About Me

Hi, I'm Harper Lee Simmons. It's pronounced Har-peh, because my dad's from the south. He's a foreign service agent from the US; my mom's a professor from Morocco. I grew up dividing my time between Rabat, Casablanca, and the countryside, with occasional trips to France. (I speak Arabic, French, and, yes, English.) I was born in Morocco but spent my first year or two in the States to get some fancy medical treatments. Mom and I and my brother and sister usually hang out at home while Dad's away on business. I have a younger brother, Will, and a younger sister, Charlotte. Dad named us all after his "heroes of literature": Nelle Harper Lee, William Shakespeare, and Charlotte Bronte. Mom and us kids are Muslim and Dad's a Baptist. He met my mother on an assignment and hasn't been able to get his heart away from Morocco since. Now I'm in the States attending a boarding school. I got detained after a fifty-state whirlwind tour, probably because of my religion. Living at "home" has been difficult to adjust to, but I'm getting there. With some help from my wonderful teacher and new friends, my United States citizenship has become something tangible. Oh, and I'm a poet. Yeah, I might not be your typical American Girl... but I think that's something I can live with.

14 January 2007

run
suddenly i'm taken over
by this monster who's attacking
and he's racing for my body
but i've got the human instinct
i know i have to run away
but then he just stops
suddenly
and i know
he's just, just...
edward

happy holidays
"so what if i've been a little on the anemic side these past weeks?
so what if i'm dizzy, got a little lightheadedness?"
i'm not really,
dizzy,
not physically,
just mentally
just so many changes
in so few minutes
and it's overtaken me
we went from moulin rouge
to guys and dolls
and from me and sierra
to frankie and emily
and now to kit and kat
and tho i love francie and em
and kit-kat are tolerable
am i still
going to be
who i am?
am i still
going to be...
i'm afraid to say it.
if i'm the pet student,
i'll lose it.
if something happens,
i'm over.
at the beginning of summer i asked all these questions,
like would i be able to cope with your changes
and right now,
the answer
is
a
big
fat
resounding
no
and i fall
into your body
and you hug me
and you tell me everything is going to be
fine
you still love me
things
have
just
gotten
complicated