a film for a festival

a film by Nettie, Iris & Atticus  

enjoy

the bloops

miss Kitty Yeager

I’m just clementines and eyelashes

Christmas lights and heaven

I’m just soft fingernails and feeling weighty

I’m just hollow rib cage

I’m just itchy wrists

I’m just failed classes & warm beds

-Kitty Yeager // Arionna Cherry Day

"just friends"

love

an earthly paradise
the beginning and the end of all things
a boy and a beautiful woman
in the arms of youth and beauty

some ships were wrecked
his hands calmed the waves
he breathes life into the darkness

young lovers, lost in a kiss

the couple in conversation
with unavoidable damage

thank you Paris

i've been thinking of this day for months now and i've been sitting in front of this screen for the past 2 and a half hours and here i am with nothing. 

so i guess i'll just indroduce my self

my name is amber essie tillotson

i've lived in utah my whole life but my heart has been in paris long enough to feel comfortable calling it home

i'm 5'4" and i fell in love when i was 16

my bedroom is filled with dead flowers which is both beautiful and sad

i love to dance & i live for the days where i leave the studio breathing heavily, damp with sweat and my muscles aching, because i know that i gave the music all i've got

i have a different style everyday but that doesn't mean i'm not being myself

i love chai tea & it's my 'senior year' but i still have days where i sit alone in my car for lunch, but i don't mind it sometimes

the first thing i usually do in the morning is go back to sleep
it frusterates me so much when people arnt themselves

it took me until my senior year to find a real group of friends, and they mean a lot to me. i wish i would've met them earlier but they came into my life at a time when i needed real friends the most

i love going on motorcyle rides with my dad and i love that he raised me in that

i'm a firm beliver in writting in journals, the thought of my children or my childrens children being able to read about my life from my perspective is so incredible to me

leftovers freak me out most of the time & i regret most of my summer between freshman and sophmore year

i cried when i read 'dear mom & dad' aloud

i think that love is truly an incredible thing 

i'm terrified of driving through intersections or at night or in general & i rarely ever order eggs from resuraunts

Nettie Luella (Johnson) is my great great great grandmother

i'm thankful for everyone who every read any of my posts or left comments and thank you to those who came back consistantly - thank you

writting has always been sort of theraputic for me, but sharing it has always been so hard, so i thank you for your open minds and open hearts.

and thank you for letting me into your hearts as well

& thank you to Paris for letting me stay a while

music

this song has always managed to break my heart and some how pieces it back together all within 4 minutes & 3 seconds. close your eyes, listen to the lyrics & enjoy the beautiful pain that comes along with it

"im scared of being scared and that scares me"

i stopped writing because i was scared;

scared of boys wanting to hang out with me on the weekends but not wanting to talk to me at school

scared of getting pitty compliments from my friends after we reveal

scared of my mom seeing my blog

scared of my eggs not being cooked enough

scared of saying hi to someone and they don't say hi back

scared of nelson not liking my writing, yet i'm scared of him liking my stuff because:

i'm scared of people having too high of expectations of me

i'm scared of listening to my heart because it's the most honest part in my body

i'm scared of the top 5 and i'm scared of not being on the top 5

i'm scared of curling my hair because i don't want people to think i'm trying to 'dress up' because i'm not

"i'm scared that one day someone is going to ask how i am and i'll tell them"

i'm scared of people thinking i'm depressed

i'm scared of the fact that i have a place in my closet for clothes i'm waiting to wear
because i'm not confident enough yet

i'm scared of people thinking i'm weak

i'm scared of proccessed foods

i'm scared of driving

i'm scare of how many poems i've started but haven't finished

i'm sacred i'm scared i'm scared, i'm scscaredscaredi'mscaredi' mescaredi'mcsare dimscaredimc'esredim'cesrerd'eimm'cscaredi'mescare.di'misacred.sim'secared.im'lesscare i'am me slielm.im'cesaredi'mecared'mcaed'amcekjalsk dlkfnskdfnwajwp oeraposjndgklajrptapojglkdnlgsndfj lkjlskaj;ieja'mc,a /e/ajsldjfla ca .sjejijasd,

i was once told that fear can control you 

and that scares me
and that modivates me.

          -N.L.

God, stars and scars

I walked into an empty room and things became more familiar to me.
the plain white walls glowing under florescent lights reminded me of maps and where they started.
all on a blank page.
desolate land untouched by the human hand.
each step I take... am I changing the world?


I can imagine the sky at night,
you didn't have to go deep into the mountains to see unpolluted skies.
we saw the stars but the stars never saw us.

holes poked into the lid of a small box that held humanity
each star was only a source of oxygen that seeped through hand in hand with beauty.
only I'm scared of what's on the other side

I've been to the top of the Empire State building and to the peak of a mountain,
but I never saw God until I was on the ground long enough that the dirt under my palms stopped the bleeding and  my shoes were filled with regret so heavy that those holes in the sky seemed to be the only way out.

no matter how much I feared the other side.

i stand tall but gravity  still takes its toll on me.
my hands and knees have met the ground more than once
but those conversations still come with painful hellos
and prolonged goodbyes
there's no scar tissue, no callouses to lessen the pain

guilt made its home on my shoulders
occasionally spilling his blistering hot tea down my back.
trickling down my spine & ice cold by the time it got to my feet
an ocean of pain
and i'm too tired to swim

it turns out God was just as much in the dirt as he was in the stars
and i'd only turn back to see the flowers that followed me.
my head mapped all the wrong turns into my heart
& i haven't lost hope that i'll find the right way

history

i think we can all agree that the worst part of being a senior is the haunting question: "so what are your plans after high school?"

sometimes i wonder why i'm even trying to figure it out
i'm never where i thought i would be 8 years ago

i thought i would be a cheerleader
or on student council
i thought i would be a 4.0 student
i thought i would be popular and date a football player

but i was never any of those am i'm okay with that.

at the end of the day our grandparents lives are just our history classes and our parents lives are our children's history classes and we're all just history with heart beating, nerves streaming, eyes looking for someone to remember us.

history.

we're all just kids with history we don't want to remember

history books with chapters to skip and blank pages waitin for some life


our yesterdays are today and our present is our future and soon enough our future will be our history and our kids future is present in today because what we do today matters.


our names may not go down in bold but we'll be a apart of someones history and we can at least hope that it will matter. fill your books with memories of pain and love and heart break and let your kids know that it's okay to mess up, it's okay if you don't know what you're going to do after high school. you didn't know either.


how to answer that question:
1. ask them if they knew exactly what they were going to do after high school when they were 17

fear

it was never the goodbyes that scared me



only the thought of being forgotten

overcast

i'm getting sick of the weatherman telling me what i have to be

and when i have to get up in the morning

it's raining right now and it's like the universe is reminding me that
it's okay to cry sometimes

even when everyone else is expecting sunshine

in a way i'm used to disappointing people

so i'm sorry to rain on your parade

but i can't suppress the weight of the rain much longer


"everything that goes up must come down at some point"

you were the reason

recollect me
help me gather the broken pieces of my mind

it's been a long road home

and these ropes around my wrists are starting to burn

the weight of hollow friendships has left my bones weak

and i don't know if i can keep forgiving you for making the same damn mistake

you were the reason i let my wall down

and brick by brick

you're the same reason it's back up and stronger than ever

a combination of lines from every letter ;

"'i'm really nervous right now.'

'i don't know what to say, i'm bad at letters but i know that you love them.'

'growing up makes me so sad'

'i'm afraid of change and having meaningful things become irrelevant.'

'looking at you laying there so beautiful and carefree.'

'i don't want to forget you.'

'i know we are young but i don't think anything would be much better 

then waking up to you each day'

'anything with you is an adventure.'

'i don't regret spending so much time with you'

'everyday, every mistake, every cry, every kiss, every sleep over sneak out late night screw up.'

'i need you to know that i love you'

'sometimes i just forget that if everyday i'm not fighting to keep you, then you are falling farther away from me.'

'i never meant to hurt you.'

'i can't express my guilt into words, i'm torn, i'm devastated.'

'all i want you to know is that if you never stop loving me i will never stop trying for you.'

'we will find a way to fix this'

'watching you walk away crushed me.'

'constantly on the edge of tears, love is so strange'

'i know i'm not perfect but i try to treat you like you deserve because i don't want you to grow up thinking its okay to be treated poorly.'

'i love you and i would be ruined if something happened to you'

'we are real, we are imperfect and i love our imperfections. '

'i wouldn't change a thing.'

'i don't know what we will be when you read this but i want you to know that you've made me the happiest boy in the world.'

'i'm blessed to have known you and loved you.'

'i love you always'

'everyday, every night, and everywhere  in between.' "

[quoted lines from real letters; a love poem]

to be:

to want,

to taste,

to see,

to think,
to destroy,

to feel,

to love,
to hate,

to hurt,

to bleed,

to be human

     

 

               

                 

            

dear mom and dad

i've opened up more to my window in the dead of the night
then i have to the both of you combined

and i like it when you guys trust me 

but sometimes i wonder why it's half past 12 am and you haven't called.
you both let your temper slip out of your hands a little too easy
over spilled milk and broken plates
or misplaced tools and dirty dishes
but i always try and be patient with you, i've lost things too.

mom..

i've always hated how much make up you wear and how you try and sing along to every song that comes on the radio yet i never let myself say anything,
because you've always liked to sing

but i think you're beautiful

and your heart is always in tune in all the right ways.

you told me when i was younger that boys would do anything to get to my body

and i didn't believe you

and the other night i read your journal from high school

and my heart broke when i read "i wish i could talk to my mom about these kinds of things"

"i hope my daughter will talk to me about stuff like this"

because i wrote the same things in my journal

and dad...

i love you more than you know

and i remember the first time i saw you cry 

laying in a hospital bed, i didn't see you as weak

because it wasn't your fault, you've always done everything you could possibly do for this family

and i pray that my husband will be as wise as you've grown to be.
but i think your eyes would rest better at night if you weren't staring at a screen all day
and your heart would be fuller if you put your phone away at the dinner table

you guys drive me crazy and nothing brings me to tears faster then seeing you two fight and sometimes i worry that you won't love the rest of the grandchildren as you do the first
but i love you
and i know you're trying your best

what a beautiful thought

there's two ways you can create life;

making love

&

making art

Lillian

"do you like it?" she asked me

"of course!"

I looked at the sheet of paper with pink crayon strewn all over

and some blue lines here and there 

"is it pretty?" 

"yes lily, it is very pretty"

her eyes lit up

she looked at me, smiled and got right back to her coloring

and my heart broke

for one day, that light will dim with the words of adolescence

telephone

It was like she had all her mistakes tatooed upon her forehead.

she couldn't see all the words etched into her skin
but she heard them
the words dug deep by all the boys she didn't mean to kiss

1 too many
2 too many
too many

walking down the hundreds of halls with her head down
doing her best to not trip over their bitter thoughts.
thoughts of people who have only heard of her through the telephone
where one thing lead to another
and "pretty"
evolved into words that sting at the sound

but she keeps walking
she always does
'cause sticks and stones will break your bones
but words will never hurt you

she wore a hat everyday
and he'd wonder why she would

hiding under the brim
covering up her faults like a bad hair day
she'd comb and brush and wash and brush.
dyeing it different colors
dying for a new start
dying, aching, pleading

so she wore a hat

and he saw her everyday
wondering if she knew the beauty she held
oh how graceful she was with every step
careful not to step on others hands

and that moment he saw her
vunerablity climbing up her spine
she removed the burden from upon her head

and all he saw was her eyes,
and they stared at her scars

my mom told me to never self-diagnose myself

i remeber when you pushed me off,
then the Fall came.
i still remember the bitter chill of the air
and ever since then then i haven't stopped falling
and what's funny is that you think I'm talking about love
but thats where i fell from

I remember how the air got colder and my bed got warmer and seemed to be the only thing that wanted me to stay around for lunch.

and i feel dumb for just talking about some "teen love story" but we all go through it eventually because we've gotta learn how to get our hearts broken some how & i've always wondered why people mostly write poetry about heart break. but I guess it's because the best stories are always behind our scars. 

 now the trees are changing again and the stems are getting weak at the knees

and I've always envied the leaves because at least they hit the ground at somepoint

I got sick with the change of the season
the doctor said it's just a cold
but it feels a lot more like nostolgia

"I love you"

those words sound so much better coming out of your mouth

I hope they taste like honey. 

26

I could start off by telling you my age and my height or how much I weigh, or how many followers I have on instagram and twitter or the average amount of likes I get per photo or some other type of number that doesn't matter.

But I'm not going to. Because frankly, I think it's all a joke.

- - - - - - - - -

I love words. I love the idea that a simple arrangment of only 26 letters can make you feel something. Whether you get the chills or you laugh, or you get that knot in your stomach when you read something you instantly wish you hadn't. No matter what, you are going to feel something. 

So whether you feel love or pain or you feel like you need to exit out of my blog, then do. At least you'll be feeling something.

1,025,109.8 words in the english language. 26 letters. Hundreds of different combinations of letters constantly arranging and rearranging them selves in my head trying to make sense of them selves.

26 letters, but there's only 1 of me and I'm trying to make sense of myself too.

So bare with me, please