‘Indie movie’ is my shorthand for the ordinary being made extraordinary through intentional perception. My friends and I are careful to point out life’s ‘indie movie moments’, where something feels elevated, special, meaningful. I refer to my novel as an ‘indie movie novel’, as this is the only phrase that accurately describes its atmosphere. (It should definitely be a legitimate genre. Somebody please notify the UK publishing industry kthx.)
Because in indie movies, heartbreak becomes poetry, and all the sad hard shit of life turns into storylines and beauty. It’s life seen through a sparkly lens. And that’s how I’ve always aimed to live my life—projecting magic onto each moment.
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I just want to live like indie movie kids up all night under stars and satellites, drying each other’s tears while daring each other to live larger, wider; writing the screenplays for our own epic stories. I want my loves to be indie movie loves; bold, beautiful attachments to people and places and moments, with an unapologetic heart that never shies away from risk or hurt. I want my days to sparkle and my nights to never end. I'll use alchemy to make potions out of pain; hold a magnifying glass to life’s cracks and faultlines and say here is where wildflowers sprout. And when I’m done draining bottles and partying in parking lots and wringing poetry from my bones, when I’m bored of drugs and heartbreak, I’ll become like those indie movie adults whose contours are thicker and colours fuller from all they’ve lived, and they pour it into art and late night conversation, together figuring out the bewildering middle bit. We’ll convince each other that this is our life now and it turned out okay after all, singing sweet songs of nostalgia while driving down open roads leading to places we’ve never been, knowing there’s time yet to dream. And once that’s behind me, once those days are glimmering beads in my memory box, please let me be an indie movie old lady with grey hair in a bun, whose face tells the story of a life lived fully and truly, who has loved and lost and grown wise and gentle, who’s burning to live even near the end, one who knows that you’re never too young to die and never too old to love.
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OOH, THIS!! Kaisa! This is exquisite.
I didn't realize until now that I both long to live in an indie movie and actually do. This poem feels like a place and I am so grateful you brought us into it! It feels like I am in Garden State and also like you've lifted a veil up and I am accessing another layer of my here-and-now life. LOVE to this heartbreak and sparkle and meaning, but especially:
"hold a magnifying glass to life’s cracks and faultlines and say here is where wildflowers sprout" and "wringing poetry from my bones" and "never too young to die and never too old to love."
Thanks for sharing, its inspiring me to share...maybe one day