My love for older men started at a young age. All of the pop singers and movie stars were in their late twenties while I remained in my tween years. Their posters plastered my walls and dreams of them serenading me to sleep remained constant in my head. I was the youngest of five kids and tried so very hard to act more mature and experienced. My entire life I have been mistaken for someone older than myself. I read more advanced books and cursed and smoked by the time I was 13, and therefore found myself wanting to date older men.

The first boy I ever really liked was 22 and I was 14. He listened to good music and had seen great films and had amazing insight for the world around me. Folk became my favorite music and I watched horrible foreign films about high school lovers. I began reading Hemingway and beat poetry and I snuck cigarettes from my father’s drawers. I felt like I could only relate to those older than me and that I was destined to be older and more mature than my peers.

 The one thing about liking and engaging with older men is that they’re constantly impressed with you because of your age. It’s unbelievable to them that I read and write and like music because my brain is so undeveloped. I read the newspaper and knew current issues and had political view points. I owned classic novels and had dreams of owning a typewriter and saddle shoes. My intellectual interests were more impressive than older the men were. Perhaps I was a muse to some nostalgic fantasy they wanted to live out. Later in my life I would discover that this factor would prove to be harmful and humiliating.

By the time I started high school my favorite actor was James Dean and I had read “On the Road’ and “The Sun Also Rises” multiple times. My brain was corrupted with angst and sexual frustration and I was surrounded by idiotic 15 year old boys. I wrote poetry heavy with allegory about men, but none of the boys in my level one biology class were concerned with my meter or rhyme scheme. If I didn’t have the perfect body or the newest camera phone, I was merely a shadow in their day.

 My identity suffered and I was no longer able to deal with the aesthetics of freshmen year. The clothes I wore were from old ladies closets emptied out into thrift stores about town. I wore red lipstick and my outfits never matched the weather. I quoted Jack Kerouac and listened to Irish love songs about one night stands and unrequited affairs. Most of my friends talked to me and confided in me due to my wisdom and my quirky impulses. I was never sure if my friendships were genuine, but who wants to spend the first years of high school alone?

Current literary obsession: James Franco

James Franco’s novel “Palo Alto” is complex, harsh, and in your face. Franco discusses sex, drugs, death and the never ending angst of life. Although often repetitive and not without technical error, Franco exhibits a true skill and potential at being a true literary artist. “Palo Alto” reflects the ideas and styles of authors such as Kerouac or Ginsberg.Through short blurts of thought and allusion, my heart and mind wandered. Franco creates an honest and humbling narrative that is an absolute must read for every appreciator of American literature.  

 I find it difficult to read or write without holding a cigarette or a cup of coffee. My typewriter seems lonely without a bent finger holding a smoke whilst I figure out the words to convey. One hand is used to peck out the letters in which will form my poem or prose. In class when a professor urges us to write I have a sudden urge and a thirst between my lips. My mouth becomes dry and my thoughts desolate. Most people call this an addiction, but to me it’s a ritual and a part of my art form. I smell the smell of smoke and feel a breeze on my face. The thought makes the words richer and more meaningful.

My words are full of angst and personal experiences. I breathe them in with a single exhale and they exit with my smoke and are released into the words and the world.