Let me borrow your lips. I could kiss you and kiss you and kiss you and kiss you and kiss you and kiss you and kiss you and kiss you and kiss you and kiss you and kiss you. So don't stop kissing me back.

I've got a smile on my hips. I'm quite convinced that we could spend our time wisely. I would gladly save any seat that you leave. I think that musician . . . I think that musician, you know, I think he wrote that song for us. Play that song again, on the jukebox. Play it again, for us.

Let's talk to Father Time, make arrangements for weddings and funerals and years of happiness. But mostly the latter, which is two letters away from the ladder that I will climb to decorate our house with those tiny colorful lightbulbs just in time for the holiday season. Come be my Merry Christmas. Let me call you my birthday. Open that wine, boy, and give me a free tour of your tongue.

I was determined to arrive at work on time this morning after yesterday's flat tire fiasco.
I pulled out of my driveway at 8:03 a.m., drove a few feet down the road, and immediately noticed a dark-colored "lump" sitting in the middle of the opposite lane. I slowed down to see what the "lump" was, and almost got teary-eyed when I saw that it was a baby Hedwig. Hedwig = what I choose to call owls. Hedwig = the name of Harry Potter's owl.
 
I was on the verge of tears because this little Hedwig was adorably innocent. Just standing there, sleeping. Middle of the road. 8:04 a.m.

I was absolutely terrified when I saw a car coming toward the owl. I prayed to God that the driver wouldn't hit it. I waved and honked so the driver would slow down or swerve or something. But the driver didn't do anything--just drove in a perfectly straight line, which meant that no tire even came close to Hedwig's body. Phew. I watched Hedwig's little feathers react to the sudden rush of wind. Gosh . . . I wouldn't have been able to go to work if the owl got hit. I would have turned my car around and cried and cried and cried.  

Since there were no more cars approaching from either direction, I quickly grabbed my camera out of my purse, jumped out of my car, and took a photo, which I am delighted to share with you:

So that's the little baby Hedwig. Cute, huh? I love his/her(?) ears. And look at that beak! Oh man. I want one. What a beautiful creature. So cute and mysterious.

The bad news was that it was 8:09 a.m. and I still needed to get to work on time. What do to? What to do? What to do? I honked my horn. Nothing. Should I find a stick in the woods and poke him? No. I didn't want to wake him.   

I called my dad, who happened to be at home rather than work, thanks to an early morning hunting trip.

"Hello?"

"Dad, there's an owl on the road," I said.

"Oh. I know. He's been there since early this morning."

"Can you please walk down here and escort him off the road? Please. I'm so worried. Please."

"Yeah. I have to pack my lunch first."

"No, Dad. Please. Sometimes people can be cruel . . ."

"Fine. I'll walk down now."

Here's the part that I feel kinda awful about. When I hung up the phone, I drove away. I wish with all my heart that I wouldn't have, that I would have just stayed with the little Hedwig until I knew that he was safe.

I called my  dad back about five minutes later.

"Dad, did you get the owl off the road?" I asked.

I could feel my eyes start to swell with tears. I knew I would never forgive myself if something bad happened. 

"Yeah. Took a shovel down and he flew into the woods."

"Are you sure? Do you promise me you did that?"

"I wouldn't lie to you," he said. "I gotta go. I gotta get to work."

"Okay. Thanks. See you later."

So that's the whole story. Apparently Hedwig is safe and sound somewhere in the woods. I'll probably never see him again, but I'm glad that we met (even though his eyes were closed the whole time). How lovely it is to be surprised and intrigued by nature, especially when you least expect it.

Happy sleeping and safe journeys to you, little buddy.  

It was impossible to ignore the ugly sound coming from what seemed to be the belly of my car, but I turned up that glorious Bruce Springsteen song and kept driving anyway.

"Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack / I went out for a ride and I never went back / Like a river that don't know where it's flowing / I took a wrong turn and I just kept going."

Another ugly sound.

"Shit," I said. "Shit, shit, shit."

The sound suddenly sounded floppy . . . floppy as in, I needed to pull off to the side of the road as soon as possible.

Flat tire. My first one. Ever. It looked pretty rough, and it was making me late for work. Stupid flat ass tire. I jumped back into my car, called my insurance company and waited a lengthy 15 minutes until an agent found someone to tow my car.

"Thanks for waiting, Ms. Pongrac. I've got Russell on the line for you, and he will help you out from here. Is there anything else I can help you with today?"

"Nope, I think that's everything," I said. "Thanks."

"Hello?" "Hello?"

Oh. That must be Russell.

"Hi. I'm Kayla. My car needs towed."

"Does your car need towed?"

"Yeah, my car needs towed. Can you tow it for me?"

"Are you gonna pay me?"

"Sure, I'll pay you."

"Be there in 10 minutes," he said.

When Russell and his "buddy" came to rescue me and my darling Pontiac Vibe, I immediately felt as if I should be on some kind of TV show. I mean, if they can have TV shows such as Storage Wars and American Pickers, they can surely have a show called Towing Trips. The concept of the show would be simple: the camera crew would follow around guys like Russell and his buddy as they pick up people who are stranded thanks to a flat tire. What could make the show successful is filming where people get stranded, how long it takes Russell and Co. to find them, and what happens when the towee meets the tower(s).

Audiences will absolutely love the awkwardness that ensues when the towee has to hitch a ride from the tower(s), and sit in between them. Kind of like what happened to me.

"So . . . do you do a lot of towing?" I asked.

I couldn't handle the silence between all of us.

"Cheapest towing around."

Cheap. Like Russell's cologne. Meanwhile, Russell's buddy was sporting some serious cowboy boots. They looked like two camera-ready pals. Maybe someday soon they'll be featured on Towing Trips. As soon as I pitch the idea to someone in the television business, that is.

"Lay down your money and you play your part / Everybody's got a hungry heart . . ."

Tasha Jepalowski
Mrs. Harte - Grade 6
Homeroom #2
October 19, 2012

I just want to briefly tell you about my farm. I can either give you the short vershun or the long vershun about my farm but I think I'll give you the short vershun because I'm not good at writing papers.

Also, this is a tough draft. Oooooops, I meant rough draft but I think they both mean the same thing :-P

I think it is stupid that people think that farms are just full of cows and pigs and horses and chickens. I'm here to tell you in this persuaysive paper that farms can be full of any animals you want them to be as long as your farm is a good place for the animals to live and as long as you take care of them.  Also you might want to own at least one plaid shirt.

I think my house has a farm because we own a lot of animals. My brother Josh has a ferrett named Ferry, I have a cat named Scarecrow because Scarecrow loves birds and my dad has a fish that I think he forgot to name but with no offense to the fish. My mom stopped having pets because she said that they are too smelly. This is my farm: a ferrett a cat and a fish.

You only need three animals to have a farm. But guess what? I have more than 3 pets because  sometimes we see deers in our yard and these deers come back a lot because my dad feeds them apples and corn. Deers can be good pets. Shy but good. We also once upon a time had a squirrewl or some kind of rat in our house because I remember mom was really mad that this in particular animal was hiding in a wall but I told her to calm down because any animal we have is a pet and a part of our farm.

To have a good farm, you should bathe your animals and feed them too. If you want, your farm can grow, like if you find a lost dog. If you find a lost dog, take him to your farm's lost and found. Step two is name that lost-but-now-found-animal Grace. Grace is short for Amazing Grace because of the lyric I once was lost but now I am found. On our farm Grace #1 is a spaniel type of dog and Grace #2 is like a lab mix or something. They are both really good outside dogs and we still have them on our farm so I wasn't lying when I said I live on a big farm.

In conclusion, I think I've reached the number of words we are supposed to have for this essay and I hope that you will consider owning a farm. But you probably already have a farm already if you own, say, a cat a ferrett and a fish.

P.S. People who don't own farms, like our neighbour lady, is a very lonely person.

It's a place where the poets go. A festival full of words. Stanzas. Appreciation. Inspiration.

The Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival takes place in Newark, New Jersey, every two years. When I attended my inaugural festival in 2010, I remember not wanting the weekend to end. I had the opportunity to explore the city with a wonderful group of classmates and meet influential poets such as Billy Collins and Sharon Olds. To borrow a lyric from Dashboard Confessional: Days like that should last and last and last and last. (Shout out to Dance, Andy, Jordan, Kristen, Carissa, Ashlee, Todd, Lydia, Kat, Kate, and Eric.)

The invitation to attend Geraldine R. Dodge this year arrived a little last-minute, but turning it down was not an option. I took off work. I packed my bags. I brought my favorite hat. The weekend began Friday morning at 11 a.m. and as far as I'm concerned, it hasn't ended. A festival of that caliber just doesn't end . . . it stays with you--the poets, the poetry, the city, the memories--the festival stays with you until you can experience it again.

2014.

While I'm tempted to chronicle every good thing that happened in Newark and name every poet we had the pleasure to listen to (and in some cases, meet), it would be difficult to keep writing paragraphs about this weekend when I feel as though it would be more appropriate to write stanzas,

as if this entire post
should have been written
like a poem, separated
into lines and influenced
by my desire to return to
Jersey or to find a way
to rewind rewind rewind
rewind > play > time.

If you're a lover of language, don't dodge the Dodge.


P.S. Get ready for 2014 by linking up here: www.dodgepoetry.org.

I don't know why I fell in !ove with that beautiful excuse of a man. Maybe it was his hardwood floors that were flat like this___________________. Maybe it was his glorious :) and the way his front teeth (which looked like this [][], but just a little bit smaller and less rabbit-y) smelled when he leaned into my ear and whispered a secret that had a "la de da, my whisper has a perfect pitch--vote for me" type of melody. My best friend thinks that I just adored his + necklace because he was religious and knew the Lord's Prayer. He also made the peace sign a lot and the way his fingers trembled when he made that sign--maybe just picture this V shaking a little, if you would--seemed to say a lot about him, and the world. I try to tell myself that I just followed the * that was somewhere in the skies of my little fist of a heart. But then again, I suppose I fell in !ove with him because he turned the first letter of that word into an exclamation point, and made my life EXCITING, AS IF MY ENTIRE WORLD WAS ON CAPS LOCK!

"Becoming a writer is not a 'career decision' like becoming a doctor or a policeman.
You don't choose it so much as get chosen,
and once you accept the fact that you're not fit for anything else,
you have to be prepared to walk a long, hard road for the rest of your days."
- Paul Auster

I write because I feel compelled to make my words tap dance upon the page and harmonize with one another. 

I write because I once used a whole box of tissues in one sitting and I want to feel better soon. 

I write because I get my heart broken quite often as a result of living in a world full of too many people who don't care enough. 
                        
I write because I enjoy observing people--welcome to your biography. 
       
I write because I have jumped rope, hackey-sacked, jumped those sweat-inducing jumping jacks in gym class. I write because I am scared of spiders and Alzheimer’s. I write because I survived high school and pimples. I write because I panicked when my six-year-old fingers got stuck in a Chinese finger trap during a roller skating party. I write because a handicapped man in a wheelchair once held the door open for me as I entered a grocery store. I write because every year on Mother’s Day, I watch my dad kneel at the grave of his deceased mother. 

I write because I am a chosen one, handpicked by God himself.

I write because I live; you live; we live; they live, and this is my proof. 

I'm not convinced that this friendly animal wanted to be part of a petting zoo on a cold October day, but she was a good sport. As you can see, I was happy as can be to get my picture taken with her, and her fur was so soft that it made me feel instantly sleepy. I want to buy one now. Talk about staying warm at night.

I mean, lately I've been struggling with a freaky coldness issue. I've been sleeping under decently thick covers and two soft blankets, but it doesn't seem to be enough. This puzzles me because I am also making the extra effort to wear pajama pants to bed rather than shorts, which I consider to be more comfortable. I just don't ever remember going to bed and waking up at random intervals, thinking to myself how cold I was and what I could do to change that.

Now I know. Haha.

P.S. Not that this has anything to do with being cold night after night, but a few weeks ago I read a "fact" that stated that guys prefer when girls don't go to bed with their hair wet. Why? I mean, my pillow is my pillow and your pillow is your pillow. Just saying.

I was looking through old photographs and folders at my workplace yesterday when I came across this old letter. If you appreciate language and the way people use it--especially people who lived "way back when"--hopefully you'll appreciate this as much as I do. May your mind be so completely unclouded. 

The pink and white flowers reminded him of her: fragile, beautiful, and slightly weathered by the storm that their families ushered near the shore where they stood, feet in the sand, the bottoms of their pants rolled up past their ankles.

Little did Shakespeare know that he kinda-sorta wrote the prequel to their love story. Welcome to the modern day Romeo and Juliet. Thankfully, nobody's dead yet.

Sam and Taylor are gentle people. Artsy people. Funny people. Good-hearted people. These are attributes you must remember they retain, for they seem easily forgotten by the people who mean the most to them because the people who mean the most to them don't approve of them feeling the way they do.

Taylor shopped for groceries while Sam took a bike ride through the city. He wanted to get out of the apartment and pick her flowers--fresh, just-plucked-from-the-dirt flowers that you couldn't buy in that grocery store. He imagined putting one of those flowers in Taylor's hair and then dancing with her on the street while passersby watched and wondered what made them happy enough to dance.

Happiness doesn't come as easily when everyone is waiting on the sidelines for a love that feels so right to go terribly wrong. Sam's family didn't like Taylor and Taylor's family didn't like Sam, making both families even when it came to being at odds. As much as Sam and Taylor tried to stick up for one another, their family members kept their ears closed and sang out of tune "la-de-da's."
 
Sam told Taylor to meet him in the park at 7 p.m. He wanted to hold her hand and go for a walk. He wanted to tell her about how sad he felt today when he saw an older couple walking down the street in Chinatown. They weren't holding hands. They weren't even talking to each other. Sam couldn't figure out what made them grow apart and why affection had somehow lost its appeal. He knew that wasn't the kind of relationship he and Taylor had, or ever would have. They were going to be an old couple someday, sharing two entrees at a fancy restaurant and holding hands across the table.

It was 6:57 p.m. Taylor walked toward Sam with a noticeable bounce in her step, and he knew it wasn't just because she got a great deal on sushi at the grocery store.

"These are for you," Sam said, holding out the pink and white flowers.

"They're lovely," Taylor said. "Thank you."

"Can I put one in your hair?" Sam asked.

Taylor giggled and nodded her head.

"Will you dance with me?"

"Only if you'll dance with me," Taylor said, draping her arms around Sam's broad shoulders.

Love. That's what makes people happy enough to dance in a park full of middle-aged men walking their dogs and young women jogging and teenage couples sprinting to the nearest frozen yogurt shoppe.

"As much as I like these flowers," Taylor whispered, "I'm going to drop them right here, right where we are dancing."

Taylor thought that maybe someone would come along and take a picture of the flowers and wonder why they were there. But thinking and hoping are two different things. When it came to hoping, Taylor hoped that the person who noticed her flowers would find the kind of love that she found: the kind of love that is fresh, admirable, and in full bloom--just like the flowers themselves.