I laughed at someones expense today.

I'm sorry.

"the summation of my life is that there are a million attractive women in New York, and only one attractive woman in Lowell"



...sigh.

Not a Pianist

This is one of those days; If I could go to the front of the classroom and sit down at the piano, my fingers tensed, I would. I am anxious, my chest feels hollow and after a weekend of assessing where I stood, I miss you right now. This is Lowell, and its sunny and beautiful in October.

Kelsey left her desk light on this morning. I woke up earlier than my alarm because I thought I could see the sun pouring in. It was superficial. I looked to her empty bed, her sheets thrown about, and my mind quickly traveled to the corner of Pawtucket and School where there is a mattress on the third floor with crimson sheets that looks just the same.

The two tea-cups on my desk were empty. Two, not one, where two, not one, had sipped tea just the night before. But things change so quickly and now there is one, under the covers, staring at the ceiling, imagining her friends asleep next to each other on a southbound bus.

Even if I could stare the Merrimack right in the eyes, it would never take me west. My hair still hangs in my face and I feel guilt when I stand by as someone get hurts. I've never longed for the midwest more.

You've caught me out of sync in a silent classroom where the light pours in to the point where, even if I tried to make out the second bridge down the river, I would not be able to.

This is Manhattan, This is 2 miles south of Michigan, This is Atlanta, asleep in the passenger seat. If you loose your hat on the EL somewhere, just breath through the winter.

NYC Haiku

Lonely is this bed
I'm sleeping alone tonight
Miss you already.

Secret Emails (this is why we need secrets)

From: John Doe [aliimyoursecretadmirer@gmail.com] Sent: Fri 10/16/2009 12:05 PM To: Lipman, Alexandra K Cc: Subject: Hey Ali...I'm your secret admirer Attachments: View As Web Page

Here is a poem I wrote about you...hope you like it. I am an empty glass You are a carton of orange juice Slowly being poured I am the first moments of sunrise You are an unlit room Do you feel like me? Or is your window for someone else?

This kid is everything.

Oh there I am!

Minor Spider Unrest

Friday night I punched my best friend in the face.

There are lots of awkward things that happen during the course of a day. When I see Luke's back in a revolving-chair facing a computer, I know its him, and I know that he is probably reading the news. I just know and I start to fill up, with what, I do not know, but it begins at my toes, and I feel it in my belly, and my head swims. Algae, sea-turtles, Jerry in his fish-tank by the window where I sleep each night.

Then I hit my head. Not just then, but I few moments after, when he is saying goodbye to me in the student union. I swung around, my hand on the door nob, and banged my head against the hollow aluminum frame of the Student Activities Office.

I go dizzy, and it is Friday night. I'm in a tenement building on the corner of Pawtucket and School Street, where cars honk at one another, no matter the time of day, and I am crying, sitting there holding my knees in the stairwell. I am crying because I did not get to finish the conversation with the Luke. My eyes are puffy...pathetic. The door is locked. It's locked.

But he had thrown me on the spot, into a place where I had the upper hand because I had not yet assessed my feelings, where I had been crass to protect myself against everything everyone had told me. You are going to get hurt.

Okay fine, I'm ready.
(I'd love to waste some time with you)

But even as I walked down Walker Street, next to a young neighborhood boy, who knew not off me, or could here my sobs through his headphones, I knew what I would have said, and I was glad to not say it.

Then I was in the faculty parking lot, screaming at the top of my lungs at Tom: leave me alone. I threw my fists at him.
I miss grocery shopping with my mom
One to his stomach
I miss driving to Augusta with my father
One to his chest
I miss reading Calvin and Hobbes in bed with my brother
And one to his face.

I saw him hold his face in his hands as he fell behind and I hated him. I hated him for not letting me go, I hated Luke for not being there for me when I needed him. I hated...

...our legs, tangled up in one another, roaring with laughter. Probably holding hands, but not really noticing. I still mean what I said last night. I would probably have too, if I had been given the chance to say it.

I think

That I'll lean over to you and ask if you have to go to a store for really really tall people to buy pants.

That little room that we were cramped in together was thick with dust, and made hot by the amberic light bulb above our heads. I'm looking up into it, trying to read, and going blind. This is history.

I saw my friend in the newspaper today and smiled because newspapers make people look so happy.

I'm a lightbulb

fuck, I didn't mean to light up like that when you said "Jazz Director."

I didn't mean to sit straight up in my chair and smile hysterically.

Its our 1 year anniversary. Its been 1 year since the last leaf bouquet in McGovern, Phyllis, and the gang. I'm glad the good out-weighed the bad.

Wednesday is the 1 year anniversary of playing the piano for you. You walked me to the car. The last time we did that together, I asked you not to walk me to my car and you stood confused and sad in the hallway as I walked backwards, mouthing "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

I took the elevator to the mezzanine with a man with a crutch. We laughed about how slow it ran. I hoped he was Jodi Fisher.

Luke and my Mom reminded me in one day what it felt like to be taken care of.

"I would have bought you some soy-yogurt."

And then I'm crying, and I'm in a house somewhere in Lancaster, and there is love dripping from the walls.

You can go home, but I can't go home.

shaving cream mustaches in the shower.

I just spiked my tea with vodka.

16 Years Old

I wrote this the summer of my 17th birthday:

If there was any fondness, Faith no longer saw it, for it was as if it had been surgically removed overnight and feelings can change so quickly, sitting on day on the couch sharing a laugh, to the next day where his eyes begin to follow another, and sometimes she would linger, remember how he used to gaze at her until she looked over, then falter in step with no sorrow, no remorse, and a smile threatened to break, twist, turn into a scream. Them sometimes it was apparent to those around her that she was a daisy in the snow or a sunshower, for the time could fly beneath her, rolling her, tossing her about, and she might never notice.

Green Blue Grey

Alot can happen while you're asleep.

Last night under my covers, I went back to store 96, in Peabody. I buttoned my denim shirt to the second button from the top and straightened my name tag as I walked out to the floor. Dana Snyder was there with a binder: "Can you please take this party?"

There was 15 guests in the party, nothing I couldn't handle. But there was Dana, reproachful, watching me become tongue tied, as I tried to explain the party process. The parents looked wary, the kids distracted. I kept smiling and tried to pull myself together while all the party guests used the bathroom.

But Dana was grabbing her purse, she was leaving the store, and there was only one other bear-builder on the floor. We made eye contact, and I ran out of the store after Dana.

My heart was pounding as I searched, trying to find her in the streets. I passed through a park laid with bricks. Where was I? She was not in the park, on the bricks, in a store. Where was she?

Then, on a busy sidewalk, I saw her walking towards me, and my heart filled with fear. I should have never left the floor, left the store, left my party. I swung around to beat her back, and bumped head-on into a stranger in a striped red shirt.

But he put his hands on my shoulders, and it wasn't it a stranger, and he told me he loved me.

I'm awake, and still confused.