Ring

Treading
tingles with rose blush
Revealed: no tipping corset wielding,
Or semblance of blue romance,
This hard vein of vanity proudly small.

My semblance of passion, of mistake
Left by Lady Lore, not ever a miss;
Pursed lips, withdrawn further
Will empty just the same.

It was made to be there, thin promise,
Pursuing the notion (just slip it in)
To catch old Folly next door!
Such youth, we are reminded.

Epic?

Next challenge: 5000 lines of poetry in a month. EPIC! I hope I'll be able to finish. 163 lines of poetry a day is quite something. Maybe I'll change my mind against doing this after I finish Script Frenzy, which is in April. I wouldn't want to miss that, even if poetry mania sounds like fun too.

Center of the World

Lines of sand, threaded dust
Tangled where roots sink
Deeper and deeper,
The world upon itself.

Lines, filled upon landscape,
Light, net upon light;
All on vague seedy dreams:
Paris, Florence, Athens, Rome.

We’ll find ourselves again,
Falling, falling on this
Threadless sea, loose
Dreams bobbing down, back-
Again, up and running.

Somehow, I found the time to do this

There's always something to look forward to in life.

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.

Impossible

There is another globe,
Another universe
Waiting on the dawn,
Mismatched highways
Threading the earth.

Someday, we'll free ourselves;
Endless cycle, unattached
To a dream; the next one
Still unopened, yet
Pulled furthest from the sky.

Dew

A mystery of life
Suspends upon the morning,
Then falls back to sky.

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?

To whom it may concern...

When you threw me away, I felt like garbage. Then, I realized something: You crushed me and trampled me, but that certainly wouldn't break me. I'm made of sterner stuff. That's how the cycle goes, right?

Reduce, reuse, recycle.

It would be horrible if all of the emptied hearts like mine ended up in some permanent dump. I deserve better than to be kicked to the curb. Oh, yes! I'll find someone. He'll be organized and thrifty, most likely. Unlike you, he'll be a treehugger, he'll clean up after himself, and he'll take care of everything that belongs to him. Maybe he won't have much money, but he'll value me. He'll be there for me, no matter how bad I might smell in my old age. I'll be there for him when he's down on his luck. We'll be together. It'll last forever, until that faraway day when I turn to dust.

One person's trash is another person's treasure, after all. Too late to get me back now, though. I may not be a dime piece, but I know what I'm worth!

Lots of love,
Your recyclable water bottle

Desperate Tears

Cast off, you stranger tears
That tread our homely peace,
My fairest star upon the sea
Where all the eyes should cease.

Gaze upon the pleading moon,
And powdered, crumbling sky.
You hid with her these lonely nights
And drank our heavens dry.

Now, here we are,
drowning tonight
Below your dragging feet.
Leave us in our tangled hearts
Your salt, our bittersweet.

Concept Fishing

Line - that begins
(began) (began)
Fore/for thought fear
Little-crevices-niches; all,
BEFORE

FALL! the


Pause [short] of the short of the

[crumble]
words face down in dirt of rotten open wow oh um unknown

[repeat]

First Love

Perhaps it is she, before it broke,
Who built the hearts of clay;
Bare fingers push
tears in pockets-
A fingerprint landscape.

Declared it whole, framed
For a story,
Kept hanging in the parlor
To be told and taken down.

Still, it seeks;
Hope of being left behind,
Missing parts intact
just as it began,
Seeking.

Frozen Hope

My heart runs in cold blood,
And all daydreams do;
And the water of my thinking stream
A meager sapphire blue.

Then, eyes of coldest ice
Cross paths every day or two,
Silence running ahead, savage,
Lonely, as we do.

Defeated, my coldness then warm,
Never a fire does it hold true,
Yet coursing with its spring within
For hearts of plenty few.

Rough Beginnings

You had a second to smile at me,
Threefold, to blow a kiss.
A minute, make sure it reached me,
Your aim for the lips to miss.

You had an hour to find me,
I lost you a third the way:
A date to make my clock run wild
Without a map to stay.

Sixty one minutes, a tick of charm,
You landed on my watch.
Forty five minutes, I owe you still,
And counting, with this swatch.

Random Update

Scraps of time I took from the summer slipping through my fingers:

-took two lines from a poem, yet to have a real name

-played video games for the first time in a year and a half

-went shopping, bought absolutely nothing

What is it with this year's trends? Shopping isn't really about buying anymore...it's about laughing at what people would try to sell.

Of course, because summer is over, the maxidress trend is gone. We are now decked in checkered clothing and other things that have been dragged from the past. And, of course, none of this is cheap.

I think my responsibilities have finally smacked me across the face. If only immaterial things lasted longer than material things.

Prophecy (second attempt)

Not so far from phoenix cry,
A difficult, unlucky pry.
Magic born of open sky
Cage a story thrice defy:

A mortal end, immortal soul,
Duel plumes of dual goal.
Far from freedom, timeless foe
That one must cause the other woe.

With that shadow, left of age,
Hidden from untimely sage,
Hard it bodes, the war it wage
And one should die a timely mage.

Dream

Plummeting mischief,
Her wings spread wide, feathers dust
Sleep, a valley soft.

Watercolor Heart

My love so deep, a river sound
That catches all that brush my ground.
Strokes of fate, I call embrace,
And all the world with lovers' trace.

Leaves do plummet, red and gold
Which light upon a journey sold,
That eve of winter lease to fall,
To end her envy of us all.

But come, my love, to my banks
And wash away your journey woe,
That powdered flush upon your heart
To paint upon my months of floe.

Parallel Hearts

She drew her heart upon a sleeve
Which sits so high upon a sieve,
Sifting upon that love believe
Long, a frill should fall and grieve.

And yet, she turn a rounding gate,
Sweeping in a step of fate.
Men, alike, no challenge late
That leave her sitting dry, irate.

Such a man is hard to find,
Who turns his head without incline,
Yet lowered pause seeks half decline,
For both do draw a measured line.

A Poem...Blogs

Free verse, my sage,
My rebel child.
So far wandered,
My sweet Captive of a cloud.

No rhyme, no reason,
So they say,
Forever, at meters so forth
You distant sway.

Yet, beauty of you,
Dear unknown,
Sheds time and wings
That ask for themselves.
Perhaps, then,
I don't know all.

Hard Hearts Not Alike

A heart of gold too often finds
A catch in silver hearts inclined
Upon those threads of copper bold,
So still, the hearts around them mold.

What game is this, that riches play
Which falls upon a squandered day?

This jest of hammers, formless sheets
So precious ink, would never meet?

And yet, they sit in honest den
Where jewelers meddle, thieves again,
To forge for patrons, dull and brass,
So homely come, soft glowing pass.

Wandering Love

A promise fall in promised wake,
A lover's soul did leave and take.
Vain, a promise heart did make,
A lover scorned in lovers' wake.

Who was to know if they were true,
Vows so cast as lovers do?
Liars need those hearts so few
Which sow for truth as liars grew.

Perhaps, no truth, perhaps, no lie
Could pull the hook from anchored sky,
But eyes all virtue thrice defy
As glances send the heavens fly.

Post 100!!! I'm not sure if this is supposed to be an upcoming (now occuring, soon to be past) given for a devoted blogger, or simply a landmark that we all sleep by. Yet, still it must be a landmark. All numbers are one kind of landmark or another, whether a dagger in the eyes or a dagger to the eyes.

Half Blood Spoiler

Half of me is the fan, smiling the whole time.

Half of me is the spoiler, wishing all of this would just go and die.

I'll post more later about the specifics, but I felt the need to post my initial reaction.

Let's start with some marks, shall we?

Let's say that this is based on acting and other aspects of portraying a character's presence in a movie:

The Good Guys:

Dumbledore and Fawkes: Acceptable

Harry Potter: Exceeds Expectations

Hermione Granger: Exceeds Expectations

Ronald Weasley: Outstanding

Ginny: Acceptable

Fred and George: Outstanding

Molly and Arthur Weasley: Exceeds Expectations

Cormac McLaggen, Lavender Brown: Outstanding

Hagrid: Acceptable

Leann and Katie: Acceptable

Horace Slughorn and Professor McGonagall: Outstanding

Luna Lovegood- Outstanding


The Bad Guys:

Draco Malfoy: Outstanding

Narcissa Malfoy: Acceptable

Bellatrix Lestrange: Outstanding

Severus Snape: Exceeds Expectations

Fenrir Grayback: Acceptable

Tom Riddle: Outstanding

Blaise Zambini and Pansy Parkinson: Acceptable

Inferi: Dreadful

Twilight trailer shown before movie: TROLL



Other basic things:

Technical Aspects:

Dialogue- Poor

Score- Acceptable

Important scenes- Acceptable

Side plots/Less-important scenes- Outstanding

Death scenes- Acceptable

Transitions- Poor

Depth- Exceeds Expectations

Camera Angles- Exceeds Expectations

Graphics- Outstanding

Sketchpad Lullaby

The world is all of yours to draw,
A breadth beyond your veins.
Each breath you take, a step you make
To drive your treasures, reined:

Your logic and a dripping brush
Upon a mirror pool,
Dipping where those fall in place,
Your arcs and your slide rule.

Your needle and your nimble thread
That prick a harvest ripe.
Sow and sew of all you need,
And nothing more, that type.

Someday, like me, you'll turn your page
Upon this canvas world,
This world you shade in all its shades,
Says an oyster to its pearl.

Daydream

The heart does sing a prideful song
That waltzes on the tongue,
A pittance, that the sweetest air
Jumps down a healthy lung.

Such joyous things, it sweeps and sings
When parting with the mind,
Sipping from a sweetest dream,
A tired road behind.

And yet, it knows, as it grows and grows
That hopes have far to go.
It did get lost at journey's end,
Its story yet to flow.

Preserving the Past

Memory, jettisoned
Upon a threaded muse
To spin, weave
Tall tales of the day:

Gathered spools, it falls
A pearly pool, cotton cream
Burning at the night,

Wise ones hide
Among the fringe,
Tangling through, running
Until they hang like silk.

This will all fade,
Firm tapestry upon stone.
Still, the walls remain.

Mosaic Imagination

A hundred bits of heart and soul
That layer nature's pride,
The brightest shards of painted stain,
Kaleidoscopic slide.

My fading bits of longing prose,
Your palette bright with dawn,
A hundred blooms, a hundred wilts
Of memories' sweet spawn.

Why, all the treasures of the world
Drift here on lighted sea!
Where words do dock from sailing tales,
Find ground and company.

Implied Exchange

A picture buys a thousand words,
A purchase made with pride.
To find a struggle, left and right
For the image framed inside!

For words do run so far away
Once they leave the mind,
Gluing themselves to broken hearts
And promises to find.

At last, each word:
A collage,
And its own to rearrange.
Why buy words, a pictureful
When all the world exchange?

Harvest Cycles

Peace does sit on woven thrones,
Where peace does prosper,
Die in flame.

Peace does thrive on hope alone,
For death is but the heart to blame.

It scatters grain upon the sky,
Watch its promise, light and true.
A king may build a mighty throne;
To sit on it, would never do.

For words, like husks, will fall away,
Emptied of their growing seed.
In the wind, so fierce a fray
They hold but whispered, drifting deed.

In the end, the riches free
Are paid with those with alms to spare.
Riches sowed and feasted glee
Reborn, a hope with little care.

Great Spirit

Stride the world with humble tread
That shadows all your woe,
The moon does shine in deepest night
That arms a broken bow.

Your troubles are those far ahead,
So far, they fall behind.
Follow those that plead your path
Like bitter melon rind.

Touch, then, touch our lives,
Your pride upon the sash.
That window of the darkest soul,
That shard among the ash.

Prophecy

Tread on stars,
The sun's weeping trail
Against the thirsty sky.

A fixture
Upon this darkest night,
For peace never sleeps.

We're waiting,
All waiting
For when the fools do wake.

The Setting of the Sun

Shadow runners
Carpet polished sky,
Late sunset
Muffled,
Not blooming
In all the draping trees.

Still foliage flickers
Still trees,
Still hedges,
All brace against
The fall of the day.

Night is the real surprise,
Sweeping black satin
Trail of a dancing dress;
Restless, but sure of foot.

Sampler Memory

Shards of faded calico,
Prints alive
Upon a cotton square.

The blues,
Dyed by seeping spring;
An evening sky of indigo
The nightly rain did bring.

Reds, yellows
Upon a gambling eve!
Greens, preserve,
The fall in turn receive.

But the sun, seamstress
Scorns the novice sky.
All threadbare lessons
Until the spring comes by.

The Man of the Moon

Her face is not a palest moon,
For shadows wait a velvet sky,
Painting, painting their mistress
In lonely months gone by.

Yet, a man does sit in longing eye,
Unaware of the world
When she sits high,
Carved of the same fancy:
A man, but a man, she sigh...

So be not the shadows,
Always standing by;
And the lover, be not the moon
In our own, changing sky.

Waning Moon

Pale dancers scatter
Against polished floor,
Puffs of tulle gathering
Where the fairest maid waits
To mourn a measured dream:

Her waltz across a private sky,
Pairs and pairs of slippers fly
On crystal stair, that ocean by,
So close to where sailed heartstrings dry!

Then a tango in the vineyard lanes,
Where desire grows,
Those ripest grains;
That eat at princes', paupers' stains
Until a seeded want remains.

She had wanted to touch the ground,
Then and there,
Be fooled, to truly have tangled
In that fragrance fair.

But last, a city
Chased
Light at heart,
Jaded suns
Where darkness start.

And so she knew,
Remembered again,
A shadow cross
Her brightest face,
That Earth, so treaded bright,
Was not her place.

Delayed Advance

A strange maneuver,
Dangling the sun
So high, a pendulum
Upon the marble stair:

Cloud, no longer heavy;
No laughter raining down,
Then booming reprimand.

Thin relief nets now,
Draw sweeping arcs,
Supple foliage
Still fat with dew.

Yet, all the world surrenders,
Arms open
As chains of hazy cloud
Bow away.

Love In Color

His eyes did pierce the birthing sac
Of all the colors, miracles
That trickled from the sky.

So sad were they, in their untrained day,
That they'd turned a world a murky gray.

For now, dawn fell like pleats of gray,
Ironed out by the heating sun.
Noon did fall like painters' gray,
Finishing what the dawn had done.

And so the day went,
And so the day came.
And all the days
Were just the same.

All the gray smiles with gray parted lips,
For people still gray laughed their fill.
All the gray jobs and silent quips,
For people still gray firmed their will.

All the doves that plagued gray skies,
For peace, still gray, did push and shove.
All the gray people who couldn't tell lies,
For people still gray knew to love.

So, then, someone loved him.
Blind to gray, and all was gray.
More blind than he,
Who turned color away.

She gave him song,
She gave him grief.
She gave him all
Eyes couldn't bequeath.

He gave her joy,
And all he made.
He gave her tales
Where color stayed.

One night, when
Rainbows swirled in her mind,
And his mouth was full
Of gray pleas to find,
He drew her tears,
Which she couldn't see,
And wove a thread of ecstasy.

And so the night went,
And so the night came.
And never his night
Was quite the same.

For now, dawn fell like lover's sigh,
With all the flushes
Where they belonged, on high.
For now, noon swept like phoenix wing,
Rising, falling in royal swing.

And night, oh night in all its joy,
His eyes, so piercing,
A star's envoy.

Understated Sunset

Summer cocks its sepia head,
The colors of the day
Seeping to a last-minute question.

What if?

Should the dry woven plot,
That lattice after days,
Have once been reeds
Bent,
Rooted against
The current of the sky.

Late Blooming Irony

Late spring peppered on a bough,
Whispered words, ghosts
Upon a woven pool;
Hung in the silent leaves,
Eavesdropping
For a story all its own:

A glorious rose of the moment,
Extended for a wiry time.
No expected blush
Nor freshest pride.

But a last fray, alone,
For curious blythe sweeping
In a gown too plain.

It never quite caught summer's eye,
Racing through, beckoning,
Thornless,
From a sheer shadow.

Ephemeral Wonder

To rescue a pinch of sunset
From the ending of its days,
Not knowing where it came from,
Or why so highly praise.

There it was, on a shadow,
Waiting to rest, be strange once more.
That's all a sunset knows,
For nothing came before.

So difficult, to start an end;
Package it, wait out its death.
How to wrap this memory
When the box is all that's left?

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.

Celestial Want

Lady Heaven bade the bumbling Night,
That drunken poet's pride,
To blind an eye on a fullest moon,
All shadows cast aside.

Then she went to court the quarry,
That pebble in the Sea,
That Night had thrown a skipping stone,
Lonely, an isle could be.

A man, however, had reached that orb
That trailed the careless Dark.
He'd sowed his wildest hopes and fears,
His roots in white so stark.

But Heaven, oh help her, set her mind
To carve a mask of moon.
Bright and shining, all shadows shed
So even Night would swoon.

Only she would dare- cross he, sowed there,
Despite the night half blind.
The man, indeed, had been hard with greed,
For dreams could not rewind.

Lucky for her, he fell in love
With her shining silver tress.
Lucky for him, she flirted away
While fishing for redress.

And in the end, neither could leave
The other's want behind.
The mask of moon, hung in the sky,
Is Heaven's courting find.

Magnolia Tree (II)

A missed summer falls
Upon a wilted spring,
Clinging, fading
Shards of old silk;
An embroidered tempest
Of glimmering script.

Props of an old stage
Peek from old frames.
Imagination cascades-
Curtains, not curtain calls
Rest first impressions.
Unending wonder.

Hedges

Fixtures of summer;
Blocks of sullen, shadowed bloom
Mild the summer glow.

A Moving Performance

We are not her audience,
Those for whom she sings
A beating pulse
Long wrapped, sewn
Around her humming heart.

A true wildness lies there,
Where wind blows in all the ways
It knows, needs not know:
So much, that strange silk hooked
Like meadows to brush.

A stage frames this souvenir,
Cries of every rain she came upon-
Open sorrow and open life
As they left dying blessings,
Peaceful as they come.

We are creatures of habit, indeed,
Collecting memories for display
To know someone else;
Gifts, so many gifts
To remember those of Luck.

Summer Patchwork

A refuge, equal need and deed
Unsure of how to sleep,
Its patchwork quilt of memory
Too many seasons keep.

Just half a canvas short, perhaps,
Of pressed pastoral dreams,:
A summer harvest bloom and ripe-
But deserts at its seams!

A country autumn, postmarked, then,
That splatters humble groves,
The waiting smiles of cinnamon
That crackle at late stoves.

But shores that whisper close to home,
And not two months away,
Can bake a winter heart in sand
Too slow for longest day.

Eternal Spring

Intricate fountains trickle the sun,
Each summer petal
Still wrought with fits of May-
Its rusting light
Yet glowing from soft rains.

An exquisite, empty welcome;
Slow dreams
Drape easy and blooming-
The only color to perfect itself
After spilled canvas debut.

Each daylight chandelier
With its fine pale joints
Serves its own revelry,
As a rooted heart, not yet worn,
Sleeps on.

Temporary Domain

Cascade of greenery,
A crown of lush shadow
Where the heart lies,
Unafraid of the world.

Fluttering wings windfall,
Their glossy tips still wet;
Dew hidden, free
From the tangled strands of sun-
The eaves, falling falling
To a deep sitting ground.

All the while,
A resting dawn lays down
In the billowing shadows.

Library

Columns of brick like columns of stone:
Young, like the people.
Books always new, old friends
Who never needed remembering.

Adobe tiles, crevices
Hide a fortress of time, the wars
Always wage themselves,
But the bulwark never walked away.

So much sunshine upon old walls, thread
New silence that is found within:
That true enlightenment
Shining through balmy shadows.

Rain will curtain in and out,
Skeletons of storm, untouched
Specters against the windows,
Where spiders narrow rule.

In the end, we are like them all:
Lines like the pale folds of webs,
The volumes, cradled stories
Building, rebuilding the shelves.

Netting the Sky

Familiar shapes net my sky,
The walls and all their friends
That are silent where it ends
And glowing where it seams.

When the hazy trickle
Of the heavy heavens slows,
They are the fishers, feasters
To the long summer evening.

A piece of stream falls to me,
Waving and trapped in the thick glass,
The capsule that always will be;
Have me searching, looking to
Where the sky is let go.

Twilight

A book that fell in love
With itself, dreams of reality
And it's own stolen lessons,

Undone pillars of reason, cold veins
Sculpt its bare-thread path
Where no one dared to cross.

It was not believing,
More like carrying a wind
To see it through a familiar place.

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.

Cloudy Thoughts

Forgotten colors, on most days
Stain here between the sun and moon,
The best place to fish, drink in
A misplaced dream, a finished night
To store away in a thinking pond.

Grazing fancies eat their fill
Of candy floss spread so thick.
Meant to catch the falling stars,
One and all too heavy
For the heavens to hold,
As impossible dreams nest away
At the rafters of our sky.

Half the Brilliance

Those silly notions,
Dancing upon old drums
To mere rhythms that slap
On the fine mesh air!

Fancy did finger, surely,
Strum the wisps of will
Til they frayed and waxed
Like old sailor's knots.

If only, if only
They were smooth
And not splintered,
Like all the other planks
Where I chanced a plunge.

The Given Things

Threading the earth
With persistent memories
That shade a marble sky,

That cool stained glass of long ago,
Glowing and fresh in little saplings
That sleep, knotted at the roots.

It never needed silly dreams,
Vague songs with crystal spools
Of icy taste and twang,
Steamed cold when plucked
From the stores of the mind.

A forgotten loom was in those shadows
That raced darkness up the wall
Weaving in a teetering dance.

Spring, summer, winter, fall;
Always but a few memories
As they tangle in the grove,
Where words still court them.

Diminished Discovery

The dreamer with her palette stay,
Blind with color, peace of mind.
Struggles in their cradle lay,
Their anguish not their own to find.

Shimmering rows of gladly found
Enjoyment, their unsaid find.
Who is a novice, loud to say
They'd know their skill in quick rewind?

A foolhardy price, for endless dreams
That dangle in their dust,
For a heart so wound in lines of silk
Should forget metallic lust.

The Artist of the Moment

Gather the color, the time
Falling upon the unpolished ground.
Give it structure, laced magic
That holds up in tilted sound.

Ideas can only stand, after all,
Waver so long as the mind is still
And shivering with anticipation,
Poised with endless diving will.

Dress this victim of self and speed
In the splash of fear, lovingly tucked-
Beside all the dry trophies
And weighty relief so plucked.

Free Spirits

Our lives run in parallel,
The same street where everyone ran
And people dreamed too fast.

Then they stopped,
Ran out of dreams to sleep on
And smiled when we had more.

By the time they ran again,
They had learned how to walk,
And the road was free again.

Volumes of Fantasy

A traveling friend from long ago
Came bound with cotton thread.
Full of words, he spoke of spells
And left with gold instead.

Still, I wandered, still half blind
To where he'd really gone.
It wasn't he that I looked for,
But what he'd come upon:

A world where people lived for love
And died for what was good,
Where money came with silly names
As silly treasures should.

Where evil found a second chance
If it looked hard enough,
Where homes were built on love alone
And fairy tales were tough.

How hard I looked,
How free I felt
To be bound by magic spells!
To wash the hand that fate had dealt
And all the wishing wells!

The traveler came bounding back,
Still bound, but painted bold.
Telling me this place to be
If dreams were turned to gold.

*Inspired by my Harry Potter reading experience

Ode to Poetry

Thou ill-formed lover,
No friend of mine.
That I should see
A merry heart, thine.

Thou, who lovest not hours
And not summer days,
When all the world
Doth love as praise.

Thou, who keepest night
Fain a gift to thee,
To quake my dreams
With felled mystery.

A saucy fool, thou dress to be,
Thy gold my eyes have yet to see,
But to thy handsome, timid glee,
I do call thou my curiosity.

Magnolia Tree

A shifting mosaic
of perfumed shadow,
Sweet and replenished
Light searching
For a root and stem-
An unfinished story.

Too easily it stumbles,
Anchors a finished portrait
For the late pressed spring;
Glimmering shards
In the form of silence:
Yet an unnamed summer.

Snowflake

Four seasons trapped
In baited breeze, the winter caught a spell.
When he was here, it was spring,
Wish waters in the well.

His heart was framed with icy flame
That singed with all my fears.
In the center, the purest gem
That unfogged diamond's tears.

To embrace the laughter as it fell,
That crystal lattice net!
His arms, a palace in the storm,
The want his eyes beget!

If only I knew the frozen ground
Would greet him with such ease,
That my cup of lukewarm time
Was but a passing tease.

Time

Time flies on the back
Of a bird who sings too well,
Its mind on its wings
As it tries to fly on feathers alone.

Long ago, it was shown the way
To race the sunset, the sunrise
By drinking trickling splashes
As the sun spilled its ripest wares.

Thus, it tasted the end of the sky,
The pinched beginning
When it flew the other way.
But why go to and fro
If they tasted just the same?

Night Life

The stiff, starched sky falls upon itself,
Hard ripples dipping in scattered spotlight
Fixed just beyond the wings, the story arc
The actors knew too well.

Still, there's a mystery frantic backstage
In a plaza of painted life
Where the powder and frill is gone,
Yet the true stars still shine.

A curious carousel is the chandelier,
The silver chains and gold finish
Dusted away by the timeful night
As crystals spin, spin in unhinged eyes so few.

An exquisite symphony breaks its box
Of softened war and sharpened strife
Until it becomes a trickle of leaves,
Left from the summer of sparkling scores.

Here all but lovers, dreamers sleep,
The night does dangle on hanging alleys,
These so alert with familiar fear
For a show all its own.

Poems and such

I think this blog is like my front desk to the world, the small small world that it is. I'm a fairly shy person, after all. Consequently, I'm given the liberty to discuss to my satisfaction all of the little things that greet me and sit in front of me when they decide to wander beyond the main road for a while and see me.

I did the "Love" exercise again today, which is basically a list of 100 things that one loves and cannot live without. It does help orient one's creativity in the right direction, even if the gears are basically restarting and do need time to reboot. It did take me a while to get my consciousness and my words back on track. It's like my mini-rehab, on the go. Once I was back, it felt great!

Hopefully my overflow of poetry this time will be better than last time?

What I Couldn't Say

The silent storyteller suffers more suspense than the waiting audience. The words cling to the mind instead of the tongue like icy water on an arctic expedition. Mutiny. Everyone wants to go home, of course. The skin misses the feeling of being human, being loved and respected because a ship can never stop floating on, drifting away even when there is no wind. It is not a human journey after some point in time. It is a number of heartbeats, not a number of beating hearts. It is a number with units of mass, not a number of the confined things that amass and gather nothing, but are still held in the fragile cages of the withering, confused soul. Still, the little stack of wood and exaggerated matches makes the journey beyond the maker of its journey. What is one cell, one body gone as long as the rest keep moving on? Some things will always, are bound to keep going.

Take the sum of at least seven wills to survive, and what is the outcome? An inequality, of course, an inverse equation pushed upon the sole, stable constant of simply being. It's still the physical world, after all. There must be something that is tangible in order for this to pull itself out of bed in the morning and sneak off while the mind is still asleep.

Presence is all that is needed for movement. Presence is movement, as the air is never still and the stream is never quite clear. We are all washing, of course. Trying to redeem ourselves so that our hands our clean but our minds are muddled. The feeling of being wet, even after the storm makes us feel alive. It's as if we're defiant of the water, the flood that's bound to wipe our dear hearts. Of course, the most painful of hearts drowns slowly and silently in its own pain.

This could very well be in a lonely little bathtub while the ship is a tumbling ice tray in a jumbled icebox. This could be the very essence of summer rebelling against the reality of the situation outside the unchanging tile walls. It's not as if one person takes one seat at one time, after all. Where does the winter go when the summer decides it's time to sweep in? It sits in its own little waiting room, or perhaps does a few rounds in the hall, bottling up all of the sickness and anger until someone just seems to call the right name. Then, the cold pinch of ice flickers and squeezes its miserly self into a random summer shower, as happens every year. Of course, the waiting is never cured.

Still, the impossible is so easily filed. It's only more complicated when imaginary clients of creativity start to make friends, as people do on these misleading voyages of leisure.

Beauty

As I predicted, my creative juices ran wild and sour, and took a while to come back to me. I guess it's nice, finding the occasional relief from sanity. Still, it cannot last too long. I cannot always be alone, lest I fall to other fears and other things that I so despise when my mind is in a reasonable state. Why, did I not write the best of poems and such when I surrounded myself with sane company?

Yet, I know that I'm rather crazy. I took four depression symptoms tests yesterday online. Two of them found me severely depressed, while the other two said I was either mildly depressed or nothing to worry about. I didn't take that test because I was worried, though. I took the test because I read a blog about how people often are diagnosed and prescribed wrongly, making their eccentricity and beauty all go away just because it wasn't exactly what the majority of society expected.

Perhaps that's why I like dead flowers. Not dead, as in completely dead, but dying. Especially if such flowers are fake. They show themselves to be dying, and yet they're always alive, in their deaths. They're perpetually dying, and therefore perpetually changing and morphing. It's a strange phenomenon, to be still and yet changing. It's almost an idea, a spiritual idea that doesn't die until the beauty, the need to see the motion dies. Could that be called a graceful death?

Of course, the silk flower that sits in my room actually points toward the sun and is perpetually glowing in its golden-pink fading, as if it were made of light instead of mere silk. It grows lighter and lighter as it ages, until the pink that connects it to the living will be but a shadow: only in the dark. Not that it's a very noticeable change.

You see, now, how my mind and my physical presence are so contradicting. It's difficult, but I'm happy that it's so. Especially after a weekend of being one person both inside and out.

It's ironic that the quizzes told me I was extremely unlikely to have a dual personality, even if the symptoms sound so extreme.

Time to find some real "objective" beauty in the world, if my classes haven't stomped it all out of me yet. :[

Sunrise

Soft morning breaks in little blocks
Like butter in the dish.

First tendrils of a newest taste
Easy on the skin, the eyes
Before it begins to sizzle,
And time fries.

Our minds are cold,
Preserved vaguely from the day before.
Freezer burned, some could say,
Refridgerated all the more.

Sunrise is the first reminder,
Surviving the remains of the day
To tell us how it goes;
Working a sleeping recipe
But awaking us-
Our crackling starts-
As it flows.

[Read the post titled Journal Entry for an introduction to this series]

Night

A living soul finds no answers,
Awakened in a world of dreams.
For reason lies, unescaped
From the mind, such curious seams.

Dreams become the dreamer,
Shadows become solid sweet
As the numbing skull.
Fancies become questions
But to no doors they pull.

No heavy curtains reveal the dark,
But clumsy, stained glass eyes
Seldom hold the murky ink
Prewritten, to night's surprise.

[Read the post titled Journal Entry for an introduction to this series]

Amusement Park (II)

Unmask the fears
Of humans past.
Turn off the unknown,
Tie the fear to its last.

Embroidered edges of true goodbye,
Cut, the sharp, unending sigh:
Unneeded, to just recall one chance
For a million collected present a lance:
Defiance, to shake the living unreal,
A pretty penny just to feel.

After all,
The sharpest spear is brushed to hone
Until it becomes a stepping stone.

[Read the post titled Journal Entry for an introduction to this series]

Simplicity of Life

Things of beauty
Grow from cold ground.
Watered by anger
That makes not a sound.

Pushing, pushing
Fresh humility to dew.
Icy drops glinting
Slowly as they grew.

Until the sun rose
To see its steady pride,
But blocks of fresh color
To take in its stride.

[Read the post titled Journal Entry for an introduction to this series]

Amusement Park

Questions, questions
Coursing through my mind!
Stop the fear, stop the flow
Of happy things unwind.

Touch upon the things unknown,
Be silent, for good times already spent.
Stay trapped within a grounded stop
Even though my dreams repent.

In my sleep I'll feel the wind
Brush screams upon my veins.
My iron nerves will fall away,
The theme of the day retains.

[Read the post titled Journal Entry for an introduction to this series]

On of the Shoulders of Giants

Standing on the slopes of boulders,
Spirits heavy and minds long gone,
The sun becomes a measured shadow,
I wonder what I stand upon.

Beauty beyond and pleasure close,
I look, entranced by the musty view
From the silent peace of heroes left
Exhaustion with their present spew.

And what of my day, then?
Just beyond their critique, their swerving eye.
What am I to capture in this widest world
When the past is all I pry?

[Read the post titled Journal Entry for an introduction to this series]

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.

My Room

Teeming, spilling in opportunity;
The air old with apathy,
New with defeat and challenge
In its complacent maze.

Uneasy upon the gaze
To the keeper of the labyrinth
And lost souls alike,
All searching for new ways out.

Keys should be aplenty, no doubt
Going up and down
Endless clues and new time:
In and out, then back again.


Not that I mind. Perhaps it could be called character development, as most of the mess is currently comprised of old drafts and unpublished poems? It's not like I can throw most of it away...I think. I think I'll start a separate folder for old drafts, before I lose something valuable.

Apparently, I still have many written drafts that I had deemed to be lost. Thank goodness for my past organizational platform. It's still working for me, even if my room does look like Staples threw up all over it.

Family Dog

His eyes twinkle with questions,
With stars he never knew
When he yelped at the moon,
Too small to fill the night.

Perhaps, then, his stone soul moved,
Stretched from where it began
To hope, to expect,
For a moment, he would see
Beyond his worn world.

Wall after all comes down, though,
Fearing his needs and trusting the years
Had tamed his instinct,
For he no longer howled.

Now he is like us,
Waiting for something else
Not quite found,
In our seldom civility.

Fate Is Good

Yesterday, I decided to do some shopping online. I guess I wanted to indulge a little bit on material things before I started saving up money. It's not like I need many things (or anything) anyway. I just had this perfect outfit planned out , and I bought it. It was on sale, so I didn't mind.

Of course, I'm not familiar with online protocol. I make an order, only to find that one of the items I ordered will not be shipped because they had run out while I was in the process of ordering. Seriously?? What kind of store does that? Wouldn't you think that "add to shopping cart" meant that it would be "in your shopping cart" and not in someone else's? It's not like I went off line and left my shopping cart sitting there.

And then I order the two items that are still "in stock", only to find that one of the items had disappeared between the time that I placed my order and the time that my order was processed. That made even less sense. Back to the shopping cart metaphor, that's like someone just snatched something from me AFTER I paid for it. Of course, because it's a credit card order, they didn't technically steal anything. They just gave me my money back.

Sadly, I used someone else's credit card and paid them in cash. I did this before the wonderful customer service told me how very sorry they were in their most recent email.

Why is everything a loose term on the Internet?

Shopping cart- organizational unit for the seller, not the consumer. Especially not when the consumer is a thrifty one. No privacy value in this container, mind. Not even a temporary one.

Order- something similar to the action completed at a cash register. Of course, if someone else had their eyes set on the same thing, it's a free-for-all scramble over which the consumer has no control. No one gets hurt. Someone just has to look like a fool in the end. Yeah, it's going to be fun trying to explain how the order had been processed, but one of the items isn't going to ship. It's going to be fun trying to physically get my money back, wetseal.com. Thanks.

Tracking Number- a complicated string of numbers that allows you to stalk your package as it makes its way to your home. Type one number or letter incorrectly, and your number is just a bit of false reassurance. Adds salt to the wound, doesn't it? You'd think they'd at least give me the right number after all of the "unfortunate" circumstances they put me through.

I think I'm just PMSing. Usually I would find this rational. Usually I wouldn't swear a blue streak (well...comparatively blue), but I did.

You know what? I think I'll go bother their customer service right now about this instead of unloading this FML moment onto my blog audience. It's their fault, not yours.

Rose-tinted Cycles

She flaunts pale envy,
Colors sliding off her shoulders
In layers of broken sensibility,
The order of the day around her arm.

Catching the day as she turns her head,
That store window hair.

Yet, it all mismatches the morning,
That exploited peace of mind
Found in her pretty face.

The world window-shops,
Mildly, with her in mind.

Can't quite touch her exact moment
Where they are, for they had been there
In those five minute shades,
Walked in those five hour shoes.

Later they will see differently,
Should walk longer than she.
Until memories are forgotten
And the style is "vintage".

In Love

We made our reservations
On the corner of the street.
Where there's an intersection,
Two souls should seldom meet.

But we did, did we not?
Between the glassy sunsets,
The shining cloudy days.
Between the past and future,
The moon that always stays,
Where we followed signs.
Not for us, walking.
Shadows we didn't see,
Locking eyes for a second,
Afraid of what should be.

And the world sighed in relief,
Kept walking, rustling all the ways
The sun tried to shine.
For a moment, though,
Our shadows lay unbroken
And your destination was mine.

It never ends

Oh, just now a comment made my heart ache. It's strange how some things can only be explained by the heart, which makes them all the more necessary. Yet, the speaker of such things (the heart), can only be understood by a certain number of people. This sounds horrible, but I feel like I made the right decision, even if so many other people disagree.

I genuinely believe that someone just spoke to me from her heart, which had wishes that clashed with my heart. After all, we're not the same person. Our nuances make us the people that we are, and this was bound to happen, especially with the level at which we were corresponding. It hurt me to hear her good wishes for me, especially because they were far-removed from coming true. I'm not one to be impatient with such things, but it seems too distant for my current state of mind. Perhaps I was never the person that she saw in me, or I simply don't see the same person in the mirror that she sees when she looks at me.

That shows most clearly of all the two years that separate us, the experience and the sense of power that radiated from her sense of knowing, of self-understanding that I seldom find outside of writing. Perhaps that's why I look at her and I see someone that I can be in two years. Perhaps we could have been friends, if I didn't see her as someone with so much to offer, and I with so little to offer other than my shy, mild outlook. Once again, these are my own troubles. Who am I to ask someone else to deal with them and deal with them for me? I have friends because I managed to get past these things with a select number of people.

We may have disagreed, as I have disagreed with many people over this issue, but in the end, we saw eye to eye. Not that it really matters, in this little, unknown slice of cyberspace that will never quite reach reality. It is but a microcosm of my faults and fortes, after all. Still, I know that she's right, just like the words that I write when no one is looking. Those few words I hide, because I'm afraid of what the world can do with a well-placed measure of self-confidence. Outlooks and inferences are easily corrupted, after all.

I didn't expect such a comment to hit home. That's never happened before. I guess that's what I get when I talk to a creative writer with my skills and her skills in the same miniscule litlte arena that I set up for myself. I appreciated it, of course. It was just difficult to communicate with such depth on some bit of reality that never required such depth to me. School, that is. And school is supposed to be out for the summer.

I'm currently working on a story. I'll post it once I finish typing it up. That electronic task seems to be the hard part.

Anniversary (a short story)

Thirty years. Perhaps it would take precisely thirty years. Perhaps even more.

Perhaps it was wrong, no, more than wrong to ask that he surrender so much for her. Yet, she was consumed by need and wished that he gave her every reason to feel this way. After all, it wasn't every day that he was allowed to feel such a love and it wasn't every day that she was keen to these things. To be specific, it was but a moment in time in which the missing piece of the puzzle revealed itself, as mysteries did at every moment. Of course, only specific people were relevant to these phenomena and cared about them at each particular moment.


Perhaps this was their moment, stupid as it seemed, impossible and real...


I swore to myself that I would never fall in love, no matter how much it was needed. Wasn't the truth that everyone knew always a bit false, just because it was on everyone's lips? Still, because everyone says the same thing it becomes a chant and a mold for life. Few are brave enough to ask whether any of these words actually had roots as well as aspirations.


My husband sleeps beside me. We are a part of that delirious, yet unsettled mass of people pretending to believe the same thing. We have been married for thirty years, more or less. For a fact, we are kind, simple, and practical. I have never gone a day without some bit of turmoil over my emotions in this marriage, just like any other couple. Is that supposed to be surprising? That says something, doesn't it?


I turn out the lights after leaving my thoughts away from the bed, so that they are safe. My husband knows that I need to lay there for a while with the lights on, for I do it every night, until I am sure that I will sleep. He simply snores.


Laughable, is it not? Perhaps I snore too. I'll never be sure, but I'm sure that I have my bad habits. Still it is good to know that I can look forward to reassuring silence upon these doubts the next morning. I will most likely wake up with no smile on my face, except for the one that I must give my husband as he wakes and keeps...surviving for our sake. It is as if my smile hangs on the bedpost, waiting for me on its hook in the corner.


I make toast and coffee, the rich aroma and the same bread never quite leaving this corner of the kitchen, this niche of our lives. Even so, it is always alive, always fighting back the years and the empty dust that would exist without its tiered, multi-dimensional scent that seems to catch the morning in multiple places. I think we've tried several different kinds of coffee in our three decades or so, and that is why the smell is layered. The toast is the only thing that can wash down so many years of unchanging starts, brand new days. We will probably never give it up.


"The toast is good today." He jokes. He'll probably make the same joke after cutting, pasting, rearranging the words to make them fit in his briefcase. He'll save it for his boss or a coworker. I nod, knowing that it will suffice. I swore that I would never fall in love, after all. I turn around to pour myself a cup of coffee, seeing only the side of his face that began the joke.


"Goodbye, Jim!" I call out. I probably do it at the same time every morning. It wasn't always so, but now my words have accumulated on the coat rack next to the door. Here is yet another niche of my life.


Time passes. It's almost easier without him here. I swore I would do this, and I do. All of those memories we had built up over the years, the formalities becoming pleasantries and the pleasantries becoming something like automatic reflex. It's a game to see who can hold out the longest. I'm alone, however, and this is the break between rounds. I know he has a picture of me, perhaps more than one picture, on his desk. Some of my old...refreshments have good missing, after all. He must know that I look at old photographs and let myself go, because nothing in the house is ever quite dusty enough to need cleaning. Therefore, we are happy.


I used to wish that I were still working, so that I wouldn't need to be home. Yet, I would come home wanting him and wishing that I didn't want him so much. It is a game that only children have to play, I am sure. Still, we are none the wiser for it. We live comfortably now that one of us is always waiting, waiting and not requiring anything but for time to simply pass.


I cook, I read, and I wait for a different past, a different present to come into being for me because I know that it will never happen. I'm not sure how many years it will take (or it has taken) for Jim to understand this. He is one of those few men who are simple at heart and yet not so much in the mind. It's a strange complication, but it probably won't ever bother me. Yes, Jim will be due home any moment now.


Comparable to how I only saw the side of his face that began the joke, I silently acknowledge the end of it as I reach for his coat and tell him softly that dinner is ready. He seems unnaturally stiff today. Perhaps he is always like this after a busy day, and it simply that I am tired as well and it is easier to notice that way. I did have many thoughts today, among that pesky little fear of having fallen in love.


These words, all of these words seem particularly heavy.


I wrap my arms around him, simply unable to unbutton the coat, the façade he wears even beyond his suit. He seems to be on the verge of an idea, while my daily ritual seems unnecessarily distorted.


Suddenly, he grabs my hands, pulling off the old coat that has never quite gone out of style for a man like him. He, of course, manages to get the fastenings off. I realize that he has never needed this ritual of mine. He has simply grown bulkier with age, as many men do, obviously not maintaining the thin, lean form that he had when we first met. What reason does he have to keep himself in shape, after all? I certainly had only distant eyes for it.


Perhaps he knows my empty disappointment, as he clasps my hands with his while I'm still wrapped around him. We stand there for a moment, until the far-off sound of a television calls us to dinner with its rapid tones and manufactured interest. My eyes open instantly, still not quite certain that they had really been closed. I remove myself from the scene. When Jim doesn’t move, I know something deeper is going on. Does he know as well as I?


I had used a new recipe for dinner that night. Jim obviously notices that.


"Darling, this is delicious."


I smile, quite sure of how I must look: a silly, middle-aged woman too mature to know what had happened, not to mention stuck in the past. Perhaps it is better that way.


"Thank you. So was work difficult today?"


Difficult. That was a strangely safe question to ask a man who had been sitting comfortably at the same desk for quite a number of years. Difficult would probably have to mean something horribly new.


"No, it was a beautiful day. And you've created a beautiful evening."


I wonder whether he is still talking about the food. I lean over the small table in the kitchen and press my hand against his cheek. All is certainly not well, or the way that it has always been. It causes me to draw back slowly and shiver. That sensation seems so unfamiliar, if not completely unique. I hope that it suffices. Where has our game gone? I only find it when we both stare at the old television, our knees crammed under the table and our elbows bumping the wall as we eat and swat at flies. The health report is on.


It is a summer evening, of course. These evenings, these nights that seem to occur over and over! Yet, no one ever gets tired of the time they provide. We had long given up on trying to keep the temperature low. Unexpected things always simmered, but they never quite came to be. On this night, I must say, they seem to come close. Or, we are just getting old and we may very well wish for that sort of thing, irrational as it is. As if it prevented us from going senile too fast!


Jimmy finishes his dinner. He still seems to be chewing on something, though, as many tired men chew on life when they find trouble swallowing its daily portion. Somehow, my husband had gnawed his way silently through a potential mid-life crisis this way.


I look up at him encouragingly, but I know better than to disrupt his contemplative silence. He nods at me slowly, and I giggle. I don't mind going through life this way, never quite falling into love. Not at all. Who could I possibly be cheating?


Jimmy keeps looking at me. He’s probably chewing on a few words he had once considered saying out loud. I smile at him, shaking my head at how very exhausted we both are, and yet how sweet it seems.


"You're not hoping for dessert, are you? You fill your coat quite nicely already."


He's a healthy man as far as I know, and I intend to keep it that way. A new dinner as well as dessert: silly! I'm sure that we are both sweating, for obvious reasons. He does not pop my bubbly frivolity, as we have nothing to replace it with. We understand each other quite well, I suppose. As my smile passes back into the boiling neutrality of the summer night, I wonder how our nights are really measured. I have had many of these nights, the thick air scented with the same winds and leaving just a hint of residue on the carpets to confuse us as fall starts creeping in. I've spent my nights with several variations of the same simple pleasures, which have become necessities, along with some wondering about his needs too, of course.


I try not to notice when his expression deflates from my statement. I wasn't trying to be motherly or confining. I would be patient with his wants, but it was disputable whether this was reasonable or not. Perhaps this is an unavoidable consequence of not falling in love, but the ceiling is always propped up not only by the beams, but also a generous measure of awkward silence and wide-eyed curiosity. It always dangles up there, keeping everything in the way that I wished it to be for so many years, ever since this period of my life began. It did take some getting used to, but I hardly doubt it's ever going to fall when this house was built upon love. Really, it was. How else would this game be played? Does this not occur in most marriages after some point in time? These are our wants, our needs, so I propose.


We sit there for what seems to be a very long time, until I begin doing the dishes and clearing the table. Jimmy turns off the television and goes off to begin his nightly routine. It is not always this quiet, I must say. Usually we will find something to talk or joke about, as we keep each other company. Perhaps I should not have ended his joke so early in the morning.


Or, tonight was just one of those contemplative nights, when the crowds of sleeping, chanting people seemed more suspicious of us than usual.


Even if I have some mad objective in mind that is separate from the fanciful notions of the rest of the world, I wish that some things just weren't so...possible. Spin the bottle the other way, however, and then they would be downright impossible. At least, with a positive approach, I could keep my word.


I certainly looked the way I did the last time I checked, meaning the last time I had taken a good look at myself in the mirror and proceeded with my nightly routine. Love certainly didn't leave me any better or worse for the wear, even if I wasn't in love.


I seem to know exactly where everything is placed, so I certainly am not bothered in the least. No. Dear Jimmy had simply cleaned up the bathroom. He'd left my slippers exactly where I needed them to be. All of my other things are exactly as I like them to be placed. He probably knew from all the years of watching me do it and fussing over it.


My taking a close look at myself every day seems like a way to admit to what existed of me, as well as to whatever the years had done. It was meticulously planned, to the point where I even looked at a separate, magnifying mirror in case my tired bathroom mirror had grown soft and complacent to the seemingly unchanging reality. This was one of the cases in which certainty took the place of uncertainty quite well. It rather upset me that I couldn't find this smaller, handheld mirror tonight, when I felt particularly old and tired from the game that seemed almost unnecessary at times like these. Was it wrong that a simple, outward appearance needed a perfectly accurate representation in order to understand what was really going on? It was as if my face held the will and the battle plan of each day in its inconsistency before my eyes.


I knew that I would have trouble laying out all of my thoughts tonight. So many crucial little things seemed to have been forgotten. Or, rather, I had brushed over too many details in what could have been a rewarding, somewhat fulfilling day. How had I passed all of these years, living this way? I throw cold water on my face, wishing that this would only be willingly temporary, and that I was alone.


Even the end of my day would have been simple enough. Nothing prevented me from lying down on the bed and thinking a while before feeling empty enough to sleep without dreams. Things could be quite simple if one wasn't in love one bit, after all.


Jimmy was probably as tired as I was, the poor man. He had forgotten that I liked being the one to turn off the light. Only the glow of the moon was illuminating the room, now, through the windows. It made everything outside seem very different and everything inside seem so familiar, as the mixed darkness failed to play tricks on me.


Perhaps the only unusual thing was that Jimmy was so quiet, sweetly sound, tonight. No snoring, not even a slightly bit vexed about the fact that he would have little beads of sweat on his forehead if he stayed in the same place for too long. It pleased me to see him sleep so well, as it meant that I had not been too cruel with our seasoned emotional sport. It was meant to benefit the both of us, after all.


Closing my eyes as I lay next to him, I felt triumphant for the both of us. We had mastered love. I settle myself in happily, knowing that the less-than-perfect day would be marked with this good note.


If only all of my worries had been laid to rest. Even if this one chapter managed to tie up all of its loose ends, I can’t help but wonder how this could be continued the next morning, even in this unpredictable season. The remains of our anxiety could be...changed.


The summer winds, shy and unsteady, seemed to shift. They had always been like this. It wasn't as if we were consistently on edge, though. Overall, it had not been a horrible day. I shift my position on the bed, feeling mildly frustrated as I rustle the sheets. Conveniently, Jimmy decides to do the same. He probably doesn't want to bother me later.


I edge myself into unconsciousness, just as indecisive and easily swayed as the summer wind, so easily ready to give up. To my surprise, Jimmy puts his arm around my waist and plays contentedly with the muted, unspectacular curves that I still had, drawing himself close to me. I was sure that this sort of behavior had once been expected of us, though I don't remember much of that. It certainly had been a seldom event, one that was enough to make my eyes open wide. Old sensations ran through me, rising quickly from the remains of what had bleakly started over dinner. I touch his hand, gasping when he clasps it and laces his fingers tenderly with mine.


My eyes adjust to the darkness, and I notice a small, velvet box on my night table as I lay there, still comically awake. It certainly hadn't been there before. I cannot help but wonder how it had escaped my notice. Jimmy was still, now. I reached out and opened the box with my free hand.


It was a pearl. A single, milky pearl that glowed in the moonlight, perhaps even leaving a bit of its sheen on the dull surface of our time. For the first time in exactly thirty years, I look at my Jimmy with that same sheen in my eyes. He smiles back and whispers the words that had been missing from my day.

“Happy thirtieth anniversary.”

I don’t need a mirror to see my blindness. We are in love after all.

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.

Dear someone,

(Note that writing is my only form of release, so just let me get this out there. I promise I'll stray away from the personal stuff soon enough. I just need this right now)

I'm so sorry that everything happened the way it did, that I believed I was doing the right thing by following my own doubts instead of my certainties. I had the best of intentions that things would turn out better that way, and I would be preventing pain by doing so. Now, I'm alone and you'll be missing something in your life as well. This letter isn't about me, though. It's about what I did to you, and what I want you to know. It's so cruel that I won't be facing the consequences of my own actions head on unless I choose to dwell on the past, and yet you'll be hit in the face with the reality every day in the future. I hope I'm not important enough that it should hurt you anymore than it absolutely must. I wish I could take the pain away. I would in an instant if you showed me how. I didn't expect this to happen, but that doesn't make up for the fact that I wasn't true to you.

I'm only held by my conscience, and you will be saddened by reality long after I get over this, simply because of the nature of the crime. Next year was supposed to be a year of memories and pictures, words unsaid and said to fill up insecurities and blow the time away. Even if I needed to do what I did for my own sake, I really didn't have to. I was selfish, and I'd choose the suffering route over the easier route, now that I look back. You're worth it, and they do say that whatever can't kill you can only help you. I was impatient, and I wish I did prolong my internal conflict, if only to experience external comfort.

Even now this situation confuses me and makes me sad because I care for you so much. I wouldn't have gotten so close to you if I didn't see you as such a good friend. I can say that you'll make friends without me and be happy without me, but I genuinely believe that we aren't like everyone else, because we're a pair. I know I've hurt you, letting fate take over when the odds were so terrible. It's my fault.

Hopefully that made sense. There are so many harsh words that fill my mind and mix with my intentions, so have mercy on me if this isn't clear. I swear I wouldn't take the pains that I did to get this all out if I didn't think something valuable was at stake. I hate how this turned out, if I haven't already mentioned that. Yet, I don't know how to make it better. All I know is to say sorry and understand as much as I can about how you must have reacted to this. I want to make things right, or at least break this horrible anachronism that dominates my mind right now because I'm so helpless in the mess that I threw into the past, only to watch it catch up like some ugly shadow to its subject as the sun rises and sets. I'm tortured and confused (not that it matters), but because I'm so sure that I love you and I really let you down.

I don't know how to make this any easier, but I hope I didn't make this any harder. If there's any hope for me, just let me know. I'm a drifter anyway, so I'd be happy to come see you as often as possible if you still want me around. It's not like a friend can be replaced, after all. Hopefully I don't sound even more selfish in my writing, because I wrote this with you in mind. If there's anything that you need, just tell me. Otherwise, an "I hate you" would be fairly appropriate response for the time being, don't you think? Punish me, and maybe I'll be able to fix myself.

Much love,
Me.

Dreamers

Usually I have some idea of what I'm going to write before I write, but I think it might be more interesting if I just type whatever comes to mind. I'm supposed to have a creative mind, aren't I? That statement alone shows how cynical I've become, which really does worry me. I almost miss my dreamy self. I'm still dreamy, but I've become needy of someone to dream away with me. Anyone want to volunteer? Activities include staring at clouds, talking irrelevantly and yet deeply, and staring at the corners of the night sky trying to see a bit of hope here and there, with the idea that our dreams actually lead somewhere.

I especially would like a companion for the last one, because it seems unsafe to do something like that alone, even if I feel safe in my community a majority of the time.

The night sky really does interest me. I mean, how far can we really see from where we are? And yet, just by trying to look, we see farther than most. It's one of the few things in which one is so easily rewarded just for trying. All of the right words seem to fall out of the sky, bouncing on the earth and whisking away if one's hands are too hesitant. Speed doesn't matter in this equation, for there's no competition, unless everything absolutely must be a race. It's quite a glorious thing to witness, even if perfect peace must be given up for safety, and peace cannot be achieved without safety.

I wish my mind didn't have so many shadows of its own, so it could find shadows elsewhere and fill in the blanks where all of the dark spots are missing. One's own imagination seems bright, at best, even if dark imagination seems to go farther, like the night sky seems to hold so much more weight than the sky of the late afternoon. At whatever time of day, each moment spent in the sky and about the sky is a new mystery, a gift in the seas of the mind waiting to be stumbled upon whenever one is lost in that storm and needs some refuge. It'll never be an island like some things are in life, but it will be that little connection to home that makes one go forward, like fair winds in a bag.

I almost feel like I could have written a poem or something on this topic, but perhaps it's better to leave the mysteries where they belong and my thoughts to rest. They've already been solved anyway, so there's no point trying to pin them down. They're just not like that.

dilemma

Where does "You're supposed to understand" and "Okay, it's kind of my fault that you don't understand" really differ? Is there a distinct line? I guess I should have asked these questions a long time ago, when my deadline wasn't so close. Still, is there a sense of responsibility in the writer's mind that goes beyond what the reader knows, but to what the reader can figure out on his or her own?

Of course. That is what I think. Otherwise, I would not mention it.

However, despite my knowledge of this dilemma that separates the good writers from those subpar, I seem to consistently be tettering on the balance between incomprehension and comprehension.

In other words, my work is dull and my mind is equally dull from trying to read it. Hopefully I come out victorious in this irritating process.

But then, what is this dilemma to anyone but myself in this present moment at this present time? All things pass eventually, whether one decides to seize the opportunity or not. It is simply that I made the more difficult decision and I now suffer the consequences. Otherwise, I reap the reward. Either way, my official future does not benefit. That's comforting, is it not?

poems

http://i40.tinypic.com/282hx87.jpg

http://i43.tinypic.com/i2qesj.jpg

I would post them, but they wouldn't fit in the window.

Words on My Soul

I'll find my love, the words on my soul
When I find the thrill to ask.
Whether he laughs or answers back,
It'll be my finished task.

Once it's time, I will guess
Those words that he should speak.
Serves us right if he gets it wrong
But they'll silence me, so meek.

You see, I've forgotten those words,
So kindling, playing with my ember keys.
Until I forgot to lock my heart
And unleashed those dousing seas.

Comfort (a bit of prose)

The world has been cruel to you. I only need that much to know why you cry this way. You come to me, afraid. Perhaps someday you'll know better.


When someone else decides to caress you in such a horribly familiar way, it won't upset you. You'll enjoy it, and then throw it away unless it's really worth something to you the next day. Things like this come once in a lifetime, after all. You won't cry this way again. I can't promise you the world, but I can promise you that. Learn. Now is the time for others to fear, and for you to trust.


They'll hold you so very close because you're so beautiful, and they'll be afraid that your gossamer dreams will become wings and carry you away, leaving love behind. They'll feel you in and out and up and down because they'll be so surprised how easily you bloom, day in and day out. Yet, the shadows in your smile will change, depending on the time of curiosity. They'll wonder what else it was about you that their dreams really held. They'll find something new every time because "everything" keeps growing once it becomes a label. That's all in a good way, as long as you can grow your own wings. Then, maybe you'll cry again, but can't you see what's beginning?


The horrible pleas you made may not come true, whether there was a shadow of doubt behind whatever you really wanted. Words fall flat all too often, after all. Yes. Someone telling every time of day will find half-formed words and sweet, soft phrases within you and you'll both feel young once more. You'll suddenly have two pieces of the same half instead of two halves of a whole, unless you figure out how to put a little something in between two halves so that they meet only every once in a while. It'll be more than enough, whether you want it all or not. Whatever you get, it'll last you every moment you need if you spend it wisely. Anything else you want can wait until it's someone else saving the ground below your feet.


We were never good with numbers and times, though. What's the job for two people working on figuring out half of one lifetime? Not that it matters. We'll know where to end and where to start. The rest will take care of itself. Here goes.


The pain comes only once, when you actually forget the other half of the words your mouth decided to invent on its own. Just like the waiting future, you only half-form the words because you know there's someone better to fill in the rest. Of course, half-formed futures and half-formed promises will all come along as you leave the door half-open. The thing is, the half-shares of joy will remain if you're careful enough to give just half of your heart. Congratulations, you'll never be whole. Chances are you'll keep trying until you lose part of the half you had, and the person who saves you will be very good at fractions of this sort.


Hopefully that will be enough for every mismatched memory to find a safe place when you decide to blow your mind away for the perfect night. Otherwise, it might be quite a laugh to watch them all run for cover, however they trip when they see the present. Whatever the present is to you, I'll do my best to grant you all of this while I still can. I'm a part of this whole wicked fairytale, after all. My words have been nothing less, nothing more prominent unless you really are the butterfly of my spring and you're going to fly away. Cruel, that I should see truth this way.

Perhaps it's better this way, but must it be this way? That's why I ask you to learn, and yet to trust, because I don't like the faith that I have in these words. I don't want this letter to end without me, before the words come alive and see their last serenade. I say this because I need you and I want to share this with you. Otherwise, this is a gift.

Destiny?

I tried to define destiny today. I was running up and down the stadium stairs, and I was rather wary when I looked over the edge to see the ground so far away. This was when I was at the very top, mind you. I'm not too fond of heights, especially when stairs seem to play a trick on my mind. It's almost as if every step up is a potential fatal fall downward, no matter how close to the ground I may be. So cautious am I. Thank goodness I couldn't see the ground below me. So, the metal railing seemed to be too low, and the sky way too close and raw for my liking. However, it did drop an interesting question into my head while my head was out and open from sweating away all of my unused worries.

If I were standing on the highest point in the world (imagine building the world's highest tower atop Mount Everest), and I had no intention of jumping, could Fate itself be so powerful as to bring me down to the ground.

I believe in Fate, if you haven't realized. I've never doubted it, yet I seem to arm wrestle with it every day in its existence. Perhaps that's exactly why I believe it. I play my cards against myself every day. Most days it's on my side. I'm called "lucky". It's irrational, but yet in my mind the very existence of such a concept seems rational. After all, why is it that I seem to be possessed with "luck", when there is no such thing unless it is tied with an entity such as "Fate"? I digress.

So if I'm not quite suicidal or emotionally at peril, could Fate hypothetically compel me so much as to make me jump or fall off of that high point? In such an isolated place, in which there would be no one to push me and no bad disasters or bad weather to stray me from solid existence, could the power of Fate be tested? There, are we in charge of our own destinies, or is Fate able to prove itself in such an instance?

I guess I should try answering some of these questions, since I had reason to raise them. I genuinely believe that they have value, even if it may seem like fluff. It would be so nice if I could create my own definition of Fate. Perhaps then I will understand life, and how life is to be led in correspondence to such an open concept. I think that Fate can only be proved in a vacuum, just like all principles of physics begin in a vacuum state and work best in such a state. If Fate as a concept truly has value, then it must show itself in the physical sense. This means that luck and mercy are not enough to explain the existence of such a huge web of time and heart.

I can see how human weakness could be the thing compelling me more than Fate, because I might get to feel so hopeless and reckless as to jump because there's no other way down. It seems a lot more likely than Fate itself doing the job, doesn't it? Even the most fervent fatalist would doubt the credibility of his or her philosophy in such an instance. Yet, I know that it cannot possibly be so concrete. Strangely, this paradoxical dominance of humans in our small spectrum of time is pessimistic. It shows exactly how weak we are. Those who believe in higher powers will agree that there will be other reasons to stay strong in such a sad position. Keep this in mind, as this is only part of the paradox.

Fate can bring me down. Fate in itself, I mean. How does it do this? There is no Invisible Hand, after all, as there is in uninterfered economic process. Fate outside of human emotions cannot have greed, or a need for fairness, or a need for revenge. It simply is. Perhaps that is what makes it so fascinating to me. Well, Fate is powerful in that it eggs on outside forces that are beyond individual control. It may bring in awe (in the most basic way), as one is suddenly caught by the details of one's surroundings to a manner that only the most hard-hearted humans can resist. It may bring in the absurdity in such a devised realism, as one would never have managed to climb so high if one did not have a way down (it is only logical, in terms of architecture, unless the builders took out the stairs). Of course, devising any alternate scenarios would be even more unrealistic, as I tried to simulate a vacuum.

Now, for the other end of the paradox in the former hypothesis. There must be a positive side to the idea that we are in charge of our own lives. As you can see, I'm hardly a philosopher. Fate in itself is a power that disguises itself, in conclusion. It comes in the form of outside interferences (emotions, people, and others fairly independent of our own internal processes, which cannot become any more specific), because it has no physical being. How else could it interfere, in that isolated situation? It cannot exist without human touches, so to speak. Even a hermit would not be drawn to fall by Fate alone. It would be processes in his mind as he reflected on his loneliness.

What can Fate do? Something that it can do to all of us. It may bring death, as one may very well not come down (refering to my tower on the mountain situation), but let natural processes take over. Yet, the fact that such an end can be prevented shows what power we do have.

There is Fate, if that comforts us. It is our logic, and our reasoning, and the odds that we create for ourselves. There is the optimism, within reason, of course. That was what my mind was getting at. It's strange how my creativity is generally dark nowadays, and yet my Freudian slips show that I actually embrace light. I could very well have turned this stream into a river of fire and frustration, but I did not. Would that count as bringing this sort of optimism into reality as a justified way to see things? I hope so.

Oh, the irony!

I was suddenly compelled to think back into the past, today. I recalled a particularly significant quote that someone said to me in seventh grade. My older brother saw that I was getting a B- in Algebra I, as well as some pretty nasty looking grades on my tests. We sat down and had a talk. I literally cried before I was dragged to the sofa. He threatened to kick me out of the house if I didn't listen to him.

When I calmed down, he said (in Chinese), "Without math, you're not going to get anywhere in life. Maybe you'll become a writer, but you know that doesn't go far. All of the real jobs involve math. You must excell in math. You are a student, and your duty is to study. Is that too much to ask? What else are you supposed to do? What else should you really do in life?"

It's ironic in that I actually wouldn't mind having a writing career and doing nothing else. I actually like math, now. It's strange how bits and pieces of wisdom wear through the years, while other words prove to be more cruel than bright. I do agree with him at some points, but in others I simply can't see why someone would want to follow something other than what their being tells them (for the heart alone is not enough). It may not be a direct cause of misery, but I'm sure it's up there on the list.

In a sad way, the statement is not so ironic. I'm not going to be a full-time professional writer, despite my dreams. I really do want to be, though, and cold reality doesn't mean that I will never get what I want. Meaning, I'm going to try anyway. I think I'm going to major in both pharmacy and writing, if possible. If not, I can always have writing as my minor. It's not as if good writers really need a degree in creative writing to be good writers. More than once I've been mistaken for an English major ranging from 18 to 23 (because my other blog used to be strictly poetry/prose and said nothing about my personal life, at least for about five months), until I brought in a little bit of my annoying personal life with a sudden spurt of immaturity and I showed myself otherwise. That really taught me a lot about my dreams, though. They're more powerful that I can imagine.

I actually live by the idea that a student's duty is to be extremely studious, except I see more than that in the definition of a student. A student is not only a student in the eyes of the teacher, after all. A student is a student in the eyes of the world, in his or her own eyes, and in every aspect of his or her existence. A student's duty is not only to be faithful to the school system, but to be faithful to lessons of heart, society, and reason. All these make up the voice within. What is this voice, you ask? It is a mix of heart and reason, with mirrors and lights to make a nice show for the world to see. Yet, at best it is not a show. It has something that even the best reality shows will never have. It has personality as the mixing spoon. It can be either firmly gripped, mechanized by one of those new electronic blenders (though I feel quite sorry for people with this sort of grip on their lives), or left for the flies to suck at.

We are forever pupils, even after school and after we seem to know what ever we want and need to know. To me, even if my school life isn't up and great, this is what makes life worth living. We fall hard, but we're all heroes in the greatest way when we learn to get back up: we are our own heroes. Ironic, or no?