On a Saturday afternoon I spill
myself onto you
over chai tea lattes,

my hopes and dreams pooling 
on the table,
carefully collected, written down
to remember later.

I peer into my mug as you scribble,
and I can’t help
but see a reflection,
how an interview is so similar to
the coffee shop in
which we sit.

I’ve spent all my life
pouring my heart
into being both who I want to be
and who I think
you’re looking for.

I’ve filled myself to the brim with
being wholly myself,

and being sometimes not,

which isn’t so wrong when
you stop to think that not many
people are really doing what they love.

As I cup the chai between sweaty fingers
and think of how best to show you who I am,
I allow every last
part of me to be spilled out
and mopped up to satisfy
what you
want to know.

In the height of fever,
sweat strips me like
a bad dream and I remember
the way you’d look at me with
spite by your fire eyes, and in my
tossing and turning I wish to
forget.

In this heat I once
took solace; you were my furnace
and you kept my hands warm.
Now I cannot find you,
cannot try to, do not want to.
You are not
who you once were.

This bad dream is not a dream
for I am wide awake, my dilated eyes
and sweaty forehead fixated like a compass
on the ceiling, stuck pointed upwards,
a sinister reminder: heat rises.

Sometimes who we once were
makes us forget who
we’ve become.
You are a stranger with memories,
and I’m burning to
abandon them.

I’ve got my head in the clouds
as the fog folds around me
like the misty half-hearted alertness
of the trance I’m walking through.
Directions are void in this fog,
shrouded by the mixed metaphors
of somebody else’s dreams.

Often in these reveries, I stop
walking to smell the roses of a place
called nowhere.
It’s in nowhere that I spend
my dreaming hours, far from
the actuality of a set place,
where time is not measured in the hard concrete
of a second but in the haze of an
indefinite moment.
Nowhere is so far from reality.

In my dreams, in these clouds I’m folded in,
I’m falling asleep and it feels
wonderful.
To be nowhere--
what a beautiful place that is.

During my sophomore year of high school, I fell in love with photography, and came to think of myself as an artist. Two years later, I'm realizing I've been an artist for as long as I could write my name. From the once-loping letters of my cursive, to the now-quick patter of my fingers on a keyboard, it's this--not photography--that's always been a part of me. This form of expression inherited from my journalist father, this craft that runs in my blood. I've been writing since I was a little girl, and I don't ever want to stop. Cue the "52 project".

In 2013, I created and completed a "365 project" in photography. Although writing is in my blood, photography is a passion I've embraced at nearly the same level. You can see all 365 pictures from 2013 here if you are so inclined. It's awesome, but I'm biased :). Today, my friends and family, all of whom supported me every step of the way, ask me why I'm not continuing the 365 project for a second year. Here's why:

One--It was hard, it was tiring, it was stressful. Of course it was worth it--I created some of my best pictures ever, after all. But it's only January third and already it's been strange to not be taking pictures everyday. Nonetheless, I'm ready to move on.

Two--In all honesty, I don't know if I would be able to do it again. I worked so hard this year on my 365 and was (almost) always wholeheartedly devoted. I'll admit, there are some pictures that just don't meet the high creative standard I hold myself too. But life gets in the way sometimes, and I don't want to chance not finishing something I've started.

Three--This past year, 2013, was special. Thanks to my 365, I'll remember one of the best years of my life for as long as I live. Why should I try to top that, or to recreate it? I don't want to. I want this past year to be unique and special. Doing it again would make this past year lose some of the breath-catching wonder it's left me with.

BUT. My "project" mindset will live on. This year my 365 helped keep me to a schedule. And although it was hard to do at times, I think it was good for me. And looking back, and looking at my results, I am amazed and incredibly proud of myself for completing it. This year, I think I can do it again--with a twist....

Dear 2014: my graduation year, the year I'll step with finality onto a college campus, the year I'll embrace adulthood, the year I'll learn to live; I want to remember you differently than I did your predecessor. I'm excited to introduce to you a new project, a new idea, my New Years resolution, and a wholeheartedly "Rory" endeavor:

The 52 project. A poem a week, for the 52 weeks of 2014. Stay tuned for the first poem in the next few days...

As a photography lover and poetry guru alike, it's only fair that I embrace the other side of my creativity for the new year.

I hope you'll follow along, and I encourage you to make 2014 count in a way that's special for you.