i'm not dead yet

that first post needed more but i... was too anxious to be free

Everett mills is still alive.
she always was.

Did you know? I thought not.

I am not who you think i am,
I never have been.

i've been sick of fake laughs and noise since i first learned about masks.
about masks that lovely ladies wear with feathers
that wesley wore to save the princess bride
masks worn by hyperactive kids, either so they can practice wearing lies
or so their mothers can pretend for one night a year,
"oh, that one's not mine"
masks that hide your face but not your eyes,
that wrap those windows to the soul in someone else's skin and man it must grate your soul like heck but it leaves so little space for glimpses into the truth,

people say
"real men don't hide"
well real men don't exist.

the only people who've never hidden and never will and aren't wearing some kind of cover-up right now are
worse than dead
because you dreamed them up

and i've been sick of masks for too long.

my mom is loud.  my dad is quiet.
loud meant fake for a little blond girl
and so yes i smiled, and probably laughed too much
but i'm like my dad
and i like the truth.

if its possible to be shy and brave then i was, on and off, you may have caught me in a brave moment but overthinking stretched and filled every gap in action,
overthinking and doubt and shame and a sadness because so often
my quiet self was alone.
i overthought the mask
it took me so long to separate the truth from the lies--
so long to learn that
not all laughs are fake
that smiles are not inherently plastic
that lies are not the substance of life
that i can make jokes and talk
and not grit my teeth to keep the monsters from slipping into sight
Because there were no monsters but everyone else had them and what could i do but assume that
i couldn't smile like them and act beautiful without being a lie.
because thats what they were.

because even if mine was real
and their's were fake
it would look the same.
And I didn't want to be fake.

i never doubted myself.  i never doubted God and i never doubted that this world is good, and i never doubted that i can do anything
because i'm more than slightly idealistic,
but that didn't stop the voices in my head and it didn't stop the other voices fighting it and i
think
way too much.

so this is about what's been on my mind forever.  this is about truth because i value honesty and Everett Mills has always been alive. 
she just never had a name.
i've been finding my voice for years now,
and the person you see at school with my name is as real as the devil
and has always dreamed
and always wanted
and
took some time to find her voice.

(i was shy.  i hated it.)

"she doesn't talk much"
"i know you're quiet"

"oh I'll do that, I'll bet you'd rather not do that much talking"

"she's just shy"

I HATED IT

and i had thoughts and they were beautiful

and i wanted words for them

and i wanted to say them

and i wanted to give you a hug

to tell you

to speak up 

to dance 

to sing in front of crowds
i had music in me and the only words i had to say them were piano keys.
i've had it all.
forever.
all but courage.

I hate masks.
not their wearers,
but oh how I hate masks.

i went to forever trying to avoid them and somehow all i did was pin on one of my own, safety pinned it through the skin around my eyes and because i saw no blood i thought nothing of it,
but i've been drowning
bleeding internally
so badly that if i tilt too far to one side i'm afraid i would hear the blood sloshing within me, hear the blood-tide following the moon from within my lungs.
I am gasping for breath from the bad blood
thats still seeping from those safety-pin wounds
i painted a mask around my eyes, i thought the paint-can was labeled silence but really i was using blood
it was like the shell i never wanted
and it fit perfectly.
this mask felt less cruel to everyone but my soul.
to everyone but my heart,
punctured by paint brushes
and gagged with duct tape rougher than he is and heavier than the earsplitting silence of my shame
safer
to everyone but me.

I've always been real.
I've always been Everett Mills
but i haven't always been honest.
if i had a key i would toss it because
i'm not locking up again.

thank you for listening.
Anna Tasso

she

started writing

...real

hello world

I've counted and i have more posts in draft than I have published.
but here's to real talk and this is for all of us dreamers in Paris, I wish i spoke better french because I don't plan on leaving.

half of life is confidence, and if you really knew me you'd know
I'm a dreamer
I love summer but I'm becoming a ski bum
i think 10000 times more than what i say
I'm an obsessed pianist
when i play Clair de Lune on a grand its like I'm playing my dreams
and i crave that feeling
I wish i were slightly shorter
i like fruit and people
i'm scared of driving with my mom
i read too much
i'm slightly idealistic


thank you writers, you make Paris beautiful
my name is everett mills

I'm Anna Tasso

so you thought you forgot

when have i ever wanted to remember

I remember my dad's bedtime stories
i remember when they stopped.
the way mom's bedtime songs stopped
nap time stopped
i grew up too early
but not from a tragedy
from how things are rough and we're all different,

I remember the pink sweater mom's best friend gave me, I wore it for years and i saw it in a picture a few weeks ago and it was ugly and flowered
like a lot of things I had
and i loved it.

I remember clocks. roosters at farmhouses and windmills and grandfathers and i remember watches and alarms
tick- tock- ing and screaming
and i was always late
because i was always
with my mom.

I remember the first time I ran away,
I remember I sat on the hill and wondered if I would go back that day.
I remember my heart was more sizes too small than the grinch must have felt
because I Hated.
I remember wondering if my bag of trail mix would last me through the night,
I had taken extra on purpose.

I remember in 4th grade I drew an orange with pastels and it was tied for the best in the class.

I remember the room that my mom started swearing in.
it was my room and there was a bunk bed
and I remember my brother drew in lipstick on the metal bed frames
and it made me angry the way my mom swearing made me scared
like red lipstick
in clumps
on cold white steel
in a room plastered with pink flowered wallpaper.

I remember that room was cold
but it had the best view.

I remember trying to skip stones and giving up,
throwing handfuls instead because it was the only way I
could make two splashes in a row.

I remember throwing baseballs and then
maybe it was the broken windows
but i started throwing punches instead

I remember we stayed at the lake too long,
the way we stay at every lake too long.
I remember that my cousins fly-fished in the rain, and I remember wet knees and messy hair because we waited
for them in the grass
with a blanket over our heads.

I remember playing School in the little blue playhouse
the ivy-covered story-book playhouse
where we hid the box of dead killer bees,
where we hid ourselves and the grapes we picked too early,
there was a desk inside,
and I remember there was an attic with a ladder in the playhouse
and I remember the play house better than the real one.

I remember an iced driveway and a hammer, and a little girl who fell

a cat who chased itself up a tree

there must have been a dog

I remember slivers from the porch and tweezers in my parents' hands and laying down on the table while the tweezers dug through my toe
I remember I dislike doctors
and maybe I'm scared of surgery
because the sliver went deep.

I remember a walk to elephant seals
to California poppies
and tall grass
and bike rides
and the boardwalk,
I remember i was never cold,

I remember the stream we played in at Grandpa's funeral, although
i only remember Grandpa in his casket,

i remember apricots when I think of your house, cousins,
the apricots we never picked but wanted to,
they looked so sweet
like all of the things we talked about but never did.

I remember I'm still writing
and you're probably burnt out on my memories,
but I don't think I'm writing this for you


I remember too much,
but I'm writing because I'm afraid I'll forget.

those things I've forgotten I always want back

always

oh the things

oh the days you've forgotten.

everett mills.

we're looking suspiciously like a snow globe

The first time I rode a bicycle I became a stadium.  

                  A stadium with so many thousands of people that the cheering set of fireworks, and

                 the jumping up and down and smiling sent everyone home with hurting faces and sore feet,

      a stadium where the home team had just scored and the game was over and they had won.

I remember, because this was me until I hit the car.  

            And then the tombstones on either side and the starlight on the top side appeared, and 

            my kindergarten palms were bleeding and the thing plastered in stickers was on the ground 

and the only light to show it 

                                 was a lamp post and a bit of last-light from the west. 

Last night against my pillow I heard footsteps 

                    walking across my room

                                                                          at midnight

so loud in my ears that they walked through my heart, and my blood froze

and only then did it occur to me 

           that those footsteps were my heart. 

                                              

             and since then I've felt off, 
like I was jump-roping on my 6-feet-under and I can't shake that feeling...

The first time you rode an airplane you wrote your will 

              you were so sure your heart would give out that you settled your affairs and 

waited for the plane to crash, you probably wore your seat belt standing up and I'll bet you read every line in that airplane safety guide. 

I wonder when will life will get so cold that we can see our thoughts

             the way I saw my breath that night,  

surrounded by tombstones and shadows at dusk,

the way you saw yours fogging the airplane window 

before you closed it
because its hard to pretend your feet are on the ground when you're looking 20000 ft down at the Alps.                                                                                      

Your mother told you he is never coming back so you tried to never ride an airplane
                   because you knew you would do the same.

We're sitting in frozen chairs with desks attached,
and in frozen mountains and parks
in freezer-burnt towns that border farmhouses but there aren't any cities here. 

            We must have been frozen even before winter set in because I didn't noticed when the glass walls came over everything, I didn't notice the frozen sculpted falsity of this globe until last night, when I was tempted to knock and listen for the ring.
      but what stopped me was a stray thought asking
                                                                                               if this shell is a 2-way mirror.
We've been stapled and stuck together with hot-glue guns leaving transparent trails inside this snow globe that won't snow and 

                                                  we're stuck here in this silver that feels so cold

not because of temperature but because of the statues surrounding us.

The only question on my mind is why I can't see my breath. 

                                                                   

everett mills.

                                                                                                         

       

                                                                                                                                                      

I hiked the mountain

I wanted to sing.

I'm balancing on the edge of a giant clay bowl.

and It's all about life.
Its all about life its all about life its all about life its all about life its all about life its all about life its all

I'm perched on the rim of a cup.  a cup thats full with houses were people live and churches where people go and there's a field below me and its empty, I'm not sure what its for except I know its for people, because everything is and really its all about life.
the only reason that woman is walking her dog is because its keeping her alive.  Like why I'm siting here on this rock, my hand hurting, getting cold.
I'm here because I was craving life,
I was craving some living of my own and
not the life that you were watching on the screen.
I'm here because my feet were hurting for rocks and running shoes, my eyes were begging to see, my voice was bleeding to sing, and I've lost enough blood already. My heart required the bleeding to stop.

I drove past houses to get here, houses with people living in them, and I didn't see a single person with a home living inside of them.  Not a single person outside in the sunshine in the grass that will soon be snow.

we are just So many people who haven't lived in so long.

So many people whose hearts are still bleeding, pounding, they're still getting oxygen but they're dying.  Everyone is dying.  Dying like the screens we exist for, like the words that cut our hearts, dead like the trees we've killed, like the stones that built our homes.

dying like the too many bleeding hearts, pumping so much oxygen without life.

Our hearts are bleeding.  They're bleeding out life and we'd all better wake up and go outside and do something BRAVE and do some living.  because if we don't, the sun that I raced to get here is going to finally set and we'll have lost.

Lets each take a bandaid.  Our hearts are bleeding for some things, for some people, for some air.

its not from a tetanus shot, this bandaid, its not because we've skinned our knees on the scooters although really it should be.   No, this bandaid is for fake lives that need honesty, hacked lives that need healing, regular lives in need of space

its made of courage, this bandaid, of hiking shoes and solitude somewhere with a view of the town.  Take it and do something brave, something different.

make sure your breaths, your heartbeats are worth something.
are worth a little bit of change,
worth enough to call your heartbeats-
to call oxygen-
to call your hiking shoes-
to say that you have-
that you are-
LIFE.

Even from here

Julia.
i can tell you're beautiful from 100 years away.
you're holding someone's gaze,

 and you don't see me.  

You're holding redwoods, rosewoods, chocolate with cinnamon and roses in your eyes,

two good beautiful eyes.

and I'm thinking of Cream.  Cream like peaches and Honduras roads

cream milked from deep blue starlights and nightskies and that is you, 

that is how you feel

in my memories of you
in stories.
Julia Eva

even from here, 

standing admiring this photograph of dear Grandmother you are beautiful.  

Your one good arm and your smile and you.  

Two good eyes to watch and to read life around you, 

to watch her grow, my grandma, to hold her close with that one arm

to sew birthday dresses with only five fingers, to tuck her into bed 

with two good eyes and only one good hand, and

to still smile roses and see rosewood and be peach and mahogany. 

Your two good eyes to close before your one lost arm was torn away,
your two good eyes to close on the torn streets of Honduras,
to blink away the iguana as big as your six-year-old self,
to cry away the Avocado trees and your two good eyes
never again to see brothers and sisters and father and your mother.  

Julia Eva. 
   even from here I can tell you are strong. Even from here, from this photograph, even here from scraping windshields free of ice and even from high school and so many years away, 

dear grandma, you are beautiful.  this photograph doesn't show your one arm and it doesn't show Honduras.  It doesn't show machetes or nights as refugees and it doesn't show stories my grandmother has told me, stories of a girl my age and younger who lost her arm in exchange for life, who survived rivers and hot summers and iguanas, coups and revolutionaries, 

but now
I'm trying to remember.

 

moon dreams

Take me up

No

why.

From where I sit I see you in the scaffolding.  You've been there for days, I think. I don't know why.

But you have.

I picked a sliver from my palm and threw it to the ground, but it wafted like a snowflake, but it looked like ash in the ebony air we sat in.

Of course, you didn't see us. you just saw me.

Cream.  peaches and cream is the color of the wood.  Peaches and cream and, heres an orange and this one's banana

you look hungry.

Planks of wood standing up straight, did they take a tree and slice it with an apple cutter and hollow out the seeds

we are sitting where a seed used to grow.

In the stomach of a whale, a wooden whale, in the rib cage, sitting in tree bones, surrounded by carcasses carved smooth and straight into lumber.

we sit in a smell of wood shavings and moonlit ladders

I didn't realize it grew cold so fast.

Frozen rain on the rafters and a flicker of your face in the scaffolding

between peeled, frosted trees.

you look cold.

hair like shredded paper strips cling to the planks,
 from your head
In the scaffolding.

starlight.

moonrise

your face flickers

a shape in the scaffolds

Take me up.

okay.

stars set, dark sets, sunrise

light flutters in the scaffolding.  orange trees, carved skeletons. Hollow 

but for the breeze.

Nelson, this is for you

I realized when I walked out of the room I hadn't said what I came in to tell you.
I came in to tell you the answer to your question in class.
I honestly don't remember if you asked the question out loud or if I just thought you did.

I'm not sure if what I told you was supposed to make you feel better. News like that... I'm not sure if thats exactly the "better" I was going for...
but
I came in to tell you that what you do makes a difference.   It changes lives, and it matters for sure.
I came in to say that what you do Matters.
learning about love and talking about life, and death,
learning how to dance,
learning about what's real,
about being hipsters
and being ourselves,
learning about what really matters,
you dancing and showing us that we don't have to care,

It helps.
It matters.
It makes me brave, at the very least.

I don't know if this helps, maybe it doesn't, maybe its not supposed to, maybe it only helps me to say it.

But life matters, and people matter, and so... even though these aren't the right words
i think i just wanted to say that things will be all right again, without those words sounding empty.    I really do mean them.
And maybe to say that its okay to laugh and to smile.
I appreciate what you do.
 I'm not the only one.

everett mills

Death the shoebox I'm not going to open

Heaven.  The word is so much better than Death.

So instead of Dying,

I'm going to heaven.

because Heaven is worth it.  Heaven is worth life and Life is worth dying.

Life 
is incredible.
look at me, I'm sitting here and I'm typing

and words are coming from my heart and they're going through my brain and out of my fingers

and into your eyes and then through your brain and into your heart

Ladies and Gentlemen, this has been Life. Can we get a round of applause? a standing ovation? encore!

I've never met a corpse that can do that.

And death, Mr. Grim Reaper I'm sorry people call you that.  If you were honest and you really cradled the Book Thief and her loves when they passed I wish they wouldn't call you Grim; that's a pretty rough task and thank you for cradling them and for bringing Johnny's spirit home, and Grandpa's, and Devin's, and Randy's. and Hunter's.

Thank you for taking us to heaven.

Heaven, where our only hurts will be regrets.  so live without them.
Heaven's a place where we won't hurt because once the pain leaves we'll be left with peace.

In heaven poetry is what will come from our mouths and small talk will be a legend and we'll speak in piano concertos and poetry slams and painting. Because small talk is not the language of Heaven.  Poetry is. 

death is a shoebox. You never know what you'll find, but it always smells foul.
But Life?  life isn't silk and its not satin but I've never seen life like the Mariana Trench, and there's always an up for the deep and there's a nightlight for every dark room and there's morning for the bad dreams, and life is incredible because even though our language isn't quite poetry, we're learning.  We're good at small talk but Piano concertos can flow off the tongue too, and painting comes with time and poetry may be a second language but some of us can speak without an accent and the rest of us are trying.  

So while you're holding up the world think about building the Great Wall of China.  Think about Abraham Lincoln and think about your mom who hurt for you and think about what you're doing RIGHT NOW, TODAY, and think Does It Matter? and I hope the answer is yes because as long as you're alive that's the only right answer and it matters and you matter and the oxygen coming in and out and in your blood matters, and everything that has ever hurt matters because its made you that much stronger.  

If I could grow tall and canopy-green and if I could rain life down on you all, to make you grow in smiles,  I would.  But I'm sorry because I've been too busy looking for poetic words that aren't mine.  

And I'm sorry because the word is Death.  

and people have been spelling it wrong for years.
c-o-m-i-n-g-h-o-m-e. death.

Life is just Heaven's absent student, and maybe she's in denial but Heavenschool is a place where every teacher is a season and air is sweet like childhood and our assignments are laughter and our lessons start never because they're just living. because Life was in heaven yesterday and she's skipping out today but she'll be back tomorrow.  Her classmates are waiting and her seat is saved.

Because Life the snowcone sometimes runs out of flavor and you can either pay the extra 50 cents or finish a snowie that tastes like only $2.50 of flavor instead of $3.00.  But it's life, and whether yours has $2.50 or $3 the first bite always tastes the same.  And the flavor comes from the same jar.  And its all just as sweet.

My shoes are tattered and torn but that doesn't change the $10 I paid for them, or the use I got out of them, and whether your life is torn or touched-up or neither someone's already paid for you and you've had some use, and you're still alive.

please, 
love golden
stay golden.

everett Mills.

comfortably numb

I depended on the fact that you wouldn't cave to my insults.  

I don't think you care to read this, but 

i depended on the fact that you were stronger than I was, 

               strong enough to take the beatings that knocked me down 

plus the ones i gave you,

 and still walk straight.  

.........................

I remembered you just before I got on the plane 

and I was surprised I did, because I had forgotten you were ever there.  

You got stronger with my steps and by the time i sat in my seat you were all there in my head 

and by the time i looked out the window I remembered how i used to 
want you 

and by the time i looked down at the clouds i wanted 
you again & 

 it wasn't until i looked out and saw the runway again that i remembered i'm not talking to you

And the lights on the asphalt made me wish i was.

and so I told myself i only wanted you to see if you still smelled like cherries. 

that was all. Just to lie to help my heart, help it remember that i never really wanted you.

like the way i lied told my memory that those wet marks on those page were from orange juice.

but its all self protection. self-preservation, right?  

I've got to look out for myself, and you were wrong, and i hate the cold and 

                                                                                    you were making me numb.

 You made me forget to care what other people thought and you made me not care about 

perfect attendance or double dating and with you 

                                              it didn't matter so much and i was numb to the fact that 

it used to.

you made me numb like snowflakes and ice cream and christmas.

you even made me numb to the cold, Heck, as long as our hands were together and you were there to give me your coat or hold me tight the cold

                                          was

                                                           beautiful.

                                                           

but i digress.  

but who care's heck this whole thing is off topic because so were you.

                    and haha we always were.

i didn't use to mind when my feet fell asleep like they are now because you would pick me up and hold me and i wouldn't feel ridiculous and you made me feel like all the gold in the world as you carried me to a chair and set me in it like a cradle, like i was porcelain. 

I don't think i ever really felt my legs fall asleep until after us.

and then other times you'd toss me into the couch and laugh hysterically because i never liked 

you carrying me except when my feet were asleep. And so you picked me up and threw me into the love sac because you knew i would laugh and you knew i didn't really hate it that much.

you told me once that they looked like lollipops, balloons. Lollipops for the people that live in the clouds making snow and lightning and drawing babies for the storks to deliver. 

you told me once that they looked like lollipops and that we would melt the same way lollipops do in water, if gravity stopped winning the battle to protect us from going up and out like balloons.

and it hurts because i don't want to care, but i do.  Oh i do.  I lied every time i said i didn't. 

you probably knew that.

But i don't want to depend on you.  you made me
 comfortably numb. 

And it was only a matter of time before i lost something from 
the frost.

a toe, 

a finger, 

my heart.

everett mills.

fear is the thing that broke her

(disclaimer: if this is too heavy i'm sorry i didn't mean to be depressing if thats how it comes across. these thoughts were in my head and so i wrote the memories down.  you asked for it.)

 FEAR
I cried so hard and so bad that my lungs ached against my rib cage and my throat was raw and i was more like a dry corn husk than a little girl.  i hurt from crying even though that's not close to what you've probably hurt and i know its not near what they hurt.
That kind of crying is like there's an ocean inside my head and right now its really hard to breathe and so the salt water spills through your eyes but it keeps the fish inside, trapped and hurting your head.

i want to write this right now because because I'm paranoid I'll forget my thoughts.  that i'll forget
         something.
 --I'm writing this right now because i want to make you THINK and make ME stop thinking and let all of the junk and the thoughts and this rising ocean and the turmoil and the peace go somewhere other than trapped inside of me.  Oh man, it feels so nice when its lifted off your heart. I just want to put it somewhere else, and if it touches you then thats just frees up my heart a little more.  
                  because it scares me to have it all there.  

I am afraid you're being let down because of me.  Not that i think these will hurt your heart too, but I'm afraid of not being good enough for you, not good enough for what you need.  I'm afraid that this is too heavy but I'm writing it anyway. I'm afraid of you because i don't know who you are, I'm afraid of you. Yes pleasefindmehere, I'm afraid of the big bad wolf too, because i never believed in him but now i do and i'm worried he's sitting right next to me right now and I have no idea.  I'm afraid.
                                                              ..........................................
and fear rocked my world:

I don't know what day it is. Maybe a tuesday?  But i come home from school and dad's not there and you, mom, have got the deer-in-the-headlights look that I've NEVER seen you have, and i get the feeling you've just been swept away by the semi and you're gone.
your mouth moves, makes some sounds.

dad is at the hospital.
they think he's about to have a stroke.
He may be about to die.

repeat.  slow down, slow motion, freeze. repeat.


drop the bomb.  drop it because i'm already gone, i'm flattened in the Hiroshima wake of empty sound and this silent wave of frozen shock.  and then it hits me like the tsunami has crashed through my being and the thunder's sounded inside my eardrums and i gasp because my breath had stopped and i break and the ocean crashing in my head obliterates my being because
my dad is going.  and i don't know if he is gone.
My dad.
dad.
i love you dad.  please dad don't go.  DON'T GO don't die please please
please Father don't don't let him die.
Father, please.
please, oh please Father, keep him here with me.  let them be wrong.  please MAKE THEM WRONG.
he's my dad.

what would i do?

Father, please, i will do anything.

don't let it be a stroke.
make him strong.
make him come home
make him come home well
please don't take him away let them be wrong I WILL DO ANYTHING just please keep him here!!
don't let him die.
dad please don't die. please dad, dad please don't die.  Come home and be all right. don't be a stroke, don't be anything, just come home don't die.
please.

I sleep crying and i pray crying and i sleep praying.
please.
the ocean on my face turns to pretzels and i cry so much my throat hurts and it hurts to breathe
because my lungs
are constricted
please
like my eyes are
raw
and my prayers
please
are my thoughts and its all i think.
please.
the ocean on my face turned into a reef and gave me a cold.

my dad was my everything.
he was my teacher and my friend and my idol, the hero i wrote about in my hero essay at school.
he is more perfect than a lot of people,
and i love him

and he came home.
                                                      ...........................

                  Dad came home alive. 

              but i have never been so afraid.

i have never prayed so hard.

i have never wanted anything so badly.

i sometimes forget and think that i am afraid of little things.  and then i remember that i have forgotten that i can be brave and that fear is not a spider or the thing like it.

THIS IS MY FEAR. This was my fear. 
and it didn't come true. 

but FEAR is the thing that squeezes the oxygen from your veins, it goes slowly, squeezes them one at a time and at first you won't notice but then you can't breathe and then you turn red and maybe cold and maybe you'll be frozen like in a Hiroshima silent shock wave

with 

fear.

and fear waits.  It will come back. 
it never left.

everett mills.

Real, are you there yet?

Nelson said be real.
And i feel guilty.

if i were real you would know that my name is not everett mills.  that's just who i think i am sometimes.

if you really knew me you would know that i'm one thing and my family is another and sometimes i feel lost around them, and a lot of times i feel lonely with those people who are always around me and who i think love me best. (and that makes me feel guilty too)

if you could see my face as i wrote this
        i wonder if i would change what i'm writing.                    i think that would mean i'm a coward, and i don't know if i really am one but i almost want to try it so i know for sure. 





if i were real,
you would know that my hands are getting sweaty and shaky because i almost just wrote my real name. 

but WHAT THE HECK who cares if you know right?  SO WHAT, i shouldn't be afraid, then 
                        why don't i just write it?

i almost have.
i think i will one of these days.
ha, one of these days, so noncommittal. 

one of these days, 
when maybe i stop being such a coward.
just like one of these days,
when there aren't any more problems.
when ebola isn't scaring people and ISIS isn't on people's minds
when we're confident about our president and about America
when the term's over
when we have time to finish that stack of Things I Want To Do that's sitting in your closet/your mind,
...
so is this really being  a coward? yeah, i think it is.
we're all cowards, i guess.

But maybe that's because there are things like ebola and presidents and terrorists and school,
maybe we've been trained to be cowards or we just want to be because its easier than being brave.

"COURAGE": aka a whole pile of lies.  
REAL COURAGE i won't write down because i'd rather see it in person than label it and make it into something that maybe its not really.  real courage we've all got.

And i wonder if we're being Real cowards by staying anonymous.  

And maybe we're really being Real by being cowardly and letting someone else's name claim the fame or whatever it is the real you won't stand up and take.

i'm sorry i'm not brave enough yet either.

Everett Mills

5 things to say from someone who's dying

things i've learned, memories.

because its been so long since i could pick a penny up from the road and think on a wish for the rest of the day  1) Please don't stop looking for coins on the sidewalk.

in case you're feeling doubtful

2) Always remember that you can catch a leprechaun with the right kind of chocolate coin.

i know because i almost caught one in a shoebox i'd decorated like a leprechaun bedroom,

    back when i was still losing teeth.

i never saw him but i only missed him because i blinked.

you want to smile? then

            3) stop thinking anything fixes hurt better than mom's kisses and a colored bandaid,

go to your little sister's dance recitals

and play hopscotch with the neighbor kids

4) Remember that its okay to

fall asleep on your brother's shoulder in the car

have to piggy-back on the steep part of the hill

pout and nod off at the dinner table

               then stay awake through story time and for dessert and until your hero-brother falls asleep too, leaned up against you and buried in stuffed animals and sleep that feels like your smiles.

5: Please, 

         love pretty rainbow-painted marker-stained hands.

                Colored-on hands are the sweetest to hold and are the softest when things feel rough.

memories are what we've learned But      

if you wait 'till you're dead it's too late,

so,

everett mills.

if Light could keep you here with me.

you make words beautiful things.

and you don't see that you're on the edge of Everything- that you're just opening infinite and you're rising above and you're so beautiful that when i picture you all i see is light and the eternities of the sky, and you're somewhere all of it at once and you're more open than trillions of pinpoints wrapping themselves around the stars.

I have two shoes next to me, and they ground me to the rest of everything. But you don't seem to be grounded, and maybe its because you don't wear shoes but maybe its because no matter what you wear no one notices that you're not touching the ground because

                they get lost in the vision in your eyes.

The stripes I wore the other day i planned out so carefully, and the details, because i'm a detail person.  i only remember that i've forgotten to make you notice those details once i leave you, because when i'm with you i feel like we've been exalted and we're talking somewhere in the clouds, and even when i trip  i hardly notice whats around me.

its a problem,

i love problems like you.

everett mills

lists to avoid the truth

He said,
make a list.
write it out, draw it out, talk it out.
buried things never leave, they just Bite.

so 
I'm writing about Shampoo, Clovers, and Hot chocolate, and what they all have in common.
I'm writing about midnights with a full moon and midnights with a new one.
I'm writing about fruit cake jokes and watermelon fights and summers when our knees and hands had dirt stains.

so really I'm writing about you.
they remind me of you

I haven't THOUGHT about shampoo or smiled when I saw a clover or made hot chocolate since then.
I haven't looked at the moon so long that I could drown in its blurred white light or gotten lost in the dark sky since then.
I don't want to laugh about fruit cake because the memories hurt.
and watermelon fights would hurt even more.
and gardens suffocate my heart.

I got some "help."
The man said, make a list.  buried things never leave, they just bite, bite, bite,
so, he said,
Make A List.
write it out, draw it out, talk it out.

We painted once at the bridge and I haven't since.
i can't talk with anyone the way we could
and i can't make the words come out of my mouth, i choke and my breath catches and the words come out on mute,
but we never wrote together.  
but i'm glad you never wrote me a love letter because paper is still safe for me,

and without these papers the words and the memories and the thoughts would have taken so many bites that my heart would only by a shape inside my chest, a small one, a torn one, dysfunctional.

and so i've listed the hurts and then, yes i burned the lists and i like to think i feel free.
but obviously i'm not because i'm still writing and it still hurts just as real as if i had never pretended it didn't.

my heart still bleeds at night
my hands still tremble when i want you back
my head still hates you when i remember
my lists are using too many matches and i need to buy some more.  
(i got rid of the lighter because there's a memory on that too.)

but i can't draw or talk and it hurts to think and writing lets the thoughts come out without a fight.
its better than being numb.
its better than it was.

i'll tell myself its better

i can't wait to believe.


everett mills