For Jessica

I lay my plea here,
seamed in and silent
in the river between us,
trembling with an echo full.

I clasp no prayer
from a heart you never knew,
but may this go to your sky,
your road- may my small hope
light the shadows you walk.

With this, my muse
is but a wandering branch,
a leaf of sky in the stream-
it casts its wings down
to seek the sorrow in me.

Take this light of my day,
take it before it finds me
where I cannot rise;
take these feather-thin lines
and break them into flight.

Damsel in Distress

She was perfect in her own way, perfect like no one else could be. Unapproachable, perhaps, in about three of her facades, but perfect. Perfect was a moving state, you see, a transient state waiting for the next perfect, the better perfect. I really wish she would find that perfect, perfectly. I've been wishing this for a very long time, you see. When the next time comes, and maybe she comes around, maybe I'll stop.

Perhaps I already missed my stop. Perhaps that's why I'll keep missing her, and I can't be wishing anymore.

I'm not the princess, and never should be. I'm not the damsel in distress, and never will be.

My Finest Friend

She rages, loves, laughs
Through my gray somber eyes-
Caught in our own spell,
Neither of us see too much.

At once, fire and ice were one,
Unable, in their natures,
To find the sweetest bloom, not one
Amid their finest forces.

We steal time- it comes empty,
In clean scooped puddles without her.
Barely drained in her warm tones,
They only glow richly, beautifully
Beneath her smiling, full moon.

Aligning Souls

We walk in silence, not fear-
Simple splashes of vibrant blossom
Grace, fall so faintly
To the empty eyes of Far Away.

We walk in comfort, not certainty-
The fragrance abundant, filling
Its own admiration, stops
Before any devotions (still impossible).

We walk in truth, not luxury-
This spring won't always be
Quite so teeming, so merciful-
The breeze blows sweet, indecisive.

We walk softly, not rippling
Our water lily roots-
They sink beyond the painting,
Fall to endless watercolor ponds.

The Heavenly Plane

Angels are to be dreamed of,
And aren't so far away at all.
They talk so strange, some say,
One finds they rarely call.

It's not so fearful, not so strange,
To be silent, and to hear
Simple words, simple tales
As pain we know so clear.

The kindest souls we come to be
When to us are fortunes clear-
When we dream as reading hearts
And not as mirrored fear.

Fallen Stars

Once in a forgotten lullaby,
A powder brush slips
Against a seamless sky.

Unpainted stars
Fall upon the formless night,
So many lights
Gathered, crumpled,
Chipped mistake of dawn;
But shadows of the day.

Still, the lonely moon sulks,
Turns a heavy cloak
Past a stencil print:
An exquisite corpse.

Journal Entry

I don't think I've ever produced this amount of work before in such a short period of time. The proceeding works that I will post will be ones that I wrote within about an hour and a half, in total. I literally started at about 11:30, when I got to the hotel where I was staying. My friend had a birthday party, which took place over the course of two days. Yesterday was mostly spent at Disneyland, as well as checking in to the hotel near Disneyland. It was a nice hotel, though not the best that I've stayed in. I prefer depth and simplicity over fancy buildings within buildings, even the architectural ingenuity of it did surprise me for a moment when I saw how concisely everything had been done. Even if it was a five star, I think the mood was less than relaxing.

Still, that does result in productivity. I do better when I'm stifled. Mildly, that is. After my creative side was trapped within me as everything in Disneyland was just so meticulously seamed and unquestionable, save for a few vague concepts of physics, I was helped only by a poetry book that I carried with me as I went through the rides. I'll present pictures later, but let's just say that it was really a refuge for me while I was in line and waiting to have my brains tossed around.

Perhaps the most interesting ride was Winnie the Pooh. It was hardly the most thrilling, or the most well-done of rides, but it certainly had its appeal. The rest of my group didn't quite enjoy the psychedelic colors and shards of mirror everywhere, but I really enjoyed the craziness. I guess that was because of my mood, as I had put on my brightest tye dye shirt that day. I truly did feel like a free spirit, even if I still envied the aura surrounding the raving people with their multitude of bracelets and colorful clothing. I think that sort of behavior shall be my reward after I finish IB. It was incredibly appealing, even if I was surrounded by very eccentric people.

So that particular ride opened up my mind, but still my juices hardly flowed while Disney Magic was still being shoved down my throat. After riding Thunder Mountain Railroad four times, I was shaken enough to be thinking unworldly thoughts. Still, how could I think straight? I could barely see straight after going on Teacups with some of the wildest people I've ever met. I literally felt ready to hurl. So much for trying to take pictures on that ride. :[

When I got back to the hotel, I was quite ready to go to bed. Of course, my roomies decided to stay up very late. While they watched TV and played video games, I sat and wrote a while. At first, I was in a panic. I'd forgotten my pen and pad!!! Fortunately, there was a pen and pad in the hotel. It's strange how I tend to surge forth easily with my words when I'm not in my usual territory of RSVP pens and high quality paper. It's as if my inner starving artist is emerging. Who needs expensive things when I can just write on a 3x6, unlined pad with a hotel letterhead and a medium-point pen? I usually use fine point pens and college ruled paper. It could be called unnecessary indulgence, then.

I decided to write a while, until my roommate warned me that Resident Evil was about killing very realistic zombies. Such graphic images seemed like a bad idea before bed, so I decided to write in the sitting room. It seemed that writing with poker tournament background noise from the TV would be easier than bearing the noises of zombies dying and rifleshots. Still, I got sidetracked in conversation. I went back into the video game room, as I deemed the room full of gamers, and wrote some more. Not that my brain was completely invincible, after such a long day. I got tired after a while. After I realized that it was actually midnight, despite my caffeinated state of energy, I decided to sleep on the sofa-bed, while my roomies played Resident Evil and Nintendo DS. The bed wasn't exactly comfortable, so I actually used sofa cushions instead of the mattress.

The next day, I was the first one to get out of bed. It took a long time to do my morning routine because I had to do it in darkness so as to make sure that no one would be woken up. Not that I woke up too early. It was 8:30, based on my Zune clock. I went downstairs and got myself a cup of green tea from the Starbucks, and wrote for another half an hour in the luxurious, huge lobby. I then went back upstairs, to find my life filled with noise once more. Until the quiet car ride back to my friend's house, I hadn't had a single moment of silence! Even now they're making a racket. I hope that won't affect my grammar.

This qualifies as a journal entry, but the next few things that I post will still present portraits of my mind and my weekend. The only thing that I fear right now is that I used up my creative juices too fast and it'll be a while before I can write so much again, which would be extremely depressing. So, then, the journal entry doesn't end here.

Whew.

I wish I didn't cry when the choir seniors had their last fifth period. It made me sad, though, because I'm so sensitive to emotions running through the air. I think it's just a habit of mine, to try to figure out how the rest of the world is feeling. It's almost as if I'm living life in third person, and whatever happens to me only catches up to me when I read the inside of my eyes at night and realize how I spent my day. Sadly, that means the undefined vein of clay that runs through the right side of my mind spends a lot of its time molding and shaping into the past, trying to find a bit of relevance in the present. Most of the time, it tends to filter out the problems that shape reality and leave in those sticky sweet thoughts that can brew a nice batch of dreams, but are otherwise useless.

I was confused whether it was the sentimentality of the seniors, or simply my own delusion. Perhaps it was I who brought this misery upon myself. Perhaps it was because of my own shyness and unwillingness to be bold that I never quite knew everyone.

Why else would someone I haven't talked to this entire year just come up to me to take a picture with me? And then another random person followed, and then another. I'm not sure whether this was out of politeness, ritual, or simply turning off the drama-filled, jealous, teenage blindfolds of high school and embracing the world as an adult. I simply couldn't understand. I didn't feel the coldness that I had felt for most of the year, when everyone seemed to know the music better than I did and had no room in their lives for someone like me. At times, I wondered whether they wished someone else had been picked to join the choir instead of me. I'm regretting that I let myself think this way, because it seemed that they were all such nice, sweet people. I went too far before my time, and my immaturity couldn't help but get in the way.

I know this isn't going to be an easy hole to patch. I still have some reasons to stay here among these people, even if I didn't handle this year as well as I could. I'd be a year older and a year wiser. Still, I know that this isn't exactly what I want. Scorn never dies where delusion never dies and fear never dies. As with everything in the world, such bad things are replaced where they are deserved. Nothing less will come, and nothing more. In some ways, I'm glad that this can be seen as an end, even if it's not mine. I live in third person, after all.