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.

23 June 2007

Stars

the stars, they shine
when you reach out
and try to kiss the stars
who do you remember?

Sometimes I Miss You

missed
you are the one person
who gets this pounding
and argh!
i'm forced to make myself think but i have
zero
inspiration
for
anything
right
now
except
sigh.
lalalala
okay, so you're the only person who understands me
(*at this moment()
and i think maybe you're
just a little bit
too far away
for me to handle
and i worry
what does college mean?

lovely night
whooooooooooooooooooooooooo
caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw
silence
ouch
she wakes up with a chip in her shoulder
i'msorryitsnotmyfault
dolls aren't supposed to sleep with humans but
we're different and nobody cares until
owican'tgetthisshouldertocrack
ouch.
i settle into the covers
i whistle like the whooooooooooooooooooooo's even though we don't hear them
aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
last night i figured out
that maybe we have something in common
maybe i don't need to replace you because
see that little place in my chest(it's called a heart)
it keeps e x p a n d i n g
and so there's room for both of you
even though samantha
and hope,
they hide behind the penguins so
sleeping there doesn't hurt anyone.
but me, i've got this thing
if i'm not close enough to the people i love
sometimes i forget they are there.