Tuesday, December 7, 2010
a poem: The Marionette
The marionette stands to be pawned
To be played to amuse. Not one to contend.
As my day unfolds, the pieces in place,
And as the strings are cut, the marionette breaks.
It's all been built up, all the tears and the lies
Now let's bring it all down, don't let the flames reach the sky.
Cut the last string, watch the famed puppet fall
And the absence tomorrow says you've buried it all.
Seeming for games, but the toll it will take
Behind the red curtain are the choices you make.
So make all the wrong ones for your promised revenge
And remember that everything comes to an end.
It's all been built up, all the tears and the lies
Now let's bring it all down, let the flames touch the sky.
Cut the last string, watch the famed puppet fall
And the absence tomorrow says you've buried it all.
Fill the page with meaningless words
Understand why they care
Decide that you don't
Cut the string at the throat.
It's all been built up, all the tears and the lies
Now let's bring it all down, the flames are the sky.
Cut the last string, watch the famed puppet fall,
Let him fall, let him fall, let me fall...
Know that tomorrow, you'll have buried it all.
Friday, November 19, 2010
a poem
My one fatal flaw: through the years I've perfected my facade.
My mask has been tweaked and reshaped to show an untrue face.
At the draw of a gun I can stand alone, unaffected by the truth left inside.
My heart can't be shattered for there's nothing to break;
The torn shreds of paper just a lost human race.
Stand tall and be proud while I secretly cave.
Crawl into the hole the first shot ever made.
Dig so far down deep that there's nothing to find;
Admit to myself that I'm living a lie.
I personally like this one. Opinions?
Love,
Liz
Sunday, September 5, 2010
To Write Love On Her Arms
Love,
Liz
This is an invitation.
We started printing and selling these shirts to help our friend Renee. Part of her story was printed on the inside of every shirt. This was two years ago and her life was in a difficult place. Addiction and depression. She had known a history of self-injury, and there was also a suicide attempt. Renee was denied entry into a treatment center in Orlando and the written story was a glimpse of the five days that followed. These were her first days sober in quite a while. I remember the coming down and the feeling that she was coming back to life. There were quite a few of us and we would stay up late, wrestling with words like freedon and sobriety and redemption, wondering if these things could be real and true and possible. We had more questions than answers but there was a sense that in the middle of it all, we also had hope.
I remember asking Renee what she thought about the possibility of telling her story. I didn't know exactly what that meant or where the story would go. I figured her answer would be no. Instead, she surprised me and said some things I'll never forget. She said she loved the possibility that there could be a purpose for her pain, that maybe someone would relate to her story. Maybe someone would even find hope in her story.
After five days, Renee entered treatment and I sat down and wrote two pages. We had smiled at the idea that we didn't have the privilege of a happy ending, so we would just have to be honest about everything as it was. All of the pain and all of the hope. Light and dark colliding. I kept coming back to a title that was way too long to be a title. "To Write Love On Her Arms." Perhaps more than anything else, it was a goal. It was the idea of believing something better for our friend's life - believing for freedom and change in the face of the lies she had bought into.
We started selling these shirts as a way to pay for her treatment, and the story was printed on the inside of every shirt. We made a MySpace page to give the whole thing a home. We had some friends in bands - guys who spend their nights on stages. They started wearing the shirts at their shows, and instantly, we began to hear from people we didn't know in places we'd never been.
They wrote to say they had seen the shirts. More importantly, they wrote to say that the story we were telling was also theirs. We heard from people who had lost loved ones to suicide. We heard from people saying they had considered suicide. We heard from people saying that life had been hard for a long time. Some people used the word "depression". Others simply said they felt stuck in moments, that there were things they couldn't let go of. A lot of people shared that they were talking about these things for the first time.
Some people wrote in on behalf of loved ones, saying things like "I love this person and I want to help but I don't know how." Other's were honest in a different way, saying they didn't know anything about these issues, but maybe it was time for that to change.
We began to realize some things. The first was that it seemed like we had stumbled upon a conversation that was very important, that maybe these were things that a lot of people live with, but very few people are willing to talk about. What would it look like to be a voice for this conversation, to let people know that it was okay to talk about these things, to let people know that they were not alone in these places?
Suddenly we found ourselves turning a corner - in a position to do more than help one friend. What if we could invest in treatment and recovery on a bigger scale? Today, To Write Love On Her Arms is a non-profit organization and this is part of what we do. Proceeds from the purchase of this shirt will go to support treatment and recovery.
We've learned a lot over the last couple years. We've heard from young people in 40 different countries. We've heard from people in places where suicide outnumbers murder. We've learned that these are not American issues. These are not white issues. These are not emo issues. These are issues of humanity; issues that affect people. Young and old, black and white, rich and poor.
We've learned that America is a place where 19 million people struggle with depression, and that untreated depression is the leading cause of suicide. For young people ages 15-24, suicide is the third leading cause of death. Perhaps the most startling reality is that two out of three people who struggle with depression never get help. They walk through it alone. It points to the stigma, the shame and confusion that haunt these issues.
We believe these issues matter because these are issues that affect people. We believe that people matter. We've learned that depression is something that is very treatable. We hear almost every day from people who have devoted their lives to being part of the solution, people who work to help others navigate their darkest places, and wrestle with their deepest questions. We've learned that words like "couseling" and "treatment" and something like a suicide hotline, don't have to be big scary words. These can be wonderful, hopeful things. We hear from people who are getting help, sitting across from a counselor for the first time, stepping into treatment. We hear stories of lives changing. Our friend Renee recently celebrated two years of sobriety, and the wounds on her arms have turned to scars. Scars represent healing.
We believe community is essential, that we were never meant to do life alone. People need other people. We need people that we can be honest with, about our fears and our questions and the places we feel stuck. We need people that we can talk to.
This ending might sound familiar but I promise it's entirely new. You hold in your hands a t-shirt and a story. But this time, the story is yours and today is a day that has never been known. We would suggest the following: that it matters. That you matter. Your family. Your friends. Your dreams and your fears and your favorite songs. These things matter. Your story is important.
Perhaps there are moments you feel stuck in, or questions that seem too big to wrestle. We would like you to know that you are not alone. Perhaps we are all part of a bigger story, in this thing together and more loved than we'll ever know.
To Write Love on Her Arms is a movement for broken people, and it is led by broken people. We probably don't have to convince you that pain is real, but we would like you to know that hope is real and help is real. This is an attemot at an honest conversation. This is an attempt at real change. We find ourselves on a surprising journey. You are certainly invited. Love is the movement.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Another poem
Use me, take me, play me, break me, write me over, crumple me up and throw me out.
It's all that I want, it's all that you'll give, it's all I expect.
So soak me up, take me in, absorb the rays coming off of my skin.
Enjoy it while it lasts.
Soon I'll leave, you'll have no one to etch your life across.
I know you can't stand it so there's my advantage.
And I'll take it be sure.
I'll have left you and derive all of my joy from the way you rust
and blow away in the wind.
When you are no more, I can spread my wings and be the person as a child I imagined I'd me.
It's all I can expect of you.
Love,
Liz
Friday, July 30, 2010
All Time Favorite Songs
Monday, July 26, 2010
More poetry
p.s. the first doesn't have much to do with my life. The second is about a couple different things. Please do not read into them too much. Also, I don't want you to worry that you caused any of the anger poured into these lines...if you have the url to my blog, you didn't. I just don't want you to worry.
p.p.s. I would love feedback =]
Roar
Your memory has broken me past the point of recovery
So while I mourn the loss of what I never had
You wake up at night for a reason unknown.
You can't place a finger on what you've done
But I know you are regretting it the same
You pulled my emotions to the edge
My nerves are to their breaking point
I scream in frustration, you shudder from anger
Two are left unhappy in a world where chaos roars.
I walk the streets to forget
You sit in bed wishing you could
I welcome new disturbances
To change my old routine
You toss and turn as your mind roams
The places in between.
You pulled my emotions to the edge
My nerves are to their breaking point
I scream in frustration, you shudder from anger
Two are left unhappy in a world where chaos roars.
You place the crown upon your head because of course you are the best
Your flawless show will always mask your feelings of unrest
I watch your ego grow and always wish I could speak up
But your crown is too heavy and you always fall before I can wake up.
.....................................................................................................
Crown
you put your crown upon your own head
you know that you are best
pull on your robe, your silver shoes
your facade of love and truth
what would the world do without the ego that is you?
you walk down the famed red carpet
you know the world is yours
I watch you fake a smile and laugh to show you really care
I glare from the side and watch you not notice
the people who were always there.
you act like you aren't broken
you see the world as yours
but I know when no one's watching
you hear the chaos roar.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Poetry
p.s. it's sort of dark. Just warning you.
I messed up
I'm sorry about your luck
you're stuck with me.
I wish something better for you
Would come along
And maybe give you hope to carry on.
When I said what I said
(I know you remember)
I didn't mean a word of it.
I tried to protect you from me
But it only dug you deeper in the ground.
I pray that you'll escape these walls I've built
That you find what you're looking for
outside my designation
I threw away my world (please keep yours)
I took away the best of you (and numbed it for myself)
I tried to tell you (you wouldn't listen)
And now you share the pain I've felt.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Just wanted to share...
Hey there. I just wanted to share this with you. I absolutely love this and I apologize for the swearing. I'm not changing the original so I can post it here. So I'm just going to post it. Enjoy. Luv, Liz
Everything The Letter Should Have Said:
Every time we kissed you closed your eyes, and I clamped mine open, just to see those short lived moments that I almost let me love you.
So lie away, I did, so wide awake, trying to give myself a good reason to forget the empty words from this hollow curse. I can’t shake the weight of what we’ve been through, and I won’t justify the way we never really listen to a goddamn word we claim to. Let’s be fair. Let’s take some order. We’re too much like each other, and there’s no chance in hell that you would change for me. Why would I change for you? But the painful truth exposed here, as you grab your autumn jacket and slowly make your way towards the door, is that in this short lived moment my heart is left unfastened, as the single thing I feared the most just happened.
-WB
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
To Write Love On Her Arms
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Edward Scissorhands
Personally, I loved the movie. It was made absolutely perfectly from the set and the actors to the makeup and the score. The characters, while living in their perfect fantasy world, were as believable as fairy tales can get. The reason I love this movie, of course, is the character of Edward himself. I think the appeal to this movie comes from Edward's innocence. He is an adult that is seeing the world for the first time. He has the ability to portray his emotions and new feelings vividly. He has the mind of a child. The way this is portrayed is astonishing. Tim Burton never ceases to amaze me with his movies. Three of my favorites, of all time, (not including this one) are his (Nightmare Before Christmas, Beetlejuice, Big Fish). If you haven't seen any of the four of the movies I have just listed, go get them. Now.
Luv,
Liz
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
VV
Love,
Liz
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Emo
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Alice in Wonderland
Thursday, February 25, 2010
*spoiler alert* Highlight to read
Before I got here, I thought for a long time that the way out of the labyrinth was to pretend that it did not exist, to build a small, self-sufficient world in a back corner of the endless maze and to pretend that I was not lost, but home. But that only led to a lonely life accompanied only by the last words of the already-dead, so I came here looking for a Great Perhaps, for real friends and a more-than-minor life. And then I screwed up and the Colonel screwed up and Takumi screwed up and she slipped through our fingers. And there’s no sugar-coating it: she deserved better friends.
When she [messed] up, all those years ago, just a little girl terrified into paralysis, she collapsed into the enigma of herself. And I could have done that, but I saw where it led for her. So I still believe in the Great Perhaps, and I can believe it in spite of having lost her.
Because I will forget her, yes. That which came together will fall apart imperceptibly slowly, and I will forget, but she will forgive my forgetting, just as I forgive her for forgetting me and the Colonel and everyone but herself and her mom in those last moments she spent as a person. I know now that she forgives me for being dumb and scared and doing the dumb and scared thing. I know she forgives me, just as her mother forgives her. And here’s how I know:
I thought at first that she was just dead. Just darkness. Just a body being eaten by bugs. I thought about her a lot like that, as something’s meal. What was her - green eyes, half a smirk, the soft curves of her legs - would soon be nothing, just the bones I never saw. I thought about the slow process of becoming bone and then fossil and then coal that will, in millions of years, be mined by humans of the future, and how they would heat their homes with her, and then she would be smoke billowing out of a smokestack, coating the atmosphere. I still think that, sometimes, think that maybe “the afterlife” is just something we made up to ease the pain of loss, to make our time in the labyrinth bearable. Maybe she was just matter, and matter gets recycled.
But ultimately I do not believe that she was only matter. The rest of her must be recycled, too. I believe now that we are greater than the sum of our parts. If you take
Although no one will ever accuse me of being much of a science student, one thing I learned from science classes is that energy is never created and never destroyed. And if
So, I know that she forgives me, just as I forgive her. Thomas Edison’s last words were: “It’s very beautiful over there.” I don’t know where there is, but I believe it’s somewhere, and I hope it’s beautiful.
-John Green, Looking For Alaska