Crimes
Legacy Name: Crimes

"Maybe it's like this, Max —— you know how, when you are working on a long and ordered piece, all sorts of bright and lovely ideas and images intrude. They have no place in what you are writing, and so if you are young, you write them in a notebook for future use. And you never use them because they are sparkling and alive like colored pebbles on a wave-washed shore. It’s impossible not to fill your pockets with them. But when you get home, they are dry and colorless. I’d like to pin down a few while they are still wet." — John Steinbeck

Fair Lady, throw those costly robes aside,
No longer may you glory in your pride;
Take leave of all your carnal vain delight,
I'm come to summon you away this night.

Do you not know me? I will tell you then:
I am he that conquers all the sons of men,
No pitch of honour from my dart is free,
My name is Death! Have you not heard of me?'

i.

Maybe life wouldn't be as dull if you continued to sit up against that green strip of wall. I know it was your favorite place to pose. It was mine too. Now you just refuse anything you come in contact with. I shouldn't blame you. But I wish you weren't such a recluse.

It wasn't long after you left my apartment that I realized how much of an impression you made on me. It's not embarrassing. You know very well how much I felt for you.

You used to describe me as a tall, dark-haired sunflower.

I figured out you pulled that off of a headstone.

But you were never the type to steal.

ii.

I was always the one to steal. I took things. Altered them as my own. It happened to everything. And soon my everything fell apart. Many often thought of me as a pile of lies stacked upon one another. A deceptive heap hoped to form a massive lie that might just turn into a truthful identity. But then you found me sitting in that coffee shoppe, reading a misleading romantic novel. You could tell by the dissatisfied expression on my face what I needed. A friend.

You had always been shrouded in an eerie calm that made you nearly impossible to decipher. Even in your youth you seemed sequestered from the other children. But then you drove yourself to learn and became enthralled in the beauty of literature and the women you courted. You were a daring romantic. You were a lot of things. But you are definitely neither of those words now.

iii.

I've learned a multitude of lessons in the short time I've been alive. Everyone gets hurt all the time. It's one of the only reliable constants. This is life and it will never amend itself. A true asset is the ability to keep your heart and walls open, instead of closing up and desensitizing so that no one can hurt you again. Realizing this leaves room for hope, for love.

iv.

the last time i opened this sketch journal i was attempting to write a love letter. that was interesting to find fractions of.

i mended the cracks.

now it's nothing like a love letter.

it's like jumping in a cab and immediately wanting to get out.

but there's always a reason for those sorts of things. for instance, the reason you'd jump out is because of the cologne. don't you detest that smell? cab drivers tend to overdo it. it always makes me sneeze. but i was never assertive enough to roll down the window. but that's all you have to do. roll down the window. let it breathe.

v.

now the most interesting grammatical symbol is the comma. there's always something after it. it's not like a period that's always putting an end to something. a comma is like a phase. a segue. people go through phases of life and have to segue into another. it can't just abruptly change. it's not instant. (we all learned this from our teenage years. which was luckily just a phase——wasn't it?) someone in my seventh grade english class wrote a paper about commas. how they were like new beginnings or something achingly profound for a seventh grader to utter. however our teacher was thoroughly impressed. the teacher read it aloud and demonstrated how the student beautifully executed her glorious spiel of cleverly crafted sentences about how commas signified the start of something. the teacher read the concluding thoughts in the paper and said: "maybe life isn't about periods or endings. maybe there's more to it than that." the teacher paused. "and she ended it with a comma." i had to conform to the applause for the girl. i liked that the teacher was grading based on the girl's opinion. but nowadays the only thing that girl would get is a couple minuses for using "improper grammar."

(also it's very hard to type without using commas.)

vi.

my next-door neighbor is a klepto. next-door is a gross term. it's sort of analogous to family. it's the forced friendship sort of thing. you can secretly hate them. but you can't say anything about it. i mean, that'd just be awkward. (and were all past that phase, yes?) either you live too close in vicinity to one another, so every time you go outside in your underwear to get the paper your neighbor has more ammunition to demean you with. or your aunt that always has that prevalent stench of disgusting perfume (maybe she'd get along with the cab drivers) wants to give you a kiss but you can't pull away because mother or father would be disappointed. if anything, children should be nicer to their parents if they have siblings. the nicer one always gets the better rewards. (inheritance.) but if you're an only child, everything's good. you can be as bad as you like. ride on the edge of abandonment. being an only child, there isn't much competition for inheritance other than your own dog.

but anyway, about my klepto neighbor. she was catsitting for my mother and i. but she wanted more of a reward than whatever we'd pay her. so she stole a glass heart from my special cabinet. you know how i found out? my mom was gardening and unearthed my glass heart on the edge of our lawn and the klepto's lawn. not only did that klepto steal my heart but she buried it under about three inches of dirt! [insert obscene remark here.] i guess people will do anything for love.

vii.

love, as a subject, can't be defined if you haven't felt it. so i can't define it.

viii.

looking for your glasses when you can't see anything without your glasses is the hardest thing i've ever done. it's like looking for something blue when everything has a pink hue to it. it's awful and should never have to be done by anyone. perhaps this is why contacts were invented. perhaps the only worst thing than trying to find your glasses without being able to see anything without your glasses is trying to find your missing contact when you can't see anything without your contacts, especially since they're practically invisible against any surface. so it would be wise not to lose either or to maintain the ability to see.

if this were the animal world, i would not survive.