Weather for Headphones

we were driving down that stiff, narrow road to the
ferry with the flood levels on the tower like the one
in paris, and i stuck my hand out the passenger side and
the drops smacked my fingers like bugs and bullets and
every time a car passed you felt it, down to the bones,
through the seat and up your hips and i was afraid of my
hand ripping clean on the branch of a tree with seventy
mile force and i’ve always been afraid of that but the song
was on the speakers and nothing’s gonna change my world,
nothing’s gonna change my world, and it was raining
thumbtack bullets and my hand was cold stiff and narrow
like the drinks i have in the summer when the sun fills me
hot and sick to my stomach and the cars shook my body up,
up, through the scratched-up glasses on my nose, and we didn’t
know there was a curve up ahead and then Greg lost
the steering and he spun the wheel around and around and we
swung up and slid over the tiny gravel pebbles like ants
and all i could smell was rain, and for a moment i prayed
to God that i could live and not die ripped clean in
seventy mile force, and i forgot i had a heart beating
inside of me, and there was no one there when we stopped
in the grass and the mud, turned opposite the way the road
runs, and there wasn’t a single scratch on us except for my
arm which stung from the rain like thumbtack bullets, and then
we were driving down that stiff, narrow road again.

In my autobiography class, we have been reading the journal of Etty Hillesum. She was an incredibly intelligent, philosophical young woman living during the Holocaust. She died at Auschwitz before she was 30, but her letters and journal were collected, translated, and published by relatives.

I think that, amidst all the talk of numbers and statistics, of millions and millions dead, of remembering and never forgetting the Holocaust, we overlook the fact that, of the 11 million lives lost, every single one was a unique and valuable human individual. These people were not defined by the fact that they died in a war. Long before the war even began, they had their own loves, families, lives, and careers. They thought and breathed and broke bread together and they felt.

Etty was not perfect- she was far from it. She had moments when she gave in to hatred, and she cursed the Germans and wanted every German person to die. But she knew that, deep inside, if even one German person was good, then it was wrong to call them all evil. She believed in the power of hope and the goodness in all of us- one of the last things she left for this world was the message that “we should be willing to act as balm for all wounds.”

I want to be someone who does this. I want to leave my mark on the world- one that lasts and heals. The question is, how? We were all gifted with certain talents, certain advantages and disadvantages that let us see the world in different ways. Some of us write, or sing, or play sports. Some people haven’t discovered their talents yet, but they are there.

We were given these gifts for a reason- to use them. To let talent die and wither away is like cutting off an arm or a leg- it’s just plain wrong. Etty had a talent- her bright and beautiful mind. Somewhere deep inside, she knew that she only had so long to live on this earth, and she knew she had to continue writing. We don’t know when we could die, so we have to try our hardest to leave an impression on others every day.

are you going
to ask me
how i feel? or
will you sit
and stare, without
words, without me?

I felt like the original version was incomplete. I like it better now.

i had a riot for breakfast-
doused the flames in maple,
scratched butter ditches in the
brown. I love mornings when

your eyes open extra wide, like
snowflakes out the door
catching your tongue, melting into
cars, each leading to another
adventure. It’s like

when you ask if we
are going to live
today, instead of dying. I
don’t have any answers, but

your smile covers me up
and down, down, down.
Like cars falling
into water. We’re alive.

i had a riot for breakfast
doused the flames in maple,
scratched butter ditches in the
brown. I love mornings when
your eyes open extra wide, like
snowflakes out the door
catching your tongue, melting into
cars, each leading to another
adventure, like when you ask
if we are going to live
today, instead of dying.