Movie crashers

One of the best things about Lubbock is the Stars and Stripes Drive-In Theater. In Dallas the closest drive-in theater is the Galaxy Drive-In in Ennis (which is actually only a 40-minute drive, but no ever makes it out there because just leaving your neighborhood is a daring feat for most Dallasites). Whereas, the Stars and Stripes Drive-In Theater in Lubbock is an easy 7-minute drive from Tech campus — because that's all it takes to get out of town and get an eyeful of the wide open, star-spangled West Texas sky.

My friends and I were pretty boring in college, so some of our best memories happened at the drive-in. We'd go early to snag a good parking spot and then blast music from our cars and snack on whatever food or drinks we brought along. Usually we'd go in groups of five or more. There are three screens at Stars and Stripes, and moviegoers pay to watch two features. 

One time a group of five of us went together. We wanted to watch the first feature on one screen and the second feature on a different screen. Guests aren't allowed to switch screens, so we took two cars and parked them in different theaters. 

Well of course after the first showing, we were tired of being cramped into one car, craning our necks to see around each other, so we decided to move both cars to the second showing. Three of the girls walked over to the car already parked in the second theater, and me and my bestie stayed in my car and drove it to the other screen. 

We had barely gotten inside the opening to the other screen when an employee came running up to us, waving a flashlight frantically. He told us we weren't allowed to switch screens. We were going to have to leave, he said — and not just the theater; we were being booted out of the drive-in altogether. I apologized profusely and told him I'd leave immediately. Satisfied, the employee started walking away.

My friend looked at me. "Too bad we have to leave," she said, disappointed, but I was still watching the employee walk away from us. He walked out the entrance to the theater and turned the corner, out of sight. 

I snickered. "Oh we're not leaving," I said. Before my friend had time to react, I kicked the car into reverse, slammed down the accelerator and quickly maneuvered backwards through a line of cars parked side by side in the darkness. As soon as I saw an available space, I whipped inside and killed the engine. Seconds later the same employee came running by, scanning the drivers with his flashlight. We busted out laughing and ducked down, sure we were about to get caught. 

But then we didn't. Flashlight Guy just kept running down the line of parked cars, shining his flashlight into every car he passed. He eventually gave up the search, and my friend and I shared another laugh and settled in to enjoy the flick. The best part is that that's the night we saw Remember Me, which is still one of my favorite movies to this day. 

So thank you, Flashlight Guy, for sucking at your job and failing to throw us out of the drive-in.

Remember the time.

I measured the seconds by the times your unseeing eyes flicked over me,
And the hours by the conversations we never had. 
I numbered the days by the TV shows we watched to distract ourselves,
And the weeks by the sermons we heard, side by side.
I counted the months by the growing pile of magazines on your table,
And the year by the dull ache in my lonely heart. 

Word play.

Your soul, it is the cynosure.

I’m lost in my affinity.

Your voice, a lilting song to me,

I hold my breath to hear you speak.

The shift, it moves first through my blood,

Into the heart that deeply loves.

First timorous, with trepid jolts,

The shudder that becomes a flood,

The spark, the flame that starts a fire.

Your body is the warmth I seek.

The flush that’s spreading from your smile.

I melt in your propinquity.

I want.

I want to travel the open highways of your mind,
    And get lost on the backroads.

I want to draw from the deepest part of your well,
    And taste the bitterness of your almost forgotten tears on my lips.

I want to wander through the shadowlands,
To temp the fires that burn in the night.
    I'll take my chances with the ghosts of your past.

I want to cover you like a blanket,
To wrap myself around you and hold you until our bones graft together —
   ragged and crooked with old age.

I want to kiss your skin with my skin,
Like a thousand tiny conversations.

I want to look into your eyes,
And see the fine print stamped on your soul —
Words that tell me who you are,
    Words that unlock the secret passageways of your mind.

I want to know the you that you love to be,
The secret part of you that hovers in the fringes —
Always watchful,
Always thoughtful.
I want to know what that you dreamt about when he was young and life was new.

I want to chip away the ragged edges,
And peel back the delicate layers.
I want to spend hours pouring through the boxes that house your mental chaos,
Boxes that are color-coded and labeled neatly.

I want I find the back room,
Where the files in the corner are messy and unorganized.
I want to put my fingerprints in the dust on their cases,
    Like "Brittany was here."

I want to find the stretch marks from when God grew you.
I want to kiss those ragged scars —
    Some fading,
    Some pink and new —
And say, "Good job, God."

[personality test]

•You thought
•You understood me
•And when
•I surprised you
•You took
•Me out of my box
•And put
•Me in another

The narcissist

I once loved a man
made of ice and stone,
who loved me for my flesh,
my blood and my bone.
He loved me to have,
but never to hold,
and if eyes are a window
to a stone man's soul,
then even his heart
was like a black hole.
He believed deep down
he had a heart like mine —
steady like a metronome,
pumping in time —
but if you are what you do,
he was only a mime,
going through the motions
in a grand disguise,
begging for applause
from audience eyes.

Once upon a December.

It’s like December in your soul.

And here am I,

Searching for the fire

That once burned in your eyes.

But I find only the reflection of my breath

Curling in the cold, damp air.

Like the sunless sky.

Because you’re cold inside.

Why are you so cold inside?

There’s a hollow clinking in your bones

As I’m trying to light a match,

But there’s no oxygen

To catch.

And my fingers,

They can’t grasp

The matchbox

Or the match.

One-liners

With fascination I trace the delicate lines of your palm, searching for our future in those worn out intersections. 

---

I don't care what anybody says, there's unspeakable beauty in an endless sky. Restless hearts like mine can get addicted to the uninhibited confidence it exudes, even in its most naked form.

---

We walked like sheep to slaughter, smiling through slitted eyes to whet their hunger, through a place so hopeless it even smelled like darkness. Ready for a heart to heartless.

Fingerflow.

Call it luck or call it destiny, but I found an old soul in a box of trinkets that had found its place in a modern world. It is the key that unlocks a forgotten moment in time. I carry it with me in the pocket at my chest, and it whispers sweet nothings to my weary heart. Sometimes it seizes me away to another time, to a foreign place when people were valued for their depth and complexity, a time when being both strong and weak wasn’t a contradiction. It takes me to a time when respect was something people earned and a thing called honor was worth dying for, when freedom was a man’s elusive lover and loyal friend, when blood, sweat and tears was all in a good day’s work. I hold onto those sweet lessons, savoring them like a box of chocolates in the back of my mind...

The side of the world I'm looking at

For some time I'd been talking about my restless feet being itchy, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that I'm standing on the threshold of a new adventure.

I've been looking at the world from a new corner these days. I've moved back to Dallas, my hometown. I've been here for about a month and have gotten pretty solidly initiated into my new job. After a few near-sleepless nights, I made my first round of deadlines. I dyed my hair purple, and no one at work said anything about it, so it seems I got away with that one ;) In fact, my boss says I seem to be getting along OK, which to me says I won't be getting fired any time soon. 

I don't have internet at my place yet, so I've begun cycling through coffee shops, cafes, and just about anywhere else that's open until God-forsaken hours of the night. 

The strangest thing about this move is that I've only been here a month but I already feel more at home here than I ever did in Amarillo. I think it's because this is a place where I could put down roots if I wanted to. I probably won't know for a while if that will happen or not, but there's comfort in the fact that it could. I've also stepped into a great job I think I'm really going to love a lot. And there are definitely opportunities on the horizon, which is exciting. 

I've already fallen in love with Dallas, which is honestly completely unexpected. I don't consider myself a "Dallas girl." I'm not a brand-name-purse, white-picket-fence kind of girl. I expected to feel awkward and out of place in the fast and furious concrete jungle, but Dallas has managed to surprise me in that aspect. Maybe it's just because I've managed to settle in Lakewood, which is basically a small city trapped in the middle of growing Dallas. So there's a kinship there, I think. I feel at home with these people, in this anti-Dallas corner of Dallas. 

But I even love venturing outside of the East Dallas bubble. Aside from people being a little horn-happy, Dallas is still Texas. People still smile at you when you pass them on the sidewalk, and they still talk to you in the grocery store. It's not such a foreign place, and for that, I'm grateful. In truth, it's a lot of fun being young and single in Dallas. There's a vivaciousness here, an energy. I could drink it up forever. And who knows, maybe I will.