jenny-cassellWhisper

American
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antonyms and synonymsYou are the practicality that keeps me grounded; / I am the spontaneity that drags you along. / You are the reason to my irrationality;
17
Apr 3, 2011
note to selfThe words tumble from my lips / before I can stop them. / I’m sorry.
23
Mar 25, 2010
defining mePeople ask me all the time what my major is, what I’m going to do with my degree, as if that somehow defines me, somehow is a mold into which I should fit. As if being a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer, a mechanic, or a nurse makes me real; as if calling myself a statistician, a technician, a psychiatrist, an ophthalmologist, a zoologist, a gynecologist, an herbologist is any more definitive than calling me by name. Because somehow the letters AA, BA, MFA, LDS, EE, DD, or PHD are supposed to make me who I am. / I cannot be defined by the classes I took or the papers I wrote or the tests I failed. I am far more complex than that and I refuse to be satisfied with a label, so when you ask me what I’m doing in school, what I’m going to do afterward, and I tell you I’m gonna teach home economics, don’t look at me like I’ve gone off the deep end, like I’m wasting my brains and wasting my time and wasting my money, like I’m negating every feminist victory and reinforcing female stereotypes. Don’t look at me like I’m never gonna make a living, never gonna make anything of myself, because it’s my brains and my time and my money, my living and my self. / And how else can I be, how else can I fit my definition if I give in to the pressures of you, the pressures of him, the pressures of them, the pressures of it, and do what someone else thinks is right for me because they want me to be defined by what I do instead of who I am. I am a girl who snores when she’s sick and hiccups after she eats. I’m the girl who dated your youngest son and had a crush on your older brother. I’m the wild woman in love with her mountain man. I’m the girl that is sometimes eloquent and often awkward and twice as likely to hug you as shake your hand. I am the adult who eats peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with a tall glass of ice cold milk and the Floridian, who if offered a slice of pea-can pie would say “Don’t you mean pe-cahn?”
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Mar 24, 2010
the dragon in meThe dragon in me / Controls my thoughts and deeds; / At times propelling me forward,
14
Mar 24, 2010
life debrisLife debris: / The pieces that define. / A shirt, a shoe, a ribbon, or a sock,
15
Mar 24, 2010
paralysisI hold the world in my hands. / It seems so / fragile
9
Feb 21, 2010
forgetfulnessIt was neatly formed in my head last night, / And I thought to myself, "I should set this down right", / But my dreams were calling,
12
Feb 20, 2010
melancholiaIt's a melancholy kind of midnight as I sit here chasing dreams, / Whiling away the hours with my well-worn reveries. / Cocooning myself in a blanket of whimsy as the moonlight gleams,
4
Jan 13, 2010
my glass boxHope is a fragile thing / That should be well-kept, / But the best I can do
22
Jan 13, 2010
on a dareNeed an afternoon snack? / Try Shane's Rib Shack! / It's a place with a knack
8
Jan 13, 2010
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