stretch of grass between our houses
And if the sprinklers were on, I was there anyway
Lying in the middle of the belt of green
And waiting for a star to fall
Tracing the paths of planes flying in
And watching satellites drip carefully across the sky

I Like You by Sandol Stoddard Warburg.

I like you and I know why.
I like you because you are a good person to like.
I like you because when I tell you something special, you know it’s special
And you remember it a long, long time.
You say, Remember when you told me something special
And both of us remember

When I think something is important
you think it’s important too
We have good ideas
When I say something funny, you laugh
I think I’m funny and you think I’m funny too
Hah-hah!
I like you because you know where I’m ticklish
And you don’t tickle me there except just a little tiny bit sometimes
But if you do, then I know where to tickle you too
You know how to be silly
That’s why I like you
Boy are you ever silly
I never met anybody sillier than me till I met you
I like you because you know when it’s time to stop being silly
Maybe day after tomorrow
Maybe never
Too late, it’s a quarter past silly
Sometimes we don’t say a word
We snurkle under fences
We spy secret places
If I am a goofus on the roofus hollering my head off
You are one too
If I pretend I am drowning, you pretend you are saving me
If I am getting ready to pop a paper bag,
then you are getting ready to jump
HOORAY

That’s because you really like me
You really like me, don’t you
And I really like you back
And you like me back and I like you back
And that’s the way we keep on going every day

If you go away, then I go away too
or if I stay home, you send me a postcard
You don’t just say Well see you around sometime, bye
I like you a lot because of that
If I go away, I send you a postcard too
And I like you because if we go away together
And if we are in Grand Central Station
And if I get lost
Then you are the one that is yelling for me

And I like you because when I am feeling sad
You don’t always cheer me up right away
Sometimes it is better to be sad
You can’t stand the others being so googly and gaggly every single minute
You want to think about things
It takes time

I like you because if I am mad at you
Then you are mad at me too
It’s awful when the other person isn’t
They are so nice and hoo-hoo you could just about punch them in the nose

I like you because if I think I am going to throw up
then you are really sorry
You don’t just pretend you are busy looking at the birdies and all that
You say, maybe it was something you ate
You say, the same thing happened to me one time
And the same thing did

If you find two four-leaf clovers, you give me one
If I find four, I give you two
If we only find three, we keep on looking
Sometimes we have good luck, and sometimes we don’t

If I break my arm, and if you break your arm too
Then it’s fun to have a broken arm
I tell you about mine, you tell me about yours
We are both sorry
We write our names and draw pictures
We show everybody and they wish they had a broken arm too

I like you because I don’t know why but
Everything that happens is nicer with you
I can’t remember when I didn’t like you
It must have been lonesome then

I like you because because because
I forget why I like you but I do
So many reasons
On the 4th of July I like you because it’s the 4th of July
On the fifth of July, I like you too
If you and I had some drums and some horns and some horses
If we had some hats and some flags and some fire engines
We could be a HOLIDAY
We could be a CELEBRATION
We could be a WHOLE PARADE
See what I mean?

Even if it was the 999th of July
Even if it was August
Even if it was way down at the bottom of November
Even if it was no place particular in January
I would go on choosing you
And you would go on choosing me
Over and over again
That’s how it would happen every time
I don’t know why
I guess I don’t know why I really like you
Why do I like you
I guess I just like you
I guess I just like you because I like you.