Cold Journey

These questions were once answers
As answers, again, become questions-
Infinite knowledge confines- lost
In small boxes, one by one.

The divine leap is far away-
To dream beyond a plotted field,
Beyond the milky river, leaking
Such intricacies, fancies
Need not, yet needed- we follow.

Soon, we are beyond the doubters,
Lost voices calling us back, darkly
To the endless circles, the company
Of mirrors in right and wrong.

Where Ideas Should Begin

No leaves do dance upon my palm,
I hold no song of elves,
Yet human voices coax it sing,
(They let go of themselves.)

The marbled moor, its fair faced queen
Empty of night's souls,
Only in dreams to vessels fill:
When sunrise overflows.

(This world of magic,
My lady lore,
And all these told
I've seen before.)

The sunrise coral on murky sea,
And no fish blinks an eye,
Feeding on the broken tap
At the end of sky.

(I've seen it happen,
It's happened before.
Perhaps each day,
Perhaps of yore.)

The tap will dry upon the morn,
And then they'll wake and see,
Their sun will rise, a fading rose
Wilting in decree:

"There was the secret, spoken before.
Hence the silence, and sleep no more."

Where Ideas Begin

No leaves do dance upon my palm,
I hold no song of elves.
Yet human voices rouse it sing;
(They let go of themselves).

The silk thread sky, the marble moon
Empty of their glow.
Only dreams do whispers fill
Of sunsets staining slow.

(This world of magic,
Our world of lore.
And all I've told,
I've seen before.)

Coral sunrise, the murky seas
Where no fish blinks an eye,
Feeding on the broken tap
At the end of sky.

(I've seen this happen,
It's happened before.
Perhaps each day,
Perhaps of yore.)

This tap, it dries upon the sun,
And then they'll wake and see.
On a bed of fading rose,
There the riches be.

"This is the song I've heard before.
These lines known, there will be more."

Insecurities

We hold the keys to our own chains,
These tendrils spread from our hands;
Carping words from our own mouths,
But courage, the heart expands!

These little battles we win each day
Coalesce into a war.
Pallid dreams of impervious nights
Evince, ask "what for"?

The preponderance, the impertinence,
The hegemony, hence,
The invectives, for each precious flaw
Are razed in their defense.

-PS: this was a vocabulary activity I had to do last year. Props to you if you knew all of these words in this context.

Ouch (RANT)

I've been saying that too often in my mind. Why is it that I can't feel true...success anymore? I haven't felt so hopeless in a subject since Algebra II. I thought that feeling would go away once I started thinking...truly thinking for myself. I thought I was turning over a brand new page from all of those nightmare math days of middle school. I guess I am, because....I hate to jinx myself, but math probably isn't my biggest worry right now. I probably failed my test today, but I feel like that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Who knew chemistry would be so hard? I mean, why did I tell myself I'd let myself be a pharmacist in the future if I'd have to see this sort of stuff every day? It's not fun, yet. I say that because I used to say that about math, and now math is fun.

I swear...I don't know what I'm supposed to do with myself anymore.

Perhaps I wouldn't care if I weren't in it so deep already. Perhaps I could just...go back to my middle school self. I was the girl who got B's in math. I seriously only got two A's in math my entire middle school career. I wasn't so competitive and demanding back then. I didn't care if I had two B's. That was fine with me. Perfectly fine.

Now, I demand straight A's, and I've gotten used to it. I even enjoy it, now, even if I need to be a lonely person in order to have such a goal. The world seems to make me soft.

I don't hang out with the most studious people all of the time. They frightened me and made me fear for my own sanity and self. I know I'll never be the smartest person. It wasn't their fault. I just...wasn't that sort of person.

Gosh, I feel like Holden Caulfield. That book hurt me more than it helped me, I think. Before reading it, I just listened to the melodic words and voices that meshed into poetry and whatever else I needed to keep my optimism. Now I hear his stupid, grammatically deficient voice in my head whenever I'm not feeling great about myself. It becomes my voice, and I hate that. What happened to the eloquent self that had existed before then? I can still call little white flowers midnight stars that remained pinned to the ivy when the canvas of night tore away from the empty sky, but those things aren't what my mind drinks anymore. Now it's demands that drown me day in and day out.

I swore to myself I would stay in this and get it done right. It seems all right. It seems okay. I'm competitive, right? I can do IB and get it done well.

The sad thing is, my competitive spirit just died. I'm being pulled down because I'm told that I CAN'T do this, that I'm not able to do this. I'm told that I can't do it right unless I let go of the thing that allows me to succeed. Of course, they don't know that. They pulled the plug on me. There's old water gathering around my toes: the spills that I've prevented for the past three years.

Seriously, IB's fun, but I need my sanity. I need people who are nice, accepting, and yet studious at the same time. I love letting my guard down more than I love being around studious people, but I need someone who will let me let my guard down without pulling other parts of me down as well.

Too bad, though. I'm stubborn as ever. I'll stay in this until I'm on the edge of the cliff. Even then, I'll cling to a tree. It'll be the story of my high school career.

I guess that's the part of IB that I'm missing. I sit at the seminar, and I feel like I don't know anyone around me anymore. There's no family in here. No one even tries to talk to me. They don't have to, but that's the whole point, isn't it? I don't make sense to them. I'm but a shadow in their lives that they step on when they walk, as I step on their shadows swiftly and silently. We're on our way. I'm just walking too fast and using the same road twice before I know what I'm doing. That's the way it's always been.

Is this how they eliminate people? The lone wolf doesn't do well, after all. I don't want to be the first to go, though. I just need...someone. I wish I didn't say that, but then, as Holden would insert, who the hell is reading this anyway?

Where Summer Lies

In the heart of memories,
Footsteps grow and stop
Like shadows upon the day,
Shaded into sidewalks
Where all their purpose lay.

All the time in the world
Is pushed into this lucky vein,
But a pulse, the colliding din;
In a spectrum bursting-
Knitting out and back in.

Here, summer's always summer,
The ground etched with tunneling desire
Where dreams wheel around,
Hanging on pet threads
As they pull in heat unsound.

Love

It's so strange how there are two areas of my life to which my heart heads when one or the other becomes too unbearable. It's as if I'm walking on a tightrope. On one end, there is a safe, but noisy and chaotic room that never seems to end in its tipping, clanging scales and understated cabarets. The other side is a room with an unending masquerade ball, in which the masks only come off when one believes too deeply. Everyone seems to look so majestic in their ball gowns and airs, while I'm still in my tight-rope walking, practical clothing desperately trying to draw on a good mask to hide the vulnerabilities and frailties.

At the moment, I'm loving the rowdy informal room a lot more. The drama that supposedly happens in show choir hasn't caught up to me until now. Of course, it's fairly mild, but that doesn't mean that it's not making me feel more vulnerable. Ironically, these buzzing rumors have helped me fit in! Still, the tight rope hasn't quite stopped wobbling. At some points, I feel as if I'm barely hanging on.

All these disappointments that I feel mix with the soap opera that runs through my head whenever I grow bored of reality. I was going to write a script about it, but I don't feel comfortable doing that. It seems to lack the artistic element that I love in poetry and that I highly tolerate and admire in novels and especially in short stories. I think I'm going to give up Script Frenzy. Maybe I'd be more commited to it if I had the time. Yet, I don't have the time or the motivation for it. Right now I'm wishing for the next noveling challenge. Apparently the Labor Day challenge had an entrance fee, so I don't think I'm going to do it. It would be fun, but I'm not sure fifty dollars is worth it. Maybe I'll just do it for my own sake and not be an official participant.