letter from last summer | pt. two

| the cast |

jordan: eccentric handicraft director; the kindest, most helpful person at camp; doesn’t believe that birds are real.

kaitlyn: assistant trailblazers director; struggling with being in love with the wrong person; my camp mom for the past two years.

michael: handicraft instructor; wears a cowboy hat; has the exact same laugh as me.

mary: health officer; looks just like me; always has popsicles hidden in her freezer.

you: CIT; has the loveliest brown eyes; awful at goodbyes.

 

week four

i came home from the fourth week of camp & wrote in my journal, i knew this week would be the worst & it absolutely has been.

the thing about camp is that when one person gets sick, the whole staff has it by the end of the week. & when one bad thing happens, it is sure to be followed by something else tragic & infinitely worse.

the first bad thing: jordan got bronchitis & had to go to the hospital. the second bad thing: as assistant director, i was put in charge of handicraft while he was gone. i had to go to meetings & deal with fuming scout masters who wouldn’t listen to me because i am a girl & 5’2″, & then there was that incident with the applesauce. the third bad thing: the other staffers kept asking if you were coming back, & kaitlyn pointed out a young scout that looked just like you. after that, i wore the red bolo you gave me every evening for the rest of the summer. it was my one reminder of you that didn’t hurt.

the really tragic, infinitely worse thing: i got sick in the middle of the week & the awful thing happened while the health officer was checking on me in my cabin. i was in a sports bra, hair stuck to my skin from the fever, with mary kneeling beside my bunk. someone else needed her right then & it was my fault that she couldn’t be there to stop it. it’s been five months already, but sometimes the guilt still knocks me over like a sucker punch.

they told us that it was sensitive information, that no one else needed to know about it. i still haven’t told my mother. but there was an ambulance that everyone thought was for me. there was a sweet little boy who didn’t understand what he’d seen. when i cried about it later, it was because of that boy. there’s this pit in my stomach when i think about him growing up & realizing what he had witnessed.

i was here with you & i was happy

week five

i came home from the fifth week of camp & wrote, i am so very confused.

because that’s what the week was all about, right? being confused. rumors & conversations with hidden meanings & little hearts doodled on bare legs.

the teal car parked in front of the health lodge. lighters left as gifts. engraved tomahawks. a sword tattoo. nine years apart. these were things i paid attention to in the middle of july when i was lonely.

he said, you’re trouble, but just for me. he said, you look like an angel on the outside, but you’re definitely not on the inside. he said, i think you’re going to get me fired.

we went on walks together at night, wandering through the bike trails without a flashlight. he called me angel.

that week was the one year anniversary of the worst day of my life. i’d been dreading it all summer, & even though i knew it was coming, i still cried at the campfire. i put my head between my knees & sobbed in front of everyone, because oh god, when is it going to stop hurting? when will i stop remembering how it felt when the world ended? i couldn’t breathe. i can’t forget.

it’s been a year & everyone still hates me, i told kaitlyn while we watched the flames dance. i don’t understand why they let me go home. i didn’t understand a year ago, & i didn’t understand then, & i don’t think i ever will.

kaitlyn & mary made me stay in the health lodge that evening. i kept ending up there with wounds of the heart, not something that could be fixed with an alcohol wipe & a band-aid.

week six

i came home from the sixth week of camp & wrote in my journal, i learned how to shotgun a drink. it made me pass out.

my last week was filled with art & anxiety. i remember sitting in the handicraft pavilion at one in the morning, painting in my pajamas. that white van shuddered up the gravel road, coming to stop when the driver saw the lights were on. hey, angel, he said when he got out & came to sit on one of my acrylic-covered benches. he told me that his head was messed up.

you’re the cutest person at camp, he said. i would date you if you were eighteen.

nine years, i thought, & i was afraid.

i wished that i wasn’t wearing my ex’s shirt. i wished that i had just showered & gone to bed instead of deciding to paint. i wished that i would stop finding myself in situations like this. everything felt like déjà vu that summer.

i think i almost cried from relief when jordan showed up with his friends. then someone cut their finger on a pocket knife, & there was blood all over the concrete floor, & the taste of it filled my mouth again. when i cried then, it was because of the bad memories from last summer, by the lake with michael. how it’s always my fault when someone goes to the hospital; how the year-old bloodstains still haven’t washed out of my yellow shirt.

but there was one last good thing in store for me, & i have never been closer to singing praises than the day i saw you again. you still had all your gear with you when you showed up at my pavilion out of the blue, which made me think that you hiked straight from your car to me. straight from my memories to being by my side again.

it was friday evening. we were getting ready for the last closing campfire of the season. your return made the end of summer more sweet than bitter.

we ate a whole apple pie together in the health lodge. we laid in the grass during the campfire, listening to the drums. we shared your hammock later & i told you everything that i hadn’t been able to explain over the phone, & it took until morning.

you are awful at goodbyes & i am terrible at letting go. i think we were made for each other.

---

here are the songs that hold my memories of the past two summers:

august love // grayscale
shut up and dance // WALK THE MOON
i know // motherfolk
always summer // yellowcard
mamma mia // ABBA
ocean avenue // yellowcard
letter from last summer // charlie burg
summertime // my chemical romance
there’s a place // the all-american rejects
the longest time // billy joel
summer nights // grease the musical
our last summer // mamma mia! the musical

xo apollo

letter from last summer | pt. one

lake dillon

| the cast |

jordan: eccentric handicraft director; the kindest, most helpful person at camp; doesn’t believe that birds are real.

you: CIT; has the loveliest brown eyes; awful at goodbyes.

week one

i came home from staff training & the first week of camp & wrote in my journal, it is only ten days later but the world feels completely different. there was a burn across my cheeks & bruises splattered over my legs like paint, but i was electric; i felt like i had swallowed the june sun.

the first week was ecstatic & exhausting. it was reuniting with old friends & throwing together lesson plans & moving into a tiny cabin with three other girls & learning how to live in the woods again.

the troop i was in charge of must have thought i was the greatest person at camp. they invited me to have dinner with them again & again & even picked orange daylilies for me. the flowers were gorgeous, but i wished that they were from someone else.

it stormed one evening so we had a game night in the dining hall. we were playing a round of twister that refused to end & you were sitting by yourself with a practice pad & drumsticks. my heartbeat matched the cadence you were playing & i have not been the same since.

week one i became best friends with a CIT & it almost ruined everything. we stayed up late together every night, talking from inside our hammocks & playing cards & listening to classic rock. i had a gut feeling that this would be a summer for change. i was right.

lake olga

week two

i came home from the second week of camp & wrote in my journal, it has been one hell of a week.

let me set the scene: it’s my night off & you tell me that we are going to have a campfire. later in the night, you will accidentally hit me in the head with a smoldering stick & my favorite pair of shorts will disappear forever; but for now the air smells like cedar smoke & i’m counting fireflies as they flit through the twilight. at this point, i have known you for fifteen days.

my best friend called as our campfire was starting to crumble into coals. you’d never met her, but you got on the phone with her & talked about me for twenty minutes. she told me that your voice was adorable & that i should keep you. i promise i’ve been trying.

week two, you learned something about me that everyone else already knew: sometimes everything gets to be too much for me, which is when the panic & shaking sets in. that week, the thing that pushed me over was all the attention from the campers & scout masters. i should’ve been used to it from last summer, but the comments & stares & questions still made fear & bad memories creep up & down the back of my neck.

i came to you crying one night. that was weakness & i know it, but you invited me into your hammock & held me against your chest until the shaking stopped; you told me stories about your childhood until i calmed down enough to fall asleep.

from my journal

you asked me what i looked for in a person (i feel like i’ve heard this question before) so i made you a list: brown eyes, percussionist, likes adventure, takes care of me, comfortable silence, not restrictive, believes me, understands my anxiety, talkative (not too much), always gentle. you fit all but one. i made you guess & of course you got it right.

here’s something you keep bringing up, months later. one evening we were in my hammock & jordan cut the straps with a car key. cue crashing to the ground in a tangle of limbs & you storming off. i’ve tried to tell you that he just wants to keep me safe. i hope your bruises from the fall have healed.

remember the sunrise? we sat on the plaza overlooking the lake at 5:52 in the morning. the sun rose somewhere behind the trees & the colors were lost to us. you yawned & said that it was a waste; i was just happy to have a quiet, soft moment with you in the morning. i remember glasses & messy hair & bare feet & putting on your shirt to ward off the chill.

week three

i came home from the third week of camp & wrote in my journal, i started crying during the campfire & couldn’t stop.

it was a whirlwind of a week, made worse by the fact that you disappeared.

you were a camper that week. you told me you’d stop by handicraft to see me but you never did. i tried not to let it bother me, but i kept winding up in the health lodge before classes, crying on the quarantine bed. i’m learning that i get sick when i’m upset about something. i was sick quite often that week & the something was you.

that was the week of the wilderness. we left camp for a day to hike through the forest, jump from waterfalls, scale rock faces. i had never been stunned into silence by nature until that trip. & i like to think that i am brave, but i never would have leapt from that cliff if you hadn’t done it with me. it was falling & falling & feeling like throwing up before hitting the water with a crash & a whoop of joy.

this is where i want to kiss you

i dreamt about the view sometimes, so i went back to the falls by myself. it wasn’t the same because i wasn’t in love. i stood at the foot of the cliffs in the exact place where you asked if we were just going to be a summer fling, & i am not ashamed to say that the memories in that forest made me cry.

there were fireworks the night after we got back. we sat by the lake to watch the explosions. it was raining. let me be poetic & pretend that the storm was mourning you & me, because the week was almost over & then you’d be gone for good.

on your last day, i wrote two love letters at one in the morning. in the letter that i gave to you, i wrote, nothing is guaranteed in life & i am trying to be ok with that, but i hope i see you next summer & the next one & the next one & the next one. the letter i still have says, when i’m with you, it’s like i’ve never been sad in my life.

---

i finally finished writing about my first year staffing at a boy scout summer camp. i’ve been going to this camp with my AHG troop since i was twelve, so getting to spend the whole summer teaching there was almost an unreal experience.

i miss that place & my friends more than i know how to express. it’s always been a safe place for me; somewhere to recenter myself. six & a half months until i get to have another wonderful, chaotic summer there. i hope i get to fall in love again.

i’ve already written part two, so expect to see that sometime soon.

xo apollo

life, i guess (5)

legg

hello everybody! it’s been a long time since i last posted and i am here to explain why.

my summer has been a whirlwind. i got a job as a handicraft instructor at a boy scout camp (aka my favorite place on earth) and was there for seven and a half weeks: half a week for training, six on staff, and one as a camper with my AHG troop. then band camp started the week i got back from work. so i’ve been super busy and haven’t gotten a chance to post anything because of how insane my schedule has been. now that camp is over and i actually have a stable wifi connection again, i’m hoping to get back to posting regularly.

now it’s time for some general life updates, i.e. what have i been doing recently besides camp?

---

– as i just mentioned, i had a summer job working at a boy scout camp! i miss it so so much. there are so many things i miss that i didn’t think i would, like the food and heat and uniforms. and then there are the obvious things, like my friends and the handicraft area and the surprisingly entertaining campers.

i taught an assortment of badges at handicraft, including space exploration, fingerprinting, pottery, basketry, indian lore, and art. i didn’t know much about the merit badges or the BSA going in, so i pretty much winged all my classes. we did stuff like nature journaling hikes and wrestling and launching rockets.

i’m absolutely working at camp again next year, and i’m planning on helping at winter camp and spring break camp, too. mostly for the free staff shirts they hand out to volunteers, but also because i love that place and i love my camp friends.

i’ll try to make a separate post about camp because this has been the best summer of my life so far and i want to remember it by writing everything down.

– i got a phone earlier this summer! and then managed to completely shatter the screen three weeks later in the Great Apple Pie Incident of 2019. i got it fixed but now nobody trusts me with my phone, or with fruity desserts.

my bff & i being artsy

– in my scouting group (american heritage girls), there are level awards that you can earn for every rank. i’m working on the last level award right now, the dolley madison, and one of the things i need to do is put fifteen hours into planning and hosting an event/service project.

my project is painting a music-themed mural outside my school’s band room. i started working on it this week and i think it’s coming along pretty well. it’s going to have a list of previous band directors, the notes to our fight song, and little musicians in keith haring’s art style. i was hoping to have it finished by the time school starts, but that’s next week, so it probably won’t happen.

– this is my second year doing marching band, but it’s been such a different experience. i played in pit last season; this time i’m marching bass in the drumline. so i’m learning how to crabstep and do visuals and memorize drill, which is all very new and confusing. also, i had to miss one week of band camp because of scout camp, and that’s the week they worked on drill to the opener. i had to speed learn most of that movement earlier this week and it was exhausting. and then after i had gotten all of it down, we found out that our low battery captain has to switch schools, so our drill and music has to be rewritten for the third time.

our show this year is paranormal-themed, which i am ridiculously excited about. i’m also thrilled that i got into drumline this season, and i can’t wait to see friends from other bands at competitions. so while this season is already super stressful, i think it will be worth it.

– i used to make friendship bracelets all the time, and this summer i taught myself how to do it again. i can make really complicated patterns, like the watermelon one that took days to finish. i’m working on a really neat starry night bracelet now.

i call them bracelets, but i always, always wear them as anklets. i wish i could wear them on my wrist because that would show them off better, but i can’t stop messing with them if they’re there.

would anyone be interested in some bracelet tutorials?

– i go back to school on tuesday and i am really not ready. in case anyone doesn’t know, i was homeschooled for most of my life and this is going to be my second year of public school ever. last year was really hard because everything was new, so i’m hoping this time things will be a little bit easier.

other than the basic classes (english, math, history, gym), i’m taking horticulture, bio II honors (anatomy + physiology), spanish III, and biotechnology. i’m looking forward to the science and agriculture classes a lot. horticulture because plants are neato; bio II because i’m hoping to go into EMS when i’m older.

---

so that’s what my life has looked like recently! i’ve got a bunch of almost completed posts hanging out on my draft list, so some normal content (or as normal as my stuff can get) should be coming your way soon.

my summer has been absolutely amazing, but i’ve also missed this blogging community, and i’m happy to be back.

xo apollo

you look like hell | 7.20.18

this was taken the day before

q: what defines you?

a: july 20, 2018. it was a friday
& the end of week five.

q: what happened?

a: i told the truth.

q: you’re sure?

a: the truth burned everything to the ground.
those ashes are not made from lies.

q: what else happened ?

a: i cried like the world was ending.

q: was it?

a: sometimes it feels like time stopped
& everything past that day is a nightmare.

q: who else was there?

a: no one who is here now.

q: what happened to them?

a: time kept turning for them
& they moved with it.
i am alone now with the memories.

q: do you dream about it?

a: all day & all night.
it is in my bones & my veins & my mind.

q: what do you remember?

a: i remember everything;
i wish to remember nothing.

q: can you give me some details?

a: he told me that i looked like hell.
i couldn’t stop retching.

q: what else?

a: there was blood on my shirt
& in my mouth. it wasn’t mine.

q: whose blood was it?

a: . . .

q: were you hurt?

a: there were bruises around my neck
& knife wounds on my hands.

q: did they leave scars?

a: they blend in with the heart line on my palm.
sometimes i get phantom pains.

q: who hurt you?

a: that’s what they wanted to know.

q: what would you change about that day?

a: i would have never answered the phone.

q: who called?

a: the wrong one.
i could smell him through the phone:
strawberry smoke & disinfectant.

q: who was supposed to call?

a: he was in arizona. i think he was drunk.
it’s not fair. i needed his help
& he was in the desert.

q: let me circle back.
you’re sure you told the truth?

a: i believed everything that i said.

q: that’s not an answer.

a: everyone thinks i’m a liar.

q: are you?

a: i don’t know.

q: where’s your conviction?

a: i’m sorry.
i feel sick when i think about it too much.

xo apollo

my winter camp 2019 experience

hey!

i spent a long weekend last month working at that boy scout camp that i’m constantly talking about. (so, yes, this is another camp post, as if i don’t post enough about that place already.) staffing at winter camp was wildly different from my experiences there last summer. i thought i’d share my ordeal with you all, because how often do you get to learn about what really goes on at a scout camp?

---

packing list for winter camp:

– as many blankets as you can fit in your bag. it will be freezing and the heaters won’t work.

– wool socks, gloves, and a thick coat that makes you feel like a marshmallow. despite all those layers, you won’t ever be warm enough.

– a journal, to keep track of the health officers’ phone numbers and last minute lesson plans.

– don’t bother with showering supplies, because the camp will be winterized and there won’t be a lot of running water. just bring dry shampoo and deodorant instead.

– lots of snacks. the kitchen staff are stingy. they’ll give you two hash browns for breakfast and act surprised when they find you eating lucky charms in the back.

– water bottles. there’s no running water, remember?

– tea bags. preferably a kind with lots and lots of caffeine in it. you will not get nearly enough sleep to function without the help of tea or coffee.

– a knife, a lighter/matches, painkillers, and lip balm. be prepared.

---

| friday |

just getting to camp in the first place was tricky business. staff was asked to arrive at three in the afternoon, there was supposed to be a one o’clock dismissal that day, and it’s about a two hour drive to get there. so, time was a bit tight, but if i left immediately after school, it should have worked out. but then the school decided to let out at three instead of one. which is, you know, a bit inconvenient.

i ended up leaving school early, then going home to finish packing. because despite planning on staffing at winter camp since august, i still waited until the very last minute to find all my stuff. and i had a lot of stuff: three bag fulls, in fact. one backpack stuffed with things like books and snacks, a smallish duffle bag filled with typical going-away-for-the-weekend things, and then an enormous bag my mom forced me to take. she packed that one for me, and it contained lots of useless, bulky snow gear.

on the way there, i read love & gelato and listened to billy joel’s greatest hits on repeat. i’ve made that drive so often that the two hours doesn’t feel like anything. i just look out the window at familiar landmarks, i blink, and we’re there. amazing, really.

the camp has two sides: the boy scout side, which is where i go to summer camp and where i hope to work this year (i sent in my application a week or two ago . . . wish me luck), and the cub side. it blows my mind a little that i’ve been going there for three years, and i’ve never seen cub camp before.

anyway, once we arrived, i checked in and picked up my staff hoodie. it’s a lovely blue, so warm, and a huge improvement from the disgusting highlighter-yellow t-shirts from last summer. then my mom and i drove all the way to the other side and dropped my stuff of at a staff cabin. the cabins there are really more like plywood sheds, and there was a tiny heater on the floor — really cozy, you know?

and here’s where things get fun. as i was walking back to the main road from staff site, i heard our health officer talking on the phone with someone from admin (this health officer is yanni, the one who made me overdose last summer. i love him). he was complaining about the sink not working in the health lodge, and as he was talking, i spotted a line of port-a-potties beside the road. so, basically: there was just about no running water in the camp. there were a few working bathrooms on cub side, and the sinks at the STEM center functioned some of the time, but the only shower was at admin.

it wasn’t a great way to start the weekend. not being able to shower makes me a little panicky inside for some reason. i really did want to go home then and there, but of course my mom wasn’t going to allow that, so i just thanked God that i don’t sweat.

---

good things that happened on friday:

– i was reunited with some friends from last summer!! most of the staff are in college, and i assumed  a lot of them wouldn’t be at winter camp because they’d busy with exams or whatever. but most of them made it, so i spent the weekend hanging out with kaitlyn (aka my camp mom), jordan (handicraft director), john (nature director), and brie (friend from ahg camp who works on cub side). it was so wonderful to see them again and i miss them all so much already.

– brie went out to dinner instead of eating camp food (a very wise decision), and she brought me lo mein with tofu!!

– had a wild conversation with kaitlyn and john about how many staffers are gay. apparently, the answer is at least half. i love scout camp.

| saturday |

the next morning, i had to be at the dining hall on cub side by 7 a.m. to help serve breakfast. i got up at 5 o’clock every morning and walked a mile in the cold just to stand around in the kitchen for two hours and dish out a meal that i couldn’t eat while wearing a ridiculous paper hat. the only thing that made it bearable was the classic rock blasting from a speaker. i must have heard jessie’s girl twenty times that weekend.

after an appetizing breakfast consisting of a single dry biscuit, i headed over to the STEM center to help kaitlyn teach programming. i say “teach,” but really i just wrote lines of code on the whiteboard, because i have no idea how to help boys program games and calculators into java.

we had a campfire in the dining hall that night. this particular campfire involved no flames, and i couldn’t see or hear the skits, and it was all around  a little miserable. just before it started, i had spotted someone for last summer, someone who i associate really awful memories with, and i don’t know. i just freaked out. i couldn’t keep still; i kept pacing and fidgeting and i felt like the air was too warm and i couldn’t breathe properly.

i decided to wash my hair that night. i tossed a tiny bottle of shampoo into my backpack and hiked from my cabin to STEM at one in the morning. i have to say, there’s something about washing your hair in a dirty sink during the witching hour, while listening to rain on a metal roof, that is strangely poetic to me.

| sunday |

after another half-awake morning in the kitchen, i helped jordan with space exploration, otherwise known as my favorite merit badge ever. we headed into the dining hall armed with boxes of rockets and hot glue guns. it took ALL MORNING for the campers to get their rockets together, which made me desperately miss my friend scout, because he is a genius and can put one of those kits together in ten minutes flat.

eventually, the rockets were ready to launch, so we took them into the field outside and shot them off one at a time. it must have taken at least an hour. it was windy, and i was starving (i’d been living off of hot tea and vanilla pudding, which isn’t that filling), and my jacket was back in my cabin so i was cold, too. i ended up taking jordan’s coat, which helped some, but still. my only joy was using the C engines. those bad boys sent some rockets all the way to the other side.

this is a blue card. they are a pain and take forever to fill out.

afterwards, jordan proceeded to make me crouch in the mud while he signed at least twenty blue cards on my back. because, you know, what else is support staff good for?

that night, i moved into a cabin with kaitlyn and brie on cub side. that wasn’t strictly allowed, but i likely would have frozen to death if i hadn’t. it got down into the single digits that night, and had only warmed up to fourteen degrees by 7 a.m. the next morning. there was no chance of me walking a mile to breakfast in that kind of weather.

| monday |

when i was trekking up to the dining hall that morning, i paused in the middle of the icy road to gaze at the moon. the lunar eclipse had taken place over the night, and the super blood moon was still hanging in the sky, tinted red. there was a colorful ring around it that looked just like a lens flare.

they didn’t need help with breakfast that morning, and no one had bothered to tell me, so i made some hot tea in the dining hall and hurried back to the cabin. i curled up next to the heater and got a few more much needed hours of sleep.

kaitlyn and i were teaching the mammal study badge in the nature lodge that day. unfortunately, kaitlyn had procrastinated writing a lesson plan, and we also had no idea where the nature lodge was on the cub side. we ended up wandering around the camp while the freezing wind got under our skin until we got brie to give us directions over the phone.

the nature lodge was conveniently all the way on the outskirts of the camp. we passed some enormous red yurts tucked away in the trees and i started fangirling. that’s really the only way to describe it. i’d read about the yurts on the camp’s website, but i’d never seen them before. they were so cool!! i didn’t go inside any of them, but still. i love those yurts.

mammal studies was a little bit miserable. the lodge’s heater didn’t work at all, the scouts wouldn’t listen to me, kaitlyn and i weren’t prepared, etc. it was such a relief when we finished early. if i’d been out there much longer, i think i would have turned into a popsicle. as it was, i couldn’t feel my hands until at least an hour later, despite hanging out in the heated dining hall with a cup of hot tea.

my friends cleared out shortly after, so i holed up in the cabin with a book and several cups of vanilla pudding while i waited for my mom to arrive. it was sort of peaceful. the camp was quiet for once, instead of being filled with the shouts and cheers of boys playing in the gaga pit.

my mom got lost a few times on the way home. (it is truly amazing to me that after all this time, she is still finding new ways to get lost.) i had been looking forward to finally getting a shower, but as soon as i stepped inside, i got a text from a friend reminding me that there was pep band that night. i didn’t have time to change out of the staff hoodie i’d been shivering in all weekend, much less get a desperately needed shower, before i was at school and setting up a bass drum in the bleachers.

---

other things that happened at winter camp:

– my “friend” peter called me a communist and a liberal because i said i’m in marching band and don’t like meat?? i was telling him that i play percussion when he interrupted with a gasp and said, “i was afraid you were going to say that you play triangle! i can just see you jamming to a triangle solo.” and it would have been hilarious except i did actually play triangle at one point during our show. :’)

– a scout that i’ve never talked to in my life told me one night that i looked really pretty that day. thanks, i guess?? it was sort of weird. having guys flirt with me is my least favorite thing about staffing there.

– i’m pretty sure this kid that i troop guided for last year was flirting with me. i’m not 100% sure, but hear me out. he was support staff too and we worked in the kitchen together during every meal. he sat with me during breakfast, was really friendly, gave me cookies from his lunch, etc. we hiked all over camp together on friday, he walked me back to my cabin twice, and he even invited me to play cards against humanity with him in his cabin. do i just have a really big ego, or does it sound like he was flirting and i was just too oblivious to notice?

– everyone thought i was older than i actually am. when i mentioned my real age, it was followed by lots of disbelief and exclamations about how i’m “just a baby!” love that for me.

– i got really sick with the flu right after camp and ended up missing a week of school. i think i got it from kaitlyn. thanks, camp mom, i was basically dying but at least i got to stay home and read.

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overall, winter camp involved a lot of shivering, not enough sleep, horrible food, and a scratchy throat from yelling at insolent scouts. it was unorganized and the classes seemed to stretch on forever. but do i plan on going back next year? oh, absolutely. i want another staff hoodie.

have you ever been to a winter camp? how did it compare to summer camp?

xo apollo

a love letter for the boy with the birdsong laugh

dear scout,

one day, my friend asked me what i looked for in a person. i considered the question and spent a great deal of time trying to figure out what someone would have to be like to make me love them forever. in the end, i simply came up with a list of things that describe you:

– you were kind to me when i so desperately needed it
– you understood my anxiety without me having to say a word
– you calmed me down just by being near
– you were smarter than me, which was new
– you never mentioned when i didn’t eat, but you always had chocolate chip cookies in your backpack for when i needed them
– you knew what my wounds were from and didn’t look at me any differently
– my favorite thing about you was that when you laughed, it sounded like birdsong

i lived with you for only two weeks during the worst summer of my life, but it was enough. i have never shown my heart to someone so quickly. all the afternoons spent wandering through the woods, lying on the sun-warmed brick plaza while watching the stars, sitting on the porch and revealing one puzzle piece of our lives at a time — i will cherish them forever.

i fell in love in the forest. now summer is gone and so are you.

you should know, i kept all the gifts you gave me. the leather bracelet dyed red as blood, the rocket with remnants of fourth of july glitter stuck to the inside, the handmade keychain made of twisted purple, blue, and red plastic strands; and so, so much hope.

skeleton // the front bottoms

when i hear your name, there are two memories that come to mind immediately. there was the night when you took my anxiety from an eight to a five just by sitting next to me and pressing your scraped up leg against my trembling one, and the evening when the grass around us turned slick and crimson with blood in an instant. there was a knife glinting in the twilight before your cursing filled the heavy, humid air.

i never told you, but that night you spent in the hospital after passing out in your own blood, i didn’t sleep at all. i sat on a picnic table in the dark and cried like it was all my fault while the blood dried on my skin and in my mouth and on the concrete at my feet. no matter how long i showered, i could not wash off the blood, or the guilt.

whenever someone put their arm around me or offered a tissue, i just shook harder and choked out a sob about how none of this would have happened if it weren’t for me. we would be sitting by the lake while the sun set; instead, i was so anxious that i threw up my salad, and you were forcing down pills while a doctor slipped a needle through your slit skin.

shut up and dance // walk the moon

tovah and candy gathered me on their cabin’s moss-covered porch after your oldest brother drove you to the hospital. they’d known you for years, they told me, and the boys in your family do dumb things when they’re trying to get a girl’s attention. sometimes that means seeing how many barbecue sandwiches you can eat in one night (your record was eight). other times it means doing a knife trick while walking and cutting your hand in two places. it’s not your fault, they told me. he just likes you, and he’s clumsy, and you shouldn’t beat yourself up over it.

but, i think. but, if you hadn’t asked me to walk down to the lake with you before everyone else got there, and if i hadn’t agreed, you never would have had your knife out in order to show off. if only i had said no, you would be ok.

i remember how frustrated you were when you got back from the hospital with stitches in your knuckle, glue on the severed tip of your thumb, and a clunky cast on your finger. you were late to breakfast all week because you couldn’t put on your glasses yourself, or lace up your hiking boots. i saw you shake with anger after the twentieth camper asked what you did to your hand.

that’s why i sliced open my palm one morning and soaked my half-eaten apple with blood: so people would leave you alone. they stopped staring at your cast, switching to cradling my hand and running gentle fingers over the bandage.

i still have scars on my palm from that day. if i see you again (and i pray that i will), i know you will have a deep cicatrix on your skin as well. i wonder if you think of me when the phantom pains make it ache.

scout, i know i never loved you. but, listen — i could have. oh god, i could have, and when the seasons change, i hope you come back into my life with the new summer. i left you last july without a kiss or even a goodbye, and when i lie awake at night, i think of what words i could have used to make you understand how i felt about you: the feeling of almost.

i know that i don’t know you that well, but i know i’ve been missing you like hell. (i know // motherfolk)

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i wrote this in class when i couldn’t concentrate on anything else. a boy who loves me was reading over my shoulder, and now when my friends laugh, i see him tilt his head and listen for the one who sounds like a bird singing to the sun at dawn.

(unfortunately, scout doesn’t live here. which is a shame, because he flirts by sharing pictures of his cat, mr. kitty.)

xo apollo